Here's tonight's run-down on the Congressional races: The Democrats are aggressively exploiting the political opportunities presented by the economic crisis -- while the Republicans are running in the other direction as they watch their numbers fall.

Mitch McConnell Turning Down Debates
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (KY), who has found himself in some uncomfortably close polls against Dem businessman Bruce Lunsford, is refusing to debate. The campaign has rejected an invitation from the League of Women Voters and has not responded to one from Kentucky Educational Television, saying only that they'll hold a debate with the Paducah Sun in late October.

Dems Launch Ads About Social Security Privatization And Wall St.
The DCCC has a whole new wave of ads running in Pennsylvania and Indiana about Social Security -- and specifically, what would be happening if Social SEcurity were tied to the stock market in the middle of the banking crisis. Here's one of them in Pennsylvania:

"Barletta wanted to follow Bush right into this mess," the announcer says. "And with the markets in free-fall, where would our safety net be now?"

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After a protracted and excrutiatingly tense recount, Dem Joe Courtney appears to have clinched a win in the race for Connecticut's Second District, ousting GOP Rep. Rob Simmons by all of 91 votes, the Associated Press is reporting. Courtney received word of his victory last night at dinner with other Dems in the Capitol, where he's already assumed the role of incoming Congressman, according to the Hartford Courant. "Courtney received a bear hug from Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the architect of the party's House victory," the Courant notes. "The closeness of the contest has spurred a new nickname for Courtney in Washington: 'Landslide Joe.'"

More twists and turns in the excrutiating recount of the vote in the race between Dem Joe Courtney and GOP Rep. Rob Simmons. From the Hartford Courant:

The roller coaster recount in the 2nd Congressional District took a sharp turn Monday afternoon when officials in one small eastern Connecticut town discovered an error that had given Democrat Joe Courtney 100 extra votes.

By nightfall, though, Courtney had gained back 40 of those votes due to the discovery of another error in another small town that had inflated the vote totals of his opponent, Republican incumbent Rob Simmons.

Later the same evening, a computation error in yet a third town gave Republicans an additional 31 votes, according to the state party chairman.

The latest: Courtney's lead now stands at 82 votes; a final decision (mercifully) is expected late tonight, when every community will have completed its recount.

The ultra-tight race for Connecticut's second district just got a heck of a lot closer. Dem Joe Courtney has lost some 100 votes due to a newly-discovered vote-counting error in the ongoing recount of the contest between him and GOP Rep. Rob Simmons, Connecticut's Norwich Bulletin is reporting:

The town clerk announced that “human error” provided 100 extra votes to Democratic challenger Joe Courtney in the 2nd Congressional District, narrowing the margin of his lead to 65 votes over U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons.

One machine had 263 votes for Courtney, not 363, as recorded on election night, said Town Clerk Susan Coutu.

The total count for Courtney in Lebanon is 1,353 and 1,585 for Simmons, she said. “It was strictly human error,” Coutu said.

Thirty-five towns are set for a recanvassing today.

Courtney's previous lead of around 165 votes had led him to declare victory, but now his lead looks to have been shaved to 65. Updates on the other nine oustanding House races here.

The current Dem pickup stands at 28 House seats, with no losses and 10 races still undecided — and the latest is that no one has conceded their races since late last week. A full rundown of where the outstanding races stand right now after the jump.

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The current Dem pickup stands at 28 House seats, with no losses and 10 races still undecided. Here's where they are now:

Dem-Leaning:

CT-02: Dem challenger Joe Courtney has declared victory with an 167-vote edge, but the miniscule margin automatically triggers a recount. The 167-vote margin includes absentee and military ballots, but not provisional ballots, which need to be verified before being counted. The recount must be completed by midnight next Wednesday.

GA-12: Incumbent Dem John Barrow leads by less than 1,000 votes, with a recount being likely. Barrow has declared victory. If Dems hold this seat, they will have completely shut out the GOP on House, Senate and governorship pick-ups.

Republican-Leaning:

FL-13: The race for Katherine Harris's open seat is potentially going to the courts. Dem Christine Jennings trails by less than 400 votes, with reports of voting-machine problems.

NC-08: Down by 346 votes, Dem Larry Kissell is calling for a recount in his race against GOP Rep. Robin Hayes, who has already declared victory. Provisional ballots won't be counted until Nov. 17, and the official result will not be certified until Nov. 28. In North Carolina, recounts have traditionally favored the candidate who leads going in.

NM-02: GOP Rep. Heather Wilson leads by 1,395 votes, with provisional and absentee ballots yet to be counted.

OH-02: GOP Rep. Jean Schmidt has declared victory, but Dem Victoria Wulsin is waiting for all provisional ballots to be counted before conceding. Though a Wulsin victory is still a possibility, she seems to be facing a statistical uphill battle.

OH-15: With a lead of 2,835 votes GOP Rep. Deborah Pryce has declared victory, but Dem opponent Mary Jo Kilroy will not concede until some 20,000 uncounted absentee and provisional ballots are tallied, a sum which she feels could tilt the election towards her. Pryce has also announced she will not seek re-election for Chair of the House Republican Conference if she wins.

WA-08: GOP Rep. David Reichert holds a two-point lead over Dem Darcy Burner with three-fifths of the district's ballots now counted. If the final vote count ends with the candidates a half a percentage point or less apart, state law requires a recount.

WY-AL: Dem Gary Trauner, trailing Rep. Barbara Cubin by 970 votes, might request a recount after canvassing is completed. However, his current deficit is a few dozen votes larger than the margin that would provide for a state-paid recount. Cubin has declared victory.

Runoff:

TX-23: GOP Rep. Henry Bonilla fell short of 50 percent, and faces a runoff with former Dem Rep. Ciro Rodriguez

Though the Democrats have conclusively gained control of the House with a pick up of at least 27 seats, 13 races have yet to be officially called by at least two major news sources. Here's why:

Update: CNN and NBC have both called GA-08 for Dem Rep. Jim Marshall and PA-06 for GOP Rep. Jim Gerlach.

Update 2: In PA-08, GOP Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick concedes.

* CT-02: Democrat Joe Courtney leads, but still too close to call, waiting for a recount. A Courtney victory would be another Dem pick up.

* FL-13: GOPer Vern Buchanan declared victory in this race to succeed GOP Rep. Katherine Harris, but Dem Christine Jennings won't concede until a recount, which won't be completed until Nov. 18. Voting problems are suspected to have occurred in the district.

* GA-08: Dem Rep. Jim Marshall leads GOPer Mac Collins by 2,048 votes — outside the 1% recount zone — but the race won't be certified until Friday. Called for Marshall.

* GA-12: Dem Rep. John Barrow declared victory, but it has not been confirmed by GA election officials due to server problems in one county.

* NC-08: GOP Rep. Robin Hayes declared victory, but a recount is expected as he only leads Dem Larry Kissell by 468 votes. A Kissell victory would be a surprise pick up for the Democrats.

* NM-01: No winner declared in this close race where provisional and absentee ballots are still waiting to be counted. A victory by Patricia Madrid would be another pick up for the Dems.

* OH-02: Dem Victoria Wulsin has refused to concede, but GOP Rep. Jean Schmidt leads by slim margin.

* OH-15: Fox News called it for GOP Rep. Deborah Pryce, but Dem Mary Jo Kilroy will not concede, waiting for absentee ballots to be counted.

* PA-06: The Philadelphia Inquirer has called it for GOP Rep. Jim Gerlach, but no other official source has followed suit. Called for Gerlach.

* PA-08: Dem Patrick Murphy declared victory, but GOP Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick refuses to concede. A Murphy victory would be another Dem pick up. Fitzpatrick concedes.

* TX-23: There will be a run-off election between GOP Rep. Henry Bonilla and Dem Ciro Rodriguez because Bonilla failed to win more than 50% of the vote.

* WA-08: GOP Rep. David Reichert leads Dem Darcy Burner, but more than 10,000 absentee ballots still need to be counted.

* WY-AL: Race between GOP Rep. Barbar Cubin and Dem Gary Trauner is too close to call and a recount is expected. A Trauner victory would be another Dem pick up.

The Greater Danbury News Times has just reported that there's massive, massive, massive voter turnout in Connecticut:

Some 70 percent of the registered voters will go to the polls today, according to Connecticut Secretary Susan Bysiewicz.

By comparison, 56 percent of the state’s voters cast ballots four years ago, Bysiewicz said.

"We only had 5 hours of voting this morning and we’ve already at nearly 30 percent in some cities," she said.

All eyes, of course, are on not just how this will impact the Senate race, but also how it will affect efforts to dislodge GOP Reps. Chris Shays, Rob Simmons and Nancy Johnson. Some 86,000 new voters have been registered since May 1. Anybody have any idea what the party I.D. breakdown is?

Update: Possible record turnout in Virginia, too.

Late update: More on those new voters. According to the New Haven Register, of 74,000 of those new voters only 14.3% are Republican.

Later update: Here are some more numbers on those new voters. From the Associated Press:

More than 86,000 residents registered to vote between May 1 and Tuesday, the deadline. Of those new voters, 38 percent are Democrats, 15 percent are Republicans and 47 percent are unaffiliated, state officials said.

Connecticut's three Democratic House challengers received good news from state officials today when they reported that 82 thousand new voters have registered in the state since May, including more than twice as many Democrats as Republicans. About 31 thousand new Democrats, 12 thousand new GOPpers and 39 thousand new independents brought the total number of registered voters in Connecticut to a record 1.9 million. The AP quotes a UCONN professor of public policy who says the implications are “huge”: “I think the new registrants, given the Democratic advantage, can serve to put the Democrats over the top in any one of the races given how close they are."

Recent polling has each of the three Connecticut House races extremely close, with the Democrats having a slight edge in at least two of the three races going into the final week.

Religious activists in Connecticut took their anti-torture message to the editorial pages of the Hartford Courant this morning. Rev. Kathleen McTigue and Rabbi Donna Berman, writing on behalf of the interfaith activist network “Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice,” argue in an OpEd that by voting for the Military Commissions Act, Senator Joe Lieberman and GOP Reps. Chris Shays, Nancy Johnson and Rob Simmons contributed to “undermining the moral values and legal traditions on which America was founded.”

Outlining the provisions and loopholes that allow for torture to continue, McTigue and Berman emphasize the need not to forget our collective moral standing because, while none of us may have individually tortured, kidnapped, or held others in secret, “our government has done all of these things in our names.” The group calls for voters to hold Lieberman, Shays, Johnson and Simmons “accountable for their lack of moral leadership on this issue” and concludes soberly: "Nothing less than the soul of our nation is at stake."

Election Central first reported on Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice when the group purchased a giant billboard to convey its message to drivers on the Connecticut interstate.

A group of wealthy Wall Street-types is raising last minutes funds for threatened moderate Republicans like Chris Shays, Rob Simmons, Nancy Johnson, and Deborah Pryce. "Republicans Who Care," lead by executives from places like Goldman Sachs and Chase Manhattan, had raised $385,000 as of September 30th and plans to spend everything it can to help fiscally conservative, socially liberal Republicans hold their seats. The group was initially founded to counteract the effect of the anti-moderate Club for Growth and, as Ari Berman at the Nation points out, its name begs the question: "Does that mean that the rest of the Republicans are members of 'Republicans Who Don't Care'?"

The "drive-by" media will get a kick out of this one. A group of religious activists has purchased a giant billboard on the interstate for a massive ad accusing four Connecticut incumbents of voting for torture. The Associated Press reports that the group, a self-described statewide group of religious leaders called Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice, bought the space to target Senator Joe Lieberman and GOP Reps. Chris Shays, Nancy Johnson and Rob Simmons. While each candidate disputed the ad, the AP notes that all four voted for the controversial Military Commissions Act of 2006, which allows the President to "authorize aggressive interrogation methods that might otherwise be seen as illegal by international courts." In other words, torture.

GOP Congressman Robert Simmons is emphasizing liberal positions in an effort to fight off Democratic challenger Joe Courtney in one of the most important races in the country. In an interview with Connecticut newspaper the Journal Inquirer, Simmons "stressed" his disagreements with the Bush Administration and GOP Congressional leadership and argued that he is, "just for starters," pro-labor, pro-environment, and pro-choice. He also criticized plans presented by military leadership to maintain troop levels in Iraq. When asked what he would tell constituents who worry about the GOP maintaining control of the House, he answered: "I don't want to answer that question."

The Hartford Courant ran an interesting story on Friday arguing that the Foley scandal would be politically beneficial not just for Democrats, but specifically for female candidates:

Analysts see political gold for women in the scandal surrounding Foley, a Florida Republican who sent lurid computer messages to young congressional pages. GOP leaders - mostly men - are facing pointed questions over when they knew about the messages and what they did about it.

"Women are seen as the protectors of children, and this is the kind of thing they would not have let go," said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics in New Brunswick, N.J.

The article sites Diane Farrell of Connecticut, Patty Wetterling of Minnesota, Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio, Patricia Madrid of New Mexico and Angie Paccione of Colorado as examples of Democratic women in close races who are addressing the issue aggressively. Chuck Todd of the National Journal pointed out the same thing in his race rankings on Friday: Democratic women are gaining.

GOPers are fighting back against Foleygate! It looks as if NRCC chief Tom Reynolds has hit on a way of pushing back against Foleygate: He's accusing an upstate New York House candidate of phone sex, reports Ben Smith of The Daily Politics. Relatedly, two Connecticut Republicans -- Reps Nancy Johnson and Rob Simmons -- are actually trying to capitalize on the sex scandal that is causing their party to implode. How? The Associated Press reports that both Johnson and Simmons are slamming their Dem opponents, Chris Murphy and Joe Courtney, of being weak on anti-sexual predator laws. Read the AP story here.

Okay, this one's really something. GOP Rep Rob Simmons has a supporter named Tom Miseti. He's a senior at the University of Connecticut and has "worked as a volunteer for the Simmons campaign, helping at campaign events," according to the Norwich Bulletin. Only Miseti's done a heck of a lot more than just hand out flyers. He's now been busted posting some gruesome imagery about Dem challenger Joe Courtney on his blog. According to Local News Channel 30, the imagery includes stacks of what appear to be Holocaust corpses meant to denigrate Courtney's ideas on health care, as well as imagery likening Courtney to Josef Stalin. Making the story even juicier, Channel 30 reports that Miseti's resume identifies him as a "field coordinator" in Connecticut's second district for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, reportedly a big bankroller of Simmons. View the newscast -- complete with imagery -- below.

The Simmons campaign claims the kid's an ex-volunteer and disavows his postings. But the problem is that Simmons has an ad now running which by chance pictures him next to Miseti, and Courtney is demanding that Simmons pull the ad to disavow Miseti's "blogging hate." More on this after the jump.

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The battle between GOP Rep. Rob Simmons and Dem challenger Joe Courtney over a local sub base is ballooning into a huge controversy. A few days ago, Simmons released an ad which slammed Courtney for doing "nothing" and touted Simmons' own role in saving a local sub base. But as Election Central reported Wednesday, Courtney pointed to a voicemail message Simmons had left Courtney just after the base was saved, in which Simmons thanked Courtney for his help saving the same base Simmons boasted about having saved himself. Now the story has hit big-time: Local News Channel 8 is airing a long segment on the controversy which quotes Courtney hammering Simmons as a "hypocrite." Watch the segment below; you can even hear Simmons' voicemail.

This is a good one. GOP Rep. Rob Simmons has released a blistering new ad which touts his own record in helping "save" a local submarine base and slams Dem challenger Joe Courtney for having accomplished "nothing." But there's just one problem with Simmons' line of attack: It appears that Simmons himself actually thanked Courtney for -- you guessed it -- having played a role in helping save the base Simmons is patting himself on the back for rescuing. Today's Norwich Bulletin has the details. View the ad here.

Joe Courtney -- the Dem whose challenge to GOP Rep. Rob Simmons has been rated a pure toss up by Stuart Rothenberg -- has just gone up on the air with his first ad: It shows a crowd of baseball fans in the bleachers of a ball game, and as a hot dog is being passed down from one person to the next, each person holding the dog shares another factoid about how close Simmons is to George W. Bush. It ends with the crowd chanting: "Rob Simmons is George Bush's number one supporter in Connecticut." For a negative ad, there's something oddly soft and even friendly about it -- and that isn't necessarily meant as a compliment. View it here.

Another high-profile race is looming in Connecticut -- and this one could help decide whether Dems capture control of the House. Four years ago, Dem Joe Courtney nearly took down GOP Rep. Rob Simmons -- despite the fact that Courtney faced a bruising primary, had little institutional support and the GOP was riding high. This time around, things are different on all those fronts -- he's had a clear path to the nomination, he's got tons of backing from national Dems, and Bush and the GOP are tanking in the polls. And some experts see the race as a bellweather for the political future of the northeast -- and beyond.

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House GOP strategists are dumping huge sums of cash into the Northeast, in an effort to stave off electoral disaster in the region.

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Rep. Chris Shays was the first House Republican to sign a discharge petition to force a vote on legislation raising the minimum wage. The petition would bring the bill out of committee and onto the floor. Shays is the only House Republican to sign; The Hill says GOP leaders tell their members to never sign discharge petitions. An article in this week’s Time on the minimum wage singles out Shays as a rare Republican who supports a raise. “I just think it’s an embarrassment,” he says of the GOP position.

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