• IL-Sen: Here’s a fairly big-name entrant to the Illinois Senate: Chicago Urban League President Cheryle Jackson, who just formed an exploratory committee. Jackson had occasionally been rumored to be interested (to the extent that Jan Schakowksy’s internal poll included her, where she got 17% when explicitly substituted for Burris) but hadn’t taken concrete steps. Jackson has two demographic positives: with Schakowsky out, she’d be the only female in the race (unless, of course, Lisa Madigan gets in, in which case the game would be over anyway), and she’d be the only African-American in the race who isn’t Roland Burris. However, she used to be Rod Blagojevich’s press secretary prior to taking over at the Urban League, so the Blago stench may be hard to wash off.
• ND-Sen: All had seemed quiet on the midwestern front, especially after that R2K poll that showed him getting flattened by Byron Dorgan (57-35), but Gov. John Hoeven recently showed at least a peep of interest in running for Senate after all… even if it was just a statement that he was still making up his mind and would decide by September. GOP state chair Randy Emineth said that Hoeven “wants to” run against Dorgan, but we’ll need to actually hear from Hoeven.
• NH-Sen: The swabbies at ARG! pointed their spyglasses toward the 2010 open Senate seat in New Hampshire, and find that Rep. Paul Hodes would defeat ex-Sen. John Sununu 40-36. No numbers for the much-hyped AG Kelly Ayotte.
• NV-Sen, NV-Gov: In the face of relentless wooing from GOP Senators, Rep. Dean Heller has set a deadline of June 30 to make up his mind about whether he runs for Harry Reid’s Senate seat. (Wait a minute… that’s today!) Heller’s other options include staying in NV-02 or running a primary challenge in the governor’s race — where the younger Reid (Rory, the Clark County Commission chair) seems to be staffing up for the race on the Dem side.
• PA-Sen: Joe Torsella, who briefly was running against post-party-switch Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary before dropping out, has endorsed Specter. Not surprising, since Torsella is a big ally of Gov. Ed Rendell, who has pledged his support to Specter.
• CT-Gov: More indications that Ned Lamont is getting serious about running for Governor (probably against incumbent Jodi Rell) in 2010. Lamont is looking at an early-2010 deadline for deciding, but can get away with a shorter timeframe as he can self-fund and won’t need a long ramp-up for fundraising.
• NJ-Gov (pdf): PPP takes their turn at polling the New Jersey Governor’s race and find about what everyone else has been finding: Chris Christie leads incumbent Jon Corzine 51-41, with Christie benefiting from a 60-26 lead among independent voters. Good news, relatively speaking, for Corzine, though, is that Christie’s negatives are rising quickly as he’s starting to get defined in the media, up to 43% favorable and 33% unfavorable.
• SC-Gov: Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer has publicly floated the idea that he would stand down from running in 2010 if he got to be Governor now, if Mark Sanford would just go ahead and resign (please?). His potential 2010 rivals are looking at this as statesman-like grandstanding, especially since it looks like Sanford is digging in.
• AK-AL: In case there was any doubt, the indestructible Rep. Don Young has announced that he’s running for re-election. Young is 76 and in perpetual danger of indictment, but with the state’s political talent gravitating toward the Governor’s race, may have an easier path in 2010 than in 2008.
• CA-36: Los Angeles City Councilor Janice Hahn has been telling supporters that she’s interested in running for Rep. Jane Harman’s seat. She doesn’t seem to be thinking primary, though; Hahn, for some reason, believes Harman (still under a bit of a cloud from the wiretap incident) is up for appointment to something, maybe Ambassador to Israel, in the Obama administration.
• FL-12: State Sen. Paula Dockery made clear that she won’t be running in the 12th; she endorsed former State Rep. Dennis Ross for the job. She seemed to leave the door open to the Governor’s race, saying in her statement that “my passion for public policy is in state government.”
• IL-07: With Rep. Danny Davis looking to move over to the Presidency of the Cook County Board, Chicago-area Dems are already eyeing the super-safe open seat. Davis’s former chief of staff Richard Boykin (now a lobbyist for Cook County) seems to be the first to make his interest publicly known.
• NH-01 (pdf): Manchester mayor (and NH-01 candidate) Frank Guinta is due for the Bad Samaritan Award, as he watched several of his friends (an alderman and a state Representative) beat up another acquaintance in a barroom brawl, ending with the man’s leg being broken in seven places, and then immediately left the scene without reporting it to the police. Guinta said he was unaware of the extent of the man’s injuries and contacted police at that point. No charges have been filed in the incident; still, not the kind of free publicity a political candidate likes to get.
• NY-03, NY-Sen-B: Rep. Peter King is sounding even iffier than before about running for Senate against Kirsten Gillibrand, having scored a desired slot on the Intelligence Committee.
• NY-23: Investment banker Matthew Doheny anted up with a lot of cash to jump into the Republican side of the race to replace Rep. John McHugh: $500,000 of his own money. Roll Call reports that he’ll need the ostentatious display of cash to get anywhere in the candidate-picking process, as Assemblypersons Dede Scozzafava and Will Barclay are both reaching out behind the scenes to party leaders.
• Redistricting: Regardless of what nonsense happens in the New York Senate this session, it’s looking more and more like the GOP’s toehold on legislative power will be vanquished in post-2010 redistricting, regardless of who controls the legislative redistricting process. Because of growth in the city and declines upstate, 1.2 seats will need to be shifted from downstate to NYC (and, as an added bonus, an extra one-sixth of a seat will shift to the city if the Census Bureau goes ahead and starts counting prisoners according to where they’re actually from rather than where they’re incarcerated).
• Fusion Voting: Here’s one way in which Oregon suddenly became a lot more like New York: the state legislature decided to allow “fusion voting,” in which a candidate can run on multiple party lines on one ballot. This will be a boost to minor parties in Oregon, by letting them form coalitions with the major parties instead of simply playing spoiler.
• Fundraising: It’s June 30, and you know what that means… it’s the end of the 2nd fundraising quarter. If you want to give some momentum to your favored candidates, today’s the last day to do it.
According to the article you linked Boykin supported Hillary in the primary over Obama. And was, obviously, criticized for it. He did later give his full support to Obama. But nevertheless his past support for Hillary, over Obama, could come back ho haunt him.
story is linking to a Don Young story at the moment, FYI.
If Harman did bail, and this D+12 seat did actually become open, there would likely be a free-for-all of candidates contending for it. Maybe including CA SoS Debra Bowen who represented the area in the state legislature prior to being elected to SoS.
Looks to involve more than just growth per the census. As the article states, Republicans used the “10% rule” to flout one man, one vote principles, thus giving upstate extra representation even before you account for the growth of the past decade. It would have been nice had the article broken out how much each issue accounts for – growth vs. built-in deviation.
It’s also worth noting that while the 10% deviation “rule” has been enshrined in Supreme Court precedent for quite some time, if the deviation is applied in a way that itself is discriminatory, you can have a problem. In fact, a federal court struck down Georgia’s last state lege redistricting plan even though the deviation was less than 10%:
Maybe he could challenge Dodd in the Senate primary.
I remember a while ago there was speculation that Dede Scozzafava would run for Congress as a D. Is this still going to happen? It’s probably the best we can hope for. The Roll Call article says she’s seeking the R nomination.
Sanford tells the AP he met his Argentine mistress more frequently than he previously stated. He acknowledged ‘crossing lines’ with other women during his marriage, albeit not the ‘physical’ one. He further states that his mistress is his ‘soulmate’ and that their situation is a ‘love story’. He further stated that he is trying to fall in love again with his wife.
AG Henry McMaster has reversed course and will request an investigation into Snaford’s travel expenditures, in light of these new revelations.
Meanwhile the Lt. Governor raised the issue of his sexual orientation with SC’s leading newspaper, The State. Stating that the answer to the question of him being homosexual was ‘one word, two letters — NO’.
One of the problems with following politics in other states is that I never have a good sense of geography. Specifically, I never have a clear picture of how state legislators fit into the congressional districts and how much of their congressional district they already represent.
Thankfully/unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful in finding a job this summer, which has given me plenty of time to play with the magical program that is Google Earth. Eventually, some of the stuff I’m doing might turn into some sort of a blogging project (when I decide on a focus, a platform, etc.), but in the meantime, I decided to use Google Earth to help give me a better sense of geography in NY-23. The maps below aren’t perfect, but I thought other geographically-challenged SSPers might appreciate them.
(Click for larger image)
That’s the New York State Assembly districts which cover some part of NY-23, with the hometown, name, and party affiliation of each Assemblyperson marked. The Democrats have two Assemblypeople who live in the district, the Republicans have four, plus two that live out of the district but represent some of it. (And, of course, living out of district never stopped Tedisco.)
(Click for larger image)
Same as above, except now the state Senate. Two Democrats live in the district, and all three Republicans who represent part of NY-23 in the state Senate live out of the district.
Anyway, this helped me, and I thought it might help others.
Is it time for Swing State to re-rate that contest for the time being as “Leans Republican”? I think it should already be rated that way. This poll is more supporting data. Corzine may still win but if so, it will be a hard fight and win from behind. That’s the definition of “Leans Republican,” isn’t it?