Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:<\/p>\n
* State Sen. John Campbell (R-Calif.) was elected to the House<\/a> yesterday in a special election held to replace now-SEC Chair Chris Cox. Campbell won with 45%, ahead of Democrat Steve Young who finished in the very conservative district with 28%. Anti-immigration activist Jim Gilchrist (I) finished third with 25%.<\/p>\n * Voters also went to the polls yesterday in Spokane, Wash., and voted to remove<\/a> Mayor James West (R) from office. West’s career was ruined by revelations that he used a city computer to woo gay men over the Internet. He was a far-right lawmaker in the state Legislature for over 20 years, where he voted against gay-friendly bills. Based on early results, the recall vote passed by a nearly two-to-one margin.<\/p>\n * Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) response to Hurricane Rita seems to have given him a political boost. In a new Texas Poll<\/a>, Perry’s once-low job-approval rating climbed 10 points to 49%. Looking ahead to next year’s GOP gubernatorial primary, Perry leads Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn 55% to 24%.<\/p>\n * Speaking of Texas’ gubernatorial race, the same Texas Poll showed Perry well ahead<\/a> of former Rep. Chris Bell (D) and independent Kinky Friedman in a hypothetical three-way match-up. The poll showed Perry with 46%, Bell with 25%, and Friedman at 13%. The Bell campaign had a pretty good spin on the fact that Perry’s support was under 50% and his lead over Bell was 21 points: “The last Democrat to be polling this strong 11 months out was Ann Richards, and we ended up calling her ‘governor,'” Bell spokesman Jason Stanford said.<\/p>\n * In Washington, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D) continues to look pretty strong<\/a> in advance of her first re-election fight. A new poll from Strategic Vision, a Republican firm, shows Cantwell leading Mike McGavick (R), 50% to 39%, and is ahead of Susan Hutchinson (R), 53% to 35%. Some recent polls have shown Cantwell below the 50% mark.<\/p>\n * And in Indiana, a new poll from Cooper & Secrest, a Dem polling firm, shows Rep. Chris Chocola (R) with a surprisingly small lead<\/a> over businessman Joe Donnelly (D), in advance of next year’s race. According to the poll, Chocola, a two-term incumbent, leads Donnelly 46% to 40%. Chocola probably wasn’t helped by his admission this year that he’s anxious to privatize<\/a> the entire Social Security system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * State Sen. John Campbell (R-Calif.) was elected to the House yesterday in a special election held to replace now-SEC Chair Chris Cox. Campbell won with 45%, ahead of Democrat Steve Young who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}