Will History Repeat in Alabama?

Bradley Byrne

According to a brand new flash poll, history may repeat itself in Alabama’s 1st Congressional District special run-off election scheduled for next Tuesday.

In 2010, Alabama state Sen. Bradley Byrne scored 27.9 percent of the statewide Republican gubernatorial vote to finish in first place and advance to the two-person run-off election. He was paired with Tuscaloosa dermatologist and state Rep. Robert Bentley, who qualified for the secondary vote with the barest of margins over the man placing third, Tim James, the son of former Gov. Fob James. Backed by the various Tea Party organizations and his strongly conservative base voter, Bentley soared past Sen. Byrne to capture a 56-44 percent Republican nomination run-off victory, and then was elected governor in the general election.

Now, as a candidate in the special congressional election for resigned Rep. Jo Bonner’s (R-AL-1) former position, Byrne again placed first in the original primary, garnering 35 percent of the total Republican vote. He faces businessman and conservative activist Dean Young, who scored 23 percent on Sept. 24, but is now running much closer according to late race polling.

Byrne is leaving no stone unturned in this run-off campaign, employing aggressive fundraising and advertising techniques, capturing more endorsements, benefiting from outside independent expenditure advocacy, and attracting establishment Republican support. But, according to a new Cygnal consulting firm flash poll conducted on Oct. 30, Byrne has dropped behind his opponent, Young, by a 43-40 percent

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Senate Conservatives Tackle McConnell

It didn’t take long for at least one conservative organization to begin launching an air attack against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) for his role in failing to stop the funding mechanism for the Affordable Care Act, now commonly referred to as “Obamacare.” The Senate Conservatives Fund, through its Senate Conservatives Action issue organization, originally founded by then-Sen. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), has launched a $300,000 Kentucky television ad buy to claim that the five-term senator has “let us (Kentuckians) down” (above). The context directly relates to the healthcare issue.

The message is clearly intended to rile the Kentucky conservative base against Sen. McConnell to an even greater degree than previously noted. Already, investment executive Matt Bevin is actively pursuing a primary challenge against the Republican leader, a candidacy that the Senate Conservatives Fund has endorsed. Early polls show McConnell to be holding an overwhelming lead over Bevin, but data posted for the general election tells a different story.

The Kentucky Senate campaign is shaping up to be one of the 2014 bellwether races, and one of two key Republican must-holds (Georgia is the other) if the party is to have any chance of gaining the majority for the next Congress.

In the general election, Democrats have

Three States, Three Potentially Challenging Races for Incumbents

Sen. Lindsey Graham

South Carolina

The long-expected Republican primary challenge to Sen. Lindsey Graham is now coming to fruition. A candidate emerged yesterday who has an interesting background. It remains to be seen if she has the political wherewithal to compete with the veteran senator, however.

Nancy Mace is the first female graduate of The Citadel. Born into a military family, her father is a retired Army general. She announced her challenge to the senator late this week, joining Greenville area businessman and former 3rd District congressional candidate Richard Cash in the nomination race. State Sen. Lee Bright, coming from the Ron and Rand Paul wing of the Republican Party, says he will soon follow suit.

Can any of the three beat Lindsey Graham? While it’s clearly a long shot, the senator does have some obvious vulnerabilities. First and foremost, as any casual political observer understands, Graham is to the left of the South Carolina Republican electorate and has taken some unpopular stands in the state, such as his leadership efforts in the area of immigration reform.

Secondly, though a crowded field usually helps an embattled incumbent, South Carolina does have a run-off law, meaning it could become harder to capture a majority in a split vote primary situation. If someone is strong enough to deny the senator an outright primary victory, the scenario would then be drawn to upset him in the secondary election.

Third, while none of his opponents has significant name ID, they are all substantial individuals, and if one or more can prove they possess fundraising ability, outside conservative groups are ready to come to their aid if Graham begins to falter.

Lugar Trailing in Indiana

Wenzel Strategies, polling for the Citizens United organization (April 24-25; 601 registered Indiana voters), projects that Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) has fallen behind Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock 39-44 percent in their statewide Republican primary battle. Entering the home stretch, both campaigns and their outside supporters are in high gear. Expect this mode to continue until the May 8 primary.

Lugar predictably criticized the accuracy of the Wenzel poll, but fails to release any countering data of his own. This, in spite of him reporting $74,000 in polling expenditures during the last quarter and a further five-figure investment with the National Research, Inc. company in April. The action suggests that the senator’s own survey research is returning numbers similar to those already in the public domain.

Wenzel Strategies’ president, Fritz Wenzel, while pointing to the fact that Lugar expressed no dissatisfaction with their previous poll that showed the senator leading, publicly retorted that, “It goes without saying that we stand strongly behind our polling in Indiana, as we do with every survey we conduct. [Sen.] Lugar’s denial of the reality these numbers portray is tantamount to denying the voice of Republican voters across Indiana who are certainly indicating they are hungry for a change.”

In addition to both candidates running attack ads against the other, outside organizations are spending heavily, as well. The American Action Network launched negative ads against Mourdock criticizing his investment decisions as state treasurer. The Club for Growth announced a $412,000 media buy that began this week in opposition to the incumbent. The spot ties Lugar to the President as being “Barack Obama’s favorite Republican” and makes the case that the senator has lost touch with Indiana after 35 years of service in Washington.

This campaign has now turned into a major national political affair with another veteran incumbent on the ropes before his own party’s electorate. The final 11 days of the race will very likely be the race determining period.