Tag: Sean Mahoney

• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon has picked up a major critic in her Senate run: one of her former employees, in the form of 66-year-old former pro wrestler Superstar Billy Graham. Graham is a physical wreck from his days in the WWF, thanks to steroid abuse and a number of hip replacements, with no pension or health care from WWE. He plans to keep dogging the McMahon campaign as McMahon keeps trying to sanitize her previous career.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is dropping the smiley above-the-fray approach; he’s promising to step up direct engagements with Marco Rubio, now that it looks like we’ve got a real race on our hands. Crist will go after Rubio for failure to move important pieces of conservative legislation during his time as state House speaker.

• KS-Sen, KS-04: This seems to exist mostly as whispers and rumors, but there’s word that Rep. Todd Tiahrt, not getting much traction in polls or fundraising or endorsements, may drop out of the GOP Senate primary against Rep. Jerry Moran. (Tiahrt’s people pushed back against the idea, saying they’re relying on movement grassroots forces that things like “polls” don’t pick up on. They actually also tried redbaiting Moran over his sponsorship of legislation to allow American travel to Cuba, indicating they won’t go quietly.) The question of Tiahrt running for House instead also presents a conundrum for state Rep. Raj Goyle in KS-04, who’s turning into one of the Dems’ best 2010 challengers — would Goyle be better off running in an open seat, or against the 16-year vet Tiahrt in what’s shaping up to be an anti-incumbent year?

• KY-Sen: There had been some talk about Cathy Bailey (a wealthy Bush Pioneer and W’s ambassador to Latvia), back when the GOP was still casting about for an alternative to Jim Bunning. All of a sudden, she’s back, saying she’s considering the race and sounding none too pleased with Trey Grayson (too “moderate” for her tastes) and Rand Paul (too “extreme”). I can’t see her winning the primary, but with her money, she could conceivably peel away enough mainstream GOP votes from Grayson to flip the primary to Paul.

• MT-Sen: It looks like Max Baucus may have suffered some residual damage from his high-profile role in health care reform; he’s down to 44% approval, from 67% approval at this point two years ago, according to an MSU-Billings poll. He’s lagging all other statewide officials, including Jon Tester (56/25) and Brian Schweitzer (62/20). The problem seems to be that Baucus gets only 67% approval among Dems, compared with 81% for Tester and 82% for Schweitzer; a plurality of Montanans, including 73% of Dems, support a public option, so Baucus’s decline among Dems doesn’t seem hard to diagnose.

• NC-Sen: Former Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker said he won’t be running for Senate, although he’d strongly considered it. With Rep. Bob Etheridge’s recent “no” also, it’s looking more and more like SoS Elaine Marshall will have a lightly contested path to the Dem nomination (her main opponent is attorney Kenneth Lewis).

• NH-Sen: One other important “no” in a Senate race: RNC member and one-time House candidate Sean Mahoney, who had been making lots of candidate-like noises, said he won’t run in the GOP field. If you look a few moves ahead in the chess game, that’s good news for us, as having Mahoney out of the race means fewer votes split on the field’s right flank, giving right-winger Ovide Lamontagne a stronger shot at taking out establishment fave Kelly Ayotte, which would give Dems a much weaker opponent in the general.

• WI-Sen: Former Gov. (and brief presidential candidate) Tommy Thompson isn’t ruling out a Senate bid, although it seems unlikely; he’ll make a decision “next year.” Thompson’s rather strange statement is that he’s “looking at governor, looking at senator, and looking at mayor of Elroy. One of the three.” Seeing as how this is similar to the NY-Sen-B or ND-Sen races (an unlikely challenge to materialize, but one that would be a hot race if it did), SSP is moving the Wisconsin race back on to the big board, as a Race to Watch.

• WV-Sen: Congratulations to Robert Byrd, who hit an astonishing milestone today: the longest-serving Congressperson of all time. Byrd (a Representative from 1952-1958 and a Senator since 1958) has been in Congress for more than 25% of Congress’s existence.

• KS-Gov: Kansas Dems have finally nailed down a solid candidate to take on retiring Sen. Sam Brownback in the gubernatorial race. Retired pharmaceutical company executive Tom Wiggans will carry the flag for the Democrats in this uphill fight. (H/t Mike Nellis.)

• NY-19: I was tempted to put this story on the FP just so I could run the headline “Ball busted!” Roll Call is sounding pretty pissed off at having gotten initially snookered by Greg Ball and his sketchy poll from yesterday. His internal poll only sampled two-thirds of the district (Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess Counties), oversampling Republican Putnam County and leaving out Orange and Rockland Counties altogether, counties where Hall won last year. Ball’s backers say they’ll do a more traditional poll soon and are still pleased with their findings.

• PA-10: Good news for the GOP: they’ve found an elected official who’s interested in going up against Blue Dog Dem Chris Carney in the sprawling, red-leaning 10th, where they’ve been struggling with recruitment. The bad news is: Snyder Co. Commissioner Malcolm Derk is 27 (and is hard-pressed to look 17 — check out the photo at the link), and Snyder County, deep in the hills, has a population of 38K and is at the wrong end of the district from the population centers.

• WI-08: A line is forming among GOP challengers to Rep. Steve Kagen, and now there’s a former state legislator among them. Ex-state Rep. Terry McCormick served three terms and then lost the 2006 primary in WI-08 against then-state Rep. John Gard when it was an open seat, and now she’s back for another try. There are a couple county supervisors in the race, but the NRCC seems to like Reid Ribble, a businessman who can bring his own money to the race.

• CA-St. Ass.: Republican Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby finished first in the special election (to replace “Hot Mike” Duvall) in AD-72 last night. His 37% wasn’t enough to avoid a second round. He’ll face Democrat John MacMurray (who finished second at 27%) and a Green Party candidate; two other Republicans, Linda Ackerman and Richard Faher, pulled in 20% and 13% respectively, so if Norby consolidates the GOP votes in this red-leaning seat (which falls within CA-40 in the US House) he’s on track to holding the seat.

• NRCC: Pete Sessions, emulating the Dems’ spread-the-field strategy of recent cycles, says he wants to have 435 districts that Republicans are playing in. He may have missed an important piece of information: the Illinois filing deadline is past, and the Republicans are already guaranteed not to be playing in IL-01 and IL-04. Well, 433 is close.

• Mayors: There are dueling internal polls of the upcoming Houston mayoral runoff, one of the two big mayoral races left on the table (Atlanta being the other one). City controller Annise Parker leads former city attorney Gene Locke, 47-34 in her own poll, while in Locke’s poll, Parker has a narrower 43-39 lead.

• Demographics: NDN, a liberal think tank that spends a lot of time on Latino issues, has done some projecting of 2010 re-apportionment, and likes what it sees. They see Texas gaining four seats, and possibly three of those could be drawn as Hispanic-influence seats in Dallas, Houston, and the Rio Grande Valley. They also see Florida gaining a seat, and recommend creation of a Hispanic-influence seat in central Florida (where much of the state’s growth, both overall and among Hispanics, has been).

• Parties: CNN has a poll that points to the current disparity between the parties: Democrats are a lot more tolerant of the big tent. 58% of Dems prefer to see nomination of candidates who can beat the Republicans, even if they don’t agree on all the issues, while 51% of Republicans prefer to see candidates who agree with them even if they have a poor chance of beating the Democrat.

• Votes: Donkeylicious has an interesting project reminiscent of SSP’s own PVI/Vote Index, looking at Dems and seeing how they match up with their districts’ leans. A lot of the same names show up among bad Dems as we found, but they do some interesting breaking things down by region and by freshman or sophomore status.

• FL-Sen: Conservative upstart Marco Rubio greatly improved his fundraising over the 3rd quarter, raising nearly $1 million. (Primary rival Charlie Crist says he’s on track to raise $2 million for the quarter). This should bring a note of credibility to a campaign that, earlier in the year, had grass roots enthusiasm but was nearly broke.

• IA-Sen: You may recall the hype over the last few weeks that Chuck Grassley would get the “race of his life” in 2010, although no one was sure who the opponent would be. It may just turn out to be prominent attorney and 1982 gubernatorial candidate Roxanne Conlin after all, if reports that the state Dems are trying to recruit her into the race are true.

• KS-Sen: The newest SurveyUSA poll of the GOP primary (where the only action is) in the Kansas Senate race shows sorta-conservative Rep. Jerry Moran building an appreciable edge over very-conservative Rep. Todd Tiahrt. Moran now has a 43-27 lead, up from a 38-32 lead two months ago. Moran (who represents rural western Kansas) seems to be gaining ground over Tiahrt (who represents Wichita) in northeast Kansas (the Kansas City burbs), where most of the undecideds are.

• NH-Sen (pdf): Ever notice that the New Hampshire pollsters all have names that read like the title cards in the old school Batman fight scenes? UNH! ARG! Anyway, today it’s UNH’s turn, and they find Republican former AG Kelly Ayotte with a 40-33 edge over Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes. Hodes defeats the lesser and probably more conservative (although with Ayotte, who the hell knows) Republicans in the race, Ovide Lamontagne and Sean Mahoney, both by a score of 37-28. Ayotte is still not that well-known, with a favorable of 37/8, and — this may be the key takeaway from this poll — 86% of the respondents say they are “still trying to decide” which candidate in the race to support.

• IL-Gov: Here’s a guy who should probably consider a name-change operation before running for office. No, he isn’t the governor Ryan who went to prison, and he isn’t the rich guy Ryan who had the weird sex life… he’s the former AG (and guy who lost to Rod Blagojevich in 2002) Jim Ryan, and he’s apparently back to running for Governor again despite 7 years out of politics. He formed an exploratory committee last week, and now he has an internal poll showing him with a commanding lead in the Republican primary: he’s at 33%, leading state Sen. Bill Brady at 11, state GOP chair Andy McKenna at 7, and state Sen. Kirk Dillard at 5. Ryan’s poll also finds Ryan faring the best in the general, losing 39-34 to current Gov. Pat Quinn and beating Dem Comptroller Dan Hynes 37-36, while Brady loses to Quinn 43-27, Dillard loses to Quinn 44-25, and McKenna loses to Quinn 44-26.

• PA-Gov: No surprise here, but Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato officially launched his gubernatorial campaign today. Onorato seems to realize he has his work cut out for him in the state’s east where ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel is likely to run strongest in the primary; so, Onorato launched his campaign in Philadelphia and sought to downplay his pro-life views by saying that he wouldn’t seek to change state abortion laws.

• VA-Gov: It looks like the post-thesis-gate bump Creigh Deeds got may be dissipating as Bob McDonnell hits back with a couple strong ads: SurveyUSA polls the Virginia governor’s race again and finds McDonnnell with a 54-43 lead. SUSA has been McDonnell’s friendliest pollster lately, posting the same 54-43 numbers for him last week.

• AL-02: Well, this is good news… I guess. Rep. Bobby Bright has reiterated one more time that he plans to remain a Democrat when he runs for re-election next year, despite his Republican-friendly voting record and difficult re-election in his R+16 district.

• FL-08: Although Rep. Alan Grayson has been gleefully painting a giant target on his own back, the Republicans are still flailing around trying to find a challenger. One of their top contenders, Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty, has just announced that he won’t seek the Republican nomination next year. (Which may be just as well for the GOP, as Crotty is unpopular and has some ethical clouds hanging overhead.) GOP focus turns now toward former state Sen. Daniel Webster, who’s well known but may be too socially conservative for this bluening, R+2 district (he was Terri Schiavo’s biggest fan in the state legislature). If Webster doesn’t get in, state Rep. Stephen Precourt may be plan C.

• GA-08: Rep. Jim Marshall picked up a challenger, although one who’s nearly down in the “some dude” tier: 30-year-old businessman Paul Rish, who served briefly as Bibb County Republican chair. Higher up the totem pole, state Rep. Allan Peake has declined a run; former Rep. Mac Collins hasn’t ruled the race out but doesn’t sound enthused.

• NV-03, NV-Gov: It’s official: Republican former state Sen. Joe Heck will be running against Rep. Dina Titus in the 3rd, picking up the torch dropped by John Guedry. With this, Heck drops his gubernatorial primary challenge to Jim Gibbons, giving former AG Brian Sandoval a pretty clear shot at unseating Gibbons in the primary.

• OH-18: Fred Dailey, who got 40% of the vote in 2008 running against Rep. Zack Space, says he’s back for a rematch. However, he’ll have to get past state Sen. Bob Gibbs in the Republican primary, who seems to have the establishment backing this time.

• OR-04: If AAPOR is looking for someone else to discipline, they might want to look at Sid Leiken’s mom. Leiken, the Republican mayor of Springfield running in the 4th, is under investigation for paying his mom several thousand dollars for polling. Now it turns out that, in response to questions about whether that poll was ever actually taken, his mom is unable to produce any spreadsheets or even written records of the poll data, or any phone records of the sample (she says she used a disposable cellphone!).

• SC-05: Another sign of NRCC recruiting successes in the dark-red parts of the south: they’ve gotten a state Senator to go up against long-time Democratic Rep. John Spratt in the R+7 5th. Mick Mulvaney will reportedly make his announcement soon. Spratt’s last strong challenge was in 2006, where he faced state Sen. Ralph Norman (who spent $1 million of his own money but still only got 43% of the vote).

• SD-AL: Oops, this slipped through the cracks this weekend: one day after state Rep. Blake Curd said he’d run for the GOP nomination for South Dakota’s House seat, so too did a heavier-hitter: termed-out Secretary of State Chris Nelson. Nelson’s entry had long been anticipated, but now it’s official.

• VA-05: Things may finally be sorting themselves out on the GOP side in the R+5 5th, where Rep. Tom Perriello will face a big challenge regardless of whom he faces. State Sen. Frank Ruff said that he won’t run for the nomination, and GOP sources are also saying that state Sen. Rob Hurt (who has been considered the likeliest nominee all along) will enter the race shortly.

• NY-St. Ass.: There’s a party switch to report in the New York state legislature; unfortunately, it happened in the state Assembly — where the Republicans’ ship sank long ago — instead of the closely-divided Senate. 14-year Assemblyman Fred Thiele, from AD 2 on Long Island, left the Republicans, saying they “stand for nothing,” and joined the Independence Party; he will caucus with the Democrats. This brings the total in the Assembly to 107 Dems, 40 GOPers, and 3 Dem-caucusing minor party members.

• Mayors: There’s one noteworthy mayoral primary on tap for today, in Albuquerque. It’s a nonpartisan race, but there is one Republican (state Rep. Richard Berry) and two Dems (current mayor Martin Chavez — remember how the netroots sighed with relief when he decided not to run for Senate last year — and former state Sen. Richard Romero). The most recent poll has Berry leading at 31, with Chavez at 26 and Romero at 24, but it’s likely that whichever Dem survives the primary will have the edge over Berry in the general (unless Berry can somehow top 40%, in which case there wouldn’t be a general). With numbers like that, though, it’s possible that Chavez could get knocked out in the primary.

• Polltopia: Here’s another opportunity to give some feedback to our friends at PPP. They give their polling schedule for the run-up to November (it’s heavy on VA, NJ, and mayoral races in NC), and solicit some suggestions heading into 2010.

• CA-Sen: Politics Magazine takes a look at how the blowback from the launch of iCarly Fiorina’s new website continues from all ends of the political spectrum, including a nice dig from SSP’s own Ben Schaffer. As California’s right-wingers sputter, there were also rumors circulating at the state’s recent Republican convention that radio talk-show host Larry Elder — the conservatives’ preferred candidate, and someone who expressed interest in the race — got boxed out by the NRSC, who told him not to run.

• IN-Sen: 33-year-old state Sen. Marlin Stutzman launched his long-shot bid against Evan Bayh with some help from Rep. Mark Souder, who introduced Stutzman at his kickoff rally. The race already has some fourth-tier figures in it: businessmen Richard Behney and Don Bates. Grant County Commissioner Mark Bardsley, former state Rep. Dan Dumezich, and self-funding popcorn magnate Will Weaver are also considering the race.

• NH-Sen: Kelly Ayotte is taking this whole not-saying-anything-about-her-positions thing to an illogical extreme, refusing to say for whom she voted for Governor in 2006 and 2008. Primary opponents Ovide Lamontagne and Sean Mahoney were quick to announce that they voted for Jim Coburn and Joe Kenney — i.e. the guys who ran against Ayotte’s ex-boss, Democratic Gov. John Lynch.

• NY-Sen-B: Ed Cox, having secured his role as New York state GOP chair despite a push from Rudy Giuliani to install one of his own lieutenants in the role, is now trying to make nice with Giuliani, encouraging him to run for the Senate seat currently held by Kirsten Gillibrand instead of for Governor. Giuliani hasn’t been returning Cox’s calls, and insists via spokespersons that it’s Governor or nothing.

• AZ-01: Former state Senate majority leader Rusty Bowers has filed to form an exploratory committee to run against freshman Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick in the mostly-rural 1st. He’s been out of the legislature since 2001 and has been a lobbyist for the Arizona Rock Products Association since then.

• IL-07: Rep. Danny Davis, who previously seemed poised to bail out of his west Chicago seat and run for Cook County Board President, now seems to be dialing that back. Davis says he has the signatures collected to run for Board President “should [he] choose to do so.” He may be having some second thoughts now that he has a key seat on Ways and Means and also because the expected field-clearing for him in the Board race didn’t happen. With Illinois’s super-early February primary, he has until mid-November to  make up his mind. Alderwoman Sharon Dixon says she’s running in the primary in the 7th regardless of what Davis does, though; however, some other likely contenders, like state Rep. LaShawn Ford and state Sen. Rickey Hendon are in a holding pattern to see what Davis does.

• IL-14: The field to take on Rep. Bill Foster in the Chicago suburbs just keeps growing, with the addition of GOP state Sen. Randy Hultgren. His best-known opponent in the now five-way primary is lawyer Ethan Hastert.

• MI-11: Natalie Mosher is a fundraising consultant who’s the only person with a hat in the ring for the Dems to go up against Rep. Thad McCotter. She’s telling supporters via e-mail that she’s “very close” to being named to the DCCC’s Red to Blue program — although that seems to be news to the DCCC, who say that R2B decisions won’t be made for some time and they are still talking to other possible candidates.

• NV-03: Yesterday we reported that former state Sen. Joe Heck was content to stay in the GOP gubernatorial primary, rather than switching over to the NV-03 slot vacated by John Guedry’s withdrawal. However, since then, Heck has signaled more interest, saying he hasn’t ruled it out and is discussing it with his family. Heck could turn out to be a step up from the inexperienced Guedry (remember that Rep. Dina Titus was a replacement candidate as well in 2008, who turned out in the end to be a better bet).

• NY-13: Here’s a strange rumor: disgraced ex-Rep. Vito Fossella has been making public rounds, leading to speculation that he’s considering a comeback (although there’s no sense whether he’d try again for the 13th, or elsewhere).

• NY-23: The Watertown Daily Times has some juicy dirt on Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman, who apparently pledged his support to GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava shortly after he was passed over by the party in favor of her… and then shortly thereafter reached out to the Conservatives and got their nod. His defense is that he didn’t know just how “liberal” Scozzafava really was, despite that having been a main bone of contention even before her selection.

• NYC: With the primary runoff elections set for tonight, SurveyUSA has a final poll of the two races at issue: Public Advocate and Comptroller. For Public Advocate, city councilor Bill DeBlasio leads ex-PA Mark Green 49-42 (although DeBlasio narrowly won the primary, Green led every poll prior to it). And for Comptroller, Eric John Liu leads David Yassky 48-40 (both are city councilors). (Discussion of tonight’s main event is underway in Pan‘s diary.) Meanwhile, it looks like Barack Obama won’t be expending any political capital on the New York mayor’s race, unless it becomes clear William Thompson is closing the gap on Michael Bloomberg.

• NY-St. Sen.: The Erie County, NY DA’s office is the latest to join a bipartisan chorus calling for an investigation into the shady campaign finance practices of political consultant Steve Pigeon. As you may recall, Pigeon was the mastermind behind billionaire Tom Golisano’s attempted coup in the New York State Senate earlier this year. Pigeon is also buddy-buddy with Republican-turned-Dem Sen. Arlen Specter, and gets a $150,000 sinecure (completely above-board, I’m sure) as counsel to now-legendary scumbag Pedro Espada, Jr. (D)

• PA-St. Sen.: One other race to keep an eye on tonight, in addition to the NYC races: a state Senate election in the Philly suburbs. It’s a seat vacated by a Republican (who left to take a job with the Chamber of Commerce); Republican state Rep. Bob Mensch is considered to have the edge to hold the seat over Lansdale councilor Anne Scheuring (picked after better-known Dems took a pass), although Dems have spent considerably on the race. The district (the 24th) takes a bite out of the corners of four counties that went convincingly for Obama (Bucks, Montgomery, Lehigh, and Northampton) but it’s exurban turf and has a Republican registration advantage — which is exactly the kind of district that has bedeviled PA Dems at the legislative level but that the Dems need to pick up if they’re ever going to take over the state Senate. The GOP currently holds a 29-20 edge, plus this one vacancy.

• CA-Sen (pdf): According to the Public Policy Institute of California, Barbara Boxer is holding fairly good approval ratings, as she approaches a possibly competitive (and definitely expensive) re-election: 53/32, really no different from her stodgier colleague Dianne Feinstein, 54/32. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who isn’t running again, fares much worse: 30/61.

• CO-Sen: As we’re staring down the barrel of a competitive Democratic primary in the Senate race, three of the state’s five House Dems have gotten behind incumbent appointee Michael Bennet (John Salazar, Jared Polis, and Betsy Markey), along with fellow Sen. Mark Udall. However, Diana DeGette and Ed Perlmutter are staying neutral. Other Bennet backers include current state House speaker Terrance Carroll.

• IL-Sen, IL-Gov: The Cook County Dems made their endorsements in the 2010 primaries, which are less than half a year away. No major surprises: they endorsed state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias for Senate and incumbent Pat Quinn for Governor. That rankled Quinn’s rival, Comptroller Dan Hynes, who hit Quinn for seeking machine backing when, back in his reformer days, Quinn had been an advocate for open primaries. Meanwhile, in the Senate primary, upstart Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman is taking the clean politics approach, saying that he’ll accept no PAC money for his campaign.

• MA-Sen: The fields are starting to solidify in Massachusetts: Rep. John Tierney, from MA-06 in Boston’s northern suburbs, decided against a run. He has less money than his fellow House members and polled in the single digits in the lone poll of the primary. Rep. Richard Neal is the only House member left who initially seemed like a potential candidate (mostly because of his bankroll), but his silence in the last week has been telling. On the GOP side of the aisle, state Senator Scott Brown got in the race over the weekend; with Mitt Romney, Andy Card, Kerry Healey, and Christy Mihos out, Brown is about as good as it’s going to get for the Republicans.

• NH-Sen: Here’s one more Republican from the Republican wing of the party pondering a run in the New Hampshire Senate primary: businessman and RNC member Sean Mahoney. Mahoney says he’s gotten a push from the conservative grassroots to run, as many of them seem uneasy with the Beltway coronation of Kelly Ayotte, whose inability to take a position… any position… is taking on epic proportions. (If Mahoney’s name seems vaguely familiar, he lost the 2002 NH-01 GOP primary to Jeb Bradley.)

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Here’s the rumor du jour, and it’s a doozy: Rudy Giuliani is being pushed by state GOP leaders to run for Senate against Kirsten Gillibrand instead of for Governor; apparently the state GOP is convinced that Andrew Cuomo, not David Paterson, will be the Dems’ nominee next year. Nobody has polled Gillibrand/Giuliani before, but that seems like it would be a close race, if the Gillibrand/Pataki numbers are any indication (of course, there’s a big stylistic difference between the vanilla George Pataki and the dictatorial Rudy, just that they’re both known quantities at this point). Perhaps (between this rumor and Rudy’s failed coup against Ed Cox) sensing that the Rudy won’t be getting into the Governor’s race — or maybe just because of his own special brand of tone-deafness — ex-Rep. Rick Lazio made his formal announcement today that he’s running for Governor.

• AZ-Gov: In the “blast from the past” file, former Governor Fife Symington is now considering a comeback by running in the GOP primary against appointed Governor Jan Brewer. That’s the same Symington who was forced out of office in 1997 after conviction for bank fraud, although his conviction was overturned on appeal and he was subsequently pardoned by Bill Clinton. Strangely, we could see a re-run of the 1990 gubernatorial election, if Symington and Dem AG Terry Goddard face off against each other again.

• NJ-Gov (pdf): One more poll (from Monmouth) showing Chris Christie with a persistent, but shrinking, edge over Jon Corzine in the New Jersey gubernatorial race. Among likely voters, Christie has a 47-39 edge (with 5 for Chris Daggett), much better than August’s 50-36 Christie lead but comparable to July’s 45-37 lead. Hold onto your hats, though: among registered voters, Corzine actually leads, 41-40 (with 6 for Daggett). In the fine print, Corzine is continuing to solidify his standing among Democrats, up to 77% among Dems (up from 73% in August and 67% in July). The challenge here, apparently, will be getting those Dems in the ‘unlikely voter’ column to show up.

• OR-Gov: John Kitzhaber doesn’t seem like he’ll have the Dem primary to himself: former SoS Bill Bradbury looks like he’s on track to run. Bradbury has hired a campaign manager, and announces that Kitzhaber’s predecessor as Governor, Barbara Roberts, will be on hand for his announcement next week. One other possible challenger in the Dem primary, one that no one had thought of before, is Clackamas County Commission Chair Lynn Peterson. Peterson is 40 and still building her reputation; cynics’ knee-jerk reaction might be to think she’s angling for the Lt. Governor slot, but Oregon doesn’t even have a Lt. Governor. Finally, everyone’s still waiting to see what Rep. Peter DeFazio does; he was supposed to have made a decision by Labor Day but says he’ll keep on anaylzing his choices.

• AR-02: Politico has an unusual rumor: former US Attorney and former Karl Rove right-hand-man Tim Griffin is considering a run against Democratic Rep. Vic Snyder in the Little Rock-based 2nd (which, in wake of 2008, is, at R+5, the most Dem-friendly district in Arkansas). Considering that Griffin had earlier pondered and declined a run in AR-Sen, the step down doesn’t make much sense at all, as he’d most likely have a better shot against the vulnerable Blanche Lincoln, who hasn’t polled well lately. The entrenched Snyder may create the appearance of being vulnerable because of his bank account, but that’s mostly because he refuses to fundraise during off years.

• IL-10: State Rep. Beth Coulson, running for the GOP primary nod for the open seat in the 10th against several self-funders, got endorsements from two members of the GOP House delegation: fellow suburban moderate Judy Biggert… and, in an apparent nod to the reality of what works in the 10th, from the state delegation’s wingnuttiest member, John Shimkus, last seen ducking out early from Obama’s health care address to beat the lines at the urinal.

• WI-03: State Sen. Dan Kapanke gives the GOP a rather strong candidate against Rep. Ron Kind (or more ominously, an open seat, in case Kind decides to run for Governor). However, Dems succeeded in taking Kapanke down a peg and dinging him for $38,100 ($100 in statutory damages plus $38K in legal fees) for violating state open records laws.

• NYC: One more poll of the Democratic primaries for the city offices, before tomorrow’s election. The mayor’s race is actually the least interesting, with Comptroller William Thompson beating city councilor Tony Avella 46-17. Ex-PA Mark Green has pole position in the Public Advocate’s race, but the question is whether he can beat the 40% threshold in order to avoid a runoff. Currently, he’s at 36%, with city councilor Bill DeBlasio at 20%. The Comptroller’s race is almost certainly headed for a runoff, but city councilor John Liu seems to be breaking out from the pack, at 34%; he leads Melinda Katz at 23% and David Yassky at 19%. In case you’re wondering what’s up with the Manhattan DA race, there is one recent poll of the race, an internal from the Cyrus Vance Jr. camp. It gives Vance a 30-24 edge over Leslie Crocker Synder, with Richard Aborn at 15.

• Census: The Census Bureau is severing its relationship with ACORN, which was working with the Census to promote Census participation. Loosely translated, Director Robert Groves said that the organization was enough of a distraction that it was becoming a net liability instead of asset in terms of getting people to participate in the Census.