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 Tennessee, Gov. [tag]Phil Bredesen[\/tag] (D) is cruising to a second term, enjoying a 33-point lead over Republican state Sen. [tag]Jim Bryson[\/tag] in a new Mason-Dixon poll<\/a> conducted for the Chattanooga Times Free Press. According to the poll Bredesen has built on earlier leads and is now ahead, 57% to 24%. Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon, said Bredesen “seems to be in pretty good shape” in his bid for a second four-year term. (thanks to reader S.T. for the tip)<\/p>\n * Speaking of Tennessee, the same Mason-Dixon poll<\/a> shows former Chattanooga Mayor [tag]Bob Corker[\/tag] (R) well ahead of his Senate primary rivals, with just a week to go before Republicans pick their candidate. Corker now leads with 39% support, followed by former Rep. [tag]Ed Bryant[\/tag] at 23% and former Rep. [tag]Van Hilleary[\/tag] at 22%. More importantly, Corker leads Rep. [tag]Harold Ford[\/tag] Jr. (D) in a hypothetical general-election match-up, 49% to 36%.<\/p>\n * In Alaska, Gov. [tag]Frank Murkowski[\/tag] (R) appears to be in big trouble in the state’s GOP primary, with the latest Anchorage Daily News poll<\/a> showing the incumbent trailing two<\/em> Republican rivals. [tag]Sarah Palin[\/tag] now leads the primary race with 36% support, followed by [tag]John Binkley[\/tag] at 23%, and Gov. Murkowski picking up the rear with 20%. On the other side of the aisle, former Gov. [tag]Tony Knowles[\/tag] (D) has a primary opponent, but the race is not competitive.<\/p>\n * California Gov. [tag]Arnold Schwarzenegger[\/tag] (R) has surged ahead in his re-election campaign, according to a new Field Poll<\/a>. After running even with [tag]Phil Angelides[\/tag] (D) in recent weeks, the new poll shows the incumbent ahead by eight, 45% to 37%. As the Sacramento Bee noted, more voters believe “California is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction for the first time in 22 months,” which no doubt benefits Schwarzenegger. (via Taegan Goddard<\/a>)<\/p>\n * In Texas, the latest Rasmussen poll<\/a> shows Sen. [tag]Kay Bailey Hutchison[\/tag] (R) building on earlier leads and is now ahead of [tag]Barbara Ann Radnofsky[\/tag] (D), 58% to 31%. Last month’s Rasmussen poll showed Hutchison leading, 53% to 34%.<\/p>\n * Former Republican Rep. [tag]Pete McCloskey[\/tag], who’s always been something of a maverick, recently took on Rep. [tag]Richard Pombo[\/tag] in a GOP primary in California, but came up well short. Now, however, the progressive Republican is poised to begin campaigning for Pombo’s Democratic opponent<\/a>, wind engineer [tag]Jerry McNerney[\/tag]. McNerney is “an honorable man that has not and will not seek to enrich himself and his family through his office,” McCloskey told the AP. McCloskey also said he’d like to see his party lose its majority in the House.<\/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 Tennessee, Gov. [tag]Phil Bredesen[\/tag] (D) is cruising to a second term, enjoying a 33-point lead over Republican state Sen. [tag]Jim Bryson[\/tag] in a new Mason-Dixon poll conducted for the Chattanooga Times […]<\/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-8024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8024","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=8024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8024\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}