Rasmussen (11/17, likely voters, 9/24 in parentheses):
Jerry Brown (D): 41 (44)
Meg Whitman (R): 41 (35)
Some other: 3 (3)
Not sure: 14 (18)
Jerry Brown (D): 42 (44)
Tom Campbell (R): 33 (34)
Some other: 6 (6)
Not sure: 19 (16)
Jerry Brown (R): 43 (45)
Steve Poizner (R): 32 (32)
Some other: 7 (5)
Not sure: 18 (18)
(MoE: ±5.5%)
This poll's a little suprising, since it's the first poll to find a very close race between Democratic AG Jerry Brown and Republican ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman (the closest she had come in any previous poll was 6 points, actually an R2K poll from August). It's also the first poll to find some wide differentiation in general election performance between Whitman and her other two opponents, as Rasmussen finds 9 and 11-point leads for Brown over ex-Rep. Tom Campbell and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. Compare that with September's Field Poll... or just with the trendlines from the previous Rasmussen poll.
Although Californians are understood to be in a surly mood these days, all the candidates clock in with positive favorables: Brown is at 48/41, Whitman is at 47/27, Campbell is at 40/20, and Poizner is at 36/26. I'm a little surprised at this level of name-rec for the Republicans, considering how little-known they have tended to be in other polls. Another tidbit that points to the effect of Rasmussen's likely voter screen: Barack Obama has a 55/43 approval -- a good number, to be sure, but most pollsters have had Obama in the low-to-mid 60s in California, as it usually tends to be one of his best states for approval ratings (in fact, given California's size, it's probably single-handedly responsible for keeping Obama's nationwide approvals in the mid-50s).
• AR-Sen: PPP's Tom Jensen has some interesting crosstabs from their AR-02 poll, which shed some light on Blanche Lincoln's unique set of problems. Lincoln generates only lukewarm enthusiasm from her base: Barack Obama gets a 78% approval among Dems in the district, Rep. Vic Snyder is at 75%, and Mark Pryor is at 61%, but Lincoln is at only 43%, with 30% of Dems thinking she's too conservative (although that may be coming to a head right now with her obstructionist role in the health care debate, which may not be much of an issue one year from now). Moving to the left, though, will cause her to lose votes with independents, though, among whom 49% think she's too liberal.
• CT-Sen, CT-05: Local GOP party poohbahs are sounding eager to push state Sen. Sam Caligiuri out of the Senate race, where he's rather, uh, underutilized, and into the 5th, for a race against Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy; Caligiuri says he'll consider it. Problem is, Justin Bernier is already running there, and has had some fundraising success and gotten NRCC "Young Gun" status; as you might expect, Bernier is crying foul.
• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist has been trying to hide from his previous stimulus support, but Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson has the goods on him, dragging out an old interview from spring in which Crist says "absolutely" he would have voted for the stimulus had he been in the Senate at the time. Here's one bit of good news for Crist, though; Marco Rubio's once-perfect A rating from the National Rifle Association is about to drop, thanks to Rubio's compromise (from back when he was House speaker) on the take-your-gun-to-work law that recently became law.
• IL-Sen: Former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman has an internal poll of his own now, and while it doesn't give numbers for the Dem primary matchup between Hoffman and frontrunner Alexi Giannoulias, it does point to some vulnerabilities for Giannoulias. The poll claims that without message-testing, GOP Rep. Mark Kirk leads Giannoulias 40-37 and leads Hoffman 40-30, but once positives and negatives are read, Kirk beats Giannoulias 47-30 and Hoffman beats Kirk 42-36. The negatives involve the Giannoulias family bank, which apparently has been connected to Tony Rezko. Meanwhile, Kirk took an embarrassing hit from the conservative Chicago Tribune editorial board, whose response to Kirk's flip-flopping and fearmongering on trying terrorists in New York boiled down to "Give us a break." Wondering why Kirk is so transparently turning into a right-winger? Kirk's looking increasingly nervous about erstwhile opponent Patrick Hughes, who is currently seeking out a Jim DeMint endorsement.
• KY-Sen, NH-Sen: The NRSC is claiming it's not getting involved in primary fights with fundraising, but you can't make party leadership's intentions any clearer than when Mitch McConnell hosts a fundraiser in New York on Dec. 7 for Trey Grayson and Kelly Ayotte. With both candidates facing mounting anti-establishment challenges, it seems like the bad publicity back home generated by these appearances -- more grist for the movement conservative mill -- might outweigh the financial benefit.
• NJ-Sen: Now that recently unemployed TV pundit Lou Dobbs has some time on his hands, he told Bill O'Reilly he's considering a run for the Senate in New Jersey. There isn't a seat available until 2012 (when Dobbs will be 67) -- he'd be going up against Bob Menendez that year. Dobbs vs. Menendez? Hmmm, you can't get any more weighed down with symbolism than that.
• SC-Sen: The county GOP in Berkeley County (in the Charleston suburbs) was prepared to have its own censure vote against Lindsey Graham, but they called off the vote after Graham's chief of staff promised to meet with them first.
• CA-Gov (pdf): Lots of people have taken notice that the Republican field in the governor's race isn't a diverse bunch: three sorta-moderates from Silicon Valley. San Jose State University took a poll of those who would seemingly know the candidates the best: Republican likely voters in "Silicon Valley" (Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, plus small parts of Alameda and Santa Cruz Counties). Perhaps thanks to Tom Campbell's tenure in the House representing much of this area, he has a wide lead, at 39%, compared with 11 for Meg Whitman and 7 for Steve Poizner.
• MI-Gov, MI-08: In case there was any doubt that Rep. Mike Rogers (the Michigan one) was going to run for re-election to his House seat and not for governor, we found a statement from way back in February to that effect. (H/t to Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, a blog devoted to all things MI-08.)
• MN-Gov: Rasmussen looks at the still-coalescing primary fields in the Minnesota governor's races, and seems to be finding very name-recognition-driven results right now. On the Democratic side, most of the votes are going to former Senator Mark Dayton and Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak; both poll at 30, trailed by state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher at 8 and former state legislator Matt Entenza at 6. On the Republican side, ex-Sen. Norm Coleman dominates, with 50%; however, he's not in the race, at least not yet, and is probably the only name that people know. Among the rest of the rabble, former House minority leader Marty Seifert is doing the best, at 11, with 5 for Laura Brod and 1 for Tom Emmer.
• OR-Gov: Most people have already mentally ruled out Rep. Peter DeFazio from the governor's race, but he just said that he's still somewhat interested, and that he won't be making up his mind on it until... next March? He doesn't seem too concerned about the delay, as Oregon law would let him transfer over his federal dollars and he alludes to private polling showing him in a dead heat with John Kitzhaber. While I still doubt he'll follow through, that raises the question of who might fill a vacancy in OR-04; it's looking less and less like it would be Springfield's Republican mayor Sid Leiken, who was just fined $2,250 by the state for the phantom poll that may or may not have been conducted by Leiken's mom.
• TX-Gov: Little-known fact: Kay Bailey Hutchison, despite the seeming overall malaise in her campaign, has a big edge in endorsements from Texas House Republicans. She has the endorsements of 10 of 20 (including Kay Granger, Kenny Marchant, and Michael Burgess), perhaps indicative of Rick Perry's increasingly strident anti-Washington rhetoric. (Not that that will help much when the actual electorate is in an increasingly anti-establishment mood.) A couple other Dems are looking at the race: hair care magnate Farouk Shami (who's willing to bring his own money to the race) is officially launching his campaign on Thursday, while El Paso-based outgoing state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh is publicly weighing a run.
• FL-19: West Palm Beach mayor Lois Frankel, who would have been maybe the highest-profile possible primary challenger to state Sen. Ted Deutch in the upcoming special election in the 19th, has decided not to run. Deutch has been endorsed by outgoing Robert Wexler and has an increasingly clear path to the nomination. Meanwhile, the only GOPer looking interested in running in the dark-blue district is Ed Lynch, who lost to Wexler last year.
• IL-06: Here's a little more information about Benjamin Lowe, who's the only Dem running in the 6th against Peter Roskam. While he's something of a political unknown, it turns out he's well-connected in the religious left community as well as the green jobs movement. He's a graduate of evangelical Wheaton College (which is in the district) and has been active in the last few years in organizing students at other evangelical colleges on issues of environmental stewardship.
• NY-13: I don't know if anything can top last year's NY-13 race for political trainwrecks, but the Staten Island GOP may have gotten switched onto that same track again. Michael Allegretti, a 31-year old who caught attention for raising $200K for the race already, is a lawyer who also owns a share of the family business, Bayside Fuel and Oil -- which employed Gambino family capo Joe "Joe Butch" Corrao for several decades. Over $40K of Allegretti's contributions came from family members working for Bayside. To add to the made-for-TV drama: Allegretti's potential Republican primary opponent, Michael Grimm, was on the FBI squad charged with investigating said crime family.
• NY-19: Republican Greg Ball -- who puts the "Ass" in Assemblyman -- is out with an internal poll putting him within single digits of Rep. John Hall. Hall leads the Hall/Ball matchup, 48-43 -- although for some reason the poll was taken only in the portion of the district that's east of the Hudson River. Hall still has strong favorables, at 57/25, while Ball is at 40/28.
• NY-23: Recounting in NY-23 is still on track to see Rep. Bill Owens remain in the House; Doug Hoffman is down 2,951 votes with 6,123 left, so about the best he can hope for is to lose by about 2,000. The Hoffman saga just got weirder when yesterday Hoffman, goaded along by his patron Glenn Beck, unconceded on national TV -- yet today, his spokesperson un-un-conceded, not that any of that is legally binding, of course.
• NRCC: If the Republicans are going to make a serious dent in the Democratic edge in the House next year, they're going to have to refill the NRCC's coffers, which are still lagging the DCCC. Party leadership smacked down members in a closed-door session, trying to get them to pony up their $15K dues. The Hill also has an interesting profile of CA-22's Kevin McCarthy, an up-and-comer who's the NRCC recruitment chair now and likely to head the NRCC at some point in the near future. Turns out that McCarthy is quite the student of Rahm Emanuel.
• Mayors: SurveyUSA polls the runoff in the Atlanta mayor's race, and they have quite the reversal of fortune for Mary Norwood, who led all polls before November and finished first in the election. State Sen. Kasim Reed, who finished 2nd, now leads Norwood, 49-46. Reed leads 69-25 among African-American voters, indicating that he picked up almost all of 3rd-place finisher Lisa Borders' support.
• Special elections: Two legislative specials are on tap tonight. The big one is California's AD-72, a Republican-leaning seat in the OC left vacant by the resignation of Mike Duvall (who resigned in disgrace after bragging about his affair with a lobbyist). It seems to be mostly a contest between two GOPers, Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby and activist Linda Ackerman (who's been making much of Norby's four divorces). Since this is California, assuming one of the Republicans doesn't finish over 50%, it'll move on to another round where the top Republican faces off against Dem John MacMurray. Also, in Mississippi, there's a contest in Biloxi-based HD-117, to replace Republican state Rep. Michael Janus; candidates aren't identified by party on the special election ballot, but the contestants are Patrick Collins (who ran against Janus several times) and Scott DeLano.
• Redistricting: You might want to check out the website called "Redistricting the Nation," presented by GIS software company Avencia but full of fun widgets. Most interestingly, you can evaluate the compactness of any congressional district by four different criteria, and see the worst offenders in each category.
• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: A new LA Times/USC poll (conducted by GQR and POS) finds a dead heat in the GOP Senate primary: conservative Assemblyman Chuck DeVore and vapid ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina are deadlocked at 27 each (despite the fact that DeVore is almost entirely unknown, with favorables of 6/4 -- the deal is that Fiorina is, other than Ahnold, the state's only political figure with negative favorables, at 9/12). They also looked at the GOP field in the governor's race and find ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman leading the field at 35, followed by ex-Rep. Tom Campbell at 27 and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner at 10. No general election matchups, but probably the most disspiriting number of all is that a whopping 80% of all Californians think the state's best days are behind it.
• FL-Sen: This seemed already pretty well established when they ran an anti-Crist ad last week, but it was made official today: the Club for Growth endorsed Marco Rubio in his primary challenge to Charlie Crist. Mmmmmm... cat fud.
• IL-Sen: State treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, whose easy path to the nomination seems to have gotten at least something of an obstacle in its way with the candidacy of former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman, got a key endorsement: Rep. Luis Gutierrez. Giannoulias now has the endorsement of four of the state's House Dems.
• KS-Sen: Also on the endorsement front, Rep. Jerry Moran got one today in the Kansas Senate GOP primary from Arizona's Rep. Jeff Flake. Kind of odd, as Flake is one of the most conservative House members and Moran is the 'moderate' option in the race, but Flake is more on the libertarian side of things rather than a theocon.
• MA-Sen: Finally, something is happening in the sleepy Massachusetts Senate special election Democratic primary. Rep. Michael Capuano hit AG Martha Coakley from the left, attacking her for support for the death penalty, and the PATRIOT Act (Capuano was one of the few to vote against it). And now Coakley is saying she would have voted against the entire health care bill because of the Stupak poison pill, for which Capuano is now attacking her from the right (or at least the pragmatic).
• MT-Sen: Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg pushed back a bit against rumors last week that he was gearing up to run for Senate against Jon Tester in 2012, saying he had no "immediate" plans to run. Rehberg didn't categorically rule it out, though.
• NH-Sen: He's been acting like a candidate all year, but Ovide Lamontagne made it official: he's running for the GOP Senate nomination in New Hampshire. Lamontagne, a lawyer who defeated the establishment candidate in the GOP gubernatorial primary in 1996 (and went onto get demolished in the general), is probably the highest-profile primary challenger to establishment choice ex-AG Kelly Ayotte.
• NY-Sen-B: In case it wasn't clear that ex-Gov. George Pataki is interesting in running for President, not Senator, he's making another appearance in Iowa tomorrow, addressing the Scott County GOP Ronald Reagan Dinner in Davenport.
• PA-Sen: Here's a blast from the past, as one Arlen Specter opponent passed the torch to another. Lynn Yeakel, who lost the 1992 Senate race to Specter by only 3% amidst the media-designated "Year of the Woman," threw her support to Rep. Joe Sestak in the Democratic Senate primary on Friday.
• NV-Gov: Las Vegas's colorful Democratic mayor Oscar Goodman is still mulling over whether to get involved in the gubernatorial race (and sounding pretty lukewarm about it), but he says if he does it, it'll be as an independent and not as a Democrat, setting up a confusing anything-can-happen three-way in yet another state.
• VA-Gov: Here's a guy to add to the top of the "Do Not Hire" list right next to Bob Shrum: pollster David Petts, who it turns out is largely responsible for the Creigh Deeds strategy of going nonstop negative against Bob McDonnell, focusing on independents, and distancing himself from Barack Obama.
• IL-07: It was decisionmaking day for Rep. Danny Davis (who had previously signed up for both his House seat and Cook Co. Board President, but had to withdraw one filing today), and it's a bit of a surprise: he's running for re-election to the House. He had apparently become worried about the possibility of splitting votes with multiple other African-Americans in the race, so he heads back to his nice safe seat in the House. (The question will now be how many of the prominent local politicos who filed to run for the open seat primary now drop out.)
• IL-10: Democratic State Rep. Julie Hamos, who netted a big cash haul last quarter, is the first to hit the airwaves for the fast-approaching House primary against Dan Seals. She's running a TV spot touting her stand on health care.
• LA-02: So I guess the future isn't Cao, anymore? Rep. Joe Cao has drawn a lot of heat for his aisle-crossing on health care, but it doesn't look like he'll suffer any meaningful consequences from leadership, and he's even pushing back against Michael Steele's comments about "coming after" moderate rank-breakers, in understated fashion, saying "He has the right to come after those members who do not conform to party lines, but I would hope that he would work with us in order to adjust to the needs of the district and to hold a seat that the Republican party would need." Also, Cao has picked up an unusual ally: Alaska's Rep. Don Young is defending Cao's vote and even stood watch over Cao as he cast his vote, fending off the horde of GOP arm-twisters.
• NY-23: One of the lingering questions from last week: what the heck happened to all those Doug Hoffman voters that the polls showed? Mark Blumenthal assesses that most voters simply were in flux over that last weekend of polling as two separate events scrambled the status quo, and only made up their mind shortly before voting -- and that, in the end, Scozzafava voters disliked Hoffman more than they disliked Owens.
• PA-11: Hazleton mayor and narrow 2008 loser Lou Barletta is still trying to decide on a rematch with Rep. Paul Kanjorski. He's set a timeline for a late November decision.
• CA-LG: Moderate Republican state Senator Abel Maldonado seems to have the inside track on getting appointed as California's new Lt. Governor (left vacant by John Garamendi's election to the House), according to rumormongers. Maldonado seems the likeliest because he's about the only Republican who can clear the Democratic-controlled legislature, and Dems like the idea because he'd leave behind a Dem-leaning Senate district on the central coast that would be a good pickup target in a special election. There's also one other GOP-held vacancy coming up in the state Senate (SD-37, a traditionally Republican area in the Inland Empire but one where Obama won), vacated by John Benoit (who became a Riverside Co. Commissioner). Democratic Palm Springs school board member Justin Blake is already running there (along with possibly three different Republican Assemblymen), so there may be two good opportunities for Dems to get closer to the magic 2/3s mark in the Senate.
• NY-St. Ass.: As the orgy of own-eating continues, the rest of the Assembly's GOP leadership is considering stripping Dede Scozzafava of her status as minority leader pro tem (in retribution for her Bill Owens endorsement). If they do, start counting down the days until she switches parties.
• TX-St. House: Hopes still persist that the Dems can flip the Texas state House in 2010, where they were down only 76-74, but that got pushed back to 77-73 last week when long-time Democrat Chuck Hopson, representing a very conservative rural area in NE Texas, switched to the Republicans. Hopson still might not be able to save his butt; a GOP primary challenger, Michael Banks, already jumped in for 2010.
• HCR Vote: The AFSCME and HCAN are running "thank you" ads in 20 different districts for vulnerable Dems who voted for health care reform.
• Parties: I suppose it was only a matter of time before some clever wingnut figured this out. A conservative Orlando lawyer registered an official "Tea Party" with the secretary of state, making it one of 32 minor parties recognized in Florida.
• Polling: PPP wants your help! They're asking for polling suggestions in their blog comments, and also have a poll up on where to go next (Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, or Ohio?).
• FL-Sen: It looks like the Club for Growth has decided to weigh in on the Florida Senate primary, and they're doing so with a vengeance, with a TV spot going after Charlie Crist's embrace of the Obama stimulus package. Crist himself has been trying for the last few days to walk back his stimulus support -- despite statements on the record from February saying that if he'd been in the Senate, he'd have voted for it. Crist now says he wasn't "endorsing" it and just playing along so Florida would get a good share of the bennies. (I'm sorry, but my 5-year-old comes up with more convincing excuses than that.)
• NY-Sen-B: Former Gov. George Pataki is reportedly telling friends he's not that interested in becoming Senator at age 64, and has his eye set a little higher: a presidential race in 2012. The idea of the wooden, moderate Pataki going up against Huckabee and Palin seems a little far-fetched, but a clue in support of that idea is that Pataki joined the Romneys and T-Paws of the world in calling new Manchester, New Hampshire mayor Ted Gatsas to congratulate him. (In case you aren't connecting the dots, Manchester's mayor has an outsized influence on NH's first-in-the-nation presidential primary.)
• AZ-Gov: Appointed incumbent Republican Governor Jan Brewer says she'll run for a full term in 2010. She already faces several minor primary opponents, and may face off against state Treasurer Dean Martin. Her likely Democratic opponent, AG Terry Goddard, who has had a significant lead over Brewer in recent polls, has to be feeling good about this.
• CA-Gov: Capitol Weekly, via Probolsky Research, takes another look at the primaries in the California gubernatorial race, and find free-spending ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman opening up a lead on her opponents. Whitman leads with 37, against ex-Rep. Tom Cambell at 15 and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner at 6. (Their previous poll, in June, gave a small lead to Campbell at 13, with 10 for Whitman and 8 for Poizner.) On the Dem side, ex-Gov. Jerry Brown led SF Mayor Gavin Newsom 46-19; the sample was completed shortly before Newsom's dropout last Friday.
• MD-Gov: A poll of the Maryland governor's race from Clarus Research has a mixed bag for incumbent Dem Martin O'Malley. He defeats ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich without too much trouble in a head-to-head, 47-40, and he has decent approvals at 48/40. Still, on the re-elect question, 39% want to see him re-elected and 48% would like someone new. That would potentially present an opportunity for the Maryland GOP -- if they had someone better than Ehrlich to offer, but he's really the best they have. (By contrast, Barb Mikulski, who's also up in 2010, has a 53/36 re-elect.)
• OR-Gov: Moderate Republican state Sen. Frank Morse -- who, without Rep. Greg Walden or state Sen. Jason Atkinson in the race, might actually have been the GOP's best bet -- said no thanks to a gubernatorial race despite some previous interest; he'll run for re-election in 2010. Former Portland Trail Blazers center Chris Dudley has formed an exploratory committee to run in the Republican field, though.
• PA-Gov: Here's an interesting development in the GOP primary field in Pennsylvania: a very conservative state Rep., Sam Rohrer, is scoping out the race and has formed an exploratory committee. Rohrer isn't well-known outside of conservative activist circles and his Berks County base, but against the moderate Rep. Jim Gerlach and the generally-conservative but ill-defined AG Tom Corbett, he seems like he could peel off a decent chunk of votes on the far right.
• VT-Gov: Add two more Democratic names to the lengthening list in the governor's race in Vermont. Former state Senator Matt Dunne officially got in the race, and another state Senator, Peter Shumlin, is planning to announce his bid in several weeks. Dunne lost the Lt. Governor's race in 2006 to current Republican LG Brian Dubie, who is the only declared Republican candidate to replace retiring Gov. Jim Douglas.
• WI-Gov: Rumors keep flying of the Obama administration leaning on ex-Rep. and Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett to run for Wisconsin governor. WH political director Tom Patrick Gaspard met with Barrett. With Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton having recently and surprisingly dropped her bid, Barrett has a free shot if he wants it.
• AZ-03: Dems seem close to pinning down a candidate to run against Rep. John Shadegg in the Phoenix-based 3rd. Lawyer, businessman, would-be-novelist, and former Gary Hart staffer Jon Hulburd is prepping for the race.
• FL-05: The blood is already flowing down Republican streets in the wake of the NY-23 debacle, even a thousand miles away. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, hardly the first name that comes to mind when you think of moderate Republicans (although she is a Main Street member), is now being challenged by a political newcomer in the GOP primary, Jason Sager. One of Sager's key talking points is Brown-Waite's support of Dede Scozzafava, on whose behalf Brown-Waite campaigned last week. And more generally, RNC chair Michael Steele (who one week ago was supporting Scozzafava) is flexing his muscles, telling moderates to "walk a little bit carefully" on health care or "we'll come after you."
• FL-08: The NRCC has found a couple willing patsies to go up against Rep. Alan Grayson, whom they've been interviewing this week. The two contenders are businessman Bruce O'Donoghue (who owns a traffic-signal business... odd, but I guess somebody has to make them) and first-term state Rep. Eric Eisnaugle. (Carpetbagging real estate developer Armando Gutierrez Jr., radio talk show host Todd Long, who nearly beat then-Rep. Ric Keller in last year's GOP primary, and three anonymous teabaggers are all in the race, but clearly not striking the NRCC's fancy.) Attorney Will McBride (whose name you might remember from 2006, when he ran in the GOP primary against Katherine Harris) also talked with the NRCC this week, but just pulled his name from contention today.
• MN-01: Another potential challenger to Rep. Tim Walz popped up: former state Rep. Allen Quist. Quist, who ran in gubernatorial primaries twice in the 1990s, is from the state party's right wing and is a key Michele Bachmann ally (his wife used to Bachmann's district director). Republican Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau has also been interested in the race.
• MS-01: After all that work to clear the path for state Sen. Alan Nunnelee in the GOP primary in the 1st, the Republicans may still see a contested primary. Former Eupora mayor Henry Ross is seriously considering the race, and making preparations. This may not result in a pitched rural vs. suburbs battle like the previous primary, though; Eupora (pop. 2,400) is near the district's southern end, near Columbus. Nunnelee is from the Tupelo area, which is also Democratic Rep. Travis Childers' base.
• NH-02: Katrina Swett has been slow to get into the field in the Democratic primary for the open seat in the 2nd, letting Anne McLane Kuster raise more than $200K unimpeded and secure the EMILY's List endorsement. Swett may be ready to make a move, though, as she's been touting a GQR internal poll giving her a 20-point lead in the primary over Kuster. (The actual polling memo hasn't been released, though, as far as I know.)
• NY-23: Doug Hoffman already has a key House leadership backer for a 2010 race: Indiana's Mike Pence endorsed Hoffman.
• PA-06: Looks like we have a real race in the Dem primary in the 6th. State Sen. Andy Dinniman, one of the biggest fish in the district and someone who had considered running himself, endorsed physician Manan Trivedi instead of presumed frontrunner Doug Pike. One advantage that Dinniman sees is that Trivedi hails from Reading in Berks County, the part of the district where Dems have traditionally been the weakest.
• Turnout: If you're wondering what the crux of what happened on Tuesday is, it boils down to terrible turnout. (And it's pretty clear that higher turnout benefits Democrats, as younger and/or non-white voters who tend to be less likely voters are more likely to vote Democratic.) In Virginia (where the outcome seemed clear long ago), turnout was the lowest in 40 years, including a 10% falloff in key black precincts. And in New Jersey, turnout was also a record low for the state, even though the race was a tossup -- indicating a lack of enthusiasm for either candidate. If you want to dig into exit polls for a post-mortem, the New York Times has them available for New York, New Jersey, and Virginia.
• 2010: The White House (or at least David Axelrod) wants to nationalize the 2010 elections, as a means of fixing the Dems' turnout problems from this week. Expect to see Obama front and center in the run-up to next year's elections.
• Illinois Filings: With Illinois's first-in-the-nation filing deadline for 2010 having passed, as usual, our filings guru Benawu is on the scene with a recap in the diaries; check it out.
• CA-Sen: Everyone has been treating Carly Fiorina as already running for Senate, but she's never officially announced anything. It looks like Nov. 6 is her launch date, though; she has a "very important announcement" scheduled at a Pleasanton event.
• NV-Sen: With right-wing former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle's entry into the GOP primary a few days ago, I hinted at the prospect of a bloody civil war erupting in Nevada -- and here's some more fuel for that fire. Movement conservatives in the Silver State are setting up a specifically anti-Sue Lowden PAC, dedicated to stopping the media-designated frontrunner. The Fair Nevada Elections PAC seems run by Paulists, who remain upset over Lowden's actions in the 2008 caucus, when she was the state GOP party chair, which ended with voting being shut down when it looked like Ron Paul would wind up winning delegates. While there's no explicit Paulist in the primary (unlike, say, Kentucky and Connecticut), Angle seems like the most kindred spirit for these types.
• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman's sputtering campaign got a boost when she nailed down the endorsement of popular GOP moderate Richard Riordan, the former Los Angeles mayor -- which might keep her from losing votes to ex-Rep. Tom Campbell on her left. Her other opponent, state Treasurer Steve Poizner, also announced his own endorsement, from American Conservative Union head David Keene. Not that any Californian would have any idea who Keene is, but this seems like a more fruitful endorsement vein to mine, as all three candidates are on the party's moderate side -- good for the general, but bad for making it out of the primary dominated by California's rabid base.
• MA-Gov: There's a new poll of the Massachusetts governor's race showing embattled Dem incumbent Deval Patrick walloping his opponents -- and it comes from Rasmussen, of all places. Despite only 36% of respondents thinking Patrick should run (49% say don't run), Patrick leads GOPer Christy Mihos and independent Tim Cahill 34-23-23, and leads Charlie Baker and Cahill 34-24-23. This doesn't jibe at all with their previous poll from August, which gave the GOP candidates leads over Patrick but didn't account for Cahill's presence, absorbing anti-Patrick votes -- but it does pretty closely match Suffolk's September poll, so maybe Patrick is stabilizing a bit after some terrible numbers over the summer.
• NJ-Gov: After a week of unadulterated good news, the two most recent polls from New Jersey show Jon Corzine taking a slight turn for the worse. And the reason seems to be clear -- Chris Daggett is starting to lose votes, perhaps as a share of soft Daggett voters who dislike Corzine more than they dislike Chris Christie are realizing that they're contributing to a spoiler effect and shifting to Christie, helped along by RGA ads attacking Daggett. PPP (pdf) finds Christie leading Corzine and Daggett 42-38-13. Rasmussen gives toplines (based on their re-allocation of Daggett leaners) of 46-43-7 for Christie, while their "initial preference" this time, interestingly, gives an even better result for Christie, at 42-38-14. (Discussion underway in DCCylone and JFM110's diaries.
• OH-Gov (pdf): The Ohio Newspaper poll (conducted by University of Cincinnati) projects a close race in the Ohio gubernatorial race, as Democratic incumbent Ted Strickland leads GOP ex-Rep. John Kasich 49-46 among likely voters. Contrary to what one might expect, Kasich pulls closer among all registered voters, with a 48-47 Strickland lead.
• VA-Gov: Three different polls in Virginia, all of which showing Creigh Deeds trailing by double digits. (Ooops, almost typed "triple digits.") The Washington Post is the most encouraging with a mere 55-44 lead for Bob McDonnell; Deeds has a 56-43 lead in northern Virginia, which may help retain some of the tight House of Delegates seat there. PPP (pdf) sees the race as 55-40 for McD (with similar-sized leads for the GOP's LG and AG candidates); SurveyUSA has the widest spread, at 58-41 for McD. Deeds' fundraising seems to be dying down, also, as the establishment realizes this one is over; McDonnell outraised Deeds $4 million to $3.1 million in the first 3 weeks of October (with most of Deeds' money coming from the Tim Kaine-led DNC).
• FL-08: Alan Grayson saying something bombastic is getting to the point of not being newsworthy anymore (he called a Fed official a "K Street whore" on a radio show a month ago, although the pearls are just getting clutched today), but fellow camera-hogging Rep. Anthony Weiner gets some ups for saying what we're all thinking: "Is this news to you that this guy's one fry short of a Happy Meal?"
• IL-07: Rep. Danny Davis, after a drawn-out period of vacillation, finally got off the fence, and filed to run for President of the Cook County Board (although he plans to also file for his 7th District seat too; he has until Nov. 9 to withdraw one of his petitions). Assuming that he continues to follow through, this creates an open seat in the dark-blue, African-American-majority 7th and a hotly contested Dem primary.
• KY-St. Sen.: The special election is on, in Kentucky. GOP state Sen. Dan Kelly was appointed to a state circuit court judgeship yesterday, creating an open seat that Dems have a shot at picking up. The election is set for Dec. 8, the same day as a House special election to fill the seat of Dem Robin Webb (who was promoted to the state Senate in another recent special election).
• Mayors: The Charlotte mayoral race will go down to the wire; PPP finds that Anthony Foxx and John Lassiter each poll at 45. Foxx leads among African-Americans 80-9, while Lassiter leads among whites 63-29 (Charlotte is 33% black).
• Blue Dogs: Here's an interesting fundraising tidbit: donations to the Blue Dog PAC fell to only $12,500 in September (from only three donations -- from Ernst & Young, the Food Marketing Institute, and the NRA). They had averaged more than $176K per month in the first half of the year. Is this a blip, or a sign of things to come?
• FEC: If you can't get enough about campaign finance disclosures and regulations, we've got the blog for you. The FEC has its own blog now... if you can consider something that has no bomb-throwing invective or pictures of hilarious cats to be a blog.
His name is ex-Governor Jerry Brown; his aura smiles and never frowns. Soon he will be Governor. Again.
Brown is posting 20-point leads in both the Democratic primary and the general. The only possible obstacle is Dianne Feinstein, who certainly doesn't seem like she's about to jump into the race, but would win the Democratic primary with 40% (to 27 for Brown and 16 for Newsom) if she got in. The previous Field Poll (from March) polled primaries only; Brown led Newsom 26-16 then (although that included Antonio Villaraigosa, John Garamendi, and some minor players as well). The one bit of good news here for Gavin Newsom is that, unlike the recent Rasmussen and R2K polls, Field finds him comfortably beating his Republican rivals in the general, if he somehow wins the primary, presumably with a lot of help from new BFF Bill Clinton.
On the Republican side, undecideds still rule the day in the primary. (In March, Whitman led Campbell and Poizner, 21-18-7, so people have made little progress toward making up their minds.) One thing I find strange is that the media have designated frontrunner status to Meg Whitman (despite the flames pouring out of her candidacy while it's still on the launch pad) or else frames it as a Whitman/Poizner race; this poll should make it abundantly clear that moderate ex-Rep. Tom Campbell is in position to potentially win the primary (although he doesn't have the money of his opponents, which could hurt him down the stretch). It's also worth noting that Campbell matches up, a few ticks better, against the Democrats than Whitman or Poizner.
• NH-Sen: Joe Biden will be on duty to help Paul Hodes (who hasn't set the world on fire with his fundraising so far) at a DC fundraiser on Oct. 5.
• SC-Sen: Democrats appear to have a candidate with some financial heft to take on Sen. Jim DeMint next year. The Indigo Journal writes that Rock Hill attorney Chad McGowan recently told local Democrats that he'll be running full-time for the Senate nomination beginning in early October. (J)
• CA-Gov: Looks like the period of meditation on the Governor's race that Jerry Brown promised us didn't take very long: he's opening his exploratory committee today. Meanwhile, Meg Whitman managed to poach another member of the Steve Poizner camp; former state GOP chair and former Assembly minority leader Bob Naylor dropped his Poizner endorsement and switched to Whitman.
• NJ-Gov: Yet another pollster sees the same story developing in New Jersey (this time it's Quinnipiac). The race is tightening to within the margin of error, but it's not because Jon Corzine is getting much better (he's still not breaking 40); instead, Chris Christie is slowly deflating, while moderate independent Chris Daggett gains. Today's poll has Christie up 43-39-12, a definite improvement over last month's 47-37-9.
• VA-Gov: Creigh Deeds is finally playing one of his aces in the hole: Sen. Mark Warner, who generally polls as by far the most popular political figure in the state, cut an ad for Deeds and will be campaiging for him on weekends. Deeds also got an endorsement which, superficially, seems like a big coup, but isn't, really: former GOP governor Linwood Holton. (The moderate Holton is father-in-law to Tim Kaine and endorsed Barack Obama in 2008.)
• NH-02: It looks like ex-Rep. Charlie Bass is getting off the fence and moving closer to an effort to reclaim his old seat, which he lost to Paul Hodes in 2006 but will be an open seat in 2010. He'll be opening his exploratory committee tomorrow. (Although -- maybe this is a possible sign of ambivalence -- he says he's opening the committee because he needs somewhere by quarter's end to put all the unsolicited checks he's received lately, or else he'll have to return them.) He'll probably still face a primary against the more conservative 2008 candidate, Jennifer Horn, assuming he runs.
• NY-23: As expected, Gov. Paterson has set Nov. 3rd for the NY-23 special election, the same day as other elections in the state (such as the NYC mayoral race), and of course the gubernatorial races in NJ and VA. GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava also got an endorsement that falls into the "as expected" category: from the Main Street Partnership, the ideological caucus for the dwindling ranks of moderate House Republicans.
• PA-04, 08: Two sophomore Democrats in Pennsylvania both got Republican challengers. In the Pittsburgh suburbs' R+6 4th, Keith Rothfus, a Republican lawyer and former Dept. of Homeland Security official, will challenge Rep. Jason Altmire. (Apparently the NRCC's top recruit, state House minority whip Mike Turzai, has been balking so far.) Meanwhile, in the less challenging 8th in the Philly burbs, computer consultant Jeffrey Schott is slated to run against Rep. Patrick Murphy.
Jerry Brown (D): 44
Meg Whitman (R): 35
Some other: 3
Not sure: 18
Jerry Brown (D): 45
Steve Poizner (R): 32
Some other: 5
Not sure: 18
Jerry Brown (D): 44
Tom Campbell (R): 34
Some other: 6
Not sure: 16
Gavin Newsom (D): 36
Meg Whitman (R): 41
Some other: 5
Not sure: 18
Gavin Newsom (D): 36
Steve Poizner (R): 40
Some other: 6
Not sure: 18
Gavin Newsom (D): 36
Tom Campbell (R): 42
Some other: 6
Not sure: 17
(MoE: ±4.5%)
I certainly would have predicted that ex-Governor Jerry Brown was doing somewhat better than San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom vis-a-vis their Republican competition, but I wouldn't have guessed the disparity was so great that Brown is putting up double-digit victory margins while Newsom is losing to all three Republicans... yet that's what Rasmussen is telling us. Brown wins by a margin ranging from 9 to 13, while Newsom loses by a margin ranging from 4 to 6. The differences in performance among the three Republicans -- all, superficially, moderate Silicon Valley types -- are negligible.
Rasmussen doesn't give us any primary numbers, but all polls of the primary so far have Brown up, although some by a narrow margin and some with a wide edge (although no polling has been done since Newsom scored a Bill Clinton endorsement). Ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman has been accorded front-runner status on the GOP side, but it would be interesting to see if that's been affected by the recent pounding she's taken by the media over her almost-non-existent voting history. (In fact, it's worth noting that this sample was taken on the 24th, before the Sacramento Bee's story broke... and now the launch of Steve Poizner's new ad hammering on that point.)
Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 53
Chuck DeVore (R): 29
(MoE: ±4%)
Research 2000 takes a very thorough look at the big two races in California next year, checking out pretty much every possible permutation left. Although we've seen some rather alarming polls for Democrats in the last few weeks, Democrats seem to be holding their own in California, with ex-Gov. and current AG Jerry Brown holding an appreciable edge in the Governor's race (up 6 on the likeliest GOP opponent, ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman) and Sen. Barbara Boxer with 20-point leads on her competition.
San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom doesn't fare as well in head-to-heads -- Whitman edges him out by 1, while he beats the other GOPers by 1 -- and that's reflected in his favorables. He's the only one of the five gubernatorial candidates who's in negative favorability territory, at 40/42 (Brown, by comparison, is at 48/37). While the primaries have been polled extensively, the only previous poll that has looked at the general election in CA-Gov is a Lake Research poll from March that had both Brown and Newsom beating their GOP rivals by margins well outside the MoE, so it seems like some erosion has happened on the governor's side (especially with Newson). With Whitman's endless millions that she's signaled her willingness to spend, this has the potential to get closer as the race goes on.
On the flipside, R2K's numbers give a much wider spread on the Boxer/Fiorina matchup than the recent Rasmussen poll; R2K's numbers on this race are pretty close to what the Field Poll found in March.
Finally, the poll also asks about the fate of a same-sex marriage initiative that may be on the ballot in 2010. The initiative would narrowly lose, 48-47, but that's indicative of some progress, as the same sample voted 51-45 in favor of Proposition 8 (and thus against same-sex marriage) last year, so there's been some improvement just in the last half a year.
• TX-Gov: Holy crap, Kay Bailey Hutchison is running for Governor of Texas! Of course, everyone with a pulse has known this for most of a year, but it's now official: she's done exploring the race and formally launched her campaign yesterday. She also found a lot of cash under the couch cushions during all those explorations, as she put together $6.7 million during the first half of the year. Factoring in her $8 million transfer from her Senate account, she's sitting on about $12 million CoH. Her primary opponent, incumbent Gov. Rick Perry, raised $4.2 million in the year's first half (a lot, considering he couldn't raise during the legislative session) and has $9.3 million CoH.
• FL-Sen: Ordinarily, you probably wouldn't want to spotlight an endorsement from an unlikable jerk with a ridiculous name, but Marco Rubio is trying to rally the nationwide wingnut brigade to his financially faltering campaign ($340K last quarter), so he rolled out an endorsement from ex-House Majority Leader Dick Armey today.
• IL-Sen: Now that he's done holding his breath and turning blue until that nasty Andy McKenna would go away, Rep. Mark Kirk has announced that he'll announce that he'll announce that he'll announce his candidacy, or something like that, "in one week." Roll Call also has a look at the consternation that Kirk's messed-up rollout caused both local and national GOP figures, stepping on their attempts to crow "recruitment success."
Meanwhile, people are starting to wonder openly when if ever businessman Chris Kennedy is going to pull the trigger on getting into the Dem field. His hesitation is already landing him in legal hot water: a local police officer filed an FEC complaint against Kennedy for allegedly spending more than $5,000 on campaign outlays without actually having a campaign in place.
• NV-Sen: John Ensign (apparently emboldened by fellow C Street dweller Mark Sanford's seat-of-his-pants survival of his own affair) is proceeding full speed ahead, not just planning not to resign but to run for re-election in 2012. TPM wonders out loud if Harry Reid is one of the Dems who've urged Ensign to stay on board.
• PA-Sen: The NRSC finally officially endorsed Pat Toomey today. This comes hot on the heels of news that state Sen. Jane Orie (who was being chatted up by the NRSC last week) has decided against running against Pat Toomey in the GOP senate primary. Rumors abound that Rick Santorum, nursing some sort of grudge against Toomey, was the driving force behind the Orie boomlet. Meanwhile, Arlen Specter today announced a 2Q haul of $1.7 million, narrowly topping both Toomey ($1.6 million) and Joe Sestak ($1 million in his House account).
• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman is sitting on a ton of cash now, having added $15 million of her own money on top of $6.7 million in private contributions, bringing her total stash to more than $25 million. Her GOP primary rival, Insurance Comm. Steve Poizner anted up $5 million of his own money, along with $1.2 million in contributions, during that same period.
• CT-Gov: A strangely quiet fundraising period for Jodi Rell has some wondering if she's going to run for re-election. She raised $20,000 in the most recent quarter, with $71K CoH, outpaced by potential Democratic challengers SoS Susan Bysiewicz ($141K for the quarter) and Stamford mayor Dan Malloy ($147K).
• OH-Gov: Betcha didn't know that ex-Rep. John Kasich had an opponent in the GOP gubernatorial primary in Ohio: state Sen. Kevin Coughlin. Well, apparently no one else knew that either, and having gotten nowhere on the fundraising front in the face of party opposition, Coughlin bailed out yesterday.
• VA-Gov: Creigh Deeds beat Bob McDonnell in fundraising in June ($3.4 million for Deeds, $1.8 million for McDonnell), but he had to blow through a lot of that in the primary. McDonnell is sitting on a lot more cash on hand, with almost $5 million compared with Deeds' $2.7 million.
• CA-11: This is the first I've heard of this guy -- vintner Brad Goehring -- who's planning to challenge Jerry McNerney in the 11th. He's not getting off on the right foot, though, with the appearance of 2006 statements where he shrugged off the problem of 40% of his workforce being undocumented immigrants... not likely to help him much with the nativist core of what's left of the California GOP base.
• CA-32: In case you'd forgotten (and most likely you had; I know I did), the general special election for the race to fill the vacant seat left behind by Labor Sec. Hilda Solis is today. Today's election is an afterthought, given that the race was basically won in a heavily-contested May primary in this solid Dem district. Someone named "Chu" is guaranteed to win, although in all likelihood it'll be Democratic Board of Equalization member Judy Chu over Republican Monterey Park city councilor Betty Chu.
• FL-12: The Blue Dogs have already weighed in with their first endorsement of the cycle, endorsing Polk Co. Elections Supervisor Lori Edwards in the open 12th district to replace Rep. Adam Putnam, who's running for Florida Agricultural Commissioner.
• KY-St. Sen.: Gov. Steve Beshear is seemingly taking a page from Barack Obama, picking off Republican legislators and giving them secure appointive positions instead, opening up their seats for possible Democratic takeove. Sens. Dan Kelly and Charlie Borders were appointed to a judgeship and the Public Service Commission, respectively. Dems are optimistic about retaking both the seats, with state Rep. Robin Webb looking at Borders' seat in Kentucky's NE corner, and former state Rep. Jodie Haydon looking at Kelly's seat in Bourbon territory in the state's center. This will hopefully put a dent in the GOP's 21-16-1 edge.
• Census: Census Director Robert Groves was finally confirmed after the Dems used a cloture vote to break the hold on him, leaving him with only eight months to whip the Census into shape. Only 15 GOPers voted against cloture, including Richard Shelby and David Vitter, the ones who'd had the hold on the nomination, and some of the other dead-enders (Brownback, Bunning, Cornyn, Ensign, Sessions, etc.... although, interestingly, Coburn and Kyl voted for cloture). Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann continues her one-woman war on the Census, proposing legislation that would limit the number of question the American Community Survey (the annual supplement, not the 2010 full count) can ask.
• Polltopia: PPP is asking for your input on another state to poll, so let 'em hear it. The finalists are California, Iowa, and Louisiana.
• NC-Sen: Republican pollster Civitas poked at the Senate race, not doing head-to-heads but looking at favorables for Richard Burr and two of his likeliest challengers, SoS Elaine Marshall and Rep. Mike McIntyre. Marshall and McIntyre are little-known, with 12/7 favorables for Marshall and 13/10 and McIntyre (although he was at 38/12 in his district). The bad news for Burr? He's barely doing better than them, with 31/19 favorables (meaning 50% don't know him or have no opinion).
• NY-Sen-B: Marist dribbles out the Senate half of its newest New York poll today (Gov was yesterday), and it finds a super-tight race in the Dem primary in wake of yesterday's sorta-kinda entry by Carolyn Maloney: Maloney leads Kirsten Gillibrand, 38-37 (compared with a 36-31 Gillibrand lead in May). Gillibrand wins against both George Pataki (46-42, up from a 46-38 deficit last time) and Peter King (48-32). Marist doesn't do general election head-to-heads with Maloney, although for some reason they poll a GOP primary between Pataki and King (51-36 for Pataki) despite the decreasing likelihood that either of them run.
Also of interest: Bill Clinton will be appearing at a Maloney fundraiser scheduled for July 20. Clinton isn't wading into the race with an endorsement at this point, though; this was in the works long before Maloney announced her run, as payback for Maloney's 2008 primary support for Hillary Clinton, and he also headlined a Gillibrand fundraiser in March.
• PA-Sen: Pat Toomey got another endorsement from one of the more conservative members of Pennsylvania's House GOP delegation: PA-09's Bill Shuster.
• AL-Gov: The Democratic field in the governor's race in Alabama seems to be solidifying; the last question mark, Supreme Court Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb, announced that she won't be running. With a lot of establishment figures waiting on the fence to see if an alternative to Rep. Artur Davis and Ag Comm. Ron Sparks shows up, expect them to start choosing sides soon. Davis, meanwhile, has been staffing up with some key political players, adding Joey Ceci and David Mowery to his team (who managed the successful campaigns of freshman Reps. Parker Griffith and Bobby Bright).
• CA-Gov: Sure, California's an expensive state, but Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman have reported gigantic hauls even by the Golden State's outsized standards. Brown raised $7.3 million in the year's first half, while Whitman raised $6.5 million. Steve Poizner and Gavin Newsom raised huge sums and are still far behind -- Poizner raised $1.3 million and loaned himself another $4 million, while Newsom raised $1.6 million, much of it online.
• MN-Gov: The tradmed seems to be intent today on talking up Norm Coleman's next logical step as being running for Governor of Minnesota, although Minnesota reporters and politicians in the know are trying to point out the sheer ridiculousness of that idea. (If Norm's going to be doing any running soon, it's running away from the FBI, as they investigate his links to Nasser Kazeminy.)
• RI-Gov: The Democratic primary for the open Rhode Island Governor's seat was looking to be a three-way slugfest, but Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts yesterday announced that she would run for re-election instead of for Gov. Although she had started staffing up for the race, she couldn't have been encouraged by poll numbers which showed her at a disadvantage with likely opponents Treasurer Frank Caprio and AG Patrick Lynch.
• SC-Gov: Gov. Mark Sanford seems to have taken a few steps backwards this week. A snap poll from yesterday by SUSA now finds 69% of South Carolinians saying resign, as opposed to 28% saying stay. 63% say they have "no trust" in Sanford. Here's an interesting red flag: only 20% say Lt. Gov/party boy Andre Bauer is "completely prepared" to become Governor, with 38% saying "somewhat prepared" and 34% saying "not prepared."
• WI-Gov: Real estate developer and ex-Rep. Mark Neumann, who held WI-01 from 1994 to 1998 before losing narrowly to Russ Feingold, announced his gubernatorial candidacy yesterday. Neumann's entry had been widely anticipated; he'll face off against Milwaukee Co. Executive Scott Walker in the GOP primary.
• CA-45: With Rep. Mary Bono Mack having defected on the cap-and-trade vote, the rightosphere has been calling for her head. Their favored replacement, term-limited state Senator Dennis Hollingsworth, quickly said "no" to a primary challenge, so their wish-list has turned to ex-state Sens. Jim Battin and Ray Haynes and ex-state Rep. Bonnie Garcia.
• IL-14: A second GOP challenger got into the race against Rep. Bill Foster, although this guy doesn't sound like he'll pose much of a threat to Ethan Hastert for the nom. Jeff Danklefsen hasn't run for office before and is "maintenance manager for a property management company."
• LA-03: The Hill reported last week that Democratic efforts to find a replacement to Rep. Charlie Melancon have focused on state Rep. Gary Smith, who was going to run for the open seat in 2004 but deferred to Melancon. State Rep. Fred Mills was also interested, but state Rep. Damon Baldone, who might be the highest-profile candidate, is about to run in a special election for a state Senate seat and is unlikely to follow that with a U.S. House run.
• PA-06: With the 2nd quarter just wrapped up, look for lots of financial reports to start getting leaked. Here's a nice place to start: Doug Pike, in the 6th, is looking at a haul of over $500K for the quarter, thanks a recent D.C. fundraiser starring Allyson Schwartz and Patrick Murphy.
• WI-08: We're building up a backlog of Republicans trying to take on Rep. Steve Kagen. Businessman Reid Ribble jumped into the field, joining Door Co. Supervisor Marc Savard and Brown Co. Supervisor Andy Williams.
• WV-02: With some prodding from the DCCC, Gov. Joe Manchin's former general counsel, Carte Goodwin, is looking into challenging Rep. Shelly Capito Moore in the Charleston-based 2nd.
Jerry Brown (D): 46
Gavin Newsom (D): 26
(MoE: ±4.7%)
Here's the first poll of the California governor's primary on the Democratic side since LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa dropped out (although it's a Democratic pollster, it's not an internal). There aren't any trendlines so we can't see if AG Jerry Brown got a bump out of Villaraigosa's disappearing act (Brown, the former governor, is better known in southern California than his rival, SF Mayor Gavin Newsom), but Brown now has a convincing lead. Brown leads even more among voters 60+ (i.e. those old enough to remember Brown's first turn as Governor): 54-20. Newsom leads among the 18-to-39 set, 37-26.
There's one other interesting new tidbit in the Governor's race: Ventura County Supervisor Peter Foy says he's now "strongly" looking into the race and will decide within the next couple months. Your first response is probably: who? Well, Foy is coming from a small regional base (affluent suburbia west of Los Angeles), and is decidely money-impaired compared with mega-self-funders Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner. Here's the rub, though: Foy is a pro-lifer, and a doctrinaire fiscal conservative who helped lead the fight against Proposition 1A. Currently, the conservative movement has absolutely no horse in the race, with the primary field containing three pro-choice business/establishment conservatives (Whitman, Poizner, and ex-Rep. Tom Campbell). If movement conservatives unite behind Foy while the moderate vote gets split three ways, Foy could suddenly be a force to be reckoned with.
• AR-Sen: There seems to be a competition among Arkansas Republican Senate candidates to see who can make the biggest ass of himself. It was businessman Curtis Coleman's turn this time; yesterday, in reference to southeast Arkansas (where most of the state's African-American population is), he said you "might as well get a visa and shots" before heading down there. Not content to stop digging his own hole, today he explained that what he meant was "accentuate or maybe even celebrate the enormous diversity we have in Arkansas.... I love Southeast Arkansas and meant it only as a metaphor." Oh, well, if it's only a metaphor, I guess that makes it OK.
• DE-Sen: After Rep. Mike Castle made an inartful comment a few days ago ("They've asked me to run for Senate as a Republican. I don't know if I'm going to do that."), he went ahead and clarified that he isn't intending to switch parties.
• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio picked up a potentially useful endorsement in the GOP Senate primary: Rep. Jeff Miller, who represents FL-01 in the dark-red Panhandle, an area of the state where Rubio is little known so far but where his hard-right conservatism is likely to play well. Miller endorsed Charlie Crist in the 2006 governor's primary.
• MO-Sen: Here's another minor tea leaf that former Treasurer Sarah Steelman won't be getting into the Senate primary: prominent Missouri political operative Gregg Keller, who was reportedly set to work for Steelman, instead went to Connecticut to manage Tom Foley's CT-Sen campaign.
• NC-Sen: Here's some good news out of North Carolina: former state Senator and Iraq vet Cal Cunningham seems to be moving to get into the Senate race for the Dems. Cunningham described his efforts to put together a campaign in a post to his Facebook supporters group.
• NH-Sen: With establishment figures dithering on whether to get into the GOP Senate primary, businessman Fred Tausch is jumping into the void, launching a TV spot promoting his fiscal-discipline advocacy group, STEWARD of Prosperity. He says he's interested in the Senate race, although not ready to publicly declare.
• VT-Sen: It wasn't a done deal that 69-year-old Pat Leahy would be back for another term in the Senate, but he confirmed yesterday he'll be back for a seventh term.
• AZ-Gov: Former Democratic state party chair and 2006 Senate candidate Jim Pederson said today that he won't run for Arizona governor, despite earlier statements of his interest. This leaves AG Terry Goddard (who has said he "intends" to run) with a pretty clear shot at the Dem nomination; it remains unclear if Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, armpit-deep in a frustrating fight with her GOP-held legislature, will run for a full term.
• CA-Gov: Rep. Loretta Sanchez announced she won't be running for Governor but will seek another term in the House; she naturally became a topic of conversation with LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's exit from the race, leaving the Dem field without a SoCal, Hispanic, or female candidate. On the GOP side, Rep. John Campbell's defection from the Steve Poizner camp to the Meg Whitman camp was just the tip of the iceberg: three state legislators and a county chair just flipped.
• SC-Gov: State Rep. Nikki Haley has been the subject of breathless conservative hype over the past few months as the anti-spending candidate to replace Mark Sanford (and also Sanford's preferred choice for the job, if you read the tea leaves). See this pre-Sanford-implosion Politico piece from earlier this week to see what I mean. But with revelations that Sanford hasn't been able to keep it in his pants or on this continent (a snap SUSA poll finds 60% of state residents think he should resign, with only 34% saying stay in office), Haley has moved to distance herself from Sanford, scrubbing all traces of him from her website where he was once prominently featured. (J)
• UT-Gov: Soon-to-be Gov. Gary Herbert looks like he won't have a free ride at the nominating convention in the 2010 special election. Univ. of Utah professor Kirk Jowers, who reportedly had been offered the role as Herbert's Lt. Gov., is the subject of a draft movement and may challenge Herbert for the top job instead -- with Josh Romney (son of Mitt) as his LG. Rep. Jason Chaffetz appears to be in their corner.
• ID-01: Idaho pollster Greg Smith tested the approvals of local politicians, and Idahoans just like their politicians, gosh darn it, even that Demmycrat Walt Minnick (whose approval is 47/20, good news heading into a potentially very tough re-election). Governor Butch Otter has the most troublesome numbers, and even he's at 47/35.
• IL-07: Here's a potential open seat, although at D+35, not one we're going to have to sweat very hard. Rep. Danny Davis, who had been vaguely associated with the IL-Sen primary, now looks to be taking concrete steps toward running for President of the Cook County Board, forming an exploratory committee. Davis was runner-up in that race three years ago. This time, he says he has a poll giving him a 7-point lead over county commissioner Forrest Claypool, who was presumptive frontrunner but pulled out of the race last week. With over 5 million constituents, it seems like a pretty good gig.
• NY-23: New York county Democratic leaders set an initial timeline for finding a nominee for the upcoming special election to replace Rep. John McHugh. July 17 is the deadline for declaring interest.
• PA-03: With no GOPer left to challenge freshman Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, Elaine Surma formed an exploratory committee to consider a bid. With no elective track record, she's a senior agent with the state Attorney General's office.
• PA-15: Bethlehem mayor John Callahan's seeming change of heart about running against Rep. Charlie Dent comes after having been called by Joe Biden last week with promises of White House support in the race.
• VA-02, VA-05: Roll Call looks at the prospects for the Virginia freshmen. Ex-Rep. Virgil Goode is apparently close to making a decision on whether to try to wrest the 5th back from Rep. Tom Perriello, with state Del. Rob Bell or state Sen. Rob Hurt as backup plans. In the 2nd, none of the local elected GOP officials seem to be moving toward the race, and the GOP field is more a hodge-podge of various businessmen/veterans: Chuck Smith, Ed Maulbeck, Ben Loyola, and possibly Scott Rigell.
• IL-Sen: AG Lisa Madigan is still under a lot of pressure from inside the Beltway to move over from her preferred race (Governor) to the Senate race instead. Thing is, the pressure seems to be working (and the fact that Pat Quinn remains pretty popular also helps): she says she's "seriously considering it" and will decide within "four to six weeks" whether to run for gov, senate, or another term as AG.
• KY-Sen: SoS Trey Grayson is still treating Jim Bunning as undecided about running for a third term, despite the crotchety Bunning's many protestations, Abe Simpson-style, that he ain't dead yet. While saying that he has "no plans to run against him right now," Grayson says he'd have a better answer to the question "after next month, when Bunning makes a decision...." Still, he says "I don't suspect that (having to run against Bunning) would be a problem," if Bunning stays in the GOP primary. The remarks were made at a poorly-attended (as in less than 50) Grayson fundraiser in Corbin.
• MO-Sen: Rep. Roy Blunt can't catch a break. No sooner than professor Tom Schweich bailed out and former Treasurer Sarah Steelman's message discipline came completely unglued, along comes yet another likely primary challenger: state Senator Chuck Purgason, who formed an exploratory committee. It sounds like he'll be going at Blunt from the right (Purgason is known for his "country-western fashion sense and iron-clad fiscal conservatism," and said we must "stop the 'changing' of America").
• NC-Sen (pdf): Good polling news out of North Carolina, according to PPP: Generic Democrat leads Richard Burr, 41-38. (There's still the little matter of nailing down a candidate, of course.) Only 29% overall (and 49% of Republicans) think he deserves another term, while 49% say give someone else a chance. Burr's approval is 34/35, with a 31% "not sure," which is still crazily high for a sitting senator.
• NH-Sen: Senatorial speculation for the GOP in the Granite State has turned to AG Kelly Ayotte. (AG is an appointed position in New Hampshire; Ayotte was appointed by ex-Gov. Craig Benson, but retained by John Lynch.) Still, everything seems to be on hold until fall, when the younger John Sununu is supposed to make known his senate intentions. Dean at Blue Hampshire observes ex-Rep. Charlie Bass (another possible Senate, or NH-02, candidate) getting a little testy about having to wait for Sununu Jr. to make up his mind (or for Sununu Sr. to make up Jr.'s mind).
• NY-Sen-B: Rep. Carolyn Maloney keeps ratcheting up her attacks on Kirsten Gillibrand, focusing increasingly on character and credibility. She hit Gillibrand's "evolving" stances and said "She's, to my knowledge, never passed anything. She spends all her time fund-raising. I spend my time doing things." Meanwhile, Gillibrand rolled out the endorsements of 52 of the 62 Democratic Party county chairs in New York. That seems huge, but only half the population of New York state is accounted for, as they have yet to endorse in New York, Kings, Queens, Bronx, Richmond, and Suffolk Counties.
• CA-Gov: Rep. John Campbell from CA-48 in Orange County endorsed Insurance Comm. Steve Poizner a few months ago, but he recently dropped that endorsement and then this week endorsed ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman instead. Campbell's explanation is that when he first endorsed Poizner, Whitman wasn't in the race yet and he had never met her. (This Campbell, of course, is not to be confused with ex-Rep. Tom Campbell, who's the third wheel in the GOP gubernatorial primary.)
• LA-03, LA-Sen: GOP state Rep. Nickie Monica, who has recently met with officials at the NRCC, is telling his contacts that he's planning on running against Democrat Charlie Melancon. Meanwhile, faced with the prospect of a strong challenge and the looming uncertainties of redistricting, Melancon is still giving a race against GOP Sen. David Vitter a "pretty hard" look, according to a "Democratic insider." (J)
• NY-23: Republican state Senator Joe Griffo, who's based outside the district in Rome but whose turf overlaps part of the 23rd, said he won't run in the special election. For the Dems, veteran Danny Francis (who ran twice against McHugh in the 1990s) said he'll seek the nomination. Dem state Senator Darrel Aubertine shot down speculation that he'd fielded a call from Barack Obama about the seat, although he did cop to talking to DCCC recruitment guru Steve Israel about it.
• OH-15: '08 candidate/ex-state Sen. Steve Stivers says that he'll make up his mind on a rematch against Mary Jo Kilroy by the 4th of July, but Ohio Republicans apparently feel very confident that he'll jump into the race. (J)
• PA-06, PA-Gov: Rep. Jim Gerlach has set a deadline of "this summer" for deciding whether to jump into the 2010 governor's race -- although he certainly seems to be moving to do so, positioning himself message-wise as the only GOPer who's dealt with fiscal issues in a legislature. In the meantime, GOP power brokers are getting antsy that Gerlach's delay in announcing his plans are complicating their efforts to hold this D+4 seat (although GOP state Rep. Curt Schroder is already warming up in the bullpen, having opened an exploratory committee).
• Votes: The war supplemental passed the House 226-202 yesterday, with 32 Democrats and 5 Republicans breaking ranks. The GOPers fall under the 'moderate' umbrella: Cao, King, Kirk, Candace Miller, and John McHugh (for whom a 'no' vote would be awk-ward, as the incoming Sec. of the Army). The Dems are generally the most liberal few dozen, although with a few eyebrow-raising exceptions (Eric Massa, maybe most notably): Baldwin, Capuano, Conyers, Doggett, Donna Edwards, Ellison, Farr, Filner, Grayson, Grijalva, Honda, Kaptur, Kucinich, Barbara Lee, Lofgren, Massa, McGovern, Michaud, Payne, Pingree, Polis, Serrano, Shea-Porter, Sherman, Speier, Stark, Tierney, Tsongas, Waters, Watson, Welch, and Woolsey.
• PA-Sen: Seems like Joe Sestak cleared his Senate run with his family, as now he only has to run it by the Almighty: "It would take an act of God for me to not get in now," he said on Saturday. Meanwhile, the state's political establishment, led by Ed Rendell, feted Arlen Specter at the state party's quarterly meeting on Friday (with Sestak in attendance).
• FL-Sen: From sitting Senator to punchline in a few short years: Bob Smith's announcement that he's running for Senate again seemed to generate mostly just shrugs and giggles. Of course, part of the problem is that he's running in Florida instead of New Hampshire, where he looks to be barely a blip on the radar screen in the titanic Crist/Rubio faceoff. This may benefit Charlie Crist a bit by shaving off some of the die-hard conservative vote from Marco Rubio, but Smith in his announcement didn't even seem to have any ammunition to use against Rubio, saying only that he offers "strong political leadership" in contrast to Rubio's "wheeling and dealing." Meanwhile, Crist got hammered in a St. Petersburg Times editorial for his role in gutting Florida's growth management act, which damages his environmental credentials for the general.
• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand snagged two more endorsements from her former colleagues in New York's House delegation: Nydia Velazquez and Ed Towns. Rep. Carolyn Maloney continues to staff up for a potential challenge, though, and words comes that she's looking to hire Joe Trippi as strategist, and Mark Penn's polling firm (now there's an odd combination).
• IN-Sen: Indiana Republicans have located a challenger for Evan Bayh: 32-year-old state Senator Marlin Stutzman. While Stutzman probably doesn't have Bayh shaking in his boots, it seems like a way for him to grow his statewide profile for future endeavors.
• CA-Gov: Another California governor's poll bubbled up last week, from Probolsky Research for Capitol Weekly. They look only at the primary fields: former Governor Jerry Brown continues to lead the field at 24, while SF mayor Gavin Newsom is at 16 and LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is at 15. On the GOP side, "undecided" is running away with it, with 64%. Among the human candidates, here's a surprise: moderate ex-Rep. Tom Campbell leads at 13, leading the two more-highly-touted and richer candidates, ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman (10) and Insurance Comm. Steve Poizner (8).
• IA-03: Rep. Leonard Boswell may face a rematch with the guy he barely beat in the 1996 open seat race to take office: former state GOP chair Michael Mahaffey. IA-03 is a very different configuration now, though; it used to be a mostly rural district then, but now is centered on Des Moines (although Boswell still manages to find ways to get elected by narrow margins).
• TX-23: Rep. Ciro Rodriguez may face a primary challenge in 2010, from lawyer and Iraq vet Miguel Ortiz. Rodriguez and Ortiz are both from San Antonio, so Ortiz doesn't have the advantage of a geographical hook.
• FL-AG: State Senator (and former U.S. Senate candidate) Dan Gelber confirmed that he's running for Attorney General (against friend and fellow Senator Dave Aronberg). Gelber had also been considered for Lt. Gov., seemingly leaving Dems back at square one to fill that slot.
• FL-16: Speaking of Aronberg, with him out, St. Lucie County Commissioner Chris Craft seems to be DCCC's person of interest to take on freshman Rep. Tom Rooney. They've also talked to Craft's fellow Commissioner, Doug Coward.
• VA-Legislature: Here's another interesting look at our best chances of taking control of the Virginia House of Delegates in 2009, this time from our own diaries courtesy of Johnny Longtorso.
Dianne Feinstein (D): 38
Jerry Brown (D): 16
Antonio Villaraigosa (D): 16
Gavin Newsom (D): 10
John Garamendi (D): 4
Steve Westly (D): 2
Bill Lockyer (D): 1
Jack O'Connell (D): 1
Jerry Brown (D): 26
Antonio Villaraigosa (D): 22
Gavin Newsom (D): 16
John Garamendi (D): 8
Steve Westly (D): 2
Bill Lockyer (D): 2
Jack O'Connell (D): 2
(MoE: ±5.5%)
Meg Whitman (R): 21
Tom Campbell (R): 18
Steve Poizner (R): 7
(MoE: ±5.8%)
Jerry Brown (D): 27
Antonio Villaraigosa (D): 20
Gavin Newsom (D): 14
John Garamendi (D): 8
Steve Westly (D): 3
Jack O'Connell (D): 1
(MoE: ±5.7%)
Jerry Brown (D): 43
Meg Whitman (R): 27
Jerry Brown (D): 41
Steve Poizner (R): 30
Gavin Newsom (D): 40
Meg Whitman (R): 25
Gavin Newsom (D): 38
Steve Poizner (R): 29
(MoE: ±3.5%)
Two polls are out in the 2010 California governor's race, the big enchilada of all the gubernatorial seats. One is from Field, the gold-standard of California pollsters; the other is from Democratic internal pollster Lake Research (which doesn't have a candidate in the race). Field polls both primaries but not the general; Lake polls the Dem primary and some general head-to-heads. Taken cumulatively, the most likely result seems to be that Governor Moonbeam may well ride again, in one of politics' most surprising second (or third or fourth) acts.
The Field Poll does two different runs on the Democratic primary, and finds that were Senator Dianne Feinstein to run, she'd mop up the rest of the field. While she has been occasionally linked to this race, she hasn't made any visible moves toward running. Without Feinstein in the mix, AG Jerry Brown has a bit of an edge over Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. One interesting tidbit from the Field Poll is that young voters have no idea who Jerry Brown is (he was governor in the 70s, long enough ago that he's grandfathered out of California's term limits laws, allowing him to come back for more). Only 8% of 18-to-39 year-old voters support Brown, and 30% have no opinion of him.
On the Republican side, Field gives a small lead to former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who was a big McCain booster and seems to be staking out the party's right flank. Ex-Rep. Tom Campbell (who lost the 2000 Senate race to DiFi and hasn't sought office since then) does surprisingly well, considering how long he's been out of the spotlight; apparently the moderate wing of the California GOP is still alive and kicking. Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner is a distant third, although he may shoot up once his free-spending ways kick in, especially given that more than half the GOP voters are undecided.
Lake puts up very similar numbers in the primary as the Feinstein-free Field poll. As for the general, they run head-to-heads involving Brown and Newsom, and find the Dems in pretty good shape, winning each matchup by double digits. Undecideds are still high (in the 30% ballpark), as would be expected at this point, but a Dem pickup is looking like a real possibility, assuming the primary doesn't get too bloody.
