Democrats focus energy on Reid’s GOP challenger in Nevada

Angle emerges as Democrats’ top target

WASHINGTON — Democrats wasted no time in making Republican Sharron Angle their top target after the tea party favorite who wants to wipe out Social Security and shutter the Education Department won the nomination to challenge Sen. Harry Reid.

No other candidate emerging from Tuesday’s primaries has received anything close to the criticism Democrats have heaped on Angle, a former state lawmaker. Angle used national tea party leaders’ support to topple Republican casino executive Sue Lowden, whom national Democrats eviscerated during the primary.

“For Democrats in Nevada to be successful this November, we must be aggressive in framing the debate,” said Sen. Robert Menendez, who leads his party’s committee to elect Democrats to the Senate.

His Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee and Nevada Democrats were quick to follow up with criticism of Angle — all in defense of Reid, a top target for the GOP. With a steady pace, the Democrats have churned out news releases about her conservative policies, her political allies and sniping among Nevada Republicans.

As the scrutiny has grown, Angle took down her website for a polish. The only option on the site is to donate.

Republican Senate hopeful Rob Portman unveiled his first television ads telling Ohio voters that he has visited every county and wants to put the state back to work.

The 30-second ad that is airing on cable and broadcast stations statewide focuses on Ohio’s high unemployment rate that hovers around 11 percent.

“I’ve visited all of Ohio’s 88 counties on a jobs tour, to factories, small businesses and farms,” he says into the camera while he stands in what appears to be a factory. “People are working harder for less, and looking for jobs that don’t exist.”

Although known in southwest Ohio where he served as a congressman, Portman is largely unknown elsewhere and is introducing himself to voters. Ohio Democrats have been aggressive in reminding voters that Portman worked for President George W. Bush’s administration during a time when the economy shed millions of jobs and Washington increased deficit spending.

Portman reported more than $7 million in the bank in his most recent finance report in April. In November, he faces Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, who reported less than $1 million in cash during the same period.

A Quinnipiac University poll shows Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s lead has dipped over former wrestling executive Linda McMahon, the endorsed Republican, in the Connecticut Senate race.

The telephone survey of 1,350 registered voters shows Blumenthal leading McMahon by 20 percentage points — 55 percent to 35 percent — in the race to fill the seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd.

That’s compared to a May 27 Quinnipiac Poll when Blumenthal held a 25 percentage point lead.

“Three weeks after the Vietnam flap, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has lost a little more ground to Linda McMahon, but he still has a comfortable lead,” poll director Douglas Schwartz said.

This new poll shows voters’ opinions about Blumenthal’s misstatements about his military service have not changed, with 61 percent in both surveys saying it doesn’t make a difference in how they’ll vote in November.

Blumenthal said he “misspoke” in claiming more than once that he served in Vietnam and apologized for his comments. He actually served stateside in the Marine Reserve during the war.

Quick hits:

— Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner sent an message to her political e-mail list encouraging readers to support North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall in a June 22 runoff for the U.S. Senate nomination. Like Marshall, Brunner sought a Senate nomination herself but did not receive the support of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Brunner lost the bitter fight to Fisher, whom she has yet to tell her e-mail list to support.

— Meg Whitman aired her first ad of the general election on Thursday, telling voters statewide that putting Californians back to work is her top priority. Whitman, who won the GOP gubernatorial nomination on Tuesday, adds that raising taxes is “absolutely the wrong thing to do.”

Associated Press writer Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.