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: 11/2

by: Crisitunity

Mon Nov 02, 2009 at 4:20 PM EST

• FL-Sen: If anyone has to sweating the movement conservatives' takedown of the pre-selected moderate establishment candidate in NY-23, it's gotta be Charlie Crist. Here's one more thing for him to worry about: his job approval according to a new St. Petersburg Times poll is only 42/55. They don't have him in as dire straits against Marco Rubio in the GOP primary as a number of other pollsters, though -- Crist leads Rubio 50-28 -- but the ultimate indignity is on the question of whether respondents would choose Crist or Jeb Bush to lead Florida right now, 47% opt for Bush (with 41 for Crist). On the Dem side, Rep. Kendrick Meek leads newly-announced former Miami mayor Maurice Ferre 26-6.

• IL-Sen, IL-07: There a lots of interesting plot lines forming as today is the filing deadline in Illinois. But the big one is: what the hell is up with Patrick Hughes? The real estate developer was considered to be the right-wingers' go-to guy to against alleged moderate Rep. Mark Kirk in the GOP primary, but now rumors are swirling that he doesn't have the signatures to qualify. There also seem to be some major ball-droppings for progressives: there's nobody challenging Rep. Dan Lipinski in the primary in IL-03, and there's nobody, period, to go up against GOP Rep. Peter Roskam in the R+0 IL-06. In the 7th, where it's unclear whether Rep. Danny Davis will be coming back or not (he's filed for his seat, but also for Cook County Board President), he's facing primary competition from only one elected official: state Sen. Rickey Hendon (Cook Co. Deputy Recorder of Deeds Darlena Williams-Burnett is also a big name, but I don't think deputy recorder is an elected position). Hendon says he'll bail out and run for Lt. Governor if Davis sticks around.

Meanwhile, on the Senate front, state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is touting his own internal poll from GQR giving him a 3-point edge on Rep. Mark Kirk in a general election, 46-43. The same poll finds less-known Democrat former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman trailing Kirk 48-39.

• IN-Sen: Research 2000 (on behalf of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, rather than Kos) found last week that Blanche Lincoln was in serious trouble electorally and that her troubles would mount if she opposed health care reform. They also looked at Evan Bayh, and they found that, a) he's not in trouble (62/30 approvals, although no head-to-head test against his erstwhile opponent, state Sen. Marlin Stutzman), and b) a majority wouldn't be moved one way or the other by his health care actions.

• MA-Sen: The start of debates haven't done much to reshape things in the Democratic primary in the special election in the Bay State. AG Martha Coakley holds a 25-point lead over Rep. Michael Capuano, according to an R2K poll commissioned by local blog Blue Mass Group. Coakley is at 42 and Capuano at 16, with Stephen Pagliuca at 15 and Alan Khazei at 5. Only 52% of Coakley's voters are firm about it, though, but that's not much different from any of the other candidates.

• FL-Gov: That aforementioned St. Petersburg Times poll also looked at the governor's race, and they gave Democratic CFO Alex Sink her first lead in a while; she's up a single point on GOP AG Bill McCollum, 38-37. More trouble for McCollum: state Senator Paula Dockery, as threatened, now appears to be jumping into the Republican primary, which had been painstakingly cleared for him.

• MN-Gov: If a candidate falls in the Minnesota gubernatorial Republican field, does it make a sound? State Rep. Paul Kohls dropped out, having not gotten much traction according to recent straw polls. That leaves approximately eleventy-seven zillion Republicans left in the hunt.

• VA-Gov: He's dead, Jim. Four more polls on VA-Gov are out:
YouGov (pdf): McDonnell 53, Deeds 40
Mason-Dixon: McDonnell 53, Deeds 41
PPP (pdf): McDonnell 56, Deeds 42
SurveyUSA: McDonnell 58, Deeds 40

• MI-07: Unseated wingnut Tim Walberg -- who'd like to get his job back from freshman Dem Mark Schauer -- has some company in the GOP primary next year: attorney and Iraq vet Brian Rooney (the brother of Florida Rep. Tom Rooney) is getting in the race. It's not clear whether Rooney is any more moderate than Walberg, though; he's an attorney for the right-wing Thomas More Law Center, the theocons' answer to the ACLU.

• NY-23: A few more odds and ends in the 23rd. One more key Republican endorser working for Doug Hoffman now is Rudy Giuliani (like George Pataki, not the likeliest fellow you'd expect to see make common cause with the Conservative Party -- with neither of them having ruled out 2010 runs, they seem to want to be in good graces with the national GOP, who are all-in for Hoffman now). Rudy's crack team of robots is making calls on his behalf. Another possible useful endorsement: Watertown's mayor Jeff Graham is now backing Hoffman. Former candidate Dede Scozzafava, on the other hand, is now cutting robocalls on Democrat Bill Owens' behalf. Finally, here's an ill omen on the motivation front: sparse turnout was reported for Joe Biden's appearance on behalf of Owens.

• PA-06: One more Republican is getting in the field in the open seat race in the 6th: Howard Cohen, a consultant who is the former Revenue Secretary from the Dick Thornburgh administration decades ago. He'll face a financial gap against pharma exec Steven Welch, and a name rec gap against state Rep. Curt Schroder, though.

• AL-AG: One incumbent who looks badly endangered going into 2010 is Alabama's Republican Attorney General, Troy King. Having buddied up with the state's trial lawyers (thus angering the local business establishment) and also pissed off many local DAs by interfering in their cases, King has lost most establishment support in the upcoming GOP primary against Luther Strange. Two of Strange's biggest backers are both of the state's Senators, Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby.

• ME-Init: Two more polls on Maine's Question 1 (where "yes" is a vote to overturn the state's gay marriage law), both pointing to an excruciatingly close vote. PPP (taken over the weekend) sees it passing 51-47, while Research 2000 (taken last week) gives a tiny edge to "no," 47-48. (R2K also confirms that Olympia Snowe's numbers are way off; the once bulletproof Snowe now has approvals of 50/44.)

• NYC: Three more polls all show Michael Bloomberg with an easy path to a third term, beating Democratic comptroller William Thompson. Bloomberg leads 50-38 according to Quinnipiac, 53-42 according to SurveyUSA, and 53-38 according to Marist (pdf).

• Mayors: There are fresh polls in a few other mayoral races. In St. Petersburg, Florida, one of the most hotly contended races around, Bill Foster leads Kathleen Ford 48-44 according to SurveyUSA. (Foster leads among both blacks and conservatives.) The racially polarized race in Charlotte gives a small edge to the conservative white candidate, Andy Lassiter, who leads 50-46 over Anthony Foxx. And in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, all we know is that someone with a difficult-to-spell last name will be mayor. Matt Czajkowski leads Mark Kleinschmidt 45-44. (Czajkowski seems to be the conservative and Kleinschmidt the liberal.)

• State legislatures: In case there wasn't enough to focus on tomorrow, Josh Goodman points to five legislative special elections tomorrow. The big one is Michigan's 19th Senate district, which was vacated by Democratic Rep. Mark Schauer. Republican former state Rep. Mike Nofs may have an edge for the pickup against Democratic state Rep. Martin Griffin, at least based on fundraising. There are also Dem-held seats up in Alabama's 65th House district, Missouri's 73rd House district, and Washington's 16th House district (the reddest Dem-held seat in Washington), and a GOP-held seat in South Carolina's 48th House district. (UPDATE: TheUnknown285 points us to a whopping seven legislative seats up from grabs in Georgia, too, in his diary.)

• NRCC: Pete Sessions Deathwatch, Vol. 1? This seems odd, given that he's had some pretty good success on the recruiting front, but apparently the behind-closed-doors potshots are hitting NRCC head Sessions just as heavily as they did Tom Cole last cycle. The complaints aren't about recruiting, though, but rather about fundraising, where the NRCC is still lagging the DCCC despite the superficial conventional wisdom that Republicans come into 2010 with momentum, and about not keeping enough of a lid on all those nagging intraparty skirmishes that somehow only the blogosphere ever seems to notice.

• Polling: Mark Blumenthal has a thought-provoking piece on polling the cap-and-trade issue. The key problem: no one knows exactly what it is (reminiscent of polling the public option question, too).

• Voting: States are still trying to figure out what to do about the new federal law intended to make sure that military ballots from overseas get counted. At least a dozen states are now actively considering moving their September primaries up in the calendar to comply (including Minnesota, Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin).

SSP Daily Digest: 10/22

by: Crisitunity

Thu Oct 22, 2009 at 2:57 PM EDT

• HI-Sen: Congratulations to Senator Daniel Inouye, who today becomes the third-longest-serving Senator in history and, adding in his House tenure, the fifth-longest-serving Congressperson. The 85-year-old Inouye has been in the Senate for almost 47 years. Inouye passed Ted Kennedy today, and will pass Strom Thurmond in another eight months, but is still chasing Robert Byrd. (Unfortunately, Inouye may be spending his special day being a jerk, by trying to remove Al Franken's anti-rape amendment from the defense appropriations bill.)

• KY-Sen: Feeling the heat from Rand Paul in the GOP Senate primary in Kentucky, establishment choice Trey Grayson played the "you ain't from around these parts, are you?" card, calling himself a "5th generation Kentuckian" and Texas-born Paul an "outsider." (Of course, by implication, doesn't that make Grayson the... "insider?" Not exactly the banner you want to run under in 2010.)

• LA-Sen: David Vitter spent several days as the lone high-profile politician in Louisiana to not join in the condemnation of Keith Bardwell, the justice of the peace who refused to marry an interracial couple. Given the uselessness of his response, he might as well not have bothered -- Vitter's spokesperson still didn't condemn Bardwell, merely rumbling about how "all judges should follow the law as written" and then trying to turn the subject to Mike Stark's Vitter-stalking.

• AL-Gov: This is a good endorsement for Ron Sparks, but it's also interesting because it's so racially fraught: former Birmingham mayor Richard Arrington, the first African-American to be elected that city's mayor in 1979, endorsed Sparks instead of African-American Rep. Artur Davis Jr. in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Arrington puts it: "I think if we are ever to move forward, across racial lines in this state, we have got to begin to trust each other, work with each other, and I think Ron Sparks can be the kind of governor that helps to make that possible."

• FL-Gov: Rasmussen released part III of its Florida extravaganza, finding that Republican AG Bill McCollum leads Democratic CFO Alex Sink 46-35. (This is the same sample that had Marco Rubio overperforming Charlie Crist against Kendrick Meek.)

• IA-Gov: Ex-Governor Terry Branstad's Republican primary rivals aren't going to go away quietly. Bob vander Plaats attacked Branstad on his insufficient conservatism, ranging from sales tax increases during his tenure, choosing a pro-choice running mate in 1994, and even fundraising for Nebraska's Ben Nelson.

• NJ-Gov (pdf): One more poll out today, from Rutgers-Eagleton, finds Jon Corzine with a small lead. Corzine leads Chris Christie and Chris Daggett 39-36-20. This is the first poll to find Daggett breaking the 20% mark; also, with the addition of this poll to the heap, it pushes Corzine into the lead in Pollster.com and Real Clear Politics' regression lines.

• OR-Gov: Two different candidates have suspended their campaigns due to family health problems. One is pretty high-profile: state Sen. Jason Atkinson, who was initially considered to have the inside track toward the GOP nomination in Oregon but who had, in the last few days, been the subject of dropout speculation. (Could this mean that Allen Alley might actually somehow wind up with the nomination?) The other is John Del Arroz, a businessman who had put a fair amount of his own money into a run in the Republican field in CA-11. Best wishes to both of them.

• RI-Gov: While conventional wisdom has seen ex-Republican ex-Senator and likely independent candidate Lincoln Chafee as having a strong shot at capturing the state house by dominating the middle, he's running into big a problem in terms of poor fundraising. He's only sitting on $180K, compared with Democratic state Treasurer Frank Caprio's $1.5 million; that's what happens when you don't have a party infrastructure to help bolster the efforts.

• CT-04: While it's not an explicit endorsement, Betsi Shays, the wife of ex-Rep. Chris Shays, gave $500 to state Sen. Rob Russo last quarter. Russo faces off a more conservative state Senate colleague, Dan Debicella, for the GOP nod to go against freshman Rep. Jim Himes.

• IL-14: Cross out Bill Cross from the list. With Ethan Hastert and state Sen. Randy Hultgren probably consuming most of the race's oxygen, the former Aurora alderman announced that he wouldn't be running in the crowded GOP primary field in the 14th to take on Democratic Rep. Bill Foster after all.

• LA-03: Houma attorney Ravi Sangisetty announced his run for the Democratic nomination for the open seat left behind by Charlie Melancon. He's the first Dem to jump into the race, but certainly not expected to be the only one. He's already sitting on $130K cash.

• PA-11: After a long period of silence, Hazleton mayor Lou Barletta has re-emerged and sources close to him are saying it's "highly likely" he'll try another run at Rep. Paul Kanjorski, who narrowly beat him in 2008. Barletta is encouraged by the lack of presidential coattails and the primary challenge to Kanjorski by Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O'Brien -- although it's possible that, if O'Brien emerges from the primary, he might perform better in the general than the rust-covered Kanjorski.

• NJ-St. Ass.: If you haven't already, check out NJCentrist's diary, filled with lots of local color, on the upcoming elections in New Jersey's state Assembly. Republicans seem poised to pick up a couple seats in south Jersey, which would bring them closer but leave the Dems still in control.

• State Legislatures: Another fascinating graphic from 538.com, this one about the ideological makeups of various state legislatures. Apparently, political scientists have found a DW/Nominate-style common-space method of ranking all state legislators. The reason this is brought up is because of NY-23 candidate Dede Scozzafava, who it turns out is pretty near the center of New York legislative Republicans, not the flaming liberal she's made out to be, although that puts her near the nationwide center of all state legislators, because NY Republicans are still, believe it or not, pretty centrist on the whole. There's plenty else to see on the chart, including how Mississippi and Louisiana Democrats (who control their legislatures) are still to the right of New York and New England Republicans, and how (unsurprisingly, at least to me) California and Washington are the states with the simultaneously most-liberal Democrats and most-conservative Republicans.

• Mayors: In New York, incumbent Michael Bloomberg is holding on to a double-digit lead according to Marist, beating Democratic comptroller William Thompson 52-36 (with Thompson down from 52-43 last month). In Seattle, Joe Mallahan is opening up a lead over Mike McGinn according to SurveyUSA, 43-36, compared with a 38-38 tie three weeks ago. (The Seattle race is nonpartisan and both are very liberal by the rest of the country's standards, but Seattle politics tends to be fought on a downtown interests/neighborhoods divide, and this race is turning into no exception as the previously amorphous Mallahan is consolidating most of the city's business and labor support.)

• Nassau Co. Exec: Candidates slamming each other over ticky-tacky financial mistakes like unpaid liens is commonplace, but it's not commonplace when the unpaid liens add up to almost a million dollars. Republican Nassau County Executive candidate Ed Mangano has a whopping $900K liens against property owned by his family business. (Nassau County is the western part of Long Island's suburbs.)

• Fundraising: CQ has one more slice-and-dice of the third quarter fundraising information, listing the  biggest self-funders so far this year. Top of the list is Joan Buchanan, who already lost the Democratic primary in the CA-10 special election, who gave herself $1.1 million. In 2nd place is Republican Brad Goehring, running in CA-11 and self-funder to the tune of $650K; 7 of the list of 10 are Republicans.

FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Rubio Gains Ground on Crist

by: Crisitunity

Wed Oct 21, 2009 at 1:23 PM EDT

Kendrick Meek (D): 31
Charlie Crist (R): 51
Undecided: 14

Kendrick Meek (D): 36
Marco Rubio (R): 33
Undecided: 28
(MoE: ±3%)

Charlie Crist (R): 50 (55)
Marco Rubio (R): 35 (26)
Undecided: 12 (18)
(MoE: ±4.9%)

Alex Sink (D): 32 (34)
Bill McCollum (R): 36 (38)
Undecided: 27 (25)
(MoE: ±3%)

Bill McCollum (R): 43
Paula Dockery (R): 7
Undecided: 47
(MoE: ±4.9%)

There has been a general sense of alarm leaking out of the Charlie Crist camp in the last week or so, and it seems to have mostly to do with that alleged Chamber of Commerce poll that gave Crist only a 44-30 edge over Marco Rubio (although that poll has yet to be released). Well, the alarms will probably get cranked up a notch, now we have a public poll that shows almost the same thing: Quinnipiac's new Florida poll shows Rubio pulling within almost a close a margin, trailing Crist by 15. Although here, there are fewer undecideds and Crist is still over the 50% mark -- but given the trajectory of the two candidates, and Rubio's sudden fundraising competitiveness, Crist seems poised to continue losing ground. Crist may be able to take some comfort in his still-high favorables, though: 58/30 (although Rubio is liked too and has room for growth, at 24/11).

Although Quinnipiac has polled Florida a number of times, this is their first time running general election head-to-heads. The 20-point spread between Crist and Democrat Kendrick Meek isn't a surprise; it's right in line with Pollster.com's 50-31 average on the race. What is a surprise is the Meek/Rubio matchup, which Meek actually leads by 3. That's quite different than the 43-30 edge that Rubio enjoyed in August according to Rasmussen, who seem to be the only pollster who've been testing Meek vs. Rubio lately (although R2K found Meek beating Rubio 31-22 way back in January). I think it may be time for us to start rooting for the Club for Democratic Growth to get involved on Rubio's behalf.

The governor's race still looks pretty sleepy, with little movement from last time (although what movement occurred benefits Sink, who's down by 4 now), and lots of undecideds (in fact, an increasing number of them). Alex Sink is still surprisingly little-known, at 23/8, but she's Balloon Boy and Octomom rolled into one compared with state Sen. Paula Dockery, who looks poised to enter the Republican primary against Bill McCollum but comes in with favorables of 5/3.

RaceTracker: FL-Sen | FL-Gov

SSP Daily Digest: 10/15

by: Crisitunity

Thu Oct 15, 2009 at 4:39 PM EDT

• CT-Sen: After a mediocre fundraising quarter (of course, between prostate cancer and pinch-hitting at the helm of the HELP committee, he may have had better things to do), Chris Dodd is getting some high-level help. Barack Obama will appear on Dodd's behalf at a fundraiser in Connecticut next week.

• FL-Sen: Two very different pictures of where Charlie Crist's approval stands, from different pollster. Insider Advantage finds his approval at a puzzlingly low 48/41,and 55/38 among Republicans. (They didn't poll the primary or general.) On the other hand, a poll by Republican pollster Cherry Communications on behalf of the Florida Chamber of Commerce finds 62/28. Meanwhile, Charlie Crist's losing streak among the party base continued, as Marco Rubio racked up a big win with the Palm Beach GOP, winning their straw poll 90-17. (While most of the straw polls have happened in rural, teabaggy places, this is moderate, country club terrain, where Crist should play better.) Interestingly, ex-NH Senator Bob Smith, whose existence most people, me included, had forgotten about, pulled in 11 votes.

• NV-Sen: Facing bad poll numbers but armed with gigantic piles of cash, Harry Reid has already started advertising for his re-election. Despite his decades in office, he's running a TV spot basically intended to introduce himself to Nevada, seeing as how many of the state's residents have moved in since the last time he was elected in 2004.

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand reported another large cash haul this quarter, bringing in $1.6 mil and sitting on $4.1 mil CoH. Nevertheless, she still needs to work on introducing herself to her constituents (granted, there's a lot of them); a Newsday/Siena poll of Long Islanders find that she has a favorable of 23/27, with 50 saying they don't know.

• OH-Sen: Ex-Rep. Rob Portman doubled up on Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher in the money chase in Ohio, raising $1.3 million to $620K for Fisher. Portman will still need to get past wealthy auto dealer Tom Ganley in the primary, though, who's pledging to spend up to $7 million of his own money on the race, which could drain Portman nicely before he faces off against a Democrat. No word yet from Fisher's Dem opponent, SoS Jennifer Brunner, although the fact that she just replaced her campaign finance team can't be an encouraging sign.

• PA-Sen: This would be a big 'get' for Joe Sestak if he were running in Connecticut: Ned Lamont, whose successful primary defeat of Joe Lieberman in 2006 established some precedent for Sestak, gave Sestak his endorsement.

• CT-Gov: Jodi Rell is not looking much like a candidate for re-election, if her fundraising is any indication; she raised just $14K over the last quarter. The Dems in the race (who are running with or without a Rell retirement), Stamford mayor Dan Malloy and SoS Susan Bysiewicz, have each raised over $100K.

• FL-Gov: The poll paid for by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, mentioned above, also took a look at the Florida governor's race. They see GOP AG Bill McCollum beating Dem state CFO Alex Sink, 42-35.

• NJ-Gov: Rasmussen polls the New Jersey gubernatorial race again, and there's a pretty important distinction between their results with and without leaners pushed. Their topline numbers are 45 for Chris Christie, 41 for Jon Corzine, and 9 for Chris Daggett, a bit more Christie-favorable than what else we've seen this week. However, in Rasmussen's words, "when voters are asked their initial choice," it's a 38-38 tie between Christie and Corzine, with 16 for Daggett. This should superficially cheer Democrats, but it also points to some hope for Christie, in that it shows just how soft a lot of Daggett's support is. (Rasmussen also finds that 57% of Daggett's supporters say they could change their minds before Election Day.)

• WY-Gov: Gov. Dave Freudenthal is at least offering some sort of timeline on deciding whether to seek a third term, but we'll need to wait a long time. He says he'll let us know after the end of the next legislative session, in March; the end of the filing period is May 28. He also didn't offer much insight into when he'd set about challenging the state's term limits law in court (a challenge he'd be expected to win, but one that could be time-consuming) if he did decide to run.

• FL-10: The retirement speculation surrounding 79-year-old Rep. Bill Young isn't going to go away with his fundraising haul this quarter: only $4,500, with $419K on hand. He's also giving away money (to the tune of $10,000) to the NRCC, despite facing a strong challenge next year. Unfortunately, his Dem challenger, state Sen. Charlie Justice, had a second straight lackluster quarter of his own, bringing in $77K for $101K CoH.

• FL-19: A roundup from the newly-merged CQ/Roll Call looks at the quickly developing field in the dark-blue 19th, for a special election to replace the soon-to-resign Robert Wexler. The big question is whether Wexler throws his support behind state Sen. Peter Deutch; Deutch won Wexler's old state Senate seat (which covers more than half the 19th) in 2006 partly due to Wexler's endorsement. West Palm Beach mayor Lois Frankel is another possibility; so too are Broward County mayor Stacy Ritter and state Sen. Jeremy Ring, although their Broward County bases don't overlap as well with the 19th. Broward County Commissioner Ben Graber (who finished 3rd in the 1996 primary that Wexler won) is already in the race.

• LA-02: Um, what? GOP Rep. Joe Cao will be appearing with Barack Obama in New Orleans at several events today. While it's apparently customary for presidents to invite local lawmakers to appearances in their districts, it's also customary for members of the opposition party to decline. Cao, however, probably sees hitching his wagon to Obama as at least a faint hope of staving off defeat in this strongly Democratic district. Cao's fundraising numbers for last quarter were pretty good, with $394K raised, but his burn rate was terrible, churning through nearly all of it ($382K) with high costs for direct mail fundraising.

• NY-01: We could have a real races on our hands in the 1st, where Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop's Republican challenger Randy Altschuler reported $659K in the third quarter. Of course, $450K of that was from his own pocket, and a grand total of one donor was actually from within the 1st, with the bulk of the rest of the money coming from Manhattan.

• Census: David Vitter, who, with Robert Bennett, is leading the Republican charge to get the Census to ask respondents about their citizenship status, has decided to modify his amendment to this year's appropriations package after one of the academics who he was relying on said that such a measure would scare off respondents from participating in the census at all. Not that it would matter, since it's not likely to get an up-or-down vote, and Commerce Sec. Gary Locke already made clear that it's way too late to make changes to the 2010 forms, which have already been printed and shipped.

• Polling: PPP's Tom Jensen notes, that generally, Republicans aren't picking up any new voters; the main problem with the upcoming New Jersey and Virginia elections is that Democrats have disproportionately lost interest. If the 2008 voter universes still applied in NJ and VA, Democrats would be winning both races handily.

SSP Daily Digest: 10/12

by: Crisitunity

Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 3:11 PM EDT

• FL-Sen: The Kendrick Meek campaign is touting its own fishy poll that says that Meek leads Charlie Crist... among voters who know both of them. The lead is 45-43 for Meek among those 25% of the sample who know who the heck Meek is. In the larger sample, Crist is up 47-31.

• KS-Sen: Kansas Senate news three digests in a row? I'm as surprised as you are. Anyway, retired advertising executive and journalist Charles Schollenberger confirmed that he will run for the Senate. With seemingly no Dems higher up the totem pole interested in the race, Schollenberger may wind up carrying the flag.

• NC-Sen: It's not quite confirmed, but the rumor mill is churning up stories that youthful former state Senator and Iraq vet Cal Cunningham is moving to formally jump into the North Carolina Senate race. SoS Elaine Marshall is already in the Democratic primary field.

• PA-Sen: There's an unexpected fourth Democratic participant in the Senate primary all of a sudden: Doris Smith-Ribner, a recently retired Commonwealth Court (which apparently is one of two intermediate appellate courts in Pennsylvania; don't ask me why there are two) judge for two decades. Her presence could prove nettlesome to Rep. Joe Sestak, by eating a bit into his share of liberal anti-Arlen Specter votes in what's likely to be a close primary. ("Fourth," you say? State Rep. Bill Kortz is running too, and has been for many months.)

• AZ-Gov: He was probably seeing the same terrible polls that everyone else was, and ex-Governor Fife Symington decided to put the kibbosh on a gubernatorial comeback. Instead, Symington endorsed not the current Governor, Jan Brewer, but one of her minor opponents, former state GOP chair John Munger.

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman scored a victory of sorts with the publication of a story titled "Meg Whitman's voting record not as bad as originally portrayed." It turns out she was registered at several points in California in the 1980s and 1990s, but there's still no indication that she actually voted during this period.

Meanwhile, Whitman's primary rival ex-Rep. Tom Campbell may get a big leg up: rumors persist that he may get picked as California's new Lt. Governor (once John Garamendi gets elected to CA-10). I'd initially thought that was a way of scraping him out of the gubernatorial primary and giving him a door prize, but it could give him a higher profile and bully pulpit to compensate for his vast financial disadvantage as he stays in the race. Campbell was Arnold Schwarzenegger's Finance Director for a while, and they operate in the same centrist space, so maybe Ahnold would do him the favor? (Of course, he'd still have to survive confirmation by the Dem-controlled legislature, who might be reluctant to promote Campbell, who they rightly see as the most dangerous general election opponent.)

• FL-Gov: It had seemed like state Sen. Paula Dockery, who threatened repeatedly during the spring to run in the GOP gubernatorial primary, had faded back into the woodwork. However, she's front and center again today, saying that she's "leaning toward" running and giving herself a three-week timeline (she put off the decision because of her husband's surgery this summer). Another minor embarrassment for her primary opponent, AG Bill McCollum: the co-chair of his campaign, former state GOP chair Alex Cardenas, had to explain that, no, he didn't actually host a fundraiser for Democratic rival Alex Sink. (It was hosted by Democratic partners in Cardenas's lobbying firm.)

• NJ-Gov: Jon Corzine and Chris Christie have sufficiently reduced each other's statures that the state's largest newspaper, the Newark Star-Ledger, took what may be an unprecedented step, and endorsed the independent candidate in the race: Chris Daggett. I still can't see this giving Daggett the momentum to break 20%, but more Daggett votes are good, as they seem to come mostly out of the Christie column. Meanwhile, Chris Christie got an endorsement he may not especially want in the blue state of New Jersey -- from the Family Research Council (who also just endorsed Conservative Doug Hoffman over Republican Dede Scozzafava in the NY-23 special election). Also, Christie is living large after getting an endorsement that may carry more weight, from the New Jersey Restaurant Association.

• VA-Gov (pdf): There's one new poll of VA-Gov to report today: Mason-Dixon, and they come in with a 48-40 edge for Bob McDonnell over Creigh Deeds, closely tracking today's Pollster.com average of 51-43. The poll finds Deeds getting only 81% of the African-American vote (with 9% to McD), far too little, especially in combination with what PPP's Tom Jensen is seeing, as he teases that he's projecting abysmal black turnout of 12% in the coming election. At any rate, Deeds is now touting his underdog status in fundraising e-mails, and is alluding to more possible visits from Barack Obama in the stretch run.

• FL-20: Here's an understatement: Republican candidate Robert Lowry, hoping to defeat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz in this D+13 district, conceded it was a "mistake" to shoot at a target labeled "DWS" while at a Southeast Republican Club gathering at a gun range.

• MN-06: As state Sen. Tarryl Clark seems to be building a fundraising and labor endorsement edge, her primary opponent for the Democratic nomination, Maureen Reed, says she won't follow traditional decorum and abide by the DFL endorsement. Reed (a former member of the Independence Party) says she'll keep open the option of taking the fight all the way to the primary, a reversal of her position from months earlier (although from before Clark got into the race and Elwyn Tinklenberg left). (UPDATE: The Reed campaign writes in to say that the Minnesota Public Radio story that underpins this story is incorrect and that Reed never stated whether or not she would abide by the DFL endorsement.)

• NC-11: One reddish southern district where the Republicans are still at square one on recruitment is the 11th. Businessman Jeff Miller said that he won't challenge sophomore Dem Heath Shuler.

• NY-15: As ethics allegations take a toll against long-time Rep. Charlie Rangel, he's getting a primary challenge... from his former campaign director. Vince Morgan, now a banker, says "it's time for a change."

• OH-17: Republicans may have found someone to run in the 17th against Rep. Tim Ryan: businessman and Air Force vet Bill Johnson, who's now exploring the race and will decide in December. Ryan probably isn't too worried, as he's won most of his races with over 75%, in this D+12 district.

• PA-04: Pennsylvania Western District US Attorney Mary Buchanan is reportedly considering running as a Republican against Dem sophomore Jason Altmire. (Hopefully she isn't violating the Hatch Act too much while she considers it.) Buchanan was one of the USAs who weren't fired in the Bush-era purge (in fact, she allegedly helped consult on the list of those who were fired). State House minority whip Mike Turzai has been reputed to be the GOP's desired recruit here, but Buchanan's flack says that Turzai is focused on winning back GOP control of the state House in 2010 instead.

• PA-11: Attorney and hedge fund manager Chris Paige is the first Republican to take on Paul Kanjorski (or Corey O'Brien, if Kanjorski goes down in the Dem primary). Still no word on whether Hazleton mayor Lou Barletta is interested in yet another whack at the race.

• Supreme Courts (pdf): News from two different state supreme court races? Sure, why not. In Pennyslvania, there's another Dane & Associates poll out, of a hotly contested 2010 race for a state supreme court seat; Democrat Jack Panella leads Republican Joan Orie Melvin 38-35. Also, in Texas, Democrat Bill Moody, who came close to winning a seat in 2006 (better than any other Dem statewide candidate that year), will try again in 2010, and he has an interesting new campaign gimmick: he's going to tour the state in a big orange blimp.

FL-Gov/FL-Sen: Mo' Polls

by: DavidNYC

Wed Jul 01, 2009 at 12:02 AM EDT

Alex Sink (D): 49
Michael Arth (D): 4
Undecided: 47

Bill McCollum (R): 53
Paula Dockery (R): 4
Undecided: 43
(MoE: ±6%)

Alex Sink (D): 35 (34)
Bill McCollum (R): 41 (40)
Undecided: 24 (26)

Alex Sink (D): 43
Paula Dockery (R): 18
Undecided: 39
(MoE: ±4%)

Ordinarily I wouldn't be too surprised to see a random state legislator doing so poorly, but a Strategic Vision (R) poll showed vastly better numbers for state Sen. Paula Dockery. It's worth noting that the Ron Sachs PDF calls her "Paula Dockey" at least once. If interviewers used the wrong name, that could partly explain the differing results. (Reminds me of the story SUSA founder Jay Leve tells of once being surveyed about "Bill Parcells" - turns out the interviewer meant NJ Rep. Bill Pascrell.) The Washington Independent, by the way, describes Michael Arth as an "artist, developer, [and] activist."

M-D also tested various primaries for some downballot statewide races - AG (D & R), CFO (R), and Ag. Comm'r (R). All of those contests have, as you'd expect, very high undecideds and no candidate pulling higher than the teens, but the numbers may be of interest to serious Florida afficionados.

In other Florida news, the Club for Growth tested the waters for their newest pretty boy. Basswood Research (R) for the CFG (6/13-14, likely voters, no trendlines):

Charlie Crist (R): 51
Marco Rubio (R): 21
(MoE: ±4%)

Nothing new here, but at least the CFG is considering the race on behalf of Ru-ru-rubio. According to Roll Call, their ED "said the club has not yet made any decision about who it would endorse and has no time frame for when that decision might come. He did acknowledge that the club generally gets involved in races earlier rather than later." Earlier, please!

SSP Daily Digest: 6/9

by: Crisitunity

Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 3:43 PM EDT

• NY-Sen-B: Carolyn Maloney released an internal poll showing her with a not-worth-writing-home-about 34-32 "lead" over incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand. Surprise, surprise: After some message-testing business, Maloney shoots up to 49-25. The poll presentation has some pretty harsh words for Gillibrand... is Maloney really drinking her own kool-aid? (D)

• NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall, North Carolina's Secretary of State, sounds almost enthused at the idea of running against Richard Burr in a recent interview with the Dunn Daily Record. Saying it's a challenge that she "thinks I'm up to", Marshall says that she'll give the race more consideration once the current legislative session ends. (J)

• PA-Sen: There have been toplines for a Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll (taken for a labor 527) of the Pennsylvania Senate race floating around the interwebs for a few weeks, but Open Left snagged a copy of the whole memo. Highlights include Arlen Specter over Joe Sestak in the primary by a 55-34 margin. Specter leads a Generic Dem 50-37, and leads Sestak 50-42 after message-testing mumbo-jumbo, giving Sestak some room to grow. The poll also notes that almost one half of the Dem electorate is union households, making Specter's vote on EFCA that much more paramount.

• FL-24: First-term Democratic Rep. Suzanne Kosmas has her first GOP challenger: Winter Park City Commissioner Karen Diebel. A bare bones website hypes Diebel's "proven conservative leadership". (J)

• NY-23: New York Independence Party Chair Frank MacKay says that his party will endorse Democratic state Sen. Darrel Aubertine if he chooses to run for the open seat of outgoing GOP Rep. John McHugh. (J)

• SC-01: In an email to her supporters, '08 candidate Linda Ketner says that she won't seek a rematch against GOP crumb-bum Henry Brown next year. She informed two potential Brown challengers of her decision: Leon Stavrinakis, a state Representative from Charleston, and Robert Burton, a former member of the Board of Commissioners of the SC State Housing Finance and Development Authority. (J)

• NRCC/NRSC: A big fundraising haul for last night's joint fundraising dinner for the NRSC and NRCC, headlined by Newt Gingrich: $14.45 million, split between the two committees. As Politico observes, though, it was a flop from a messaging standpoint, as anything substantive that might have been said was overshadowed by the will-she-won't-she drama concerning Sarah Palin's appearance (she made a cameo after all, but didn't speak). UPDATE (David): It's worth noting that this was actually the smallest take in five years for this dinner.

• NYC-Mayor: Bloombo's re-elects stand at just 40-55 in a new New York Times/NY1/Cornell University poll. In June of 2005, he was at 48-44. However, his putative opponent, Comptroller Bill Thompson, clocks in with a microscopic 13-2 approval rating. Bloombleberry's been plastering the airwaves with ads for months, but it just doesn't feel like Thompson has really engaged this race at all. (D)

• AL-St. Senate: The Virginia primary is tonight's main course, but there's an tasty side dish in Alabama: a special election to fill the state Senate vacancy left behind by now-Rep. Parker Griffith in the 7th District, centered on Huntsville. Democratic state Rep. Laura Hall is considered to have a bit of an edge over GOP businessman Paul Sanford.

• ME-Legislature: Here's something you don't see everyday: the Maine House of Representatives endorsed abolishing itself (and the state Senate), and joining Nebraska in the land of the unicameral legislature, mostly in order to save money on overhead. When it comes up for a final vote, it'll need to pass by a 2/3s measure, though, and there weren't enough votes in the House for that, so this may not actually ever happen.

• NJ-Assembly: Newsroom New Jersey takes a quick look at where the hot races for control of the New Jersey Assembly will be in Nov. 2009. The greatest volatility seems to be on the Jersey Shore, as both parties are looking there (in the 1st and 2nd districts) for the likeliest flips. Dems currently hold the Assembly by a sizable 48-32 edge.

• Redistricting: OMGz! Did you know that there are sites on the series of tubes where new technology lets average political junkies get involved in the redistricting process? Rep. Lynn Westmoreland just found out about this worrisome new trend.

FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Crist Still Dominating

by: Crisitunity

Fri Jun 05, 2009 at 2:24 PM EDT

Kendrick Meek (D): 29 (26)
Charlie Crist (R): 59 (60)

Kendrick Meek (D): 30 (24)
Marco Rubio (R): 31 (26)
(MoE: ±2.8%)

Charlie Crist (R): 59 (54)
Marco Rubio (R): 22 (4)
Other: NA (33)
(MoE: ±4.5%)

Alex Sink (D): 39
Bill McCollum (R): 41

Alex Sink (D): 40
Paula Dockery (R): 34
(MoE: ±2.8%)

Bill McCollum (R): 44
Paula Dockery (R): 28
(MoE: ±4.5%)

Republican polling firm Strategic Vision takes a look at both the Senate and Governor's races in Florida. They also polled the Senate race in February, including a Crist/Meek matchup back when the notion of Charlie Crist actually switching over to Senate seemed rather fanciful. However, the numbers haven't really budged much since then, even though the field has started to solidify.

Rep. Kendrick Meek has made up a few points on Crist, but is still trailing Crist by 30, looking pretty insurmountable at this point. On the other hand, Meek vs. former state House speaker Marco Rubio is a dead heat (although the undecideds on that race are still tremendously high). In the GOP primary, Rubio has shot up, but not at Crist's expense. Instead, Rubio seems to have cornered most of the former "Other" vote, as the previous poll included Reps. Vern Buchanan and Connie Mack, and movement conservative voters seem to have dutifully gravitated to Rubio now that he's the right-wing's horse in the race. Rubio can expect to further improve as he gets better-known, but with Crist near 60%, that's an incredibly steep hill to climb.

There aren't any trendlines on the governor's race (which only recently became clear it would be CFO Alex Sink vs. AG Bill McCollum), but the 2-point lead for McCollum is very consistent with previous Sink/McCollum matchups, going all the way back to when it was assumed these two would be squaring off for the Senate instead. Strategic Vision also polls state Senator Paula Dockery, who's been making some noise this week about running in the primary that the state GOP thought they'd already cleared. Dockery doesn't turn out to be much of a factor right now, losing badly in the primary against McCollum and trailing Sink by 6 in the general, although her position might improve as her name recognition improves outside the I-4 corridor.

SSP Daily Digest: 6/1

by: Crisitunity

Mon Jun 01, 2009 at 3:06 PM EDT

• CT-Sen: Here's an inauspicious start to Merrick Alpert's primary challenge to Chris Dodd: the Democratic party committee in his home town, Groton, voted a resolution of support for Dodd. It also issued a pretty transparent slap at Alpert, deploring any hypothetical primary challenger's use of "echoing right wing talking points or by utilizing the conservative media echo chamber to slander Dodd." (Alpert's already done that.)

• FL-Sen: State Sen. Dan Gelber made it official (via Facebook) that he's dropping out of the Senate race, giving Rep. Kendrick Meek a clearer path. He's now considering the AG race against a crowded field including fellow state Sen. Dave Aronberg, or, more interestingly, joining the ticket as Alex Sink's Lt. Gov. candidate.

• MN-Sen: It was Minnesota Supreme Court hearing day in The Senate Race That Won't Die. Five of the court's justices heard an hour of oral arguments. Rick Hasen's interpretation of how the individual justices responded to the lawyers' arguments suggests a quick and possibly unanimous decision in favor of Franken.

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo did it again -- he publicly denied that he'll be running for Governor and maintained that he "plans" to run again for AG. (He did concede that primaries can be productive for the party.) While the idea of Cuomo giving up an almost-free shot at the governor's mansion seems ludicrous, maybe there's a kernel of truth to Kirsten Gillibrand's cryptic comments from last week that there would be no primary; at some point, if Cuomo says it enough times, we have to start taking him seriously.

• AL-Gov: Hangin' judge Roy Moore made it official this morning; he's running for Alabama governor. He joins four others in the hunt for the GOP nod.

• TN-Gov: Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey officially launched his gubernatorial campaign at midnight this morning (to kick off the third quarter of fundraising). He seems a bit overshadowed by Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam, Rep. Zach Wamp, and Shelby Co. DA Bill Gibbons, but has a solid base of support of northeast Tennessee.

• LA-03: Republicans seem to be making a full-court press on newly R+12 LA-03, even though Rep. Charlie Melancon (who didn't even have an opponent in 2008) seems likelier to remain in the seat than run for Senate. The NRCC has been courting state Rep. Nickie Monica, who has obliged by offering some public criticisms of Melancon. Ascension Parish sheriff Jeff Wiley was also on the wish list, but has taken himself out of contention.

• PA-11: Nobody's taking the heat off Rep. Paul Kanjorski in the 12th. First came news that Lackawanna Co. Commissioner Corey O'Brien and Scranton mayor Chris Doherty were interested in primary challenges; now it sounds like Hazleton mayor Lou Barletta, who came within 3% of Kanjorski in 2008, may be back for a third try. Barletta was seemingly considering the Lt. Gov. slot in 2010, but assuming AG Tom Corbett wins the gubernatorial nomination that job may go to someone from the Philly suburbs for purposes of ticket-balancing.

• DCCC: The DCCC launched an ad blitz against six vulnerable House Republicans today, hitting them with radio ads and robocalls for voting against the stimulus package by focusing on specific shovel-ready projects in each district. Targets are Don Young (AK-AL), Brian Bilbray (CA-50), Tom Rooney (FL-16), Thad McCotter (MI-11), Peter King (NY-03), and Charlie Dent (PA-15).

• Demographics: A new Gallup poll finds that only 11% of Republicans are Hispanics, African-Americans, or other non-whites. Considering that we're a few decades away from a country where whites no longer hold the majority, The Math seems to indicate a Republican Party that doesn't dramatically change its message is on the brink of permanent irrelevance.

SSP Daily Digest: 5/29

by: Crisitunity

Fri May 29, 2009 at 3:13 PM EDT

• NV-Sen: The Nevada GOP may be closer to landing a credible candidate to go against Harry Reid. State Senator Mark Amodei of Carson City (who's term-limited out in 2010) was unusually vocal on the senate floor in the session's closing weeks. When pressed in a recent interview, he said that if Rep. Dean Heller didn't run against Reid (which seems unlikely; Heller, if he moves up, is usually mentioned as a primary challenger to toxic Gov. Jim Gibbons), then he'd "consider" running.

• NY-Sen-B: Rep. Carolyn McCarthy endorsed Mayor-for-Life Michael Bloomberg for another term at the helm of New York City. As Daily Kos's Steve wisely points out, this may be an indicator she's not looking to run in the Dem primary; if she's going to do so, she'd have to run to Kirsten Gillibrand's left, but that would be a difficult case to make having just endorsed a Republican-turned-Independent for one of the state's biggest jobs.

• AL-Gov: State Treasurer Kay Ivey announced that she's joining the crowded field of GOP candidates for Governor (including college chancellor Bradley Byrne, who also announced this week, as the moderate option, and ex-judge Roy Moore as the nuclear option). Ivey, however, may suffer a bit from her role in the state's messed-up prepaid college tuition plan.

• IA-Gov: State Rep. Chris Rants has been traveling the state gauging support for a run at the GOP gubernatorial nomination. Rants, from Sioux City in the state's conservative west, served as majority leader and then speaker, but was replaced in leadership after the GOP lost the majority in 2006. Fellow Sioux City resident Bob Vander Plaats (the 2006 Lt. Gov. nominee) is expected to announce his candidacy soon as well.

• MN-Gov: Tim Pawlenty has deferred his decision on whether or not to run for re-election to a third term until later this summer. The decision may turn on who's more pissed at him after he decides whether or not to certify Al Franken -- the nationwide GOP base, or Minnesotans.

• OR-Gov: Former Gov. John Kitzhaber seems to be moving closer to a return to Salem, meeting with some of the state's insiders about steps toward a comeback. Ex-SoS Bill Bradbury, who's already in the running (and won't stand down if Kitzhaber gets in), confirms that Kitzhaber is "looking very seriously" at the race. Kitzhaber seems to be looking forward to a "do-over" now that there's a firmly Democratic legislature; he spent most of his two terms in the 90s playing defense against a GOP-held legislature.

• RI-Gov: Two of Rhode Island's key Democrats are taking steps to run for the open Governor's seat: AG Patrick Lynch and Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts. Roberts is staffing up with top-tier campaign staff, while Lynch said that he has "every intention" of running for Governor during a radio interview. (Treasurer Frank Caprio is also mentioned as a likely candidate and is sitting on the most cash, but hasn't done anything visible yet.) A Brown Univ. poll just released tested their approvals; Lynch was at 47/39 and Caprio at 41/24, while Roberts was in worse shape at 22/36. (A poll from March is the only test of the Dem primary so far, with Caprio leading with 30%, compared with 17 for Lynch, 12 for Roberts, and 13 for Providence mayor David Cicilline, who won't be running.)

• FL-02: State Senate Minority Leader Al Lawson has been attempting to primary Rep. Allen Boyd from the left, but party power brokers are encouraging him to switch over to the race for state CFO, being vacated by Alex Sink. With Senate President Jeff Atwater already running for CFO for the GOP, this would pit the parties' two Senate leaders against each other.

• IN-05: In this R+17 district, the primary's where it's at, and there's a whole herd of Republicans chasing Rep. Dan Burton, perceived more as vulnerable more for his age and indifference than any ideological reason. State Rep. Mike Murphy just got into the race. He joins former state Rep. and former state party chair Luke Messer, John McGoff (who narrowly lost the 2006 primary against Burton), and Brose McVey (who ran against Julia Carson in IN-07 in 2002).

• NM-01: It's looking there'll be a contested GOP primary to see who gets flattened by freshman Rep. Martin Heinrich in this now D+5 district. Former state party vice-chair and former Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce president Jon Barela is about to form an exploratory committee. (Given this district's 45% Latino population, Barela may be a stronger candidate for the general than funeral home director Kevin Daniels.)

• PA-06: Here's a good tea leaf that Rep. Jim Gerlach is making behind-the-scenes notifications that he's indeed bailing on his rapidly-bluening district. State Rep. Curt Schroder from rural Chester County (not to be confused with Oregon's Kurt Schrader), always considered to be the next GOPer to have dibs on this seat, has organized a campaign committee. Dems have journalist Doug Pike running in this race, but someone with more firepower may jump in once Gerlach makes it official.

• PA-07: For a few hours there last night, it looked like we were facing real problems in PA-07, a D+3 seat with a good Republican bench that will open up if Rep. Joe Sestak follows through on his threatened primary challenge to Arlen Specter. Former E.D. Pa. US Attorney (and before that, Delaware County DA) Pat Meehan was reported to be mulling a switch from the Governor's race, where he's probably lagging AG Tom Corbett in the primary (no polls have been taken, so who knows?), over to PA-07, giving the GOP a top-tier recruit. However, Meehan acted quickly to tamp that down and reaffirm he's running for Gov. TPM points to another potential GOPer, Steven Welch, founder of local pharma company Mitos Technologies; on the Dem side, as most everyone here knows, state Rep. Bryan Lentz is heir apparent.

FL-Gov/Sen: Mase-Dix Has McCollum Over Sink, Crist Crushing

by: DavidNYC

Tue May 19, 2009 at 4:40 PM EDT

Senate primary matchups:

Kendrick Meek (D): 26
Dan Gelber (D): 16
Undecided: 58

Charlie Crist (R): 53
Marco Rubio (R): 18
Undecided: 29
(MoE: ±6%)

Senate general election matchups:

Kendrick Meek (D): 24
Charlie Crist (R): 55
Undecided: 21

Dan Gelber (D): 22
Charlie Crist (R): 57
Undecided: 21
(MoE: ±4%)

Governor primary matchups:

Jeb Bush (R): 64
Bill McCollum (R): 13
Charles Bronson (R): 2
Undecided: 21

Bill McCollum (R): 39
Charles Bronson (R): 12
Undecided: 49
(MoE: ±6%)

Governor general election matchups:

Alex Sink (D): 34 (35)
Bill McCollum (R): 40 (36)
Undecided: 26 (29)

Alex Sink (D): 37
Charles Bronson (R): 29
Undecided: 34

Alex Sink (D): 34
Jeb Bush (R): 50
Undecided: 16
(MoE: ±4%)

The poll sample was 43D, 38R and 19I. I'm including the results of an early April Mason-Dixon poll as a trendline for the Sink-McCollum matchup, even though it was taken for a different client - the question wording was identical, and the sample size very similar.

FL-Gov: AG Bill McCollum (R) Announces Run

by: DavidNYC

Mon May 18, 2009 at 11:50 AM EDT

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum launched his fourth bid for statewide office in his hometown of Orlando on Monday, announcing he would try to keep the governor's office in Republican hands in 2010. ...

Since Gov. Charlie Crist's decision last week to run for the U.S. Senate instead of re-election, Republican political leaders hoping to avoid a primary have rushed to throw their support behind McCollum, 64, a 20-year former Central Florida congressman who ran for the Senate twice during this decade.

McCollum is the first major Republican to announce he would try to replace Crist, although Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Bronson of Osceola County has said he will decide this week whether he would also run.

Partisans with long memories will recall that McCollum was one of the House impeachment "managers" who led the infamous witchhunt against Bill Clinton. He also got beaten by Bill Nelson for the open seat Senate race in 2000, and then lost to Mel Martinez in the GOP primary four years later.

A Mason-Dixon poll released last month showed a tie game between McCollum and the likely Dem nominee, CFO Alex Sink, who of course just got into the race last week. SSP currently rates this race a Tossup.

FL-Gov: Sink Is In; SSP Changes Rating to Tossup

by: DavidNYC

Wed May 13, 2009 at 1:42 PM EDT

Today, I'm announcing I will be a candidate for Governor of Florida in the November 2010 election, and put my business experience and know-how to work restoring our economy.

This is great news for Florida Dems - this seat instantly rockets to the top of our big-state pickup lists. As such, the Swing State Project is moving this from a Safe R "Race to Watch" to Tossup.

FL-Sen, FL-Gov: McCollum Leads Sink By 1 (for Governor)

by: Crisitunity

Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 2:19 PM EDT

Alex Sink (D): 35
Bill McCollum (R): 36
(MoE: ±4%)

It seems like not that long ago we were looking at a potential Florida senate race between CFO Alex Sink and AG Bill McCollum. With Gov. Charlie Crist sounding more and more like he's moving to switch over to the Senate, causing the lower ranks on Florida's political totem pole to gravitate over to the governor's race, we may now be looking at a Sink/McCollum FL-Gov race instead, and that's what Mason-Dixon just polled. (In fact, if those numbers look vaguely familiar to you, it's because Quinnipiac did a head-to-head poll of a Sink/McCollum FL-Sen matchup in mid-January, and that poll also found McCollum 36, Sink 35!)

Mason-Dixon didn't poll head-to-heads on a Crist-centered Senate race (either GOP primary or general). However, they did ask whether voters would "consider" voting for him, for which the answers were 17% definitely, 50% consider, and 26% definitely not. There is one note of caution for Crist here, though: he gets an 18% "definitely not" from Republicans (compared with a 35% "definitely not" from Democrats). That could point to a very competitive primary with a more orthodox conservative opponent. With former House speaker Marco Rubio intent on staying in the race and highlighting Crist's stimulus-loving ways, it seems likely Rubio will be that opponent.

FL-Sen: Wide Open Race in Florida

by: Crisitunity

Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 12:52 PM EST

Alex Sink (D): 15
Kendrick Meek (D): 13
Ron Klein (D): 9
Allen Boyd (D): 8
Dan Gelber (D): 1
Don't know: 54
(MoE: ±4.7%)

Bill McCollum (R): 22
Connie Mack IV (R): 21
Vern Buchanan (R): 10
Marco Rubio (R): 6
Allan Bense (R): 2
Don't know: 39
(MoE: ±4.3%)

If the primary elections for the Florida senate race were held today, "Don't know" would sweep both nominations in a landslide. At this point, this is a name recognition test, and Floridians seem to have no idea who these candidates are. At any rate, there seems to be something of a hierarchy here: statewide officials (Sink, McCollum) fare best, then U.S. Representatives, with state legislative leaders down in no man's land.

On the Dem side, Kendrick Meek has the edge among current candidates. But assuming that he comes in with fairly high name rec from being in the state's largest media market, and that he's probably already consolidated the state's African-American vote, he may not have as much room to grow as the other candidates.

Unfortunately, this poll has a major wrinkle; it was in the field when Alex Sink announced that she wasn't going to be a Senate candidate, so presumably some respondents were operating under the assumption that Sink was a likely candidate while others knew that she wouldn't be. In fact, the only head-to-head Quinnipiac tried out involved Sink as the Dem nominee (McCollum 36, Sink 35, with 29 don't know). Here's hoping they try again soon with some other permutations.

FL-Sen: Sink Won't Run

by: James L.

Mon Dec 01, 2008 at 9:48 PM EST

Florida's chief financial officer, Alex Sink, has decided to run for a second term as CFO and forego a run against Martinez. She made the decision over the Thanksgiving weekend.

This is too bad -- Sink was probably our best bet to torpedo the hopelessly mediocre Martinez. It looks like she has her eye on the Governor's mansion when Crist is term-limited out of office in 2014.

Whoever runs in her place will likely be someone without statewide name recognition (e.g. Ron Klein), which will make this a bit tougher, but still doable with a good campaign. I wonder who Bob Menendez is calling tonight.

FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Sink to Announce Decision "Soon"

by: James L.

Tue Nov 25, 2008 at 2:08 PM EST

On the subject of politics, Sink promised a decision soon on her political future which could include running for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Mel Martinez in 2010, running for governor, or staying put, and perhaps preparing for a run for governor in 2014 when the office will be open.

"I'm going to make up my mind very soon," Sink said. "It's all about what's best for me, and what's best for the state."

As for Martinez himself, The Hill notes that he hasn't announced his intentions for 2010 (he will do so in January). While it may be unlikely, it wouldn't totally shock me if Martinez decided not to run for another term.

Alex Sink Seeking the Senate in Florida?

by: draftalex

Tue Nov 25, 2008 at 12:12 AM EST

It's pretty obvious that people are hoping that Alex Sink tosses her hat in the ring or higher office. The question we hope she's facing right now is which one: Senate or Guvna?

There are perhaps a few too many calls for Alex Sink to be our Senate nominee.  This morning, Blast Off! even called for her to run for Senate and forget about the governor's mansion.

At Draft Alex Sink for Governor the bias is pretty obvious. But, think for a second about why running for Senate wouldn't be as good as a move.

First, just in terms of personality and experience, Alex is perfectly suited to be governor. She's been an executive- and that's what a governor theoretically does (just don't look to Charlie for an example). Dan Gelber, Bob Wexler, Allen Boyd- these men are legislators- damn good ones, if I may. Their skills and interests fit the profile of a Senator more than Alex's do.

There is a crowded bench already. Alex would have to compete with the likes of Dan Gelber and Chris Korge, maybe Allen Boyd, or even Bob Wexler. Those are some serious players, who could all represent the state well and some will run if she gets in or not. Alex could win the primary and the general, but why go for Senate to when the bench is already so deep, so good.

Winning the senate seat back is going to be tougher than we imagine. Sure, it looks a lot easier than beating Charlie does, but we're two years out from the election- things change. Charlie should start to look more like a do-nothing, and Mel Martinez might decide to gracefully bow out, leaving the Republicans to nominate someone who could give us more of a challenge. In short, get excited about another Democratic senator, but don't bet money on it just yet.

While there's a crowded bench for Senate, there is literally no bench for governor- outside Alex Sink. If Democrats want to stop losing the state, then we can't cede races like the 2010 gubernatorial. We need to not only nominate a candidate, but we need to nominate a good one. Right now, no other Democrat is really dipping the proverbial toe in the water- no one, not even Rod Smith.

And, there's my peace.