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
* In the race to take on Gov. [tag]Arnold Schwarzenegger [\/tag](R) in California, a Los Angeles Times poll shows two Dems practically tied<\/a>, but with state Treasurer [tag]Phil Angelides [\/tag]making recent strides. According to the poll, Angelides now leads state Controller [tag]Steve Westly[\/tag], 37% to 34%, with 28% undecided. In a Times survey last month, however, Westly led Angelides, 33% to 20%. As for the general election, Westly enjoys a more substantial lead over Schwarzenegger, 50% to 40%, while Angelides was almost tied with the governor, 46% to Schwarzenegger’s 45%. The Dem primary is a week from tomorrow.<\/p>\n * In Montana, Sen. [tag]Conrad Burns [\/tag](R), burdened by a deep ties to the Jack Abramoff scandal, is slipping in his re-election bid. The latest Mason-Dixon poll<\/a> shows Burns trailing both state Senate President[tag] Jon Tester [\/tag](D) and state Auditor [tag]John Morrison[\/tag] (D). The same poll shows Burns’ approval rating slipping to just 38%. As for the Dem primary, Mason-Dixon showed Tester and Morrison effectively tied, with Morrison leading by one point, 42% to 41%.<\/p>\n * New York Attorney General [tag]Eliot Spitzer [\/tag](D) is a strong favorite to win the state’s gubernatorial race anyway, but that seems even more likely in a three-way race<\/a> in which both Republican candidates appear on the ballot. Former state Assembly leader [tag]John Faso[\/tag] and former Massachusetts governor [tag]Bill Weld[\/tag] are vying for the GOP nomination, but Faso will also appear on the ballot as the Conservative Party’s nominee, while Weld has won the nod from the state’s Libertarian Party. The WaPo reported that spokesmen for the two potential GOP nominees “said they would run on the third-party line regardless of what happens in the GOP primary.”<\/p>\n * New Jersey’s Senate race between Sen. [tag]Bob Menendez[\/tag] (D) and state Sen. [tag]Tom Kean[\/tag] Jr. (R) has been going back and forth for a while now, and the latest Rasmussen poll<\/a> shows the race edging back towards the challenger. Rasmussen now shows Kean edging ahead in the race, 40% to 37%. Kean’s three-point lead is a drop from a Rasmussen poll from April, while showed Kean up by seven.<\/p>\n * And in California, we’re only eight days before voters pick Duke Cunningham’s replacement in the state’s 50th congressional district — and Republicans are very nervous. [tag]Francine Busby [\/tag](D) is still looking strong against former Rep. [tag]Brian Bilbray[\/tag] (R), and it’s reached a point in which GOP House staffers are being urged to volunteer and travel to California<\/a> to help former Bilbray in the last week of the campaign. For that matter, the NRCC is quietly telling GOP House members to prepare for a possible loss<\/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: * In the race to take on Gov. [tag]Arnold Schwarzenegger [\/tag](R) in California, a Los Angeles Times poll shows two Dems practically tied, but with state Treasurer [tag]Phil Angelides [\/tag]making recent strides. According […]<\/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-7544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7544","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=7544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}