Tag: WY-Gov

• CT-Sen: Where’s the New York Times when you need them? At least we have the Post to go there: way back when she was applying for an appointed seat on Connecticut’s Board of Education, one of Linda McMahon’s selling points was that she had a degree in education. Nope, it quickly was revealed that her degree was in Freedom French (which, to my mind, is a lot harder to parse away through semantic obfuscation than “in Vietnam” — I mean, this is just a flat-out lie). Jodi Rell still picked McMahon for the board.

• IL-Sen: Where’s the New York Times when you need them, Part II? Mark Kirk has had to admit that previous claims about his military experience weren’t “precise,” when it turned out that the “Naval Intelligence Officer of the Year” award went to Kirk’s entire unit, not himself as stated on his website’s bio.

• TX-Sen: Remember when gubernatorial candidate Kay Bailey Hutchison promised to resign her Senate seat as soon as she tied up those last few legislative loose ends? After dragging that out to finish her term instead, now she’s making noises about just continuing on like nothing ever happened and running for another full term in 2012. Questions remain as to whether she’d attract high-profile primary competition if she stayed; would-be competitors would have to be heartened by her weak performance in the gubernatorial primary.

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman pretty much ended her viability as a candidate in the general election with her closing argument ad for the GOP primary, where she demands border crackdowns and opposes “amnesty.” (In fact, check out the photo at Politico’s link; one picture says more than 1000 words could about Pete Wilson handing the Prop 187 turd torch to Whitman. UPDATE: Oops, photo not there anymore, but see here.) To make sure the message gets across to those least likely to be enthused about that, the California Nurses Association is running a Spanish-language ad on Hispanic radio stations that replays her comments.

• MI-Gov: This endorsement isn’t exactly a surprise, seeing as how Andy Dillon is widely disliked by Michigan’s public employee unions, but still it’s an important building block for Virg Bernero. The Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest teacher’s union with 155K members, gave its nod to Lansing mayor Bernero in the Democratic gubernatorial primary; Bernero also has the endorsement of the AFL-CIO, which includes the UAW.

• NY-Gov: Has anyone ever had to confirm to the media that “no, I’m not dropping out,” and then actually gone on to win a race? Steve Levy seems intent on being the first to try to do that. With the mellifluously-named M. Myers Mermel on the verge of getting the backing of the Queens GOP, the GOP/Conservative field is basically collapsing into chaos in the wake of the infighting at the Conservative Party convention, where Levy and Carl Paladino backers forced a placeholder (Ralph Lorigo) onto the Con primary ballot in hopes that Rick Lazio doesn’t win the GOP convention. Paladino’s camp is even talking up the possibility of creating a whole different “Tea Party” ballot line. There’s now also talk of creating a new ballot line out of whole cloth coming from state GOP chair Ed Cox of all places, as a means of helping the GOP’s preferred candidates circumvent the Conservative Party’s preferences.

• SD-Gov: Polling the fast-approaching (June 8) GOP gubernatorial primary in South Dakota has, oddly enough, not been a high priority for any pollsters, so money may be our main guide here. Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard is the clear winner by that criteria, having raised $1.65 mil over the cycle, more than double the $700K of next-best state Sen. majority leader Dave Knudsen. Interestingly, though, South Dakota is the only non-southern state to use runoffs, and with three other candidates in the running, those two may find themselves facing off again in late June.

• WY-Gov: Our long national nightmare is over: we have a credible Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Wyoming. State party chair Leslie Petersen took one for the team and filed the paperwork to run in the Democratic primary on Aug. 17. The Natrona Co. party chair, R.C. Johnson, had said she’d run if no one else did, so I suppose the state chair running when no one else did is, uh, something of an upgrade from a county chair. The Jackson-based, 69-year-old Petersen (assuming she gets past the several Some Dudes in the Dem primary) will face one of not one but four strong GOPers in November.

• CA-45: Rep. Mary Bono Mack and her opponent, Palm Springs mayor Steve Pougnet, are on the same stage today to celebrate the new Palm Springs Airport control tower. Both were proponents of the construction project and will no doubt try to claim their share of the credit, although Bono Mack has the slight problem of having voted against the stimulus package that paid more than half the costs of the project.

• PA-12: Turnout numbers seem to contradict the GOP’s excuses about how they would have won the special election in the 12th if they hadn’t gotten swamped by a surge in Dem turnout motivated by the Sestak/Specter primary. Turnout in the 12th for the special election was 135K, compared with 203K in the 12th in the 2006 general election.

• WA-03: Here’s a surprise: state Sen. Craig Pridemore, who’d been carrying the liberal flag in the Democratic primary in the open seat race in the 3rd, is prepared to drop out. Pridemore had been lagging on the financial front compared with self-funding establishment choice Denny Heck (who now has the Dem field to himself), but that hadn’t been a deterrent before and it seems like that wasn’t what spurred the dropout. Instead, it was leaked over the weekend that the Washington Education Association was prepared to back Heck, and without the state’s biggest union on his side, Pridemore didn’t have much a route to getting over the top.

• WI-07: It looks like the careful field-clearing for state Sen. Julie Lassa in the Democratic primary in the open seat in the 7th wasn’t entirely successful. She’ll still have to face Joe Reasbeck in the Dem primary. Reasbeck, an author and consultant who doesn’t seem to have held office, seems to be at the Some Dude end of the spectrum, though. He’s announcing his campaign kickoff with a ganja break at Superior’s Richard Bong Museum.

• New Hampshire: SSPers will no doubt enjoy this… a Blue Hampshire blogger has calculated 2004/2008 PVI for each of New Hampshire’s 299 voting wards, not only putting together tables but also a slick map.

• Polltopia: PPP’s latest nugget unearthed from their crosstabs is that Democrats are still holding onto moderates pretty well, contrary to what conventional wisdom has been asserting. Tom Jensen finds that Dems are leading among self-identified moderates in all the key Senate race around the country. (The problem, of course, is that there are more self-identified conservatives than liberals, which accounts for GOP leads in a number of these races.)

• History: Here’s a very interesting bit of history from Arkansas writer John Brummett, looking at the remarkable parallels between the Blanche Lincoln/Bill Halter race, and the long-forgotten 1972 Democratic primary in Arkansas where upstart David Pryor almost knocked off long-serving conservative Democrat John McClellan.

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal just ended his presser, and it was forceful and an attempt to go back on the offensive. (Reid Wilson‘s tweet sums it up pretty well: “Shot: Dick Blumenthal’s press conference. Chaser: Mark Sanford’s press conference. Study in opposites.”) He admitted to misspeaking on “in Vietnam,” but went after the NYT for the implied impugning of those who served stateside. Good damage control, but we’ll have to wait a few days to see if it takes. The local establishment seems to be taking a wait-and-see attitude, too, as Joe Lieberman is publicly saying he’s still undecided on the race (recall, though, that Blumenthal endorsed Ned Lamont, and Lieberman tends to be one who holds a grudge); the DSCC, though, is cranking things up defending Blumenthal.

Meanwhile, the GOP has been taking credit for funneling this oppo research to the Times… however, after initially taking a premature victory lap around the ring bellowing with arms raised, the Linda McMahon camp has suddenly pulled earlier references to feeding the info to the NYT off its website.

• FL-Sen: Billionaire Jeff Greene is going up with not one but two different introductory TV ads, calling himself a job-creating outsider. Looks like he’s serious about spending some major cash on his rather quixotic bid in the Democratic primary,.

• KY-Sen (pdf): One last poll sneaked across the finish line, from Republican pollster Magellan (not working on either candidate’s behalf). In their poll of the GOP primary, they find, consistent with most pollsters, a big edge for Rand Paul; he leads Trey Grayson 55-30. PPP has some pretty tantalizing tidbits of cat fud that they found in the crosstabs of their GOP primary poll, though. Grayson supporters, i.e. establishment Republicans who probably secretly like their earmarks, really, really, don’t like Rand Paul. Grayson supporters give Paul 23/53 favorables, and only 40% of them say they’ll vote for Paul, while 43% flat-out say they won’t vote for him.

• WA-Sen: While the Glenn Thrushes and Chris Cillizzas of the world seem to have some inside information that leads them to say that Dino Rossi is on the precipice of announcing his Senate run, there’s just nothing in the local press that seems to bear that out. Instead, all we’ve got is a lot of lower-level Republicans getting impatient and starting to take each their frustrations out on each other. Clark Co. Commissioner Tom Mielke sent around an e-mail to various other state GOPers saying that Rossi’s dithering is angering the base and hurting Republican chances of picking up the seat. The Seattle Times somehow got ahold of the e-mail and a bunch of responses from other insiders, if you want a glimpse behind the state GOP’s curtain. Another insider, Mathew Manweller, pointed out that Mielke has an axe to grind as a Don Benton supporter, but also told the Times over the weekend that “Dino probably has to make a decision here and let people know within a week or so, or the milk is going to sour.”

• WI-Sen: As expected, wealthy businessman Ron Johnson formally announced yesterday that he’s getting in the GOP primary to go against Russ Feingold, joining three other never-before-elected rich guys. Wondering how Johnson made his fortune? Just one word: plastics.

• IA-Gov: In case the ideological fault lines in the GOP gubernatorial primary in Iowa couldn’t get any clearer, Mitt Romney announced he’s endorsing Terry Branstad for a return engagement. In fact, this may say more about Romney’s plans than anything, as he seems to be trying to monopolize the sane/establishment wing of the party for 2012 against a Palin/Huckabee split among the nutters.

• NY-Gov: The Conservative Party is trying once again to upstage the Republicans in New York; their latest move involves moving their nominating convention up to May 28, three days before the GOP nominating convention. They’re committed to backing Rick Lazio, and this is a move designed to force the GOP’s hand into backing Lazio as well, rather than party-switching Steve Levy, in order to avoid a NY-23-style split between the GOP and the Conservatives.

• WI-Gov: Looking for some traction in the GOP primary, Mark Neumann is accusing Milwaukee Co. Exec Scott Walker of “working part-time” so he can campaign. (Does any officeholder not work part-time in the months leading up to an election?) Meanwhile, there was a big-time Walker walk-back, after he initially voiced displeasure with Arizona’s anti-illegal immigrant law and then got deluged with negative comments on his Facebook page. Now suddenly he’s for it, saying he changed his mind after talking to the Arizona state senator who proposed it.

• WY-Gov: Well, this is progress… I guess. Natrona County Democratic chair R.C. Johnson says she’ll take one for the team and run for Governor on the Democratic line if no other viable candidate does. (The state party convention came and went last weekend without any takers.) Don’t bowl us all over with your enthusiasm, R.C.!

• HI-01: Three of Hawaii’s Democratic ex-Governors (John Waihee, George Ariyoshi, and Ben Cayetano) put out coordinated statements urging voters to, whatever else they might do, not vote for Charles Djou in the messed-up special election. Waihee said Djou winning would be a “nightmare.”

• SC-05: Well, this is more than a little tasteless: the NRCC issued a statement referring to “Amnesiac John Spratt” and accusing him of having “completely forgotten” who he’s working for. Spratt, of course, recently revealed that he’s in the early stages of Parkinson’s Disease, and his opponent, Mick Mulvaney, has carefully steered clear of turning that into a campaign issue. Have no fear, Mick, the NRCC’s always willing to do what you aren’t.

• VA-05 (pdf): So what’s it like being in the World of Hurt? Pretty good, at least according to his own internal poll. Robert Hurt claims a POS poll gives him 35% of the vote in the GOP primary, with his nearest rival, Ken Boyd (the other non-teabagger in the race) lagging at 10%. The assorted teabaggers accumulated together account for another 9%.

• Things in General: CQ has a moderately interesting article today on other pending anti-incumbent primaries. Mostly I’m including it because one quote lingered with me, and I wanted to blockquote it for future reference, as a useful bit of perspective for anyone who gets a little too worked up about whatever’s being hyperbolically, breathlessly being reported on in the news any given day:

“We overreact to everything here in Washington,” said longtime Democratic media consultant Steve Murphy.

• FL-Sen: Remember the good ol’ days of 2009, when Charlie Crist’s huge cash advantage would make him inevitable even if insurgent Marco Rubio somehow caught on with the teabagger set? Yeah, I’m having trouble remembering too. Rubio just brought in $3.6 million this quarter, the best of any candidate reporting so far. (Crist has yet to report, and even if he loses the quarter may yet lead in total cash.) Rubio may be getting himself into some trouble, though, with the all-important senior demographic in Florida, though, as his recent comments about changing Social Security (by, among others, raising the eligibility age) may not sit well with the state’s 3.5 million beneficiaries.

• IL-Sen: Looks like the biggest fundraising news today is coming from the GOP side of the aisle: Mark Kirk had a strong quarter, too, as he pulled in $2.2 million, leaving him with $3 million in the bank.

• NY-Sen: With all the state’s second-tier Republican talent interested in taking on Kirsten Gillibrand, where they might at least have some hope of an upset, no one’s signing up for the truly quixotic task of taking on Chuck Schumer in the other Senate race. That may change, as political consultant Jay Townsend is talking about stepping out from behind the curtain and trying his hand as a candidate. Townsend is currently working for Nan Hayworth’s campaign in NY-19.

• WI-Sen: A new Republican is stepping forward to run in the primary for the right to take on Russ Feingold… and, no, it’s not Tommy Thompson. Dick Leinenkugel, a former state Commerce secretary (an appointed position), plans to enter the race soon regardless of whether or not Thompson gets in. (Cillizza says, as far as Thompson goes, he’ll decide by early May and “most informed speculation seems to suggest he will take a pass.”) If Leinenkugel’s name is somehow evocative of hungover collegiate Sunday mornings, he’s from the family that owns the similarly-named brewery.

• GA-Gov: A sudden late entrant to the already-crowded Republican field in the Georgia governor’s race is bringing a lot of his own money with him. Ray Boyd is a wealthy real estate executive, and he kicked off his campaign by writing himself a $2 million check. He promises to reach out to the state’s teabaggers for support. The newest Insider Advantage poll of the GOP primary field doesn’t include Boyd; it finds Insurance Comm. John Oxendine with a solid lead at 26. Ex-Sos Karen Handel is at 18, ex-Rep. Nathan Deal is at 9, state Sen. Eric Johnson is at 5, and “Other” racks up 11, with 31% still undecided.

• MD-Gov: Ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich officially kicked off his campaign to get back his old job from Martin O’Malley in November. The DNC, however, is trying to tie Ehrlich today to his former #2 man, who’s gone on to rather overshadow Ehrlich for the last few news cycles: ex-LG and current RNC boss Michael Steele.

• MI-Gov: There’s another EPIC-MRA poll of the Michigan governor’s race, suggesting they’re going to be polling pretty frequently. This time, they find the likeliest matchup, Democratic state House speaker Andy Dillon vs. Rep. Peter Hoekstra, goes to Hoekstra, 40-33 (one month ago Hoekstra led 41-37). Mike Cox beats Dillon 43-34 and Rick Snyder beats Dillon 42-30, while Lansing mayor Virg Bernero loses to Hoekstra 42-29, to Cox 44-30, and to Snyder 42-26. Dillon leads the Dem primary 22-15 (with 11 for Alma Wheeler Smith), while Hoekstra leads the GOP primary at 27, with Cox at 21, Snyder at 15, Mike Bouchard at 13, and Tom George at 3.

• NV-Gov: Here’s some strategic thinking from the camp of Reid the Younger. The Committee to Protect Nevada Jobs (headed by Rory Reid’s consultant Dan Hart) is running ads bolstering incumbent Gov. Jim Gibbons and attacking GOP primary rival Brian Sandoval (who’ll provide a much more difficult opponent for Reid than the thoroughly-trashed Gibbons).

• RI-Gov: The Association of Democratic City and Town Chairpersons — the umbrella group for the Dem party chairs of each of the state’s 39 municipalities — issued endorsements for a number of key races. Maybe there’s some tension between them and the state party, as they endorsed Treasurer Frank Caprio for the Governor’s race (instead of AG Patrick Lynch) and in RI-01, Providence mayor David Cicilline (instead of former state party chair William Lynch, brother of Patrick). They also endorsed Jim Langevin in RI-02, where he faces a primary challenge from a state Rep.

• WY-Gov: Democrats in Wyoming seem to have moved somewhere back behind square one in their search for a gubernatorial candidate. Their seeming best bet in the wake of Gov. Dave Freudenthal’s decision not to go for re-election, state Sen. Mike Massie, has decided to run for state superintendent of public instruction instead, where he’ll face incumbent GOPer Jim McBride.

• DE-AL: The NRCC has to be happy to get something of an upgrade in the open seat race in Delaware, shaping up to be their likeliest loss in the House. Michelle Rollins, a wealthy philanthropist, has confirmed that she’ll run. She hasn’t run for office before, but the DCCC already started attacking her several weeks ago, indicating they take her (or at least her wallet) more seriously than the Some Dudes already running. Former Lt. Gov. John Carney is the Democratic candidate, and has had a long head-start on the race.

• MA-09: Progressives looking for a primary challenge to Stephen Lynch (in the wake of his “no” vote on HCR) will have to look somewhere other than Needham town meeting member Harmony Wu; she announced via Facebook that she won’t be running.

• MI-01: Seems like Rep. Bart Stupak got his feelings hurt after taking a serious pounding from the left, from the right, and from pretty much all points in between during his last-minute obstruction of the health care reform passage. He’s saying that, although he has the signatures prepared for another run, he’s not ruling out retirement this year. Assuming he runs again, he faces a primary from the pro-choice left as well as a general election challenge from angry teabaggers on his right. If he does retire, Menhen is already on top of it in the diaries, listing some potential replacement candidates.

• NY-23: Paul Maroun, a Franklin County Legislator who got passed over by local GOP heads in favor of Dede Scozzafava in the special election in the 23rd, had been planning to run in the primary this year, but just decided against it. That leaves only two remaining contenders, Doug Hoffman (who ran on the Conservative Party line last year and is still doing his part to cheese off the local GOP), and self-funding investor Matt Doheny.

• PA-15: Bethlehem mayor John Callahan keeps on being one of the Dems’ few bright lights among its challengers this cycle, pulling in $320K this quarter, with $825K CoH. For more numbers, Reid Wilson’s out with today’s fundraising wrapup at the Hotline, with other numbers worth checking out including everybody in PA-Gov and FL-Gov.

• DNC: Michael Steele rolled out the RNC’s gaudy committee fundraising numbers early as a means of distracting the media from, well, everything else that’s happening at the RNC. Unfortunately, that kind of backfired, as the DNC put out numbers that topped the RNC’s already-high numbers. The DNC pulled in more than $13 million in March (compared to $11 million for the RNC), showing (via the HCR victory) that nothing succeeds like success.

• RNC: Speaking of the RNC’s numbers, here’s an interesting accounting trick that’s just come to light: the RNC had a deal going with the Michigan GOP to give money back and forth to each other, in order to inflate the RNC’s fundraising numbers. Not really the day that Michael Steele would have chosen for this news to come out.

Ever take the week off, and come back to find your inbox full of spam?

AL-Gov (3/29, likely voters):

Artur Davis (D): 33

Bradley Byrne (R): 50

Some other: 9

Not sure: 9

Artur Davis (D): 36

Kay Ivey (R): 43

Some other: 12

Not sure: 8

Artur Davis (D): 35

Tim James (R): 49

Some other: 10

Not sure: 7

Artur Davis (D): 44

Roy Moore (R): 40

Some other: 11

Not sure: 6

Ron Sparks (D): 33

Bradley Byrne (R): 43

Some other: 11

Not sure: 13

Ron Sparks (D): 33

Kay Ivey (R): 39

Some other: 15

Not sure: 13

Ron Sparks (D): 34

Tim James (R): 38

Some other: 13

Not sure: 14

Ron Sparks (D): 40

Roy Moore (R): 35

Some other: 15

Not sure: 10

(MoE: ±4.5%)

AL-Sen (3/29, likely voters):

William Barnes (D): 32

Richard Shelby (R): 59

Some other: 3

Not sure: 6

(MoE: ±4.5%)

AR-Sen (3/30, likely voters, 3/1 in parentheses):

Blanche Lincoln (D): 36 (39)

John Boozman (R): 51 (48)

Some other: 6 (6)

Not sure: 7 (7)

Blanche Lincoln (D): 36 (40)

Gilbert Baker (R): 51 (45)

Some other: 6 (6)

Not sure: 7 (8)

Blanche Lincoln (D): 35 (38)

Kim Hendren (R): 51 (43)

Some other: 5 (7)

Not sure: 8 (12)

Blanche Lincoln (D): 36 (41)

Curtis Coleman (R): 48 (43)

Some other: 7 (7)

Not sure: 8 (10)

Blanche Lincoln (D): 35 (38)

Jim Holt (R): 51 (45)

Some other: 7 (6)

Not sure: 7 (10)

Bill Halter (D): 34 (33)

John Boozman (R): 48 (55)

Some other: 8 (6)

Not sure: 11 (9)

Bill Halter (D): 36 (37)

Gilbert Baker (R): 44 (43)

Some other: 7 (5)

Not sure: 12 (13)

Bill Halter (D): 34 (35)

Kim Hendren (R): 42 (42)

Some other: 10 (7)

Not sure: 13 (15)

Bill Halter (D): 37 (35)

Curtis Coleman (R): 40 (38)

Some other: 10 (9)

Not sure: 13 (18)

Bill Halter (D): 34 (38)

Jim Holt (R): 43 (42)

Some other: 9 (8)

Not sure: 14 (12)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

FL-Gov (3/18, likely voters, 2/18 in parentheses):

Alex Sink (D): 36 (35)

Bill McCollum (R): 47 (48)

Some other: 5 (4)

Not sure: 12 (12)

(MoE: ±3%)

FL-Sen (3/18, likely voters, 2/18 in parentheses):

Kendrick Meek (D): 34 (32)

Charlie Crist (R): 45 (48)

Some other: 11 (11)

Not sure: 10 (9)

Kendrick Meek (D): 34 (31)

Marco Rubio (R): 48 (51)

Some other: 6 (7)

Not sure: 11 (11)

(MoE: ±3%)

HI-Gov (3/24, likely voters):

Neil Abercrombie (D): 54

Duke Aiona (R): 31

Some other: 6

Not sure: 9

Mufi Hannemann (D): 50

Duke Aiona (R): 29

Some other: 14

Not sure: 7

(MoE: ±4.5%)

HI-Sen (3/24, likely voters):

Dan Inouye (D): 65

Linda Lingle (R): 25

Some other: 3

Not sure: 6

(MoE: ±4.5%)

IA-Gov (3/17, likely voters, 2/18 in parentheses):

Chet Culver (D): 36 (37)

Terry Branstad (R): 52 (53)

Some other: 6 (6)

Not sure: 6 (4)

Chet Culver (D): 40 (40)

Bob Vander Plaats (R): 42 (46)

Some other: 8 (7)

Not sure: 11 (7)

Chet Culver (D): 40

Rod Roberts (R): 38

Some other: 10

Not sure: 13

(MoE: ±4.5%)

ID-Gov (3/23, likely voters):

Keith Allred (D): 28

Butch Otter (R): 60

Some other: 3

Not sure: 9

(MoE: ±4.5%)

ID-Sen (3/23, likely voters):

Generic Democrat (D): 28

Mike Crapo (R): 60

Some other: 3

Not sure: 9

(MoE: ±4.5%)

MI-Gov (D) (3/24, likely voters):

Andy Dillon (D): 12

Alma Wheeler Smith (D): 10

Virg Bernero (D): 8

Some other: 17

Not sure: 53

(MoE: ±4%)

MI-Gov (R) (3/24, likely voters):

Peter Hoekstra (R): 27

Rick Snyder (R): 18

Mike Cox (R): 13

Mike Bouchard (R): 6

Some other: 5

Not sure: 32

(MoE: ±4%)

NC-Sen (3/22, likely voters, 2/23 in parentheses):

Elaine Marshall (D): 35 (34)

Richard Burr (R): 51 (50)

Some other: 6 (4)

Not sure: 8 (12)

Cal Cunningham (D): 32 (29)

Richard Burr (R): 51 (51)

Some other: 7 (6)

Not sure: 11 (14)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

ND-AL (3/23-24, likely voters, 2/9-10 in parentheses):

Earl Pomeroy (D): 44 (40)

Rick Berg (R): 51 (46)

Some other: 1 (3)

Not sure: 4 (11)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

ND-Sen (3/23-24, likely voters, 2/9-10 in parentheses):

Tracy Potter (D): 25 (17)

John Hoeven (R): 68 (71)

Some other: 2 (4)

Not sure: 5 (8)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

NM-Gov (3/24, likely voters):

Diane Denish (D): 51

Susana Martinez (R): 32

Some other: 7

Not sure: 10

Diane Denish (D): 52

Pete Domenici Jr. (R): 35

Some other: 6

Not sure: 6

Diane Denish (D): 45

Allen Weh (R): 35

Some other: 7

Not sure: 13

Diane Denish (D): 52

Janice Arnold-Jones (R): 30

Some other: 6

Not sure: 12

Diane Denish (D): 43

Doug Turner (R): 34

Some other: 7

Not sure: 16

(MoE: ±4.5%)

NY-Gov (3/29, likely voters, 3/1 in parentheses):

Andrew Cuomo (D): 52 (55)

Rick Lazio (R): 29 (30)

Some other: 6 (5)

Not sure: 13 (10)

Andrew Cuomo (D): 51 (56)

Carl Paladino (R): 28 (27)

Some other: 6 (6)

Not sure: 15 (11)

Andrew Cuomo (D): 50

Steve Levy (R): 26

Some other: 7

Not sure: 17

(MoE: ±4.5%)

OH-Gov (3/30, likely voters, 3/4 in parentheses):

Ted Strickland (D): 45 (38)

John Kasich (R): 46 (49)

Some other: 2 (6)

Not sure: 7 (7)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

OH-Sen (3/30, likely voters, 3/4 in parentheses):

Lee Fisher (D): 38 (39)

Rob Portman (R): 43 (44)

Some other: 4 (5)

Not sure: 14 (12)

Jennifer Brunner (D): 38 (37)

Rob Portman (R): 45 (43)

Some other: 4 (6)

Not sure: 13 (15)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

RI-Gov (3/25, likely voters, 2/25 in parentheses):

Frank Caprio (D): 28 (27)

John Robitaille (R): 22 (19)

Lincoln Chafee (I): 39 (37)

Not sure: 11 (17)

Patrick Lynch (D): 22 (24)

John Robitaille (R): 26 (22)

Lincoln Chafee (I): 37 (38)

Not sure: 15 (16)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

SD-AL (3/25, likely voters, 2/23 in parentheses):

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D): 44 (45)

Chris Nelson (R): 42 (38)

Some other: 6 (6)

Not sure: 9 (11)

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D): 46 (49)

Kristi Noem (R): 35 (34)

Some other: 8 (4)

Not sure: 10 (13)

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D): 45 (51)

Blake Curd (R): 33 (33)

Some other: 8 (5)

Not sure: 14 (12)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

SD-Gov (3/25, likely voters, 2/23 in parentheses):

Scott Heidepriem (D): 32 (32)

Dennis Daugaard (R): 49 (41)

Some other: 6 (7)

Not sure: 13 (19)

Scott Heidepriem (D): 37 (34)

Dave Knudson (R): 32 (31)

Some other: 13 (13)

Not sure: 19 (22)

Scott Heidepriem (D): 39 (37)

Gordon Howie (R): 34 (29)

Some other: 9 (12)

Not sure: 17 (22)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

TN-Gov (3/22, likely voters):

Mike McWherter (D): 27

Bill Haslam (R): 45

Some other: 5

Not sure: 23

Mike McWherter (D): 29

Ron Ramsey (R): 43

Some other: 5

Not sure: 23

Mike McWherter (D): 31

Zach Wamp (R): 41

Some other: 7

Not sure: 22

Kim McMillan (D): 26

Bill Haslam (R): 46

Some other: 5

Not sure: 23

Kim McMillan (D): 25

Ron Ramsey (R): 43

Some other: 8

Not sure: 24

Kim McMillan (D): 29

Zach Wamp (R): 42

Some other: 5

Not sure: 25

(MoE: ±4.5%)

WY-Gov (3/25, likely voters):

Mike Massie (D): 25

Matt Mead (R): 43

Some other: 8

Not sure: 24

Mike Massie (D): 23

Ron Micheli (R): 45

Some other: 8

Not sure: 25

Mike Massie (D): 26

Rita Meyer (R): 43

Some other: 7

Not sure: 25

Mike Massie (D): 26

Colin Simpson (R): 41

Some other: 8

Not sure: 25

(MoE: ±4.5%)

• CA-Sen (pdf): The apparently nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California has put out another statewide poll, and the numbers look very similar to those in the Field Poll last week. Barbara Boxer is in a dead heat with Tom Campbell, down 44-43, and not faring much better against Carly Fiorina, where Boxer leads 44-43. (She led Campbell by 4 and Fiorina by 8 two months ago.) Boxer’s doing better against Chuck DeVore, with a 46-40 edge. The big change from the Field Poll is that PPIC finds Fiorina actually in the lead in the GOP primary, the first pollster to see that in a while; she’s up 24-23-8, an improvement from January’s 27-16-8 Campbell edge. Are reluctant social conservatives getting off the fence and behind Fiorina, sensing DeVore isn’t gaining traction? Or did the Demon Sheep ad actually sway some ovinophobic voters?

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway’s on the air with a TV spot in the wake of the health care vote, trying to get some mileage out of Democratic primary opponent Dan Mongiardo’s stated opposition to the bill that passed.

• NY-Sen-B: Wall Street exec David Malpass, fresh off his smashing success as chief economist of Bear Stearns, looks like he’s doubling down on trying to be the GOP nominee to go against Kirsten Gillibrand. He’s promising $1 million of his own money to kick-start his campaign, where he first needs to get out of a primary against Bruce Blakeman and Joe DioGuardi.

• UT-Sen: It’s all still anecdotal, but the preliminary reports for how caucus night went for Bob Bennett sound pretty bad. Observers report strong anti-Bennett sentiment in general, although what might save him is that there was no coalescing behind any of his particular challengers. Turnout was maybe twice that of caucuses two years ago, suggesting a highly-motivated anti-Bennett base.

• CA-Gov (pdf): PPIC also has California gubernatorial numbers, again similar to the last Field poll. Meg Whitman’s outspending of Jerry Brown by a 200:1 margin or so is definitely paying temporary dividends, as she’s leading the gubernatorial race 44-39 (up from a 41-36 Brown lead two months ago). Brown leads Steve Poizner 46-31, basically unchanged from two months ago, suggesting this change is pretty Whitman-specific and not an across-the-boards phenomenon; Whitman leads Poizner 61-11.

• GA-Gov: Republican Governor Sonny Perdue is engaging in a remarkable end-run around Democratic AG Thurbert Baker, appointing a “special attorney general” to join in the suit against the health care reform brought by Republican AGs after Baker refused to do so and called it “political gamesmanship.” If nothing else, the fireworks between Perdue and Baker ought to raise Baker’s profile (who’s currently lagging in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, but might be poised to make an impact if he switched to the mostly-vacant Senate race).

• MA-Gov: Here’s some trouble for independent gubernatorial candidate Tim Cahill: the SEC has charged that John Kendrick, an executive with Southwest Securities, won $14 billion in bond deals after co-sponsoring a fundraiser for Cahill. That’s a violation of federal rules against contributions to officials who oversee bond sales. The SEC says that the Cahill campaign (which is returning the contributions) didn’t break any laws by accepting the money, though.

• OH-Gov, TX-Sen: Two more GOPers who still seem to be charging full speed ahead on “repeal” are Ohio’s John Kasich and, more interestingly, John Cornyn, who’d been cited in Ezra Klein‘s piece yesterday, on the GOP’s rapidly dialed-down rhetoric, as supporting only piecemeal tinkering but now seems to be reversing course again.

• WY-Gov: Whoops, that was a short-lived candidacy-to-be. Wyoming Democrats looking for a gubernatorial candidate are back to square one after attorney (and gubernatorial progeny) Paul Hickey reversed course and said “no” to a run.

• CO-07: Tom Tancredo weighed in with an endorsement in the Republican primary field in the 7th and, guess what… he endorsed the white guy. He gave the nod to former John McCain campaign official Lang Sias, despite Tancredo’s general antipathy toward all things McCain.

• HI-01: State Sen. Colleen Hanabusa is finally making some moves in the special election to replace resigned Rep. Neil Abercrombie. She’s out with her first TV ads, for the all-mail-in election with a May 22 deadline.

• NY-13: More blowback for Rep. Mike McMahon for his “no” vote on HCR, which could cost him the Working Families ballot line and/or get him a primary opponent. NYC council speaker Christine Quinn has backed out of a previously planned fundraiser for McMahon, citing his vote.

• SC-05: The NRCC seems to be feeling confident about state Sen. Mick Mulvaney, their challenger to Rep. John Spratt in the reddish 5th. They’ve promoted him to the 2nd level (“Contender”) in their 3-tiered fundraising pyramid scheme for challengers.

• Illinois: We Ask America seems to be taking great pains to confirm that, yes, they really are a legitimate pollster. I don’t know if they’re helping their case by releasing results with two significant digits, but they have a lot of Illinois House race data; we’ll leave it to you to decide how much salt you want to apply. Perhaps weirdest, they have teabagging businessman Joe Walsh leading Melissa Bean in IL-08 by 38.33%-37.61%. They also have leads for GOPers in the 11th (Adam Kinzinger leads Debbie Halvorson 42-30, way worse than Kinzinger’s own recent internal) and the 14th (Randy Hultgren leads Bill Foster 38-36), while Dems lead in the 10th (Dan Seals beats Bob Dold 40-37) and the not-on-the-radar 17th (Phil Hare leads pizza parlor owner Bobby Schilling 39-32).

• CA-Init: It’s been confirmed that the initiative to legalize the possession and sale of marijuana in California has qualified for the ballot in November. A 2009 Field Poll shows such an initiative could actually pass, with 56% of Californians supporting such an initiative. Of course, it’s unclear how such a change in state law would mesh with federal law, but if nothing else, it may help motivate a lot of bong-toting slackers to get off their couches to vote in November who otherwise might not vote (and cast votes for Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer while they’re at it).

• DCCC: Freshman Rep. Jared Polis has been a strong fundraiser (and has his own fortune, too), and he’s looking to spread the wealth. His joint fundraising committee, the Jared Polis Majority Fund, has already distributed $400K this spring to the DCCC, to vulnerable incumbents (Frank Kratovil, Betsy Markey, Scott Murphy, Bill Owens, Tom Perriello, Harry Teague, Dina Titus), and to four up-and-comers (Ami Bera, Steve Pougnet, John Carney, and David Cicilline).

• DNC: I guess the DNC is feeling its oats these days, or just figuring that the best defense is a good offense: they’ve doubled the number of GOPers on the receiving end of pro-HCR attack ads for their “no” votes. They’ve added Pat Tiberi, Lee Terry, Dan Lungren, Mary Bono Mack, and Charlie Dent.

• Census: Remember the Census? It’s back! In Pog form!

• NC-Sen: The newest Elon University poll of North Carolina finds that, as with most pollsters, that Richard Burr is strangely anonymous for a Senator: he has a favorable of 34/17. His best-known Democratic competitor, SoS Elaine Marshall, is at 18/8. The poll doesn’t contain head-to-heads, and also, bear in mind that it only polls “residents,” not even registered voters, which would explain the super-low awareness.

• TX-Sen: 20 of Texas’s Republican House members wrote a letter to Kay Bailey Hutchison, asking her to reconsider and stay on as Senator. (Recall that she planned to resign once she was done “fighting health care.”) I wonder if the letter was signed by Joe Barton, who was pretty public about his desire to take over that seat back when a resignation seemed likelier.

• UT-Sen: Tonight’s the night we get our first hard impression of what degree of trouble Bob Bennett is in. Tonight are neighborhood caucuses, where delegates to the state convention are elected. A particularly ultra-conservative-skewing convention could pose some trouble to Bennett, although with so many GOP challengers, it seems likely no one will hit the 60% mark at the convention needed to avoid a primary.

• CT-Gov: You might recognize these numbers from last week; we’ve been waiting for Quinnipiac to release general election numbers in the Governor’s race but they just don’t seem to be forthcoming, so here are their primary numbers. On the Dem side, Ned Lamont is leading at 28, followed by former Stamford mayor Dan Malloy at 18, Mary Glassman at 4, Rudy Marconi at 2, and Juan Figueroa at 1. (Susan Bysiewicz has a big edge over George Jepsen, 54-10, in the AG primary, despite concerns about her eligibility for the job.) On the GOP side, Tom Foley is dominating at 30, followed by Lt. Gov Michael Fedele collapsing down to 4, Danbury mayor Mark Boughton at 4, ex-Rep. Larry DeNardis at 2, and Oz Griebel and Jeff Wright at 2.

• CA-Gov: Wondering how Meg Whitman pulled into a huge lead in the primary and a small lead in the general in California governor’s race? She’s spent a mind-boggling $27 million on her race so far this year (for a total of $46 million), compared with Steve Poizner’s $3 million and Jerry Brown’s $142K.

• OR-Gov: Former Portland Trail Blazer Chris Dudley is the first candidate to hit the TV airwaves in the Oregon governor’s race so far, touting his “outsider” credentials.

• PA-Gov: AG Tom Corbett, who oh just coincidentally happens to be running for Governor this year, finally got a conviction in the Bonusgate investigation, against former state Rep. Mike Veon and several of his staffers. The timing is certainly helpful to Corbett, for whom the investigation has been dragging out and the possibility of mistrials (or no convictions before November) was starting to loom. Trials against several other former Democratic House leaders, including GOPer John Perzel and Dem Bill DeWeese, are still in the pipeline.

• WY-Gov: The Democrats are about to land a gubernatorial candidate: attorney Paul Hickey, who plans an announcement later this week. If the name is familiar, he’s the son of former Governor J.J. Hickey. Democratic State Sen. Mike Massie hasn’t ruled out a run yet either, although he may run for one of the statewide offices.

• IL-11: Here’s one more district that hasn’t been high on people’s watch lists but will need to be monitored, at least if a new internal poll from Republican pollster POS is to be believed. They find their patron, Adam Kinzinger, leading freshman Rep. Debbie Halvorson 44-38.

• MA-09: With primary challenges moving onto the radar against HCR “no” votes Jason Altmire and Mike Arcuri, another one may be taking shape: Needham Town Meeting member (and, well, college classmate of mine) Harmony Wu has pulled papers for the race and is gauging local sentiment for a primary run against Stephen Lynch.

• NY-01: Whoever faces off against Tim Bishop for the Republicans is going to have to fight through an arduous primary to get there. Any hopes of an easy coronation for Randy Altschuler seem to have vaporized, as now Chris Cox (Republican party insider and Nixon grandson) is setting his own Wall Street-powered fundraising operation in motion. And a 3rd option, former SEC prosecutor George Demos, has had his own fundraising success.

• NY-20: One more Republican, Queensbury town supervisor Dan Stec, bailed out of the field today, suggesting that the GOP is finally coalescing behind retired Col. Chris Gibson as a standard-bearer against freshman Dem Rep. Scott Murphy, in what’s one of their slowest races to take shape.

• OK-05: Finally, we have a Democrat on tap for the open seat race in Oklahoma’s dark-red 5th, where there’s already a half-dozen GOPers jousting. Tom Guild is secretary of the Oklahoma County Democratic Party, and was a poli sci professor at Univ. of Central Oklahoma for many years.

• PA-11: Things got easier for Lou Barletta in the race in the 11th, where his Republican primary challenger, Chris Paige dropped out, citing family concerns. Paige, an attorney, was underfunded but had delivered some surprisingly-hard hits to Barletta, especially on Barletta’s signature issue of immigration.

• SC-01: The Club for Growth weighed into another GOP primary in a reddish open seat, endorsing state Rep. Tim Scott. Scott faces off in the primary against several well-known last names: Carroll Campbell III and Paul Thurmond.

• HCR: The Republican pivot from health care reform to health care repeal has some implications in the gubernatorial races. Rep. Peter Hoekstra is going full-on repeal, stopping by Sunday’s teabagger rally to pledge to fight that battle. It’s also showing up in a number of races where the Republican AG is running for Governor and joined the multi-AG suit against HCR on easily-rebuttable 10th Amendment grounds (hint to teabaggers: read Scalia’s opinion in Raich) – many in dark-red states where it probably helps more than hurts (like Henry McMaster in South Carolina). There are a few blue state AGs involved, though, like Tom Corbett (although he probably feels like he has a safety cushion to do so, thanks to his Bonusgate-related popularity). Most puzzling, though, is Washington’s Rob McKenna, who got where he is only by acting moderate. Throwing off his well-maintained moderate mask and joining forces with the wackjob likes of Ken Cuccinelli seems like a weird gamble for his widely-expected 2012 run, where success is utterly dependent on making inroads among suburban moderates.

• NV-Sen: It’s starting to look like the investigation into John Ensign may really take off. The DOJ is actually serving subpoenas to at least six different Las Vegas area businesses, as they expand a criminal probe into the tangle of quid pro quos that arose as Ensign tried to find lobbying work for cuckolded friend Doug Hampton.

• CA-Gov: Usually politicians wait to say this kind of thing privately instead of publicly, but maybe Jerry Brown, as is his way, is engaged in some sort of Jedi mind trick. Brown openly encouraged his union allies to start spending now in the governor’s race and to go on the attack against likely GOP opponent Meg Whitman, so that he can stay “the nice guy” in the race.

• MI-Gov: Chris Cillizza has access to a new poll from Inside Michigan Politics/Marketing Resource Group, which looks at the Republican primary in the Michigan Governor’s race. It’s more evidence that businessman Rick Snyder’s splashy spending and catchy “one tough nerd” ad has turned this into a real three-way race. The poll finds AG Mike Cox and Rep. Peter Hoekstra tied at 21, with Snyder right there at 20. Oakland Co. Sheriff Mike Bouchard trails, at 10.

• NY-Gov: Guess who doesn’t like the idea of running a Democrat for the Republican nomination for Governor (even if NY GOP head Ed Cox seems to think it’s the best idea since sliced bread)? The RNC has threatened not to put money into New York races (and note that says “races,” not just the Gov’s race) if Democratic Suffolk Co. Exec Steve Levy winds up the GOP’s nominee. Meanwhile, David Paterson‘s case just gets weirder and weirder, as now he’s saying he himself was the anonymous source for the NYT story on his interceding on his aide’s behalf.

• WY-Gov: It’s still not clear that state Sen. Mike Massie is going to run for Governor on the Democratic side, but it is looking like he’s planning to move up. He confirmed he won’t run for his Senate seat again, although he’s interested in Superintendent of Public Education as well as Governor.

• NY-24: Chalk Rep. Mike Arcuri up as a “no” vote on health care reform. This comes despite the threat of losing the Working Families Party line in November, which will probably imperil his chances of re-election more so than any Republican votes he might pick up (which will probably equal zero, regardless of how he might vote on HCR).

• NY-29: Corning mayor Tom Reed has a bright idea on how to pay for the special election caused by Eric Massa’s resignation: make Massa pay for it, out of the money in his campaign fund (which is roughly equal to the actual cost of holding the election). Not that it’s going to happen, but it raises an interesting question: is there a legal mechanism for Massa to write a $644K check to the state of New York out of his account?

• PA-12 (pdf): There’s a second poll of the 12th, from a slightly more established pollster (although one who still requires a grain or two of salt): Republican pollster Susquehanna. Their numbers are pretty close to the weird robopoll from yesterday, finding Democrat Mark Critz leading Republican Tim Burns 36-31. Bad news for Dems: by a 49/44 margin, voters want to turn away from a candidate who, in the John Murtha tradition, supports earmarks for the district. Good news for the Dems: of the undecideds, 67% are Democrats, meaning that Critz has more room to grow.

• VA-11: Rich guy Keith Fimian is up with his first radio ad in the 11th, attacking Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly for saying, in reference to the stimulus, “I want to be there with all four paws and snout in the trough.” Um, yeah… except Connolly was saying that long after the stimulus passage, making fun of Eric Cantor’s hypocrisy on the issue. Too bad snark tags don’t translate to radio very well.

• NY-Something: Former Republican Lt. Governor, and then unsuccessful former health care industry spokesbot, Betsy McCaughey, apparently is looking for a way into the Republican field in one of the various statewide races in New York; she’s been polling both races. (There’s one small wrinkle: she’s still registered as a Democrat, and voted in the 2009 Democratic primary. She became a Dem after George Pataki dropped her from his 1998 ticket, and tried to run against Pataki as a Dem instead.)

• Votes: After all the sturm and drang surrounding the cloture vote, the final vote on the Senate jobs bill was pretty uninteresting, with 11 different GOPers crossing the aisle to vote for it: Alexander, Bond, Brown, Burr, Cochran, Collins, Inhofe, LeMieux, Murkowski, Snowe, and Voinovich.

• WATN?: A must-read editorial in today’s WaPo comes from ex-Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, whose despite her two years in the House looms large in history as the decisive vote on the 1993 Clinton budget, which is usually assigned as the reason for her loss in 1994. She pushes back against the mind-numbing Beltway conventional wisdom that your electoral survival depends on bucking the party line on the tough votes, and seems to be weighing on the minds of members like the aforementioned Mike Arcuri. A wave is a wave, and it takes out those in unsafe districts who vote for or vote against; the key is to not let the wave become a wave in the first place:

Votes like this are never a zero-sum game…. While it is easy to say my balanced-budget vote cost me reelection, that assumes the line of history that followed the bill’s passage. Had I voted against it, the bill wouldn’t have passed, the Republican opposition would have been emboldened, the Clinton presidency would have moved into a tailspin . . . and all of this could have just as easily led to my undoing.

Simply put, you could be Margolies-Mezvinskied whether you vote with or against President Obama. You will be assailed no matter how you vote this week. And this job isn’t supposed to be easy. So cast the vote that you won’t regret in 18 years.

There’s still one strange contention in her piece: that “I was in the country’s most Republican district represented by a Democrat.” Sorry, not even close: that district would’ve been R+4 at the time, based on its 1988 and 1992 results, good for 51st most Republican held by a Democrat. Even though she famously got bounced out in 1994, the 13th was promptly back in Democratic hands in 1998, courtesy of Joe Hoeffel (and now, thanks to trends in the Philly suburbs and thanks to redistricting, it’s a safe Dem district). The most Republican district held by a Dem in 1993? FL-01, then held by Earl Hutto, at R+20. (Hutto retired in 1994, giving way to… wait for it… Joe Scarborough.)

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: Lots of pollsters that I’ve never heard of seem to be coming out of the woodwork to poll California lately, and here’s yet another one of them: some firm called ccAdvertising. They polled the Republican primaries, finding, on the Senate side, that Tom Campbell leads at 24, with Carly Fiorina at 12 and Chuck DeVore at 8. On the gubernatorial side, Meg Whitman leads Steve Poizner 40-15.

• CO-Sen: Tonight is the first step in the Colorado caucus process, with precinct-level gatherings. The results are non-binding, really more of a straw poll than anything, but are monitored as a sign of candidates’ strength. (Of course, in 2004, neither Ken Salazar nor Pete Coors won the caucuses yet went on to win their primaries.) The bigger hurdle is in May, when candidates must clear 30% at the state assembly to make the primary ballot (although those that don’t can still get on by collecting signatures). With the Governor’s race pretty much locked down, there’s still action aplenty on both the Dem and GOP sides in the Senate. Michael Bennet comes into tonight’s caucuses with a boost: he just got the endorsement from the state’s AFSCME, which may help fight the perception that rival Andrew Romanoff is labor’s one horse in the race.

• CT-Sen: Paulist economist Peter Schiff is finally dipping into the spoils from his moneybombs, running ads on Connecticut radio introducing himself to Republican primary voters and touting his having predicted the financial crisis of 2008.

• ID-Sen: Democrats are already way ahead of where they were in their last race against Mike Crapo in 2004: they’re actually fielding a candidate. Two, in fact, have filed, although they’re little known: Tom Sullivan and William Bryk.

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk is up with his first TV spot for the general election campaign, calling himself an “independent-minded Republican.” Having beaten back various teabagger challengers in the primary, he’s now free to label himself as such.

• MD-Sen: File this under news of the weird: Bob Ehrlich is confirming he’s interested in running for office this year, but one idea he’s floating is running for Senate against Barbara Mikulski instead of for Governor against Martin O’Malley. That’s a very strange choice, as Mikulski is more popular than O’Malley and generally considered unassailable, but maybe Ehrlich thinks he can goad the 73-year-old Mikulski into retirement.

• NC-Sen: Two polls of the Democratic primary in the Senate race show fairly different pictures, with the main difference being how well Cal Cunningham is keeping pace with Elaine Marshall. PPP’s most recent poll of the primary shows Cunningham gaining four points from last month, trailing Marshall 20-16, with 11 for Kenneth Lewis (up from 5). On the GOP side, Richard Burr is at 58%, with his minor rivals all in the low single digits. Marshall, on the other hand, released her own internal yesterday, from Lake Research. The poll’s a little stale (in the field mid-February), so if the PPP poll reflects late movement to Cunningham, Marshall’s poll wouldn’t capture it. At any rate, her internal has her up 31-5 over Cunningham, with Lewis at 4.

• NJ-Sen: A weird-ass ruling from a New Jersey appellate court says the Tea Party may proceed with collecting recall petitions to recall Bob Menendez. The court, however, stayed its own decision in order to allow Menendez to appeal, presumably to a federal court which will disabuse the state judges of the notion that one can recall federal officials. (Adam B. points to the crux of the case here and here).

• AL-Gov, AR-Gov: Financial filings for gubernatorial candidates in Alabama and Arkansas are both available. In Alabama, Tim James ($2.6 mil) leads the GOPers, while Artur Davis ($2.1 mil) has the most cash among the Dems. In Arkansas, Mike Beebe is sitting on $1.2 million (having raised $313K in February); his opponent, Jim Keet, hasn’t been in long enough to report.

• ME-Gov: It looks like there won’t be a Green Party candidate on the ballot this year; Lynne Williams suspended her campaign after failing to gather the 2,000 required signatures. That’s good news for Dems, as this could turn out to be a close race (although with this little information and the fields this cluttered, who the hell knows?) and Greens often poll well in Maine, getting 9% of the vote in the convoluted 2006 gubernatorial election.

• PA-Gov (pdf): There was a gubernatorial portion to that poll from Republican pollster Susquehanna released yesterday, too. As with every poll of this race, undecideds are still very heavy, but Republican AG Tom Corbett leads Democratic state Auditor Jack Wagner 37-26, and leads Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato 39-24. Wagner has been dominating in terms of getting the endorsements of county-level party apparatuses, and he picked up one more yesterday, getting the nod from Cambria County (i.e. Johnstown) Democrats.

• WY-Gov: To almost no one’s surprise, Republican state House speaker Colin Simpson pulled the trigger, officially entering the gubernatorial race. (If his name sounds familiar, he’s the son of popular ex-Sen. Alan Simpson.) He faces three other high-profile GOPers, while Democrats, sorting out what to do after Dave Freudenthal’s late decision not to seek a third term, are still lining up a candidate.

• AK-AL: Rep. Don Young is refusing to get with the program, as far as the GOP’s new self-imposed ban on earmarks goes. Considering that Young seems most valued by his constituents for his ability to bring home the bacon (which may have saved his bacon twice, in both the primary and general in 2008), that may actually be the politically savvy thing for him to do.

• HI-01: The first debate was held in the special election in the 1st, and it may be most interesting in that ex-Rep. Ed Case was trying to stake out positions that sound pretty, well, Democratic. Case spoke out in favor of both health care reform and the stimulus package. Moderate Republican Charles Djou tried to differentiate himself by railing against both.

• IA-03: I don’t know if this is just one ex-wrestling coach sticking up for another, or if there’s an establishment movement afoot to coronate Jim Gibbons in the 3rd, but ex-Speaker Dennis Hastert is showing up to host a Des Moines fundraiser for Gibbons tomorrow. They’ll be joined by ex-Rep. Greg Ganske.

• PA-07: I love the smell of cat fud in the morning. While former local Fox affiliate news anchor Dawn Stensland didn’t file to run in the Republican primary as has been rumored, now she’s not ruling out an independent, teabagger-powered run instead. While she hasn’t begun gathering signatures, she is looking to move into the 7th. Even if she only garners a few percent, that could still tip the balance in what promises to be a very close race between Democrat Bryan Lentz and GOPer Pat Meehan.

• House: The Hill has an interesting survey of eight different primaries where the one participant’s vote on TARP could weigh heavily on the results (as it seemed to do in the Texas gubernatorial primary). Most are on the GOP side, but one Dem race to watch is PA-11, where Paul Kanjorski, the chair of the House subcommittee on Capital Markets, was one of TARP’s architects.

• NRCC: The NRCC is threatening to go on the air against Dems who change from “no” to “yes” votes on HCR, targeting them with the dread “flip-flop” label that served them so well in 2004. They have 42 Dems in mind to target, although there’s still the little wee matter of the NRCC finding the money to pay for the ads.

• NY-St. Sen.: Tonight’s the special election in SD-13 in Queens, where Hiram Monserrate is trying to win back the seat he just got kicked out of after his assault conviction. Monserrate, now an indie, is running against Democratic Assemblyman Jose Peralta. Peralta had a dominant lead in the one poll of the race made public.

• Ads: With the Demon Sheep and Boxer Blimp ads having established Carly Fiorina’s campaign as the new gold standard in bizarre advertising, Huffington Post has a nice wrapup of some of the other craziest political ads of the last few years, ranging from the well-known (Mike Gravel skipping rocks, Big John Cornyn) to the “huh?” (Nancy Worley on strangling cats).

• TV: Obsessive-compulsive political junkies and opposition researchers alike are dancing a jig right now, as C-Span has announced that it’s releasing its entire archives onto the Web. All 160,000 hours worth. (If you don’t have a calculator handy, that’s 18 years.)

• Redistricting: Eager not to get behind the redistricting 8-ball in 2012 like they were ten years ago, the DLCC has launched a $20 million push aimed at keeping control of state legislatures in key states. They point to “swing” chambers in 17 states that have the capacity to affect almost half of all House seats. Dem-held chambers they’re focusing on are the Alabama State Senate, Colorado State Senate, Indiana House, Nevada State Senate, New Hampshire State Senate, New York State Senate, Ohio House, Pennsylvania House, Wisconsin Assembly and the Wisconsin State Senate, while GOP-held chambers are the Michigan State Senate, Missouri House, Oklahoma State Senate, Tennessee House, and the Texas House.

All good things must come to an end:

Wyoming political sources say Gov. Dave Freudenthal will announce today that he will not run for a third term….

Had Freudenthal decided to run again, he would have faced a state law limiting the state’s top elected officials to two terms. But it was expected that he could have successfully mounted a challenge to the law under the state constitution. The Wyoming Supreme Court earlier invalidated a term limit for state legislators.

I hadn’t really thought about Freudenthal’s dilemma recently, but it does seem like, if he were going to set about challenging the state’s term limit law, he should have begun the legal process months ago, in order to have a ruling on his side with enough time to run an effective campaign. So, considering that there are only three months until Wyoming’s Democratic primary (5/28), it shouldn’t be a surprise he’s wrapping things up.

Still, a bad side effect of the Freudenthal’s long wait is that Democrats have to scramble to find a replacement. State Sen. Mike Massie was rounding up support (with Freudenthal’s blessing) late last year to run if Freudenthal didn’t, so he probably has a head-start on any other Dems who want to take a whack at trying to hold the state house in this dark-red state. With a number of Republican heavyweights either in the race (state Auditor Rita Meyer, former US Attorney Matt Mead) or poised to get in (state House speaker Colin Simpson), this looks like a difficult retention for the Dems no matter who they put up. (Swing State Project already had this race at “Likely Republican,” in expectation that Freudenthal wouldn’t run again, so we don’t need to move anything.)

RaceTracker Wiki: WY-Gov

• Site News: SSP is instituting a one-week waiting period for new users to post diaries. New accounts can still post comments right away.

• AL-Sen: This race has to rank somewhere around 32 or 33 in order of likelihood to change hands among Senate races this November, but at least we’re showing up to compete: Birmingham-area attorney William Barnes announced that he’ll run against Richard Shelby for Team Blue. It’s his first run for office, and he says it’ll be a “total grassroots” effort (which I think is code for “can’t self-finance”).

• AZ-Sen: J.D. Hayworth and Dana Rohrabacher always seemed like kindred spirits in their particularly loudmouthed version of ultra-conservatism. That seems to continue today, as the Orange County Congressman gave his former colleague his first big-name endorsement in his newly-minted primary challenge to John McCain.

• MA-Sen (pdf): There’s a wealth of data in the Washington Post’s post-game poll of the Massachusetts special election; it’s well-worth looking through the whole memo. As with other polls, it points to a confluence of Republican enthusiasm and a Democratic failure to define the opposition (or themselves). Interestingly, only 60% of Brown voters say they favor Republican policies in Congress, and only 19% of them want him to work mostly to oppose Democratic policies instead of working to get Republican ideas into Democratic policy.

• NY-Sen-B: His helicopter’s warming up on the launch pad: Harold Ford Jr. seems to be moving closer to a Senate primary run. An ally says he’s “80 percent” likely to run, and various steps he’s taking suggest he’s getting his ducks in a row – reserving web domains, and even crisscrossing the state, visiting that previously unknown sixth borough of New York City known as “Buffalo.”

• WA-Sen: Republican insiders seem to be wondering if they can use the Massachusetts results to coax a top-tier (or any-tier, really) Republican to get into the race against Patty Murray. The problem for them is that there are really only two GOPers who are appealing and moderate enough to play at the statewide level, and AG Rob McKenna already seems to have his ticket booked for a 2012 gubernatorial run. That leaves Rep. Dave Reichert, whose spokesperson made a run sound unlikely, while still saying he “is not one to shut doors on any opportunity.”

• IL-Gov: It may be news to you that someone named Bob Schillerstrom was running for Governor. Apparently it was news to the people of Illinois, too, as he dropped out at a strangely late stage (after consistently polling in the low single digits) and endorsed ex-AG Jim Ryan for the Republican nod. Schillerstrom’s lack of traction is kind of strange, since, as DuPage County Board Chairman, he has nearly a million constituents. His name will remain on the ballots, which have already been printed.

• MD-Gov: The one elected Republican who seemed to be following through on running for Maryland governor decided against it and opted for a different course instead. State Del. Patrick McDonough is now running for Baltimore County Executive. McDonough had previously said he wouldn’t run if ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich tried for a rematch, and while Ehrlich hasn’t done anything public on that end, McDonough said he thinks Ehrlich is planning to do it.

• OH-Gov: More polling bad news for incumbent Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland: he’s trailing ex-Rep. John Kasich 51-45 in the new poll from the Univ. of Cincinnati. (Strickland led 49-46 in their previous poll in October.) One bit of the poll gives Strickland a potential way forward, though, if he can get his messaging to work: “When asked who’s to blame for Ohio’s economic misery, Bush ranked first, at 24 percent, followed by Wall Street and financial institutions at 23 percent and the U.S. Congress, 19 percent. President Barack Obama got the blame from 13 percent while just 3 percent blamed Strickland.”

• PA-Gov: Another poorly-kept rumor panned out to be true: that wealthy Philadelphia businessman Tom Knox was going to drop out of the race and endorse Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato, which happened over the weekend. Knox said he could have funded a big ad blitz to get competitive (he’d been polling in single digits) but didn’t want to hand ammunition to the Republicans. It’s unclear whether the big beneficiary here is Onorato, though, or ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel, who benefits from being the only Philadelphia-area candidate left.

• SC-Gov: Looks like Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer isn’t going to lay claim to the mantle of “compassionate conservatism” any time soon. The would-be successor to Mark Sanford compared poor people to stray animals over the weekend, saying: “You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that.” He tried walking that back today, regretting his choice of words and also adding that he’s “not against animals,” either.

• UT-Gov: Enthusiasm about our chances in the Utah governor’s race, thanks to the entry of Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon and a recent Deseret News poll showing a competitive race, has to be tempered by the new Mason-Dixon poll of the race on behalf of the Salt Lake Tribune. They find incumbent GOP Gov. Gary Herbert with a more substantial lead over Corroon, 55-30.

• WY-Gov: Former US Attorney Matt Mead made his widely-anticipated entry into the race official, as the backlog of top-tier Republicans running for the state house continues to grow. There’s still no word from incumbent Dem Dave Freudenthal on what his plans are, regarding the possibility of challenging the state’s term limits law and running for another term.

• PA-08: Ex-Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick had only a short exploratory period before an official launch of his campaign to get back his seat from Rep. Patrick Murphy; he announced his candidacy at a public appearance on Saturday.

• PA-10: Some Dude named Ted Yale announced his candidacy on the Republican side in the 10th. Considering that the news story doesn’t even note his occupation, I’m not convinced Yale poses much of a threat, but there is something more interesting buried in the article… former US Attorney Thomas Marino is now “expected” to announce his candidacy next week.

• Retread watch: Can you believe that more than 20 former House Republicans are running again this year, either for Senate, governor, their old seat or, in the case of Richard Pombo, some completely other seat? The Hill runs down the full list.

• Redistricting: Republicans have realized that the way back to power lies in the state legislatures, via their control over the post-2010 redistricting process in most states, and they’re budgeting accordingly. A new enterprise, the American Majority Project, and an old one, the Republican State Leadership Committee, are looking to get more involved in closely-controlled legislatures, and they have some big-name backers involved.