House and Senate Roundup: Oh, When the Fundraising Numbers Go Marchin' In

NM-Sen: Tom Udall raised $2.1 million in Q2.

No word yet on how much Steve Pearce raised, but I will say that between Udall's fundraising prowess, and his jaw-dropping polling leads, his campaign is looking more and more Warneresque every day.

Here's Udall's newest campaign ad:

KS-Sen: The local media, it appears, is taking Jim Slattery's campaign quite seriously, even floating the idea that Slattery could actually be Kansas' first Democratic Senator in John McCain's lifetime.

Kansas hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since the Great Depression.

Through 13 presidents and five wars, Republicans have held its two seats for 76 unbroken years — the longest streak in the nation.

But today’s political climate could weaken their grip.

"The Republican brand is really bad in many parts of the country, with Kansas being better than many, but still not good," said Scott Bensing, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "It’s not a top-tier race, but it’s one of those where, should Democrats come into a bunch of money, it’d be a race."

Democrats actually do have a bunch of money (at least, the DSCC certainly does). This is not a top-tier race right now, but it's instructive that even Republican operatives acknowledge the potential this has to be a solid flanking race, perhaps even an upset.

AK-Sen: Orange to Blue candidate Mark Begich is going up on the air, with a 60-second biographical ad and a 30-second ad on energy issues.

Here's the bio ad:

Note that Begich references transparency in finances, and "special favors for elected officials", without actually mentioning Ted Stevens' name. Nicely done.

TX-Sen: The Hill comments that despite a huge cash advantage, and sitting in a state that has been bright red of late, Big Bad John is actually vulnerable.

The Texas senator’s support has dipped below 50 percent in the most recent Rasmussen poll. Cornyn also lost an important ally last month when the Texas Medical Association rescinded its endorsement as punishment for his vote on Medicare legislation.

To be sure, Cornyn is not expected to lose his seat to state Rep. Rick Noriega (D). He’s a Republican from a red state, with double-digit polling leads and a wide fundraising advantage.

Yet Cornyn acknowledges winning a second term won’t be easy.

It's going to be awfully tough to beat Cornyn this cycle, as Rick Noriega's fundraising numbers have not been strong. But I'm pleased to see that Cornyn is at least a little concerned.

House Races

NC-08: Per the latest Public Policy Polling poll, Republican Robin Hayes leads Democrat Larry Kissell by seven points:

Hayes   (R) 43
Kissell   (D) 36
Hill       (L)  7

Weak reelect numbers for Hayes, as he's seven points under the magic 50% mark.

Fully 48% of the district has no opinion of Kissell. In addition, Kissell draws support, in this poll, from just 55% of black voters, a number we'd certainly expect to go up.

GA-12: With one week left until primary day in Georgia's 12th District, State Sen. Regina Thomas has raised a meager $45K in her challenge to incumbent Rep. John Barrow.

That being the case, Thomas is no doubt banking on a heavy black turnout (the district is 45% African-American) to unseat Barrow. Barrow, however, has been touting his support from Barack Obama, in order to try and neutralize this factor:

Barrow’s campaign has made much of Obama’s endorsement, and last month Obama cut a radio ad for the sophomore Congressman who endorsed his presidential primary bid back in February.

The reason for Barrow’s enthusiasm for Obama almost certainly has to do with the fact that 45 percent of his district is black, which means that half the primary electorate could be black. But it probably also means that the Congressman, who came fewer than 1,000 votes away from losing his seat to a Republican in 2006, believes his tougher challenge this cycle lies in the July 15 Democratic primary rather than the November general election.

Obama's support for the second-term Blue Dog is interesting, and a major coup for Barrow.  I hope that when he is in the Oval Office, Barrow and the other Blue Dogs will remember that he had their back when they needed it.

NY-25: Orange to Blue candidate Dan Maffei is pulling in plenty of cash, nearly $500K in Q2, and now sits on nearly a million dollars.

Maffei spent $918,000 on his losing effort in 2006, compared to more than $1.7 million for Walsh. This cycle, Maffei has already raised $1.3 million.

The leading Republican candidate in the Syracuse-area 25th district, former Onondaga Legislature Chairman Dale Sweetland, was not prepared to release his latest fundraising figures on Monday. This will be the first quarter that Sweetland has submitted an FEC report.

Unless Sweetland had a mammoth first quarter, he's in big, deep, wide, cavernous trouble.

NV-03: Jon Ralston reports (via Political Wire) that Dems have an increasing registration advantage in NV-03, which spells trouble fo Rep. Jon Porter.

"The Democrats now have a 55,560-voter lead over the Republicans in a state that was dead even a presidential cycle ago. But the numbers in NV-3 should be the most worrisome to the GOP, as Democrats now have a nearly 24,000-voter lead in a district that was even only two years ago. The slow-but-sure Democratic spread in that district means that Rep. Jon Porter will have to run a kitchen sink campaign against state Sen. Dina Titus to survive and will have to do so flawlessly, too."

LA-01: Well, the Democratic Party has quite nearly succeeded in fielding a credible candidate in all of Louisiana's districts, even the blood-red, R+18.1, Bush-got-71% LA-01.

Meet Jim Harlan, the Democratic challenger to freshman Steve Scalise.

"Pro-life, pro-gun, fiscally conservative" Democrat Jim Harlan announced his candidacy for Congress on YouTube on Independence Day, bringing a self-funding challenger to recently elected Republican Rep. Steve Scalise this fall.

Harlan, who was a registered independent until February, attended the Democratic Convention earlier this year for the district’s special election in March and decided to get involved.

Is he serious? Well, he's already committed to putting over $500,000 of his own money into the race:

Harlan made his money, according to Coon, building up factories across the country and internationally for a wide variety of technologies and businesses. He will report more than $500,000 to the Federal Elections Commission later this month, which is more than what incumbent Scalise reported in the first quarter.

The $500,000 is mostly Harlan’s personal wealth, Coon said, "but he hasn’t begun to raise the money he can."

Well, that sounds pretty serious to me. In addition, Harlan has already raised $70,000, over half of what the last candidate for this seat, Dr. Gilda Reed, raised for her special-election race against Scalise.

We can thank Dr. Reed, however, for draining Scalise's coffers; as of April 13 he had $126K in the bank (having raised and spent over a million dollars on the race), meaning he may actually start off in the whole against Harlan.

That doesn't mean Harlan can win here. Kerry got 28% in 2004, and Reed got 22.5% (to Scalise's 75%) in the April special election. Still, given the obviously decent resources of the Harlan campaign, there's every reason to expect a significant improvement in Democratic performance here.

At the very least, Scalise will have to raise and spend his own money to win his own race, rather than funnelling it to the cash-strapped NRCC.

Harlan should be the strongest candidate we've had in this district in recent memory, and his entry speaks to a shocking and thrilling revitalization in the Louisiana Democratic Party.

Many had abandoned hope for Democratic politics in the state after Hurricane Katrina, but since then, we have not only held a very strongly Republican seat in the Third District (Charlie Melancon's), but we have taken a solid Republican seat in the Sixth District (Don Cazayoux's), and are fielding serious candidates in the First District, Fourth District (where Paul Carmouche is running in an open-seat race), and Seventh District (where Don Cravins, Jr. will be taking on Charles Boustany).

If we can get a solid candidate against Rodney "Traitor" Alexander in the Fifth District, it will be a beautiful clean sweep in Louisiana.

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