SSP Daily Digest: 1/21

CT-Sen: If you think the Chris Murphy/Susan Bysiewicz primary is an open-and-shut case, guess again: Ted Kennedy Jr.’s name seems to be getting a lot of mention now too. If the 49-year-old lawyer does get elected, if would bring the Kennedy-free interregnum in Congress to a close after only two years. Meanwhile, I don’t think anybody was expecting him to give up his leadership slot for a run, but Rep. John Larson has confirmed he’s not running for Senate, and isn’t endorsing… yet. Rep. Chris Murphy seems to know that this race, with its expensive media markets, is going to cost a lot of money; he’s putting a $10 million figure out there, although that of course could go even higher if he finds himself in a general election against Linda McMahon. Luckily for Murphy, MoveOn seems to be backing him up; while they didn’t explicitly endorse, they e-mailed their donor base on his behalf today. If he can corner the “netroots candidate” niche in the primary, obviously that’ll help him go a long way toward that money goal.

MI-Sen: Could Saul Anuzis, who just lost his RNC chair bid, wind up being the Michigan Senate nominee for the GOP in 2012? Apparently that’s an option on the table for him, although he tells Dave Catanese he hasn’t “ruled it out or in.” Anuzis is a primarily behind-the-scenes player, though, who’s never won an election before. At least that gives him that much in common with Tim Leuliette, the only other person to have expressed much interest so far. Also, this isn’t exactly Senate related, but here’s another Greg Giroux special: a database showing the Michigan governor’s race breakdown by current congressional district.

MN-Sen: Marty Seifert, the state Rep. who lost the 2010 Republican nomination to the further-right Tom Emmer, has declined to run for either the 2012 or 2014 Senate races, leaving the state GOP still casting about for anyone to go up against Amy Klobuchar. They’re still laying the groundwork for a hard run, though, already launching a new website trying to tar the often-moderate Klobuchar with the dreaded “liberal.”

NV-Sen: John Ensign confirms yet again that he’s running for re-election (at least for now), though he says he expects a primary challenge and will have difficulty regaining the voters’ trust. The main thing, though, he’ll have difficulty is regaining money… he raised only $19K last quarter for his campaign account. (His legal fees are another story: he raised $550K for his legal defense fund last quarter, and spending $97K of that on lawyers. Likely rival Dean Heller, for his part, said at a press conference that he’s keeping an eye on the race, but without a specific timetable for an announcement.

RI-Sen: One well-known name (at least locally) who does seem interested in the Senate race (which so far hasn’t drawn any takers) is Alan Hassenfeld, the former CEO of locally-based toymaker Hasbro. (Does that make him the real-life inspiration for Mr. Weed on the Family Guy?) At any rate, Hassenfeld is registered independent and contributed to and voted for the Moderate Party’s gubernatorial candidate last year, so he seems like he might be running on their line, not for the GOP.

VA-Sen: The rest of the Democratic A-list in Virginia seems to be shying away from the Senate race, meaning either Jim Webb is pretty certain to run again or else we’re in a world of hurt. Terry McAuliffe, who in the end acquitted himself well in the ’09 gubernatorial race, says he won’t run if Webb doesn’t (joining Tim Kaine in the “no thanks” pile). That’s not a surprise, in that McAuliffe’s interest in another whack at the gubernatorial race in 2013 is well-known.

LA-Gov: We’ve been seeing a lot of polls with strange configurations lately, and this one from Market Research Insight (not a pollster we seem to have any track record from) may take the cake. As one might expect, they find Bobby Jindal looking pretty safe for re-election, but they test him against both Mary Mitch Landrieu (as a D) and John Kennedy (as an R) in what, I assume, is supposed to be a jungle primary format (despite no indications from either Landrieu or Kennedy that they’re interested). At any rate, it’s Jindal 51, Landrieu 25, Kennedy 10. More generically, they find Jindal with a 49/40 re-elect number.

WV-Gov: Now this is highly unusual. Faced with a court mandate to hold a special election this year, acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (the main person wanting to kick the election back to 2012), has declared that the special election won’t be in November as one might expect, but rather on Oct. 4! The primaries will be held on June 20.

KY-AG: After some last minute rumors this week that he wasn’t going to run again, Jack Conway announced today that he’s filing for re-election as Attorney General and putting together a new campaign team. Needless to say, that’s a relief for those of us who want to keep building a bench in and contesting Kentucky.

Chicago mayor: There’s a new Chicago Tribune/WGN poll out of the mayoral race, and like other recent polls, it shows Rahm Emanuel with a big lead and continuing to climb, but still short of the 50% mark at which he could avoid a runoff. The poll finds him at 44, with Carol Mosely Braun (last seen sniping at Bill Clinton, telling him he’s “turning his back” on minorities) at 21, Gery Chico at 16, and Miguel del Valle at 7. Emanuel is also announcing his financial haul, which, as you might guess, is huge (Senate-sized, really): $10.6 million raised through mid-January. With that in mind, he’s sparing no expense when it comes to advertising, rolling out a $150K ad buy during the Bears/Packers game this weekend.

127 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 1/21”

  1. Not that I expect anything but a comfy win but that re-elect number isn’t particularly strong. I think it shows the mistake in assuming to much about Dems with so-so re-elect numbers in the Senate.

  2. I’m still firmly in the camp that Webb will NOT seek re-election, the man just plain hates his job. Allen open challenges at him haven’t pushed him into an announcement and I don’t think he cares a lick for who does what among state Dems. The guys basically a Democrat only because he hates Bush so it’s not like he’s going to “Take One for the Team”.

    So w/ Webb, Moran, Kaine & now Terry McAuliffe out that leave us with what? Connelly or Periello? World of hurt indeed.

  3. for Conway. I know he took the loss badly from everything I’ve heard but he really is a good AG and should have no trouble keeping his seat. Plus we don’t need to worry about AG when we have to defend Auditor and SoS and are playing offense with Agriculture Commissioner and SoS could be labeled as offense as well. It is very possible that we make a clean sweep of all statewide offices. Dems actually did really good in KY last year on the local level so KY looks to be bucking the realignment other southern states are facing.  

  4. Any polls on the race? I feel kind of good about it simply because we haven’t seen the shift on the local level that we’ve seen in say Alabama or Louisiana. The fact that its in 2011 also helps us since it makes it tougher to bring in national politics.  

  5. I’d really like to see Murphy in the Senate, and I’d worry that Kennedy might just split the vote and give the nomination to Bysiewicz. Could he run for Murphy’s House seat? (Granted, I’m not sure he lives in the same district, but it’s still doable.)

    Ted Jr. seems like a good guy and has real potential, but I really don’t like this whole idea that people should be able to parachute into high-level races based on their name alone.  

  6. MI-Sen: Let me ask, once again, why Stabenow is seen as so vulnerable if virtually nobody of any significance is jumping into the race? It’s certainly not the only thing in the world that’s a good indication, but it’s definitely a top one.

    LA-Gov: On the same note, why isn’t Jindal seen as vulnerable? He’s only barely better than most Senate Democrats when it comes to his re-elect numbers.

    Also, who might run against him? I realize it’s Louisiana, so our options might be fairly limited, and the ones that we do have might not be all that great, but it’d be nice to at least give him a race, if not win outright. Imagine winning one or both of Louisiana and Mississippi next year. It might–might–create a narrative of the Democrats being back on track electorally.

    VA-Sen: What’s the harm in Kaine saying he won’t run now but then reversing course if Webb decides not to run? It’s hardly the worst reversal in the world, and if there’s really nobody else, the inside pressure, from Obama and everyone else, would be enormous.

    KY-AG: I’m glad he’s staying in politics. He seems like a fairly reasonable person and, overall, not a half bad candidate. While I’d love for someone like Yarmuth to take on McConnell in 2014, Conway is almost certainly the better candidate.  

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