Suffolk University (pdf) (11/4-8, likely voters, 9/12-15 in parentheses):
Deval Patrick (D-inc): 38 (36)
Christy Mihos (R): 20 (17)
Tim Cahill (I): 26 (24)
Deval Patrick (D-inc): 36 (36)
Charlie Baker (R): 15 (14)
Tim Cahill (I): 26 (23)
(MoE: 4%)
This poor poll has been getting kicked down the road behind the scenes here at SSP for half a week now, but let's give it its due. It sees incumbent Democratic governor Deval Patrick in a weird position: his approvals are upside-down, at 42/51 -- worse than many governors currently seen as losing their 2010 races -- and he has an even-worse re-elect of 32/55. Nevertheless, he's somehow still thumping his opposition, winning three-way matchups by 10 points.
Patrick is one of the few endangered Dem governors who seems to be improving his position as the year wears on, and it seems to be all thanks to the presence of Tim Cahill, the Dem-turned-independent state Treasurer who seems to split the anti-Patrick vote, which, if added up, is the plurality of the vote. The state's few Republicans are sticking with the full-on Rs, while Cahill seems to pick up the Dems who can't stomach voting for Patrick or a Republican. This can be seen in the polls before Cahill got in, where Patrick trailed his Republican opponents, versus the ones after Cahill's entry -- the most recent of which, Suffolk's previous poll and Rasmussen, have Patrick up by double digits.
• CA-Sen: Everyone has been treating Carly Fiorina as already running for Senate, but she's never officially announced anything. It looks like Nov. 6 is her launch date, though; she has a "very important announcement" scheduled at a Pleasanton event.
• NV-Sen: With right-wing former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle's entry into the GOP primary a few days ago, I hinted at the prospect of a bloody civil war erupting in Nevada -- and here's some more fuel for that fire. Movement conservatives in the Silver State are setting up a specifically anti-Sue Lowden PAC, dedicated to stopping the media-designated frontrunner. The Fair Nevada Elections PAC seems run by Paulists, who remain upset over Lowden's actions in the 2008 caucus, when she was the state GOP party chair, which ended with voting being shut down when it looked like Ron Paul would wind up winning delegates. While there's no explicit Paulist in the primary (unlike, say, Kentucky and Connecticut), Angle seems like the most kindred spirit for these types.
• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman's sputtering campaign got a boost when she nailed down the endorsement of popular GOP moderate Richard Riordan, the former Los Angeles mayor -- which might keep her from losing votes to ex-Rep. Tom Campbell on her left. Her other opponent, state Treasurer Steve Poizner, also announced his own endorsement, from American Conservative Union head David Keene. Not that any Californian would have any idea who Keene is, but this seems like a more fruitful endorsement vein to mine, as all three candidates are on the party's moderate side -- good for the general, but bad for making it out of the primary dominated by California's rabid base.
• MA-Gov: There's a new poll of the Massachusetts governor's race showing embattled Dem incumbent Deval Patrick walloping his opponents -- and it comes from Rasmussen, of all places. Despite only 36% of respondents thinking Patrick should run (49% say don't run), Patrick leads GOPer Christy Mihos and independent Tim Cahill 34-23-23, and leads Charlie Baker and Cahill 34-24-23. This doesn't jibe at all with their previous poll from August, which gave the GOP candidates leads over Patrick but didn't account for Cahill's presence, absorbing anti-Patrick votes -- but it does pretty closely match Suffolk's September poll, so maybe Patrick is stabilizing a bit after some terrible numbers over the summer.
• NJ-Gov: After a week of unadulterated good news, the two most recent polls from New Jersey show Jon Corzine taking a slight turn for the worse. And the reason seems to be clear -- Chris Daggett is starting to lose votes, perhaps as a share of soft Daggett voters who dislike Corzine more than they dislike Chris Christie are realizing that they're contributing to a spoiler effect and shifting to Christie, helped along by RGA ads attacking Daggett. PPP (pdf) finds Christie leading Corzine and Daggett 42-38-13. Rasmussen gives toplines (based on their re-allocation of Daggett leaners) of 46-43-7 for Christie, while their "initial preference" this time, interestingly, gives an even better result for Christie, at 42-38-14. (Discussion underway in DCCylone and JFM110's diaries.
• OH-Gov (pdf): The Ohio Newspaper poll (conducted by University of Cincinnati) projects a close race in the Ohio gubernatorial race, as Democratic incumbent Ted Strickland leads GOP ex-Rep. John Kasich 49-46 among likely voters. Contrary to what one might expect, Kasich pulls closer among all registered voters, with a 48-47 Strickland lead.
• VA-Gov: Three different polls in Virginia, all of which showing Creigh Deeds trailing by double digits. (Ooops, almost typed "triple digits.") The Washington Post is the most encouraging with a mere 55-44 lead for Bob McDonnell; Deeds has a 56-43 lead in northern Virginia, which may help retain some of the tight House of Delegates seat there. PPP (pdf) sees the race as 55-40 for McD (with similar-sized leads for the GOP's LG and AG candidates); SurveyUSA has the widest spread, at 58-41 for McD. Deeds' fundraising seems to be dying down, also, as the establishment realizes this one is over; McDonnell outraised Deeds $4 million to $3.1 million in the first 3 weeks of October (with most of Deeds' money coming from the Tim Kaine-led DNC).
• FL-08: Alan Grayson saying something bombastic is getting to the point of not being newsworthy anymore (he called a Fed official a "K Street whore" on a radio show a month ago, although the pearls are just getting clutched today), but fellow camera-hogging Rep. Anthony Weiner gets some ups for saying what we're all thinking: "Is this news to you that this guy's one fry short of a Happy Meal?"
• IL-07: Rep. Danny Davis, after a drawn-out period of vacillation, finally got off the fence, and filed to run for President of the Cook County Board (although he plans to also file for his 7th District seat too; he has until Nov. 9 to withdraw one of his petitions). Assuming that he continues to follow through, this creates an open seat in the dark-blue, African-American-majority 7th and a hotly contested Dem primary.
• KY-St. Sen.: The special election is on, in Kentucky. GOP state Sen. Dan Kelly was appointed to a state circuit court judgeship yesterday, creating an open seat that Dems have a shot at picking up. The election is set for Dec. 8, the same day as a House special election to fill the seat of Dem Robin Webb (who was promoted to the state Senate in another recent special election).
• Mayors: The Charlotte mayoral race will go down to the wire; PPP finds that Anthony Foxx and John Lassiter each poll at 45. Foxx leads among African-Americans 80-9, while Lassiter leads among whites 63-29 (Charlotte is 33% black).
• Blue Dogs: Here's an interesting fundraising tidbit: donations to the Blue Dog PAC fell to only $12,500 in September (from only three donations -- from Ernst & Young, the Food Marketing Institute, and the NRA). They had averaged more than $176K per month in the first half of the year. Is this a blip, or a sign of things to come?
• FEC: If you can't get enough about campaign finance disclosures and regulations, we've got the blog for you. The FEC has its own blog now... if you can consider something that has no bomb-throwing invective or pictures of hilarious cats to be a blog.
• MA-Sen: A superior court judge today ruled that Deval Patrick did not overstep his authority by unilaterally declaring that there was an emergency that required immediate implementation of the new temporary Senate appointment law (instead of the usual waiting period). Bring on the usual Republican kvetching about judicial activism, but the judge did note that the GOP did "not cite any case law in support of its argument." (Another interesting tidbit: Mitt Romney used his "emergency" power 14 times while in office, including to raise the boating speed limit in Charlton.) At any rate, this frees up Paul Kirk to be sworn in by Joe Biden this afternoon as the Bay State's junior senator until January.
• CA-Sen: Carly Fiorina has unleashed her killer app: her new website, titled "Carlyfornia Dreamin'." Unfortunately, the only killing that seems to be going on here is of her own credibility, as both Democrats and conservative Republicans alike are aghast at the site's... well... vapidity. It's more fuel for the fire for conservatives left wondering what -- if, as rumored, Fiorina isn't going to self-fund, her one potential advantage -- she brings to the table.
• KY-Sen: Following his latest "moneybomb" (Sep. 23, timed to coincide with Trey Grayson's DC fundraiser with much of the GOP Senate establishment), Rand Paul says he's raised more than $900K this quarter and expects to report $1 million at month's end.
• AZ-Gov: Fresh from posting godawful numbers in this week's PPP poll, Jan Brewer is already facing her first Republican primary opponent: Paradise Valley mayor Vernon Parker. Parker, who was the Bush administration's Asst. Sec. of Agriculture for Civil Rights, is African-American; Phoenix suburb Paradise Valley is small (pop. 13,000) but the state's wealthiest place (2000 MHI $150K).
• CA-Gov: With stories dogging Fiorina and Linda McMahon for their spotty voting records, now it's Meg Whitman's turn in the spotlight. A Sacramento Bee investigation finds that her failing to vote "on a few occasions," as she's previously said, actually means "almost always," with little record of voting or even registration in the six states and dozen counties where she's lived.
• MI-Gov: Moderate businessman Rick Snyder, who's languishing in the low single digits in the polls in the GOP gubernatorial field in Michigan, got a high-profile endorsement yesterday: from Bill Ford, chairman of Ford Motors.
• NV-Gov: CREW has filed an ethics complaint against ex-AG, ex-federal judge Brian Sandoval, who recently quit his judgeship to move to the Republican gubernatorial primary (against DOA incumbent Jim Gibbons). There are strict prohibitions against political activity by the federal judiciary, but he may have had conservations with political consultants who then included him in polling, which could have crossed the line.
• PA-Gov: In the Pennsylvania Republican primary in the open seat governor's race, conservative AG Tom Corbett got a big endorsement from moderate ex-Gov. Tom Ridge. Meanwhile, the moderate option in the primary, Rep. Jim Gerlach, unveiled a rather less impressive endorsement: conservative ex-Rep. John Peterson.
• KS-03: Steve Rose, the Republican publisher of the Johnson County Sun, announced last week that he'd run for the House against Rep. Dennis Moore. Today, he's already out of the race, citing health reasons.
• DGA: Another sign of Barack Obama's increasing engagement with the gubernatorial sphere (after the row over his involvement in the New York race): he's headlining a DGA fundraiser in DC on Oct. 1 expected to raise at least $500K.
• House: An interesting lawsuit was filed in federal court this week, demanding that the size of the House be increased. The crux is the disparity between, say, WY-AL with less than 500K residents and MT-AL with more than 900K residents; the suit invokes the "one person one vote" requirement with its roots in Baker v. Carr, but that's never been applied across state lines, only to equalizing districts within a state. It'll be interesting to see how far this gets. (By the way, Tom Schaller looks at how a bigger House would create a small partisan advantage for the Dems in the Electoral College. No discussion on whether it would lead to a bigger advantage in the House, although that would obviously turn on how the new smaller districts get gerrymandered into existence.)
• WATN?: The Abramoff investigation may finally take down ex-Rep. John Doolittle, who was just named as a co-conspirator by federal prosecutors in the corruption case of former aide Kevin Ring.
• Pollsters: The American Association for Public Opinion Research took the unusal step yesterday of reprimanding Strategic Vision, LLC (the one whose polls you often see here... not to be confused with well-thought-of market research firm Strategic Vision, Inc.) for failing to respond to requests for basic information about the make-up of their polls. Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal had previously flagged SV for suspicious behavior.
The interim Senator from Massachusetts will be Paul Kirk, Jr., the former head of the DNC and current chairman of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.
"He is a distinguished lawyer, volunteer, and citizen, and he shares the sense of service that so distinguished Senator Ted Kennedy," Patrick said at a press conference at the State House. "Paul will not seek the open seat in the special election coming up in January. But for the next few months, he will carry on the work and the focus of Senator Kennedy, mindful of his mission, and his values, and his love of Massachusetts."
Kirk's pick seemed pretty likely yesterday, after Kennedy's widow and sons came out publicly in favor of Kirk's appointment. Kirk was special assistant to Ted Kennedy from 1969 to 1977, so he is well connected with Kennedy's staff and can hit the ground running.
There's also some interesting subtext about Kirk vs. Michael Dukakis; apparently, there were actually people in the activist base who felt strongly enough about a Dukakis appointment that Patrick has pissed more Democrats off, something he can't afford if he wants to get re-elected. The Globe suggests that some insiders were afraid that Dukakis would be too likely to inject himself forcefully on the liberal side of the equation into the health care reform debate, while Kirk seems likelier to quietly vote for whatever emerges.
Patrick also signed the legislation today, which passed the state legislature yesterday, making the interim appointment legally operative. However, Republicans filed an injunction in state superior court today to stop the appointment from taking effect immediately, so there may be some courtroom wrangling before Kirk can be seated. (There was some concern yesterday that the legislature didn't have enough votes to include the "emergency" provision for the bill to take effect immediately, but apparently the Governor has the authority to implement it immediately through procedural means.)
• CT-Sen: Pro wrestling CEO Linda McMahon is apparently doing the things that normal candidates do when running for office, starting with her first radio ad. However, she's already having to acknowledge that she hasn't done a good job recently of doing another thing that normal politicians do, which is vote. She skipped the 2006 general election (the same year in which she donated $10K to the DCCC) and also the 2008 GOP primary.
• DE-Sen: There are a couple of interesting rumors that Delaware scribe Ron Williams (who doesn't have the highest batting average out there) examines: one is that Beau Biden may run for AG again instead of Senate. (However, Williams seems to debunk that rumor, using some pretty definite phrasing in saying that "AG Biden will soon announce his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat..." and also saying that Mike Castle is unlikely to want to run against Biden.) Meanwhile, there are rumors that the state's other Senator, Tom Carper, is having some health problems and may not seek re-election in 2012. Carper himself denies the rumor, though, saying he's fine. New Castle County Exec Chris Coons gets flagged as a likely Carper successor, though.
• MA-Sen: The bill to allow a temporary appointed Senator to fill Ted Kennedy's seat until the Jan. 19 special election cleared another hurdle yesterday, passing the state Senate 24-16. A reconciled version still has to pass both houses but could do so today, so conceivably we could have a Deval Patrick signature today too. The momentum today seems to be with former DNC chair Paul Kirk, not Michael Dukakis for the appointment; Kennedy's widow Victoria and sons Patrick and Teddy Jr. now all publicly back Kirk for the job (Kirk now chairs the JFK Presidential Library).
Meanwhile, former Red Sox rightie (although he'll always be a Phillie to me) Curt Schilling says he won't run for Senate. However, City Year head Alan Khazei made his entry into the race, on the Democratic side, official today.
• CA-Gov: Two decidedly unsurprising developments: ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman formally "opened" her Republican candidacy with a rally and her first ads (although technically she's been running since February), while AG Jerry Brown opened an exploratory committee for the Dem nod.
• NJ-Gov: Yet another poll of the New Jersey governor's race shows Chris Christie with a sizable lead, although Jon Corzine does break through that 40% ceiling that's been plaguing him. Rasmussen shows Christie ahead of Corzine 48-41, with independent Chris Daggett at 6%. Rasmussen's previous look in early September pegged it at 46-38. And if there's any doubt about what Jon Corzine's last-ditch strategy is for winning this thing, check out this picture of his new billboard.
• VA-Gov: After a bit of post-debate waffling on the issue last week, Creigh Deeds came out in favor of new taxes to fund transportation projects. Promising to raise taxes is always a risky strategy, but given how paralyzed northern Virginia is, taxes to build infrastructure might actually be a winner in that part of the state. Also, Josh Goodman has a thoughtful piece on Deeds' belated momentum in the polls: it's a delayed reaction to the Bob McDonnell thesis, as it took a while to trickle down, via negative ads, to the non-WaPo-reading rabble.
• AR-04: It's looking like the scandal surrounding Blue Dog Mike Ross, concerning his sale of a $263K pharmacy to the USA Drug chain (which is actively lobbying in the health care debate) for $420K, may have some legs. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint with the Justice Department asking for an investigation if there was a quid pro quo. Ross is busy attacking the messenger, calling ProPublica.com (which broke the story) a "leftist" organization.
• NY-23: The NRCC is up with a radio ad in the 23rd, and Dede Scozzafava's camp seems flummoxed by it, to the extent that her spokesperson publicly asked the NRCC to save its money instead of spending it this way. The ad spends most of its time attacking Dem Bill Owens, trying to link him to Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, with only a brief mention of Scozzafava's positive qualities at the end. Scozzafava already questioned the NRCC's airing of an anti-Darrel Aubertine ad when it looked like he'd be the candidate, and in a weird development, the NRCC's website features a link to a story from Human Events questioning whether Scozzafava is too liberal. Not exactly what we'd call "teamwork." Meanwhile, Bill Owens just got the endorsement of the regional SEIU, ordinarily a foregone conclusion for a Democrat but maybe not a sure thing with labor-friendly Scozzafava in the mix.
• SC-01: Carroll "Tumpy" (his actual nickname) Campbell III made it official; he'll be challenging Henry "Smoky" (that's just our unofficial nickname for him) Brown in the GOP primary. The challenge from the son of the popular governor may prod the rather lackadaisical 73-year-old Brown into retirement.
• VA-02: Democratic freshman Rep. Glenn Nye got a sixth potential GOP opponent, in the form of Scott Taylor, a businessman, former Virginia Beach mayoral candidate, and former Navy SEAL. Taylor isn't even the only former Navy SEAL running (so too is Ed Maulbeck); other GOPers are auto dealer Scott Rigell, Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Bert Mizusawa, businessman Ben Loyola, and former local GOP chair Chuck Smith. Although Nye's R+5 district poses a theoretical challenge, note that none of his challengers has held elective office.
• Mayors: Boston mayor Tom Menino, who's been in office for 16 years, had the weakest electoral showing of his mayoral career in yesterday's primary election, pulling in 50.5% of the vote against a fractured field. He'll face off in November against city councilor Michael Flaherty, who finished second with 24%. Flaherty, who is also an insider, doesn't present as much as a contrast with Menino as the candidates who fell by the wayside.
• DE-Sen: Delaware AG Beau Biden will be returning from his service in Iraq later this month, meaning it's time for him to decide whether or not he runs for his dad's former Senate seat. One journo (National Journal's Erin McPike) already tweets that he's "definitely in," which could serve to scare off the already seemingly gun-shy Rep. Mike Castle.
• MA-Sen: There are reports that there are enough votes in both chambers of the state legislature to give Gov. Deval Patrick the power to appoint a short-term replacement Senator. Republicans can use procedural tactics to stall it for a week, but would be out of options after that, meaning a new Senator could be in place by late next week.
• MO-Sen, MO-07: Former state Treasurer and gubernatorial candidate Sarah Steelman's 2010 cycle is ending with a whimper, not a bang: after starting out looking like a strong primary challenger to Rep. Roy Blunt in the Senate race, she gradually faded from view, then re-emerged to explore a race for Blunt's old seat in the 7th. Now she's confirming that she won't run for anything, at least not in 2010.
• NJ-Sen (pdf): PPP has some extra info from their sample from their gubernatorial poll. As usual, New Jerseyites don't like anyone: not Barack Obama (45/48 approval), Robert Menendez (27/40), or Frank Lautenberg (38/44). As a bonus, they also find that even in well-educated, affluent New Jersey, there's still a lot of birtherism (64-21, with 16% unsure) and even a new category: people who think Barack Obama is the anti-Christ. 8% are... let's just call them anti-Christers... with another 13% not sure.
• MD-Gov: Maryland Republicans have found, well, somebody to run for Governor: businessman Lawrence Hogan, Jr. Hogan says he'll run but he'll get out of the race in case his friend ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich shows up, although that's not looking likely. Hogan ran unsuccessfully against Steny Hoyer in 1992. A better-known figure, State Delegate and radio talk show host Patrick McDonough, also expressed his interest in the race in August, although he too would stand down for Ehrlich.
• MN-Gov: As expected, state House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher officially announced that she's running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. She joins (taking in a really deep breath here first): Ramsey Co. Attorney Susan Gaertner, former U.S. Senator Mark Dayton, state Senators John Marty and Tom Bakk, state Reps. Tom Rukavina and Paul Thissen, and former legislators Matt Entenza and Steve Kelley, with Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak and St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman also expected to enter the field soon. Also looming on the horizon, according to the article: a possible run by Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley, who broke into double-digits in last year's Senate race.
• NY-Gov (pdf): Yet another poll of the New York Governor's race, this time from Marist. As always, Paterson is in disastrous condition, with an approval rating of 20/76. Paterson loses the Dem primary to Andrew Cuomo 70-23, and, if Cuomo happens to die in a bizarre gardening accident before the primary, Paterson loses to Rudy Giuliani 60-34 (although he still manages to tie Rick Lazio, 43-43). Cuomo defeats Giuliani 53-43 and Lazio 71-21.
• PA-Gov: This might pique Joe Hoeffel's interest. The ex-Rep. and MontCo Commissioner has been considering the gubernatorial race (where there isn't much of a progressive option in the Dem primary), and now he won a straw poll of 1,000 progressive activists done by Keystone Progress, picking up 35%. Auditor Jack Wagner was at 22, with Allegheny County Exec Dan Onorato at 14, Scranton mayor Chris Doherty at 11, and businessman Tom Knox at 7. Of course, the caveats about generalizing this sample to the larger population are obvious here; the actual Democratic electorate contains a lot of pro-life Catholic voters and ex-GOP suburban moderates.
• SC-Gov: Here's some very good news out of the Palmetto State: Superintendent of Education Jim Rex is officially in the Governor's race. Rex had previously expressed his interest and his candidacy started looking likely when he said last week that he wouldn't run again for his current job. Rex is the only Dem holding statewide office in South Carolina, so despite the state's dark-red hue may be able to get some traction here thanks to the GOP's descent into chaos over the Mark Sanford affair (and their reluctance to get behind his Lt. Gov, Andre Bauer). Rex's new website is here.
• VA-Gov: Creigh Deeds has to be pleased with the new poll from Clarus, an independent pollster whose first poll of the race finds a 42-37 lead for Bob McDonnell, a narrower gap than most pollsters are seeing. They also find 48/43 approvals for Obama, 47/23 for Jim Webb, and 61/21 for Mark Warner. Meanwhile, new fundraising numbers for the race are available. Deeds raised more than McDonnell for the July/August period, $3.5 million to McDonnell's $3 million. McDonnell still has more cash on hand, $5.8 million to Deeds' $4.3 million. Also an advantage for McDonnell: the RNC is pledging to spend up to $7 million on behalf of McDonnell (although that figure includes $2.4 million they've already spent).
• KY-06: Republicans seem to have a candidate ready to go up against Rep. Ben Chandler in the 6th, who hasn't faced much in the way of opposition in this GOP-leaning district. Lexington attorney (and former Jim Talent aide)Andy Barr has formed an exploratory committee.
• NJ-07: Woodbridge mayor (and former state Treasurer) John McCormac has turned down the DCCC's overtures to run against freshman GOP Rep. Leonard Lance in the 7th. (Woodbridge mayor may not sound like much, but it's one of the largest municipalities in New Jersey and was Jim McGreevey's launching pad to Governor.)
• NM-02: The race in the 2nd may turn into a clash of self-funding rich oilmen, as GOP ex-Rep. Steve Pearce says he may dip into his own cash to augment his bid to reclaim his seat from Democratic Rep. Harry Teague (who Roll Call says is the 10th richest member of Congress, and put more than a million of his own money into his 2008 bid).
• OR-04: Here's one campaign that's already in crash & burn mode: Springfield mayor Sid Leiken's bid against Rep. Peter DeFazio. Remember Leiken's tearful apology over the undocumented $2,000 that went to his mother's real estate company, ostensibly to paying for polling? Now the state elections board is opening an investigation to see if any poll ever actually got taken, after widespread skepticism by polling experts about the poll's conclusions (most notably that they got 200 respondents out of 268 calls).
• PA-06: The arrival of physician Manan Trivedi to the Dem field in the 6th, where Doug Pike seemed to have everything nailed down, has scrambled things a bit. Trivedi has already announced the endorsement of 2008 candidate Bob Roggio, and a more prominent insider, Berks County Recorder of Deeds Frederick Sheeler, switched to neutral from a Pike endorsement.
• VA-05: It looks like the Republicans have landed their first "real" candidate to go against Rep. Tom Perriello in the 5th: Albemarle County Commissioner Kenneth Boyd. Boyd is the only Republican on the board that runs the county that surrounds Charlottesville, home of UVA and the district's liberal anchor; this may help Boyd eat a little into Perriello's Charlottesville base, but he's unknown in the rest of the district and may not make it out of the primary against state Sen. Rob Hurt, if Hurt gets off the fence and runs.
• Mayors: Amidst all the hullabaloo in New York City last night, there was also a big mayoral contest in Buffalo. Incumbent Dem Byron Brown has essentially been re-elected, beating Michael Kearns 63-37 in the Democratic primary. There is no Republican challenger on the November ballot and Brown controls the minor party lines.
• Votes: There seems to be absolutely no pattern behind who did and didn't vote to reprimand Joe Wilson in the House. Although (sadly) the vote was mostly along party lines, 12 Dems and 7 GOPers broke ranks. Among Dems, the "no" votes were a mix of Blue Dogs and some of the most outspoken liberals: Arcuri, Delahunt, Giffords, Hinchey, Hodes, Kucinich, Maffei, Massa, McDermott, Gwen Moore, Gene Taylor, and Teague. Among the GOP, it was a few moderates and some of the more mavericky hard-liners: Cao, Emerson, Flake, Walter Jones, Petri, Rohrabacher, and maybe most notably, Bob Inglis, already facing the wrath of the teabagging wing of the party. Five Dems also voted "present," the best you can do when you can't vote "meh:" Engel, Foster, Frank, Shea-Porter, and Skelton.
• CO-Sen: The NRSC got its sort-of-top-tier challenger to Michael Bennet in the Colorado Senate race: former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton filed to form an exploratory committee and launched her campaign website, suggesting that the exploratory period will be a brief one. Norton's never been elected on her own (just while joined to popular Gov. Bill Owens), but, unlike the rest of the GOP field, she's at least known statewide.
• CT-Sen, AR-Sen: Chris Dodd finally made his decision about which Senate committee to chair, and he opted to return to Banking, instead of continuing at HELP where he shepherded through health care reform legislation in Ted Kennedy's absence. He still has a lot on his plate; he'll be focusing on bolstering financial services regulations and creating a new banking consumer protection agency (all stuff that would seem less likely to happen if Tim Johnson took over Banking). The WaPo says that all signs point to Tom Harkin of Iowa, #2 on HELP, ditching his coveted Agriculture chair to take over HELP. This means the Agriculture chair is likely to fall to Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas (bypassing a few other more senior Senators with better chairs), who, while not from a big farm state, is facing a difficult re-election and will benefit from the profile and money that come from a chair.
• LA-Sen: The Charlie Melancon campaign released an internal poll taken by Anzalone Liszt that's getting a little stale (taken in mid-May, long before Melancon announced), but that shows Melancon in striking distance. The head-to-head has David Vitter beating Melancon 47-37 (and Melancon winning the bogus "after hearing positive info" vote 49-41). The good news is that Vitter's re-elect number is down to 39%, with 45% preferring someone new. Melancon has 35/13 favorables.
• TX-Sen: Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst sent a letter to supporters that he's running for re-election in 2010. While he may be the initial odds-on favorite to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Senate, I wouldn't take this to mean he's not running in the Senate special election -- since he doesn't need to give up his seat to run and he'd probably like to keep being Lt. Gov. if he loses the election, and there's also still a possibility that KBH doesn't resign after all, if she senses the gubernatorial primary heading south on her. (H/t DTM,B!)
• AK-Gov: No surprise here, but Democratic former state House minority leader and 2008 House candidate Ethan Berkowitz filed his candidacy papers today. He'll likely face off against Sean Parnell, who inherited the office after Sarah Palin's re$ignation, but first he'll need to survive a primary against state Sen. Hollis French and Bob Poe. (Parnell will also need to survive a primary against state Rep. John Harris.)
• MA-Gov: Tim Cahill picked a strange day to make his announcement, on a day when everyone is fixated on the Massachusetts Senate race instead, but today he made official what has long been suspected: he's running for Governor. The Dem-turned-Independent state Treasurer has a $3 million warchest, giving him a big edge over incumbent Dem Deval Patrick, who has $464K (of course, if Christy Mihos wins the GOP primary, he can put all his expenses on his own tab). Polls that have included Cahill have shown him running neck-and-neck with Patrick, although Cahill is running against tradition -- there has apparently never been an Independent elected to statewide office in Massachusetts.
• MN-Gov: I've completely lost track of how many people are now running for Minnesota Governor -- let's just say it's a number somewhere between 10 and 800 -- but one more guy got in the race on Labor Day: state Rep. Tom Rukavina, for the DFL. Rukavina is from the town of Virginia in the rural but very pro-union Iron Range.
• OR-Gov: While the Dem side of the Oregon Governor's race is narrowing, the GOP side keeps growing: former state Senator John Lim from Portland's eastern suburbs said he'd get in. Lim is best-known for losing the 1998 Senate race to Ron Wyden (with a whopping 34% of the vote).
• SC-Gov: While it's unclear whether "calls for resignation" on Mark Sanford's part will ever turn into a tangible move for impeachment or just some pre-emptive ass-covering by state Republicans so it looked like they tried, those calls are getting louder. The state's House Speaker, Bobby Harrell, made the call yesterday, and now there's talk of a letter with the signatures of at least 60 House GOPers (out of 72, and almost half the entire House) calling on Sanford to step down.
• VT-Gov: As we reported yesterday, Vermont Auditor Tom Salmon did in fact follow through on his decision to switch to from the Democrats to the Republican Party. However, Salmon sounds likely to run again for Auditor, saying there's a "10% chance" he'll run for Governor instead. Salmon said that he'd support Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie if Dubie were to run for Governor, and wouldn't challenge him in a primary. There's been no word from Dubie, though, on what he plans to do.
• FL-08: Rep. Alan Grayson... well, let me try to be kind here and say that he courageously ignores all that conventional wisdom about who and who not to piss off. He's picking a fight with his hometown paper, the Orlando Sentinel, referring to them in a fundraising e-mail as "a trashy tabloid that dresses up bias and gossip as news."
• FL-24: Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz may have decided against a run in his current home district, the 24th, but he's holding a fundraiser on behalf of Winter Park city councilor Karen Diebel, one of the three GOPers seeking the nod to go against Rep. Suzanne Kosmas in this R+4 district.
• IL-10: Bob Dold is running for the GOP nomination in the 10th District, joining state Rep. Beth Coulson and rich guys Dick Green and Bill Cadigan. Bob Dold is a lawyer who also owns a pest control business. In keeping with district's lean, Bob Dold says that Bob Dold is fiscally conservative and socially moderate.
• NE-02: Jim Esch, who's coming off two back-to-back losses to GOP Rep. Lee Terry, switched his party affiliation to "independent" last week, but said yesterday that he has no plans to seek elected office at any level in the future. Esch defended his decision to the Omaha World-Herald: "I feel a little hypocritical when I go to Democratic parties and say, 'I'm a Democrat' when I don't believe in the party." (J)
Meanwhile, across town, state Sen. Tom White (who's apparently still a Democrat) officially launched his campaign against Terry today.
• PA-03: Suddenly there's a backlog of challengers to Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, the Dem freshman in this R+3 district. Republican Meadville businessman Paul Huber, who ran a heating equipment company and served on a local medical center board, filed campaign paperwork. AG's office investigator Elaine Surma is already in the race for the GOP, and former Erie County Solicitor John Onorato sounds likely to run.
• PA-06: Here's a likely minor, but certainly interesting, challenge to Doug Pike (who seems to have the establishment support locked down) in the Democratic primary in the open seat race in the 6th. Manan Trivedi is a Reading native born to Indian immigrants; he is an Iraq vet and a primary care physician. He formally announced his campaign yesterday.
• Redistricting: Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita has gone off the deep end in anticipation of the next round of redistricting in Indiana: he wants to make it a felony to consider politics in the redistricting process. Um... considering that Rokita is a Republican and that Republicans are likely to control the redistricting process post-2010, I don't quite get it. (And neither do Republican legislators, who are telling him to shut up.)
• Votes: The Hill compiles a list of 23 Democrats who have indicated opposition to "the health care plan moving through the House." (Nancy Pelosi can afford to lose up to 38 votes.) It's unclear what "opposition" means, and the rationale isn't always the same (Eric Massa, for instance, opposes it, but only because he's stuck in single-payer mode), but it's an interesting list, generally of the vulnerable and/or the hardcore Blue Doggish (although New Jersey's John Adler strangely stands out like a sore thumb).
• KY-Sen: Here's a surprise; Mitch McConnell says he still won't endorse in the GOP Senate primary, despite the presence of only one establishment candidate anymore (SoS Trey Grayson). Is he worried about drawing the wrath of the nationwide army of malfunctioning Paulbots? Anyway, even though he won't endorse, he and 22 other GOP Senators are still planning to host a $500/person fundraiser in DC for Grayson in September.
• LA-Sen: David Vitter dodged rumored challenges from Suzanne Terrell, Tony Perkins, and John Cooksey, but his luck may yet run out. Retired Lt. General Russel Honore, who has a high profile from his role in leading forces tasked with rescuing Katrina victims, says he's leaning toward running in the GOP primary. Honore, a Creole African-American who lives near Baton Rouge, says he's been a Republican since the Reagan era. A tough primary might be just what we need to soften up Vitter before loosing Charlie Melancon on him.
• MA-Sen: The Massachusetts Secretary of State says that Gov. Deval Patrick has two choices as to the timing of the special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat: A Dec. 8 primary and a Jan. 19 general, or a Dec. 15 primary and a Jan. 26 general. (D)
• NV-Sen: If this is meaningful, and not just cloud talk -- that Harry Reid is going on record as saying health care reform must contain a public option, which moves us that much closer since (as best as I can tell) he's the person with primary responsibility for how to merge the (good) HELP and (probably crappy) Finance Committee bills into one -- we may have Danny Tarkanian and Susan Lowden to thank for passage of a public option. Facing suddenly perilous re-election prospects in the polls, Reid may be realizing that he's going to need strong on-the-ground union support to stay in office in 2010, and that he's not getting anything but tepid support from them without a decent reform package.
• AR-Gov: There was a second phase to PPP's Arkansas poll that showed Blanche Lincoln looking weak for re-election, with some details about the 2010 gubernatorial race. If there's one governor in the country who doesn't have much to worry about it, it's Democrat Mike Beebe, who has 63/17 approvals and beats prospective GOP challenger state Rep. Allen Kerr 55-24.
• AZ-Gov: Arizona's Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, still getting her feet wet in the gube office, says that she's "leaning toward" running for a full term in 2010. Despite having a rough time with the state legislator with her proposed tax increases, Brewer says that she "loves being governor, and I love campaigning". (J)
• GA-Gov: Rep. Nathan Deal doesn't seem to be getting much traction in the Georgia Governor's race, but now there are some nasty allegations out that may further dim whatever luster he once had. Apparently he intervened with Georgia state officials, lobbying them to preserve an obscure state program on inspection of rebuilt salvaged vehicles. Deal owns co-owns a salvage company that provides the location for these inspections, a company from which he personally earns up to $150,000 a year. Deal personally lobbied the state Revenue Commissioner against opening the program up to competitors instead of preserving his monopoly.
• SC-Gov: State lawmakers are apparently getting ready to hold a special session of the legislature to impeach and remove Gov. Mark Sanford. Meanwhile, an Insider Advantage poll says 50% of South Carolinians think Sanford should resign. (D)
• IA-05, IA-Gov: Rep. Steve King has ruled out a run for Governor and will run for re-election to the House again. While having been mentioned as a possible candidate earlier in the year, shortly after gay marriage was legalized in Iowa, he hadn't shown much interest lately. Looks like it's Terry Branstad (who's still making up his mind) or bust for the Iowa GOP.
• IL-14: Rotta the Huttlet Ethan Hastert won't have the GOP primary to himself in his attempt to revenge the Hutt Hastert family name. Mark Vargas, a former Dept. of Defense official in Iraq, former Kane County Young Republicans chair, and briefly, an aide in the elder Hastert's district office, said he'll run too.
• MT-AL: Best wishes for a speedy recovery for Rep. Denny Rehberg, who is listed in stable condition after being injured in a boating accident on Flathead Lake at some point between 10 pm and midnight last night.
• NC-08: Republicans finally have a candidate to challenge freshman Democrat Larry Kissell this year, but it's not anyone with a track record of electoral success. Retired Army Col. Lou Huddleston, who won 38% of the vote in an unsuccessful state House campaign last year, announced yesterday that he'll seek the GOP nomination to challenge Kissell just a week after ex-Rep. Robin Hayes and former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory passed on the race. Republicans seem to hope that Huddleston, who is African-American, will chip some support away from Kissell in the district's sizable black community. Good luck with that. (J)
• ND-AL: A Republican has stepped forward to take on entrenched Blue Dog Earl Pomeroy in North Dakota. Paul Schaffner currently is an insurance salesperson and has no electoral experience, but may have some residual name rec from his stints as football player at NDSU and assistant coach at local Jamestown College and Univ. of Mary.
• NYC-Mayor: SurveyUSA has a new poll of the Democratic primaries in New York City, which closely match the Quinnipiac findings earlier this week. For the Dem nod in the mayoral race, Comptroller William Thompson leads city councilor Tony Avella, 48-13. Ex-Public Advocate and former mayoral candidate Mark Green has a big lead at 38% in the Public Advocate primary. City councilor Melinda Katz leads the Comptroller field at 27%.
Having had some time to let the passing of Ted Kennedy sink in, speculation inevitably turns to who succeeds him (and when). There hasn't been an open Senate seat in Massachusetts since 1984, so there's a backlog of long-time Representatives with huge bank accounts all trying to crash the door at the same time... and with a mid-term special election meaning no one would have to give up a safe seat to run, expect a lot of people running.
While Massachusetts currently has a system where there is no gubernatorial appointment but rather a mid-term special election (a result of a legislative change passed in 2004 to prevent Mitt Romney from appointing a Republican successor to John Kerry), there is now a push to update the law to a system more like what is done in Texas: a short-term appointment until the special election can be held. This was suggested by Kennedy himself in a letter released a week prior to his death (which met some initial resistance last week), but with Democrats painfully aware that Kennedy's absence leaves Senate Democrats at 59 and at least one vote short on a health care reform cloture vote, momentum is building for a quick post-Labor Day vote that would change the law again to allow for the short-term appointment. Governor Deval Patrick said on MSNBC that he would sign such a bill, and state House Speaker Robert DeLeo has given it his tacit approval.
Roll Call suggests that, if this passes, the short-term appointee is unlikely to be someone who would contest the special election. They point to former Governor (and Presidential candidate) Michael Dukakis as a likely appointee; he has already given assurances that he will not run in the special.
The next question is: what's the timetable on the special election? It doesn't seem like any changes to the law regarding interim appointment will involve changes to the special election timetable. The Hill calculates:
The special election must be held between 145 and 160 days after the vacancy occurs. Since Kennedy died late Tuesday, that puts the window between Jan. 17 and Feb. 1. Holding the race on a Tuesday, a traditional Election Day, would mean Jan. 18, Jan. 25 or Feb. 1.
So who runs, among the Democrats, in the special? Speculation centers on as many as five of the state's ten Democratic House members, and two former House members as well.
Rep.
District
Age
CoH
Ed Markey
MA-07
63
$2.89 mil
Richard Neal
MA-02
60
$2.5 mil
Stephen Lynch
MA-09
54
$1.39 mil
John Tierney
MA-06
57
$1.29 mil
Michael Capuano
MA-08
57
$1.2 mil
Martin Meehan
was MA-05
52
$4.8 mil
Joe Kennedy II
was MA-08
56
$1.7 mil
One high-profile House member who has already indicated that he won't run is Barney Frank. The 69-year-old Frank is at the pinnacle of his power as House Financial Services Chair. Ed Markey is a something of a question mark; he's also one of the most powerful House members, as a 33-year veteran and chair of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, making it less likely he'd be willing to give up his gavel... but there's also no question he's been stockpiling money for this very contingency for many years.
The remaining members of the House delegation are 72-year-old John Olver (considered a likely retiree soon), 68-year-old Bill Delahunt, 63-year-old Niki Tsongas (who just got to the House), and 49-year-old Jim McGovern. McGovern, based in Worcester's MA-03, is sitting only only $536K, which apparently isn't enough for prognosticators to consider him a likely candidate.
Former Reps Meehan and Kennedy are also question marks. Meehan has by far the most money of anyone, and has been sitting on it in miserly fashion since leaving the House to become chancellor of UMass-Lowell. Although he's reportedly happily ensconced in his new job, his hunger for a Senate seat while still in the House was palpable, and the fact that he's still hoarding his cash is a red flag. Kennedy has a huge intangible advantage, perhaps a field-clearing one, in that, well, he's a Kennedy, and there's understandable sentiment about keeping at least one Kennedy in the Senate. Kennedy, however, has been out of office for a while, and a subsequent ugly divorce and controversy of Venezuelan oil deals may cast a bit of a shadow over him. (Plus, more generally, the Kennedy name may not have the iconic power it used to, as seen in the Caroline Kennedy and Chris Kennedy flameouts this year, as well as the 2002 loss of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.)
There are two other non-House, female candidates who could make the race. One is Kennedy's widow, Vicki Kennedy, who hasn't held office but could be a sentimental favorite; however, indications are that she isn't interested in running (although she could be another possible short-term appointee). The other is AG Martha Coakley, who has had her eye on the Senate seat for some time, polling the race several times. While she doesn't have a big stash of federal dollars like the other candidates (she has only $144K), she would bring something of a demographic advantage to the race by being the only woman, as well as the only statewide official. Coakley has been quick to hit cable TV in the last couple days.
There must be some Republicans to run, right? What passes for GOP top talent in the Bay State (Christy Mihos, Charlie Baker) is already looking at the Governor's race, where they've been historically more successful and where Patrick is unpopular. That leaves former Lt. Gov. (and 2006 gubernatorial loser) Kerry Healey, former US Attorney Michael Sullivan, former Ambassador Chris Egan, state Senator Scott Brown, former Justice Dept. official Wayne Budd, and businessman David Sukoff as GOPers who've been mentioned. Former Bush CoS Andy Card, and Jim Ogonowski, who ran well in the MA-05 special election, are reportedly not interested.
There's one other name being floated: former Governor Mitt Romney. To most observers, that's comical, considering that Romney a) is busy running for President, and won't want to get involved in the relatively small ball time-suck of the Senate, and b) didn't run for re-election as Massachusetts Governor because he would have had his ass handed to him, after veering to the right in order to prep for his Prez run and repeatedly dissing hisown state while doing so. US News's delusional Peter Roff still sounds hopeful, saying that the fact that being in the Senate would help Romney prove his conservative bona fides -- but offering no evidence for Romney's electability in Massachusetts other than his 100% name ID.
Meanwhile, there's one other entirely separate game of musical chairs: Senate committee assignments. Kennedy was chair of Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (or HELP), one of the two key Senate committees on health care reform. The acting chair of HELP while Kennedy was out has been Chris Dodd, who has been doing double-duty while also chairing Banking. The ball's basically in Dodd's court now: whether he wants to switch full-time to HELP, or go back to Banking. This actually impacts his re-election strategy, interestingly: does he go to HELP, and focus on building accomplishments there in order to distract from lingering dissatisfaction (not necessarily deserved, but either way, the perception is there, especially regarding the AIG bonuses) from his tenure at Banking? Or does he go back to Banking in order to show his constituents he's focused on cleaning up the mess there? (State Sen. Sam Caligiuri, one of his minor GOP contenders, is already jumping on Dodd over possibly moving to HELP.)
So, if Dodd moves to HELP, that means Tim Johnson of South Dakota takes over Banking. However, the moderate Johnson is still slowed by his brain hemmorhage from several years past, and has been a low-key participant since then; he might defer to the 3rd in line, the much more liberal Jack Reed of Rhode Island, which would certainly improve our chances of robust re-regulation of Wall Street in the coming year.
On the other hand, if Dodd stays at Banking, Tom Harkin is 2nd in line at HELP. While Harkin certainly has had a stake in such issues, he may prefer to remain as chair of Agriculture, the defining issue in his state of Iowa. Either way, we'd then likely get the only female committee chair: if Harkin stays at Agriculture, 3rd in line to chair HELP would be Barbara Mikulski. If Harkin moves to HELP, the Ag order then goes Patrick Leahy (chair of Judiciary), Kent Conrad (chair of Budget), and Max Baucus (chair of Finance). It's hard to see any of them wanting to give up those gavels, so next in line to lead Agriculture would be Arkansas's Blanche Lincoln -- which might give her something valuable to honk her horn about as she faces a potentially difficult re-election.
UPDATE (James L.): This shouldn't be considered a surprise to anyone with their head properly screwed on, but Mittens says that he won't run for Teddy's seat.
Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, one of the Senate's most iconic liberals, has died at the age of 77 from brain cancer.
Kennedy had recently requested Democratic governor Deval Patrick and the state legislature change the succession process (previously changed by the Democratic legislature in 2004 to prevent Mitt Romney from appointing a Republican to John Kerry's seat) so that there would be an appointment instead of the required waiting period before a special election; however, it looks like that we'll need to wait until a special election occurs to fill the vacancy.
The best way to honor his memory? Let's get universal health care done, just as he'd want. One bright side is that maybe this tragedy will provide Senators the moral kick in the pants to get it over the hump.
• AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln is getting yet another challenger, except this time it's a Democrat: Bob Johnson (no, not thatBob Johnson... he's the Arkansas Senate President, and former Arkansas House Speaker). Surely the netroots will rejoice that conservadem Lincoln, known for her foot-dragging on EFCA, is getting a primary challenge. Um, except there's the small fact that Johnson would be running against Lincoln from the right. (Johnson held a fundraiser for Republican state Senator Gilbert Baker last fall, who may well be the Republican Senate nominee.)
• FL-Sen: One more fossil got unearthed by Charlie Crist as he seeks applications for potential Senate replacements for Mel Martinez: former Representative Lou Frey, a 75-year-old who served in the House from the Orlando area from 1968 to 1978. Crist is still planning to interview current Rep. Bill Young, as well as former Reps. Clay Shaw and Mike Bilirakis. Follow the link to see all 10 current possible replacements.
• IL-Sen: With the Democratic Senate field suddenly down to two candidates, Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and local Urban League president Cheryle Jackson, there's still some of the inevitable casting-about for someone else going on. An unnamed "top Dem" is reportedly encouraging Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart to make the race. Dart is a former state legislator who made big news recently for suspending foreclosure evictions.
• MO-Sen: Michael Steele just referred to Roy Blunt as crap. Well, not in the most literal sense. There was an extended toilet metaphor on a conservative radio talk show and Steele went along with the host's anti-Blunt anti-insider arguments. Still, the Carnahan ads write themselves.
• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand got yet another endorsement from her House colleagues, from freshman Rep. Eric Massa. Siena is also out with a new New York poll. Gillibrand trails the unlikely-to-run ex-Gov. George Pataki in a hypothetical head-to-head, 42-39 while whomping the only slightly-less-likely-to-run Rep. Peter King, 46-24. (They didn't poll the Dem primary, where Jonathan Tasini is Gillibrand's last challenger standing.)
• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman's campaign strategy seems to be to duck debates and let her money do her talking for her instead. Here's another eyebrow-raising development, that's potentially a good line of attack for Dems (or her primary challengers): Whitman didn't register to vote in California til 2002 (or as a Republican until 2007), and has missed voting in more than half the elections since then, including the 2003 recall.
• MA-Gov: Rasmussen looks at the Massachusetts Governor's race, and finds I-turned-R Christy Mihos leading incumbent Dem Deval Patrick 40-35, up from a 41-40 lead in June. Patrick leads Republican Charlie Baker 40-39. The utility of this poll is close to zero, though, seeing as how it leaves out likely D-turned-I candidate Tim Cahill, whom polls have found either absorbing enough anti-Patrick votes to let Patrick squeak through, or else winning outright.
• NY-Gov: There's a certain role about holes, shovels, and not digging that David Paterson seems to be forgetting. He lashed out at critics saying he should stand down for re-election, accusing them of racial bias, and even launched into the media for their coverage (which I don't think has ever ended well for a politician). The aforementioned Siena poll finds Paterson losing the Dem primary to Andrew Cuomo 65-23, and the general to Rudy Giuliani 56-33 (although he does beat Rick Lazio, 38-37). Cuomo beats Giuliani 53-40, and beats Lazio by a hilarious 66-16 (OK, that's not as hilarious as the GOP primary, where Giuliani beats Lazio 73-6, with 8 for Erie Co. Exec Chris Collins).
• SC-Gov: Cue up the "frequent flier" jokes. Turns out Mark Sanford, already known for his little jaunt to Argentina and his overeager use of state planes, has also failed to disclose at least 35 flights on private planes that should have been listed on ethics forms or campaign disclosures as 'things of value.'
• IN-09: Could we really see Hill/Sodrel 5.0? American politics' most repetitive rivalry may well continue on into 2010, as GOP ex-Rep. Mike Sodrel says he'll weigh another bid against Rep. Baron Hill in the 9th as soon as he's done with the book that he's coloring writing.
• MI-13, 14: Detroiters are feeling surly about their Representatives, it seems. A poll by Deno Noor Polling finds both Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick and John Conyers with negative re-elect numbers: 27/58 for Kilpatrick and 40/44 for Conyers. Not a surprise for Kilpatrick, whose son got bounced out as Detroit's mayor and who barely survived a primary herself last year, but it's a new development for Conyers, the second-longest-serving House member; assumedly, this has a lot to do with the conviction of his wife, ex-city councilor Monica Conyers, on bribery charges.
• OR-04: I'd be sad too if I was watching my once-promising House bid crash and burn more than a year out from the election. Republican Springfield mayor Sid Leiken teared up repeatedly during a news conference where he finally announced that he didn't have documentation for the $2,000 in cash that somehow found its way from his campaign to his mother. He'll repay the $2,000 out of pocket, he says, but the Sec. of State investigation continues.
• PA-07: Here's a good photo op for Dem state Rep. Bryan Lentz, running to succeed Rep. Joe Sestak. He's appearing at the White House to discuss energy policy with Obama administration officials and other energy policy leaders.
• VA-05: Conventional wisdom seems to be coalescing around state Sen. Robert Hurt as GOP nominee; one GOP operative says he's "60% leaning toward the race." His state Senate district overlaps about one-quarter of the 5th. State Del. Rob Bell, who was frequently mentioned earlier, seems hard-pressed to win his off-year re-election this year and turn around and take on Rep. Tom Perriello. Two other state Senators sound interested, Frank Ruff and Steve Newman, but sound likely to defer to Hurt if he gets in.
• Seattle Mayor: Primary elections in Seattle were last week, and in typical Washington fashion, ballots from the all-mail-in election are still being counted. In a serious surprise, two-term mayor Greg Nickels won't be coming back, as he finished third in the top-two nonpartisan primary at 25%. No worries, as he'll be replaced by someone just as, if not more so, liberal, although someone who's never held elective office before: the top 2 are local Sierra Club president Mike McGinn (at 28%) and T-Mobile VP and big-time Obama bundler Joe Mallahan (at 27%).
Meanwhile, the King Co. Executive race is down to two. It's the first time it's been an officially nonpartisan position (after a GOP-led initiative to change it to nonpartisan passed, as this is the only way a Republican will ever get elected), but everyone still knows that former news anchor Susan Hutchison (who got 37%) is the Republican and county councilor Dow Constantine (who got 22%) is the Democrat. That looks daunting at first, but there were no other major Republicans and three other top-tier Dems in the race (county councilor Larry Phillips, state Sen. Fred Jarrett, and state Rep. Ross Hunter). The four Dems put together got 56%, so, no, King County isn't going to elect a Republican in November.
• Polltopia: Where should PPP poll next: New Jersey or Virginia? You decide. (Tom Jensen says they'd planned to do New Jersey but skipped it to do Arkansas this week, where he hints at some blood-curdling numbers.)
• CA-Sen: Sorry none of us could be bothered to talk about this poll on Friday: Rasmussen polled the California Senate race again and found former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina gaining some ground on Sen. Barbara Boxer. Boxer leads 45-41 (it was 47-38 in March). Interestingly, though, Fiorina, who quite publicly drove HP into a ditch, already has negative favorable ratings (30/35, with 35% unsure), which has to be a bad sign for any challenger. Boxer is still in positive territory (50/47), so I have no idea to square those results with the head-to-head.
• IL-Sen: State treasurer Alexi Giannoulias had his official campaign launch this weekend, where he name-dropped Barack Obama at every opportunity.
• NY-Sen-B: Is this a sign that Rep. Carolyn Maloney may be backing away from the Senate race, or is she just sidetracked by the chaos in the House? She had been scheduled to announce her primary campaign against Kirsten Gillibrand today or tomorrow, but now Maloney tells the New York Post that the timetable is no longer in effect, and didn't say anything about a new timetable, other than to say that "This week we are confronting health care."
• AK-Gov: If the world seems a slightly lighter place today, it's because it's our first Sarah Palin-free day in a while; she turned the keys to the state over to Sean Parnell yesterday. I guess now I and other members of the media can, in honor of the American soldier, quit makin' stuff up about her.
• MA-Gov: The Boston Globe polled Deval Patrick's prospects and found he's still in trouble. (The poll was conducted on the Globe's behalf by often-clueless UNH, so take with the requisite spoonful of salt.) His job approvals are 35/56, and he narrowly loses head-to-heads with both prospective GOPers, 41-35 to Charlie Baker and 41-40 to Christy Mihos. If Dem-turned-Independent treasurer Tim Cahill gets in the race as planned, though, the Republicans fade into the background, as Cahill seems to vacuum up the anti-Patrick votes. Patrick and Cahill tie both matchups: 30-30-20 with Baker, and 31-31-18 with Mihos.
• NJ-Gov: Jon Corzine picked his Lt. Gov. running mate: state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, a 74-year-old granny from Bergen County noted for pushing for ethics reform. This comes instead of, as rumored, Apprentice winner Randal Pinkett. Those in the know seem to think that Corzine may have been motivated to pick her in order to emphasize ethics in the wake of the federal arrests of a swarm of lower elected officials, including some Corzine allies. The New York Times presents a dark picture of Corzine's campaign, framing the corruption sweep as one more blow that he can't handle, and actually starts speculating on what Dem might replace Corzine at the top of the ticket should be back out (it mentions Newark mayor Cory Booker and Rep. Frank Pallone). The NYT says Corzine still has no plans to bail, but state machine boss George Norcross is making no secret that he wants Corzine out of the race.
• VA-Gov: Barack Obama will be coming to Virginia to stump for Creigh Deeds, with both a public rally and private fundraiser on Aug. 6. This comes as GOP candidate Bob McDonnell has been seeking to increasingly go after Deeds on national issues, as at their first debate where McDonnell challenged Deeds on cap-and-trade and EFCA. Deeds may need some outside help, as he's had trouble nailing down some of the local big names, most prominently former Gov. Douglas Wilder.
• IL-10: State Rep. Julie Hamos says she'll officially announce tomorrow that she's running for the Democratic nod in the now-open 10th. She had been planning to run for AG until Lisa Madigan surprised everyone by deciding to run for another term. Instead, she joins a top-drawer field with state Sen. Michael Bond and 06/08 candidate Dan Seals already in.
• NY-23: We'll have to wait until tomorrow for Democrats in the 23rd District to have even a plan for picking a candidate, let alone have a candidate, as they seem to have not had much of a Plan B in the event that Darrel Aubertine didn't run. The Dems say they've received about 18 applications; Watertown Daily Times gotten confirmations from 06 nominee Michael Oot, 94 nominee Danny Francis, attorney Stuart Brody, attorney Keith Caughlin, and state assistant inspector general for Medicaid John Sullivan that they are among the 18. Meanwhile, Jim Kelly (no, not the quarterback) sounds like he's gearing up to run on the Conservative line.
• VA-05: Ex-Rep. Virgil Goode made it official that he won't be running against Tom Perriello to get his seat back. (Now maybe he can stop running around the district handing out oversize checks.) Speculation turns to GOP state Senator Rob Hurt and delegate Rob Bell, who don't have the name rec or fundraising power of Goode, but don't have the polarizing reputations either.
Cahill has made little secret of his ambitions for the governor's office but hasn't said whether he'll challenge Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, who plans to run for a second term.
Cahill is more conservative than Patrick and would have faced an uphill fight to win the Democratic Party nomination, given that the party's primary voters tend to be more liberal than the party, or the electorate, as a whole.
Cahill had previously acknowledged that he was considering the party switch, given the daunting task of trying to unseat an incumbent Democrat.
"It's just an option that I have to consider, given I have a governor of my own party who is, as of now, planning to run for re-election," Cahill said last month.
A Suffolk University poll actually showed Cahill beating Patrick in a primary, but apparently he doesn't have the stomach for that. Back in 2006, this race also saw an independent candidate, but the well-funded Christy Mihos (who is running as a Republican this time) pulled just 7%. Evidently Cahill thinks he can do much better.
The Swing State Project currently rates this race as Likely Dem, but that may change in a hurry (and also potentially mess up our lovely chart if Cahill gains traction).
Deval Patrick (D-inc): 41
Charlie Baker (R): 36
(MoE: ±4.5%)
Add Deval Patrick of Massachusetts to the list of northeastern Governors that nobody much likes. Patrick's job approvals are 42% approve (including 11% strongly approve) and 57% disapprove (including 32% strongly disapprove). He finds himself in a dead heat with businessman Christy Mihos (who garnered 7% of the vote in 2006 as an independent, but is running as a Republican this time) and barely leading Charlie Baker (whom I'll admit I've never heard of before today; he's the CEO of health care provider Harvard-Pilgrim, and is rumbling about the race while not having taken any steps yet). Mihos is well-known with 46/35 favorables, while Baker is only at 37/27 with 35% unknown.
Patrick represents a state that's heavily Democratic enough that his opposition may already be polling near their ceilings... but given the state's recent tolerance of moderate Republican governors (and its bamboozlement by Mitt Romney), he can't even begin to count on the state's lean to pull it out for him. One other item that gives me some confidence about this race, though, is that Patrick has hired David Plouffe to run his re-election campaign, while Christy Mihos has hired... Dick Morris.
Deval Patrick (D-inc): 30
Tim Cahill (D): 35
(MoE: 4.9%)
It's become pretty clear in the last few months that the nation's governors have become the least popular people in the country, as they bear the brunt of decreased revenues and become the public face of tough service cuts/tax hikes choices. Add Deval Patrick to near the top of the list of unpopular governors. Suffolk takes the temperature of Massachusetts, and people there are even surlier than usual: Patrick's job approval rating is 40-49, and on the question of whether he deserves re-election, the response is 34-47. (On the broader question of favorability, people still like Patrick as a person; his favorables are 44-43.)
Buried deep in the poll is also the interesting bit that I've blockquoted above: Patrick is so unpopular that he loses a hypothetical primary to treasurer Tim Cahill (who has previously expressed some interest, but is reportedly not running). Nevertheless, things aren't so bad that Bay Staters are willing to consider a Republican for governor (they say 'no thanks' 52 to 34; the poll doesn't name a specific GOPer). So if there's going to be any action in this seat in 2010, it's going to be in the primary.
There are some other provocative odds and ends in the poll's fine print; people are both strongly supportive of both keeping gay marriage and legalizing casino gambling. Also, when presented with a list of more than a dozen possible names for the rather morbid topic of succeeding Ted Kennedy, nobody even clears 10%. The top vote-getter is his nephew, ex-Rep. Joe Kennedy (at 8%). AG (and Aqua Teen Hunger Force arch-enemy) Martha Coakley is second, at 6%.
