“The race for the U.S. Senate seat from Kansas is about to get nastier,” says the Kansas City Star in a story headlined, “With a week to go, U.S. Senate candidates in Kansas still haven’t closed the sale.” Both sides believe the race “is essentially tied,” says the Star, saying voters can expect an “onslaught of negative TV ads and accusatory mailers through the last week of the campaign.”
As of Friday, outside groups had spent $10 million on the campaign, split 2-to-1 in favor of incumbent Republican Pat Roberts, potentially the next Senate Agriculture chairman. Total spending on the race could reach $15 million, also a record, says the Star. “(B)oth sides are also making energetic last-minute appeals to a dwindling cohort of undecided voters. Those voters — perhaps 10,000 people — could determine the outcome, the campaigns think.”
A CBS/New York Times poll says Roberts leads independent Greg Orman, 42-38 with 18 percent undecided while an NBC/Marist poll says it’s Orman 45, Roberts 44. Pollster’s tracking model says Roberts leads by 0.4 points. A month ago, Marist showed Orman with a 10-point lead, says Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight. “That election is now a toss-up,” says Silver. As far as control of the Senate, Silver says, “Republicans have the edge, but they haven’t been able to put Democrats away.
The field is shifting toward Republicans in four districts where House Agriculture Committee members seek re-election, according to new ratings from Rothenberg Report/Roll Call. It says the contest in Southern Illinois between Rep Bill Enyart, Democrat, and state legislator Mike Bost is now a “Tossup/Tilts Republican” vs the previous “pure Tossup.” In a profile story, Politico notes Bost is known as Meltdown Mike for explosive speeches at the Statehouse while Enyart “is as reserved as Bost is flamboyant.”
The race in northeastern Minnesota between Democrat Rick Nolan and Republican challenger Stewart Mills is now “Tossup/Tilts Democratic” from the previous “leans Democratic,” says Rothenberg/Roll Call. It declares two races as “favored Republican” – Rodney Davis in central Illinois and Chris Gibson in upstate New York. Previously, they were listed as “leans Republican.”
In Iowa’s Senate race, Republican candidate Joni Ernst is “the biscuit-baking, gun-shooting, twangy, twinkly farm girl and mother whose ads emphasize her knowledge of hog castration” and who “is seen nationally as a rising star in a field of duds,” says the Washington Post. The story describes a day spent campaigning in conservative, rural Iowa contrasted with the more liberal urban parts of the state.
The Senate race could cost $40 million, “the most expensive non-presidential contest ever run in Iowa,” says the Des Moines Register.