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 Jersey’s closely-watched Senate race continues to go back and forth, and in the latest poll, it’s the Republican on the upswing. The latest Rasmussen poll<\/a> shows state Senator [tag]Tom Kean[\/tag] Jr. (R) leading Sen. [tag]Bob Menendez[\/tag] (D), 44% to 39%. Unfortunately, however, a considerable part of the state still seems confused<\/a> about the difference between Tom Kean Jr. and Tom Kean Sr.<\/p>\n * In Oklahoma, incumbent Gov. [tag]Brad Henry[\/tag] (D) appears to be well on his way to winning a second term fairly easily. The latest Rasmussen poll<\/a> shows Henry leading Rep. [tag]Ernest Istook[\/tag], the GOP nominee, by more than 20 points, 54% to 33%. Since May, Henry has increased his lead by 10 points. He also enjoys surprisingly strong support from Republican voters, 27% of whom plan to vote for him.<\/p>\n * NBC’s Meet the Press has arranged for a series of Senate debates leading up to the election, starting four days ago with a Santorum-Casey discussion. Tennessee’s candidates — Rep. [tag]Harold Ford[\/tag] (D) and Bo[tag]b Corker[\/tag] (R) — are scheduled to appear on Oct. 22, but as of now, Corker’s campaign refuses to say<\/a> whether the GOP candidate will show up.<\/p>\n * In Rhode Island’s other big race, the gubernatorial contest appears to be shifting towards the Democratic challenger. In the latest Rasmussen poll<\/a>, Lt. Governor [tag]Charles Fogarty[\/tag] (D) has jumped ahead of leads incumbent Gov. [tag]Donald Carcieri[\/tag] (R), 46% to 41%. A month ago, the two were tied at 43%.<\/p>\n * And in the Sunshine State, the Orlando Sentinel reports today that the Florida Republican Party sent out congratulatory emails to winners of the statewide races. Rep. [tag]Katherine Harris[\/tag] (R), the winner of the GOP Senate primary, didn’t get one<\/a>. (via Taegan 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: * New Jersey’s closely-watched Senate race continues to go back and forth, and in the latest poll, it’s the Republican on the upswing. The latest Rasmussen poll shows state Senator [tag]Tom Kean[\/tag] Jr. […]<\/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-8399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8399","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=8399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}