SSP Daily Digest: 11/20

by: Crisitunity

Fri Nov 20, 2009 at 3:02 PM EST

• DE-Sen: Mike Castle's fundraising was weak earlier this year (in fact, that was why most people figured he wasn't going to run for Senate), but now Republican Senators are moving to quickly fill up his coffers. Four Senators gave large contributions, the largest being $10,000 from Thad Cochran. Castle had $853K in his last report.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: The shortest possible explanation in New York is that nobody still has the faintest clue what Rudy Giuliani is up to. Food for thought, though, comes from the new Marist poll (pdf). They find Giuliani beating Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand 54-40. They also found Giuliani with the upper hand in a potential (if extremely unlikely) primary against ex-Gov. George Pataki; Giuliani demolishes him, 71-24. (For some reason, Marist didn't poll Gillibrand/Pataki, but Rasmussen just did, finding Gillibrand beating Pataki 45-42. Rasmussen didn't poll Gillibrand/Giuliani, though.)

Marist (pdf) also has gubernatorial numbers, which don't offer any surprises beyond the sheerly absurd dimensions of David Paterson's unpopularity. Paterson has a 20/76 approval, and a 30/63 verdict on whether people want him to run for re-election. Paterson loses the primary to Andrew Cuomo, 72-21, although he ties Rick Lazio in the general, 44-44. Cuomo makes short work of Lazio, 69-24. They also have Giuliani numbers (which are looking obsolete now): Rudy annihilates Lazio in the primary, 84-13, and beats Paterson 60-35, but loses to Cuomo, 53-43.

• CA-Gov: Republican Ex-Rep. Tom Campbell announces that he's passed the $1 million cumulative mark in fundraising for the gubernatorial race, which indicates he's at least getting some traction as people notice he's polling well. In most states, that would be pretty impressive. In California, where you have to reach more than 30 million sets of eyeballs and where $1 million is Meg Whitman's budget just for ivory backscratchers, though, it's kind of a drop in the bucket.

• OR-Gov: As quickly as he appeared, he went away; former Hewlett-Packard VP Steve Shields pulled the plug on his brief Democratic gubernatorial campaign, not having had much luck on the fundraising front. Meanwhile, SoS Bill Bradbury got a big boost in his uphill climb against ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber. Bradbury's environmentalist bona fides earned him an endorsement from Al Gore. (Also a likely factor: a long-running behind-the-scenes feud between Kitz and Gore.)

• TX-Gov: Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison are both out with TV ads as they enter the stretch run toward their March gubernatorial primary. Perry attacks Washington (and by extension, KBH, who works there), while KBH is more intent on explaining that she's keeping her Senate job to fight against Democratic health care proposals.

• CO-07: Going from being a music promoter to a Representative is a strange career leap, but that's what Jimmy Lakey is fixing to do. The Colorado Republican has opened an exploratory committee to go up against Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter, although he'll need to get past Aurora city councilor Ryan Frazier (who dropped down from the Senate race) first.

• FL-02: Al Lawson, the African-American state Senator who's challenging Blue Dog Rep. Allen Boyd in a Democratic primary, is out with an internal poll via The Research Group that actually gives Lawson the lead: 35-31. Boyd was a vote against health care reform and the stimulus, which may provide him some cover in the general in this now R+9 district, but probably hurts him in the primary, where African-Americans make up a sizable portion of the Democratic electorate.

• IA-03: The appearance yesterday of well-known wrasslin' coach Jim Gibbons was no deterrent to state Sen. Brad Zaun, setting up an epic smackdown in the GOP primary. Zaun, formerly the mayor of Des Moines suburb Urbandale, had made clear his interest in the race before Gibbons surfaced; he'll formally launch his campaign in early December.

• IL-10: State Rep. Beth Coulson, probably the only Republican in the field in the 10th with the name rec and moderate profile needed to overcome the 10th's Democratic lean, is meeting with RNC head Michael Steele today to discuss her campaign -- the same Steele who has warned moderates that, in the wake of NY-23, he's gunning for them. She's loudly touting the meeting in the press, although it's unclear whether she's trying to make clear she's a GOP team player, or that she's trying to play up her moderate reputation by standing up to Steele.

• MD-01: If there's one freshman Democrat who's looking endangered coming into 2010, it's Frank Kratovil, who barely won in a dark-red district thanks in large measure to a lousy opponent (Andy Harris) and an Obama downdraft. The Harris camp is now out with an internal poll via the Tarrance Group that quantifies that, giving that same lousy opponent a 52-39 edge over Kratovil, despite Kratovil's 43/30 favorables.

• MN-01: Former state Rep. Allen Quist followed through on his plans to challenge Rep. Tim Walz in the rural 1st District. Quist has been out of the limelight for a while, but was a darling of the religious right in the 1990s; his wife is Michele Bachmann's district director.

• NY-23: Appropriately enough, given that Fort Drum is the largest employer in his district, Bill Owens was given a seat on the Armed Services Committee, taking former Rep. Ellen Tauscher's spot. Owens himself is a former Air Force captain, and his predecessor, Army Secretary John McHugh, had been the top-ranking Republican on the committee. (D)

Also in the 23rd, it's all over but the shouting of the wronged wingnuts. The Watertown Times reports that Owens leads Hoffman by 3,105 with 3,072 absente ballots left to count. Also worth noting is the increasingly hostile tone of the Watertown Times (maybe the district's largest newspaper) to Hoffman and his post-electoral antics, which bodes ill for getting a fair shake out of them if he runs again.

• NRCC: There's a very important addendum to yesterday's story about the NRCC's big TV spot ad buy to go against Vic Snyder, John Spratt, and Earl Pomeroy. The total of the ad buy was $6,300, including only 35 gross rating points in the Charlotte market (2,000 GRPs are considered "saturation-level"), and the ads are running only on Fox News. In other words, the cash-strapped NRCC isn't paying for anybody to actually see the ads -- they're just a foot in the door to get media coverage of the ads.

• Redistricting: The DLCC's blog has an interesting look at the redistricting conundrums in Louisiana, where the loss of a House seat and a Katrina-remodeled population loom large. Dems ostensibly control the legislature but also face a Republican gubernatorial veto (although Dems control the tiebreaking Supreme Court, too).

NY-Gov: NYT Says Giuliani Won't Run (UPDATE: But May Run For Senate)

by: Crisitunity

Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 1:31 PM EST

Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has decided not to run for governor of New York next year after months of mulling a candidacy, according to people who have been told of the decision....

It was not clear what prompted the decision, but the prospect of potentially facing Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, who is quietly planning his own run for governor, may not have appealed to Mr. Giuliani, who suffered a bruising defeat in the 2008 Republican presidential primary. While many political analysts believe Mr. Giuliani would have comfortably beaten Gov. David A. Paterson, he would likely have faced an uphill battle against Mr. Cuomo, one of the most popular politicians in the state.

New York Democrats must be sighing with relief over the prospect, however remote it may have been, of not having to face a Giuliani/Paterson matchup. Of course, this may make it likelier that incumbent Gov. Paterson stays in the race, seeing as how even he seems to have a good shot at beating the likely GOP nominee, ex-Rep. Rick Lazio. But this also makes it likelier that AG Andrew Cuomo pulls the trigger on a run (he's already assembling plans behind the scenes, including a full slate of Dems to run with), since, given his titanic polling leads over both Paterson in the primary and Lazio in the general, it's pretty much a governorship for the taking for him now.

One other NY-Gov topic: Rasmussen released a poll of the general election matchups in the race yesterday, although the poll's now looking obsolete already. Interestingly, it had one of Giuliani's best performances so far, with Rudy trailing Cuomo only 49-46. (Giuliani beats Paterson 57-30. Cuomo beats Lazio 57-29, while Lazio beats Paterson 41-37.) Giuliani may well have decided against a run well in advance of this poll, though, simply given the state's lean and the financial challenges of a run against Cuomo -- and probably that if he somehow won it'd be a lot less lucrative and more frustrating than his current "job" as national security talking head and consultant.

UPDATE: For what it's worth, according to NY1, Giuliani is now calling the New York Times story "premature" and saying he has not finalized a decision. (H/t andyroo312.)

LATER UPDATE: Wow, crazy rumors are flying all over the place now. The New York Daily News has him headed to the Senate race instead:

"In the next 48 hours he will announce that he will not run for governor, but will run for the Senate," said a source familiar with the thing of the former mayor and failed presidential candidate....

If elected, the source said, he would use that as a stepping stone to run for President in 2012 - and would not run for re-election to the Senate. A Giuliani spokeswoman downplayed the reports.

CNN, on the other hand, is merely saying, via Giuliani spokesperson Maria Comella, that Giuliani hasn't decided bupkus yet, and they'll keep us posted.

EVEN LATER UPDATE: Comella gives a pretty explicit and succinct denial to Politico's Ben Smith, regarding the Senate rumor: "It's not true." Smith says that if Giuliani did run for the Senate, it would come as a surprise to members of his inner circle.

RaceTracker Wiki: NY-Gov

SSP Daily Digest: 11/6

by: Crisitunity

Fri Nov 06, 2009 at 2:40 PM EST

• AR-Sen: Remember how yesterday NRSC chair John Cornyn caved to the party's right flank, and said that he wouldn't spend money in primaries or endorse in the future? Well, that lasted about a day: turns out that state Sen. Gilbert Baker, the GOP's best shot in Arkansas, will be having a fundraiser in Washington DC on the 19th... at the NRSC. (The NRSC did announce that it still didn't amount to endorsement, and that other Arkansas candidates were still welcome to have fundraisers at the NRSC. Uh, call me when there's actually a fundraiser for head teabagger Tom Cox at the NRSC building.) More generally, CQ has a nice overview of the tightrope Cornyn is walking as he tries to make some inroads in swing states in 2010.

• CA-Sen: Perhaps in an attempt to give some cover to Cornyn (whose hand-picked candidate, Carly Fiorina, is raising the ire of the Chuck DeVore-supporting right wing), eight GOP Senators all endorsed Fiorina yesterday: a couple from leadership (McConnell, Kyl), the moderate women (Snowe, Collins, and Murkowski), some chit-cashing from last year (McCain and Graham), and one from total right field (Coburn). Tom Coburn's endorsement is especially surprising in view of fellow wackadoodle Jim DeMint's endorsement of DeVore. DeMint, for his part, is still attacking John Cornyn's recruitment efforts today, perfectly encapsulating the right-wing mentality while saying "He's trying to find candidates who can win. I'm trying to find people who can help me change the Senate."

• FL-Sen: After Charlie Crist's bizarre denials that he ever supported the Obama stimulus package, the White House left Crist out to dry yesterday, saying that, yes, in fact, he did support the stimulus.

• KS-Sen: This may fall under the "endorsement you don't want to tout too loudly" category, although with most of the big-name endorsements so far going to Rep. Jerry Moran in the Kansas Senate race, Rep. Todd Tiahrt will probaly take what he can get. Former AG and Senator John Ashcroft endorsed Tiahrt.

• MT-Sen: Here's what has the potential to be one of 2012's hottest Senate races, already shaping up. Rep. Denny Rehberg, the state's lone at-large Congressperson, met with the NRSC concerning a possible run at Jon Tester.

• CA-Gov: With ex-Gov. Jerry Brown suddenly finding himself with the gubernatorial primary field to himself for now, a familiar face has popped up yet again. Dianne Feinstein, who all year has alternately expressed interest and dismissed rumors of her interest, is now back to saying that she still hasn't ruled out a gubernatorial run. She'll wait to see what proposals for fixing the badly-broken state the various candidates put out before deciding whether or not to get in herself.

• IL-Gov: Somehow this got lost in all the shuffle surrounding Election Day, but it's kind of important: after a short period of being the subject of speculation, Jim Ryan made it official that he's running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Illinois. He probably becomes the frontrunner in the GOP field, by virtue of name rec: he was the state's Attorney General from 1994-2002, and lost the 2002 governor's race to Rod Blagojevich. The rest of the GOP field is a hodge-podge of state Senators and county-level officials, with state GOP chair Andy McKenna maybe the best known of the rest. Ryan's biggest problem may be hoping people don't confuse him with imprisoned ex-Gov. George Ryan or weird-sex-fan and 2004 Senate candidate Jack Ryan.

• MN-Gov: Another gubernatorial entry that seemed to fly below the radar this week is also a big one: Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak filed to run for governor yesterday. The well-liked Rybak seems like one of the likeliest candidates to prevail in the very crowded Democratic field.

• NJ-Gov: There are going to be a lot of coulda-shoulda-wouldas in the next few weeks in New Jersey, and here's a big one already. State Senate leader (and former acting Governor) Richard Codey says that the White House contacted him repeatedly over the summer about taking over for Corzine on the ticket, and that Corzine and Codey even discussed it. Codey deferred to Corzine's decision to stay in -- although Corzine nearly decided to pack it in. Reportedly, internal polls over the summer showed Codey beating Chris Christie by double digits.

• NY-Gov: David Paterson is going on the air with two different TV spots (including one where he admits to "lots of mistakes"), apparently trying to bring up his approvals before deciding whether or not to run again in 2010. Paterson is still looking to move forward on the contentious issue of gay marriage, though, planning to put it on the agenda for next week's special session. It may not have the votes to clear the Senate, but it hasn't really been put to the test yet. (The worry is that moderate Republicans in the Senate who might have been on board earlier may be leerier now, afraid of getting Scozzafavaed by the right.)

• NY-23: A rare bit of history was made on Tuesday, in that a seat flipping to the president's party in a House special election (as opposed to a tough retention, as in NY-20) is highly unusual. The most recent case was in VA-04 in 2001, when Republican Randy Forbes picked up a swing district left open by the death of Dem Norman Sisisky. (Subsequent gerrymandering turned the 4th into a safe GOP seat.) The previous instances before that were in 1989, 1988, and 1983.

• TX-32: Pete Sessions Deathwatch, Vol. 3? One more article piles on the "loser" meme regarding Sessions' series of NY-23 screwups -- and it comes from his hometown paper in Dallas. Meanwhile at home, Sessions is now facing a primary challenge from the right, from financial analyst David Smith. Smith is upset about the Scozzafava thing, but mostly focusing on Sessions' TARP vote. Still, a primary challenge from the right against one of the House's most conservative members? Seems like that'd be like going after Tammy Baldwin from the left.

• WI-02: Oh, wait. But that's exactly what some guy is doing. And he's not just a rube who fell off the biodiesel-fueled organic turnip truck while reaching for his bong: it's an actual member of the Board of Supervisors of Dane County (where Madison is). David de Felice is upset that Baldwin hasn't pushed harder for single-payer health care.

• WI-08: Two different new entries in the Green Bay-based 8th. Physician and Air Force vet Marc Trager got into the Republican field to go against Democratic sophomore Rep. Steve Kagen, where businessman Reid Ribble seems to have the inside track based on fundraising and NRCC-touting so far. And yet another random right-winger is imagining his own head superimposed on Doug Hoffman's body: former Niagara mayor Joe Stern will run as a grassroots conservative independent in 2010.

• NY Comptroller: A piece on New York 1 speculates that NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson, fresh off a much narrower-than-expected loss to Mayor Mike Bloomberg, could challenge New York State Comptroller Bill DiNapoli in the Democratic primary next year. DiNapoli, you may recall, was appointed to the seat after Alan Hevesi resigned. Thompson said he's not currently looking at the race, but says that nothing is off the table. (D)

• WA-Init: Referendum 71 was finally called by the press (for the side of equality). Although more votes remain to be counted in the currently 52-48 race, it would require a bizarre turnaround in King County (where it's currently at 70% approval) to change the result. Meanwhile, Seattle's mayoral race is still up in the air; Mike McGinn leads by a 515-vote margin (out of 130,000 counted so far).

• Census: As expected, the Vitter amendment requiring the Census to include a question on citizenship was blocked by Democrats. Conservatives don't want undocumented immigrants to count for apportionment, and there's an added incentive for David Vitter, as Louisiana might be able to salvage its 7th seat if such legislation were passed.

• Primaries: MoveOn and DFA are allocating millions of dollars to potential primary challenges against any Democrats who join a Republican filibuster on health care. (The only one who's on the fence about that and actually up in 2010 is Blanche Lincoln, and nobody of consequence has stepped up to primary her from the left yet, although Lt. Gov. Bill Halter has alluded to the idea.)

• Polling: Mark Blumenthal has a good wrapup of how the various pollsters did on Tuesday. As others have pointed out, IVR polls outperformed live pollsters, at least in the two gubernatorial races (even though they still got weird results in the crosstabs, especially on race). Blumenthal also analyzes what went wrong in NY-23 polling. Also on the polling front, it looks like Nate Silver may have succeeded in scaring off Strategic Vision LLC. As he reports today, not only did they never get around to suing him, but they haven't released any polls since the imbroglio began, despite that this week's election would be the prime time to do so.

• WATN?: Finally, we have sad news to report: the Mumpower has finally been contained. Republican Carl Mumpower, the out-of-the-box thinker who lost spectacularly to Rep. Heath Shuler in 2008, got bounced out of his position as Asheville City Councilor on Tuesday.

SSP Daily Digest: 11/4

by: Crisitunity

Wed Nov 04, 2009 at 5:35 PM EST

• DE-Sen: Also on the GOP civil war front, the movement/establishment split is even spilling over into Delaware, which most pundits look at as the GOP's closest to a sure thing. Conservative activist Christine O'Donnell, who lost badly to Joe Biden last year, will stay in the GOP field with or without Castle. O'Donnell is sitting on $2K CoH, along with $24K in debts from her previous run.

• IL-Sen: Also on the GOP civil war front, one of Rep. Mark Kirk's minor-league GOP primary opponents -- not Patrick Hughes, but even lower down the food chain: Eric Wallace -- is looking at Doug Hoffman and saying "That could be me!" Wallace is dropping out of the GOP field and planning to run as an independent -- which could conceivably tip the race to Alexi Giannoulias in a close contest. Kirk, sensing trouble brewing on his right flank, is asking for help from an unlikely source (based on his attacks on her inexperience during the 2008 election). He's asking queen teabagger Sarah Palin for her endorsement!

• NH-Sen: Also on the GOP civil war front, wealthy businessman William Binnie made official his run for the GOP nod in New Hampshire's Senate race. Sounds like lots of Granite Staters aren't buying GOP establishment candidate Kelly Ayotte's smoke-and-mirrors campaign.

• OH-Sen: Finally, one item from what passes for the Democratic civil war. DSCC chair Bob Menendez all-but-endorsed Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher in Ohio, by mentioning only him in Ohio when talking about pickup prospects. Fisher faces a primary (for the time being) against underfunded SoS Jennifer Brunner.

• CT-Gov: It looks like Ned Lamont, who beat and then lost to Joe Lieberman in 2006, is going to take a whack at the Connecticut gubernatorial race. Lamont just formed an exploratory committee; he'll face an uphill fight just to get out of the primary, though, against SoS Susan Bysiewicz.

• FL-Gov: So many Kennedys, so little time. Yet another random member of the Kennedy clan is considering a quixotic run for office; this time it's Maria Shriver's brother Anthony Shriver (founder of a disabilities-related nonprofit), considering a race in the Democratic gubernatorial primary (which Alex Sink already seems to have locked down).

• NY-Gov: If there's any doubt that AG Andrew Cuomo is gearing up for a gubernatorial run next year, Cuomo will be holding a big fundraiser in Washington in several weeks, hosted by DC power couple Tony and Heather Podesta.

• CO-04: While state House minority whip Cory Gardner seemed to have impeccable conservative bona fides (running against freshman Dem Rep. Betsy Markey), there's some new information that calls that into question: it turns out in 1998 he was an active volunteer for Democrat Susan Kirkpatrick, who ran against then-Rep. Bob Schaffer in the 4th. (He even gave the seconding nominating speech for her at the Dem convention in the 4th.) In his defense, Gardner claims he was raised a Democrat, but became a Republican convert in college -- but he graduated from college in 1997. Looks like the teabaggers have one more insufficiently pure specimen to add to their hunting list.

• FL-08: The netroots love them some Alan Grayson. Nov. 2's online moneybomb event netted the Florida rabblerouser over $500,000, from over 13,000 contributions averaging $40 each. (The GOP also has an answer site up -- "mycongressmanisnuts.com," a nice third-grade response to "congressmanwithguts.com", as apparently "poopyhead.com" was already taken -- which so far has brought in $4,000.)

• FL-19: Charlie Crist has set a special election date for the election to replace resigning Rep. Robert Wexler (although there doesn't seem to be much drama here in this dark-blue district, as the wheels seem to be greased for state Sen. Ted Deutch). The primary will be Feb. 2, and the general will be April 6.

• KS-04: Republican state Sen. Susan Wagle was considered on the short list for the open seat being left behind by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, but yesterday she confirmed that she won't run for it next year.

• NY-23: The gift that keeps giving. Doug Hoffman is reportedly already sounding interested, via Twitter, in running again in the 23rd. (No clue as to what ballot lines he'd seek to run on.)

• PA-19: Here's a surprise: long-time Republican Rep. Todd Platts may be looking for an exit strategy. He's applying to become the Comptroller General, an appointed position at the top of the government's nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. Platts has been safe so far in his York-based R+12 district, but as a Main Street Republican, he's rather out-of-whack with his red turf and may suddenly not be relishing the thought of having teabaggers using him for target practice in 2010.

• NYC-Mayor: Well, somebody at the White House is feeling defensive over the decision not to get involved in the surprisingly-close mayoral race. When Rep. Anthony Weiner (who'd considered running) asked maybe if Obama should have helped out, an anonymous leaker snarled "Maybe Anthony Weiner should have manned-up and run against Michael Bloomberg."

• NRSC: Having gotten the message from the rabid teabagging hordes, NRSC head John Cornyn is announcing that the NRSC won't be spending money in any Republican primaries next year. The NRSC has endorsed in four primaries so far (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, and Pennsylvania), but it's sounding like they may not endorse in any more, either... Cornyn admits "Endorsements, frankly, are overrated. They can to some extent be a negative." Guess who is coming to play in GOP Senate primaries, though? That's right, the Club for Growth, who are now threatening involvement in Illinois and Connecticut, saying that the best Mark Kirk and newly-converted teabag-carrier Rob Simmons can hope for is to be "left alone."

• NRCC: Pete Sessions Deathwatch, Vol. 2? All over the punditosphere today are proclamations of the NRCC head as one of yesterday's top "losers," as the NRCC's special election losing streak had two more notches added to it. George Stephanopolous makes the case that Sessions actually managed to lose NY-23 twice, once with Scozzafava over the long haul, then over the weekend again with Hoffman.

SSP Daily Digest: 10/29

by: Crisitunity

Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 2:57 PM EDT

• NH-Sen: Oh please oh please... the geniuses at the Club for Growth are considering getting involved in the New Hampshire Senate race, where the position-less campaign of Kelly Ayotte doesn't seem to be capturing their fancy. (This is buried at the end of an article on how they're still weighing involvement in FL-Sen.)

• NY-Gov: David Paterson is playing a different tune than before, sounding less defiant and ready to "reassess" if his numbers stay in the tank on into early 2010. Meanwhile, this may be a tea leaf that Rudy Giuliani isn't planning to run -- or simply one Suffolk County resident doing a favor for another one -- but Suffolk County (on Lon Gisland) GOP leader John Jay LaValle endorsed Rick Lazio last week, and now Orange County (in the Hudson Valley) GOP leader Bill DeProspo is also endorsing Lazio. (And with Lazio poised to get demolished in a Rudy primary, you wouldn't likely make that endorsement and risk the Rudy's wrath unless you had a sense that he wasn't running.) Finally, Erie County Exec Chris Collins had been considered a post-Rudy Plan B for the GOP, but he seems to have taken himself out of the running with bizarre remarks last weekend comparing Democratic Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver to both Hitler and the anti-Christ.

• VA-Gov: Two more Virginia polls to add to the pile today: Roanoke College (in its first and apparently only poll) finds Bob McDonnell with a 53-36 lead over Creigh Deeds. In another bit of bad news, Republicans lead Democrats 43-33 on a generic ballot question concerning the House of Delegates. Research 2000 also looks at the race, finding a 54-44 lead for McDonnell -- one of Deeds' best performances recently, although that's not saying much.

• IA-03: Republican state Sen. (and former mayor of the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale) Brad Zaun says he's seriously considering a run against Rep. Leonard Boswell in the 3rd next year. Mike Mahaffey, former state GOP chair, is set to decide by next week whether or not he'll run too.

• IL-18: Democrat D.K. Hirner will run for the nomination to face off against Rep. Aaron Schock in the Peoria-area 18th (who benefited from Democratic recruitment problems in his initial run in 2008). Hirner is the executive director of the Illinois Environmental Regulatory Group.

• MN-03: Democratic psychiatrist Maureen Hackett filed campaign papers to run in the 3rd against freshman Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen (who won with only 49% of the vote in 2008). Minnesota PTA president Jim Meffert-Nelson is also planning to announce his bid soon, while state Sen. Teri Bonoff, the district's heavyweight Dem, is still weighing the race.

• NH-02: EMILY's List has one more endorsee: attorney Ann McLane Kuster, in the open seat race in the 2nd. You may be wondering "Wait, isn't Katrina Swett going to run there?" While Kuster is officially in the race and has been fundraising well, Swett hasn't committed to a bid yet, though... and more importantly, supports parental notification for abortion, making an endorsement unlikely.

• OH-15: Here's a positive development at both the micro and macro levels: little-known anti-abortion Ron Paul-supporter David Ryon dropped out of the Republican primary field against state Sen. Steve Stivers (who's seeking a rematch against freshman Democratic Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy), and he's going to go the third party route. This is good at a micro level because it's similar to what happened in 2008, when two minor right-wing candidates siphoned off 9% of the vote, allowing Kilroy to get past the pro-choice Stivers despite an underwhelming performance (and without Obama on the ballot driving turnout in a university-dominated district, Kilroy is poised to underwhelm again in 2010). And at a macro level, it may be an indication that various wingnuts are taking stock of the Doug Hoffman situation and saying "Hey, that could be me!" (Thus further exacerabting the rifts in the GOP.)

• OH-16: Buried at the end of an article that's mostly profiling alleged GOP frontrunner Jim Renacci, there's news that conservative former Ashland County Commissioner Matt Miller is planning a third run in the primary in the 16th. Miller, if you'll recall, got 42% in the 2006 primary against long-time Rep. Ralph Regula (which was probably instrumental in prompting Regula's 2008 retirement), and then almost won the 2008 primary against state Sen. Kirk Schuring. So it's hardly a foregone conclusion that freshman Democratic Rep. John Boccieri will be facing Renacci next year.

• VA-07: Democratic real estate developer Charles Diradour has decided to scrap his nascent candidacy against Eric Cantor, so it's back to the drawing board for Dems in the reddish 7th. Cantor has the biggest bankroll of any House Republican, so it'd be an uphill fight, to say the least.

• NY-St. Sen.: With state Sen. Hiram Monserrate intending to stay in the Senate despite having been convicted of misdemeanor assault last week, the Queens Democratic Party (led by Rep. Joe Crowley) is taking the unusual step of recruiting and endorsing a primary challenger to him. Assemblyman Jose Peralta will be running against Monserrate with the local party's blessing. The Senate is also still considering whether to begin expulsion proceedings against Monserrate.

• PA-S. Ct.: Josh Goodman has a good catch on how the lone Supreme Court race on the ballot in Pennsylvania next week is actually a key race, in terms of state legislative redistricting in 2010. The state's legislative redistricting board has 5 seats, with two seats from each legislative chamber and the remaining seat chosen by the first 4. But if the two legislative chambers are controlled by different parties (as is currently the case), there's a deadlock, and the 5th member is chosen by the Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court is also currently deadlocked between the parties (3-3, with the victor of next week's race the tiebreaking vote), so the Supreme Court race essentially is for control of state legislative redistricting for the next decade. In the one poll I've seen of the race, Democrat Jack Panella led GOPer Joan Orie Melvin 38-35.

• Polling: PPP is asking for your help again: they'd like to know what you'd like to see for a release schedule over the next week.

SSP Daily Digest: 10/26

by: Crisitunity

Mon Oct 26, 2009 at 3:14 PM EDT

• FL-Sen: The Police Benevolent Association, friendly with Charlie Crist from his law-and-order days as Attorney General, commissioned a poll via McLaughlin & Associates that paints a slightly rosier picture of Crist's race against Marco Rubio than we've seen from several other pollsters last week. They find Crist up against Rubio 53-29, with a 67% approval.

• IA-Sen: It looks like Christie Vilsack (the former Iowa first lady, and political heavyweight in her own right) won't be challenging Chuck Grassley after all. She'd sounded receptive to the idea in the last few weeks, but today she's telling the Des Moines Register that she won't run. Lawyer and former gubernatorial candidate Roxanne Conlin had sounded close to running last week, so the ball's in Conlin's court now.

• LA-Sen: Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne is the only prominent Republican left who hasn't ruled out a challenge to David Vitter in the Republican primary, and, although he hasn't taken any steps, he's still not shutting the door on it. Last week on a radio show he confirmed that he hasn't ruled it out. While a primary between the two hasn't been polled since March (with Vitter leading 43-32), a recent poll had Dardenne overperforming Vitter against Charlie Melancon in the general.

• MA-Sen: A poll of the Democratic primary, from Western New England College Polling Institute, in the special election in Massachusetts finds that AG Martha Coakley is still in the driver's seat, but that some of her competitors are gaining ground as they get better-known. Coakley is at 37, with Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca at 14 (that's what spending all that money on ads will get you), Rep. Michael Capuano at 13, and City Year founder Alan Khazei at 4. The general election is shaping up to be a non-event, as Coakley beats Republican state Sen. Scott Brown 58-32 and Capuano beats him 49-33.

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold finally has a noteworthy challenger: Terrence Wall, a Madison-area real estate developer who seems to have lots of money, although he's never been elected before and it's not clear what poltical skills he brings to the table. Wall is a frequent GOP donor, although he's also given money to his local Dem, Rep. Tammy Baldwin.

• MI-Gov: Rasmussen took a look at the Michigan governor's race, but without a clear sense of who the nominees will be, they just did a generic ballot test. Generic R leads Generic D by only a point, 37-36 -- suggesting that Lt. Gov. John Cherry, who hasn't polled well in general election matchups, is underperforming Generic D. Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm's approval is 40/60.

• NJ-Gov: Suffolk University takes its first poll of the New Jersey governor's race, and while it would be nice to say this was the new reality, it's probably more likely an outlier: Jon Corzine leads Chris Christie 42-33, with Chris Daggett pulling in 7. Suffolk did an interesting experiment: they listed all 12 minor candidates, and they ate a bit into Daggett's numbers, pulling in a cumulative 3%. Corzine also has surprisingly high favorables, at 45/46, with Christie at 34/46. Monmouth, however, explains what might have happened with this sample (apparently a simple mistake that out-of-state pollsters often make): Suffolk weighted party ID by registration, but because of NJ's semi-open primary system, many unaffiliateds are actually partisan and should be polled as such.

Meanwhile, with most polls still pointing to a tossup, Barack Obama is back for one more rally with Corzine next weekend. Chris Christie can ill-afford one more scandal in the news, but that seems to be happening anyway, as stories about his seemingly politically-motivated hiring of the son of Christie patron and mentor Herbert Stern as an assistant US Attorney, despite Stern Jr.'s mediocre interviews.

• NY-Gov: This is the kind of courtesy call you don't really want -- the kind that says "I'm taking the job you want." According to the NY Post's Fred Dicker (so add salt according to taste), Andrew Cuomo contacted Rudy Giuliani through intermediaries to let him know that he will, in no uncertain terms, be running for Governor.

• CA-11: One more Republican sounds like he's ready to join the strangely crowded field to go up against Rep. Jerry McNerney next year. Former San Jose city councilor Larry Pegram says he'll move into the district to take on McNerney -- but it seems like he may want to do a little research before getting too committed, as he claimed that McNerney is weak because he was just swept in as part of the "Obama wave." (McNerney, of course, was first elected in 2006.)

• FL-19: The special election in the 19th is shaping up to be pretty uneventful: over the weekend, not only did outgoing Rep. Robert Wexler endorse state Sen. Peter Ted Deutch to take over for him, but so too did everyone else representing the Gold Coast: Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Ron Klein, and Alcee Hastings.

• MI-02: A whole lot of Dutch-American conservative Republicans are jostling to take over from Rep. Peter Hoekstra in the solidly-red 2nd, and one of the field's heavy hitters made his entry official: state Sen. Wayne Kuipers. He faces former state Rep. Bill Huizenga, former NFL player Jay Riemersma, and businessman Bill Cooper.

• NY-23 (pdf): There have been rumors of private polls out there given a small lead to third-party Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman in the 23rd, and now his sponsors at the Club for Growth have openly released one. Basswood Research finds Hoffman in the lead with 31, with Democrat Bill Owens at 27 and Republican Dede Scozzafava lagging at 20, with 22 undecided (although with a huge 6% MoE, anything could be happening). That must have something to do with the DCCC's new strategy; their new negative ad is going after Hoffman, rather than Scozzafava. Also, Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty finally got off the fence and decided to throw his lot in with the movement: he endorsed Hoffman.

• NY-24: The New York Times, in a broader piece on GOP targeting of New York House Democrats, has an interesting tidbit we hadn't seen before: the GOP is trying to coax Michael Richard Hanna, the businessman who performed surprisingly well against Rep. Mike Arcuri last year, into a rematch.

• KY-St. Sen.: We're moving one step closer to another vacant seat and special election in Kentucky's Senate (which is controlled 21-17 by Republicans right now). Republican Dan Kelly was nominated for a state circuit court position, and he just needs Gov. Steve Beshear's approval to get the job. Competitors are already lining up for the special, including Republican state Rep. Jimmy Higdon and Democratic former state Rep. Jodie Haydon. (In case you were wondering if Kentucky, which votes for statewide offices in odd-numbered years, is having legislative elections next week, the answer is no; state legislators are still elected in even-numbered years.)

• VA-St. House: One more good piece in the diaries breaking down the individual races in Virginia's House of Delegates into Tossup, Lean, and Likely, thanks to our Johnny Longtorso. One particularly interesting race is the 51st District in exurban Prince William County, where Republican Rich Anderson, challenging Dem incumbent Paul Nichols in a very competitive race, may face criminal charges for giving out Nichols' Social Security number on a mailer to over 15,000 area residents.

• ME-Init: Another poll from Pan Atlantic SMS of Question 1 in Maine on gay marriage. They find 42 yes and 53 no (with "no" being a vote in favor of continuing gay marriage), not much changed from their September poll (43-52) but the most optimistic numbers we've seen yet here.

• Mayors: In New York City, Quinnipiac finds incumbent Michael Bloomberg (the $85 million man) with a sizable edge against Democratic comptroller William Thompson, leading 53-35 with a lead in every borough. (Not much change from 52-36 a month ago.) In what looks to be the first poll of the Atlanta mayoral race, SurveyUSA finds city councilor Mary Norwood with a big lead, although not quite enough to avoid a runoff with the 2nd place finisher. Norwood is at 46%, followed by state Sen. Kasim Reed at 26% and city councilor Lisa Borders at 17%. Norwood leads 6:1 among whites, independents, and Republicans; Reed leads among African-Americans. Also worth a read is a piece from our own diaries about major (and minor) mayoral races from elections09, which gets into the weeds on some tight races not on anybody's national radar screen (with Vancouver, WA and Stamford, CT as particularly interesting examples).

SSP Daily Digest: 10/21

by: Crisitunity

Wed Oct 21, 2009 at 4:25 PM EDT

• NH-Sen: A $1,000 check is usually just a drop in the bucket in a Senate warchest. But when you're Kelly Ayotte, and you're trying to offer up as uncontroversial and substance-free an image as possible, the fact that that $1,000 check is from Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum speaks a little more loudly than you might want it to.

• NV-Sen: Research 2000 has new poll data out for Nevada, although it's on behalf of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, not Daily Kos. At any rate, they find numbers pretty consistent with other pollsters, with Harry Reid sporting 35/54 favorables and trailing Sue Lowden 47-42 and Jerry Danny Tarkanian 46-41 (both of whom might as well be "generic Republican" at this point). The poll also finds 54% support for a public option (including 84% of Dems and 55% of indies), and finds that 31% of all voters, including 46% of Democrats, less likely to vote for him if he fails to include a public option in health care reform.

• MN-Gov: One fascinating piece of trivia about Minnesota DFL nominating conventions is that, like the national convention, there are delegates, and then there are superdelegates. Minnesota Progressive is compiling a whip count among the superdelegates in the Governor's race. So far, the leaders are tied at 14 each: state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher and state Sen. Tom Bakk.

• NJ-Gov: Rasmussen takes another look at the New Jersey governor's race; their purported topline result is 41 for Chris Christie, 39 for Jon Corzine, and 11 for Chris Daggett, which is an improvement over last week's 4-point spread for Christie. However, you may recall that last week they released two sets of results, an initial read (which found a tie) and then a re-allocated version that asked Daggett voters (and only Daggett voters) if they were really sure, which gave Christie a 4-point lead and which they flagged as their topline. This week, Rasmussen just toplined the version with Daggett voters re-allocated, without saying a peep about voters' initial preferences. TPM's Eric Kleefeld contacted Rasmussen and got the initial preferences version, which, lo and behold, gives Corzine a 37-36-16 lead. Would it kill Rasmussen to just admit that, sometimes, Democratic candidates actually lead in some races?

Meanwhile, as things further deteriorate for Chris Christie, New Jersey's senior senator, Frank Lautenberg, has called for a federal investigation into Christie's politicization of his U.S. Attorney office (starting with his election-year investigations into Bob Menendez). It's not clear whether that'll go anywhere (especially in the next two weeks), but it certainly helps keep doubts about Christie front and center. And if you're wondering why Christie's campaign is faltering, it may have something to do with his own admission that he doesn't really have that much to do with his own campaign strategy:

"That's what I hire other people to do for me, is to help to make those decisions for me," Christie replied. He added, "I'm out there working 14, 15, 16 hours a day. So the strategy decision is not something I'm generally engaged in."

• NY-Gov: You could knock me over with a feather, but there's actually a poll out today showing that David Paterson is in trouble (with an approval of 30/57). Quinnipiac finds that Paterson loses the general to Rudy Giuliani 54-32, and ties woeful Rick Lazio 38-38. Andrew Cuomo, on the other hand, beats Giuliani 50-40 and Lazio 61-22. The primaries are foregone conclusions, with Cuomo beating Paterson 61-19 and Giuliani beating Lazio 74-9.

• OR-Gov: A lot of Oregonians are scratching their heads wondering where Jason Atkinson, the purported Republican frontrunner in the governor's race, is. Atkinson has raised only $2,000 and hasn't been updating his campaign blog or social media sites. Atkinson's legislative aide also tells the Oregonian's Jeff Mapes that she doesn't know what's happening with his candidacy.

• SC-Gov: Contrary to reports earlier in the week, it looks like impeachment of Mark Sanford can't come up during the one-day special session in the South Carolina legislature (which was called to patch the state's unemployment compensation system -- using those stimulus funds that Sanford fought against). Looks like he'll survive at least until the full legislative session next year.

• VA-Gov: Three items, none of which are any good for Creigh Deeds. The first is the new poll from SurveyUSA, which has usually been the most Bob McDonnell-friendly pollster but has never shown Deeds so far down: 59-40. Even if this is an outlier (and it probably is, as it shows McDonnell pulling in 55% in NoVa and 31% of all black voters), it can't be so much of an outlier that Deeds is anywhere near close. This is bolstered by today's PPP poll, which finds McDonnell leading Deeds 52-40 (up from a 5-pt lead post-thesis-gate). And during last night's debate, Deeds may have shut the door on any last-minute progressive interest in his campaign, when he said he'd consider having Virginia opt out of an opt-out public option. Of course, his camp is backpedaling today, saying that he "wasn't ruling anything out" -- but as any student of politics will tell you, every day you spend explaining what you really had meant to say is another day lost.

• CA-11: Not one but two more penny-ante Republicans got into the race against Democratic sophomore Rep. Jerry McNerney: construction company owner Robert Beadles and the former VP of Autism Speaks, Elizabeth Emken. That brings to a total of 8 the number of GOPers, with former US Marshal Tony Amador the only one with a competitive profile.

• CA-47: Audio has been released of Assemblyman and Congressional candidate Van Tran's brush with the law when he got involved in a friend's DUI traffic stop. Tran has denied that he was interfering with the police, but the audio doesn't exactly leave him sounding cooperative.

• FL-08: Yet another Republican backed off from the prospect of facing off against the suddenly mighty Alan Grayson -- although this is a guy I didn't even know was running: Marvin Hutson. Hutson instead endorsed Todd Long, the radio talk show host who nearly defeated incumbent Ric Keller in the 2008 GOP primary -- who, to my knowledge, doesn't actually seem to be running, at least not yet (and that could change, given the GOP's glaring hole here).

• IL-16: Here's a Democratic recruitment score (well, of the second-tier variety) in a district where Barack Obama won last year but the very conservative Republican incumbent, Don Manzullo, has skated with minor opposition for nearly two decades. George Gaulrapp, the mayor of Freeport (a town of 25,000 at the Rockford-based district's western end), will challenge Manzullo.

• NYC Mayor: Incumbent Michael Bloomberg continues to hold a sizable but not overwhelming lead over Democratic comptroller William Thompson in the New York mayoral race; he leads 53-41. Thompson doesn't seem likely to make up much ground without full-throated backing from Barack Obama, though, and he certainly isn't getting that; Obama gave Thompson no more than a "shout out" at a New York fundraiser last night.

• Mayors: The New York Times has a good profile of the Atlanta mayor's race, where the long string of black mayors may be broken. White city councilor Mary Norwood, from the affluent white Buckhead portion of the city, seems to be the frontrunner to succeed outgoing mayor Shirley Franklin, with the African-American vote split among city councilor Lisa Borders and former state legislator Kasim Reed (although polling indicates Norwood pulling in a fair amount of black support). This seems consistent with changing demographics, where GA-05 (which largely overlaps Atlanta city limits) has seen declining black and increasing white populations while the suburbs become much blacker.

• Census: Democratic Rep. Joe Baca has introduced legislation of his own to counter David Vitter's amendment to require the census to ask citizenship status. Baca's bill would require all residents to be counted in the census, regardless of legal status.

SSP Daily Digest: 10/20

by: Crisitunity

Tue Oct 20, 2009 at 3:44 PM EDT

• LA-Sen: Southern Media and Opinion Research has a poll (conducted on behalf of local businessman Lane Grigsby, a big Republican donor -- you might remember he personally dumped a ton of money into LA-06 last year) of the LA-Sen race that shows numbers remarkably similar to what else we've seen. They have David Vitter beating Charlie Melancon 48-36 (while Rasmussen had it at 46-36 a couple weeks ago, and a Melancon internal from last month was 47-37).

• NC-Sen: Erskine Bowles, the guy so pathetic he managed to lose to both carpetbagger Liddy Dole and anonymous Richard Burr, now has nothing but praise for his one-time opponent, saying "I've had a chance to work with this guy for four full years and nobody works harder or smarter for North Carolina than Richard Burr does." At least the DSCC remembers how the game is played, taking Burr to task for voting against the stimulus and now touting his delivery of $2 million in grant money to a local fire department from the stimulus funds that he didn't vote for.

• NV-Sen: In an indication of just how deep the non-aggression pact between Harry Reid and John Ensign goes, now John Ensign's parents (who apparently just love to bail out troubled politicians) both contributed the maximum amount to Reid in the third fundraising quarter. Meanwhile, Ensign himself says he's still willing to campaign on behalf of the Republican nominee against Reid, if he or she just asks. (My advice to Ensign: don't sit by the phone waiting for those calls.)

• SC-Sen: This is the kind of praise you might not really want: two Republican party chairs from rural counties wrote an op-ed in the Times and Democrat defending Jim DeMint from charges that he didn't bring enough pork back to South Carolina, saying that Jews got wealthy by watching their pennies and that DeMint was doing the same. The authors later apologized, and, to his credit, DeMint deplored the remark.

• WA-Sen: Here's some help from Joe Biden for someone who probably doesn't need the help: Patty Murray, who's facing very little in the way of opposition and is sitting on more than $4 million CoH. Biden will be appearing at a Seattle fundraiser on Nov. 6. (If you're wondering who's stepped up to go against Murray so far, it seems like the GOP's best prospect right now is Chris Widener, a motivational speaker and president of personal development company Made for Success who's currently exploring the race. He'll have to sell a whole lot of Successories posters to be able to compete financially.)

• FL-Gov: Fresh off a disappointing third fundraising quarter, Florida AG Bill McCollum may be facing another dose of bad news -- state Sen. Paula Dockery says she is now "leaning very heavily" toward challenging McCollum for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. (J)

• MN-Gov: One more name on the already excruciatingly-long list of gubernatorial candidates in Minnesota: former DFL state Sen. Steve Kelley (who lost the 2000 Senate primary to Mark Dayton in an almost-as-large field). It sounds like he's trying to brand himself as the "green" candidate this time.

• NJ-Gov (pdf): One more New Jersey poll to add to the pile today, from Monmouth University. They find the race a flat-out tie, with 39 for Jon Corzine and Chris Christie, and 14 for Chris Daggett. (Christie led 43-40-8 one month ago.) In terms of favorables, they both suck: Corzine is at 37/51 and Christie is at 40/41. Corzine did make at least one new friend, though: Michael Kenneth Williams (better known as Omar from The Wire) offers his endorsement.

Meanwhile, Christie now is suffering from a further expansion of the Michele Brown story (remember, she's the one who got an undisclosed $46K loan from Christie), and, already losing ground in the polls, the timing couldn't be worse. The New York Times revealed today that, despite their claims otherwise, Brown in fact used her position as Christie's deputy at least two times to aid the campaign, taking control of a FOIA request about Christie's stint as US Attorney and pushing up the schedule on the arrests for the 40-person corruption sting so that the arrests would occur before Christie's permanent successor took over, so he could get the credit.

• NY-Gov, NY-Sen-B (pdf): Yet another Siena poll shows David Paterson in deep doo-doo. The most noteworthy thing about this poll may be that Rudy Giuliani seems to be improving his lot, although he still isn't taking any steps toward running for anything; Giuliani trails Andrew Cuomo only 50-43 (and beats Paterson 56-33, naturally), and also matches up well against Kirsten Gillibrand for the Senate race, winning that one 53-36. (Other matchups: Cuomo beats Paterson 70-20 in the primary. Cuomo and Paterson both beat Rick Lazio, 66-21 and 39-37. And George Pataki beats Kirsten Gillibrand, 46-41.)

• SC-Gov: Could the end of the road finally be approaching for Mark Sanford? (Assuming that Sarah Palin suddenly shows up and does something else stupid yet captivating, probably not.) A resolution of impeachment will be introduced in the GOP-held legislature during a special session next week. However, actual proceedings, if any, won't occur until the full session in January.

• VA-Gov (pdf): Two new polls are out in Virginia, and neither one offers Creigh Deeds much cause for optimism. Clarus finds a 49-41 advantage for Bob McDonnell (up from a 42-37 edge last month). And Christopher Newport University for WVEC and the Virginian-Pilot finds, in their first poll of the race, a 45-31 lead for McDonnell (with a lot of undecideds). Meanwhile, former governor Doug Wilder continues to somewhat less than useless in this race, saying that Virginia "won't sink into the seas" if McDonnell wins.

• AL-07: An internal poll from state Rep. Earl Hilliard Jr. gives us our first insight into the Democratic field in the open seat in this dark-blue district. Jefferson County Commissioner Shelia Smoot leads the field with 24, followed by Hilliard at 17, former Selma mayor James Perkins Jr. at 9, and attorney Terri Sewell at 4. Smoot, who may be the most progressive candidate in the field, benefits from high name recognition (68%), thanks to also being a radio talk show host. Sewell has much lower name recognition (32%) but a big fundraising advantage over everyone else; she's probably the most moderate option, as seen in her close links to outgoing Rep. Artur Davis and her connections to Birmingham's business community.

• CA-44: There seems to be some confusion as to whether or not the FBI is investigating GOP Rep. Ken Calvert. Calvert's investment group apparently bought land that had been slated for development as a public park, which a grand jury found was in violation of state law. Whether or not the FBI is now involved, it's the kind of publicity that can't be good for Calvert, who's facing a tricky rematch against Bill Hedrick in California's Inland Empire.

• KS-04: One other internal poll to discuss, this time in the Republican field in the 4th. State Sen. Dick Kelsey (who paid for the poll) leads the field at 17, trailed by state Sen. Jean Schodorf at 15, businessman Wink Hartman at 8, and RNC member Mike Pompeo at 6. Whoever wins faces off against Democratic state Rep. Raj Goyle, who's been on a fundraising tear all of a sudden.

• MN-03: State Sen. Terri Bonoff, who lost the endorsement to Ashwin Media in 2008, is still "open" to running against freshman Republican Erik Paulsen in 2010, which would boost this race back into the top tier. Other Democrats interested in the race include Jim Meffert and Maureen Hackett.

• ME-Init (pdf): PPP polls Maine on Question 1 (the gay marriage initiative) and finds the state evenly split. 48% are in favor, and 48% are against. With a clear party line vote set, it looks like it'll come down to independents, and they're currently 50-44 in favor of the initiative (and thus against gay marriage).

• NJ-St. Ass.: While everyone has been focused on the governor's race, there are also races for all the state Assembly seats in New Jersey in a few weeks as well. Republicans need to pick up eight seats in order to tie the Assembly (with a current Democratic advantage of 48-31). However, the fundraising advantage falls to the Democrats: taken together, Assembly Democrats have raised $6.8 million and spent $4 million, while Republicans have raised $2.9 million and spent $1.2 million. The financial disparity is especially pronounced in the "sleeper" districts where Republicans are counting on being able to make gains.

• Fundraising: There's an interesting CQ piece on the sudden burst of fundraising among the Indian-American community, as that affluent and educated group gradually becomes more politically engaged. As you might have guessed, strong nationwide fundraising among Indian-Americans is what's driving the surprisingly strong hauls from Ami Bera in CA-03, Manan Trivedi in PA-06, and Raj Goyle in KS-04.

SSP Daily Digest: 10/2

by: Crisitunity

Fri Oct 02, 2009 at 1:39 PM EDT

• FL-Sen: When you have so many people giving you money, a few of them are bound to be very bad apples.... Alan Mendelsohn, a prominent eye doctor and chief fundraiser for the Florida Medical Association PAC, was also a key financial backer of Charlie Crist and a member of his transition team. Yesterday he was charged by a federal grand jury with mail and wire fraud, aiding and abetting fraud, and lying to federal agents.

• IL-Sen: Maybe Mike Ditka doesn't have the same iconic power that he used to, but if he does, then upstart GOP primary challenger Patrick Hughes got a really big get. The former coach of da Bears endorsed Hughes, who seems to be coalescing most of the hard-right, anti-Mark Kirk sentiment in the Senate primary.

• MA-Sen: More showy fundraising numbers out of Massachusetts, where everyone is scrambling for money in view of the primary election a few months away. Most notable is AG Martha Coakley, whose only real weakness seemed to be a lack of money (as she already has statewide name rec, is the only woman in the race, and a big edge in the polls). That's a weakness no longer, as she raised $2.1 million in less than a month. By contrast, Rep. Michael Capuano raised only $300K in that period; even with the $1.2 mil in his House account, his one advantage -- money -- has now vaporized. The big surprise is City Year founder Alan Khazei, who raised $1 million in just a week after a late start to his candidacy; the question is whether he can convert that into a decent share of the vote. Celtics co-owner Steven Pagliuca raised only $200K, but can dip into his own money to advertise.

• NV-Sen: A long but must-read piece from the NYT looks at the tangled web between John Ensign and the Hampton family. Most significantly, it looks like Ensign not only went further than previously thought in trying to line up a job for Doug Hampton (the mistress's husband) but then used his governmental power to do favors for Hampton's new employer, Allegiant Air -- certainly a violation of Senate ethics rules. And this is the Ensign that new GOP golden girl Sue Lowden was trying to circle the wagons around, even long after most of the rest of the local GOP had decided he was better served under the bus.

• NY-Gov: This is interesting: Mitt Romney is moving to back ex-Rep. Rick Lazio in the governor's race and hosting a Lazio fundraiser. Since polls show Lazio getting completely flattened by Rudy Giuliani if they face off in a gubernatorial primary, Romney's expenditure of political capital is either a) a sign that insiders are pretty well aware that Giuliani won't be getting into the governor's race after all, or else b) a repayment for Lazio's backing in the 2008 prez primary and a thumb-in-the-eye for primary rival Giuliani.

• GA-12: More news out of the 12th: Wayne Mosely, a wealthy doctor and the NRCC's recruit in the race thanks to his self-funding capacity (in fact, one of their top recruits in the nation, if you believe Mosely himself), had to drop out of the race. Mosely is being sued by his hospital for breach of contract, and apparently that's taking up all his time and money. That leaves Thunderbolt Fire Chief Carl Smith and activist Jeanne Seaver as options to go up against Blue Dog Dem Rep. John Barrow.

• HI-01: Here's some good news for those of us who'd like to see the House stay nice and Ed Case-free: state Senate president Colleen Hanabusa is getting in the race for the Democratic nomination for the open seat in the 1st being vacated by Neil Abercrombie. Hanabusa's main opponent looks like it will be ex-Rep. Ed Case, who beat Hanabusa in the 2002 race in HI-02; the progressive Hanabusa may have better odds against the moderate Case this time, as Case alienated a lot of the local party with an ill-advised primary challenge to Sen. Dan Akaka in 2006.

• MO-03: Rep. Russ Carnahan picked up a Republican opponent: attorney Ed Martin. The 3rd is a D+7 district that has presented Carnahan with little trouble in the past.

• NY-23: Dede Scozzafava finally hit the TV airwaves with a new ad, leading the polls but lagging both her opponents in the battle for the airwaves. Also, check out Robert Harding's thorough examination at the Albany Project of Scozzafava's not-so-liberal actual voting record in the Assembly, if you're looking for a counterpoint to yesterday's Daily Kos piece about Scozzafava.

• SD-AL: Republican state Rep. Blake Curd, a Sioux Falls surgeon, is the first opponent to officially get in the race against Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin. Secretary of State Chris Nelson is still considering the race, though, and given his statewide profiel seems like he'd be likelier to win the GOP primary if he got in.

• VA-10: Rep. Frank Wolf, the Republican dean of the Virginia delegation, has picked up a Democratic challenger in the form of attorney Patrick Lewis. Demographics are quickly moving this NoVa suburban/exurban district in the Democratic direction (it's up to R+2 now), but Wolf has the kind of personal staying power that makes Lewis's challenge an uphill fight.

• OH-SoS: Bad news out of the Ohio Secretary of State race (on the short list as one of the nation's most important downballot statewide offices): Franklin County Commissioner Marilyn Brown decided to end her bid for the Democratic nomination, preferring instead to run for re-election. While this may spare the Dems a contested primary, this leaves only the much more conservative state Rep. Jennifer Garrison in the race, which may leave the base unenthused for the general election.

• ME-Init: Democracy Corps has a poll out on the anti-gay marriage ballot measure in Maine. They find 41% "yes" and 50% "no." (Remember, as with California's Prop 8, a "yes" vote is a vote against gay marraige.) These numbers are slightly better than the near-even split an R2K poll found a couple of weeks ago. But as Markos notes, D-Corps tested registered voters, while R2K looked at likely voters. (D)

Poll Roundup (9/25)

by: James L.

Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 6:40 PM EDT

• AZ-Gov/Sen: Arizona GOP Gov. Jan Brewer is not only imperiled in the general election, she's also extremely vulnerable to a primary challenge, according to PPP. State Treasurer Dean Martin leads Brewer by 37-26, but Brewer manages to come out on top against ex-Gov. Fife Symington by 39-31. However, in a three-way race against Martin and Symington, Brewer comes in last; Symington leads with 34, Martin clocks in at 26, and Brewer only registers at 22%. Ouch.

  And in case you were wondering, John McCain doesn't have anything to worry about in a primary race: he's dispatching Minutemen founder Chris Simcox by a 61-17 spread.

• CA-Sen: Everyone's favorite pollster, Rasmussen Reports, has dipped its toes back in the sunny California surf, and they have some better news for Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. Boxer leads Carly Fiorina by 49-39 (up from 45-41 in July), and Chuck DeVore by 46-37.

• CO-Gov/Sen: The Tarrance Group, a GOP firm, is out with a new poll of the Senate and gubernatorial primaries in Colorado. For Governor, Scott McInnis leads Josh Penry by 40-13, and Jane Norton has a 45-15 edge over Ken Buck in the Senate race. On the Democratic side, Michael Bennet leads Andrew Romanoff by 41-27.

• IA-Gov/Sen: Rasmussen finds Democratic Gov. Chet Culver in a world of trouble, trailing wingnut Bob Vander Plaats by 43-39, and ex-Gov. Terry Branstad by 54-34. While I don't doubt that Branstad is ahead of Culver at this point (Selzer says as much), the margins may have more to do with the Rasmussen Effect than anything else.

• MA-Gov: Suffolk came out with their latest poll of the Massachusetts gubernatorial race, and it provides some of the sunniest results for Deval Patrick in recent memory. Despite being saddled with an atrocious 29/56 re-elect rating, Patrick comes out on top of three-way match-ups against Dem-turned-indie Tim Cahill and GOPers Charlie Baker and Christy Mihos. Take your pick: Patrick 36, Cahill 23, Baker 14; or Patrick 36, Cahill 24, Mihos 17.

• MI-Gov: Two polls here; one from Mitchell Research for the Detroit News, and another by IMP/MRG. Mitchell Research finds GOP AG Mike Cox leading Democratic Lt. Gov. John Cherry by a disturbing 45-32 margin. In the GOP primary, Cox beats Rep. Pete Hoekstra and Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, 30-23-11. The IMP/MRG poll has Cherry on top of businessman Rick Snyder by 42-34, but losing to Bouchard by 41-38. Bizarrely, they also decided to pit Cherry and Cox in a three-way race with Andy Dillon, the Democratic Speaker of the MI House, as an independent. In such a match-up, Cox leads Cherry by 35-33, with 13% of the vote going to Dillon.

• NY-Gov/Sen-B: I think I've seen more New York polls this year than I've seen rats on the Q line. Rasmussen finds the same old story: Andrew Cuomo would face little difficulty in winning the Governor's office, while Paterson would lose to Rudy and faces a dogfight against Rick freakin' Lazio, of all people. In the Senate race, incumbent Dem Kirsten Gillibrand leads George Pataki by 44-41.

• OH-Gov/Sen: Rasmussen is seeing Tossups everywhere. In Ohio, Republican John Kasich leads Democrat Ted Strickland by 46-45, while ex GOP-Rep. Rob Portman edges Lee Fisher by 41-40 and Jennifer Brunner by 40-38 in the Senate race.

• VA-Gov: InsiderAdvantage came out with their first take on Virginia's gubernatorial race, and it's a tight one: 48-44 for McDonnell. This seems to generally correlate with a growing sense that the race is seeing some tightening (just take a look at that Pollster.com chart), despite us not having any trend lines to mark this one against.

SSP Daily Digest: 9/24

by: Crisitunity

Thu Sep 24, 2009 at 4:01 PM EDT

• IL-Sen: Facing some unrest on the right flank, the RNC's Michael Steele has withdrawn sole support from Rep. Mark Kirk in the Illinois Senate GOP primary, according to the Chicago Observer. He's back to a neutral position, which certainly counts as a victory for Patrick Hughes, who's been gaining some momentum at coalescing the party's right-wing. Considering how Kirk acted when Andy McKenna was going to run, is another temper tantrum in the offing? On the Dem side, Alexi Giannoulias got the endorsement of the SEIU, which led his new rival, former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman, to "go there," invoking the specter of Rod Blagojevich, who was elected via SEIU support.

• NH-Sen: This isn't going at all according to plan for Kelly Ayotte (or the NRSC). Yet another random rich GOPer is showing up to scope out the Senate race, the third in a week. Today it's Jim Bender, an investor who used to be the CEO of Logicraft in the 1990s.

• OH-Sen: Everyone forgets about wealthy auto dealer Tom Ganley in the GOP primary in Ohio against establishment pick Rob Portman, probably because he doesn't have a built-in constituency. Looks like he's trying to hook up with the teabaggers as a result, positioning himself as a populist alternative to the free-trading Portman. Ganley is also getting some help from a Republican insider: an endorsement from Bay Buchanan (sister of Pat), pleased by Ganley's anti-immigrant rhetoric.

• WV-Sen: Looks like Robert Byrd's stay in the hospital was a lot shorter than his stint this spring; he was released today.

• GA-Gov: Strategic Vision looks at the primary fields in the Georgia governor's race, and finds not much has changed since last time. For the Dems, ex-Gov. Roy Barnes is at 45%, with Thurbert Baker at 30, David Poythress at 5, and Dubose Porter at 2. (It was 45-29 last month.) For the GOP, Insurance Comm. John Oxendine leads at 38, with Karen Handel at 15, Nathan Deal at 10, and four other guys in single digits. (Oxendine was at 39 last month, although Deal was in 2nd last month at 13, so maybe he took a minor hit from that corruption probe.) No head-to-heads yet, unfortunately.

• MI-Gov: Here's another poll of a potentially exciting gubernatorial race, but primaries only. An Inside Michigan Politics finds a tight GOP primary, with AG Mike Cox in the lead at 27, followed by Rep. Pete Hoekstra at 23 and Oakland Co. Sheriff Mike Bouchard at 15 (with businessman Rick Snyder and state Sen. Tom George each at 2). Lt. Gov. John Cherry is at 40 in the Dem primary with only light opposition from state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith (9) and former state Rep. John Freeman (8). A March poll from the same pollster had Cox at 17 and Hoekstra at 15 (but both losing to Oakland Co. Exec L. Brooks Patterson, who isn't running).

• NJ-Gov: Two very different pictures from partisan pollsters of the New Jersey governor's race out there. First comes one from Democracy Corps, who have the race as close as anyone has had it since early spring: Chris Christie leads Jon Corzine and Chris Daggett 40-39-11, and Christie has net negative favorables for the first time, at 32/34. (Their poll two weeks ago had Christie up 41-38-10.) The other is Strategic Vision, who see Christie up 46-38-8. Still an improvement from their last poll in July: 53-38-5... like most pollsters, they see Corzine essentially unable to move up, but succeeding in dragging Christie's numbers down. One more bucket of mud for Corzine to throw at Christie arrived yesterday: news that Christie owned stock in Cendant Corp. at the same time as he was investigating them through the US Attorney's office.

• NY-Gov, NY-Sen-B (pdf): Marist has a poll out that finds New Yorkers thinking that Barack Obama should butt out of New York governor's race, by a 62-27 margin. Nevertheless, only 25% think David Paterson should run next year (63% say no); they just want him to arrive at that decision on his own. While the poll doesn't contain gubernatorial matchups (not that we need any more of them), it does have some Senate numbers, confirming other local pollsters, finding the not-running Rudy Giuliani beating Kirsten Gillibrand 51-40 and the probably-not-running George Pataki beating Gillibrand 45-41.

Meanwhile, the NYT has a profile of a rather melancholy Paterson, saying "I didn't sign up for this." They also have a quote that could be seen as hopeful that he may still bail out on seeking another term: "if I got to a point where I thought that my candidacy was hurting my party, obviously it would be rather self-absorbed to go forward." (Unless he's made peace with just being self-absorbed.) If you're wondering what's taking him so long to make a decision, though, Josh Goodman has a nice pithy summary of the decisionmaking process, not just for Paterson, but all the race's players:

Paterson thinks he can beat Lazio, but not Giuliani, so he doesn't want to decide whether he's running until Giuliani makes up his mind. Giuliani thinks he can beat Paterson, but not Cuomo, so he doesn't want to decide whether he's running until Cuomo makes up his mind. Cuomo thinks he can beat anyone, but doesn't want the messiness of a primary battle, so he doesn't want to decide whether he's running until Paterson makes up his mind.

• VA-Gov: It looked briefly like ex-Gov. Doug Wilder might endorse Creigh Deeds after all, but today he backed down and said he won't endorse. Wilder also leveled some criticism at Deeds for proposing tax increases to fix northern Virginia's increasingly dire transportation problems. It's a wtf? moment from the mercurial Wilder, whose endorsement would do a lot to move African-American turnout for Deeds, where he hasn't generated much excitement yet.

• MO-04: No surprise here, but state Sen. Bill Stouffer made it official that he'll be taking on 17-term Dem incumbent Ike Skelton in the dark-red 4th. Christian Right former state Rep. Vicky Hartzler is already in the race; Stouffer, however, seems to be working more of a fiscal discipline angle.

• PA-07: While state Rep. Bryan Lentz seems to have the inside track on the Dem nomination (despite no formal announcement), another Democrat is getting in the race: Teresa Touey, a political consultant who has worked for Joe Sestak and Ted Kennedy. One problem for her, though: although she is a native of the 7th, she's been living in Massachusetts since the early 1990s.

• NYC-Mayor: Quinnipiac finds mayoral results in line with just about everybody else: incumbent Michael Bloomberg leads Dem comptroller William Thompson 52-36, with Conservative Party candidate Stephen Christopher pulling in 2.

• Redistricting: Roll Call has a detailed piece on how the parties are ramping up financially for the post-2010 redistricting fights. A new 501(c)(4), euphemistically titled Making America's Promise Secure, with Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott among its founders, will be coordinating the effort (since campaign reform passed since 2002 prevents the RNC from using soft money to spearhead the effort now). The DCCC's counterpart is the National Democratic Redistricting Trust, although a 527, the equally euphemistic Foundation for the Future, looks like it'll do the financial heavy lifting.

SSP Daily Digest: 9/22

by: Crisitunity

Tue Sep 22, 2009 at 2:14 PM EDT

• CA-Sen: The DSCC has launched a web ad going after Carly Fiorina's disastrous tenure at Hewlett-Packard, especially her $21.5 million severance package and 18,000 layoffs. Conservative Assemblyman Chuck DeVore is still hanging in there in the GOP primary, though, and got a helpful endorsement from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, who carry on the legacy of the 1970s anti-property tax crusader upon whom much of the blame for California's current condition can be directed.

• IL-Sen: Although Rep. Mark Kirk has been accorded front-runner status in the Illinois GOP Senate primary, he has at least half a dozen minor opponents, and real estate developer Patrick Hughes seems to be getting the most attention of them; Kirk has been trying to move to the right to shore up that flank, as seen in his contorted waffling on cap and trade several weeks ago. Hughes has released an internal poll that shows, well, mostly very high undecideds, but with Kirk not in terribly commanding position. In a head-to-head, Kirk leads Hughes 24-11. In the seven-person field, Kirk gets 23% (no number for Hughes, though... gee, I wonder why?).

• MA-Sen: With Republican procedural stalling tactics having gotten exhausted, the state Senate is taking up debate today on the issue of revising state law to allow a temporary appointment to fill Ted Kennedy's seat. The House has already passed the measure, and both chambers could be in agreement by tomorrow. The Boston Globe endorsed former Governor Mike Dukakis for the short-term position.

• WV-Sen: 91-year-old Robert Byrd has returned to the hospital today after a fall at his home. A spokesman says he was being checked out and unlikely to be admitted to the hospital, though.

• NJ-Gov: When we left off yesterday, Independent Chris Daggett had joined a suit by a libertarian candidate challenging New Jersey's ballot placement laws. However, yesterday, a superior court judge refused to expedite the case, meaning it won't be heard until after November, leaving major-party candidates Jon Corzine and Chris Christie in the positions at the top of the ballot.

• NY-Gov (pdf): I'm not sure why the New York governor's race is so heavily polled, since the numbers don't change much, but I guess people like gawking at train wrecks. It's Siena's turn today; they find David Paterson's approval at 29/59, with a re-elect of 14%. Paterson loses a primary to Andrew Cuomo 66-20. In a general, Paterson loses to Rudy Giuliani 52-35, but beats Rick Lazio 39-35, while Cuomo beats Giuliani 52-39 and Lazio 64-18. Also, while it's clear Giuliani isn't running for Senate, he'd be competitive if he did, beating Kirsten Gillibrand 46-38.

• TN-08: Rep. John Tanner has drawn GOP competition that doesn't sound that impressive on paper -- Steve Fincher is a farmer who also travels Tennessee with his family gospel singing group. But Fincher at least has access to money, as he says he'll report more than $100K in donations at month's end.

• NY-LG: In a surprise decision, New York's Court of Appeals (the state's highest court) upheld David Paterson's appointment of Richard Ravitch as Lt. Governor, in a 4-3 vote (the 3 against were all Pataki appointees). The state Constitution is vague on the LG issue, but Paterson was the first Governor to try to appoint an LG instead of leaving the spot vacant. This finally brings some stability back into New York's politics (which devolved into chaos with a state Senate coup over summer) by giving a tie-breaking vote to Senate Dems in case there's another defection, and maybe more importantly, enabling Paterson to resign to take a nice comfy ambassadorship somewhere without turning control of the state over to Pedro Espada Jr.

NY-Gov: Obama Wants Paterson Gone; Paterson Ain't Having Any of It

by: DavidNYC

Sun Sep 20, 2009 at 9:43 PM EDT

President Obama and his political team is worried that Mr. Paterson cannot recover from his dismal political standing, and have signaled to him he should not run, two senior administration officials and a New York Democratic operative with direct knowledge of the situation said Saturday.

The move represents an extraordinary intervention into a state political race by the president, and is a delicate one, given that Mr. Paterson is one of only two African-American governors in the nation.

The decision to ask Mr. Paterson to step aside was proposed by political advisers to Mr. Obama, but approved by the president himself, one of the administration officials said.Top Democrats have grown increasingly worried that the governor's unpopularity could drag down Democratic members of Congress in New York, as well as the Democratic-controlled Legislature, in next fall's election.

But Paterson isn't backing down in the face of what has to be unimaginable pressure:

"I have said time and time again that I am running for governor next year," he said at the 40th annual African-American Day Parade.

This is now the second statewide race in New York this cycle where Obama's tried to urge someone to drop out - remember, he personally phoned up Steve Israel and told him to back off a primary challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand. Yet even though I'm completely done with Paterson, this latest move makes me uncomfortable. For a sitting president to try to push an incumbent governor out of running for re-election seems like a bridge too far. So far as I know, even Dick Cheney didn't try this (or at least, didn't try this publicly) with loser GOP govs like Frank Murkowski (AK) and Ernie Feltcher (KY).

And where does it end? A lot of Democratic governors have crappy approval ratings these days, such as Deval Patrick, Jon Corzine and Bill Ritter. Obviously each race is different, but is everyone supposed to be on notice now? Is this what the 3 am phone call is going to turn out to be?

Don't get me wrong - I'm firmly in the "Paterson should not run again" camp. I'm also not the kind of person to shed a tear about candidates who decide to drop out because they can't hack it and then blame "the establishment." But when the president gets involved, that just seems over-the-top to me, and in these particular circumstances, it seems completely unnecessary, too. If Andy Cuomo were to run, he'd obliterate Paterson, and, if need be, Rudy Giuliani as well. And our congressional candidates would have a very popular attorney general running for governor at the top of the ticket. So really, what's going on here?

SSP Daily Digest: 9/18

by: Crisitunity

Fri Sep 18, 2009 at 1:50 PM EDT

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio has picked up his second endorsement from Florida's GOP House delegation. 5th District Rep. (and Main Street Partnership member, although certainly one of its less 'moderate' members) Ginny Brown-Waite endorsed Rubio yesterday, giving his Senate candidacy a potentially useful endorsement in the Tampa and Orlando exurbs. Back in June, dark red Panhandle Rep. Jeff Miller gave Rubio his official blessing. (J)

• MA-Sen: On a recent appearance on Fox Business, Harvard law professor and TARP watchdog Elizabeth Warren refused to flat-out say "no" when asked if she'd consider running for Ted Kenneday's Senate seat. Warren is one of the most important progressive thinkers and activists in America today, but with little time, no prior electoral experience, and no campaign warchest, it's hard to see how a potential candidacy could catch fire. (D)

Also, as expected, the Massachusetts legislature moved halfway toward modifying state law to allow temporary appointment of a stopgap Senator until the special election. The bill cleared the state House, 95-58; it is also expected to pass the state Senate, although procedural tactics will allow the Republicans to drag it out till next week.

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown is being coy about when (or if) he'll announce his gubernatorial bid, appearing at a function with three other would-be governors but saying "The people of California are not anxious to hear from their candidates yet, and the deadline for filing papers isn't until March - so tune in." Hopefully he left off the part about turning on and dropping out.

• NY-Gov: David Paterson either isn't getting the message or has an admirable single-mindedness, but either way, he's gearing up for a re-election run, hiring a campaign manager, Richard Fife (who previously managed the failed-to-launch Carolyn Maloney senatorial campaign).

• OR-Gov: We have our first poll of the Oregon governor's race since people started piling into it, courtesy of vaunted local pollster Tim Hibbitts' firm on behalf of the Portland Tribune and Fox 12 News. Ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber has wide leads over his Republican opponents (although still below the 50% mark): 43-23 over state Sen. Jason Atkinson and 46-21 over Allen Alley. Ex-SoS Bill Bradbury, who made it offical yesterday, isn't tested. In other news, ex-Sen. Gordon Smith hadn't seemed likely to make the race, and now it's even much less likely, as he took a cushy new job in DC as president of the powerful lobby National Association of Broadcasters. This would leave Rep. Greg Walden as the one Republican of interest who has yet to weigh in on the race.

• SC-Gov: Lt. Governor Andre Bauer has made the offer to stand down from running in the 2010 gubernatorial election if he has to succeed Mark Sanford in the event of a resignation (or impeachment). But he's attaching an expiration date to that offer now (only through next month), saying he needs to get started on his campaign.

• NY-23: Here's a weird thought: could the ACORN scandal wind up sinking the Republican in the special election in the 23rd? The Conservative Party is going after Dede Scozzafava for her previous relationship with the Working Families Party, whose line she's run on in the past. The WFP often works together with ACORN, so now Doug Hoffman is accusing her of palling around with the "radical left" and demanding she disavow the WFP. (Also noteworthy though expected: state Sen. Darrel Aubertine endorsed Dem candidate Bill Owens yesterday.)

• PA-11: Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O'Brien has taken a step toward actually challenging crusty Rep. Paul Kanjorski in the Democratic primary by opening up a campaign account and filing a statement of candidacy with the FEC. O'Brien remains in exploratory mode, but says that he'll have "more to say" on his campaign by the end of the year. (J)

• SD-AL: It's starting to look like Republicans are going to make a real effort at giving Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin an actual race in 2010. The latest potential candidate whose name is being circulated in GOP circles is state Rep. Blake Curd of Sioux Falls. Secretary of State Chris Nelson says that he's getting "very close" to making a decision, and state Rep. Shantel Krebs says that she's still in "sit-and-wait mode" to see what Curd and Nelson decide. (J)

• Cap & Trade: A poll taken for the Environmental Defense Fund shows, contrary to conventional wisdom, support for cap-and-trade in some conservative Dem districts. While we haven't seen the question wording yet, Greg Sargent says the numbers are positive in NC-11, IN-09 and VA-05, and promises full results soon. He also rightly points out:

When the cap and trade debate heats up again, we'll hear lots more about how risky it is for "marginal" Dems to support it. It's striking how often reporters (myself included) just accept the view that such votes are risky in districts like these, simply because someone, somewhere, claimed this is the case.

• Voting Rights: This is a welcome surprise. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a controversial Indiana law requiring voters to show identification last year, following a challenge to it in federal court. This year, though, there was a challenge to it in state court, and an appellate court in Indiana struck down the law for violating the state constitution's Equal Privileges and Immunities Clause (primarily since it didn't require mail-in voters to provide ID). The state plans to appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court. Has the pendulum swung far enough that challenges to voter suppression are likelier to get a fair hearing in state courts now instead of the federal system?

SSP Daily Digest: 9/16

by: Crisitunity

Wed Sep 16, 2009 at 2:53 PM EDT

• MA-Sen: There are reports that there are enough votes in both chambers of the state legislature to give Gov. Deval Patrick the power to appoint a short-term replacement Senator. Republicans can use procedural tactics to stall it for a week, but would be out of options after that, meaning a new Senator could be in place by late next week.

• MO-Sen, MO-07: Former state Treasurer and gubernatorial candidate Sarah Steelman's 2010 cycle is ending with a whimper, not a bang: after starting out looking like a strong primary challenger to Rep. Roy Blunt in the Senate race, she gradually faded from view, then re-emerged to explore a race for Blunt's old seat in the 7th. Now she's confirming that she won't run for anything, at least not in 2010.

• NJ-Sen (pdf): PPP has some extra info from their sample from their gubernatorial poll. As usual, New Jerseyites don't like anyone: not Barack Obama (45/48 approval), Robert Menendez (27/40), or Frank Lautenberg (38/44). As a bonus, they also find that even in well-educated, affluent New Jersey, there's still a lot of birtherism (64-21, with 16% unsure) and even a new category: people who think Barack Obama is the anti-Christ. 8% are... let's just call them anti-Christers... with another 13% not sure.

• MD-Gov: Maryland Republicans have found, well, somebody to run for Governor: businessman Lawrence Hogan, Jr. Hogan says he'll run but he'll get out of the race in case his friend ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich shows up, although that's not looking likely. Hogan ran unsuccessfully against Steny Hoyer in 1992. A better-known figure, State Delegate and radio talk show host Patrick McDonough, also expressed his interest in the race in August, although he too would stand down for Ehrlich.

• MN-Gov: As expected, state House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher officially announced that she's running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. She joins (taking in a really deep breath here first): Ramsey Co. Attorney Susan Gaertner, former U.S. Senator Mark Dayton, state Senators John Marty and Tom Bakk, state Reps. Tom Rukavina and Paul Thissen, and former legislators Matt Entenza and Steve Kelley, with Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak and St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman also expected to enter the field soon. Also looming on the horizon, according to the article: a possible run by Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley, who broke into double-digits in last year's Senate race.

• NY-Gov (pdf): Yet another poll of the New York Governor's race, this time from Marist. As always, Paterson is in disastrous condition, with an approval rating of 20/76. Paterson loses the Dem primary to Andrew Cuomo 70-23, and, if Cuomo happens to die in a bizarre gardening accident before the primary, Paterson loses to Rudy Giuliani 60-34 (although he still manages to tie Rick Lazio, 43-43). Cuomo defeats Giuliani 53-43 and Lazio 71-21.

• PA-Gov: This might pique Joe Hoeffel's interest. The ex-Rep. and MontCo Commissioner has been considering the gubernatorial race (where there isn't much of a progressive option in the Dem primary), and now he won a straw poll of 1,000 progressive activists done by Keystone Progress, picking up 35%. Auditor Jack Wagner was at 22, with Allegheny County Exec Dan Onorato at 14, Scranton mayor Chris Doherty at 11, and businessman Tom Knox at 7. Of course, the caveats about generalizing this sample to the larger population are obvious here; the actual Democratic electorate contains a lot of pro-life Catholic voters and ex-GOP suburban moderates.

• SC-Gov: Here's some very good news out of the Palmetto State: Superintendent of Education Jim Rex is officially in the Governor's race. Rex had previously expressed his interest and his candidacy started looking likely when he said last week that he wouldn't run again for his current job. Rex is the only Dem holding statewide office in South Carolina, so despite the state's dark-red hue may be able to get some traction here thanks to the GOP's descent into chaos over the Mark Sanford affair (and their reluctance to get behind his Lt. Gov, Andre Bauer). Rex's new website is here.

• VA-Gov: Creigh Deeds has to be pleased with the new poll from Clarus, an independent pollster whose first poll of the race finds a 42-37 lead for Bob McDonnell, a narrower gap than most pollsters are seeing. They also find 48/43 approvals for Obama, 47/23 for Jim Webb, and 61/21 for Mark Warner. Meanwhile, new fundraising numbers for the race are available. Deeds raised more than McDonnell for the July/August period, $3.5 million to McDonnell's $3 million. McDonnell still has more cash on hand, $5.8 million to Deeds' $4.3 million. Also an advantage for McDonnell: the RNC is pledging to spend up to $7 million on behalf of McDonnell (although that figure includes $2.4 million they've already spent).

• KY-06: Republicans seem to have a candidate ready to go up against Rep. Ben Chandler in the 6th, who hasn't faced much in the way of opposition in this GOP-leaning district. Lexington attorney (and former Jim Talent aide)Andy Barr has formed an exploratory committee.

• NJ-07: Woodbridge mayor (and former state Treasurer) John McCormac has turned down the DCCC's overtures to run against freshman GOP Rep. Leonard Lance in the 7th. (Woodbridge mayor may not sound like much, but it's one of the largest municipalities in New Jersey and was Jim McGreevey's launching pad to Governor.)

• NM-02: The race in the 2nd may turn into a clash of self-funding rich oilmen, as GOP ex-Rep. Steve Pearce says he may dip into his own cash to augment his bid to reclaim his seat from Democratic Rep. Harry Teague (who Roll Call says is the 10th richest member of Congress, and put more than a million of his own money into his 2008 bid).

• OR-04: Here's one campaign that's already in crash & burn mode: Springfield mayor Sid Leiken's bid against Rep. Peter DeFazio. Remember Leiken's tearful apology over the undocumented $2,000 that went to his mother's real estate company, ostensibly to paying for polling? Now the state elections board is opening an investigation to see if any poll ever actually got taken, after widespread skepticism by polling experts about the poll's conclusions (most notably that they got 200 respondents out of 268 calls).

• PA-06: The arrival of physician Manan Trivedi to the Dem field in the 6th, where Doug Pike seemed to have everything nailed down, has scrambled things a bit. Trivedi has already announced the endorsement of 2008 candidate Bob Roggio, and a more prominent insider, Berks County Recorder of Deeds Frederick Sheeler, switched to neutral from a Pike endorsement.

• VA-05: It looks like the Republicans have landed their first "real" candidate to go against Rep. Tom Perriello in the 5th: Albemarle County Commissioner Kenneth Boyd. Boyd is the only Republican on the board that runs the county that surrounds Charlottesville, home of UVA and the district's liberal anchor; this may help Boyd eat a little into Perriello's Charlottesville base, but he's unknown in the rest of the district and may not make it out of the primary against state Sen. Rob Hurt, if Hurt gets off the fence and runs.

• Mayors: Amidst all the hullabaloo in New York City last night, there was also a big mayoral contest in Buffalo. Incumbent Dem Byron Brown has essentially been re-elected, beating Michael Kearns 63-37 in the Democratic primary. There is no Republican challenger on the November ballot and Brown controls the minor party lines.

• Votes: There seems to be absolutely no pattern behind who did and didn't vote to reprimand Joe Wilson in the House. Although (sadly) the vote was mostly along party lines, 12 Dems and 7 GOPers broke ranks. Among Dems, the "no" votes were a mix of Blue Dogs and some of the most outspoken liberals: Arcuri, Delahunt, Giffords, Hinchey, Hodes, Kucinich, Maffei, Massa, McDermott, Gwen Moore, Gene Taylor, and Teague. Among the GOP, it was a few moderates and some of the more mavericky hard-liners: Cao, Emerson, Flake, Walter Jones, Petri, Rohrabacher, and maybe most notably, Bob Inglis, already facing the wrath of the teabagging wing of the party. Five Dems also voted "present," the best you can do when you can't vote "meh:" Engel, Foster, Frank, Shea-Porter, and Skelton.

SSP Daily Digest: 9/10

by: Crisitunity

Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 2:35 PM EDT

• MA-Sen: The rumor du jour coming out of the Bay State is that Andy Card, the former Bush White House chief of staff, is interested in the Senate special election for the GOP. Card would be a long-shot (as would any Republican), but would at least come to the race armed with a giant Rolodex full of donors. (Wait... do people even use Rolodexes any more?)

• UT-Sen: Is Bob Bennett just ready for retirement, or is he trying to move to the left of the the gaggle of far-right primary challengers, hoping they split the wingnut vote and let him win by occupying all of the quasi-moderate Huntsman-style space in the GOP field? Either way, he took a few provocative actions yesterday, as one of only four GOPers to stand and applaud Barack Obama's call-out of the "death panel" lie last night -- which earned him the spot of Public Enemy #1 at RedState -- and earlier as one of only five GOPers to vote in favor of cloture on the Cass Sunstein nomination, who currently holds the #2 spot on the list that Glenn Beck is holding in his hand.

• NY-Gov: This is a weird-ass rumor, but apparently several different sources are telling the Weekly Standard that Hillary Clinton may bag on being Secretary of State in order to run for Governor of New York. Take with... I dunno, is there something much stronger than salt? Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani was supposed to be in the middle of a power play involving remaking the leadership of the state GOP in preparation for a gubernatorial run, but seems to be losing that proxy battle, as the insufficiently-pro-Rudy Ed Cox still seems on track to take over as state GOP chair.

• TN-Gov: Rep. Zach Wamp has an edge in the GOP primary for the open gubernatorial race in Tennessee, according to his own polling, done by the Tarrance Group. Wamp has 22% of the vote, followed by Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey at 15, Shelby Co. DA Bill Gibbons at 14, and Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam at 12. Wamp also led the field with 22 in a poll several months ago from Southern Political Report.

• CA-11: There are already a bunch of next-to-no-names running against Jerry McNerney in the R+1 11th, but the GOP has dug up someone who's at least one notch above that: Tony Amador, the former U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of California under the Bush administration, giving him some sort-of-non-partisan law-and-order cred. Amador was the son of undocumented immigrants -- but does that make him the kind of courageous by-the-bootstraps story that Republicans love, or unacceptable to the GOP's rabid nativist base?

• MO-08: Here's an appealing-sounding recruit for the Dems to go against Jo Ann Emerson: college instructor and Army vet Tommy Sowers. He served two tours in Iraq, then taught at West Point, and now teaches at Missouri University of Science and Technology. He'll still have an uphill fight against Emerson, who hasn't drawn tough competition since her initial 1996 election, in this district that actually went for Bill Clinton but has fallen off the cliff lately at R+15.

• SC-02: If last night were a movie, the poster would say "Starring Barack Obama, and introducing Joe Wilson!" With one over-the-top line of dialogue, Wilson was catapulted from back-bench anonymity, to front-and-center among one-dimensional cartoonish House Republican villains, right next to Michele Bachmann and Jean Schmidt. While Wilson privately apologized last night, he is refusing today to publicly apologize in the House well, and Democratic House leadership seems eager to let that slide, not wanting to get distracted from the more pressing matter of health care. However, the assault from the netroots has been merciless; Wilson's 2010 opponent, Iraq vet Rob Miller (who came within 8% of Wilson in 2008 in this R+9 district), has hit the fundraising jackpot, raising over $200K since last night according to the DCCC. (Prior to last night, Miller had $49K CoH while Wilson had $212K.) This includes $135K alone at Act Blue (hint hint). UPDATE: PPP teases that they're going into the field tonight to poll SC-02; they're asking for help in drafting the poll, so be sure and give them a hand.

• CA-St. Ass.: In case you were under a rock yesterday (or had a particularly aggressive work-safe web-blocker), Republican Mike Duvall resigned immediately from his state Assembly seat in northern Orange County after getting caught on an open microphone talking in lascivious detail about his sexual transactions with a oil-and-gas lobbyist. The resulting special election in AD-72 doesn't seem likely to go to the Dems -- Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby is set to run for the seat -- but it's the least hardcore part of the OC, where John McCain won only 50-47, so it's worth paying some attention. (See californianwonder's diary for more.)

• House: Here's a GOP poll that I'm sharing simply because of the sheer irrelevance of its premise: that Nancy Pelosi is the most polarizing House Speaker since Newt Gingrich. Remember that there was exactly one Speaker in between Gingrich and Pelosi. Should it be any surprise that the highly visible Pelosi is considered more polarizing than the shapeless, flavorless DeLay-puppet Dennis Hastert... or that the GOP paid good money to ascertain that?

SSP Daily Digest: 9/2

by: Crisitunity

Wed Sep 02, 2009 at 2:39 PM EDT

• CO-Sen: This isn't going to endear the NRSC to the Colorado rank-and-filers (and even the party establishment, like state party head Dickwad Hams Dick Wadhams) any more: they just got caught building websites for former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton. This may help fuel whatever fire is suddenly burning under Weld Co. DA Ken Buck.

• MA-Sen: After contrasting reports yesterday about whether ex-Rep. Marty Meehan might or wouldn't run for Senate, Politics magazine got him on the record saying that he "hadn't ruled it out" but that he was absorbed in his university chancellor job and that he'd defer to either Vicky or Joe Kennedy. No word on what happens to his $4 million if he doesn't run.

• NY-Gov: The Eliot Spitzer boomlet lasted about one day before he laughed it off, but a quickie SurveyUSA poll verified that he's still got some political mojo left. 15% of New Yorkers said they'd still vote for him no matter what office, 47% said they might, depending on the office, and only 39% said no way. He also won against David Paterson on the curiously worded question of "who's better qualified" to be Governor, 41-24, although Rudy Giuliani wins the same question against Spitzer, 59-25.

• OR-Gov: As we reported yesterday, ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber made it official this morning: he's in the race. Former SoS Bill Bradbury, who's already in the Dem primary, now says he will be announcing something on Sept. 17 (he'd previously alluded to staying in even if Kitzhaber got in, but we'll have to see what he says now that it's happened). Meanwhile, SurveyUSA has another snap poll, this time of the favorables of the race's announced players so far: Kitzhaber has a fave of 33/26, Bradbury is at 21/20, and moderate Republican Allen Alley (the 2008 Treasurer candidate, and a former deputy CoS to Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski) is at a woeful 8/10.

• VT-Gov: Two other names for potential GOP gubernatorial candidates have surfaced, in addition to Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie. One is Mark Snelling, who's never held office before but benefits from a prominent family name (he's the son of ex-Gov. Richard Snelling and ex-Lt. Gov. Barbara Snelling). Another possibility is former Auditor Randy Brock who served one term, 2004-2006, before losing re-election.

• CA-24: Marta Jorgensen, a nurse who held Rep. Elton Gallegly to 56% in 2008, said she's back for another try in 2010. Gallegly, frequent retirement speculation target, hasn't formally announced he's running but informally said he'll run again.

• IL-14: Another GOPer is taking a look at the race against Bill Foster, joining Ethan Hastert and Mark Vargas. Bill Cross is a former member of the Aurora City Council and owns two hardware stores in the district.

• KS-03: Rep. Dennis Moore has proven pretty entrenched in his light-red district in the Kansas City suburbs, repelling state Sen. Nick Jordan in 2008 without much trouble. Still, he's drawn another credible challenge for 2010, from GOP former state Rep. Patricia Lightner.

• LA-03: One more name to add to the seemingly endless pile of possible candidates in the open seat in the 3rd: Craig Webre, sheriff of Lafourche Parish (popu. 90,000). The article is strangely unclear about what party he'd be running for -- Webre is registered as a Republican, but Democrat Reggie Dupre (the former state Senator whose resignation triggered last week's successful special election in SD-20) was advising Webre and was the article's source -- although considering how porous party lines can be in Louisiana, that seems typical. Dupre, who just took over as Terrebonne Parish levee director, confirmed that he himself wouldn't run.

• VA-02, 05, 11: The trio of Virginia freshmen (Tom Perriello, Glenn Nye, and Gerry Connolly) have banded together in a joint fundraising committee. Connolly has to be seen as less vulnerable than the other two, but still needs resources for a potentially expensive rematch against Keith Fimian.

• CA-Lt. Gov: With the now very-high likelihood that John Garamendi will be heading to Washington DC in a few months, the question arises of who Arnold Schwarzenegger will replace him with. Sorta-moderate state Sen. Abel Maldonado gets the most press; his appointment would open up a Senate seat in a Dem-leaning area that could get Senate Dems closer to that magic 2/3s mark. Assemblyman (and former minority leader) Mike Villines is another possibility; another idea is giving the job to ex-Rep. Tom Campbell in order to pry him out of the Governor's race. Schwarzenegger is mavericky enough he might appoint a Democrat, too; one name mentioned is former Assembly speaker Bob Hertzberg, who has occasionally cooperated with the Governator.

• Seattle Mayor: The mayor's race in Seattle, between two unknowns (Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan) who won the primary after incumbent Greg Nickels KO'd himself, briefly threatened to get much more interesting when prominent state Sen. Ed Murray started exploring running as a write-in, sensing an opening for someone who actually knows what the hell he's doing. Although he could have counted on a lot of both labor and real estate developer support, he decided against it yesterday, aware of the extreme technical difficulty in mounting a successful write-in campaign on weeks' notice. Murray instead remains the most-talked-about successor to Rep. Jim McDermott, although it seems like he could be waiting another decade for that seat to open up.

SSP Daily Digest: 8/26

by: Crisitunity

Wed Aug 26, 2009 at 2:24 PM EDT

Meanwhile, in the contest purely in Charlie Crist's mind over who to appoint to replace Mel Martinez, Crist will reportedly name someone by week's end from his not-so-short list of eight or so names.

• OR-Sen: John Frohnmayer, the former head of the National Endowment for the Arts under Bush I, was reportedly considering a bid for the Senate against Ron Wyden, but has now decided against it. (You may remember Frohnmayer had tried running as an Indie in the 2006 Smith/Merkley Senate race, but decided against that too.) Interestingly, the story makes it completely unclear whether he was planning to run as a Democrat or an Independent (probably not as a Republican, despite that he's from one of the state's brand-name GOP families, considering that the once-dominant moderates have been routed from the state party), but it sounded like he'd be going after the usually-liberal Wyden from the left, as he'd been reaching out to Democratic activists upset over Wyden's foot-dragging on health care reform. No GOPer has stepped forward to take on Wyden from the right.

• NJ-Gov: One more wheel popped off the suddenly overloaded Chris Christie bus: the woman who allegedly received the undisclosed loan from Christie while working for him has resigned. Michele Brown was the acting first assistant U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, but she quit yesterday, saying she didn't want to be a distraction for the campaign.

• NY-Gov: Politico's Alex Isenstadt offers a rebuttal to the NYT's speculations that Rudy Giuliani is prepping for a gubernatorial run. Close associates say that while he's not saying no, he isn't fundraising either, and that his bids for attention may have more to do with paying down campaign debts from his epic presidential fail.

• SC-Gov: Two Republican state Reps, Nathan Ballentine (known as a Mark Sanford ally) and Gerry Simrill met privately with Sanford to let him know that if he doesn't step down, the GOP-held legislature will impeach him. (Sanford told them he's staying.) Also, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer publicly called for Sanford to resign today (and, by the way, give him his job). Bauer said he'd drop his 2010 gubernatorial bid if he were to become governor, though.

• TX-Gov: It looks like there'll be an alternative to Bush-backer Tom Schieffer and weirdo self-promoter Kinky Friedman in the Democratic primary after all: Hank Gilbert, a cattle rancher who lost the 2006 Agriculture Commissioner race (although he did do the best of any Dem statewide candidate that year), says he'll run. Burnt Orange Report sounds very pleased. Meanwhile, Kay Bailey Hutchison faced down a truckload of pigs brought to one of her rallies by snout-wearing pro-Rick Perry, anti-pork activists. KBH is also looking to sell her mansion in McLean, Virginia, a tea leaf that a) she's serious about bailing out of the Senate and b) she needs money.

• WI-Gov: There's already a Republican internal poll from the Scott Walker camp done by the Tarrance Group, reflecting the new post-Jim Doyle configuration of the Wisconsin governor's race. As one might expect from a Walker poll, he leads all comers, although the Milwaukee Co. Exec barely beats Milwaukee mayor and ex-Rep. Tom Barrett, 44-43. Walker posts bigger numbers over Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, 48-40 and Rep. Ron Kind, 49-39, and an even-bigger number against GOP primary rival ex-Rep. Mark Neumann, 57-21. Barrett leads a Dem primary over Lawton and Kind, 39-25-19 (only Lawton has committed to the race so far, though).

• NYC-Mayor: The mayor's race in New York seems to be in a holding pattern, with I/R incumbent Michael Bloomberg beating Democratic Comptroller William Thompson, 50-35, not much change from last month's 47-37 spread. Thompson leads city councilor Tony Avella 45-10 in the primary. Further down the ballot, it looks like Air America head Mark Green is poised for a comeback as Public Advocate (a job he held 1994-2001), with 38% in a 4-way Dem primary field.

• Ads: The DNC has launched a series of radio ads providing cover for 13 potentially vulnerable Dems, regarding their earlier stimulus and SCHIP votes: Berry, Himes, Donnelly, Kissell, Teague, Rodriguez, Perriello, Ross, Hill, Etheridge, Brad Miller, Pat Murphy, and Inslee. (OK, those last four don't seem vulnerable at all, but whatever.) Also, a coalition of MoveOn, Americans United for Change, the Sierra Club, and the League of Conservation Voters launched TV spots against 5 Republicans over cap-and-trade: McCotter, Rehberg, Blunt, Wolf, and Cantor... and print ads against 2 Dems who also were 'no' votes: Jason Altmire in the Pittsburgh suburbs and Ann Kirkpatrick in rural Arizona.

SSP Daily Digest: 8/25

by: Crisitunity

Tue Aug 25, 2009 at 4:22 PM EDT

• FL-Sen: Another indicator of a bumpy ride for Charlie Crist in the upcoming primary: he lost a straw poll vote among the Bay County GOP to Marco Rubio by the lopsided margin of 23 to 2. Bear in mind, of course, this is the hardcore party activist faithful in one of the state's most conservative counties in the Panhandle.

• UT-Sen: The Club for Growth has leaped into the circular firing squad in Utah, with a letter-writing campaign targeted at the 3,000+ delegates going to the state GOP's nominating convention next year. AG Mark Shurtleff and potentially Rep. Jason Chaffetz consider taking out long-time Sen. Bob Bennett, who's only very conservative and not super-duper-extra conserative.

• CA-Gov: Two separate polls (from little-known local pollsters) of the Democratic gubernatorial primary show San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom way behind ex-Gov. Jerry Brown. Moore Methods finds Brown leading Newson 49-20 statewide among Dems, while David Binder polled only Dems in San Francisco, where Newsom's support should be its strongest, but finds Brown leading 51-34 even there, with Newsom winning only among the 30-and-under set.

• NJ-Gov: There's a weird feeling in the air that things may actually be starting to turn around in New Jersey... the main question remains whether Jon Corzine got himself into too deep a hole to dig all the way out in time. A lot of that has to do with the ethical malfeasance spotlight swinging back toward Chris Christie, as possible Hatch Act violations and unreported loans tarnish him, stories that dominated a disastrous Christie conference call with reporters yesterday despite Christie's intent of using the call to tar Corzine with the Wall Street brush.

But most significantly, there was the poll that came out yesterday from Republican internal pollster Neighborhood Strategies that showed Christie up only 39%-36% over Corzine among "definite" voters, with Chris Daggett at 6% (and 37-35-6 among likely voters). Even more ominously for Christie, the poll found that the undecided electorate "skews heavily to the left." One big caveat, though: this isn't Christie's pollster, but rather a firm run by Rick Shaftan that worked for Christie's ultra-conservative primary rival Steve Lonegan (it also has a big fat margin of error). Does the Lonegan camp still have an axe to grind? But if they do, how would releasing a juiced poll long after the primary help them out?

• NY-Gov: Tea leaf readers think that Rudy Giuliani is moving closer to running for Governor in 2010. Rudy says he'll decide within the next 30 to 60 days, but some see his involvement in the state GOP party chair imbroglio as evidence of his desire to have the party machinery working smoothly behind him if he runs. Rudy apparently successfully talked state party chair Joseph Mondello into resigning yesterday, but he still has one more hurdle, steering key ally Henry Wojtaszek into the chairman position instead of the presmued frontrunner for the position, Ed Cox (who was a McCain backer in 2008). (Of course, Giuliani's most daunting problem would be one he has no control over -- getting the Democrats to not force David Paterson out to make way for Andrew Cuomo, who all polls show flattening Giuliani.)

• SC-Gov: The South Carolina GOP is back to talking about impeachment again at their legislative retreat next weekend, as Mark Sanford is at a bit of a low point again, thanks to disclosures about his abuses of state and private planes. Meanwhile, AG Henry McMaster made it official that he's getting into the gubernatorial race for the GOP, McMaster launched his bid with a swipe at Sanford, saying there's been too much dishonesty and scandal in the state.

• AL-05: Freshman Rep. Parker Griffith has announced he won't be voting for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker again, saying she's too divisive. Griffith is girding for a difficult first re-election in this R+12 district.

• CA-18: Republicans nailed down a challenger against Dennis Cardoza: Turlock Irrigation Board member Mike Berryhill. This Hispanic-majority district hasn't seen a competitive race in a long time, but at D+4 isn't exactly a slam dunk for Dems.

• GA-04: DeKalb County Commissioner Lee May is now considering a primary challenge to Rep. Hank Johnson, in this district that has seen its share of successful primary challenges recently (although both were against Cynthia McKinney). Based on his closeness with DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones, it seems like he'd be coming at the very liberal Johnson from the right.

• NE-02: Speaking of primary challenges from the right, here's one in an unusual place: Nebraska's 2nd, where Lee Terry is a reliably conservative vote (although he did vote in favor of TARP, and also famously tried to sell himself to Obama-Terry voters last year). Still, he's facing a possible serious challenge from health care technology company president Matt Sakalosky, who seems to have the money to self-fund. Sakalosky just confirmed he's in the race and has his first campaign event set for Saturday.

• OH-16: Calling all Arena Football fans! (All 2 of you!) Co-owner of the Columbus Destroyers (and former mayor of Akron suburb Wadsworth) Jim Renacci has filed to take on freshman Dem John Boccieri in the Canton-based R+4 district.

• TN-05: Daily Kos is bird-dogging Blue Dog Jim Cooper, and finds he's got some mediocre numbers among the folks back home, with 47-41 favorables and a re-elect of 36% (with 41% consider someone else and 23% definitely replace). R2K also finds that he'd lose support among both Dems and independents if he opposed public option.

• TN-09: Mercurial Memphis mayor Willie Herenton says that he won't, after all, run in the special election to succeed himself, caused by his resignation. Instead, he'll focus on his primary challenge to Steve Cohen in the 9th, which was the point of his original resignation.

• KY-St. Sen.: There's a big special election tonight in northeastern Kentucky, where a vacant state Senate seat will be filled. The two candidates are Democrat Robin Webb and Republican Jack Ditty, who are trying to replace GOPer Charlie Borders, who was appointed by Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear to the Public Service Commission. Republicans currently control the Senate 20-16-1 (and this 1 vacancy).

SSP Daily Digest: 8/24

by: Crisitunity

Mon Aug 24, 2009 at 3:17 PM EDT

• FL-Sen: One more fossil got unearthed by Charlie Crist as he seeks applications for potential Senate replacements for Mel Martinez: former Representative Lou Frey, a 75-year-old who served in the House from the Orlando area from 1968 to 1978. Crist is still planning to interview current Rep. Bill Young, as well as former Reps. Clay Shaw and Mike Bilirakis. Follow the link to see all 10 current possible replacements.

• IL-Sen: With the Democratic Senate field suddenly down to two candidates, Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and local Urban League president Cheryle Jackson, there's still some of the inevitable casting-about for someone else going on. An unnamed "top Dem" is reportedly encouraging Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart to make the race. Dart is a former state legislator who made big news recently for suspending foreclosure evictions.

• MO-Sen: Michael Steele just referred to Roy Blunt as crap. Well, not in the most literal sense. There was an extended toilet metaphor on a conservative radio talk show and Steele went along with the host's anti-Blunt anti-insider arguments. Still, the Carnahan ads write themselves.

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand got yet another endorsement from her House colleagues, from freshman Rep. Eric Massa. Siena is also out with a new New York poll. Gillibrand trails the unlikely-to-run ex-Gov. George Pataki in a hypothetical head-to-head, 42-39 while whomping the only slightly-less-likely-to-run Rep. Peter King, 46-24. (They didn't poll the Dem primary, where Jonathan Tasini is Gillibrand's last challenger standing.)

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman's campaign strategy seems to be to duck debates and let her money do her talking for her instead. Here's another eyebrow-raising development, that's potentially a good line of attack for Dems (or her primary challengers): Whitman didn't register to vote in California til 2002 (or as a Republican until 2007), and has missed voting in more than half the elections since then, including the 2003 recall.

• MA-Gov: Rasmussen looks at the Massachusetts Governor's race, and finds I-turned-R Christy Mihos leading incumbent Dem Deval Patrick 40-35, up from a 41-40 lead in June. Patrick leads Republican Charlie Baker 40-39. The utility of this poll is close to zero, though, seeing as how it leaves out likely D-turned-I candidate Tim Cahill, whom polls have found either absorbing enough anti-Patrick votes to let Patrick squeak through, or else winning outright.

• NY-Gov: There's a certain role about holes, shovels, and not digging that David Paterson seems to be forgetting. He lashed out at critics saying he should stand down for re-election, accusing them of racial bias, and even launched into the media for their coverage (which I don't think has ever ended well for a politician). The aforementioned Siena poll finds Paterson losing the Dem primary to Andrew Cuomo 65-23, and the general to Rudy Giuliani 56-33 (although he does beat Rick Lazio, 38-37). Cuomo beats Giuliani 53-40, and beats Lazio by a hilarious 66-16 (OK, that's not as hilarious as the GOP primary, where Giuliani beats Lazio 73-6, with 8 for Erie Co. Exec Chris Collins).

• SC-Gov: Cue up the "frequent flier" jokes. Turns out Mark Sanford, already known for his little jaunt to Argentina and his overeager use of state planes, has also failed to disclose at least 35 flights on private planes that should have been listed on ethics forms or campaign disclosures as 'things of value.'

• IN-09: Could we really see Hill/Sodrel 5.0? American politics' most repetitive rivalry may well continue on into 2010, as GOP ex-Rep. Mike Sodrel says he'll weigh another bid against Rep. Baron Hill in the 9th as soon as he's done with the book that he's coloring writing.

• MI-13, 14: Detroiters are feeling surly about their Representatives, it seems. A poll by Deno Noor Polling finds both Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick and John Conyers with negative re-elect numbers: 27/58 for Kilpatrick and 40/44 for Conyers. Not a surprise for Kilpatrick, whose son got bounced out as Detroit's mayor and who barely survived a primary herself last year, but it's a new development for Conyers, the second-longest-serving House member; assumedly, this has a lot to do with the conviction of his wife, ex-city councilor Monica Conyers, on bribery charges.

• OR-04: I'd be sad too if I was watching my once-promising House bid crash and burn more than a year out from the election. Republican Springfield mayor Sid Leiken teared up repeatedly during a news conference where he finally announced that he didn't have documentation for the $2,000 in cash that somehow found its way from his campaign to his mother. He'll repay the $2,000 out of pocket, he says, but the Sec. of State investigation continues.

• PA-07: Here's a good photo op for Dem state Rep. Bryan Lentz, running to succeed Rep. Joe Sestak. He's appearing at the White House to discuss energy policy with Obama administration officials and other energy policy leaders.

• VA-05: Conventional wisdom seems to be coalescing around state Sen. Robert Hurt as GOP nominee; one GOP operative says he's "60% leaning toward the race." His state Senate district overlaps about one-quarter of the 5th. State Del. Rob Bell, who was frequently mentioned earlier, seems hard-pressed to win his off-year re-election this year and turn around and take on Rep. Tom Perriello. Two other state Senators sound interested, Frank Ruff and Steve Newman, but sound likely to defer to Hurt if he gets in.

• Seattle Mayor: Primary elections in Seattle were last week, and in typical Washington fashion, ballots from the all-mail-in election are still being counted. In a serious surprise, two-term mayor Greg Nickels won't be coming back, as he finished third in the top-two nonpartisan primary at 25%. No worries, as he'll be replaced by someone just as, if not more so, liberal, although someone who's never held elective office before: the top 2 are local Sierra Club president Mike McGinn (at 28%) and T-Mobile VP and big-time Obama bundler Joe Mallahan (at 27%).

Meanwhile, the King Co. Executive race is down to two. It's the first time it's been an officially nonpartisan position (after a GOP-led initiative to change it to nonpartisan passed, as this is the only way a Republican will ever get elected), but everyone still knows that former news anchor Susan Hutchison (who got 37%) is the Republican and county councilor Dow Constantine (who got 22%) is the Democrat. That looks daunting at first, but there were no other major Republicans and three other top-tier Dems in the race (county councilor Larry Phillips, state Sen. Fred Jarrett, and state Rep. Ross Hunter). The four Dems put together got 56%, so, no, King County isn't going to elect a Republican in November.

• Polltopia: Where should PPP poll next: New Jersey or Virginia? You decide. (Tom Jensen says they'd planned to do New Jersey but skipped it to do Arkansas this week, where he hints at some blood-curdling numbers.)