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A new Public Policy Polling survey in Oregon finds Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) starting the general election with a 14 point lead over challenger Monica Wehby (R), 50% to 36%.
A new Wenzel Strategies (R) poll in Kentucky shows Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) edging challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) in the U.S. Senate race, 47% to 44%.
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“The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter of 2014, the latest stumble for a recovery that has struggled to find its footing since the recession ended almost five years ago,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy, contracted at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.0% in the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department said Thursday. It was the first time economic output contracted since the first quarter of 2011, when it declined at a 1.3% pace.”
“Let’s face it: anybody who does not believe that gay marriage is going to be the law of the land just hasn’t been observing what’s going on.”
— Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), interviewed on the Doug Wright Show.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney blasted President Obama as a weak president after a foreign policy speech that was an implicit rebuke of the Bush administration, The Hill reports.
Said Cheney: “He is a very, very weak president. Maybe the weakest — certainly in my lifetime.”
“Life is too short to have the force of government stand in the way of two adults whose pursuit of happiness includes marriage.”
— Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA), quoted by the Philadelphia Inquirer, reversing his opposition to same-sex marriage.
Politico: “They’ve given John Boehner constant headaches during his three years as speaker. Now, Boehner’s friends are trying to make sure that a small pocket of tea-party-aligned Republicans won’t have a chance to derail his speakership next year. And if they try, they could be punished.”
“A group of his closest allies — including fellow Ohio Republicans like Pat Tiberi — are discussing tactics such as trying to change GOP Conference rules to punish members who do not support the party’s nominee during a floor vote. A lawmaker who bucks the Republicans’ choice for speaker could lose committee assignments — or worse. Boehner’s allies have already stripped some Republicans of their committee assignments for straying too far from the team.”
“After years of bashing the Affordable Care Act, conservative House Republicans are pushing for a vote on a GOP health-care plan to show they have a policy position beyond repealing the current law,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Debate within the GOP comes as Democrats recently have started showing new signs of comfort with the health law. Candidates in some Senate and gubernatorial races and their allies have started running ads expressing their direct support for the legislation, rather than focusing on how they would fix it in the wake of the law’s early glitches.”
“Calls for the resignation of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki reached a fever pitch on Wednesday after the release of an explosive watchdog report that found “systemic” problems at VA facilities around the country,” The Hill reports.
“Senate Democrats, who had stood unified behind Shinseki last week, began to abandon him in droves after the release of the report, with Sens. Mark Udall (D-CO), John Walsh (D-MT) and Kay Hagan (D-NC) all calling for his ouster.”
Jonathan Katz, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, testified in court that Florida’s congressional map “was heavily biased toward electing Republicans despite the state’s Democratic-edge in voters,” the Orlando Sentinel reports.
“His analysis suggested that the pro-GOP bias using 2010 voter-turnout data was 15.9 percent. Intuitively, that means Republicans could expect to capture 58 percent of the congressional seats to Democrats’ 42 percent of the seats, even if voter turnout was perfectly balanced at 50 percent GOP and 50 percent Democrat.”
“Katz concluded they were the most biased he had ever examined — easily twice as pro-Republican-leaning as Texas maps drawn by the chair of that state’s Republican Party.”
New York Times: “If Republicans are trying to nationalize the 2014 midterms, tying Democrats to President Obama and his signature health care law, Democrats considered vulnerable are countering by going local, doubling down on state-specific issues that are more typically the province of Republicans. Facing a hostile national climate — with Mr. Obama’s approval rating stalled below 50 percent, and that of Congress barely in double digits — Democrats say they believe their path to victory hinges on a series of individual contests rather than a referendum on the president and his policies.”
The Daily Beast reports that Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) “is scheduled to speak at the Iowa Democratic Party’s state convention on June 21. Spokespeople for the Iowa Democratic Party and for O’Malley did not respond to multiple requests for comment.”
“O’Malley is widely considered a possible Democratic candidate for the presidency in 2016 and has already made political appearances in the early states of New Hampshire and South Carolina. He is the second candidate pondering a bid as a Democrat to appear in the Hawkeye State this year following Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who spoke at a local Democratic Party function in eastern Iowa earlier this month.”
The Fix developed a metric for figuring out just how far past their allotted 15 minutes of fame various political “celebrities” are.
The Working Families Party of New York “is eying education activist Diane Ravitch as its gubernatorial candidate should the liberal minor party decide to withhold its backing” of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), the New York Daily News reports.
The Upshot says Democrats have a 58% chance of retaining control of the U.S. Senate after the midterm elections. Meanwhile, Election Lab says Republicans have a 77% chance to win control.
Why the big difference?
Vox: “If you’ve been following elections in recent years, it’s probably been drilled into you that averages of polls are usually quite accurate near the end of the campaign. But the election is still 6 months away, and polling is infrequent in many races — which presents a problem for anyone trying to forecast election results now. To address this, election forecasters incorporate broader political factors called ‘fundamentals’ into their models.”
“More senators are calling for Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to resign and the FBI to investigate following the release of a devastating audit,” Roll Call reports.
New York Times: “The report validates allegations raised by whistle-blowers and others that employees in Phoenix kept an off-the-books waiting list or used other artifices to cloak long waiting times that many veterans faced for medical care.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “wasn’t up for re-election this year, but his presence was felt up and down the GOP primary ballot in the Lone Star State,” The Hill reports.
“The only candidate Cruz endorsed won her primary fight on Tuesday, while incumbent candidates he ignored went down to defeat. More generally, the upstart candidates who toppled Lieutenant Gov. David Dewhurst and 91-year-old Rep. Ralph Hall appealed to the same state conservatives who see Cruz as a hero.”
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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