Once again, please take the small talk elsewhere. Every other thread on this forum can devolve into idle chitchat and that's totally cool, it would be much appreciated if it stays out of this one. Now that that's out of the way, some late breaking news:

The NRA has decided not to endorse any candidate in the Alaska Senate race [See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/nra-says-it-wont-endorse-in-alaska-senate-race/2014/09/24/fe5ebc8a-4436-11e4-8042-aaff1640082e_story.html]. They cite Begich's support for Obama's SCOTUS nominations. Basically they just don't want to burn any bridges in the event that Begich pulls off the win. I imagine we'll see the same thing happen in the Arkansas Senate race; they'll find some minor thing in Pryor's record to criticize so that they don't have to choose between him and Cotton. The practical effect of this development is that the NRA might not make an ad purchase here. AK is going to come down to a couple thousand votes, the lack of spending could matter a lot.

I'm not a witch girl wasn't bad looking though..

They don't have to be the same thing. Both carry the connotation of being "in" with site management.



Lol!



Look, I know you want to run your thread in a manner where it simply contains updates on various races, but it's entirely unreasonable to expect no replies, or replies that don't devolve into chitchat on a discussion forum known exactly for that. If your goal here is simply to coalesce all your data in one place and eliminate the extranneous noise, you could always ask a mod to move it to your personal blog and link your blog in your sig.

Vouch this.

As something on topic, I'm curious as to your thoughts on the MN Senate race between Franken and McFadden, as well as the MN governor's race between Dayton and Johnson. Polling here seems to show both races tightening up from what seemed to be comfortable leads for both incumbents. I haven't had much time to follow any of the races, as I haven't had a day off in six weeks.

That's only true for the people who have absolutely no earthly idea what those two things entail. It's fine to assume, but those assumptions are exceedingly dumb.



Replies are not an issue, as I said they can be quite helpful in ferreting out information that can be referred to later. What's not welcome is attempting to "update" this thread with contradictory information that does not contain the same veracity and factual accuracy that the people who regularly check this thread have become accustomed to. I have no interest in wasting valuable time correcting things posted here by other users that are factually incorrect, because I myself wouldn't have posted flawed information that needs correcting in the first place.

That said, the option is there to make a similar thread if people find the commentary lacking here. It's an interesting situation because this thread was meant for the people who read this subforum, not necessarily the people who post regularly in it. These are very simple requests and as I said if people really lack the intellectual capacity to discontinue what's not welcome here then I'll merely have the thread closed and move the discussion elsewhere so that I won't have to waste any of my time.

Time for a focus on the Senate because there has been a lot of poll movement in the last week even though the other fundamentals haven't changed. Both parties agree on who is ahead in some races but naturally they disagree on others. Both parties agree that the Democrats are ahead in NC/IA/NH/MI and that the GOP is ahead in MT/WV/SD/KY.

Both parties agree that the race in AR has slightly moved in Cotton's direction but disagree on who is ahead. The Pryor campaign says internal polling has had Pryor ahead the entire time though his lead is down to ~3 points now from a lead of ~5-6 points. The Cotton campaign says internals have him winning by 7 points. One campaign is having trouble predicting the likely electorate and we don't know which.

Both parties agree that the race in CO has slightly moved in Gardner's direction but disagree on who is ahead. The Udall campaign has released internals that have him continuously ahead by ~5-6 points, but a recent string of Republican-friendly polls has shown a MoE race. Something to remember: polling Colorado has historically underrepresented Democratic support.

Both parties agree that the race in AK has slightly moved in Sullivan's direction but they also disagree on who is ahead. The outlook is complicated due to Alaska being so hard to poll.

The situations in KS, LA, and GA are so volatile that the parties are staying quiet. The rough consensus is that the GOP is behind in KS but can catch up if Roberts buckles down and catches some breaks. Both parties concede that the other two races won't be decided on Election Day and that they could possibly change dramatically between now and their runoff dates.

Jay, you're not making sense. Couldn't people, you know, just skip the posts that aren't yours? Doesn't seem very difficult lol.

No, it's incredibly sensible: other users should not attempt to update this thread. It's very simple and incredibly straightforward.

Yes, it would have been ideal had people simply ignored the unwelcome posts. However that didn't happen, and I had to waste valuable time talking to them about it. I'm not even remotely interested in doing that and there's no reason for it as those types of posts shouldn't be made here in the first place. Take it someone else as asked. If people continue to have difficulty understanding such an elementary concept then I'll probably just move it as stated since that's apparently easier for the frequent readers.

That's all that really needs to be said on the matter. It'll be back to updates and relevant discussion from here on out.

Meant to add this to my earlier update, it's a very interesting development for some of the country's competitive House races.

BuzzFeed of all places has some reporting on a new push by conservative groups to attack their candidates in a couple of races for their stances on marriage equality and abortion [See: http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/conservatives-launch-unprecedented-campaign-against-pro-marr?utm_term=10bfcen#ijmbfr]. If some major money is put behind this push it could have a huge impact on two particular races, CA-52 and MA-06. The California race is one of the most competitive in the country and both parties really want to win it to help juice their numbers. These conservative groups could really doom the GOP's chances of winning a top pick-up opportunity by attacking DeMaio. MA-06 is less pivotal but Republican Richard Tisei really doesn't need this if he wants a chance at victory himself.

Oh, such valuable time. Time that could be better spent doing this: