KS-02: Kelly (D) Drops Out

More bad news:

State Sen. Laura Kelly (D) just announced she will be withdrawing from the race to face Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.). She becomes the fifth formidable recruit to bow out in recent weeks.

“I have been forced to make a decision between honoring the pledge I made to the people in my Senate district and my firm conviction that the people of the 2nd congressional district deserve a truly independent voice in Congress,” Kelly said in a statement.

It’s not yet clear whether any Dem contenders of note will step up to run in Kelly’s place. The Topeka Capital-Journal notes that state Sen. Tom Holland had been considering a bid until Kelly launched her campaign; perhaps he may be interested in giving the race a second look.

RaceTracker Wiki: KS-02

SSP Daily Digest: 12/9

Election results: A lot happened last night, most prominently Martha Coakley’s victory in the MA-Sen Democratic primary, with 47% of the vote to Michael Capuano’s 28, Alan Khazei’s 13, and Stephen Paglicua’s 12. Coakley is poised to become the Bay State’s first female Senator; the big question for the Jan. 19 general is whether Republican state Sen. Scott Brown (who won the GOP nod 88-12 over Jack E. Robinson) can break 40%. In Kentucky, the Dems’ run of pickups in the state Senate came to a screeching halt, as Jodie Haydon lost to GOP state Rep. Jimmy Higdon 56-44 in a previously GOP-held open seat in SD-14, so the Senate’s composition stays at 20 (plus 1 GOP-leaning indie) to 17 in favor of the GOP. The GOP also picked up a previously Dem-held seat in the state House, HD-96. Republicans also retained SD-4 in Arkansas‘s dark-red northwest. In Birmingham, Alabama’s mayoral race advances to a runoff between attorney (and 2007 loser) Patrick Cooper and Jefferson County Commissioner William Bell. And in Los Angeles, Assemblyman Paul Krekorian won a vacant City Council seat despite being widely outspent by Christine Essel — which sets up an Assembly special election and temporarily leaves Dems there shy one seat.

AR-Sen: With some encouragement from labor and the netroots, it looks like Lt. Gov. Bill Halter may actually be moving forward on plans to mount a Democratic primary challenge to Blanche Lincoln from the left. He’s in Washington DC meeting with labor officials and blogosphere leaders.

FL-Sen: In more evidence of Charlie Crist’s willingness to take money from anyone, a mailer from a big fundraiser hosted for Crist by Broward County developer Ron Bergeron headlined one particular large contributor: Joseph Cobo, the Broward County Health Commissioner who’s currently under criminal investigation for corruption. Cobo was quickly removed from the host committee and Crist’s camp said the mailer was a “draft” mistakenly sent.

OH-Sen: David Plouffe, one of the architects of Barack Obama’s campaign, has weighed into the Democratic Senate primary (despite not having any obvious connections to Ohio). Plouffe endorsed Lee Fisher over Jennifer Brunner in a fundraising e-mail, perhaps suggesting subtle White House moves to consolidate things behind Fisher and start gearing up for the general.

AK-Gov: It was clear that newly-appointed Gov. Sean Parnell was going to face a primary fight with a member of the state’s political establishment, but the surprise today seems to be which one. Former state House speaker Ralph Samuels announced he’s running for Governor today. In summer, another former speaker, John Harris, had said he was going to run against Parnell, but today’s ADN article makes no mention of Harris; it does list Bill Walker and Gerald Heikes as other GOP candidates. The flashpoint in the Parnell/Samuels race appears to be oil industry taxes imposed by that known tax-and-spend liberal, Sarah Palin; Parnell supports continuation of them while Samuels wants an end.

IL-Gov, IL-Sen: In the Democratic gubernatorial primary, incumbent Pat Quinn picked up some Chicago-area endorsements, from Rep. Danny Davis and an array of aldermen; he also recently got the Sierra Club’s nod. His opponent, Comptroller Dan Hynes, however, got an endorsement from a major union, the Illinois Federation of Teachers, and a victory of sorts by getting the AFL-CIO to not endorse. The AFL-CIO did, however, just endorse Alexi Giannoulias in the Senate race.

NH-Gov: As expected, social conservative activist Karen Testerman launched her bid for Governor in New Hampshire. She brings some name recognition to the race based on her radio show and a long track record of religious right rabble-rousing, but isn’t expected to pose much of a challenge for Democratic incumbent John Lynch as he seeks a barely-precedented fourth term.

FL-02: Faced with the realization that state Sen. Al Lawson is staying in the Democratic primary race no matter what, Rep. Allen Boyd is taking advantage of his big cash edge to run a TV spot already. Despite his vote against health care reform last month, he’s running an ad that’s basically pro-HCR (although with the GOP-sounding hedges thrown in there).

IL-14: It didn’t take long for the last remaining minor player to bail out of the GOP field in the 14th, the third in a week. Jeff Danklefsen will apparently be taking his name of the ballot, and endorsing state sen. Randy Hultgren. Hultgren’s camp is also keeping an eye on Mark Vargas, who dropped out but endorsed Ethan Hastert; they want to make sure Vargas actually pulls his name off the ballot instead of remaining on there and splitting the anti-Hastert vote.

KS-02: Because even when you vote the conservative position 95% of the time, that’s just not conservative enough… freshman Republican Rep. Lynn Jenkins, already facing a credible Democratic challenge in the form of state Sen. Laura Kelly, may now face a primary challenge from state Sen. Dennis Pyle, who filed candidacy papers last week. (Former state Treasurer Jenkins was from the “moderate” wing of the party in Kansas, and beat religious right ex-Rep. Jim Ryun in the 2008 primary.)

MD-01: Something seems amiss at the Andy Harris camp, as he prepares for a rematch against Dem freshman Rep. Frank Kratovil; his campaign manager, Mike Spellings hit the road. Other insiders say it was just a personality clash.

NJ-02: I don’t know if anyone was counting on Democratic state Sen. Jeff Van Drew making his long-awaited run against Rep. Frank LoBiondo next year, but the question was asked. Van Drew says “the likelihood is not there,” but didn’t completely rule it out.

PA-07: Here’s what the GOP establishment had been hoping to avoid: the possibility of a contested primary in the open 7th, where the field was painstakingly cleared for former US Attorney Pat Meehan. Dawn Stensland, the former news anchor for the Philly Fox affiliate, says she’s considering a run for the Republican nomination. Unfortunately for her, she comes with her own built-in attention-grabbing scandal relating to her husband, another local news anchor, having an affair with yet another competing local news anchor.

SSP Daily Digest: 10/9

FL-Sen: Here’s something of an ooops from Bob Mendendez at the DSCC: his comments last week where he seemed to leave out the possibility of a pickup in the open seat race in Florida prompted former Miami mayor Maurice Ferre to jump into the race, saying “You can’t write off Florida” (or at least that’s what Ferre said was the impetus, although that doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you do with less than a week of planning). This week, the DSCC is saying that Menendez misspoke and that they’re pleased with Kendrick Meek’s fundraising so far.

KS-Sen: You might remember that yesterday we said that Democratic state Treasurer Dennis McKinney hadn’t ruled out running for Senate. However, a source close to McKinney tells us that McKinney (who was appointed after previous GOP Treasurer Lynn Jenkins was elected to KS-02) plans to run for Treasurer in 2010.

CT-Gov: Jodi Rell is facing some possible ethical trouble; Democrats accuse her of spending state money for political purposes by hiring pollsters to do focus groups on the state budget, and have referred the matter to the Office of State Ethics. The polling seemed to veer into politics in terms of message-testing and looking at perceptions of AG Richard Blumenthal, a possible Democratic opponent. Rell has formed an exploratory committee for re-election, but we’re still waiting to see if she follows through; stuff like this may help chip away at her veneer of inevitability.

MN-Gov: Here’s a first: someone’s not running for Minnesota governor. St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman decided against trying to wade into the crowded Democratic primary field, saying his work as mayor wasn’t done.

NJ-Gov: One more pollster finds a super-tight gubernatorial race in New Jersey. Neighborhood Research, a Republican pollster (but not working for the Christie campaign) finds Chris Christie leading Jon Corzine only 36-35, with Chris Dagget pulling in 11. Their previous poll last month gave Christie a 4-point edge. Corzine’s campaign has apparently succeeded in making Christie just as widely disliked as Corzine — Christie’s favorables have dropped to 28%, equal to Corzine’s. Also, it doesn’t look like Sarah Palin will get to ride to Chris Christie’s rescue: the Christie and McDonnell camps have both given a “thanks but not thanks” to her offer of help, according to Politico.

PA-Gov: GrassrootsPA, the rightosphere’s Pennsylvania outpost, commissioned a poll through Dane & Associates to see how Republican AG Tom Corbett matches up against his Democratic rivals (no Jim Gerlach head-to-heads, unfortunately). The sample size is a teeny-weeny 200, but the numbers line up with other polling: the closest race is with fellow statewide official, Auditor Jack Wagner, who trails Corbett 41-37. Corbett leads Philly businessman Tom Knox 44-36, Allegheny Co. Executive Dan Onorato 44-32, and ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel 53-27.

VA-Gov: Lots of poll watchers were waiting for the newest Washington Post poll of the Virginia race to come out, to see if it gave more favorable numbers to Creigh Deeds than we saw out of recent Rasmussen and SurveyUSA polls. WaPo tended to be a bit more favorable to Deeds, but they’re seeing what everyone else is seeing: Bob McDonnell now leads 53-44. Looks like whatever traction Deeds got post-thesis-gate has drifted away.

WY-Gov: The main story in Wyoming is that everyone is still waiting to see whether Dave Freudenthal challenges Wyoming’s term limits law and goes for a third term. Former GOP state Rep. Ron Micheli is running regardless, as we reported recently, but there are a few other behind-the-scenes moves going on. State House Speaker Colin Simpson (and son of Sen. Alan Simpson), at some point, filed to open an exploratory committee (and would probably be GOP frontrunner if he got in). On the Democratic side, state Sen. Mike Massie has been touring the state rounding up support (with Freudenthal’s blessing), but says he won’t create an exploratory committee until he knows Freudenthal isn’t running.

CA-03: Elk Grove city councilor Gary Davis has dropped his bid for the Democratic nomination in the 3rd, to go up against Rep. Dan Lungren (who squeaked by in 2008). Davis didn’t seem to be making much fundraising headway against physician Ami Bera and public utility executive Bill Slaton.

CA-10: Republicans are hanging on to some glimmers of hope in the special election in the 10th, offering up an internal poll from David Harmer’s camp, by Wilson Research. The poll shows Harmer within single digits of Democratic Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, 41-34. (It also claims that, once you adjust for the 35% share that the GOP got in the primary, it closes to a 2-pt gap.)

FL-24: Another three-way primary got less crowded, this time on the Republican side. State Rep. Dorothy Hukill decided to end her campaign for the primary to go up against Democratic freshman Suzanne Kosmas; Hukill will run for re-election instead. That leaves fellow state Rep. Sandy Adams, and Winter Park city councilor Karen Diebel in the Republican field.

IN-02: It looks like Republican state Rep. Jackie Wolarski (generally known as “Wacky Jackie”) is set to launch her campaign against sophomore Rep. Joe Donnelly. She says she’s leaning in that direction and will open an exploratory committee by Monday.

KS-02: The Democrats have nailed down a solid recruit to go up against Great White Dope Lynn Jenkins in the 2nd. State senator Laura Kelly, who has represented a Topeka-area district since 2004, announced today that she will try to reclaim the seat lost by Nancy Boyda last year.

NY-19: This could get inconvenient for Republican Assemblyman Greg Ball, who’s going up against Rep. John Hall in this swing district. The New York Democratic Lawyers Council filed an FEC complaint against Ball this week, alleging a series of illegal solicitations, improper automatic phone calls, and illegal use of Assembly resources for his congressional campaign.

NY-23: The establishment/hardliner schism continues unabated in the 23rd, where state Conservative Party chair Michael Long has sent around a memo calling on other conservative activists to stop funding the NRCC until it backs off its support for moderate Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava. However, Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling didn’t get the message; the former chair of the Republican Study Committee (the House GOP’s right-wing ideological caucus) gave his endorsement to Scozzafava, on purely pragmatic grounds (saying “she’s the only Republican who can win”). This endorsement probably won’t resonate much outside the Beltway’s financial circles, though; I can’t imagine more than a handful of 23rd district residents know Hensarling’s name.