Washington Times | Sarah Abruzzese

Republican candidate Robert F. McDonnell has opened a decisive lead over state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds in the Virginia gubernatorial race, according to the latest poll, released Tuesday.

The poll from Public Policy Polling, a nonpartisan Raleigh, N.C.-based firm, shows Mr. McDonnell with 51 percent support compared with 37 percent for Mr. Deeds. The 14-point lead is up from six points a month ago.

Mr. Deeds is also combating Democratic voter fatigue, according to the poll, which shows only 42 percent of the people who voted for President Obama intend to vote in the fall, while 60 percent of the people who voted for Arizona Sen. John McCain are planning to head to the polls.

Washington Post | Paul Kane and Perry Bacon Jr.

Senate Republicans have lined up in staunch opposition to the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, rejecting concerns about alienating the growing Hispanic vote.

Even before debate began Tuesday night, almost three-fourths of the Senate Republican Conference had already announced opposition to the first Latina ever nominated to the nation’s highest court. The party’s 2008 standard bearer, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), joined the chorus of opposition this week, and no likely contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination has spoken in support of confirmation.

CQ Politics | Emily Cadei

Democrat El Tinklenberg withdrew from Minnesota’s 6th District race Tuesday, an abrupt reversal after weeks of tough talk about how he was the best candidate to take on Republican incumbent Michele Bachmann among a crowded field of Democrats.

Tinklenberg, who lost to Bachmann by just 3 percentage points in 2008, issued a statement saying, “While the image of the next campaign against Michele Bachmann is certainly energizing, the path to that campaign is becoming increasingly improbable.”

State Democrats weren’t commenting Tuesday, but it’s likely Tinklenberg got the hint that he was not their first choice for the nomination this time around, given state Sen. Tarryl Clark’s entry into the race last week. Still, Tinklenberg gave no inkling that he was willing to step aside as buzz about Clark’s run built in July, declaring defiantly in the local press that he was prepared to run in a competitive primary and believed he was the “only one” who could beat the colorful and controversial Bachmann.

George Washington University | No Author Listed

The latest edition of The George Washington University Battleground Poll finds a majority of voters (51%) believing that the country is on the wrong track. Their top areas of concern are the economy and jobs, health care costs, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the federal budget deficit.

Looking ahead to the 2010 Congressional Elections, the Democratic Party enjoys a three point advantage (43%-40%) on the Congressional generic ballot. However, voters are closely divided on their preference for a divided government (41%) or for a unified government (39%). In addition, a majority (57%) of voters disapprove of the job performance of Congress.

In contrast, President Obama has a job approval rating of 53%, a personal approval rating of 72%, and a 61% favorable rating on name identification.

Courier Journal | James R. Carroll and Joseph Gerth

Sen. Jim Bunning’s decision last week not to seek re-election only enhanced the national profile of Kentucky’s 2010 Senate race, political analysts say.

It almost certainly means a more competitive race — one that will be among a half-dozen or so key Senate contests next year.

And it gives new hope to Republicans, who had faced a near-certain defeat in Kentucky in light of Bunning’s difficulty raising money, according to the analysts.

CQ Politics | Greg Giroux

Sens. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., will easily win new terms in 2010 in part because of their huge campaign treasuries.

Schumer has $14.9 million in his campaign committee and Shelby has $14.8 million, according to a CQ Politics analysis of recently filed Senate campaign finance reports that cover activity through the end of June.

Schumer represents some wealthy New York donors and shattered fundraising records as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in the 2006 and 2008 campaign cycles. Shelby is a former chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and is presently its top-ranking Republican.

Politico | Glenn Thrush

The National Republican Congressional Committee thinks law-and-order voters won’t much like President Obama’s remark that Cambridge Mass. cops acted “stupidly” in arresting Harvard Professor Skip Gates in his own house this week.

The NRCC is sending out a raft of releases to local media in Massachusetts — targeting, among others, Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) who represents Cambridge.

The point here isn’t Capuano — his district is one of the most liberal in the country — but that the GOP is searching for issues that can recapture conservative Dems and independents by portraying the president as a cop-bashing liberal.

UnionLeader.com | John DiStaso

Thursday morning update: Potential U.S. Senate candidate Ovide Lamontagne announced that he has hired Jim Merrill, managing director of the Devine Strategies consulting firm in Concord, as his senior adviser.

The Granite Status first reported on July 16 that Lamontagne had signed Merrill,who was the state director for Mitt Romney’s 2008 Presidential campaign and ran the successful 2000 general election campaign of President George W. Bush.

In 2004 he served as the New Hampshire Grassroots Co-Chair for President Bush’s re-election campaign and was counsel to the 2004 Bush-Cheney and 2008 McCain-Palin presidential campaigns in New Hampshire, as well as the New Hampshire Republican State Committee.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | James O’Toole

A new Quinnipiac poll depicts an unsettled governor’s race taking shape before a fluid Pennsylvania electorate.

The survey found Tom Corbett, the Republican attorney general, in the strongest position of any of the likely 2010 contenders, but even he remained an unknown to a majority of the voters. On the Democratic side, none of the likely candidates had made much of an impression on the electorate.

One of the poll’s more intriguing findings was that, nine months after President Barack Obama’s landslide win in the state, a generic Republican candidate edged a hypothetical Democratic candidate for governor with independent voters tipping the balance in the GOP direction.

Next year’s elections for senator and governor will be watched for evidence of whether Pennsylvania, once a classic swing state, has continued a trend toward a more reliably Democratic stance. Amid dismal approval ratings for the state’s most prominent Democrat, Gov. Ed Rendell, the findings provide a snapshot of a state still up for grabs despite recent Democratic gains in party registration and a string of successes in presidential and statewide contests.

That ‘Waterloo’ comparison made by the GOP may be starting to get to President Obama’s highly, highly, intelligent and wonderfully gifted head.

Jammie Wearing Fool | Of course it’s all about him.

Michelle Malkin | Not about you, huh?

Hot Air | Obama’s bleak reaction is revealing.

Allah Pundit | It’s all about the O. Isn’t it always?