Author: DavidNYC

Here’s a fun chart – it’s a list of all the members of the House who have scored 70% or less in a primary so far this year:

I’ve also included some notes on possible reasons for these poor performances: Dems who voted against healthcare reform, Republicans who voted for the bailout or cap-and-trade, ethical issues on either side, and a few other odds-and-ends. For a complete list of all members of Congress and their primary percentages, click here. So far, 89 (38D, 51R) incumbents have faced primaries while 141 have not (and another 13 open seats have been contested). Of those in primaries, the median vote share has been 74% (76% D, 73% R).

AR-Sen: Mark Blumenthal has a detailed post-mortem of the polling in the Arkansas senate runoff, including some off-the-record claims that both Halter’s and Lincoln’s internal polling showed Lincoln ahead. I sort of wonder why Lincoln didn’t put out these numbers, if true.

CT-Sen: Several big-name Republican fundraisers are hosting an event for none other than Joe Lieberman, to benefit his 2012 re-election campaign. Some of the hosts include Robbie Aiken, Wayne Berman, Rachel Pearson, and Kathryn Rand. Obviously an outright party switch is always possible with this fuckin’ guy.

FL-Sen: Wow, so there really is a Democrat who wants death panels (more or less). Maurice Ferre, himself 75 years old, said in a meeting with the Palm Beach Post editorial board:

“Well, you know what, when you get to be 85 or 90 years old, you’re going to die. And I’m sorry, you call it, Sarah Palin, what you want, but the fact is that it is absurd for us to be spending the types of money we’re spending to extend life three months.”

Asked what he’d do as a Senator to control such costs, Ferre said: “I would absolutely say that this is the cap on how much is available for you to spend at age 90, 87, with a heart condition of this sort, with diabetes of this sort, two legs missing and, you know, this is how much is available for you to spend. And you spend it any way you want.”

There are other ways to lose races in Florida, but this is the simplest and most direct.

KY-Sen: Mitch McConnell’s sticking in his bite-guard and gritting his teeth hard to do a fundraiser for Roark Rand Paul later this month. Believe it or not, we happened to get the advance text of Paul’s prepared remarks for the event:

Throughout the ages, the finger painter, the Play-Doh sculptor, the Lincoln Logger stood alone against the daycare teacher of her time. She did not live to earn approval stamps. She lived for herself, that she might achieve things that are the glory of all humanity. These are my terms; I do not care to play by any others. And now, if the court will allow me, it’s naptime.

NV-Sen: The Big Dog is coming to the Silver State to do a campaign rally for Handsome Harry Reid next week – who won’t actually be there because the Senate will be in session. No word on whether a fundraiser is also on tap.

PA-Sen: Pat Toomey is taking some heat for a long-ago resume item: He used to work on Wall Street – in derivatives trading, no less.

SC-Sen: Alvin Greene, the mysterious Dem senate nominee in South Carolina, says he won’t drop out of the race, in spite of the state party’s call for him to bail in the wake of revelations that he was arrested on an obscenity charge last fall. Then again, Scott Lee Cohen said he wouldn’t bow out, either.

KS-Gov: Dem gubernatorial hopeful Tom Holland picked fellow state Sen. Kelly Kultala, considered something of a rising star in KS politics, as his running mate. The two formally kicked off their campaign yesterday.

NM-Gov, WI-07: In NM-Gov, we mentioned a little while back that Dem LG Diane Denish is hitting GOP nominee Susana Martinez’s record as a prosecutor in TV ads, specifically targeting her conviction rate. A related issue is coming up in WI-07, where Dems are charging ex-prosecutor Sean Duffy with misusing his (very recently) former office to compile conviction statistics helpful to his political campaign.

SC-Gov: Mitt Romney, who endorsed Nikki Haley back in March, is heading back down to the Palmetto state to campaign for her once more. Haley faces a runoff against Rep. Gresham Barrett on June 22nd.

AK-AL: Former communications exec Sheldon Fisher is running ads against his primary opponent, GOP Rep. Don Young, portraying himself as the “new conservative choice.” Kudos to the AP for reporting that the ad buy is $40,000 in size – not much by conventional standards, perhaps, but that money ought to go a lot further in Alaska.

IN-03: So this is pretty bizarre. Ex-Rep. Mark Souder, who recently resigned on account of having an extra-marital affair with a staffer, sent an odd message on Facebook concerning his likely successor, state Sen. Marlin Stutzman. On the one hand, he says Stutzman is “probably best qualified” to fill his spot. But then, explains the AP:

In one paragraph, he says Stutzman knew nothing of the affair and therefore couldn’t have tipped off the media. In another, he mentions that Stutzman or a political consulting firm leaked word of the affair to Fox News after getting information from the staffer’s husband, Brad Jackson a Kosciusko County commissioner.

Hmm, I thought it was Mike Pence who dimed out Souder?

MD-01: Businessman Rob Fisher is going up with an ad presenting himself as an outsider in the GOP primary. He faces the better-known state Sen. Andy Harris (the 2008 loser). BIG props to Ben Pershing at the Washington Post for nailing down these details: “The spot is running on cable stations in the Baltimore and Salisbury markets, with an initial buy of more than $70,000.”

MI-07, MI-09: President Obama did some fundraisers in Michigan earlier this week – one for the DNC, and another joint event for Reps. Gary Peters and Mark Schauer.

OH-18: Zack Space is doin’ it right: He’s launching a “six-figure” buy for an ad attacking GOP opponent Bob Gibbs as a tax-hiker and self-pay-raiser. Why do I like this move? Because Space is using his use cash edge ($1.3 mil to $0.1mil) to define Gibbs, at a time when Gibbs has only just emerged from the uncertainty of a primary recount (which he won with an absurdly pathetic 20.9%). For his part, Gibbs fired back with a popgun press release, the poor man’s television ad – very poor man’s.

VA-05: True to his word, Some Dude Jeff Clark is going ahead with his plans to run as a teabagging independent, since Rob Hurt won the GOP primary to take on Tom Perriello. In fact, Clark filed petitions with the board of elections last week. Note, though, something he hasn’t yet filed: an FEC report. Meanwhile, second-place finisher Jim McKelvey, who swore he wouldn’t support Hurt if he became the nominee, is still playing coy. Election night remarks suggested he was prepared to fall in line, but he hasn’t officially endorsed. (The other four also-rans have in fact done so.)

Polltopia: Taegan Goddard relays some blind non-quotes from random “pollsters” complaining about the alleged lack of transparency in Nate Silver’s pollster ratings – in particular, the fact that he hasn’t published his database of polls. Leaving aside the delicious irony that anonymous pollsters are complaining about transparency, I think this is a red herring. As Nate points out in a post of his own, anyone can recreate his work (with a lot of time and a little money) – and his main concern is the legal issues involved in making public a database that in part relies on information drawn from for-pay services.

A lot of beltway pundits have said a lot of stupid beltway things about the result of the Arkansas senate runoff between Blanche Lincoln and Bill Halter. But at least a couple of outsider analysts have the right take. First is Ari Melber, who works for the Nation but also has a monthly column in the Politico. It’s really worth reading his newest piece in full, but here’s a good excerpt:

Take the senior administration aide who called Politico’s Ben Smith on Wednesday morning, eager to declare that unions “”flushed”” ten million down the toilet in a “”pointless”” primary. That public servant is either disingenuous or clueless.

“If even half that total had been well-targeted and applied in key House races across this country,”the aide said, “that could have made a real difference in November.”

This criticism misreads the entire insurgency on the left – and may cause more heartburn in November.

President Barack Obama’s political team can wish that its base was focused on defending a governing majority. But labor has joined cause with anti-establishment, liberal groups that believe changing the membership of the party’s congressional majority is as important as growing it.

After watching Democratic incumbents freeze out a litany of progressive proposals, from the famous public option to the Employee Free Choice Act – which Democratic politicians have decided to support through speeches, not floor votes – some allies are wising up.

Greg Sargent is on the money as well:

For labor, not doing anything was tantamount to losing.  Blanche Lincoln is terrible on issues important to labor. As long as she remains in the Senate, unions lose.

Yes, labor dumped $10 million on the effort. But they, you know, almost won. If anything, the closeness of the contest — recall that Halter forced Lincoln into a runoff three weeks ago — underscored that labor was right to undertake this effort. And putting aside that $10 million, unions are in some ways in a better position than they were before: It’s a simple fact that other Dems will think longer and harder before crossing labor on issues that are dealbreakers for them.

If labor had never entered this race at all, they’d still be in a losing position with Lincoln in the Senate. This is an unbearably simple and obvious point, but the only way for labor to reverse this situation was to try to replace her with someone better on their issues. They couldn’t do this, of course, without running the risk of losing. Doing nothing would have amounted to a loss, anyway — with no chance of ever winning. They were absolutely right to give it a shot. The alternative was much worse.

I’ll add a final thought, which is that for all the claims that DC loves to play the “expectations game,” the only thing that beltway bobbleheads understand is winning and losing. Smart baseball analysts know that good teams don’t win many close games – they win a lot of blowouts, because narrow wins are more a product of luck than skill. But in the cloistered minds of most tradmed pundits, only the won-lost record matters: you win, you’re golden, you lose, you suck – no matter how close the margin. This, of course, is foolish, and the establishment ignores Lincoln’s tight escape at its peril.

Isn’t it obvious, Mandrake?

The Assembly voted 26-16 Thursday for a bill that requires the fluoridation of water in Clark and Washoe counties.

Before the vote, Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, R-Reno, sought to postpone the vote so she could add an amendment to block fluoridation in Washoe County. …

But Angle said she simply does not like fluoride.

“The fluoride solutions used in fluoridation must not contain any quantity of lead, arsenic, mercury, or any other substance that may be considered hazardous to human health,” she said. During hearings, Angle said witnesses testified most states use an industrial fluoride that contains such substances.

4:00am: Props 16 and 17 look like they’ll fail tonight, 51.8% No on 16 and 50.7% No on 17. If they follow the trajectory they’ve been taking over the course of the night, expect those numbers to go up. Harmer’s still nursing his 10 point lead over Goehring in CA-11. After nine hours, SSP is signing off!

3:51am: Fortunately for Gary Miller, California’s not a runoff state! He’s now just under 50%! Both props continue to slip now at over 2/3rd reporting; our punch cards say 51.7% No on 16, 50.6% No on 17.

3:45am: Have we crossed the Rubicon? Prop 16 looking headed towards failure with 51.4% opposed. No’s running ahead of yes by 107,000 right now, which in light of what we’re estimating to be 600,000 or so votes left isn’t trivial to overcome. Prop 17 has tipped the balance and is now projected to fail by 0.2%, but No’s 25,000 lead is much more tenuous.

3:30am: No love for Prop 15 (public financing of SoS campaigns); the AP’s finally called ‘No’ with 57%.

3:25am: Looking at Props 16 and 17 now with 57% reporting, both Props’ support continue to weaken. Prop 16 is now on track for 51.2% opposed, and Prop 17 passing by 0.5%. There are a few Prop 16 strongholds left, notably, San Bernardino, San Diego, Riverside and Orange Counties, but there are plenty of smaller NorCal counties there to offset – half of Santa Clara, Yolo, and Alameda; three-fourths of Santa Cruz, and a third of Sonoma. Even Placer’s contributing to the No-on-16 effort,  where it’s failing 53-47 right now.

3:10am: It’s now past midnight Pacific Time, and the big action is left in Props 16 and 17. (Prop 15 hasn’t been called yet, but looks well on target for failure). Prop 16’s fate has changed quite a bit since an hour and a half ago, now looking on track for failure with 50.9% against. What’s changed? More anti-Prop 16 areas in Southern California are reporting: LA County, which had been supporting Prop 16 with 56%, is now down to 52% in support; Santa Barbara which was in support is now against. Prop 17 is doing better, looking on track for passage with about 50.4%.

3:00am: Is Busby the new Sodrel? Busby declared the winner in CA-50, setting up Busby v. Bilbray round 3.

2:56am: In an odd show of moderation by the California GOP, appointed incumbent Lt. Gov Abel Maldonado gets the nod for re-election over conservative challenger State Senator Sam Aanestad.

2:53am: CA-36 (D): Jane Harman has fended off Marcy Winograd for the second time with about 61% of the vote.

2:47am: Gary Miller’s 53% is good enough for the AP to declare him the winner. It’s better than Bob “28%” Inglis, but still weak.

2:45am: CA-36 (D) is looking similar to 2006 at 62-38 for Harman. Laura Richardson was also declared the winner next door in CA-37 with a surprisingly weak 65%.

2:41am: CA-19 (R) called for Denham. Marsden still trailing Goodwin 53-47 on the (D) side.

2:39am: Few more precincts rolled through in CA-42, Gary Miller is now to 53%, in one of tonight’s worst incumbent showings.

2:37am: Kamala Harris gets the Dem nod for Attorney General; matchup will be SF DA Harris vs. LA DA Cooley.

2:32am: Mary Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow? More quickly now, it seems, enough that the AP has called the Dem Lt. Gov nod for Gavin Newsom and the GOP Att. Gen nod for Steve Cooley.

2:30am: The statewide races aren’t the only thing seemingly standing still. CA-11 is still 35-28 for Harmer, while CA-19 has moved a bit to 37-30 Denham over Patterson, with the odious Dick Pombo back at 20. Gary Miller continues to underwhelm in CA-42 at 54%. Also in a bit of a surprise, California Democratic Party-endorsed candidate Les Marsden is down 47-53 to Some Dude Loraine Goodwin. The only major movement is on the Prop 16 side, which is now slated to fail narrowly with 50.12% against.

2:10am: The sky is still blue, as well, it seems! 36% in now, same holding pattern: 57-31 Newsom for LG (D), 47-28 Maldonado for LG (R); 33-17 Harris for AG (D), and 49-32 Cooley for AG (R). Here at SSP Labs, we are now taking bets over whether Kamala Harris will clear the one-third mark. (Signs pointing to no and a finish around 32%). Prop 16 is now looking at a 50.4% passage.

1:58am: Things are looking a little comfier for David Harmer in CA-11, much to the NRCC’s pleasure, I’m sure. He’s at 36, with Brad Goehring at 27. Amador’s at 19 and Emken at 18.

1:55am: Watching California’s been like watching grass grow, but bring on the Miracle Gro! A cool 1,000 precincts just rolled in, bringing us to 29% reporting. But, alas, grass is still green, 58-30 Newsom for LG (D); 47-28 Maldonado for LG (R); 33-18 Harris for AG (D); and 50-31 Cooley for AG (R). Prop 16 still on track to pass with 51.8%.

1:47am: Prop 16’s back down narrowly in California by less than 2,000 votes. For what was assumed to be a Democrat-Republican issue, this is seriously breaking the usual patterns: the “new Orange County” of Placer County and conservative Kern County (Bakersfield) are voting this down, while normally Democratic SoCal areas like LA and Imperial County are voting yes. Some good old back-of-the-envelope math says passage is likely with 51.8%.

1:42am: Here’s an odd tidbit I missed: the SC-03 Republican runoff is going to be between state Rep. Jeff Duncan (as expected) and businessman Richard Cash (totally unexpected, with state Rep. Rex Rice finishing 3rd), but Cash actually wound up pulling ahead at the end. It was 25 Cash, 23 Duncan, 19 Rice, and 19 for John Grimaud (who’d planned to challenge Joe Wilson in the 2nd, but decided at the last minute that the 3rd would be better).

1:40am: Two special elections in CA today. One for Assembly District 43 (Glendale, Burbank) to replace now-LA City Councilman Paul Krekorian (D), where after 6 precincts, the Dem is up 54-46. AD-43 went for Obama 70-28. The other’s in Senate District 37 to replace now-Riverside Co. Supervisor John Benoit (R). Dems didn’t expect to have a shot, but the Dem nominee’s losing 57-32 in an SD that gave Obama 50.3%. The more exciting special election – to replace now Lt. Gov Abel Maldonado is in two weeks.

1:30am: Still a holding pattern in the four big CA statewide races left, though we’re at 22% reporting now. Newsom still up on Hahn 57-30 for Dem Lt. Gov; Maldonado up 47-28 though Aanestad’s doing well in Orange County. Dem AG remains 33-18-15-12, Harris-Kelly-Torrico-Lieu, and Rep AG is also still at 50-31-19 Cooley/Eastman/Harman. Prop 16 is leading narrowly now and could be extrapolated to it passing 52-48.

1:20am: Things are still a little slow in CA-42; with 6% reporting, Gary Miller’s at 55%, which I think is the 2nd most underwhelming House incumbent performance tonight (ahead of only Bob Inglis). Phil Liberatore is at 32.

1:10am: The last outstanding race in Arkansas looks like it’s been put to bed. In the R primary runoff in AR-03, the AP has called it for Steve Womack, 52-48, over Cecile Bledsoe. Another endorsement fail for Sarah Palin. At least Terry Branstad’s keeping her percentage up.

1:00am: In CA-47, it looks the Vietnamese vote splitting problem never materialized. Van Tran leads the GOP primary at 52, with Kathy Smith at 29 and Tan Nguyen at 19.

12:57am: The Cal SoS seems to be further along than the AP (up to 15% in), and they have a whole different take on CA-11. They have Harmer at 34, not that far ahead of Goehring at 30, with Amador at 18 and Emken at 17.

12:55am: Geez, add even another one to the list. In CA-41, Jerry Lewis (rounding out the trio of Inland Empire GOPers under ethical clouds for weird real estate deals) leads his opposition 66-34.

12:52am: In CA-44, Ken Calvert also looks poised to join the very large club of incumbents not breaking 70% in their primaries. He leads his opposition 69-31. Up in CA-11, establishment pick David Harmer has gained more ground; he’s at 48, with 21 for Emken, 20 for Amador, and 10 for Goehring. And in CA-19, establishment guy Jeff Denham also leads 41, with Patterson at 25 and Pombo at 20, with about 40% reporting.

12:46am: The four Lt. Gov and Attorney General races are still uncalled. For LG (D), Newsom’s up 57-31 on Hahn winning plenty of SoCal locales like San Diego. In the Republican primary, Maldonado’s keeping his edge over Sam Aanestad, who’s even losing stalwart conservative areas like Placer County. For Atty Gen (D), Kamala Harris is keeping a narrow 32-18 lead over Chris Kelly; Torrico in 3rd at 15 and Lieu in 4th at 12. Not enough cat fud in GOP primary; moderate Steve Cooley still up 50-31 on Eastman with Tom Harman back at 19.

12:44am: Former Assembly Speaker Karen Bass wins her primary in CA-33 with 85%, will likely be the next congresswoman from this D+35 district.

12:36am: Sue Lowden can now set up that bartering post she’s always wanted; NV-Sen called for Angle by the AP.

12:33am: No, rly. AP calls the Republican SoS primary for Damon Dunn. Orly Taitz can go back to filing groundless lawsuits as a private citizen. In between pulling teeth.

12:32am: AP has called Proposition 14 (top two primary system) as a ‘yes.’ Take that, third parties!

12:29am: Here’s one GOP moderate who survived a teabagger challenge with little trouble. Mary Bono Mack leads Clayton Thibodeau 74-26 with more than half in, in CA-45. In CA-42, only about 1% is in, but it points to Gary Miller — who we’d thought was most vulnerable to his teabagging opponent, seeing as how he (Liberatore) actually had some money — surviving, albeit unimpressively. Miller leads 58-28.

12:28am: In CA-50, it looks like it’ll be Francine Busby 3.0. With more than 10% in, she’s leading Tracy Emblem 64-36.

12:25am: Switching back to the East coast, there’s one New Jersey race still uncalled. In the GOP primary in NJ-06, 99.6% are in, and Little leads Gooch (the moneybags lady who was On the Radar) by about 100 votes.

12:22am: Joe Heck easily dispensed with the teabag remnants he faced in the GOP primary in NV-03, winning with 70%. There is, however, a barnburner between two guys I don’t know in the Dem primary in NV-02, for the booby prize of going up against Dean Heller: K. McKenna and N. Price are both at 45.

12:19am: Since we last looked, Sharron Angle really turned on the afterburners. Now she’s at 38, with Sue Lowden at 29 and Tark at 22 (oh, and carpetbagging investment banker John Chachas at 4). We’re closing on on half reporting. Angle has pulled into the lead (36-33) in Clark County, where over half the votes are.

12:16am: Bass masters her opposition. Karen Bass, former state Speaker, is at a whopping 85% against minor opposition to succeed Diane Watson in CA-33.

12:14am: In CA-26, David Dreier’s at 78% against minor opposition, much better than a lot of other insider Reps tonight. If anyone knows how to survive a teabagging, it’s him.

12:10am: AP calls CA-Sen for Carly Fiorina. 54 for her, to 26 for Campbell for 17 for DeVore. Campbell heads back to the pasture to resume frightening sheep.

12:09am: Only 2% in in CA-11, but David Harmer is breaking away. He’s at 39, with Tony Amador and Elizabeth Emken both at 24, and liberal huntin’ vintner Brad Goehring at 12.

12:07am: Here’s one more totally unexpected teabagging underway in dark red CA-02. With 10% in, Wally Herger (R) is at only 62% against Some Dude.

12:05am: Holy crap! CA-Sen (D) has been called for Barbara Boxer. The ghost of Paul Wellstone has struck down Mickey Kaus.

12:02am: Here’s a race that was on nobody’s radar screen: Laura Richardson (D in a safe blue district, but associated with foreclosures and a general sense of being out-to-lunch), is at only 65%, although against scattered opposition.

12:01am: Less than 5% reporting, but CA-36 (D) may turn out to be something of a non-event; Jane Harman leads Marcy Winograd 65-35.

12:00am: Onto the Cali House races. In CA-19 (R), with about 23% reporting, Jeff Denham leads Jim Patterson and Richard Pombo 44-23-20. Looks like that poll surge for Patterson didn’t pan out.

11:58pm: Back to South Carolina for a minute, where it’s been confirmed that in SC-01, we’re headed to a GOP runoff between CfG protege Tim Scott and legacy candidate Paul Thurmond. Sorry, “Tumpy.”

11:55pm: Initiatives! Prop 14 (top two primary) passing, 60-40. Peace & Freedom Party heads for dustbin of history. Prop 15 (public financing of elections) failing, 43-57. Prop 16 (electric company tyranny) passing, 53-47. And Prop 17 (auto insurance) also passing 55-45.

11:53pm: AP calls CA-Gov (R) for Meg Whitman. $80-odd million and counting; how much will she spend by November?

11:50pm: For LG, it’s Newsom 52, Hahn 35, and for the GOP, it’s Maldonado 48, Aanestad 28. For AG, Harris leads at 28, with Kelly at 19, Torrico at 15, Lieu at 14, Delgadillo way back at 8. And among GOPer AGers, Cooley 52, Eastman 30.

11:48pm: And in the Senate, Carly Fiorina is leading Tom Campbell and Chuck DeVore 58-23-17. Barbara Boxer leading Mickey Kaus (does that rhyme with Mickey Mouse? never noticed that till now) 78-5.

11:46pm: Quick non-California update: AR-01 called for Chad Causey. Not much love for public hanging, even in West Memphis (home of the West Memphis 3!).

11:45pm: We’re getting close to 5% reporting in California statewide, so let’s turn our attention to the Golden State. Meg Whitman is beating Steve Poizner 64-26, outpacing the polls a bit. Y’know, Jerry Brown is too, actually; he leads Richard Aguirre 83-4.

11:40pm: This may turn out to be the weirdest story of the night, about Alvin Greene, the 32-year-old unemployed ex-military guy who lives with his dad and who now happens to be the Dem nominee for Senate in South Carolina (instead of expected candidate Vic Rawl, a Charleston Co. Commissioner). Somehow he came across $10K to file, and has seemed to have run a phantom campaign ever since then. How did he get here? We’ll no doubt hear more in coming days.

11:35pm: And now the news that’ll have everyone saying “Who?” AP calls ME-Gov (D) for Libby Mitchell. She’ll face Paul LePage in the duel of the unknowns.

11:34pm: We’ll start with the bad news; AP calls IA-Gov (R) for Terry Branstad. But only 50-40 over Vander Plaats.

11:24pm: The night is winding down, but CA and NV are just getting cranked up.

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• AR: Associated Press | Politico
• CA: Associated Press | Politico
• IA: Associated Press | Politico
• ME: Associated Press | Politico
• NV: Associated Press | Politico

11:33pm: Party’s moved next door.

11:31pm: AR-02 has been called by AP for Elliott, now 54-46. She’ll face Tim Griffin… probably not as good a matchup for Dems as Wills.

11:29pm: Angle’s back in the lead in NV-Sen! 35, to Lowden’s 33, with 21 for Tarkanian. 14% in. I’m sure we’ll see lots of back and forth gyrations in this one as different counties report. Lowden has small lead in Clark, while Angle has a much bigger lead in Washoe.

11:27pm: AP has called GOP primary in NJ-12 for Scott Sipprelle, rich guy, over teabagger opposition, but only 54-46. Rush Holt probably not very scared. GOP primary in NJ-06 is still 50-50, with Diane Gooch trailing by 100.

11:25pm: Add a couple more New Jersey races to the list of races where no-name teabaggers held moderates down to so-so numbers. Leonard Lance only racked up 56% in NJ-07, and Chris Smith in NJ-04 held to 69%. Both were ‘yes’ votes on cap & trade.

11:21pm: All the Arkansas House races are super close. In AR-01, it’s Causey 51, Wooldridge 49, with 94% in. In AR-02, it’s Elliot 52, Wills 48, with 91% in. And in AR-03, it’s Womack 50, Bledsoe 50, with Womack up by about 200, although that’s only with 75% in.

11:15pm: ME-Gov (R) called for Paul LePage. Looking like he’ll take on Libby Mitchell in the fall.

11:12pm: Only 1% reporting, but the AP has already called NV-Gov (R) for ex-judge Brian Sandoval. Even the RGA supported him over Jim Gibbons.

11:10pm: Oh yeah, poll closed in California ten minutes ago.

11:01pm: In Iowa, the AP calls IA-03 (R) for Brad Zaun, who will take on Leonard Boswell. In IA-02, Mariannette Miller-Meeks of the dreaded ophthalmologists will rematch against Dave Loebsack.

11:00pm: The AP calls AR-Sen for Blanche Lincoln.

10:51pm: A smattering of precincts and early votes coming in from Nevada, including Clark County (Las Vegas). Gibbons is losing big time to Sandoval in NV-Gov, 57-23. Chicken Lady ahead of Angle 36-33 with Tarkanian at 20.

10:48pm: Ganja break OVER! Maine is now up to 38% in. Libby Mitchell has extended her lead to 34-26 over Rowe, and Paul LePage is cruising.

10:43pm: How baked must they be in Maine right about now? Been at 12% since… whoa… are those Cool Ranch Doritos?

10:40pm: Chad Causey looks like he might hold out over Tim “The Hangman” Wooldridge in AR-01. Meanwhile, Joyce Elliott now has a lead over Robbie Wills in AR-02. And in AR-03, teabagger fave Cecile Bledsoe is beating Steve Womack 54-46. Bledsoe is both a teabagger queen and sort of the establishment choice – I dunno, though, it was a weird race.

10:37pm: We’re pretty confident in calling ND-AL for state Rep. Kristi Noem, who beat the more-or-less establishment choice, SoS Chris Nelson. You only need 35% to avoid a runoff in SD, and Noem has a 41-36 lead with most of the votes in.

10:32pm: Halter took a brief lead for a moment there, but it’s back to where it was.

10:27pm: AR-Sen is 51-49 Blanche, but Halter is still behind where he needs to be, according to our model. If you want a fuller explanation of how our model works, click here.

10:23pm: With 12% reporting, Terry Branstad is up just 51-40 over Bob Vander Plaats in IA-Gov (R).

10:13pm: Can’t wait to see those NV-Sen results start to roll in (soon, I hope). Meanwhile, our friends up in Maine seem to be on the first ganja break of the evening.

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RESULTS:

• AR: Associated Press | Politico
• IA: Associated Press | Politico
• ME: Associated Press | Politico
• NJ: Associated Press | Politico
• NV: Associated Press | Politico
• SC: Associated Press | Politico | SC SEC
• SD: Associated Press | Politico

10:19pm: It’s a moveable feast – join us in the new thread.

10:09pm: I think I forgot to mention that the AP called SD-Gov (R) for Dennis Daugaard a few minutes ago. He’ll take on Scott Heidepriem in November.

10:06pm: In AR-01, Chad Causey is a little bit behind where he needs to be from round one in order to beat Tim Wooldridge. In AR-02, Joyce Elliott trails slightly, but she’s actually out-performing her first-round share by a lot, suggesting she’ll take the win. See our model for more.

10:03pm: With 12% reporting in Maine, Paul LePage has a 34-17 lead over Les Otten on the R side, while it’s a very tight 31-30 for Libby Mitchell over Steve Rowe on the D side.

10:00pm: It’s ten o’clock – do you know where your polling place is? Well, it’s closed now if you live in IA, MT or NV.

9:52pm: Ayup – the AP calls a runoff between Haley and Barrett. Monster failures on the part of McMaster and Bauer.

9:45pm: We project that Nikki Haley will miss out on avoiding a runoff by about 5,000 votes. Meanwhile, in SC-04, Gowdy is down to 42%, but Inglis is at just 26%, and the AP has called it for a runoff between those two men.

9:44pm: That’s funny – AR-01, AR-02 and AR-03 are all 51-49 right now.

9:39pm: Compared to his round one showing, Halter is doing three points worse in the territory that’s already reported.

9:35pm: Hmm, so, things aren’t really looking so hot for Bill Halter so far. Lincoln’s up 53-47, but much of what’s reported is (narrowly) Halter country.

9:33pm: AP calls it for Jon Runyan in NJ-03 (R). His 56% looks pretty unimpressive, if you ask me.

9:31pm: It seems all but certain that the GOP primaries in SC-01 and SC-03 (both open seats) will go to runoffs. No one has more than 30% in either race.

9:23pm: While NJ-06 and NJ-12 are not high on anyone’s takeover lists, the establishment GOP picks in each race – Diane Gooch and Scott Sipprelle – are both trailing teabaggers, as nj1122 points out.

9:19pm: John Runyan, the establishment choice by a hundred yards in NJ-03, is only up 54-46 on Justin Murphy with about 38% in.

9:15pm: Back in SC-04, Trey Gowdy has 49.6% of the vote with 50% reporting. That rounds up to 50, of course, but he’ll actually need 50%+1 to clear the runoff hurdle.

9:13pm: In SD-AL, establishment fave Chris Nelson only has a narrow lead over Kristi Noem, 41-39 with 25% in.

9:12pm: With 19% of the vote in in SD-Gov (R), Dennis Daugaard has a huge 53-21 lead over Scott Munsterman. Daugaard is generally considered to be the more conservative contender.

9:11pm: Blanche Lincoln up 54-46 with about 2% reporting.

9:09pm: Oy. Let’s hope not.

9:07pm: Note that our model for Arkansas is being thrown off right now by the absentee votes. As more votes come in, it should start to make more sense.

9:03pm: Polls have also now closed in the western part of South Dakota (they closed in the east an hour ago).

9:00pm: The AP has called SC-Gov (D) for Sheheen, who wins the Dem nod without a runoff.

8:56pm: No results in from Maine yet, but we also have a model (more of a back-of-the-envelope projector) that aggregates results by county for ME-Gov.

8:51pm: Meanwhile, in SC-04, our model is predicting a runoff. Trey Gowdy has 44% and Rep. Bob Inglis has a truly feeble 26%. Even if Inglis survives to a runoff, he’ll be in extremely bad shape.

8:50pm: With a little over a third of the vote in, state Sen. Vincent Sheheen is pulling an impressive 58% in SC-Gov (D), while Jim Rex trails at 23 and Robert Ford is at 19. Sheheen might avoid a runoff here. On the GOP side, Nikki Haley is at 46 and Gresham Barrett at 26.

8:48pm: Looks like a handful of votes have shown up in Arkansas, but zero precincts are listed as reporting, so I’m guessing absentees and the like.

8:33pm: We have a bitchin’ model for the AR-Sen runoff, which you can check out here. We’ll keep it updated throughout the night so that you can see our latest projections.

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Polls have now closed in Arkansas, and we’re still counting votes in ME, NJ & SC.

RESULTS:

• AR: Associated Press | Politico
• ME: Associated Press | Politico
• NJ: Associated Press | Politico
• SC: Associated Press | Politico | SC SEC

DE-Sen: Biden alert? Dem senate candidate Chris Coons says a Biden fundraiser is “in the works.” I sure hope so! I think Coons is a sleeper candidate, and it would be ridic for Biden not to help a fellow Dem out in his own state (which is just outside of DC, anyhow).

NV-Sen: It may be too late to save her fricasseed campaign, but Sue Lowden has an over-the-top ad out hitting Sharron Angle for her support of a Scientology-backed plan to offer massage therapy to recovering drug addicts. Be sure to check out the cameo of a certain couch-jumping Top Gun star at about 20 seconds in.

NY-Sen-B: So as you know if you’re a faithful SSP reader, the state GOP put two dudes on their ballot line for the September primary: Bruce Blakeman and David Malpass. They did not include ex-Rep. Joe DioGuardi, but (and this is a big “but,” DioGuardi did score the Conservative Party’s ballot line all to himself. Though DioGuardi says he’ll try to petition his way on to the GOP ballot, Republicans don’t seem to have a lot of faith in him becoming their nominee, and they want to avoid a split ticket. So Conservative chair Mike Long got a bunch of calls asking him to bounce DioGuardi from his party’s line, but he refused, pointing out that DioGuardi got 70% of the vote at the Conservative convention. Ah, the New York GOP – still a train wreck.

ID-Gov: The Idaho Statesman has a pretty good profile on Dem gubernatorial nominee Keith Allred, who is running a surprisingly vigorous (and decently-funded) campaign against the not-so-hot incumbent Butch Otter. The most interesting detail is the fact that the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, a chamber-of-commerce-type big business lobby, is already attacking Allred – not something you usually bother doing with an un-serious candidate.

SC-Gov: Rudy Giuliani jumped in with a last-minute endorsement of AG Henry McMaster yesterday – though note that the unlovable loser finished sixth in the South Carolina primary in 2008. (Though Joe Lieberman reassured him that it was actually an eleventy-way tie for fifth.) And in a seriously weird last-minute desperation move, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer released, uh, well… you’d expect me to say “released a poll,” right? Nope – he released the results of a polygraph test (!), which he claims show he had no involvement in the various Nikki Haley affair allegations. Talk about protesting a wee bit too much, huh?

AL-05: A douchey move from a douchey guy: Bud Cramer, the Democrat who held this seat before giving way to Parker Griffith, is not “ready to endorse any candidate for Congress” – even though, you know, we have a nominee (Steve Raby). Cramer actually pulled this same shit last cycle after he announced his retirement, dithering for several weeks before finally endorsing Griffith. Back then, Cramer suggested he might endorse a Republican – and I guess he finally got his wish when Griffith switched parties. Jesus, though – do the right thing already.

FL-24: Former Winter Park Commissioner Karen Diebel scored an endorsement from Mike Huckabee in her bid to become the GOP nominee against Rep. Suzanne Kosmas.

MA-10: Republican Jeffrey Perry has been under fire for his oversight of a police officer under his command while Perry was a police sergeant in the early 1990s. The officer, Scott Flanagan, was ultimately fired and pled guilty for illegal strip-searching a 16-year-old girl. Now, the Cape Cod Times reports that Perry’s own accounts of the incident and its aftermath are contradicted by police records from the time. In an earlier interview, Perry suggested that he had acted with alacrity in handling the situation, but now it appears he waited 24 hours to write up the officer, and almost a week to take a statement from a witness to the search.

NC-08: Heh, he actually went ahead and did it. Weapons-grade wingnut Tim D’Annunzio launched a defamation suit against his runoff opponent, Harold Johnson, for a “radio ad targeting D’Annunzio for his ‘life of drugs, crime and time served in prison’ and for supposedly failing to pay an employer payroll tax, having tax liens, and withholding child support.” D’Annunzio had previously threatened to sue the chair of the NC GOP, but this is so much more fun.

NY-13: Rep. Mike McMahon scored the endorsement of the Independence Party, which means he’ll have their ballot line in November (something he didn’t have last cycle). And while he won’t get the support Working Families Party thanks to his “no” vote on healthcare, the WFP isn’t expected to nominate any kind of challenger, so their line will likely remain blank in this race – thus avoiding a split of the left-leaning vote. A Dem primary challenge at this point also looks remote. Meanwhile, McMahon raised $140K at a fundraiser hosted by none other than Mike Bloomberg. He was also expected to take in some $90K at an Anthony Weiner event, which was also slated to feature Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro, a Conservative.

NY-29: Judge David Larimer of the Western District of New York ruled against Republicans who were seeking to force Gov. David Paterson to call the special election for this vacant seat earlier than November, saying Paterson was empowered to call it for the fall. An appeal to the Second Circuit is possible, but no word yet on whether one is planned.

VA-11: This seems really lame.

CA-SoS: I guess maybe we were too busy laughing when we first heard stories that Orly Taitz was running for California Secretary of State to bother writing it up… but not only is she on the ballot, the CA GOP is worried she might win the primary! She’s running against Damon Dunn, another ex-NFLer (what is with those guys running for office this year?), but Dunn’s deliberately ignored her rather than attack. The Republicans have little chance against Dem incumbent Debra Bowen, but Orly as their nominee would be a nice, months-long goiter for them to deal with.

Blue Dogs: I think I agree with everything Chris Bowers says in this post.

Games: Several folks in comments were recommending a new game called Congress Forever the other day, where you battle for control of the House and Senate. I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks like the perfect nerd timewaster.

Polling: Nate Silver just released the latest version of his pollster ratings, which analyzes a truly massive data set of “4,670 distinct polls from 264 distinct pollsters covering 869 distinct electoral contests” going all the way back to 1998. He lays out his methodology in a separate post, which is a must-read. Also, that gang of polling maniacs over at PPP are soliciting your votes again: The choices this time are LA, MA, PA, WA or WI.

Redistricting: Politico has a piece out which claims that Republicans are lagging in the race to raise money and set up legal groups to wage the coming round of redistricting battles. I’m a little skeptical, because the article says that Republicans are hurting thanks to a lack of soft money in the post-McCain Feingold world – but if anything, Dems were known as the party most dependent on soft money before campaign finance reform passed. Still, P’Co suggests that Dems are more organized because of some top-down control being exercised by the Obama political operation.