Tag: CA-10

• 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.

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo made statements in a speech at Schenectady County Community College on Tuesday to the effect that his “only plan is to run for re-election as attorney general,” and that he believes David Paterson will be re-elected as governor. I wouldn’t be prone to believe him (and it seems like nobody else does either; only The Hill has taken any notice of this comment), given his poll numbers and the fundraising groundwork he’s laid. It just seems weird; he’s well past the point where he needs to be coy about his plans.

• NY-20: About that recent DNC ad touting Obama’s endorsement of Scott Murphy… while the existence of the ad itself has been gobbling up a good deal of headlines, it appears that it won’t actually be seen by a lot of eyeballs in-district. The DNC’s independent expenditure filing with the FEC indicates that they’re only putting up $10,000 for the ad buy. (J)

• CA-10: Departing Rep. Ellen Tauscher has already endorsed state senator Mark DeSaulnier to take her place. Apparently she had intended to wait until he formally announced his candidacy, but the internal poll from yesterday from assemblywoman Joan Buchanan showing her in the lead may have forced Tauscher’s hand.

• UT-Sen: The knives are still out for Bob Bennett, but it’s looking like someone higher up the totem pole than former Juab County DA David Leavitt may jump into the primary: Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is also “considering” it. Ultra-conservatives sense an opening because of Bennett’s pro-bailout vote, and also because of Utah’s unique nominating system. A candidate who consolidates activist support and breaks 60% at the state convention outright wins, and can avoid the primary altogether.

• KS-Sen: Here’s another example of how Oklahoma senator Tom Coburn likes to keep us guessing. Not only is he wading into the GOP senate primary in his neighboring state, but he’s endorsing Rep. Jerry Moran, who passes for a moderate by Kansas standards, over Rep. Todd Tiahrt, from the religious right corner of the party.

• MI-11: Back to the drawing board? Democratic state Sen. Glenn Anderson, who has been the target of a draft effort to encourage him to take on GOP weirdo Thaddeus McCotter, says that he’ll probably run for re-election instead. (J)

• PA-12: Bill Russell, who held Jack Murtha to 58% in 2008, is back for another try in 2010. No word if he’ll use BMW Direct for his fundraising efforts again.

• NY-20: Lots going on in the Empire State today, as we enter the home stretch. Perhaps most significantly, the GOP finally succeeded in getting Libertarian candidate Eric Sundwall kicked off the ballot, on the grounds that he didn’t have enough valid petition signatures. Siena found Sundwall polling at only 1% (Benenson gave him 4%), but there have been multiple rumored internal polls floating around within the last few days that have it as a 1 or 2-point race, so Sundwall’s votes (which seem likelier to migrate to Jim Tedisco’s column) may make a big difference. (Siena promises a new public poll to be released tomorrow.)

Joe Biden also jumped into the special election, cutting a radio ad touting Murphy and his own sort-of-local ties (he’s a Syracuse Law alum). The NRCC is continuing to work the faux-populist angle, rolling out a new ad criticizing Murphy for being on the board of an Internet company that paid bonuses to workers while losing money. (I assume that company wasn’t receiving hundreds of billions on the government dole, though.)

• CA-10: There’s already an internal poll of the race to replace Ellen Tauscher in the East Bay suburbs, commissioned by assemblywoman Joan Buchanan. In a bit of a surprise, Buchanan leads the pack, slightly edging presumptive frontrunner state senator Mark DeSaulnier. Buchanan is at 21, DeSaulnier at 18, with two Republicans, San Ramon mayor Abram Wilson and former assemblyman Guy Houston, at 14 and 13. (It’s polled that way because in a California special, like in CA-32, all candidates run in a multi-party primary, and if no one breaks 50%, the top person from each primary advances to a general, which according to this poll would be Buchanan and Wilson.) Buchanan and DeSaulnier both are waiting for Tauscher’s resignation to announce; it’s not clear whether either of the GOPers will get involved.

• NH-01: Manchester mayor Frank Guinta looks pretty serious about taking on Carol Shea-Porter in 2010; he met a second time with the NRCC about the race. He’s still likely to face a primary battle against John Stephen, who barely lost to Jeb Bradley in the 2008 primary and seems to be planning to try again.

• OR-05: Buried deep in a CQ article about how the parties are turning more to self-funders is a delightful tidbit about Mike Erickson, last seen getting flattened by Kurt Schrader in the 2008 open seat battle. Despite his last campaign collapsing into a horror show of Cuban junkets and abortion hypocrisy, he’s “actively considering” a third try for the seat in 2010. We could only be so lucky.

• CT-05: It’s been telegraphed for a number of weeks, but today it’s official: Justin Bernier, former Rob Simmons aide and former director of Connecticut’s Office of Military Affairs, will be running against Chris Murphy in the 5th. Murphy had little trouble defeating a state senator, David Cappiello, in 2008.

• CA-45: After years of letting California’s 45th district (the most Democratic-leaning district in California still represented by a Republican, where Obama won 52-47) lay fallow, the Democrats actually seem to have a top-tier (or close to it) challenger lined up. Palm Springs mayor Steve Pougnet just started a campaign committee for a face-off against Mary Bono Mack. The openly gay Pougnet has been mayor of the city of 40,000 since 2007.

• KY-Sen: Dr. Dan may get some company in the primary. 39-year-old Attorney General Jack Conway has announced “there’s a good chance” he’ll run for Senate in 2010. Subtexts in other quotes suggest that he’s been negotiating with Rep. Ben Chandler and Auditor Crit Luallen, who may be stepping aside for him.

• CO-Gov: Now this seems unexpected. Ex-Rep. Scott McInnis, after butting heads with more conservative elements in the state GOP and studiously avoiding the 2008 and 2010 senate races in Colorado, has chosen a much more uphill battle: he’s running for governor against Democratic incumbent Bill Ritter. He may still face a primary battle against up-and-coming state senator Josh Penry (who used to be McInnis’s press secretary).

• PA-Gov, PA-06: Jim Gerlach acknowledged in an interview that people have been soliciting him to run against Arlen Specter in the 2010 senate primary (which would turn it into moderate/moderate/fiscal wingnut/religious wingnut chaos). However, he’s still charging full speed ahead on his gubernatorial bid instead.

• MI-12: Here’s one of the least likely places you could imagine for a heated primary, but it may happen. State senator Mickey Switalski will challenge 14-term incumbent Sander Levin in this reliably Dem (65-33 for Obama) district in the Detroit suburbs. (To give you an idea how long Levin has been around, he’s Carl Levin’s older brother.) This doesn’t seem to be an ideological challenge as much as Switalski is term-limited out of the state senate in 2010 and needs somewhere else to go.

• CA-10: San Francisco city attorney analyst (and former political editor for the San Francisco Examiner) Adriel Hampton has announced his candidacy for the open seat being vacated by Ellen Tauscher. What may be most memorable about this is that his may be the first ever candidacy announcement made by Twitter; he faces long odds against state senator Mark DeSaulnier (who won’t announce until Tauscher’s resignation is official).

• New Dems: One other musical chairs item left in the wake of Tauscher’s resignation is who takes over as the chair of the New Dems. The New Dems have five vice-chairs, but it looks like the hyper-ambitious Joe Crowley has enough support nailed down to take command bloodlessly. The CW is wondering whether this will complicate Crowley’s efforts to join House leadership (he lost a caucus vice-chair bid in 2006), but my question is what the heck is a New Dem doing in NY-07 (which went for Obama 79-20)?

• FL-20: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz told the Miami Herald on Saturday that she successfully battled breast cancer over the past year. We wish her good health as she continues her recovery. (D)

• Maps: For those of you who enjoy seeing maps breaking things down by congressional districts, here’s a new one from real estate site hotpads.com: which CDs have the highest foreclosure rates.

Is this the “dark horse” in CA-10 who will challenge Tauscher-clone State Senator Mark DeSaulnier?  Fog City Journal thinks so.  DeSaulnier is one if the names mentioned to replace Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher who has been nominated for a State Department position.  Here is his official biography.  DeSaulnier just got elected to the California State Senate in November, 2008, and has already voted in favor of the Louisiana-style “blackmail primary” which would allow candidates for office to conceal their party affiliation and turn California into the land of a thousand Liebermans.   He also has a blog.

• Committees: Fundraising numbers for the committees for the month of February came out yesterday and today:

The NRSC raised $2.87 million, ending with $1.05 million CoH and $2.7 million in debt (down from $4 million in debt last month).

The DSCC also raised $2.87 million, ending with $3.07 million CoH and $10.9 million in debt.

The NRCC raised $2.03 million, ending with $1.85 million CoH and $6.4 million in debt.

The DCCC won the month, raising $3.5 million, ending with $2.9 million CoH and $15 million in debt.

• MN-Sen: Is there finally a light at the tunnel at the end of the interminable legal battle? Norm Coleman’s attorney said in a radio interview that he’s “done,” and that when the three-judge panel is done reviewing the count, Franken is still likely to be ahead, although he still plans on a “quick appeal.”

• CA-10: More clarity in the field in the upcoming special election: assemblyman Tom Torlakson, who was considered one of the two likely contenders for the seat, won’t run. He was already in the process of running for state superintendent of public instruction, and will continue with that instead. This leaves a clearer path for state senator Mark DeSaulnier, although assemblywoman Joan Buchanan is also interested.

• MI-Gov: Venture capitalist (i.e. rich guy) Rick Snyder is looking to join the crowded GOP field for the 2010 governor’s race. At least six names have been floated for this race or are already running. (D)

• SC-Gov: Inez Tenenbaum, the highest-profile Dem considering the South Carolina governor’s race (she was superintendent of public instruction for two terms and was competitive against Jim DeMint in the 2004 Senate race), has declined to run for governor. State senator Vincent Sheheen is the only Dem in the race so far, although others interested include state house minority leader Harry Ott, state senators Brad Hutto and Robert Ford, and Charleston attorney Mullins McLeod.

• SC-03: Republican state senator Shane Massey is the first to jump into fray to succeed Gresham Barrett, who’s running for the open SC governor’s seat. No Dems have stepped up yet in this dark-red district.

• PA-15: Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan met with Allyson Schwartz in Washington this week to discuss a possible bid against GOP Rep. Charlie Dent. Unfortunately for Democrats, Callahan says he’s “not interested” in the race at this point. And so the search for a viable candidate in this competitive district continues… (J)

• NC-Sen: If Richard Burr wants to be re-elected, there’s one big problem he’s going to have to overcome: his constituents don’t seem to have any idea who he is. PPP finds that his approval ratings are only 35%. That sounds dire, but he’s actually on the plus-side of the ledger, with 32% disapproval. That leaves 33% who don’t know, which is huge considering that he’s been in office for more than four years now. They also run a head-to-head for Burr against Secretary of State Elaine Marshall (who seems to have no intention to run); Burr wins 43-35.

• CA-10: The field in California’s 10th district to replace Ellen Tauscher in a special election seems to be taking shape. As expected, the district’s two heavyweights, state senator Mark DeSaulnier and assemblyman Tom Torlakson (who recently swapped seats because of term limits), are jockeying for position. (Politico suggests several other possible Dems include assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, and Santa Monica city councilor and Kennedy clan member Bobby Shriver, who’s interested despite currently being about 400 miles outside the district.) While Obama won the district 65-33, the GOP isn’t going down without a fight; their possible candidates include San Ramon mayor Abram Wilson and former 49er Bret Jones.

• CT-Sen: Chris Dodd, who already has enough egg on his face to make a big omelette, got even messier with his admission that he inserted the language that allowed payment of the AIG bonuses. Nevertheless, he told the Hartford Courant today that he’s not retiring and is still in the race for 2010.

• OK-05: Oklahoma City mayor Mick Cornett, a potential contender for the open seat being vacated by gubernatorial candidate Mary Fallin, was making the rounds on Capitol Hill today. Cornett, who lost in the primary to Fallin in 2006, is still officially undecided on the race. The Club for Growth has already endorsed former state rep. Kevin Calvey. Other possible GOPers in the race include Corporation Commissioners Jeff Cloud and Bob Anthony, state senators Todd Lamb and Glenn Coffee, and state rep. Mike Thompson.

• LA-02: The NRCC isn’t letting go of this one without at least some token efforts; NRCC leaders Pete Sessions and Mike Rogers, along with Charles Boustany, are hosting a lunchtime fundraiser for Joe Cao today.

From the WaPo:

Word is that Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on strategic forces and a staunch superdelegate for presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, is in line for a top post at the State Department, most likely for the undersecretary for arms control and nonproliferation slot.

It had been widely reported that highly regarded arms control guru Robert Einhorn, who had been assistant secretary for arms control in the Clinton administration, was penciled in to move up to that post, but we’re hearing he has turned it down for personal reasons. And Secretary of State Clinton did, after all, win the California primary.

Well, I don’t really see what Hillary’s California primary win has to do with any of this, but that’s neither here nor there. Assuming Tauscher is tapped for this gig, we’ll have another California special election on our hands (Hilda Solis’ vacancy in CA-32 being the other). While Tauscher used to hold a competitive district in the ’90s, her CD was redrawn after the most recent census to include more Democratic turf — on top of that, the 10th CD has taken a sharp turn in the Democratic direction over the last pair of Presidential elections. According to SSP’s Prez-by-CD analysis, Obama carried the 10th district by a 65-33 margin, a significant jump from the 59-40 Kerry win here four years earlier (and the 55-41 performance by Gore in 2000).

If a special election happens here, Team Blue will be in pretty good shape. Anyone have any ideas as to who may run?

(Hat-tip: mikeel)

UPDATE: Roll Call says that it’s a done deal:

Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) will be tapped for a top State Department post, sources with knowledge of the pending nomination said.

Ellen Tauscher is heading to the State Department as the undersecretary for arms control:

http://voices.washingtonpost.c…

She is considered a “blue dog,” but is this seat really in jeopardy?  Who might run?  Will the primary be on May 19, or it too late for that?

A lot of questions.