Alaska:
• Republican Joe Miller has an excellent new ad called “Hello Voters” in which he manages to introduce himself as candidate (his name is repeated seven times in the ad) while at the same time mocking Sen. Lisa Murkowski for her desperate write-in bid — “Sadly she is not on your ballot. Why? Because she lost. She lost to Joe Miller.”
Two Missouri television stations told POLITICO the cancellation of ads designed to target front-running Republican Roy Blunt occurred Wednesday morning.
“They did put a cancellation through the week of Oct. 25,” said Denise Daley, the national sales manager for KMBC, one of the top stations in Kansas City. “They had partial cancellations before that, but this came in this morning.”
Cindy Solomon, a national sales manager for the FOX affiliate in St. Louis, also told POLITICO she received notice the DSCC would cancel the reserved time between Oct. 25 and Nov. 1.
According to a Republican source who tracks ad buys, the decision removes from across the state an estimated $1.3 million reservation for television ads against Blunt.
New Hampshire:
• The Union Leader endorsed Republican Kelly Ayotte for Senate over Rep. Paul Hodes (D), writing: “Those who underestimated her often wound up regretting it later. We expect a lot of people in Washington will make that same mistake should she become the next U.S. senator from New Hampshire.” The editorial is not too high on Hodes:
Rep. Paul Hodes, challenging Ayotte for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Judd Gregg, has seen Ayotte’s record and realized that she has a much easier time defending hers than he has defending his. So he’s doing everything he can to make voters believe things about her that aren’t true.
But the voters aren’t buying Hodes’ lies about Ayotte. The people of New Hampshire can see that Ayotte is a centrist Republican, not the scary extremist Hodes desperately claims she is. They can see, too, that she has handled herself well in her first run for public office. She has weathered all sorts of vicious personal attacks, from both Republicans and Democrats, with grace and surprising cheerfulness, traits that will serve her well in the rough-and-tumble world of Washington.
Ayotte leads by nine points in the RealClearPolitics polling average. The race “Leans GOP.”
Washington:
• Democrats are taking the gloves off in Washington, ramping up efforts to attack Dino Rossi on abortion. Rossi, a Catholic, has said his pro-life stance is “a matter of conscience.” Sen. Patty Murray seems eager to go on the offensive after spending the past couple weeks in the spotlight for her close ties, and suspect dealings, with lobbying firms.
Wisconsin:
• More ads have aired in the Senate race between incumbent Russ Feingold and Ron Johnson than in any other race since September 1, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. Wisconsin voters have been inundated with more than 18,000 individuals airings totaling more than $7 million in that time period. Johnson has spent almost $3.9 million on TV ads so far, while Feingold has spent nearly $3 million. For an extensive report from the Wesleyan Media Project on the 2010 ad wars, see here.