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
* Texas’ bizarre, four-way gubernatorial race is still wide open, with the incumbent in the lead but below the 40% threshold, and three candidates bunched together in second. According to the latest Rasmussen poll<\/a>, Gov. [tag]Rick Perry[\/tag] (R) is ahead with 38% support, which is down slightly from last month. Entertainer [tag]Kinky Friedman[\/tag] (I) is second with 20%, followed by State Comptroller [tag]Carole Keeton Strayhorn[\/tag] (I) at 19%, and former Rep. [tag]Chris Bell[\/tag] (D) at 14%.<\/p>\n * The latest SurveyUSA poll<\/a> in Ohio offers encouraging news for Dems in the state’s two big statewide races. The results show Rep. [tag]Ted Strickland[\/tag] (D) with a big lead over Ohio Secretary of State [tag]Ken Blackwell[\/tag] (R) in the gubernatorial race, 53% to 37%, and Rep. [tag]Sherrod Brown[\/tag] (D) ahead of incumbent Sen. [tag]Mike DeWine[\/tag] (R), 48% to 39%.<\/p>\n * In Rhode Island, Gov. [tag]Donald Carcieri[\/tag] (R) has fallen behind his Dem challenger, Lt. Gov. [tag]Charles Fogarty[\/tag] (D), in the latest Rasmussen poll<\/a>. With five months to go, Fogarty now leads Carcieri, 41% to 40%.<\/p>\n * For nearly a decade, Republicans have targeted Rep. [tag]Dennis Moore[\/tag] (D-Kan.), who represents a district Bush won by 10 points in 2004, and every year they come up short. In 2006, it looks the GOP won’t even try very hard. Roll Call noted<\/a> this week that the NRCC is tired of failing in Kansas’ 3rd, so the committee will likely save resources for more competitive districts. As Roll Call reported, “A national GOP operative said unless a strong challenger emerges, the party has higher priorities. The ball is in the court of the local Republican Party to bolster the Republicans who are running, the operative said.”<\/p>\n * And in Connecticut’s always-fascinating Dem Senate primary, [tag]Joe Lieberman[\/tag] has a new TV ad<\/a> out today. Atrios called it “hilariously awful<\/a>,” but after having seen it, I think it may be even worse than that. (Keep in mind, if you watch it, that former Gov. [tag]Lowell Weicker[\/tag] recently had knee replacement surgery.)<\/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: * Texas’ bizarre, four-way gubernatorial race is still wide open, with the incumbent in the lead but below the 40% threshold, and three candidates bunched together in second. According to the latest Rasmussen […]<\/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-7705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7705","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=7705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}