Month: August 2010

The main event of last night was the Republican gubernatorial primary, which ended surprisingly quickly, with a convincing victory by Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam. Haslam, the ostensible ‘moderate’ in the race, benefited from not only his lots of his own money, but also from having the moderate side to himself and a conservative pile-up in opposition (and the fact that Tennessee has no runoffs). He defeated Rep. Zach Wamp and Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey 47-29-22. (In one more parallel to the Michigan governor primary, Wamp, who said in his concession speech that “The best candidate doesn’t always win,” can now compete with Rep. Peter Hoekstra as to which one can be the douchiest loser.) Haslam is certainly favored against Dem Mike McWherter in November.

In the House races, there were extremely close GOP primaries in the TN-03 and TN-06 open seats In the 3rd, the somewhat less objectionable Chuck Fleischmann beat former state party chair Robin Smith 30-28. In the 6th, Diane Black won with 31, over fellow state Sen. Jim Tracy and crazed Islamophobe Lou Ann Zelenik (with both at 30). Black faces Dem Brett Carter, who won a similarly close race.

Two other GOP primaries were less close. In TN-08, for the right to face Roy Herron to succeed retiring John Tanner, Stephen Fincher won a surprisingly convincing victory over two self-funders, Ron Kirkland and George Flinn, 48-24-24. And in potential sleeper race TN-04, to face Lincoln Davis, Scott DesJarlais beat Jack Bailey 37-27.

The very last race card may have been played in TN-09. In the third straight slime-covered Dem primary here that was all about race, embarrassing former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton came up woefully short in his quest (predicated almost entirely on Herenton being black and Cohen being white, in a black-majority district) to unseat Rep. Steve Cohen, by a 79-21 margin. Somehow I don’t think this’ll be the last primary Cohen ever sees, but hopefully they’ll be about something other than race in the future.

Finally, the 15 minutes of fame for Basil Marceaux — whose flag has 49 stars because he’ll be dead in the cold cold ground before he recognizes Missourah — seem to be up, as the viral video hero got 0% in the Republican TN-Gov primary and 1% in the TN-03 primary.

12:12am: With all 259 precincts reporting, we are done, and the AP has called Diane Black the winner. She’s at 31, with Zelenik and Tracy at 30. Black beats Zelenik by 813 votes, while Zelenik takes 2nd over Tracy by a mere 15 votes. But there’s no runoff, so it’s academic. Black will face Brett Carter in November, who won the Dem primary 30-29-29 over Barry and Leming. Somewhere in there, too, the AP called TN-04 for Scott DesJarlais, who beat Jack Bailey 37-27 in the end. And with that, we’re done for the night.

11:32pm: Now we’re up to 96% reporting in TN-06. Black has retaken the lead, as I somewhat expected, as Sumner and Trousdale Counties finally came in. She’s at 31, with Zelenik and Tracy at 30. Black’s lead is 800, with only 11 precincts left to report, so I think this’ll hold for her. On the Dem side, it’s very tight too, with Brett Carter at 30, and Barry and Leming both at 29. Carter’s lead is only 158 votes.

11:16pm: Whoa! Late breaking excitement in TN-06. Jim Tracy shoots from 3rd to 1st, while Diane Black falls from 1st to 3rd. It’s now 31 Tracy, 31 Zelenik, 29 Black, with Tracy up by 300, with 88% reporting. Outstanding precincts are in Sumner and Putnam Counties. (Sumner is Black’s base, though, so maybe she can mount a comeback. Rutherford, Zelenik’s base, is through.)

11:13pm: Although, to Marceaux’s credit, he did at least break the 1% mark in TN-03, unlike TN-Gov. (Or, technically, the 0.7% mark.)

11:09pm: The AP has called TN-03 for Chuck Fleischmann. (And not Basil Marceaux, who’s batting 0-for-2 on the night.) Fleischmann beats Robin Smith 30-28, with a margin of 1,300, with 98% reporting. His Democratic opponent in this open seat in November will be J. Wolfe. (No, never heard of him (or her) either.)

10:58pm: In the other close race left that we’re following, in TN-06, with 74% reporting, Diane Black is at 31, with Zelenik and Tracy at 30. (Still.) Black’s lead is up to 800 votes, though.

10:56pm: No call yet in TN-03, but we’re near the end: with 95% reporting, Chuck Fleischmann is adding a little more distance on Robin Smith: 29-28, with a 900-vote margin.

10:34pm: Looks like Scott DesJarlais is going to be the GOP nominee in TN-04. With 74% in, the numbers there are still basically the same; he leads Jack Bailey 35-28.

10:32pm: We’ve jumped to 78% reporting in TN-09, and things are still pretty much the same: Cohen leads Herenton 79-21. Race card fail.

10:25pm: Here’s some interesting symmetry. The Democratic primary in TN-06 is almost equally tight. Bret Carter is in 1st at 31, followed by the previously unheralded H. Barry at 30 and Ben Leming (the guy I think we were supposed to be rooting for) at 28.

10:20pm: To approximately quote Dan Rather, TN-06 is tighter than a tick in a wet bathing suit on a hot day in a Volkswagen Bug full of clowns. With 58% reporting, Diane Black is at 31, with Zelenik and Tracy both at 30. Black’s lead is about 700 votes.

10:13pm: With 84% in, Chuck Fleischmann is just barely starting to pull ahead of Robin Smith in TN-03. They both at 29%, but Fleischmann has a lead of about 500 votes now.

10:09pm: The AP just called TN-08 for Stephen Fincher. With 67% in, Fincher’s at 51, with 25 for Kirkland and 22 for Flinn (who is most definitely not “in”).

10:03pm: The AP is only listing one precinct as reporting in TN-09, but they’ve already called the race. The Steve Cohen 81-19 lead over Willie Herenton still seems to be holding.

10:02pm: Wow, things are a tight three-way in TN-06 also. Black and Zelenik are both at 31, with Tracy at 30. Black’s lead is a mere 90 votes, with 38% reporting.

10:00pm: We’ve rounded the bend in most races now. With 75% reporting, in TN-03, it’s still 30-30 for Smith and Fleischmann. Smith leads by only 38 votes!

9:30pm: Thanks to Johnny Longtorso in comments (and his ability to navigate the awful Shelby Co. Elections website), we know that the 3:1 margin is TN-09 is indeed panning out. Except it’s for Steve Cohen, who leads Willie Herenton 81-19.

9:26pm: And with about 10% in in TN-08, Stephen Fincher is still far ahead, leading to many sighs of relief at 1 NRCC Plaza. Fincher’s at 50, with 28 for Kirkland and 19 for Flinn. (And if you’re wondering about TN-09, still no reports at all from there.)

9:25pm: Things are tightening up in TN-06 R, although only 5% are in, as Zelenik and Tracy counties are reporting more. It’s Black 35, Zelenik 31, Tracy 28.

9:21pm: In TN-04, with about 15% in, Scott DesJarlais leads Jack Bailey 34-28 in the GOP primary. I don’t know anything about these guys, but whoever wins will hope to ride the wave and the “Generic R” slot and hope it gets him over the top against Lincoln Davis.

9:19pm: With 16% reporting, things are still very tight in TN-03. Robin Smith is up 29-28 over Chuck Fleischmann with a 300 vote lead. Tim Gobble is at 18, sadly, meaning we’ll probably never get to see the Gobble-Fudge Act.

9:06pm: The Dem primary in TN-06, in an open seat race that the DCCC (or us) doesn’t seem to have put much stock in, there’s a pretty close race. Bret Carter leads Ben Leming 33-30.

9:03pm: First, let me point in Zach Wamp’s direction and assume my Nelson Muntz voice. HA HA! Now let’s look at the county-by-county results. The only county that Wamp seems to have won is his own county (Hamilton), and the only counties Ramsey seems to have won are is his own (Sullivan) and its immediate neighbor (Johnson). Haslam won everything else that’s reported anything, and that’s all she wrote.

9:00pm: Holy crap, the AP has already called TN-Gov. The big red check mark is next to Bill Haslam’s name. That’s with only 4% reporting. He’s at 52, with 27 for Wamp, 20 for Ramsey, and 0 for Marceaux.

8:58pm: We have only 1% reporting in TN-06, but the numbers seem to match Diane Black’s internal. She’s in the lead at 45, with 26 for Lou Ann Zelenik and 24 for Jim Tracy.

8:55pm: No precincts are reporting in TN-08, but it looks like there are a lot (more than 10,000) of early votes reported. In the GOP primary, humble gospel-singer/agribusiness mogul Stephen Fincher has a big lead at 50, with Ron Kirkland at 32 and George Flinn at 15.

8:52pm: Things are no better in the TN-03 primary. Basil Marceaux is also polling 0% there. It’s a pretty tight race between Robin Smith (at 30) and Chuck Fleischmann (at 28) with Tim Gobble in 3rd at 19. That’s with 2% reporting.

8:49pm: Things are very slow to get started here, but so far, Basil Marceaux is off to a great start here. He’s at 0% in the TN-Gov primary. Bill Haslam is at 53, with Zach Wamp at 27 and Ron Ramsey at 19. But that’s with just 1% reporting so far, so bear in mind there’s still time for all those Marceaux precincts to come in.

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Here’s a question for you all to ponder, as we await results on this very unusual Thursday night edition of liveblogging: Basil Marceaux, as you may know, is somehow on the ballot for both TN-Gov and TN-03. With the expectation, of course, that he wins both of those races in November, which job should he choose? Is federal or state office a more appropriate vehicle for his particular, um, agenda?

Results:

     Associated Press | Politico | TN SoS

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

Wisconsin, the badger state, constitutes a perennial battleground state. Like many of its Midwestern neighbors, the state leans Democratic but remains readily willing to vote Republican. While voting for Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama by double-digit margins, the state also came within one percent – twice – of voting for Republican candidate George W. Bush.

These voting patterns have quite interesting historical roots. Indeed, they stretch back for more than a century.

To examine these roots, let’s first take a look at a map of German immigration patterns in 1890:

More below.

This map, derived from the New York Times, graphs the percentage of German-born immigrants in each Wisconsin county from the 1890 census. There is a striking correlation between this map and Wisconsin in the 2004 presidential election:

In that election, Senator John Kerry clung to Wisconsin by a razor-thin 0.4% margin, winning 49.7% of the vote to Mr. Bush’s 49.3%. As this map indicates, counties heavily settled by Germans form the Republican voting base which Mr. Bush relied upon. This pattern persists even more than a century after the height of German immigration.

It is also still quite powerful. Out of the twelve counties with greater than 20% German-born immigrants in 1890, only one (Milwaukee) voted for Mr. Kerry.

There are exceptions, of course – and German settlement patterns do not form the entire picture of Wisconsin’s electoral demography. Milwaukee, for instance, gave 61.7% of its vote to the Massachusetts senator, despite being composed of 38.9% German immigrants in 1890. This is due to its relatively high black population today and corresponding white flight, which depleted the city of its German-American population. Scandinavian settlement patterns in non-German rural Wisconsin, to use another example, account for their Democratic vote today (interestingly, rural Wisconsin constitutes one of the last Democratic bastions in rural America).

Nevertheless, the overall pattern is still quite striking. A more detailed look at Wisconsin in 2004 only strengthens the link:

As is evident, the correlation between German immigration and Wisconsin’s electoral geography finds a resemblance in both degree and strength. The most Republican-voting regions, located along the southeastern portion of the state, also counted themselves highest in German immigrants in 1890.

Finally, this type of demographic analysis can be used to explain why states vote as they do in far more than just Wisconsin. From Democratic strongholds in former cotton-growing areas of the Deep South to South Dakota’s Native-American and Democratic-voting reservations, history offers a fascinating insight into contemporary politics.

SurveyUSA (7/22-25, registered voters, no trend lines) for the Civitas Institute (R):

Heath Shuler (D-inc): 45

Jeff Miller (R): 44

Undecided: 12

(MoE: ±4.6%)

This poll has been sitting on our desk for a few days, so it’s about time we cleared the decks.

Civitas, themselves a pollster of the Republican persuasion, occasionally farms out their horse race polling to SurveyUSA, just as they’ve done so with this poll of Heath Shuler’s bid for a third term. Interestingly, this poll offers an even rosier view of the race for Republican Jeff Miller than his own internal poll released back in June, where Shuler led by 46-34. However, there’s nothing immediately wonky-looking in the crosstabs, as the party ID split is 40D-33R-26I — probably not far off the mark in this ancestrally Democratic district. We never like to rest our opinion of a race solely on one poll, but the fact that Shuler is resting in the mid-40s in the only two publicly-released polls of this race so far suggests that this seat won’t be a gimme at all.

As a bonus finding, according to this poll, Richard Burr leads Democrat Elaine Marshall by 42-39 in the 11th CD.

Ipsos for Reuters (7/30-8/1, likely voters, no trendlines):

Harry Reid (D-inc): 48

Sharron Angle (R): 44

Other: 2

Undecided: 7

(MoE: ±4.6%)

The first poll of NV-Sen for Ipsos isn’t particularly surprising; most polls lately have averaged out to a lead for Reid in the low- to mid-single-digits. What is very interesting about this poll is that they release separate likely voter and registered voter numbers, and let me just say: holy crap, take a look at the disparity with the RVs! Among RVs (MoE 4%), Harry Reid completely dominates, leading 52-36 (with 2 for other). That points to as clear a quantification of the “enthusiasm gap” between the parties this year as I’ve seen, and certainly should spur more conversation on how Democrats should be looking to activate those currently “unlikely” voters who’d vote Dem if they actually voted.

It’s been a few days since we’ve talked about Nevada, and Sharron Angle has been very busy, saying enough bizarre things to fill a whole article. She started out on Monday with a Fox News interview, where she got a little too candid about her media strategy: she said she wanted “the press to be our friend,” and “ask the questions we want to answer so that they report the news the way we want it to be reported.” Well, that would certainly explain why she was appearing on Fox (whose Carl Cameron had to titter nervously and call her “naive” in the face of all that ill-advised honesty).

Then yesterday it came out that Angle, who’d previously referred to running for office as a “calling from God,” had gone way beyond that in a previously-unnoticed radio interview with a Christian news service from a few months ago. She attacked entitlement programs as wanting to “make government our God,” and referred to “dependency” on the government as “idolatry” and a violation of the First Commandment.

From his perch on the other side of the country, Mitch McConnell can clearly see the trainwreck unfolding, and he made it clear that there won’t be a repeat of 2004, when Bill Frist campaigned against Tom Daschle on his turf: McConnell confirmed he won’t campaign in person in Nevada this year. Nor can Angle count on help from Danny Tarkanian, whom she dispatched in the primary: Lois Tarkanian (Danny’s mom, and wife to basketball legend Jerry) announced she’s joining Harry Reid’s campaign, in order to “call out Sharron Angle’s extreme and dangerous positions.” At least Angle is still mixing it up on the airwaves, with her newest TV spot a relatively normal and coherent one, although it does make the leap of trying to blame the entire housing bubble collapse on Reid.

Rory Reid (D): 39

Brian Sandoval (R):  50

Other: 1

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4.6%)

Ipsos isn’t so kind to the younger Reid, finding him trailing Brian Sandoval by 11 in the open gubernatorial race. The registered voter numbers, as you might expect, show a much closer race, giving Sandoval a lead of only 43-42.

• IL-Sen: Barack Obama’s in Chicago today to help get Alexi Giannoulias across the finish line, at least on the fundraising front, where he’s faltered lately. The fundraiser he’s appearing at today is projected to raise $1 million for Giannoulias’s coffers. Meanwhile, this is a little gossipier than we usually like to get into, but you might check out Chicago Magazine’s interview with Mark Kirk‘s ex-wife, which, jaw-dropping as it is, seems to raise even more questions than it answers, especially regarding Kirk’s former aide and Svengali-figure Dodie McCracken.

• NH-Sen: Here’s an indication that Bill Binnie still has to be taken seriously in the GOP Senate primary in New Hampshire: a conservative group called Cornerstone Action (affiliated with the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family) has launched a $125K ad buy attacking Binnie on his socially moderate stances (he’s pro-choice and apparently pro-gay marriage). While Cornerstone hasn’t specifically backed Kelly Ayotte, Binnie’s camp is trying to link them together.

• CO-Gov: Democratic candidate John Hickenlooper announced his pick for a running mate today: the president of CSU-Pueblo and former Director of the state Dept. of Regulatory Agencies, Joe Garcia (no, not the FL-25 one). Meanwhile, Dan Maes — who was a Some Dude until Scott McInnis imploded — is starting to rival Sharron Angle in terms of his ability to get into the digest every single day for having said something dumb or having some terrible detail from his past revealed. Today, the Denver Post is out with a comprehensive list of his delinquent filings over the years, ranging from annual reports to the state’s SoS office for his credit reporting business for the years 2007-2010, to a lien against his house for not paying his homeowners’ association dues for seven months.

• FL-Gov: Ex-Gov. Jeb Bush is throwing a lifeline to Bill McCollum. He’ll join McCollum on the stump for appearances around the state on Monday. Meanwhile, the spotlight is starting to swing over from Columbia/HCA, Rick Scott’s old healthcare company, to his new one, Solantic. The Miami Herald looks at various lawsuits that Solantic has racked up, ranging from filing false medical information with the state to discrimination lawsuits.

• GA-Gov: Breaking with Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney (who’ve endorsed suburban Karen Handel), Mike Huckabee announced his support today for the more southern-fried Nathan Deal in the GOP gubernatorial runoff.

• MI-Gov: Looks like Rep. Peter Hoekstra, douchebag to the bitter end, may need some time to pout/mourn after his sizable loss in the GOP gubernatorial primary to Rick Snyder. He sent an e-mail to supporters yesterday thanking them but making no mention of support for Snyder. A Hoekstra endorsement, of course, would go a long way toward helping consolidate conservatives behind Snyder, whose moderation may leave them cold.

• SC-Gov: Nikki Haley has liked to emphasize her accounting background on the campaign trail, but she filed her federal income taxes more than a year late in both 2005 and 2006, and has accrued more than $4,000 in late-payment penalties since then.

• CT-05: Justin Bernier has filed a complaint with the state’s SoS against GOP primary rival state Sen. Sam Caligiuri. Caligiuri sent out a mailer calling himself the “Republican nominee,” not the “Republican-endorsed candidate” (which he is, thanks to the convention). Of course, the mailer then asks for the recipients’ votes in the Republican primary, which according to elementary logic would mean that he is not yet the Republican nominee, but, then again, Republican usually =/= logic.

• MI-02: Jay Riemersma, who finished 2nd in the open seat GOP primary in MI-02 by a margin of about 700 votes to ex-state Rep. Wayne Huizenga, has said he won’t seek a recount. Not that a protracted battle would have been any aid to Democrats, who aren’t expected to be a factor in November in this dark-red district. (A recount, of course, may still loom in MI-01, where there’s either a 1-point or 14-point gap, depending on your source, and both GOPers have claimed victory.)

• Washington: PPP looked at a whole lot of miscellany in their Washington Senate poll, too. They look ahead to both the 2012 Senate and gubernatorial races, finding Maria Cantwell in fine shape for now: she’s at 46/38 approval, and she leads Rep. Dave Reichert (not likely to run) 47-41 and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (who’s largely unknown statewide) 49-37. The gubernatorial numbers for now favor the likely GOP nominee, AG Rob McKenna, though. He leads Democratic state Sen. majority leader Lisa Brown 47-29 (although her problem is that she’s completely unknown, with 81% with no opinion, though she as Generic D is probably also weighed down by Chris Gregoire’s approvals, currently at 39/52… I’d have been more interested in seeing how Rep. Jay Inslee matches up, although he may be just as unknown statewide). Finally, they find a 41-41 tie in support for I-1098, which is on the November ballot and would create an income tax for high earners. SurveyUSA, of all people, has given a big lead to “yes” on this initiative, so it’ll be interesting to see how that shakes out.

• State legislatures: You may recall Louis Jacobson’s piece at Governing Magazine from last month where he handicapped the most competitive state legislative chambers this year. He’s out with an expanded version, with every state legislature included and with more detailed writeups. Well worth a read (and maybe even a bookmark). Another similar piece worth checking out today is from Taniel, writing at Open Left, with a comprehensive rundown of who is likely to control the redistricting process in all the states that don’t have independent commissions (or only one CD).

• Rasmussen:

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 45%, Carly Fiorina (R) 40%

• KS-Sen: Lisa Johnston (D) 28%, Jerry Moran (R) 61%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 42%, John Kasich (R) 45%

• TN-Gov (R): Bill Haslam hopes to bulls-eye a Wamp rat tonight (and Ron Ramsey for good measure). The Knoxville mayor is generally regarded as the frontrunner in the Republican gubernatorial field, in both polling and fundraising (much of which came out of his own pocket). Rep. Zach Wamp and Ramsey (the Lt. Governor) are further back in the polls, and trying to out-conservative each other in their messaging. In fact, this is starting to look like a replay of the Michigan GOP primary earlier this week, with the self-funding ‘moderate’ (to the extent that Haslam apparently once signed off on a tax increase, and isn’t as demagogic as the others) benefiting from a brawl between multiple conservatives.. and also in that while polling has shown Dem nominee Mike McWherter competitive against the conservative candidates, he matches up much less well against Haslam. There’s also a wild card in the form of viral video star Basil Marceaux, whose late-surging candidacy may make some inroads among the anti-traffic-stop, pro-immuning crowd. (C)

• TN-03 (R): Like Peter Hoekstra in MI-02, the joy of watching one of the House’s most execrable members (Zach Wamp, in this case) give up his seat for a gubernatorial primary faceplant is tempered somewhat by the knowledge that he’ll be replaced by someone just as nasty. There are 11 GOPers in this primary, but it’s really only a two-person race, between Club for Growth-backed former GOP state party chair Robin Smith and attorney, radio talk show host, and Mike Huckabee ally Chuck Fleischmann. (Smith, you might recall, was the GOP chair during the 2008 campaign, who released the infamous “Anti-Semites for Obama” press release that had him in African tribal garb. (C)

• TN-04 (R): We don’t have much intel on the Republican primary here, where the main contestants are attorney Jack Bailey, and physician Scott DesJarlais, but it’s worth keeping an eye on, as the victor will go on to face Rep. Lincoln Davis. Davis isn’t high on anyone’s target list, but in a big enough wave could get swept away just by virtue of his R+13 district. Bailey has a bit of a fundraising edge, probably thanks to connections from his former work as a Hill staffer. (C)

• TN-06 (R): Let the fur fly in this Middle Tennessee district currently held by outgoing Democrat Bart Gordon. The field counts eight Republicans, with three serious contenders in former Rutherford County GOP chair Lou Ann Zelenik, state Senator Jim Tracy from the southern part of the district, and state Senator Diane Black, who represents two northern counties in the district. The mad dash, of course, is for the right, whether its immigration or misuse of government resources. Black released an internal that had her leading at 41% and Zelenik and Tracy mired in the twenties at 22 and 20, respectively. Look for sharp geographic distinctions here tonight, with each candidate having a different base in this rural-exurban district. (JMD)

• TN-08 (R): For the open seat of outgoing Dem John Tanner, five Republicans have jumped into the fray. The three frontrunners — agribusinessman Steve Fincher, Shelby County Commissioner George Flinn, and doctor Ron Kirkland — have been busy bashing each other to bits. All sorts of accusations have been thrown around — Flinn’s been attacked for owning a hip-hop station in Memphis, while Fincher’s caught flak for voting in the Democratic primary for local offices in May, and Kirkland’s on the defensive for steering contributions to Democrats in the past. All three are have significant warchests to play with (Fincher $421k cash-on-hand, Flinn $275k with the ability to self-fund, Kirkland $223k). So who’s going to emerge from this bare-knucle brawl? Fincher’s the NRCC’s preferred candidate, and a recent poll had him leading with 32 to Kirkland’s 23 and Flinn’s 21. This race is largely in the air (not that presumptive Dem. nominee Roy Herron’s complaining), though unfortunately, we’ll know the winner of this fight tonight, as Tennessee has no runoffs. (JMD)

• TN-09 (D): Two years ago, Nikki Tinker’s campaign against incumbent Dem. Steve Cohen was infuriating; this time, former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton’s campaign is just laughable. Whether it’s claiming he’ll beat Cohen 3:1, losing the CBC’s endorsement to Cohen, or having less than 1/47th of Cohen’s cash-on-hand, Herenton’s campaign really makes you wonder. Let the mockery begin. (JMD)

UPDATE: Polls close at 8 pm ET/7 pm CT (the state is in both time zones, but apparently closing times are coordinated). As always, if you have predictions, let us know in the comments.

TN-Gov: Today, we are all Basil Marceaux Dot Com.

AK-AL: After three years of anticipation and $1.2 million in legal defense fees, GOP Rep. Don Young’s office is now claiming that the Department of Justice will not prosecute the crusty incumbent for his involvement in a wide-spanning Alaskan bribery scandal.

AR-01: Three aides to scuzzbucket former state Sen. Tim Wooldridge, who narrowly lost the Democratic primary to Chad Causey, have decided to endorse Republican Rick Crawford. Wooldridge is still staying mum on who, or when, he’ll endorse, but this doesn’t seem like a good sign for Democratic unity.

AZ-08: National Research for the Conservatives for Congress Committee (7/26-27, likely voters):

Jesse Kelly (R): 36

Jonathan Paton (R): 17

Brian Miller (R): 5

Undecided: 32

(MoE: ±5.7%)

CFC’s dog in the race against Democrat Gabby Giffords is clearly the tea-stained Kelly, as opposed to the NRCC-hyped state Sen. Jonathan Paton. Who knows if this poll is credible, but let’s hope that it is!

NY-01: Hah, this is a pretty good catch by the George Demos campaign. They’re hitting Randy Altschuler for sending out campaign emails cribbed from the notepad of NY-23 loser Doug Hoffman. Sure, it’s not at the same level as Scott McInnis, but the more cat fud consumed in this race, the merrier for all.

NY-29: A hearing officer of the New York Board of Elections has invalidated enough signatures to knock Some Dude Janice Volk off the GOP primary ballot for the vacant seat left behind by Eric Massa. The NYBoE will issue its ruling on the matter today, but it doesn’t look like the beleaguered Volk campaign has the resources — or spirit — to appeal the decision in court. Volk’s exit will ensure a fight between Republican Tom Reed and Democrat Matthew Zeller this fall.

PA-06: Jim Gerlach is attacking his Democratic challenger, physician and Iraq War veteran Manan Trivedi, for not having lived in the 6th District in recent years. But of course, Trivedi was otherwise occupied with a little thing called military service during that time. Douche chill!

WY-AL: Mason-Dixon for the Casper Star-Tribune (7/26-28, likely voters):

David Wendt (D): 29

Cynthia Lummis (R-inc): 59

Undecided: 12

(MoE: ±4%)

RNC: The Republican National Committee has taken out a $10 million line of credit in preparation for funneling major resources to the party’s efforts at winning Dem-held House and Senate seats this fall. There’s no word, yet, if Democratic committees plan to follow suit — you may recall that in the last cycle, both the DCCC and the DSCC took out substantial loans to help take advantage of the national climate.