Orange to Blue roundup, 10/30/2012

Here's your daily Orange to Blue race news. But before we get to that, a bunch of our candidates in the northeast and mid-atlantic weathered Hurricane Sandy are now watching calendar days fall away that would have been used to get Democratic voters to the polls. You can help them out.
 

Speaker Pelosi Project:

CA-07: GOTV is going to make the difference in this very close race between Ami Bera and Rep. Dan Lungren, and Bera thinks the advantage could be his.

Bera said he thinks heavy spending and attention surrounding the 7th Congressional District has put the House race at the top of voters' minds. With Obama safely in the lead in the state, the Elk Grove Democrat is banking on his campaign's own grass-roots operation, which has grown to more than 1,500 active volunteers, to get supporters to cast a ballot in the close race.

"We've always known that the presidential race would not really play out in a big way in California, that President Obama would obviously carry the state, so from day one we've really focused on building our own field organization and get-out-the-vote effort," he said.

The district is more blue after redistricting, giving Bera more of an edge than in his 2010 race against Lungren. That, and a kick-ass ground game, could force a turnover here. Help Ami Bera get there.

CA-10: Insane campaign spending, anyone? Outside groups have outstripped candidate spending here nearly 2-1. That includes a more than $2.5 million from just one source, the conservative American Action Network, intent on keeping tea party freshman Rep. Jeff Denham in office, doing their bidding. Insane. We can't match $2.5 million, but we can pitch in for Jose Hernandez.

FL-18:  Nope, not done yet. The latest PPP poll has Patrick Murphy and Rep. Allen West virtually tied, with Murphy leading by one point, 48-47.Help Patrick Murphy close out this race.

FL-26: Crooked Rep. David Rivera hasn't lost all his friends.
 

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio has recorded a robocall in support of Rivera, his longtime friend and Tallahassee housemate. The calls have been going out to voters in the Kendall-to-Key West Congressional District 26, where Rivera, a Republican, is running against Democrat Joe Garcia.

Rivera has been entangled in an FBI investigation into one of Garcia's primary opponents, Justin Lamar Sternad. Sternad has filed blank campaign finance-reports and invoked his right to remain silent to avoid incriminating himself in the probe.

Rubio might come to regret that recording, if Rivera ends up serving time. Of course, this call might be the least of Rubio's worries if his best friend and roommate's various scandals start coming to light again.  Just for additional insurance, you can toss a few bucks to Garcia here.

MN-08: Rep. Michele Bachmann and Jim Graves met in their first debate today. You'll be shocked to hear that Bachmann made shit up.
 

"With Jim Graves, add about 50 percent to your tax bill; that's what you'd be looking at," she said before she was interrupted.

Graves called the allegation "a bunch of malarkey."

She also took full credit for working with a whole bunch of Democrats, including Gov. Mark Dayton, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, for getting funding for a bridge. Because no one is more bipartisan than Michele Bachmann. Let's take this very good opportunity to kick her out of office.

OH-16: Something smelled a bit fishy when GOP Rep. Jim Renacci cancelled all of his broadcast TV ad buys for the remainder of the election last week in this race pitting him against Democratic Rep. Betty Sue Sutton. The district was redrawn to try to get rid of Sutton, but that hasn't worked out quite as planned for Republicans, led in this effort by John Boehner. Now Ohio Democrats suspect that Renacci has been coordinating, illegally, with the Congressional Leadership Fund, a conservative PAC that swooped in immediately after the cancellations, and took out $300,000 in the television time. Renacci's campaign says that of course there was no illegal cooperation with this PAC, and of course it was all part of their campaign strategy all along to pull ads in the last week weeks of the campaign. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Like most FEC complaints filed in at the tail end of a campaign, this one is unlikely to have much impact. Which doesn't mean it doesn't stink to high heaven. Let's beat Boehner, and keep Betty Sue Sutton in this seat.

WI-07: Sexist, much? I guess by GOP standards, it could be worse.

The YG Network (or Young Guns Network), a secretive 501(c)(4) group that does not disclose its donors, has a new radio ad in Wisconsin's 7th Congressional District, backing freshman Republican Rep. Sean Duffy. It features two women talking over coffee:

EMMA: Hey, Olivia. What's it gonna be?
OLIVIA: Hi Emma. Hmmm. Latte, cappuccino? I can't make up my mind.
EMMA: That's how I felt about this election' until I took a good look at the candidates.
OLIVIA: And?
EMMA: I'm for Sean Duffy. He's pretty cool, actually. He's part of this new generation of leaders, the kind we need in Washington. He's a good husband and father and he fights for small businesses, like mine. So I can keep the doors open and even hire more people.
OLIVIA: He's the cute one, right?

Sigh. Help get Pat Kreitlow in office here, you know, the guy who will actually represent women. Upgrade the Senate:

NM-Sen: Two new polls, one of which is believable and one of which is profound GOP wishful thinking, came out in this race today. The first is GBA Strategies for Democrat Martin Heinrich, in which "Heinrich leads Republican Heather Wilson 51 ' 41 percent with Independent American Party candidate Jon Barrie pulling 6 percent. In a 2-way contest, Heinrich leads 52 ' 43 percent." That's been the consistent spread for several weeks now. The other poll is an internal for Wilson, which has Wilson leading 44-43. This is the first time Wilson's internal polling has given her the lead, though it's consistently shown her closer than any other poll done by any pollster in the state. But it will keep the few donors she still has happy, I suppose. You can help Heinrich close this out here.

OH-Sen: Josh Mandel is going for the cranky old man vote against Sen. Sherrod Brown. He got Sen. John McCain to spend some time stumping for him today, while he was already in the state for Romney. So he's got that going for him. What he has going against him is, well, Mitt Romney and the continued auto bailout insanity Mitt is pushing in the state. Mandel, too, says he would have opposed the bailout. Because what do all those Ohio auto workers need with jobs? Let's keep Sherrod Brown in the Senate.

Daily Kos for Marriage Equality:

Minnesota: The attempt by the forces of evil to codify bigotry in Minnesota's constitution has gotten really expensive, like everything else this election.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ' The two principal campaigns battling over Minnesota's constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage have raised more than $16 million combined, with opponents of the ban outraising supporters by nearly two-to-one.

At least the forces of good have raised more. You can help Minnesotans United for All Families here.