A fairly busy Wednesday on the Wrap, with a ton of campaign movement, and polling both public and private.
Add to that one of the most painful statements of endorsement that you will ever hear, and you have yourself a buffet of campaign morsels that is the Wednesday edition of the Polling and Political Wrap.
THE U.S. SENATE
IL-Sen: Giannoulias Internal Poll Gives Him Slight Lead
The campaign of Democratic nominee Alexi Giannoulias, in part to counter the recent GOP-friendly polling by Rasmussen and the Kirk campaign, has decided to release some numbers of their own. Their internal poll, conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (whose numbers, for a partisan pollster, have usually been pretty fair), gives Giannoulias a 49-45 lead over Republican nominee Mark Kirk. Unlike the recent polls that gave President Obama mediocre approval numbers in his home state (which seemed a little hard to fathom), this poll had a more optimistic 59/31 split. In what would be a very welcome sign for Team Giannoulias, their candidate holds a solid lead among moderates, which shows that Mark Kirk’s move to the right over the last year in order to secure the GOP nomination might be costing him a little bit.
KS-Sen: Democrats Could Be About To Get A Candidate in Open Seat
Recruiting in the Sunflower State for the competitive 2010 cycle (with open seat races in three House seats, plus the gubernatorial and Senate races) has been nothing short of awful, with only one success of note (Raj Goyle in the open-seat 4th district). They might have another one, at least to some extent, with the news that Kansas City state legislator David Haley is eyeing the U.S. Senate seat being abandoned by Sam Brownback (who is running instead for Governor). Haley would be the first name of note for the Dems, although his one past bid for statewide office was unsuccessful–he was beat by Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh by a two-to-one margin.
NC-Sen: Interesting Numbers Under The Hood of PPP Senate Poll
While the monthly Senate poll numbers from PPP are little changed from last month, there is some interesting data under the hood, according to PPP’s Tom Jensen. While both leading Democrats (Elaine Marshall and Cal Cunningham) still trail incumbent Republican Richard Burr, they actually lead the incumbent among that subset of voters who have an opinion on the Democratic candidates (no matter whether that opinion was good or ill). Among those who recognized and held an opinion of Cal Cunningham, Cunningham leads Burr by a 46-44 margin. For Marshall, the gap was even wider: among those who had an opinion of both candidates, Marshall led 49-40.
ND-Sen: Young Businesswoman Looking At Senate Bid
Democrats have been hunting for a challenger to GOP frontrunner John Hoeven in the Senate race to replacing the retiring Byron Dorgan (D). They got one a few weeks ago with state legislator Tracy Potter, and they might be getting another one in the person of 29 year-old businesswoman Kristin Hedger. Hedger, despite her youth, would not necessarily be a lightweight candidate–she won 46% of the vote in a statewide bid against GOP Sec. of State Al Jaeger in 2006. She also worked as a Dorgan staffer prior to going to work for her family’s manufacturing firm. Hedger did imply that she might defer to former state Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp is she pulls the trigger on a Senate bid.
OR-Sen: Rasmussen Claims Wyden Under 50% Against Unknown Republican
Rasmussen becomes the first pollster in a long time to take on the state of Oregon, and they start with a look at the U.S. Senate race that is largely considered uncompetitive. Not surprisingly, the Ras team finds the race…somewhat competitive! Incumbent Democratic Senator Ron Wyden leads virtually unknown law professor Jim Huffman by fourteen points, but remains below 50% overall (49-35). In what has become a common Ras quirk, Rasmussen claims that Huffman has 57% name recognition in the state, which seems a tad optimistic.
THE U.S. HOUSE
AR-02: Twenty-Something MTV Vet Eyes Congressional Bid
It’s hard to say that this will be the kind of line on the campaign biography that will move voters in Central Arkansas, but MTV News alumnus Patrick Kennedy is apparently considering a bid for Congress in the Little Rock-based 2nd district being vacated by the retiring Vic Snyder. Kennedy, whose primary job is as a director at the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas, was a member of MTV’s political “Street Team ‘08″ during the most recent presidential campaign. Kennedy will run as a Democrat.
OH-13: In a Shocker, Ganley Leaves Senate Race for House Bid
Another Democratic member of the Class of 06/08 has drawn a first-tier challenger, and this one is quite a surprise. Tom Ganley, the wealthy car dealer that had already lent seven figures worth of cash to his Senate campaign, has elected to switch gears. He has dropped his Senate bid (where he was, admittedly, a bit of a longshot against establishment GOP choice Rob Portman), and will instead challenge Betty Sutton in OH-13. Sutton has easily won both of her Congressional bids in 2006 and 2008, and the district did go 57-42 for Barack Obama and 56-44 for John Kerry. This, of course, also allows Portman to become miserly during the primary season, counting his millions while Democrats Lee Fisher and Jennifer Brunner expend resources on their contested primary. Crisitunity over at SSP also raises an interesting secondary point. Ohio is losing House seats after 2010, in all likelihood, and Ganley could find himself on the chopping block, even if he were to pull what would be quite the upset.
PA-06: Gerlach Releases Internal Poll With Huge Primary Edge
Clearly mindful of the challenge that could be presented by well-funded primary challenger Steven Welch, incumbent Congressman Jim Gerlach (who jumped in, and then out, of the Senate race) released some internal numbers showing him with a gaudy 65-point lead in a prospective primary. The poll, by GOP pollsters Wilson Research, gave Gerlach 71% of the vote, to just 6% for Welch.
PA-12: Are Republicans Going to Concede Competitive House Seat?
An interesting scenario is developing in Southwestern Pennsylvania, according to Salena Zito of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The declining population in SW PA makes the 12th district a likely target for elimination after the 2010 Census. Therefore, the GOP (who is likely to hold serve on redistricting, given the big lead for Tom Corbett in the Governors race and the GOP’s overwhelming edge in the state Senate) might concede the special election in the district, confident that the shelf life of the district will not be worth the effort of a costly campaign. This might also explain why Democrats seem to be coalescing around the late John Murtha’s widow, Joyce.
THE GUBERNATORIAL RACES
CA-Gov: Rasmussen Has Brown-Whitman All Locked Up
On the surface, this might be interpreted as just another Ras poll giving the Republicans an enormous thumb on the scale. After all, every other pollster has given the presumptive Democratic nominee, Jerry Brown, a lead. Rasmussen, meanwhile, has the race tied at 43% for Brown and leading GOP candidate Meg Whitman. However, it is worth noting that Brown’s campaign has been totally nonexistent, while Whitman has flooded the zone with ads on both radio and television. Her television ads during the Olympics have been almost as ubiquitous as those awful ads for the U.S. Census.
In related news, the persistent rumors that Dianne Feinstein would leave the U.S. Senate for a bid for Governor have once again been rebuffed, as Feinstein made it official that she would not seek the office of Governor.
NY-Gov: Paterson Gets Pity Endorsement From Ed Koch
It is not often that one gets a “sympathy endorsement” when running for office, but it is hard to categorize this statement by former NYC Mayor Ed Koch any other way. In kinda-sorta-maybe endorsing incumbent Governor David Paterson, Koch went with this approach: “I am for him, in effect, out of sympathy for his being in a Kakfa-esque situation. You can’t do this to people, use rumors to destroy them…But I’m not really for him.” It does raise one interesting possibility–will the barrage of negative press for Paterson (here is the latest installment) actually benefit Paterson by making him look like the victim of a coordinated campaign? It will be interesting to see what direction his poll numbers travel. Will they continue to crater, as the weight of these rough news cycles have their impact? Or will they actually improve, as voters follow a similar vector as Ed Koch?
OR-Gov: Kitzhaber Internal Gives Former Huge Big Primary Edge
While we await the inevitable Rasmussen poll on the Oregon Governor’s race (given their Senate poll today), let’s take a look at one of the first polls of the cycle to look at the competitive primary in Oregon between former Democratic Governor John Kitzhaber and former Oregon Sec of State Bill Bradbury (who has earned Howard Dean’s endorsement). Kitzhaber, via Democratic pollster Fairbank Maslin Maullin Metz, released an internal poll (PDF file) showing Kitzhaber leading Bradbury by a 55-21 margin. The GOP is still scrambling for candidates, with former NBA role player Chris Dudley arguably the leading candidate.
PA-Gov: Dem Field Shrinks As Scranton Mayor To Drop Bid
Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty is likely to confirm rumors about his gubernatorial candidacy tomorrow. As has been speculated for a week or so, Doherty is expected to to drop his gubernatorial bid in favor of an open-seat state Senate bid. That leaves the Democratic field with three first-tier candidates in former Congressman Joe Hoeffel, state Auditor Jack Wagner, and Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato.
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