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I'll ask a few questions on a few of the races, out of curiosity. Once again, it's really an excellent job.

I do think that, out of all the states w/competitive races, NY is the one that raises the most questions in my mind, because of the up-ballot GOP massacre. Yet, at the same time, the polling is just so questionable. It's kind of obvious that C-D's NY-19 and NY-20 polls were dead wrong (based on later internals and Indy polls), which leaves me unsure of the rest of their polls in the state. Yet, I really don't know what to make of NY-26 either and SUSA's polls of the race.

Anyway, enough of my own commentary. Now for the questions:

10. PA-06: What do you make of the fact that Murphy's own internal only puts her 3 in front of Gerlach? Personally, I have the race in toss-up towards the top end.
18. WI-08: This is a race I don't get, though it's obviously close. What's your thinking here?
23. MN-06: How do you think the SUSA poll of a few days ago (showing Bachmann up 6) fits in with the overall contest? I've moved the race down a bit on my own list.
27. PA-08: The NRCC doesn't seem to have this on their list for spending and yet we have a Keystone Poll out today showing Fitz up 9. Your thoughts?
28. FL-13: I'm guessing this one's in toss-up because of the money Buchanan's spending. I personally think he's behind, outside of MOE, and place this one much higher on my list. Your thoughts?
On 38 and 41, I'm curious which one you think is more competitive? I know that Novak has placed NV-03 above NV-02 and yet I'm only seen the national campaigns spending money on NV-02.
40: NH-02: Opinions vary widely on this one, including my own, especially after the questionable uni poll showed Bass down 8. What's your thought?
56: TX-23: The race I always ask about. I've noted that Gilliland got Bolanos endorsement and is basically the only candidate running advertising that I've heard about. Are there any polls on the race (I haven't seen any), or are you just assuming that the multitude of candidates plus one actually advertising and the anti-straight party vote structure, along with the lean of the CD is going to push this one into a runoff?

OK, here goes!

PA-06: The highest that Gerlach has polled all cycle long was 47% and that was in his own internal POS poll. In indy polls Gerlach has polled at 46%, 41%, 44%, and 45%; Murphy has polled at 52%, 43%, 41%, and 50%. We all know that Gerlach barely eked out wins in both 2002 and 2004, and we all know that Murphy got 49% in 2004. It is implausible to me that Murphy will do worse in 2006 than in 2004, and one thought that I've had lately is that everyone seems to be ignoring the incumbent-under-50% rule. To top it off, as of Oct 18 Murphy had $729,717 CoH versus $555,960 CoH for Gerlach, and Murphy has outspent Gerlach by $2,827,042 versus $2,684,384.

WI-08: This one is fairly difficult for me to grasp neatly as well, but Kagen has outspent Gard by $2,140,887 to $2,028,258 and more importantly is a self-funder. Since the 10/18 reports Kagen has given his campaign a further $770,000. That's what tips the scale to Kagen in my ratings. My sense is that the race is essentially tied (Kagen actually has a slight lead within the MoE in the few polls) and so the money advantage combined with a floundering GOP campaign for governor and the national mood tips it to the Dems.

MN-06: The October polling average is 45.4% Bachmann to 45.6% Wetterling. I am rating the seat accordingly with a tip to Bachmann due to the partisan lean of the district. Wetterling continues to have a cash advantage ($783,552 v $563,653 as of 10/18) so that's what also keeps things close and in Toss Up in my estimation. I did however seriously consider rating MN-06 below the quartet of freshmen below it and do not object to the idea myself. I also think the race may be firming toward Bachmann, so if there's more evidence of that I'm quite open to moving it so far down as slight Lean GOP (around current FL-22 range).

PA-08: I posted my ratings before I saw the latest Keystone Poll released late last night. I would likely have notched PA-08 down just a bit if I'd seen that first. However, I would note that the Keystone Poll tends to favor the GOP and that Fitzpatrick polls below 50% at 48%. The two are about even on CoH ($490,090 Fitzpatrick; $448,884 Murphy) and the district leans Dem. That latter is a big part of why I've moved Fitzpatrick up to Toss Up from Lean GOP: The Rendell machine should be in full force in the Philly suburbs and Santorum certainly isn't going to be much help either. The NRCC has not written out PA-08. These are their PA expenditures in the past week: PA-04, $140,607; PA-06, $703,893; PA-07, $840,112; PA-08, $782,450; PA-10, $177,331. If anyone's been written off it's Sherwood; and Fitzpatrick is clearly still thought to be in need of help.

I really have to run now! I won't be able to post on the remaining questions until sometime this evening, but I'll definitely get to them.

OK, I'll continue where I left off and then go back to the follow-up reply.

FL-13: This one's a bit of a dilemma for me. It's one of my lower confidence ratings (OH-02 also pops to mind in that regard). The buzz has definitely grown on this one but I'm somewhat perplexed as to why. The only independent poll that I'm aware of was the Constituent Dynamics that put Jennings at a slight 47% to 44% lead. But quite significantly, the C-D poll was conducted Oct 8-10, at the peak of the Foley clamor in the neighboring FL-16 district. Otherwise, there are a trio of polls showing a daunting lead by Jennings, but they are all internal polls and I must all but disregard them.

Then, not only was this a 55.8% GWB district in '04, but there's the major financial advantage for the self-funding Buchanan, as you noted. That's hardly chump change: Buchanan gave his campaign $975,000 today 10/27 on top of $800,000 on 10/20; he'd already spent a somewhat astounding $5,926,098 as of 10/18. Meanwhile, Jennings had just $176,901 CoH as of 10/18, so she'll be outspent on the order of about 7 to 1 in the closing two weeks.

In short, it's unclear to me why you'd think Buchanan is behind and probably outside the MoE. Is there something important I've missed? It does happen! :)

NV-03 & NV-02: The DCCC isn't playing in NV-03 but the NRCC has spent $395,575 there in the past week. The NRCC spent $245,553 in NV-02 in the same timeframe (10/20-10/27). BTW, I'll follow up with a post linking to where you can quickly look up such figures. Anyhow, there's also the obvious difference in partisan lean: NV-02 was 57.2% Bush in '04 while NV-03 was 49.9% Bush in '04. Another big factor in my ratings was that Hafen led Porter in the 9/30 CoH figure which I used for that round of ratings. As of 10/18 Porter led $225,171 versus $181,573 for Hafen, but it's noteworthy that between 9/30 and 10/18 Hafen nonetheless outspent Porter by $407,339 to $60,958, so the $44,000 10/18 CoH differential will hardly make up the difference. Porter has also been hit by allegations of ethical lapses (Google him) and by ads claiming that he voted to cut military/veterans benefits.

Meanwhile, Heller leads Derby by $251,991 CoH versus $123,192 CoH as of 10/18 reports. In October Heller outspent Derby by $255,058 versus $219,391 and has outspent her in total by $1,237,515 versus $1,123,631. A late September Mason-Dixon poll had Heller leading 45%-42% while Research 2000 had Heller leading 45%-37%. Getting outspent in a district where she's at a 10% partisan disadvantage is not the way for Derby to overcome Heller's polling lead, even if that lead was weak. In a political environment where Dem crossover voting seems to have all but dissipated, I think the district partisanship outweighs the advantage of incumbency so that NV-02 is a bit firmer than NV-03. That being said, I am still rating both with a decisive GOP lean.

NH-02: I can't think of any good reason why Bass would've suffered such a spectacular collapse unless there were a tsunami sweeping across the GOP nationwide and if that were the case we'd be seeing it in polling from all over, and we're not. So, my assumption is that the Becker Institute poll is whacked. To begin with, I would note that I've largely broken free from the polls in this revision to a more 'holistic' analysis of the various districts. Regardless of that, my assessment is that Bass probably had the hefty 20% or so lead that was registering as of late summer, with his support around 50% and Hodes about 30%, and the undecideds generally inclined to vote Dem. Since then, I think UNH probably revealed an genuine autumn tightening to a 10% margin, with Bass at 46% and Hodes at 36% in late Sept. Now I'd say it's probably inside of that but nowhere near the Becker figure. In short, I think Bass likely still has a firm edge and that it's somewhere around 5%-8%. So, I'm basically rejecting the Becker poll, rightly or wrongly.

TX-23: I am effectively assuming that a 51.5% or so GOP district is very unlikely to give Bonilla an outright majority in a 'jungle primary' this year, and that the $700,000 that Gilliland has spent on his campaign should easily get him into second place (and the presumptive runoff). As for polls, the only one I know of is the Aug 25 Dem poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner that had the combined Dem total at 47% and Bonilla at 44%. Gilliland was not included in that poll, and the mildly ridiculous Ciro Rodriguez led the Dem pack at 24%.

OK, I think I've covered everything you asked about. Sorry it took longer than I thought to get back to this!

Oh, I almost forgot the links where you can keep track of expenditures by the party House committees. These are from PoliticalMoneyLine, by CQ.

DCCC expenditures

NRCC expenditures

Those links will give you the itemized expenditures listed by state/district from October 1 to October 27. Also included with each district is a sub-total of all spending by the committee for that time frame.

If you look at each link, you will see a string as follows:

&Count=20061001&sYR=2006&sEndDate=20061027

the underlined part is the date range. So, if you want the last week instead of the full month of October you would simply change 1001 to 1020 and that will make your start date October 20th instead of October 1st, with the same end date of October 27th.

Hopefully I've explained that well enough! There's probably an easier way to get the data, but that's how I've been doing it.