• DE-Sen: Rep. Mike Castle yesterday told a radio interviewer that he'd decide "in the next month or so" what, if anything, he's going to run for. One possible hint, though, is that he said that there are some "good young elected officials in the state who possibly could run on a statewide basis and should be looked at," and he specifically named some state legislators like state sen. Charlie Copeland and state Reps. Tom Kovach and Greg Lavelle.
• FL-Sen: Here's another sign of trouble looming in the GOP primary for Charlie Crist, at least within the activist base, hot on the heels of his big loss in the Pasco County straw poll. The Volusia County GOP actually voted to censure him, over a list of grievances including his moderate judicial appointments, support of the Obama stimulus, and lack of support for Tom Feeney and Ric Keller last year. (Volusia Co.'s main city is Daytona Beach and population is over 400,000, so this isn't one of those little Dixiecrat panhandle counties, either.)
• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk downplayed the story of his Tweeting while on active military duty (as a Naval Reservist) at a news conference yesterday, but apologized for having done so.
• NH-Sen: Skepticism behind-the-scenes seems to be growing in New Hampshire, especially among conservative activists, about the ordination of Kelly Ayotte as Senate candidate, handed down from on high from the Beltway. Various on- and off-the-record insiders are unsure of her political leanings, 'meh' about her speaking style, and worried that she's never had to raise funds before. A lot of this agitation has been coming from the state's largest paper, the Manchester Union-Leader, which has a notably hard-right editorial page and has been fannish of likely primary opponent Ovide Lamontagne in the past.
• MN-Gov: This seemed to slip through the cracks last week, but Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak is sounding more like a candidate now. While giving a stump-ish speech to local Democrats, Rybak said that he's "very likely" to enter the open seat gubernatorial race.
• NJ-Gov (pdf): In another indication that things are getting worse, not better, for Jon Corzine, the new poll from Monmouth shows him trailing Chris Christie by 14 points among likely voters, 50-36, with 4% to independent Chris Daggett. This is particularly troublesome because Monmouth has been the pollster most favorable to Corzine; he trailed by only 8 in the July poll. Interestingly, though, Corzine trails by only 4 (43-39) among registered voters, a narrower gap than in July -- suggesting that his only hope is getting a lot of unlikely voters to turn out. Democrats countered with their own internal poll (pdf) today, showing Corzine down by "only" 7, 42-35-6.
• TX-Gov: You may recall that the Kay Bailey Hutchison campaign decided to pull the hidden phrase "rick perry gay" from its website's code, but left a bunch of other hidden phrases (in the code, not meta-tags). That's a big-time search-engine optimization party foul, though, and it led to Google and Yahoo pulling the website from their search indexes this weekend.
• CA-10: State Senator Mark DeSaulnier may have lost one of his most potent weapons: the State Department asked him to stop using the endorsement of his predecessor (and current Undersecretary of State for arms control) Ellen Tauscher. It's not illegal, but they want to avoid any ethical impropriety. The primary special election is Sept. 1.
• FL-24: Rep. Suzanne Kosmas may find herself up against a celebrity candidate next year: former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz, who now lives in the Orlando area. Holtz has been in contact with the NRCC about the race, and certainly brings name recognition, but comes with a couple drawbacks: one, he's 72 years old, ancient for a House freshman, and two, he raised some eyebrows last year after having to apologize for calling Hitler a great leader.
• LA-02: Kudos to Rep. Joseph Cao for having the courage to say out loud what we're all thinking: "I know that voting against the health care bill will probably be the death of my political career." Strange to give that sort of ammunition to potential opponents when it's clear from his fundraising that he's intending to run again.
• LA-03: Scott Angelle, natural resources secretary under both Kathleen Blanco and Bobby Jindal and former Democratic St. Martin parish president, is maintaining his interest in the possibly-vacant LA-03 seat. However, rumor has it that he may run for the seat as a Republican, and he did go on the record saying he'd "consider" swapping party labels (which are especially porous in Louisiana). State Rep. Nickie Monica says he's in the race (as a Republican) regardless of whether or not Charlie Melancon pulls the trigger on a Senate run. One other Democrat not mentioned before who's considering the race is 27-year-old New Orleans corporate lawyer Ravi Sangisetty, who grew up in Houma.
• MD-01: State Sen. Andy Harris is taking steps to solve one of the two problems that hampered him in last year's election against Rep. Frank Kratovil: he's coming to the Eastern Shore. He isn't moving, but he will be working part-time (he's a mild-mannered anesthesiologist by day) at the hospital in Salisbury, in order to bolster his Eastern Shore cred. It'll be a little harder to paper over his other problem, which is that he's a Club for Growth wacko. Harris was just named one of the NRCC's Young Guns, despite the fact that he might still face a primary against less conservative and Eastern Shore-based state Sen. E.J. Pipkin, who seems like he'd pick up most of the votes that went for Wayne Gilchrest in the 2008 primary (although Pipkin may be looking at running for state Comptroller instead).
• NY-23: Despite interest from some colorful-sounding "activists," it looks like the Conservative Party line in the upcoming special election is likely to go to a more establishment figure, accountant Doug Hoffman, who you may recall was one of the Republican wannabes not selected by the party apparatus. Hoffman attacked the hypothetical Democratic nominee and GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava as "Mr. Bad or Mrs. Worse."
• MO-03: Rep. Russ Carnahan doesn't usually draw more than a passing glance from the GOP in his D+7 district, but it looks like he'll have a somewhat credible opponent in 2010. Ed Martin opened an exploratory committee for the race; he hasn't been elected before, but has consummate insider credentials as Gov. Matt Blunt's chief of staff for four years.
• RI-02: In an almost-one-party state like Rhode Island, primary challenges are a routine part of life. Rep. Jim Langevin fought off a primary challenge from professor Jennifer Lawless in 2006; in 2010, he'll likely face state Rep. Elizabeth Dennigan (who had been planning to run for Lt. Governor, but had to drop that plan when incumbent Elizabeth Roberts decided to run for re-election instead of Governor). Although abortion was the flashpoint in 2006 (Langevin is pro-life), Dennigan says she won't make much of an issue of it.
• TX-23: Pete Sessions is probably pounding his head on his desk right now. After getting self-funder Quico Canseco to come back for a clear shot at Rep. Ciro Rodriguez in the 23rd, Bexar Co. Commissioner Lyle Larson, who upset Canseco in the GOP primary in 2008, is saying he's thinking of coming back for another try -- potentially setting up another self-destructive primary.
• WI-03: Rep. Ron Kind is facing a real opponent for the first time in a while. State Sen. Dan Kapanke, who's been acting candidate-ish for a long time, made it official yesterday that he'll challenge the 14-year incumbent in 2010.
• OH-SoS: With Jennifer Brunner giving up her job to run in the Senate primary, the Secretary of State open seat race is turning into one of Ohio's hottest tickets. While Democratic Franklin Co. Commissioner Marilyn Brown is in the race, she is trailing GOP state Sen. Jon Husted (who has $1.3 million) by about a 10-to-1 ratio for cash-on-hand. Now a second Democrat, state Rep. Jennifer Garrison from Marietta in the state's southeast, is getting into the race. It's a key race, as the SoS is one of the votes on the 5-member state legislative apportionment board, which Dems currently control 3-2, and which they'll need to hold if they're going to undo Republican-favorable gerrymanders in the state legislature.
• NC-Sen: Republican pollster Civitas poked at the Senate race, not doing head-to-heads but looking at favorables for Richard Burr and two of his likeliest challengers, SoS Elaine Marshall and Rep. Mike McIntyre. Marshall and McIntyre are little-known, with 12/7 favorables for Marshall and 13/10 and McIntyre (although he was at 38/12 in his district). The bad news for Burr? He's barely doing better than them, with 31/19 favorables (meaning 50% don't know him or have no opinion).
• NY-Sen-B: Marist dribbles out the Senate half of its newest New York poll today (Gov was yesterday), and it finds a super-tight race in the Dem primary in wake of yesterday's sorta-kinda entry by Carolyn Maloney: Maloney leads Kirsten Gillibrand, 38-37 (compared with a 36-31 Gillibrand lead in May). Gillibrand wins against both George Pataki (46-42, up from a 46-38 deficit last time) and Peter King (48-32). Marist doesn't do general election head-to-heads with Maloney, although for some reason they poll a GOP primary between Pataki and King (51-36 for Pataki) despite the decreasing likelihood that either of them run.
Also of interest: Bill Clinton will be appearing at a Maloney fundraiser scheduled for July 20. Clinton isn't wading into the race with an endorsement at this point, though; this was in the works long before Maloney announced her run, as payback for Maloney's 2008 primary support for Hillary Clinton, and he also headlined a Gillibrand fundraiser in March.
• PA-Sen: Pat Toomey got another endorsement from one of the more conservative members of Pennsylvania's House GOP delegation: PA-09's Bill Shuster.
• AL-Gov: The Democratic field in the governor's race in Alabama seems to be solidifying; the last question mark, Supreme Court Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb, announced that she won't be running. With a lot of establishment figures waiting on the fence to see if an alternative to Rep. Artur Davis and Ag Comm. Ron Sparks shows up, expect them to start choosing sides soon. Davis, meanwhile, has been staffing up with some key political players, adding Joey Ceci and David Mowery to his team (who managed the successful campaigns of freshman Reps. Parker Griffith and Bobby Bright).
• CA-Gov: Sure, California's an expensive state, but Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman have reported gigantic hauls even by the Golden State's outsized standards. Brown raised $7.3 million in the year's first half, while Whitman raised $6.5 million. Steve Poizner and Gavin Newsom raised huge sums and are still far behind -- Poizner raised $1.3 million and loaned himself another $4 million, while Newsom raised $1.6 million, much of it online.
• MN-Gov: The tradmed seems to be intent today on talking up Norm Coleman's next logical step as being running for Governor of Minnesota, although Minnesota reporters and politicians in the know are trying to point out the sheer ridiculousness of that idea. (If Norm's going to be doing any running soon, it's running away from the FBI, as they investigate his links to Nasser Kazeminy.)
• RI-Gov: The Democratic primary for the open Rhode Island Governor's seat was looking to be a three-way slugfest, but Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts yesterday announced that she would run for re-election instead of for Gov. Although she had started staffing up for the race, she couldn't have been encouraged by poll numbers which showed her at a disadvantage with likely opponents Treasurer Frank Caprio and AG Patrick Lynch.
• SC-Gov: Gov. Mark Sanford seems to have taken a few steps backwards this week. A snap poll from yesterday by SUSA now finds 69% of South Carolinians saying resign, as opposed to 28% saying stay. 63% say they have "no trust" in Sanford. Here's an interesting red flag: only 20% say Lt. Gov/party boy Andre Bauer is "completely prepared" to become Governor, with 38% saying "somewhat prepared" and 34% saying "not prepared."
• WI-Gov: Real estate developer and ex-Rep. Mark Neumann, who held WI-01 from 1994 to 1998 before losing narrowly to Russ Feingold, announced his gubernatorial candidacy yesterday. Neumann's entry had been widely anticipated; he'll face off against Milwaukee Co. Executive Scott Walker in the GOP primary.
• CA-45: With Rep. Mary Bono Mack having defected on the cap-and-trade vote, the rightosphere has been calling for her head. Their favored replacement, term-limited state Senator Dennis Hollingsworth, quickly said "no" to a primary challenge, so their wish-list has turned to ex-state Sens. Jim Battin and Ray Haynes and ex-state Rep. Bonnie Garcia.
• IL-14: A second GOP challenger got into the race against Rep. Bill Foster, although this guy doesn't sound like he'll pose much of a threat to Ethan Hastert for the nom. Jeff Danklefsen hasn't run for office before and is "maintenance manager for a property management company."
• LA-03: The Hill reported last week that Democratic efforts to find a replacement to Rep. Charlie Melancon have focused on state Rep. Gary Smith, who was going to run for the open seat in 2004 but deferred to Melancon. State Rep. Fred Mills was also interested, but state Rep. Damon Baldone, who might be the highest-profile candidate, is about to run in a special election for a state Senate seat and is unlikely to follow that with a U.S. House run.
• PA-06: With the 2nd quarter just wrapped up, look for lots of financial reports to start getting leaked. Here's a nice place to start: Doug Pike, in the 6th, is looking at a haul of over $500K for the quarter, thanks a recent D.C. fundraiser starring Allyson Schwartz and Patrick Murphy.
• WI-08: We're building up a backlog of Republicans trying to take on Rep. Steve Kagen. Businessman Reid Ribble jumped into the field, joining Door Co. Supervisor Marc Savard and Brown Co. Supervisor Andy Williams.
• WV-02: With some prodding from the DCCC, Gov. Joe Manchin's former general counsel, Carte Goodwin, is looking into challenging Rep. Shelly Capito Moore in the Charleston-based 2nd.
• MO-Sen: Rep. Roy Blunt got some unwelcome news yesterday: he and his wife owe $6,820 in back taxes on their three-bedroom home in Georgetown, Washington D.C. assessed at $1.62 million. (The problem seems to be an improperly declared homestead exemption.) True to Republican form, the Blunt camp is blaming the government (more specifically, the D.C. government, for bungling the update of their homestead status).
• NV-Sen: The Nevada GOP may be closer to landing a credible candidate to go against Harry Reid. State Senator Mark Amodei of Carson City (who's term-limited out in 2010) was unusually vocal on the senate floor in the session's closing weeks. When pressed in a recent interview, he said that if Rep. Dean Heller didn't run against Reid (which seems unlikely; Heller, if he moves up, is usually mentioned as a primary challenger to toxic Gov. Jim Gibbons), then he'd "consider" running.
• NY-Sen-B: Rep. Carolyn McCarthy endorsed Mayor-for-Life Michael Bloomberg for another term at the helm of New York City. As Daily Kos's Steve wisely points out, this may be an indicator she's not looking to run in the Dem primary; if she's going to do so, she'd have to run to Kirsten Gillibrand's left, but that would be a difficult case to make having just endorsed a Republican-turned-Independent for one of the state's biggest jobs.
• AL-Gov: State Treasurer Kay Ivey announced that she's joining the crowded field of GOP candidates for Governor (including college chancellor Bradley Byrne, who also announced this week, as the moderate option, and ex-judge Roy Moore as the nuclear option). Ivey, however, may suffer a bit from her role in the state's messed-up prepaid college tuition plan.
• IA-Gov: State Rep. Chris Rants has been traveling the state gauging support for a run at the GOP gubernatorial nomination. Rants, from Sioux City in the state's conservative west, served as majority leader and then speaker, but was replaced in leadership after the GOP lost the majority in 2006. Fellow Sioux City resident Bob Vander Plaats (the 2006 Lt. Gov. nominee) is expected to announce his candidacy soon as well.
• MN-Gov: Tim Pawlenty has deferred his decision on whether or not to run for re-election to a third term until later this summer. The decision may turn on who's more pissed at him after he decides whether or not to certify Al Franken -- the nationwide GOP base, or Minnesotans.
• OR-Gov: Former Gov. John Kitzhaber seems to be moving closer to a return to Salem, meeting with some of the state's insiders about steps toward a comeback. Ex-SoS Bill Bradbury, who's already in the running (and won't stand down if Kitzhaber gets in), confirms that Kitzhaber is "looking very seriously" at the race. Kitzhaber seems to be looking forward to a "do-over" now that there's a firmly Democratic legislature; he spent most of his two terms in the 90s playing defense against a GOP-held legislature.
• RI-Gov: Two of Rhode Island's key Democrats are taking steps to run for the open Governor's seat: AG Patrick Lynch and Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts. Roberts is staffing up with top-tier campaign staff, while Lynch said that he has "every intention" of running for Governor during a radio interview. (Treasurer Frank Caprio is also mentioned as a likely candidate and is sitting on the most cash, but hasn't done anything visible yet.) A Brown Univ. poll just released tested their approvals; Lynch was at 47/39 and Caprio at 41/24, while Roberts was in worse shape at 22/36. (A poll from March is the only test of the Dem primary so far, with Caprio leading with 30%, compared with 17 for Lynch, 12 for Roberts, and 13 for Providence mayor David Cicilline, who won't be running.)
• FL-02: State Senate Minority Leader Al Lawson has been attempting to primary Rep. Allen Boyd from the left, but party power brokers are encouraging him to switch over to the race for state CFO, being vacated by Alex Sink. With Senate President Jeff Atwater already running for CFO for the GOP, this would pit the parties' two Senate leaders against each other.
• IN-05: In this R+17 district, the primary's where it's at, and there's a whole herd of Republicans chasing Rep. Dan Burton, perceived more as vulnerable more for his age and indifference than any ideological reason. State Rep. Mike Murphy just got into the race. He joins former state Rep. and former state party chair Luke Messer, John McGoff (who narrowly lost the 2006 primary against Burton), and Brose McVey (who ran against Julia Carson in IN-07 in 2002).
• NM-01: It's looking there'll be a contested GOP primary to see who gets flattened by freshman Rep. Martin Heinrich in this now D+5 district. Former state party vice-chair and former Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce president Jon Barela is about to form an exploratory committee. (Given this district's 45% Latino population, Barela may be a stronger candidate for the general than funeral home director Kevin Daniels.)
• PA-06: Here's a good tea leaf that Rep. Jim Gerlach is making behind-the-scenes notifications that he's indeed bailing on his rapidly-bluening district. State Rep. Curt Schroder from rural Chester County (not to be confused with Oregon's Kurt Schrader), always considered to be the next GOPer to have dibs on this seat, has organized a campaign committee. Dems have journalist Doug Pike running in this race, but someone with more firepower may jump in once Gerlach makes it official.
• PA-07: For a few hours there last night, it looked like we were facing real problems in PA-07, a D+3 seat with a good Republican bench that will open up if Rep. Joe Sestak follows through on his threatened primary challenge to Arlen Specter. Former E.D. Pa. US Attorney (and before that, Delaware County DA) Pat Meehan was reported to be mulling a switch from the Governor's race, where he's probably lagging AG Tom Corbett in the primary (no polls have been taken, so who knows?), over to PA-07, giving the GOP a top-tier recruit. However, Meehan acted quickly to tamp that down and reaffirm he's running for Gov. TPM points to another potential GOPer, Steven Welch, founder of local pharma company Mitos Technologies; on the Dem side, as most everyone here knows, state Rep. Bryan Lentz is heir apparent.
There's been a surprising amount of activity in the Rhode Island governor's race in the last couple weeks, as two likely candidates pulled out of contention. On the Dem side, Providence mayor David Cicilline (who, if he won, would be the nation's first governor to be openly GLBT when elected) announced he would run for another mayoral term instead. State treasurer Frank Caprio seems to have the inside track toward the nomination, at least in terms of fundraising, although Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts and AG Patrick Lynch are also looking at the race.
On the GOP side, former Cranston mayor (and near winner of the last GOP senate primary) Steve Laffey also declined. He may have sensed that his staunch conservative profile (remember that he was the Club for Growth's pony in the 2006 election) wouldn't play well in the general election. St. Rep. Joe Trillo may be the GOP's last best shot, inasmuch as he's the only Republican left who seems interested.
One other wild card, though, is that ex-senator Lincoln Chafee is "very, very seriously" considering a gubernatorial bid as an independent. This is a difficult scenario to wargame, since Chafee has the Republican pedigree but would assumedly be running a left-of-center campaign (for all I know, possibly to the left of the Democrat). However, if Chafee is matched against an mediocre Dem and a little-known GOPer, Chafee may very well have a shot at pulling it off, in something like a 35-40-25 split. A Chafee win wouldn't be the worst thing in the world (he'd probably be to the left of a number of Democratic governors in other states), but right now it looks like the only scenario where the Dems wouldn't pick up this seat.
