Tag: John Garamendi

• NY-20 (pdf): This morning’s official tally from the BoE gives Scott Murphy a whopping lead of 268. This new number reflects the addition of all the remaining absentees from Columbia County, where Murphy performed well on Election Day and apparently even better among absentees. There are still 1,200 absentee ballots that haven’t been counted because they were subject to challenge; they’ll be reviewed starting Monday.

Jim Tedisco isn’t waiting around for those ballots, though; he’s already asking the courts to declare him the victor. Wait… what? Isn’t he the one who’s behind? (The Tedisco camp has tried to clarify that they were re-filing a motion that they filed on Election Day, to also have Tedisco declared the winner, as some sort of ‘insurance policy.’ OK, that makes me feel much better.)

• CA-10: BigDust broke the story yesterday in diaries: Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, seeing his gubernatorial campaign sputtering and lured by the siren call of a term-limits-free job, has more-or-less confirmed that the rumors are true and he’s jumping into the 10th District special election, where state senator Mark DeSaulnier had already nailed down the ‘establishment’ candidate mantle. (Unlike other frequent job-hopper Tom McClintock, Garamendi actually has the advantage of living in the district.)

• KY-Sen, SD-Sen: The message can’t get much clearer than this. Mitch McConnell is hosting a fundraiser in the state of Kentucky for his fellow senator… John Thune? That’s right; McConnell would rather help a guy from South Dakota defending a safe seat than help his fellow Kentuckian Jim Bunning, who has already been complaining about how McConnell is sucking up all the fundraising oxygen in the state.

• CT-Sen: Chris Dodd may have raised a million bucks last quarter, but only five donors were from his home state of Connecticut. And before you can say “But what about donations below $200 which don’t require detailed disclosure?”, we’ll just point out that Dodd took in under $2,300 total from that category of donors. Sigh. (D)

On the plus side for Dodd, he got a hearty endorsement and a promise of future help from someone a little more popular than him: Barack Obama. “Chris is going through a rough patch,” says Obama.

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes raised $225K this quarter, which doesn’t seem like a whole lot, does it? (D)

• NJ-Gov: Governor Jon Corzine, facing a tough re-election, has another problem: his gross income last year was negative $2.75 million. You’ve got to assume that his overall net worth (once estimated at $300 million) has taken a much, much larger hit, so that calls into question his willingness, if not ability, to moneybomb the race as he did with his last two runs for office.

• TX-Gov: I never thought I’d have to say this out loud, but Governor Rick Perry may not have a winning issue on his hands when he makes veiled secession threats. A Rasmussen snap-poll finds that 75% of Texans would prefer to remain a part of the USA. 18% prefer secession, and 7% just aren’t sure. Not coincidentally, a similar percentage of the Texas state senate (71%) just voted, 22-9, to ignore Perry and accept the $550 million in federal stimulus money to keep their state unemployment trust fund from going broke.

• Words: Here’s a fun time-suck: a website that lets you create a word cloud for most-used words in a particular day, week, month, or year in the Congressional Record, or for a particular lawmaker.

With Ellen Tauscher set to join the State Department soon, it seems that her soon-to-be-vacant seat is drawing interest from a major player in California politics — Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who is currently making a bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nod in 2010. From the Contra Costa Times:

[…] Lt. Gov. John Garamendi is looking at it – he lives on the edge of District 10 in Walnut Grove.

Garamendi called Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, a few days ago, although the congressman offered little encouragement. Miller reiterated his unflagging support for state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier of Concord.

Wait, isn’t Garamendi running for governor? Yeah, although reports of a faltering campaign circulated recently after one of his top campaign staffers quit.

In a statement late Friday, here is what Garamendi said: “A number of people suggested I consider this seat. Of course, I will check it out. As a former undersecretary of the interior, there is a lot of exciting work going on in Washington. Much is possible with Barack Obama.

“But I am focused on California and my campaign for governor.”

Sounds more like he’s focused on finding a ripcord.

Field Poll (2/20-3/1, registered voters):

Dianne Feinstein (D): 38

Jerry Brown (D): 16

Antonio Villaraigosa (D): 16

Gavin Newsom (D): 10

John Garamendi (D): 4

Steve Westly (D): 2

Bill Lockyer (D): 1

Jack O’Connell (D): 1

Jerry Brown (D): 26

Antonio Villaraigosa (D): 22

Gavin Newsom (D): 16

John Garamendi (D): 8

Steve Westly (D): 2

Bill Lockyer (D): 2

Jack O’Connell (D): 2

(MoE: ±5.5%)

Meg Whitman (R): 21

Tom Campbell (R): 18

Steve Poizner (R): 7

(MoE: ±5.8%)

Lake Research (D) (2/17-2-19, likely voters):

Jerry Brown (D): 27

Antonio Villaraigosa (D): 20

Gavin Newsom (D): 14

John Garamendi (D): 8

Steve Westly (D): 3

Jack O’Connell (D): 1

(MoE: ±5.7%)

Jerry Brown (D): 43

Meg Whitman (R): 27

Jerry Brown (D): 41

Steve Poizner (R): 30

Gavin Newsom (D): 40

Meg Whitman (R): 25

Gavin Newsom (D): 38

Steve Poizner (R): 29

(MoE: ±3.5%)

Two polls are out in the 2010 California governor’s race, the big enchilada of all the gubernatorial seats. One is from Field, the gold-standard of California pollsters; the other is from Democratic internal pollster Lake Research (which doesn’t have a candidate in the race). Field polls both primaries but not the general; Lake polls the Dem primary and some general head-to-heads. Taken cumulatively, the most likely result seems to be that Governor Moonbeam may well ride again, in one of politics’ most surprising second (or third or fourth) acts.

The Field Poll does two different runs on the Democratic primary, and finds that were Senator Dianne Feinstein to run, she’d mop up the rest of the field. While she has been occasionally linked to this race, she hasn’t made any visible moves toward running. Without Feinstein in the mix, AG Jerry Brown has a bit of an edge over Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. One interesting tidbit from the Field Poll is that young voters have no idea who Jerry Brown is (he was governor in the 70s, long enough ago that he’s grandfathered out of California’s term limits laws, allowing him to come back for more). Only 8% of 18-to-39 year-old voters support Brown, and 30% have no opinion of him.

On the Republican side, Field gives a small lead to former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who was a big McCain booster and seems to be staking out the party’s right flank. Ex-Rep. Tom Campbell (who lost the 2000 Senate race to DiFi and hasn’t sought office since then) does surprisingly well, considering how long he’s been out of the spotlight; apparently the moderate wing of the California GOP is still alive and kicking. Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner is a distant third, although he may shoot up once his free-spending ways kick in, especially given that more than half the GOP voters are undecided.

Lake puts up very similar numbers in the primary as the Feinstein-free Field poll. As for the general, they run head-to-heads involving Brown and Newsom, and find the Dems in pretty good shape, winning each matchup by double digits. Undecideds are still high (in the 30% ballpark), as would be expected at this point, but a Dem pickup is looking like a real possibility, assuming the primary doesn’t get too bloody.