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
* New Mexico Republicans may have switched <\/a>their gubernatorial candidate recently, but the latest Rasmussen poll<\/a> shows it may not make much of a difference. Gov. [tag]Bill Richardson[\/tag] (D) enjoys a big lead over former GOP party chairman [tag]John Dendahl[\/tag] (R), 56% to 32%. At this point, nearly one-in-three New Mexico Republicans (30%) say they plan to vote for Richardson.<\/p>\n * Speaking of New Mexico, Sen. [tag]Jeff Bingaman[\/tag] (D) also appears to be in a strong position to win re-election. In the same Rasmussen poll<\/a>, Bingaman leads [tag]Allen McCullough[\/tag] (R), 59% to 33%. Overall, 65% of New Mexicans approve of Bingaman’s job performance.<\/p>\n * Sen. [tag]Richard Lugar[\/tag] (R) will not face even token Democratic opposition this year, assuring the five-term incumbent will win re-election in November. The state Democratic Party chair said Lugar “is just too popular to challenge<\/a>.” Reports surfaced a year ago that former Rep. Tim Roemer (D) was interested in the race, but he withdrew from consideration shortly thereafter. (via Teagan Goddard<\/a>)<\/p>\n * National Journal reports<\/a> this morning that the DNC is slated to begin a Spanish-language radio ad campaign today, criticizing the Republican Party for its “inaction” on immigration reform. In the spot, entitled “Border Security,” Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), a 26-year Border Patrol veteran, calls on Republicans to stop blocking Dem efforts to improve border security. The ads are intended to coincide with the House GOP’s series of “hearings” on the issue.<\/p>\n * And in 2008 news, Sen. [tag]Joe Biden[\/tag] (D-Del.) announced this week that he will spend 15 days in Iowa<\/a> this August to generate support for his presidential campaign. Biden, at this point, is the least shy of the 2008 contenders about his intentions — at a parade in New Hampshire yesterday, the senator said, “I’m Joe Biden, one of 400 people running for president<\/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: * New Mexico Republicans may have switched their gubernatorial candidate recently, but the latest Rasmussen poll shows it may not make much of a difference. Gov. [tag]Bill Richardson[\/tag] (D) enjoys a big lead […]<\/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-7853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7853","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=7853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}