• CA-45: After years of letting California’s 45th district (the most Democratic-leaning district in California still represented by a Republican, where Obama won 52-47) lay fallow, the Democrats actually seem to have a top-tier (or close to it) challenger lined up. Palm Springs mayor Steve Pougnet just started a campaign committee for a face-off against Mary Bono Mack. The openly gay Pougnet has been mayor of the city of 40,000 since 2007.
• KY-Sen: Dr. Dan may get some company in the primary. 39-year-old Attorney General Jack Conway has announced “there’s a good chance” he’ll run for Senate in 2010. Subtexts in other quotes suggest that he’s been negotiating with Rep. Ben Chandler and Auditor Crit Luallen, who may be stepping aside for him.
• CO-Gov: Now this seems unexpected. Ex-Rep. Scott McInnis, after butting heads with more conservative elements in the state GOP and studiously avoiding the 2008 and 2010 senate races in Colorado, has chosen a much more uphill battle: he’s running for governor against Democratic incumbent Bill Ritter. He may still face a primary battle against up-and-coming state senator Josh Penry (who used to be McInnis’s press secretary).
• PA-Gov, PA-06: Jim Gerlach acknowledged in an interview that people have been soliciting him to run against Arlen Specter in the 2010 senate primary (which would turn it into moderate/moderate/fiscal wingnut/religious wingnut chaos). However, he’s still charging full speed ahead on his gubernatorial bid instead.
• MI-12: Here’s one of the least likely places you could imagine for a heated primary, but it may happen. State senator Mickey Switalski will challenge 14-term incumbent Sander Levin in this reliably Dem (65-33 for Obama) district in the Detroit suburbs. (To give you an idea how long Levin has been around, he’s Carl Levin’s older brother.) This doesn’t seem to be an ideological challenge as much as Switalski is term-limited out of the state senate in 2010 and needs somewhere else to go.
• CA-10: San Francisco city attorney analyst (and former political editor for the San Francisco Examiner) Adriel Hampton has announced his candidacy for the open seat being vacated by Ellen Tauscher. What may be most memorable about this is that his may be the first ever candidacy announcement made by Twitter; he faces long odds against state senator Mark DeSaulnier (who won’t announce until Tauscher’s resignation is official).
• New Dems: One other musical chairs item left in the wake of Tauscher’s resignation is who takes over as the chair of the New Dems. The New Dems have five vice-chairs, but it looks like the hyper-ambitious Joe Crowley has enough support nailed down to take command bloodlessly. The CW is wondering whether this will complicate Crowley’s efforts to join House leadership (he lost a caucus vice-chair bid in 2006), but my question is what the heck is a New Dem doing in NY-07 (which went for Obama 79-20)?
• FL-20: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz told the Miami Herald on Saturday that she successfully battled breast cancer over the past year. We wish her good health as she continues her recovery. (D)
• Maps: For those of you who enjoy seeing maps breaking things down by congressional districts, here’s a new one from real estate site hotpads.com: which CDs have the highest foreclosure rates.
Awesome. The more top notch LGBT candidates the better, and just from skimming his bio Pougnet seems pretty good. Not to mention that his family pictures are to die for.
If Mr. Pougnet does succeed in winning this seat would he be the first openly gay congressman from California?
I want to say yes but I’m not 100% sure
So says Progressive Punch.
That’s crazy about Wasserman-Schultz. Is it just me or did noone have the slightest clue about her battle with cancer? My mom has the same thing several years ago. That’s a tough thing to keep a lid on for so long. Best wishes to her.
Now I feel bad about criticizing her lack of going all out against the south FL repubs last year.
maybe he’s noticed what others have, that pretty much all governors are getting dragged down by this crisis to an extent, and he’s hoping that by next year Ritter is beatable, whereas now he is not.
As for Kentucky, I figure both Mongiardo and Conway are fairly conservative by national standards, but any more info on who is less conservative? It’s often hard to judge for people like them who are in positions (L.G. and A.G.) where they don’t have to take controversial stands.
I thought Tancredo was running too
Are Republican leaders assuming that Specter is doomed or useless to them and that Gerlach has a better chance of pulling it off than Toomey?
Because I doubt that. Gerlach’s never won comfortably and Toomey had a more moderate profile before he ran statewide. If Gerlach has to win a competitive Senate primary, he’s going to have to say some pretty stupid things, and he’ll get hammered for them.