Waiting for LA-06: Congressional committees keep raising stakes in Mississippi

Polls close at 9pm in LA-06's special election, the results of which we will be following closely here. In the meantime, there are plenty of other developments in congressional races, starting with the other Southern special in MS-01. The last time we checked in this hotly disputed run-off between Travis Childers and Greg Davis, the DCCC had dumped $700,000 in the race and Childers was busy distancing himself from Barack Obama while Republicans were doing their best to nationalize the race.

A few days later, the financial stakes are only getting higher; yesterday, the RNCC added almost $400,000 to its Mississippi tab while the DCCC increased its ad buy by $139,000. The DCCC has now spent nearly $1.3 million while the NRCC is getting close to the million dollar mark. This is a particularly high price for the GOP to pay considering they are already suffering from a financial crunch but it also represents a significant investment by Democrats -- especially considering how close Childers got to winning on April 22nd. The seat has since become the Democrats' to lose and the DCCC is spending accordingly.

Meanwhile, Greg Davis is now getting help from Freedom's Watch, the conservative group that has been hitting Don Cazayoux in Louisiana. Their ad picks up on the strategy employed by the NRCC and Davis and it ties Obama and Childers's plans of raising taxes (watch it here). Note that Freedom's Watch latest ad in Louisiana proved quite controversial; it accused Cazayoux of supporting illegal immigration and having voted against "In God we trust" (watch it here). But when Cazayoux objected that there was no evidence of the ad's immigration claims, some networks refused to air the ad.

The Colorado Senate race, meanwhile, continues to be rocked by allegations surrounding Republican candidate Bob Schaffer's 1999 trips to the Marinas Island in 1999 and his ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. A group called Campaign Money Watch is now airing an ad in Colorado over this story:

The ad puts the emphasis on the fact that Schaffer had traveled to the islands to report on allegations of forced abortions and asks whether Schaffer "looked the other way." This might seem like too forced an attempt to connect Shaffer to something that shady, especially when there are many other things in the story that do not speak well of Schaffer. But consider that the ad is running exclusively in Colorado Springs, a conservative region of the state with the intention of softening up support for Shaffer in conservative parts of the state. As in every election with undefined candidates, the Democrats' goal is to introduce Schaffer to voters before he can introduce himself. Keep in mind that Democrats were expecting an easier time in Colorado on the basis of their successes in 2006 but Mark Udall has not been able to open up a lead.