State News Shot

MI: AG Candidates on the Attack

Last Updated on Wednesday, 29 September 2010 10:20 Written by rslcpol Monday, 27 September 2010 12:51

From WILX.com:

The candidates for Attorney General came out swinging.

“You, sitting on an appellate court, have been soft on crime. You have continuously ruled for murderers, rapists,” says Democrat David Leyton of his opponent, Bill Schuette.

“There’s a woman here named Brenda Simpson. Her son was tragically murdered– poisoned and thrown in a river. And you didn’t prosecute,” Schuette rebuts.

Schuette and Leyton were each trying to portray the other as an ineffective man of the law Friday, saying the other let down victims and their families after major crimes.

“If you can’t get the job done at home, how can you be the head law enforcer of Michigan?” Schuette says.

Read the Rest…

Nevada Poll Shows Shift to GOP

Last Updated on Wednesday, 29 September 2010 10:20 Written by rslcpol Monday, 27 September 2010 12:47

From Las Vegas Review-Journal:

CARSON CITY — A surge in support for Republicans has turned around one race for a state constitutional office and might help other Republicans win in November, a new poll has found.

Trailing by 7 percentage points in late August, Republican accountant Steve Martin has come behind to gain a 5 percentage point lead over Democratic incumbent Kate Marshall in the race for treasurer, according to the poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and 8NewsNow.

Pollster Brad Coker said that if the Republican gains continue, then the GOP could see more victories in the constitutional office races.

“What you are seeing is kind of a Republican tide,” Coker said. “Will it be enough to beat (Secretary of State) Ross Miller and (Attorney General) Catherine (Cortez) Masto in November? Probably not. But Nevada could go Republican.”

Read the Rest…

CA: Republican Steve Cooley Leads AG Race; Republican Lt. Governor Candidate Gains Ground

Last Updated on Wednesday, 29 September 2010 10:21 Written by rslcpol Monday, 27 September 2010 12:39

From KMJnow:

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s lead over his Republican opponent in the race for lieutenant governor has shrunk to four percentage points, down from nine points two months ago, a Field Poll has found.

The attorney general’s race is also close. San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, a Democrat, is trailing Republican Steve Cooley by just four points among likely voters, according to the poll, released today.

With just more than a month until the election, the candidates are locked in tight races – Newsom’s and Cooley’s leads are within the poll’s 4.1 percent margin of error.

Newsom is leading current Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado 39 to 35 percent, while Cooley, Los Angeles County’s district attorney, is up 35 to 31 percent over Harris.

A large number of likely voters are undecided in both races – 26 percent in the lieutenant governor’s race, and more than one-third, 34 percent, in the attorney general contest.

Read the Rest…

NY AG Candidate Tries to Keep Race Civil

Last Updated on Wednesday, 29 September 2010 10:21 Written by rslcpol Monday, 27 September 2010 12:27

From SILive.com:

The battle for state attorney general has gotten off to an incendiary start, with Republican Daniel Donovan and Democrat Eric Schneiderman trading barbs over everything from abortion and sex offenders to Bernie Kerik.

But as Donovan, 53, looks to become the first Staten Islander elected to statewide office since the 1800s, he likes the position he’s in, especially after a Quinnipiac University poll last week showed him 1 point behind Schneiderman.

“We’re in tremendous shape,” Donovan, the Island district attorney, told the Advance in an exclusive telephone interview.

Read the Rest…

GOP Has Advantage in Mass. AG Race

Last Updated on Wednesday, 29 September 2010 10:22 Written by rslcpol Monday, 27 September 2010 12:04

From the Sun Chronicle:

Martha Coakley is starting to look like a figure out of a Greek tragedy. The state attorney general has made another political miscalculation, one that could conceivably cost the Democrats the second most important statewide office, just as her earlier miscalculation cost the Democrats what should have been a safe U.S. Senate seat.

It’s hard to fathom how one candidate could cause so much havoc in her own party. First Coakley opened the door for Scott Brown’s election to the seat of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. Now she has opened the door for the Republicans to win Coakley’s own seat as Massachusetts attorney general.

In the race to fill Kennedy’s seat last January, Coakley ran a poor campaign. She avoided retail politics, coming off as aloof and entitled. The message was Massachusetts voters wouldn’t dare elect a Republican to succeed Kennedy. That, of course, turned out to be wrong. All that Wrentham Republican Brown needed to win was a last-minute burst of advertising financed from out of state.

Read the Rest…

Arizona: GOP AG Candidate up 8

Last Updated on Wednesday, 29 September 2010 10:23 Written by rslcpol Friday, 24 September 2010 01:54

From azcentral.com:

As Felecia Rotellini was rounding up Republicans to show bipartisan support for her campaign for attorney general, Tom Horne was releasing a poll that shows him up eight points over his Democratic rival.

The poll, done by Moore Information, indicates that 45 percent of those polled support him, 37 percent back Rotellini and the remaining 18 percent is either undecided or could not back either. The cross tabs showed that Rotellini got the support of only 11 percent of Republicans, suggesting that the Republicans for Rotellini effort may have some work to do.

The poll contacted 500 likely voters statewide, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. It was conducted Sept. 1-4 — before Horne and Rotellini had their televised debate and before the fur started flying in their race.

Read the Rest…

CT AG Candidates Spar

Last Updated on Wednesday, 29 September 2010 10:24 Written by rslcpol Friday, 24 September 2010 10:50

From theday.com:

The Democratic and Republican nominees for Connecticut attorney general faced off in their first one-on-one debate, with outgoing attorney general Richard Blumenthal being one of the more popular topics of discussion.

Republican Martha Dean repeatedly told the audience at the University of Connecticut Law School on Thursday that her style would mark a departure from Blumenthal’s. She said she would scale back the scope of the office and file fewer lawsuits.

Read the Rest…

MI: AG Candidates Offer some Contrasts

Last Updated on Wednesday, 29 September 2010 10:24 Written by rslcpol Friday, 24 September 2010 10:47

From the Examiner:

With state Attorney General Mike Cox term-limited, Flint Township Democrat David Leyton and Midland Republican Bill Schuette are running to succeed him in the Nov. 2 election, offering contrasting priorities to the voters.

Leyton, who is Genesee County prosecutor, wants to provide leadership to persuade the legislature and governor to make public safety the top priority. He also wants to focus on consumer and environmental protection, and crack down on Medicaid fraud and public corruption. Leyton would end Cox’s federal lawsuits to stop health care reform and support the racist Arizona immigration law, while continuing the lawsuit to close the Chicago shipping canal to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes. He would issue legal opinions to clarify gray areas in the state’s medical marijuana law.

Schuette, a former state Court of Appeals judge and congressman, wants to keep prisons open and felons jailed longer, while continuing all three of Cox’s federal lawsuits. A leader in the failed attempt to defeat Proposal 1, which legalized medical marijuana in 2008 and won by a 63 to 37 percent landslide margin, he remains opposed to medical marijuana.

Read the Rest…

KS: AG Candidates Clash over Health Care

Last Updated on Friday, 24 September 2010 10:08 Written by rslcpol Friday, 24 September 2010 10:08

From cjonline.com:

Attorney General Steve Six on Thursday defended his decision not to join other states in a legal challenge to federal health care reform, while his Republican rival vowed to find a way for Kansas to join that lawsuit.

Six and challenger Derek Schmidt discussed the lawsuit during their first face-to-face debate.

Six said attorneys in his office examined the lawsuit and concluded it had little or no chance of success. He called it an out-of-state venture that would consume resources better spent keeping children safe, fighting Medicaid fraud and protecting consumers – the mission of the attorney general’s office.

“We have had a history in this attorney general’s office, that I have worked for three years to turn around, and that is a history of pursuing political agendas that are important to that particular attorney general and it has driven the office off the cliff,” Six said during the debate, which was sponsored by the Wichita Crime Commission. “Consumer fraud went unchecked, Medicaid fraud went unchecked as particular personal agendas were pursued.”

Read the Rest…

USA Today: Big Cash Advantage for Republicans in State Elections

Last Updated on Friday, 24 September 2010 10:05 Written by rslcpol Friday, 24 September 2010 10:00

From USA Today:

The Republican Governors Association (RGA) collected a record $58.3 million through June 30, compared with $40.4 million for its Democratic counterpart, federal records show. The Republican State Leadership Committee had a more than 3-to-1 fundraising edge over the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee at the end of August.

The Michigan Chamber of Commerce and Houston home builder Bob Perry are the top givers to the GOP governors group, giving $2.5 million each, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Rich Studley, president and CEO of the Michigan chamber, said his group donated because “governors are very important policy and political leaders.” He would not identify the companies that helped fund the RGA contribution. Spokesman Anthony Holm said Perry gave because “it’s governors who are leading their states to prosperity by creating jobs and creating quality education.”

Read the Rest…

« Older Entries

Newer Entries »