Author: Crisitunity

SurveyUSA for KING-TV (6/25-28, likely voters, no trendlines):

Patty Murray (D-inc): 37

Dino Rossi (R): 33

Clint Didier (R): 5

Others: 6

Undecided: 19

(MoE: ±4.4%)

SurveyUSA is doing a couple things right with their newest poll of Washington: first, they’re looking at Washington’s “top two” primary, which is the first hurdle that Patty Murray and Dino Rossi have to clear. (Their only previous poll of this race was of the November general election; the only public poll of the race to have shown a Rossi lead, it was declared, pretty much by universal consensus, to be an outlier.)

In not much of a surprise, considering that Murray is the only legitimate Democrat while Rossi has to fight off a teabagger challenge from Clint Didier, Murray has a single-digit lead. Note that Rossi + Didier is about equal to Murray (although maybe not every Didier voter will shift to Rossi in November, as the state’s movement conservatives seem a lot more lukewarm about Rossi than they did two years ago, when he was the vehicle for their “we wuz robbed” indignation)… presaging a close general election race, though. (They also painstakingly list all 15 candidates, including perpetual perennial candidates like Mike the Mover and the mighty GoodSpaceGuy… who, despite his fondness for things technological, doesn’t seem to have his own website.)

The other thing that SurveyUSA is doing is adding cellphones to the mix here, despite the added expense of having to use a call center with live callers to reach cellphone users (owing to laws prohibiting auto-dialing cellphones). This is an issue I’ve groused about a lot, and it’s one where the distortion, I’ve always believed, is particularly pronounced in Washington (where the 18-34 year old set is particularly liberal, and also where they tend to be the tech-savvy early-adopters who would be the first to cast off the shackles of their landlines), so I want to offer SurveyUSA props for doing so.

Interestingly, though, the addition of cellphone users doesn’t seem to make much of a difference in the overall numbers. SurveyUSA offers a variety of different models with varying cellphone composition, and Murray always has a 4 or 5 point lead. With no cellphones in the mix, Murray’s up 39-34, and with cellphones comprising 30% of the mix, she leads 37-32. And most puzzlingly, 18-34 year olds are still the only age group in the crosstabs who favor Rossi (albeit narrowly, 33-28, while even those cynical members of Generation X opt for Murray, 40-26). So maybe, in the same way that they can’t be bothered to fill out their Census forms, Seattle’s urban hipsters still can’t be bothered to respond to phone calls from pollsters either.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: There’s no shortage of pollsters looking at California, and now Canadian firm Ipsos (on behalf of Reuters) piles on. They find, like most pollsters, single-digits leads for the Democrats in both major races: Jerry Brown leads Meg Whitman 45-39 in the gubernatorial racer, while Barbara Boxer leads Carly Fiorina 45-41. They also find the proposed ballot initiative legalizing marijuana failing but by a close margin, 48-50.

• CO-Sen: The endorsement that seemed to blow everyone away yesterday was Bill Clinton’s unexpected backing of Andrew Romanoff, who’s mounting a primary challenge to appointed incumbent Michael Bennet in the Senate primary. It may not be that surprising, though, given Clinton’s willingness to go to bat for lost causes who backed Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008, which Romanoff did. It sounds like Clinton’s intervention will be limited to fundraising e-mails, though, rather than stumping with Romanoff.

• FL-Sen: The criminal case against former state GOP party chair Jim Greer is interesting enough on its own. But it could get even more interesting if Charlie Crist gets called to testify as a witness, which could happen, as his name is on a list of potential witnesses that’s being circulated.

• IL-Sen: Mark Kirk, having offered some weak excuses (“I wasn’t thinking”) at his public appearance yesterday to apologize for his resume embellishments, tried to get back on the offensive against Alexi Giannoulias, rolling out two ads. That includes one that tries to get back to the whole “mob banker” meme. Giannoulias, however, isn’t letting the resume flummery issue die; he rolled out his own attack ad today keeping Kirk’s misrememberments front and center.

• KY-Sen: Charming: Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo, who narrowly lost the Democratic primary to AG Jack Conway, isn’t going to endorse anyone in the Senate race. Also, he said he isn’t planning to run for Governor next year. (Steve Beshear is running for re-election, but dropped Mongiardo from the ticket in favor of Louisville mayor Jerry Abramson, perhaps assuming that Mongo would already be Senator by 2011.)

• NC-Sen (pdf): SurveyUSA (6/23-24, likely voters):

Elaine Marshall (D): 40

Richard Burr (R-inc): 50

Mike Beitler (L): 6

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±4%)

We haven’t been intentionally ignoring this poll from last weekend, just kept dropping the ball on getting it onto the front page. At any rate, this is one of those weird instances where Rasmussen sees a better race for the Dems than does SurveyUSA, although that may have to do with Rasmussen’s odd tendency to see huge post-primary bounces.

• NV-Sen: Last night’s title heavyweight bout was between Sharron Angle and Jon Ralston on Ralston’s public affairs TV show. Angle tried to emphasize her softer side, walking back earlier vague threats about armed insurrection, but still voiced support for Social Security phaseout and, maybe even more fatal for Nevada, support for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site.

• WV-Sen: Don’t get too comfortable in assuming that the West Virginia election to replace Robert Byrd won’t be held until 2012. There are vague rumblings that, despite the SoS’s decision, there might be a legislative special session this year to move the election date to November 2010. Bear in mind, though, that Dems thoroughly control the legislature so they’d be doing it only if they thought there was an advantage to doing it now instead of ’12. As Aaron Blake points out, Joe Manchin is not only the heir apparent to the Senate seat but also the Governor, who has the power to move the special session agenda, so the whole thing is really up to him. (Manchin might figure his heavy popularity is more of an advantage in a shortened election season, instead of a multi-year ramp-up to 2012.) At any rate, Manchin seems content to take his time, wanting to wait until after Byrd’s funeral next week to make any moves.

• MN-Gov: Mark Dayton is flying in the face of conventional wisdom (conventional wisdom that ignores the success of recent pro-tax ballot measures in Oregon and freakin’ Arizona) by making tax increases for the wealthy a cornerstone of his gubernatorial campaign. Dayton also just landed endorsements from 2006 gubernatorial candidates Mike Hatch, and ex-Rep. Bill Luther.

• ID-01: Raul Labrador, the gift that just keeps on giving. Labrador, who just had to walk back criticisms of John Boehner, is now facing reports that he recently tore into John McCain at a pre-primary appearance and voiced his support for J.D. Hayworth. On a related note, the NRCC just promoted 16 more Young Guns to the top tier of their fundraising pyramid, but despite having won the primary here, Labrador‘s name is still nowhere to be seen on the list.

• KS-04: Here’s some trouble for Wink Hartman, the businessman competing with Mike Pompeo for the GOP nomination in this Todd Tiahrt-held open seat. Pompeo’s camp is making hay out of reports that Hartman, whom they’ve accused of carpetbagging in from Florida, is still taking a valuable homestead exemption on his expensive house in Florida, which would require that to be his primary residence.

• LA-02: State Rep. Cedric Richmond seems to have a big advantage in his quest to win the Democratic nomination in the 2nd; he’s released an internal poll taken by Zata|3 (which you might remember polling the Arkansas primaries on behalf of Arkansas Business Journal), giving him a 53-13 lead over fellow state Rep. Juan LaFonta. No general election numbers for the battle against Republican Rep. Joe Cao were released.

• VA-05: Rep. Tom Perriello is out with what might get my vote for the best candidate TV ad of the cycle so far. (Well, the best ad not featuring Dale Peterson, I suppose.) It’s attention-grabbing and light-hearted enough to break through the clutter, while still staying on-message on the issue of jobs.

• WA-02: Talk about an utter polling fail. John Koster, the Republican challenger to Rep. Rick Larsen, is touting a poll with a lead over Larsen but isn’t giving the name of the pollster or even the specific numbers (saying he’s “in the neighborhood of 53 to 47 percent” – wow… no undecideds?). Larsen’s camp is saying the poll is crap, and they have a little more than the usual platitudes to back that up: Larsen was actually one of the persons polled, and he helpfully jotted down all 12 questions the poll asked. One of them identified Larsen as… a Republican.

• DCCC: Here’s some good news; now that they’re down to the final day of the quarter, the DCCC is actively twisting some arms to get recalcitrant House Dems to cough up their DCCC dues. So far, through the end of last month, House Dems have given $19.5 million over the cycle to the DCCC… but deadbeats still abound.

PPP (pdf) (6/26-27, Ohio voters, 3/20-21 in parens):

Lee Fisher (D): 40 (36)

Rob Portman (R): 38 (41)

Undecided: 22 (23)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Quinnipiac (6/22-27, Ohio voters, 4/21-26 in parens):

Lee Fisher (D): 42 (40)

Rob Portman (R): 40 (37)

Undecided: 17 (21)

(MoE: ±3%)

Well, the two nationwide pollsters left that I trust anymore are both out with new polls in the Buckeye State. In the Senate race, both PPP and Quinnipiac find a two-point lead for Democratic Lt. Governor Lee Fisher over Republican ex-Rep. Rob Portman, which is consistent for Quinnipiac but a significant reversal for PPP, who had Portman leading three months ago.

Barack Obama approval isn’t very high in either poll (45/49 in Quinnipiac, 42/54 in PPP), but PPP’s Tom Jensen thinks that anger towards Washington, in a counterintuitive way, may help Fisher: Portman is a creature of the Beltway, while Fisher is a long-time fixture in Columbus. GOPers might argue that Portman’s problem is low name recognition, which he can fix with his large financial advantage, but his “not sures” aren’t that much bigger than Fisher’s: according to PPP, Fisher’s faves are 28/27 while Portman’s are 22/25.

PPP (pdf) (6/26-27, Ohio voters, 3/20-21 in parens):

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 41 (37)

John Kasich (R): 43 (42)

Undecided: 16 (21)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Quinnipiac (6/22-27, Ohio voters, 4/21-26 in parens):

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 43 (44)

John Kasich (R): 38 (38)

Undecided: 15 (17)

(MoE: ±3%)

We don’t get agreement from PPP and Quinnipiac on the governor’s race. PPP gives a tiny lead to Republican ex-Rep. John Kasich while Quinnipiac gives a slightly bigger lead to Democratic incumbent Ted Strickland. Interestingly, that’s consistent too; PPP has repeatedly taken a dimmer view of Strickland’s chances than Quinnipiac.

The difference seems to be that PPP finds Strickland (37/48 approval) much more unpopular than Kasich (28/30 faves), while Quinnipiac finds both of them in positive territory (44/42 approval for Strickland, 28/19 faves for Kasich). My only hunch is that the differential may have to do with PPP’s current use of a very loose LV screen, while Quinnipiac has been polling RVs (although note that Qpac now is saying it’s polling “Ohio voters,” so I’m left wondering if they too are moving toward a hybrid LV model like PPP).

This is, needless to say, some pretty big news on the polling front. You probably recall that several weeks ago (after the Arkansas runoff, but apparently motivated primarily by 538’s pollster rankings) Daily Kos severed its relationship with its pollster, Research 2000. Today, based on a study by three prominent statistics experts, Daily Kos is alleging that something is seriously amiss with Research 2000’s polling, suggesting that the conclusions do not seem to reflect truly random polling. While the discrepancies seem most obvious in the weekly tracking polling and not state-to-state polling, Daily Kos has disavowed all numbers produced for it by Research 2000.

While the investigation didn’t look at all of Research 2000 polling conducted for us, fact is I no longer have any confidence in any of it, and neither should anyone else. I ask that all poll tracking sites remove any Research 2000 polls commissioned by us from their databases. I hereby renounce any post we’ve written based exclusively on Research 2000 polling.

The gist of it is (as you might expect) best explained by Nate Silver, by excerpting the key graphics from the prepared report. The graphics show how R2K’s weekly favorable numbers for Obama always seemed to move from week to week, usually by a small amount… which isn’t indicative of a normal distribution. By contrast, Gallup’s numbers form a very normal-looking bell curve, with a change of 0 being the modal amount of week-to-week change. The researchers who performed the poll also found discrepancies in rates of appearances of odd and even numbers (shades of Nate’s takedown of Strategic Vision there).

Greg Sargent has details on the lawsuit that will be filed in short order by Daily Kos against Research 2000. For his part, Research 2000 head Del Ali tells TPM that he stands “unequivocally” behind every poll he produced, and is denying the allegations.

Needless to say, we at SSP have very much relied on the supposed quality of Research 2000’s data, and will be watching further developments in this matter with great interest.

• FL-Sen: As much as Charlie Crist seems to have benefited from his switch to an independent bid, he still has to deal with blowback from a lot of ticked-off Republicans. A group of GOPers, led by state Rep. Tom Grady, has filed a class action lawsuit against Crist to get back their contributions which they thought would be used to support a Republican. Meanwhile, with Crist running around looking gubernatorial amidst the oil spill crisis, and the media having lost interest with the Republican primary settled, Marco Rubio now finds himself in an unusual position (which may be reflected in recent polls): the guy who isn’t getting any attention.

• IL-Sen: Well, it took Mark Kirk a couple months to do what Richard Blumenthal took a few days to do, but he finally got around to apologizing today in a press conference for his various “careless” embellishments of his military and teaching records.

• KS-Sen: SurveyUSA (6/24-27, likely voters, 5/21-23 in parens):

Jerry Moran (R): 53 (52)

Todd Tiahrt (R): 33 (29)

Other: 5 (4)

Undecided: 9 (15)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

SurveyUSA also looks at the Democratic Senate primary (where little-known college professor Lisa Johnston is the surprise leader, at 24, followed by somewhat higher-profile candidates like former newspaper editor Charles Schollenberger at 16 and state Sen. David Haley at 11), and at the Republican gubernatorial primary (where I didn’t even know there was a contest anymore, but where Sam Brownback leads Joan Heffington 76-17).

• KY-Sen: With the primary resolved and with Rand Paul having gone into media-related hiding, his fundraising seems to have dwindled accordingly. He held another online moneybomb yesterday, which used to be his bread and butter, but the bomb was more of a dud this time: he banked only $90K by yesterday evening. That’s was off from the $400K generated by his largest one last August.

• NJ-Sen: A couple items of good news for Frank Lautenberg: first, he’s announced that, after having been treated for lymphoma, his cancer is now in remission. And today, he got Robert Byrd‘s gavel for the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle, in contrast to Rand Paul, is at least temporarily breaking her media silence tonight… and she’s doing it not exactly the friendliest environment either, going on local reporter Jon Ralston’s TV show. (Ralston is one of the best left of the dying breed of state-level political reporters; his Twitter feed is highly recommended.) Meanwhile, Nevada Dems are hitting Angle for her decidedly extreme position on abortion (legal under absolutely no circumstances), while the once-thought-ominous Karl Rove 527 American Crossroads is out with a new ad attacking Harry Reid over unemployment.

• WV-Sen: There’s quite a long list of potential temporary appointees developing in West Virginia, but ex-Gov. (and current College Board president) Gaston Caperton won’t be one of them; he took his name out of the running. In addion to former state party chair Nick Casey and current chair Larry Puccio, other names, all of whom are well-connected with Gov. Joe Manchin, bubbling up today include former Manchin counsel Carte Goodwin, businessman Perry Petropolis, former state Supreme Court justice Richard Neely, and first lady Gayle Manchin.

• AL-Gov: Robert Bentley is touting an internal poll from Dresner Wicker & Associates giving him a substantial lead over Bradley Byrne in the GOP runoff; Bentley leads 46-27, and has 59/9 favorables. Bentley has also pledged no negative ads from his camp, which may be a relief to many Alabamians (and which may have been the secret to Bentley’s surprise success in the primary, as he dodged the heavy crossfire between Byrne and Tim James).

• CA-Gov: There’s a clear difference in strategy in California’s governor’s race, with Jerry Brown (who needs to draw Meg Whitman out into the open) agreeing to ten debates and Whitman (who needs to hide behind her ads) agreeing to one. New ads run by Brown surrogates seem to be taking increasing aim at Whitman’s tendency to hide behind her large piles of money, too.

• RI-Gov, RI-01, RI-02: The Rhode Island Democratic party issued its endorsements yesterday, and the results weren’t good for the party’s former state chair (or his brother). Bill Lynch lost the RI-01 endorsement to Providence mayor David Cicilline, while AG Patrick Lynch lost the RI-Gov endorsement to state Treasurer Frank Caprio. In the 2nd, incumbent Jim Langevin got the endorsement over primary challenger state Rep. Betsy Dennigan.

• TX-Gov: The situation with the Texas Greens ballot line isn’t quite going away yet. A lower court decided last week to block them from the ballot because their petition drive was illegally funded with an in-kind corporate contribution (with roots tracing back to Rick Perry’s former chief of staff). The decision, however, was just appealed to the Texas Supreme Court (which, of course, is Republican-controlled and not averse to the occasionally nakedly political decision).

• ID-01: Here, maybe, is another instance of the Chamber of Commerce realizing that conservative Democrats do a better job of addressing big business’s needs for a functioning physical and educational infrastructure than do the group of anarchists who seem to have seized control of the GOP? The US Chamber of Commerce just gave freshman Dem Walt Minnick their endorsement.

• LA-02: Rep. Joe Cao has had to back down on a fundraising letter that strongly implies that the local Catholic diocese and Archbishop Gregory Aymond backed his candidacy. Cao apologized for taking Aymond’s praise for him out of context.

• MI-03: Well, at least we now know who to cheer against in the GOP primary to replace retiring Rep. Vern Ehlers. The Club for Growth announced yesterday that they’re backing state Rep. Justin Amash, meaning that Amash must have impressed the far-right group with his level of disdain for public spending. (JL)

• PA-07: Philly’s just a short Amtrak ride from Washington DC, and Joe Biden will be there July 19 to host a combined fundraiser for the DCCC and for the Dem candidate in the 7th, state Rep. Bryan Lentz.

• TX-17: Here’s an article that’s an interesting reminder of how all politics is, in the end, local, and how it can turn on stuff that’s a million miles away from inside-the-Beltway concerns. Politico looks at the race in the 17th, which is very much a Waco/Baylor (Chet Edwards) vs. College Station/Texas A&M (Bill Flores) contest, with the recent (now irrelevant, though) proposal to break apart the Big 12 a key flashpoint.

• WV-01: Old man yells at cloud? Initially, the idea of a legendary West Virginia Democratic politician setting up a PAC with the pure intent of stopping Democratic nominee Mike Oliverio from winning in November sounds like a game-changing impediment. From the backstory, though, it sounds like former SoS Ken Hechler may not have that much oomph behind his vendetta, which seems mostly motivated by Oliverio’s 2004 failed primary challenge to him in the SoS primary, where Oliverio’s entire argument seemed predicated on the fact that Hechler was 89. (If you do the math, that makes him 95 now. I guess the secret to longevity is to become a Democrat in West Virginia!)

• CA-Init: Don’t count on California making the switch to the Washington-style top-two primary just yet, despite the passage of Proposition 14 earlier this month. The major and minor parties are weighing legal challenges to it, and they’re watching with interest the latest round of litigation on the matter in Washington. (The US Supreme Court has already upheld a state’s authority to switch to a top-two primary, but there’s a new suit pending on new grounds.)

PPP (pdf) (6/26-27, Wisconsin voters, 3/20-21 in parens):

Russ Feingold (D-inc): 45

Ron Johnson (R): 43

Undecided: 12

Russ Feingold (D-inc): 45 (48)

Dave Westlake (R): 38 (31)

Undecided: 17 (21)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

There was a general sense of Russ Feingold having dodged a bullet when ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson decided not to run (in PPP’s March poll, Feingold led Tommy Thompson 47-44). In a bit of a surprise, though, likely GOP nominee Ron Johnson performs about as well as Thompson, trailing Feingold only 45-43. PPP’s Tom Jensen speculates Republicans may have actually done themselves a favor here by running a fresh face (Johnson) instead of the stale Thompson; with only 20/18 favorables right now, Johnson does certainly have a lot of upside. (Feingold’s approval is 42/42.) Of course, on the other hand, some of Johnson’s support now may simply be because he’s something new and different, and while Thompson had some moderate crossover appeal, the very conservative Johnson may not have much of that once the candidates start talking about specifics.

PPP may have run into a more conservative batch this time than last time; today’s sample broke 48 Obama, 47 McCain, and it’s also apparent in the trendlines for the low-profile Some Dude in the race, Dave Westlake. Regardless, it’s a pretty clear signal that Russ Feingold (and the DSCC, unfortunately) are going to have to fight this one out.

If nothing else, this post is simply a reminder that the end of the fundraising quarter is later this week (Wednesday, the 30th). I’ve had this vague sense that there’s a lot less fundraising intensity among the netroots than compared to this point two years ago (although that turns out to be wrong, if you delve into the stats at ActBlue — we’re ahead of the 2008 pace in terms of both total number of dollars and especially number of contributions). But after the 30th, there’s only one more full fundraising quarter left.

That vague lack of intensity, though, may have its roots in the fact that playing defense just isn’t as glamorous… in 2006 and 2008, it was genuinely fun anticipating where all we might make gains and trying to allocate our resources accordingly. It’s not so much fun to figure which incumbents most need our money in order to survive… especially when so many of the most endangered incumbents were simultaneously also the ones least likely to vote the way the netroots would have wanted them to. And the netroots still seems to be playing the old 06-08 ballgame instead, still playing offense: focusing on primaries, and on challenges to Republican incumbents or open seats. Some of that is seen in ActBlue’s top 10 May recipients, none of whom are incumbents (although at least some were the more progressive option in primaries where we’re trying to hold a seat, like Joe Sestak or Ann McLane Kuster). And Daily Kos’s Orange to Blue list currently has only one incumbent on it, Alan Grayson.

No knock on Grayson, of course; as you can see below, he is the most progressive of all the incumbent Dems in the “Tossup” realm — although Carol Shea-Porter and Mary Jo Kilroy are certainly within the same range. However, I’d like for the netroots not to just put all its eggs in the Grayson basket (particularly when he can, if need be, refill that basket with his own personal cash). So, I’m posing the question to all of you, to answer in the comments: what other incumbents should we be defending?

Once we get past the other fairly obvious choices (Shea-Porter and Kilroy, again), it becomes an interesting philosophical question, one where your input would be valuable: is it better to start looking for progressives in the lower-tier races, where our money might come in valuable later? Or do we hold our noses and focus on shoring up some of the members who didn’t fare so well on the litmus test issues, knowing that we need to accept some (in fact, many) imperfect members in order to cobble together a majority?

In fact, it may be most interesting to approach this like putting together an investment portfolio. Say you have $100 to spend on contributions. How much do you allocate to the most endangered progressives? How much to the more valuable (or less heinous) New Dems and Blue Dogs? How much to progressives who aren’t quite as endangered? For that matter, how much to Blue-to-Blue open seat races? And how much to races where we’re still on the offensive? Within each category, which particular names stand out for you?

To help with your decision-making process, I’ve put together a couple tables that look at all of the Democrats’ vulnerable incumbents. The first is organized by column by just how vulnerable we at SSP have decided they are, and organized by row according to Progressive Punch scores, from best to worst. (Ordinarily I prefer DW-Nominate scores for this type of analysis, but Progressive Punch scores are much more intuitive to interpret; the order of Reps. in each column should be pretty similar regardless of which method you use.) (Also, you’ll note I’ve thrown several more Dems on the list — Bobby Etheridge and Allen Boyd — whom we haven’t formally added to the board yet but undoubtedly soon will.) Feel free to mention Senate races too, of course; I’m table-izing just the House races because a) there are so few Senate races involving vulnerable Dem incumbents that we actually like that it’s pretty easy to keep track of them, and b) House races are smaller-dollar affairs, so netroots dollars, if everyone pushes in the same direction, can actually make a difference in select races, whereas in pretty much any Senate general election, netroots dollars are a drop in the bucket that would go largely unnoticed.

Alternatively, here’s a version based around six key litmus test votes (stimulus package, 2009 budget, cap and trade, the 2009 and 2010 health care votes, and the Stupak Amendment); Reps. are ordered according to how many “bad votes” they took out of the six. Many people have their own personal line-in-the-sand legislatively, for which an aggregated score like Progressive Punch is too broad, so this may be more helpful for those who want to make their choices a la carte.

There’s yet another way you might of approaching this question, one that’s a little more forgiving of Blue Dogs: that’s the PVI/Vote Index, which is a measure we’ve discussed the last few years. This posits that a Representative’s value is found in overperforming his or her district’s lean as much as possible, which tends to favor the Dems in the reddest-possible districts as well as diehard progressives in swing districts. In particular, that tends to favor Chet Edwards, who has an R+20 district but usually is a reliable vote as seen by his Progressive Punch score (granted, he voted “no” on three of the six litmus test items, but that’s still a substantial improvement over whatever else we might get in that district). The link here is to the 2008 numbers; I just crunched the 2009 numbers, which I’ll write up later in the week, but Edwards again is by far the greatest overperformer. Cold-blooded contributors who can be purely value-added and ignore litmus test votes might want to emphasize Edwards (and similar overperformers like Earl Pomeroy or John Spratt).

According to Politico’s Shira Toeplitz, the West Virginia Secretary of State’s office has decided that the special election to replace Robert Byrd will be held in 2012, not 2010. UPDATE: The SoS office’s full statement is here. In November of 2012, there will be not only the regularly scheduled election for the full six-year term, but also a coinciding special election to fill the seat during the lame duck session.

(As you’ve likely read elsewhere today, West Virginia law is decidedly hazy on when the special election had to happen. On its face, state law would suggest that a 2010 election needed to be held, since Byrd’s death occurred six days before the two-and-a-half-year mark until 2012. However, underlying case law supports the conclusion that because the primary has happened and the filing period has closed, the election won’t be held until 2012.)

Regardless of whether the special election was to be held in 2010 or in 2012, West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin is charged with the responsibility of appointing a temporary successor. This gets a little complicated for Manchin, as he’s widely considered to have designs on that seat himself (he has previously established a fundraising committee for seeking federal office). Manchin has already established that he won’t appoint himself to the office.

Manchin therefore seems likely to appoint a placeholder, one who won’t get in the way of a future Manchin run. The most often mentioned name is former state party chair and Manchin ally Nick Casey; Casey, however, is up for consideration for a federal judgeship, and may not want to back-burner that lifelong sinecure for two years in the Senate. Current state party chair Larry Puccio (another former Manchin aide and ally) is another possibility. The other possibility would be a widely-respected elder-statesman type appointment, such as ex-Gov. Gaston Caperton. (I hear that soon-to-be-ex-Rep. Alan Mollohan is looking for a new job, but he might not fill the “widely-respected” part of the equation at this point.)

One other item for fans of arcane Senate procedure: Dan Inouye was just sworn in as the Senate President Pro Tem, taking over for Byrd, who re-assumed that role when the Democrats took over the Senate in 2006. The role is purely ceremonial, with no real-world presiding duties, and is generally given to the seniormost member of the majority party. Instead, this is momentous because Inouye (not Harry Reid, as many probably believe) is now 3rd in line in presidential succession, which is the highest an Asian-American (or for that matter, any racial minority, if one doesn’t consider Barack Obama himself) has ever risen in the succession totem pole. UPDATE: A helpful tipster points out the all-racial-minorities part is not quite true: Herbert Hoover’s vice-president, Charles Curtis, was half Native American.

• CO-Sen: Politico’s Dave Catanese has an interesting profile on Ken Buck, who’s looking likelier and likelier to wind up as the GOP’s nominee in the Colorado Senate race. With a litany of fringy comments on eliminating Social Security, student loans, and the Dept. of Education, and on supporting “birther” legislation, the question is whether he’s poised to complete the troika of candidates (along with Rand Paul and Sharron Angle) whose very over-the-topness allows the GOP to pull defeat from the jaws of victory. Buck tells Politico that he “doesn’t recall” making some of those statements, and is seeking to walk back some of the most controversial. Not coincidentally, the US Chamber of Commerce just announced today that it’s backing Jane Norton in the primary, specifically citing electability and even taking an ad hominem swipe at Buck backer Jim DeMint.

• IA-Sen: Roxanne Conlin got the support of EMILY’s List last Friday. Conlin has her own money, but to make any headway against Chuck Grassley, she’ll need every penny she can round up.

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias has been subpoenaed to testify in Rod Blagojevich’s corruption trial (although it’s unclear whether he’ll actually ever have to take the stand). While there isn’t any suggestion that Giannoulias has done anything wrong, any mass-mediated association at all with the toxic Blagojevich isn’t good for Giannoulias; if nothing else, it might remove the local media’s target off Mark Kirk’s back, where it’s been squarely located for the last few weeks. The Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet is still keeping the pressure on Kirk, though, at least for now; her latest column excoriates Kirk for his non-disclosure and secretiveness, which has been a constant throughout his campaign even before his house of cards started falling down.

• MO-Sen: Even if I were a Republican I can’t imagine wanting to be seen in the same place as Karl Rove, but Roy Blunt — about as transparently power-hungry a member of the GOP Beltway establishment as can be — has always seemed strangely unconcerned about the optics of what all he does. Rove is hosting two fundraisers today for Blunt in the Show Me State, in St. Charles and Springfield.

• SC-Sen: Although it was looking like the Alvin Greene story was starting to go away, with the state Democrats’ decision not to challenge his primary victory and the state election board’s decision not to investigate, the story may get a few more chapters. The state ethics and disclosure commission and the state’s 5th circuit solicitor, instead, will get involved; they’re going to look into whether any laws were broken in his financial disclosures, and they may subpoena bank records to find out. At issue, of course, is where Greene came up with the $10K to pay his filing fee; if nothing else, if he had $10K sitting around, he shouldn’t have qualified for a public defender because of indigence. Perhaps not coincidentally, it’s been announced that Greene is no longer being represented by the 5th circuit’s public defender in his upcoming trial on obscenity charges.

• WA-Sen: Dino Rossi won’t be doing any more get-rich-quick real estate seminars in the midst of his Senate campaign. And here’s the weird part… it wasn’t because of his own decision, because of the terrible PR that’s likely to result. Instead, it was the decision of the seminar’s organizers, who called off the last seminar in the series this week. They were worried about how Rossi’s presence made them look bad, in terms of politicizing their ostensibly agenda-free program.

• FL-Gov: Does some sort of critical mass result when two of the most unlikeable Republicans — not in terms of policy, just in terms of purely personal characteristics — get together in one place? Newt Gingrich just endorsed Bill McCollum. Meanwhile, Bud Chiles has been enduring a lot of pressure from Democratic friends and well-wishers to get the heck out of his indie bid and not risk being a spoiler, but he’s standing pat for now.

• GA-Gov: Here’s some bad news for Dems in Georgia: weirdo teabagging millionaire Ray Boyd says he won’t follow through on his plans to run a $2 million independent campaign for governor. He was having trouble gathering the requisite signatures, and decided not to throw good money after bad. (Recall that he spent a few days in the GOP primary field before storming out, unwilling to sign the party’s “loyalty oath.”) With Boyd poised to draw a few percent off the electorate’s right flank, his presence would have been a big boost to Roy Barnes in his gubernatorial comeback attempt.

• MA-Gov: The Boston Globe, via Univ. of New Hampshire, has a new poll of the Governor’s race; while Deval Patrick has a significant lead, the poll seems to be good news for Republican Charlie Baker, and moreover the RGA, as it seems to vindicate their strategy of hitting out first at independent candidate Tim Cahill to try to make it a two-man race. The GOP’s ad blitz designed at wiping out Cahill seems to have taken him down a few pegs, as UNH sees the race at 38 Patrick, 31 Baker, 9 for Cahill, and 2 for Green candidate Jill Stein. (The previous UNH poll, from January against the backdrop of the MA-Sen election, was 30 Patrick, 23 Cahill, 19 Baker.) One other intriguing tidbit that’s gotten a lot of play today: for now, Scott Brown is the most popular political figure in the state, with a 52/18 approval, suggesting that unseating His Accidency in 2012 won’t be the slam dunk that many are predicting.

• MD-Gov: It was the last day for Bob Ehrlich’s talk radio show on Saturday. Ehrlich will be officially filing to run for Governor before the July 6 deadline. Of course, he’s been saying he’s a candidate for months now, but has held off on the official filing to keep on the air as long as possible to avoid prohibitions against that sort of illegal in-kind contribution to his campaign.

• MI-Gov: Rep. Peter Hoekstra has been seemingly losing a lot of endorsement battles in the last few weeks, but he pocketed a few helpful nods. One is from right-wing kingmaker Jim DeMint, who stumped with Hoekstra on Friday. The other is from the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, which gave a split endorsement to local boy Hoekstra and Mike Bouchard. (The statewide Chamber has already endorsed Mike Cox in the GOP primary.) GRACC also endorsed Steve Heacock in the GOP primary in Vern Ehlers’ MI-03, and Bill Huizenga in the GOP primary in Hoekstra’s MI-02.

• AL-02: Rick Barber seems to be reveling in his viral video celebrity, rolling out an even more feverish ad involving his hallucinations about the Founding Fathers and various other liberty-related heroes. Today’s ad includes a conversation with Zombie Lincoln, who compares health care reform to slavery.

• ID-01: Here’s more evidence that the ID-01 Republican primary really was a win-win situation for Democrats. State Rep. Raul Labrador is backing down from his withering critiques of his possible-future-boss John Boehner, upon the realization that he’ll need the NRCC’s financial help to get to Congress in the first place (seeing as how he currently has $35K to work with). Labrador had previously criticized Boehner by name for helping drive the Republican party into the ditch and letting the Dems take over in 2006.

• MS-01: Could Rep. Travis Childers rack up enough right-wing endorsements to save his bacon against Alan Nunnelee this cycle? Fresh off his NRA endorsement last week, now he’s gotten the endorsement of the National Right to Life.

• Polltopia: Daily Kos’s Steve Singiser is putting his freakishly comprehensive personal database of poll data to good use. He finds that there is, indeed, a wide disparity in internal polls released by the two parties compared with the previous few cycles, when Dems released more internals as they seemed to have more good news to report. (This cycle has a 3-to-1 GOP advantage; even in the fairly neutral year of 2004, it was about even between Dems and the GOP.) The caveat, however: most internals were released in a flurry in the last few months before the general elections, and this kind of early flooding-of-the-zone with internals is pretty unprecedented, so it’s still hard to interpret what it means.

Nine-term Senator Robert Byrd died early this morning at the age of 92.

He started his political career by running for the state House of Delegates in 1946, while working as a butcher and welder. He won a seat in the House of Representatives six years later, was elected to his first Senate term in 1958 and won his ninth in 2006, three weeks shy of his 89th birthday….

In November 2009, two days before his 92nd birthday, he passed Arizona Democrat Carl Hayden’s record to become the longest-serving member of Congress.

Our condolences to his family and his many, many friends.