OVERNIGHT CAMPAIGN: Alaska wraps up Senate primary season

Today’s Alaska primary marks the final major Senate primary of 2014, and as has been the case throughout the campaign season, it looks like establishment Republicans will get their preferred candidate through.

Dan Sullivan (R), a former Bush administration official and Alaska’s former natural resources commissioner and attorney general, is the favorite to face Sen. Mark Begich (D), though Alaska is hard to poll and even harder to predict.

Sullivan has run a much better funded and better organized campaign than 2010 Senate nominee Joe Miller (R) and Alaska Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell (R). Strategists believe he’ll hold on despite strong attacks from Begich allies designed to hurt him in both the primary and general elections.

{mosads}The winner will face Begich in a race crucial for Senate control, and strategists in both parties predict a close race this November. 

Polls close at midnight Eastern time. Keep an eye on The Hill’s Ballot Box for election results late tonight, and follow @cam_joseph and @jessicataylor for breaking news on Twitter.

 

SENATE SHOWDOWN

AR-SEN (PRYOR): The National Republican Senatorial Committee and Crossroads GPS are both out with new ads hitting Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) on Social Security and Medicare, with the NRSC accusing Pryor of voting to “give Social Security benefits to illegal immigrants.”

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is out with a new ad doubling down on claims that Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) voted against funding for a local children’s hospital.

GA-SEN (OPEN): Former charity executive Michelle Nunn’s (D) campaign is out with a hard-hitting ad featuring former textile workers who lost their jobs after businessman David Perdue (R) took over their company.

The spot focuses on Perdue’s short stint at Pillowtex, a North Carolina company that was shuttered shortly after he left. Former workers hit him for profiting while they suffered.

“He walked away, with his $1.7 million and didn’t care about if we had a dollar in our pockets,” one former millworker says in the ad.

A new automated poll from SurveyUSA finds Perdue leading Nunn by 9 points. The crosstabs indicate the results skew a bit Republican, but it’s the latest poll to find Perdue with a comfortable lead.

CO-SEN (UDALL): NextGen Climate, led by billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, released its first TV ad in Colorado on Tuesday, criticizing Rep. Cory Gardner’s (R-Colo.) positions on climate change and abortion rights.

Crossroads GPS launched a $455,000 ad buy in Denver and Colorado Springs on Tuesday hitting Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) for saying that he would vote for ObamaCare again despite, the ad says, higher healthcare costs for some Coloradans.

NC-SEN (HAGAN): Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) has a narrow lead — 42 to 38 percent — over North Carolina Speaker Thom Tillis (R), according to a new poll from Democratic firm Public Policy Polling. Libertarian Sean Haugh pulls 8 percent of the vote in the automated survey. In a head-to-head matchup, Hagan’s lead shrinks to 43 percent to 42 percent.

KY-SEN (MCCONNELL): Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) Democratic opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, is under fire for her use of a campaign bus owned by her father’s company that might have been leased to her at a much lower than market rate, which experts say could be considered an illegal in-kind contribution if not reported properly. 

But McConnell is facing questions of his own over exactly what he spends his time doing when he’s not attending Agriculture Committee hearings, every one of which he’s missed since 2009. A Hill analysis found he’s skipped out on some to attend a conservative confab, criticize President Obama on the Senate floor or meet with foreign leaders.

The topic is sure to come up on Wednesday, when the two meet for a Kentucky Farm Bureau forum.

IA-SEN (OPEN): Crossroads GPS launched its second ad slamming Senate hopeful Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) for missing several meetings of the panel overseeing the Veterans Affairs Department.

NH-SEN (SHAHEEN): New Hampshire Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown is taking a break from his daughter’s upcoming wedding festivities in Nashville, Tenn., for a fundraiser, according to an invitation obtained by The Hill.

KS-SEN (ROBERTS): A new poll from Democratic firm Public Policy Polling indicates Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) still has a tough battle ahead of him for his seat, despite winning his primary fight. The survey gives him just 32 percent of the vote to Democrat Chad Taylor’s 25 percent, independent Greg Orman’s 23 percent and libertarian Randall Batson’s 3 percent among likely voters.

OR-SEN (MERKLEY): In his newest ad, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) speaks about his father’s work as a millwright in Oregon and his own efforts to protect jobs in the state by “[writing] a bill to make China play fair on trade” and “[fighting] to end deals that outsource our jobs.”

MT-SEN (OPEN): Outgoing Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) is distributing his remaining campaign cash to other Montana Democrats.

SD-SEN (OPEN): Democrat Rick Weiland has a short 15-second ad touting his minivan tour around the state and criticizing big campaign spending.

Former Sen. Larry Pressler (I-S.D.) has a Web ad touting his refusal to take bribe money in the ABSCAM scandal in the 1980s.  

NM-SEN (UDALL): Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) has a big 53 percent to 35 percent lead over former New Mexico Republican Party Chairman Allen Weh in a new poll for the Albuquerque Journal.

 

BATTLE FOR THE HOUSE

GA-12 (BARROW): Republican Rick Allen is out with a new ad that never mentions his opponent, Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.), instead taking aim solely at President Obama.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is up with an ad of its own hitting Allen for taking government contracts that went over budget and cost taxpayers.

NY-19 (GIBSON): Rep. Chris Gibson’s (R-N.Y.) Democratic challenger, Sean Eldridge, confronts Republican attacks on his move to the district and personal wealth in two new ads. “I live in the Hudson Valley because I love it,” he says in one ad. In another, acknowledges that, as husband of Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, “I’ve been very fortunate in my life,” but also emphasizes his humble roots: “I grew up in a small town. I went to public school,” he says.

CA-7 (BERA)/CA-52 (PETERS): Crossroads GPS is out with new ads hitting Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) on ObamaCare and Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) on deficit spending. 

IL-12 (ENYART): Rep. William Enyart (D-Ill.) is up with a positive spot touting the former general’s work on military issues and support of “clean coal.”

NJ-03 (OPEN): Republican Tom MacArthur’s newest ad hammers Democrat Aimee Belgard as a “typical dishonest politician,” using her own words against her and charging, contrary to her claims, she took her salary as county freeholder and taxes went up on her watch.

 

2016 WATCH

PERRY: Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) turned himself over to authorities on Tuesday evening. Though his indictment by a grand jury on charges relating to abuse of power last week could affect his 2016 prospects, aides say it won’t affect his planned tour of early presidential primary states over the next two weeks, including Iowa and South Carolina.

Meanwhile, Perry’s federal PAC released a Web video featuring unflattering police footage of the drunk driving arrest and detention of Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, who is at the center of Perry’s indictment.

CLINTON: Hillary Clinton is again receiving a vote of confidence from a former foe. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D), the progressive star who just a year ago suggested he might run against her for president, told CNN that he said he wouldn’t challenge her if she runs and called himself a “huge fan” of the former secretary of State.

RYAN: On the day his new book The Way Forward debuts, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) deflected questions about a bid for the presidency, saying he is focused on winning control of the Senate and increasing the majority in the House. “It is something I will consider in 2015,” he said on Fox News, something he has said numerous times before. 

The potential 2016 contender is moving to reframe the debate on regulations, arguing that the nation’s poor are the real victims of the red tape spewing from Washington. “A lot of families are trying to get ahead, but Washington is just simply getting in the way,” said during a recent speech at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

 

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Perry may not be much smarter than a ham sandwich, but he is exactly as guilty as one.” — Liberal writer Jonathan Chait on Perry’s indictment