Weird. That’s not something I would have expected. Gallup’s numbers usually aren’t that friendly to Dems, on the spectrum of national polls (not a scientific study, just my experience of recent cycles). But Gallup’s state by state numbers are out on several big senate races. And they show little or none of the tightening you see in the Mason-Dixon numbers.
Let’s do a quick run-down.
MO McCaskill (D) 49%, Talent (R) 45%
MT Tester (D) 50%, Burns (R) 41%
NJ Menendez (D) 50%, Kean (R) 40%
RI Whitehouse (D) 48%, Chafee (R) 45%
TN Corker (R) 49%, Ford (D) 46%
VA Allen (R) 49%, Webb (D) 46%
The only number that really jumps out to me as an outlier is Montana. All the polls I’ve seen have shown Burns at least gaining on Tester. So a ten point margin sticks out like sore thumb. The other numbers, while friendlier to the Dems, aren’t so far off what we’ve seen. Tight in Missouri. A lead for Menendez. Close in the other states.
The Menendez lead is bigger than other polls, I think. But New Jersey’s a Democratic state. So this sort of reverting to form would make a certain sense.
We’ll soon see.
Pollster.com has a good macro-summary of the what the different congressional generic polls are showing.
It now appears that isolated reports of the NRCC’s robocall tactics began emerging a week or so ago, but the reports were sporadic, and it didn’t become apparent that the repeat phone calls were part of a coordinated national campaign until over the weekend.
One of the earliest accounts came in an Illinois newspaper article from November 1:
Rozanne Ronen, a Barrington resident, got the call — “Hi. I’m calling with information about Melissa Bean …”
Then she got the call again and again and 18 more times, making for a total of about 21 calls since October 24.
“They are very annoying,” Ronen said.
Pat Vockeroth, of Mount Prospect, received the calls too — “Hi. I’m calling with information about Tammy Duckworth …”
“If you only listen to the first sentence, you think they are from the Duckworth campaign,” she said.
But the calls aren’t paid for by Bean, Duckworth or even the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, they are paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee.
The NRCC acknowledged that it was the source of those Illinois calls but suggested a contractor was to blame for the repeat calls:
Jonathan Collegio, NRCC spokesman, acknowledged that the NRCC has paid for series of robocalls in the 6th and 8th districts, saying phone banking are part of any modern campaign.
“Phone banking is used by campaigns of all stripes and all these calls are made between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m.,” he said.
Asked about the repetitive nature of the calls, Collegio said that may be a problem with the contractor.
“Because these calls are done by computers, it could be some kind of a glitch. This is all a matter of voter contact where we are trying to make sure people are aware of the upcoming election and make sure they vote the right way,” he said.
Given that harrassing repeat calls have been reported in congressional districts around the country, it is unlikely that this is merely a contractor’s “glitch.” But the repeat nature of the calls was not immediately recognized as part of the NRCC’s national robocall campaign. For instance, an AP report on the NRCC campaign which also appeared on November 1 focused on the fact that the calls had a tendency to mislead voters into thinking they came from the Democratic candidate, but made no mention of the fact that calls were being repeated multiple times in order to harrass voters and leave them with a negative impression of the Democratic candidate.
The NRCC robocall campaign thus flew under the radar exactly as intended.
We’ll have more on this and other voter suppression tactics throughout the day.
Reports out of New Hampshire suggest the NRCC has stopped its deceptive robocalls there after intervention by the state Attorney General, but confusion remains about what exactly the NRCC has agreed to, and it appears at least some calls are continuing.
From the Union-Leader:
A national Republican group yesterday scuttled a pre-recorded phone call effort the state Attorney General’s Office said may have violated New Hampshire law by contacting residents listed on the federal Do Not Call registry.
The National Republican Congressional Committee voluntarily agreed yesterday afternoon to stop making automated calls to homes on the registry, said Deputy Attorney General Bud Fitch, who oversees election law.
. . .
Fitch said the agreement with the RNCC came after a conversation about 2 p.m. yesterday between the Attorney General’s Office and the general counsel for the Washington-based RNCC.
The state continue to investigate, with no decision on whether to pursue civil action, Fitch said.
Rather than a complete halt to the robocalls, the NRCC seems to have agreed to stop making prerecorded calls to voters on the national No Call List. Federal law permits political advocacy calls to phone numbers on the No Call List on First Amendment grounds, but New Hampshire, like some other states, prohibits prerecorded calls to phone numbers on the No Call List. The NRCC may have been violating the New Hampshire law.
For now it appears that the NRCC has agreed to stop its robocalls only to a subset of New Hampshire voters.
Update: The NRCC contends the New Hampshire law does not apply to it:
Alex Burgos, NRCC spokesman, said his organization has been making calls to independent voters in the state’s Second Congressional District since Monday and would continue to do so. . . .
“We are a federal organization campaigning about a federal race,” said Burgos. “We feel that New Hampshire law does not apply to what we are doing.”
In any event, the involvement of the New Hampshire Attorney General has been limited to the very narrow issue of whether the calls are going to voters on the No Call List and not whether they are intended to mislead or harrass voters.
You can hear one of the NRCC robocalls here, from the race in the New York 19th Congressional District.
I’d be interested in what TPM readers think about this GOP mailer in New York.
A key Republican echoes Dems: The White House shouldn’t be handing out nuclear secrets like candy. That and other news of the day in today’s Daily Muck.
I’m shocked, shocked.
Saddam’s verdict of death was read out yesterday. But apparently only that — death. Not precisely what he was convicted of or why. One of NBC’s blogs explains …
The full verdict, a document of several hundred pages, explaining how and why todayâs judgment was reached was not released. U.S. officials said it should be ready by Thursday. So why issue the verdict today? U.S. court advisors told reporters today it was delayed mainly for technical reasons.
They put in all manner of caveats explaining how there’s no proof the verdict was timed for political purposes. But it certainly seems like they couldn’t actually get the verdict ready for the November 5th slam dunk. So they announced it for US electoral benefit. And they’ll do their best to get the actual verdict done by Thursday.
Here’s a list of the twenty districts those NRCC robo calls have been hitting. If you’ve been getting those calls and your district isn’t on the list, let us know.