Tag: Adam Kinzinger

• AR-Sen: Cue up that old Jim Hightower saying about how there’s nothing in the middle of the road but squashed armadillos. Blanche Lincoln, already facing strong GOP opposition, is getting hit with salvos from her left flank too. The Sierra Club is running radio ads against her, attacking her opposition to allowing the EPA to regulate carbon emissions.

• HI-Sen: In case there was any doubt, the 86-year-old Daniel Inouye confirmed that he’s running for re-election and a ninth (!) term; he’ll have his campaign’s official kickoff tonight. The GOP says it’s “too early” to discuss whether they’d field a candidate to go against him. Republican Gov. Linda Lingle hasn’t made a truly Shermanesque statement, but has said that she’s concentrating on her last year in office and not running for anything else.

• MD-Sen: There were brief waves of panic yesterday generated by a rumor (originating on a right-wing local blog, who claimed to have an impeccable source) that Barbara Mikulski, 73 years old and slowly recovering from a leg injury last year, was about to retire too. The rumors were quickly rebutted by staffers, though.

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand got another endorsement from one of the many Democrats associated with a potential primary challenge against her: former NYC comptroller and mayoral candidate William Thompson.

• IL-Gov: It’s the final day of counting absentee and provisional ballots in the Illinois governor’s race today, but state Sen. Kirk Dillard (who trailed by 406 votes to state Sen. Bill Brady after Election Day in the GOP primary) says he won’t concede today regardless of the final number. He’ll wait at least until Feb. 23, when counties submit reports to the state Board of Elections.

• MI-Gov: A quick change of heart for former state Treasurer Bob Bowman, who opened up an exploratory committee to run for the Democratic gubernatorial nod last week. He pulled the plug instead, offering a cryptic explanation that he “just couldn’t commit at this time.” Bowman was probably a long-shot for the nomination, although his self-financing capability could make things interesting.

• OR-Gov (pdf): It looks like most of the action in the Oregon governor’s race is in the Democratic primary, and even there, it may not be shaping up to be an edge-of-your-seat affair. Ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber released an internal poll (by Fairbank Maslin Maullin & Metz) giving him a convincing lead in the primary over ex-SoS Bill Bradbury. Kitzhaber is at 55, with Bradbury at 21 (and self-funding Soloflex founder Jerry Wilson at 2). Both are extremely well-regarded by the Democratic electorate, with Kitzhaber at 69/16 and Bradbury at 54/13.

• TX-Gov: Too bad newspapers can’t vote, because polls show Kay Bailey Hutchison losing the GOP gubernatorial primary to Rick Perry by a wide margin among actual humans. However, she swept the endorsement derby over the last few days among the state’s major papers: the Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, and the Austin American-Statesman.

• FL-25: Democrats are leaning hard on Joe Garcia for another run in the 25th, now that it’s an open seat, and it seems to be working. Garcia, the former county Democratic chair and a current Energy Dept. official, came close to defeating Mario Diaz-Balart (who’s scurrying off to the open seat in the safer 21st); he’s been talking to the DCCC in the last few days and rounding up his previous staffers. On the GOP side, state Rep. David Rivera is already in and state Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla is certainly talking like a candidate, saying he’ll give Rivera “an old-fashioned ass-whooping.”

• IL-11: This isn’t the way to start your general election campaign off on the right foot. GOP nominee Adam Kinzinger, an Air Force vet, had to revise the military credentials section of his bio after a Facebook poster called attention to possible discrepancies in his record. Kinzinger, the NRCC’s favored candidate, left some feathers ruffled on the right en route to his easy primary victory.

• MI-03: A decent-sounding Democrat is stepping forward to run for the open seat left by Republican Vern Ehlers (where Barack Obama nearly won last year, although it’s a historically Republican area with a strong GOP bench). Attorney Patrick Miles is past president of the Grand Rapids bar association, and a Harvard Law classmate of Obama. On the GOP side, state Rep. Justin Amash, who declared his candidacy the day before Ehlers’ retirement announcement, got the endorsement of western Michigan’s biggest power broker: Amway guru and 2006 gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos.

• MS-04: Rep. Gene Taylor has perhaps the reddest district held by any House Democrat, so it’s surprising that, with the general sense of a Republican-favorable year, no prominent GOPer has tried to surf the red tide against the usually-unassailable Taylor. A local elected official has finally stepped up, though: state Rep. Steven Palazzo.

• PA-06: One other internal poll, clearly intended to scare rich guy Steven Welch from burning any more of his money against Rep. Jim Gerlach in the GOP primary. Gerlach’s poll has Gerlach leading Welch by a head-spinning 71 to 6. Somehow I can’t imagine it’s really that bad, but Welch clearly has an uphill fight ahead of him.

• PA-12: There’s a little more clarity to the developing fields in the 12th, where two prominent potential candidates said no thanks. On the Democratic side, Jack Hanna, the state party’s southwest chair, passed. And this is a bit more of a surprise, on the GOP side: Diane Irey, a Washington County Commissioner who ran a medium-profile campaign against John Murtha in 2006 (but didn’t break 40%), decided not to run either; she’s endorsing Tim Burns, Some Dude already in the race who apparently has self-funding capacity (unlike 2008 candidate Bill Russell, who just has BMW Direct in his corner). Despite the district’s recent turn at the presidential level, this is one district where the disparity between the two parties’ benches may make the difference for the Dems.

• SD-AL: The GOP already has two decent challengers in the field in South Dakota, the state’s SoS, Chris Nelson, and state Rep. Blake Curd, who brings his own money with him. A third possible entrant seems likely now: state Rep. Kristi Noem, the assistant majority leader, says she’ll announce her candidacy soon. State Reps. in South Dakota have tiny constituencies, so name rec may be an issue – but more ominously, there are also rumors that term-limited Gov. Mike Rounds may be considering the race (although he sounded pretty disinterested when asked).

• LA-LG: SoS Jay Dardenne, who recently decided against a promotion to the Senate by challenging David Vitter in the GOP primary, now has another promotion in mind. He’d like to be elected Lt. Governor, now that that job is open (with Mitch Landrieu having departed to become New Orleans mayor). Gov. Bobby Jindal will appoint a temporary successor until the November election, but what Jindal would really like is to get rid of the whole LG position altogether (although he’ll need to get the legislature to cooperate on that idea, which doesn’t seem likely).

• NH-St. Sen.: There’s a special election tonight in the New Hampshire Senate, to fill the seat left behind by Republican Ted Gatsas, elected in November to become mayor of Manchester. Democratic state Rep. Jeff Goley faces Republican state Rep. David Boutin. The election gives Democrats the chance to push their edge in the Senate to 15-9, as well as just to make an assertive statement in New Hampshire, where they face tough retentions in both U.S. House races this year.

• IA-Sen/Gov: The newest Des Moines Register poll by Selzer & Co. has some appalling numbers for Democrats. In the Senate race, Chuck Grassley leads Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin 57-30. And in the gubernatorial race, incumbent Dem Chet Culver trails Republican ex-Gov. Terry Branstad by almost as wide a margin, 57-33 (with Culver also trailing conservative GOPer Bob vander Plaats 45-37, although Culver beats several other GOP minor-leaguers). A 24-point beatdown is hard to believe given Culver’s poor-but-not-abysmal 40/49 approval rating, and this is way out of line with R2K‘s polling last month, but this being Iowa, I’d be hesitant to bet against Selzer. (Discussion already well underway in desmoinesdem’s two diaries.)

• IL-Sen: Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who was considered a likely candidate in this race for a long time but eventually backed down, endorsed state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias in the Democratic primary. Giannoulias now has the endorsement of five of Illinois’s twelve House Dems. Also today, Patrick Hughes, the conservative alternative to establishment GOP pick Rep. Mark Kirk, is in DC looking for support from conservative movement poohbahs. The DSCC has a well-worth-seeing video out detailing Kirk’s transparent shift to the right (especially his pleas for help from Sarah Palin) as he seeks to fight off primary challenges.

• MA-Sen: The voter registration deadline to be able to participate in the primary special election to replace Ted Kennedy is this Wednesday. The primary itself is Dec. 8.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov (pdf): Siena’s monthly look at the Empire State shows a little improvement for Kirsten Gillibrand, who now narrowly leads ex-Gov. George Pataki, 45-44. She loses 49-43 to Rudy Giuliani; weirdly, while the rumor mill has until very recently had Pataki likelier to make the Senate race than Giuliani, Pataki now seems much likelier to run for President, while Liz Benjamin is now wondering if Giuliani‘s recent bout of national security saber-rattling shows he’s more likely to run for Senate than Governor.

Meanwhile, Siena has yet another installment in the ongoing David Paterson implosion. Paterson’s approval is down to 21/79, 69% would prefer to elect someone else, and he now loses the Democratic primary to Andrew Cuomo by a 59-point margin (75-16) while, in a first, also losing the general to Rick Lazio (42-39) as well as, natch, Giuliani (56-33). Cuomo defeats Giuliani 53-41 and Lazio 67-22. Latest Cuomo rumors involve him trying to assemble a whole slate to run with, and central to that is recruiting outgoing NYC comptroller William Thompson to run for state comptroller. Having the African-American Thompson on a ‘ticket’ with him would take some of the awkwardness out of Cuomo elbowing aside an African-American governor to avoid a replay of the 2002 gubernatorial primary. Cuomo also wants a female AG (possibly Nassau Co. DA Kathleen Rice) and an upstate LG to balance everything out. Still, that would set up a hot Democratic primary between Thompson and incumbent comptroller Thomas DiNapoli; there’s some tension between Cuomo and DiNapoli, though, so that’s another instance of two birds, one stone. Finally, in case there were any doubts, Hillary Clinton confirmed that she has no intention of getting in the gubernatorial race.

• SC-Sen: Lindsey Graham, although not up until 2014, could be going the way of Olympia Snowe. There are leaks of private polls showing that more Republicans oppose Graham than support him, and that his support among independents is dwindling too. I guess that’s what happens when you vote the party line only 93% of the time.

• TX-Sen: Little-noticed in the announcement on Friday that Kay Bailey Hutchison was going to delay her resignation until after the gubernatorial primary election in March means that, unless she does it immediately afterwards, the special election won’t be held until November 2010. Conventional wisdom is that this is good for the GOP, as the seat will be easier to hold as part of a larger election instead of on its own. (Of course, that assumes KBH resigns at all assuming she loses the gubernatorial primary, which somehow I doubt.) The Austin American-Statesman also has a good rundown on what the delay means to all of the potential players in the special election.

• ME-Gov: The Maine governor’s race may well wind up as crowded as the one in Minnesota: we’re up to 21 candidates, although most of them are minor. One more medium-to-big name is getting in today on the Dem side, though: John Richardson, the former House speaker and current commissioner of the state Dept. of Economic and Community Development. Current Conservation Commissioner Patrick McGowan is also looking likely to get in the Dem field.

• WY-Gov: Former US Attorney Matt Mead has formed an exploratory committee to run for the Republican nomination in next year’s gubernatorial race in Wyoming. He joins state House speaker Colin Simpson and ex-state Rep. Ron Micheli in the hunt. Mead, you may recall, was one of the finalists to be picked to replace Craig Thomas in the Senate, but that post went to John Barrasso.

• IL-11: This isn’t the way to get your campaign off on the right foot: Adam Kinzinger, who has the insider backing for the GOP nomination in the 11th, stormed out prior to a debate held by Concerned Taxpayers United against his primary competition when one of them, David McAloon, had a staffer with a video camera present. The base in the district is already suspicious of Kinzinger, and ticking them off this way can’t help.

• NY-25: One race in a swing district that hasn’t been on anyone’s radar is NY-25, held by freshman Dem Dan Maffei. He’s drawn two potential challengers, wealthy ex-turkey farmer Mark Bitz and former Syracuse Common Councilor Ann Marie Buerkle. Bitz hasn’t held office before, but says he’s prepared to loan himself a “substantial amount” of money. He’ll need it, as Maffei has been one of the freshman class’s top fundraisers.

• TN-01: Fans of wingnut-on-wingnt action may be disappointed to hear that it sounds unlikely for ex-Rep. David Davis to take on slightly-more-mainstream Rep. Phil Roe (who knocked out Davis in a 2008 primary) next year. Although he’s been staying visible at local tea parties, Davis is focusing on paying down campaign debt from last time.

• UT-02: It doesn’t sound like Rep. Jim Matheson is going to face a primary over his health care vote after all; state Sen. Scott McCoy said he didn’t intend to go after Matheson, citing the difficulty of a run given the overall composition of the GOP-leaning district.

• Biden Alert: Joe Biden is in the midst of a western swing, doing a Sunday fundraiser for Rep. Dina Titus. Today he’s holding events for Ann Kirkpatrick, Harry Mitchell, Martin Heinrich, and Harry Teague, bringing the total to 26 for vulnerable House Dems he’s campaigned for. Biden will also be in Connecticut next month for a Chris Dodd fundraiser.

• NRCC: To avoid a repeat of NY-23, the NRCC has basically turned the vetting process over to Grover Norquist and friends. Norquist said that at a recent meeting between the NRCC and conservative movementarians, 40 recruits were discussed and they apparently all met the litmus test (although Norquist grudgingly admitted that some of the northeasterners were “as good as it gets”).

• WATN?: Ex-Rep. Bill Jefferson’s going to the big house. On Friday, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison after his August conviction for money laundering and wire fraud; this is the longest sentence ever handed out to a former Congressman.

• Maps: As if electoral junkies didn’t have enough online tools to geek out over, now there’s this: super-helpful step-by-step instructions on how to generate a county-by-county map of the country on, well, whatever topic you want, using only free tools instead of expensive GIS software.

• Site News: We were so busy following the off-year elections that we didn’t notice it at the time, but last month, the Swing State Project welcomed its seven millionth visitor. (Number six million came this past March.) Thanks, everyone! (D)

• PA-Sen: Well, something finally went right for Arlen Specter. After Specter got condemned to the basement on all his committees on Tuesday night, Majority whip Dick Durbin doled out a little charity this morning by giving up his own chair (Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs) and handing it over to Specter (apparently without Pat Leahy‘s say-so). I’m wondering what Specter had to do behind the scenes to smooth things over; if the rumors flying that Specter is poised to re-flip-flop back to supporting EFCA are true, that’s probably the answer.

• NY-Sen-B: Rep. Carolyn McCarthy is still making noises about a primary challenge to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, but with her frequent caveats about stepping aside if someone younger takes on the challenge, it seems like she’s doing it more to yank Gillibrand’s chain on gun control issues. Gillibrand has been a reliable vote in favor of gun controls since entering the Senate, going so far as to co-sponsor the current bill to close the gun-show loophole. McCarthy confesses to being “very happy about it. I just want her to stay there.”

• NH-Sen: Judd Gregg tells CQ that wherever he goes, he’s bombarded by Republicans begging him to run for another term in the Senate. He says he’ll listen to their entreaties, but he’s “comfortable with where” he is.

• AK-Gov: Governors in general are having a rough go of it these days, and now even the once-mighty Sarah Palin is suffering, falling to a mundane 54/41 favorable rating according to Hays Research. Senator Lisa Murkowski, by comparison, is still at 76/18.

• OK-Gov: Ex-Rep. J.C. Watts is still publicly undecided about the governor’s race, and kicking the can down the road on a formal decision. Reading between the lines of his statement, it sounds like he’s having some trouble fundraising, saying “You don’t take on something like this unless you know you will have the resources to do it.”

• CO-04: The GOP got the candidate it wanted, to go up against freshman Rep. Betsy Markey in this now R+6 district. State House minority whip Cory Gardner, who represents the vast emptiness of eastern Colorado, announced that he’ll be running. Univ. of Colorado regent Tom Lucero is already in the hunt for the GOP nod.

• MN-06: One day after former Independence Party Lt. Gov. candidate Maureen Reed said she’ll be a Dem candidate in 2010, the 2008 candidate, Elwyn Tinklenberg, confirmed he’ll be running again, against one-woman gaffe machine Michele Bachmann.

• CA-47: GOP Assemblyman Van Tran made it official, setting up his exploratory committee for an uphill bid against Rep. Loretta Sanchez in this D+4 Latino-majority district in the heart of the O.C. (Discussion underway in Gus Ayer‘s diary.)

• ID-01: Idaho state Treasurer Don Crane spent the last week glad-handing GOP leaders and fundraisers in Washington, DC, fueling speculation that he’s ready to challenge frosh Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick next year. Would his candidacy dampen the spirits of ex-Rep. Bill “Brain Fade” Sali, who is currently mulling a rematch? (J)

• GA-09: When you have an R+28 district, the only question about an open seat is what variety of wingnut you’re going to get next. Former state Senator Bill Stephens (who lost the SoS primary to Karen Handel in 2006) announced he’ll run to succeed Rep. Nathan Deal, retiring to run for governor. Former state Transportation Board chair Mike Evans is already seek the GOP nom.

• IL-11: The GOP has lined up Air Force Captain Adam Kinzinger to run against freshman Rep. Debbie Halvorson in the Chicago suburbs. His exploratory committee is open, but he’s currently serving in Iraq and won’t be able to make a formal announcement until summer.

• MI-11: We’ve got somebody willing to step up against Bad Thad McCotter in this Dem-trending seat in the economically hard-hit Detroit suburbs: fundraising consultant Natalie Mosher. The DCCC sounds like it’s going to keep looking for someone else, but if that fails, bear in mind that McCotter barely won in 2008 against a different Dem nobody.

• GA-12: When you’re running for office, it’s important to sell yourself… but not oversell yourself. Surgeon and Iraq vet Wayne Mosely, who’s running against Rep. John Barrow in the D+1 rural Georgia district, recently tweeted that the NRCC rated his race as one of the top 3 in the nation! Uh, no, there’s no ranking system, responded the NRCC, although they did concede that they were “very excited” about Mosely’s candidacy.

• NY-20 (pdf): The latest update from the state BoE this morning shows Scott Murphy’s lead down to 25, as the absentee count proceeds (and a few readjustments are made to recanvass numbers). We’re still waiting on any absentee numbers from Saratoga County (Tedisco’s base) and most from Washington and Warren Counties (Murphy’s base).

Also, there’s been some research into what happens in NY-20 ends in a true tie (and no, apparently “Thunderdome” is not involved after all). Under NY law, coin tosses are not allowed in state or federal races, so the governor has the choice of either holding another special election for which the candidates will need to be re-nominated (allowing Libertarian Eric Sundwall another shot at the ballot), or else postponing the whole matter until the general election in Nov. 2009.

• IL-Sen: Roland Burris is getting slammed even by his one-time supporters now. Rep. Danny Davis told Chicago Public Radio that Burris needs to “hurry up” and announce whether or not he’s running for re-election in 2010. Davis’s sudden hurry is personally motivated, though, as Davis also stated publicly for the first time that he’s considering running for that senate seat himself. (It seems like he wouldn’t want to do it with Burris in the primary, though, as that would split the African-American vote.)

• OH-Sen: Ex-Rep. Rob Portman may not have much name recognition or charisma, but he does have one advantage: lots of money. Today he reported raising $1.7 million in Q1, and is sitting on $3.1 million total. Lee Fisher, by contrast, announced last week that he raised $1.1 million, while Jennifer Brunner hasn’t reported yet.

• NY-Sen: Here are some tea leaves that Rep. Carolyn McCarthy isn’t going to be running against Kirsten Gillibrand in the senate primary: she raised $145,000 in the first quarter (for House re-election, but that could be transferred if she switched to the senate race), with $262,000 CoH. (Also-rumored challengers Reps. Steve Israel and Carolyn Maloney have much bigger stashes; they haven’t reported for Q1, but have $1.7 million and $1.1 million CoH, respectively.)

• DE-Sen: Along the same lines, it looks like Mike Castle isn’t gearing up his fundraising machine toward a run for the open senate seat in Delaware in 2010. (On the other hand, he’s raised enough that retirement doesn’t seem in the offing.) Politico catches that he raised only $73,000 in Q1, with $841,000 CoH.

• FL-Sen: Rep. Kendrick Meek got another big “get” in his so-far-successful quest to nail down all the building blocks to cornering the Democratic nomination. He got the endorsement of the national AFSCME today, one of the nation’s largest unions.

• MN-Sen: Digging by Senate Guru and Down with Tyranny reveals that one of the Minnesota Supreme Court justices who’ll be hearing Norm Coleman’s whinings is Christopher Dietzen, who has donated thousands to Republican candidates, most significantly to Norm Coleman himself, creating a rather clear basis for recusal.

• AL-Gov: Former “Ten Commandments” judge Roy Moore, who lost the 2006 gubernatorial primary to Bob Riley, is looking for another try, now that it’s an open seat. With a fractured-looking GOP field, it’s possible Moore could sneak through the primary this time, which, given his polarizing nature, might actually give the Dem a small advantage in the general.

• NYC-Mayor: NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg solved the term limits problem, but he had one more problem to overcome: getting a ballot line from some party. To solve that dilemma, he’s returned to his shallow Republican roots, remaining a registered independent but picking up the GOP ballot line by getting the endorsement of three of the boroughs’ GOP chairs. In a display of ‘post-partisanship’ at its finest, he’s reportedly also trying to secure the ballot line of the left-leaning Working Families Party.

• OH-17: In a move guaranteed to provoke a huge collective sigh of relief, Ohio senate minority leader Capri Cafaro said that she won’t run for the open seat left behind by Rep. Tim Ryan, assuming he runs for Ohio Lt. Gov. in 2010. “I don’t know if I can get as much accomplished on the federal level,” she says.

• PA-04: Republicans seem to be coalescing around state representative (and minority whip) Mike Turzai as a challenger to Rep. Jason Altmire in this slowly-reddening district in Pittsburgh’s suburbs. Turzai lost the 1998 election in the 4th to Ron Klink by a fairly wide margin. The 4th’s most prominent GOPer, Lynn Swann, has already declined.

• AR-01: A likely GOP candidate has already surfaced to run against Marion Berry (no, not the DC mayor) in this rural district that had one of the most alarming rightward shifts over the decade. In the ‘can’t make this stuff up’ department, businessman Eric Crawford already boasts wide name recognition from doing the radio farm report.

• IL-11: Real estate investor and big-money GOP donor Henry Meers Jr. has filed to take on freshman Rep. Debbie Halvorson in the 11th. However, some in the local GOP instead favor Iraq War vet and former McLean County board member Adam Kinzinger. (Kinzinger is from the rural part of the district, while Meers and Halvorson hail from Will County in the Chicago suburbs.)

• NRCC: The NRCC is going on the offense against 43 different House dems for “rubber stamping” Nancy Pelosi’s “San Francisco-style budget” (and its socialistic promise of Rice-a-Roni in every pot). Oddly, they’re singling out OH-18’s Zack Space (certainly not one of our most vulnerable members) with a TV spot. Nine other Dems get radio spots, while robocalls target the rest (including other entrenched members like Charlie Melancon and Chet Edwards).

• Polltopia: Our friends at Public Policy Polling are once again letting readers decide which Senate race they’ll poll next. The choices this time: Colorado, Connecticut, and Illinois. Go get your democracy on, and tell us which state you voted for (and why) in the comments. (J)