SSP Daily Digest: 6/15

PA-Sen: Ex-Rep. Pat Toomey says that he raised $1 million in 60 days toward his Senate run, with more than 11,000 donors. It’s still a drop in the bucket compared with the bankrolls of Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak, but it ought to help dissuade anyone else from jumping into the GOP primary. Another tidbit that ought to discourage any Republican line-crashers: $5,000 of that money came from John Cornyn‘s PAC, suggesting that he’s done looking for another candidate and is bringing establishment power to bear behind Toomey.

FL-Sen: It’s not much of a surprise, considering they’re close neighbors, but Rep. Kendrick Meek nailed down the endorsements of two key members of Florida’s House delegation — Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Ron Klein — which will come in handy if he does wind up facing off against Corrine Brown in the primary.

LA-Sen: Democratic New Orleans city councilor Arnie Fielkow decided, after some speculation, not to wade into the Louisiana Senate race. More plausible would be a challenge to Rep. Anh Cao in LA-02, as Fielkow is well-known in NoLa but has no statewide presence, but Fielkow also declined that, leading to speculation he may be eyeing the next mayor’s race instead.

GA-Gov:  With an eye on Roy Barnes, Ed Kilgore takes aim at the claim that Georgia governors have a long track record of failure when it comes to comebacks. It turns out that past probably isn’t prologue. (D)

TX-Gov: We’re reluctant to ascribe a whole lotta meaning to the phrasing of this particular letter, but Kay Bailey Hutchison seems to be moving pretty explicitly toward making official her run for Governor. Glenn Thrush points to a letter sent to potential donors saying “I am running for Governor.”

AZ-05: Is Congress ready for its first gamer (or at least its first out-of-the-closet gamer)? Jim Ward, the former president of video game maker LucasArts, announced that he’ll be running for the GOP nomination to go up against Rep. Harry Mitchell. Ward brings a lot of wealth to the table, but he’ll have an uphill fight against former Maricopa County Treasurer David Schweikert, who lost the 2008 election to Mitchell by 9 points and is looking for a rematch.

TX-32: Dems have landed a good candidate in TX-32 to go up against Rep. Pete Sessions: Grieg Raggio, an attorney and husband to Judge Lorraine Raggio. The 32nd, in north Dallas, is still a red district but has seen rapidly declining GOP numbers, both for Sessions and at the presidential level, and is down to R+8.

NY-AG: Nassau Co. Exec Tom Suozzi published an editorial in the New York Times where he publicly discusses having changed his mind on the gay marriage issue (he’s now for it). With New York one of the few states where gay marriage has become an issue with majority support, Suozzi looks to be repositioning himself for, well, something (probably, as often rumored, Attorney General, but maybe Governor if Andrew Cuomo continues to dither).

Redistricting: The Hill has an interesting piece about redistricting; while it doesn’t delve into too many specifics, it does shed some light on what districts the GOP is rushing to try to take back before they get strengthened for the Dems (like Bobby Bright’s AL-02), and what districts are unlikely to draw top tier challengers because everyone is willing to sit back and wait for new open districts to pop up in 2012 (like Dina Titus’s NV-03).

Race Tracker: Benawu is already back doing what he does best: chronicling the Dems’ efforts to field candidates in all 435 districts. Right now, we’re still looking in 124 GOP-held districts (although, of course, it’s still early in the cycle). Check out the RaceTracker 2010 wiki for more.

14 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 6/15”

  1. It’s not documented, but the polygons just came up for me…

    I’m sure our ungerrymandering junkies need a new fix!

  2. Missed votes are often a leading indicator of retirement.  Sometimes, they are a result of serious illness or family emergencies.  The top individual for missed votes so far this session has been Ted Kennedy.  No surprise.  Kennedy has missed 95.7% of his votes.  Second on the list (exclusding those named for appointments by the Obama Administration is … Pete Stark.  Huh.  Stark has missed 50.2% of his votes.  Fellow Californian Gary Miller is next with39.8% and Californian and new mothere Linda Sanchez is fourth with 27.0%.

    Jay Rockefeller is 6th at 22.7%.  John Sullivan, an Oklahoma Republican from the House is 7th at 21.0%.  Sullivan checked in to the Betty Ford Clinic recently.  Running 8th is recently elected California House member John Campbell (19.2%).  Ninth is SC Governor hopeful Gresham Barrett. Tenth is another recent California electee Jackie Spier (16.2%).  What’s happening in California?

    Among those with surprisingly large numbers of missed votes are freshmen Tom Perriello (14.1%) and Joe Cao (9.9%).  Retiree to be Judd Gregg at 15.5% is expected.  Mike Johanns at 12.6% is not.

    I have a longer list but I really wonder about Stark.  Is he OK?  Perriello is another shocker.

  3. I’m impressed with him. He won a position that had been controlled by Republicans for as long as I can remember, and he’s done a great job running Nassau County, as far as I can tell, and retained popularity. My predictions have not always been reliable (I was proud to vote for Spitzer for Governor, and we know how that turned out), but I think he would have a decent chance of being a good and ethical Governor. And unlike Andrew Cuomo, he actually has a record of executive experience.

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