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.
Quote (thundercock @ Oct 23 2014 08:48pm)
GOP going in for the kill now.
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.