Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln registers no higher than 41 percent and trails four prospective Republican challengers among likely voters in hypothetical match-ups, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted Sept. 28. The margin of error is 4.5 percent.

State Sen. Gilbert Baker, who declared his candidacy earlier this month, is the only one of the Republicans with a statistically significant lead over Lincoln, who is seeking a third term in 2010 - 47 percent to 39 percent. State Senate Minority Leader Kim Hendren leads Lincoln 44 percent to 41 percent, while Tom Cox, head of the Arkansas T.E.A. Party is up 43 to 40 percent and Curtis Coleman, CEO of Safe Foods Corp., leads 43 to 41 percent.

The third quarter of 2009 ends at midnight. For those of us who write about how congressional campaigns are financed, that means one thing: lots of urgent appeals for last-minute contributions.

Candidates for Congress want to stuff as much money as they can into their third-quarter campaign finance reports, which itemize most receipts and expenditures for July, August and September and are due to the Federal Election Commission by Oct. 15.

The national party committees also get in on the act. They file monthly reports, not quarterly reports, and their September documents are due to the FEC by Oct. 20.

The media and opposing campaigns are eager to analyze these reports for signs of strength or weakness.

Here are some excerpts from fundraising solicitations I've seen today:

Democratic Rep. Jason Altmire this week drew his first Republican challenger for the 2010 campaign. And that candidate, lawyer Keith J. Rothfus, may soon have company for the GOP primary next May.

Republican state Rep. Mike Turzai told CQ Politics Wednesday that he's considering a bid to challenge Altmire, a two-term incumbent, in the western Pennsylvania's 4th District. It would be a return to House politics for Turzai, who lost the 1998 race in the 4th District to then-Democratic incumbent Ron Klink.

Turzai, however, emphasized that he's concentrating for the time being on trying to end a budget impasse in Harrisburg, the state capital. Turzai, who is his party's state House whip, and his GOP colleagues are resisting proposals to increase taxes.

"I have a job to do on behalf of my constituents and the citizens of Pennsylvania," Turzai said. "Until that budget battle settles, I'm just really not going to make any decisions up until then."

If Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley raises enough money to be financially competitive with her Democratic rivals, she will win the Senate special election, EMILY's List President Ellen R. Malcolm predicted Wednesday.

Malcolm, whose group formally endorsed Coakley at a luncheon in Boston, said Coakley's challenge is to compete with the "kind of money" that 8th District Rep. Michael E. Capuano and Bain Capital Managing Director Stephen Pagliuca have at their disposal. Pagliuca is prepared to self-fund his campaign and Capuano had more than $1 million stockpiled in his congressional campaign committee before the Senate election even got under way.

Capuano announced Wednesday evening that he raised more than $300,000 since launching his candidacy Sept. 18 and has $1.1 million cash-on-hand. Robert Farmer, national finance chair for Democratic Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, has signed on as national finance chair for Capuano's Senate run.

Former Republican Rep. Charlie Bass has initiated a preliminary bid to reclaim the New Hampshire seat he held for a dozen years but lost in the 2006 election.

Bass' formation of a 2010 "exploratory" committee -- which usually is the precursor to a full-scale campaign -- will gratify national Republican Party recruiters who are trying to capture some Democratic-held seats and cut into the rival party's House majority in the upcoming midterm elections.

Bass announced his committee's launch Wednesday that in New Hampshire's 2nd District, which includes Nashua and the state capital of Concord. Bass, a center-right Republican, represented the district from 1995 through his defeat by Democrat Paul W. Hodes in the strongly Democratic year of 2006. Hodes has left the House seat open for 2010 in order to bid for the U.S. Senate seat of retiring Republican Judd Gregg.

The long-delayed campaign for Delaware's 2010 U.S. Senate special election will be jump-started soon, as Beau Biden -- the state's Attorney General and the prospective Democratic front-runner for the seat -- has returned home from a year-long tour of duty in Iraq as a captain with his state's Army National Guard .

Biden is expected to decide soon whether he is a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat long held by his father, Joseph R. Biden Jr., who in November 2008 was elected vice president even as he won a seventh Senate term in Delaware. Biden resigned the seat in January, and was replaced by Democratic appointee Ted Kaufman, a friend and longtime aide, who is not running in the special election to fill the final four years of the elder Biden's unexpired term.

The vice president appeared Wednesday afternoon at a welcome-home ceremony in Dover for 110 soldiers, including his son.

The latest of a slew of polls on Virginia's Nov. 3 contest for governor -- this one by Rasmussen Reports and conducted Sept. 29 -- suggests the more surveys that are in the field, the wider the range of possible outcomes.

The Rasmussen poll is the second this week suggesting that Republican nominee Bob McDonnell, a former state Attorney General, has a comfortable lead over Democrat Creigh Deeds, a state senator.

But those polls came directly on the heels of other surveys that showed Deeds has closed to within a low-to-mid single-digit margin.

Rasmussen's poll of 500 Virginians who say they are likely to vote gives McDonnell 51 percent and Deeds 42 percent. A SurveyUSA poll conducted Sept. 26-29 gave McDonnell a 14-point edge, 55 percent to 41 percent.

These results compare with the much-smaller 5-point lead for McDonnell, 48 percent to 43 percent, in a Public Policy Polling survey conducted Sept. 25-28.

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine has closed the gap with Republican opponent Chris Christie to the closest it's been in month, according to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted Sept. 23 to 28.

Corzine now trails Christie 39 percent to 43 percent among likely voters as the campaign enters its final month.

That's an improvement for the incumbent from Sept. 1, when a Quinnipiac poll showed Corzine lagging behind Christie by 10 percentage points.

Jerry Brown, California's Democratic Attorney General, edged closer Tuesday to an official 2010 bid for governor -- an office he previously held from 1975 to 1983.

Brown launched an exploratory campaign committee, a move that will allow him "to essentially quadruple the amount of campaign cash he can raise," the Sacramento Bee reported. California state law, according to the paper, "caps individual donations to gubernatorial candidates at $25,900 per election vs. $6,500 for candidates to other statewide offices," such as Brown's current post as Attorney General.

While Brown has not confirmed he will ultimately run, his candidacy is widely assumed to be a certainty. He is seeking an open seat, as the state's term-limit law bars Republican incumbent Arnold Schwarzenegger from running again.

Brown currently looks like the more promising of the Democrats' likely candidates, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted Sept. 24.

Brown led each of the three top Republicans vying for the seat: former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, and former Rep. Tom Campbell. Whitman came the closet to Brown, trailing by 44 percent to 35 percent.

Pennsylvania Democrats have yet to settle on a possible successor to Gov. Edward G. Rendell, who is retiring after reaching his limit of two terms, according to a Quinnipiac University poll taken Sept. 21-28.

With no early frontrunner, the party is is in danger of losing the office to the Republicans, the survey found.

Half the Democrats in the poll of registered voters are undecided, and the other half are scattered among five candidates, led by Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, who tops the field with 14 percent. Former Rep. Joseph M. Hoeffel, who is now a Montgomery County commissioner, drew 12 percent in the poll, followed by State Auditor General Jack Wagner with 11 percent, Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty with 8 percent, and businessman Tom Knox with 5 percent.

"The Democratic race for governor is wide open," said Peter Brown, assistant director of Quinnipiac's polling institute. "The candidates just aren't that visible to most voters and that race is still far, far away from even having a front- runner.'

A SurveyUSA poll conducted Sept. 26-29 gives Republican Bob McDonnell a much larger lead in the Nov. 3 election for Virginia governor than other recent surveys.

McDonnell, a former state Attorney General, leads Democratic nominee Creigh Deeds, a state senator, by 55 percent to 41 percent, according to the survey of 631 likely voters.

Most recent surveys have given McDonnell a small but steady advantage in the polls, but the SurveyUSA poll gives McDonnell a 17-point lead among men and a 10-point lead among women.

Now that the waiting is over, the state that was evenly split over whether it wanted Al Franken in the Senate is still unsure about Minnesota's junior senator.

Fully 30 percent of the 1,000 adults surveyed for the Minneapolis Star Tribune weren't sure enough to venture an opinion about how Franken's doing, according to the poll conducted Sept. 21-24.

Of the rest, Franken's two months of work as a senator won the approval of 41 percent of respondents and the disapproval of 29 percent.

A plurality of likely Arizona voters thinks Sen. John McCain has not done a good job of representing Republican values, but a majority still approves of his job performance, according to a new poll from Rasmussen Reports.

In the poll, conducted Sept. 24, 46 percent of respondents said McCain has lost touch with Republican voters, including 61 percent of Republicans. That is an 11 percent increase since May among GOP voters who don’t think he represents their base.

Thirty-six percent of likely voters and 33 percent of Republicans said the five-term senator has a done a good job of representing GOP values. Seventeen percent weren’t sure.

Despite discontent within his base, McCain still looks like a strong favorite for re-election. Fifty-six percent of likely voters approved of his job performance, 22 percent strongly. Forty-three percent disapproved, 24 percent strongly.

People are a bit on edge about proposals to overhaul the nation's health care system but are generally positive about the prospects for improvement, according to a survey for the Kaiser Family Foundation taken Sept. 11-18.

When asked to describe their feelings, they say they are anxious (50 percent), hopeful (68 percent), optimistic (55 percent), and frustrated (58 percent).

While 65 percent say they know a lot or a fair amount about the proposals, nearly half of the respondents say they are confused.

Pennsylvania Rep. Jason Altmire, a two-term Democrat, has drawn his first Republican challenger for the 2010 campaign.

Keith J. Rothfus, a lawyer, confirmed to CQ Politics Tuesday that he recently filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission. He issued a press release later Tuesday announcing his candidacy and outlining some of his reasons he is running in the 4th District, which includes suburbs of Pittsburgh and other territory in western Pennsylvania.

"We need policies that focus on lowering the tax burden on employers, not policies that add new costs, such as the health care and 'cap and trade' bills pending in Congress," Rothfus said.

Altmire, however, voted against cap-and-trade, which refers to a provision in an energy bill, passed by the House and pending in the Senate, that would limit emissions related to global warming -- a concept supported by many Democrats but opposed by most Republicans on economic grounds.

Virginia Republican Bob McDonnell continues to narrowly lead Democrat Creigh Deeds in the state's Nov. 3 contest for governor, aided by near-unanimous support among Republicans and an advantage among among political independents -- according to a Public Policy Polling survey conducted Sept. 25-28.

The poll of 576 likely voters gave McDonnell 48 percent and Deeds 43 percent. That result conforms with other recent surveys showing McDonnell, a former state legislator and Attorney General, with a lead that is narrower than the advantage he held over Deeds in the summer.

McDonnell holds a 14 percentage-point lead over Deeds among the crucial swing-voting constitutuency of political independents polled by PPP: 51 percent to 37 percent. That is despite the fact that the two candidates have nearly identical favorability ratings, with McDonnell is viewed favorably by 47 percent and unfavorably by 42 percent, and Deeds seen favorably by 43 percent and unfavorably by 42 percent.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown is outpolling his likely opponents for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination and for the 2010 general election, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey taken Sept. 24.

Brown, who served two terms as governor in the 1970s, has a higher favorability rating than San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who also is seeking the Democratic nomination, 53 percent to 45 percent.

And in a hypothetical general election race, Brown leads former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, a Republican candidate, 44 percent to 35 percent, and two other candidates now seeking the Republican nomination, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner 45 percent to 32 percent, and former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell 44 percent to 34 percent, according to Rasmussen.

Michigan Republicans sense a prime opportunity to take back their state governor's seat in 2010, after two terms with Democrat Jennifer M. Granholm. But the state party is far from unified over who their best candidate is to take on likely Democratic nominee John Cherry.

Two polls released last week -- one by non-partisan Inside Michigan Politics and by GOP firm Mitchell Research & Communications Inc. -- showed state Attorney General Mike Cox continues to lead a crowded Republican primary field, with U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra not far behind. Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, technology entrepreneur Rick Snyder and state Sen. Tom George are also in the mix. None of the candidates topped 30 percent, however.

The poll for the newsletter Inside Michigan Politics found that a quarter of likely Republican voters were undecided and the Mitchell Research poll found nearly a third were unsure.

Cox and Bouchard lead Cherry in head-to-head match-ups, the two polls show.

Public support continues to erode for plans by the White House and congressional Democrats to overhaul the nation's health care system, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll taken Sept. 24-25.

Forty-one percent of likely voters said they support the overhaul proposals now making their way through Congress, while 56 percent say they oppose these plans, Rasmussen said.

The intensity of opinion appears to be on the side of opponents, 43 percent of whom strongly oppose the plans as currently proposed while 23 percent strongly favor them.

West Virginia Democratic Rep. Alan B. Mollohan, who was unopposed in his last re-election campaign, has drawn a 2010 challenge from a Republican state legislator.

Republican state Sen. Clark Barnes said over the weekend that he will run against Mollohan, who since 1983 has represented the state's 1st District in and around Wheeling and Morgantown.

Barnes told The Wheeling Intelligencer newspaper that "we need to go back to traditionalism."

Americans have some doubts about President Obama's next moves in Afghanistan and his handling of foreign policy, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted the week of Sept. 21, but he's also shored up support for health care overhaul, his top domestic priority.

The poll of more than 1,000 adults shows growing optimism that the economy has begun to turn around. Obama's overall approval rating has held steady at 51 percent since August, as his message on health care has clearly begun to penetrate.

Still, the poll inferred some warnings for Obama and congressional Democrats.

For the first time, independent voters -- who put Obama in the White House and gave Democrats control of Congress -- disapprove of the job he is doing, by 46 percent compared with the 41 percent who approve. In July, 49 percent of independents approved of the president, against 38 percent who disapproved.

New doubts about the president have coincided with new hopes for Republicans, who appeared flattened by the election nearly a year ago.

As the 2010 election cycle heats up, 40 percent now favor Republican control of Congress compared with 39 percent in July; 43 percent favor a Democratic-controlled Congress compared with 46 percent in July.

However, the mood is improving on the economy: nearly one-quarter of the poll's respondents said they feel satisfied with the state of the economy, which marks a 10-point jump from July. Thirty-five percent of respondents now believe the economy has pretty much hit bottom, compared with 27 percent who thought so in July.

A large Republican field is forming to oppose Democratic Rep. Bill Foster in Illinois' 14th District.

The latest entrant is state Sen. Randy Hultgren, who recently filed a statement of organization with the Federal Election Commission and who formally announced his candidacy on Monday.

Hultgren served eight years in the Illinois House (1999-2007) and was elected to the Illinois Senate in 2006, replacing Republican Peter Roskam, who was elected to Congress from the 6th District.

President Obama's approval numbers hit negative double digits again, a Sunday Rasmussen tracking poll shows, with 30 percent strongly approving of his performance and 40 percent strongly disapproving.

The approval index -- calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve yielded a rating of minus 10. Rasmussen said it is the first time in three weeks that the approval index fell to negative double digits.

On Sept. 6, 29 percent strongly approved of the president's performance and 40 percent strongly disapproved, for a rating of minus 11.

In the telephone poll of 1,500 likely voters over three days, 48 percent of voters said they "somewhat approve" of Obama's performance, while 51 percent "somewhat disapprove." The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Republican campaign strategists will have to scramble to find a new challenger to Nevada Democratic Rep. Dina Titus, after highly touted recruit John Guedry abruptly ended his campaign to unseat the 3rd District freshman.

The Las Vegas Sun reported late Friday that Guedry, a banker, issued a statement that read in part:

"I entered this race to help make our state and nation a better place for my family and future generations of Nevadans. Recent events have compelled me as a father and husband to end my campaign for public office and focus my attention on important issues closer to home."

Guedry, who formally launched his campaign just last month, did not elaborate on the "recent events" that precipitated his withdrawal from the contest in Nevada's 3rd, a partisan swing district that takes in a part of Las Vegas and much of the city's suburban population.

A retracted endorsement by a former member of Congress has produced an early spark of disagreement between two Democratic candidates in Illinois' highly competitive 10th District north of Chicago.

Dan Seals, the losing Democratic nominee in 2006 and 2008, sent out a fundraising e-mail touting the backing of ex-Rep. Abner Mikva, the district's congressman from 1975 to 1979 and who later served as a federal appellate judge and as Bill Clinton's White House counsel.

But Mikva has decided to sit out the 2010 Democratic primary, in which Seals' most threatening opponent is state Rep. Julie Hamos.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, can expect a tough 2010 challenge from Republican John Kasich, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey conducted Sept. 23.

The poll of 500 likely voters gives Kasich, a former House member (1983-2001) from central Ohio, 46 percent of the vote and Strickland 45 percent, making this likely November 2010 pairing a dead heat. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Strickland and President Obama have nearly identically mediocre approval ratings, with 50 percent of voters saying they somewhat disapprove or strongly disapprove of their job performances.

California Sen. Barbara Boxer earns less than 50 percent of the vote in hypothetical match-ups against two prospective Republican challenger, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted Sept. 23.

Boxer, who is running for a fourth term in 2010, leads former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina 49 percent to 39 percent and conservative state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore 46 percent to 37 percent among likely California voters. The margin of error is 4.5 percent.

For Boxer, that is an improvement over her showing in a July survey, when she led Fiorina by just 4 percentage points.

There's no early favorite in the 2010 U.S. Senate race in Ohio, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted Sept. 23.

Former Rep. Rob Portman, a former federal budget and trade official who is the leading Republican candidate for the seat, is essentially running even with the Democratic candidates, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

Portman has 41 percent and Fisher has 40 percent in the poll, which gave Portman 40 percent when paired with Brunner, who has 38 percent support.

South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson has raised more than $1 million for his own campaign treasury since his "You lie" shout during President Obama's address to Congress two weeks ago. And now Wilson is spreading the wealth with his Republican colleagues.

Wilson is headed to Michigan Oct. 2 for a fundraiser with Tim Walberg, a Republican who held the 7th District seat for one term before he was ousted by Democrat Mark Schauer in 2008. Walberg is now seeking a rematch in what is expected to be a competitive race.

According to Walberg's Web site, the event in the 7th District city of Jackson, "will feature Congressman Wilson and Tim Walberg discussing health care and the need to stop a government takeover."

For $150, attendees would get two tickets and a photo with Wilson.

Wilson chief of staff Eric Dell told CQ Politics that the four-term congressman -- who is seeking re-election next year -- will then head to Missouri later that week for a speaking engagement with local politicos at the request of Rep. Roy Blunt, the likely GOP nominee in the state's open-seat Senate contest.

There's no doubt that the Nov. 3 election for Virginia governor is closer than it was a month ago, after the latest in a series of polls showing the gap between front-running Republican Bob McDonnell and Democratic rival Creigh Deeds closing to low single-digit percentages .

A survey conducted Sept. 23 by Insider Advantage/Majority Opinion Research gives McDonnell 48 percent and Deeds 44 percent.

The poll, of 602 registered voters, shows signs that Deeds is solidifying his partisan voting base. He enjoys more support among self-described Democrats (89 percent) than McDonnell does among self-described Republicans (79 percent), though McDonnell has a 22-point lead among independents.

Paradise Valley Mayor Vernon Parker announced Wednesday night that he is preparing to run for Arizona governor, signaling to Republican incumbent Jan Brewer that she will not have a free ride, even from her own party.

Parker, an official in both Bush presidential administrations, would be the first black Republican governor, should he be elected.

First he will have to get through what is likely to be a crowded GOP primary. Brewer, who rose from secretary of State to the governor's post after Democrat Janet Napolitano became Secretary of Homeland Security last winter, has not indicated whether she will seek election to the office in her own right. Even if she does, she is not the clear favorite.

A political consultant and Democratic activist with ties to the late Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and to Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak wants to succeed Sestak in the House.

E. Teresa Touey told the Pennsylvania political blog pa2010.com that she will relocate from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania's 7th District, of which she is a native.

Touey said that she feels "real strongly that economic development is what needs to happen in Delaware County over the next decade." Delaware County, located west and south of Philadelphia, accounts for more than 70 percent of the vote in the 7th, which also includes parts of Chester and Montgomery Counties.

Democratic Rep. Ron Kind will not run for governor of Wisconsin in 2010, deciding instead to seek an eighth term in his 3rd District seat.

Kind, who would have been a top contender in the governor's race, released a statement Thursday afternoon in which he cited efforts to pass a health care overhaul as the top priority keeping him in Congress.

"My first responsibility must be to get affordable and accessible health care reform passed this year for all Wisconsin families," Kind said. "That is why I cannot run for governor. I have a responsibility and duty to the people of Wisconsin to continue work on the health care reform agenda ahead of us."

Democratic Gov. James E. Doyle announced in August that he would not seek a third term, breaking the 2010 race wide open. Kind promptly declared that he was considering a bid for governor, raising expectations that he would run.

Illinois Democrat Alexi Giannoulias is getting a boost for his 2010 Senate campaign from the politically potent Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

The SEIU on Thursday endorsed Giannoulias, who is a leading candidate for the seat formerly held by President Barack Obama and currently held by Democrat Roland W. Burris, who isn't running in the 2010 race.

An SEIU release praised Giannoulias, but it mostly criticized Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, who is the leading Republican candidate for the seat.

Carroll "Tumpy" Campbell III officially joined the 1st District congressional race, carrying on his family's political tradition in South Carolina.

The son of former South Carolina Gov. Carroll Campbell Jr., Campbell faces a Republican primary against incumbent Henry E. Brown Jr. Brown, in his fifth term, survived a closer than expected race in 2008, edging by Democrat Linda Ketner 52 percent to 48 percent despite the district's Republican tilt. That has whetted the appetite for a challenge for politicians on both sides of the aisle in 2010.

On Wednesday, Campbell told supporters, "We deserve better than Henry Brown."

"You can't say it's time to throw the bums out and then vote for your local politician who keeps bumming a ride back to Washington based on bailout votes, earmarks and years of running for office," he declared at the campaign event, in Mount Pleasant, S.C., the AP reported.

After Republicans realize Meg Whitman isn't offering a clear solution to California's economic woes, Steve Poizner will win the GOP gubernatorial nomination and face off against Democrat Jerry Brown in an "epic battle." So says Poizner, the state's insurance commissioner.

Poizner on Wednesday described challenger Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, as a "branding expert" who outsiders incorrectly believe will appeal to the GOP because of her perceived ability to rebrand and revive the Republican party.

John Oxendine, Georgia's insurance commissioner, leads among Republican candidates in the state's 2010 race for governor, while former Gov. Roy Barnes leads the Democratic field, according to a Strategic Vision poll of likely voters conducted Sept. 18-20.

But the large number of undecided respondents reported by the survey means it may be premature to label those candidates as the odds-on favorites for their parties' nominations in the open-seat race.

Oxendine led six other candidates for the July primary with 38 percent. Undecided respondents made up the second-largest group surveyed with 25 percent. Among the other contenders, Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel received 15 percent and Rep. Nathan Deal received 10 percent. Four other Republicans split the remainder in the poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine trails Republican Chris Christie by 7 percentage points in a Sept. 21 Rasmussen Reports poll.

With less than six weeks remaining until Election Day, Christie, a former U.S. attorney, led Corzine 48 percent to 41 percent. An additional 6 percent of voters indicated support for Independent Chris Daggett, a former EPA administrator, and 5 percent remain undecided.

"The data suggests that a segment of the initially undecided voters may have already rejected Corzine and are now trying to decide whether to vote for Christie or Daggett," Rasmussen said.

Survey respondents indicated they trust Christie more than Corzine, who is vying for a second term, on taxes, government spending and government corruption.

Taxes remains the top concern of voters surveyed with 40 percent of respondents indicating it's the most important issue in the campaign. Christie has accused Corzine's administration of driving away residents and businesses by failing to rein in the state's high taxes.

The poll sampled the opinions of 500 likely voters.

CQ Politics rates the race Leans Republican.

To follow the 2009 and 2010 governors' races, check out CQ Politics' election map.

-- Rachel Kapochunas

One reason Colorado Democrat Betsy Markey unseated Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave last year is that Musgrave had a reputation of being more concerned about hotbutton social issues and not the everyday economic struggles of residents of the state's 4th District.

Republican state Rep. Cory Gardner, who is probably the leading Republican challenger to Markey in the 2010 election, thinks that the 4th District, which includes vast swaths of northern and eastern Colorado, will return to its Republican roots by responding to his message of fiscal restraint and limited government.

"I am focusing on the issues - the economy, kitchen-table matters, and those things that are affecting people's everyday lives today," Gardner said Wednesday at a meeting with reporters that was organized by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the campaign arm of the House GOP.

Linda McMahon's background as a pro wrestling impresario has prompted any number of jokes since last week when she launched her bid for the Republican Senate nomination in Connecticut. But it took mere days -- and a big-money campaign ad run -- to show that the first-time Republican candidate is dead serious about trying to unseat Democratic incumbent Christopher J. Dodd.

McMahon dipped into the wealth she has amassed as CEO of publicly-traded World Wrestling Entertainment to finance a seven-figure television ad buy. Her campaign has two ads running on network television in the New York City media market -- the nation's biggest and most expensive -- and across Connecticut for the next seven days.

McMahon's campaign also launched an introductory radio spot yesterday to air statewide for one week; took out full-page ads in local newspapers; sent out mailers; and has Web ads up targeting Connecticut voters.

Missouri state Sen. Bill Stouffer on Wednesday formally kicked off his campaign for the Republican nomination to take on veteran Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton in 2010.

GOP officials are vowing to vigorously challenge Skelton in the west-central 4th District for the first time in many years. Stouffer's official campaign launch marked the latest step in what is shaping up as a busy field for the August Republican primary: Former state Rep. Vicky Hartzler and computer security consultant James Scholz have also announced bids to challenge the 17-term incumbent.

Stouffer, a farmer who is in his second four-year term in the Missouri Senate, planned a morning announcement event in Blue Springs, which is near Kansas City in the far western part of the district. He also planned to declare his candidacy later Wednesday in Marshfield, which is in the far southern part of the district, and on Thursday in Jefferson City, Missouri's state capital, at the district's eastern end.

The two leading candidates for Missouri's open U.S. Senate seat are in a very close race with just more than one year before the 2010 balloting, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey conducted Sept. 21.

The survey of 500 likely voters showed 46 percent support for both Democrat Robin Carnahan, Missouri's secretary of state, and Republican Roy Blunt, a seven-term House member from the state's 7th District.

The poll said that 57 percent of respondents have a very favorable or somewhat favorable view of Blunt, while 52 percent said the same of Carnahan.

Public disapproval of the way Congress is doing its job is a 3-1 runaway over public approval, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll taken Sept. 17-20.

Public approval of Congress stood at 22 percent, while disapproval was 66 percent, according to the poll. As bad as that may sound, it's not as bad as it has been. Last October, the same poll found public approval of Congress was 12 percent.

Despite their low opinion of how Congress is doing, people responding to the survey aren't crazy about their choices: 41 percent feel positive about the Democratic Party, which now controls both houses of Congress, and 39 percent have negative feelings. Republicans are not in a strong position to capitalize on that. Twenty-eight percent have positive feelings toward the GOP, and 43 percent are negative.

Community service pioneer Alan Khazei is scheduled to join the Massachusetts Senate race on Thursday, rounding out the Democratic field in the special election to succeed Edward M. Kennedy.

Khazei, co-founder of the City Year volunteer program, plans to announce his campaign at noon Thursday in Boston. It will follow a Wednesday tour of western Massachusetts to talk to community activists. Khazei has already pulled nomination papers and filed the federal paperwork for a Senate run.

Khazei will be the upstart candidate in a Democratic primary field that contains two seasoned politicians -- Attorney General Martha Coakley and 8th District U.S. Rep. Michael E. Capuano -- and a multimillionaire businessman -- Stephen Pagliuca.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's favorability rating is not much better than that of the man he defeated in 2006, former Gov. Bob Ehrlich, according to a state poll taken Sept. 8-17 by Gonzales Research and Marketing.

Forty-eight percent of registered voters responding to the poll said they had a favorable opinion of O'Malley, a Democrat, while 28 percent have an unfavorable opinion of him and 23 percent are neutral, according to the poll.

Meanwhile, Ehrlich, a Republican, is viewed favorably by 42 percent of those responding to the poll, while 26 percent view him unfavorably and 26 percent are neutral, according to the Gonzales poll.

If Republicans fail to unseat freshman Virginia Democratic Rep. Glenn Nye next year, it won't be because of a lack of interest.

Scott Taylor, a businessman and former Navy SEAL, announced his candidacy Tuesday, becoming the sixth Republican to make preparations to seek the seat in southeastern Virginia's 2nd District.

These half-dozen candidates are competing for the nomination to challenge Nye, a former international development official whose 2008 victory over Republican Rep. Thelma Drake -- by a 5 percentage-point margin -- came in his first bid for public office.

Taylor, in a video on his campaign Web site, says that "as your congressman, I'll work to protect traditional values, guard our 2nd Amendment rights, decrease the tax burden for individuals and businesses, and do everything I can to strengthen our free market system."

A recent Harvard Law School graduate who had a spirited public exchange this spring with Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank about the financial crisis now wants to join Frank in Congress -- as the House member from Illinois' 9th District.

Republican Joel Pollak filed candidacy paperwork with the Federal Election Commission and previously announced his candidacy in Illinois' 9th, a strongly Democratic-leaning district in and around Evanston in which Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky will be seeking a seventh term.

Pollak's campaign Web site includes some footage of his encounter with Frank, who appeared at Harvard in April to talk about new regulations on the nation's financial system. During a question and answer period, Frank took umbrage at Pollak's statement that the financial crisis "happened on your watch" and his questions about whether Frank bore any responsibility.

New York Rep. Gregory W. Meeks denied Tuesday that he told David A. Paterson -- his home state's embattled Democratic governor -- that the Obama White House does not want him to run when his seat is up in 2010.

But Meeks, a House veteran from the New York City borough of Queens, was vague on the specifics of the conversations he did have with Paterson.

Meeks commented on the situation while making the New York media rounds in the wake of a story published Sunday by the New York Times. That article said President Obama and his political team wanted Paterson to step aside, and asked Meeks, who is close to both men, to deliver the message.

Paterson has suffered from a sharp decline in his approval ratings since March 2008, when he moved up from lieutenant governor to succeed resigned Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer, and many Democrats worry that his determination to seek a full term in his own right next year could cost his party the seat.

Republican Rick Lazio formally launched his campaign for New York governor Tuesday morning, calling for an overhaul of the state's dysfunctional government and saying he is the man to lead this change.

"State government overspends, overtaxes, and over reaches. It is polarized, unresponsive and unaccountable. It has destroyed rather than created jobs," Lazio said in a speech in Albany, N.Y. "New York's government is about the past, and we need a Governor who relentlessly focuses on the future."

The former congressman, who represented New York's 2nd District from 1993 to 2001, is the first Republican in the race. But looming in the wings is former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. A poll released Tuesday morning by Siena College confirms Giuliani would easily defeat Lazio in a primary and would be much more competitive in the general election.

Seventy-one percent of registered New York voters apparently share the same view as President Barack Obama when it comes to their governor's race: They do not want incumbent David A. Paterson to run, preferring to elect someone else in 2010, according to a Siena College poll conducted Sept. 13 to 17.

Paterson this weekend rebuffed calls from the White House to bow out of the race.

He cannot so easily dismiss New York voters. Seventy-three percent agreed that Paterson is "well intentioned but isn't getting the job done" and 61 percent agreed that he "doesn't have the leadership skills necessary to be governor of New York."

Sen. Al Franken still has some convincing to do to his constituents in Minnesota, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll taken Sept. 15.

Franken, a Democrat, unseated Republican Sen. Norm Coleman by 312 votes in a race that was decided only after a long recount of the ballots.

The Rasmussen poll found that 41 percent of likely voters in Minnesota think he is doing an excellent or good job, while 31 percent say he is doing a fair or poor job. Not surprisingly, Democrats (79 percent) say he is doing an excellent or good job while Republicans (56 percent) say he is doing poorly.

Health care overhaul legislation does not appear to contain a good prognosis for a life in politics, if the latest ratings for Sen. Charles E. Grassley are any indicator.

In the latest Iowa Poll, conducted Sept. 14-16 by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, the approval rating for the Iowa Republican plunged nearly 20 points, to 57 percent from 75 percent in January.

His rating in the poll, conducted for the Des Moines Register, stood at 66 percent in April, just before the most intense talks on the overhaul began.

The buzz is growing that former Republican Rep. Jon Porter is reconsidering an earlier decision to stay out of the Senate race against Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2010.

Chuck Muth, a longtime Republican operative in the state, said the word in Nevada GOP circles is that "Jon Porter is seriously talking about wanting to get into this race, after all."

Jon Porter (Getty Images/Ethan Miller)

Porter ruled out a challenge to Reid in June, but the lure of recent poll numbers showing Reid trailing several relatively unknown GOP challengerss are apparently proving hard to resist.

"He absolutely is talking to the folks at the senatorial committee and some money people," to see if there is an appetite for his candidacy, said Muth, who is heading up an anti-Reid political action committee, Dump Reid PAC, to raise money for his opponent.

Democrat Vic Snyder, a seven-term U.S. representative from Arkansas, has drawn a challenge from former U.S. Attorney Timothy Griffin for his 2010 House race.

Griffin told the Associated Press Monday that he would file paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to establish his candidacy. He gives the Republicans the relatively high-profile challenger they have long sought to take on Snyder in Arkansas' 2nd District, which includes the state capital of Little Rock.

The 2010 race will contrast with that in 2008, when the GOP failed to even field a candidate, and Snyder won re-election with 77 percent of the vote over the Green Party nominee.

Griffin served as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, which includes Little Rock, from December 2006 through June 2007. His predecessor, Bud Cummins, later said he was asked to resign to make room for Griffin, who worked at the White House in 2006 as an assistant to Karl Rove, then a leading advisor to President George W. Bush.

Griffin later resigned the post after earlier announcing he would not seek the nomination to retain it. The full nomination required Senate confirmation, and Griffin cited opposition from Arkansas' two senators, Democrats Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, to his candidacy.

Criticizing President Obama's intervention into the New York governor's race, former Republican Gov. George E. Pataki said that "everyone's decision to run for office is a very personal decision."

"You have to run because not just you think you can win the race but because you have the ideas and the vision," he said on a conference call hosted Monday by the Republican National Committee. "That's what the decision should be based on, not on poll numbers."

Pataki was talking about New York Gov. David A. Paterson, whom White House aides reportedly urged to step aside last week, but he could have just as easily been talking about himself.

He did not deny Monday that he is mulling the possibility of getting back into politics, most likely a Senate race vs. Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand.

Louisiana lawyer Ravi Sangisetty is the first Democrat to make official preparations to wage a 2010 campaign for the state's open 3rd District seat.

Sangisetty has filed a statement of candidacy and organized a campaign committee with the Federal Election Commission to initiate a bid in Louisiana's 3rd, a conservative-leaning district that three-term Democrat Charlie Melancon is giving up to run for the Senate.

E-mails sent to Sangisetti's campaign and to his law office were not returned. His campaign Web site is currently under construction.

Lawyers, stockbrokers, and journalists, take heart. You're not the lowest creatures on Earth, according to a poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports Sept. 17-18.

That label is now worn by members of Congress, and it's something where people of all political stripes actually seem to agree: 86 percent of Republicans and 81 percent of independents have an unfavorable opinion of members of Congress. And maybe the most sobering kick in the pants is that 56 percent of Democrats - who control both the House and Senate - say they don't like the people they find there.

Seventy-two percent of the respondents to the Rasmussen survey said they had an unfavorable opinion of members of Congress, and slightly more than half of that group said their opinion was "very unfavorable."

The campaign arm of House Democrats got a six-figure parting gift last month from the campaign committee of ex-California Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, who is now an arms control official in the State Department.

Tauscher resigned in June after more than a dozen years representing California's 10th District. Her campaign committee was shuttered on Sept. 16, but not before it transferred $124,500 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on Aug. 22.

Tauscher's committee also gave $2,000 apiece to the campaign committees of California Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. Boxer is up for re-election in 2010.

Former Pennsylvania Rep. Joseph M. Hoeffel is joining what has become a very crowded 2010 Democratic primary for governor.

Hoeffel, who is an elected commissioner in Montgomery County near Philadelphia, on Sunday told the Pennsylvania political blog pa2010.com, "I do intend to run. I'm going to move forward aggressively. I'm in the race and ready to ride."

Hoeffel represented Pennsylvania's 13th District in the House from 1999 through 2004, when he was the losing Democratic nominee for Senate against then-Republican incumbent Arlen Specter.

The conservative Family Research Council's political action committee plans to target 16 congressional races in 2010. The group's president, Tony Perkins, said the PAC has a goal of raising $1 million to boost grassroots activity in targeted races.

The group wants to spend money to help favored candidates take over the seats now represented by:

Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat who is running for a full term in Colorado after his appointment this year;

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, a Democrat who is running for re-election in Connecticut;

New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, a Republican who is retiring;

Missouri Sen. Christopher S. Bond, a Republican who is retiring;

Rep. John Boccieri, a Democrat who represents Ohio's 16th District;

A Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll conducted Sept. 14-16 gives Republican Bob McDonnell a 7-point lead over Democrat Creigh Deeds in the Virginia governor's race -- a larger lead for McDonnell than in a different poll this week that suggested the Nov. 3 race is a dead heat.

McDonnell has 50 percent and Deeds has 43 percent in the Daily Kos/Research 2000 survey, which gives the Republican a higher approval rating (56 percent) than either Deeds (47 percent), outgoing Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine (45 percent) or even President Obama (45 percent).

The survey showed that Deeds still has some work to do to solidify his Democratic Party base. He is winning 80 percent of self-identified Democrats, but 89 percent of self-described Republicans say they are backing McDonnell, who also has a 13-point edge over Deeds among political independents.

The Democratic Governors Association (DGA) on Friday declared the Nevada race for governor as one of its top-tier contests for 2010 -- a move that was expected, given Republican incumbent Jim Gibbons' vulnerable position heading into the election year.

The DGA previously hesitated to officially target the Nevada race while the possibility of a competitive Democratic primary still loomed.

But that prospect was eliminated last week when state Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley announced she would not run. That has cleared the way for Rory Reid -- an officeholder in the Las Vegas region and son of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- to stake his claim on the Democratic nomination.

"With no primary on the Democratic side, we will have a straight path to victory in Nevada," Nathan Daschle, the DGA's executive director, said in a release. "The DGA will fully engage politically with Commissioner Reid, helping him to build and execute a winning strategy. We believe that Nevada is ripe for Democratic leadership."

Two days after he stumped for Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, President Obama is throwing his political clout behind another politically vulnerable Democratic senator: Michael Bennet of Colorado.

Bennet's campaign on Thursday released a statement from Obama in which the president said that "families in Colorado and across America need him in the United States Senate to help us revitalize our economy, improve our public schools, and pass health insurance reform - and I am proud to count him as my ally in those efforts."

"Michael has had my full support from day one and I look forward to working with him in the Senate for years to come," said Obama, who considered nominating Bennet, a former Denver schools superintendent, as his Education Secretary.

The approval chart for Democrats in Congress looks like a ball that rolled off a ledge, but they can cling to a couple of facts they might take as good news: Things have been worse for them before, and as bad as things are now, the Republicans are suffering even more, according to a Gallup poll taken Aug. 31-Sept. 2.

Part of the reason approval for Republicans in Congress is in the tank is that Republicans'support for their own kind has dropped from 52 percent to 39 percent, and one reason their approval rating isn't worse is that Democrats' approval for Republicans in Congress has risen from 9 percent last December to 20 percent in mid-September, Gallup said.

Public approval of the job Congress does as a whole is at 31 percent and has held steady in the low-30 percent range since June, Gallup said.

He's not ready to formally announce his campaign, but Pennsylvania Democrat Corey O'Brien has taken formal steps to prepare a 2010 primary challenge of veteran Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski in the state's 11th District.

O'Brien is a lawyer and county commissioner in Scranton who also has a broadcasting background. He filed a statement of candidacy and also formed a campaign committee with the Federal Election Commission, which processed his paperwork on Sept. 16.

O'Brien told CQ Politics Thursday evening that he filed his FEC papers "out of an abundance of caution at this point, just to ensure that we're following all the appropriate procedures with respect to looking very closely at getting into the race."

Wealthy investor Stephen Pagliuca brushed aside questions about his party loyalty as he announced his Democratic campaign in the special election for the late Edward M. Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat.

In a speech at TD Bank Garden arena in Boston, Pagliuca, managing director of Bain Capital and co-owner of the NBA's Boston Celtics, promised to honor Kennedy "by making it possible for more of our fellow citizens to realize that American Dream."

"I'm well aware I'm pursuing the office of the greatest senator in the history of this Commonwealth," he added. He presumably did not believe the same thing when he and his wife gave $4,000 to Republican Mitt Romney's unsuccessful 1994 campaign to unseat Kennedy.

"That was a case of friendship coming before politics," Pagliuca said, noting that Romney "hired me and was the founder of our firm and I worked with him for 20 years."

Republican Rep. John Fleming, a freshman from Louisiana, has organized a leadership PAC to assist GOP candidates in competitive 2010 races.

Fleming's committee, which filed papers with the Federal Election Commission that were processed Sept. 16, is called Louisiana Values PAC.

Members of Congress like to form leadership PACs, which give them another avenue to donate campaign funds to colleagues.

Democrat Creigh Deeds is catching up to Republican Bob McDonnell in the Virginia governor's race by winning over some undecided voters, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey conducted Sept. 16.

The poll, which canvassed 500 likely voters in the Nov. 3 election, gave McDonnell 48 percent and Deeds 46 percent, which is effectively a dead heat. Recent polls have given McDonnell, a former state Attorney General, a clear lead over Deeds, a state senator.

"The tightening of the race over the past two weeks comes from a shift in the views of voters who might change their minds," according to the poll analysis. "Currently, those voters are leaning in Deeds' direction."

Despite basement-level approval ratings and calls for him to step aside in 2010, New York Gov. David A. Paterson is moving forward with his election campaign.

Paterson, the former lieutenant governor who ascended to the top post after Eliot Spitzer resigned in 2008, named a campaign manager for his 2010 race on Thursday. Richard Fife, president of RJF Communications Inc. and a senior New York adviser to Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, will take the helm of the listing Paterson ship.

Fife also managed New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney's aborted Senate run against Kirsten Gillibrand, whom Paterson appointed earlier this year to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Paterson also has a campaign spokeswoman, Tracy Sefl.

Illinois Democrat Cheryle Jackson, a candidate for the Senate seat President Obama once held, is getting aid for her 2010 bid from the feminist political action group EMILY's List.

Jackson, who heads the Chicago Urban League, was described in an endorsement press release Thursday, as a "dynamic and charismatic leader who is hands down the best candidate to keep President Obama's former Senate seat in the Democratic column."

Jackson is a former aide to Rod R. Blagojevich when he was Illinois governor, but before he became embroiled in the corruption scandals that prompted the state legislature to remove him from office last January.

The endorsement by EMILY's List, which backs Democratic women candidates who support abortion rights, was widely expected. Jackson faces competition from three men in the Feb. 2 Democratic primary: state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias; David Hoffman, a former Chicago inspector general; and Jacob Meister, a lawyer.

North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall polls the strongest of three Democrats matched up against Republican Sen. Richard M. Burr in a new poll by Rasmussen Reports.

Marshall trails Burr by 10 percentage points - 38 percent to 48 percent -- among the likely voters who responded to the poll conducted Sept. 15. That's a better showing than 2nd District Rep. Bob Etheridge, who trailed Burr by 34 to 48 percent, as well as attorney Kenneth Lewis, who was behind by 32 percent to 48 percent.

Marshall and Lewis have both declared their candidacies, while Etheridge is still considering a bid.

One interesting wrinkle is that the Rasmussen poll found that far more North Carolinians had an opinion of Burr than did other recent polls.

Rep. Michael E. Capuano is not officially kicking off his Massachusetts Senate bid until Friday, but that didn't stop the six-term Boston Democrat from launching his TV advertising campaign.

Capuano began airing an introductory spot statewide on Thursday. The ad touts his ability to carry on the legacy of Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the longtime incumbent whose death Aug. 25 created the vacancy.

"Only one candidate stood with Ted Kennedy against Bush's Iraq War and mirrors his progressive record," the ad begins, before reeling off a list of policies the mostly liberal Capuano supports, including a strong public health care option, abortion rights and gay marriage equality.

Capuano spokeswoman Alison Mills said the ad buy was "substantial."

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd has gained ground with independents when matched up against potential Republican opponent Rob Simmons, according to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted Sept. 10 to 14.

Dodd still trails Simmons among registered independents, 31 percent to 49 percent. But that's an improvement since July, when independent voters backed Simmons 56 to 27 percent. Independents are a crucial voting bloc in Connecticut, where they make up more than 40 percent of registered voters.

Overall, Simmons leads Dodd 44 percent to 39 percent, a drop from his 48 to 39 percent lead in July. Quinnipiac's findings echo a poll released earlier this week by Daily Kos/Research 2000 that showed Dodd closing within 4 percent of Simmons.

U.S. adults have serious misgivings about how President Obama is handling the government's ballooning budget deficit, with 58 percent saying they disapprove and 38 percent saying they approve, according to a Gallup poll taken Sept. 11-13.

The disapproval rating for the president is higher than his approval rating on two other issues, healthcare policy (52 percent to 43 percent) and the economy (51 percent to 46 percent), Gallup said.

On four other issues, his approval rating is higher than disapproval:

Once he crossed the $800,000 fund raising mark there wasn't much doubt that financier Peter Schiff was serious about running for the Senate in 2010.

On Thursday, he made it official.

Add the former adviser to the Ron Paul presidential campaign to the list of Republicans eager to take on Democratic Sen. Christopher J. Dodd in 2010.

Schiff, head of Euro Pacific Capital, used an appearance on the MSNBC program "Morning Joe" to declare the exploratory phase of the campaign over. He said the economy is spurring him to run: "I can't sit idly by and just watch a train wreck in motion."

Schiff also sent an e-mail to supporters Thursday morning crediting their support with making his campaign possible. "Based on the support that I have received thus far, I fully expect to be facing down Chris Dodd in the general election just 14 months from now," he wrote.

Illinois state Rep. Elizabeth Coulson, a leading contender for Congress in next year's Republican primary, is asking the Federal Election Commission if she can continue to fund some constituent service programs related to her state legislative duties, now that she is a candidate for federal office.

Lawyers for Coulson's congressional campaign asked the FEC if Coulson can still use funds in her legislative office account or in her state legislative campaign committee to send a mailing to 12,000 constituents informing them of a "seniors fair" next month at which local businesses set up information booths to promote their services.

Coulson's campaign also asked federal election officials if she can use office or state campaign funds to send an annual mailing next month to about 4,000 constituents to apprise them of what she and the Illinois legislature are doing on health care policy.

American adults doubt that President Obama can expand health care without boosting taxes on the middle class, and overwhelming majorities are ready to oppose plans that would result in higher taxes, according to a Gallup poll taken Sept. 11-13.

Fifty-six percent said they are not confident the Obama administration can cover the government's increased tab for health care by wringing savings out of Medicare and other government-financed health programs. Forty-three percent say they are confident the government can cover its health bills this way.

A 40 percent plurality of the poll's respondents say the proposed overhaul would improve coverage in the United States, but a similar number said it would not improve costs, insurance company behavior, or the overall quality of health care.

Former Rep. Rob Portman is leading among Ohio voters in the Republican primary to succeed retiring Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, according to a Quinnipiac University poll taken Sept. 10-13.

In the Democratic primary, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher leads Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner 26 percent to 17 percent, and in the Republican primary, Portman leads opponent Tom Ganley, a car dealer from Cleveland, 27 percent to 9 percent, Quinnipiac said.

In general election matchups, Democratic candidates have an advantage:

Republican Kelly Ayotte is leading Democratic Rep. Paul W. Hodes among unaffiliated voters in New Hampshire's Senate race, according to a Sept. 14 Rasmussen Reports poll of likely voters.

Ayotte, who served as the state's U.S. attorney until she resigned in July to focus on her Senate campaign, received 81 percent support from Republicans and Hodes received 81 percent support from Democrats, but Ayotte led Hodes among unaffiliated voters by 14 points.

In a hypothetical match-up of all voters, Ayotte led Hodes 46 percent to 38 percent with 5 percent of respondents indicating their preference for another candidate and 12 percent undecided. The poll's margin of error is 4.5 percentage points.

Democrat Bill Bradbury is entering the Oregon governor's race. At least, that's what we can infer from the endorsement video posted on his YouTube site.

Bradbury, who has served as Oregon's secretary of State from 1999 to this year, also was the 2002 challenger to GOP Sen. Gordon H. Smith. He was widely expected to enter the governor's race Thursday but his campaign jumped the gun when they released a video endorsement from former Gov. Barbara Roberts.

"Bill Bradbury is my strong choice for governor of Oregon," Roberts said in a Web video.

Missouri Republican Sarah Steelman won't be running for any political office in 2010.

Steelman, a former Missouri treasurer and state senator, issued a statement to reporters saying that she wanted to enter private life and raise her youngest son in Missouri.

"This is my time to work hard as a private citizen, along with the growing number of like-minded citizens, to restore the conservative principles of freedom that made this the greatest country in the world," she said.

Republican lawyer Andy Barr is initiating a likely 2010 campaign in Kentucky against Democratic Rep. Ben Chandler.

The Kentucky political blog Page One said Wednesday that Barr has organized an "exploratory" committee to run in the state's 6th District, an area of central Kentucky that Chandler has represented for nearly six years. Barr also has a campaign Web site.

Barr said that he was "taking the initial steps necessary to travel the District, talk with potential supporters, and raise the resources necessary to launch a successful campaign."

As Republican Rick Lazio prepares to officially enter New York's 2010 campaign for governor next Monday, members of his own party are split on whether they think he should run, according to a poll conducted Sept. 8 through 10 by the Marist Institute of Public Opinion.

Forty-three percent of registered Republican voters said they want Lazio to run, but another 43 percent said they don't. Among all voters regardless of party, just 30 percent thought Lazio should run for the seat held by politically struggling interim Democratic Gov. David A. Paterson.

In contrast, 81 percent of Republicans, and 58 percent of voters overall, said they want former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to run for governor. Giuliani, who bid unsuccessfully for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, is still mulling a campaign.

Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff, a former state House Speaker, has made official his 2010 primary challenge of Sen. Michael Bennet.

Romanoff planned announcements Wednesday in Pueblo, Colorado Springs and Denver. His campaign Web site was updated Wednesday to include a statement from Romanoff on the reasons he's seeking the Senate seat.

"I'm running for the Senate because I want to represent the state I love the best way I know how," Romanoff said. "I've led the fight to energize our economy, strengthen our schools, and curb the cost of health care. No one in this race knows the people of Colorado better - and no one will work harder to make their voices heard."

Linda McMahon, the chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment, announced Wednesday that she has joined the contest for the 2010 Republican Senate nomination in Connecticut.

Her entry adds a good deal of personal wealth -- and perhaps a bit of her sports marketing firm's trademark theatrical flair -- to the already crowded field of Republicans seeking to challenge Democratic Sen. Christopher J. Dodd. Suffering from a job approval slump tied to questions about his oversight of the financial industry as chairman of the Banking Committee, Dodd is more vulnerable than at any previous point in his Senate career.

McMahon, who stepped down from her CEO post to run, released a statement Wednesday touting her business experience as a key qualification for the seat. "I have spent the past 30 years growing what began as a 13-employee small business into a publicly traded, global entertainment company," she said. "I understand what it takes to balance a budget, create jobs and grow the economy."

She has run the company with her husband, Vince McMahon, a showman who long has been the public face of pro wrestling and its flamboyant mixture of sports and theater.

In a warning sign to Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, more voters view him unfavorably than favorably and he trails a leading Republican opponent, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey conducted September 15.

The survey of 500 likely voters found that 49 percent held a "somewhat unfavorable" or "very unfavorable" view of Bennet, who was appointed in January to the Senate seat that Democrat Ken Salazar vacated to become Interior Secretary in the Obama administration. Thirty-six percent of respondents said they have a somewhat favorable or a very favorable view of the senator.

Bennet trails Republican Jane Norton, who announced her candidacy on Tuesday, by 45 percent to 36 percent. Norton, a former Colorado lieutenant governor, is the best-known of a half-dozen Republicans who are challenging Bennet.

One of the hard things to explain to casual consumers of political news is the sometimes thin connection between philosophy and party. Not all Democrats consider themselves liberal, not all Republicans consider themselves conservative and vice versa.

The latest example of how not all conservatives march in step with the Republican Party comes from the blog RedState, which is leading a fundraising drive for four conservative Senate candidates, two of whom are running in GOP primaries against opponents backed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

"I won't call this the 'screw the NRSC' fundraiser, but I'm sorely tempted," wrote editor-in-chief Erick Erickson.

Fully 20 percent of Virginians surveyed don't know who they want as their next governor, according to a Clarus Research Group poll conducted Sept. 10-14.

The poll -- like other recent surveys that use different methodology -- found that Republican Bob McDonnell is leading Democrat Creigh Deeds.

The race for governor of Virginia has tightened somewhat, although Republican Bob McDonnell still leads Democratic opponent Creigh Deeds, The margin in this poll is pegged at 42 percent to 37 percent, with a much greater portion of undecideds than were identified in a Sept. 1 Rasmussen Reports poll.

South Carolina Democrat Jim Rex, the state Superintendent of Education, is now an official candidate for the 2010 election to succeed term-limited Republican Mark Sanford as governor.

Rex's bid, which he had earlier signaled, adds a statewide elected official to the crowded June Democratic primary field. His party is trying to overcome South Carolina's usual Republican leanings -- and take advantage of the turmoil surrounding Sanford, who has declined demands even from many fellow Republicans that he resign following his confession of an extramarital affair and allegations that he improperly used state-funded travel.

Rex didn't reference Sanford directly as he launched his campaign with an op-ed piece in The State newspaper in Columbia and in a statement on his campaign Web site. But a reference to the incumbent appeared clear in Rex's lament about the "seemingly endless distractions" that "have crippled our state government."

Even as South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson was apologizing to the White House for shouting "You lie!" at President Obama last week, his campaign team was thinking ahead to what the online benefits might be.

The Wilson campaign purchased online ads to appear with Google searches of Wilson's name "within hours" of the speech, Google spokesman Galen Panger said, and Wilson's 2010 Democratic opponent Rob Miller bought Google ads to appear with the same search soon after.

"It was one of the fastest turnarounds we've seen on a rapid response campaign," said Panger.

Both men also have obtained the most prominently featured ad spots connected to searches for Rob Miller's name. And Wilson has begun running ads on the search terms "Obama speech." In the D.C. market the ad, entitled "Joe Wilson Under Attack," is the top sponsored link to appear above the search results, routing readers back to Wilson's campaign Web site and a video of Wilson criticizing Democratic attempts to officially scold him.

The resolution of disapproval was adopted on a largely party-line vote Tuesday afternoon.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is upside-down on his favorable-to-unfavorable number in a Rasmussen Reports survey conducted Sept. 14.

Of 500 likely Nevada voters surveyed, 54 percent said they have a somewhat or very unfavorable view of the Democratic leader, compared to a 45 percent favorable rating.

Looking at two potential Republican opponents, the survey found Reid trailing — a conclusion that largely comports with findings of previous surveys by DailyKos/Research 2000 and Mason Dixon Polling in conjunction with the Las Vegas Review Journal.

Harry Reid (CQ/Scott J. Ferrell)

Rasmussen found Reid trailing 40 percent to 50 percent against GOP state chairwoman Sue Lowden and 43 percent to 50 percent against Las Vegas real estate developer Danny Tarkanian. Tarkanian, son of legendary college basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, has officially declared his candidacy while Lowden is in exploratory mode. A handful of other Republican candidates are also running or considering the race.

Illinois Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, who was a rare Republican vote for a "cap and trade" climate change bill three months ago, says he would oppose the measure as a U.S. senator.

At a Republican rally last weekend in suburban DuPage County, Kirk drew boos from the crowd when he said he voted for the bill "because it was in the narrow interest of my congressional district."

After pausing to acknowledge the opposition, Kirk drew cheers when he said, "As your representative, representing the entire state of Illinois, I would vote 'no' on that bill coming up."

When all the receitpts are counted, organizers are hoping they'll have $2.5 million from Tuesday night's Philadelphia fund-raiser that used the commander-in-chief as fundraiser-in-chief.

President Obama was the drawing card for the event designed to raise money for Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's 2010 campaign and other Senate Democrats.

Specter, who changed parties this spring, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee are splitting the proceeds.

"Arlen is not someone who came to Washington to fight for a particular ideology. He came to fight for the working men and women of Pennsylvania. And he has a long and successful record of doing just that," Obama said, according to a transcript that was released by the White House press office.

His poll numbers aren't great and there's a long line of Republicans eager to take him on.

How does Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid deal with that? By ignoring it, at least for now.

"Right now, I have a job to do for the people of the state of Nevada and the people of this country, and I'm doing my very best to move this agenda along," Reid said Tuesday.

"Republicans have a primary that'll be decided next June," Reid, who is running for a fifth Senate term, said Tuesday. "At last count, there are 10 Republicans involved in that primary."

"I think the people of Nevada know me very well. They know what I've done over the years, and we'll deal with the Republicans when that's necessary. Right now, that's not necessary."

Illinois state Rep. Julie Hamos, a candidate in the state's 10th Congressional District, has drawn the support of EMILY's List, the influential group that aids Democratic women candidates who support abortion rights.

A statement Tuesday from EMILY's List president Ellen R. Malcolm said Hamos' "record of advocating for Illinois women and families is second to none. We need her in Congress to continue that fight."

The endorsement was expected. Hamos backs abortion rights and is the only woman in a Feb. 2 Democratic primary that includes Dan Seals, a business consultant who was the Democratic nominee for this seat in 2006 and 2008, and Elliot Richardson, a lawyer.

Negative ratings for both New Jersey Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine and Republican challenger Chris Christie, a former U.S. attorney, have increased in the wake of campaign attacks, according to a Sept. 11-14 Public Policy Polling survey of state voters.

Christie’s unfavorable rating has risen from 32 percent seven weeks ago, according to PPP’s past survey, to 41 percent. Corzine’s 56 percent unfavorable rating is now at 60 percent. Christie also saw an increase in his favorability from 42 percent to 45 percent while Corzine saw a decrease from 33 percent to 32 percent. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

“Negative attacks appear to be succeeding in hurting both candidates’ standing with the voters,” Tom Jensen, spokesman for PPP, wrote in his online analysis.

Corzine recently released an ad which focused on improvements in the state’s economic climate, though it also hit out at Christie.

Jane Norton is now officially a Republican candidate for Colorado's 2010 U.S. Senate race, in which Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet is defending the seat to which he was appointed in January.

"I'm running for the United States Senate for one simple reason: the federal government is out of control," Norton said in a video posted on her campaign Web site.

Norton, who was elected in 2002 to a four-year term as Colorado's lieutenant governor, planned formal announcement stops Tuesday in Denver, Colorado Springs and Grand Junction.

Massachusetts Rep. Stephen F. Lynch unexpectedly took himself out of consideration for the Democrats' Senate special election nomination Tuesday, shaking up the race just as it looked like the field for the Dec. 8 primary was solidifying.

In a short statement, Lynch said he concluded that "the challenge of putting together the resources and organization necessary to wage a competitive statewide campaign in less than 90 days is insurmountable." Observers have estimated it will cost between $3 and $5 million to fund a competitive campaign.

The move was a surprise, as Lynch appeared poised to launch his bid in the primary to choose the Democratic nominee for the Jan. 19 special election, which will fill the seat left vacant by the Aug. 25 death of Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. Lynch had been widely expected to run as a more moderate alternative to other, more liberal Democrats in the race.

Lynch -- who has represented the Boston-based 9th Congressional District since 2001 --obtained nomination papers from the office of Massachusetts' secretary of state Sept. 4. And he filed paperwork to form a campaign committee, Stephen F. Lynch for Senate, on Friday.

Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the No. 2 ranking Republican in the U.S. House, has drawn a 2010 election challenge from Democrat Charlie Diradour, a real estate developer.

In a video posted on his campaign Web site, Diradour came out swinging against Cantor, the House minority whip, who is in his fifth term representing the precincts of central and north-central Virginia that comprise the state's 7th District.

Diradour chastised Cantor for being captured on TV consulting his Blackberry during President Obama's health care address to Congress last week, calling the incumbent a "card-carrying member of those who make up the most pampered, out-of-touch and politically rude class of elite Washington politicians in this country's history."

More people think their health care will get worse than believe it will improve if health insurance overhaul proposed by Democrats becomes law, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted Sept. 10-12.

This tepid public sentiment is similar to polling data from 1993 and 1994 when the Clinton administration was proposing comparable changes in the U.S. health care system.

Sixteen percent of the respondents to the most recent poll say their health care would improve if the proposed changes are enacted, and 32 percent say their health care will be worse if that happens.

By comparison, the same poll in late September of 1993 found 19 percent saying their health care would improve and 31 percent saying it would get worse.

Make that three Republicans who are vying to oppose freshman Democratic Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper in northwestern Pennsylvania's 3rd District, in and around Erie.

John Onorato, a former Erie County solicitor who is general counsel for the Manufacturer and Business Association, confirmed to CQ Politics on Monday that he will be a candidate in 2010.

Onorato will be vying for the Republican nomination next May along with businessman Paul Huber and Elaine Surma, a senior narcotics agent in the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office. Other Republicans may enter the race.

Democratic Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut has cut into the polling lead built by former Rep. Rob Simmons, his leading Republican rival -- or he hasn't, depending on which of the two latest polls you read.

Dodd trailed Simmons by 42 percent to 46 percent -- within the 4 percentage-point margin of error -- in a new poll conducted Sept. 8 through 10 for the liberal blog Daily Kos by independent polling firm Research 2000 and released Monday. Twelve percent of the respondents to the poll of likely voters are undecided.

But that result was in marked contrast to a Rasmussen poll -- also conducted Sept. 10 and released last week -- that showed Dodd trailing Simmons by 10 percentage points.

Businessman Sean Mahoney, a national committeeman for the RNC, confirmed Monday in an interview with UnionLeader.com that he is actively exploring a bid to represent New Hampshire in the U.S. Senate.

Mahoney's potential candidacy is the latest possible complication for former New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, who has been boosted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee for the U.S. Senate, though the committee has stopped short of an official endorsement. Ayotte is officially in the exploratory stage. Republican Ovide Lamontagne, an attorney who ran for governor in 1996, is also exploring a U.S. Senate candidacy.

The party is fighting to hold the seat currently represented by Republican Sen. Judd Gregg, who is retiring.

The political action committee for the conservative Club for Growth on Monday endorsed two 2010 House candidates who are each competing against multiple Republicans in open seat races: State Sen. Tim Huelskamp in Kansas' 1st District; and state Rep. Tom Graves in Georgia's 9th District.

The endorsements offer each candidate a boost from the right as they battle many GOP challengers in pursuit of their party's nomination in Safe Republican seats.

"Both candidates are proven conservative leaders with strong records in support of pro-growth fiscal policies," the Club for Growth said in a statement.

Republicans are viewed as obstructionists who are not making a good faith effort to cooperate with Democrats in the health care debate, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted Sept. 10-12.

The same poll found that half the respondents thought Democrats were making an honest effort to cooperate with Republicans on health care. Sixty-two percent of the respondents said the Republicans were not negotiating in good faith.

But if there is any political blowback from this, it's hard to find. People were evenly divided on whether they would vote for (22 percent) or against (23 percent) a congressional candidate who supports the Democrats' health overhaul plan, with 54 percent saying it would make no difference to them. Forty-nine percent said they think the two parties are equally to blame for the tone of the debate.

Former Republican Rep. Rick Lazio is ready to launch his campaign for New York governor, after conducting months of outreach and fundraising around the state. Barney Keller, an adviser to Lazio, confirms that an announcement event in Albany is in the works.

Keller also said that Lazio put in a call today to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is also considering a gubernatorial campaign, to let him know he was making the announcement.

Lazio served eight years in the House before making a late run for the U.S. Senate in 2000, losing soundly to Hillary Rodham Clinton after Giuliani backed out of the race. He appears less inclined to wait around for Giuliani this time around.

An increasing number of independents in New Jersey are describing themselves as undecided about the Nov. 3 race between Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine and former U.S. Attorney, Republican Chris Christie, according to a Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll of registered voters conducted Sept. 8-10.

The finding -- 17 percent of unaffiliated voters calling themselves uncertain, up from 12 percent in August -- is within the survey's error margin but "It could be a sign of increasing uncertainty about the challenger and bears watching," wrote Monmouth's Polling Institute's analysts wrote in their explanation of the poll.

The survey's overall margin of error is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points and for the smaller sample of likely voters, it is plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

Massachusetts Rep. John Tierney, a favorite of the House Democratic leadership, has decided against running in the special election for the Senate seat left vacant by the Aug. 25 death of Democrat Edward M. Kennedy.

"A great number of people have kindly urged me to run for the United States Senate," Tierney said in a statement released Monday morning. "I have given the matter serious consideration and determined that, at this time, I can best be of service in the U.S. House of Representatives -- continuing to work to make education more affordable and accessible, to build and strengthen our nation's workforce, to enact meaningful health care reform and to ensure we have a pragmatic foreign policy."

He continued, "These and other serious matters must be addressed in the coming weeks and months and they, along with my constituents, warrant my full attention."

Here's something you don't see every day: a candidate for Congress shifting his campaign from one district to another.

In Pennsylvania, Republican businessman Steven Welch announced Saturday that he was ending his campaign in the 7th District, which Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak is giving up to run for Senate, and continuing his 2010 campaign in the 6th District, which Republican Rep. Jim Gerlach is giving up to run for governor. Both districts take in suburbs of Philadelphia.

Welch, in a statement, said that his decision was motivated by "overwhelming outreach by grass-roots and community leaders," though he is pleasing Republican strategists by deferring to the 7th District candidacy of Republican Pat Meehan, a former federal prosecutor who plans to announce Monday that he is seeking Sestak's seat.

Coaxing Arlen Specter into switching parties and running for re-election as a Democrat was a major coup for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is bending the Senate's schedule to accommodate a presidential fundraiser for Specter Tuesday afternoon in Pennsylvania.

Reid announced Friday that the Senate would hold no votes after 3 p.m. Tuesday. His office later said that the scheduling decision was meant to accommodate a long-planned fundraiser that President Obama is headlining in Philadelphia to benefit Specter's campaign.

The move could delay efforts to finish work on the fiscal 2010 transportation spending bill, which the Senate began considering Thursday.

The campaign arm of U.S. Senate Democrats has organized a joint fundraising committee to help it raise money along with the 2010 campaign of Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet.

Colorado Senate 2010 was organized by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee with the Federal Election Commission on Sept. 8. The DSCC and Bennet's campaign committee will share the proceeds.

The fundraising help comes as Bennet, who was appointed to the Senate in January, prepares to stand for election next year against determined challengers in both parties, first from former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff in a Democratic primary.

And the windfall goes on and on and on for Rob Miller, the South Carolina Democrat who was preparing for a rematch against Republican Rep. Joe Wilson when Wilson was moved to yell back at a live president the way other people emote to their televisions.

At day’s end Friday, Miller’s campaign said it had a 48-hour bounty of more than $1 million from 25,000 donors. Wilson’s campaign was making a big haul as well, but hadn’t yet reported crossing the seven-figure mark.

Add Rep. Edward J. Markey to the list of politicians skipping a run for the late Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat.

Markey, a 17-term veteran of the House and the dean of Massachusetts' congressional delegation, cited his seniority as a the reason he chose to forego the race.

He heads the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming; the Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment; and serves on the Natural Resources Committee. "I can have the greatest impact on the issues facing the people of our state through my leadership positions in the House," Markey said in a Friday afternoon statement.

He joins former Rep. Martin T. Meehan, Kennedy nephew Joseph P. Kennedy II and former Republican Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey on the sidelines.

Not much changed for Sen. Christopher J. Dodd's re-election prospects over recent weeks, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll, conducted Sept. 10.

Dodd, who spent much of August recuperating from prostate cancer surgery, trails Republican Rob Simmons by a significant margin.

Simmons, a former three-term congressman, leads Dodd 49 percent to 39 percent among Connecticut voters, virtually identical to the 48 to 39 percent lead Simmons held in a Quinnipiac University poll conducted in late July.

Businessman and former Ireland Ambassador Tom Foley, a virtual unknown among Connecticut voters, also tops Dodd 43 percent to 40 percent, though it falls within the 4 percent margin of error. And Dodd runs virtually even with state Sen. Sam Caligiuri, who rounds out the field of declared GOP candidates, and investor Peter Schiff, who is considering a campaign but has not made a final decision.

Dodd's favorability rating held steady at 40 percent. Fifty-nine percent of Connecticut voters, meanwhile, had an unfavorable opinion of their five-term senator. A majority - 53 percent -- of voters have a favorable view of Simmons. Approximately a third have a favorable opinion about Foley, Caligiuri and Schiff, while another third or more had no opinion of any of them.

In the first hours after his "You Lie" outburst, voters in the South Carolina district of Rep. Joe Wilson weren't happy with him, according to a poll by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling conducted Sept. 10 and 11.

A strong majority - 62 percent -- said they disapproved of Wilson's outburst during the president's speech to a joint session of Congress.

The survey group, comprised of 747 people who voted in the 2004, 2006 and 2008 elections, was divided on whether the episode would make them less likely to vote to re-elect Wilson in 2010. Forty-nine percent said they're now less likely to vote for him while 35 percent said they now are more likely to back Wilson.

For 16 percent of the voters surveyed, Wilson's behavior at the joint session of Congress made no difference.

Liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org is jumping on the Rob Miller fundraising bandwagon, 36 hours after Miller's 2010 opponent, Rep. Joe Wilson, yelled "You lie!" at President Obama.

Miller, a Democrat working on a rematch, has raised more than $750,000 since then, and MoveOn.org sent an e-mail to supporters Friday asking them to help put the challenger campaign over the $1 million mark.

A spokesman for Wilson says he's had a post-ouburst fundraising boost as well, that has topped $700,000.

Democratic Rep. Bob Etheridge is within single digits of Republican Sen. Richard M. Burr in a hypothetical matchup for the 2010 North Carolina Senate race, according to a new survey by Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling conducted Sept. 2 through 8.

Etheridge -- who is not currently a Senate candidate but is reconsidering his earlier decision not to challenge Burr -- trailed the first-term incumbent by 34 percent to 41 percent with a quarter of voters undecided.

And among the Democrats matched up against Burr in the survey, Etheridge was the only one who led among self-identified moderate voters, a constituency that could very well decide who wins the election.

Etheridge, the centrist seven-term representative of the 2nd District in central North Carolina, is viewed by many Democratic insiders as their strongest potential challenger to Burr. But Etheridge's seniority has earned him a coveted seat on the influential House Ways and Means Committee, and he has admitted it would be tough to walk away from that.

The two major Colorado Democratic incumbents on 2010 statewide ballots face very difficult campaigns, according to a pair of Rasmussen Reports surveys conducted Wednesday.

Sen. Michael Bennet, who was appointed in January and is seeking a six-year term, is running about even with Aurora city councilman Ryan Frazier, who has 40 percent to Bennet's 39 percent.

And Bennet, who succeeded Democrat Ken Salazar when he became Interior Secretary, is running only slightly ahead of county district attorney Ken Buck, 43 percent to 37 percent.

The poll didn't test former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, who is expected to announce next week her candidacy for the Republican nomination, or several lesser-known Republicans who also say they'll run for the Senate seat.

Ohio state Sen. Bob Gibbs is in the 2010 race to unseat Democratic Rep. Zack Space.

Gibbs, a Republican, recently filed a statement of candidacy and a statement of organization with the Federal Election Commission to initiate a campaign in Ohio's 18th, a mostly rural and culturally conservative area of east-central and south-central Ohio that includes Zanesville and Chillicothe. Gibbs also has set up a rudimentary campaign Web site.

Gibbs was elected to the Ohio House in 2002 and served three two-year terms, then was elected to the Ohio Senate in 2008 with 59 percent of the vote in a district that includes all of Holmes, Medina and Wayne Counties and part of Ashland County.

The public has gained confidence in the Democratic Party's ability to protect the country from terrorism, but Republicans still lead with roughly the same level of confidence they held a year after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, according to a Gallup poll taken Aug. 31-Sept. 2.

Republicans' standing in public confidence is 49 percent, statistically the same as it was the first time the question was asked on the one-year anniversary of the attacks, when it was 50 percent, Gallup said. Democrats gained an edge for two years in the middle of the decade when President George W. Bush's was at low ebb but have now fallen back to 42 percent.

In 2002, public confidence in Democrats to combat terrorism was 31 percent.

Here's the latest from partisans seeking to ride the wave of interest in the way Rep. Joe Wilson vented to a live address to a joint session of Congress the way you or I might shout at the television.

The Democrat trying again to unseat Wilson, Rob Miller, has now taken in more than $700,000 in campaign donations, according to a the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. There's also a running tally on the Web site of the clearinghouse site ActBlue.com that runs a bit behind the DCCC's e-mail updates.

Over at the campaign of Republican Wilson, the congerssman declares "I will not back down" and has posted a video fund-raising appeal.

Illinois Democrat David Hoffman, who investigated wrongdoing in government as Chicago's inspector general, is making plans to run for the Senate in 2010.

Hoffman, who also is a former federal prosecutor, will be emphasizing his anti-corruption credentials as he seeks a Senate seat, currently held by retiring Democrat Roland W. Burris, that ousted Democratic Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich allegedly tried to sell for personal and political enrichment.

"More than anything, I've been an independent advocate for the people, and that's exactly what I'll be if elected to serve you in Washington," Hoffman said in a video on his campaign Web site.

Although a slim majority of U.S. adults have faith in their state governments, this is down sharply from the margins held in recent years, according to a Gallup poll conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 2.

Sixty-seven percent of adults reported having a great deal or a fair amount of trust in state government from 2004 through 2008, but that has dropped to 51 percent this year, Gallup said.

The reason may be the recession, which has caused state governments to struggle with keeping their budgets balanced with their revenues are falling.

A former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee said Thursday that he is seeing a "momentum shift" away from Democrats ahead of the November 2010 elections but cautioned against making predictions of significant Republican gains more than a year before the balloting.

Former Virginia Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, who served in the House from 1995 through 2008 and now is president of the centrist Republican Main Street Partnership, told reporters that the first midterm election in a new presidential administration has almost always yielded seat gains in Congress to the party not controlling the White House.

Though Republicans still have poor approval ratings, they could make gains in a low-turnout 2010 election from voters who are uneasy with one-party rule in Washington. Democrats have advantages of 256-178 in the House and 59-40 in the Senate.

Andrew Halcro, a former Alaska state representative and recent independent candidate for governor, announced Thursday that he will challenge longtime Rep. Don Young for the state's at-large House seat in the 2010 Republican primary.

Halcro made the announcement during an Alaska Support Industry Alliance gathering, according to the Anchorage Daily News and local media outlets.

He reportedly touched on the questions about Young's political ethics that plagued the incumbent -- Alaska's only House member since 1973 -- during his stormy 2008 re-election campaign. Halcro emphasized the fact that controversies surrounding the incumbent's ties to business interests and his fundraising practices prompted Young to surrender his senior positions on the House National Resources Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Not even a rash of ethics attacks on his Republican opponent has nudged New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine into positive approval territory, a Rasmussen poll shows.

Corzine's standing against Republican Chris Christie have him on the losing end, 46 percent to 38 percent, the Sept. 9 poll of 500 likely votes indicated.

Independent candidate Chris Daggett, a former EPA official, received an additional 6 percent in the survey and 10 percent of respondents indicated no preference. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Democrats recently struck out at Christie for failing to disclose a $46,000 loan he made to a colleague at the U.S. attorney's office. The colleague, Michele Brown, has since resigned.

Corzine, who is seeking a second term, has been mired in low approval ratings for some time, as state residents have expressed concern over the New Jersey's tough economic climate, unemployment, and high property taxes. Corzine received a 40 percent job approval rating and a 57 percent job disapproval rating in the survey.

A Democratic poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Sept. 8-9 paints a somewhat rosier picture for Corzine, showing him trailing Christie by 41 percent to 38 percent. The poll of 615 likely voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

CQ Politics rates the race Leans Republican.

To follow the 2009 and 2010 governors' races, check out CQ Politics' election map.

-- Rachel Kapochunas

In yet another measure of the low regard people have for Congress, just 45 percent of American adults say they trust the government's legislative branch, according to a Gallup poll conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 2.

That puts Congress in third place, behind the federal courts (76 percent) and the executive branch (61 percent).

Gallup also polled at the same time on approval ratings, and Congress came in third there, too, with 31 percent.

Elaine Marshall, North Carolina's secretary of state, announced Wednesday that she has taken the first official step to launching a bid against Republican Sen. Richard M. Burr -- giving the Democrats the top-tier challenger they have sought for one of their targeted 2010 Senate takeover bids.

Marshall filed paperwork with state officials establishing her intention to run. And Marshall campaign adviser Thomas Mills said the response in the 24 hours since has been "bigger than we thought."

"We just about couldn't handle what came in yesterday," Mills said of the donations, phone calls and e-mails pouring in to Marshall's nascent campaign. Democrats, he said, "want to have somebody to get behind against Burr."

Tom White, a Democratic state senator, announced Wednesday that he is officially launching a high-profile challenge to six-term Republican Rep. Lee Terry in Nebraska's 2nd District.

"No matter which party controls Congress, Nebraskans I've talked to feel the needs of ordinary Americans aren't being met," said White in his announcement speech. "I'll be the independent, effective voice our community needs in Congress -- someone who puts partisanship aside and shows leadership on issues like reducing the deficit, restoring fiscal responsibility, creating jobs, and increasing access to affordable health care."

Last week, CQ Politics reported that it will be no easy road to victory for White, who formed an exploratory committee in July. Like the rest of Nebraska, the 2nd District -- which includes Omaha and its suburbs -- has a long history of Republican voting tendencies.

But Democratic strategists, who heavily recruited White, were emboldened by their recent progress in local politics. Terry, who previously had won comfortably, held on to defeat Democrat Jim Esch by just 4 percentage points in 2008 -- the same year that Democrat Barack Obama narrowly won the district's vote for president. That was followed by municipal elections earlier this year in which the Democrats won the mayor's office and a city council majority in Omaha.

Missouri Democrat Tommy Sowers, an educator and Army veteran, is challenging Republican Rep. Jo Ann Emerson in the 2010 election.

Sowers said Wednesday that he has filed candidacy papers with the Federal Election Commission to organize a campaign in Missouri's 8th, a conservative-leaning area in the state's southeast that Emerson has represented for 13 years.

Nevada Republicans have a new candidate seeking to challenge four-term Democrat Harry Reid, the U.S. Senate majority leader: State Sen. Mark Amodei, who hails from the state capital of Carson City in northern Nevada, formally launched his campaign Wednesday.

Amodei is a 14-year veteran of the state Assembly and Senate who cannot run again for his current office in 2010 because of Nevada's term-limit law, as noted by Las Vegas Sun political analyst Jon Ralston, who also pointed out that Amodei is one of the few Republicans from northern Nevada who has been contemplating a challenge to Reid.

Amodei indicated earlier this year that he would back a potential Senate bid by Dean Heller, the Republican who is in his second term representing the state's sprawling 2nd Congressional District. But Heller, also a Carson City resident, announced in August he is running for re-election to the House and not for the Senate in 2010, opening the door for Amodei and a number of other GOP hopefuls.

Already in the Republican primary field are Las Vegas real estate developer Danny Tarkanian, son of famed University of Nevada at Las Vegas basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian; former state Assemblywoman Sharron Angle; doctor Robin Titus; and Reno attorney Chuck Kozak, among others.

The calls for Gov. Mark Sanford's resignation from the GOP ranks are growing, but one Republican governor candidate in 2010 is not among them.

State Rep. Nikki Haley, a staunch fiscal conservative and an ally of the embattled governor's, accused state Republican leaders of keeping the scandal surrounding Sanford going and "doing so for its own political purposes."

In the last two days Republican House Speaker Bobby Harrell and the state House Republican Caucus leadership have both publicly demanded that Sanford step down, saying the uproar over the governor's affair, revealed in June, and ensuing investigations into his state-funded travel practices have become a distraction.

U.S. adults -- by a margin of 79 percent to 20 percent -- say they want Congress to pass a health care overhaul plan that wins support from both Democrats and Republicans, according to an Associated Press-GfK.

If the two political parties can't reach agreement, two-thirds of the people responding to the poll said they should keep negotiating until they do.

That said, adults in this country seems less than lukewarm about what they've seen proposed so far to fix the nation's system of health insurance and medical care, with 34 percent saying they support what they have seen and while 49 percent oppose the proposed plans.

Illinois Rep. Mark Steven Kirk -- a Republican centrist who is running for the U.S. Senate in 2010 -- received a campaign contribution last month from Republicans for Choice PAC, a group that assists party candidates who support abortion rights.

The $1,000 contribution was reported by the PAC in a filing Wednesday to the Federal Election Commission.

That amount is drop in the bucket next to the millions of dollars that Kirk will raise in his campaign to succeed Roland W. Burris, the appointed Democratic incumbent, who is not running for a full term in the seat that Democrat Barack Obama held when he was elected president in 2008.

Still, the contribution is a reminder of the differences on policy issues between Kirk and the handful of lesser-known but determined conservative opponents he has drawn in the Feb. 2 primary election.

And the donation wasn't unexpected, as Kirk has repeatedly gone on the record in favor of abortion rights. In June 2003, he was one of five Republicans who voted against banning a particular procedure that opponents call "partial birth" abortion. He also has voted to expand embryonic stem cell research, another position opposed by the conservative "pro-life" movement.

Jane Norton, the former lieutenant governor of Colorado, is the latest Republican to launch a challenge to appointed Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet in his 2010 bid for a full six-year term.

The Denver Post reported Tuesday that Norton, Colorado's No. 2 officeholder from 2003 to 2007, filed papers to establish a campaign committee and plans to make an official candidacy announcement next week.

Norton has set up a campaign Web site and is taking other steps to promote her candidacy online. Typing "Michael Bennet" in Google displays Norton's campaign Web site address as a "sponsored link."

While Norton's previous statewide stint likely will make her a top-tier candidate for the GOP nomination, she joins a field already crowded with six other would-be Republican challengers, who have revealed tentative or official plans to run.

Republican Tony Amador next week will join the crowded race to unseat Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney in California's 11th District, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Amador is a former U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of California who was appointed by President George W. Bush. The Bee reports that Amador's parents were undocumented Latino immigrants. His most recent office worked to hunt and transport federal fugitives.

Multiple Republicans have already announced their intentions to seek their party's nomination in the district, including: winery owner Brad Goehring; businessman Jon Del Arroz; and Larry Pegram, president and co-founder of conservative group Values Advocacy Council has filed for the race. Businessman David P. Bernal is also exploring a bid.

Attorney General Martha Coakley starts the special election race to fill the Senate seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy with a significant advantage in voter familiarity, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey conducted Sept. 8.

Coakley, who declared her candidacy Sept. 3, registered support from 38 percent of likely Democratic voters -- a big lead over likely Democratic opponents Stephen F. Lynch and Michael E. Capuano, both congressmen from the Boston area. The survey found that Lynch would start with support from 11 percent of likely Democratic primary voters and Capuano, 7 percent.

The dean of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, 17-term Rep. Ed Markey, who is still mulling a run, had the backing of 10 percent of likely Democratic voters polled.

Rep. John F. Tierney, who is also looking at the campaign, came in at 3 percent.

Massachusetts Treasurer Tim Cahill announced Wednesday that he will challenge Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick in 2010 as an independent, creating a three-way race that appears likely to be a battle.

Cahill signaled his intention to enter the governor's race when he recently switched his voter registration status from Democratic to "unenrolled" with a party.

Though his candidacy shakes up the race in ways that will have lasting consequences, he had to share the political spotlight in Massachusetts Wednesday with Christy Mihos, a Republican candidate for governor. Mihos' campaign shot down speculation that he might switch to the upcoming U.S. Senate special election for the seat vacated by the Aug. 25 death of Democrat Edward M. Kennedy.

Cahill told supporters at his campaign launch in downtown Boston that as an independent, he would be free of party leadership that "encourages you to feel a certain way in a position or act a certain way or to say a certain thing."

Democrat Ethan Berkowitz is now officially running for governor of Alaska in 2010 -- a race in which he hopes to expand upon the statewide base he built with his competitive 2008 challenge to veteran Republican Rep. Don Young, the state's only U.S. House member.

Berkowitz, who faces primary competition, is seeking to challenge interim Republican Gov. Sean Parnell. Parnell moved up from lieutenant governor on July 26 after incumbent Sarah Palin -- the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee -- resigned the office.

A Parnell-Berkowitz matchup would be a rematch of sorts, as both were lieutenant governor nominees, but they ran on gubernatorial tickets, Parnell with Palin and Berkowitz with Tony Knowles, a former governor who unsuccessfully sought a comeback in that race.

Paul Huber, a Republican businessman from northwestern Pennsylvania, has joined the race to unseat freshman Democrat Kathy Dahlkemper in the state's 3rd District.

Huber recently filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to establish a campaign in Pennsylvania's 3rd, which includes Erie and some rural territory to the south and east, including his hometown of Meadville.

Huber is the second Republican who has made formal plans to challenge Dahlkemper in 2010. Elaine Surma, a senior narcotic agent for the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office, also is planning a bid for the GOP nomination.

In an interview, Huber touted his background in business -- he headed a company that makes industrial heating equipment -- and said it would serve him well in Congress.

The Supreme Court is Americans' favorite branch of government - at least until it hands down a controversial ruling - according to a Gallup poll conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 2.

The court has a 61 percent approval rating, while the president is at 54 percent and Congress is 31 percent, Gallup said.

"The improved ratings of the Supreme Court evident in 2009 are the result of surging approval from Democrats and slightly improved ratings from independents," Gallup said. "Republicans' support for the court is lower than it was a year ago, but not by nearly as much as the increase seen among Democrats."

It was just a matter of time before Lousiana Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao, the country's most vulnerable Republican, had an official Democratic challenge. It came Tuesday in the form of state Rep. Cedric Richmond, who formally launched his campaign in New Orleans, promising to "reject partisanship, corruption and ineffectiveness."

Richmond has long been expected to join the race. He ran and lost in the crowded 2008 Democratic primary to corruption-tarred nine-term Rep. William Jefferson, but did earn the endorsement of one the district's major papers, the New Orleans Times-Picayune. And he will be a favorite to win the the black-majority 2nd District, which gave three-fourths of its votes to Democrat Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.

In the last election cycle, Cao benefited not only from the scandal surrounding Jefferson, who was convicted of federal corruption charges Aug. 5, but also the fact that a hurricane in early September delayed both the primary and general election by a month.

Democrats are now gunning to retake the seat, but could first have to get through a crowded primary. Another Democrat interested in the seat is State Rep. Juan Lafonta.

CQ Politics rates the race Democratic Favored.

The Boston Globe is reporting that Massachusetts state Treasurer Timothy Cahill will announce an independent run for governor on Wednesday, shaking up an already charged 2010 governor's race.

Cahill, who changed his registration from Democrat to unenrolled in June, would be an instant contender in a three-man race. A Boston Globe poll of Massachusetts adults conducted in July shows him in a dead heat with Gov. Deval Patrick, the embattled Democratic incumbent, in such a hypothetical match-up, with the prospective Republican nominee, either health care executive Charlie Baker or businessman Christy Mihos coming in about 10 percentage points back.

In contrast, a Rasmussen Reports poll of a two-man race, conducted in August, showed Mihos leading Patrick while Baker and Patrick were essentially tied.

Bad news for labor unions on the day after Labor Day: 48 percent of the people in this country think unions have outlived their usefulness and 45 percent say they have weakened the country, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted Aug. 30-31.

The poll also found people pretty evenly divided on whether Americans work as hard as other workers, with 30 percent saying Americans work harder and 36 percent saying they work less.

Seventy-six percent say they buy American-made products to support the U.S. work force, while 10 percent say they do not.

The poll was based on telephone interviews with 1,000 adults nationwide and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Americans continue to have a hard time sorting out how they feel about health care overhaul plans before Congress, according to a Gallup poll conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 2.

Despite that, nearly two-thirds of the people responding to the poll say their vote for Congress in 2010 will be based on whether they agree with how their representatives voted on the issue.

Everybody clear?

Don't confuse him with the former Senate Majority Leader from Kansas: Bob Dold is an Illinois businessman and lawyer who is waging a 2010 bid for the highly competitive 10th District north of Chicago.

Dold, a Republican whose family owns a pest control business, is the fourth Republican who has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to prepare a campaign in the 10th, which Republican Rep. Mark Steven Kirk is leaving open to run for the Senate.

Dold told CQ Politics that he's running for Congress in part because "we're seeing a tremendous amount of spending that I believe is going in the wrong direction. I think that the government is kind of overreaching at this stage of the game."

Americans have conflicted views of the war in Afghanistan, with 61 percent saying that military action there was not a mistake, although 61 percent of those answering a separate question said that war is going badly, according to a Gallup poll conducted Aug 31-Sept. 2.

However, 54 percent of Democrats responding to the survey said the war there was a mistake, disagreeing with majorities of independents and Republicans who said it was not a mistake.

Also Democrats were more likely to conclude that the war in Afghanistan was going badly. Sixty-nine percent of Democrats drew that conclusion, compared with 50 percent of Republicans and 60 percent of independents.

Another Republican is stepping forward to challenge veteran Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton in Missouri's 4th District.

Republican James Scholz, the president of Computer Security Consulting Inc., has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run in the 4th, a conservative-leaning area of western and central Missouri.

Scholz also confirmed his 2010 campaign on his Twitter page.

Following former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber's announcement Wednesday that he will run in 2010 for his old post, one Democrat cleared the field for him and one Republican jumped into the race.

Republican state Sen. Jason Atkinson confirmed Thursday in an interview with the Mail Tribune that he will be entering the open 2010 governor's race. Atkinson has been officially exploring a bid and was widely expected to enter.

But on the Democratic side, state Sen. Brian Clemcut short his exploratory campaign Wednesday in deference to Kitzhaber.

A new poll conducted Aug. 30-Sept. 2 from DailyKos and Research 2000 confirms that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is in trouble going into his 2010 re-election.

Though he still has more than a year until he faces Nevada voters, the fact that this poll and one conducted in August show him trailing relatively no-name GOP opponents is bound to be troubling for Reid and his allies.

In a hypothetical head-to-head match-up, Reid trails declared Republican challenger Danny Tarkanian 40 percent to 45 percent, just clearing the 4 percent margin of error, with 15 percent undecided. Tarkanian, a Las Vegas real estate developer and son of famed college basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, lost his two previous attempts at elected office — in 2006 in the race for Nevada secretary of State and in 2004 for state Senate. Forty-seven percent of respondents, however, hold a favorable opinion of Tarkanian; 25 percent have no opinion.

Reid also trails Sue Lowden, who just announced Wednesday night that she is resigning her post as state party chairwoman as she explores a Senate bid. Lowden’s lead - 44 percent to 41 percent - is within the margin of error, however. A third of voters have yet to form an opinion of the former state senator, who lost her last campaign for political office, for state Senate in 1996. Forty-three percent held a favorable view of Lowden.

A second Republican is taking look at the 2010 House race against Democrat Stephanie Herseth Sandlin.

State Rep.Shantel Krebs confirmed to the AP Thursday that she is considering challenging the third-term congresswoman after being approached by political operatives.

"I'm keeping my options open and reviewing it," Krebs told AP. "Are the people ready? Are they frustrated enough they want a change? I think that's the question that has to be answered."

The left wing of congressional Democrats now has a political action committee to provide campaign funds to its members and like-minded candidates who will face competitive races in the 2010 elections.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC was established with the Federal Election Commission as "a vehicle for supporting the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and candidates who believe that, if elected, they'll become members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus," said Darcy Burner, who sits on the new PAC's board and works with the 83-member organization in her capacity as executive director of the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation.

In her competitive but losing campaigns in 2006 and 2008 to unseat Republican Rep. Dave Reichert of Washington state, Burner said she noticed there were fundraising vehicles available to Democratic candidates who promised to join the more conservative Blue Dog Coalition or New Democrat Coalition. (The Blue Dog PAC raised $2.6 million in the 2008 election cycle).

As former Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber prepares his comeback bid in Oregon, a Sept. 1 SurveyUSA poll shows registered voters retain a positive opinion of him, with a favorable rating of 33 percent and an unfavorable rating of 26 percent.

An additional 26 percent of respondents were neutral and 15 percent expressed no opinion of Kitzhaber. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

Kitzhaber, who served as governor from 1995 to 2003, announced Wednesday he will run for the open seat in 2010. Democratic Gov. Theodore R. Kulongoski is term-limited.

Kitzhaber became the instant Democratic front-runner upon his entry to the race, though he may face strong primary competition. Bill Bradbury, Oregon’s former secretary of State, has been preparing a potential campaign. SurveyUSA’s poll showed Bradbury’s favorable rating at 21 percent and unfavorable at 20 percent. But most voters surveyed had no opinion (26 percent) or were neutral (33 percent) regarding Bradbury.

Members of Congress hosting town-hall meetings with their constituents should clam up and listen instead of doing most of the talking, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 1.

Fifty-six percent of the respondents said it's more important for the members of Congress to hear what their constituents have on their minds than to explain the legislation. Thirty-seven percent say they want to hear from their representatives.

Forty-nine percent say they hold a favorable view of members of Congress who oppose overhauling the health care system, and 59 percent say the protesters at town hall meetings are citizens expressing legitimate concerns, while 30 percent say they are planted at the meetings by lobbyists and interest groups.

The results are drawn from telephone interviews with 1,000 likely voters nationwide and carry a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

It's not a particularly popular time to be an incumbent member of Congress, but it's not looking like many House members are so fed up that they're ready to retire from political life after the 2010 elections.

We're nearing the end of the long summer congressional recess, and not one House member has yet announced plans to seek the non-political life at the end of next year. (Seventeen House members aren't seeking re-election, but they all are seeking other political offices).

Yes, there are still 14 months until the November 2010 elections, and inevitably there will be retirement announcements. But there probably will be fewer than the 26 House members who retired outright after the 2008 elections.

He's not beloved by Pennsylvanians, but Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter holds an early lead over his two chief challengers in the 2010 election, according to a survey conducted Aug. 25-31.

The Franklin & Marshall College poll of 562 registered voters found that in a 2010 primary matchup, Specter is favored by 37 percent versus 11 percent for Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak.

Six percent of Democratic respondents said they were supporting some other candidate in the May primary (state Rep. Bill Kortz also is running), while 46 percent said they weren't sure who they would back.

Two candidates who want to unseat Sen. Arlen Specter debated health insurance and then went out for a beer. Specter wasn't invited - either to the debate or to the Allentown Brew Works afterward.

During the town-hall style forum at Muhlenberg College in Allentown,his two major challengers, Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak and Republican Pat Toomey, agreed on little more than defeating Specter.

Sestak had invited Toomey, a former congressman, to debate the issue and left Specter out, according to Toomey's campaign. Neither of them mentioned the senator once during the civil, 95-minute event. Specter, who's seeking a sixth term in 2010 (and his first as a Democrat), issued a one-sentence statement shortly after the debate ended Wednesday night. "I look forward to returning to the Capitol next week and speaking to my colleagues about trying to pass a health care reform bill," he said.

Sue Lowden announced Wednesday night that she was stepping down from her post as chairwoman of the Nevada Republican party as she explores a challenge to Sen. Harry Reid.

Lowden told party leaders on a regularly-scheduled conference call that she would be departing Sept. 30. "The reason for my decision is that I am currently testing the waters on the possibility of running for U.S. Senate," Lowden said in a release. "Because we already have some announced Republican candidates for the 2010 Senate campaign, I believe it is important to remove any perceptions of possible conflicts with my duties as Chairman."

Lowden didn't give any indication of which way she was leaning on the Senate race, but did say she plans "to stay as engaged as ever, fighting for the issues that affect us all."

Adults asked for a party affiliation aren’t saying “Democrat” as often, according to Gallup surveys conducted Aug. 1-31.

During August, Gallup said, an average of 45 percent of Americans identifed themselves as Democrats or leaning to the Democratic Party — a 7-point drop since January.

The poll found that 40 percent of those surveyed identified themselves as Republicans or leaning to the Republican Party.

Back in January — the month Barack Obama was sworn into office — that gap in party identification was 17 percentage points. Now the Democratic advantage is 5 points, according to Gallup’s telephone surveys of 31,174 adults.

Has Bob McDonnell, the Republican nominee for governor of Virginia in the Nov. 3 election, suffered much political damage over some controversial social policy views he expressed in a graduate thesis 20 years ago?

A Rasmussen Reports survey conducted Sept. 1, two days after McDonnell's thesis was first reported by The Washington Post, suggests that he has not, at least for now.

The poll of 500 likely voters has McDonnell leading Democratic state Sen. Creigh Deeds by 51 percent to 42 percent, or virtually the same result as a Rasmussen survey last month that had McDonnell ahead by 49 percent to 41 percent.

While slightly more than half of Americans said they currently oppose President Obama's health care overhaul proposal, almost the same number agree that some kind of overhaul is needed, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll conducted Aug. 28-31.

The telephone survey of 1,010 adults found that 51 percent of those polled said they oppose Obama's plan and 45 percent said they favor it.

To the question, "Do you think the country's health care system needs a great deal of reform, only some reform, or no reform at all?" 45 percent said, a "great deal," 46 percent said, "only some," and 7 percent favored no changes to the current system.

Obama has scheduled a Sept. 9 address to a joint session of Congress and renew his call to pass legislation retooling the health insurance market this year. He is likely to more thoroughly detail his expectations for an overhaul, including what he deems an acceptable fallback to a public insurance plan that would compete against private insurers.

Nothing like an economic mess to make workers appreciate their jobs. A poll conducted Aug. 14-18 by Clarus Research Group found that 88 percent of U.S. workers are happy with their employment.

"In these tough times of high unemployment and uncertainty, many workers are happy that they have jobs," said Clarus President Ron Faucheux. "However, despite the nationwide results, there were important differences among population groups, especially based on age, race, education and region."

Here's who we are and how happy we are:

If the zingers Democrat Cal Cunnigham was directing at freshman Sen. Richard M. Burr last week are any indication, the former state senator is getting ready to take on the Republican incumbent in 2010.

In a videotaped speech to a Democratic gathering in Charlotte now making the Internet rounds, Cunningham hit Burr early and often. "In 15 years on Capitol Hill you can't name one thing that Richard Burr has done to make your life better, and I can't either," he declared, referencing Burr's time as a senator and a congressman.

Cunningham, an Iraq War vet, noted, "During the same period of time that Richard Burr was missing more than half of his Veterans Affairs Committee hearings, I was twice called to active duty for a war that he voted to authorize with no plan to keep the peace."

There's a bumper crop of House members who are seeking other political offices in 2010 in lieu of running for re-election.

Seventeen House members are pursuing other offices, according to a CQ Politics count that has been updated to reflect the Senate candidacy announcement last week by Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La.

Eight House members are running for the Senate, eight are seeking governorships and Rep. Adam H. Putnam, R-Fla., is running for state agriculture commissioner.

Former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber confirmed Wednesday that he is launching a campaign for his old position, becoming the instant Democratic front-runner in the open-seat race.

"I am running for governor because we need to fundamentally change how we engage with one another to solve our shared problems," Kitzhaber said in a statement. "I bring to this a set of experiences, perspectives and ideas that can help during this time of crisis," he continued, noting unemployment rates and high health care and energy costs.

Many Democrats had been eyeing the race, since Democratic Gov. Theodore R. Kulongoski is term-limited. But many had also indicated they would defer to Kitzhaber, who retains high name recognition in the state.

The country is split over whether the government needs to get into the health insurance business, with 49 percent favoring such a move and 46 percent opposing it, according to an Ipsos/McClatchy poll conducted Aug. 27-31.

However, a wide majority, 75 percent, said they favored "making gradual but continuous improvements," while 22 percent said they supported "fixing everything at once." A similar majority, 74 percent, say they favored government involvement in regulations that protect consumer rights, such as portability of health coverage, while 15 percent would oppose it.

The poll was based on telephone interviews with 1,057 adults nationwide and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The news isn't good at the moment for members of Congress hoping to hang onto their jobs next year. A poll conducted Aug. 20-27 by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found favorable public opinion toward the Congress, now at 37 percent, to be at its lowest point in more than 20 years.

The poll also found that 52 percent of respondents had an unfavorable opinion of Congress.

Democrats, who control both houses of Congress, are bearing the brunt of the public's wrath.

The three Virginia Democrats who replaced Republicans after the 2008 election will be raising some campaign funds together as they prepare for their House re-election campaigns.

Virginia Freshmen Victory Fund was established Monday with the Federal Election Commission as a joint fundraising committee that will collect funds and then divvy them up among the campaign committees of Reps. Glenn Nye of the 2nd District, Tom Perriello of the 5th District and Gerald E. Connolly of the 11th District.

The victories of Nye, Perriello and Connolly enabled Democrats to increase their House majority in the 2008 election, but the Republicans are targeting all three Democrats in 2010.

The Gallup organization set itself on a quest to find and study a pair of rare political creatures: conservative, white Democrats and liberal, white Republicans.

First, the numbers. Conservative, white Democrats account for 5.6 percent of the adult white population identifying itself as Democratic, and moderate/liberal, white Republicans are 10.7 percent of the population of white Republicans.

Aside from their scarcity, they have a couple of other things in common, according to Gallup: they make less money, and they have poorer educations than the majority of other white members of their respective parties.

If you're confused about what health care reforms would do and how they would work, you have plenty of company, according to a CBS News poll conducted Aug. 27-31.

The poll found that 67 percent of adults admitted they found the proposals confusing. Majorities of Republicans (69 percent) and Democrats (58 percent) say they're stumped about the mechanics of the proposed overhaul.

Sixty percent of those surveyed said that President Obama has not explained his plan clearly, a sentiment drawing majorities of Republicans and independents. A slight majority of Democrats say the president has made his case clearly.

A longer perspective on public perceptions of the quality of health care might explain some of President Obama’s obstacles in selling an overhaul plan, Gallup concluded based on polling from 2006-08.

The analysis of the aggregate data found only slight differences in how people enrolled in government plans vs. those with private insurance rated the quality of care received and little difference in how they rated their coverage.

Gallup found that whether it’s public or private insurance, most people are satisfied with their plans: 87 percent of people with private insurance and 82 percent of people on Medicare or Medicaid said the quallity of their health care is good or excellent.

Similarly, 75 percent of those with private plans and 74 percent on government-run plans rate their plans as excellent or good.

Voters are in an anti-incumbent mood, giving a slight edge to Republicans running for Congress next year, according to a Public Policy Polling survey conducted Aug. 27-30.

Forty-five percent of voters surveyed said they would vote for the Republican candidate for the House or Senate if the election were held now, and 41 percent said they would vote for the Democrat, PPP said.

Forty-seven percent of voters responding to the survey said they would vote for the incumbent, a figure that is usually around 60 percent, PPP said.

Republican Bob McDonnell leads Democrat Creigh Deeds by seven percentage points in the Nov. 3 race for the Virginia governorship, according to a Public Policy Polling survey conducted August 28 through August 31 and released on Tuesday.

McDonnell had 49 percent and Deeds had 42 percent in the survey, which began interviewing 596 likely voters before a August 30 report in The Washington Post about a master's thesis McDonnell wrote two decades ago that promotes conservative views on social issues.

With nine weeks remaining until Election Day, 86 percent of respondents said that they were "solidly committed" to their choice for governor, with the remaining voters saying they could change their minds.