Do you think Hagan refusing to join Tillis in the final debate the other night will hurt her numbers at all?
I saw Maddow on MSNBC gettin all fussy over it.

I think there was a poll or two that popped up where she was losing a bit of traction? I guess the most important part about that was it is at the worst time to do so.

I was assuming it was because people were catching on to the different narratives shes currently lumped up in regarding things like:

>voting for stimulus money that went to the company her husband co-owns (in the sums of 390k)
>her son started a fake business to apply for more stimulus grants (in the area of 520k) that was created to install solar panels for a company, the company in question ended up being owned by her husbands brother, and her husband was on its board of directors and also recieved about 130k in stimulus money, that may or may not have gone to her son's company for the installation
>her flipping on the travel ban, from one week to the next. (though I actually applauded this, it was one of the first noticable times she formed an opinion for herself rather than just going along with her party)

then you've got things like the hispanic vote being a little wishy washy. (last I looked it was like 1/3rd vote for each candidate, dem rep and lib)
As well as the education cuts narrative falling apart.

I can see it being a really close race, possibly entirely dependent on the libertarian candidate's vote turnout.

I don't think this will matter, because not agreeing to additional debates is not typically covered like outright backing out of a debate would be but it can't be measured. It would seem to be low-impact since no one expected any other debates after the ones they already had.



There was a general narrowing of Hagan's lead more than any one poll, from 4-6 points in September to 2-3 points in October. Two weeks ago SurveyUSA poll gave Tillis his first lead in an eternity, but SUSA's newest was the Hagan +3 poll mentioned earlier. The Civitas Institute polled in late September and pushed their leaners too hard, giving them a Hagan +7 survey that they were obviously not happy with. They tried to rectify that today but this time they went too hard in the other direction instead.



It's the money, if it's anything other than noise. The NRSC had a much better September fundraising report than they expected to have, raising about $15.5 million. The RNC transfered about $4 million extra to the NRSC on top of that so that they could spend more on races now rather than saving it for 2016. This was one of the races (Kansas, Iowa, Colorado are the others) that the GOP is apparently willing to sacrifice some future pain for if it means that they can try to juice the numbers this year. It's a good strategy if they can win in NC or IA or CO.



I think this was always destined to be a plurality win for someone; anywhere from +3 Tillis to +5 Hagan and moving towards the latter end of the scale. Haugh held his own in polling all year so I don't expect him to fade lower than 4%. The only question is who among his supporters would abandon him on Election Day because he gets support from both left-leaning populists who are closer to Hagan and conservative protest voters who are closer to Tillis.

I see I see, thanks for the insight.

GOP going in for the kill now.

Here's a quick race-by-race look at the Governor elections:

FL-GOV: CNN and Quinnipiac find a tie race, SUSA has Crist +4. The Scott campaign recently upped its ad buy by $22 million after the fallout from "fangate."

MA-GOV: Republican Charlie Baker has staked out a small but consistent lead over Democrat Martha Coakley. The Democrats are bringing in a lot of top-shelf surrogates and are upping the ad buys, and this race has replaced Hawaii as a source of headaches for Democrats.

AK-GOV: The Indy-Democratic fusion ticket is still leading Governor Parnell in polling, and in an odd twist Sarah Palin endorsed them rather than the man she left in charge of the government when she became the VP nominee.

CO-GOV: The outlier polls showing Hickenlooper down by an outrageous 10 points have faded and he's back to a small lead. Hickenlooper is doing well among people who have already cast a ballot though the sample size is small. He's made this race a lot closer than it could have been by his refusal to run negative ads.

ME-GOV: Independent Eliot Cutler is no longer advertising, which could boost Democrat Mike Michaud. PPP recently had the race 40%-40%-17%, and Michaud would have a 49%-44% lead in a two-way race. LePage candidly admitted that the only reason he even has a chance at reelection is because of Cutler staying in the race so expect that to show up in an ad between now and Election Day.

CT-GOV: The conservative-leaning Courant endorsed Governor Dan Malloy. Republican Tom Foley recently skipped a debate, leaving just Malloy on the stage with Tom Viscanti. Quinnipiac finds a tied race while PPP shows Malloy with a mid-single digits lead.

KS-GOV: The poor fiscal health of Kansas has been a major topic in this race, and another downgrade gives Sam Brownback one more bad headline to navigate [More: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/upshot/kansas-faces-additional-revenue-shortfalls-after-tax-cuts.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=2&abt=0002&abg=0]. Brownback is going hardcore negative against his opponent with a new ad that criticizes the State Supreme Court.

MI-GOV: PPP finds this race tied at 48%-48%. Mark Schaeur has closed the gap between him and Rick Snyder but he's been able to get over the top in any poll. Democrats hope that the lopsided Senate race that the GOP has pretty much conceded will result in Schaeur being dragged over the finish line by Gary Peters' coattails.

WI-GOV: The RGA is investing another $1 million in this race to try to retain Scott Walker. Some Republicans aren't happy with how the Chris Christie-led RGA has spent more to advertise in states like Michigan and Kansas rather than prioritizing Walker. The GOP is already starting to play the blame game in the event that Walker is narrowly defeated. Even the Weekly Standard has gotten in on criticizing Christie [See: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/does-chris-christie-have-scott-walkers-back_816996.html]. Recent polling here has shown a dead-heat.

IL-GOV: Endangered Democrat Pat Quinn had recently scored some 1-point lead in different polls but now he's back to trailing by 1-2 points. His opponent got into some trouble at a TV debate when he was asked to name one company his investment firm had invested in that created jobs (he couldn't answer). There's also a lot of back-and-forth over some allegations between Rauner and a former Chicago Sun Times reporter who wrote a critical column of Rauner [More: http://davemckinney123.***/2014/10/22/why-i-left/]. The race is deadlocked.

AR-GOV looks off the board as a Republican pickup, PA-GOV is off the board as a Democratic pickup. AZ-GOV and HI-GOV look close but are likely to be holds. GA-GOV still looks like it's headed for a runoff with polls showing either a tie or a race within the margin of error.



They are moving a whole lot of their 2016 money forward, that's for sure. It could be a great move or a catastrophic one depending on how it works out and if/when Hillary Clinton announces her candidacy. If they're not able to get anything more than red-state wins that they should have gotten anyway then this could be a big mistake, doubly-so if Clinton moves up a candidacy announcement into the first quarter and starts raising money. In order for the GOP to play to their traditional strength in big-money fundraising the RNC has to play its role. Propping up the NRSC, NRCC, and RGA could bring it down to the DNC's level and that could be a loss of a critical edge.

2016 will be a challenge regardless, it's the correct decision to gamble on 2014 now.

It's not a clear-cut call decision due to 2 moving parts. 2016 won't just be a challenge, it has the potential to be worse than 1986 or 2008 for them if things go badly enough. To put things in perspective the Democrats are defending 8 seats this year, letting 2 go, and challenging in 3 others. Republicans could be defending 18 of their seats from serious challenges. That's why underperforming this year would be the worst situation, especially after moving tens of millions of dollars forward.

Clinton has already hinted towards moving up a possible announcement, possibly using the Democrats doing "bad" in the midterms as an excuse. That could make an announcement happen within months, would be disastrous for the GOP because not even with all of its millionaires could it fundraise against a declared Clinton candidacy. Their only prayer in that case would be to coalesce around 1 candidate and they'd need a pre-existing national network (Romney, or Jeb Bush, or Rubio on the very edge of possibilities). That is very unlikely. The party will probably go through a nominating contest that ends in February or March 2016. If Clinton pulls the trigger, and in early 2015, they'll have to race harder to catch up with her than they did in 2012 to catch Obama.

That is where the RNC, the RGA, and NRSC maxing out this year could hurt them. It's sitting down at the table to gamble your future in hopes that you don't hit a couple of bad breaks.

Didn't think a new Senate update would be required this soon but things are happening in these races by the hour. NBC/Marist will be releasing new polls tomorrow in AR, CO, IA, KS, NC, and SD. They probably didn't get the memo that GA has been a tossup for weeks. Either way, here's what's new:

IA-SEN: The Des Moines Register endorsed Braley. Ernst snubbing the DMR in her attempt to do no harm may have been the last straw. This is one of those rare endorsements that could actually mean something.

SD-SEN: The FBI finally confirmed that they have an "active investigation" over the EB-5 scandal. Mike Rounds isn't happy.

GA-SEN: Even more new polls showing Nunn-mentum. Landmark still has a tie race, the AJC has a 2-point Perdue lead (down from 5-point lead), and CNN has Nunn +3. The big news here is that African-Americans comprise 30% of the early vote compared to 26% in 2010, while the white share is down to 66% from 72%. If Nunn gets the average Democratic performance among each racial demographic then it's possible with this electorate for her to win on Election Day. The next 9 days of early voting will tell us everything.

AK-SEN: The Alaska Federation of Natives endorsed Begich. They pass on most endorsements; their last came in 2010 for Lisa Murkowski's write-in campaign. Polling is all over the place: an SMP internal has a 44%-44% tie, Republican Hellenthal and Associates has Begich +10. They're standing by their numbers too, citing Begich's ground game advantage. It's not a 10-point race or close to it but now people get to see what a massive impact that outliers have on aggregates unless they hypocritically refuse to include it.

CO-SEN: Udall released an internal with him up 45%-44%. The poll's GCB is GOP+5 so it'll be hard for Republicans to cry "skewed." Gardner for his part hasn't released any internal polls, likely because they would show a tight race and he doesn't want to contradict shit polling firms showing him with a 5, 7, or even a ridiculous 10-point lead.

KY-SEN: Social Security has become an issue in overnight after McConnell said at an event that he was remorseful that he didn't get any Democratic support in 2005 for Bush's plan to "fix Social Security." Now he's being asked if he'd bring up a privatization bill as Majority Leader and predictably he's not answering. The Senate Majority Pac, who is back on the air, focused on this in their new ad. McConnell, like he did in 2008, loaned his campaign $1.8 million so you know he's seeing a close race.

"Active investigation." For 2 years now, and nothing to show for it relating to Rounds. Lol.

The results of the NBC/Marist polls mentioned above, with the previous polls from September in parenthesis:

AR: Cotton 45%-43% (Cotton 45%-40%)
CO: Gardner 46%-45% (Udall 48%-42%)
IA: Ernst 49%-46% (Ernst 46%-44%)
KS: Orman 45%-44% (Orman 48%-38%)
NC: Tied 43%-43% (Hagan 44%-40%)
SD: Rounds 43%-29%-16% -- Howie wasn't included, there's the first sign that this is off.

Not much to be gleaned from this. It just demonstrates what we've already known for months, regardless of what bad punditry has been saying: these are close races and some numbers will be better (or worse) than conventional wisdom holds because that’s what margin-of-error floating will do. This looks like a major miss on SD but Pressler’s recent comment that he’d be “a friend of Obama” in the Senate may have accelerated his fade (and his support leaving for Rounds). Either way it probably should be ignored.

Marist historically has a GOP-friendly bias of about 1.5%, it was better in 2012 but worse in 2010. That's been one of the big fears all cycle in polling: are people relying on 2010 modeling that will inevitably be just wrong enough to make the numbers bad this year? Marist’s last 5 Senate polls in 2010 had an average bias of over R+5. If that happened to these numbers in these races then it would obviously come with some consequences.



Truthfully it matters little, if at all. The FBI previously refused to comment, or confirm or deny, but now in the final weeks of the campaign they break their silence. That alone would normally keep a steady stream of bad headlines coming for Rounds up to Election Day but EB-5 isn't even in first position anymore now that one of Rounds' former Secretaries, Richard Benda, is facing new scrutiny over the Northern Beef issue. The Rounds-Benda relationship had been radioactive for Rounds as more of the details have trickled out, so these new developments basically ensure that the race will conclude in these conditions. Rounds isn't happy, and no one buys for a second the 24-point Krusty Komedy Klassic internal that the campaign released to try to take the heat off. Rounds was once thought to be on cruise control but he has been crumbling over the last two months and the DSCC has committed to staying on the air and on the ground until Election Day. This is a live race.