Alaska: I'm shocked Lisa Murkowski didn't run away with it. Not Casablanca-sarcastic shocked, but legitimately shaking-my-head-in-disbelief shocked. It's not over yet: there will be absentee ballots and final counts, so she could still pull it out. The final count is not due until 8 September.
The biggest thing that might have hurt her was the death of Ted Stevens. She had all sorts of TV, radio and print ads with his voice and/or image, but held them back after the accident. Alaska loved Ted Stevens, and that hurt. Also, despite a lot of hatred for Spunky, people held their noses and voted against Murkowski who has been a moderate Republican, as was her dad.
Arizona: I had no doubt that John-Boy would win. The question is: which John McCain will run in the general? The anti-immigration Darth Vader? The maverick? The old guy who doesn't know how many houses he has?
The big surprise is that Ben "Brock Landers" Quayle won. OH IS THAT GOING TO BE FUN!!!
Florida: Congrats to Kendrick Meek who did it right: the petitions, the ground game, the campaign staff. Loved when he pointed out he was the sole candidate for Senate who had never run as a Republican. And a giant "take that" to that carpet-bagging, yacht-living, satanic housing-bubble causer Jeff Greene. Go away and never come back. Thanks, I feel better now. Meek is holding a conference call tonight, so I'll have information tomorrow morning on his upcoming plans. The big problem for him will, of course, be Charlie Crist, but there is no doubt that if we can hold the Senate (and I believe we can, post this weekend) he'll caucus with the Democrats, so that state is a pick-up for us either way.
As for the IIE gubernatorial primary, the best comment came on last night's results post from Tmess:
If Scott wins the Republican nomination, he is the immediate poster boy for the Republican position on health care reform.
Remember: his company, Columbia/HCA paid $1.7 billion in Medicare and Medicaid fraud fines. BILLION with a "B". That won't play well in one of the oldest states in the country.
Vermont: We still don't know. It's so close, with 89% in, the two top competitors are separated by 0.2%, plus there are absentee ballots, and the certification won't come until 31 August. Likely there will be a recount, because it's easy with less than 2%. The details:
With 89 percent of the polling places reporting by 1:15 a.m., Peter Shumlin led Doug Racine by 121 votes, 16,960 to 16,839. Deb Markowitz was running third with 16,039, with Matt Dunne a short distance behind at 14,165 votes. Susan Bartlett was a distant fifth with 3,507 votes.
The problem is that a recount will delay the actual campaign. I'm still unclear why the field was so crowded. We'll all just have to wait and see.
This is an exciting primary set: Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, and Vermont all go to the polls tomorrow. We'll be covering some of the races tomorrow night: and it's looking really exciting.
Alaska: While this has been flying mostly below the radar, Lisa Murkowski has a challenger in teabagger and Spunky darling Joe Miller. It's unlikely Lisa will lose, meaning Spunky has picked wrong. Again. Don Young has a bunch of challengers for the House position, but he'll likely hold. I was surprised he wasn't indicted in 2008, but hope springs eternal. In the gubernatorial race, Ethan Berkowitz will hopefully face Sean Parnell. Ethan lost to Young in 2008, but it was the best showing of any Democrat in Young's 19 terms since John Devens got 48$ in 1990.
Arizona: The marquis race is McCain vs Hayward. But I'm personally looking forward to pornographer Ben Quayle getting trounced by one of his 9 competitors in the Arizona third. Your choice?
Florida: It's Kendrick Meek vs. Jeff Greene. Why they're allowing a Republican in the Democratic primary is beyond me, but I'm a purist. This should be the most exciting race of the night. The Meek camp is feeling good about it. In their email over the weekend, they scheduled a blogger call for Wednesday night, and I'm hoping it's a celebratory one. So help me, if Greene wins because people think he's black, a la Alvin Greene, I'm hanging it up. This is so different from South Carolina, as there have been tons of TV and radio ads, along with mailers and speeches...
Oklahoma: This is a set of three runoffs: CD-2, CD-5 and Insurance Commissioners. All Republicans. We won't be covering this.
Vermont: Senator Patrick Leahy has a challenger, and it's unlikely he'll win. In the governor's race, there are five Democrats (my hopes are with Deb Markowitz). Whoever wins will take on Lt. Governor Ben Mitchell, as Jim Douglas won't be running for an additional term.
Tomorrow will be an exciting night in the 2010 election cycle. Primaries are being held in Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia and Minnesota. Plus, today early voting begins in Florida. Kendrick Meek will be out at a variety of early voting locations: you can get mobile updates via his web site or follow him on Facebook for locations. Also use one of those locations if you can give a few hours to phone canvass for the only actual Democrat in the Florida Senate race.
Colorado is interesting because in both the Democratic and IIE primaries it is the mainstream of each party running against "insurgents". On our side, Bennet has the support of the White House, the DNC, the DSCC and is an incumbent. Romanoff is attempting to challenge from the left. The latest poll has Romanoff at 48%, Bennet at 45%, and 8% undecided, but it's a SUSA poll. Chart of all recent polling here. On the IIE side, the same SUSA group has Buck at 50%, Norton at 41% with 9% undecided. Full chart here. It will be a nail biter, and we'll be covering it tomorrow night.
The two races in Connecticut to watch are the Democratic primary for Governor, and the IIE Senate primary. Ned Lamont should win this race, but Quinnipiac has it at 45% - 40%, Lamont over Malloy. It's been a weird year for "should win". On the IIE side, we have WWE queen McMahon with a clear polling lead. Either she or Simmons will face Blumenthal, who is running unopposed, and is polling ahead for November.
Georgia is a set of runoffs from the June primaries: mostly IIE House races, but also the IIE gubernatorial runoff, and Spunky has a dog in the race.
Up in Minnesota, the governor's race is open as Pawlenty is done. Four Democrats are vying, as are four Republicans, five Independence party candidates, three independents, and one Green. For reasons that escape me, lunatic fringe member Michele Bachmann is running unopposed, but two Democrats are vying to challenge her.
Mario Rubio thinks the retirement age should be raised to 70. He also is in favour of the Shrub plan to allow people to invest a portion of their SS payroll deductions in private investment vehicles. An idea so toxic that even the Republicans, under Bush, wouldn't bring it to the floor.
So there you have it. The Republican in Florida, the Sunshine State, home to millions of retirees, wants to raise the retirement age. Here's what AARP Florida has to say about it:
"Anytime our elected officials begin debating the future of Social Security, millions of Floridians pay attention," said Lori Parham, Florida director for senior lobby. "Social Security pumps $3.7 billion a month into Florida's economy. Without it, half of Floridians age 65 or older would be plunged into poverty."
Does Social Security need to be reformed? Sure. But this is an election in FLORIDA. If you were running for office in that state, would you make this your issue?
Kendrick Meek prefers a commission to look into Social Security changes, which has been the standard response to this third rail issue, from both parties, for decades. Charlie Crist proposes fixing Social Security and immigration at the same time.
Crist said Thursday that there are as many as 14 million illegal immigrants in the country as part of an underground economy. If they paid into the Social Security system, it would help increase the worker-to-retiree ratio.
He's got a point. Objectively, one of the ways to save Social Security is to pump more money into it by having more people contributing via payroll deductions. If we had the ratio we did decades ago, where 8 workers contribute to each recipient, there wouldn't a solvency problem. Um, if, of course, the government didn't steal the money and spend it on something else. (OH! For Al Gore's lock box.)
It's unclear how immigration reform will play in Florida. But campaigning on raising the retirement age is not going to work well for Rubio.
While most of the attention on the Florida Senate race has been focused on the 3-way battle between Meek, Christ and Rubio, there are two men hoping to replace Kendrick Meek at the Democratic nominee.
The DCW team received this email from Maurice Ferre's media consultant:
Recently we have noticed that stories about the race for U.S. Senate from Florida failed to mention that former Miami Mayor, Maurice Ferre is also a candidate for the Democratic nomination.
Ferre qualified as a candidate with the Secretary of State and his name will be on the ballot in the Democratic Primary Election this August 24, 2010.
Some predicted in news reports that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee for President, others that Charlie Crist was unstoppable for the U.S. Senate as a Republican candidate. Now that Kevin Burns has dropped out of the US Senate race, professional courtesy should provide that all candidates who are legally qualified should at least be mentioned in stories and articles.
Please call me if you have any questions or would like to speak to Mr. Ferre to discuss his candidacy as well as timely issues facing the citizens of Florida.
You can see his website here. Think spry. Ferre was mayor of Miami back in the 70's and 80's. His politics are fine. Unfortunately, after paying the $10,000 to get on the Florida ballot, he's got about $130,000 in the bank. I view his candidacy as those of Drew Pritt and Harold Ford: not serious in the long run.
At the other end of the money spectrum, we have Jeff Greene, who has committed to taking no more than $100 from any single donor. He doesn't need to, he's #559 on Fortbes's list of the richest people, with $1.3 billion in personal assets.
But money only goes so far in politics. While Greene has retained the services of some famous consultants, including Joe Trippi, he has been unable to secure senior campaign staff, despite offering $50,000 a month to prospective candidates, according to the New York Times.The Greene camp disputes the paper's report.
"It's simply not true," said Paul Blank, a spokesman for Greene. "Someone requested that amount but it was rejected." [...]
The Meek campaign said last week that Greene is “a pioneer of Wall Street greed” because he bet “against the American economy, and enriching himself on the backs of middle-class Floridians.”
The Meek camp also pointed out that Greene owns 10 homes, including several in California. The subject line of the press release was “Jeff Greene: Billionaire ‘Meltdown Mogul’ and owner of many homes.”
Greene made hundreds of millions of dollars investing in credit default swaps that increased in value as the housing market crashed.
In an interview, Greene argued that his business acumen will be an asset in the Senate race. “I’m the only guy in this race who’s signed the front of a paycheck and not just the back of a paycheck,” he said.
I'm finding Greene's candidacy offensive. I wouldn't if he ran on the IIE side, but he's no Floridian, and he's no Democrat. In fact, the last time he ran for office was in California as a Republican. Check this out, and find out the part of your current loss of assets you can blame on him. And by the way, when he was married in 2008, his best man was Mike Tyson. Such a gentle set of associates.
But Greene is a problem in that he can spend money. Not quite Mike Bloomberg level, but close enough. He can buy the Florida airwaves from Pensacola through Miami, back through Tampa and up to Jacksonville at a level that Meek, Crist and Rubio combined can't touch with their combined $25 million.
It's truly unfortunate that Greene has decided to try and buy an election. Notice that he's not trying a Senate run in Massachusetts, where he's from, nor California, where he mostly lives currently, when he's not on his 145' yacht. He's entering a race where a real Democrat, with actual government experience and a history of public service, is in a pitched battle against a tea bag and the current governor. Greene is at best a distraction, and at worst maliciously committed to keeping a Democratic name off the ballot in November.
The Florida primary is 24 August. If I can get a week off from work, I'll be flying down to knock doors. If I can't, I'll be making calls from here in Pennsylvania. I can't wave a wand to make sure that Kendrick Meek is the Democratic Florida Senatorial candidate, but I'm sure going to put my time in. I hope you'll join me: mark you calendar for that last week pre-primary in Florida, it's too important to just stand by idly.
Last night I attended a conference call with Kendrick Meek. He had given an interview to Chris Matthews in DC, and was on his way back to Florida when he spoke to the conference call attendees. He reiterated his published statement, but expanded on it.
For example, he said in his statement that he was running against two Republicans. The expansion related to two points: first, that to the best of his knowledge that Charlie Crist was still a registered Republican even though he announced that he was running as an independent. Enough of a Republican to be ensnared in the financial scandals affecting many Florida Republicans. (As an aside, this is neither partisan nor political, the investigations are being undertaken by the FBI and the IRS.)
Second was that the Meek campaign didn't change based on where Charlie Crist was, registration-wise: they still get up every morning, and work across the state. In addition, Meek spends his weeks in DC working for the people of his district. And the statewide work thay're doing is predicated on the last 14 months of developing what Meek referred to as a "well-documented grassroots movement of empowered people." He cited the importance of the petition drive, and the organization built to get that accomplished.
I asked if the campaign would be expecting monetary or support help from the National Democratic Party. While it appears such funding will come through (I'm personally hoping at Kay Hagan levels) and they may be accorded human help, the Meek campaign is just going to continue doing what they've been doing: reaching out, empowering people, collecting money and striving to meet voters across Florida. Meek pointed out that people may not necessarily vote their party this year, so the outreach is across the board.
While the MSM pundits will tell you that this is anybody's race, I'm coming around to the idea that running an actual grassroots campaign could pay off big here. A couple weeks ago, I thought that if Crist went Independent, he'd win in the general, but I'm rethinking that because of the venom the Republicans are spewing at him. That is, Cornyn saying that Crist won't ever again be welcome in the Party, and his polling firm quitting yesterday, and the possibility that he'll need to give back donor dollars (just like Arlen). There's something to be said for the cult of personality, and Crist certainly remains popular in certain quarters, but, you've got to follow the money. And in the last weeks leading up to November, Meek will have it, and Crist may well not as he doesn't seem to have a national donor pool as TLB Lieberman did when he ran against the Democratic Party. Further, Meek has organization, which is the other leg of the stool in a campaign.
The next time we update the Senate rankings, I'll be moving my pick from "Strong Republican" to "Toss-Up", with the potential of making it bluer in a couple months.
"This campaign is in a commanding position to defeat two Republican opponents in November and provide Florida with the leadership we so desperately deserve. We are supported by Floridians who want a hands-on leader to fight for them and help bring new, long-term jobs to this state," said Kendrick Meek, Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate. "Our two Republican opponents are architects of Florida's failed economy, both favor more tax breaks for the wealthy and corporate special interests as their only economic proposal, and both are involved in the same income tax evasion scandal. A hard working, hands-on leader is what Florida needs now, not bickering politicians."
Federal law enforcement agencies have launched a criminal investigation into the use of American Express cards issued by the Republican Party of Florida to elected officials and staff, according to sources familiar with the inquiry.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Tallahassee, the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service are all involved in the inquiry. ... Meanwhile, in a separate inquiry, the IRS is also looking at the tax records of at least three former party credit card holders — former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, ex-state party chairman Jim Greer and ex-party executive director Delmar Johnson — to determine whether they misused their party credit cards for personal expenses, according to a source familiar with the preliminary inquiry.
Political parties, which are tax exempt, are allowed to spend money only on political activities, such as fundraising, running campaigns and registering voters. While it's commonplace for party officials and politicians to wine and dine donors, the Florida party allowed credit card holders to rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in charges with little oversight.
The IRS opened the so-called "primary'' investigation into Rubio, the leading Republican candidate for Florida's open U.S. Senate seat, and the two former state GOP officials to see if there's enough evidence to support a full-fledged criminal inquiry, according to a source familiar with the IRS examination. -TampaBay.com
It will be a wild ride in Florida the next 10 days.
(This is from the Meek campaign, although if you have comments, I can assure you the candidate will see them. These folks really ARE running a campaign, boots on the ground.... - promoted by DocJess)
1. As part of his statewide "Jobs for Florida" tour, Kendrick visited 12 cities in just four days. He traveled from South Florida to Tallahassee to Tampa to Indian River County talking to middle class Floridians about his vision for creating jobs across this state and building a strong and sustainable Florida economy. As Kendrick said, “You can bet I will continue to work hard to get the state's economy working again for Florida families." Click here to see the stops.
2. Even though Kendrick needed 112,476 signatures to get on the ballot for U.S. Senate, he submitted 145,000. That includes petition signatures from counties all across Florida. And, just last week, the Division of Elections verified the ballots and made it official!
3. Kendrick has written op-eds for newspapers all across the state. This includes two in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and one each in the Tampa Tribune, Panama City News Herald, and Florida Today. He also was a guest columnist on FiveThirtyEight.com. Click here to read Kendrick’s editorials.
4. Kendrick is the only major candidate for U.S. Senate in Florida that has not called for the repeal of health care reform that President Obama signed into law. One of his Republican opponents even featured “Repeal Obamacare” on the homepage of his campaign website.
5. Last week, we released a brand new video that highlights Kendrick's journey for the U.S. Senate.
6. The pundits and press alike are saying the same thing – if Kendrick wants to win, he needs money to go up on TV and share his story with Florida. You can help make sure that happens Click here to make a contribution today – even as little as $5 makes a difference.
Kendrick Meek's chances in Florida have been written off by everyone, including all of our Senate forecasters, but the latest poll from Quinnipiac shows Meek is in the hunt no matter what Charlie Crist does.
In a two way match-up, Rubio leads Meek 42-38. (It was 44-35 in January). Crist leads Meek 48-34, but that seems an unlikely scenario at this point - Rubio leads Crist 56-33 in the primary. Crist must make a decision by the end of the month whether he is going to run as an Independent. If he does, the poll has Crist 32, Rubio 30, Meek 24.
And what will Crist do?
Florida GOP Gov. Charlie Crist awakened Wednesday to yet another iteration of a story his campaign has tried to knock down for months — that he is considering launching an independent candidacy for the Senate.
This latest version, which appeared in The Wall Street Journal, included all the standard Crist camp denials. Yet there was one curious response from the campaign: Crist’s campaign manager “declined to affirm he would qualify for the ballot as a GOP candidate,” according to the Journal account. -Politico
The final results are in for the Illinois Senate race: as expected it will be Alex Giannoulias vs Mark Kirk. The gubernatorial race is not yet clear. On the Democratic side, both Pat Quinn and Dan Hynes have 50% of the vote, with Quinn up by about 7,200 votes with 99% of the precincts counted. There is also no clear winner on the GOP side.
In Florida, in the race to takeover the seat vacated by Box Wexler, on the Democratic side, Ted Deutch won with over 77% of the vote. He'll go up against Ed Lynch, who won with 42% on the Republican side.
Back with more in a little bit -- there's some snow to clear....
Last night I attended a blogger conference call for Kendrick Meek. If you don't know him, he's a current Congressman running for Senate from Florida. The call was led by campaign manager Abe Dyk. This is the be the first of many conference calls. The Meek campaign is committed to being people-powered, and therefore wants to ensure information dissemination to bloggers. They also have Facebook pages and a Twitter presence.
The real part of "people-powered" is that they see their path to victory being involved with getting non-traditional voters to the polls. One of the ways they are approaching this is a petition drive. Dyk said that the Meek campaign is the first Senate campaign in Florida history to choose to qualify for the ballot via petition. I asked about this, because I didn't understand the Florida system. It turns out that to be on the ballot in Florida, one can qualify by having a number of signed ballots which relate to a percentage of the voters in the last election of that type. In this case, they will need 112,476 legitimate signatures. The other option is to pay a filing fee equal to 7% of the annual salary of the position. The campaign's position is that "People put Kendrick Meek on the ballot, not a check."
There were two incredibly obnoxious bloggers on the call who kept pressing for an exact number of signed petitions. I say that they were "incredibly obnoxious" because when I tuned in to the call a few minutes before the official start time, they were talking about BDSM, and insulting medical doctors, chiropractors, and the overall population of Tallahassee. Dyk said that there was a lag between when signatures were turned in to the counties and when they were verified. The lag could be up to 30 days. He said that the campaign was already halfway there, and he didn't have an exact number, because there were still many signatures in the pipeline. The trend appears solid, and I don't think we need a more precise number than that.
Dyk's point is valid: if people sign a nominating petition, they are more likely to vote for that candidate. One of the greatest lessons of the Obama campaign was that the more times a voter is "touched" (called, visited, or the voter gives money) the higher the probability that voter will turn out for that candidate on election day. In Florida, given early and absentee voting, they have more opportunities than "just one day" to get the voters out.
After the jump: demographics, more of the plan, and analysis.
Governor Charlie Crist and former state House Speaker Marco Rubio are now tied in the 2010 race for the Republican Senate nomination in Florida.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely GOP Primary voters finds Crist and Rubio each with 43% of the vote. Five percent (5%) prefer another candidate, and nine percent (9%) are undecided. -Rasmussen
More polls like this and Crist might just drop out rather than be humiliated.
Update: In theory, he could also run as an Independent, or essentially pull a Specter and run as a Democrat.
The next time Matt updates the Senate rankings, you'll notice that my Florida ranking has been changed from "Leans Republican" to "Solid Republican." I had held some hope that maybe, just maybe, we could take the seat, but that was predicated on Charlie Crist winning the GOp primary, and that ship sailed.
Rubio seems to be unstoppable, and my potential pick fave candidate doesn't want to run on the Democratic side. My reasoning doesn't rely on polls, but on demographics and a few, um, intangibles, but I know you folks like polls, so here you go:
Gov. Charlie Crist's lead over former state house speaker Marco Rubio in the 2010 Republican U.S. Senate primary has been cut in half from 55 - 26 percent to 50 - 35 percent, but the Governor tops the leading Democrat, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, 51 - 31 percent among all voters, while Rubio trails Meek 36 - 33 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely GOP Primary voters in the state finds Crist outdistancing Rubio 49% to 35%. Four percent (4%) like some other candidate, and 12% are undecided.
A new Rasmussen Reports survey of Florida voters shows Governor Charlie Crist leading Representative Kendrick Meek by a 46% to 34% margin. In August, Crist led by 19 and in June he was ahead by 21.
Former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio leads Meek by a similar margin, 46% to 31%. In August, Rubio led by 13 percentage points.
In both situations, Crist is dropping relative to Rubio, and in the Rasmussen poll, has fallen below the critical 50% mark.
If you like polling data, you know it's not just the raw numbers, but the trends.
I believe Rubio eventually wins both the primary and the general, and therefore the seat stays Republican for a few reasons. First, the black vs. brown issue. Hispanics in Florida are better organized than African Americans. Don't get me wrong, Kendrick Meek's mother Carrie is a force to be reckoned with, and she held the seat Kendrick has now for the 10 years preceding him. It's an overwhelmingly Democratic district. The rest of Florida is not such a Democratic happy place.
Second, the older vote in Florida is something to consider. The choice will be between a serious progressive and a serious conservative. (Rubio is backed by the Club for Growth.) If you look at what happened in the NY-23, and what is happening in the Texas gubernatorial race, you'll notice that the far right wingnuts organize MUCH better than the "regular" Republicans, and their machine is nothing to scoff at. Democrats in Florida don't have that sort of organization, nor the drive to get behind a true progressive.
So, I'm thinking this race is cherry red, and our money and efforts are better spent in more competitive Senate races next year. I'd like to be wrong.
Will You Endorse Stimulus-Supporting, President Obama Hugging Charlie Crist Or Club For Growth Endorsed Marco Rubio?
Dear Governor Palin,
I noticed that you will be in Florida next week to promote your new book Going Rogue. As you know, Florida is home to a competitive Senate race, with either Governor Charlie Crist or former state House Speaker Marco Rubio to face off against Democrat Kendrick Meek. I’m not sure how familiar you are with Governor Crist, but he is a politician who has a history of putting politics above principals, something you surely look down upon. Whether the issue is off shore drilling, supporting the stimulus, or opposition to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Crist has either flip-flopped, flip-flop-flipped, or been motivated purely by politics. Crist has the support of the Washington establishment, while Rubio has the support of many grassroots Republicans across Florida. However, you do have something in common with Charlie Crist in that both of you effectively quit on your states. Although Crist is still governor, he has been noticeably absent from his job and has failed to provide the kind of leadership Florida deserves. On the other hand, Marco Rubio is comfortable in his own skin as an extreme right-winger, who has the backing of the Club for Growth, Karl Rove, and Senators DeMint and Inhofe. I know you are in three Florida cities next week, any of which would be the perfect setting to give your blessing to either Crist or Rubio. With the NY-23 special election over, many are now calling the Florida Republican Senate primary, “the next battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party.” With so much at stake, everyone wants to know – who will you endorse in the Florida Senate race?
Last night I attended a blogger conference call for Kendrick Meek. If you don't know him, he's a current Congressman running for Senate from Florida. The call was led by campaign manager Abe Dyk. This is the be the first of many conference calls. The Meek campaign is committed to being people-powered, and therefore wants to ensure information dissemination to bloggers. They also have Facebook pages and a Twitter presence. 
