Orange to Blue roundup, 9/24/2012

We've got such a great list of candidates on Orange to Blue this cycle, and have been able to expand the list so much that it's hard to keep up with all the news. So starting this week, we'll have regular mini-reports, roundups that will let you get up to date on the races we're watching most closely.

So without further ado, what's new in our Speaker Pelosi Project:

CA-10: The House Majority PAC is in with a hard-hitting ad on behalf of Jose Hernandez, attacking GOP Rep. Jeff Denham for supporting the Ryan plan to end Medicare. Good hit. You can watch it here.

FL-26: Under-federal-investigation Rep. David Rivera, Congress's most inept crook, has to worry both about the FBI on his tail, AND his reelection. Because there's now a third Democratic poll showing Joe Garcia with a solid lead. GBA Strategies (on behalf of House Majority PAC and SEIU) has Garcia up 50-41 over the incumbent, reinforcing the nine-point spread Benenson Strategy Group saw in a Garcia internal last month, and the seven-point edge PPP gave Garcia just last week in a poll for DFA.

Of course, we also want to Upgrade the Senate, so here's what's happening on that front.

OH-Sen: A new poll from a consortium of Ohio papers gives Sen. Sherrod Brown a 52-45 advantage over Republican Josh Mandel. This is one of the few polls to show Brown actually clearing the 50 percent mark. What's remarkable is that this result comes in spite of the millions in dark money that's poured into the state to defeat Brown. That reinforces Markos's thesis: "[T]hose millions being spent by conservative billionaires are all being wasted. The evidence is incontrovertible. So Karl Rove announces that he will spend $5 million targeting incumbent Senators in five states? Who cares! Rove has already spent $41.6 million and Democrats have only gotten stronger throughout the year."

CT-Sen: A new ad from Democrat Chris Murphy hits Linda McMahon for her extremism in the War on Women. Watch it here.

Good timing, kicking McMahon while she's down. Still reeling from her 40-year-old bankruptcy scandal, now McMahon is making news because a local outlet determined that she and her husband were a month and a half overdue in "paying their property tax bill on the multimillion-dollar condominium unit they co-own." What makes this particularly fun is that McMahon has been trying to make an issue of late payments by Murphy. Maybe that'll make her abandon that bullshit line of attack.

WI-Sen: Republican Tommy Thompson is having a hard time getting traction in the Senate race in Wisconsin against Tammy Baldwin. He's tried blaming Romney for his woes, but it could be he's just not trying hard enough. That's good for Baldwin, who along with allied groups, has spent twice as much in ads as Thompson and his groups in the past month. That's not likely to continue, because the Right is not going to want to give up on Wisconsin and will start pouring the money in. But it's a testament to Baldwin's organization.

MA-Sen: Sen. Scott Brown says that he doesn't have time to comply with the law. That would be FEC law requiring that campaigns provide the employment information for their donors. Brown hasn't, to a pretty extensive degree; $2 million worth.

From the nearly 20 months from the start of the 2011-12 election cycle until the middle of August, the Brown campaign has received 15.7 percent of its contributions from individuals without providing the names of their employers, in violation of FEC regulations.

In comparison for this period, Elizabeth Warren is missing employment information for about 1.6 percent of her individual donors. Brown apparently doesn't want folks to know where his money is coming from. Yes, it's arcane stuff. But Brown's attitude to what is the law is pretty bad, he just blew it off with a breezy "I don't have the time to zero in on the financial reports." For someone trying to make this into race an issue of what he calls "character," Brown should show a little more.

On the fight for marriage equality, a mixed bag of good ads and not-so-good news.

Maine: In case you missed it, here's the new ad from Mainers United, featuring four firefighters'three who are straight and one who is gay'talking about the brotherhood of firefighting. Here's how Mainers United describes the video:

Firefighters Andrew, Dave, Eric and Ryan talk about trust, respect and why they're voting "Yes" on Question 1. They know marriage matters to ALL Maine families.

Washington: Here's a poignant ad from Washington United For Marriage. The ad features Chris Morningstar, talking about her daughter, Sarah, and Sarah's partner, Cheryl Chow. Chow is a longtime Seattle civic leader who was recently diagnosed with brain cancer. Morningstar simply explains the added difficulty her family has in dealing with the crisis simply because the couple is gay.

Minnesota: A new poll for the Minneapolis Star Tribune's, conducted by Mason-Dixon, finds 49 percent in favor of the idea and just 47 percent opposed. That's very tight. That's almost identical to the 48 supporting/47 against that PPP found earlier this month. As the Daily Kos Elections crew says, "these measures often seem to poll better for the good guys than they wind up performing on election day," making these numbers not so encouraging. Meanwhile, a state representative, GOP Rep. Mary Franson, says that gay marriage is "not normal behavior" and "something that I wish to protect our children from." The country as a whole is really coming along on equality. Republicans, not so much.