A new Mason-Dixon/LVRJ poll in Nevada finds that former state party chairwoman Sue Lowden may be Republicans' best chance against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. However, she'll first need to get past former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle and Danny Tarkanian in the June 8 primary, and the poll finds that race as close as ever.

"If Harry Reid had to pick his opponent he would pick Sharron Angle," said Mason-Dixon polling director Brad Coker. "She's the most polarizing. She's clearly the most conservative. But that 20 percent of independent voters are the ones who are going to decide this election. And it's easier for them to pick a Lowden or even a Tarkanian."

Republican Primary
Lowden 30
Angle 29
Tarkanian 23
Other 7
Und 8

General Election
Reid 39 - Lowden 42 - Und 10

Reid 42 - Angle 39 - Und 10

Reid 41 - Tarkanian 42 - Und 10

The poll was conducted May 24-26 of 625 LV with a MoE of +/- 4%. Click here for more polling on the race.

There's a debate among establishment Republicans in Nevada now over whether the tea party-backed Angle has what it takes to defeat Reid, who is one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the country. With Rand Paul's tough start to the general election campaign in Kentucky, some wonder whether Angle's similarly outside-the-box views on several issues will put the GOP at a disadvantage in November. But many support her and feel the GOP needs someone fresh like her to shake things up.

It probably wasn't the smartest idea for the President to be doing this just minutes before declaring to the country on national television that he was "singularly focused" on dealing with the oil spill.

In the second poll taken since the Kentucky primaries and the first since Republican Rand Paul talked openly about his reservations with certain aspects of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Paul leads Democrat Jack Conway by 3 points, according to the DailyKos/Research2000 survey (May 24-26, 600 LV, MoE +/- 4%).

Paul 44
Conway 41
Und 15

Paul gets the support of 86% of Republicans, Conway 75% of Democrats, and Paul leads 42-31% among independents. President Obama, whose favorabiliy rating has remained higher nationwide than his job approval rating, gets just a 37% favorable rating in Kentucky.

If Obama had given today's press conference four weeks ago, he might be in far less hot water than he's currently in. But stepping up to the teleprompter 38 days after the initial spill, with all the intervening time and press coverage of the event, and asserting that he's been on top of it like white on rice since Day One comes across very much like historical revisionism from the department of C.Y.A.

The press, to the extent they do their jobs, should be able to easily go back through the chronology of the last five weeks and find plenty of gaping holes in Obama's claim of instant, constant, and urgent engagement on behalf of the White House and his administration. Obama said he'd leave the Katrina comparisons to the media which, given the skepticism expressed by some of the questions by reporters, is something he might live to regret.

Two other problems with the press conference, one factual and one stylistic. The first: it came across as contradictory for Obama - again, for a man who claims to be waking up and going to bed thinking about nothing else - to be so uninformed about the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of Elizabeth Birnbaum, the director of MMS. I saw the news hit the wire just before the press conference and assumed, probably like most people, that it was a coordinated, preemptive piece of PR by the White House. But that's not how it appeared when the President told reporters he learned about it this morning and wasn't aware of the circumstances surrounding her departure.

The other problem was stylistic. Obama answered questions with his typical professorial demeanor, delving into detailed explanations and showing far less emotion and frustration than I suspect most people expected from him. That being said, I thought Obama's strongest moments came at the end, when he related the story about Malia asking him if he'd plugged the hole and talking in personal terms about his upbringing in Hawaii where the ocean is considered sacred. That spontaneous riff, as well as his final authoritative words about being responsible for fixing the problem made the last five minutes of the press conference far stronger than the first forty.

John McCain's playing some offense on the airwaves in his Arizona Senate re-election battle against primary foe, former Rep. J.D. Hayworth. In a new TV ad, the announcer says:

John McCain wages a determined battle against pork barrel spending. He fights to save us money.

“But, J.D. Hayworth? Described as ‘an avid earmarker,' supported thousands of earmarks worth billions of dollars before we voted him out of office.

He's also running a similar ad on the radio, which you can listen to here. Both ads begin running statewide today.

Last week, the Wisconsin state Republican convention endorsed businessman Ron Johnson to be the Republican nominee against Russ Feingold.  Today, Rasmussen Reports finds that he is within striking distance of the Senator:

Russ Feingold (D) -- 46%
Ron Johnson (R) -- 44%

Russ Feingold (D) -- 47%
Terrence Wall (R) -- 41%

Russ Feingold (D) -- 47%
Dave Westlake (R) -- 38%

It's really surprised me that this race hasn't garnered more attention.  Feingold is one of the two or three most liberal members of the Senate, and he represents a state that is probably two or three points left-of-center.  He narrowly won against a very conservative opponent in a good Democratic year (1998) and won by twelve points against a no-name Republican in a decent Republican year (2004).

Now, I'm not saying it is time to start writing a political obituary for Feingold.  But he's a three-term Senator who isn't a perfect ideological match for his state, and he's stuck at 47% in polls against unknown opponents,  Add in the fact that this year, at the very least, isn't going to be a great year for the Democrats, and it isn't good news for him.  This race is worth watching.

I really wish that some of the nonpartisan house race pollsters that we used to see a lot of numbers from, such as SurveyUSA, would get back into the house race polling game.  At any rate, we have two partisan pollsters weighing in on two different House races.  First, Public Opinion Strategies (R) polled Ohio's First Congressional District, where former Congressman Steve Chabot is facing off against the man who defeated him last year, Steve Dreihaus.  Dreihaus narrowly defeated the seven-term Congressman in 2008, in part by clinging to President Obama's coattails in the district, which has a sizeable African American minority.  POS finds that Dreihaus trails Chabot 53%-39%.   This is similar to the lead for Chabot found by a SurveyUSA poll taken for Firedoglake back in January.

Heading north, a poll commissioned by the U.S. Citizens Association, a conservative activist group, finds that Jim Renacci is leading Congressman John Boccieri 47%-35%.  Boccieri voted against the first iteration of health care reform in the House, but voted to pass the final version.  I've obtained the polling script and crosstabs for this poll from the independent polling company that conducted the poll, and nothing jumps out at me as illegitimate -- there weren't many self-identified Independents, but there ended up being slightly more Democrats than Republicans, which may be about right for the district.  Even if you treat this as a partisan poll and discount it four or five points for the Republican, it still is a pretty bad result for Boccieri.

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden holds a 13-point lead over Republican Jim Huffman, a new Rasmussen poll finds (May 24, 500 LV, MoE +/- 4.5%).

Wyden 51
Huffman 38
Und 7

President Obama holds a 52% approval rating in the state, while 71% aren't confident Congress knows what it's doing when it comes to addressing the country's economic problems.

On RCP, David Paul Kuhn writes about how Richard Blumenthal and Rand Paul have reignited the debates of the 1960s. Also, Kyle Trygstad reports that many Nevada Republicans are concerned about tea party-backed Senate candidate Sharron Angle's ideology and her ability to beat Harry Reid in November.

On RCM, Diana Furchtgott-Roth critiques the Dodd financial reform bill, arguing that it gives too much power to government bureaucrats, makes future bailouts more likely and hurts consumers. Lee Munson argues that China, Japan and the U.S. all have a vested interest in stabilizing the euro.

Finally, Jeff Neuman, writing on RCS, describes what the Super Bowl in New York will be like.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal still holds a commanding lead in the Senate race, despite more than a week of bad press regarding past misstatements of his military record. Blumenthal, the presumed Democratic nominee, leads Republican Linda McMahon by 25 points, a new Quinnipiac survey finds (May 24-25, 1159 RV, MoE +/- 2.9%).

Blumenthal 56 (-5 vs. last poll, March 17)
McMahon 31 (+3)
Und 10 (nc)

Blumenthal still enjoys a 61% favorability rating, with just 29% holding an unfavorable view of him. McMahon, who won the state GOP's endorsement Friday, saw her favorability rating turn negative, with 32% favorable, 39% unfavorable.

“It looks like Connecticut voters forgive Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, or feel that there is nothing to forgive in the Vietnam service flap. While he has taken a hit with voters, his poll numbers were so high to begin with that he still maintains a commanding lead over Linda McMahon,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz

In the open governor's race, Ned Lamont leads Dan Malloy by 17 points in the Dem primary.

Lamont 41 - Malloy 24 - Und 30

Meanwhile Tom Foley holds a 26-point lead over the GOP field.

Foley 37 - Fedele 11 - Griebel 5 - Und 42