H/t to HellOfaSandwich in Breaking Blue for the news that a new Insider Advantage poll has Road To 60 Democratic challenger Kay Hagan now tied with do-nothing incumbent Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) at just under 40% each. The fact that Other and Undecideds add up to a full 20% speaks volumes about North Carolinians' discontent with Dole as their senator. An incumbent who can't even get 40% is a huge problem.

I do wonder whether the poll may have oversampled Democrats though, since the poll lists an equal number of respondents who identify as Democrats as identify as Republicans but this is a great boost to Hagan who'd seen Dole retake a fairly solid lead in some polls (Pollster's trend estimate has Dole up by 8%.) While we'll look for subsequent polls to confirm whether this new tightening is real, it does look like the new air offensive by the DSCC, MoveOn and Hagan herself may be paying some dividends.

More on the poll from Swing State Project:

Bonus finding: McCain leads Obama by 45-43 in North Carolina. Hagan currently outperforms Obama among white voters (who break 54-33 for McCain, and 46-34 for Dole), but lags Obama's performance among African-Americans (who favor Obama by 75-17, but Hagan only by 61-24). If Hagan can cut down on cross-over voting among black voters and make a steady gain among whites, she could be in a good position for an upset by election day.

You can help Kay Hagan out over at our Road To 60 ActBlue page.

Talk about a sign of the times. Whether it be the toxicity of Bush, the toxicity of the Republican brand or the acknowledgment that Republican incumbents in 2008 had better stay home and earn votes rather than attend the Republican convention, this really can't be good:

Nine of 12 targeted Republicans running in the most competitive Senate races this fall are either skipping the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn., or have not decided whether to attend.

Among those who will not attend are Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who is not close to presumptive presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who is a McCain loyalist. Stevens and Collins will use the convention week to focus on their campaigns.

Also sending regrets is former Rep. Bob Schaffer of Colorado, running for the seat being vacated by retiring GOP Sen. Wayne Allard.

Six others -- Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, John Sununu of New Hampshire, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Gordon Smith of Oregon and challengers John Kennedy of Louisiana and Rep. Steve Pearce of New Mexico are still on the fence. Their spokesman offered responses ranging from "there are no plans yet" to "no decisions have been made."

Scratch that. Senator Dole is no longer on the fence.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina won't be attending the Republican national convention, which begins over Labor Day weekend.

Her spokeswoman, Katie Hallaway, said people shouldn't read too much into the decision -- either about the senator's support for John McCain, her party's likely nominee, or about how she views the security of her re-election in November against Democratic state senator Kay Hagan.

Oh, no, of course not. We wouldn't do such a thing. What's Dole's reasoning?

"She's got a busy week scheduled in North Carolina," Hallaway said. "When there are breaks in the Senate schedule, she spends as much time as possible in North Carolina."

Hmm, interesting, she found time for a prime time spot at the 2004 convention.

And here's Susan Collins' excuse:

"She is going to spend the time in Maine campaigning," said Steve Abbott, her campaign manager. "The conventions are too close to the election for a federal candidate to give up the time to attend, especially a current office holder who has to be in Washington for a busy legislative session for much of September."

Abbott would also like to remind us that Collins did not attend the '96 convention either. Of course, she wasn't in the Senate yet and she did attend the two subsequent conventions during her time in the senate, not to mention she's one of John McCain's campaign co-chairs. But other than that, really, it's no biggie that she won't be in Minneapolis to celebrate John McCain's acceptance of the 2008 nomination.

So, of the top targeted senate races, which GOP incumbents will be attending the festivities? Looks like McCain will be surrounded by Mitch McConnell and Norm Coleman, who lobbied to get Minneapolis to host the event. Wanna bet Norm is having second thoughts about that decision right about now?

Some really great fundraising figures from our 2008 Democratic senate challengers. The warchests that some of these GOP senators are sitting on is a reminder of just what a challenge it is to unseat an incumbent and of the work we still have to do. First from MyDD's Road To 60 list:

AK-Sen: Mark Begich

Mark Begich had a great second quarter, having raised $1,034,660, which is pretty stunning considering:

We received 4099 contributions -- a whopping 73.6% were under $100.

That and the fact that Alaska only has only 626,000 residents.

Ted Stevens's fundraising has not yet been released.

NC-Sen: Kay Hagan

The Politico reported the good news last week:

Kay Hagan, a five-term state senator from the Greensboro area, announced this afternoon that she raised over $1.6 million over the last three months, with $1.2 million left in her campaign account at the end of June.

Still an uphill battle if she's going to unseat the flush with cash Dole though, who had a solid quarter herself:

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole says she raised more than $2.1 million in the second quarter.

In a press release, the Salisbury Republican's campaign announced that it had $2.7 million in cash on hand at the end of the second quarter.

TX-Sen: Rick Noriega

Noriega had a solid fundraising quarter. From a press release via e-mail:

·        Total Raised: $961,169.59 2QTR
·        Cash On Hand: $915,506.12
·        # of Donors this quarter: 5,702
·        # of Contributions this quarter: 6,768

This speaks to Noriega's online fundraising strength. It's no accident that he is consistently one of the top featured campaigns on ActBlue.

If you can, please help these three worthy challengers over at our Road To 60 ActBlue page.

OR-Sen:  Jeff Merkley

Jeff Merkley entered his general election campaign like a slingshot, having outraised Gordon Smith in the second quarter:

Merkley=$1.42 million
Smith=$1.35 million

But Smith's warchest is daunting:

Cash on hand:

Merkley=$560k
Smith=$4.5 million

All the same, Merkley's accomplishment should not be underestimated:

Jeff Merkley's campaign for U.S. Senate raised more than $1.42 million in the second quarter, three times what the campaign raised during the first three months of the year. [...]

Online contributions soared for Merkley over the past three months. The Merkley team raised more than $420,000 online in the second quarter, double the previous three quarters combined.

ME-Sen: Tom Allen

Roll Call (via brownsox) brings us the good news that Allen is pretty well keeping pace with Susan Collins:

Collins raised $1.06 million in the financial reporting period from April 1 to June 30. The Collins campaign reports it had raised $6.58 million this cycle and had more than $5.13 million on hand.

Meanwhile, Allen's campaign reported raising just over $1 million in those three months. Allen had $3.13 million in cash on hand.

OK-Sen: Andrew Rice

Via Brownsox, Rice had a really strong quarter:

A stellar fundraising quarter for Orange to Blue candidate Andrew Rice culminates in this report: $451,000 raised for the quarter, with nearly $750,000 cash-on-hand despite having spent fairly heavily on radio ads.

This was the Rice campaign's best quarter so far.

There's no word yet on what Jim Inhofe raised, but he had roughly $2.2 million on hand at the end of Q1.

NE-Sen: Scott Kleeb

Scott brought us the good news in his diary from yesterday:

I wanted you to be the first to hear the good news: thanks to your contributions, our grassroots campaign has managed to shatter expectations and outraise our opponent, a former two-term Governor and Bush Cabinet member, for the most recent fundraising quarter. Make no mistakes about it - change is in the air here in Nebraska.

The Journal Star reports: "Democratic Senate candidate Scott Kleeb seems to be finding fundraising traction in this heavily Republican state, bringing in nearly $700,000 in the latest reporting period and besting Republican Mike Johanns for the first time."

Kleeb's opponent, Mike Johanns still has $1.2 million cash on hand but it's great to see Kleeb eating into that advantage.

Senate Guru had a great catch on Sunday. Sen. Elizabeth Dole aired an ad featuring a quick shot of a fighter jet to stress the point that -- so Dole's argument goes -- she used her "clout" to save North Carolina military bases. So why did Elizabeth Dole's campaign quietly edit the ad and change the fighter jet shot (you can watch both versions of the ad at Guru's place)?

Guru:

Someone who saw the footage suggested that the military aircraft in the first version of the ad is actually a French Naval aircraft!  Imagine that, Liddy Dole taking credit for work with the military by using footage of a French military aircraft.

Even better, a commenter elaborates:

The aircraft in the first version of the ad is a French naval aircraft called a Super Etendard...Ironically enough, Super Etendards were also used in Battle by the Iraqi Air Force during the Iran-Iraq war during the 80s. It's doubtful that any aircraft of this type have ever landed in North Carolina, much less been based there.

Indeed the story has been confirmed by The Hill and, as a press release from the DSCC puts it:

According to a report in today's edition of the Hill newspaper, an ad aired by North Carolina Republican Elizabeth Dole taking credit for saving North Carolina military installations actually included images of a French-made Dassault Super Etendard fighter jet, which was last seen in combat action being flown by Saddam Hussein's Air Force during the Iran-Iraq War.

Classic. The old France/Iraq nexus, enough to make heads of wingers everywhere explode. Of course, I'm sure their outrage will begin any...moment...now.

Remarkably this error plays right into the fact that Elizabeth Dole is out of touch and never in North Carolina. Kay Hagan's campaign wasted no time in going after Dole for the screw-up:

The campaign of Dole's Democratic opponent, state Sen. Kay Hagan, said Monday that the mix-up shows how out of touch Dole is.

"It's no surprise that Elizabeth Dole would mistake a French aircraft for an American one stationed at a base in North Carolina," said spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan. "It's pretty indicative of the amount of time she spends here in North Carolina. I imagine she's celebrating Bastille Day today, as well."

Help Kay Hagan have the resources she's going to need to get the word out about just how out of touch and missing in action Elizabeth Dole is by giving to her campaign at our Road To 60 Act Blue page.

A new Public Policy Polling survey shows the race for president in North Carolina holding fairly steady with McCain up by single digits and Bob Barr taking a solid chunk of the electorate.

Interestingly, Barr takes equally from Republicans and Democrats , although one suspects that the Democrats who would vote for Barr would never vote for Obama anyway. Barr takes 12% of independents.

Obama's clear weak spot here is among his own party base. While he wins independents by 12%, Obama is winning Dems by just 67-20, whereas McCain is winning Republicans by 83-6. Paging Bill and Hillary Clinton...

And this from PPP's blog points to a reason that North Carolina is likely to become bluer and bluer as time goes on.

Barack Obama leads 46-40 among those surveyed who were born in a place other than North Carolina. John McCain has the 49-36 advantage with natives of the state. As more and more people come to North Carolina from other places, it could trend more Democratic in national elections.

Unfortunately, Key Hagan is not performing as strongly against Elizabeth Dole in PPP's poll as Obama is against McCain as Dole continues to expand her lead to double digits and above 50%.

One bright spot for Hagan is the major upside of having Obama at the top of the ticket.

From PPP's blog:

One of the biggest red flags for Hagan is difficulty in securing the black vote. Right now she leads Dole just 52-28 with them, and the 20% of African American voters who report being undecided is higher than almost any other demographic. Hagan will have to significantly improve her standing there to have any chance this fall.

Dole's strength among African-American voters is unlikely to stick once Obama begins actively campaigning in the state, one suspects, with Hagan. This is one state where Obama's coattails are going to be unmistakeable, even if he loses the state.

Help Kay Hagan out over at our Road To 60 Act Blue page.

One of the stated goals of our Road to 60 campaign is to press Republicans to spend more of their resources in states than normal - we want them to play defense.

In North Carolina, incumbent Senator Elizabeth Dole has started playing defense. Back in May, in the face of tight poll numbers, Dole dumped lots of money into statewide TV ads months before the election.

And despite her previous role as chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, her service in the administrations of Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and her marriage to former Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole, Elizabeth Dole didn't actual make a single mention of the Republican party or President Bush in the ads, despite the fact that she voted with Bush 85% of the time last year.

North Carolinians aren't happy:

``She's in trouble because of the straight-up fact that she's a Republican,'' Brian Mayberry, a 35-year-old political independent, said June 20 at a Wilmington gas station while pumping $59.73 worth of gasoline into his Chevrolet Trailblazer sport utility vehicle. While ``the consensus is that she's been a good senator,'' Mayberry said he won't vote for Dole because he blames Republican President George W. Bush for high gas prices.

Democrats have a great challenger: State Senator Kay Hagan.

In the first half of May, Rasmussen, PPP, and SUSA showed Hagan actually up by one, then down by only five and four points, respectively. And despite a bump after her statewide media blitz, Dole finds herself back in a competitive race, with several polls still showing her tracking below the 50% incumbent Mendoza line.

And as Markos points out in The Hill, the tough primary Hagan fought made her campaign stronger and more prepared.

But there's a big financial gap. Reports show a 10-1 cash inequity in favor of Dole, after Hagan spent over a million dollars to win her primary.

So now is the time to step up for Kay. Kay Hagan would be another vote towards allowing the government to negotiate for lower drug prices. She favors a withdrawal from Iraq and changing focus to al Qaeda.

We can make a difference, and we have a real shot at this seat. The state has been trending Democratic, even though Republicans have carried the state for the last seven Presidential elections. But North Carolina is one of the states Obama is targeting. With the help of his registration and turnout machine to bring new Democrats to the polls, Kay Hagan can replace Elizabeth Dole. But she needs our help. Give Kay what you can.

Several polls taken right over the weeks after the North Carolina primary show that the race for the senate has reached the top tier. now is as good a time as any to help me raise the maximum single donation for Kay Hagan on my Turn Carolina Blue page.

Via Swing State Project:

Anzalone Liszt Research for Kay Hagan (5/14-21, likely voters):

Kay Hagan (D):          44
Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 48
    (MoE: ±3%)

As pointed out at SSP, this poll was conducted before Dole began her statewide media campaign. But a similar SUSA poll conducted over a similar period also showed only a four-point margin for Dole, and the latest PPP poll shows a larger, eight-point Dole lead, but with a smaller sample and 14% undecided.

Short version: John Ensign better hope those fundraising emails are working, because he's got a lot of defense to play.

Update [2008-6-4 18:40:9 by Josh Orton]: You say you want John Ensign to work harder and golf less? Then go here to support Hagan.