TWEET OF THE DAY: “Villagers,I don’t endorse politicians.Not my thing.However, Obama is the light & the future.Keep going towards the light. Put America first.” — Russell Crowe
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “You know, I had this dream once, where it was before the 2008 debate, Barack Obama and John McCain. And in my dream, I said, ‘Well, gentleman, that’s all the questions I have.’ And I looked down and I had another half-hour to go!” — CBS’ Bob Schieffer, on his biggest debate nightmare
POLL POSITION:
Mitt Romney is holding steady with a 6-point lead over President Obama, according to Monday’s Gallup daily tracking poll. Romney takes 51 percent support over Obama’s 45 percent in the survey of likely voters. Among registered voters, Romney’s lead is 48 to 47 percent over the president.
{mosads}In a Washington Post/ABC News poll, Obama takes 49 percent to Romney’s 48.
Obama has a huge lead with Hispanic voters, according to two new polls. Obama leads Romney by 70 to 25 percent in a poll of Latino likely voters conducted for NBC News, Telemundo and The Wall Street Journal. That’s similar to a 71 to 20 percent lead he has with Hispanic registered voters according to a new poll from Latino Decisions.
Obama still leads Romney among likely voters in Ohio, but the margin has shrunk since September, according to a new Quinnipiac/CBS News poll. The poll found Obama leading Romney 50 percent to 45 among likely Ohio voters. In September, the same poll found Obama leading 53 percent to 43.
A Suffolk University poll found Obama and Romney tied in Ohio at 47 percent. However, Obama has a massive 54 to 41 lead over Romney among those who said they have already voted.
Obama is pulling away from Romney in New Hampshire, according to a WMUR-University of New Hampshire poll that shows Obama with 49 percent and Romney at 41 percent.
AD WATCH:
President Obama’s campaign unveiled a new TV ad touting the drawdown of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and hitting Mitt Romney on foreign policy.
Romney’s campaign unveiled a Web video accusing Obama of failing to live up to his promises on foreign policy.
BATTLE FOR THE HOUSE:
President Bill Clinton will attend a “California’s Voice” rally at University of California Irvine to endorse Democratic congressional candidates in Southern California: Julia Brownley running in California’s 26th; Alan Lowenthal in California’s 47th; Scott Peters, who’s running against Rep. Brian Bilbray (R); Raul Ruiz, who’s running against Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R); and Mark Takano, who’s running in California 41st.
The National Republican Congressional Committee is out with new ads in 13 districts. The targets: Reps. Ron Barber (D-Ariz.), Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.), Lois Capps (D-Calif.), John Barrow (D-Ga.), Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.), Betty Sutton (D-Ohio) and Jim Matheson (D-Utah), and against Democratic challengers in Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois and New Hampshire.
The Congressional Leadership Fund and its nonprofit arm, the American Action Network, launched three new ads on Monday, with CLF hitting Democratic Rep. Leonard Boswell with its second ad in the Iowa race and Democrat Shelley Adler, who’s challenging New Jersey Rep. Jon Runyan, with its first ad in the race. AAN is running its first ad against Val Demings, running to unseat Rep. Dan Webster in Florida.
Crossroads GPS is launching three new ads in districts in three of the states central to the parties’ hopes at gaining seats this fall: Illinois, New York and California. The group targets Democrat Raul Ruiz, running in California’s 36th District, and Bill Enyart, running in Illinois’s 12th District, for their support for President Obama‘s healthcare reform law. In New York’s 25th District, Crossroads GPS targets Rep. Louise Slaughter for her support for cap-and-trade and for what the ad characterizes as higher taxes.
FLORIDA: The Florida Democratic Party is targeting Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.) for late tax payments on a number of properties affiliated with Southerland’s business, rehashing an old attack launched by his 2010 opponent that didn’t quite stick.
ILLINOIS: Despite a prolonged leave of absence while he grapples with bipolar disorder, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) is strongly favored for reelection, according to a poll released Monday. Jackson held a 58 to 27 percent lead over Republican challenger Brian Woodworth in the survey by WeAskAmerica.
LOUISIANA: Rep. Jeff Landry (R-La.) has secured the endorsements of Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), two Tea Party favorites, for his member-on-member race against Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. (R-La.).
MINNESOTA: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) leads her Democratic opponent Jim Graves by a surprisingly narrow 51 to 45 percent, while former Rep. Rick Nolan (D-Minn.) leads freshman Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.) by 50 to 43 percent, according to two new polls conducted for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
NEW YORK: Democratic group Friends of Democracy PAC released a poll that put Democratic challenger Dan Maffei ahead of Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle by 2 points, with 46 percent to Buerkle’s 44 percent support — within the poll’s 4.8 percent margin of error.
SENATE SHOWDOWN:
CONNECTICUT: Republican Linda McMahon released a new ad reaching out to Obama voters. The ad features four self-proclaimed Obama voters who are also backing McMahon, and they each represent demographic groups — women, blacks, veterans and the elderly — that McMahon hopes to woo.
INDIANA: Republican candidate Richard Mourdock is betting Mitt Romney will be the difference in his tough Senate race in Indiana. In a new ad for Mourdock, Romney backs the Indiana state treasurer and touts his efforts to balance the state budget and make government more accountable.
MAINE: Charlie Summers (R) released a new ad attacking both independent candidate Angus King and Democrat Cynthia Dill on taxes, charging that King left Maine with the “highest tax burden in the nation” and that Dill supports what the ad characterizes as Obama’s tax increases.
MISSOURI: Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican candidate in the race to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), described his opponent as a “dog” that goes to Washington to fetch more regulations and tax burdens.
NORTH DAKOTA: Democrat Heidi Heitkamp has a slight, margin-of-error lead over Rep. Rick Berg (R-N.D.) in the North Dakota Senate, according to a new internal poll released by her campaign. It comes just two days after an independent poll of the race put Berg ahead by 10 points. According to her campaign’s poll, Heidi brings in 45 percent support to Berg’s 42, within the poll’s 4-point margin of error. Thirteen percent of those polled remain undecided. A local North Dakotan says that he doesn’t “trust Rick Berg to protect Social Security” in a new ad from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which charges that Berg “urged” Congress to privatize the program.
PENNSYLVANIA: Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) has an 8-point lead over Republican Tom Smith, according to a new poll from Muhlenberg College and the Allentown Morning Call, leading Smith by 45 to 37 percent. Casey released a new ad pushing back against attack ads from his Republican opponent and defending his record. Casey has been criticized by other Democrats for being slow out of the gate this campaign season, and operatives in both parties say the race has tightened a bit, though both believe Casey retains a relatively comfortable lead.
VIRGINIA: Former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D) hits former Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) on women’s issues ranging from birth control to contraception to equal pay laws in a new ad, and is out with a new poll showing him with a 4-point lead. Most public polls of the race have shown Kaine with a narrow lead.
WISCONSIN: Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) leads Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) by 48 to 46 percent in a new Wisconsin Senate poll from the conservative Rasmussen Reports. In a new internal poll from Baldwin, she has a 5-point lead. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee released a new radio ad hitting hitting Thompson on his promise to “do away with” Medicaid and Medicare during the primary.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Donald Trump says he has “very big news” about President Obama that could significantly alter the race for the White House just two weeks before Election Day. “Something very, very big concerning the president of the United States,” Trump said Monday on “Fox and Friends.” “It’s going to be very big. I know one thing — you will cover it in a very big fashion.” Trump said he would “probably” release the bombshell sometime on Wednesday.
Priorities USA, the super-PAC supporting Obama, outraised Mitt Romney’s super-PAC in September, Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings show. The pro-Obama group raised $15.3 million for the month. Restore raised $14.8 million for September.
Vice President Biden seems to have added an actual binder into his campaign stump speech.
Activists with Obama’s campaign are trying to dampen criticism from environmentalists who say global warming has been given short shrift in the 2012 presidential race. A campaign email to environmentalists Sunday evening, obtained by The Hill, tallies numerous instances of Obama talking about climate change on the stump.
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