Author: Crisitunity

Quinnipiac (6/2-8, likely voters, no trendlines):

Rick Scott (R): 44

Bill McCollum (R): 31

Undecided: 24

(MoE: ±3.4%)

Kendrick Meek (D): 29

Jeff Greene (D): 27

Maurice Ferre (D): 3

Undecided: 37

(MoE: ±3.5%)

Here’s a “holy crap!” moment from Quinnipiac: the two random sketchy ultra-wealthy guys, Rick Scott and Jeff Greene, whose entries into the GOP gubernatorial primary and Democratic Senate primary (respectively) initially seemed like go-nowhere vanity projects, are actually in serious contention thanks to lavish TV spending.

In particular, Rick Scott (former CEO for hospital corporation Columbia/HCA) has shot ahead of Bill McCollum. Scott’s favorables are a very high 40/12 among GOPers, indicating that McCollum’s (or Mary Cheney’s, really) attempts to point out that whole Medicare fraud thing on Scott’s part have gotten drowned out by the sheer volume of Scott’s advertising. Of course, it doesn’t look like McCollum has gotten too badly harmed by Rentboy; he’s also a 41/19 among GOPers, so he might be able to fight his way back if he can find his financial footing, ad-wise.

Jeff Greene, the derivatives pioneer who increased his fortune betting on an economic collapse caused in part by those same derivatives, isn’t leading, but is nipping at Kendrick Meek’s heels in the Democratic Senate primary. Meek has spent little on advertising so far, so despite his institutional frontrunner status, he isn’t particularly better-known than Greene right now.

Quinnipiac released its general election numbers separately:

Quinnipiac (6/2-8, registered voters, 4/8-13 in parentheses (Sen, Gov)):

Kendrick Meek (D): 17 (24)

Marco Rubio (R): 33 (30)

Charlie Crist (I): 37 (32)

Undecided: 11 (13)

Jeff Greene (D): 14

Marco Rubio (R): 33

Charlie Crist (I): 40

Undecided: 11

Alex Sink (D): 32

Rick Scott (R): 42

Undecided: 21

Alex Sink (D): 34 (36)

Bill McCollum (R): 42 (40)

Undecided: 19 (21)

(MoE: ±2.9%)

Alex Sink (D): 26

Rick Scott (R): 35

Bud Chiles (I) : 13

Undecided: 23

Alex Sink (D): 25

Bill McCollum (R): 33

Bud Chiles (I) : 19

Undecided: 19

(MoE: ±4.7%)

Charlie Crist may actually be able to thread the needle here (especially if he gets an assist from Jeff Greene, as Crist breaks off an extra 3% from the Dem column if it’s Greene instead of Meek); he leads Marco Rubio in both configurations, thanks to, if you believe the trendlines, eating up a further share of Dem votes.

Things aren’t looking so good for Alex Sink in the gubernatorial race, with similar underperformances against both Scott and McCollum. (Interestingly — and I don’t know if this is a trend or a blip — Rasmussen finds the Governor’s race a much better bet for the Dems right now than Quinnipiac does.)

It looks like Quinnipiac added a Bud Chiles option mid-sample once the indie candidate announced (as explained by the higher MoE on the three-ways). Despite his Democratic lineage, Chiles’ entry doesn’t seem to hurt Sink disproportionately, as he seems to have enough Dixiecrat appeal to draw equally from both column D and column R. The 8-to-9 point margins between the Rs and Sink remains unchanged with Chiles in the mix.

• AR-Sen: As predicted, labor doesn’t look like it’s going to kiss and make up with Blanche Lincoln. The SEIU says it won’t back Lincoln in November, if nothing else, seeing as how they have races with better odds elsewhere that they need to deal with. PPP’s Tom Jensen reinforces that point in a piece entitled “Write Off Lincoln,” listing a handful of total sleeper races where the polls have been better for Dems than Arkansas.

• CT-Sen: Campaigns don’t usually release internal polls showing them down by 13 points, but when all the public pollsters are showing you down by more than 20 after your blockbuster move failed and it’s a last ditch effort to get contributors to not write you off, I suppose it makes sense. A Moore Information poll finds Linda McMahon trailing Richard Blumethal “only” 51-38.

• IL-Sen: Glad to see that the mainstream environmental groups are starting to see the big picture of how Washington works instead of reflexively endorsing moderate Republicans who occasionally pantomime throwing them a bone (see also Reichert, Dave). The Sierra Club and League of Conservation Voters, who’ve backed Mark Kirk in the past in his House races, will be going with Alexi Giannoulias instead this year.

• NH-Sen: This seemed more like a cry for attention than a well-thought-out campaign pre-announcement when it happened last week. So it’s not surprising to hear that whistleblower/former state Securities chief Mark Connolly, after floating his name last week, has decided against running against Paul Hodes in the Dem Senate primary. (The same link also has a list of filings for New Hampshire’s state Senate… although Blue Hampshire has that data in helpful table form. Most notable: a troubling Dem-held open seat in a R+4 district.)

• SC-Sen: That didn’t take long at all, for the Democrats’ baffling new Senatorial nominee, Alvin Greene, to slide into Scott Lee Cohen territory. With revelations this morning that he’s facing felony obscenity charges, the state party is calling on Greene to drop out of the race. Mother Jones has some more detail on Greene that really plumbs the depths of his sheer unpreparedness for what he’s gotten himself into. I have no idea whether he’s a GOP plant (who got fronted the $10K filing fee to be a speed bump for Vic Rawl and wound up winning instead) or just a naif who accidentally wandered into the corridors of power, “Being There”-style, but either way, it makes for a great story.

• AL-Gov: It’s official; Robert Bentley finished in 2nd place in the GOP gubernatorial primary, earning him a spot in the primary, and, as expected, Tim James will file for a recount. AG Troy King just issued an AG opinion clarifying the whole issue of whether an automatic recount applies here: no, it doesn’t apply to primaries, so James is responsible for the cost of the recount himself. James still plans to do it, though, despite the cost of at least $300K.

• MI-Gov: Republican AG Mike Cox got endorsements from two key GOP power brokers: from the state Chamber of Commerce, and also from Dick and Betsy DeVos. I was a little surprised that the Grand Rapids-based Amway cult leaders didn’t go with their in-house western Michigan U.S. Rep., Pete Hoekstra, but Hoekstra claims not to be surprised, probably suggestive of some interpersonal tension with the DeVos family.

• MN-Gov: Here’s one more place the SEIU won’t get involved: the DFL gubernatorial primary in Minnesota. All three contenders seem to be friendly with labor, so the SEIU didn’t seem to want to play favorites in a field that’s basically a tossup.

• OR-Gov: Now this is odd… while Oregon has a rather New England-influenced politics, there’s no track record of quirky moderate independents running and winning there. Nevertheless, prominent local attorney John DiLorenzo is reporting a $150K loan from himself to his exploratory committee, in apparent preparation for a gubernatorial run.

• SC-Gov: I don’t think the RGA could tip its hand any further than it did last night, all but endorsing Nikki Haley, who still has to get past a runoff against Gresham Barrett, saying “the voters made a clear choice” and “the outcome is certain.” Barrett, for his part, is brushing that off and continuing to fight on.

• VT-Gov: You may remember Anthony Pollina, who ran as a Progressive and then independent in several gubernatorial races, going as far as to finish 2nd in 2008. Good news for Vermont Dems: Pollina isn’t making a third-party bid, or even running for governor at all this year; instead, he’s running for a state Senate seat. Also, it sounds like the local Dems and Progressives are getting smarter about not canceling each other out, as they plan to avail themselves more of “fusion voting” this year. (H/t terje; the whole comment is well worth a read.)

• AR-01: With the ink barely dry on Chad Causey’s victory in the Dem runoff, the Rick Crawford campaign released an internal poll showing them with a lead over Causey. The poll by POS gives the GOP nominee a 40-34 lead. While the district has a strong Dem tradition, Obama’s 54% disapproval in the district gives Crawford an opening.

• IN-03: There’s a tally of 15 different Republicans seeking the GOP nod for the special election to replace the recently-resigned Mark Souder; the local GOP will meet on Saturday to choose somebody. The most prominent name is state Sen. Marlin Stutzman, who recently lost the IN-Sen primary, but the list also includes IN-03 primary loser Bob Thomas, two state Reps., Randy Borror and Wes Culver, and even a local TV anchor, Ryan Elijah.

• IN-09: Biden alert! The fundraiser-in-chief has added Baron Hill to his list of beneficiaries, and will be appearing on his behalf in Jeffersonville on June 28.

• PA-12: For his rematch against now-Rep. Mark Critz, Tim Burns is going to try a different campaign manager. Having lost by 9 in the special after seeming to lose the ground war, he parted ways with former chief Tadd Rupp.

• NRSC: John Cornyn admits that the NRSC’s wide playing field this November isn’t all good news, because their limited resources (currently $17.1 million) will be stretched thin. Somewhere Dino Rossi is thinking “Now he tells me…”

• Polltopia: Maybe the biggest story that people are following today is the quick decision, in the wake of the AR-Sen runoff polls (as well as MA-Sen, PA-12, and the AL-Gov D primary…), by Daily Kos to part ways with hired pollster Research 2000. However, Markos says the decision was more based on 538’s aggregate pollster ratings than any one poll. There’s no word yet on which pollster will be wearing the orange in the future. Mark Blumenthal has more on the decision, including R2K head Del Ali’s response.

• CO-Sen, PA-Sen: Need some quantification that people just don’t care about the job-offer so-called-stories in the Colorado and Pennsylvania races? It comes from Rasmussen, of all places, perhaps the pollster you’d think would have the greatest vested interest in finding that people do care. 44% of those sampled say this is business as usual for politicians, with only 19% saying it’s unusual. And 32% say it’s an issue that will be “very important” in their decisions in November (and what do you want to bet most of that 32% wouldn’t think it was important if it was a Republican offering a job to a Republican?), Scott Rasmussen points out that’s quite low compared with other issues in importance.

• DE-Sen: It’s been confirmed: Joe Biden will be heading back to Delaware to stump on behalf of Chris Coons. Biden will appear at a June 28 fundraiser in Wilmington.

• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP is out with another look at the North Carolina Senate race, where the Democratic field has yet to be settled via runoff. Today’s results focus only on the general election, though, where Elaine Marshall and Cal Cunningham both lost a little ground against Richard Burr as the bump wore off in the middle of the lull between the primary and the runoff. Burr is still at an unenviable approval of 35/37, but he leads Marshall 46-39 (up from a 1-point margin in the poll immediately post-primary) and leads Cunningham 46-35.

• AL-Gov: The final count of all ballots in the too-close to call Republican gubernatorial primary is scheduled to be released today. The issue isn’t who won, but who made second place and makes it into the runoff. Businessman and gubernatorial progeny Tim James, who was in third on election night by 205 votes, says he’ll seek a recount regardless of what happens with the final count of provisional ballots, so it’ll be a while before we know whether he or Robert Bentley faces Bradley Byrne in the runoff.

• MI-Gov: One more big union endorsement for Virg Bernero in the Michigan Democratic primary; the Lansing mayor got the nod from the state AFSCME (not surprising, considering that public employee unions have little use for his rival, Andy Dillon).

• MN-Gov: The good news: there’s a new poll out showing all three potential DFL nominees handily beating GOP nominee Tom Emmer in the Minnesota gubernatorial race, contrary to the recent SurveyUSA (where Emmer was winning) and Minnesota Public Radio (super-close) polls. The bad news: it’s a pollster I’ve never heard of, and I can’t tell at whose behest they took the poll, so I don’t know how much weight to give this one. At any rate, Decision Resources Ltd. finds that Mark Dayton leads Emmer and Independence Party nominee Tom Horner 40-28-18. Margaret Anderson Kelliher leads 38-28-17, while Matt Entenza leads 34-27-19.

• MS-Gov: Hey, I know we haven’t even gotten through the current election, but it’s only a year and a half till Mississippi’s off-year gubernatorial election. The mayor of Hattiesburg, Johnny Dupree, will seek the Democratic nomination. If he won, he’d be Mississippi’s first African-American governor. (H/t GOPVOTER.)

• TX-Gov: It turns out that it was too early to conclude (as the media did yesterday) that the Greens were actually going to get a ballot line in Texas this year, which could make a difference in a close gubernatorial race. An Arizona political consulting group collected the 92,000 signatures and, for campaign finance purposes, delivered them as “a gift” to the Greens. But while an individual could do that, a corporation can’t, according to an election law expert.

• VT-Gov: One other state where organized labor is starting to weigh in to the Democratic primary is Vermont, where the state AFL-CIO and the Vermont Education Association both have decided to back former Lt. Gov. Doug Racine. The good news here may be that the AFL-CIO isn’t backing Anthony Pollina like they did last time, splitting the liberal vote (although there’s no indication yet that Pollina will be running this time).

• FL-24: One day after snagging Mike Huckabee’s endorsement, Karen Diebel got the boom lowered on her by RedState (who don’t have a candidate they’re backing, but suddenly seem spooked about her electability issues). They reiterated the (already a known piece of oppo research that’s been floating around for the last year, although perhaps not known to all readers here) story about Diebel’s 911 call in 2007 where police were called to her house over reports of a dead snake in her pool and she subsequently told police she was afraid she was being monitored through her phone and computer.

• NJ-04: With the exception of his hard-core anti-abortion stances, Chris Smith has usually been one of the most moderate House Republicans, so it’s strange to see him enlisting the help of bomb-thrower Michele Bachmann in a re-election bid (in the form of robocalls). In fact, it’s strange to see him sweating a re-election bid period, but facing a teabagger primary challenge from Alan Bateman in today’s climate, he’s not taking any chances.

• WA-08: It’s also see strange to see the Seattle Times going after their pet Congresscritter, Dave Reichert. But they also lambasted him in a weekend editorial for his cynicism, after he was caught on tape telling a Republican audience how he takes the occasional pro-environmental vote in order to throw a few bones to moderate or liberal voters in order to make himself safer in his Dem-leaning swing district. I suppose his brief moment of transparency upset their Broderite inner compasses and trumped even their need to keep him in office.

SurveyUSA for KABC, KFSN, KGTV, and KPIX (6/3-6, likely voters, 5/21-23 in parens):

Carly Fiorina (R): 48 (46)

Tom Campbell (R): 22 (23)

Chuck DeVore (R): 16 (14)

Other: 4 (6)

Undecided: 9 (11)

Meg Whitman (R): 59 (54)

Steve Poizner (R): 30 (27)

Other: 6 (10)

Undecided: 5 (9)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

SurveyUSA is seeing what pretty much everyone else is seeing, that Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina have their respective GOP primaries nailed down. Their numbers haven’t changed much at all over the last couple weeks, but remember that when the previous SurveyUSA poll came out, the numbers seemed rather dramatic: there had been a major tightening between Whitman and Steve Poizner in early May (which then quickly dissipated), and they were one of the first to give a substantial lead to Fiorina instead of Tom Campbell. Looks like they did a good job of honing in on the ultimate trends.

Below the two marquee races, there’s also a treasure trove of interesting information in the rest of the SurveyUSA data (some of which was in a separate release, here). And, no, I’m not counting the Democratic gubernatorial primary as “interesting” (where Jerry Brown leads Richard Aguirre 73-4). In the Democratic race to be Jerry Brown’s #2, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is in pole position; he leads LA city councilor Janice Hahn 43-27. Abel Maldonado, the incumbent GOP Lt. Governor, is in the lead despite teabagger discontent over his various apostasies; he leads conservative ex-state Sen. Sam Aanestad 26-16, with another 26 scattered among various others.

In the AG’s race, the leading Democratic contender is San Francisco DA Kamala Harris, although she has only a narrow lead over Facebook attorney Chris Kelly and former LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo; her lead is 26-20-16, with Pedro Nava at 8, Ted Lieu and Alberto Torrico at 6, and Mike Schmier at 2. On the GOP side, Los Angeles County DA Steve Cooley is in the lead at 30, followed by state Sen. Tom Harman at 25 and former law school dean John Eastman at 19.

And SurveyUSA has poll results on all those delightful initiatives in which the corporations and their paid signature gatherers people get to exert direct democracy. Proposition 13 is, like its 70s namesake, designed to limit property taxes, although here it just prevents reassessment after buildings’ values go up after earthquake retrofitting. “Yes” is leading, 49-26. Proposition 14 is maybe the most attention-getting one, as it’s a proposal to switch to a Washington-style top-two primary system; apparently people like that idea, as “Yes” leads 50-28 (I know lots of people are up in arms about that, but speaking as a Washingtonian, the change has had little practical effect other than rendering third parties even more irrelevant than before).

Proposition 15 is a proposal to introduce public funding of political campaigns (although it’s baby steps, starting only with the next SoS race); despite the baby steps, it seems unlikely to pass, with “No” leading 46-29. Proposition 16, which would require an onerous 2/3rds majority before local governments could use public funding to expand electricity service (and which is the subject of huge amounts of money poured in by the state’s utilities), is the closest-looking race, with “No” currently leading 45-41. And finally, Proposition 17 allows insurance companies to base prices on a driver’s insurance coverage history; “Yes” leads 43-39. Hooray for insurance companies!

• AR-Sen: The Bill Halter campaign is looking for last minute phonebanking help to seal the deal. And you can do it from the comfort of your own home.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov (pdf): The Senate GOP primary portion of the Field Poll came out over the weekend, and it’s right in line with the various other pollsters finding a last-minute Carly Fiorina surge into a double-digit lead. She leads Tom Campbell and Chuck DeVore 37-22-19. (Campbell led 28-22-9 in the previous Field poll in March.) Also, it looks like Campbell’s last-minute ad pitch, centered around his electability, may fall on deaf ears: 42% of primary voters think that Fiorina has the best chance of beating Barbara Boxer, while 22% think that Campbell does (and 12% think that Chuck DeVore does — which is also about the same percentage of Californians who believe there is a 1,000 foot high pyramid in Greenland). There are also primary polls out from Republican pollster Magellan (who don’t have a horse in this race), who find things even worse for Campbell: they have Fiorina leading Campbell and DeVore 54-19-16. They also give a big edge to fellow rich person Meg Whitman in the gubernatorial race; she leads Steve Poizner 64-22. The unfortunate moral of the story here: have a lot of money.

• DE-Sen: New Castle Co. Exec Chris Coons is pre-emptively getting ahead of Republican charges that he raised taxes, by, instead of hiding under the bed like conventional wisdom dictates, saying ‘guilty as charged’ and explaining how it helped. The county wound up with a AAA bond rating and a eight-digit surplus. Coons also previewed one of his lines of attack against Mike Castle: Castle’s role in deregulating the banking sector.

• FL-Sen: As Charlie Crist rebuilds his team from scratch, he’s rolling out a new media team that’s heavy on the Democratic ties. Most prominently, Chuck Schumer’s former chief of staff, Josh Isay, will be Crist’s lead media person. Isay’s firm SKD Knickerbocker may be best-known for helping out other moderate independents, like Joe Lieberman and Michael Bloomberg. One of the fires that Isay will have to put out as soon as he gets in the building, though, is what to do about the Jim Greer situation. Greer’s lawyer is saying that Crist gave the initial OK on Greer’s fundraising workaround which avoided usual party channels (which Greer allegedly turned into a scheme for filling his own pockets).

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk’s very, very bad week last week just seems to be spilling over into this week. There are allegations popping up that he fibbed on getting shot at in Afghanistan too, and also evidence that he made a lot of stuff up while talking off the cuff about the Somalia situation last year. Taking a page from Richard Blumenthal, late last week he finally dropped the playing offense against the charges and instead went to the Chicago Tribune’s e-board to say “I’m sorry” — but that apology comes after letting the story fester all week.

• NH-Sen: After a year and a half of having the Democratic primary to himself, there are hints that Rep. Paul Hodes might get some late-in-the-game company. Mark Connolly, the former head of the state’s Securities Division who resigned to become a whistleblower in the wake of the Financial Resources Mortgage coverup (the same one that’ll have Kelly Ayotte testifying before the state legislature soon), expressed some interest and said “he’s angry enough to do it.” (Looks like a common theme this year.) Speaking of Ayotte, it sounds like she doesn’t know how to read a poll: she says she won’t take drilling for oil off New Hampshire’s tiny coastline “off the table.”

• WA-Sen: You might remember from last week that the Univ. of Washington engaged in some methodologically weird stuff by adding an extra week’s worth of samples on the end of their already-released poll and re-releasing the numbers (which were nevertheless unchanged, at Patty Murray 44, Dino Rossi 40). Well, now they’re re-releasing the poll yet again with even more samples, with changed toplines and with specific numbers for that tiny extra sample for the days May 24-28 (following Rossi’s official announcement). The number that’s getting all the press is that Rossi led Murray 42-39 in that batch, although that’s only based on 221 likely voters with a margin of error of 6.6%, so its usefulness is, well, questionable. Their full numbers are now 42-40 for Murray for the entire RV sample and 46-40 for Murray for the entire LV sample (i.e. those who voted in 2006), and she leads Generic R 44-39 among RVs (and 46-41 in the May 24-28 sample), but this poll has gotten so methodologically convoluted I’m not really sure it’s worth much of anything at this point.

Murray got some good news today in the form of an endorsement, and it’s not from a human but a corporation: Boeing. While she’s received plenty of Boeing money in the past, I’m not aware of Boeing ever having explicitly endorsed her or anyone else before (although anyone with a pulse knows that Murray has taken over for Scoop Jackson as the “Senator from Boeing”). Frankly, in the state of Washington, this is a bigger endorsement than any human politician’s endorsement would be, considering the way Boeing’s tendrils reach so much of the state. Finally, the field of miscellaneous Republicans kept shrinking today, as chiropractor Sean Salazar (probably the first guy to try to grab the teabagger mantle here, although he got shoved over by Clint Didier) bailed out of the race and backed Rossi.

• WI-Sen: Here’s a strange vulnerability for Ron Johnson in the Wisconsin Senate race: his fixation on opposing bipartisan Wisconsin state legislation making it easier for victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue their abusers. That’ll require some explanation, and I assume it’ll be something other than his current explanation, that such legislation would only lead to more victims of sexual abuse by making organizations likelier to sweep it under the carpet.

• IA-Gov: After endorsing a variety of misspelled odds-and-ends last week (“Cecil Bledsoe,” “Angela McGowen,” and Joe Miller), Sarah Palin went with a big gun this weekend, and it was one who doesn’t match her carefully cultivated teabagging/religious right image at all: establishment retread Terry Branstad in Iowa. Is she counting on getting repaid by Branstad in the 2012 caucuses, if she decides to give up the grifting lifestyle and take the huge pay cut associated with running for President? (Branstad also has the backing of Mitt Romney, who seems more of a kindred spirit for him.)

• MI-Gov: The Schwarz is not with us after all. Joe Schwarz, the moderate ex-Rep. who got bounced from MI-07 in 2006 in the GOP primary by Tim Walberg, has decided against pursuing the independent bid in the Governor’s race that he’d been threatening. On the surface, the loss of a center-right indie looks like bad news for the Dems, but depending on which two candidates match up in November, Schwarz could just have easily pulled more left-of-center votes… and in all likelihood, he wasn’t going to rack up more than a few percent anyway.

• NY-Gov: In their standoff with Democratic nominee Andrew Cuomo, the Working Families Party seems to have blinked first. They went ahead and nominated placeholders in the Governor, Lt. Gov, and AG slots, presumably to allow coordination with the Dem choices later. Cuomo had been leaning hard on the WFP to do so. The person most affected by this is state Sen. Eric Schneiderman, a Cuomo foe who had been considered the most likely WFP candidate for AG; instead, the WFP may wind up going with Nassau Co. DA Kathleen Rice, who’s Cuomo’s preferred AG for his informal “ticket.”

• TX-Gov: The Greens are actually going to be on the ballot in Texas this year, for the gubernatorial race? I’m as surprised as you are, but it’s less surprising when you find out who’s behind it: Arizona Republican consultant Tim Mooney, who set up the petition drive to get them on the ballot (and who’s also a veteran of the 2004 efforts to get Ralph Nader on as many states’ ballots as possible). GOP incumbent Rick Perry faces a tough race from Dem former Houston mayor Bill White, and he can have a little breathing room if the Greens siphon off a few lefties.

• AR-01: Chad Causey has an interesting argument for Democratic runoff voters in the 1st not to vote for ex-state Sen. Tim Wooldridge: he’s likely to bolt for the Republican Party at his earliest convenience. Causey’s evidence for the flight risk posed by Wooldridge includes his very conservative voting record in the state legislature, starting with his pro-public hanging legislation. Wooldridge, for his part, said he’d never switch. The Wooldridge camp is also offering up an internal poll (no word on the pollster) claiming a 48-24 lead over Causey in the runoff.

• CA-19: SurveyUSA has one last poll of the race in the 19th’s GOP primary, which they’ve polled exhaustively (and found almost exactly the same thing each time). However, this time it’s a little more interesting: there seems to be some late movement to former Fresno mayor Jim Patterson, who now leads state Sen. Jeff Denham 34-30. Ex-Rep. Richard Pombo is back at 17, with Larry Westerlund at 8. On the Dem side, it’s a 26-26 tie between Loraine Goodwin and Les Marsden.

• MN-06: What started out as a thorny three-way primary (when Elwyn Tinklenberg was in the race) has turned into a walk for Democratic state Sen. Tarryl Clark. Maureen Reed, a physician and former Independence Party Lt. Gov. candidate, ended her bid and endorsed Clark against Rep. Michele Bachmann. Reed had done surprisingly well at fundraising, but didn’t have the institutional advantages that Clark did, especially once Clark got the DFL endorsement. Clark still has an uphill fight against Bachmann, who’s insulated against likely future foot-in-mouth incidents by the district’s reddish lean as well as a huge war chest.

• TN-08: A Hill piece on the possibility of another NRCC-touted candidate (in the form of Stephen Fincher) going down in flames actually has some nice dirt on all three Republicans contesting the primary in the 8th. Fincher, of course, is widely noted for his hypocrisy on attacking the federal government while receiving millions in farm subsidies, but it’s also been revealed that he has voted in three Democratic primaries in the last eight years, “used virtually the same TV ad as a candidate for Alabama Agriculture Commisioner” (I have to assume it was an ad from one of the “thugs,” since if he’d riiiiiiipped off Dale Peterson’s ad, the whole blogosphere would already know about it by now), and perhaps most pathetically, misspelled “Tennessee” in a mailer. His challengers, Ron Kirkland and George Flinn, have their own troubles; Kirkland contributed to outgoing Democratic Rep. John Tanner in 2000 and 2004, while Flinn tried to cover up a lawsuit by a contractor who wasn’t paid for remodeling work.

Mason-Dixon for the Las Vegas Review-Journal (6/1-3, likely voters, 5/24-26 in parens):

Sharron Angle (R): 32 (29)

Danny Tarkanian (R): 24 (23)

Sue Lowden (R): 23 (30)

Other: 6 (7)

None: 2 (3)

Undecided: 13 (8)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Harry Reid (D-inc): 41 (42)

Sharron Angle (R): 44 (39)

Other: 3 (5)

None: 4 (4)

Undecided: 8 (10)

Harry Reid (D-inc): 42 (39)

Sue Lowden (R): 41 (42)

Other: 2 (3)

None: 6 (6)

Undecided: 9 (10)

Harry Reid (D-inc): 39 (41)

Danny Tarkanian (R): 46 (42)

Other: 2 (4)

None: 3 (3)

Undecided: 10 (10)

(MoE: ±4%)

In case there was any doubt that Sharron Angle’s surge in the GOP Senate primary in Nevada was complete, Mason-Dixon (for the LVRJ) weighs in with numbers very similar to Suffolk and R2K’s results from late last week. Mason-Dixon’s poll from the previous week had given a one-point lead to Sue Lowden, but she’s losing ground as fast as Angle is gaining it. Lowden has also lost ground vis-a-vis Harry Reid, now losing to Reid, while Angle is now a few points ahead of Reid instead of trailing. I’m not sure whether to attribute this movement in the primary more to Angle finally being rescued from obscurity by attracting the attention of the Club for Growth and Tea Party Express, or Lowden’s series of self-induced implosions; it’s all a rich tapestry.

Mason-Dixon for the Las Vegas Review-Journal (6/1-3, likely voters, 5/10-11 for primary trendlines, 4/5-7 for general trendlines):

Brian Sandoval (R): 47 (45)

Jim Gibbons (R-inc): 33 (27)

Mike Montandon (R): 6 (6)

Other: 1 (1)

None: 1 (NA)

Undecided: 12 (21)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Rory Reid (D): 37 [35]

Brian Sandoval (R): 51 [50]

Other: 1 [NA]

None: 1 [NA]

Undecided: 10 [15]

Rory Reid (D): 44 [42]

Jim Gibbons (R-inc): 38 [40]

Other: 2 [NA]

None: 5 [NA]

Undecided: 11 [18]

(MoE: ±4%)

Mason-Dixon has been a little inconsistent with when they poll what, so the trendlines for the primary don’t match the general election trendlines. At any rate, there’s not much change here, other than some last-minute progress for Jim Gibbons out of the “undecided” column that looks like too little, too late for the deeply unpopular governor. Brian Sandoval looks poised to win the GOP primary, which is bad news for Reid the Younger, who beats Gibbons almost as easily as he loses to Sandoval.

Reasonable minds can disagree on what the single most important state legislature this November is going to be, whether it’s from the perspective of affecting redistricting or just from good governance, and whether it’s from the perspective of trying to pin down a Democratic trifecta or prevent a Republican trifecta. If you’d said it was trying to take over the Texas state House, in order to keep the GOP from having a lock on the Lone Star State and forcing something of a compromise map, I’d say that was a great pick. And if you’d said defending the New York state Senate, that’s a great pick too, as controlling the trifecta there going into 2012 will result in a much better congressional map. Holding the Ohio Assembly, picking up the Michigan Senate, or even focusing on California to push those chambers past the 2/3s mark to overcome that state’s ridiculous budget requirements; those are all great too.

But, at least for now, I’ve settled on the Keystone State’s House as the key legislative chamber. With the state Senate not in a position to flip away from GOP control this year, and with the distinct likelihood of losing the gubernatorial race (if nothing else, given the state’s well-documented eight-year itch), holding the state House is the Dems’ last line of defense in the redistricting trifecta, and the best way to make sure that a compromise map is on the table for 2012. Not that the 2002 map worked out that well for the GOP — it turned out to be something of a dummymander that fell apart when a strong wind blew the other direction — but we obviously don’t want to take the chance that they might get it more right next time.

With three vacancies having been just filled via special elections on Primary Day, the Democrats currently control the House by a 104-97 margin. That’s better than the previous 07-08 cycle, where the Dems had a 102-101 edge, but still one where a stiff wind could blow control back in to GOP hands, seeing as how they need to flip only four seats to take control. (You might notice that, at 203 members, this is one of the nation’s largest legislative bodies, although they’ve still got nothing on the New Hampshire House. Constituencies are only about 60,000 residents each, meaning that the races are usually low-dollar affairs dominated by the ground game instead, and by the machines, where they’re present.)

With the primaries having wrapped up, we also have the matchups set in place for November. In addition to that generic stiff wind, here’s one other way Dems are at a disadvantage this cycle: they have a lot more open seats to defend than do the Republicans. Rather than give you one giant table of every single district, I’m going to break them down by category. Most districts aren’t even going to get discussed, seeing as how nearly half of all races — 39 Democratic seats and 46 Republican seats — aren’t being contested by a major party, and how nearly two-thirds of all seats fall outside what I think of as “swing district” territory, i.e. with a Cook PVI between D+5 and R+5. (If you’re wondering how I calculated PVI at this level, Pennsylvania has made available both 2004 and 2008 presidential data for all precincts, so thanks to jeffmd we were able to calculate percentages for all its legislative districts.)

District	Rep.	PVI	Obama/ McCain %	Kerry/ Bush %	’08 House D/R %	Location
107	Open (Belfanti)	R+5	46/52	45/54	100/0	Columbia Montour Northumberland
137	Open (Grucela)	R+3	51/48	45/53	100/0	Northampton
122	Open (McCall)	R+1	50/48	49/50	64/36	Carbon
48	Open (Solobay)	R+1	49/49	51/49	100/0	Washington
156	Open (Smith)	D+2	56/43	50/49	53/47	Chester
114	Open (Wansacz)	D+3	56/42	50/48	100/0	Lackawanna Luzerne Susquehanna Wyoming
119	Open (Yudichak)	D+5	56/42	55/43	100/0	Luzerne
77	Open (Conklin)	D+6	60/38	52/47	70/30	Centre
161	Open (Lentz)	D+6	57/41	55/44	55/45	Delaware
141	Open (Melio)	D+13	64/35	63/36	100/0	Bucks
194	Open (Manderino)	D+22	73/26	71/28	78/22	Montgomery Philadelphia
195	Open (Oliver)	D+42	93/7	92/8	91/9	Philadelphia

We’ll discuss Republican open seats below the fold, but there are only six of them, compared with twelve Dem seats. There are two bits of good news, though: two of those GOP open seats are in blue districts, compared with four here in Republican-leaning turf, so there may be some offsetting. And more importantly, three of these R+ seats here are in old-school rural Dem areas where there seems to be a sizable Democratic registration advantage, so similar to the PA-12 special election, a conservative Dem might be able to take advantage of the historic Democratic dominance at the local level even as the areas trend away at the national level.

HD-48 is very much a case in point; in fact, it’s in Washington County to the south of Pittsburgh, one of the hearts of PA-12, and its 49/49 split in 2008 and 51/49 split in 2004 very closely mirrors how the 12th (the only Kerry/McCain district in the nation, as you’ve no doubt heard) as a whole broke down. In HD-48, there were 7,488 votes for the various Dems in the primary, while there were 4,461 Republican votes. In addition, in two seats in northeastern coal country, HD-107 had 5,818 Democratic votes for the various candidates in the primary, while there were 4,088 Republican votes, and HD-122 had 6,166 Dem votes and 3,855 GOP votes. The exception among the four is HD-137, which is a more suburban seat outside of Bethlehem in the Lehigh Valley; this area, like many southeastern suburbs, moved rapidly in the Dems’ direction at the presidential level between 04 and 08, but there’s still a historic Republican advantage at the county and legislative level. Even here, though, there were 3,847 Dem votes to 3,439 GOP primary votes.

Now let’s turn to seats that aren’t open, but where a Democrat is sitting in a Republican-leaning district.

District	Rep.	PVI	Obama/ McCain %	Kerry/ Bush %	’08 House D/R %	Location
83	Mirabito	R+12	42/57	36/63	57/42	Lycoming
56	Casorio	R+12	37/62	41/59	60/40	Westmoreland
125	Seip	R+11	42/57	38/61	56/44	Berks Schuylkill
76	Hanna	R+8	45/53	40/60	69/31	Centre Clinton
74	George	R+8	44/53	41/58	63/37	Clearfield
10	Gibbons	R+6	43/55	45/55	55/45	Beaver Butler Lawrence
54	Pallone	R+5	44/55	46/53	100/0	Armstrong Westmoreland
116	Eachus	R+5	46/52	45/54	100/0	Luzerne
55	Petrarca *	R+5	44/55	47/52	100/0	Armstrong Westmoreland
130	Kessler	R+4	49/49	43/56	56/44	Berks
46	White	R+3	45/53	49/51	63/37	Allegheny Beaver Washington
25	Markosek	R+3	47/52	48/52	100/0	Allegheny Westmoreland
72	Burns *	R+3	47/50	48/52	53/47	Cambria Somerset
13	Houghton	R+3	51/48	44/55	48/46	Chester
73	Haluska	R+2	48/50	48/51	100/0	Cambria
58	Harhai	R+2	46/53	51/49	100/0	Fayette Westmoreland
51	Mahoney *	R+2	47/51	49/50	67/0	Fayette
33	Dermody	R+2	47/52	50/49	51/49	Allegheny
71	Barbin	R+1	51/48	49/51	50/50	Cambria
52	Kula *	R+1	48/51	51/48	100/0	Fayette Westmoreland
39	Levdansky	R+1	48/51	52/48	53/47	Allegheny Washington

These are, I would expect, for the most part conservative Dems who are well suited to their districts in rural areas or Pittsburgh’s collar counties. Between that and disparities in party strength in some of these counties, most of them have been easily re-elected in the past (see their 2008 totals) or left unopposed. In fact, note that four of them are unopposed this year; these are the ones with asterisks next to their names. This even goes as far up as R+5, where Joe Petrarca drew a pass. (Before we start patting ourselves on the back too much, there are some even more glaring omissions in terms of Republicans going uncontested in blue seats, which we’ll get to later.) Also worth a note, some of the ones who are in swingier districts (like Barbin, Dermody, and Levdansky) were the ones with the really close races in 2008, and may, depending on the quality of their challengers this year, be in more trouble than the Dems in redder districts.

Let’s look at one more table of Democrats, this time ones who are in Democratic-leaning districts but who still had close races in 2008 (“close” meaning a less than 10% margin of victory).

District	Rep.	PVI	Obama/ McCain %	Kerry/ Bush %	’08 House D/R %	Location
151	Taylor	D+4	57/42	52/47	51/49	Montgomery
157	Drucker	D+4	57/42	52/48	51/49	Chester Montgomery
70	Bradford	D+5	59/40	53/47	51/49	Montgomery
113	Murphy	D+11	65/33	58/40	52/48	Lackawanna
31	Santarsiero	D+0	53/46	49/50	53/47	Bucks
50	DeWeese	D+3	52/46	55/44	54/46	Fayette Greene Washington

Note that this is a very different batch of counties than the ones in the R+ districts. Most of these Dems are in Philadelphia’s suburbs and were either elected for the first time in either 2008 or 2006, so they’re still getting entrenched in counties where, if you look below the presidential toplines, there are still a lot of historic and organizational advantages for the Republicans. These seats will be a big test of whether these counties continue their decade-long demographic-driven march toward the Democrats, or if the national environment reverses that trend. There’s also one seat here that doesn’t really match: the district of former Speaker Mike Bill DeWeese, in the state’s southwestern corner. DeWeese is an old-timer (in office since 1976) who’s gotten badly tarred with the Bonusgate brush, which probably hurt his 2008 totals and has probably only made things worse lately. Residents of this district probably got saturated with tons of ads from the next-door WV-01 primary, so they too may be primed to be in the mood to rid themselves of a long-time but shady Rep.

Seats where Democrats are on the offense over the flip…

Now let’s look at the open seats currently held by Republicans.

District	Rep.	PVI	Obama/ McCain %	Kerry/ Bush %	’08 House D/R %	Location
164	Open (Civera)	D+13	66/33	60/39	0/100	Delaware
131	Open * (Beyer)	D+3	56/42	51/49	48/52	Lehigh Northampton
128	Open (Rohrer)	R+5	49/50	42/57	48/52	Berks
41	Open (True)	R+7	48/51	38/61	0/100	Lancaster
199	Open (Gabig)	R+12	42/56	35/64	35/65	Cumberland
85	Open (Fairchild)	R+13	41/57	34/65	30/70	Snyder Union
108	Open (Phillips)	R+16	38/61	31/68	23/77	Northumberland Snyder

Obviously, there are two big possibilities here, including a D+13 seat that leaves you to wonder what it was doing in GOP hands in the first place. (The answer: HD-164 has been the seat since 1980 of Mario Civera Jr., the ranking Republican on Appropriations, and it’s in Delaware County, which is a historic GOP stronghold that still has a strong local machine even though it’s gone blue at the presidential level.) The D+3 seat, HD-131, is in the suburbs of Allentown, and just became open when GOP incumbent Karen Beyer lost her primary. A little further down, Sam Rohrer (who vacated the seat for his long-shot gubernatorial bid) put up tepid numbers in his 2008 re-election, but that may have more to do with his bad fit with his district (which is the nicer suburbs of Reading, typified by John Updike’s hometown of Shillington, not prime theo-con turf) than this district’s readiness to elect any Democrat.

Here’s the list of the Republicans who are sitting in blue districts. And, as promised, it has some races that went uncontested (marked by asterisks) that will have you wanting to pound your head into the desk…

District	Rep.	PVI	Obama/ McCain %	Kerry/ Bush %	’08 House D/R %	Location
177	Taylor *	D+15	66/33	65/34	41/59	Philadelphia
18	DiGirolamo *	D+8	58/40	58/41	33/67	Bucks
162	Miccarelli	D+8	59/40	58/41	43/57	Delaware
163	Micozzie	D+7	59/39	57/42	41/59	Delaware
176	Scavello *	D+7	62/38	53/46	0/100	Monroe
146	Quigley	D+5	59/40	52/48	47/53	Montgomery
150	Vereb	D+5	58/41	53/47	43/57	Montgomery
61	Harper	D+4	57/43	52/48	44/56	Montgomery
152	Murt	D+3	55/44	53/47	40/60	Montgomery Philadelphia
169	O’Brien *	D+3	53/46	55/44	0/100	Philadelphia
142	Farry	D+3	54/45	53/47	48/52	Bucks
172	Perzel	D+2	52/47	53/46	34/66	Philadelphia
158	Ross	D+1	55/44	48/52	0/100	Chester
167	Milne	D+0	54/45	48/51	44/56	Chester
26	Hennessey	D+0	55/44	47/52	48/52	Chester
14	Marshall	D+0	50/48	52/48	41/59	Beaver
183	Harhart *	D+0	53/46	49/50	0/87	Lehigh Northampton

So… just to recap, Dems failed to put forth a candidate in a D+15 district in Philadelphia (as well as a D+8 district in lower Bucks County and a D+7 one in the Poconos). Granted, this is in NE Philadelphia, the middle-class old-school white-ethnic part of town where there’s some residual Republican organizational strength, probably left over from the Frank Rizzo area (as seen not just by Taylor’s 59-41 win in 2008 but by the continued presence in the House of his neighbors, former Speakers Mike Dennis O’Brien — also uncontested this year — and John Perzel). Still… that free pass is just lame. At any rate, Perzel, even though he might have the least-blue district in Philly, may actually be the most vulnerable GOP incumbent, if only by virtue of being the most public face of the lingering legislative pay raise debacle that left both parties looking bad.

Finally, here is a handful of Republicans who are from Republican-leaning districts who still managed to have close (i.e. less than 10% margin) races in 2008, who weren’t already accounted for in the blue-district list.

District	Rep.	PVI	Obama/ McCain %	Kerry/ Bush %	’08 House D/R %	Location
15	Christiana	R+4	44/54	48/51	49/51	Beaver
57	Krieger	R+10	40/58	41/58	48/52	Westmoreland
187	Day	R+7	47/51	40/59	48/52	Berks Lehigh
75	Gabler	R+7	46/52	41/58	47/53	Clearfield Elk

While I don’t presume to know enough about the local dynamics of these dozens of different races to the extent that I can predict outcomes, the disparities in number of open seats, and numbers of Dems in R+ seats vs. numbers of GOPers in D+ seats, suggest that the Republicans will be picking up seats here, although maybe not the net four flips needed to control the House. The real question seems to be how much these races get nationalized, and whether a favorable Republican year in general translates down to districts where there’s a historic Dem advantage (in the southwestern collar counties) or where demographics are moving in a Dem-favorable direction even while the local machinery remains in GOP hands (in the southeastern suburbs). The failure by the GOP to successfully nationalize the PA-12 special election is a good portent, but we’ll have to watch carefully.

UPDATE: By popular request, here’s the entire dataset as a Google Doc.

• AR-Sen: I don’t know if this is outright shenanigans or innocent bureaucratic bungling, but a lot of eyebrows are being raised over a strange turn of events in Garland County that’s going to lead to long lines and voters avoiding the polls. The county, with a population of 80,000 and 42 precincts, will have a total of two polling places for the upcoming runoff election. Worth noting: Garland County (home of Hot Springs) is the most populous county in Arkansas that went for Bill Halter in the primary.

• IL-Sen: The Mark Kirk story seems like it’s finally catching hold in the Chicago market. At the link, you can check out the whole “misremembered it wrong” story splashed across the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times, and watch a withering WGN news story.

• WA-Sen: Dino Rossi has reported $600K in contributions in one week since announcing his bid. Anyone who is surprised by this number should get better acquainted with the term “low hanging fruit;” the interesting numbers will be the ones in future weeks to see how he does now that most of Washington’s major real estate and contracting players have, assumedly, maxed out. Also in the not-surprising file, state Sen. Don Benton dropped out of the race and endorsed Rossi. Benton was the more or less GOP frontrunner prior to Rossi’s entry, but also something of a Republican-establishment stand-in for Rossi with a lot of overlap in supporters, so there wasn’t much incentive for him to continue. Goldy correctly yawns at Benton’s departure, saying that Clint Didier (the Palin-endorsed teabagger in the race) was always the real speed bump for Rossi and one that’ll continue to pose a problem: he can’t run away from Didier and his supporters, whose enthusiasm he’ll need in November, but if he gets too close to them, he’ll lose whatever moderate image he once had, which he’ll also need in November.

• CA-Gov (pdf): The last pre-primary Field Poll, or at least part of it, is out. All that they’ve released today is the Republican gubernatorial primary numbers, which are very much in line with everyone else’s numbers lately. They see Meg Whitman leading Steve Poizner 51-25, only half the 49-point lead she had in the last Field Poll in March but still certainly enough to get the job done for her on Tuesday. Keep your eyes peeled for the rest of the data.

• NY-Gov: Maggie Haberman has an interesting retrospective of the big bag of Fail that was the Steve Levy campaign. She weaves together a number of threads that didn’t really make it into the national media — unwillingness to fully commit to the race, his reluctance to dip into his war chest, tabloid stories about law school friends — to paint a picture of a campaign that, in hindsight, was doomed from the outset.

• AR-03: Sarah Palin (and the Susan B. Anthony List) weighed in in AR-03, adding one more “Mama Grizzly” to her trophy room. She endorsed state Sen. Cecile Bledsoe, who’s in a runoff against Rogers mayor Steve Womack for the GOP nomination in the open seat race in this safely-red district. Bledsoe only compiled about 15% of the vote in the primary, although with a huge number of candidates, that was enough to squeak by into second place.

• NY-15: In case there was any doubt that a combination of age, sliminess, and having lost his Ways and Means gavel might prompt a last-minute retirement for Charles Rangel, they were laid to rest. He’ll be officially kicking off his next campaign this weekend.

• OH-18: The long-unresolved GOP primary in the 18th appears to be finally over, as former state Agriculture director and 2008 nominee Fred Dailey conceded. He lost to establishment pick state Sen. Bob Gibbs by 156 votes according to certified results, and the automatic recount only changed two votes. While this is one more in a string of recent GOP primaries where the establishment candidate beat the teabagger, this, like many of those races (like, say, IN-08 and IN-09, and IN-03 and IN-05 if you want to call the woeful Souder and Burton “establishment”) where the anti-establishment candidate came within a hair of winning, and where if there had been fewer teabagger candidates spoiling the broth or things that just bounced slightly differently, the media would be talking about an entirely different narrative.

• Media: So, speaking of media narratives, I’m wondering if the media are starting to dial down their “Dems are dooooomed!” narrative that’s been conventional wisdom for the last half a year. Not just because they may be noticing that the polling evidence for that is sketchy at best, but also, as this Newsweek piece points out, that they may have gotten suckered by the Democrats themselves, who seem to be engaged in the ages-old practices of expectations management, lowballing their predictions so they look like heroes later.

• Ideology: 538 has some fascinating charts up as part of a new post on where states (and where the two parties within each state) fit on the liberal/conservative scale, looking at it on multiple dimensions instead of on a left/right line. West Virginia (socially conservative and economically liberal) stands out as an interesting outlier on the chart, which does a lot to explain its particular brand of politics.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: There’s one more poll in California, courtesy of Capitol Weekly (done for them by Republican pollster Probolsky Research). They’ve polled a few times before, but they’re calling this a “tracking poll,” suggesting they’ll be putting out more numbers as we count down to the June 8 primary. At any rate, there aren’t any surprises here: they too see the Carly Fiorina surge on the Senate side: she’s at 40, compared with Tom Campbell’s 25 and Chuck DeVore’s 13. In the Governor’s race, Meg Whitman leads Steve Poizner 54-24.

The big news here, though, is that Campbell, after saying he was going dark earlier this week, apparently pulled together enough last-minute contributions for a final TV ad. His closing argument is all about electability, centering around the recent LA Times/USC poll that gave him a lead over Barbara Boxer while Fiorina trailed. A candidate making a calm, logical pitch based on quantifiable data, instead of throwing together a mish-mash of fearmongering, jingoism, and meaningless buzzwords? I think Campbell might be running in the wrong party’s primary for that kind of thing to work. Fiorina, for her part, may have some backtracking to do after her deriding Boxer’s push on climate legislation as worrying about “the weather.” Back in October, before Campbell’s entry forced herself to recast herself as a conservative, she had lots of praise for cap and trade.

• KY-Sen: Rush disses Rand Paul! No, it’s not Rush Limbaugh; it’s just plain Rush, the pioneer 70s Canadian prog-rockers. They’ve told Paul to stop using Rush’s music at his rallies and in his web ads, citing copyright violations inasmuch as Paul has simply chosen his own Free Will and not asked them for, y’know, permission. The Paul campaign has used “The Spirit of Radio” pre-rallies (and here’s how big a Rush geek he is: he’s actually quoted that song’s lyrics on the stump). There’s always been a lot of overlap between Rush fans and libertarians, not just because many of Rush’s lyrics lean that way, but also because they both have a core audience of 14-year-old boys.

• NY-Sen-B: The Senate primary, for the right to go against Kirsten Gillibrand, is turning out to be just as much of a clusterf@ck as everything else the NY GOP has done lately. The GOP convention has left them with yet one more contested primary, as Bruce Blakeman and David Malpass split the vote (a weighted 42% for Blakeman and 40% for Malpass), leaving them to fight it out in a primary. They’re still likely to be joined by Joe DioGuardi, who only got 18% (missing the 25% threshold) but who intends to petition his way on to the ballot. Remember that DioGuardi is already on the ballot on the Conservative line, though, so he’s participating in November regardless of whether he gets into, let alone wins, the primary.

• CT-Gov: Here’s one advantage to running against a rich guy in a state with public campaign financing: every time your opponent pulls out more money, more money magically appears for you, too. Dan Malloy has raised $250K in contributions, which opens the door to another $1.25 million from the state, and on top of that, he’s entitled to a $938K bonus to match Ned Lamont’s spending. On the GOP side, Michael Fedele (with a rich guy problem of his own, in the form of Tom Foley) would like to do the same thing, but doesn’t look like he can rustle up $250K in contributions by the deadline.

• AL-05: Parker Griffith apparently isn’t switching back to being a Dem after his party-switching chicanery blew up in his face; he congratulated Mo Brooks at a press conference yesterday and said he’ll vote for him in November. “I was rejected by the constituents, they did not accept me. I appreciate that because that is how America is supposed to work,” said Griffith.

• CA-36: There are some internal polls floating around out there ahead of next week’s primary in the 36th. Jane Harman’s camp has a poll out giving her a 58-17 lead over Marcy Winograd (no word on the pollster, let alone any of the details). Winograd has her own internal, with even less detail: all they’re saying is that Harman is down at 43, although their silence about Winograd’s own number is pretty telling.

• FL-19: The FEC is telling ex-Rep. Robert Wexler to give back an unspecified amount of the contributions he received for the 2010 general election — which makes sense, considering he isn’t a participant. (He left to become president of the Center for Middle East Peace, although ongoing chatter has him on track to become the next Ambassador to Israel.) Unfortunately, that means less cash that he can offload to the> DCCC or other Dems this cycle.

• HI-01: I wasn’t aware that he hadn’t already weighed in in favor of Colleen Hanabusa, since most of the rest of the local old-guard Dem establishment had, but today ex-Rep. and gubernatorial candidate Neil Abercrombie endorsed Hanabusa. He also gave a hat tip to Ed Case for getting out of the way.

• Blogosphere: The New York Times actually got something right! They’re going to be partnering with Nate Silver, bringing a relaunched 538 under the NYT’s online umbrella in August. We’re glad to see that the legacy media are realizing that not only is there serious political journalism (if not scholarship) going on in the blogosphere, but that their last gasp at relevance may be by moving in that direction. Congrats to Nate, too!