Tag: Danny Tarkanian

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist went the full-on “I” today; he made a big show of switching his own party registration to “no party affiliation” today, to match having filed as an independent to run for Senate. Free from his Republican shackles, Crist is also following through on plans to call a special legislative session on oil drilling, which could result in Floridians voting on a constitutional amendment to ban offshore drilling in Florida waters. And one final middle-finger to his former Republican allies: after previously saying he was open to refunding money to donors unhappy with his party switch, today he said he wouldn’t be giving any contributions back.

• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP’s out with another quick poll of the runoff for the Democratic Senate nomination between Cal Cunningham and Elaine Marshall. It’s a tie, with Cunningham and Marshall both at 36. While this would initially suggest that Cunningham (who finished 2nd) is picking up the bulk of the also-rans’ votes, that’s not the case; Marshall is still leading among liberals and African-Americans, which probably means she’s getting most Kenneth Lewis voters. PPP’s analysis is that Cunningham’s improved standing is a result of an enthusiasm gap between their supporters; Cunningham backers seem likelier to actually show up for the runoff.

• NV-Sen: Here’s something we haven’t seen in probably more than a year, which is half a lifetime in politics years: Harry Reid is posting a lead. Now, granted, this is a Democratic poll, although not a Reid internal; it was taken by Dem pollster Fairbanks Maslin on behalf of the New West Project. But still, this shows that the chickens have come home to roost for Sue Lowden, in the wake of her quadrupling-down on her HCR gaffe; she’s now trailing Reid 42-35 (with 5 for Tim Fasano, 3 for Scott Ashjian). Reid is tied with Danny Tarkanian, who isn’t gaffe-tainted (and in fact is now trying to tar and feather Lowden with it in the primary), at 37-37 (with 7 for Fasano and 2 for Ashjian).

• UT-Sen: One impure collaborationist down, one to go. With Bob Bennett out, teabagger frenzy is now turning to Orrin Hatch. Mason-Dixon finds Hatch’s 2012 numbers pretty weak, with a 35% re-elect and 51% wanting someone else. And that “someone else” is already making his interest known, more than two years out (probably with an eye toward goading the 78-year-old Hatch into retirement): ambitious freshman Rep. Jason Chaffetz.

• WI-Sen: Wealthy businessman Ron Johnson, the teabaggers’ horse in the Wisconsin Senate GOP derby, made it official, filing as a candidate today. He’ll officially launch his bid next Monday.

• AL-Gov: Bradley Byrne, the supposed moderate (by Alabama GOP standards) in the race, has had to two-step to the right and defend his creationist cred, after an ad from the “True Republican PAC” attacked him for the unforgivable sin of teaching evolution in schools. Turns out that there’s some tasty Democratic dirty pool behind all this: the True Republican PAC is funded by the state teacher’s union, the Alabama Education Association (who are also Ron Sparks’ biggest financial backer). Their rationale seems to be that they’d rather, Gray Davis-style, torpedo Bradley Byrne in the GOP primary, on the assumption that he’d be the most difficult Republican to beat in the general.

• CT-Gov: On the Chris Cillizza hierarchy of endorsements, I think this one falls under the category of “10) Wtf?” State Sen. minority leader John McKinney, who’d considered a gubernatorial run himself, endorsed neither of the GOP frontrunners, but rather the random businessman with the weird name, Oz Griebel. The former head of the Hartford Chamber of Commerce has been polling in the low single digits.

• OH-Gov: Lehman Brothers keeps turning into a bigger and bigger albatross around John Kasich’s neck. It turns out that Kasich, while he was head of Lehman’s Columbus office in 2002, tried to convince two state pension funds (OPFPF and OPERS) to invest with the now-imploded investment bank.

• OR-Gov: Yet another poll of the primaries in the Oregon gubernatorial race, confirming what’s come into pretty sharp focus lately, that it’ll be a John Kitzhaber/Chris Dudley matchup in November. Local pollster Tim Hibbitts, on behalf of assorted media outlets including Oregon Public Broadcasting and the Portland Tribune, found Kitzhaber beating Bill Bradbury 53-23 on the Dem side. For the GOPers, Dudley leads Allen Alley by a not-overwhelming 33-23, but there’s little time left for Alley to make a move. (John Lim is at 8 and Bill Sizemore is at 6.) They also looked at the Dem primary in the special election for Treasurer, finding a competitive race with lots of undecideds: appointed incumbent (and ex-Multnomah Co. Chair) Ted Wheeler leads state Sen. Rick Metsger 29-24.

• WA-Gov: The rumor du jour is that Chris Gregoire is now on the short list to become Solicitor General, assuming Elena Kagan gets promoted to the SCOTUS. Allow me to say: bad idea, if only because it means at least several months of Governor Brad Owen. Under Washington law, though, Owen wouldn’t serve for long, as a special election would be held. The timeline varies, depending on when Gregoire might quit as Governor. If it happens before May 31, a primary would be held, followed by a two-person general in November. If it happens after May 31 but before October 3, it would result in a jungle-style election in November. And if it happens after October 3, we’d be blessed with two full years of Owen. One other major wrinkle: if this looks like it has legs, it may shut the door on a Dino Rossi run for the Senate, as it’s a poorly-kept secret that he’d really prefer another gubernatorial run rather than wasting his third strike on getting pasted by Patty Murray, and this would be the way for him to do it.

• NY-29: David Paterson did the unthinkable and called a special election for the 29th. Heh… except he called it for the regularly-scheduled election day in November, so the winner will get to serve for a few weeks in the lame duck session, Snelly Gibr-style. Smart move by the Gov, as it saves Dems from a potentially embarrassing special election on a day when that’s the only story. Instead, the outcome will probably be that Tom Reed gets to start work a few weeks early.

• PA-12: Two polls are out today in the 12th, both giving a single-digit lead to Democrat Mark Critz. One poll is a Critz internal, so you’d expect a lead there: Global Strategy Group gives him an 8-point lead of 44-36 (up from 41-38 in mid-April). But the other is from Susquehanna, a pollster who often works for Republican candidates but here is polling on behalf of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (the GOP paper in town). They find Critz up 44-38, and Critz even leads by 19 among “super voters” (who’ve voted in 3 of the last 4 primaries). Interestingly, they find Republican Tim Burns’ woes increasing on two different fronts: he’s also in a “dead heat” with BaseConnect stooge Bill Russell (who got passed over for the special election nod) in the regularly-scheduled GOP primary on the same day. For some reason, specific numbers weren’t available for the GOP primary or the Dem primary, although it says Critz has “a majority” against Ryan Bucchanieri.

• AR-Sen: Barack Obama is cutting a radio ad in support of Blanche Lincoln as she faces a primary challenge from Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Also on the ad front, here’s an ad that both Lincoln and Halter agree on. Both have condemned the anti-Halter ad from Americans for Job Security as racist; the ad uses Indian actors and backdrops to accuse Halter of having offshored jobs. AJS’s head says he sees nothing wrong with the ad and won’t be pulling it; it’s a big ad buy and scheduled to run for the next two weeks in the leadup to the primary.

• KY-Sen: Lots happening in Kentucky, most notably a strange switcheroo by Christian right leader James Dobson. He outright switched his endorsement from Trey Grayson to Rand Paul, blaming GOP insiders for feeding him misinformation about Paul (such as that he was pro-choice). Dobson’s endorsement is bound to help the Paul attract some social conservative voters uneasy about his libertarianism, and also helps paint Grayson as tool of the dread insiders. True to form, Grayson is touting a new endorsement that’s pretty insidery: from Rep. Hal Rogers, the low-profile, long-term Rep. from the state’s Appalachian southeast corner and a key pork-doling Appropriations member. Grayson is also touting his own internal poll, which shows Paul and Grayson deadlocked at 40-40, contrary to, well, every public poll of the race.

• LA-Sen, LA-LG: Here’s the first non-Rasmussen poll of Louisiana we’ve seen in a while, not that it has Charlie Melancon in a particularly better position.  It was conducted by Southern Media & Opinion Research on behalf of businessman Lane Grigsby (a wealthy meddler in Republican politics, last seen swaying LA-06 in 2008 with hundreds of thousands of IEs from his own pocket). Vitter leads Melancon 49-31, and Vitter has 55/36 favorables. It also seems to be the first poll to take a look at the Republican all-party jungle primary in the developing Lt. Governor’s race (created by Mitch Landrieu’s election as New Orleans mayor). State Treasurer John Kennedy (the ex-Dem and loser of the 2008 Senate race) leads the pack at 21, followed by SoS Jay Dardenne at 15, Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell at 14, St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis at 6, and state GOP chair Roger Villere at 2. (Kennedy and Campbell, however, haven’t announced their candidacies yet.) (H/t Darth Jeff).

• NC-Sen: PPP has one last look at the Democratic primary in the Senate race, although this one may well be going into overtime (someone needs to break 40% to avoid a top-two runoff). They find Elaine Marshall leading Cal Cunningham 28-21 (a bigger spread than her 26-23 lead one week ago). Kenneth Lewis is at 9, with assorted others taking up another 9%. PPP also polls on the potential runoff, finding Marshall would beat Cunningham in a runoff 43-32 (as Lewis’s voters would break to Marshall by a 47-32 margin).

• NH-Sen: Kelly Ayotte seems to be leaving any “moderate” pretenses in the dust, as she just came out in favor of Arizona’s new anti-illegal immigrant law. (Of course, New Hampshire is one of the whitest and least Hispanic states in that nation, so it still may not wind up hurting her much.)

• NV-Sen: Research 2000, for Daily Kos, came out with a poll of the Nevada Senate race last Friday. Nothing unusual here, inasmuch as they find Harry Reid not looking as DOA as Rasmussen always does, though there are still lots of flies circling around him. Reid’s faves are 37/53, and he trails Sue Lowden 45-41 (with 4 for the Tea Party’s Scott Ashjian, 2 for “other,” and 2 for Nevada’s unique “None of the Above” line). He also trails Danny Tarkanian 43-41 and Sharron Angle 44-41. Despite Lowden getting low marks for her chicken bartering proposals (14/81 approval of that, including 27/68 among Republicans), she still has 42/34 favorables overall and is leading the way in the GOP primary, although perhaps by a narrowing margin: she’s at 38, to 28 for Tarkanian, 13 for Angle, and 12 for “other,” with 9 undecided.

• OH-Sen: One last poll sneaked under the finish line before tomorrow’s Democratic primary in the Ohio Senate race. Quinnipiac finds last-minute momentum for Lee Fisher (in the wake of actually spending some money on TV ads): he leads Jennifer Brunner 43-23. It pretty much seems to depend on name rec (which, in turns, depends on ads): Fisher has 44/8 favorables among likely primary voters, while Brunner is at 26/7 (with 65% having no opinion of her).

• AZ-Gov: I hadn’t been aware until today that controversial Maricopa Co. Sheriff Joe Arpaio was still seriously considering a run in the GOP gubernatorial primary (especially since, with Jan Brewer signing the anti-illegal immigrant law into effect, his main raison d’etre to challenge her was gone). At any rate, after making a big show of “major announcement today!” he then issued a brief press release saying that he wasn’t going to run.

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman is treading carefully in the wake of the Arizona immigration law’s passage, probably mindful of the California GOP’s short-term gains but long-term ruin in the wake of Proposition 187. Meg Whitman came out against it (while primary opponent Steve Poizner supports it), perhaps an indication that she feels safe enough to start charting a moderate course for the general election.

• CT-Gov: Two interesting developments in Connecticut: one, former HartStamford mayor Dan Malloy, Ned Lamont’s main Democratic primary opposition, will qualify for public financing of his campaign. This will help Malloy compete on a somewhat more level playing field against Lamont, who can self-finance. Also, the Democratic field shrank a little, as one of the minor candidates in the field, Mary Glassman (the First Selectwoman of Simsbury) dropped out and signed on as Lamont’s Lt. Governor running mate instead.

• IL-Gov: Democratic running-mate-for-a-day Scott Lee Cohen followed through on earlier threats, and today announced his independent candidacy for Governor. His rationale? “I believe that the people of Illinois have forgiven me.”

• MN-Gov: Needless to say, I’m feeling better about our chances in Minnesota, as newly-anointed GOP nominee Tom Emmer is laying down markers way, way outside the Minnesota mainstream. Turns out he’s a full-on “Tenther,” having recently sponsored state legislation that would purport to nullify all federal laws that are not approved by a two-thirds supermajority in the Minnesota legislature. (He also recently said that the Arizona immigration law was a “wonderful first step.”)

• NY-Gov: We’re getting very mixed signals on the Steve Levy campaign for the GOP nomination. On the one hand, Levy is claiming that the RGA is ready to pony up $8 million to $10 million in support of his campaign. On the other hand, state GOP chair Ed Cox, the guy who arm-twisted Levy to get into the race in the first place, is privately expressing worries that Levy won’t get the 50% of county chairs’ endorsements to get the ballot line, and there are rumors that he’s now floating the idea of a Rick Lazio-Steve Levy ticket.    

• OH-Gov: Incumbent Dem Gov. Ted Strickland is going on the air starting on primary election day, with a major TV ad buy of 1,000 points each in Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Dayton. Strickland has $2 million more cash than John Kasich, so he probably figures now’s the time to use it.

• OR-Gov: A variety of polls have popped up of the primaries in Oregon, whose fast-approaching primary is kind of dwarfed by higher-profile affairs in Arkansas, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania on the same day, May 18. Tim Hibbitts (on behalf of Nike and Standard Insurance, in case there was any doubt that Oregon is, in fact, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Phil Knight) found John Kitzhaber firmly in control of the Dem primary, leading Bill Bradbury 50-21. Local TV affiliate KATU also commissioned a poll by SurveyUSA, which was taken in mid-April but they seem to have sat on the results until now. It’s apparently the first public poll of the Republican primary; they find Chris Dudley, who’s been spending heavily on TV time, leading the pack at 28. Allen Alley is at 13, under-indictment Bill Sizemore is at 11, John Lim is at 7, and assorted tea-bagging “others” add up to 8.

• UT-Gov: Looks like those rumors that Democratic candidate Peter Corroon was going to pick a Republican running mate were right. Corroon tapped state Rep. Sheryl Allen, one of the legislature’s leading moderate GOPers, as his number two.

• OH-17: Insert obligatory “beam me up” joke here! Ex-Rep. Jim Traficant, out of prison, is looking to get back in the game, and he’ll be taking on his former employee, Rep. Tim Ryan, by running as an independent in his old district, the 17th. While there had been rumors that Traficant was also going to file to run in the next-door 6th (as, bizarrely, you can run in multiple different districts in Ohio), but he decided against that. Bear in mind that Traficant already ran against Ryan in the 17th as an independent shortly after his 2002 conviction and House expulsion, but only got 15% in that race.

AR-Sen: The odious U.S. Chamber of Commerce is running ads on behalf of Blanche Lincoln, though they are refusing to say how much they are spending on their buy. As Salon says, with friends like these….

FL-Sen: Reid Wilson does some counting and finds that Arlen Specter has given back a rather amazing $1 million this election cycle, following his party switch. (Part of this was fueled by an aggressive campaign by the Club for Growth, which won FEC permission to contact Specter’s donors and push them to ask for refunds.) If Charlie Crist bails on the GOP, there’s no telling how much it might cost him financially, but the Specter precedent suggests it could be a hell of a lot.

IL-Sen: Even Mark Kirk is smart enough to skip an IL GOP fundraiser headlined by Sarah Palin.

IN-Sen: With the GOP primary just days away, Dan Coats has floated himself a $200K lifeline. I wonder if it will be enough.

NV-Sen: Fuck it – Sue Lowden knows that when you’re at the bottom of a 2,000-foot deep mineshaft, you should keep fucking digging until you’ve reached China. That’s why she is still advocating the barter system. While this prolonged episode of inspired insanity is not helping her win any elections, it is helping her become one of the most awesome candidates of 2010. Meanwhile, GOP primary opponent Danny Tarkanian is shish-kebobbing Lowden for her “poultry-based healthcare plan.”

OH-Sen: Quinnipiac should have a poll out of the Dem senate primary this morning.

PA-Sen: Michael J. Fox has cut an ad for Arlen Specter, citing his support for medical research. Fox had previously done an ad for Specter in 2004 as well.

FL-Gov: Mocking gun ownership? And pissing law enforcement off in the process? It sounds like a deranged GOP fantasy of something they think Dems would love to do, but in fact, the Republican Party of Florida is the guilty party here. They put out a shitty web video mocking CFO Alex Sink, who authorized the purchase of “advanced weaponry” for law enforcement officers who operate out of her agency. The state PBA blistered AG Bill McCollum (who posted the video on his website) for this offense, noting with irony that he’s the state’s chief law enforcement officer.

GA-Gov: Ex-Rep. Nathan Deal has come out in favor of Arizona’s draconian new immigration law, apparently the first Republican gubernatorial candidate in Georgia to do so. While Deal trails badly in the polls and isn’t very likely to win the GOP nod, in my opinion, he might succeed in driving the Republican field to the right on this issue.

NY-Gov: Steve Levy, the Dem-turned-Republican who is hoping to get buzz-sawed by Andrew Cuomo in the fall, is apparently “likely” to get the endorsement of the Queens Republican Party. In order to get a spot on the GOP ballot line, he needs the support of 51% of the state’s county-level parties (which are weighted by size), because he’s still a registered Democrat. He claims to be at around 45%, but it’s not clear if Queens is already included in that tally. If Levy pulls it off, this will be an extraordinary humiliation for Rick Lazio, a man I thought was incapable of being humiliated further.

FL-16: Shut up and go away.

ID-01: Some Very Wacky Dude dropped out of the GOP primary the other day. On his way out, Michael Chadwick attacked another candidate, Vaughn Ward, for representing “powerful special interest groups in New York City and Washington, D.C.” He also called Ward a “protégé and surrogate of the military-industrial-intelligence establishment” who will “vote to build up and sustain the Permanent War Machine.” I hadn’t realized this, but another Republican, Allan Salzberg, also bailed last week.

MI-01: Is it crowded in here, or is it just me? State Rep. Matt Gillard, a Democrat, is the latest to enter the race. He joins two other state Reps, Joel Sheltrown and Gary McDowell, as well as Connie Saltonstall, in the Dem primary field.

NY-14: Reshma Saujani may want to re-think her pro-bankster platform as she attempts to unseat Rep. Carolyn Maloney: A new Marist poll shows that even Manhattanites consider Wall Street to be “more of the problem” rather than “more of the solution” by a 49-31 margin.

NY-15: As Liz Benjamin observes, Assembly Adam Clayton Powell IV hasn’t gotten a whole lot of establishment backing in his attempt to unseat Rep. Charlie Rangel, but a few of his colleagues on the Assembly are hosting a fundraiser for him. Seems pretty minor to me, though.

NY-29: Republicans are citing a case from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in their attempt to force Gov. David Paterson to hold a special election to fill Eric Massa’s seat. The 6th Cir. ruled (PDF) that Art. I, § 2, ¶ 4 of the Constitution required then-Gov. Bob Taft of Ohio to hold a special election to fill Jim Traficant’s seat after he was expelled from Congress. However, there’s an old New York State Court of Appeals case, People v. Voorhis, 119 N.E. 106 (1918), which held otherwise – and if this goes before the federal courts in NY, the Second Circuit may very well rule differently from the Sixth.

Calendar: Be sure to bookmark SSP’s handy list of key primary & special elections in the very merry month of May.

• AZ-Sen, AZ-Gov: The signature by Gov. Jan Brewer (which may have helped her survive the GOP primary, but may also hurt her in the general) of Arizona’s new aggressive anti-immigrant law was the key motivating factor in a new Democratic candidate getting into the Senate race: civil rights activist Randy Parraz. He’ll face Rodney Glassman in the Democratic primary. (Why not the, y’know, Arizona Governor’s race instead? Apparently Glassman looks like easier primary opposition than AG Terry Goddard in the governor’s race… and at any rate, John McCain and J.D. Hayworth have both been beating the war drums on immigration.) And here’s an interesting take on the immigration law: ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo just came out in opposition to it, saying, “I do not want people here, there in Arizona, pulled over because you look like should be pulled over.” If even Tom Tancredo thinks you’re doing it wrong… you’re probably doing it wrong.

• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon’s campaign doesn’t seem to be doing anything illegal here, but there’s still no good way to spin this: the campaign has been offering students an extra $5 bounty (on top of a flat hourly rate) for every Republican registered during a Univ. of Connecticut voter registration drive. It’s a practice that the DOJ has frowned upon.

• IL-Sen: In the wake of the seizure of the Broadway Bank, Alexi Giannoulias wasted no time in getting an explanatory ad on the air, laying it out in easy-to-grasp points: one, he hadn’t worked there in years and when he left it was fine, two, the broader economy took the bank down, and three, speaking of that economic downturn, don’t vote for unemployment-benefits-denying Mark Kirk.

• MD-Sen: OK, maybe all those Barb Mikulski retirement rumors will finally go away. She just had her campaign’s official kickoff event on Friday. She has 24 times the cash of her likeliest Republican opponent, Queen Anne’s Co. Commissioner Eric Wargotz.

• NC-Sen: Elon University’s out with another poll; they still aren’t doing head-to-heads, but have some assorted other numbers that Richard Burr would probably rather not see. His approvals (among flat-out everybody, not even RVs) are 28/37 and 26% say he “deserves re-election” with 44% saying “time for a new person.”

• NV-Sen: A poll for the Nevada News Bureau performed by PMI finds Sue Lowden leading the pack in the GOP Senate primary, at 41. Danny Tarkanian is at 24, Sharron Angle is at 17, and “someone else” is at 18. The poll was taken on the 22nd, shortly after Lowden laid out her support for trading chickens in exchange for poultices and tinctures.

• NY-Sen-B: Long-time Rockland Co. Exec Scott Vanderhoef has decided not to pursue a run against Kirsten Gillibrand, after having spent a month in exploratory mode, saying the money’s just not there. Vanderhoef probably found he didn’t have the name rec outside of Rockland Co. to have an advantage against the odds and ends in the GOP primary, let alone in the general.

• UT-Sen: Another poll of GOP delegates for the convention in Utah isn’t as bad for Bob Bennett as the one leaked to Dave Weigel last week, but it still looks pretty bad for him. Mike Lee leads the way among first-choice votes at 31%, followed by Bennett at 22% (and then Tim Bridgewater at 17% and Cherilyn Eagar at 10%). 41% of delegates say they will “absolutely not” vote for Bennett, so even if Bennett picks up the other 59%, he still can’t nail down the nomination at the convention (as there’s a 60% threshold).

• WA-Sen: Everyone seemed a little taken by surprise by Friday’s SurveyUSA poll of the Washington Senate race, which has non-candidate (for now) Dino Rossi leading Patty Murray 52-42 (and leading the various no-name GOPers actively in the race by 2 or 3 points). Even the Rossi camp is downplaying it, saying that their internal polling places Murray in the lead – which is an odd strategy for someone who got gifted an outlying poll, unless either he’s trying to rope-a-dope Murray into complacency or privately cursing the results saying “aw crap, now I have to run for Senate.” One of the no-namers, motivational speaker Chris Widener, got out of the race on Friday, which may also portend a Rossi run (or just having taken a stark look at his own finances). Murray’s camp may have gotten advance warning of the SurveyUSA poll, as on Friday they leaked their own internal from Fairbank Maslin giving Murray a 49-41 lead over Rossi, very consistent with R2K’s recent poll.

• IL-Gov: Oh, goody. Scott Lee Cohen, having bailed out/gotten booted off the Democratic ticket as Lt. Governor nominee after his criminal record became news, still has a political issue that needs scratching. He’s announcing that he’s going to run an independent bid for Governor instead. Considering how thoroughly his dirty laundry has been aired, he seems likely to poll in the low single digits; I have no idea whether his candidacy (which now appeals mostly only to the steroid-addled pawnbroker demographic) is more harmful to Pat Quinn, Bill Brady, or just the world’s general sense of decency.

• MI-Gov: When I heard a few weeks ago that Geoffrey Fieger (the trial lawyer best known for defending Jack Kevorkian and second-best-known for his awful turn as 1998 Democratic gubernatorial nominee) was pondering another gubernatorial run, I laughed it off. The new EPIC-MRA poll makes it seem a bit more serious, though… which, in turn, if he won the primary, would pretty much foreclose any Democratic shot at winning the general. They only polled the Democratic primary and find, thanks to name rec within the Detroit metro area, Fieger is actually comfortably in the lead at 28%. Andy Dillon is at 20, Virg Bernero is at 13, Alma Wheeler Smith is at 8, other is at 2, and 29% are undecided. Fieger hasn’t moved much to act on his interest, though, and has only three weeks to collect the necessary 15,000 signatures to qualify.

• FL-24: Karen Diebel earned the backing of Tom Tancredo in the GOP primary in the 24th, focusing on (with Tancredo, what else?) in the immigration issue. It seems less of a pro-Diebel endorsement than more of a slap against her GOP opponent Craig Miller, though; in a 2006 Miami Herald op-ed, Miller (who was at that point chairman of the National Restaurant Association) came out pretty solidly on the “cheap labor” side of the Republican split on immigration.

• GA-12: Democrats looking for an upgrade from ex-state Sen. Regina Thomas (who raised $10K last quarter and has $4K CoH) for a primary challenge to recalcitrant Blue Dog John Barrow are going to have to keep looking. State Sen. Lester Jackson decided to take a pass, and will stay neutral in the Barrow/Thomas race. He’ll focus instead of supporting the Senate bid of Labor Comm. Michael Thurmond (another rumored, but no-longer, challenger to Barrow).

• LA-03: Bobby Jindal just appointed Scott Angelle, the state’s Sec. of Natural Resources, to the vacant position of Lt. Governor. Why is this filed under LA-03? Angelle was rumored to be one of the top contenders to run for the 3rd (although it was unclear whether he was going to do it as a Dem or a GOPer… Angelle was a Dem in the legislature, but appointed by GOP Gov. Jindal to his cabinet). With Angelle saying he’ll return to his job at Natural Resources after a permanent replacement is elected, that means that former state House speaker Hunt Downer is pretty well locked-in as the GOP nominee in the 3rd, and the Dems aren’t likely to get an upgrade from attorney Ravi Sangisetty, making this open seat a very likely GOP pickup. (H/t GOPVOTER.)

• NY-01: Randy Altschuler got the endorsement from the Suffolk County Conservative Party on Friday, which guarantees him a place on the ballot if he wants it. He’ll still need to overcome Chris Cox and George Demos in the competitive three-way moneybags duel in the GOP primary (where the county GOP recently switched its endorsement from Altschuler to Cox). It’s unclear whether he’d keep the Conservative line if he lost the GOP primary, as that would create a NY-23 type situation and pretty much assure Rep. Tim Bishop’s safety. (Unlike the patchwork of counties in the upstate districts, all of the 1st is within Suffolk.)

• NY-29: The GOP would really, really like to have a special election in the 29th, despite David Paterson’s apparent intention to play out the clock until November (and prevent a possible GOP pickup, given the difference in strength between the likely candidates). Several GOP party chairs within the district are preparing a lawsuit that would force a special election; the state GOP plans to assist.

• OH-02: Bad news for Jean Schmidt: although she got the Hamilton Co. GOP’s endorsement in the previous two elections, she’s going to have to proceed without it this year. They’re staying neutral as she faces several primary challengers, most notably Warren Co. Commissioner Mike Kilburn.

• PA-12: In battling independent expenditures in the 12th, the GOP went large, as the NRCC plunked down $235K on media buys. The DCCC also spent $16K on media buys.

• SC-04: The dean at Bob Jones University (the crown jewel in the buckle of the Bible Belt, in Greenville in the 4th), Robert Taylor, has announced he’s supporting Trey Gowdy in the GOP primary instead of incumbent Rep. Bob Inglis. The occasionally-moderate Inglis (more stylistically than in actual voting substance, though) faces at least three right-wing competitors in the primary, but could run into trouble if he doesn’t clear 50% and gets forced into a runoff with one of them.

• WV-01: There are dueling internal polls in the 1st, in the Democratic primary. State Sen. Mike Oliverio was first to release a poll, saying he led Rep. Alan Mollohan 41-33. (One caveat: Oliverio’s pollster is Orion Strategies, owned by Curtis Wilkerson, who also just happens to be Oliverio’s campaign manager.) Mollohan struck back with a poll from Frederick Polls giving him a 45-36 lead over Oliverio, with the primary fast approaching on May 11.

• MA-AG: Despite it now being widely known that Martha Coakley has a glass jaw (or what’s something more fragile than glass? what do they make those fake bottles out of that they use in bar fights in the movies?), she may actually get re-elected Attorney General without facing any GOP opposition whatsoever this fall. Of course, that may have something to do with the fact that the GOP’s entire bench in Massachusetts just got elected to the Senate.

• Pennsylvania: The Philadelphia Inquirer has an interesting look at the changes in registration in Pennsylvania over the last decade. The Democratic Party grew substantially in the state’s east, gaining 550,000 registrations up to 4.3 million voters. The GOP shrank by 103,000 registrations down to 3.1 million votes. The Dems lost 20,000 voters in the state’s southwest, though; in 2002, 27.8% of the state’s Dems were in the Pittsburgh area, but that’s down to 23.8%. Contrast that with the Philadelphia metro area: in its five counties, the number of Republicans dropped 13.5%, from a million to 873,000.

• Redistricting: Here’s the last redistricting resource you’ll ever need: a handy map showing congressional and legislative redistricting procedures for all 50 states. There’s also an accompanying document (pdf) which goes into remarkable detail about the various processes, and even contains an appendix of some of the ugliest current gerrymanders.

Mason-Dixon for the Las Vegas Review-Journal (4/5-7, likely voters, 2/22-24 in parens):

Harry Reid (D-inc): 39 (40)

Danny Tarkanian (R): 39 (51)

Scott Ashjian (T): 11 (NA)

Undecided: 11 (9)

Harry Reid (D-inc): 38 (39)

Sue Lowden (R): 46 (52)

Scott Ashjian (T): 5 (NA)

Undecided: 11 (9)

(MoE: ±4%)

Sue Lowden (R): 45 (47)

Danny Tarkanian (R): 27 (29)

Sharron Angle (R): 5 (8)

Chad Christensen (R): 4 (NA)

John Chachas (R): 3 (1)

Undecided: 16 (15)

(MoE: ±6%)

Mason-Dixon is doing a few things differently from their last batch of polling: maybe most importantly, they’ve started to do a three-way including Jon Scott Ashjian (here listed simply as “Scott”), which would explain Harry Reid’s slightly improved position. (Last time, they tested head-to-heads against the top 3 Republicans — Sharron Angle seems to have faded from relevance since their last poll — and then did a test of Reid, Generic R, and Generic Teabagger.)

I’m not sure polling Ashjian is that wise, as he may be in jail rather than campaigning come November (but there’s always the possibility that if Ashjian falls, another equally random teabagger quickly takes his place. Interestingly, Ashjian’s presence makes a big difference in the Danny Tarkanian matchup (most likely because Tarkanian isn’t inspiring much loyalty, as seen with his declining primary numbers… although, who knows, maybe there’s a kernel of truth to that Armenian-American vote-splitting charge) but much less impact on the Sue Lowden matchup.

Here are the gubernatorial numbers:

Jim Gibbons (R-inc): 25 (30)

Brian Sandoval (R): 39 (37)

Michael Montadon (R): 7 (9)

Undecided: 29 (24)

(MoE: ±6%)

Rory Reid (D): 35 (29)

Brian Sandoval (R): 50 (51)

Undecided: 15 (20)

Rory Reid (D): 42 (42)

Jim Gibbons (R-inc): 40 (38)

Undecided: 18 (20)

(MoE: ±4%)

Not much change here. Rory Reid is still holding his own against thoroughly damaged GOP incumbent Jim Gibbons, but the chances of Gibbons surviving his primary against Brian Sandoval seem to be getting even slimmer.

Finally, as if that weren’t enough to worry about, we’ve got a new problem brewing in NV-03 (trendlines from 11/30-12/2-2009):

Dina Titus (D-inc): 44 (40)

Joe Heck (R): 49 (40)

Undecided: 7 (20)

(MoE: ±6%)

An earlier LVRJ poll had Titus tied with former state Sen. Joe Heck, and now Heck has pulled 5 points ahead, similar to his own internal released a few weeks ago. There are a couple things at work here: for starters, Titus can’t be helped by the reverse coattails coming downticket from father and son Reid. That’s compounded by Las Vegas’s particularly bad economy, crushed by the foreclosure crisis and the drop in construction, and compounded even further, as the LVRJ points out, by $1.3 million in spending by outside interests trying to sink Titus over her pro-HCR vote. Heck is fairly moderate as far as GOPers go, coming complete with his own charges of flip-flopping regarding raising or not raising taxes… hmmm, maybe Nevada’s nascent Tea Party should get involved in some RINO-hunting here too (hint hint)?

RaceTracker Wiki: NV-Sen | NV-Gov | NV-03

• AZ-Sen: Looks like the Maverick has finally been broken (as he’s decided that it’s preferable to spend six years chewing his cud while fenced in the GOP pasture, instead of getting sent prematurely to the glue factory). In the face of a potentially serious primary from the right from J.D. Hayworth, John McCain says not only is he no longer a maverick, but he “never considered himself a maverick.” (Except for in all those campaign ads from two years ago?) In response, Hayworth said McCain is trying to “encourage amnesia.”

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: There’s a new LA Times/USC poll of the two major races in California, with a mixed bag of results for Democrats. Like most pollsters, they find that Republican Meg Whitman has pulled into a small lead over Jerry Brown in the governor’s race, thanks to her nonstop deluge of self-funded advertising; she leads Brown 44-41, while she leads Steve Poizner in the GOP primary 60-20. On the Senate side, Barbara Boxer leads a Generic Republican by a surprisingly wide 48-34. Polling Generic R seems pretty weird, though, considering that there are only two likely opponents for her: Tom Campbell leads Carly Fiorina in the GOP primary 29-25, with Chuck DeVore lagging at 9. One other bit of good news for Dems: by a 46-29 margin, voters prefer to back a candidate who backed health care reform.

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet is playing it safe, making plans for a petition drive to make sure his name is on the ballot in November. He needs at least 30% at the Democratic state convention to qualify, but his Plan B seems to be an acknowledgment that he may be facing a rough time at the convention too. Remember that he lost at the caucus level to former state House speaker Andrew Romanoff (whose main source of strength seems to be insiders and activists, rather than the broader population).

• IN-Sen: CQ takes a look at the NRSC’s private teeth-gnashing over the possibility that kooky ex-Rep. John Hostettler might beat ex-Sen. Dan Coats in the primary, something that can’t be ruled out in an anti-establishment year like this one. They’d then have to decide whether they want to financially prop up Hostettler, a legendarily poor fundraiser who’s relied on shoestring campaigns and religious right ground troops. Still, a reasonably competent Hostettler ought to be able to make short work of Coats in the GOP primary, given the amount of material he has to work with: for instance, it turns out that Coats, when lobbying for King & Spaulding, lobbied Congress in favor of cap and trade, the same legislation he claims he now opposes.

• NV-Sen: If there’s one reason not to quite count out Harry Reid yet, it’s his ability to bring in the campaign cash. He brought in more than $1.5 million for the quarter, giving him more than $10 million in receipts so far this cycle. Sue Lowden, ostensibly the GOP’s top contender, says she raised about $500K and will match that dollar-for-dollar from her own personal stash. Danny Tarkanian raised $445K last quarter.

• NY-Sen-B (pdf): These numbers are a little stale, but we found there were some more useful numbers buried in that Marist poll from last week where the topline was just the usual rigamarole about the Kirsten Gillibrand vs. George Pataki matchup that’s very unlikely to happen (especially not if Al D’Amato has anything to say about it). They also tested some head-to-heads with the lesser GOPers who are actually in the race: Gillibrand beats Bruce Blakeman 54-25, Joe DioGuardi 54-27, and David Malpass 54-25. They also looked at the GOP primary, finding DioGuardi winning it with 18, followed by Blakeman at 10, Malpass at 9, and non-candidate Dan Senor at 4. A permutation including Pataki finds Pataki at 62, with DioGuardi at 7, Blakeman at 4, and Malpass and Senor at 2. In other news, Gillibrand picked up an endorsement today from one of her biggest skeptics, Assemblyman and Kings Co. Dem chair Vito Lopez. Lopez had been considering backing Harold Ford Jr., way back in those heady days of February.

• WA-Sen: Dino Rossi is still saying he’s “completely undecided” about running for Senate, but will do it if he thinks he has a “50% chance” of winning. Here’s one more bit that might help move his decision along, though: financially, he’d be starting from scratch against Patty Murray, who raked in another $1 million last quarter, bringing her total war chest to $5.9 million.

• AL-Gov: I gather from the comments that SSP is full of mustache aficionados, and this news might prove heartbreaking to them: Ron Sparks shaved off his legendary ‘stache. He says this was a spur-of-the-moment decision at the barber shop (and hopefully not the result of thorough focus grouping?). I just hope Travis Childers doesn’t decide to follow suit.

• NY-Gov: Wealthy businessman Carl Paladino has decided to go ahead with his teabaggish-sounding campaign for Governor, kicking off his bid today in Buffalo. He’ll be running in the GOP primary, although he’d previously made noises about a possible independent run. Unfortunately, his rollout might be overshadowed by other news today… that he had a daughter with his mistress 10 years ago, and kept the child secret from his wife until last year.

• OH-Gov: In response to pressure to release his financials, John Kasich released his 2008 tax returns. Kasich earned $615K from now-kaput Lehman Brothers in 2008, including $183K base and a $432K bonus (but no “golden parachute” as Lehman Brothers collapsed). Oh, by the way, he also earned $265K as a Fox News commentator, $166K in speaking fees, $62K as an associate for Schottenstein Property Group, $45K as an Ohio State Univ. lecturer, $77K for being on the board of directors of two companies, and $122K in interest and dividends. Just your average teabagging Joe Lunchpail.

• HI-01: Charles Djou is trying to get some mileage out of the fact that neither Ed Case nor Colleen Hanabusa lives in HI-01. This kind of thing usually doesn’t matter much even in most other states, and seems to matter even less in Hawaii, though, where the island of Oahu gets split between the two districts and no one seems to care that Mazie Hirono lives in the 1st instead of HI-02.

• CO-04: Rep. Betsy Markey is near the top of most people’s vulnerable Dems lists, especially after her pro-HCR vote, but her cash haul may go along way toward allaying fears. She pulled in $505K, with $355K of that coming between Mar. 21 (the HCR vote) and Mar. 31. Her vote (plus being in Sarah Palin’s sorta-metaphorical crosshairs) seems to have helped, not hurt. Likely GOP opponent Cory Gardner raised only $75K last quarter after the HCR vote.

• ND-AL: One GOPer who is doing well on the fundraising front is state Rep. Rick Berg, who pulled in $483K in the first quarter. $330K of that came in the last 10 days of the quarter, although that seems to have more to do with his winning the state party’s endorsement rather than the HCR vote. Most of the rest of that took the form of $100K from his own pocket. Between this and the downdraft from John Hoeven at the top of the ballot, looks like Rep. Earl Pomeroy’s in for a real race this year.

• PA-06: Doug Pike picked up another labor endorsement, and it’s a big one: the AFL-CIO. They also backed Paul Kanjorski in the 11th, who’s being challenged by Corey O’Brien in the primary.

• RI-01: Here’s one more huge House Democratic fundraising haul, although this isn’t a race that the DCCC has been sweating too hard. Providence mayor David Cicilline pulled in a huge $725K (although some of that was checks re-written away from his mayoral fund to his newly-established House fund). His main Democratic rival, former state party chair William Lynch, raised $230K (including $100K of his own money).

• TX-17: Bill Flores pulled in an endorsement that will help in his GOP primary runoff against Rob Curnock, from perhaps the most unlikable man in the entirety of American politics, ex-Sen. Phil Gramm. In fact, that district may be conservative enough that it might still be a positive in the general.

• LA-LG: Republican SoS Jay Dardenne’s plan for an easy upgrade to the position of Lt. Governor (left vacant by Mitch Landrieu’s move to mayor of New Orleans) ran into a bit of a snag. He’s facing GOP primary opposition now from the state GOP chair, Roger Villere.

• CA-Init: Proposition 15 looks to be the only interesting initiative on the June primary ballot in California, and it lays some important groundwork for countering the flood of corporate money into elections. The Fair Elections Act, as it’s called, is a pilot program for public financing of state races; if passed, it’ll publicly fund the 2014 and 2018 Secretary of State races, which, if successful, could lead to a broader system.

• Fundraising: There are a number of other fundraising roundups today, courtesy of National Journal’s Reid Wilson and also the crew at TPM. Other highlights include Tom Campbell, Pat Toomey, Bob Dold!, Colleen Hanabusa, Bruce O’Donoghue, and various OR-Gov contestants.

• Teabaggers: Ed Kilgore continues his hot streak of dismantling the myth of the teabaggers, pointing to today’s Gallup/USA Today poll as more evidence that they’re nothing more than louder, angrier Republicans (who’d like access to a time machine). Only 7% say they’re Democrats, and while many say they’re independents, all evidence suggests they’re not from the center but those indies who think the GOP is too establishment, too liberal, or just too unsalvageable.

• RNC: You might remember several weeks ago the RNC lost a case in the D.C. District Court, squelching their desires for unlimited “soft money” contributions, which they felt they should be able to do in the wake of Citizens United. The RNC has decided to go ahead and appeal the case to the Supreme Court, although it doesn’t seem likely it’ll be decided in time for this year’s general election. (If you’re wondering why the case is bypassing the DC Circuit, McCain-Feingold allows challenges to it to leapfrog directly from the trial level to SCOTUS.)

• Census: Here’s an interesting tidbit: despite her early anti-Census fearmongering, Michele Bachmann’s district is actually well outpacing much of the nation on Census form return rates. Counties in her district have had an especially high return rate, ranging from 68-71% (compared with the current national average of 50%). Perhaps Republicans have decided it’s better in the long-term to, y’know, get conservative parts of the country to get accurately represented, rather than to try to appeal to the black-helicopters fringes, if Karl Rove cutting an ad urging Census participation is any indication.

• O2B: Finally, over at the Great Orange Satan, there’s an open call for nominations for the Orange to Blue program. Stop by and suggest some names of candidates who should get the netroots’ financial help this year.

• DE-Sen: Good news on the cat fud front, as according to the press release: “O’Donnell announcement adds Delaware to growing list of states hosting conservative insurgencies against liberal Republican incumbents.” Activist and occasional Fox News commentator Christine O’Donnell is making official today that she’s running in the Republican Senate primary against Rep. Mike Castle (although she’s been “unofficially” running for months), who, of course, is neither liberal nor incumbent. O’Donnell lost the 2006 Republican Senate primary and opposed Joe Biden in 2008, losing 65-35.

• NV-Sen: Danny Tarkanian is charging Harry Reid with shenanigans, accusing him of putting Tea Party candidate Jon Ashjian up to running in the race. Tarkanian’s proof? “No one in the Tea Party knows who he is. He didn’t know the principles of the Tea Party.” He’s also accusing Reid’s camp of picking Ashjian in particular because, like Tarkanian, he’s Armenian, and that’ll split the Armenian vote.

• OR-Sen (pdf):  A few people (perhaps those who’ve never heard of Rasmussen before) seemed caught off guard when Rasmussen found that Ron Wyden wasn’t breaking 50% against law professor Jim Huffman. Wyden just released an internal poll via Grove Insight showing him in better position against Huffman: 53-23 (with 5% for the Libertarian candidate). He also polls almost the same against the state’s top Republicans, who at any rate (with filing day having passed) won’t be running against him: state Sen. Jason Atkinson (53-22) and Rep. Greg Walden (52-24).

• WA-Sen: The Hill has a little more… well, I’d hesitate to say detail, as that implies there’s some substance there… on the prospect of a Dino Rossi run for Senate, with various anonymous GOP sources saying that Rossi’s “thanks but no thanks” attitude has “changed in recent weeks,” and that if there’s a 1-10 scale of being likely to run for office, Rossi’s at a 3.

• AL-Gov: Bradley Byrne, the Republican former state community colleges chancellor, got an endorsement from Jeb Bush, which may help shore up some more conservative votes in a primary that includes right-wing judge Roy Moore. Bush has been active on the endorsements front lately, giving his imprimatur to Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and to John McCain as well.

• CA-Gov: This is kind of a strange media strategy: kicking out reporters for daring to do their jobs and ask questions of you at a scheduled appearance. It all seems to be part of the plan for Meg Whitman, though: silence from the candidate, and let the ads do the talking.

• HI-Gov: Recently-resigned Rep. Neil Abercrombie has a real race on his hands to get out of the Democratic gubernatorial primary: his main rival, Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann, just got the endorsement of the state’s largest union, the ILWU (the Longshoremen). Abercrombie can still boast a new union endorsement of his own from the IBEW.

• MA-Gov: There seems to be a lot of smoke coming out from under the hood of Christy Mihos’s campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, as seen not only in dwindling poll numbers but now the departure of campaign manager Joe Manzoli. Manzoli claims to be owed $40K in back pay but says that wasn’t the reason for his departure, while Mihos bounced a check from himself to his campaign fund in January.

• ME-Gov: Here’s a jolt of life in the sleepy Maine governor’s race, one of the least-noticed and least clear-cut races in the country. Bill Clinton weighed in, offering an endorsement to state Senate president Libby Mitchell in the Democratic primary.

• NY-Gov: One more snap poll on David Paterson’s perilous political predicament today. It seems like there’s been nothing but noise in these polls, with very wide-ranging responses on whether Paterson should resign or stay, but if you follow the trendlines from today’s Quinnipiac poll back to the previous one, it looks like his position is stabilizing. 50% say he should stay, and 39% say he should resign (compared with 46-42 last seek), although is approval is still awful at 21/61.

• CT-04: One more Republican entrant in the crowded field to take on freshman Rep. Jim Himes in the 4th, with the entry of Easton First Selectman Tom Herrmann. First Selectman is analogous to mayor in Connecticut municipalities that are organized as towns, not cities, but in his spare time he’s a managing director at a private equity firm (so presumably he has some money to burn). The GOP field in the 4th is dominated by state Sen. Dan Debicella and former state Sen. Rob Russo.

• GA-07: We won’t have Ralph Reed to kick around – this cycle, at least. As expected, he won’t run in the GOP primary to fill outgoing Rep. John Linder’s seat. (D)

• NC-08: One other Republican campaign manager hit the trail, getting out of the seeming trainwreck that is the campaign of Tim d’Annunzio in the 8th. Apparently the leading candidate there by virtue of his self-funding ability, d’Annunzio made waves last month for wading into the comments section of the local newspaper – and now his former manager, Jack Hawke, seems to have had enough with d’Annunzio’s lack of message discipline, with d’Annunzio storming off the stage during a recent candidate forum and also with his postings to the end-times-focused “Christ’s War” blog.

• VA-11: Here’s a warning flare from a race that’s not really on too many people’s radars: Rep. Gerry Connolly’s first re-election in the 11th. His rematch opponent, home inspection firm owner Keith Fimian, is boasting of an internal poll (from McLaughlin) showing him beating Connolly 40-35. Considering that Connolly already beat Fimian by 12 points in 2008, while Barack Obama was carrying the 11th by 15, that’s pushing the edges of credulity, but certainly indicates this race needs monitoring. (And of course, Fimian may not even survive his primary, where he matches up against Fairfax Co. Supervisor Pat Herrity.)

• IL-Lt. Gov.: In an attempt to clear the smoke out of the back room, IL Dems have opened up their process for selecting a replacement lieutenant governor candidate. (You may recall that primary winner Scott Lee Cohen dropped out last month.) You can apply via email – and over 200 people have so far. (D)

• Filings: There’s a little more on the Arkansas filings fail by the GOP: they left uncontested 8 of the 17 state Senate seats up for grabs, making it mathematically impossible for them to retake the Senate, and also left 44 of the 100 House seats and the Attorney General’s race uncontested. Filing deadlines passed yesterday in Pennsylvania and Oregon, without any major surprises. In Pennsylvania, there weren’t any last-minute entries in the Senate or Governor’s races; the big story may be the LG race, with 12 different candidates, including a last-minute entry by Republican state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe. The Republican field in the 6th seems to have vaporized at the last moment, leaving Rep. Jim Gerlach opposed only by teabagger Patrick Sellers; Manan Trivedi and Doug Pike are the only Dems there.

In Oregon, there was a brief hubbub that Steve Novick might run for Multnomah County Chair, just vacated by newly appointed state Treasurer Ted Wheeler, but alas, it wasn’t to be; he threw his support to County Commissioner Jeff Cogen for the job. Blue Oregon also looks at the state Senate and House landscapes; Republicans fared better here, leaving only 1 Senate race and 1 House race unfilled (Dems left 3 House races empty). Of the 16 Senate seats up this year, Dems are defending 12 of them, but a lot of them are dark-blue; the main one to watch is SD-26, an exurban/rural open seat being vacated by Rick Metsger (running in the Treasurer special election) where Dem state Rep. Brent Barton faces GOP Hood River Co. Commissioner Chuck Thomsen. (Dems control the Senate 18-12.)

• Fundraising: While we at SSP are often rather blunt about Congressional Dems’ need to give to their campaign committees, at least they’re doing a better job of it than their GOP counterparts. Reid Wilson crunches the numbers and finds out that Dem House members have given $15.7 million to the DCCC while GOPers have given the NRCC only $4.7 million. The disparity is greater on the Senate side, where Senate Dems have given the DSCC $2.6 million but the NRSC has gotten only $450K.

• Passages: We’re saddened to report the death of Doris “Granny D” Haddock, the 2004 candidate for Senate in New Hampshire. Haddock was 100; she was 94 when she challenged Judd Gregg in his most recent re-election. She’s probably best known for walking across the country to support campaign finance reform at the age of 89.

• Social media: Like Swing State Project, but does your head start to hurt after you get past 140 characters? Sign up to get SSP wisdom in its most condensed form, via our Twitter feed or on Facebook.

• AZ-Sen: One more endorsement for John McCain, as the GOP establishment circles the wagons around him in the face of a primary challenge from J.D. Hayworth. Today, it was former presidential rival Mitt Romney’s turn to boost McCain.

• FL-Sen: Rasmussen follows up with a look at the Senate general election in Florida, and pretty consistent with its last few polls, gives double-digit leads to both Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio over Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek. Crist leads 48-32, while Rubio leads 51-31. It’s looking dicier for Crist to make it to the general, though, and that’s reflected with an increasing number of staffers seeing the handwriting on the wall and bailing out. Political director Pablo Diaz announced his departure, and new media consultant Sean Doughtie is already out.

• IN-Sen, IN-08: Dem Rep. Baron Hill, still apparently mulling a Senate bid, says that he probably will make a decision “this week”. Meanwhile, presumptive Dem nominee Brad Ellsworth has officially removed his name from the 8th CD Democratic primary ballot, leaving state Rep. Trent Van Haaften as the consensus Democratic choice. (J)

• MA-Sen: Unless you were under a rock yesterday, you know that the Senate jobs bill cleared the cloture hurdle with the aid of five Republicans, most notably Scott Brown, who actually seems to be thinking ahead to getting re-elected and, in doing so, has royally pissed-off his nationwide base of teabagging donors. On top of that comes another revelation that ought to further take the bloom off his status as living embodiment of angry-white-guy rage: that truck that signified he was an average blue-collar guy? Turns out he owns it in order to haul his daughter’s horse.

• NV-Sen: One more data point in the Nevada Senate race, this one not looking so good for Harry Reid. Research 2000 polls the race again, this time on behalf of the PCCC, and finds Reid trailing Sue Lowden 53-39 and Danny Tarkanian 54-40. The real point of the poll, though, is to try to show him that his support would go up if he successfully got a public option into the health care reform bill, with 31% saying they’d be likelier to vote for him if so (with 15% saying less likely and 51% saying no difference). Bear in mind that this poll, unlike the interesting POS poll from yesterday, doesn’t factor in the sudden emergence of a 3rd party Tea Party option.

• CT-Gov: After some brief flirtations with the idea, ex-Rep. Chris Shays has decided not to run for Connecticut governor after all, saying he couldn’t make it work financially. Although he didn’t address the also-rumored possibility of running again in CT-04, the same logic may apply there too.

• FL-Gov: The seeming dwindling of the Alex Sink campaign continues apace, at least if you go by Rasmussen’s trendlines. Republican AG Bill McCollum is up to 13-point lead against the Democratic CFO, 48-35.

• GA-Gov: More Rasmussenny goodness in neighboring Georgia, where they take their second look at the general election in the gubernatorial race. While Democratic ex-Gov. Roy Barnes led several of the GOP contestants in the previous Rasmussen poll, trailing only Insurance Comm. John Oxendine, this time he doesn’t fare as well. Barnes loses to Oxendine 45-37, to Rep. Nathan Deal 43-37, to SoS Karen Handel 45-36, and ties state Sen. Eric Johnson 37-37.

• IL-Gov: The GOP primary contestants are still waiting for the last ballots to trickle in today, the last day for counties to submit their numbers to the state. (The state has until March 5 to announce official results.) Estimates last week were that there were fewer than 2,000 votes, mostly provisional votes, to count. State Sen. Kirk Dillard, currently trailing by a little more than 200 votes, doesn’t plan to make a decision on whether to concede or keep fighting until after the 5th. On the Democratic side, the search for a Lt. Governor goes on. Pat Quinn had publicly said that his top choice would be current Deputy VA Secretary Tammy Duckworth, but she has taken herself out of consideration today.

• MI-Gov: Looks like Genesee County Treasurer Dan Kildee is in the gubernatorial race for the Democrats; he’s skipping right over the exploratory phase and filing as a candidate for governor. He joins Lansing mayor Virg Bernero and state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith, with state House speaker Andy Dillon likely to enter soon.

• PA-Gov: State Sen. Anthony Williams didn’t meet his very high $4 million fundraising bar, but he seems to feel heartened enough by the $2 million he has to officially pull the trigger on a gubernatorial run. With Chris Doherty and Tom Knox both out of the Democratic field now, it seems like there’s room for one more SE Pennsylvania candidate in the field; Williams, from Philadelphia, will be the only African-American in the race.

• WI-Gov: One more Rasmussen gubernatorial poll to look at, featuring (surprise!) the Republican in the lead. Milwaukee Co. Exec Scott Walker leads Democratic Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett 49-40, while ex-Rep. Mark Neumann has a much smaller lead over Barrett, 44-42. That’s actually a smidge better than last month’s Rasmussen poll.

• AR-03: State Sen. Cecile Bledsoe got the endorsement of one of her predecessors in the 3rd, ex-Rep. and former DEA Director Asa Hutchinson. A wide cast of characters, including Rogers mayor Steve Womack, is either already in the hunt for the GOP nod or considering it, in this dark-red district.

• AZ-05: Rep. Harry Mitchell can probably consider this to be good news: another divisive Republican primary, which helped him to a comfortable victory in 2008, is brewing this year. Former state Rep. Susan Bitter Smith jumped into the GOP field yesterday, which pits her in a rematch against former Maricopa Co. Treasurer David Schweikert (who won the 2008 primary). Businessman Jim Ward and his ability to self-fund is in the mix too, as something of a wild card.

• AZ-08: State Sen. Jonathan Paton has resigned from the state Senate, in order to focus full-time on running against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the 8th. He leaves behind one piece of legislation underway that’s actually a pretty cool idea: instituting “question time,” a la the UK’s parliament, where the Governor has to show up for a biweekly grilling in front of the legislature. Paton becomes the third Republican state Senator to resign in the span of a few weeks, with Pam Gorman and Jim Waring both having bailed out to pursue the open seat in AZ-03.

• FL-24: Former Ruth’s Chris Steakhouses CEO Craig Miller went ahead and got into the GOP field in the 24th, despite already having taken on some damage from preemptive salvos fired by the DCCC over statements opposed to stronger drunk-driving laws. Potentially self-funding Miller has become the NRCC’s new fave in the race, after state Rep. Sandy Adams and Winter Park city councilor Karen Diebel have floundered at fundraising.

• FL-25: Joe Garcia, the Democratic 2008 candidate who almost knocked off Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, met with the DCCC’s Chris Van Hollen yesterday. This only serves to increase speculation Garcia will try again, now that the 25th is an open seat. The DCCC has also been interested in Miami-Dade Co. state’s attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle.

• KS-03: Republican State Sen. Nick Jordan, who lost in the 3rd to Democratic Rep. Dennis Moore, looks to be on track to succeed the retiring Moore. Jordan’s own internal poll from POS shows him ahead of state Rep. Kevin Yoder 27-9, with former state Rep. Patricia Lightner and Charlotte O’Hara both at 5 (leaving about half of the voters undecided). Jordan’s poll didn’t look at the general, but there’s nothing to see there yet, seeing as how the Dems haven’t, um, found an interested candidate yet.

• MA-10: In the event of a retirement by Rep. William Delahunt, state Senate majority leader Therese Murray says she won’t try to succeed him. On the GOP side, possible candidate ex-Treasurer Joe Malone may come with more liabilities than were initially apparent when he first started touting himself for the race. After Malone’s tenure ended in 1999, it was discovered that several of his top aides had stolen over $9 million from the state. Malone himself was never accused of being involved, but reminding voters about it will inevitably lead to questions about his judgment.

• NM-02: Ex-Rep. Steve Pearce has released an internal poll performed on his behalf by the Tarrance Group that gives him a small lead over Democratic Rep. Harry Teague, 48-44. The good news for Teague is that R beats D in a generic ballot test 47-37, showing that the conservative Teague overperforms the Democratic brand despite his vote in favor of cap and trade in this heavily oil-dependent district.

• NY-01: Despite the NRCC’s seeming preferences for rich guy Randy Altschuler, he’s already in a difficult primary, and now he may be facing a three-way contest with a local elected official too. State Assemblyman Michael Fitzpatrick says he’s exploring the race.

• OH-06, OH-17: Ex-Rep. Jim Traficant didn’t meet the filing deadline to file as a Democrat for any race in Ohio, but now he’s saying that he’s planning to run as an Independent instead (which would require filing by early May). He’s still not saying where he’s going to run, although neither of the two possibilities look terribly promising: either the strongly-Democratic 17th (which he used to represent), or the swingy 6th, where he’d have to introduce himself to most of the voters

• PA-06, PA-07: Here’s a big get for Manan Trivedi, as he seeks the Democratic nomination in the 6th. He got the endorsement of the Chester County Democrats. With Trivedi already strong in Berks County and Doug Pike strong in Montgomery County, suburban/exurban Chester County is somewhat the pivotal county in the district. (They also endorsed Bryan Lentz over his minor primary opposition in the 7th.)

• PA-12: This is another solid break for the Dems in special election in the 12th: Republican businessman Mark Pasquerilla, with deep pockets, seemed to be one of the few GOPers who could make this race competitive. Something of a John Murtha ally, though, he had previously said he wouldn’t run if Joyce Murtha got in. She didn’t, but Pasquerilla still didn’t bite; instead, he’s endorsing Murtha’s district director, Mark Critz, who announced his candidacy yesterday. This basically moves the GOP back to square one, with the candidates who were already in place for the regularly scheduled election: businessman Tim Burns (who doesn’t seem quite as able to self-fund), or veteran/BMW Direct frontman Bill Russell.

• WV-01, WV-03: Worries have been emanating out of West Virginia’s governor Joe Manchin about the re-election prospects of Reps. Alan Mollohan and Nick Rahall, who despite their no votes on cap-and-trade often get tagged as not being sufficiently pro-coal. The United Mine Workers have no trouble supporting the duo, though; they endorsed both of them this weekend.

• DSCC: There have been some rumblings about DSCC chair Bob Menendez’s lackluster ways, at least by comparison to his manic predecessor, Chuck Schumer. Here’s a telling quote:

“Chuck – wow – he would call all the time, three, four times a week, when he needed something, but I don’t ever hear from Menendez unless I initiate the contact,” said a Washington-based donor who has bundled tens of thousands of dollars in contributions to the committee. “You just don’t have the same level of energy from Bob; he just doesn’t push you like Chuck would,” the source added. “And that makes it a lot easier to say no.”

• DCCC: The DCCC is trying to get some mileage out of fanning the flames in some of the most divisive GOP primaries between the GOP establishment and teabagger-powered movement conservatives (which they’re cheekily calling “Palin’s primaries”). Targets include MS-01, VA-02, VA-05, NH-01, CA-11, and TN-08.

• Polltopia: Mark Blumenthal takes another look at Rasmussen, asking if they’ve been “flooding the zone” and thus shaping the overall narrative by sheer numeric dominance of the data that get released. (Sound familiar? He gives a shout-out to a diary here by our own spiderdem that first raised the point.) It’s quite true that Rasmussen has done many more Senate polls this cycle than last (45 vs. 13 at this point in the cycle), but so too have some of the other new players (especially PPP, 21 vs. 5). (He also notices what we’ve noticed, that SurveyUSA is polling less this cycle; they poll only when hired to do so, and he speculates that TV stations and newspapers have cut back their polling budgets.) Interestingly, he also points to why Rasmussen is able to do so: a “major growth capital investment” from private equity firm Noson Lawen. (Noson Lawen, and what their potential agenda might be, sounds like an interesting topic for enterprising investigative bloggers…)

• AZ-Sen: Fox News, of course, has become legendary for its little Chyron errors that always seem to work out to the Republicans’ advantage (slapping a “D” next to Republican Congressmen involved in sex scandals, for instance). What then, to make of their latest one? J.D. Hayworth was recently identified on-screen as “former Arizona congresswoman.”

• CO-Sen: Democracy for America (Howard Dean’s group) is getting involved in the Colorado primary, lending its support to appointed Sen. Michael Bennet. Probably his full-throated support for the public option is helping raise his profile in the netroots. It’s hard to pin down where the ideological fault lines in this primary are, though; his opponent Andrew Romanoff has gotten the big labor endorsements (although both Bennet and Romanoff sound leery about EFCA), and they spent their first debate last week mostly agreeing with and offering kind words about each other.

• FL-Sen:  Sorry, Charlie… Rasmussen takes another look at the GOP Senate primary and finds Marco Rubio putting more distance between himself and Charlie Crist. Rubio is leading Crist 54-36, which is an even bigger gap that last months’ 49-37 edge.

• IN-Sen: Ooops, this could get awkward. Rep. Baron Hill, who was out of the country all last week, got back and decided that he’s at least somewhat interested in (or at least “open to the idea of”) the Senate seat left behind by Evan Bayh too. Rep. Brad Ellsworth already is being treated as heir apparent (to the extent that a replacement for his seat in the 8th is lined up, too), but the state party committee will get the final word on who fills Bayh’s slot.

• NC-Sen: As a bonus addition to their NC-Sen poll from last week, PPP took a look at both sides’ primaries too. On the Democratic side, undecideds rule the day; SoS Elaine Marshall does have the lead, beating former state Sen. Cal Cunningham 29-12 (with 5 for Kenneth Lewis and 2 for Marcus Williams). The only subgroup where Cunningham has the edge so far is voters under 30. On the Republican side, further signs of voters’ general indifference about Richard Burr: he’s polling at only 55% against two unknowns, Brad Jones at 10 and Eddie Burks at 3.  

• NV-Sen (pdf): The first poll of the Nevada Senate race following the news that the Tea Party has sprung into existence and will be running Some Dude is an internal from a GOP pollster, POS. He finds that the top Republicans still beat Harry Reid, but by a much narrower margin than the last few rounds of polling have seen: Sue Lowden leads Reid 42-37 (with 9 for Jon Ashjian), while Danny Tarkanian leads 40-39 (with 11 for Ashjian). Reid beats Sharron Angle 37-32 (with 16 for Ashjian) and Mark Amodei 40-25 (with 19 for Ashjian). Lowden has the edge in the GOP primary, at 35, to 28 for Tarkanian, 8 for Angle, 5 for someone named Chad Christensen, 1 for Amodei, and 0 for the oft-hyped rich guy John Chachas. (Amodei, a termed-out state Senator from Reno, seems to have gotten the message from all this, and dropped out of the race today.

• NY-Sen-B: The NY Daily News observes what I had sensed was happening: the likely challenge from Harold Ford Jr. has seemed to mostly benefit Kirsten Gillibrand, as it raised her profile, and finally kicked her into higher gear, as she’s sought out the spotlight a little more on issues like the public option and DADT. The newest Siena poll (pdf) finds Gillibrand in fine shape so long as George Pataki doesn’t surprise everyone by getting into the race. She trails Pataki 47-41, while beating Port Commissioner Bruce Blakeman 51-24 and wealthy publisher Mort Zuckerman 49-29. She also leads Ford and Jonathan Tasini in the Democratic primary, 42-16-4. If Ford somehow survives the primary, he trails Pataki 48-34, while also beating Blakeman (41-23) and Zuckerman (40-26).

• CA-Gov: A nameless GOP pollster, on behalf of a nameless corporate client, shared an internal poll of the GOP gubernatorial primary with Taegan Goddard. While the lack of transparency is sketchy, the numbers are quite credible: Meg Whitman leads Steve Poizner 55-16.

• MO-Gov: This may be a little premature, but Republican Lt. Governor Peter Kinder is already publicly saying that he’s running for Governor in 2012, presumably against incumbent Dem Jay Nixon. An early start can only help, though; in 2008, Nixon benefited from having his nomination locked down way in advance, while the Republicans fought it out in a nasty primary.

• NM-Gov: NMSU is out with the first poll of the wide-open Republican gubernatorial primary field (although apparently not the general election). Thanks to the benefits of name rec, attorney Pete Domenici Jr. leads the field at 29, ahead of Dona Ana County DA Susana Martinez at 12, former state party chair Allen Weh at 7, Doug Turner at 7, and state Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones at 3. The New Mexico Independent breathlessly reports that this was before the bombshell revelations came out that Domenici used (gasp!) marijuana and cocaine while in college in the (swoon!) 1980s… as if that’s going to change a single vote.

• NV-Gov (pdf): That GOP internal from Glen Bolger also has gubernatorial numbers. Most interestingly, it sees Jim Gibbons (the damaged GOP incumbent) gaining some ground on ex-AG Brian Sandoval; Gibbons trails only 38-32, with North Las Vegas mayor Michael Montandon coming in at 9 (Sandoval’s decline may come at the benefit of Montandon as his profile increases, splitting the non-Gibbons vote). Reid the Younger (Rory, that is) beats Gibbons in the general, 47-36, while tying Montandon 40-40 but losing badly to Sandoval, 50-34. (Also worth noting: the poll also asks some state-level policy questions, and found voters preferring raising taxes to cutting services, 47-38. Certainly more grist for the mill, especially after the passages of Measures 66 and 67 in Oregon.)

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo is still taking his time on announcing anything regarding his expected gubernatorial run. While rumormongers seem to think at this point that the announcement is coming in mid to late April (after the fighting over the state budget is completed), the NYT points to a finite deadline: May 25, when the party convention begins (unless for some reason he wants to get on the ballot by collecting signatures and petitioning instead). The same Siena poll (pdf) that we talked about earlier also, as always, covers the gubernatorial race, and there aren’t any surprises there (except perhaps that David Paterson is slipping a bit against GOP candidate Rick Lazio, in the unlikely event he survives his primary). In the primary, Cuomo moves up to 64-22 lead over Paterson (they stopped asking about Suffolk Co. Exec Steve Levy, whose support seemed to come only out of Cuomo’s column and had pushed Cuomo down to 57 last month). Cuomo beats Lazio 63-26, while Lazio beats Paterson 46-39. (Lazio and Paterson were tied at 42 last month.)

• OR-Gov: Rasmussen issued its first poll of the Oregon governor’s race, and find Democrats leading in every permutation. As always, it wouldn’t be Rasmussen without something weird in there, and what’s weird here is that the closest race is between Democratic ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber and long-ago ex-state Sen. John Lim, where Kitzhaber leads only 40-38. (Lim has a 31/28 approval, which I suppose is low name rec by Rasmussen’s strange standards, but freakishly high when considering that the 74-year-old Lim’s last big moment on the stage was losing the 1998 Senate race to Ron Wyden by 61-34, and that he’s probably best known for misspelling his own name on his bumper stickers from his 1990 gubernatorial run, where he lost the primary). Kitzhaber leads Chris Dudley 42-36, Allen Alley 42-34, and Bill Sizemore 48-35, while Bill Bradbury leads Lim 38-35, Dudley 39-36, Alley 41-35, and Sizemore 48-23.

• VT-Gov: That Research 2000 poll (on behalf of local TV affiliate WCAX) that came out late last week had some additional matchups that we didn’t report on, focusing on the ever-present threat of a left-wing spoiler campaign from Anthony Pollina (although last I’d heard, Pollina was sounding more interested in trying for the Democratic nod rather than running 3rd party). Republican Lt. Governor Brian Dubie wins each permutation, including against SoS Deb Markowitz (who led Dubie in a 2-way race), where he’s up 37-35 with 11 for Pollina. Dubie beats Doug Racine 38-32-12, Peter Shumlin 39-31-12, Matt Dunne 38-31-12, and Susan Barlett 44-26-13.

• WI-Gov: The first candidate to hit the TV airwaves in the Wisconsin gubernatorial race is ex-Rep. Mark Neumann, who’s being treated as the underdog in the GOP primary against Milwaukee Co. Exec Scott Walker. Neumann has deep pockets, but this may be an indication that he’s committed to fighting out the gubernatorial battle to the end instead of moving over to the Senate race, where Russ Feingold currently only has minor opposition.

• MI-14, MI-15: Two octogenarian liberal stalwarts, and the two longest-serving members of the House, both confirmed that they’ll be running for another term: John Dingell (looking for term number 28) and John Conyers (term 23).

• PA-06: Looks like that internal poll released by Rep. Jim Gerlach that had him leading by an ungodly amount had the desired effect. Pharmaceutical exec Steven Welch packed his bags and got out of the race, leaving Gerlach with only token opposition. With a fierce primary underway on the Dem side, it’s now quite the reversal of fortune in this district from where we were mid-last year, when the Dems were united behind Doug Pike and a GOP food fight was underway.

• PA-12: Chris Cillizza is reporting that Joyce Murtha, widow of Rep. Jack Murtha, is going to announce that she won’t run in the May 18 special election to replace her husband. This is big news, as the frontrunners, ex-LG Mark Singel and ex-Treasurer Barbara Hafer, said they’d defer to Murtha. (One more Dem is getting into the field today, Mark Critz, who was Murtha’s district director. Singel and Hafer are the universally-regarded heavyweights, though.) Cillizza also hints that Republicans  “downplay their chances” in this special election, despite the district’s R+1 lean (the real problem for them is their lack of a bench in this traditionally very Democratic area).

• VA-09: Republican state House majority leader Morgan Griffith seems to be moving ahead with a challenge to long-time Rep. Rick Boucher in the 9th, an Appalachian district that’s sliding away from the Democrats. While the district’s trend has to hearten Griffith, he has two problems: Boucher’s huge cash stash, and the fact that Griffith doesn’t live in the district, although very near the border – but while he’s known in the Roanoke market portion of the district, he’ll need to start from square one in coal country in the deep southwest.

• WA-03: Here’s a surprising departure from the Democratic field in the 3rd: state Rep. Deb Wallace, who jumped promptly into the field after Rep. Brian Baird’s retirement and attracted good notices for the few days she had the Dem field to herself. She isn’t endorsing anybody, but said that the district needed a “true moderate Democrat” (which would seem to point toward ex-state Rep. Denny Heck rather than the more liberal state Sen. Craig Pridemore). Heck’s personal wealth probably drove Wallace out of the race, especially since she’d be splitting the “true moderate” votes with Heck while Pridemore ran unimpeded on the liberal side (well, except for flaky activist Cheryl Crist).

• FL-St. House: In the face of a growing ethics investigation that could potentially start moving in a criminal direction, Republican former state House speaker Ray Sansom resigned from his House seat today. There’s one interesting name among the many persons who’d been subpoenaed to testify before the House Select Committee on Standards of Official Conduct: another former state House speaker (and now Senate candidate) Marco Rubio. (Rubio isn’t accused of wrongdoing, and now it sounds like the hearings have been rendered moot anyway.)

• Filings: Campaign Diaries gives a rundown of what happened with the Ohio and Indiana filings, which closed last week. Dems are looking at five competitive retentions in Ohio (including OH-13, where wealthy auto dealer Tom Ganley completed his switch for the Senate race, and OH-18, where state Sen. Bob Gibbs deciced to pull the trigger. Potential problems lurk for the GOP in OH-15, where David Ryon filed as the Constitution Party candidate (meaning Steve Stivers might get screwed from the right a second time), and in OH-16, where NRCC fave Jim Renacci faces a competitive primary against more conservative (and presumably less electable) Matt Miller, who almost won the open seat GOP primary in 2008. The GOP’s big disappointment is probably OH-06, where their best bet seems to be former Belmont Co. Sheriff Richard Stobbs (who lost by a wide margin in 2008). There’s less drama in Indiana (except for the unresolved IN-Sen and IN-08 situations), although the open seat in dark-red IN-04 attracted a host of Republicans (most notably SoS Todd Rokita, but also two state Senators).

• AZ-Sen: John McCain’s various Republican establishment friends keep showing up in droves to give him a boost in his primary fight against J.D. Hayworth. Today, it was the turn for former Tennessee senator and brief presidential primary rival Fred Thompson, who awoke from his slumbers long enough to give McCain the thumbs-up.

• KS-Sen: Wow, things are actually happening in Kansas. Not that it seems likely that Democrats are going to be in a position to make either the governor’s or senate races there competitive, but at least they’re filling the holes with credible candidates. In the wake of state Sen. Tom Holland getting into the gubernatorial race for the Dems, now Kansas City-based state Sen. David Haley is making noises about running for Senate. He’ll make a final decision within the month. Former newspaper publisher Charles Schollenberger is already a candidate, but Haley sounds like an upgrade.

• ND-Sen: Kristin Hedger, a 29-year-old businesswoman in North Dakota who lost the most recent Secretary of State race, is floating her name for the Democratic nod in the Senate race. She says she’ll defer to former AG Heidi Heitkamp if she gets in, but is interested in the race if not. State Sen. Tracy Potter is already in the race for the Dems. (And yes, it sounds like she’s aware about needing to be 30 to be a Senator; she’ll be 30 by swearing-in day.)

• NV-Sen (pdf): The legacy media keeps treating the GOP primary in Nevada like a two-way fight between Sue Lowden and Danny Tarkanian, but I’m going to keep maintaining that former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle is the real one to watch here (seeing as how Lowden gets tarred with the “RINO” label and is especially loathed by the Paulist set). A straw poll conducted during the Clark County Republican Party Central Committee meeting several weeks ago supports that idea, as Angle finished first, with 49 votes out of a total of 202. Tarkanian and Lowden were still, of course, right in the thick of things, at 48 and 46 respectively. In a bit of a surprise, Some Dude named Bill Parson was a solid 4th with 24 votes. (Parson seems to be working the hardcore teabagger angle. And check out the flattop – shades of Bob Conley all around.) Another potential wrinkle for the GOP: Sen. Jim DeMint, self-appointed kingmaker on the extreme right, while speaking at CPAC, wouldn’t rule out supporting third-party Tea Party candidates where the GOP fails to nominate “strong” candidates – and he explicitly mentioned one state: Nevada. Recall that the Tea Party just sprang into existence as an official 3rd party in Nevada, and already have a candidate lined up (Jon Ashjian).

• NY-Sen-B: I’m still chuckling over Mort Zuckerman’s trial balloons regarding the New York Senate race… but then, I was also chuckling about Harold Ford Jr. at first too. The super-wealthy publisher Zuckerman has gotten some encouragement from state party chair Ed Cox to look into running. Still, Cox is also encouraging other entrants (like Orange County Executive Edward Diana) as well, even while a number of county-level party chieftains have started lining up behind port commissioner Bruce Blakeman.

• OH-Sen: The DSCC is starting to play offense against ex-Rep. Rob Portman, hitting the former Bush budget director, ardent free trader, and all-around consummate insider with a playful new website: “Mr. Portman’s Neighborhood,” conveniently located at the corner of K Street and Wall Street. (Which, seeing as how we spent an inordinate amount of time here thinking about redistricting, only served to remind us of this 2006 article from The Onion.)

• UT-Sen: Even though Club for Growth hasn’t settled on which primary opponent to Bob Bennett they want to back, it seems like Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks has made up their minds. They’ll be backing Mike Lee, who despite his conservative legal establishment pedigree (son of former Solicitor General Rex Lee, and former clerk to Samuel Alito) has been reaching out to the tea party platoons.

• HI-Gov: Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann is operating in a kind of legal limbo for now, and his gubernatorial primary rival, Rep. Neil Abercrombie, is crying foul. Hannemann has opened a campaign account (which has $2 million in it) and, as such, is listed as running for governor with the state’s Campaign Spending Commission, and he’s actively campaigning around the state. However, despite the state’s resign-to-run law, he’s staying in his current position as mayor, as he doesn’t have to resign until he actually files to run with the state’s Office of Elections.

• NY-Gov: This is the weirdest endorsement I’ve ever read (although, where Ed Koch and David Paterson are concerned, I wouldn’t expect anything else); in fact it may be more of a diss than an endorsement. At any rate, I’ll just let Koch speak for himself: “I am for him, in effect, out of sympathy for his being in a Kakfa-esque situation.’ You can’t do this to people, use rumors to destroy them…But I’m not really for him.”

• PA-Gov: As he’s been hinting for a few weeks now, Scranton mayor Chris Doherty finally ended his long-shot Democratic gubernatorial bid, plagued by weak fundraising. He’s still looking to move on from his mayoral gig, though, and instead he’s going to run for the state Senate seat being vacated by long-time Dem Robert Mellow. (He’d also apparently considered the Lt. Governor slot, but that option seemed closed after the state party endorsed former Philadelphia controller Jonathan Saidel by a wide margin.) Meanwhile, Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato seems to moving closer to something approaching frontrunner status with another big labor endorsement, this time from the United Steelworkers.

• DE-AL: Republicans had apparently been pinning hopes on wealthy businessman Anthony Wedo in order to help them retain Delaware’s at-large seat, vacated by Rep. Mike Castle and soon to be occupied by Democratic ex-LG John Carney. Wedo won’t be running, though, leaving another (and apparently less wealthy, which would explain the NRCC’s seeming indifference to him) businessman, Fred Cullis, as the only GOP face in the race.

• PA-12: Here’s a surprise: state Sen. John Wozniak, a longtime Johnstown ally of Rep. John Murtha and always at the top of the list when successors were discussed, has decided not to run in the special election to replace Murtha. I wonder if that gives some credence to this article from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (not Pittsburgh’s “real” paper, but rather the local mouthpiece for the right-wing Mellon/Scaife crowd), which made some provocative allegations: that both parties were basically prepared to write this depopulated district off, in preparation for its dismantling during the 2012 redistricting process. Rumors are that the GOP wouldn’t launch a top-tier effort and that Murtha’s widow, Joyce, would hold the seat for the three years until its elimination (and, according to the article, “Democratic leaders” say she’s emerged as the leading contender) – so for a key Murtha ally like Wozniak to stand down suggests there’s some truth to this. Notwithstanding this seeming master plan, though, former GOP state treasurer Barbara Hafer and Ryan Bucchanieri remain in the hunt for the Dems.

• CA-LG: I’m surprised that San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom would want to give up being executive of a major city in exchange for a do-nothing job with a fancy title, but maybe he sees that as a better stepping stone to becoming Governor someday (although he should ask John Garamendi how that ever worked out). Bolstered by polling giving him a big edge in the LG race, he’s filing a ballot statement to run and is in the process of reassembling a campaign team.

• Polltopia: Nate Silver weighs in on the great Firedoglake/SurveyUSA debate of ’10 (with what’s hopefully the last word on the matter), saying that he doesn’t see anything “untoward” going on here, although methodological choices seem to add up to some pro-GOP house effects.