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
* If you’ve ever wondered why state Sen. [tag]Tom Kean[\/tag] Jr. (R) continues to fare well in statewide polls for this year’s Senate race in New Jersey, pollsters at the Rutgers University-Eagleton Center for Public Information explain the problem: a lot of voters think he’s his [tag]father[\/tag]<\/a>. Among the participants in this week’s poll, 13% of New Jersey residents believed Kean Jr. was governor (he wasn’t; his father was), and 11% believed Kean Jr. was on the 9\/11 Commission (again, that was Sr. not Jr.).<\/p>\n * A polling consultant for the Democratic National Committee tested responses from nearly 500 African-American voters in Maryland found a disturbing trend: they’re open to supporting Senate candidate [tag]Michael Steele[\/tag] (R), who is also African American. The WaPo, which obtained the polling report<\/a> this week, explained that the 37-page report says a sizable segment of likely black voters — as much as 44% — would readily abandon their historic Democratic allegiances after hearing Steele’s messaging.<\/p>\n * In Colorado, a new Rasmussen poll<\/a> shows the gubernatorial race getting considerably closer of late. According to the latest data, former Denver District Attorney [tag]Bill Ritter[\/tag]’s (D) lead is slipping and he now leads Rep. [tag]Bob Beauprez[\/tag] (R) by the slimmest of margins, 41% to 40%. Ritter’s lead over former University of Denver President Marc Holtzman (R) is slightly better, 41% to 36%.<\/p>\n * A Democratic poll in Indiana’s closely-watched 9th congressional district offered the party some encouraging numbers. According to the poll, former Rep. [tag]Baron Hill[\/tag] (D) leads incumbent Rep. Mike Sodrel (R) by 10 points, 48% to 38%<\/a>. The race will be a rematch of one of 2004’s closest congressional races.<\/p>\n * Rep. [tag]Ernest Istook[\/tag] (R) appears to be a shoo-in<\/a> for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Oklahoma this year. A poll conducted by Wilson Research Strategies showed Istook with 57% support, nearly six times his next closest competitor, former state Energy Secretary Bob Sullivan (R). The winner will face Gov. [tag]Brad Henry[\/tag] (D), who leads all of his GOP rivals in recent polls.<\/p>\n * And in Tennessee, Republican efforts to recruit a challenger for Gov. [tag]Phil Bredesen[\/tag] (D) have gone very poorly, but yesterday, a candidate finally through his hat into the ring. State Sen. [tag]Jim Bryson[\/tag] (R) announced yesterday that he is running<\/a> for governor, though most political observers don’t expect him to fare well against the popular and well-funded incumbent. (via Taegan Goddard<\/a>)<\/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: * If you’ve ever wondered why state Sen. [tag]Tom Kean[\/tag] Jr. (R) continues to fare well in statewide polls for this year’s Senate race in New Jersey, pollsters at the Rutgers University-Eagleton Center […]<\/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-7070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7070","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=7070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}