Hotline Sort: McMahon Maintains Lead Over Murphy
Welcome back to Hotline Sort. Romney wins the debate in a blowout, Kaine raises $4.5 million, the DSCC's first Arizona ad targets women, and it's unclear whether voters will even see Jesse Jackson Jr. before the election.
12) Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.'s wife Sandi Jackson told reporters voters may not see the Democrat prior to the election. "I hope that he will be able to" speak to constituents before November 6, she said, per the Chicago Tribune. "I know that he is anxious to do so, but he is also under doctor's orders to stay very calm, very quiet, and he is going to do that."
Jackson has been receiving treatment for bipolar disorder.
11) This may have been just slightly buried in coverage of the presidential debate last night, but North Carolina's gubernatorial candidates faced off last night, too. The Charlotte Observer:
North Carolina's candidates for governor, Walter Dalton and Pat McCrory, engaged in a sharp-edged televised debate Wednesday, offering barbed exchanges on taxes, businesses, fracking, race and voter ID that reflected the state's political polarization.
Dalton, the Democratic lieutenant governor, played the role of the aggressor, portraying McCrory as someone who would be more responsive to the interests of the well-to-do, whether it came to taxes or big oil companies.
McCrory portrayed himself as the reformer who would make much needed changes in the state, while painting Dalton as part of a failed "good ol' boy and good ol' girl system" that had lead to high unemployment and scandal in government.
10) Democratic challenger Jose Hernandez's campaign has released an internal poll with a raft of good news for the former astronaut in California's 10th District. The campaign's ballot test shows Hernandez is a statistical tie with GOP Rep. Jeff Denham, who has 45 percent to the Democrat's 43 percent. In July, Hernandez's pollster found Denham up 48 to 40 percent, and this survey has Denham dropping into more of a danger zone for incumbents. This race has jumped onto both parties' radar over the last month as groups on both sides began airing TV commercials and Hernandez's unique story began to penetrate.
Momentum Analysis conducted the poll for Hernandez from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1 in English and Spanish, surveying 500 likely voters for a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.5 percentage points.
9) Internal polling from the National Republican Congressional Committee and Republican challenger Matt Doheny's campaign shows a tighter race than last month's public survey in New York's 21st District. The newly released survey has Rep. Bill Owens leading Doheny, 45 percent to 40 percent, and uncomfortably low for an incumbent. In early September, a Siena College survey of the race found Owens up 49-36. Doheny is running against Owens for the second cycle in a row, but this time he has the benefit of owning the Conservative ballot line instead of splitting any anti-incumbent votes.
The Republican poll was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies from Oct. 1-2 and surveyed 400 likely voters. The margin of error is plus-or-minus 5 percentage points.
8) Amid Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., announcing a $5.8 million quarter, her opponent Todd Akin's campaign stood by a comment he made in 2008 that doctors perform abortions on women who "are not actually pregnant."
7) In Connecticut, GOP Senate nominee Linda McMahon is neck-and-neck with Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released early Thursday in which she leads 48 percent to 47 percent.
If Mr. Romney's goal was to show that he could project equal stature to the president, he succeeded, perhaps offering his campaign the lift that Republicans have been seeking. Mr. Obama often stopped short of challenging his rival's specific policies and chose not to invoke some of the same arguments that his campaign has been making against Mr. Romney for months.
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