Based on oral arguments, Rick Hasen thinks it is likely the Kansas Supreme Court will quickly issue an order removing Chad Taylor’s (D) name from the ballot. The decision would be a big blow to Sen. Pat Roberts (R) who is fighting a challenge from Greg Orman (I).
A new poll shows Taylor still receiving 6% of the vote in the Kansas U.S. Senate race even though he’s no longer campaigning and wants off the ballot.
A new SurveyUSA poll in Florida finds Gov. Rick Scott (R) with a 5 point lead over challenger Charlie Crist (D), 44% to 39%, with Libertarian Adrian Wyllie at 7% and 9% still undecided.
“Outside liberal groups are running more effective ads in key Senate races by sticking to the script, while conservative groups focus too much on their own agendas, Republican strategists say,” the Washington Examiner reports.
“While many conservative groups focus on their traditional messages, left-leaning super PACs and nonprofits are working together and tailoring their ads to the themes Democrats are campaigning on, allowing them to reinforce the candidates’ messages — and the party’s overall arguments about the election.”
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“Pat Quinn is not the folksy, bumbling fool he’d like us to think he is. He knows what he’s doing. He knows what he’s done.”
— Illinois gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner (R), quoted by the Chicago Sun Times.
First Read: “Looking at the president’s schedule this week, you’d be hard pressed to know that a major national election is just seven weeks away. It’s painfully obvious that the White House has concluded that the best political assistance they can provide Democrats is for the president to go be president. And so this week, he’s clearly embracing the commander-in-chief title, even when it comes to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.”
“So with exactly seven weeks until the midterm elections and with the president’s approval ratings stuck in the low 40s (mid- to high 30s in many of the battlegrounds), Obama brandishing his commander-in-chief credentials also might be the best way for the White House to assist Democrats this fall.”
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) told TPM that he’s considering a White House bid.
Said Jindal: “It is true. There’s no reason to be coy. I am thinking, I am praying about whether I’ll run in 2016. I said I won’t make that decision until after November.”
A new Harstad Strategic Research poll in Alaska finds Sen. Mark Begich (D) leading challenger Dan Sullivan (R) in the U.S. Senate race by five points, 45% to 40%.
A new American Research Group poll in New Hampshire finds Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) leads challenger Scott Brown (R) in the U.S. Senate among likely voters, 50% to 45%.
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Kansas finds Greg Orman (I) leading Sen. Pat Roberts (R) in the Senate race, 41% to 34%, with another 6% still choosing Chad Taylor (D) even though he’s ended his campaign.
Charlie Cook: “Two things may be keeping Republican strategists up at night: money and the Democratic ground game. Perhaps the biggest untold story of this election is how so many Republican and conservative donors, at least those whose last name isn’t Koch, have kept their checkbooks relatively closed… Many Republican and conservative donors appear to be somewhat demoralized after 2012. They feel that they were misled about the GOP’s chances in both the presidential and senatorial races that year, and/or their money was not well spent. In short, they are giving less if at all, and it has put Republican candidates in a bind in a number of places.”
“Another reason things might not turn out for Republicans is if the highly touted Democratic Senate ground game comes together. Clearly the Obama campaign and Democratic allies had a superior voter-identification and get-out-the-vote operation two years ago… In midterm elections, if Democrats can crank up the turnout among young, female, and minority voters, then their chances of success this year increase.”
Forty years ago today, Robert Caro’s magisterial 1,296-page life of New York master builder Robert Moses rewrote the rules of biography, the Daily Beast reports.
It’s one of the greatest books ever written on power and politics.
Nate Silver says his Senate forecast “is pretty darned close.”
“As you can see, there hasn’t been an across-the-board shift. Republicans’ odds have improved in several important races since the launch of our model. Democrats’ odds have improved in several others. But the two states with the largest shifts have been Colorado and North Carolina — in both cases, the movement has been in Democrats’ direction. That accounts for most of the difference in the forecast.”
Election Lab now shows Democrats with a 51% chance of retaining the Senate.
“For the bad boys of Congress, 2014 is shaping up to be an awfully good year,” Politico reports.
“As they endure humiliating headlines, damaging federal investigations and tough scrutiny of their personal lives, scandal-tarred lawmakers aren’t just surviving this midterm year. In many cases, they’re thriving. By any traditional standard of acceptable behavior for politicians, they should be dead men walking.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron warned Scotland that citzens vote for independence on Thursday “there’s no going back from this, no rerun,” the New York Times reports.
Said Cameron: “If Scotland votes yes, the U.K. will split, and we will go our separate ways forever. Independence would not be a trial separation, it would be a painful divorce.”
Meanwhile, the leaders of the three main British political parties renewed a pledge to grant Scots “extensive new powers” if they reject secession.
“If I could have just melted in tears, I would have. But I had to just sit there and talk to him and I switched the subject and I didn’t hear another word he said, but I wasn’t in a place where I could tell him to go fuck himself.”
— Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), in an interview on HuffPost Live, on a labor leader who told her she was too fat to win a statewide election.
A new Answers Unlimited poll in Arkansas finds Sen. Mark Pryor (D) leads challenger Tom Cotton (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 46% to 42%.
David Wasserman points out that “89 percent of House Republicans are white men, compared to just 47 percent of House Democrats. For some context, according to 2013 Census estimates just 31 percent of U.S. residents are non-Hispanic white males.”
“Even in the last two years, the demographic chasm between the parties has widened. Eight members of the 113th House of Representatives have been elected in special elections since 2012. All six Republican winners have been white men, five of whom prevailed over women in their primaries. Both Democratic winners have been women who prevailed over men in their primaries.”
“This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home.”
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by the Huffington Post, on the threat posed by ISIS.
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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