SSP Daily Digest: 4/12 (Morning Edition)

  • DE-Sen: Mike Castle says he raised $826K in Q1 and has $2.3 mil cash-on-hand. Dem Chris Coons did quite well, too, raising $635K in just six weeks, including contributions from over half the Dems in the Senate.
  • FL-Sen: For almost any other candidate in almost any other race, a $1.1 million quarter would be a sweet haul – but not for Charlie Crist, who got smoked by Marco Rubio’s $3.6 million take. Crist’s fundraising has dropped every quarter he’s been running, from $4.4 to $2.5 to $2.1 and now to this. Crist still has an impressive $7.5 million on hand, though, while Rubio hasn’t announced his cash figures.
  • IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth says he raised $625K in the six weeks he’s been running for the Senate and, thanks to money he already had in his House account, now has over a million on hand.
  • AZ-08: Dem Rep. Gabby Giffords says she raised about $500K in Q1 – but so has GOP opponent Jonathan Paton, a former state senator. Giffords has about $2 mil in the bank.
  • HI-01: A poll for the DCCC supposedly shows a tie between Ed Case and Charles Djou at 32, with Colleen Hanabusa at 27. There are no other details to go on (such as who the pollster was & when the survey was in the field), but this alone doesn’t seem to support the “she’s so toxic, the D-Trip has no choice but to back Case” theory.
  • IN-06: Dem Barry Welsh, a figure known to many in the netroots, says he’s going to challenge Mike Pence a third time. Welsh, in a bout of dour realism about this R+10 district, states: “I don’t have any delusions of winning.”
  • LA-02: Looks like Joe Cao put in an appearance at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference this past weekend. Admittedly, it took place in his home district, but still, attending a wingnut festival where you have the likes of Haley Barbour defending Bob McDonnell’s love of the Confederacy doesn’t seem like a wise political move. Fortunately, the wingers hate Cao, too – click the link to see more.
  • MD-01: Jack Wilson, “a semi-retired owner of an electrical contracting business, Navy veteran and former union steam fitter” – and teabagger – will run as an independent.
  • MI-01: A few names are surfacing on the Dem side to replace retiring Rep. Bart Stupak: State Reps. Mike Lahti and Gary McDowell, and state Sen. Mike Prusi. On the GOP side, state House Min. Leader Kevin Elsenheimer said he’s taking a “serious look” at the race and will make a decision soon.
  • PA-07: After a setback in court, Bryan Lentz has withdrawn his challenge to Pat Meehan’s ballot petitions. However, the state Attorney General’s office is still investigating what look like serious irregularities in the filings.
  • PA-12: There’s a third guy on the ballot in the PA-12 special election: Libertarian Demo Agoris. He’s practically the dictionary definition of a perennial candidate, running five times for the same state House seat, with a different political party each time, including once as a member of the Green Party. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like he has “Whig” under his belt – yet.
  • VA-02: Another one (see MD-01 item): Kenny Golden, a former chair of the Virginia Beach GOP, says he’s dropping out of the Republican primary to instead run as an independent.
  • Minnesota: The aptly-named MinnesotaMike fills us in on what went down at five different CD-level conventions in his state this weekend. Two Dem and three GOP House nominees were chosen.
  • Census: Another reason to hate on hipsters: The lowest census form return rate in NYC so far is in Williamsburg, Brooklyn – aka hipster central, whose denizens apparently can’t take time out from cooing over their fixies to fill out a simple piece of paperwork.
  • Polltopia: The boys over at Public Policy Polling want your suggestions on where to poll next. Tell them!
  • Passings: Former GOP Rep. Bob Franks, who lost the 2000 senate race to Jon Corzine and was touted for a possible return to his old seat in the 7th CD as recently as 2008, passed away last week at the age of 58.

    • 35 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 4/12 (Morning Edition)”

    1. First you piss off the Republicans that propped you up in the media and donated to you by voting for HCR, then you piss off the Democrats you need to get re-elected by flip-flopping and voting against it. Now nobody likes you.

      Really, the smart bet for him would’ve been to cultivate a conservative voting record, then run for state office in 2011. Don’t even worry about trying to get re-elected to Congress.

    4. I hope Jack Wilson gains some traction so Kratovil can win reelection, and then we can make his district more Democratically friendly.  Splitting the Republican vote might help us in districts such as MD-01.

    5. Franks is the opposite of me politically, but when we had run-ins on the Hill he was polite, respectful, and just an all around decent guy.  He was pretty young too; I’m sorry to see him pass.

      Much love to his family and friends.

    7. “James Surowiecki notes that there is “a strong correlation between voting in Presidential elections and income growth during election years.” In fact, income growth in “the second and third quarters of the election year seem to matter most. Since the second quarter started just last week, there’s time for moods to brighten substantially by Election Day.”

      http://www.newyorker.com/talk/…

      I have to say this fits pretty closely to what I’ve been saying for months. If it comes to pass then November will be bad but very much “less bad” than folks are currently projecting.

    8. Someone should write a book about perennial candidates. I bet there would be some classically American characters like Demo in PA-12.

    9. I get 37% Djou, 30% Case, 28% Hanabusa, with 5% undecided as of May 2, which I believe is the day that mail-in voting begins (20 days prior to 5/22).

      That would be quite a frustrating result.

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