SSP Daily Digest: 4/6

Senate:

• CT-Sen: Connecticut’s open seat Senate race was always destined to be a high-dollar affair, and the money chase is well underway. Former SoS Susie Bysiewicz released a first quarter total of a respectable $500K, but Rep. Chris Murphy, her main rival in the Dem primary, just more than doubled up on that, with $1.1 million raised over the course of his first 10 weeks. (Of course, they’ve both picked their low hanging fruit on their first trip to the orchard, so the challenge will be to keep up that rate.)

• FL-Sen: PPP, who put out general election numbers on the Senate race last week, have the GOP primary numbers… and they find GOP voters saying “Uh, who?” (Y’know, like that guy who used to be the Senator… who somehow is known by only 26% of the sample?) Unfortunately, Connie Mack IV dropped out while the poll was in the field, so, better-known than the other options (perhaps courtesy of his dad, the former Sen. Connie Mack III, who the state’s older and more confused voters might think is back) he leads the way at 28, with the actual candidates, ex-Sen. George LeMieux and state Sen. majority leader Mike Haridopolos at 14 and 13, respectively. Additional likely candidate Adam Hasner is back at 5. Don’t look for any help on choosing from Marco Rubio: he’s just announced that he won’t endorse in the primary.

• HI-Sen: There still seem to be fans out there for losing ’06 IL-06 candidate and Obama admin member Tammy Duckworth, eager to get her into elected office somewhere someday, and the place du jour seems to be Hawaii, where a Draft Duckworth page has popped up for the open Senate seat.

• MA-Sen: Salem mayor Kim Driscoll has been the occasional subject of Senate speculation for the Dem primary, along with the mayor of pretty much every other mid-sized city in the state. Nevertheless, she pulled her name out of contention yesterday (all part of the Democratic master plan of not having a candidate to deceptively lull the GOP into complacency, I’m sure). Meanwhile, Republican incumbent Scott Brown (last seen praising the Paul Ryan Abolition of Medicare Plan, rolled out his first quarter fundraising numbers: he raised $1.7 million in Q1, leaving him with $8.1 million cash on hand. That’s, of course, huge, but the silver lining on that is that it doesn’t leave him on track to hit his previously-announced super-gigantic $25 mil fundraising goal for the cycle.

Gubernatorial:

• FL-Gov: With various newly-elected Republican governors in polling freefall, Rick Scott (who can’t even get along with his GOP legislature, let alone his constituents) really seems to be leading the way down. Quinnipiac finds his approvals deep in the hole, currently 35/48, down from 35/22 in February (meaning he picked up no new fans in that period, but managed to piss off an additional quarter of the state). Voters says by a 53-37 margin that his budget proposals are unfair to people like them. Voters are also opposed to the legislature’s proposal to stop collecting union dues from state workers’ paychecks.

• MO-Gov: After spending Monday dragging out his fight with those who buy ink by the barrel (aka the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who broke the story on his fancy-pants hotel habit), Missouri Lt. Gov. and Republican gubernatorial candidate Peter Kinder seemed to dial things down a notch yesterday: he says he’ll ‘voluntarily’ reimburse the state $30K for those expenditures, and while not exactly apologizing, says he seeks “to move this nimbus off the horizon.” Um, whatever that means.

House:

• AZ-06: After getting mentioned a lot when Jeff Flake announced his Senate run, opening up the Mesa-based 6th, state Senate president Russell Pearce is now sounding unlikely to run according to insiders. (Blowback over his links to the Fiesta Bowl controversy may be the last straw, though, rather than his status as xenophobia’s poster child.) A couple other GOP names have risen to the forefront: state House speaker Kirk Adams, who’s considering, and former state Sen. majority leader Chuck Gray, who is already in.

• CA-36: One more big union endorsement for Janice Hahn in the primary fight against Debra Bowen to succeed Jane Harman: this one comes from the SEIU.

• CT-05: The open seat vacated by Chris Murphy is likely to draw a crowd, and here’s a new Republican contender in this swingy, suburban district: Farmington town council chair and former FBI agent Mike Clark. Clark has a notable profile for helping to take down a fellow Republican while at the FBI: corrupt ex-Gov. John Rowland. He’ll face Justin Bernier in the GOP primary, who lost the primary in 2010.

• FL-20: In case Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s work load couldn’t get any heavier, she just got a new heap of responsibility dumped in her lap: she’ll become the new head of the DNC, to replace newly-minted Senate candidate Tim Kaine. She’ll, of course, keep her day job as Representative.

• MN-08: The Dem-leaning 8th is as good a place as any to pick up a seat in 2012, but there’s the wee problem of trying to find somebody to run there. The latest Dem possibility that drew everyone’s interest, Yvonne Prettner Solon, the former Duluth-area state Sen. and newly-elected Lt. Governor, won’t run here either.  

Other Races:

• NH-St. House: I realize that with 400 members you’re going to have a lot of bad apples, but still we’re up to 3 GOP frosh having resigned already from the New Hampshire state House. Hot on the heels of a 91-year-old member resigning after advocating (literally) sending ‘defectives’ to Siberia to starve, Gary Wheaton just resigned for driving with a suspended license after a previous DUI (and then publicly suspected the arresting officer for targeting him because of his vote against collective bargaining). And somewhat less dramatically, Robert Huxley eventually got around to resigning after not getting around to showing up for any votes so far in the session.

Remainders:

• EMILY’s List: EMILY’s List is out with its first five fundraising targets for the 2012 cycle. Some of them are to be expected, with high-profile GOP freshmen and already-announced female opponents: Allen West (who may face West Palm Beach mayor Lois Frankel in FL-22), Paul Gosar (who faces a rematch with ex-Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick in AZ-01), and Charlie Bass (rematched with Ann McLane Kuster in NH-02). They also targeted Joe Heck in NV-03 and Chip Cravaack in MN-08, who don’t have opponents yet but conceivably could match up with Dina Titus and Tarryl Clark, respectively.

• WATN?: Thirtysomething Carte Goodwin seemed to make a good impression during his half-a-year as a fill-in in the Senate (in between Robert Byrd and Joe Manchin), moving him to prime position on the Dems’ West Virginia bench, but he says he’s not running for anything else anytime soon. Or more accurately, he says the only the only thing he’s running for “is the county line.” (Uh, with the revenuers in pursuit?)

159 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 4/6”

  2. at least he resigned for being a no show, giving his former constituents a chance at real representation rather than being saddled with a nonvoting member until 2012.

  7. I really didn’t see that coming. A sitting U.S. Rep being appointed to fill in as DNC Chairwoman. I’d like to see Schultz run against Scott or whichever Republican ousts him in the the primary.

    Do Democrats have a strong get yet in CT-05? I think holding this district is a pretty sure deal, especially if a teabagger like Bernier with limited credentials gets the R nomination, which seems likely. Obama should get in the 55-56% range here, and Democrats need to start promoting a prominent local figure. In a competitive race the Dem should still get between 53-54% of the vote, and of course I actually figure on the legislature and Malloy administration doing some tweaking and making the new CT-05 a few points more Democratic by shifting more over towards Hartford and Larson, (I believe), who has the votes to share.

    CT-04, if I understand correctly, should remain largely unchanged, being located entirely in Fairfield. Which is only natural; the district is perhaps trending Democratic faster than any other in the state, and I don’t see Jim Himes going anywhere anytime soon, particularly after winning his freshman reelection campaign in the 2010 environment, and by a healthy 6 point margin.

    And Chris Murphy is likely even further ahead of Susan B. in terms of money in the bank, as didn’t he have like half a million or so dollars in his House Account that could be transferred over to a Senate race. If he and Heinrich were elected, they, along with Gillibrand, Bennett and Coons would provide the Senate with some definitely needed youth, though I think the Senate’s average age is down from the ridiculous 64-ish it was back at the start of 2008.

  10. Just a day after I said I hadn't heard anything new lately about everyone's favorite indicted Secretary of State, the news has come in that a court hearing has been held today in Marion County regarding a Democratic lawsuit that seeks to have Charlie White removed from office on the grounds that his voting registration issues made him invalid to run in the SoS election last year.

    The Democrats are arguing that state law requires a candidate for office to be not just registered to vote, but registered to vote legally (that is, with their true residency information), which of course is exactly what Charlie White is alleged to have not been. This seems to be only a preliminary step in moving their legal challenge forward. A ruling should come tomorrow.

  11. …the fact that they actually have to govern, and not campaign.

    At least, they’re not high enough in government where they can get away with political posturing all the time.

  12. Whether or not The Legislature agrees on a new map. If they do, it will be gerrymandered a couple points more GOP… But still a swing district that Heck could lose if he doesn’t campaign enough and/or if it’s a really pro-Dem year.

    But if they don’t, all bets are off! The courts will have no interest in protecting Heck, so NV-03 will likely be whittled down to The East Side and Henderson under that scenario, meaning the PVI will either stay the same or perhaps become a point or two more Democratic.

  14. see who’s this months bonus republican in their prez polls.  normally this wouldn’t really be an SSP thing, but Pand Raul winning and, well, I just like seeing the Raulbots lose.

    2. I’m sure Danny is chairing a discussion with Maizie, Collen, Brian, and Mufi — maybe even Donna and Tammy.

      (Inouye did mention Duckworth as one good potential candidate, among the others listed.)

      2. And I thought tonight’s was supposed to be new as well. But this rerun was one of my favorite ones, Cameron’s Native American impersonation just kills me.

  20. ::sigh::  First, just about everything they touch turns to shit.  Here.  Here.  And please someone give me some examples of them being influential in a race for a pro-choice woman.  And I don’t mean, they gave someone $500k and paid for ads, I mean it was early money is like yeast and this diva kicked everyone’s ass because of it.  I can think of Carol Shea-Porter, although I don’t know how exactly to look up expenditures so I’m not sure if they actually did.  But I’d bet money they did and that’ the only example I can think of.  (Boyda in KS-2, maybe, it’s Kansas so….)

    Second, the only reason they are getting involved in MN-8 is because their president was Franken’s campaign manager which means she probably really likes the idea of pro-choice Tarryl Clark running and winning MN-8.  Except, this district is very pro-life.  It’d be one thing to do this for the GE, but before she is even a candidate is only making it that more likely that a strong pro-life Iron Range candidate enters the race against her for the DFL ballot-line.  And seeing Oberstar go down because he got tied to HCR and him being viewed as caving on his pro-life values, I’m leery as Clark doesn’t need this focus on her before she’s even a candidate or living in the district.

    1. His district in any of the maps I drew is far more urban and far more Democratic. This district definitely shaves a few points off the D+8 PVI, just eyeballing it.

  23. mike oxley at uc berkeley.

    couple interesting things

    1) praised much of dodd-frank

    2) said gop prez field very weak, scary

    3) said charlie cook told him romney has no chance. literally zero.

  25. So many things that raced through my mind but I thought that I would share this with you guys….

    I was meeting some friends for drinks after work in the Capital Hill area and we went for food afterwards. We were at a normal burger joint and I’m getting a coke and low and behold who comes right next to me; John Ensign! No I wasn’t a jerk to him, I’ll leave that to teabaggers but he did stop and chat with me about non-political things (he runs a lot or at least chatted with me about that). My friends could care less about meeting a Senator (they didn’t even know who he was or his scandal) so I thought that I’d share here.

    I never tested my joke with him that if he stayed and ran for re-election and was primaried by Sharron Angle it would be your crazy aunt vs. the guy you don’t want near your aunt!

    1. The toplines aren’t out of whack with other polling.

      I think you can do party ID either way, and question wording has a lot to do with it.  They could easily ask are you a registered D/R/I, instead of “are you a” D/R/I or some other formulation.  If you ask specifically about registration, you certainly can get a perfectly valid party ID sample.

      And even otherwise, the toplines aren’t crazy.

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