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8:08 AM PT: IN-Sen: Republican Richard Mourdock has coughed up a post-debate internal from McLaughlin & Associates showing his race with Joe Donnelly tied at 44 (while Libertarian Andrew Horning takes 6), which outlets like Politico are spinning as "show[ing] the race still competitive." And in a vacuum, you might even agree.
But folks, this is why we always check for trendlines, and in this case, the trends are bad for Mourdock. At the beginning of October, in another McLaughlin poll, Mourdock led 45-42 (with 4 for Horning). That's a three-point net gain for Donnelly, and while you might be inclined to dismiss such a small shift as just noise, in a race that's been as steady as this one (despite enormous outside spending), I'd much rather be the guy moving up three than down three.
P.S. Romney leads 55-41, versus 55-39 last time. Demographic breakdowns are provided at the link, if you want to dig into them.
8:18 AM PT: • NV-Sen (Marist): Shelley Berkley (D): 45 (43), Dean Heller (R-inc): 48 (49); Obama 50-47 (49-47).
• PA-Sen (Rasmussen): Bob Casey (D-inc): 46 (49), Tom Smith (R): 45 (45); Obama 51-46 (51-46).
8:20 AM PT: NH-Gov (New England College): Maggie Hassan (D): 45, Ovide Lamontagne (R): 45. Obama 49-46.
8:27 AM PT: FL-18: GOP Rep. Allen West has hit a new low: In a new ad, he claims that Patrick Murphy committed a "drunken assault against a police officer." In the 2003 incident at issue (when Murphy was 19), he didn't assault anyone—he was arrested for disorderly intoxication and possessing a fake driver's license, and both charges were later dropped. (West is trying to claim that Murphy cursing at a police officer constitutes a "verbal assault.")
Murphy's campaign is incensed, saying they are "considering all legal options." Because TV stations are obligated to run any candidate's ads (even if blatantly false), the only possible legal target for defamation here would be West himself—and going after him in the courts is a potentially risky move. But if West is seriously worried about losing a defamation suit at some point in the future, he might just pull the ad.
8:44 AM PT: CA-36: GOP Rep. Mary Bono Mack definitely seems to have some serious problems understanding the minority communities in her district. Get a load of this:
In a bit of revisionist history, Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack is blaming Democrats for dragging Coachella Valley tribes into the mudfest that is the race for the 36th Congressional District.
"It's very unfortunate that the tribes have been caught up in politics," the Republican incumbent said to a KESQ television reporter before lunch with the Beaumont Rotary Club Thursday. "They were sort of pushed by the Democrats."
She seems to be hoping we'll all forget it was her campaign that first launched attacks at Democratic challenger Raul Ruiz a few weeks ago.
So is Bono Mack saying that the local tribes are incapable of thinking for themselves? That they simply roll over and do as they're asked whenever the Democrats come 'round making demands? It sure sounds that way to me—and that's some pretty outrageously condescending crap. In case you've missed it, by the way, two Indian groups—which very rarely insert themselves into the political process—have denounced her attacks on Ruiz, whom she's accused of being "radical" and "anti-American."
This comes after an email Bono Mack sent some years ago resurfaced, in which she laughed about a radio host's description of the heavily Latino city of Coachella as a "third-world toilet." And just the other day, she declared that she would "try my hardest to speak to Latino voters" (because it's such a difficult thing to do?)—but only after the election. You really get the sense that Bono Mack just doesn't know how to connect to people who aren't like her.
9:13 AM PT: OH-Sen: On Thursday night, Politico's Dave Catanese published a story about how Republican Josh Mandel's stance on abortion had changed. In the original version, Catanese wrote that Mandel "now says he supports an exception to a ban on abortion"—if the health of the mother is threatened—"nine months after he filled out a survey indicating he did not." But then Mandel's campaign provided Catanese with two other surveys where Mandel did indicate he supported an exception in such instances, leading Catanese to largely re-write his piece.
Here's the thing, though: Catanese didn't probe why Mandel failed to check the box saying he supported any exceptions in that original survey from Right-to-Life of Greater Cincinnati (which was the hook for this article in the first place). Was he trying to pull one over on that group? Give Mandel's penchant for outright lies, I could believe it.
9:22 AM PT: SD-AL: Do you trust me? I really hope you do, because I want you to watch the linked web video from beginning to end. Hell, I'm even breaking my "no web videos" rule here, but I promise you the payoff is worth it. The first 1:40 or so is eye-rollingly boring (and you'll be like, "This is what they're attacking him for? They make him sound so qualified!"), but at about 1:45, it becomes stone cold awesome. But do not skip ahead! You just need to watch the whole thing. Seriously. Do it.
9:47 AM PT: ND-Sen (Mellman for Heitkamp): Heidi Heitkamp (D): 48 (45), Rick Berg (R): 44 (42). Positive upward movement toward 50% for Heitkamp, and here's a nice tidbit from Mellman's polling memo: Among the 18% of respondents who have already voted, she's leading 58-34. Even though the sample size of that sub-group is quite small, Heitkamp's edge actually exceeds the margin of error.
9:53 AM PT: AZ-Sen: Democrat Rich Carmona has definitely cheesed off the GOP establishment with a new ad using footage of Arizona's two Republican senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, actually endorsing him... for Surgeon General in 2002. McCain and Kyl are pissed, calling the spot "deeply dishonest"—but does that mean they retract all the glowing praise they offered for him a decade ago? The Hotline's Dan Roem also reminds us that Virginia's Jim Webb did something similar in 2006, running an ad featuring Ronald Reagan praising his "gallantry as a Marine officer in Vietnam." Nancy Reagan complained, but Webb didn't budge. I have to suspect Carmona won't, either.
9:58 AM PT: KY-St. Sen: Hah, so this is actually happening. Dem Gov. Steve Beshear will reportedly tap Republican state Senate President David Williams for a judicial post—a remarkable turn of events seeing as Beshear absolutely humiliated Williams in last year's gubernatorial race. Beshear has regularly appointed Republican senators to various state jobs, in an effort to open up senate seats for special elections to give Democrats a chance to retake the chamber, and this move had been rumored for some time. But it's even more surprising seeing as Williams had long complained about these tactics by Beshear. Dems are still in a pretty deep 23-15 hole in the Senate, and half the body's seats are up this November. Still, you never know what kind of surprises we may see.
10:06 AM PT: ME-Sen: According to Maggie Haberman, the NRSC has been dark on the Maine airwaves since Oct. 16, and there's no indication that they plan to go back up there before election day. However, Crossroads GPS did just throw down a $330K buy on Oct. 23, and the DSCC followed suit with a $375K purchase on the 25th, so Angus King may not be out of the woods just yet. However, this feels a bit more like a "try to pin the Dems down" move rather than a "we really think we can win" move for the GOP.
10:13 AM PT: MA-Sen (Rasmussen): Elizabeth Warren (D): 52 (49), Scott Brown (R-inc): 47 (47).
10:20 AM PT: Colorado: PPP's latest Colorado poll (which has Obama leading 51-47, up from 50-47 a week ago) still finds the state's marijuana legalization amendment passing, 53-43. Dems also continue to lead the generic legislative ballot, 48-42.
10:47 AM PT (David Jarman): And now we've got dueling internals in Indiana's Senate race. The DSCC jumped into action following Mourdock's rape comments, polling on Wednesday and Thursday nights via Anzalone Liszt, and they find Democrat Joe Donnelly is now leading Mourdock 47-40. Mourdock's favorables are a terrible 33/48. Unfortunately, the memo doesn't include trendlines and this appears to be the first Anzalone Liszt poll to be released, so we can't see how big a bounce Donnelly got, but I can't imagine he was up anywhere near 7 before Mourdock's implosion.
10:56 AM PT (David Jarman): IA-01: This race in eastern Iowa had pretty much fallen by the wayside over the last month or two, with the NRCC pulling out. It's still looking competitive, though, according to an internal poll from GOP candidate Ben Lange, via Victory Enterprises. The poll has Lange (who came close to winning in 2010 in a surprise) leading Dem incumbent Bruce Braley 47-45. Now, I suspect that if anybody else had polling results even remotely similar to this, both national committees would be pounding this race, but it's an indicator that this race shouldn't be toted up in the Dem column just yet.
11:17 AM PT (David Jarman): CA-30: SurveyUSA has a new poll in the Shberman race (or, as I prefer to call it, "the giant whirlpool for millions of dollars that could be spent on non-Safe D races race") on behalf of KABC; like everyone else, they give Brad Sherman the edge in the San Fernando Valley Dem-on-Dem battle. They find Sherman leading Howard Berman 44-33, little changed from a 45-32 Sherman lead a month ago. Sherman's faves (37/19) beat Berman's (30/22), and interestingly, Sherman still comes close on the "who is more even-tempered?" question (losing only 27-23). Barack Obama leads 57-35 at the top of the ticket (in 2008, this district went 66-31).
11:30 AM PT (David Jarman): IL-08: So how much do you think Joe Walsh would be losing by, if he hadn't been propped up by millions of spending from outisde GOP groups (mostly the mysterious Now or Never PAC)? A Chicago Tribune/WGN poll (taken after Walsh's foot-in-mouth comments on abortion) gives Dem Tammy Duckworth a 50-40 lead, including a 48-37 lead among indies and 54-34 lead among women. As with many polls of Chicago suburban districts, though, there's a lot of falloff at the presidential level; this was a 62% Obama district in 2008, but now top of the ticket is 52-41 for Obama.
11:34 AM PT (David Jarman): OH-16: This seems like an "I'm not dead yet" poll from GOP Rep. Jim Renacci, whose recent decision to stop broadcast ads for the last weeks of the campaign got spun in a lot of quarters as him throwing in the towel and apparently left him with the need to push back. In fact, it's quite a bit better than "not dead," as the internal poll from OnMessage gives him a fairly decisive lead in the member-on-member battle against Democratic Rep. Betty Sutton; he leads 51-41. It's still not the kind of numbers that would suggest he's drawing down his ads since he feels the race is locked down, leaving a big question mark hanging over that decision -- but, if nothing else, it does in fact confirm that he is still alive.
11:49 AM PT (David Jarman): WA-Gov: If you're ever looking for a definition for "irony," this might fit the bill: the Seattle Times just fact-checked the ad that that the Seattle Times is running as an independent expenditure on GOP gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna's behalf, and found it "half true." (They take particular issue with a claim that the state's K-12 "failure rate" is 41.7%.) Adjusting my tinfoil hat, though, I've got to wonder if Times corporate told the Times newsroom to savage the ad, in order to help rebuild the illusion of an objectivity firewall existing between the two, to combat the ongoing PR disaster.