A quick race-by-race update on the Senate races.
For starters here's the next 13 days in advertising in terms of what percentage of ads each party is responsible for, courtesy of Echelon Insights:
KS-SEN: As you can see above, Orman is still withstanding the advertising onslaught
discussed here. PPP found Orman +3 and even Suckmussen is out with a new poll finding Orman +5.
KY-SEN: Both the DSCC and the Senate Majority PAC are going back on the air, daring Republican outside groups to waste more money here to protect McConnell. The groups say they are encouraged by both private and public polling. We know about the public polls: the new Bluegrass poll had McConnell +1 and a college poll from WKU has McConnell +3.
NC-SEN: SUSA's new poll finds Hagan leading 46%-43%-6%, a reversal from a prior (and rare) survey that found Tillis with a 1-point lead. PPP's newest also has Hagan +3. Politico et al. is trying to push out some "Tillis has the momentum" stories but the numbers don't bare it out. Karl Rove's Crossroads added another $900k to its ad buy though; the GOP does not want to give up on this race.
CO-SEN: This is the race getting all the attention. Public polling continues to show Gardner with small-to-medium leads, but with surveys that predict a GOP-heavy electorate that hasn't been seen in the state in several cycles. Gardner's campaign seems confident because they've scaled back his public appearances to one per day. This race has been set up to almost be a surprise no matter who wins: if Gardner wins then it would contradict Colorado's long history of underpolling Democrats, but if Udall wins it will contradict the entirety of public polling this month.
GA-SEN: This is one of the only races which has broken late in the direction of the Democrats. Nunn is dominating the airwaves and after Perdue's gaffe
mentioned here she has opened up a small polling lead. SUSA had Nunn +3 and now Nunn +2, GOP-friendly WRBL has Nunn +1, and GOP-friendly InsiderAdvantage has Nunn +2, down from big Perdue leads of +4, +7 and +10. Nunn is hovering around 47% of the vote. This race has looked like Nunn could push it to a runoff but would have a hard time winning it, so you might see the Democrats go all-out to try to pull off an improbable win on Election Day.
IA-SEN: Lots going on here. Both parties are doing good with early voting (polls that show Ernst with narrow leads show Braley winning among those who have already voted) but we don't know who those voters are. Democrats have released info showing how many of their votes are people who sat out in 2010, trying to claim they're reaching sporadic voters. Republicans are concerned they could just be moving up reliable voters. Ernst is catching some heat for bailing on the Des Moines Register editorial board at the last second, having already bailed on the Cedar Rapids Gazette and Dubuque Telegraph-Herald. Quinnipiac has Ernst +2, the same margin as last time and down from their ridiculous Ernst +6 outlier. They have Braley +21 among early voters (near impossible). Monmouth's first attempt shows Ernst +1 with Braley +13 among early voters. The Ernst campaign filed paperwork in case of a recount so you know this one is close.
NH-SEN: This race, too, is seeing a lot of "it's tightening!" stories in an effort to gin up Republican enthusiasm. To his credit Scott Brown has improved his standing, coming close to Romney's performance in 2012, but he's being butchered by bad press. His debate performance has been criticized and he was caught telling an outright lie re: ISIS and the Mexican border [More:
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-10-22/scott-brown-warns-that-isis-could-cross-the-border-then-tells-chuck-todd-he-never-said-that] to moderator Chuck Todd. You know it's bad when even the king of false equivalence holds you accountable for your words. PPP has Shaheen 49%-45% while CNN has Shaheen 49%-47%, up from a tie last time.
SD-SEN: The bad press continues for Rounds amid reports he was outraised by Weiland over the last 2 weeks. Rounds was forced to admit he knew a top official was going to work for a company, Northern Beef, around the same time as he approved the official's request for $600k in state loans to the plant. The official is accused of redirecting the money to pay his own salary. Mayday PAC has jumped on the bandwagon here to attack Rounds further over EB-5. Rounds pushed back on the long-held belief that his lead was slipping, releasing an internal showing him go from an 8-point lead to a 24-point lead. However it's being laughed off because his firm forgot to remove the language on the memo that makes it clear it was an "informed ballot test" (read: they said terrible things about his opponents and then asked people who they supported). Ouch.
LA is still careening towards a runoff. Nothing really new in AK and AR, the only question remaining is can strong Democratic field operations help either candidate win when they're behind 3-4 points in polling. MT and WV are off the board as expected GOP gains. VA, MN, OR, and MI are off the board as expected Democratic holds.
Quote (thundercock @ Oct 21 2014 07:19pm)
I feel like we could save a lot more money if candidates just gave everyone a detailed "one-pager" and gave it to every home. California manages to print out a detailed voter's guide very election so it shouldn't take that much more effort.
Television ads are ridiculous expensive and don't really inform anyone. I can proudly say that I've only been exposed to maybe a dozen ads this cycle.
We're to the point now where the insane level of expense doesn't matter; that's why we can't get back to sensible campaign finance law. There's always going to be some millionaires who will cut another big check if it means they can help juice the numbers. In some states the disparity has reached 3x, 5x, or even 10x (how much more the GOP is having to pay to air late-game ads vs. how much they paid to reserve time earlier) and yet they're still willing to pay it. Why not when you're playing with house money?