3rd CD: Pelosi visits, Madia decries Bachmann, Paulsen attacks and Dillon speaks!

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visits Minnesota today to campaign for 3rd District DFL congressional candidate Ashwin Madia. Republican state Sen. Erik Paulsen’s new TV ad is called “Disturbing.” Independence Party candidate David Dillon held forth for an hour at the Humphrey Institute on Friday, and that night KSTP hosted a debate for all three contenders. Video and audio after the jump.

3CD: 3rd quarter cash, TV buys, Dillon on radio, Kline critiques Madia ad

The three candidates vying for Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District seat raised nearly $2 million in the third quarter, according to reports they filed today with the Federal Election Commission, with a combined take of $1,946,000. And spending for TV in the 3rd is outpacing the presidential contenders in the Twin Cities market and running at nearly a third of the total TV outlay in Minnesota’s uber-spendy U.S. Senate race. More inside, including Dillon’s radio debut and a Madia TV spot gets caught in U.S. Rep. John Kline’s cross-district crossfire.

Ashwin Madia repeats Obama’s misleading math on Iraq

You’ve probably heard Barack Obama talk about the Iraqi government’s $79 billion surplus. Now Ashwin Madia is decrying the surplus in his latest commercial. On its face it’s a compelling argument: Why are we spending $10 billion a month…

3rd CD video roundup: Madia, DCCC have new TV ads; Paulsen has Fox 9 and YouTube

The cash differential is really starting to show in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District race, as evidenced by four new pieces of video today. Two are paid ads intended for TV: a positive ad from Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate Ashwin Madia called “Discipline,” which highlights his service as a U.S. Marine and argues for fiscal discipline, and a negative ad from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that attacks Republican candidate Erik Paulsen for coddling offshore dummy corporations.

The other two are free media: a three-minute YouTube video posted by the Paulsen campaign that features testimonials from veterans who support the state representative’s congressional bid, and a four-minute interview that Fox 9 conducted with Paulsen as part of its morning news show… which was followed minutes later by the new Madia ad. See videos after the jump.

MnIndy liveblog: Madia at the Humphrey Institute

DFL candidate Ashwin Madia spoke Monday over the noon hour at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute, in a Charlie Rose-style dialogue with Prof. Larry Jacobs. Tomorrow, Madia’s Republican opponent in the 3rd district congressional race, state Rep. Erik Paulsen,…

DCCC did coordinate anti-Paulsen ads — with DCCC’s own press release

A flashpoint in the 3rd Congressional District mini-debate on TPT’s Almanac program Friday (video) was Republican candidate Erik Paulsen’s charge that DFL candidate Ashwin Madia has illegally coordinated his campaign with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, an…

Republican congressional ad buys continue crumbling

The National Republican Congressional Committee has continued to cut back on its planned TV advertising buys in Minnesota, with a second week of ads canceled in the 3rd Congressional District and a week called off for the first time

Madia just $2,400 shy of raising $1 million in 3rd quarter

A few more phone calls at the end of September and DFLer Ashwin Madia might have passed the $1 million mark for fundraising in the third quarter. His campaign announced today that his total for that quarter was $997,632. That…

Do-si-do? Madia leads Paulsen by 46-43 percent in new KSTP/SurveyUSA poll

In what pollsters are calling a “do-si-do,” results of the latest survey in the high-profile race for Minnesota’s 3rd district congressional seat show DFLer Ashwin Madia holding a slight 46-43 percent lead over Republican state Rep. Erik Paulsen — a three-point spread that’s within the poll’s 4-percent margin of error. SurveyUSA conducted the poll of 634 likely voters for KSTP on Oct. 6–7.

Independence Party’s 3rd CD candidate, David Dillon, among nation’s top self-funders

UPDATED Well, they do call it the Independence Party. It turns out the party’s candidate in the 3rd Congressional District race, David Dillon, has donated a considerable sum of his own money to his campaign through Sept. 2: $122,000. That’s 81 percent of his campaign’s $150,513 war chest, which according to a fresh report from the Center for Responsive Politics’ opensecrets.org, makes Dillon the eighth biggest self-funding candidate for the U.S. House or Senate this year, by percentage of total money raised.