Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) takes credit for the Wall Street reform legislation recently passed by the Senate in a new TV ad running in Arkansas ahead of her June 8 runoff.

Lincoln barely led Lt. Gov. Bill Halter (D) in last week's first round of voting. Her work on derivatives legislation as chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee is the second time she's pointing to that leadership position in the race, even as other candidates run from Washington.

In Rasmussen's first look (500 LVs, 5/24, MoE +/- 4.5%) at the Oregon governor race since the primary election, it finds a dead heat between NBA star Chris Dudley (R) and former Gov. John Kitzhaber (D).

General Election Matchup
Dudley 45 (+4 vs. last poll, 4/26)
Kitzhaber 44 (+3)
Und 6 (-7)

One other note of interest from the surey: President Obama's job rating in the state has taken a hit. Fifty-two percent now approve of his performance, down from 59 percent in April, while 49 percent now disapprove, up from 40 percent. That's a change in net rating of 16 points.

In a poll conducted before yesterday's allegation of an affair surfaced, Public Policy Polling (D) found state Sen. Nikki Haley leading the Republican primary for governor.

Republican Primary Election Matchup
(638 LVs, 5/22-23, MoE +/- 3.9%)
Haley 39
McMaster 18
Barrett 16
Bauer 13
Und 14

As part of her aggressive rebuttal of a local blogger's allegation, Haley has released a new television ad featuring Sarah Palin, who calls Haley "a strong pro-family, pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, pro-development, conservative reformer." The footage was taken at a rally last week in the state.

(more...)

The Washington Poll has tested the matchup between Senator Patty Murray and newly-minted Senate candidate Dino Rossi.  Murray sports a 51%-34% approval rating, compared with 58%-39% for the President, but leads Rossi 44%-40%.

I'm not really sure what to make of this.  Obviously it is not usually good news for an incumbent to be around 44%.  Such incumbents almost never win.  But Rossi has run and lost two statewide races in the past six years; he probably doesn't benefit from the "incumbent rule" to the same extent that most challengers would.  Murray's favorables are pretty solid, as well.  Still, it shows that Murray is in for a very, very tough race.

SurveyUSA has burst back onto the polling scene lately, and today they've produced polling from the upcoming California Senate and gubernatorial primary (to be held June 8).  There aren't any surprises on the Democratic side:  Jerry Brown receives 70% of the vote in the 7-candidate primary.

On the Republican side, however, SurveyUSA finds some clarity that has eluded other pollsters.  On the Governor's side, Meg Whitman has opened up a 54%-27% lead over Steve Poizner.  Whitman leads across all ideological groups, and has an especially strong showing in the San Francisco Bay area, where 63% of poll respondents favor her, versus 21% for Poizner.  Whitman leads by 15 points in the RCP Average.

In the Senate race, Survey USA finds Carly Fiorina leading Tom Campbell and Chuck DeVore 46%-23%-14%.  Fiorina runs especially strong among older voters, conservatives, moderates, and inland voters.  Campbell runs well in the San Francisco bay area.

Fiorina leads by 1.3 points in the RCP average.   We should note that this is by far the strongest showing for Fiorina in any poll this cycle, and represents a huge surge in Fiorina's support since SurveyUSA's last polling.  But there could well be several explanations for this.  Primary voters may finally be making up their minds, Fiorina's ad buy could be sinking in, Campbell could have a ceiling of support, having run a few statewide races already, or SurveyUSA's robocalls could be filtering out undecideds.  Regardless, a GOP ticket with one candidate strong in the Bay area and one candidate strong in the Inland Empire is pretty formidable for November.

The University of Washington releases its poll testing the potential Senate race between Sen. Patty Murray (D) and two-time gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi (R). Rossi has just announced after months of anticipation that he will indeed run.

Senate General Election Matchup
(626 RVs, 5/3-23, MoE +/- 3.6%)
Murray 44
Rossi 40
Und 12

Rossi must first survive a Republican primary before earning the right to challenge Murray. That vote is set for August 17. In another matchup, Murray leads a "Generic Republican" 42-39, with 14 percent undecided.

RCP currently rates the race as a Toss Up.

Writing on RCP, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch argues that America's unwillingness to "stand up for allies" and itself has resulted in a loss of respect around the world.

On Politics Nation, Kyle Trygstad reports on the GOP's efforts to win back Idaho's 1st congressional district.

Josh Barro writes on RCM about Britain's Coalition government's efforts to cut spending and rein in the country's deficit. Also on RCM, John Tamny argues that the Dodd financial reform bill is "pointless."

On RCW's Compass Blog, Greg Scoblete questions President Obama's embrace of foreign policy orthodoxy.

On the Media Watch blog, Ian Schwartz summarizes the coverage of the Gulf oil disaster on the major networks' Monday evening news broadcasts.

Finally, RCS ranks the "Top 10 Excuses for Positive Drug Tests."

Former congressman Rob Simmons is expected to drop out of the Connecticut Senate race at a scheduled 9 a.m. press conference in New London, the Hartford Courant reports.

Simmons lost the party's endorsement at the state convention Friday to former professional wrestling CEO Linda McMahon. He had said he would still challenge her in the primary, but apparently has had a change of heart.

The move clears the field for McMahon to focus on Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, whom Democrats hope will keep the seat on its side of the aisle following the retirement of longtime Sen. Chris Dodd.

Blumenthal has been dealing with the fallout from a New York Times article a week ago that detailed his repeated exaggeration of his military experience, though his campaign believes it's now moved beyond that.

The question of whether the White House offered Joe Sestak a job - possibly illegally - to drop his primary challenge to Arlen Specter is not going away. Last Thursday Robert Gibbs pulled off a remarkably uncomfortable feat of dodging 13 consecutive questions on the matter.

On Sunday, Gibbs assured the public on Face the Nation that he looked into the matter and is confident "nothing inappropriate took place" - a response that was lampooned rather amusingly by the Los Angeles Times with the title: Obama White House probe of Obama White House finds no Obama White House impropriety on Sestak.

And today, David Axelrod did his own version of the Sestak Two-Step, reiterating Gibbs "nothing inappropriate" line to Chuck Todd.

As Peter Baker points out in a newly published piece in the New York Times, the White House's effort to defuse the story has fallen flat and also puts the administration in the embarrassing position of arguing that the best case scenario is that they were simply doing "business as usual" in Washington DC:

Even if the conversations were perfectly legal, as the White House claims, the situation still challenges President Obama's attempts to present himself as a reformer who will rid the town of dirty politics. Refusing even to discuss what was discussed does not advance the Obama White House's claim to be “the most transparent” in history. [snip]

Indeed, Douglas B. Sosnik, who was the White House political director under President Bill Clinton, said that using jobs to reward political friends is simply “business as usual.” But, he added, that is the problem: Mr. Obama promised not to perpetuate business as usual. “It cuts against the Obama brand,” Mr. Sosnik said. “The public tolerance for these deals is less than in the past.”

Ron Kaufman, who was White House political director under President George H.W. Bush, said it would not be surprising for a White House to use political appointments to accomplish a political goal. “Tell me a White House that didn't do this, back to George Washington,” he said. “But here's the difference: The times have changed, and the ethics have changed, and the scrutiny has changed. This is the kind of thing people across America are mad about.”

Moreover, he said, Mr. Obama's own rhetoric raised the bar: “When you get out there and say we're going to do things totally different, we're above all this and we're going to be totally transparent, they cause their own problem because they're not being transparent.”

With public trust in government at an all time low, the White House's "trust us" response to the Sestak matter simply isn't going to cut it. If nothing inappropriate happened, as both Gibbs and Axelrod asserted, the White House should bite the bullet and reveal the details, no matter how embarrassing they might be in the short term. Otherwise, it's hard to see how this issue just disappears into the ether.

Dino Rossi will in fact make a bid for Senate in Washington state, several media outlets are reporting. Rossi has long been rumored to be considering a run and will reportedly make his intentions known publicly as soon as Wednesday.

Rossi is looking to defeat Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, who's represented Washington for three terms and is currently a member of Senate leadership. He's already signed up a senior strategist from Marco Rubio's campaign in Florida and a veteran of Mike McGavick's challenge to Washington's other Democratic senator, Maria Cantwell, in 2006.

There are several other Republicans already running, including former Washington Redskin Clint Didier.

When Rossi is matched up against Murray in recent polling, results have differed greatly, with both up double digits in separate polls.