• PA-Sen: Rep. Joe Sestak is actually sounding likelier to jump into the Senate race than he did before Arlen Specter’s party swap. Interviews this week find him taking on a more belligerent tone and staking out an outsider position. Sen. Bob Casey, however, is moving right away to say he’ll support Specter no matter what happens in the primary.
• IN-Sen: A Hamilton Campaigns poll finds Evan Bayh with ridiculously high favorables: 74/23, with even 61% from Republicans. He also has $11.4 million in the bank. You think with that level of popularity maybe he could drop the defensive crouch and stop reflexively opposing his party’s agenda?
• CA-32: As the May 19 special election primary fast approaches, Board of Equalization chair Judy Chu and state Senator Gil Cedillo have started going at each other hammer-and-tongs. Cedillo’s camp has sent out mailers charging Chu with giving special tax breaks to corporate campaign contributors; Chu’s camp responds that they were “routine refunds of overpaid sales taxes.” Chu leads in fundraising and endorsements, but will need to make substantial inroads into the Latino vote in this district with a Latino majority but a large Asian bloc.
• CA-45: We’ve known for a while that openly-gay Palm Springs mayor Steve Pougnet was intending to challenge Rep. Mary Bono Mack in this newly-blue district (still R+3), but he made it official earlier this week.
• AR-St. House: Here’s one I’m still trying to wrap my head around: until this week, there was actually a Green Party member in a state House of Representatives. And it wasn’t Vermont, Maine, or Oregon: it was Arkansas, of all places. Well, that ended this week, as State Rep. Richard Carroll of North Little Rock switches to the Democratic Party today. (The effect of the switch is minimal: Dems now control the House 75-25.)
• Swingnuts’ Delight: Everything you ever wanted to know about the awesome delicacy that is chocolate babka. Stick around here long enough and DavidNYC might send you one! (Hat-tip: reader RC)