Cook Poli Rept: No longer any endangered Dem seats!!

[longship]

This reports starts with mundane approval poll reports (which IMHO are mostly meaningless since they are all over the map), but he settles down pretty quickly to some pretty astounding good news for Dems. For the first time in a long, long time one party may sweep all the competitive races.

Since this is the first "Off To The Races" column since Congress returned from its August recess, a bit of stage setting would seem to be in order.

Only an ABC News poll, in which 42 percent approved of the job President Bush is doing, has been released in the last week, but there has been some evidence that his overall approval rating might have ticked up a point or two, averaging about 39 percent. Other polls are expected to be released soon, so we will be able to see if this trend continues.
...

While the national environment has looked increasingly awful for Republicans all year, it was once hard to see how Democrats could net the 15 seats needed for a House victory, and it was extremely difficult to see them thread the needle for a Senate win. While Democratic hopes of winning a Senate majority still look decidedly uphill, over the last three months we've seen more and more GOP House seats move into the vulnerable column or worse, for them, into extremely vulnerable status.

Today, 20 GOP House seats are rated tossups or worse; there are no longer any Democratic seats that look that endangered. Fifteen more GOP seats are competitive, but with Republicans still given an edge; nine Democratic seats are in comparable terms on their side of the chart.
...

More at Weighing the Odds

Note: this report is from the 12th. Might be a dupe.

[Bozita]

1. ABC influences the New Jersey senator's race with path/9/11

In the Senate, it is easy to see how Democrats might score a net gain of three or four seats. Even a gain of five seats is a reasonable possibility. But the six seats necessary for the majority to change hands still looks tough, particularly since state Sen. Tom Kean Jr.'s challenge to appointed Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez in New Jersey remains dead even, defying all national and regional trends that are weighing down GOP candidates elsewhere.

[longship]

3. But Menendez' first big advert hit a home run on security.

It's a smasher. He's at one of the big ports in NU with dock workers. As he walks across the pavement, with large cargo ships in the background, he describes how he helped draft legislation to keep the docks out of Dubai hands and says that he helped win that battle for NJ.

The tag line of the ad is sweet.
Menendez, looking straight at the camera, says, "Homeland Security starts here."

[wiley]

2. Democrats question donations to Kean

Horizon gave $13,300 on day of a big vote
Friday, September 15, 2006
BY DEBORAH HOWLETT
Star-Ledger Staff

The same day state Sen. Tom Kean Jr. voted twice to let Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey keep a $40 million tax exemption, he collected $13,300 in contributions for his U.S. Senate race from 17 company executives and their family members.

Kean (R-Union) cast the votes in the final, frenetic day of the fight over the 2005 state budget. Democrats, trying to close a $500 million budget gap, put up a last-minute bill to close what they called a loophole in the tax that health care insurers pay on premiums. Republicans called it a tax increase aimed only at Horizon, the largest health insurer in the state, and said it would cost the company as much as $40 million.

In party-line votes on June 30, 2005, Kean joined other Republicans on the budget committee and on the Senate floor to oppose the measure introduced three days earlier. The legislation won approval anyway, with the support of the Democratic majority.

On the day of those votes, records show Kean received $13,300 in campaign donations from the Horizon executives, including $4,100 from Horizon CEO and president William Marino and his wife, Paula.

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-4/115829883967690.xml&coll=1

[aquart]

4. $13,300 for $40,000,000?

Not only a whore, but a cheap whore.

[Jersey Devil]

5. But add that Daddy was on the med insurance payroll for $650,000

for 2004 alone as a director of several med ins companies. That has also been reported in NJ.

[wiley]

6. Not the first time Daddy Kean pimped Baby Kean

It's a family affair.

[aquart]

7. Well, thank heaven.

I was getting worried.

Because the next thing I don't want to hear is that the Republicans sold our country for a handful of magic beans.

[lisainmilo]

8. I hope this poll is correct!

It's what I am livin for...:hi: