President:

President Obama appears to be at the top of his oscillating poll numbers in Gallup; for the second straight day he's at 49%/45%.  Similarly, Rasmussen has the President at 47%/52%, down a bit from yesterday.

Strangely, we're coming to a point where the tracking polls are showing consistently better results for the President than the one-day polls. Quinnipiac finds that only 44% of Americans approve of the job the President is doing, while 46% disapprove. This is the lowest number the President has received to date. My sense is that the tracking polls -- which are less prone to one-day fluctuations from bad samples or news events -- are the ones to be trusted here, but it is a strange effect indeed.

Once again, we see the President's "issue numbers" coming in significantly below the President's approval . 40% approve of his handling of the economy, 40% approve of his handling of healthcare, 38% approve of his handling of job creation, while 34% approve of his handling of the deficit.

It is also important to note that Gallup finds that voters are increasingly holding Obama responsible for the state of the economy.  26% find him a "great deal" responsible for economic conditions, while 24% assign a "moderate amount" of blame.  This pales compared to the 42%/33% split assigned to George W. Bush, but that's a slight improvement for Bush since last July (when he was at 43%/37) and a large surge in blame against Obama (at 14%/18% last July).

Senate

North Carolina:  Senator Richard Burr continues to earn the title of most endangered Republican Senate incumbent -- which isn't such a bad thing this cycle.  In Rasmussen, he continues to toy with the 50% mark against his major Democratic opponents.  PPP (D) is a North Carolina-based pollster, and it has consistently showed worse numbers for Burr.  Notably, it has not shown significantly better numbers for Marshall, so this might just be a case of undecideds leaning toward the Republican.  Burr leads Marshall by 16.3% in the RCP Average.

New Hampshire Primary:  Some good news for the Senate GOP from PPP in New Hampshire:  Attorney General Kelly Ayotte is a strong contender to pick up the GOP nod for Senate.  In a race against three decent challengers, she receives 43% of the vote; her nearest contender is Bill Binnie, who gets 19% of the vote.

This is good news for Senate Republicans because Ayotte and Binnie consistently poll the best against Democratic Congressman Paul Hodes.

Governor

Arizona:  Rasmussen finds a surge for the Republican candidates in the Arizona gubernatorial race.  Democrat Terry Goddard now trails Governor Jan Brewer 40%-44%, which is a net 13-point swing in the Governor's favor since March.  All of the other Republicans tested fare better against Goddard, reflecting the trouble Brewer is having with the electorate as a result of  a proposed sales tax increase.

California:  Rasmussen also finds a surge for Democrat Jerry Brown out in California.  Although the polling has been close there, it's difficult to imagine voters turning to a Republican when President Obama sports a 60% approval rating and outgoing Republican governor Schwartzenegger has a 70% disapproval.  Whitman leads by .4% in the RCP average.

Misc.

The Quinnipiac poll also found that support for the recent health care bill is not strong.  53% disapprove of the bill, while only 39% approve.  Only 24% report that a vote for the health care bill would make them more likely to vote for a Member of Congress, while 42% say it makes them less likely.   Finally, about as many survey participants approve of the Republicans as do the Democrats.  This continues a trend most pollsters have found recently, which is a reversal of what polls showed in recent years.

A new Rasmussen survey in California (500 LVs, 4/19, MoE +/- 4.5%) shows Attorney General Jerry Brown (D) taking a 6-point lead in the gubernatorial race over his leading GOP contender, Meg Whitman.

General Election Matchup
Brown 44 (+4 vs. last poll, 3/15)
Whitman 38 (-2)
Und 9 (-5)

Brown 50 (+8)
Poizner 32 (+5)
Und 8 (-10)

Rasmussen finds that 60 percent of Californians approve of President Obama's job performance, 39 percent disapprove. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger remains very unpopular: 70 percent disapprove of his job performance while just 29 percent approve.

Meanwhile, Whitman's campaign released results of an internal poll conducted by John McLaughlin. It finds Whitman leading Poizner in the GOP primary 53-22. It surveyed 600 likely GOP primary voters from April 18-19, with a 4 percent margin of error.

PPP (D) also polls two more immediate Republican primaries: the races for the Senate and gubernatorial nomination.

In the Senate race, former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte (R) looks to be a strong frontrunner, leading other deep-pocketed candidates by double digits.

Senate Primary Election Matchup
Ayotte 43
Binnie 19
Bender 11
Lamontagne 5
Und 21

In the gubernatorial race, former state health commissioner John Stephen has a slight edge, though nearly half of voters are undecided.

Gubernatorial Primary Election Matchup
Stephen 29
Testerman 15
Kimball 10
Und 46

Regardless of who wins that race, Gov. John Lynch (D) appears to be running a bit scared as he seeks an unprecedented fourth two-year term. His campaign has launched an early television ad, in part a response to a TV ad run by a national anti-gay marriage group and a separate radio ad from the state GOP.

The primaries are September 14.

A Public Policy Polling (D) survey of New Hampshire voters shows former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with a strong head start among potential GOP presidential hopefuls.

Presidential Primary Election Matchup
(642 Primary RVs, 4/17-18, MoE +/- 3.9%)
Romney 39
Palin 13
Gingrich 11
Huckabee 11
Paul 7
Pawlenty 3
Barbour 1
Santorum 1
Und 13

PPP's analysis:

We've looked at the Republican race for 2012 now in 13 different states and New Hampshire is just the second where there's been a runaway leader. The other was Florida, where we found Romney with 44% to 25% for Palin and 17% for Huckabee.

What was once thought to be a Democratic pick-up opportunity now continues to look like anything but. A new Rasmussen poll (April 19, 500 LV, MoE +/- 4.5%) finds North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr (R) polling above 50% for the third straight month and leading both top Democratic challengers by around 20 points.

Both Democrats, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and national party-backed Cal Cunningham, are stuck in the low 30s.

Burr 50 (-1 vs. last poll, March 22)
Marshall 32 (-3)
Und 12

Burr 53 (+2)
Cunningham 31 (-1)
Und 13

RCP currently ranks the race as Lean Republican.

Now, according to Joan Walsh of Salon, the phrase "law and order" has racist, George Wallace connotations.

(No doubt NBC is going to be very upset to hear that the title of one of its most popular and longest running shows is now considered racist.)

It's especially rare these days to see pundits from across the political spectrum agree on much of anything. One thing they do agree on, however, is that timing of the SEC's lawsuit against Goldman Sachs is utterly and transparently political -and most also agree that the suit appears to be very weak on the merits. Here's a small sampling from across the pundit spectrum:

Sebastian Mallaby, Washington Post: "Unless the SEC is sitting on more evidence than it has laid out so far, the charge sheet looks flimsy. If Goldman has become a poster child for excessive power on Wall Street, the SEC might become a poster child for government power run amok."

Megan McArdle, The Atlantic: "Regulatory agencies should not be in the practice of helping serve the political ends of the party in power, no matter how worthy those ends. In practice, of course, they often do . . . think district attorneys around election time. But we shouldn't encourage it. To the extent that we want to have anything like a working technocracy, we need those institutions to be as independent from politics as possible."

Jason Linkins, The Huffington Post: "But it seems to be pretty clear that what's happening is that the White House is constructing a big goddamn pageant play with noble heroes and wicked villains. And at the end of the day, something called "reform" gets passed while everyone is looking at the shiny optics and nobody asks "Well, will this work?"

Michael Barone, Washington Examiner: "That's not the only fishy thing about the complaint. Tuesday came the news, undisclosed by the SEC on Friday, that the commissioners approved the complaint by a 3-2 party-line vote. Ordinarily the SEC issues such complaints only when the commissioners unanimously approve.

Fishy thing No. 3: Democrats immediately used the complaint to jam Sen. Christopher Dodd's financial regulation through the Senate. You may want to believe the denials that the Democratic commissioners timed the action in coordination with the administration or congressional leaders.

But then you may want to believe there was no political favoritism in the Chrysler deal too. The SEC complaint looks a lot like Gangster Government to me."

Choire Sicha, The Awl: "The Goldman Sachs SEC investigation—which is the sadsack SEC's unconvincing look at a minor bit of potential malfeasance in a single unit of the company in its transactions with other banks, with a potential fine equal to an extremely small percentage of Goldman's daily income—has been forcibly evolved by the media into a bizarre and misunderstood scandal. The SEC investigation made the front page, above the fold, of the New York Times both Sunday and today; Sunday's story was the most ludicrous."

Harvey Pitt, The Daily Beast: "But, what was the rush? After a year-and-a-half of investigation, eight months after receiving Goldman's “Wells Submission,” was there a need to file the litigation when it was filed? Why didn't the five Commissioners take more time to try and find common ground? What was the need that compelled the filing of the action last Friday, instead of, say, this Friday, or next? These aren't matters that will necessarily affect the ultimate outcome, but judges pay attention to news reports, and the possibility that an action was politically motivated won't redound to the agency's advantage, even if it isn't something directly contested in the courtroom."

Henry Blodget, USA Today: "Let me begin by saying that if Goldman Sachs committed fraud, the firm should be prosecuted and punished. Let me also acknowledge that defending Goldman won't win me friends or applause. That said, the SEC's case against Goldman seems weak."

Mike Memoli reports on Democrat Mark Critz's efforts to distance himself from the “liberal” tag in the PA-12 special election. "I'm pro life and pro gun. That's not a liberal," Critz says in a new ad.

On RCM, Steven Malanga argues that a lack of sufficient capital was the main problem with the Goldman Sachs CDO deals.

On RCS, Art Spander tips his hat to the Yankees' early-season dominance.

On the Media Watch blog, Doug Clawson is shocked by Gannett Newspapers' decision to use a New Jersey Devils employee to cover the team.

More trouble brewing for Republicans in Florida. According to a newspaper report, the IRS is looking into the tax records of Senate candidate Marco Rubio, former state GOP chair Jim Greer and former party executive director Delmar Johnson "to determine whether they misused their party credit cards for personal expenses, according to a source familiar with the preliminary inquiry."

Political parties, which are tax exempt, are allowed to spend money only on political activities, such as fundraising, running campaigns and registering voters. While it's commonplace for party officials and politicians to wine and dine donors, the Florida party allowed credit card holders to rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in charges with little oversight.

The IRS opened the so-called "primary'' investigation into Rubio, the leading Republican candidate for Florida's open U.S. Senate seat, and the two former state GOP officials to see if there's enough evidence to support a full-fledged criminal inquiry, according to a source familiar with the IRS examination.

The credit card issue for Rubio has been brewing for weeks now, but the latest news comes as his primary opponent, Gov. Charlie Crist, is considering leaving the GOP to run as an independent. Crist, however, has ties to this as well, as he hand-picked Greer to run the state party.

UPDATE: The St. Pete Times now reports that the feds are, indeed, asking about Crist as part of the investigation.

A new Rasmussen survey in Arizona (500 LVs, 4/15, MoE +/- 4.5%) shows Democratic Attorney General Terry Goddard (D) trailing each of his potential Republican opponents in the gubernatorial race. He does, however, run closest against current Gov. Jan Brewer (R), who led in a previous survey of the GOP primary.

General Election Matchups
Brewer (R) 44 -- Goddard (D) 40 -- Und 6
Munger (R) 44 -- Goddard (D) 37 -- Und 9
Martin (R) 47 -- Goddard (D) 34 -- Und 11
Mills (R) 46 -- Goddard (D) 37 -- Und 9

A curious note -- the survey puts Brewer's job approval rating at 40 percent, with 56 percent disapproving. A separate Rasmussen poll conducted just two days earlier showed her approval at 48 percent, and disapproval at 51 percent. President Obama's job rating in the state apparently took a similar two-day nose-dive, dropping from 41 percent on a Tuesday to 34 percent on Thursday.