Despite favorability ratings still hovering in the 30s, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr (R) leads four Democratic challengers in his bid for re-election to a second term, according to a new survey from the Dem-leaning Public Policy Polling. Burr leads Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, state Sen. Cal Cunningham, lawyer Kenneth Lewis and Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy.

Burr wins 43% against all four candidates -- identical to the 43% former senator Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.) won against Kay Hagan (D) in August 2007. Hagan, of course, went on to defeat Dole in the 2008 general election.

Burr 43 - Marshall 35 - Und 26
Burr 43 - Cunningham 28 - Und 29
Burr 43 - Lewis 27 - Und 30
Burr 43 - Foy 27 - Und 30

Former governor of California Jerry Brown (D) and incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) currently lead their respective fields in the races for governor and senator of California, according to the latest survey from DailyKos/Research 2000 (Aug 9-12, 600 LV, MoE +/- 4%).

Brown leads San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in the Democratic primary and former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman (R) in the general election. Boxer leads former HP CEO Carly Fiorina (R) by a wide margin.

Brown (whose campaign website features a timeline of his political career dating back to 1943) currently serves as state attorney general and was elected governor in 1974. His father, Pat, served two terms as governor of California. Boxer is the junior senator; she's running for her fourth term in the Senate after five terms in the House.

Governor
Dem Primary
Brown 29 - Newsom 20 - Und 51

GOP Primary
Whitman 24 - Campbell 19 - Poizner 9 - Und 48

General Election
Brown 42 - Whitman 36 - Und 22
Whitman 37 - Newsom 36 - Und 27

Senate
GOP Primary
Fiorina 29 - Devore 17 - Und 54

General Election
Boxer 52 - Fiorina 31 - Und 17

New Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll has President Obama's job approval rating at 53%, with 40% disapproving. This is is down slightly from his rating in survey last month, when 54% approved and 38% disapproved.

Once again, the movement comes from Obama's slide with Independents: last month Obama had a net +18 job approval rating with Independents (54/36), in the current poll his job rating is down to a net +5 (49/44) with this group.

Overall, Obama stands at 53.1% approval in the RCP Average, which is a new low for the President.

Democrats' push for health care reform is currently playing out too much, for Democratic taste that is, like a rerun of 1993 and 1994.

Polling by Gallup in June and July 1994 found that between 60 and 69 percent of Americans, respectively, thought, “Congress should pass a bill to reform the health care system.”

Yet in polling over the same summer months, only 40 to 43 percent, respectively, favored “President Clinton's plan to reform health care.”

Today, like 1994, there is roughly a 25-point drop off between support for generic reform and the public's sense of President Obama's reform.

The most recent CNN poll finds that 77 percent of Americans today support “major structural changes in the nation's health care system” but only 50 percent say that they favor “Obama's plan to reform health care.” This opinion gap is an outgrowth of the health care reform paradox.

It's worth noting, looking back, that Clinton's loss of public support was not a slow bleed.

In 12 Gallup polls between September 1993 and July 1994 the portion of Americans who favored Clinton's plan shifted from 59 to 40 percent. The peak and valley of that polling were the first and last month. But in January 1994, Clinton's plan had regained the support of 57 percent of Americans.

Between the winter and summer of 1994 the well-funded critics became louder, few more than the insurance industry, and Republican opposition more unanimous.

By June 1994, in a private meeting at the White House, Sens. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Bob Packwood told Clinton reform did not have the votes and the GOP was willing to take their opposition to the polls.

The failure of health care reform in 1994 was not a major factor in Republicans barnstorm of Congress that year. But it was a massive blow to the power of Clinton's legislative bully pulpit, stunting his agenda.

Democrats cannot afford for this episode of health care reform to end the same way (and I still don't believe it will). But the similarity between Americans' view of, or what they understand as, Obama's plan and their view of Clinton's in 1994, when it failed, is unmistakable.

"Harry and Louise" may now support what they were once against, but Obama has not accomplished the same with the public.

And it's worth recalling that in 1994, Democrats' lost the bill in part because they lost the public--which, for the time being, Democrats have today as well.

By October 1994, Americans said they were more “relieved” than “angry,” by a 53 to 38 percent margin, “about the fact that Congress did not pass a comprehensive health care reform bill this year.”

New from Rasmussen:

For the first time in over two years of polling, voters trust Republicans slightly more than Democrats on the handling of the issue of health care. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that voters favor the GOP on the issue 44% to 41%.

Democrats held a four-point lead on the issue last month and a 10-point lead in June. For most of the past two years, more than 50% of voters said they trusted Democrats on health care. The latest results mark the lowest level of support measured for the party on the now-contentious issue.

New poll  in New Jersey  by the Democratic firm GQR shows incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine trailing Republican Chris Christie by just six points 43 to 37.  Overall, Christie leads Corzine in the RCP Average by 11.3 points.

Jobless claims up, retail sales dip unexpectedly - Associated Press

Not a terribly groundbreaking revelation, granted, but it does move the story from speculation to fact:

“I had anticipated in a good campaign like this Sen. Ensign being there with me.

“Sen. Ensign had to be there when I announced,” Heller continued. “Sen. Ensign had to deflect some of the attacks that would have occurred in a very rough and tumble campaign like that. All of a sudden that variable was out.”

Heller said his daughter entering ninth grade was the primary reason he decided not to run.

Still, he said the Ensign matter “was an important part of that decision-making process.”

Heller, who beats Reid handily in private polling, said that turning down the Senate race would have been much tougher without the Ensign scandal.

A lot can change in just a couple months, and Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) knows this all too well. The five-term senator, who's been a Democrat for four months, switched parties in April after realizing he would lose to Pat Toomey (R) in a GOP primary. However, Specter now trails the former congressman by double digits in a Rasmussen general election poll.

Toomey 48 (+9 vs. last poll, June)
Specter 36 (-14)

Specter's unfavorable rating is up to 54% from 43% in June, and much of voters' distaste appears to be due to his support for a congressional health care reform bill -- which 53% of Pennsylvanians oppose. Of those who like the bill, 70% favor Specter to 9% for Toomey; those who oppose it favor Toomey 82%-9%.

Rasmussen released a primary survey yesterday, finding Specter's lead over second-term Rep. Joe Sestak (D) down to 13 points.

In the general election survey, Toomey led Sestak 43% to 35%, with 18% undecided.

South Carolina"s disgraced (but still)  Governor Mark Sanford in a radio interview: "I am dead politically. I am not running for another office. I just want to make the most of the 16 months that are remaining in trying to honor where I started in this thing, which is, how do you do some things that hopefully make people's lives just a little bit better in South Carolina."