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12:10 PM PT: CA-24: Well, these numbers ain't too pretty for Dem Rep. Lois Capps: She trails Abel Maldonado 45-44 in a new POS internal for the Republican. According to the memo, Maldonado was actually behind 49-44 in a previously unreleased August poll. The generic congressional ballot stands at 44 Dem and 42 GOP, but there are no presidential toplines to provide a sanity check. Republican interests have spent more than twice as much on the race to date ($655K to $299K) as Democratic groups, so movement in Maldonado's direction is plausible. One sign of concern is that Capps doesn't seem to have really offered any response to the survey.
12:23 PM PT: IL-08: I'm not sure why the DCCC felt the need to release this internal robopoll (from their own polling robots down in the storm cellar), but they've got Democrat Tammy Duckworth beating GOP Rep. Joe Walsh 52-42. That's a bit worse than a PPP poll for the LCV last month which had Duckworth up 52-38, so why would you want to put numbers like that out there if folks are still thinking the race is in the teens rather than just ten points apart? Perhaps it's to demonstrate to the morans at Now or Never PAC that their $1.75 million in attack ads haven't had the desired effect. (But even that seems like an odd choice, since you'd rather have them going berserk on Duckworth than on someone else more vulnerable.) There are no presidential toplines included.
12:32 PM PT: MT-AL: Here's an interesting poll out of Montana that doesn't seem to have gotten much attention. It was conducted late last month by the Mellman Group for JET PAC, the DGA's independent expenditure arm in Montana, and apparently they were kind enough to share their House and presidential numbers (though no word on the governor's race, which of course is what the DGA is most interested in, or the Senate contest). In any event, they find Republican Steve Daines edging Democrat Kim Gillan by just a 36-34 spread, with Libertarian David Kaiser taking 5 percent.
That's a ton of undecideds, and undoubtedly they lean toward the GOP, but perhaps not as much as you might think: Romney's only beating Obama 48-44. That spread is actually in like with PPP's last poll (though Mason-Dixon saw a Romney lead twice as large). And indeed, PPP's September survey had Daines up just 3. Gillan will need a very strong effort by Jon Tester and Steve Bullock at the top of the ticket to have a shot, but numbers like these may explain why the DCCC has added this race to Red to Blue.
12:49 PM PT: FL-26: What the hell did he think would happen?
Rep. David Rivera (R- Miami) summoned reporters to his district office Friday morning for a news conference, but refused to speak about anything but the stated purpose—deferred action for undocumented children. [...]
But when asked about the ongoing FBI investigation into his reported ties to former congressional candidate Justin Lamar Sternad, a Democrat, Rivera said he couldn't talk about it in his district office.
"In a federal legislative office, we can only do official government business," Rivera said. "Anything campaign-related, we have to talk about outside."
We asked Rivera to step outside to answer questions, but he refused.
What is this, like declaring "sanctuary" in a medieval church? Did Rivera really think he could pull this off and have the headlines read anything other than "Rivera refuses to answer questions"? Eh, probably—I think he really
is that stupid.
12:56 PM PT: IL-17: The DCCC's out with a new internal in IL-17, and as we've seen with some other recent polling memo releases, the focus here is on the trendlines. Democrat Cheri Bustos now has the slimmest of edges over GOP Rep. Bobby Schilling, 45-44. That's up from a 47-38 Schilling lead in August. (Needless to say, that prior poll was not released. It must have been a depressing summer at the D-Trip's IE arm.) Once again, Obama's faring far worse than his 2008 mark, which is probably what's kept Schilling in the game: He's beating Romney 51-40, as opposed to his 60-39 romp four years ago. Overall, these numbers are all very similar to those found in a Bustos internal from late last month.
1:54 PM PT: WI-Sen: A new internal from NMB Research for the conservative American Action Network finds GOP Rep. Sean Duffy leading Pat Kreitlow 51-40, a very different picture from what we've seen in a pair of recent Dem polls. In addition to the head-to-heads, there are generic congressional ballot numbers (47-42 GOP), presidential toplines (Romney 49-46), and Senate numbers (50-43 Thompson). But a Kreitlow internal published a little over a week go had Duffy up just 44-41 and Obama leading 52-41.
Seeing as Obama won this district by 8 points in 2008, the NMB spread would suggest a monster turnaround here. Yeah, Wisconsin's gotten closer—but that much closer? The Thompson numbers are particularly hard to buy, thought, since this district is very close to the state's median and he's otherwise losing in statewide polling.
(By the way, who is NMB Research? It's run by Glen Bolger, a bigwig at well-known Republican outfit Public Opinion Strategies. In a 2008 statement provided to TPM, the firm explained that it's "a separate legal entity" that was "established to comply with coordination rules" created by the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law passed a decade ago.)
3:37 PM PT: ME-Sen: Well, it looks like the sad sacks at Americans Elect—the "post-partisan" wank tank that pissed away a fortune in a doomed-from-the-start plan to re-invent U.S. politics—have finally found a cause worth spending their last pennies on. You won't be surprised that they're cottoning to Angus King, Maine's former independent governor who eschews political parties the way a blogger eschews pants. Uh... anyway. They've managed to dig deep for $500K to air a very predictable TV spot on behalf of ol' Angus, which you can watch at the link.
Depressingly, Democrats should probably be glad that Americans Elect is spending here, because King apparently really needs the help. (Though somehow AE is blowing $150K on "polling and research"—an absurd sum which probably translates as "over-priced consultants.") The DSCC is throwing in another $600K, probably on more ads attacking Republican Charlie Summers. That takes their total spend on the race to $1 million. It wasn't that long ago that this was looking like a walk in the park for Angus, but I guess it turned out to be an ultramarathon through Acadia National Park.
3:48 PM PT: Reshuffling Roundup: Not much to report on the reshuffling front today. According to The Fix, the NRCC has cancelled "the remainder of" its ad buys in VA-02 and WI-08, two GOP-held seats that are both looking like very tough nuts for Democrats to crack. They've also axed most of their airtime in another pair of Republican districts, IA-03 and IA-04, but Sean Sullivan indicates that John Boehner's Congressional Leadership Fund is stepping in to fill the gap here—which in turn suggests these seats are still in play.
3:52 PM PT: 3Q Fundraising:
• MT-Sen: Denny Rehberg (R): $2.4 mil raised, $1.7 mil cash-on-hand
• NY-18: Sean Maloney (D): $925K raised, $825K cash-on-hand
• NY-18: Julian Schreibman (D): $535K raised; Chris Gibson (R-inc): $410K raised, $775K cash-on-hand
4:18 PM PT: Ads:
• CT-Sen: Chris Murphy (D)
• CT-Sen: Majority PAC (D)
• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon (R)
• IN-Sen: Richard Mourdock (R)
• MA-Sen: Elizabeth Warren (D)
• MA-Sen: Elizabeth Warren (D)
• MA-Sen: Scott Brown (R)
• ME-Sen: NRSC (R)
• MI-Sen: Debbie Stabenow (D)
• MI-Sen: Pete Hoesktra (R)
• MO-Sen: Claire McCaskill (D)
• MT-Sen: DSCC (D)
• MT-Sen: DSCC (D)
• ND-Sen: Heidi Heitkamp (D)
• ND-Sen: Majority PAC (D)
• NV-Sen: DSCC (D)
• NV-Sen: Dean Heller (R)
• VA-Sen: Tim Kaine (D)
• VA-Sen: George Allen (R)
• WI-Sen: AFSCME (D)
• WI-Sen: Tommy Thompson (R)
4:19 PM PT: Ads:
• MO-Gov: Jay Nixon (D)
• MO-Gov: Dave Spence (R)
• MT-Gov: Steve Bullock (D)
• MT-Gov: Steve Bullock (D)
4:20 PM PT: Ads:
• FL-18: Allen West (R)
• IA-03: Tom Latham (R)
• IA-04: Christie Vilsack (D)
• IA-04: Christie Vilsack (D)
• MN-01: Tim Walz (D)
• MN-01: Allen Quist (R)
• ND-AL: Kevin Cramer (R)
• NE-02: Lee Terry (R)
• NV-03: John Oceguera (D)
• NY-27: Kathy Hochul (D)
• PA-06: Manan Trivedi (D)
• PA-12: Keith Rothfus (R)
• PA-12: Keith Rothfus (R)
• RI-01: Brendan Doherty (R)
• SD-AL: Kristie Noem (R)
• WA-10: Denny Heck (D)
• WI-07: Sean Duffy (R)
• WI-07: Sean Duffy (R)
• WV-03: Nick Rahall (D)
• NRCC: 27 new ads (R)