SSP Daily Digest: 4/16

NY-20 (pdf): There’s light at the end of the tunnel in the NY-20 count, and as we get closer, Scott Murphy’s numbers keep going up. This morning’s BoE tally gives him a lead of 167, following the addition of more votes from Columbia, Dutchess, and Warren Counties (all of which Murphy won on Election Day).

Apparently all Saratoga County votes are accounted for, except for 700 challenged ballots, which, thanks to yesterday’s court ruling, will be counted. (While Saratoga County in general is Jim Tedisco’s turf, the Tedisco camp’s heavy use of challenges of student votes suggests that these votes may include a lot of votes from artsy Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, which one would expect to lean Democratic.)

CO-Sen: Finally, a GOPer commits to the Colorado senate race against appointee Michael Bennet. It’s Aurora city councilor Ryan Frazier, who made his announcement while teabagging in Grand Junction. Frazier is 31 and African-American, so he brings an interesting backstory to the race, but it’s unclear whether his strength among conservative activists can overcome his otherwise low profile in the GOP primary (assuming anyone else bothers to show up).

FL-Sen: Quinnipiac takes another look at the Florida senate race; not much has changed since last time, although one noteworthy finding is that Floridians would prefer to see Charlie Crist remain as governor rather than jump to senate, by a 42-26 margin. That doesn’t stop him from crushing in the senate primary (Crist beats Marco Rubio and Vern Buchanan 54-8-8). Buchanan leads a Crist-free primary, while on the Dem side, Kendrick Meek narrowly leads Pam Iorio (16-15, with 8 for Ron Klein, 5 from Dan Gelber, and a whole lotta undecideds).

PA-Sen: John Peterson isn’t a make-or-break endorsement, but the former GOP representative from rural PA-05 said that he won’t support Arlen Specter’s re-election bid in 2010. He stopped short of endorsing Pat Toomey (Peterson supported Specter in the 2004 primary), but said it was time for Specter to retire. In other completely unsurprising endorsement news, the Club for Growth (of which Pat Toomey was president until several days ago) today endorsed Toomey’s bid. Laugh all you want, but Toomey will need all the financial help he can get; Specter hauled in $1.3 million in Q1 and is sitting on $6.7 million CoH.

TX-Sen: Our friends at Burnt Orange Report have a nice graph showing Bill White and John Sharp dominating the fundraising chase so far in the hypothetical Texas senate race. (The chart doesn’t include GOP heavyweights Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and AG Greg Abbott, who haven’t taken formal steps for the race, but whose cash stashes are state-specific, putting them back to fundraising square one if they ran for senate.)

CT-Sen: If Chris Dodd is going to win again in 2010, it’s going to be on the back of money, not popularity. Luckily, he still has lots of the former, as big-money donors aren’t being scared off by his poll numbers: he raised $1 million in the first quarter, with $1.4 million CoH.

MN-Sen (pdf): Minnesotans would like the madness to stop, and would like to have a 2nd senator. PPP finds that 63% think that Norm Coleman should concede right now, and 59% (including 54% of independents) think Tim Pawlenty should sign Al Franken’s certificate of election right now. (This should give Pawlenty some pause as to whether or not to create further delay in the name of partisan politics, as he’s about the only person left who can drag this out.)

MO-Sen: Roy Blunt raised $542K in the first quarter, only about half of what Robin Carnahan raised. Our JeremiahTheMessiah came up with the best possible headline for this story:

Carnahan Smokes Blunt… In Fundraising

GA-Gov: As reported in the diaries yesterday by fitchfan28, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle dropped out of the gubernatorial race, citing health concerns. Cagle was more-or-less front-runner, and his departure leaves SoS Karen Handel and Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine to slug it out for the GOP.

IL-10, PA-07: Two huge fundraising hauls (by House standards) from two candidates who may be looking to move up. Mark Kirk, who pulled in $696K in the first quarter, is supposed to decide soon whether or not to try for IL-Sen. (He has only $597K CoH, though, after burning through all his cash defending his seat in 2008. So he may just be raising hard in expectation of another top-tier challenge in 2010 in this blue district.)

Joe Sestak raised $550K in the first quarter, leaving him sitting on a mongo $3.3 million. Could this… plus his suddenly increased media presence, as he talks the defense budget and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell… be tea leaves that he may be the Dem who jumps into PA-Sen after all? (Sestak has previously declined, and he’s always been mentioned as an afterthought in this race after Allyson Schwartz and Patrick Murphy. But neither of them have made any moves, leaving Joe Torsella the only Dem challenger so far.)

Numbers: California’s Secretary of State office finally released its Supplement to the Statement of Vote, heaven for nerds. Now you can look up Presidential and Prop 8 votes not just by congressional district, but by state senate or assembly district or even Board of Equalization district.

68 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 4/16”

  1. My Congressional district, CA-38, voted for Prop 8 by 60%… Good to know I wasn’t imagining all those Yes on 8 sign in my neighborhood.  

  2. Isn’t conservative by Colorado GOP standards, and most certainly will be the “moderate” choice in the GOP primary for that seat, against Weld DA Ken Buck and whomever else jumps in.

    Frazier’s resume also includes a stint in the Navy, which he relied on heavily in his Aurora Council race. Politically, he’s anti-union (and was a public face for the “right to work for less” ballot measure, Amendment 47, in 2008), but is pro-choice and pro-civil union.

  3. Sestak would bring a lot of money with him but he’s my last choice of all the major Dem contenders mentioned. The rumors on capitol hill are that he way overworks his staff, bullies them and is just hard to work with. But it sure looks like he’s gearing up for a run.

    Also a bold prediction, Chris Dodd will win on election day by over 5 percent.  

  4. This is off topic, but has Roland Burris filled out a financial disclosure form or do appointments like  Burris,Kaufman and Bennet not have to fill one out unless they were to run and win re-election? I find value in some of the reports, others may disagree.  

  5. Suzan DelBene, the Darcy Burner eqse candidate who’s running for us seems to be doing pretty well so far.

    http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/ey

    According to CQ she’s loaned herself a pretty large amount of money while raising quite a bit as well. She should be able to do as well as Burner in fundraising even if she gets it from more traditional sources.

    Also noticed this article from a few weeks ago about her campaign team.

    http://www.nwprogressive.org/w

    She’s signed up Gregoire’s campaign manager to do the same job for her, hired Burner and Tester

    s media consultant and made other solid hires. She seems to be very serious about this. If Reichert keeps on voting against Obama’s agenda and DelBene keeps on running a good campaign this could be a real race.  

  6. Not sure if this has been mentioned yet but Chandler and Luallen are both officially out of the 2010 KY Senate race and both backed Jack Conway.  This should really help Conway in his primary with Mongiardo.  Though it could weaken Governor Beshear if Mongiardo gets embarrassed too badly.

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s

  7. Whoa.  This is certainly a pleasant surprise.  Now if only the state legislature can follow Gov. Paterson’s lead on thhis issue.  Sadly it will probably fall a good bit short in the NY State senate.

    http://www.surveyusa.com/clien

    Do you think same-sex couples should? Or should not? be allowed to marry in New York?

    Should 49%

    Should Not 44%

    Not Sure 7%

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