The polling for this race has been sparse and all over the place.  You can see the variability if you look at the Nevada race on Pollster.com, a site that aggregates polling data.  It makes it pretty hard to figure out what's going on.  That being said, we did get a piece of good news on Friday when Rasmussen released their numbers for our race.  Rasmussen is well-respected because they were so spot-on in 2004.  Here are the numbers that they released for the Nevada Senate race on Friday:

Ensign: 50%
Carter: 41%

At this point in the game, we're pretty pleased with a nine point spread.  There's lots of campaigning still to do: we've got TV ads that we need to run (hence the fundraising), our ground game is now full-speed ahead, and the debates have just been scheduled.  There's lots of room for movement, and people are still getting to know my Dad.  We've got nowhere to go but up.

We're pretty excited about the upcoming debates - Ensign finally agreed to three debates with my Dad.  Here are the details (from the Carter campaign's press release via the Carter Blog):

The first of the scheduled debates will be on Sunday, October 15, from 6-7 p.m. on KLAS-TV, Channel 8, in Las Vegas. The second will take place on Thursday, October 19, from 10-11 a.m. on the 'Las Vegas ONE' cable channel. The third will be on Monday, October 23, in Reno. It will be hosted by, and broadcast on, KRNV-TV, Channel 4.

In addition to these three debates, Jack Carter is hopeful a fourth debate can be held in Elko. "I want to give rural residents an opportunity to see for themselves the real alternative I am offering - to truly be all of Nevada's voice to Washington."

I personally would be pretty surprised if Ensign would agree to a fourth debate in Elko, but we would certainly welcome the opportunity.  These debates will be a critical chance for my Dad to get his message out, to impress the voters, and to show that he would be a better Senator than empty suit John Ensign.  You should mark your calendars and watch the debates if you can.  I'll remind you to watch them and give you reports about how they're going.

There are plenty of good reasons to give money to the Carter Campaign.  Jack is right on the issues that matter, he's got a good shot at winning, and his race is one where your money can make a HUGE difference.  On the issues, there couldn't be bigger differences between him and John Ensign.  Read my recent diaries about the Iraq War or Torture.  In both of these cases, John Ensign is a puppet of the Bush administration, while Jack Carter stands up for what's right.

I've already written about our chances of winning - we believe that we're in good shape going into October.  We're going to do everything we can to make sure that Nevadans know that John Ensign has voted with the Bush administration 96% of the time since he was elected.  Bush is extremely unpopular in Nevada - SUSA shows that he has a 34% approval rating in the state (that's well below the national average of 39%).  We're going to need money to get that message out.

One great thing about Nevada is that it's relatively cheap.  It's population is about 2.5 million people, making it a pretty "small" state.  Also, Nevada has two media markets (Reno and Vegas) that reach 97% of the voters.  It only costs about $250,000 to run ads in those two markets for a week.  So, from that perpective, any dollars you can donate to Nevada can have a big impact.

Please give what you can!  We'll make good use of whatever you can spare.

Thanks for reading!

Sarah
(You can always find more at the Carter Blog)