McCollum Loses Steam in Florida
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on May 10th, 2010 4:41 am by HL
McCollum Loses Steam in Florida
In Florida’s race for governor, a new Mason-Dixon poll finds Bill McCollum (R) is quickly losing ground among likely Republican voters to Rick Scott (R), “a former hospital chain chief executive who came out of nowhere to pelt the television airwaves with millions of dollars in commercials during the last four weeks.”
The survey found McCollum leads, 38% to 24%, “a shocking erosion considering McCollum’s two decades in Congress and three statewide campaigns.”
McCollum is also losing some steam to the likely Democratic nominee, Alex Sink (D), and now leads by just seven points, 45% to 36%. That’s down from the commanding 15-point lead he held in late March.
Sestak Now Five Points Ahead
The latest Muhlenberg/Morning Call tracking poll in Pennsylvania shows Rep. Joe Sestak (D) has opened a five point lead over Sen. Arlen Specter (D) in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary race, 47% to 42%.
Obama Chooses Kagan for Supreme Court
President Obama will nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan as the nation’s 112th justice, “choosing his own chief advocate before the Supreme Court to join it in ruling on cases critical to his view of the country’s future,” the New York Times reports.
Why? The Washington Post notes Obama “wants someone who can serve as a counterweight to the intellectual heft of Chief Justice John Roberts. Regardless of how strong a liberal Kagan would prove to be, as a former dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan practically defines legal gravitas.”
“She’s also a female, which adds to the court’s gender diversity. She’s young, at 50, which means she could be on the court for a quarter century. And she’s never been a judge, which gives her a quality that Obama is known to have been seeking: someone to bring a different sensibility to a court that’s currently dominated by judges.”
Required reading: Tom Goldstein has an in-depth review of the nomination process and what debates are most likely to appear over the next two or three months. SCOTUSblog also takes a long, long look at Kagan’s record and breaks down the likely vote totals in the Senate for and against confirmation.
