An internal poll from the campaign of Rep. Larry Kissell (D-N.C.) appears to actually offer some good news for a Democrat in a competitive district this fall. The poll gives Kissell a 17-point lead over Republican challenger Harold Johnson.
The numbers come from Kissell's pollster, Anzalone Liszt Research, and have him at 49 percent of the vote to Johnson's 32 percent. Third-party candidate Thomas Hill is polling at 7 percent.
The Kissell campaign is taking the internal numbers as welcome news, given that election handicapper Charlie Cook rates the district a "toss-up" ahead of November.
Johnson endured a nasty GOP primary earlier this spring, and North Carolina's 8th district was notably absent from the list of districts the National Republican Congressional Committee reserved TV time in earlier this month.
The 2010 playing field of competitive House races is rapidly expanding, Rep. Kevin McCarthy argued Thursday, saying there are increasing signs that Democrats are in "panic mode" about their party's prospects in November.
On a conference call with reporters, the California Republican said recent polling favoring Republicans in districts that many Democrats didn't expect to be competitive this cycle has Democratic incumbents running scared.
"Races that people never thought would be in play, will be in play now," McCarthy said.
The result, he argued, is "panic mode inside the Democratic Party from the incumbents themselves."
McCarthy, who heads up recruiting for the National Republican Congressional Committee, is fresh off a campaign swing through nine House districts last week. He predicted Republicans would be competitive in all of them this fall.
He talked up Republican challengers to Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) and candidates in open-seat races in Tennessee and Kansas. In recent days, Republicans have touted internal polling in districts that earlier this cycle were considered a stretch for the party.
The campaigns of Francisco Canseco (R), who is challenging Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D-Texas), and Bobby Schilling, who is running against Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.), both claim internals that have their candidate leading.
Party strategists argue that if Republicans can pick off incumbents like that this November, it could mean a very large GOP wave.
Democrats are dismissing such claims as Republican hubris and expressing confidence that they will retain the majority in the House this November, at least publicly.
DCCC press secretary Ryan Rudominer fired back Thursday, "The only one in panic mode is Kevin McCarthy who is worried about ginning up enough attention for his self serving book. The bottomline is that the NRCC now faces some tough decisions about which of their many candidates with anemic fundraising can’t cut it and have to be abandoned."
Rudominer said voters will have clear choice in November and predicted voters will "reject Republicans’ agenda of unpaid tax cuts for the wealthy that add billions to the deficit, privatizing Social Security and Medicare, removing the new checks on Wall Street, and tax breaks for companies that ship American jobs overseas."
DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has repeated the mantra in recent days that the party will not lose its majority and has aggressively gone after Republicans on jobs and economic policy.
The Democrat vying to succeed retiring Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) released her first TV ad of the campaign Thursday, which focuses on her would-be Congressional paycheck.
In the 30-second ad, state Sen. Julie Lassa (D) says she’ll fight to cut Congress’s pay by 10 percent until they lower unemployment. She doesn’t say by how much unemployment should be lowered.
She also says she won’t accept a pay raise until the budget is balanced (members automatically receive pay raises unless they vote to freeze the increase, as they recently did for 2010-11).
According to the Lassa camp, it's a major buy that will be seen by a "majority" of voters in the seventh district. It's airing on broadcast and was produced by Tom King and Murphy Putnam.
The National Republican Congressional Committee was quick to claim that Lassa accepted a pay increase during her time in the state Legislature.
"In the state Senate, Lassa accepted a taxpayer-funded raise when 60,000 Wisconsinites lost their jobs," Tom Erickson, an NRCC spokesman, said in a statement. "If Lassa would take a bonus while thousands of Badger Staters were given pink slips, how can Wisconsin families trust this career politician to stand up for them?"
The Lassa camp disputed the claim, saying that she returned the salary increase.
"While Julie Lassa is voluntarily giving back 3 percent of her salary to taxpayers, Sean Duffy has consistently received taxpayer funded pay raises in his seven years in office," Haley Morris, a spokeswoman for Lassa, said in a statement.
Lassa, who's already been hit by TV ads by outside groups, faces Republican Sean Duffy in November.
--Updated at 12:13 p.m. and 1:33 p.m. and 8:18 p.m.
A major union this week waded into the grudge match brewing in Michigan's seventh district between Rep. Mark Schauer (D) and his 2008 foe, Tim Walberg.
The freshman Democrat took the seat from Walberg last cycle after the Republican had held it for a single term. Walberg is now running to get it back, but Schauer's labor allies are closing ranks around him.
The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees spent $750,000 on a TV ad called "Burned Dignity" that went up on Monday in the Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek media markets.
The ad notes that Walberg skipped the vote on the auto industry bailout but "sided with big oil and hedge funds — gave them tax loopholes."
"Haven't we been burned badly enough?," the announcer says in the spot.
In 2008, Schauer beat Walberg by about 7,500 votes.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) will stump for former Philadelphia Eagle Jon Runyan (R) at an Ocean County barbecue in September.
It's the kind of move Republicans had been hoping for from the popular governor. Christie beat former Gov. Jon Corzine (D) 56 to 39 percent in 2009 in Rep. John Adler's (D) district. Runyan is vying to unseat the freshman Democrat in November.
A recent poll showed Christie with a 51 percent approval rating — higher than President Obama in Democrat-leaning New Jersey. Christie gets a 75 to 13 percent thumbs up from Republicans and a 61 to 29 percent approval/disapproval from independents, according to the recent Quinnipiac University poll.
But his approval rating could drop before the Sept. 5 event with Runyan. Christie acknowledged Wednesday that a clerical error blew the state's chance at winning $400 million in federal money for schools.
Freshman Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.) will face dentist Paul Gosar (R) in November.
Gosar had been the frontrunner to clinch the nomination after receiving endorsements from several prominent conservatives. He got the backing of Sarah Palin, and in Arizona, he received support from sheriffs Joe Arpaio and Paul Babeu, who also endorsed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
But mining lobbyist Sydney Hay, who was the 2008 GOP nominee, had more cash on hand in the final stretch of the race. Hay reported $111,000 banked in her last campaign finance report, compared to only $41,000 for Gosar.
Still, Gosar was able to capture 31 percent of the vote; Hay took 23 percent. The rest of the 10-person field, which also included cardiologist Steve Mehta, who was endorsed by the Arizona Republic, former state Senate Majority Leader Rusty Bowers and attorney Bradley Beauchamp, split the remainder of the vote.
The Associated Press declared Gosar the winner with the majority of precincts reporting.
State Rep. Sandy Adams leads the GOP primary in Florida's 24th Congressional District by the slimmest of margins and is the likely winner, although the race has not been officially called.
The winner will face Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-Fla.) in November.
Adams leads by just over 500 votes with 99 percent of precincts reporting. She has 30 percent of the vote to Karen Diebel's 29 percent.
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is already touting Adams as the victor, calling her "a reliable fiscal conservative and expert on law enforcement issues" in an e-mail.
The primary was a nasty affair that featured frequent attacks and accusations of mental instability against one of the leading candidates. Businessman Craig Miller and Winter Park City Commissioner Karen Diebel sparred throughout the race.
Diebel had the backing of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, but Miller, the former CEO of Ruth's Chris Steak House, poured plenty of his own money into the race.
In the final days before Tuesday's primary, Miller unleashed a mailer that attacked Diebel as "unstable," citing a call to police to report a snake in her pool. Diebel reportedly suggested it might have been placed there by political opponents.
The battle between Diebel and Miller appears to have created the opening for Adams, who ran largely on her support for an Arizona-style immigration law for Florida.
Republicans are convinced Kosmas is vulnerable given her vote in favor of the healthcare reform bill, and the NRCC is already tying her to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
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