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12:32 PM PT: NY-St. Sen (PDF): After conducting an extensive round of House race polling in New York, Siena's turned its attention to the state Senate. They're out with two new polls of open seats: the Westchester-based 37th District (where Democrat Suzi Oppenheimer is retiring) and the Rochester-area 55th District (where Republican James Alesi chose not to seek re-election after voting in favor of gay marriage last year).
In SD-37, Democratic Assemblyman George Latimer leads 2010 GOP nominee Bob Cohen 44-41, with 15% undecided. That's actually pretty good news for Latimer, seeing as Cohen lost two years ago by less than 1% after a protracted recount. What's more, Obama isn't faring especially well in this suburban seat, trailing 48-47, and Republicans also lead on the question of which party respondents would like to see control the Senate, 46-45, so Latimer is out-performing the rest of his party. Democrats also have a sizable 40%-29% voter registration advantage over Republicans here, which gives Latimer a nice cushion.
Meanwhile, things don't look quite so bright in SD-55. There, GOP Assemblyman Sean Hanna is beating Democrat Ted O'Brien (a Monroe County legislator) by a 47-39 margin. Obama's actually stomping Romney here, 53-39, so you'd think that should really boost O'Brien, but "control of the Senate" is tied at 45. This sort of ticket-splitting is a phenomenon found around the state, perhaps because Senate Republicans have always been forced into bipartisan compromise due to unshakable Democratic control of the Assembly, meaning that they haven't scared New Yorkers as much as national Republicans have. Democrats also have an enrollment edge here, too, albeit a smaller one than in the 37th, at 38%-32%. But let's not forget, though, that the Senate GOP had a free hand to draw the new map this year, and they know how to pick their voters.
12:39 PM PT: ME-Sen: I don't ask for much when it comes to polls: I want to know the name of the pollster, who paid for it, the field dates, the sample size, and the actual toplines. I mean, I'd always like more, but I'll give the time of day to any poll which can actually tell me all this—and really, like I say, it's just the basics. So I don't understand outlets which report polls with less information than this, and case in point is this Republican survey leaked to The Fix. It's from a company called GS Strategy Group, on behalf of the NRSC, and it purportedly shows independent Angus King with just a 37-34 lead over Republican Charlie Summers, with Democrat Cynthia Dill at 17. But sample size? Not mentioned. And field dates? Just a vague "last week." C'mon, guys. (For what it's worth, previously unreleased trendlines supposedly had the race at 44-33-11.)
1:43 PM PT: AZ-Sen: Holy Toledo, Batman! Or should I say Holy Tucson? PPP's new Arizona poll shows Democrat Richard Carmona leading GOP Rep. Jeff Flake 45-43, up from 44-43 Flake a few weeks ago, in a race that's now pointing very strongly toward "tossup." One difficulty in analyzing this contest, though, is that almost all public polling has been conducted by PPP or by Republican pollsters like Rasmussen (blech), so it'd be nice if some other reputable firms also provided some numbers. But if PPP's right, then Carmona's doing an amazing job in separating himself from the top of the ticket, seeing as Obama's losing 53-44 and has a rough 40-57 approval rating. (Remarkably, as Tom Jensen points out, Arizona voters have a favorable view of Romney, 54-42.) The other fact, of course, is that the DSCC is now playing here, which means their internals must look pretty promising as well.
1:57 PM PT: PA-06, LA-03: In the pantheon of outside money groups, there's the strange phenomena of organizations which insist on spending money to help incumbents who are a lock for re-election. I understand why they do it (they want to keep these guys in their pockets), but for a horserace guy like me, it all seems so pointless. Nevertheless, the American Hospital Association is spending almost a million bucks on five different Republicans, only two of whom are in potentially competitive races. One is the all-GOP incumbent-vs.-incumbent matchup in LA-03, where the AHA is supporting Charles Boustany against Jeff Landry. The other is PA-06, where GOP Rep. Jim Gerlach faces Democrat Manan Trivedi, who, interestingly, is a physician. The AHA's interests, though, tend to be pretty conservative, except when they're eating at the Medicare trough.
2:35 PM PT: Reshuffling Roundup: Because the word "triage" is so loaded—and so often misapplied—we're going to start consolidating all reports about shifting television airtime reservations for House races under the heading of our new "Reshuffling Roundup" each day. As I've noted repeatedly, even if one group cancels ads in one competitive seat, another similarly-aligned organization might step up, so it's important to be careful with any notion of triage. In any event, here's what we have today:
•
AZ-02, FL-26, NM-01:
Roll Call's Shira Toeplitz reports that the DCCC is feeling so good about its chances in three seats that it's cancelled a week's worth of ads (starting Oct. 18) in AZ-02 ($85K), NM-01 ($135K), and FL-26 ($280K). However, it's worth noting that House Majority PAC
just went up in AZ-02. On the flipside, the FL-26 news fits in
with reports that the GOP is giving up on Rep. David Rivera.
• FL-18: The DCCC is once again curtailing its ad buys in FL-18, to the tune of $96K, for the week of Oct. 16. (The previously cut the prior week as well.) However, as Roll Call's Joshua Miller notes, House Majority PAC has lately upped its investment here from $1 mil to $1.5 mil. The picture is fairly complicated, because HMP's Oct. 16 reservation hasn't increased, but SEIU's also involved, and Miller says that "Democratic groups are scheduled to be outspending Republican groups over the course of that week."
• MN-01: Meanwhile, the D-Trip has also cut back $260K worth of airtime in MN-01, where Dem Rep. Tim Walz looks increasingly safe. I'm wondering if this cancellation is what convinced The Hotline that the DCCC was actually scaling back its buys in MN-08, since there's good reason to believe this reservation was made in the Twin Cities. The 1st and 8th may be at opposite ends of the state, but the Minneapolis-St. Paul media market actually covers most of Minnesota.
• NJ-03: The NRCC seems pretty confident that freshman Rep. Jon Runyan is safe, since they're reportedly ditching $780K worth of airtime in the expensive Philadelphia market, for the period of Oct. 5-18. Toeplitz notes that the NRCC still has time reserved for the final two weeks of the election, which could be used to help either Runyan or PA-08's Mike Fitzpatrick.
• OH-07: The DCCC is cancelling a $240K buy in Cleveland for Oct. 18-22, where Democrat Joyce Healy-Abrams is trying to unseat GOP freshman Bob Gibbs.
• PA-12: The NRCC isn't giving up its hopes of knocking off Dem Rep. Mark Critz: They've added $200K in Critz's home base of Johnstown-Altoona. Also worth noting: Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform is jumping in with a $495K expenditure on behalf of Republican Keith Rothfus.
• UT-04: It's been a while since we've seen Democratic money come in to help Rep. Jim Matheson—in fact, the DCCC hasn't spent a dime here, relying instead on HMP and Center Forward. But Harry Reid's Patriot Majority USA is now stepping in with a $170K buy backing two new ads, so perhaps Matheson still has a chance.
2:42 PM PT: 3Q Fundraising:
• AZ-Sen: Rich Carmona (D): $2.2 mil raised.
• MO-Sen: Sen. Claire McCaskill (D): $5.8 mil raised. Whoa!
3:29 PM PT: Ads:
• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon (R)
• ND-Sen: DSCC (D)
• NJ-Sen: Bob Menendez (D)
• NV-Sen: SEIU (D)
• NV-Sen: NRSC (R)
• WI-Sen: NRSC (R)
3:32 PM PT: Ads:
• CA-24: House Majority PAC (D)
• CA-24: Abel Maldonado (R)
• CA-36: DCCC (D)
• CA-47: Chamber of Commerce (R)
• CA-52: Scott Peters (D)
• CO-03: Scott Tipton (R)
• CO-07: Ed Perlmutter (D)
• FL-22: Adam Hasner (R)
• IN-08: Dave Crooks (D)
• IN-08: Larry Bucshon (R)
• KY-06: Andy Barr (R)
• MI-01: Gary McDowell (D)
• MI-03: Steve Pestka (D)
• MN-06: Jim Graves (D)
• MN-06: Michele Bachmann (R)
• MN-08: Rick Nolan (D)
• ND-AL: Pam Gulleson (D)
• NH-02: Annie Kuster (D)
• NV-03: Joe Heck (R)
• NY-21: Matt Doheny (R)
• NY-21: Matt Doheny (R)
• NY-24: Ann Marie Buerkle (R)
• NY-25: Maggie Brooks (R)
• PA-12: Mark Crits (D)
• TX-23: Pete Gallego (D)
• WI-07: DCCC (D)
3:45 PM PT: ME Ballot: Mainers United for Marriage is out with another ad, featuring a heterosexual couple married for 42 years. They say they just want their oldest daughter, who is gay, to be able to "get married at home."