Tag: NC-08

In any effort to fight fire with fire, the DCCC has released their internal polls from five House races as part of a push-back effort against a recent wave of GOP-sponsored polling that’s been flooding the zone. We only have top lines – no innards – so take these with the appropriate grain of salt:

AL-02: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (8/23-26, likely voters):

Bobby Bright (D-inc): 52

Martha Roby (R): 43

(MoE: ±4.9%)

NC-08: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (8/25-29, likely voters):

Larry Kissell (D-inc): 48

Harold Johnnson (R): 36

Thomas Hill (L): 6

(MoE: ±4.9%)

NY-24: Benenson Strategy Group (8/29-31, likely voters):

Mike Arcuri (D-inc): 50

Richard Hanna (R): 37

(MoE: ±4.9%)

SD-AL: Anzalone Liszt (8/31-9/2, likely voters):

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc): 50

Kristi Noem (R): 39

B. Thomas Marking (I): 4

(MoE: ±4.9%)

VA-05: Global Strategy Group (8/24-26, likely voters):

Tom Perriello (D-inc): 42

Rob Hurt (R): 44

Jeff Clark (I): 6

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Meanwhile, the campaigns of three Democrats have coughed up their own polls:

IL-10: Anzalone Liszt for Dan Seals (8/30-9/2, likely voters, May in parens):

Dan Seals (D): 49 (46)

Bob Dold (R): 36 (38)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

MS-01: Anzalone Liszt for Travis Childers (8/30-9/1, likely voters):

Travis Childers (D-inc): 46

Alan Nunnelee (R): 41

(MoE: ±4.9%)

PA-04: Anzalone Liszt for Jason Altmire (8/30-9/2, likely voters):

Jason Altmire (D-inc): 51

Keith Rothfus (R): 24

(MoE: ±4.9%)

UPDATE: We have one more!

KS-04: Gerstein | Agne for Raj Goyle (8/10-11, likely voters):

Raj Goyle (D): 47

Mike Pompeo (R): 50

(MoE: ±4.4%)

CO-Sen: Like so many Republicans who rail against pork, Ken Buck still loves to gorge himself. Buck signed an anti-earmarks pledge pushed by Americans for Prosperity, but as Weld County DA, he asked then-Rep. Marilyn Manson Musgrave for a $2 million in federal funding for “expansions of North Range Behavioral Health center in Greeley.” He also “won $235,000 earmarked for the Weld County Gang Task Force.” In non-explaining this rather glaring contradiction, Weld said it “doesn’t mean I don’t want to change the system.” In other words, vote for me because I’m a hypocrite.

FL-Sen: Marco Rubio agreed to participate in a debate with Charlie Crist and Kendrick Meek, and then proposed six more. Adam Smith of the Tampa Bay Buzz explains how this play might really squeeze Crist:

Charlie Crist is almost always good on TV, but this poses a real problem for him. In a three-person debate, it would be Rubio and Meek each taking turns hitting Crist and pressing him on flip-flops and inconsistencies. It’s hard to stay above the fray when you’re the main target.

But skipping most of the debates is equally problematic. If Meek agrees to these debates and the networks agree to televise them with or without all three candidates, Crist would be letting Meek raise his profile as the Democratic alternative to Rubio.

Tom Jensen also describes another rock-and-hard-place problem for Charlie: Kendrick Meek is starting to eat his lunch among Democrats, so how can Crist regain that support? Well, he could pledge to caucus with the Democrats… but that would, of course, hurt him among Republicans. Mark Blumenthal also has an in-depth post on the subject, looking at things from Kendrick Meek’s perspective and wondering if he has a path to victory. Blumenthal concludes that Meek has a lot of room to grow, but thinks wining would be a “tall order.”

KY-Sen: Rand Paul knows that when you are in a deep hole, you bring in a back-hoe. Then, you start using some C4. Finally, you send in an army of ten million moles. At last, once you can finally hear the sound of Chinese being spoken, you know you are deep enough – and you reiterate your opposition to doing anything about the drug problem in Eastern Kentucky.

NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall has become the first (I think) challenger so far to call for former WY Sen. Alan Simpson’s resignation from what Atrios calls the “cat food commission” (not cat fud commission, sadly) – aka the president’s stupid deficit commission. Simpson, if you haven’t heard yet, wrote a vile email to the head of the National Older Women’s League, calling Social Security “a milk cow with 310 million tits” – and telling his correspondent to “get honest work.”

NV-Sen: His Mayoralness Michael Bloomberg will be hosting a fundraiser for none other than Harry Reid at Bloombo’s home in September. The Hill notes that Bloombleman has endorsed both Dems and GOPers this cycle, including Michael Bennet and Joe Sestak for the good guys, and Mark Kirk and Mike Castle for the bad guys.

Getting back to Nevada for a second, both Reid and Angle have new ads up, which you can view here. Reid has really been smacking Angle relentlessly over all the crazy shit she’s said – so I think you can understand why I said yesterday that it feels “limp” for Ron Klein to go after the similarly insane Allen West over tax issues rather than teh crazy. Anyhow, NWOTSOTB, though the Reid campaign says the ad “will be added to its rotation of statewide spots.”

WI-Sen: Wait, could there actually be room in this digest for a second Republican hypocrite? Hell yes! And it’s a repeat performance. It turns out that Ron Johnson’s plastics company Pacur received a HUD grant in 1979 to build a railway line out to its factory. This is on top of the $2.5 million federal loan Pacur received in the mid-80s to build an addition to the factory. As one blogger says, Ayn Rand must be rotating in her crypt. Don’t forget what Dagny Taggart did for a living!

AZ-03: Ben Quayle started a post-victory press conference by doubling down on his previous jerk-assedness, repeating his claim that “Barack Obama is the worst President in history.'” The douche really doesn’t fall far from the bag, huh. Meanwhile, Quayle’s former buddies at TheDirty.com were hit with an $11 million default judgment in a defamation suit brought by one of the many people they’ve wronged over the years. The only problem, however, is that the plaintiff’s attorneys appeared to have crumbed the play by naming the wrong business entity in their lawsuit. Hooman Karamian, the scumbag behind the website, says that neither he nor his company was served process, which could seriously imperil the award. In any case, all this legal wrangling is gonna make it a little harder for Quayle to get past this issue, methinks. (And Karamian, for that matter, says that he’ll stop blogging about Quayle’s involvement with the site once he “admits that he is Brock Landers”.)

FL-08: Alan Grayson is sharpening his battle axe:

“Dan Webster is deader than Elvis. … He is the ultimate establishment candidate,” Grayson quipped Wednesday, the morning after Republican voters picked the veteran former state legislator to run against him in District 8. …

Grayson, of Orlando, is a bare-knuckle campaigner who has already begun referring to Webster as “Taliban Dan,” for what he considers to be Webster’s extreme religious views. Grayson made it clear his campaign plans a heavy onslaught of attacks against Webster’s voting record.

“Stay tuned. You’ll see: We’ll be putting it out day after day, week after week,” Grayson said. “Very soon people are going to realize that Webster can’t possibly win.”

While he’s often infuriating, you gotta respect Grayson for being balls-out, and not sounding like such a wuss like so many other Democrats.

FL-17: The Miami Herald has an interesting post-mortem on the Dem primary in the 17th CD. Given the heavily Haitian population in the district, it seemed likely that it could send the first Haitian-American person to Congress. But the four candidates of Haitian descent in the race split the vote, allowing state Sen. Frederica Wilson to carry the day with 35% (a number which, given the huge size of the field, was actually considered pretty high).

FL-24: Put the can-openers away, boys – no cat fud here. Karen Diebel emerged from hiding to endorse state Rep. Sandy Adams, the winner of the GOP primary. Diebel lost by about 0.8%, but obviously this means no recount.

ME-02: Businessman Jason Levesque is up on the airwaves in his bid to upset Blue Dog Mike Michaud, touting his desire to reign in government spending. Levesque has raised over $250K for his bid, so you may want to consider adding this one to your list of races that are bubbling under. (JL)

NM-02: The other day, we mentioned that the Defenders of Wildlife threw down another $125K on a new attack ad against GOPer Steve Pearce. The New Mexico Independent has the ad, if you’d like to watch it.

NC-07: Here’s something you don’t see every day: Dem Rep. Mike McIntyre’s 2008 Republican opponent, Will Breazeale, is endorsing him. Breazeale really has it in for GOP nominee Ilario Pantano – Breazeale attempted a repeat bid this year, but was beaten by Pantano in the primary. The odd thing is that the McIntyre campaign specifically said “no comment” in regard to the endorsement. Any thoughts on why?

NC-08: Larry Kissell is touting a new internal poll from Anzalone-Liszt, showing him beating Republican Harold Johnson 49-32, with Libertarian Thomas Hill at 7. The only other interesting finding actually released in the memo is Johnson’s faves, 32-25.

NV-03: Actually, it turns out AFSCME’s buy was a lot bigger than we thought: $750K, according to independent expenditure reports, rather than the $240K reported by the Smart Media Group. AFSCME really seems to like buying in three-quarters-of-a-million chunks.

NY-01: Randy Altschuler is out with a new ad attacking Republican rival Chris Cox for living in New York City, rather than in Suffolk County. (Apparently, Cox is crashing at his uncle’s house in the Hamptons.) NWOTSOTB.

NY-13: GOPer Michael Allegretti has a new ad out, frenetically edited in the Dale Peterson style, which includes a “man on the street” declaring that Allegretti “is a paisan! He’s one of us!” And here’s an interesting detail the ad alludes to, which I think we missed: Allegretti’s opponent Mike Grimm apparently has no job and has debts which far exceed his income, according to financial disclosure forms. Gotta wonder how he can afford to run for Congress in NYC.

NY-14: Looks like the New York Post got caught trying to ratfuck the Dem primary here in my backyard. Those scuzzes tried to claim that Hillary Clinton – you know, the Secretary of State – was “unofficially” backing Reshma Saujani. Clinton confidantes and the State Department have called bullshit, though, stating that the Secretary of State does not engage in partisan politics. Duh. Nice try, Posties.

SD-AL: In politics, going after a candidate’s record traffic infractions is usually a rinky-dink play, but it turns out that Republican Kristi Noem’s record behind the wheel is very troubled:

KELOLAND News checked the records for all five candidates for U.S. House and Governor; Noem has the longest list of violations, including 20 speeding tickets, three stop sign violations, two seat belt violations, and no driver’s license. Noem also has six court notices for failure to appear and two arrest warrants.

Yikes! Meanwhile, Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin is out with a new ad that, mercifully, doesn’t feature her son’s poop, but instead speaks in dour tones about how liberals in Washington are wrecking the heartland. Pretty bleak, defeatist-sounding stuff. (JL)

It’s a no-go for Wendell Fant:

Former Democratic congressional staffer Wendell Fant announced Friday that he will not mount a third-party campaign against North Carolina Rep. Larry Kissell, rebuffing calls from activists to challenge the Democratic incumbent for his vote against health care reform.

Fant has been urged to make the race by North Carolina Families First, a labor-backed group that gathered more than 30,000 petitions to put Fant’s name on the ballot. […]

Fant also said Kissell had soothed the frustration of some liberals when he voted for the Democratic-backed American Jobs Act in May.

“He’s also heard our message…and lately he’s voted in ways that make a difference for all of us,” Fant said, praising Kissell for “voting for jobs and our families and against corporate special interests.”

You may recall a recent PPP poll that suggested that Kissell would actually have an easier time with Fant in the mix, as Fant’s candidacy drew a significant amount of Republican support from Harold Johnson. I’m on the record as doubting that such a split would be sustainable through a heated election campaign, as conservatives wouldn’t be likely to stick with the left-leaning Fant after a rigorous campaign by all comers. Fant’s presence on the ballot had much more potential to split core Democratic support than anything else, making this turn of events good news for Larry Kissell.

A relatively quiet night, but one deserving of a roundup nonetheless.

North Carolina:

• NC-Sen (D): It’s been a long six weeks since the first round, where Elaine Marshall narrowly missed the threshold for a runoff by 4% with 36%. She picked up the endorsement of third-place finisher Ken Lewis (who scored 17%) in the meantime, countering the almost $200,000 put in on Cal Cunningham’s behalf by the DSCC. The DSCC’s efforts were again futile, with Marshall scoring a 60-40 victory. Given that Marshall won 57% of the head-to-head vote against Cuninngham in Round 1, this represents a 3% swing in her direction. DSCC Chair Bob Menendez put out a short statement in support of Marshall, who now goes on to face Richard Burr for the “cursed” seat that switches party every 6 years. (JMD)
• NC-08 (R): It looks like D’Annunziana Jones can spend more time busting the Ark of the Covenant out of Area 51. Ex-broadcaster Harold Johnson beat the enriched plutonium-level crazy Tim D’Annunzio by a 61-39 margin despite being badly out-spent. This one will probably end up being a real race this fall, despite D’Annunzio’s refusal to congratulate or endorse Johnson. (JL)

South Carolina:

• SC-Gov (R): Nikki Haley narrowly missed avoiding a runoff two weeks ago with 49%, but she sealed the deal with a convincing 65-35 victory over Gresham Barrett, who received 22%. Barrett’s dog-whistling attempts – referring to himself as a Christian family man who “won’t embarrass us” – didn’t seem to work, only carrying three counties within his district. The result falls surprisingly along the fault lines from the first round – AG Henry McMaster, who received 17% threw his support to Haley, while LG Andre Bauer threw his 12% to Barrett. Haley will now face Democratic State Senator Vincent Sheheen. (JMD)
• SC-01 (R): State Rep. Tim Scott is set to become the GOP’s first African-American congressman since J.C. Watts, much to the relief of John Boehner and Scott’s backers at the Club for Growth. Scott crushed attorney Paul Thurmond (the son of Strom) by a monstrous 68-32 margin, and faces a sub-par Democratic opponent in November. (JL)
• SC-03 (R): The Club for Growth had a much closer shave in this district, where their preferred candidate, state Rep. Jeff Duncan, only beat  the underfunded Richard Cash, an owner/operator of a fleet of ice cream trucks, by a 51-49 margin. Duncan will be the heavy favorite to win this 64% McCain in the general election. (JL)
• SC-04 (R): Wow, what a pathetic loss. Incumbent Rep. Bob Inglis barely moved the needle from his 28% primary performance, finishing the night with just 29% of the vote to Spartanburg County Solicitor Trey Gowdy’s whopping 71%. I wonder if we’ll ever see what Bob Inglis 3.0 looks like. (JL)

Utah:

• UT-Sen (R): Tim Bridgewater had a 57-43 advantage in the third round of balloting at Utah’s state GOP convention, but that didn’t hold over into the primary. Tim Bridgewater was viewed as the favorite and was up in the one public poll of the race (Mike Lee was up in his internals), but Lee (the son of Reagan’s solicitor general Rex) pulled out a narrow 51-49 victory over Bridgewater. Bridgewater had a narrow advantage along the heavily-populated Wasatch Front, but Lee more than offset this with his strength in Washington County (St. George) and the sparsely populated areas in between. (JMD)
• UT-02 (D): Democrats had worried about some GOP involvement to bounce the moderate (and more electable) Jim Matheson by pushing for liberal activist and school teacher Claudia Wright but Matheson cruised to a 68-32 victory. Wright had denied Matheson the outright nod at the Democratic convention – presumably due to his ‘no’ vote on HCR – netting 45% of delegates, but among the wider primary electorate, she didn’t fare as well. Matheson goes on to face former Southern SLCo State Rep. Morgan Philpot in his bid for a sixth term. (JMD)
  

Bonus Race: California!

• CA SD-15 (special): California’s 15th Senate district may get my vote for the nation’s most beautiful legislative district, but the results here weren’t too pretty. In a district that’s D+5 at the presidential level, Republican state Assembly minority leader Sam Blakeslee finished ahead of Democratic ex-Assemblyman John Laird, 50-41. However, California special election law requires one to break 50% to avoid a runoff, and Blakeslee’s 49.7% wasn’t enough. So, all four candidates (including a Libertarian and an indie) will do the exact same thing again on Aug. 17, although tonight’s results don’t bode well for Laird turning things around during the replay. (C)

Here’s what’s on-tap for tonight:

• NC-Sen (D): They take a long time to get around to their runoffs in North Carolina, but we’re finally here. The marquee contest pits Secretary of State Elaine Marshall against former state Sen. Cal Cunningham. Marshall led 36-27 in the first round, with 17% going to third-place finisher Ken Lewis, who endorsed Marshall a few weeks after the primary. As evidenced by Lewis’s backing, Marshall seems to have rallied the black political community to her side, while Cunningham still retains the support of the DC establishment (DSCC chair Bob Menendez’s PAC recently gave him $5,000). The only public poll of this race was from PPP, which showed things tied at 36. However, that survey was taken just after the primary, at the beginning of May, and it’s hard to say how things may have changed since then. But if Marshall can consolidate Lewis’s vote (see Jeff’s maps here), she ought to be in good position to win.
• NC-08 (R): It’s hard out there for a nutter – really, it is. There’s so much competition these days – from Rand Paul, from Sharron Angle, even from Vaughn Ward. But Tim D’Annunzio’s tried his best. In fact, he’s tried everything, from claiming he knows where the Ark of the Covenant lies buried (Arizona) to suing his opponent, former TV sportscaster Harold Johnson (for defamation). The entire Republican establishment from chimpan-a to chimpan-z has rushed to get behind Johnson, but he’s only raised about $363K. Meanwhile D’Annunzio has been flushing money like a smack addict (which he once was), to the tune $1.3 million. In a recent survey, PPP nonetheless had Johnson leading 49-39, but we can – nay, we must – still root for Timmy D!
• SC-Gov (R): Despite some misgivings from elements of the SC GOP establishment (including the Chamber of Commerce), it appears that state Rep. Nikki Haley is the smart money bet to win the Republican gubernatorial run-off against Congressman Gresham Barrett. Haley came oh-so-close to an outright victory in the first round of voting, scoring 49% to Barrett’s 22%. Third-place finisher Henry McMaster, the state’s attorney general, threw his support to Haley while Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer backed Barrett. It’s been mostly smooth sailing for Haley in the runoff, though, and an internal poll released by her campaign a week and a half ago gave her a commanding lead over Barrett. (J)
• SC-01 (R): The run-off for the nod to replace GOP Rep. Henry “Smokey” Brown in the House of Representatives is coming down to African-American state Rep. Tim Scott and attorney Paul Thurmond, the son of Strom. Scott has a lot going for him, including the support of the NRCC and other Washington power-players who are exited by the prospect of finally electing another black Republican to the House. Scott also has the muscle of the Club for Growth behind him, so it would probably be a serious upset if Thurmond, who won only 16% of the vote to Scott’s 31% in the first round, prevailed. (J)
• SC-03 (R): Businessman Richard Cash, who finished with a surprisingly strong 25% in the first round, and Laurens County State Rep. Jeff Duncan (who received 23%) are squaring off to replace outgoing would-be governor Gresham Barrett. The pair have split the endorsements of some also-rans, Duncan earning the support of 5th place finisher Neal Collins and Cash that of 6th place’s Mike Vasovski. Third and fourth place finishers Rex Rice (who was widely expected to make the runoff) and Joe Grimaud haven’t endorsed either. Duncan is the institutional candidate, but both are somewhat teabaggish. Regrettably, regardless of who wins, he will likely be the next Congressman from this R+17 district. (JMD)
• SC-04 (R): Bob Inglis version 2.0, and his rare voice of rationality in the House GOP caucus, seem to be going the way of Windows 3.1. His 28% tally in the first round against Spartanburg County Solicitor Trey Gowdy (who received 39%) and assorted teabaggery is the weakest of any House incumbent so far. Though none have made endorsements, Inglis’ other opponents in the first round, seem to be more in line ideologically with Gowdy. Given this, and despite a late endorsement from Stephen Colbert, we can likely chalk this one up to America Glenn Beck 1, Sanity 0. (JMD)
• UT-Sen (R): With three-term incumbent Bob Bennett having been unceremoniously retired at the GOP convention, Utah Republicans are deciding between the two insurgents who beat Bennett, former Utah County GOP chair Tim Bridgewater and Mike Lee, the former counsel to ex-Gov. Jon Huntsman. Bridgewater may have the mantle of “establishment” thrust upon him, thanks to the endorsement of Bennett, and correspondingly, while Lee is running with the conglomerated FreedomWorks/Club for Growth/Jim DeMint/RedState axis backing him — but, as Ed Kilgore points out, that doesn’t really make Bridgewater appreciably any less ultra-conservative than Lee. Bridgewater leads the most recent public poll of the race, 42-33, but Lee is out with his own internal giving him the lead. (C)
• UT-02 (D): Rep. Jim Matheson shouldn’t have trouble winning tonight’s Democratic primary against activist and teacher Claudia Wright; it’s more a question of by what margin? It was something of a surprise when Matheson got forced into a primary at the Democratic state convention, but (like the flipside of the GOP convention) that’s dominated by the activist base, some of whom seem eager to punish Matheson over his ‘no’ vote on health care reform. A number of other anti-HCR Blue Doggish Dems (Heath Shuler, Tim Holden, Larry Kissell) in red districts have been held in the 65% region by no-namers in their primaries; the one poll of this primary, giving Matheson a 52-33 lead, suggests a similar outcome here. (C)

Bonus race:

• CA SD-15: There’s one other race to watch tonight: the special election to fill the 15th Senate district in California, left vacant by Republican Abel Maldonado’s ascension to Lt. Governor. If there’s one good place left in California for a Democratic legislative pickup, this is it. It’s a D+5 district on California’s Central Coast, where Democratic former Assemblyman John Laird faces off against GOP Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee. Don’t forget, though, under California’s unusual special election system, this probably isn’t the decisive night. There are also an independent and Libertarian on the ballot, and if nobody clears the 50% hurdle, there’s a runoff on August 17. (C)

• CT-Sen: You might recall that late last week Peter Schiff was looking unlikely to qualify for the ballot, not having enough signatures. Well, now it looks like he will qualify; I’m not sure whether the outcome was ever in doubt or he was gaming expectations. At any rate, he managed to get the signatures of 2% of all registered Republicans in the state, and the SoS announced his certification today. Also in the Nutmeg State, Joe Lieberman, who’d floated the idea of a Linda McMahon endorsement, now sounds like he’ll stay out of the Senate race entirely… given the choice between supporting arch-foe Richard Blumenthal or McMahon (who, given her unlikeliness of winning, isn’t a good use of political capital).

• IL-Sen: The optics on this just aren’t good for Mark Kirk: after an appearance at the Metropolitan Planning Council, Kirk literally ran out the door instead of taking questions from the media (who probably want to know about his military and teaching claims) and peeled out in his SUV. Alexi Giannoulias was also present; in a sign of how the worm has turned, instead of running out the door (as he probably would have several months ago) he lingered comfortably. Bad news on the cat fud front, though: Mike Niecestro, the rich guy who came out of nowhere last week to announce that he had 25,000 signatures and $1 million for an independent Senate bid to Kirk’s right, has had to back down. Turns out he didn’t have enough signatures after all. However, here’s some limited good news: Niecestro says he’s backing somebody by the name of Randy Stufflebeam, who’ll be running under the Constitution Party banner. Stufflebeam doesn’t seem to have Niecestro’s money, but he at least seems to have enough signatures to qualify. (Also on the filings front, pawnbroker-turned-LG-nominee-turned-laughingstock Scott Lee Cohen brought in 130K signatures for his independent IL-Gov bid, five times as many as he needs.)

• AL-Gov: The recount is over in Alabama, and as expected, Tim James’ $200K was very badly spent. The official tally: he now finished down by more than 200 votes, instead of the 167 he trailed by on Election Night. This means that Robert Bentley has clinched the slot in the GOP runoff against Bradley Byrne.

• IA-Gov: In what’s not a surprise, Terry Branstad has been on bended knee trying to get the backing of GOP primary rival Bob Vander Plaats, but it’s not going well. Vander Plaats reportedly requested the Lt. Governor spot, which Branstad isn’t going to do. However, this is a surprise to me: apparently Iowa doesn’t have a sore loser law, because now there’s talk of this leading to an independent run by Vander Plaats, which he’s now “seriously considering.” A kamikaze run by Vander Plaats that peels off 10% might actually give Chet Culver a route to staying in office.

• MI-Gov: Another EPIC-MRA poll of the Michigan governor’s race is out, this time only of the two primaries. On the Dem side, Andy Dillon has a 34-24 lead over Virg Bernero (leaving 42% undecided). On the GOP side, here’s a new development: Mike Cox is actually pulling into the lead, at 26. He leads Peter Hoekstra at 24, Rick Snyder at 20, Mike Bouchard at 16, and Tom George at 2, with 12 undecided. Is this just a blip, or is Cox really gaining some ground, having gotten some big conservative endorsements (Michigan Right to Life, the DeVos family) lately? Chances are it’s for real, now that there’s another round of attack ads out targeting Cox for allegedly helping cover up a party-out-of-bounds at then-Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s mansion. (The radio ad is paid for by the mysterious Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America, which the Cox camp seems to think is linked to Snyder.)

• NV-Gov: The Hatch Act is an obscure little piece of legislation, although it’s at the core of what the GOP thinks is illegal about the PA-Sen/Co-Sen “jobsgate.” Well, it might just bite the Republicans in the butt, too: there are increasing questions over whether Brian Sandoval, who stepped down from the federal district court in order to run for Governor, engaged in politicking with still on the bench. The RGA’s Haley Barbour and Nick Ayers reportedly heavily recruited Sandoval into the race; considering how little time passed between his resignation and his entry into the race, some of that recruiting must have happened while son the bench.

• SC-Gov: Mitt Romney really, really wants to see Nikki Haley as Governor (probably because he’d like to have someone in charge of S. Carolina in 2012 who owes him a favor or three); he just gave $42K to Haley, who faces a GOP runoff tomorrow. (He was able to give that much, despite contribution limits, by harnessing six different PACs.) There have also been some eyebrows raised over a $2,000 consulting fee paid to Haley in 2008 by a construction firm, revealed when she disclosed her tax returns; it has a quid pro quo-ish whiff to it (the firm’s head said it was to pay for business leads and “help with things”), but isn’t likely to put a dent in the outcome of tomorrow’s runoff at this point.

• CO-04: Cory Gardner’s decision to bail on a fundraiser with unpalatable Iowa Rep. Steve King may hurt him more than if he’d actually gone through with it. King is still harping on Gardner’s lack of fortitude. King was joined on a conservative radio talk show in Colorado last Friday by ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo, who took turns tag-team insulting Gardner for an hour.

• ID-01: I don’t know how much weight to give this, but Rep. Mike Simpson (from the 2nd) is publicly saying it’s possible that Rep. Walt Minnick could play a role in voting in a different speaker than Nancy Pelosi, if the Dem majority is small enough after 2010 and whatever Blue Dogs are left hold the vote in the balance. Minnick, for his part, shrugged it off, although without a categorical denial, saying it’s “premature.” In a weird way, though, Simpson might be doing Minnick a favor here. Already a beneficiary of endorsement as the Tea Party Express’s token Democrat, this gives Minnick further cover to keep Dem leadership at arm’s length in the runup to November.

• NC-08: “I’d do everything the crazy guy would do; I just wouldn’t do it in a crazy way,” seems to be the argument here, which may not be the best electability argument. But that’s Harold Johnson’s way of framing tomorrow’s GOP runoff in the 8th, saying that he’d vote the “basically the same way” as Tim D’Annunzio.

CT-Sen: Despite having no shortage of cash, the Journal-Inquirer of north-central Connecticut says Paulist freakazoid Peter Schiff might be having trouble petitioning his way on to the ballot. What an ignominious end! Anyhow, we’ll know for sure by the end of this week. (Also, see our CT-04 bullet for another Nutmeg state petitioning debacle, only worse.) Meanwhile, Aaron Blake lays out some possible circumstances under which Rob Simmons’ zombie campaign might come back to life (though ultimately he thinks reanimation of this particular corpse is unlikely).

WI-Sen: I like what Russ Feingold is doing here: He’s putting his opponent, richie rich Ron Johnson, on the defensive by linking Johnson to Sharron Angle and Rand Paul, and charging that he hasn’t said whether he supports Social Security, Medicare, and the Civil Rights Act. Interestingly (at least according to Politico), Johnson’s spokesbot shot back with some pablum – and didn’t bother to say whether he does support any of these three pillars of modern society.

ME-Gov: An op-ed by George Smith in the Kennebec Journal suggests that environmental lawyer Eliot Cutler, running as an independent, could win Maine’s gubernatorial race. Cutler apparently has personal wealth, and Smith suggests he could split the GOP vote, earning the support of some of its more moderate members while the teabaggers stick with the very conservative Paul LePage. (And remember, Maine’s last governor before Dem John Baldacci was also an independent, Angus King.)

SC-Gov: So Politico has a piece claiming that the South Carolina GOP establishment, including the SC Chamber of Commerce, is going all-out to try to stop Nikki Haley from winning the run-off. But CNN notes that former First Lady Jenny Sanford is stumping for Haley, and of course third-place finisher and state AG Henry McMaster endorsed her as well.

AR-01: Dem Chad Causey is “in talks” about an endorsement with Tim Wooldridge, whom Causey beat 51-49 in the runoff.

AZ-08: Remember Randy Graf? If you don’t, all you need to know is that he craaazy. He also ran for this seat in 2006 and, after the NRCC abandoned him, got beat badly by now-Rep. Gabby Giffords. Anyhow, he endorsed veteran Jesse Kelly in the GOP primary, who was once touted but then got outshined by the later entrance of state Sen. Jonathan Paton.

CO-04: Man, I bet Cory Gardner really wishes Rep. Steve King would shut up. The other day, Gardner cancelled a fundraiser in Colorado with King after King declared that President Obama “favors the black person.” Now King is lambasting Gardner for spurning him – and claiming that Gardner agrees with what he said! Gardner of course disputes King’s claims. I don’t know if you can properly call this cat fud, but it sure smells like it.

CT-04: This sack is so very, very sad. Republican Tom Herrmann flushed his campaign down the toilet today like your kid’s dead goldfish, only there won’t be any trips to the pet store to buy a replacement. Turns out Herrmann’s campaign engaged in a little bit o’ ye olde petition fraud (something we mentioned the other day), meaning he won’t have enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. I admit that I was initially skeptical of this story, but it turned out that where there was smoke, there was indeed fire.

DE-AL: Republican Kevin Wade dropped out of the race, leaving Michele Rollins and Glen Urquhart to compete in the September primary. Wade endorsed neither, but touted Some Dude Rose Izzo.

LA-02: In a story about state Rep. Cedric Richmond formally kicking off his campaign, there’s a throwaway line suggesting that state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson is still considering a run. Carter Peterson (then known only as Karen Carter) lost badly to ex-Rep. Bill Jefferson in a 2006 run-off. She also infamously supported Republican Jim Tucker to be Speaker of the Louisiana House in 2007, over (of all people) Dem Don Cazayoux.

NC-08 (PDF): Damn, I hope PPP is wrong about this. They have Harold Johnson leading beautiful maniac Tim D’Annunzio 49-39 in the runoff (which takes place next week). Surely the Ark of the Covenant can help turn the tide for Timmy D, no?

ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy’s team did some nice work in getting a bullshit third-party ad yanked off the air. The spot accused Pomeroy of supporting healthcare taxes which led to lost jobs. The only problem(s): No new healthcare taxes have gone into effect yet, and the jobs in question related to reform of the student loan system, not healthcare. Yeah, whoops is right.

NY-13: Does the name Kieran Lalor ring a bell? He ran against Rep. John Hall in NY-19 in 2008 and got pasted. He’s resurfaced of late, but this time, he’s attacking a fellow Republican, Michael Allegretti. Lalor claims to represent a group of Iraq veterans, and he’s miffed that Allegretti has pictures of himself with members of the military on his website. Lalor’s hands are not exactly clean here, as his group’s own website has a picture of Allegretti’s opponent, Michael Grimm – whom Lalor says his organization will likely endorse.

NY-14: SEIU 32BJ, an important, 70,000-strong building workers union, endorsed Rep. Carolyn Maloney, citing her work in securing $4 billion in federal money for major east side transit projects.

PA-07: What a huge – and unforced – blunder. GOPer Pat Meehan tried to accuse Bryan Lentz of having been involved in the big “bonusgate” scandal (where Dem campaign workers were paid with state money). First problem: He had no such evidence, and the press (to their credit) had no trouble realizing this. Second mistake: He held his press conference in the state capitol – where the state legislature (of which Lentz is a member) is still in session. This meant that Lentz got to watch Meehan’s presser in person – and then when Meehan was done and the cameras were still rolling, Lentz strode up to the same podium and delivered a biting rebuttal to Meehan’s bullshit. Lentz’s impressive political skillz are matched only by Meehan’s lack thereof.

VA-05: Is there a word in English which expresses the idea that a debacle for one side is actually a boon for the other? No, it’s not schadenfreude, and it’s not crisitunity, either. But in any case, this is what seems to be brewing in VA-05, where the second-place finisher in the GO primary, Jim McKelvey, finally announced that he ain’t endorsing no one – at least, not yet. We can only hope he’ll give his backing to independent teabagger Jeffrey Clark rather than state Sen. Robert Hurt.

NRCC: The NRCC is setting a $20 million goal for its “Battleground” fundraising effort from members of its caucus. In 2008, their goal was $12 million, though it’s not clear whether they actually met it. In 2006, they started at $17.5 mil but later bumped it up to $22.5 mil.

• 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.

Public Policy Polling (6/10-13, likely voters, 1/9-11 in parens):

Larry Kissell (D-inc): 48 (54)

Tim D’Annunzio (R): 26 (38)

Undecided: 26 (7)

Larry Kissell (D-inc): 41 (53)

Harold Johnson (R): 35 (39)

Undecided: 23 (8)

Larry Kissell (D-inc): 40

Harold Johnson (R): 30

Wendell Fant (I): 14

Undecided: 16

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Interestingly, ex-Kissell staffer Wendell Fant, whom the SEIU is trying to push into the race on an independent ballot line, actually seems to help Kissell by pulling more votes away from Johnson. Fant draws a nearly equal share of liberals, moderates, and conservatives, and 12% of Republican votes compared to 11% of Democrats. However, that would probably change after his positions become more obvious over the course of a campaign, I’d bet. As it is right now, it seems that the presence of another protest option on the ballot helps Kissell’s top lines.

In any case, it’s clear that Kissell’s position has become much more dangerous since PPP’s last look at this race at the height of HCR-mania in January.

• AR-Sen: Bill Halter is “mulling” an endorsement of Blanche Lincoln, and wants a sit-down with her before doing so. Frankly, it’d be a big surprise if he didn’t endorse her: it didn’t seem like any more negative a race than usual by today’s standards; labor made its point and is probably eager to move on; and Halter would probably like to run for something else at some point.

• LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon has, well, a crisitunity on his hands with the oil spill in the Gulf. It gives him the chance to go on the offensive against David Vitter (who’s been trying to limit BP’s liabilities, and who’s also taken to Twitter to tout Louisiana seafood (now pre-blackened) as safe). But he has the tricky task of keep his district’s oil-and-gas dependency in mind; he’s aggressively calling Vitter a “liar” now… but only because Vitter has been saying that Melancon supports the Obama administration offshore drilling moratorium.

• NC-Sen: Bob Menendez continues to play favorites in the NC-Sen runoff, although it wasn’t with a large sum of money: Menendez’s PAC (not the DSCC) gave $5,000 to Cal Cunningham last week, as well as the same amount to Blanche Lincoln.

• SC-Sen: The slow-motion trainwreck of Alvin Greene’s media rollout continues apace in South Carolina, with last night’s go-nowhere interview with Keith Olbermann taking the cake. (Gawker concludes he may actually be, instead of a plant, just “some random dude.” Glad to see our phrasing’s catching on.) Jim DeMint is, for his part, denying that he put Greene up to this, while other Republicans are helpfully suggesting that Democrats may have put Greene up to it instead, in order to give Vic Rawl a visibility boost (because unopposed candidates don’t appear on the ballot). The Rawl campaign has had elections experts look over the voting patterns to try to figure out what happened, and they’ve already raised one odd red flag: the strange shift from the early absentee votes (where Rawl dominated) to votes cast on Election Day (which Greene won).

• UT-Sen: Bob Bennett, after hinting at it several weeks ago, went ahead and endorsed Tim Bridgewater today. Bridgewater is one of the two quasi-insurgents who finished ahead of Bennett at the state GOP convention, and will be competing in the primary against Mike Lee.

• CA-Gov: I think Godwin’s Law might not yet have been enacted when Jerry Brown was Governor the first time, but he might want to familiarize himself with it, after he was caught referring (apparently in jest) to Goebbels in reference to Meg Whitman’s saturation advertising. Speaking of which, Whitman just launched her first TV ad post-primary, in which (big surprise) she hates on taxes.

• FL-Gov: Looking for something that’ll stick against moneybags Rick Scott, Bill McCollum is now trying to attack him on his pro-life credentials, saying that Columbia/HCA hospitals performed abortions while Scott was CEO.

• OR-Gov, OR-Sen: SurveyUSA is out with a poll in Oregon that has a whiff of outlier to it (as any poll that’s about six points to the right of Rasmussen tends to): they find Republican candidate Chris Dudley leading Democratic ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber 47-40. Part of the problem for Dems might be that the poll has third-party Progressive candidate Jerry Wilson racking up 6%, which is assumedly coming out of Kitzhaber’s column. But the crosstabs have Dudley winning 44-43 in the Portland area, which, given that area’s sheer blueness, seems very odd (as counterpoint, Gordon Smith won the Portland area (Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington Counties) 50-46 in 2002 en route to a 56-40 victory statewide, the Republicans’ high-water mark for about the last 25 or so years). They also have Ron Wyden leading Jim Huffman 51-38 in the Senate race (with 4 for a Libertarian and 2 for a Green), which also seems strange.

• SC-Gov: Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, who crashed and burned his car/plane in 4th place in the GOP gubernatorial primary, threw his support to 2nd place finisher Gresham Barrett for the runoff. He said Barrett was the only one he “could trust.”

• TX-Gov: The Green Party has agreed that it temporarily won’t put forth any candidates until there’s been a hearing in the lawsuit filed by the state Democrats. The lawsuit concerns whether the Greens unlawfully accepted a corporation’s help in obtaining the signatures it needed to (surprisingly) qualify for a ballot line in Texas.

• AL-02: The Tea Party Express weighed in with an endorsement in the Republican runoff in the 2nd, and they aren’t supporting the NRCC-backed establishment candidate, Montgomery city councilor Martha Roby. Instead, they’re backing billiards entrepreneur Rick Barber. Their beef with Roby seems to be that she backed a budget pushed by then-Montgomery mayor, now-Rep. Bobby Bright.

• KS-02: You may remember Sean Tevis, who became a netroots fave based on his clever cartoon depictions of his campaign and raised a surprising amount of money that almost let him knock off an incumbent in a red legislative district. Well, he’s moving up a level this year; he’s decided to run in the 2nd, against Lynn Jenkins (or Dennis Pyle, if he successfully teabags Jenkins). He still faces two other Dems, Cheryl Hudspeth and Thomas Koch, in the primary.

• NC-08: The SEIU looks like it’s going through with its strange plan to launch a third-party bid against Larry Kissell in the 8th; they submitted 34K signatures to qualify Wendell Fant for the ballot, much more than the necessary 17K. (The SEIU had previously tried to get a whole third party a ballot line, but that signature drive came up short.) Perhaps even stranger, Fant hasn’t agreed to run, at least not yet; he didn’t show up at the ballot-submitting press conference. Fant, it turns out, is an ex-Kissell aide who may have an axe to grind after getting dismissed for using a work computer to work on his own VA case.

• NJ-06: Diane Gooch, the self-funder who was expected to easily win the GOP nomination in the bluish 6th to go against Rep. Frank Pallone, is instead finding herself having to request a recount. Anna Little has declared victory, based on the 78-vote margin, after spending $22K to Gooch’s $430K.

• NV-03: Americans for Prosperity has Dina Titus in its sights; they’re taking out a $100K ad buy on network and cable (thanks, LVRJ, for actually reporting the details!), still harping on Titus for her vote in favor of health care reform.

• NY-13: Because the Republican/Conservative field in the 13th had some wiggle room to get even more messed-up, now another guy is trying to get in on the action. It’s Lou Wein, who’s going to try to petition his way onto the ballot against Michael Grimm and Michael Allegretti, each of whom have their own clique of powerful backers. Wein is more of a loose cannon — he’s best-known for winning 4% statewide in a 1990 gubernatorial bid on the Right-to-Life line, as well as an unsuccessful 1977 mayoral bid —  but if he can pick up the teabagger banner, he might make some waves here.

• VA-05: Jim McKelvey’s up to something weird here; we just don’t know what yet. He says he’s going to make up his mind this weekend whether or not to endorse Rob Hurt, to whom he finished 2nd in the GOP primary. His latest action is a head-scratcher: he’s starting his own PAC, the Take Our Country Back PAC, in order to “seek out, support, educate, train and elect conservative candidates on the local and state level in the fifth district and throughout Virginia.”

• Arizona: Here’s an interesting piece of data that should hearten Terry Goddard and Rodney Glassman: there’s been a surge in Latinos registering as Democrats since the passage of Arizona’s new immigration law. This shouldn’t be a surprise, as it closely mirrors what happened in the wake of California’s Prop 187 in the 1990s. The surge is also demographics-driven, given the fast Latino growth in Arizona, and in fact nationwide: the Census Bureau reports that, for the 2009 estimate, minorities will make up 35% of the nation, way up from 21% of the nation in the 2000 census. While much of that comes from increases in Latino births, a lot of it also has to do with more Americans self-identifying as multiracial.

• Governors: Josh Goodman does some number crunching and guesses that, with all the open seats and expected turnover this year, we’re on track to have 28 new Governors. That would be an all-time record for gubernatorial turnover (the previous record, 27, goes back to 1920).

• When Animals Attack: Best wishes for a quick recovery to Rep. Anthony Weiner, whose photo op went awry yesterday, ending with him getting stabbed in the hand by the horn of a large mohair goat. Apparently the most dangerous place to be is not between Weiner and a camera… so long as you’re a goat.