Daily Kos

Republican Andy Harris leads Democrat Frank Kratovil by 4 points, but within the margin or error, according to a new poll.
  
Harris, a state Senator from Cockeysville, is currently competing against Kratovil, the Queen Anne's County state attorney, for the open 1st Congressional District seat.
 
The poll was paid for by Daily Kos -- a liberal-leaning blog -- and conducted by Research 2000. It asked, "If the election for Congress were held today would you vote for Frank Kratovil the Democrat or Andy Harris the Republican?"
 
Forty-four percent chose Harris, 40 percent said Kratovil and 16 percent were undecided.

At this point last year, the U.S. Senate race in Maine between Republican incumbent Susan Collins and Democratc challenger Tom Allen was predicted to be a race to watch, with pundits deeming it as a key pick-up opportunity for the Democrats. But three polls in recent weeks paint a different picture. And now, the Rothenberg Political Report has placed the race in the “clear advantage for the incumbent party" category.

Daily Kos is reporting that the Collins and Allen race is unchanged one year later, with Collins (R) Leading 57 to 38 over her opponent, Tom Allen (D). The Research 2000 Maine Poll (A poll sponsored by Daily KOS) was conducted from September 8 through September 10, 2008 where they called 600 likely voters.

The poll results are summed about succinctly by the pollster

I polled this back in October of last year, and seeing the bleak numbers, moved on to other races. This was an attempt to see if Allen had closed the gap in the past 10 months or so, and unfortunately, the answer appears to be "no".

To view a larger version of this cartoon, click here.

To view a larger version of this cartoon, click here.

U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-Rochester) is set to launch her first television ad in her re-election campaign.

The ad, which was announced on Shea-Porter's Daily Kos diary page, will begin airing on Thursday and focuses on her efforts to promote health care for veterans. The ad also features a cameo from her mother.

On Winning, Life Inside Congress & Lessons From Bill Clinton

U.S. Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Fort Washington)

On Saturday, July 19, U.S. Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Fort Washington) traveled to Austin, Texas to finally speak in person with those who were among the first to listen to her and a message that would oust an entrenched incumbent less than two years later.

Edwards was the keynote speaker at ‘Netroots Nation,’ a gathering formerly known as YearlyKos, based off the popular progressive blog, DailyKos.com. Netroots Nation is an annual gathering of the left-of-center online political community and attracts a ‘who’s who’ of Democratic politics. Former Vice President Al Gore and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also addressed the gathering in person, while U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) addressed the conference by a taped message.

But few Party leaders have the stature Edwards maintains in that community. Like 2004 presidential candidate Howard Dean and 2006 U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont before her, she became an online icon for her ability to channel the power of the Internet into boots-on-the-ground action.

Losing a home to fire takes a toll on nearly every aspect of one's life. When a high profile campaign for the U.S. House is part of that life, the price gets distributed on to thousands more people, whether they are active campaign volunteers, or merely constituents who passively miss out on normal campaigning. Such was the case last week when 8th District Democrat Darcy Burner lost her home to fire.

Fortunately for Burner many of her constituents, along with well-wishers across the country, have banded together to help ease the campaign burdens she will undoubtedly face in the coming weeks as she and her family move forward with their post-fire lives. The campaigns financial burdens, at least.

Spurred on by calls from bloggers across the country, Burner has raised over $110,000 from more than 2,000 contributors on the fundraising site ActBlue since last Tuesday's fire.

The influential liberal blog Daily Kos is putting more than 100 centrist congressional Democrats on notice that they may face primary challenges from the left in 2010 for their support of amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Several on that list are California representatives, including Dennis Cardoza (D-Merced), Jim Costa (D-Fresno), Jerry McNerney (D-Pleasanton) and Ellen Tauscher (D-Alamo).

In his first post to his Daily Kos diary in almost three months, U.S Senate candidate and Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley (D-Portland) urged the U.S Congress to oppose the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 on Tuesday.

Merkley sees controversy in the part of the bill which gives immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in surveillance on domestic citizens.

"The bill will force federal district courts to immediately dismiss any cases against telecommunications companies that participated in illegal surveillance," Merkley wrote. "This is unacceptable. The Constitution of the United States was violated.  Over several years telecommunications companies turned over the records of millions of innocent Americans to the federal government without proper oversight and without a warrant."