Governor races

Vice President Joe Biden said on Monday that the alternative to Democratic control of Congress is the "Republican Tea Party."

The vice president sought to link the official GOP to the Tea Party, the coalition of conservative activists who've boosted a new crop of conservative candidates challenging Democrats this fall.

"Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative," Biden said of the message Democrats must deliver to voters this fall, according to a pool report.

"The Republican Tea Party is the alternative," Biden said at a fundraiser in Ohio for the state's governor, Ted Strickland (D), who's facing a tough reelection challenge this fall.

Biden's approach linking the GOP and the Tea Party reflects a strategy the White House had been mulling recently, according to a report in The New York Times. The administration pushed back against that report on Monday in a separate report.

The vice president's comments also were meant to deflect attention from the dissatisfaction some voters have felt with the administration (and voiced to President Obama during a town-hall meeting today on CNBC). Democrats from the White House to Congress are looking to cast the election as a choice between their record and that of Republicans.

That messaging, Biden said, would keep the House and Senate in Democratic hands after the November elections.

“Reports of the demise of the Democratic Party are premature," Biden said.

Former Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) this weekend handily won his party’s nomination in the race to become the next governor of Hawaii.

Abercrombie beat out former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann in the primary race.

Abercrombie will face Republican Lt. Gov. James Aiona in November for the governor’s seat. Immediately after he defeated Hannemann with 60 percent of the vote, Abercrombie launched his general election in an effort to bring back Democrats in the governor’s office after eight years of Republican leadership.

Meanwhile, Aiona, a conservative Republican, cruised to his party’s nomination with 95 percent of the vote. His only challenger was lawyer John Carroll.

In the fight to win Abercrombie’s former House seat, Rep. Charles Djou (R-Hawaii) who won the special election when Abercrombie retired, won his party’s nomination for the November election. On the Democratic side is was Democratic State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa who won the nomination this weekend.

Hawaii’s primary race on Saturday was the final primary day of the 2010 election cycle.

Meg Whitman has now spent $119 million of her personal fortune with a month and a half left to go until the election.

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Bill Clinton will travel to California in mid-October to stump for Democratic governor and lieutenant governor nominees Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom.

The former president issued an endorsement for Brown on Tuesday.

"I am very pleased to have the endorsement of President Clinton, and I look forward to campaigning with him and with Gavin Newsom," Brown responded in a statement. "President Clinton accomplished a lot for California, and we have a ticket that will accomplish a lot for California's future."

That the two will campaign together marks a new chapter in their tumultuous political history. They ran against each other for the Democratic presidential nominee in 1992, and just this year, Clinton backed Newsom — who later withdrew from the race — over Brown for governor in the Democratic primary.

Tensions flared again last week after Brown publicly referenced the Monica Lewinsky scandal, saying that Clinton did not always tell the truth. He later apologized.

The events Oct. 15 and 17 will take place in both northern and southern California.

Georgia Republican Nathan Deal owes so much money to creditors he has to sell his Gainesville home.

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New York GOP gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino has to change his act if he expects to have a chance to win his election, Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) said Thursday.

King offered his support to the controversial Tea Party-backed candidate, who defeated former Rep. Rick Lazio in the primary Tuesday, but said he would have to tone down his rhetoric. 

"Yeah, I intend to support him as the nominee of the party," King said during an interview on WABC Radio in New York. "I have to tell you, though, some of the stuff he says is — I think it could be damaging. I think he has to realize he's in the big leagues now and there's more than just, you know, you're going to bring a baseball bat to Albany."

King referenced a remark Paladino made on the campaign trail in which he stated that he would “take a baseball bat to Albany” to rid the state capital of corruption.

The Buffalo real esate developer, however, has appeared to divide New York Republicans. He has found himself in hot water over e-mails he forwarded to friends containing pornographic material and racist jokes.

But King acknowledged that Paladino had unexpectedly harnessed the energy of the GOP voting base, which appears to be deeply discontented with the status quo.

"Right now, the fact is, there is a tremendous discontent out there that the elites and many party officials did not see coming," King said. "And it's all around the country, so we hope to work with Carl Paladino."

Paladino's win came on the same night Christine O'Donnell, another candidate backed by Tea Party groups, surprisingly won the GOP Senate primary in Delaware over nine-term centrist Rep. Mike Castle.

King said that Paladino has a week to 10 days to prove he is a serious challenger to Democratic nominee Andrew Cuomo and expressed confidence he would adapt his campaign for the general election.

"But again, he has to realize — I think he will; he's a smart guy — that there's a difference between being an insurgent running in a primary and actually running for governor, being the governor of a state. You can still be a tough guy — look at Chris Christie in New Jersey. He's doing a tremendous job, but at the same time, he knows how to do it in a way that doesn't needlessly offend people."

California Republican Meg Whitman has set a new record for self-financing a campaign.

The former eBay CEO added another $15 million to her gubernatorial bid on Wednesday, bringing her total contribution to just over $119 million, according to the Sacramento Bee. 

Whitman has now outpaced the spending record set by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who burned through some $110 million of his own fortune winning a third term in 2009. 

Despite Whitman's investment, a recent CNN/Time poll conducted Sept. 2-7 showed Whitman leading Democrat Jerry Brown in November 48 percent to 46 percent, but that fell within the polls margin of error. 

Republicans are banking on Whitman’s massive outlay boosting their prospects in the Golden State's Senate and House races. 

"Governors' races drive turnout," Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who heads the Republican Governors Association (RGA), said during a recent trip to Washington. "Usually, governors’ races are better funded, and they take a lot of the responsibility in the ground game."

On the Senate side in California, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) is being challenged by Republican Carly Fiorina.

"There is a correlation between electing senators and electing governors," Barbour noted. "It is a very high likelihood that if we don’t elect a Republican governor in a state, that we will not pick up a Senate seat. That rarely happens; in the last 20 years, it’s rarely happened. Those two are tied together — a lot."

Matt Kibbe, the president of FreedomWorks, told reporters on Monday that Tea Party activists need to focus on policy after 2010.

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Republicans are confident their gubernatorial candidates in key battleground states will boost the party’s chances in Senate and House races.

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Former Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich won the GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday to set up a rematch with Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) in November.

Ehrlich crushed investor Brian Murphy by some 60 points. With only 20 precincts reporting, the Associated Press declared him the winner.

He lost to O’Malley in 2006.

Murphy gained notoriety when he was endorsed by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. But in a bizarre twist, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Monday endorsed Ehrlich, pitting the 2008 GOP presidential ticket on opposite sides in this primary.

The Maryland governor’s primary was one of the first in which McCain and Palin found themselves supporting opposing candidates. Palin endorsed McCain in his March for reelection. He handily won his August primary contest.

Murphy ran to the right of Ehrlich but wasn't able to gain traction.