Bob Dole says he thinks Mitt Romney should run for president again in 2016, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
“As Romney worked the crowd afterward, he ignored a reporter’s question about whether he’d run in 2016. He’s said previously that he won’t.”
Bob Dole says he thinks Mitt Romney should run for president again in 2016, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
“As Romney worked the crowd afterward, he ignored a reporter’s question about whether he’d run in 2016. He’s said previously that he won’t.”
A new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds Republicans lead the generic congressional ballot by six points, 50% to 44%.
“The discontent is palpable. Despite its fitful gains, seven in 10 Americans rate the nation’s economy negatively and just 28 percent say it’s getting better. In a now-customary result, 68 percent say the country’s seriously off on the wrong track.”
Jeff Smith reviewed New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) new memoir which sold just 948 copies in its first week.
“All Things Possible turns out to be the 2014 political analog to Splenda–a saccharine memoir about Cuomo’s family, upbringing and political life meant to substitute for his actual presence on the campaign trail as he coasts to reelection. Its hagiographic gaze is certainly not unique among politicians, but even in the already low bar that is the political biography genre, Cuomo’s book seems unique in the degree to which current controversies circling the governor are not just glossed over, but ignored completely. It’s as if Larry Craig tried to write a memoir without mentioning the Minneapolis airport. (He actually did try to do that, but no publisher bit.)”
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“The political environment continues to deteriorate for House Democrats ahead of a midterm election that’s certain to diminish their ranks,” Politico reports.
“Looking to contain the damage, Democrats are pumping money into liberal congressional districts that were long thought to be safely in their column. Over the last several days, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has directed resources to maintain seats in Hawaii and Nevada, both of which broke sharply for the president in 2012 — an indication of just how much the terrain has shifted against the party over the past two years.”
A new Ivan Moore Research poll in Alaska finds Sen. Mark Begich (D) with an 8-point lead over challenger Dan Sullivan (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 50% to 42%.
Nate Cohn: “If any Democrat should have a superior turnout effort, it’s Mr. Begich. The Democrats have invested near the point of diminishing returns.”
A new Detroit News poll finds Gary Peters (D) has built a commanding 15 point lead over Terri Lynn Land (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 48% to 33%.
Said pollster Richard Czuba: “This has just completely gotten away from Terri Land.”
In the race for governor, Gov. Rick Snyder (R) leads challenger Mark Schauer (D), 45% to 40%.
“Shifting stances and a lack of clear standards from the governors of New York and New Jersey over their Ebola quarantine policy left critics and even some allies questioning on Monday whether the two men had fully worked through the details before they announced it,” the New York Times reports.
“Govs. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Chris Christie of New Jersey said on Friday that they were imposing their strict new mandatory quarantine because standards from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been inadequate. But on Monday, faced with criticism from the nurse who had been detained in Newark as the test case of the new quarantine, Mr. Christie said the C.D.C. — not New Jersey — had been responsible for hospitalizing her and giving her the Ebola test in the first place.”
Wonk Wire: When politicians ignore science and cave to public hysteria
“You look at her book rollout — it was a disaster. She talks off the cuff; it doesn’t work. She makes one mistake after the next.”
— RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, quoted by The Hill, arguing that Hillary Clinton isn’t good at politics.
South Dakota U.S. Senate candidate Rick Weiland (D) “accused his own political party of trying to undermine his campaign in a striking news conference Monday,” the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports.
“Weiland said the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s ads attacking Republican incumbent Mike Rounds have backfired and hurt him… But Weiland went a step further and said this wasn’t just an inadvertent side effect of the negative ads. He said it was deliberate — an attempt to sabotage him and boost independent Larry Pressler.”
Said Weiland: “My national party — that I’m a member of — (was) trying to drive votes to Larry Pressler and trying to drive up my negatives.”
A new CNN/ORC poll finds that 68% of Americans are angry at the direction the country is headed and 53% of Americans disapprove of President Obama’s job performance, two troubling signs for Democrats one week before the midterm elections.
Key finding: “In next week’s election, the emotion of anger could be a motivating factor in driving out GOP voters. While 36% of Republican voters said they are ‘extremely’ or ‘very enthusiastic,’ about voting this year, only 26% of Democrats use that language to describe themselves.”
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Georgia finds David Perdue (R) and Michelle Nunn (D) locked in a tie for U.S. Senate, 47% to 47%.
A new Magellan Strategies poll in Maine finds Gov. Paul LePage (R) tied with Mike Michaud (D) for governor, 42% to 42%, with Eliot Cutler (I) way behind at 13%.
Florida Republicans tie Charlie Crist’s (D) campaign donations to sex trafficking in a tough new attack ad.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) “decision to avoid tough votes this year has backfired in one respect — it gave his vulnerable incumbents few opportunities to show off any independence from President Obama,” Roll Call reports.
“A new CQ vote study shows vulnerable Senate Democrats almost always voted to support the president in 2014 — a fact that has been instantly seized upon by Republicans, given that Obama’s approval rating is languishing in the low 40s nationally and lower still in several battleground states.”
A new Brigham Young University poll in Utah’s 4th congressional district shows Doug Owens (D) leading Mia Love (R), 46% to 42%.
A new High Point University/SurveyUSA poll in North Carolina finds Sen. Kay Hagan (D) locked in a dead heat with challenger Thom Tillis (R), 44% to 44%.
A new Monmouth University survey shows the race has tightened but Hagan still leads 48% to 46%.
A new USA Today/Suffolk University poll in Louisiana finds no candidate reaching the 50% required to avoid a runoff in the crowded November 4 election. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) gets 36%, Bill Cassidy (R) gets 35%, Rob Maness (R) gets 11% and other candidates and undecided split 18%.
However, in a a head-to-head matchup, Cassidy has a solid 48% to 41% lead over Landrieu with 11% undecided.
Said pollster David Paleologos: “Maness supporters are basically a holding place for Cassidy … the unfavorables are 89% for Landrieu among the Maness voters.“
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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