Republicans tout new poll showing Pa. special election competitive

1. A poll conducted for the conservative American Action Network shows businessman Tim Burns (R) and former congressional aide Mark Critz (D) in a dead heat with less than a month remaining in their special election race in Pennsylvania’s 12th district.

Critz take 40 percent to 39 percent for Burns, according to the survey conducted by Republican pollster John McLaughlin and obtained by the Fix.

The closeness of the race, which is set for May 18, is attributable in large part to a difficult national environment for Democrats. Just 31 percent of those polled said President Barack Obama was doing either an excellent or good job while 68 percent rated him as doing a fair or poor job. Roughly one in four voters (26 percent) said things in the country are on the right track while 61 percent said the county was going in the wrong direction. Asked about the health care bill that passed Congress last month, 32 percent said they supported the bill while 57 percent opposed it.

“This poll confirmed that the citizens in this district — Republicans, Independents or Democrats — are sick of the runaway spending, the deficits and the Washington takeover of our economy,” said Rob Collins, president of the American Action Network, an outside conservative organization formed earlier this year by a handful of Republican party poobahs.
A few grains of salt are necessary. First, this is a poll sponsored by a group with clear conservative leanings. Second, while the district did vote for Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in 2008, there are twice as many registered Democrats as registered Republicans in the 12th. Third, the special election will be held on the same day as the 2010 primaries where Democrats have competitive Senate and governor’s races while Republicans have neither.

With that said, it’s clear that both national parties view the district, which was held by the late John Murtha (D) for more than three decades, as genuinely competitive. The National Republican Congressional Committee has spent more than $247,000 on ads in the district while the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has dropped $136,000 in independent expenditures.

Burns will be in Washington tonight to be feted by House Republican leaders including Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) and NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions (Texas). Critz will be the beneficiary of a D.C. fundraiser of his own tonight with Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (Pa.), Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.) among others.
Democrats have won the last five competitive special House elections. Given the favorable political climate, national Republicans almost certainly must win either the Pennsylvania race or the Hawaii special election, which will happen four days later, in order to preserve a sense of momentum heading into the fall campaign.
2. In the wake of former Gov. Tommy Thompson’s (R) announcement that he would not challenge Sen. Russ Feingold (D) this fall, most Republicans acknowledged privately that the race was likely lost.

But, according to an informed party source, there is an increasing likelihood that Ron Johnson, a wealthy CEO of a company based in Oshkosh, is leaning toward making a bid.
Johnson spoke at the same Madison, Wisc. Tea Party rally last week at which Thompson announced he wasn’t running; “A true conservative seeks office as an act of service and only when duty calls,” Johnson said that day. “I am hear to say ‘duty is calling'”.
Said one informed Wisconsin Republican of a Johnson candidacy: “If Ron Johnson gets in this race, and I think he will, we will have a candidate that will speak to Republicans, Tea Partiers and Independents like never before.”

Johnson would not have the primary race to himself, however. Wealthy developer Terrence Wall has been running for months and Dick Leinenkugel, a former Commerce Secretary in Gov. Jim Doyle’s (D) Administration, is also running.

And, Feingold is no easy mark. Not only has he compiled one of the most moderate voting records in the Senate, he is also sitting on $4.26 million in campaign cash.
Six years ago, Republicans nominated wealthy businessman Tim Michels but watched as Feingold cruised to an eleven-point victory in a difficult election cycle nationally for Democrats.

3. Six weeks before California voters head to the polls to choose Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D) Republican opponent, the American Future Fund, an Iowa-based conservative group, is spending $1 million on ads attacking former Rep. Tom Campbell’s (R) record on taxes.

“Campbell has a more than twenty-year record of higher taxes and spending,” says the ad’s narrator, who goes on to allege that while serving as the state’s director of finance Campbell “drove us deeper into debt with the largest spending increase in California history.”

In a statement on the ad, AFF President Sandy Greiner said that Campbell’s refusal to sign a “no new taxes” pledge was “disturbing”.
Polling suggests the June 8 primary is a two-person race between Campbell, who has run unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1992 and 1998, and former Hewlett Packard executive Carly Fiorina who is financing her campaign, at least in part, using her own checkbook. Conservative state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore has struggled to get much traction to date in the contest.

Republicans believe they may have an outside shot at beating Boxer this fall although California remains a strongly Democratic state.

ALSO READ: How major donors are trying to influence the 2011 redistricting process in California.

4. When Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) used his beat-up pickup truck to symbolize his average guy image in the Massachusetts Senate special election earlier this year, you knew it would spawn imitators.

The latest copycat is Rep. Jerry Moran (R), who in the first ad of his Senate bid in Kansas, is shown driving around the state — in some sort of sedan! — with nary a mention of the 14 years he has spent in Congress.

“If there’s a road in Kansas, chances are Jerry Moran’s been on it,” says the ad’s narrator. Later, the narrator says: “There are a lot of roads in Kansas, and Jerry has learned something from every one.”

Moran and Rep. Todd Tiahrt are running for the Republican nod on Aug. 3 for the seat being vacated by Sen. Sam Brownback (R) — the heavy favorite to be the Sunflower State’s next governor. Democrats have a very weak Senate field so whoever wins the GOP nod will be a strong frontrunner heading into the fall.

Moran actually isn’t the first aspiring 2010 candidate to borrow a page from the Scott Brown playbook. That would be Idaho House candidate Vaughn Ward (R) who ran ads featuring him driving around the state in a pickup of his own.

And, Brown, in truth, probably got the truck idea from former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson (R) who built his 1994 campaign around his own little red truck. Imitation in campaigns, as in life, is the sincerest form of flattery.

5. A new Gallup poll shows that 46 percent of registered voters believe President Obama deserves a second term while 50 percent said he does not, numbers strikingly similar to where President Bill Clinton stood at this time in 1994.

Not surprisingly, partisan of each political stripe are already strongly aligned in regards Obama’s re-election. Eighty four percent of Democrats said he deserves a second term while 88 percent of Republicans said he did not. A majority of independents, considered critical to both parties’ winning calculus this fall and in 2012, said Obama did not deserve re-election.
Those numbers mirror Clinton’s standing in March 1994 when 46 percent of adults said that Clinton deserved to win re-election in 1996 while 48 percent said he did not. Clinton’s re-election numbers took a dive as the year went on, bottoming out at 38 percent saying he deserved re-election in October. His party took an electoral beating one month later but Clinton went on to win a second term rather easily.

House Democrats are hoping that Obama’s political trajectory doesn’t mimic that of Clinton. Of course, there is an argument to be made — and we have made it — that Obama would be better positioned to win in 2012 if Democrats lose control of one of the two congressional chambers this fall.

ALSO CLICK: PPP shows former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney still leading in the 2012 Republican presidential horserace.

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