There is quite the plethora of campaign news on this Wednesday evening. Some of them have already been hashed out on the ole FP, but there were plenty of tasty leftovers for the Wrap-Up...
OH-Sen: Democrats In Solid Position for Senate Pick-Up, According to Q
A day after the good folks at Quinnipiac showed Ted Strickland stretching out to a ten-point lead in the Ohio Governor's race, we get new numbers out of the Buckeye State vis-a-vis the open-seat Senate race there. In the battle to replace Republican George Voinovich, both Democratic candidates have leads over the potential Republicans in the field. Lee Fisher does slightly better: he leads Rob Portman by 11 points (42-31) and Tom Ganley by 12 points (41-29). Democratic Sec. of State Jennifer Brunner holds a slightly more modest lead: she bests Portman by 5 points (39-34) and Ganley by 8 points (39-31). In early primary polling, Fisher and Portman lead, but more than half of the voters are undecided in either primary.
NY-Gov: Paterson's Numbers Continue To Be A Disaster in Empire State
The new polling numbers from Marist College in the state of New York is a real good news/bad news scenario. The good news: Andrew Cuomo is likely to retain the seat for the Democrats if he is the nominee. Cuomo leads Rudy Giuliani (the last, best hope for the GOP) by ten points (53-43), and drops a fifty-point beatdown on the only major declared Republican in the race, former Congressman Rick Lazio (71-21). The bad news: if Governor David Paterson emerges as the Democratic nominee, the Democrats are hopelessly screwed. Paterson only ties Lazio (43-43), and gets blasted by Giuliani (60-34). Perhaps unsurprisingly, both Cuomo and Giuliani dominate their respective primaries. A PDF file of the results can be found here.
NH-Sen/NH-Gov: Rasmussen (Surprise!) Has GOP Strong in 2010 Race
It would appear that Rasmussen's quest to be the only pollster cited by right-wing blogs and Fox News continues unabated. New numbers out of the Granite State shows that Rasmussen has Republican Kelly Ayotte leading Democrat Paul Hodes by eight points (46-38) in the open-seat race to replace Republican Judd Gregg. This is, by quite a bit, the biggest lead for Ayotte recorded by any pollster. Where Rasmussen really strains credibility is in his gubernatorial numbers. There, he has Democrat John Lynch, who was won with over 70% of the vote twice, only leading unknown GOP candidate Jack Kimball by a 52-31 margin. This, despite the fact that Lynch is sitting on a 66% job approval rating, according to the same poll. A curious juxtaposition, to say the least.
CO-Sen: Rasmussen (Double Surprise!) Has GOP Leading Here, Too
Rasmussen, perhaps responding to quizzical responses (including in an edition of the Wrap-Up last week) about their choice of candidates in last week's polling, has added Republican Jane Norton and Democrat Andrew Romanoff to their polling of the Colorado Senate race. In a little bit of a surprise, Democratic challenger Andrew Romanoff actually performs marginally better against former Lt. Gov Jane Norton than does incumbent Democrat Michael Bennet. According to GOP-friendly Rasmussen, Norton leads Romanoff by eight points (42-34), and Bennet by nine points (45-36). As with other recent polls, they have reasonably high name recognition for all three candidates (Bennett in the 80s, with Romanoff and Norton in the 70s).
MA-Sen: Kennedy Successor Bill Advancing; Appointment By Next Week?
A vote in the Massachusetts legislature on a bill giving Governor Deval Patrick the power to name an interim Senator in advance of January's special election seems to be in the near future, perhaps by the end of the week. As one might expect, one barrier is the Republican minority in the legislature, which is already promising procedural maneuvers to stall the legislation. Perhaps they are trying to buy time until the Republican Party can actually find a plausible candidate.
DE-Sen: Biden Said To Be Close To A Decision on 2010 Race
With his tour of duty in Iraq ending at the end of the month, the prohibition against campaign activities for Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden will cease. The rumors now are that Biden will elect to run for the U.S. Senate in 2010, taking the seat held for nearly three decades by his father. The question, should that happen, is whether or not that would steer Mike Castle into the race, or out of the race. The conventional wisdom (which, in this case, seems sound) is that Castle is the only Delaware Republican that could give Beau Biden a race.
SC-Gov: Democrats Snag Their Best 2010 Candidate for Governor
Democrats in the Palmetto State have to be rejoicing at least a little bit, they were able to persuade their sole statewide elected official to make a bid for governor. Jim Rex, who narrowly was elected state schools superintendent in 2006, seemed likely to run last week, when he made it clear that he would not be running for re-election in 2010. Republicans have a loaded field, including state A.G. Henry McMaster and uber-right wing Congressman Gresham Barrett. One would also suspect that Lt. Governor Andre Bauer will enter the GOP field, but he also may well be the incumbent, if embattled and scandal-riddled Governor Mark Sanford is unceremoniously dumped before 2010.
BATTLE FOR THE HOUSE: Two Notable Ins, and One Out
If yesterday's electoral news in the House was uniformly bad for the GOP, today's news is pretty poor for the Democrats. They lose one potential top recruit in NJ-07, where Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac decided against a bid against freshman Republican Leonard Lance. Meanwhile, the Republican Party picked up candidates in two potentially competitive districts. After several disappointments in VA-05, Republicans finally appeared to snag a candidate in Ablemarle County Commissioner Kenneth Boyd. The GOP, however, is still waiting on another big-name candidate in state Senator Rob Hurt. Meanwhile, in a slightly longer shot, the GOP has convinced a former Congressional staffer to make a run at Ben Chandler in KY-06. Andy Barr is an attorney in Lexington, and will make a run at Chandler, who has rather easily taken care of business here, despite the fact that this district has some serious GOP tendencies (McCain carried the 6th by twelve points in 2008).