Tag: Suzan DelBene

• AK-Sen: All signs are now pointing toward a Lisa Murkowski write-in bid, although nothing is official yet. But she’s inviting supporters to a “campaign kickoff” tonight, which are certainly not the words of someone ready to go gently into that good night. She seems undeterred by the fact that the Tea Party Express already fired a shot across her bow yesterday, warning her to be a “good team member” and saying they’ll resume spending money against her if she does. Meanwhile, hilarious and slightly damning news on the Joe Miller front, as it turns out that he, like so many other teabagger candidates this year, was a recipient of $14K in farm subsidies over the decade for a thousand acres of land he owned near Fairbanks. Y’know, subsidies from the federal government that he hates so much, in order to pay for the otherwise-unprofitable way of life that he chose. (Can you even grow anything near Fairbanks? That may be the most surprising part of the story to me.)

• DE-Sen: Christine O’Donnell and Chris Coons faced off in their first appearance together, and O’Donnell seemed to be doing a lot of rhetorical distancing from the O’Donnell that had existed up until Tuesday. Meanwhile, O’Donnell is now facing the wrath of multiple ex-aides, all willing to dish to Politico on the trainwrecks that were previous O’Donnell campaigns.

• IL-Sen: Illinois-based Republican-linked robo-pollster We Ask America is out with their second poll of the IL-Sen race, giving Mark Kirk a 39-36 link over Alexi Giannoulias. That’s better than their previous offering, which gave Kirk a 6-point edge.

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold’s “Cheddarbomb” sounds like it was very successful, bringing in at least $435K in one day’s worth of contributions.

• AR-Gov: With yesterday’s PPP NH-Gov poll, I think it’s now safe to say that Mike Beebe is officially the nation’s safest Democratic incumbent governor this year. The gubernatorial half of yesterday’s Mason-Dixon poll on behalf of Arkansas News Service is out, and Beebe leads Republican challenger Jim Keet by 21 points, 54-33. (One other very important detail: currently, Beebe has $2.5 million CoH, while Keet has $9,000.) Given the state’s turn to the red this cycle, Dems should be glad that they aren’t defending an open seat here, though, as in the open Lt. Governor race, Dem state Sen. Shane Broadway is barely leading Some Dude (Mark Darr) 36-34.

• CA-Gov: Well, my cynicism has been eased a bit, I guess: Bill Clinton will be giving Jerry Brown the full endorsee treatment and not just throwing him a bone, including stumping on his behalf (and Gavin Newsom’s behalf too) in mid-October.

• HI-Gov: It feels like the primary season wrapped up on Tuesday, but there’s one last race that needs to be previewed: the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Hawaii, which will be settled in their regularly scheduled election tomorrow. The race pits ex-Rep. Neil Abercrombie against former Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann in what’s literally a clash of titans (the 72-year-old Abercrombie can bench-press 272 lbs., while former basketball player Hannemann is 6’7″). Hannemann seems to running a bit to Abercrombie’s right, at least on social issues, and Abercrombie seems to have the late momentum based on polling and fundraising. The linked WaPo article points to some intriguing behind the scenes drama (with Dan Inouye behind Hannemann and Ed Case behind Abercrombie) and the racial resentments stirred by the race (Abercrombie is white, Hannemann is Samoan).

• NM-Gov: The DGA is keeping the pressure on in New Mexico, hitting Susana Martinez again on staff bonuses and sweetheart deals. Bill Clinton, who’s increasingly turning out to be the #1 Dem surrogate on the stump this cycle, is also now scheduled to stump on Diane Denish’s behalf on Oct. 14 in the heavily-Latino northern town of Espanola.

• NY-Gov: This may be the dumbest idea in the history of political advertising: send intentionally bad-smelling mailers to people’s houses. Carl Paladino is trying to make the point that “something smells” in Albany, but there has to be a smarter way to do it than invading people’s houses to intentionally physically sicken them.

• CO-04: Hot on the heels of the NRA backing John Salazar next door in the 3rd, now they’re also endorsing Democratic freshman Betsy Markey in the similarly rural, reddish 4th.

• MI-09: There’s a poll out in the 9th from a previously unknown (to us) pollster (The Rossman Group/Team Telcom) giving Rocky Raczkowski a small lead over Dem freshman Gary Peters, 45-41. Thanks to Paleo in the comments, we know that the Rossman Group is a PR firm associated with state-level GOP operative Audrey Perricone, so salt this one as you see fit.

• NY-23: All that hoping paid off, and now the cat is now officially in the dryer! A replay of the special election is on, as Doug Hoffman, who narrowly lost the GOP primary to Matt Doheny, is saying that he is going to stick with the Conservative Line no matter what. (More accurately, Conservative party chair Michael Long, who’s basically been Hoffman’s puppetmaster for the last year, is the one saying that.)

• TN-04: Sure, we’ve all been accused of harassment, intimidation, and physical abuse, but… oh, wait. We haven’t? Well, Republican candidate Scott DesJarlais was accused by his ex-wife of all of that, in divorce filings from a decade ago. It’s unclear how much this’ll affect the direction of the race, though; buried deep in the Roll Call article is word of a late August internal poll on Lincoln Davis’s behalf (released in response to a DesJarlais internal showing him within 4 of Davis), giving Davis a 51-40 lead. (No word on who Davis’s pollster is.)

• Mayors: Primary-defeated Dem incumbent Adrian Fenty somehow won the Republican mayoral primary. There wasn’t a candidate, and Fenty got more write-in votes than anyone else. It didn’t sound like Fenty was interested in turning coats and running again under the GOP aegis, and now the DC BoE is arguing that he couldn’t anyway, as he would have had to be a member of the Republican Party as of the election date.

• IE Tracker:

• MO-Sen: $124K from Commonsense Ten against Roy Blunt

• WV-01: $439K from American Future Fund against Mike Oliverio

• NC-02, VA-09: $341K from Americans for Job Security against Bob Etheridge, $431K against Rick Boucher

• AL-02: $414K from AFF against Bobby Bright

• SC-05: $191K from AFF against John Spratt

• NJ-03: $170K from AFF against John Adler

• MI-01: $304K from AFF against Gary McDowell

• GA-08: $346K from AFF against Jim Marshall

• MI-07: $501K from AFF against Mark Schauer

• SSP TV:

• PA-Sen: The DSCC rides to Joe Sestak’s rescue with an ad tying Pat Toomey to George Bush’s deficit-swelling tax policies, while the Club for Growth tries to walk a delicate balance, thanking Sestak for his military service before laying into his voting record

• AZ-Gov: Terry Goddard’s out with not one but three different ads using footage of Jan Brewer’s tongue-tied performance at last month’s debate, one of which focuses on her unproven allegations about headless bodies in the desert (and ending with the tagline “Is this the best Arizona can do?”)

• KS-Gov: The Kansas Moderate Majority PAC runs an anti-Sam Brownback ad hitting him on the flat tax, while Brownback is out with two ads of his own

• MI-Gov: Virg Bernero’s on the air, hitting Rick Sndyer for outsourcing jobs while he was head of Gateway

• ID-01: Walt Minnick actually hits Raul Labrador for being too soft on illegal immigrants, saying it’s “good business” for Labrador’s immigration law practice

• MI-01: 2 ads from Gary McDowell, one about cleaning up the Great Lakes and one hitting Dan Benishek on Social Security privatization

• TX-17: Chet Edwards is doing the distancing-from-DC-Democrats game in his newest ad

• WA-08: Suzan DelBene’s first TV ad starts negative against Dave Reichert, hitting him on his financial reform vote and on earmarks, of all things

• Rasmussen:

• IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth (D) 34%, Dan Coats (R) 50%

• MA-Gov: Deval Patrick (D-inc) 45%, Charlie Baker (R) 42%, Tim Cahill (I) 5%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 44%, Ron Johnson (R) 51%

SurveyUSA for KING-TV (8/31-9/2, likely voters, no trendlines:

Suzan DelBene (D): 41

Dave Reichert (R-inc): 54

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±3.9%)

I haven’t had high hopes (or even low hopes) for this race this cycle… if Darcy Burner couldn’t beat Dave Reichert in the 2008 environment, then Suzan DelBene isn’t likely to fare better in the 2010 environment with basically the same resume and without the netroots and grassroots interest. DelBene (with a BlackBerry… or maybe a Zune… full of MSFT contacts) has been one of the Dems’ brightest spots on fundraising among challengers, but money alone isn’t going to get the job done this year.

SurveyUSA has its usual age-related quirks (Reichert performs best among the 18-34 set), but these numbers aren’t that different from the composite D and R totals from the WA-08 top 2 primary, maybe even a little more Dem-favorable than the primary, so the toplines don’t seem far off. Maybe the most interesting question here is whether DelBene runs again in 2012 — although the map may look dramatically different by that point. The 8th has seen a lot of population growth, so the current 8th may be the cores of two different districts by that point, especially if Washington gets its expected 10th seat. This may take the shape of a GOP-leaning seat in SE King County (Reichert’s turf) and a pretty-solidly-Dem seat on the Eastside, which would give DelBene a much better opening, although a newly created seat would probably draw a lot of Dem state legislators out of the woodwork, too.

The Washington Senate primary was the main event last night, even though it the results were entirely predictable (as seen by PPP’s pre-primary poll, which got it almost exactly right). Patty Murray is currently at 46, with Dino Rossi at 34; Clint Didier doesn’t advance, at 12. Both sides, naturally, are foreseeing doom for their opposition based on the results. It’s a little premature to foresee anything, though, since, as if often the case in Washington, only about half of all precincts have reported, and the ones that haven’t reported are disproportionately in Seattle. (50% of King County is in, while 67% of precincts outside of King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties are in.) For what it’s worth, right now there are a few thousand more total GOP votes than there are total Dem votes in the Senate race (taking into account all 15 participants), though that will change once Seattle reports more. And there’s also the problem of getting teabagger votes to switch over from Didier to Rossi; Didier is currently withholding his endorsement, wanting to see “more conviction” and patronizingly insisting on giving Rossi “some coaching” first on how to reach his supporters.

One place where the results don’t bode well for Dems is WA-03, where Denny Heck is currently in first but with only 32%, against a fractured GOP field. He’ll face state Rep. Jaime Herrera, who hit 27%, followed by teabaggers David Hedrick and David Castillo at 13 and 12 (repeating the oft-seen pattern where the Tea Party could have been relevant if only they’d galvanized behind one candidate), and by Dem activist Cheryl Crist, who pulled in a surprisingly large 12, all of it seeming to come from Heck’s left flank. The total GOP vote topped 50%, and as Greg Giroux demonstrates with a terrific spreadsheet comparing the ’08 primaries and generals, there’s not much variation from the Dem and GOP totals in the primary to the November numbers. Americans for Prosperity isn’t wasting any time; they’re already jumping into the district with a $180K ad buy with a negative ad against Heck.

Real Clear Politics sees trouble ahead for Rick Larsen in WA-02, who’s currently ahead of GOPer John Koster 43-41; however, if you do the Giroux-style math, you’ll notice that two other random Dems vacuumed up 10% of the vote, which would project out to a 53-47 advantage for Larsen in a head-to-head. (The good part of the RCP article is about how Washington’s top 2 primary has taken the bellwether position once occupied by Maine’s weird early general election, from which we get the saying “As goes Maine, so goes the nation.”) They also took notice of Rep. Adam Smith finishing in the mid-50s in WA-09; he’ll probably face Pierce Co. Commissioner Dick Muri, although that primary hasn’t been called yet. And in the one seat where Dems are on offense, in WA-08, it’s Dave Reichert vs. Suzan DelBene, who got 48 and 26 respectively (with totals of 59 GOP-41 Dems).

Wyoming’s gubernatorial race came down to the wire on the Republican side. Former US Attorney Matt Mead is the victor, beating state Auditor Rita Meyer 29-28, with Ron Micheli at 26 and Colin Simpson at 16. Mead’s 714 vote lead was within the margin for a recount, but Meyer conceded and won’t seek a recount. Mead will face Democratic former state party chair Leslie Petersen, who won her own primary over Pete Gosar 48-37.

Finally, in California’s 15th Senate district, Republican Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee defeated Dem John Laird in a near-identical replay of their first (but inconclusive) special election. Blakeslee won by a 49-44 margin, only slightly different from the original 49-42 result. As a pointless aside, there were more votes cast in this election (with the district’s more than 800K residents) than there were in the Wyoming gubernatorial race.

CO-Sen: In yet another example of the perils of Citizens United, Americans United for Life, a non-profit anti-abortion group, is endorsing GOPer Jane Norton. Worry not, circular firing squad enthusiasts, as other pro-life groups endorsing Norton’s more conservative rival Ken Buck are already hitting back promoting Buck as the pro-lifest option.

FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek, seeking to stanch the bleeding of support to Jeff Greene in the Democratic primary, has released an internal poll showing him leading by the slimmest of margins, 36-35, with 8% going to Maurice Ferre and 20% undecided. Meek has three events planned with the Big Dog in the coming weeks – which isn’t surprising given Meek did endorse Hillary Clinton for President in 2008.

KY-Sen: Braun Research (8/2-4, likely voters):

Jack Conway (D): 31

Rand Paul (R): 41

Undecided: 28

(MoE: ±3.46%)

Braun Research is out with another poll in Kentucky, showing a result consistent with other pollsters of a slight lead for mountain-hater Rand Paul.

NV-Sen: Sharron Angle’s Tour de Crazy continues, as she’s now bandying about criticizing gay adoption (which is legal in Nevada) and advocating for the right of religious officials to endorse political candidates – which flies squarely in the face of Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code.

CO-Gov: Former state legislator Tom Wiens – last seen briefly running for the Senate seat currently held by Michael Bennet – may have set his sights on the Governor’s race as a post-primary option given the utter fail of both GOPers on the ballot, Scott “plagiarist” McInnis and Dan “lien collector” Maes. Wiens claims to have already voted for Scott McInnis, but his follow-up statement that “I voted for Scott McInnis and let’s hope things work out” is hardly a ringing endorsement.

MN-Gov: Target’s CEO, Gregg Steinhafel, is apologizing for the company’s recent $150,000 to the shadowy right-wing group Minnesota Forward, which was last seen airing ads in support of the waitstaff-hating, gay-bashing, Christian conservative-cozy GOP nominee, Tom Emmer. The irony in all of this, of course, is that Target is the successor to the Dayton-Hudson Corporation…to which Democratic gube-hopeful Mark Dayton is an heir.

AL-05: With many of their members at risk in November, the Blue Dog Coalition senses an opportunity to add to their ranks here, endorsing Dem nominee Steve Raby. The Blue Dog Coalition goes way back in this northern Alabama district, as Bud Cramer – who held this seat until 2008 – was a co-founder of the coalition.

ID-01: It’s hard to to tell who’s campaign’s been more amusing, Bill Sali’s or Raul Labrador’s. The normally GOP-leaning Idaho Associated General Contractors – who even endorsed Bill Sali in 2008 – are opting for Dem Walt Minnick, even citing Minnick’s opposition to the stimulus as a point of reservation for the group.

TN-08: The dust’s hardly settled from last night’s bloody GOP three-way…primary, which has fortunately allowed Democratic nominee state Sen. Roy Herron to build up a huge financial advantage. Outside groups are stepping in though, with the conservative-leaning 60 Plus Association dropping $240k in ad buys against Herron in the Memphis, Jackson, and Nashville markets.

VA-05: To the disappointment of cat fud lovers everywhere, the teabaggish Jim McKelvey – despite his earlier reluctance – is endorsing the man who beat him in the primary, “moderate” state Sen. Robert Hurt. Fortunately, there’s still the teabagging independent in this race, Jeff Clark.

WA-08: In a major surprise, the Seattle Times has decided not to endorse incumbent GOPer Dave Reichert, criticizing his constant nay-saying. The Times – which has endorsed Reichert in the past – is instead opting for Microsoft exec Suzan DelBene (D) and Expedia senior manager Tim Dillon (R) in Washington’s unusual top two primary.

Polling: Daily Kos, after having fired their pollster Research 2000, is back in the polling game, to the delight of Swingnuts everywhere. While Daily Kos has yet to decide on a national pollster, they’ve settled on the always reliable Public Policy Polling for state-level horserace polling.

Rasmussen:

CA-Gov: Brown (D) 43%, Whitman (R) 41%

MI-Gov: Bernero (D) 37%, Snyder (R) 49%

NC-Sen: Marshall (D) 40%, Burr (R) 49%

• Election Results: No big surprises last night in the Alabama runoffs. Robert Bentley, who’d had the edge in the one public poll shortly before the runoff, beat Bradley Byrne in the gubernatorial GOP runoff, 56-44; he and Ron Sparks are now promising each other a positive, issues-oriented race. (Assorted wonks are trying to figure out today if Bentley, friendly – or at least friendlier – with the AEA, was helped along by Democratic crossover votes… and the answer appears to be no, not really.) In the GOP runoff in AL-02, Mike Barber is sending his gathered armies back home after losing by a 60-40 margin to Martha Roby. In the Dem runoff in AL-07, Terri Sewell beat Shelia Smoot 55-45, and is almost certain to succeed Artur Davis. Finally, the closest race of the night was the GOP Agriculture Commissioner runoff, where Dale Peterson-powered John McMillan sent Dorman Grace back to his chicken farm, 52-48.

• AZ-Sen, AZ-Gov (pdf): A new Rocky Mountain poll from the Behavior Research Center finds [insert usual “good news” joke here]. John McCain leads J.D. Hayworth (seeming DOA after the free-grant-money thing) in the GOP primary 64-19, with 5 for someone named Jim Deakin. They also polled the now-irrelevant gubernatorial primary, finding Jan Brewer at 57, with 12 for Owen Buz Mills and 9 for Dean Martin (both of whom have dropped out since the poll’s completion). Matthew Jatte remains in the primary, but he polled at “less than 1%.”

• FL-Sen: Here’s some good news for Kendrick Meek, who seems to be counting on a last minute Democratic surge: Bill Clinton will be appearing on his behalf in August, to stump for him in August. Dem primary rival Jeff Greene has some less good news: he just lost his campaign manager Josh Morrow. (It’s unclear whether he fled, or was pushed.) The St. Petersburg Times has an interesting profile of Greene today, too, that delves below the headline-grabbing superficial weirdnesses.

• KS-Sen: Tancredo sez: get a brain, Moran! (No, I’m never going to get tired of that joke.) The loudmouthed ex-Rep., last seen torpedoing ally Ken Buck, today barged back into the Kansas GOP Senate primary and admitted he had gotten it all wrong. He withdrew his earlier backing for Rep. Jerry Moran and switched over to Rep. Todd Tiahrt instead, saying that Moran had “deceived him” on his apparently inadequate hatred for teh brown people. In other news, did you know there was actually a third guy running in the primary, and he wasn’t just Some Dude® but a former state Attorney General? Of course, he was AG from the years 1965 to 1969 Anno Domini, so you could be forgiven for not remembering Robert Londerholm. At any rate, Londerholm dropped out of the race today.

• LA-Sen: Bobby Jindal had previously hedged on his support for David Vitter, showing up at some fundraising events but never actually going so far as to say that he endorsed him. That’s going to be more of an issue now that Vitter has some serious primary opposition from Chet Traylor, and Jindal is doubling down on his neutrality, saying he’s not focused on the race. At least Vitter continues to have the NRSC in his corner.

• NC-Sen: SurveyUSA is out with another poll in NC-Sen, on behalf of WRAL. Richard Burr continues to have a lead over Elaine Marshall, currently at 46-36, with 6 to Libertarian Mike Beitler. Burr’s favorables are 28/27 (with 23 neutral and 22 no opinion), while Marshall is at 25/12 (with 28 neutral and 35 no opinion), so usual caveats at Marshall’s room to grow apply. Interestingly, SurveyUSA followed their WA-Sen lead and added a cellphone oversample, which in various permutations had little effect on the toplines.

• NV-Sen: No polling memo to link to, at least not yet, but Jon Ralston calls our attention to a new poll from Dem pollster Fairbanks Maslin on behalf of the Patriot Majority. If it’s a quasi-internal, you can probably guess where we’re going with this… it actually has Harry Reid in the lead, over Sharron Angle 44-40. Both Reid (45/52) and Angle (40/41) have net-negative favorables, though.

• FL-Gov: Rick Scott lost a court battle (though the war over the Millionaire’s Amendment is no doubt not over, though). A federal district court judge denied Scott’s request for an injunction against Florida’s campaign finance law, which would give a truckload of money to the near-broke Bill McCollum because of Scott’s aggressive self-funding.

• MI-Gov: There are two separate polls of the Michigan GOP gubernatorial primary floating around today. One is a public poll from Mitchell Research & Communications; it sees a flat-out three-way tie between Mike Cox, Peter Hoekstra, and Rick Snyder, each of them at 18, with Mike Bouchard at 9 and Tom George at 2. Not quite content with that, Bouchard rolled out an internal poll (from McLaughlin & Associates) which, in marked contrast with, well, every other poll, had Bouchard tied for the lead. His poll has him and Hoekstra at 19, with Cox at 16, Snyder at 12, and George at 3. Mitchell also has numbers from the Dem primary, where they find Andy Dillon leading Virg Bernero 35-15.

• RI-Gov: This seems out of the blue, although he had been lagging in fundraising and underperforming in the polls: Democratic AG Patrick Lynch will be dropping out of the gubernatorial primary, effective tomorrow. That leaves state Treasurer Frank Caprio as de facto Dem nominee, sparing him a primary battle with the more liberal Lynch. It’s the day before nominating papers are due, so maybe he’ll re-up for more AGing. The main question now seems to be positioning for the general election… maybe most notably whether independent ex-GOP ex-Sen. Lincoln Chafee finds himself running to the left of the generally moderate Caprio.

• WA-08: Via press release, we have fundraising numbers from Suzan DelBene, who’s raising strongly despite little netroots interest so far. She raised $378K last quarter, and is sitting on $1.04 million CoH. She’s raised $1.65 million over the cycle.

• Rasmussen:

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 42%

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 45%, Roy Blunt (R) 47%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 37%, Kelly Ayotte (R) 49%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 40%, Ovide Lamontagne (R) 43%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 38%, Bill Binnie (R) 49%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 39%, Jim Bender (R) 43%

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 36%, Brian Sandoval (R) 57%

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist, who’s been trying to sound more conservative for the last few months, seems to have changed tack again, trying to sound, well, independent… and that’s leaving many speculating that it’s a prelude to, say, an independent bid for the Senate. Crist is now portraying himself as standing up for “the people” against the GOP legislature, as he just vetoed a leadership fund bill and is poised to veto a controversial bill that would abolish teacher tenure and tie teacher pay to test scores. Polling has shown Crist in so-so shape in a three-way race, but it’s still a better bet than the GOP primary is for him at this point. Crist has until April 30 to decide whether to pull the trigger on an indie bid.

• LA-Sen: Bayou Buzz is saying that Republican incumbent David Vitter may still wind up with some conservative opposition in the Senate race, despite having scared off all the top-tier possible opponents. Former state Sen. (and 2006 Insurance Comm. loser) James Cain, who’s well-connected with the religious right, is “seriously considering” making the race. Cain says he’d prefer to run in the GOP primary, but is also considering running as a teabagger independent — which, if it splits the right-wing vote, could make things considerably more interesting for Dem Charlie Melancon.

• UT-Sen: Freshman GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz, whose name had briefly been associated with a possible primary challenge to Bob Bennett, still doesn’t think much of Bennett’s chances at the state convention, even though Bennett faces lower-caliber opposition than Chaffetz. Chaffetz drew some parallels to the same dynamic that helped him beat long-time Rep. Chris Cannon in 2008, and Cannon concurs, saying that the same movement has evolved since then.

• FL-Gov: I hinted at this yesterday, but these numbers are worth elaborating: Republican AG Bill McCollum raised $1.4 million last quarter, compared with $1.1 for Democratic CFO Alex Sink, suggesting that the same momentum change that we’ve seen in polls lately may be playing out in fundraising too. Sink still leads in receipts over the election cycle, and has the edge in cash on hand (she has $5 million).

• GA-Gov: One other gubernatorial race where the Democratic candidate is fundraising like mad is Georgia; ex-Gov. Roy Barnes raised over $900K this quarter and is sitting on $2.84 million CoH. That puts him well ahead of the top Republican, Insurance Comm. John Oxendine, who reports $2 million CoH but only raised $75K during the last quarter. Republican ex-SoS Karen Handel raised $400K in Q1, but is sitting on nearly $600K.

• PA-Gov: Little-known state Sen. Anthony Williams raised some eyebrows with his big cash haul last quarter ($1.7 million for the quarter), but it’s a little less amazing now that it’s been revealed that much of that came from one huge contribution from a not-very-appealing source: $750K came from Democrats for Education Reform, who are a school-choice group. Another interesting co-inkee-dink: Williams’ campaign manager is, in his spare time, president of a Philly charter school.

• CT-05: Sam Caligiuri and Justin Bernier have gotten some wealthy company in the GOP primary in the 5th, from businessman Mark Greenberg. He says he’s pledging $1 million of his own money for the race (although that may come in installments, as he currently reports $403K in his account).

• FL-08: You may recall our amazement the other week to find that there’s a Whig running in FL-25… well, apparently they’re proliferating all over Florida, as now there’s one running in FL-08 as well. CQ talks briefly with Steve Gerritzen, who plans to go all William Henry Harrison on Alan Grayson’s ass.

• MI-01: Sounds like Bart Stupak was speaking mostly out of frustration when he said he was considering retirement a few days ago, or maybe he got the attention he was seeking in response. In today’s Detroit Free Press, he’s sounding much likelier to run, saying he’s “not ready to quit yet,” and that he has “every intention” of running again. He still has to have his biannual sitdown with his family about whether to do it or not, though.

• NH-02: Sorry, Charlie… you’re going to need more money than that. GOP Ex-Rep. Charlie Bass reported $155K, with $262K CoH, in his quest to reclaim his old seat. Dem Katrina Swett also reported yesterday, with $325K last quarter and over $1 million CoH (mostly leftover from her Senate bid that never happened). Bass also lags Ann McLane Kuster, who reported $285K last quarter.

• PA-07: State Rep. Bryan Lentz seemed to have a pretty easy path to the nomination in the 7th, and that path got even easier, with the dropout of environmental lawyer Gail Conner from the Dem field. That leaves only political consultant Teresa Touey in the way, and Lentz is challenging her signatures.

• SC-01: Carroll Campbell III got a big endorsement in his bid for the GOP nomination to replace retiring Rep. Henry Brown, from ex-Gov. David Beasley. That makes two ex-Govs backing him (as it would be pretty awkward if he didn’t have his dad’s endorsement). (UPDATE: Ooops, my apologies. The elder Campbell died several years ago.)

• CO-AG: This is a little down in the weeds, but it may be the first big test of whether joining the frivolous Republican AG lawsuit against the feds over HCR is a net positive or negative. Republican AG John Suthers just drew a top-tier challenge, from Democratic Boulder County DA Stan Garnett. Garnett was motivated to get in largely by Suthers’ participation in the lawsuit.

• NARAL: NARAL rolled out a bunch of endorsements for Democrats going on the offense in House races. Most interestingly, they waded into the LA-02 primary, endorsing state Rep. Cedric Richmond (who still faces fellow state Rep. Juan LaFonta; the winner faces Joe Cao in November). They also supported Dan Seals (IL-10), Paula Brooks (OH-12), Suzan DelBene (WA-08), and Steve Pougnet (CA-45).

• Redistricting: If you like big charts with lots of population numbers and vote percentages (and if you’re at SSP, you probably do), here’s a post for you. Josh Goodman looks at California population changes on a county-by-county level and finds heaviest growth in Republican-leaning counties, but the growth is mostly Hispanic. Here’s the nice succinct conclusion, which I think applies everywhere and not just California:

The most rapid growth is in Republican places, but, in many cases, it’s among people who are likely to be Democratic voters. What that might mean is that this round of redistricting will produce short-term Republican gains, but, over the long haul, these Republican places won’t be Republican anymore.

• WATN?: Mahoney, Foley, and Spitzer, oh my! All three losers are in the news today as they publicly ruminate about comebacks. Ex-Rep. Tim Mahoney says people have been urging him to run for his old seat, which he lost to Republican Tom Rooney (and with Chris Craft out, hell, he may actually be their best option). Meanwhile, the guy Mahoney beat, Tom Mark Foley, has been gauging interest for his own comeback, running in 2011 for West Palm Beach mayor. Rounding out the trifecta of sex scandal survivors, Eliot Spitzer is still keeping his name in front of the press, saying that Kirsten Gillibrand presents an appealing target but sounding more plausibly interested in a run for state Comptroller.

• PA-Sen: Apparently, Arlen Specter’s campaign has only received 15 requests for donation refunds so far in the wake of his switch to the Democratic Party. The returned funds only add up to a paltry $15K. (J)

The NRSC has launched a new robocall targeting Specter, by linking him to the NRSC’s arch-enemy… George W. Bush? (It replays Bush’s 2004 endorsement of then-GOPer Specter.) Apparently, the goal is to soften Specter up among the Dem electorate to lose a Democratic primary to a more reliable Dem, who would then be a little more vulnerable to Pat Toomey in the general… or something like that? This is one of those moments when you can’t tell if the GOP is crazy like a fox, or just crazy.

Specter bringing his decades of seniority with him over to the Democratic caucus is angering some key Democrats who get bumped down the totem pole as a result, according to The Hill. Specter could find himself wielding the gavel in an Appropriations subcommittee, or even back in charge of Judiciary if Patrick Leahy takes over Appropriations in 2010.

Specter’s switch has the whining flowing among some of the GOP’s sourest senators: Jim Bunning says the GOP “coddled” Specter for too long, while Jim Inhofe shows his grasp of GOP dead-ender logic, saying that Specter’s fleeing the party is a sign of conservatism’s strength and presages a comeback. In much the same way that if my house is on fire, that indicates that its value is about to go up, because it’s finally clearing out all that clutter.

• FL-Sen: The DSCC is pulling out all the stops against Charlie Crist, and he hasn’t even taken any steps toward getting into the Senate race yet. They’ve launched a new TV spot (airing in the Tallahassee market) that attacks Crist for leaving Florida in financial disarray to jump to Washington, and attacks his heavy-on-socializing, light-on-work schedule.

• CO-Sen: The GOP’s Weld County DA Ken Buck is trapped in the grey area between candidate and not-candidate for Senate; his website is up and running and has a “donate” button, but hasn’t filed his official paperwork and denied Monday’s reports that he was officially in.

• RI-Gov: Lincoln Chafee seems to be having similar problems on just how official a candidate he is, too. His exploratory committee is open and he said he “is” running when appearing on Rachel Maddow on Tuesday, but then issued a release yesterday walking that back, to “my intentions are” to run for governor.

• WI-Gov: The GOPers aren’t waiting any longer for Gov. Jim Doyle to publicly announce his re-elections; Milwaukee Co. Scott Walker launched his campaign yesterday. Walker (who briefly ran in the primary in 2006) doesn’t have the race to himself, though; last week, Mark Neumann, who represented WI-01 from 1994 to 1998 and then lost the 1998 senate race to Russ Feingold, announced his candidacy, touting his support from Tommy Thompson surrogate James Klauser.

• AL-Gov: Not one but two more Republicans are sizing up the governor’s race, although neither one seems top-tier material: Hoover mayor (in the Birmingham suburbs) Tony Petelos, and Bill Johnson, the head of the Alabama Dept. of Economic and Community Affairs. (Johnson has a colorful backstory that wouldn’t help him much in the primary.)

• OR-Gov: Local Republican pollster Moore Insight polled potential Dem candidates for governor on their favorables. Ex-gov. John Kitzhaber and Rep. Peter DeFazio posted pretty similar numbers: 49/21 for Kitz, 48/17 for the Faz. (Kitzhaber has higher negatives among Republicans, thanks to all those vetoes he handed out.) Former SoS Bill Bradbury is at 29/10, and Steve Novick, who barely lost the 2008 Senate primary, is at 14/4.

• GA-01: Long-time Rep. Jack Kingston has often been the subject of speculation in the Georgia governor’s race, but he confirmed that he’ll be running for re-election to the House. Interestingly, he’s supporting state senator Eric Johnson in the race instead of fellow Rep. Nathan Deal, but that’s because Johnson is a fellow Savannah resident and his son’s godfather.

• VA-10: The subject of much retirement-related speculation due to age and a rapidly bluening seat (now R+2), Rep. Frank Wolf confirmed he’ll be running for re-election in 2010. He may face state senator Mark Herring or delegate David Poisson.

• OH-18: Rep. Zack Space has been added to the DCCC’s defense-oriented Frontline program. Space was the target of an NRCC TV spot earlier, but this isn’t so much a question of newfound vulnerability as it’s confirmation he’s done flirting with a Senate run and committing to his House seat for 2010.

• CA-36: Suddenly embattled Rep. Jane Harman has hired Clinton-era fixer Lanny Davis to help her negotiate the legal and PR minefield she finds herself in, regarding the wiretap imbroglio. 2006 primary challenger Marcy Winograd is revving up her efforts, sensing Harman’s weakness. Winograd, who earned 38% in 2006, has begun raising funds for another try.

• NY-20: Republican Jim Tedisco says that he is “not planning” on seeking a rematch against freshly-minted Democratic Rep. Scott Murphy, but refuses to explicitly rule out a run. (J)

• WA-08: One more tea leaf that Suzan DelBene may be left holding the bag in WA-08: State Rep. Ross Hunter, one of the first Dems to crack the GOP stranglehold on the Eastside and a potentially strong contender in WA-08, is running for King County Executive. The already-crowded Exec race is in Nov. 2009, not 2010, but indicates Hunter’s interests lie locally, not in DC.

• Votes: The 17 Democrats who voted against the Obama budget are all familiar dissenters, and most of them are in difficult Republican-leaning districts: Barrow, Boren, Bright, Childers, Foster, Griffith, Kratovil, Kucinich, Markey, Marshall, Matheson, McIntyre, Minnick, Mitchell, Nye, Taylor, and Teague.

• MO-Sen: After last week announcing that she was “in no hurry” to begin her campaign for the GOP nomination in the Missouri senate race, former treasurer Sarah Steeleman has done an about-face and is setting up her exploratory committee right away. Apparently she’s striking while the iron is hot (i.e. while everyone is suddenly second-guessing Roy Blunt). She’s enlisting Ben Ginsberg, GOP beltway power-broker and fixer extraordinaire, to help. (H/t ccharles000.)

• CO-Sen: Ken Buck, the Weld County District Attorney and an immigration hard-liner, has, as expected, formally announced his candidacy for the Colorado senate seat held by appointee Michael Bennet. He’ll face Aurora city councilor Ryan Frazier, and possibly ex-Rep. Bob Beauprez, in the GOP primary.

• NV-Sen: As the GOP searches for a dark-horse opponent to Harry Reid, they could go two routes: go with an underfunded conservative activist who can mobilize the boots on the ground (see Sharron Angle), or go with some self-funding rich guy nobody’s heard of who can saturate the race with money. The latter option has materialized, in the form of Wall Street investment banker John Chachas, who’s been meeting with party leaders. There are two slight problems: one, the nation’s ire toward all things Wall Street, and two, that Chachas is a New York resident who hasn’t lived in Nevada since high school.

• MN-Sen: Even polite, stoic Minnesotans have only a finite amount of patience. A new Star-Tribune poll finds that 64% think Norm Coleman should concede right now, and only 28% consider his appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court “appropriate.” 73% think he should pack it in if he loses in front of the state supreme court.

• NY-Sen: Kirsten Gillibrand has her first official primary opponent. It’s not Steve Israel, it’s not Carolyn Maloney… it’s Scott Noren, an oral surgeon and “fiscally conservative” Dem from Ithaca who’s urging supporters to “donate modestly.” Uh huh. Good luck with that.

• Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Democratic chair T.J. Rooney has a simple goal: to “come together as a party” and have no primary fights in 2010. Uh huh. Good luck with that.

• TX-Gov, TX-AG: Former Travis County DA Ronnie Earle (otherwise known as the guy who secured the indictment of Tom DeLay) tells the Austin American-Statesman that he is considering a statewide run, for either governor or attorney general. (J)

• WA-03: A Republican candidate against Rep. Brian Baird has already announced: financial advisor David Castillo. He’s never held elective office, but was a deputy assistant secretary at the Bush administration VA, and ran state senator Don Benton’s 1998 campaign against Baird. This district’s PVI is ‘even,’ and Baird routinely wins with over 60%. (UPDATE: Uh huh. Good luck with that.)

• WA-08: One question that’s been on the lips of the blogosphere lately is: where in the world is Darcy Burner? It’s been tweeted about for a while but now it’s been made official: she’s going to DC to be executive director of the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation (the ideas arm of the Congressional Progressive Caucus). With fellow MSFT vet Suzan DelBene in the 2010 race already, this seems to indicate Burner won’t be making a third attempt at WA-08.

• CA-32: Chu-mentum! Board of Equalization chair Judy Chu seems to be building up speed as we head toward the May 19 special election. Last week, Chu reported a sizable fundraising edge, raising $823K in the first quarter (compared with $568K for state senate Gil Cedillo and $153K for investment banker Emanuel Pleitez). And now, Chu received the unanimous endorsement of the state Democratic Party over the weekend.

• MN-Sen: No real surprise; Norm Coleman filed notice of intent to appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court. Cost of 1,000 more billable hours: $500,000. Cost of another month of keeping the Democrats down to only 58 votes? Priceless.

• PA-Sen: Arlen Specter has picked up another Democratic opponent; Bill Kortz, a member of the state House representing Allegheny County, has announced that he intends to file his statement of candidacy with the FEC soon. Kortz, a relatively fresh legislator (he successfully beat an incumbent Democrat in 2006), may find a statewide primary challenging — Rendell ally Joe Torsella has been in the race for a while and has raised nearly $600K, while other candidates, such as fellow state Rep. Josh Shapiro, are also eyeballing the race. In any event, his first item of business should be to upgrade his website. (J)

• MD-Gov: Bob Ehrlich is reportedly weighing a rematch with Martin O’Malley in 2010. If Ehrlich (Maryland’s only Republican governor in the last 30 years) doesn’t run, next in line may be Anne Arundel Co. Executive John Leopold.

• OK-Gov: State senator Randy Brogdon announced his run for the GOP gubernatorial nod this weekend, preventing Rep. Mary Fallin from having a clear shot at the nomination (after Rep. Tom Cole declined). A couple bigger names, ex-Rep. J.C. Watts and mmmmaybe Sen. Tom Coburn (who’s been sounding ambivalent about re-election to the senate), may still get in too.

• MN-06: There are mixed signals cropping up on whether Elwyn Tinklenberg is angling for a rematch with Archduchess Cuckoobananas Michele Bachmann. The Minnesota Independent says he’s “all but declaring himself a candidate.” On the other hand, he just gave almost $250,000 to the DCCC, suggesting he won’t be using it (unless he’s doing it to make amends for winding up with $500K in the bank at the end of the campaign last year… not exactly his fault, though, since almost all his cash arrived at the very last minute). State senator Taryl Clark is also eyeing the race.

• AL-07: The field to replace Artur Davis is getting clearer. Jefferson Co. Commissioner Sheila Smoot launched her campaign. State senate president pro tem Rodger Smitherman, however, said he won’t run. Smoot joins attorney Terri Sewell and state rep. Earl Hilliard Jr.

• FL-22: The GOP’s leading recruit to take on Democrat Ron Klein next year, state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, has decided that a congressional bid is not in the cards for him. (J)

• NY-19: GOP Assemblyman Greg Ball, who has been “testing the waters” in anticipation of a congressional bid for months now, will formally announce his candidacy for the seat of two-term Dem Rep. John Hall on May 9th. Ball was previously courted to run for this seat after gajillionaire businessman Andrew Saul unexpectedly terminated his bid against Hall in 2007. (J)

• CA-04: Third time’s the charm? Democrat Charlie Brown is telling local activists that he’s actively considering another run for the northeast California seat he narrowly lost last November to GOP wingnut Tom McClintock. Brown says that he expects to make up his mind “by this fall”. (J)

• WA-08: The Seattle Times strikes again, going on the early offensive against just-announced Dem candidate Suzan DelBene. Turns out DelBene didn’t vote in nine elections over the last five years (including the 2006 general, where Dave Reichert barely beat Darcy Burner the first time). (On the other hand, better this come out now than Oct. 2010.)

• TN-01: Rep. Phil Roe and ex-Rep. David Davis may get a nice Baron Hill/Mike Sodrel-style relationship going. Davis may be gearing up for a third run at Roe in the 2010 GOP primary. (Davis defeated Roe in an overcrowded 2006 primary when this was an open seat, then the slightly-less-conservative Roe defeated Davis in a two-man contest in 2008.)

• NM-01: The 2010 race in NM-01 promises to be fun(ereal). Kevin Daniels, owner of a chain of funeral homes, is exploring the race on the GOP side and, if nothing else, has the capacity to self-finance.

• Friendship: In the diaries, possumtracker makes a hilarious catch from a recent Hill survey in which all 41 Republican Senators were asked to name the Democrats whom they most enjoy partnering with on legislation. While most of the Senators gave thoughtful (and sometimes surprising) answers, Kentucky’s Jim Bunning could only muster up one word in response to the idea of collaborating with a Demmycrat: “No.” (J)

We’re going to try out a new feature for weekday afternoons here at Swing State Project: four or five links to various items that we want to get out there but don’t feel like investing a diary’s worth of effort on. Enjoy the bullet points! (We encourage you to add your own bullet points in the comments, and otherwise treat this as an open thread.)

• UT-Sen: Daily Kos polls the 2010 Utah Senate race, where the action appears to be in the primary, but Bob Bennett looks safe for another 6 years. Bennett beats David Leavitt 44-23 in the primary, and, in the general, manhandles Rep. Jim Matheson 55-32 and Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings 57-21, not that we should expect either of them to run.

• OH-Sen: A third Dem has jumped into the primary field for the 2010 Senate race: state representative Tyrone Yates. He doesn’t have the stature of Fisher or Brunner, but as the only African-American and only Cincinnati-area candidate, he may well complicate things.

• WA-08: The first Dem challenger has announced, and it’s another wealthy ex-Microsoft executive, Suzan DelBene. Don’t look for her to have the field to herself this time, though.

• MN-Sen: In an indication that the Coleman camp has exhausted every possible legal argument that can win in court, he’s moved onto arguing that it was basically a tie so let’s just have a do-over election. Not the kind of thing that someone who has a hope of winning in court ever says.

• Census: The Congressional Black Caucus is pushing the White House to keep the Census within its portfolio even though reliable Dem Gary Locke will now be taking over at Commerce.

• Blogospheria: Blogger brainpower (including Jane Hamsher, Glenn Greenwald, Markos Moulitsas, and Nate Silver) and union bucks come together in the new Accountability Now PAC. The goal is to pressure (and where there’s a good target, primary) bad Dems and create more space for good Dems to maneuver on the left.

• RI-01: Republican state representative John Loughlin is strongly considering a suicide mission against challenge to Rep. Patrick Kennedy. Kennedy got 69% against no-names in his last two elections, but apparently his approval ratings are softening.

• HI-01: In another district where you might be surprised to know there’s an elected Republican, Honolulu city councilor Charles Djou has announced his candidacy for HI-01, which is expected to be vacated by Neil Abercrombie as he goes for governor. Djou claims the endorsement of every Republican in Hawaii’s legislature (all 7 of them).

• NC-Sen: Former state treasurer, and gubernatorial primary loser, Richard Moore won’t be getting involved in the Dem primary to take on Richard Burr in 2010. The field looks clearer for AG Roy Cooper.