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 very-competitive open Senate race in Minnesota, Hennepin County Attorney [tag]Amy Klobuchar[\/tag] (D) has enjoyed small-but-consistent leads over Rep. [tag]Mark Kennedy[\/tag] (R) for months, but now it appears Klobuchar is hitting her stride. A new poll<\/a> from the Minneapolis Star Tribune shows Klobuchar ahead by a surprising 19-point margin, 50% to 31%. The poll follows similarly encouraging news last week about Klobuchar leading Kennedy in fundraising.<\/p>\n * Speaking of Minnesota, the Star Tribune poll<\/a> shows the state’s gubernatorial race far closer that its Senate race. According to the new poll, Gov. [tag]Tim Pawlenty[\/tag] (R) leads state Attorney General [tag]Mike Hatch[\/tag] (D) by a very narrow margin, 43% to 41%.<\/p>\n * A new Mason-Dixon poll<\/a> conducted for the Denver Post shows [tag]Bill Ritter[\/tag] leading Colorado’s gubernatorial race over Rep. [tag]Bob Beauprez[\/tag] (R), 42% to 35%. The seven-point margin is a slight improvement on Ritter’s six-point lead in a February poll from the same firm. The latest Rasmussen poll<\/a> shows a similar result, with Ritter leading Beauprez, 43% to 38%.<\/p>\n * A new poll<\/a> from the Baltimore Sun shows Baltimore Mayor [tag]Martin O’Malley[\/tag] (D) continuing to lead Maryland’s gubernatorial race over incumbent Gov. [tag]Robert Ehrlich[\/tag] (R), 46% to 38%.<\/p>\n * And speaking of Maryland, the same Sun poll<\/a> shows the Dems’ Senate primary is still too close to call, with Rep. [tag]Ben Cardin[\/tag] enjoying a slim 32% to 28% lead over former Rep. [tag]Kweisi Mfume[\/tag], though undecideds (36%) beat them both. As with previous polls, however, Cardin seems to fare better against GOP candidate [tag]Michael Steele[\/tag], whom Cardin leads 47%to 36% in a hypothetical general-election match-up, while Mfume leads Steele, 42% to 40%.<\/p>\n * In New Jersey, a new Quinnipiac poll<\/a> shows state Sen. [tag]Tom Kean[\/tag] Jr. (R) leading Sen. [tag]Bob Menendez[\/tag] (D) in the state’s closely-watched Senate race, but not by much — 40% to 38%. A new Monmouth University\/Gannett New Jersey poll<\/a>, however, shows Menendez ahead, 38% to 37%. (via Teagan 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: * In the very-competitive open Senate race in Minnesota, Hennepin County Attorney [tag]Amy Klobuchar[\/tag] (D) has enjoyed small-but-consistent leads over Rep. [tag]Mark Kennedy[\/tag] (R) for months, but now it appears Klobuchar is hitting […]<\/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-7949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7949","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=7949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}