Tag: Ben Chandler

• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon’s gotta be wondering why all those former employees couldn’t wait until after the November election to up and die. With the death two weeks ago of Lance McNaught still in the news, another WWE star, Luna Vachon, died over the weekend. An autopsy is scheduled, but the WWE paid for rehab for substance abuse for Vachon last year.

• KY-Sen: Democrat Jack Conway’s out with his first TV ad for the general election. The ad buy, touting Conway’s work against prescription drug abuse and child pornography as AG, is for about $150K. Meanwhile, Rep. Ron Paul is out with a doozy of a legislative proposal: to audit the nation’s gold reserves. As with many things that come out of the gray area between ultra-libertarianism and black helicopters-territory, the “huh? why?” part is best answered by reading the comments on the article, which apparently suggest that our nation’s gold supply actually been given away as collateral on all our debt to commercial banks/our Chinese overlords/the UN/the Bavarian Illuminati. Why is this getting filed under KY-Sen? Partly because those reserves are (allegedly!!!!1!) in Kentucky at Fort Knox, but also because at some point Rand Paul is going to inevitably get called on the carpet to say whether he agrees with dad’s latest scheme.

• NC-Sen: Civitas is out with a new poll of the Senate race in the Tar Heel State, but it’s an odd little critter, only polling “unaffiliated” voters. They seem to mirror the larger split statewide, with Richard Burr leading Elaine Marshall 39-32 (with 7 for Libertarian Michael Beitler). 34% of respondents had still never heard of Marshall. Burr is also out with his first TV ad of the cycle, focusing on his down-home-ness, presumably to ward off the “gone Washington” problem that sank Elizabeth Dole two years ago. The buy is for $578K (click the link to see the breakdown among the state’s many media markets).

• NH-Sen: Ovide Lamontagne just got a big score: the endorsement of the Manchester Union-Leader, the state’s largest newspaper and also one of the most consistently right-wing editorial pages anywhere. Newspaper endorsements can usually be shrugged off, but the Union-Leader’s endorsement of Lamontagne in the 1996 GOP gubernatorial primary helped him pull of the surprise upset of Rep. Bill Zeliff. Can this help him in a four-way split, though, instead of just a two-way, especially when Kelly Ayotte and Bill Binnie have dramatically outspent him so far? Lamontagne is also finally hitting the airwaves with his first TV ad, with the primary approaching in just a couple weeks. (No dollar figure given, but it’s only a one-week cable buy.)

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle just keeps handing gift after gift to Harry Reid, this time unfortunately timed to coincide with Katrina’s 5th anniversary: video has surfaced from Angle’s 2006 NV-02 bid in which she says she would have voted against Katrina relief funds. One other minor Nevada point, also courtesy of Jon Ralston: Clark County‘s GOP chair just resigned, leaving more disarray in the local Republican hierarchy as far as staying organized and disciplined for November.

• OH-Sen: The national Chamber of Commerce is out with a new positive ad touting Rob Portman, which is odd since Portman has enough money in the bank that he can pay his own way and then some. (The establishment, free-tradin’ Portman is definitely their kind of guy, though, much more so than the teabaggers cluttering a number of other close Senate races.) NWOTSOTB.

• AL-05: Republican Mo Brooks (who blew out party-switching Parker Griffith in the GOP primary) has a decent, but not overwhelming, lead over Dem Steve Raby, at least according to his own internal courtesy of POS. Brooks leads 48-37; taking into consideration that it’s an internal, this race isn’t a likely pickup but certainly still on the table.

• KY-06: One other ad to consider today: Ben Chandler’s out with another spot, this time going negative against local attorney Andy Barr, hitting him on the issue of the bad kind of SSP (social security privatization).

• MI-01, MI-03, MI-07: We Ask America is out with a trio of House district polls in Michigan. As is their usual modus operandi, the Republicans are in the lead. In the Dem-held open seat 1st, Dan Benishek leads Gary McDowell 45-29 (even WAA admits they expect that to tighten a lot, based on Benishek’s name being in the news from the ultra-close GOP primary). In the reddish open-seat 3rd being vacated by GOPer Vern Ehlers, Justin Amash leads Patrick Miles 51-30. And the state’s most vulnerable Dem incumbent, Mark Schauer trails ex-Rep. Tim Walberg in a rematch, 45-37.

• OH-17: “Trafican’t” just got turned into “Trafican.” Although there’s no official word, supporters of ex-con ex-Rep. Jim Traficant are saying that re-canvassing of petitions has yielded enough valid signatures to get him on the ballot as an independent. He was only 20 shy, and they’ve found at least 27 new valid signatures. Traficant isn’t likely to be much of a factor against incumbent Rep. Tim Ryan in this solidly blue district, though.

• AGs: I know I can rely on Louis Jacobson to go even deeper into the weeds than we here at SSP ever will. Writing for Governing magazine, he handicaps and encapsulates the nation’s many state Attorney General races. He finds the Dems (who currenly have a 32-18 edge in AG positions) in danger of losing at least six seats this year, including Dem-held open seats in California, Arizona, and Georgia. One of the Dems’ best (if only) offensive opportunities is Bill McCollum’s old post in Florida. The St. Petersburg Times has a deeper profile of the race between Democratic state Sen. Dan Gelber, and the Sarah Palin-backed Hillsborough Co. prosecutor Pam Bondi.

• Mayors: Here’s a second poll in a week’s time showing current Washington, DC mayor Adrian Fenty significantly trailing in his bid for re-election, against Democratic primary opponent Vincent Gray. The Washington Post finds Gray leading Fenty 53-36 among likely voters, or 49-36 among registered voters.

• Rasmussen:

• AZ-Gov: Terry Goddard (D) 38%, Jan Brewer (R-inc) 57%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 44%, Ken Buck (R) 47%

• OK-Gov: Jari Askins (D) 37%, Mary Fallin (R) 52%

• OK-Sen: Jim Rogers (D) 24%, Tom Coburn (R-inc) 67%

• SC-Sen: Alvin Greene (D) 19%, Jim DeMint (R) 63%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 48%, John Raese (R) 42%

• KY-Sen: The online “moneybomb” technique seemed to help Rand Paul get a lot of traction in the early months of the Republican primary, but his latest few scheduled moneybombs have been fizzles. Yesterday’s was a case in point: $258K is still a lot of dough for two days, but it was far short of the planned $400K. (And every penny counts: Paul reported only $319K CoH at the end of June.) Are Paulists feeling tapped out these days, or are his early-adopting libertarian-minded nationwide fans chafing that he’s increasingly parting ways with his dad and becoming more of an NRSC sock puppet? (As seen just today with their divergence over Cordoba House.)

• PA-Sen: Two pieces of good news in Pennsylvania: first, Joe Sestak is rolling out an endorsement from Chuck Hagel, the former GOP Senator from Nebraska who was on the short list for an Obama cabinet position. Not that Hagel is probably a household name in the Keystone State, but it certainly burnishes Sestak’s bipartisan (and military) cred. Also, the DSCC is planning to spend even more on this race, letting Sestak, presumably, keep marshaling his resources for a big late push (the kind that helped him shoot past Arlen Specter in the closing weeks in the primary). They’re spending $546K on broadcast media this week, on top of $494K last week; the DSCC’s total spending and reservations so far in this race amount to $4.4 million.

• WI-Sen: Hmmm, maybe all that sunspot and Greenland stuff actually started to stick. Republican wingnut candidate Ron Johnson is trying to undo the crazy on his various climate change comments, offering the usual last refuge of the pathetic walkback, that his remarks were “taken out context.” Johnson is also trying to walk back his previous support for elimination of the home mortgage interest deduction, about as popular a provision of the tax code as there is. If you wanted to simultaneously set back both the entire real estate business and the middle class by several decades, eliminating the home mortgage interest deduction would be a good way to do it.  

• IL-Gov: The exodus from the field of broken dreams that is the Pat Quinn camp just continues. Today, the departee is CoS Jerry Stermer, and while it isn’t a rancorous departure (as was the case with Quinn breaking it off with David Axelrod’s media firm last week), he is resigning to avoid being a distraction with an ethics investigation (over whether he sent political e-mails from his government account) hanging overhead. With Quinn seemingly circling the drain, that ain’t gonna help.

• AZ-05: In the “ooops, spoke too soon” department, presumed Republican primary frontrunner David Schweikert opted for a last-minute ad buy for $14K on cable, apparently worried that he was losing momentum going into tomorrow’s primary. Last week, his camp had said he was so far ahead they were just going to go dark and start saving money for the general. Meanwhile, next door in AZ-03, Steve Moak, the only candidate who rivals Ben Quayle on the money front, is out with a new ad hitting Quayle over his pseudonymous tenure writing for the website that was the precursor to TheDirty.com.

• FL-24: Wow, Craig Miller actually went there: he sent out a last-minute mailer going after the widely-known, but not yet broached in the campaign context, issue of GOP primary opponent Karen Diebel’s mental stability. Maybe he’d been planning to do a last-minute boom-lowering all along, but it seems kind of strange, as Miller’s millions have seemed to have the race locked down, not requiring him to get his hands dirty. Was there a last minute Diebel surge (she’s been attacking him on being too soft on immigration)?

• TX-23: Republican challenger Quico Canseco is out with an internal poll, via OnMessage, giving him a small lead over incumbent Dem Rep. Ciro Rodriguez. The poll gives Canseco a 43-37 lead, a turnaround from Rodriguez’s lead of 48-45 in a Canseco poll from June.

• Ads: Bobby Bright’s out with his first ad, in AL-02. SSP southern correspondent Trent Thompson’s description of the ad says it all, so I’ll just quote him: “”Bobby” voted against everything Obama. Also, he kisses a baby.” Ben Chandler is also out with an ad in KY-06, touting his saving the local VA Hospital. Finally, Rick Boucher’s GOP opponent, Morgan Griffith, is also out with a new TV spot, reminding you that he’s a conservative. (As an interesting ethno-linguistic observation, one clear indicator that VA-09 is an Appalachian district, not a Southern district, is that Griffith cites “Warshington” as being the source of all our problems.) NWOTSOTB, in all three cases.

• We Ask America: The quirky little Republican-linked pollster that could, We Ask America, is out with an array of polls in Illinois (the state where they’re based). They find Mark Kirk leading Alexi Giannoulias 39-33, but they also look at three House races. In fact, they looked at these races back in March, so we now have trendlines. In IL-11, they find Adam Kinzinger leading Debbie Halvorson 52-32 (down from an already bad 42-30); in IL-14, they have Randy Hultgren leading Bill Foster 44-37 (also down, from 38-36). The good news: they have Dan Seals leading Bob Dold! in IL-10, 43-40 (Seals led 40-37 in March, so he’s holding his own). We’ve also discovered a few recent WAA odds and ends that we didn’t cover earlier: they also see Roy Blunt leading Robin Carnahan 47-43 in MO-Sen, and see Sean Duffy leading 42-33 over Julie Lassa in WI-07.

• Rasmussen:

• AL-Sen: William Barnes (D) 28%, Richard Shelby (R-inc) 60%

• AR-Gov: Mike Beebe (D-inc) 53%, Jim Keet (R) 33%

• MD-Sen: Barbara Mikulski (D-inc) 55%, Eric Wargotz (R) 39%

• TX-Gov: Bill White (D) 41%, Rick Perry (R-inc) 49%

Braun Research for cn|2 (7/26-27, likely voters, no trend lines):

Ben Chandler (D-inc): 46

Andy Barr (R): 32

Undecided: 21

(MoE: ±4.4%)

This is the second poll we’ve seen of the race between Democrat Ben Chandler and Lexington attorney Andy Barr. Back in June, the Barr campaign released their own poll conducted by the Tarrance Group showing Chandler in the lead by 45-38. For their part, Chandler’s campaign isn’t releasing any of their own polling, but told Roll Call that they had a “strong double-digit lead” in June.

The warning sign for Chandler here is his standing under the 50% line given the fact that it’s unlikely that the name “Andy Barr” is seared into the memory of many area residents. Chandler has a real race on his hands, but he should be able to retain his advantage if he stays on his toes. One telling statistic is that voters side with Chandler over Barr on the issue of government spending by a 45-41 margin — that’s not the greatest spread, but certainly an indication of some residual trust that Chandler’s built up in a fairly conservative district.

• AZ-Sen: J.D. Hayworth may have sunk his own ship, not so much with his history of shilling for free-grant-money scams but with his flip response (“Buyer beware!”) when the accusations first came to light. Sensing some traction on the issue, Team McCain is out with a second ad on the topic, this time outright calling Hayworth a “huckster.”

• MO-Sen: Roy Blunt is out with his first TV ad in his Senate campaign; it’s a feel-good intro spot that seems mostly oriented toward the primary audience. It’s the story of a humble high school teacher and university president, with no mention of how he just happened to be the House minority whip (or even a Republican). Blunt is very likely to prevail against teabagging state Sen. Chuck Purgason in the primary (who just got the coveted endorsement of Samuel Wurzelbacher), but would naturally prefer a convincing margin.

• NV-Sen: You know the best way to make sure that people don’t go back and look at all the ridiculous things that you said earlier? Don’t jump up and down saying “OMG! Don’t look at those ridiculous things I said earlier!” Well, that’s what Sharron Angle is doing, having scrubbed her website of all the ridiculous things she said back in the GOP primary as part of having “softened” (her words) her image, but having found Harry Reid’s campaign preserving her old website as part of his website (ah, the wonders of the cache…). They’ve now issued a cease-and-desist letter, ordering Reid to stop publishing the ridiculous things she said earlier. Meanwhile, Angle (last seen comparing herself to Abraham Lincoln) is facing a new problem: the possibility that the NRA (unenthused about the much-less-gun-friendly Dick Durbin or Chuck Schumer as majority leader) might actually endorse Harry Reid.

• OH-Sen: Jennifer Brunner reflects back on her Senate primary campaign, with no regrets about her running a shoestring-budget, ground-game-oriented campaign, and also with a few of the same complaints (of behind-the-scenes fundraising blackballing, for which she still offers no proof).

• SC-Sen: Linda Ketner seems like a savvy businesswoman, and the possibility of an independent Senate bid to save SC Dems from Alvin Greene probably didn’t strike her as a good investment. The former SC-01 candidate made it official over the weekend that she wouldn’t run, telling her petition-gathering supporters to stand down.

• WV-Sen: Following the West Virginia story is a bit like watching a game of ping-pong, because today the story has rapidly bounced back to the likelihood of there being a special election this year to replace Robert Byrd after all. SoS Natalie Tennant, who interpreted the law to say that there won’t be an election until 2012, is now saying that’s, practically speaking, too long and that the legislature should take that up in a special session this year. Of course, the decision to call a special session is up to Gov. Joe Manchin, the likely eventual occupant of that seat, and it’s a question of what timing he thinks is best for him, perception-wise.

Interestingly, there’s increasing pressure from both labor (AFL-CIO, UMW) and business (Chamber of Commerce) for Manchin to get it over with and appoint himself to the seat right away rather than using a seat-warmer, suggesting that the perception wouldn’t be that bad (compared with many other states, where governors appointing themselves to the Senate has frequently backfired catastrophically). Everybody in West Virginia seems to know how their bread is buttered, and that’s facilitated by getting Manchin in there as quick as possible so he can start accruing seniority. The state GOP is moving toward a lawsuit to compel a special election this year, but that may not be necessary if all the state’s establishment is already on board with the idea.

• GA-Gov: Insider Advantage is out with new polls of the Republican Georgia gubernatorial primary, and it offers quite a surprise: ex-SoS Karen Handel has shot into a tie with Insurance Comm. John Oxendine, who has had a significant lead for most of this cycle. Handel and Oxendine are both at 18, with ex-Rep. Nathan Deal at 12, and state Sen. Eric Johnson (who’s hitting the TV airwaves to attempt a late move) at 8. There may be two factors at work here: one, the increasing public perception that Oxendine is an ethically-challenged sleaze (the Handel camp has taken to calling him “the Rod Blagojevich of Georgia politics), and two, an endorsement for Handel from unusual quarters — Arizona’s Jan Brewer (a fellow former SoS), suddenly promoted from dead-woman-walking to right-wing heroine after her signing of that state’s immigrant-bashing law — that Ed Kilgore thinks have some of the same galvanizing effect as Sarah Palin’s embrace of Nikki Haley in South Carolina.

• NE-Gov: There’s a lot of backstory behind the strange Mark Lakers dropout that we didn’t know about until after he bailed out. It turns out that in May, there was a brouhaha after a number of people were listed as Lakers contributors on his campaign finance reports, some of whom weren’t even Lakers supporters at all. This led to calls in June from several prominent Democrats (including a former state party chair) for Lakers to get out of the race, and with his fundraising subsequently stymied (leaving him with $3,293 cash on hand on June 23), he seemed to have no choice but to bail. A replacement can be picked at the state Democratic convention, July 23 to 25.

• TX-Gov: The Supreme Court of Texas (can I just abbreviate that as SCOTex?) has given the Greens a lifeline, and by extension, the Republicans. (Not really a coincidence, seeing as the Texas Supreme Court is a partisan-elected, Republican-controlled body.) They blocked a lower court’s order that the Greens be kept off the ballot, letting them meet the certification deadline, although it left open the possibility that they will remove the Greens from the ballot later. The controversy, you’ll recall, is over whether the Greens’ petition drive was funded by out-of-state corporate money, an illegal in-kind contribution.

• FL-24: Craig Miller, the rich guy running against two underfunded elected officials in the GOP primary, has the lead according to his own internal poll (conducted by McLaughlin & Assocs.). Miller is at 17, with state Rep. Sandy Adams at 11, and Winter Park city councilor Karen Diebel (who had been considered a good get when she got into the race) registering all of 3. The winner faces off against Democratic freshman Rep. Suzanne Kosmas in the Orlando ‘burbs.

• KY-06: Attorney Andy Barr, who’s running against Democratic Rep. Ben Chandler in the 6th, is enduring some bad PR over his membership in a Lexington-area country club that, until last year, had never had a black member. His response? It’s “not an issue,” as he’s “a member of a lot of organizations.” (As an aside, that first member will be familiar to NBA history fans: Sam Bowie, the consensus pick as the worst draft disaster in human history.)

• NY-01: It’s usually not good news when your entire advisory infrastructure up and quits all at once, but that’s what happened in the campaign of Chris Cox, the Richard Nixon grandson and, more importantly, (state party chair) Ed Cox son who’s running a carpetbaggery campaign to represent the Hamptons. Much of the former McCain operation (John Weaver, Mark Salter, etc.) was working for Cox, but left en masse last week. Cox still gathering petitions to get on the GOP ballot (due in five days), so it’ll be interesting to see if that even happens now.

• OH-17: Trafican’t! (A few other wags have already used that joke today, so don’t credit me for it.) Ex-Rep. (and ex-con) Jim Traficant’s comeback bid in the 17th came to an ignominious end today, after it was revealed that he didn’t have enough signatures to petition onto the ballot as an independent, as over 1,000 of the 3,138 signatures he turned in were invalid. Beam him up, Scotty. (I’m not the first to make that joke either, sorry.)

• TN-08: It’s remarkable that the rural, dirt-poor, cheap-media-markets 8th is turning into one of the highest-dollar House races in the whole country. State Sen. Roy Herron, the likely Democratic nominee, had another big quarter, pulling in $350K over the last three months, which gives him $1.2 million CoH banked while the GOPers hammer each other.

• WI-07: The Democratic primary field was once again cleared for state Sen. Julie Lassa in the open seat race in the 7th to replace retiring Rep. David Obey. Joe Reasbeck (on the Some Dude end of the spectrum and not likely to give Lassa much trouble anyway) dropped out, citing family concerns. She’ll likely face Ashland Co. DA Sean Duffy, who does still face a contested primary.

• Redistricting: Redistricting in Florida in 2012 is dependent on what happens with the two Fair Districts initiatives (Amendments 5 and 6) on the ballot in November this year, which would limit the Republican-held legislature’s ability to gerrymander to their liking. (Unless Amendment 7, backed by a coalition of Republicans and minority Democrats, also passes, which would largely neuter 5 and 6.) The Orlando Sentinel looks at some of the difficulty the GOP may have with drawing favorable maps amidst burgeoning population growth in central Florida even if they can gerrymander at will, though; Hispanic populations there have been growing and Democrats have moved into a registration advantage in many areas.

• LA-Sen: Two different polls have very different pictures of the Louisiana Senate race, which is moving into the foreground with Charlie Melancon getting a lot more media exposure criticizing BP while David Vitter acts as one of their biggest defenders. PPP (in a poll leaked to Roll Call, although I’m not sure if it’s a Melancon internal or on someone else’s behalf) finds Melancon within single digits, trailing Vitter 46-37. On the other hand, Republican pollster Magellan gives Vitter a 51-31 lead. (Magellan has been doing a lot of recent public polling of Republican primaries; this is for the general, though, and I’m not sure if they’re working for Vitter, for some other GOP interest, or just acting sua sponte.) Both polls find extremely high continued support for offshore drilling, not a surprise since that’s Louisiana’s bread and butter.

• NH-Sen: Yesterday was Kelly Ayotte’s day to testify before the state legislature about what she did and didn’t know about the collapsed mortgage banker FRM; for the most part, she staked out claims of not knowing anything about them (saying that the buck stopped with her, but the buck never made it to her AG’s desk). Legislators seemed underwhelmed by her responses, and even GOP state Rep. Rip Holden criticized her, saying she needed to accept some blame for the state’s failings.

• PA-Sen: Politico, always hungry for inside-baseball campaign drama, is highlighting a story titled “Sestak silence worries Pa. officials,” detailing concerns the local establishment has with Joe Sestak not sufficiently linking up with them as he pivots toward the general election. It’s actually an interesting article, but Pa2010‘s Dan Hirschhorn captures the overarching tone of it with his own meta-piece, “The Sestak-as-crazy-campaigner meme returns.”

• SC-Sen: Today’s 538 look at the South Carolina puzzle focuses on how Census microdata suggests that the Greene/Green difference may not have been the racial dogwhistle that people think it is: nationwide, a higher percentage of Greenes are white than are Greens. (H/t to our commenter KCinDC, who pointed out this same data point over the weekend.) In fact, the first name “Alvin” may be a clearer dogwhistle instead. (And, of course, there’s the danger in extrapolating national data to the state level, where things may be much different in South Carolina.)

• WA-Sen: As I’ve opined before, attacking Dino Rossi for having made money off foreclosed properties, and teaching other people how to do it, has a whiff of “what else have you got?” But what’s really weird here is that he just keeps scheduling more appearances at more real estate seminars, as he’ll being doing today. (Today’s burning question: “Is now the time to buy a waterfront home?”) If I were the NRSC, I’d be worried about how committed he is to a race he seemed to get dragged kicking and screaming into in the first place, if he’s still doing real estate seminars instead of campaigning 24/7. Is the Senate race a way to keep his name in the spotlight so he can get more money for more real estate seminar appearances?

• AK-Gov: P’oh! Former state official Bob Poe was the first Dem to get in the gubernatorial race (back when it would have been against Sarah Palin). But not having made much progress on the fundraising front against the higher-profile Ethan Berkowitz and Hollis French in the Democratic primary, he pulled out of the race yesterday.

• CA-Gov, CA-Sen: There’s a poll of the California races out from CrossTarget research on behalf of right-wing new media outlet Pajamas Media, so you might keep the salt shaker handy (especially remembering their decidedly optimistic polling of the MA-Sen special). That said, though, the gubernatorial numbers look perfectly plausible, with Jerry Brown leading Meg Whitman 46-43. The Senate race may be a little further off the mark, pegged at a 47-47 tie between Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina. Speaking of Whitman, she just wrote herself a check for another $20 million from her seeming bottomless reserves, bringing her total self-funding investment to $91 million. The main Whitman story that’s in the news today, though, presents a different picture of her from the rather serene Queen Meg that appears in all her advertising: it turns out she settled with an eBay employee for six-figures after shoving her during an argument.

• FL-Gov (pdf): When you’re reduced to leaking your own internal poll that has you tied with your opposition, well, let’s just say you’re in a world of hurt. But that’s what Bill McCollum is doing today to prove his continued relevance in the Florida GOP gubernatorial primary. His poll by McLaughlin & Associates has McCollum tied at 40-40 with Rick Scott.

• IA-Gov: As expected, the religious right isn’t planning to do much of anything to help Terry Branstad defeat Chet Culver in November. The Iowa Family PAC, who had backed Bob Vander Plaats, confirmed (as they’d threatened months ago) that they won’t endorse Branstad.

• CO-04: Credit GOP nominee Cory Gardner with having some sense of decency (or at least knowing when it’s not expedient to hitch his wagon to the crazy train). After Iowa Rep. Steve King’s comments about Barack Obama’s racist “default mechanism,” Gardner abruptly canceled a $100/person fundraiser he had scheduled for Saturday with King. (King, for his part, is doubling down on the crazy, with his impassioned defense of racial profiling yesterday.)

• KY-06: The Andy Barr campaign is out with an internal by the Tarrance Group showing him within sorta-striking distance of Democratic Rep. Ben Chandler. Chandler leads Barr 45-38. Chandler’s spokesperson said that Chandler “has a strong double-digit lead” in his own polling, but didn’t offer a polling memo.

• NC-08: The list of GOP Beltway figures piling on to support Harold Johnson instead of Tim D’Annunzio is a veritable House GOP who’s who. John Boehner and Eric Cantor are headlining a Thursday Capitol Hill fundraiser for Johnson, with Pete Sessions and Greg Walden also atop the list. Obviously plans for this must predate today’s PPP poll showing the huge disparity in viability between Johnson and D’Annunzio, so the NRCC has clearly had their eye on this one for a while.

• OK-02: Rep. Dan Boren is out with an internal poll as he faces a tough fight in a dark-red district… but he doesn’t seem concerned enough with his minor GOP opposition to even poll on that. Instead, he’s focused on a late-breaking primary challenge from the left from state Sen. Jim Wilson. His poll from Myers Research gives him a 68-24 lead over Wilson.

• OR-01: Tis the season for internal polls, I guess: there’s also one floating around out there from Rob Cornilles, the little-known but NRCC-touted businessman running against Rep. David Wu in the Portland suburbs. The Cornilles poll, by local Republican pollster Moore Information, gives Wu a 46-40 lead over Cornilles, suggesting that Wu is at least in for a tougher-than-usual challenge even if he has the district’s D+7 lean working in his favor.

• SC-06: The strange saga of the South Carolina Democratic primary is also playing out in the 6th, where Democratic House Whip Jim Clyburn easily beat Gregory Brown. Clyburn, who’s led the charge that Senate candidate Alvin Greene was a plant, is crying “foul” here as well, though, pointing out that Brown has been linked to a Republican consulting firm. The Brown campaign paid $23K to Stonewall Strategies (run by former Joe Wilson aide Preston Grisham) for “marketing;” Brown says he worked with them because they were the only ones willing to take him on as a client. Several African-American state legislators tell TPM that they’ve talked with Brown and figure that his campaign, while quixotic, was still “on the level.”

• TN-08: Allegedly humble gospel singer Stephen Fincher has gone negative against his opposition in the GOP primary, not the usual sign of a confident frontrunner. He’s launched a new ad against physician Ron Kirkland, attacking Kirkland for allowing thousands of dollars in contributions to Democratic candidates when he was head of the American Medical Group Association. He’s also charging that the Jackson Clinic, which Kirkland ran at the time, gave $8K to state Sen. Roy Herron, who’s now running for the Democratic nod in the 8th.

• VA-05: The hope of party unity for state Sen. Robert Hurt seems to be running into quite a few hitches, in the wake of his 48% victory in the GOP primary against fractured teabagging opposition. The Lynchburg Tea Party leadership says they won’t back Hurt (although they seem to be not backing anyone rather, than supporting right-wing indie Jeffrey Clark). TPM also claims that Jim McKelvey, who courted Tea Party support en route to finishing a distant second in the GOP primary, won’t be backing Hurt either.

• NRCC: Rep. Mike Rogers has a pretty easy job this year: he’s in charge of incumbent retention for the NRCC. He says there are, at this point, only nine incumbents who are in need of continued financial support: Dan Lungren, Mary Bono Mack, Charles Djou, Joseph Cao, Pat Tiberi, Jim Gerlach, Charlie Dent, and Dave Reichert. (You’d think he’s been looking at our House Ratings page or something.) There’s one other stray bit of good news for the NRCC: they’ve finally settled their several-years-old embezzlement case, paying a $10K civil penalty for improper reporting; they’ve also received a payout from their insurance company, covering $500K of their lost $724K in funds.

Meanwhile, wags have been having some great fun at the expense of the name of the NRCC’s offense program, named, of course, “Young Guns.” Despite the fact that the average Young Gun is 50 years old. Only 7 of the 105 members of the program are women, so maybe at least the Gun part is right.

• DCCC: Roll Call looks at the DCCC’s continued outreach to K Street. An “adopt a member” strategy is being cooked up where sympathetic lobbyists will work directly with the most embattled members to shepherd them through the electoral cycle.

• WATN?: If you’re wondering whatever became of ex-Rep. John Doolittle, who retired in shame in 2008 after getting caught up in the Jack Abramoff scandal, it turns out he won’t be facing any charges. The DOJ has finally closed the case on Doolittle, who had previously been named as a co-conspirator in the case against aide-turned-lobbyist Kevin Ring.

• AZ-Sen: CQ has an interesting tidbit about Rodney Glassman, the young Tucson city councilor who’s the top Democrat in the Senate race right now. The general sense has been that it would be good to have someone with some self-funding capacity to be able to jump in and make a race of it in case the bombastic J.D. Hayworth somehow takes out John McCain in the GOP primary… and it turns out that Glassman has been that guy all along. He’s been capping contributions to his campaign at $20 for now, but the Dems’ state chair says Glassman can step in with his own money in case things heat up.

• IA-Sen: Rasmussen takes a pretty dim view of the odds for Roxanne Conlin (or any other Democrat) against Chuck Grassley in 2010. They see Conlin, a wealthy attorney last seen losing the 1982 gubernatorial race, losing to Grassley 59-31. The other less-known Dems, both veterans of the state legislature, fare only slightly worse: Bob Krause loses 59-26, and Tom Fiegen loses 61-25.

• IL-Sen: One last component from Rasmussen’s poll of the Illinois primary fields dribbled in late yesterday: a look at the Republican Senate field. Like other pollsters, they find Rep. Mark Kirk way ahead of his nearest competitor in the GOP primary, real estate developer Patrick Hughes. Unlike others, though, they at least see Hughes in the double-digits, losing 53-18 (with 12 for “some other candidate”).

• NC-Sen: Rasmussen also examines North Carolina, and while they find Republican incumbent Richard Burr with a significant lead, he’s not quite in the safety zone. Burr leads Democratic SoS Elaine Marshall 47-37, and he leads former state Sen. Cal Cunningham 50-34. Rasmussen also finds Burr’s knowns to be much, much higher than anyone else has found them: he has an approval of 56/32, with only 12% not sure (whereas most pollsters find his unknowns to be well into the 30s).

• NY-Sen-B: After rumors of his renewed interest in challenging Kirsten Gillibrand in a Democratic Senate primary, Rep. Steve Israel sounds like he’s backing off. His chief of staff says “definitively that he’s not running,” although there’s no comment from Israel himself. Israel, however, did commission another poll in recent weeks to take the race’s temperature, so it’s clear his interest was briefly re-piqued.

• AK-Gov: Former state House speaker John Harris had been a rumored candidate to oppose appointed Gov. Sean Parnell in the GOP gubernatorial primary, but has made clear that he won’t run and will run for re-election to the House instead. Another former speaker, Ralph Samuels, was also in the race, leaving Harris little room to grab whatever anti-Parnell vote might be out there. (A PPP poll finds the uncontroversial Parnell with a 58/19 approval, so it’d be an uphill run anyway.)

• FL-Gov: Rasmussen has new numbers out for the Governor’s race in Florida, and they’re very similar to what Quinnipiac released yesterday. Republican AG Bill McCollum leads Democratic CFO Alex Sink 46-35. (Presumably, this means they’ll have Senate numbers shortly.)

• MI-Gov: We’re getting strange signals out of the Virg Bernero camp. The Lansing mayor sent out an e-mail soliciting interns for his gubernatorial run (which would be a strange way of announcing your run, which he hasn’t done so far, although he does have an exploratory committee up). It was quickly followed up with word that Bernero hasn’t decided whether or not to run, and it should have said interns sought for his exploratory committee only.

• NY-Gov: Here’s a sign of how unenthused the state GOP is with the idea of ex-Rep. Rick Lazio as their standard-bearer for the Governor’s race: they’re actually sitting down with Suffolk Co. Exec Steven Levy, who has recently expressed some interest in the race, to discuss the possibility of him running as a Republican. Levy, of course, is a Democrat, although a rather conservative one (particularly on immigration issues) and one who received a Republican cross-endorsement during his barely-contested 2007 re-election. The crux of the matter may be that Levy has a $4 million warchest available, while Lazio is sitting on $637K. State party chair Ed Cox offered this stirring endorsement of Lazio on Wednesday: “At the moment, he is the candidate.”

• WI-Gov: One final Rasmussen poll to look at today: it’s the other half of their Wisconsin sample, the one that found 68-year-old ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson leading Russ Feingold in a hypothetical match. They find Republican ex-Rep. Mark Neumann leading Democratic Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett 42-38, while Milwaukee Co. Exec Scott Walker leads Barrett 48-38 (again, a much more Republican-favorable view of the race than other pollsters have seen it).

• AR-01: Dems won’t be getting their most-desired candidate to succeed Marion Berry in the 1st: AG Dustin McDaniel already announced that he won’t run. Possible Dem candidates sniffing out the race, though, including state Rep. Keith Ingram, state Sen. Robert Thompson, and former state party chair Jason Willett. CQ also mentions former state Rep. Chris Thyer, former state Sen. Tim Woolridge, and Berry’s CoS, Chad Causey.

• AR-02: In the 2nd, Democratic state House speaker Robbie Wills seems to be getting into the race to succeed Vic Snyder. State Sen. Shane Broadway has also expressed interest, but says that he’ll head for the Lt. Governor race if LG Bill Halter gets into the field in the 2nd. State Public Service Commissioner Paul Suskie is already putting campaign infrastructure into place, and a potential wild card people are eyeing is Little Rock’s mayor, Mark Stodola.

• CA-19: Smackdown in the Central Valley! Retiring Republican Rep. George Radanovich lashed out at CA-11 ex-Rep. Richard Pombo, seeking to replace him, saying that he should have “run in his own district.” Radanovich backs state Sen. Jeff Denham in the GOP primary, and was seeking to quash Pombo claims that Radanovich wouldn’t have endorsed Denham had he known Pombo was going to run. In other news, Rep. Tom McClintock at some point endorsed Pombo, finally making it clear that McClintock, used to running for something new every two years, wasn’t going to reflexively abandon his district and run in the 19th instead.

• GA-04: A primary is the only way to dislodge Rep. Hank Johnson in this safely blue district, and it looks like Johnson is poised to keep his seat even though he’s drawn several prominent opponents (at least some of whom would be coming at him from the right), former DeKalb Co. CEO Vernon Jones and DeKalb Co. Commissioners Connie Stokes and Lee May. Johnson has an internal poll from Lake Associates out showing him with 47% of the vote, leading Jones at 19, Stokes at 12, and May at 5.

• KY-06: Just days after attorney Andy Barr was named to the bottom tier of the NRCC’s “Young Guns” program, another Republican has jumped into the fray to take on Rep. Ben Chandler in this Republican-leaning district. Mike Templeman retired last year as CEO of Energy Coal Resources, and is touting his business experience.

• NH-02: Ex-Rep. Charlie Bass is touting an internal poll that has him in commanding position, at least as far as the GOP primary is concerned. He leads the 2008 Republican candidate, talk radio host Jennifer Horn, by a 42-19 margin (with 4 for state Rep. Bob Giuda). No numbers for the general election in this Dem-leaning district, however.

• NY-01: Rep. Tim Bishop is pushing back against, well, everything: he said, as far as retirement rumors go, he’s “sure as hell” not going to back down from a fight now. He also announced strong fundraising (a $378K quarter) in the face of wealthy opposition, Randy Altschuler and George Demos. (There are also rumors that Chris Cox, the grandson of Richard Nixon and son of new state GOP chair Ed Cox, may get into the race.) Bishop’s camp also alluded to (although didn’t specifically release) an internal poll showing him over the 50% mark against his Republican opponents, in contrast to other recent polls.

• PA-03: I wouldn’t have expected freshman Kathy Dahlkemper’s 3rd to be only 4th or 5th among Pennsylvania Democratic seats in terms of vulnerability this year, but them’s the breaks. The GOP hasn’t found a top-tier recruit here yet, but another Republican got into the race: Mike Kelly, a car dealer from the suburban Pittsburgh part of the district. It sounds like he’ll be able to partly fund his own way, which will help him compete against fellow businessman Paul Huber.

• PA-10: Former US Attorney Tom Marino finally announced his long-rumored bid against Rep. Chris Carney this week. While Marino seems imposing on paper, there are a number of problems here for him: for starters, Carney quickly used the December efforts of GOPers to recruit him to party-switch to boost his own bipartisan bona fides. Marino also faces questions over his relationship with Louis DeNaples, a developer who was the target of probes over links to organized crime, and particularly a casino license granted to him (where Marino was a reference on DeNaples’ gaming application). And a number of state legislators – at least in the far western part of the district where Malcolm Derk is from – are lining up behind Derk instead of Marino in the GOP primary. With chiropractor David Madeira, who’s been reaching out to the teabaggers, also in the race, even the primary won’t be an easy ride for Marino.

• PA-15: One more internal poll, this one not looking so good for Democrats. Republican Rep. Charlie Dent, in his first competitive race, well, ever, against Bethlehem mayor John Callahan, has a big edge in his own poll conducted by the Tarrance Group. The poll gives Dent a 53-27 lead, with 8 going to teabagging independent Jack Towne. The moderate Dent pulls in one-quarter of all Democratic voters.

• TN-08: He’s in like Flinn. George Flinn, that is: the official entry of the Shelby Co. Commissioner, who’s also a radiologist and radio station owner in his spare time, expanded the Republican field in the 8th. With two money-bags candidates already in the picture, physician Ron Kirkland and most prominently farmer Stephen Fincher, Republicans look poised to bleed each other badly in an expensive primary while state Sen. Roy Herron looks to have the Democratic field mostly to himself in this open seat race.

• VA-05: Another primary that’s getting out of control for the GOP is the one in the 5th, where there’s a backlog of die-hards each claiming to be the “true conservative” as opposed to establishment fave state Sen. Robert Hurt. Real estate investor Lawrence Verga seems to have had the most success at gaining the attention of the teabaggers (although Verga‘s spotty voting record can’t help his image much), but now rival real estate developer Jim McKelvey just slammed down half a million dollars on the table to up the ante. Even more delicious in terms of cat fud: McKelvey is also making threats that he’ll run as an independent if things don’t go his way in the primary. With right-winger Bradley Rees already running as a Tea Party-powered indie, there could be enough fracturing on the right to let vulnerable Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello have a shot at survival.

• VA-09: Here’s a seat that would have been a bear to defend in the event of a retirement, but where we got the final word that the incumbent is staying put. Rep. Rick Boucher confirmed he’ll go for a 15th term in the Fightin’ 9th in southwestern Virginia. He’s still not out of the woods, as Republican state House majority leader Morgan Griffith may get in the race, although for now Boucher doesn’t have an opponent.

• WA-03: This caught me, and seemingly a lot of other people, by surprise: Gov. Chris Gregoire weighed into the Democratic primary in the 3rd with an endorsement, and she bypassed the two sitting state legislators in the field to go for ex-state Rep. Denny Heck, suggesting that rumors that he’s got a lot of behind-the-scenes establishment support are quite true. Heck, who subsequently founded a public affairs cable channel and did a lot of successful for-profit investing as well, can spend a lot of his own money on the race, which is probably why he’s getting the establishment backing despite having been out of office for decades.

• WV-01: After a rather protracted four-year investigation, the Justice Dept. ended its investigation of Rep. Alan Mollohan over earmark steering, removing the ethical cloud from over his head. Mollohan had been on retirement watch lists, in the face of several decent Republican challengers, but he recently filed for re-election and now his opponents have less ammo to use against him.

• OH-SoS: Progressives have been dismayed that socially conservative state Rep. Jennifer Garrison is the only Democratic option in the Secretary of State primary anymore, but that sounds like it’s about to change. Franklin Co. Clerk of Courts (and former Columbus city councilor) Maryellen O’Shaugnessy is rumored to be about to enter the race, and it also sounds like she’ll have the backing of the state party’s power brokers, starting at the top with Gov. Ted Strickland (who can’t afford to have progressives stay home in 2010, as he needs them to save his own bacon in what promises to be a tight gubernatorial race).

• Census: New York state Senate Democrats are proposing changes in the way that prison inmates are counted. They’d like for them to be considered residents of the district where their last known address was, not where they’re currently incarcerated. It’s actually a very important issue, considering that there are more than 58,000 state prisoners in New York, most of whom are from cities but are currently in rural Upstate, and it could tip the balance significantly in redistricting the state Senate. In other Census news, Robert Groves talked extensively to Pew about increasing participation, tracking turnout, and overcoming language barriers.

• Humor: Finally, here’s a cartoon that SSP fans are uniquely positioned to enjoy.

Not so fast, said the DCCC to the doomsayers:

At least 2 members who have been targets of an orchestrated GOP effort to goad them into retiring have told DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen they will run again over the past day. Spokespeople for Reps. Ike Skelton (D-MO) and Tim Holden (D-PA) say the incumbents will seek another term. …

Meanwhile, other potentially vulnerable incumbents have also assured the DCCC they are staying put. Reps. Ben Chandler (D-KY), Jim Matheson (D-UT) and Chet Edwards (D-TX) all told Dem leaders they would seek additional terms. A spokesperson for Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-TN) later said he will run for re-election as well.

Reid Wilson, who has done yeoman work tracking down retirement rumors, also reports that his sources say they expect Rick Boucher (VA-09) to run again. The GOP’s gung-ho attempts to goad various red-seat Dems into retirement may be having the opposite effect, if it’s pushing Dems to circle the wagons (and getting some competitive juices flowing again). In any event, this is some good pushback by Chris Van Hollen and the D-Trip.

Of course, there are still plenty of other names to be concerned about – our open seat watch still has several Democratic names on it, and several more have been the subject of recent rumors. I’m hoping, though, that some wobbly members of our caucus will take some cues from an old warhorse like Skelton and say to themselves, “If he can do it once more, then so can I.”

UPDATE: Maybe my theory is right:

Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) even publicly announced he’s definitely running again, and bashed Republicans for spreading rumors that he was thinking of stepping down.

“I don’t know why anyone would give credibility to these Republican rumors. I’m running for re-election and anyone who knows me knows that what I’m doing now is what I’ve always done,” Peterson said in a statement. “My paperwork is on file and in February I’ll make an official announcement.”

UPDATE No. 2: I’ve changed the title, in light of the extra information in the Politico piece, which notes that Earl Pomeroy has also told the DCCC he’s running again. (So has Paul Kanjorski, but Obama won his district handily.) Marion Berry is also expected to run again, according to the piece. So that’s seven red-seat yeses and two probablies (Boucher and Berry). Not bad for a day’s work.

• DE-Sen: Delaware AG Beau Biden will be returning from his service in Iraq later this month, meaning it’s time for him to decide whether or not he runs for his dad’s former Senate seat. One journo (National Journal’s Erin McPike) already tweets that he’s “definitely in,” which could serve to scare off the already seemingly gun-shy Rep. Mike Castle.

• MA-Sen: There are reports that there are enough votes in both chambers of the state legislature to give Gov. Deval Patrick the power to appoint a short-term replacement Senator. Republicans can use procedural tactics to stall it for a week, but would be out of options after that, meaning a new Senator could be in place by late next week.

• MO-Sen, MO-07: Former state Treasurer and gubernatorial candidate Sarah Steelman’s 2010 cycle is ending with a whimper, not a bang: after starting out looking like a strong primary challenger to Rep. Roy Blunt in the Senate race, she gradually faded from view, then re-emerged to explore a race for Blunt’s old seat in the 7th. Now she’s confirming that she won’t run for anything, at least not in 2010.

• NJ-Sen (pdf): PPP has some extra info from their sample from their gubernatorial poll. As usual, New Jerseyites don’t like anyone: not Barack Obama (45/48 approval), Robert Menendez (27/40), or Frank Lautenberg (38/44). As a bonus, they also find that even in well-educated, affluent New Jersey, there’s still a lot of birtherism (64-21, with 16% unsure) and even a new category: people who think Barack Obama is the anti-Christ. 8% are… let’s just call them anti-Christers… with another 13% not sure.

• MD-Gov: Maryland Republicans have found, well, somebody to run for Governor: businessman Lawrence Hogan, Jr. Hogan says he’ll run but he’ll get out of the race in case his friend ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich shows up, although that’s not looking likely. Hogan ran unsuccessfully against Steny Hoyer in 1992. A better-known figure, State Delegate and radio talk show host Patrick McDonough, also expressed his interest in the race in August, although he too would stand down for Ehrlich.

• MN-Gov: As expected, state House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher officially announced that she’s running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. She joins (taking in a really deep breath here first): Ramsey Co. Attorney Susan Gaertner, former U.S. Senator Mark Dayton, state Senators John Marty and Tom Bakk, state Reps. Tom Rukavina and Paul Thissen, and former legislators Matt Entenza and Steve Kelley, with Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak and St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman also expected to enter the field soon. Also looming on the horizon, according to the article: a possible run by Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley, who broke into double-digits in last year’s Senate race.

• NY-Gov (pdf): Yet another poll of the New York Governor’s race, this time from Marist. As always, Paterson is in disastrous condition, with an approval rating of 20/76. Paterson loses the Dem primary to Andrew Cuomo 70-23, and, if Cuomo happens to die in a bizarre gardening accident before the primary, Paterson loses to Rudy Giuliani 60-34 (although he still manages to tie Rick Lazio, 43-43). Cuomo defeats Giuliani 53-43 and Lazio 71-21.

• PA-Gov: This might pique Joe Hoeffel’s interest. The ex-Rep. and MontCo Commissioner has been considering the gubernatorial race (where there isn’t much of a progressive option in the Dem primary), and now he won a straw poll of 1,000 progressive activists done by Keystone Progress, picking up 35%. Auditor Jack Wagner was at 22, with Allegheny County Exec Dan Onorato at 14, Scranton mayor Chris Doherty at 11, and businessman Tom Knox at 7. Of course, the caveats about generalizing this sample to the larger population are obvious here; the actual Democratic electorate contains a lot of pro-life Catholic voters and ex-GOP suburban moderates.

• SC-Gov: Here’s some very good news out of the Palmetto State: Superintendent of Education Jim Rex is officially in the Governor’s race. Rex had previously expressed his interest and his candidacy started looking likely when he said last week that he wouldn’t run again for his current job. Rex is the only Dem holding statewide office in South Carolina, so despite the state’s dark-red hue may be able to get some traction here thanks to the GOP’s descent into chaos over the Mark Sanford affair (and their reluctance to get behind his Lt. Gov, Andre Bauer). Rex’s new website is here.

• VA-Gov: Creigh Deeds has to be pleased with the new poll from Clarus, an independent pollster whose first poll of the race finds a 42-37 lead for Bob McDonnell, a narrower gap than most pollsters are seeing. They also find 48/43 approvals for Obama, 47/23 for Jim Webb, and 61/21 for Mark Warner. Meanwhile, new fundraising numbers for the race are available. Deeds raised more than McDonnell for the July/August period, $3.5 million to McDonnell’s $3 million. McDonnell still has more cash on hand, $5.8 million to Deeds’ $4.3 million. Also an advantage for McDonnell: the RNC is pledging to spend up to $7 million on behalf of McDonnell (although that figure includes $2.4 million they’ve already spent).

• KY-06: Republicans seem to have a candidate ready to go up against Rep. Ben Chandler in the 6th, who hasn’t faced much in the way of opposition in this GOP-leaning district. Lexington attorney (and former Jim Talent aide)Andy Barr has formed an exploratory committee.

• NJ-07: Woodbridge mayor (and former state Treasurer) John McCormac has turned down the DCCC’s overtures to run against freshman GOP Rep. Leonard Lance in the 7th. (Woodbridge mayor may not sound like much, but it’s one of the largest municipalities in New Jersey and was Jim McGreevey’s launching pad to Governor.)

• NM-02: The race in the 2nd may turn into a clash of self-funding rich oilmen, as GOP ex-Rep. Steve Pearce says he may dip into his own cash to augment his bid to reclaim his seat from Democratic Rep. Harry Teague (who Roll Call says is the 10th richest member of Congress, and put more than a million of his own money into his 2008 bid).

• OR-04: Here’s one campaign that’s already in crash & burn mode: Springfield mayor Sid Leiken’s bid against Rep. Peter DeFazio. Remember Leiken’s tearful apology over the undocumented $2,000 that went to his mother’s real estate company, ostensibly to paying for polling? Now the state elections board is opening an investigation to see if any poll ever actually got taken, after widespread skepticism by polling experts about the poll’s conclusions (most notably that they got 200 respondents out of 268 calls).

• PA-06: The arrival of physician Manan Trivedi to the Dem field in the 6th, where Doug Pike seemed to have everything nailed down, has scrambled things a bit. Trivedi has already announced the endorsement of 2008 candidate Bob Roggio, and a more prominent insider, Berks County Recorder of Deeds Frederick Sheeler, switched to neutral from a Pike endorsement.

• VA-05: It looks like the Republicans have landed their first “real” candidate to go against Rep. Tom Perriello in the 5th: Albemarle County Commissioner Kenneth Boyd. Boyd is the only Republican on the board that runs the county that surrounds Charlottesville, home of UVA and the district’s liberal anchor; this may help Boyd eat a little into Perriello’s Charlottesville base, but he’s unknown in the rest of the district and may not make it out of the primary against state Sen. Rob Hurt, if Hurt gets off the fence and runs.

• Mayors: Amidst all the hullabaloo in New York City last night, there was also a big mayoral contest in Buffalo. Incumbent Dem Byron Brown has essentially been re-elected, beating Michael Kearns 63-37 in the Democratic primary. There is no Republican challenger on the November ballot and Brown controls the minor party lines.

• Votes: There seems to be absolutely no pattern behind who did and didn’t vote to reprimand Joe Wilson in the House. Although (sadly) the vote was mostly along party lines, 12 Dems and 7 GOPers broke ranks. Among Dems, the “no” votes were a mix of Blue Dogs and some of the most outspoken liberals: Arcuri, Delahunt, Giffords, Hinchey, Hodes, Kucinich, Maffei, Massa, McDermott, Gwen Moore, Gene Taylor, and Teague. Among the GOP, it was a few moderates and some of the more mavericky hard-liners: Cao, Emerson, Flake, Walter Jones, Petri, Rohrabacher, and maybe most notably, Bob Inglis, already facing the wrath of the teabagging wing of the party. Five Dems also voted “present,” the best you can do when you can’t vote “meh:” Engel, Foster, Frank, Shea-Porter, and Skelton.

• CO-Sen: The Denver Post does some interesting digging into how former House speaker Andrew Romanoff wound up in the Senate Democratic primary against Michael Bennet after all. Governor Bill Ritter tried to give the Lt. Gov. spot to Romanoff after Barbara O’Brien left the position in January, but the deal collapsed, leaving Romanoff to decide on the primary instead this summer.

• IL-Sen: Chicago’s city treasurer, Stephanie Neely, has decided not to run in the Senate primary. However, Chicago’s inspector general David Hoffman seems to be taking tangible steps to get into the race, saying he’ll make a formal announcement after Labor Day.

• MA-Sen: Rep. Stephen Lynch picked up filing papers for the Senate special election in Massachusetts, indicating he’s likely to soon join Martha Coakley. Lynch, who represents a heavily blue-collar Catholic district based in south Boston, would likely be the only anti-abortion Democratic in the race, but he has strong ties with organized labor.

• MD-Gov: While most of the question marks surrounding the Maryland governor’s race involve whether or not GOP ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich wants a rematch with current Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley, now some are wondering if O’Malley will face a primary challenge from former Prince George’s Co. Executive Wayne Curry. Speculation centers on how O’Malley has nailed down endorsements from Dems all over the state but is missing some key endorsements from PG County.

• NJ-Gov: Wow, what is it with this guy? So it turns out that back in 2002, Chris Christie turned his sail barge the wrong way down a one-way street, struck a motorcyclist (who was taken to the hospital)… and didn’t get a ticket. No claims about a tow-truck driver recognizing Christie this time – here, we know he identified himself to the officer on the scene. When he was asked if Christie’s title affected the officer’s decision not to issue a summons, the police director said “I don’t think I want to make that kind of deduction, but I think the facts speak for themselves.” Ouch. (D)

• OR-Gov: Lots of movement in the Oregon governor’s race now that John Kitzhaber is in. Democratic state Rep. Brian Clem (who had set up an exploratory committee a few months ago) quickly moved to endorse Kitzhaber and not just get out of the way but join Kitz’s campaign as a director. Meanwhile, Republican state Senator Jason Atkinson — who finished third in the GOP primary in 2006 and has “next in line” status — informally told his hometown paper, the Medford Mail-Tribune, that “he’s running,” although the formal announcement won’t happen for a while. Finally, it sounds like Rep. Peter DeFazio is making a move to… do something. He’s still considering the race, but will make a decision “around Labor Day,” which is soon.

• SC-Gov: Here’s a tea leaf that Jim Rex, who’d be the Dems’s strongest candidate, seems likely to get in the gubernatorial race. In the midst of touring the state and raising money, he says he won’t run for another term as Superintendent of Education.

• AZ-01: It sounds like the GOP has a candidate lined up in the 1st, to against freshman Dem Ann Kirkpatrick, who’s a definite improvement over the sad Sydney Hay from last time. Former state Senate majority leader Russell “Rusty” Bowers (also a former state Rep., and now a sand-and-gravel industry lobbyist) seems like he’s set to run.

• IN-08: The NRCC, however, wasn’t able to pin down a challenger to Brad Ellsworth in the 8th. Former Vandenburgh County Commissioner and county assessor Cheryl Musgrave decided not to run against Ellsworth, although she is considering a state House run instead against incumbent Dem Gail Riecken.

• PA-03: The GOP had been previously struggling to find anyone at all to go against freshman Dem Kathy Dahlkemper, but now they’ve landed someone fairly impressive sounding. John Onorato (not to be confused with Dem gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato) is the former Erie County Solicitor (analogous to DA in most states), giving him a large constituency to build on.

• SD-AL: State Rep. Shantel Krebs of Sioux Falls said that she’s considering challenging Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in 2010. Krebs would likely need to get past Chris Nelson, the state’s two-term Secretary of State, in the GOP primary though; he’s also in the “considering” phase. (Remember that South Dakota House districts are teeny constituencies, with only 22,000 residents each.)

• NYC-Mayor: One more SurveyUSA poll of the Dem primary in the Big Apple. William Thompson and Mark Green have pretty clear paths in the Mayor and Public Advocate primaries (Thompson leads Tony Avella 52-14), but check out the Comptroller’s race. It’s a three-way slugfest between three city councilors: 25% for John Liu, 24% for Melinda Katz, and 21% for David Yassky.

• Ads: The DNC, via Organizing for America, is running cable TV spots for four potentially vulnerable House Dems, thanking them for their pro-stimulus votes: Ben Chandler, Martin Heinrich, Travis Childers, and Zack Space.

• Polling: The Masters of the Crosstabs were all on hand to do a panel on polling at Netroots Nation last month: Charlie Cook, Mark Blumenthal, Nate Silver, and Charles Franklin, moderated by Greg Dworkin (aka DemFromCT). At the link, you’ll find a video of their session. (Charlie gives a nice shout-out to SSP at about 7:40, and again at 80:20, where he talks about the “growing sophistication of the blogosphere.”) (D)

• Humor: Autotune the News 8 is out, in case you’ve ever wanted Joe Biden to sing you a slow jam.

• SC-Gov: You’ve probably already heard, but Mark Sanford finally turned up today, returning not from the Appalachian Trail but freakin’ Argentina, where apparently he decided to go for a spur-of-the-moment visit. Prepare a industrial-sized garbage bag full of popcorn for his 2 pm EDT press conference. [UPDATE: Well, in case you have a computer that only gets SSP and no other news outlets, it turns out that Sanford was in Argentina to break off an affair with an Argentinian woman he’d met via e-mail. He’s very sorry. He’s also resigning as head of the RGA.]

• AR-Sen: The Republican field of contenders to take on Blanche Lincoln just keeps getting bigger, and also keeps becoming more and more amateur-hour. Searcy “businessman” Fred Ramey entered the race (he owns a real estate investment company, which is apparently so successful that he also is a driver for Federal Express). Two other unknowns — retired Army colonel Conrad Reynolds and financial advisor Buddy Rogers — have also come forward to say they’re considering the race.

• FL-Sen: Mike Huckabee officially endorsed former state House speaker Marco Rubio in the GOP Senate primary today (although he had already made his feelings clear in an earlier e-mail to supporters touting Rubio). Seeking to grab the movement-conservative flag as he looks to take advantage of the growing GOP schism as he heads toward 2012, he also tore into the NRSC, who held a big fundraiser for Charlie Crist on Monday attended by 15 GOP Senators. Says Huck: “The establishment Republicans have made this endorsement for the same reason that they’re in so much trouble. They go out there and support stuff like TARP bills and stimulus packages, pork-barrel spending and huge debt, and they wring their hands and act like, ‘This is not good, but we don’t have a choice.'”

• KY-Sen: AG Jack Conway, who’s facing off against Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo in the Dem Senate primary, has the endorsement of the state’s entire Democratic U.S. House delegation (all two of them). Ben Chandler and John Yarmuth will both be on hand today for a big Washington DC fundraiser for Conway.

• TX-Sen (pdf): Texas Lyceum released a wide-ranging poll of Texans; one question they asked was who people were supporting in the event of a special election for the Senate. Fully 71% were undecided on this as-yet-non-existent race, but of the eight candidates (all asked together, rather than grouped by party), Democratic Houston mayor Bill White had the most support, at 9%. Other Dem contender John Sharp was at 2%; the top GOPers, AG Greg Abbott and LG David Dewhurst, each were at 4%. (They also polled the gubernatorial primary, finding Gov. Rick Perry beating Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison 33-21.)

• AK-Gov: Rumblings seem greater in the last few days that Sarah Palin is unlikely to run for a second term as Alaska governor, so that she can focus on a 2012 bid (and, in light of her declining statewide approvals, avoid the possibility of a career-ending loss in the governor’s election). (Potential opponent Andrew Halcro sums it up neatly: “If you’re Palin, once you’ve flown first class, you don’t go back to coach.”) With a recent Pew poll finding that Palin is the nation’s most popular Republican (key: among Republicans), striking while the iron is hot for 2012 makes sense. The DGA is certainly noticing, and they’re now touting Alaska as one of their four big pickup opportunities in a new fundraising e-mail (along with Florida, Georgia, and Minnesota… which might suggest they think California and Hawaii are in the bag).

• IL-Gov: A whole lot of longshots are piling up in the GOP column in the Illinois governor’s race, which now includes political consultant and TV commentator Dan Proft. Six other GOPers, none of whom seem known statewide, are already in the hunt.

• TX-Gov: State senator Leticia Van de Putte, whose name had cropped up a lot in connection with the Democratic nomination for Governor in recent weeks, released a statement yesterday saying she won’t run. Interestingly, instead of endorsing Tom Schieffer — whose Democratic credentials are kind of iffy — she suggested that fellow state Senator Kirk Watson should run instead.

• AL-02: No time for Congress, Dr. Love! Republican State Rep. and 2008 losing candidate Jay Love decided against a rematch with freshman Rep. Bobby Bright. The exit of Love, who barely lost in this R+16 district last time, means that Montgomery city councilor Martha Roby may escape a noxious primary (the GOP’s main problem last time).

• CA-11: Two Republican members of the Board of Supervisors of San Joaquin County (where almost half of this R+1 district’s votes are located) endorsed Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney yesterday, pleased with his constituent services and work to bring a VA hospital to the area.

• CA-50: We’re looking at a three-way Democratic primary in this R+3 district in northern San Diego county. Solana Beach city councilor Dave Roberts (a former Brian Bilbray supporter) is considering the race and will decide by July whether to jump in. He’d bring one advantage to his race against two-time candidate Francine Busby and attorney Tracy Emblem: he’s actually been elected to something.

• PA-06: PA2010’s Dan Hirschhorn observes that with a series of top-tier hires, Doug Pike is looking more and more like he’ll have the Dem field to himself. Pike has hired Neil Oxman’s Campaign Group to do his media, who’ve worked not only for Gov. Ed Rendell but also for former Senate candidate Joe Torsella and ’02 candidate Dan Wofford — both of whom have had their names tossed around as the most likely other people to run in PA-06. I’d initially assumed the never-before-elected journalist was something of a placeholder until someone higher on the food chain got in the race, but with these hires and the DCCC constantly touting him, it seems clear that Pike is impressing the right people.

• PA-15: Good news out of the Lehigh Valley: Bethlehem mayor John Callahan, who a few months ago had rebuffed requests that he run against Rep. Charlie Dent, may have had a change of heart. Callahan has approached Democratic party leaders about the race, and is now reportedly “seriously considering” running in this D+2 district.

• TN-03: Attorney and radio talk show host Chuck Fleischmann will formally announce his entry into the GOP primary field today in the Chattanooga-based R+13 3rd. Bradley Co. Sheriff Tim Gobble is already running, and former GOP state chair Robin Smith looks like she’ll get in, too.

• NY-St. Sen.: As if the standoff over control of the New York State Senate, tied 31-31, couldn’t get any more embarrassing, yesterday both parties held dueling special sessions… at the same time, in the same room, shouting to be heard over each other, with each side claiming to pass its own bills. Negotations to create a power-sharing arrangement have more or less collapsed.

• Voting Rights: Oregon just became the fourth state to allow online voter registration, joining Washington, California, and Arizona. One less reason to have to get up from behind your computer.