Leading Off:
• SD-Sen: Until recently, both parties believed that Republican Mike Rounds would easily take this seat. However, thanks to Rounds’ overconfident campaign and lingering questions about his role in a scandal involving EB-5 visas, Rounds has looked weaker than expected against Democrat Rick Weiland and independent Larry Pressler, a former Republican senator.
On Friday, Rounds’ allies at the NRSC announced they also would reserve $1 million, a huge sum for an inexpensive state like South Dakota. Rounds himself is significantly increasing his air presence, while the American Chemistry Council is also spending $250,000 on his behalf. All these moves come just after Weiland’s allies began spending heavily here, with the DSCC and Larry Lessig’s Mayday PAC each reserving $1 million.
It’s very hard to say what might happen in this bizarre three-way contest. At the moment Pressler is polling very well, with a recent SurveyUSA poll even showing him in second place just three points behind Rounds. However, as Dreaminonempty argues in an important new essay, credible independent candidates introduce a considerable amount of error into the polls. Furthermore, we don’t know what impact the DSCC and NRSC’s ads will have here. Both parties see Pressler as a threat and plan to attack him, and he does not have the money to defend himself. Still, Rounds and Weiland will also take some serious blows on the air, and the well-known Pressler may be able to position himself as above the fray. But no matter how you slice it, a Rounds victory is suddenly looking a lot less likely than it once was. As a result, we’re changing our race rating here from Likely Republican to Lean Republican.
However, Pressler’s chances to pull off an upset may have gotten worse on Friday even before the ad blitzes began. Head over the fold to find out what happened.
