• IN-Sen, IN-Gov: Howey feelin’ today, Joe Donnelly? We feelin’ good? I should think so, considering that Howey Politics’ new poll (conducted by GOP firm Bellwether Research and Democratic outfit Garin-Hart-Yang) has the Dem congressman up an eye-popping 47-36 over Republican Richard Mourdock, with Libertarian Andrew Horning at 6. That’s up from a narrow 40-38 Donnelly edge in mid-September, and while the 11-point margin is by far the biggest we’ve seen, the trendlines mirror the same disastrous slide for Mourdock we’ve seen in Donnelly’s own internals.
Mourdock claims to have yet another internal poll (again from McLaughlin), showing him ahead 46-44. But the cheese stands alone on this one: In Howey’s new survey, Romney leads 51-41, hardly changed from his 52-40 edge in their prior poll, proving that Mourdock’s slide is unique to him. But even Rasmussen has now managed to find a lead for Donnelly, putting him ahead 45-42. In mid-October, Ras had Mourdock up 47-42.
If Donnelly nevertheless loses, he’ll still have succeeded in drawing a huge amount of financial fire away from other Democrats in the election’s closing weeks. Politico totes up the outside-group spending in Indiana for the final week, and find that American Crossroads, the Club for Growth, the NRSC, and groups linked to Sen. Rand Paul and conservative rich guy Joe Ricketts are combining to spend $4 million on the last week. (Of course, that means Democrats are spending there too, though I’m sure they’re glad to be on the offense; the DSCC and Majority PAC are shelling out $3 million in the same timeframe.) (David Jarman)
Also interesting are the numbers for the governor’s race, where GOP Rep. Mike Pence remains stuck at 47, while Democrat John Gregg improved to 40 percent, up from 34. It’s still very much a longshot for Gregg, but Pence hasn’t been able to clear 50% even in his own internals despite having every advantage, which makes you wonder if Mourdock is screwing things up for the rest of the GOP ticket. For that reason, we’re slotting the race back in at Likely R, since the Mourdock factor’s unpredictably now makes us loathe to rule out a gubernatorial upset as well. (David Nir & David Jarman)