Campaign Diaries

Whatever chances Ted Stevens has of winning re-election involve him being acquitted this fall - but considering that he already faced a tough re-election battle before his indictment, even that would hardly be enough to allow him to come back in the 111th Congress. Assuming Stevens wins the primary on August 26th (and the latest polling suggests that he will), he will face a tough two months joggling his court dates and his campaigning duties.

The road ahead just got much tougher for Stevens, as a D.C. judge refused today to move his trial from Washington to Alaska, as Stevens had requested. This means that Stevens is now stuck in D.C. from mid-September onward, and while the trial is scheduled to be completed by Election Day, this leaves little time for Stevens to engage in any campaigning activities. His plan was to move the trial to Alaska to be able to hold events in evenings and on week-ends. Now, Mark Begich will essentially have the state for himself in the weeks leading up to the election, and the only headlines Stevens is likely to earn in the local press will be those devoted to his trial.

The GOP has already sank so low in Alaska that it might as well take this as good news: Anything that might convince Stevens that he is waging a losing battle and that would be better off dropping off the ballot (thus allowing state Republicans to replace him) is welcome news to a desperate Republican Party. Of course, it is unclear which GOPer could serve as a savior and replace Stevens on the ballot, but any mid-level Republican could be a better option than an indicted Stevens stuck in DC because of a corruption trial.

Meanwhile, it was primary day yesterday in Wyoming and Washington, and voters in both states set the general election field. The only contested primary was held in WY-AL, where Republican voters chose former state treasurer Cynthia Lummis over a self-funding rancher, Mike Gordon. Lummis will now face off against Democrat Gary Trauner, a Democrat who came close to defeating Rep. Cubin two years ago. In late May, an independent poll had Trauner narrowly ahead of Lummis, 44% to 41%. It would of course be a huge upset if Trauner were to prevail in one of the most Republican seats in the country, but the 2006 results combined with this May poll show that it is very much a possibility. It is unclear how Lummis will fare compared to Gordon; that she is more conservative should not necessarily hurt her chances in Wyoming, and this is not an expensive enough state for Gordon’s self-funding to be that much of a boost.

Meanwhile, Senate polling finds great news for a trio of Democratic women:

• In the North Carolina Senate race (polling history), Insider Advantage finds a tie between Elizabeth Dole and Kay Hagan, both at 40%! The poll pits the black vote as 21% of the sample - slightly higher than 2004 - but Hagan only gets 61% of those voters.

• In the Louisiana Senate race, Rasmussen has Mary Landrieu jumping to her biggest lead yet: 53% to 37% - compared to a 5% margin last month.

• In the New Hampshire Senate race, Rasmussen finds Jeanne Shaheen expanding her lead against Republican Senator John Sununu, back to where it was in June. She is now up 51% to 40% (52% to 43% with leaners) compared to her 5% lead in July.

• In SUSA’s poll from the Indiana gubernatorial race, Mitch Daniels has opened a large lead against Jill Long Thompson, 52% to 38%.

• In New Jersey’s Senate race, a new Zogby poll has Frank Lautenberg leading 50% to 32%.

• In the South Dakota Senate race, a Democratic poll has Tim Johnson crushing his Republican challenger, 61% to 34%.

• In the Missouri gubernatorial race, it’s 48% for Nixon and 42% for Hulshof in PPP’s poll, compared to a 10% race last month, before the GOP primary.

• In NE-02, a race that is on few people’s radar, an internal poll conducted for the Democratic challenger has him trailing Republican incumbent Lee Terry 47% to 38%.

• And still a tight race in the AK-AL primary, as a Club for Growth poll shows Steve Parnell at 44% to 42% for Rep. Don Young.

Remember that if Obama picks Evan Bayh, the winner of the Indiana gubernatorial race will appoint Bayh’s successor - at this point that would mean the GOP would be looking at gaining a seat. In other words, the Daniels-Long Thompson match-up could soon become a de facto Senate race, and one that does not look too good for Democrats at the moment. A race that looks better, certainly, is Louisiana’s, where Kennedy has not yet been able to justify the hopes Republicans have put in him. LA is rated a toss-up in my latest Senate rankings, but Landrieu’s harsh attack ads appear to be working.

The numbers from the New Hampshire race, meanwhile, are very important as the last two polls (from UNH and Rasmussen) had found an unexpectedly tightening race. Sununu has a large war-chest that he is reserving for a post-Labor Day ad blitz, though that could be blunted by Shaheen’s own financial success and the DSCC’s commitment to putting this race away as soon as possible. The bigger Shaheen’s cushion heading into the fall, the less she will have to fear from Sununu’s ads.

As for the North Carolina Senate race, this is the second poll that finds Dole losing ground, and an incumbent at 40% is sure to be in trouble - whatever the circumstances, whatever the state. The last time Hagan got this close to Dole was in May, before the incumbent unleashed a wave of advertisments that gave her a solid lead once again. Since then, Kay Hagan has gone up on air, the DSCC has aired two advertisments, reserved $6 million of ad time for the fall and even MoveOn has gotten involved with a substantial ad buy that starts airing this week. North Carolina is looking increasingly certain to feature one of the year’s hottest Senate races.