SSP Daily Digest: 4/13

NY-20 (pdf): The latest update from the state BoE this morning shows Scott Murphy’s lead down to 25, as the absentee count proceeds (and a few readjustments are made to recanvass numbers). We’re still waiting on any absentee numbers from Saratoga County (Tedisco’s base) and most from Washington and Warren Counties (Murphy’s base).

Also, there’s been some research into what happens in NY-20 ends in a true tie (and no, apparently “Thunderdome” is not involved after all). Under NY law, coin tosses are not allowed in state or federal races, so the governor has the choice of either holding another special election for which the candidates will need to be re-nominated (allowing Libertarian Eric Sundwall another shot at the ballot), or else postponing the whole matter until the general election in Nov. 2009.

IL-Sen: Roland Burris is getting slammed even by his one-time supporters now. Rep. Danny Davis told Chicago Public Radio that Burris needs to “hurry up” and announce whether or not he’s running for re-election in 2010. Davis’s sudden hurry is personally motivated, though, as Davis also stated publicly for the first time that he’s considering running for that senate seat himself. (It seems like he wouldn’t want to do it with Burris in the primary, though, as that would split the African-American vote.)

OH-Sen: Ex-Rep. Rob Portman may not have much name recognition or charisma, but he does have one advantage: lots of money. Today he reported raising $1.7 million in Q1, and is sitting on $3.1 million total. Lee Fisher, by contrast, announced last week that he raised $1.1 million, while Jennifer Brunner hasn’t reported yet.

NY-Sen: Here are some tea leaves that Rep. Carolyn McCarthy isn’t going to be running against Kirsten Gillibrand in the senate primary: she raised $145,000 in the first quarter (for House re-election, but that could be transferred if she switched to the senate race), with $262,000 CoH. (Also-rumored challengers Reps. Steve Israel and Carolyn Maloney have much bigger stashes; they haven’t reported for Q1, but have $1.7 million and $1.1 million CoH, respectively.)

DE-Sen: Along the same lines, it looks like Mike Castle isn’t gearing up his fundraising machine toward a run for the open senate seat in Delaware in 2010. (On the other hand, he’s raised enough that retirement doesn’t seem in the offing.) Politico catches that he raised only $73,000 in Q1, with $841,000 CoH.

FL-Sen: Rep. Kendrick Meek got another big “get” in his so-far-successful quest to nail down all the building blocks to cornering the Democratic nomination. He got the endorsement of the national AFSCME today, one of the nation’s largest unions.

MN-Sen: Digging by Senate Guru and Down with Tyranny reveals that one of the Minnesota Supreme Court justices who’ll be hearing Norm Coleman’s whinings is Christopher Dietzen, who has donated thousands to Republican candidates, most significantly to Norm Coleman himself, creating a rather clear basis for recusal.

AL-Gov: Former “Ten Commandments” judge Roy Moore, who lost the 2006 gubernatorial primary to Bob Riley, is looking for another try, now that it’s an open seat. With a fractured-looking GOP field, it’s possible Moore could sneak through the primary this time, which, given his polarizing nature, might actually give the Dem a small advantage in the general.

NYC-Mayor: NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg solved the term limits problem, but he had one more problem to overcome: getting a ballot line from some party. To solve that dilemma, he’s returned to his shallow Republican roots, remaining a registered independent but picking up the GOP ballot line by getting the endorsement of three of the boroughs’ GOP chairs. In a display of ‘post-partisanship’ at its finest, he’s reportedly also trying to secure the ballot line of the left-leaning Working Families Party.

OH-17: In a move guaranteed to provoke a huge collective sigh of relief, Ohio senate minority leader Capri Cafaro said that she won’t run for the open seat left behind by Rep. Tim Ryan, assuming he runs for Ohio Lt. Gov. in 2010. “I don’t know if I can get as much accomplished on the federal level,” she says.

PA-04: Republicans seem to be coalescing around state representative (and minority whip) Mike Turzai as a challenger to Rep. Jason Altmire in this slowly-reddening district in Pittsburgh’s suburbs. Turzai lost the 1998 election in the 4th to Ron Klink by a fairly wide margin. The 4th’s most prominent GOPer, Lynn Swann, has already declined.

AR-01: A likely GOP candidate has already surfaced to run against Marion Berry (no, not the DC mayor) in this rural district that had one of the most alarming rightward shifts over the decade. In the ‘can’t make this stuff up’ department, businessman Eric Crawford already boasts wide name recognition from doing the radio farm report.

IL-11: Real estate investor and big-money GOP donor Henry Meers Jr. has filed to take on freshman Rep. Debbie Halvorson in the 11th. However, some in the local GOP instead favor Iraq War vet and former McLean County board member Adam Kinzinger. (Kinzinger is from the rural part of the district, while Meers and Halvorson hail from Will County in the Chicago suburbs.)

NRCC: The NRCC is going on the offense against 43 different House dems for “rubber stamping” Nancy Pelosi’s “San Francisco-style budget” (and its socialistic promise of Rice-a-Roni in every pot). Oddly, they’re singling out OH-18’s Zack Space (certainly not one of our most vulnerable members) with a TV spot. Nine other Dems get radio spots, while robocalls target the rest (including other entrenched members like Charlie Melancon and Chet Edwards).

Polltopia: Our friends at Public Policy Polling are once again letting readers decide which Senate race they’ll poll next. The choices this time: Colorado, Connecticut, and Illinois. Go get your democracy on, and tell us which state you voted for (and why) in the comments. (J)

15 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 4/13”

  1. Though both CO and IL would also be interesting. If they had offered PA, I would have voted for it instead.  

  2. it has 2 hot primaries which should be affected by how well the candidates can do vs. mark kirk or peter roskam.  i am personally dying to see how quinn and madigan match up.  

    CT is not going to be worth looking at until the worst of the shit blows past Dodd.  If, in 6 months, things are still bleak then he should be considering a graceful exit.

    appointees who are running for ’10 (Bennet & Gillibrand) are simply not well enough known to get anything other than a generic D vs R poll number.  maybe it would be interesting to see how romanoff does against bennet…

  3. Don’t get too alarmed.  Arkansas is an example of why relying on presidential results in districts isn’t always the most reliable measure.  Republicans are routinely crushed at the local and state level here and there are plenty of cities and counties where the number of registered Republicans is pathetic.  The results over the last few years have been rather skewed as Obama paid no attention to the state whatsoever and Kerry was running competitively here before abandoning the state in the fall after paying little attention to us himself.

    That said, no matter what joke opponent the Republicans cough up for Berry or any Democrat in the state of Arkansas, rest assured they’ll be defeated.

  4. is that Obama only barely underperformed Kerry and Gore in the heavily GOP AR-03 in the northwest corner of the state.  He dropped by more in AR-02, the Little-Rock district, and by even more in AR-01 and AR-04, traditional Democratic districts.  Perhaps this is just a symptom of Dem performance bottoming out in AR-03, that is, it’s just not possible for us to do any worse there.  Whereas the other districts have more Democrats that are willing to vote GOP depending on the candidates.

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