So says The Stakeholder.  It should average out to 9-10 viewings per voter between now and April 11.

There is no candidate for the NRCC to back, so this is going to be purely negative advertising attacking Francine Busby.

This says that the Republicans are scared.  Their field is weak, their leadership is corrupt (including Duke Cunningham, the former holder of CA-50 and Tom DeLay) and they know it. 

All they’ve got left is smear tactics — the choice of a weak party afraid to face the voters with what they’ve really got.

Two new CA-50 congressional race polls surfaced today. Both have similar results and both have much more immediate meaning for the crowded field of Republican challengers than they do for front running Democrat, Francine Busby.

A Lake Research poll, released today by the Busby campaign, conducted among likely voters on March 18-20, found Busby leading the pack with 39% of the projected vote.

Among her top three Republican rivals, Brian Bilbray came in at 15% with conservatives Howard Kaloogian and Eric Roach tied at 7%.

The rest of the Republican pack was far behind.  Big spender Alan Uke and state senator Bill Morrow at 4% and 3% respectively.

A Datamar poll, commissioned by local CBS affiliate KFMB, was conducted four days later than the Lake poll, also among likely voters. Datamar pegged Busby at 36%, but found the top three Republicans very closely clustered. According to Datamar, Bilbray and Roach were in a near dead heat, Bilbray at 11.7% and Roach at 11.2%, with Kaloogian barely trailing these two at 10.7%.

As with the Lake poll, the remainder of the predominantly Republican field is far behind the three Republican front runners. Morrow and Uke continue their lackluster performance at 4.8% and 3% respectively.

The Datamar poll leaves 3.6% undecided, where the Lake poll asks the undecided to select the candidate to which they are leaning.

At the heart of both polls is the reality that Busby is going to dominate the field in the special election and then have to go to battle with Bilbray, Roach or Kaloogian in June. Preliminary polls show that in a head-to-head contest between Busby and either Bilbray or Roach, the contest is too close to call.

On the Republican side, it is hard to determine if the ground Roach appears to have made up between the March 18-20 Lake poll and the March 22-24 Datamar poll is real or just within the two polls’ margin of error.

The most recent publicly available poll regarding the special election to replace convicted felon Randy “Duke” Cunningham in the 50th District continues to be bad news from most of the candidates in the crowded field.

A SurveyUSA poll conducted the weekend of March 18-19, finds just four candidates with 20% or higher “favorable” public perception:

Francine Busby (D)  38%
Brian Bilbray (R)  23%
Howard Kaloogian (R)  20%
Eric Roach (R)  20%

As far as familiarity goes, Democrat Busby is far ahead of all candidates. The poll found that most of the vast number of Republican candidates are simply unknown in the district. Only former congressman Brian Bilbray comes close to Busby in name recognition.

When asked about the candidates, district residents had the following degree of unfamiliarity with the top tier candidates.

Francine Busby (D)  20% (unfamiliar)
Brian Bilbray (R)  29% (unfamiliar)
Eric Roach (R) 32% (unfamiliar)
Howard Kaloogian (R) 40% (unfamiliar)

Perhaps the most disappointing revelations of the poll relate to State Senator Bill Morrow, who has achieved a rare political double-double. Despite his years in public service, Morrow is unfamiliar to 35% of the voters in predominantly Republican district and his unfavorable rating is higher than his favorable rating. Morrow’s recent mud slinging support from the California Republican Assembly isn’t likely to do much to improve his already shaky image.

(Good news from San Diego… – promoted by SFBrianCL)

I’ve been keen on Francine Busby for a while now.  After meeting her while down in San Diego, I’ve been quite optimistic about her chances to take CA-50, The Duke-Stir’s old Seat.  Well now, there are numbers to back up that growing suspicioun of mine. From DownWithTyranny via dKos:

DWT has come into possession of some brand new polling from the 50th CD– brand new and very exciting. The research was based on interviews with 401 likely April special election voters in December, 2005. The survey shows that voters in the district are ready for a change and are much more receptive to a Democratic message of change than to any Republican message of more of the same. Busby holds an advantage over all opponents tested in both a single-trial heat match-up as well as head-to-head match-ups. Busby has a shot to take the whole ballgame in the special (primary) election in April!

Despite a GOP voter registration advantage in the district, a majority of voters surveyed disapproved of Bush’s job performance– with a plurality of voters STRONGLY disapproving. Even among Republican voters a significant number disapprove of Bush’s job performance, while nearly all Democrats and two-thirds of independents disapprove of the job Bush is doing as president. This translates to Busby leading each of the Republican candidates. She is also better known than all the Republicans other than former Republican congressman Brian Bilbray.

A majority of voters (53%) say that things in the country are pretty seriously off on the wrong track, with just over one-third (37%) suggesting things in the country are on the right track. Many voters will be looking for change to get things back on track.

Once considered a strongly Republican district, the 50th has swerved away from the party of Bush, DeLay, Cunningham, Abramoff and Frist. Only 35% of the voters indicate they will probably or definitely vote for the Republican candidate for U.S. Congress. Moreover, voters are seeking checks and balances in Congress, with 43% saying they want a candidate who would provide a balance to Bush’s agenda, while only 34% prefer a candidate who will consistently support the Bush agenda.

You can give money to Busby via the Calitics ActBlue page.  More…

While it’s being talked about as a national bellwhether, I think we also have to consider the statewide ramifications.  CA-50 leans pretty strongly towards the GOP.  They have quite a strong registration advantage, as they do in much of Orange and SD counties.  While the governator has not really been scandal-ridden like Congressional GOP, he has suffered similarly moribund approval ratings.  The taint of the GOP in general will tend to run off towards all Republicans, even ones here at home. 

Ahnold deals on star power, and that has lost its shine.  He, more than ever, needs the support of his conservative GOP base, almost all independents, and to pick off some Dems.  I think a Busby win would indicate just how the people of at least one district feel about the GOP right now.