Alex Isenstadt's blog

ST. PAUL, Minn. – U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Pendleton) is in a position to win re-election in part because of the relative popularity of Republican presidential candidate John McCain in the Beaver State, Senate Republican Conference Chair Lamar Alexander said today.

“That’s a Democratic-leaning state,” Alexander said at a Wednesday morning breakfast panel sponsored by National Journal.

But, Alexander went on to say, McCain has been running strongly in the state and his strength could give Smith coattails in his campaign against Democrat Jeff Merkley.

An Aug. 7 Rasmussen survey found Smith leading Merkley by a 50 percent to 44 percent margin. The same poll found Barack Obama leading McCain by a 52 percent to 42 percent margin.

Smith, 56, is running for a third term against Merkley, the Oregon House Speaker.

To say Monday has been a rough day for 5th Congressional District candidate Mike Erickson’s campaign is probably something of an understatement.

In a stunning 1,200-word piece published over the weekend, The Oregonian detailed a 2004 trip Erickson took to Cuba which the Republican businessman has said was a humanitarian relief trip. But the paper reported that the jaunt was instead a “pleasure trip” filled with partying and Cuban cigars.

Sensing the potential damage the story could do to a candidacy that has already been roiled by allegations that Erickson paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, Erickson’s campaign is holding a press conference Tuesday afternoon to address the 2004 trip.

Erickson is facing off against state Sen. Kurt Schrader (D-Canby) for the seat of U.S. Rep. Darlene Hooley (D-West Linn), who is retiring after six terms. Erickson defeated former state party chair Kevin Mannix in the May primary.

Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) Oregon campaign is focusing its on-the-ground efforts on reaching out to those individuals who are eligible to vote but have not done so, state organizers said on a campaign conference call this morning.

Rob Hill, Obama’s Oregon director, estimated that about 700,000 people had yet to register and indicated the campaign would target those individuals in the coming months. Nine campaign offices had been opened, 500 organizers had been trained around the state, and last week alone the campaign held 45 grassroots events, Hill said.

Speaking on the call, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Portland) predicted Obama’s grassroots presence in the state would help deliver Oregon’s seven electoral votes to the Illinois Democrat come November.

Former U.S. Senate. candidate Steve NovickWASHINGTON – Former U.S. Senate candidate Steve Novick was the recipient of kind words today from an unlikely source: U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Rewind to the Democratic primary when Novick was facing off against state House Speaker Jeff Merkley (D-Portland). The DSCC threw its support behind Merkley, airing a television advertisement in the final days of the campaign that attacked Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Pendleton) and defended Merkley. Merkley would go on to narrowly win the hard-fought primary.

“I have to give a lot of credit to Steve Novick, who ran very strong, stronger than we thought. And to Novick’s credit, the day after the primary he went out there complimenting Merkley and has been helping Merkley ever since, which I just wanted to thank him for that,” Schumer said at a press conference at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee this afternoon.

A Democratic state lawmaker running for Congress is being targeted by a new series of robocalls about gas prices from Freedom’s Watch, the conservative-leaning advocacy group. The calls, which will begin today, will go out to residents represented by state Sen. Kurt Schrader.

“Hi, this is an emergency gas price alert from Freedom’s Watch. Did you know Oregon gas taxes add more than 20 cents to every gallon of gas? 20 cents!” an announcer intones on the calls going out to voters in Schrader’s district. The call then asks what Schrader is doing to address the issue. “Nothing,” the announcer says.

“If we can’t depend on Kurt Schrader to stand up for us today, when can we count on him?” asks the call targeting Schrader.

A nonpartisan analyst said today that Republican U.S. House candidate Kevin Mannix’s distribution of a woman’s allegations that primary rival Mike Erickson provided funds for her to get an abortion did not change the fundamental contours of the race.

“Most people in the mainstream press will treat the allegations as unsubstantiated and they won’t get that much play,” said David Wasserman, who monitors House races for the Cook Political Report.

Wasserman, who said he believed Erickson had an advantage heading into next Tuesday’s primary, also said the unsubstantiated nature of the allegations might make it difficult for Democrats to play up the affair in advertisements in the fall.

With the May 20 primary just around the corner, a wave of new polls are out in the Democratic race for the U.S. Senate.

A new poll conducted by SurveyUSA shows House Speaker Jeff Merkley and attorney Steve Novick in a dead heat heading into the final week of the campaign.

The poll of 1,700 Oregon adults, 1,554 of which are registered to vote, shows Merkley leading Novick by a statistically insignificant margin of 31 percent to 27 percent.

The poll was conducted May 9 – May 11 and has a margin of error of 4 percent.

WASHINGTON – Democratic leaders today said they were optimistic about their prospects for holding the U.S. House seat of retiring Congresswoman Darlene Hooley and of winning Republican Gordon Smith’s U.S. Senate seat.

Chuck Schumer, the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, suggested that Smith, who is expected to face off in the November general election against House Speaker Jeff Merkley or activist Steve Novick, was failing to distance himself from President Bush.

“Republicans who have changed their tune ... think they are getting stronger, but they are getting sicker,” said Schumer.

Kevin Mannix, an attorney and former state Republican Party Chair who is running for the Fifth District seat that Democrat Darlene Hooley is vacating, has won the endorsement of the Oregon Farm Bureau.

“Kevin has a long history of supporting Oregon’s agricultural industry, he has a proven voting record and an open door policy which gives him broad appeal with the Oregon Farm Bureau,” said Barry Bushue, the president of the Oregon Farm Bureau.

A new poll out tonight in the U.S. Senate race will raise at least a few eyebrows.