Tag: MN-Gov

• Idaho: The only state holding primaries tonight is Idaho, where the only race that’s captivating is the Republican primary in ID-01 between Vaughn Ward and state Rep. Raul Labrador. Ward has quickly turned into one of this cycle’s SSP favorites, parlaying early establishment backing and financial advantages into a dead heat with the teabaggish Labrador through repeat instances of plagiarism and general cluelessness. In fact, the latest incident came just today, when Idaho’s senior senator Mike Crapo asked Ward to clarify an inaccurate e-mail that implied Ward had Crapo’s endorsement. In a Mason-Dixon poll from several days ago, Ward led Labrador 31-28. Politico has some extra background on the race today, focusing on the bizarre intramural rivalries within the Tea Party movement, as local Labrador-backing teabaggers have split off into the Tea Party People’s Front and the People’s Front of Tea Party over the national Tea Party Express’s backing of Ward.

The Republican primary in the Governor’s race is also tonight, with incumbent Butch Otter facing challenges from wacko businessman Rex Rammell (whom you may remember from the 2008 Senate race, where he ran as an independent) and Ada Co. Commissioner Sharon Ullman. Otter, who was a libertarian-leaning House member prior to being Governor, hasn’t really drawn the wrath of the Tea Party though, and is polling well; the same Mason-Dixon poll finds him at 60%, with no opponent over 6%. Most polls in Idaho close at 8 pm Mountain time (10 Eastern), with some closing at 8 pm Pacific (11 Eastern).

• AR-Sen: The AFSCME is up with an $855K ad buy with a negative ad throwing the kitchen sink at Blanche Lincoln, even making fun of her absentee ballot screwup on Election Day. In Arkansas’s cheap media markets, that’s enough to keep the ads running all the way through the runoff.

• CA-Sen: While we at SSP are pleased and even a little honored that political insiders seem to be not only reading us but actually taking seriously things that we say, we also realize that they might not be familiar with all internet conventions. SSP allows (and encourages) user diaries. What is said in these diaries is not reflective of the opinions of the site’s editors. So, for instance, if a user diary says that CA-Sen is a “Tossup,” that does not mean that Swing State Project is calling CA-Sen a “Tossup,” which is precisely what the Carly Fiorina campaign was busy tweeting today.

• NC-Sen: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Third-place Democratic primary finisher Kenneth Lewis has signed on as campaign chair for Elaine Marshall. Marshall faces a runoff against Cal Cunningham, who got a good endorsement of his own yesterday, from Jim Neal (who you might remember lost the 2008 Senate primary after running to Kay Hagan’s left).

• WI-Sen: You see allegations of this kind of thing in small-ball state legislative contests a lot, but usually when you get up to the U.S. Senate level, you have your staffers do this kind of thing. Well, I guess Ron Johnson is a man of the people, willing to go out there and get his own hands dirty tearing down his opponents’ signs (as seen on this video).

• AL-Gov: Artur Davis is out with a last-minute hit on Ron Sparks, throwing around “corruption” in reference to the thorny issue (in Alabama) of gambling. Usually campaigns like to close on a happy note; is Davis worried about a last-minute Sparks surge?

• MN-Gov: With Margaret Anderson Kelliher having announced a running mate pick, the other two guys in the Democratic primary have now, too. Mark Dayton picked state Sen. Yvonne Prettner Solon. She represents Duluth, an important but oft-overlooked Democratic stronghold in the state’s north. Matt Entenza seems to be going for star power rather than geographical balance, though, reportedly asking retiring news anchorwoman Robyne Robinson.

• CA-36: Looks like the Democratic primary between Rep. Jane Harman and activist Marcy Winograd is getting nationalized. Democracy for America (the descendant of the Dean campaign) is endorsing Winograd over the centrist Harman in this D+12 district.

• HI-01: A day after sounding noncommital about running in the regularly-scheduled primary in the 1st after finishing a surprising 3rd in the jungle-style special election, Ed Case is now confirming that he will keep running. Case has challenge Colleen Hanabusa to jointly commission a poll on who’s more competitive against Charles Djou (who was sworn in today, by the way) and the loser would drop out. Um, maybe the time to do that would be before the weird special election, not before the conventional primary where Hanabusa’s probably the favorite.

• OH-18: State Sen. Bob Gibbs and ex-state Agriculture Director Fred Dailey will have to wait a while longer for a conclusion to their super-close GOP primary, as SoS Jennifer Brunner ordered a recount. Gibbs finished ahead of Dailey by 156 votes, out of 52,700 (so it falls within the half a percentage point margin where an automatic recount is ordered by state law).

• VA-02: The GOP primary in the 2nd seems to be following a familiar pattern this cycle: the establishment candidate wins with a plurality after the Tea Partiers and assorted other hard-right constituencies can’t unite behind any one standard-bearer. A POS internal poll from wealthy auto dealer Scott Rigell (who has a bipartisan contibution record that must be dismaying to the local teabaggery) has Rigell way in the lead at 47, followed by 10 for Bert Mizusawa, 9 for Scott Taylor, 6 for Ben Loyola, and 1 each for Ed Maulbeck and Jessica Sandlin. Virginia’s primary is on June 8, but remember that, unlike most Southern states, they don’t employ runoffs.

• WI-07: EMILY’s List is getting involved in the open seat race in the 7th, now that state Sen. Julie Lassa has the Democratic field to herself. Their endorsement give her access to a nationwide donor base.

• Nevada: Democrats in Nevada have been able to point to a steadily increasing registration advantage over the last few years, but that petered out in the state’s newest release of numbers. The GOP increased its share, not by gaining more new registrations than the Dems, but by losing fewer registrations! Dems lost 42K since January, the GOP lost 20K, and nonpartisans went down 13K. I doubt people are burning their registration cards in a fit of pique, which instead suggests that there’s a lot of migration out of Nevada this year as it’s particularly hard hit by unemployment and foreclosures.

• Redistricting: Here’s some bipartisanship you can believe in: GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown — both beneficiaries of minority-majority districts, including an ugly gerrymandered one in Brown’s case — joined together to sue to stop the Fair Districts initiative that will be on Florida’s ballot in November.  

• CO-Sen: Colorado’s state party conventions are this weekend. Most of the drama is on the Democratic side in the Senate race — actually, even there, it’s not that dramatic, as underdog Andrew Romanoff is expected to prevail at the convention because of his connections to party insiders and his former fellow legislators (and also based on his performance at precinct-level caucuses). Michael Bennet is still expected to meet the 30% threshold that gets him on the ballot without signatures, though, and victory here for Romanoff may be pyrrhic anyway, as the Dem convention winners have fared poorly in the actual primary (ex-Sen. Ken Salazar, for instance, lost the 2004 convention to Mike Miles). The GOP convention should be less interesting because, realizing they have little hope among the revved-up base, establishment-flavored Jane Norton and Tom Wiens aren’t bothering, simply opting to qualify for the primary by petition, so Weld Co. DA and Tea Party fave Ken Buck is expected to romp.

• CT-Sen, CT-Gov: Likewise, the state conventions are scheduled for this weekend in Connecticut as well. Although there’s a competitive battle in the Dem convention on the gubernatorial side between Ned Lamont and Dan Malloy, it seems like all eyes will be on Richard Blumenthal instead, to see if there’s any sort of challenge to him that pops up (other than the minor candidacy of Merrick Alpert). If someone is going to get drafted as a last-minute Blumenthal replacement, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be the newly-freed-up Susan Bysiewicz, who, seemingly caught off-guard by this week’s Supreme Court ruling about her AG eligibility, is now saying she won’t run for anything in 2010. There’s also the Senate face-off in the GOP convention, where ex-Rep. Rob Simmons’ connections and institutional support will be measured up against Linda McMahon’s gigantic wealth; McMahon, for her part, is back to touting her camp’s leak of the Blumenthal story to the NYT after hiding it yesterday.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist couldn’t square his support for Elena Kagan today with his opposition to Sonia Sotomayor, telling the Miami Herald that he really couldn’t recall why he opposed Sotomayor. (Um, maybe because he was a Republican back then?) On the plus side, Crist is coming out in favor of the Fair Districts initiatives on the ballot this November, which would smooth out the most pernicious tendencies toward gerrymandering and thus is strongly opposed by the state’s large Republican legislative majorities.

• IL-Sen: Hmmm, I wonder where this ranks on the hierarchy of misstating your military credentials? Rep. Mark Kirk told a gathering last May that “I command the war room in the Pentagon.” Kirk does have a high-profile role in the National Military Command Center, but the war room is run by one-star general, and that’s something that Kirk most definitely is not. Let’s see what the NYT does with this one.

• KY-Sen: After a bad news day yesterday, Rand Paul is continuing to run his mouth, whining about how he was supposed to get a media honeymoon after Tuesday’s Randslide, and also going the full Bachmann against Barack Obama, saying it “sounds Unamerican” for him to be criticizing BP over its massive oil spill because “accidents sometimes happen.” (So that “B” in BP stands for American Petroleum now?) Paul is scheduled for this weekend’s Meet the Press, for what his handlers hope is damage control but may turn into extended hole-digging.

Paul also expounded yesterday on the Americans with Disabilities Act, and he should be lucky the media were too fixated yesterday on his Civil Rights Act statements to provide any fact-checking about his bizarre ignorance of the ADA. Paul’s example of the ADA’s suckage is that it would be reasonable, if an employee used a wheelchair at a two-story business, to just give that person a first-floor office instead of forcing the employer to install an elevator at terrible cost. That’s true; it would be “reasonable” — which is exactly why the ADA asks employers to provide “reasonable accommodation” to disabled employees, a prime example of which might be letting someone work on a lower floor. Removal of architectural barriers is not required if it isn’t “readily achievable” (in other words, easily accomplished, without much difficulty or expense) — which means, grab bars in the bathroom stall or a curb cut, yes, an elevator in an old two-story building, no. Paul’s attack on the ADA seems entirely based on having failed to, as the teabaggers have often urged us to do, “read the bill.”

• NC-Sen: There’s a late-in-the-game shakeup at the Cal Cunningham camp, as his campaign manager and communications director are out the door. Cunningham’s spokesperson says it’s a necessary retooling for the different nature of the runoff, with less focus on the air war and more on grassroots and shoe-leather.

• PA-Sen: Sigh. The DSCC, which isn’t exactly rolling in money these days, spent $540K in coordinated expenditures trying to prop up one-year Democrat Arlen Specter in his 54-46 loss to Joe Sestak in the primary.

• MN-Gov: Margaret Anderson Kelliher reached across the aisle, or at least in the pool of bipartisan budget wonkery, for a running mate, picking John Gunyou. Gunyou was the finance commissioner for Republican Gov. Arne Carlson; he also worked as finance director for Minneapolis mayor Don Fraser and is currently city manager of the suburb of Minnetonka.

• CO-07: The GOP already had its district-level convention in the 7th, as a prelude to the statewide convo. The two main rivals, Lang Sias and Ryan Frazier, both cleared the 30% mark to get on the ballot; the minor candidates didn’t clear the mark and won’t try to get on by petition. Frazier got 49%, while Sias got 43%. Sias’s nomination was seconded by ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo, as well as the 7th’s former Rep. Bob Beauprez.

• CT-04: Thom Hermann, the First Selectman of Easton and a guy with a lot of wealth at his disposal, is making his presence known in the GOP primary field in the 4th, heading into the weekend’s convention. He’s out with an internal poll, via Wilson Research, giving him a large lead over presumed frontrunner state Sen. Dan Debicella among those primary voters who’ve decided. It’s reported in a strange, slightly deceptive way, though: he has a 44-25 lead over Debicella among those who’ve decided, but only 36% have decided! (So by my calculations, it’s more like a 16-9 lead in reality?)

• FL-02: Dem Rep. Allen Boyd seems to be taking nothing for granted this year. He’s already up with his second TV ad against his underfunded primary opponent, state Sen. Al Lawson, this time hitting Lawson for votes to cut back funding for healthcare and construction jobs. (J)

• HI-01: We’re up to 48% of all ballots having been returned in the 1st, with tomorrow being the deadline in the all-mail-in special election to replace Neil Abercrombie (152K out of 317K).

• ID-02: I have no idea what this is about, but I thought I’d put it out there, as it’s one of the weirdest IEs we’ve seen in a while. Not only did someone plunk down $8K for polling in the 2nd, one of the most reliably Republican top-to-bottom districts anywhere where Rep. Mike Simpson only ever faces token opposition, but the money’s from the American Dental Association. Making sure Idahoans are brushing properly?

• IN-03: State Sen. Marlin Stutzman made it official today: he’s running in the special election for the seat just vacated by Rep. Mark Souder. Having performed well in the Senate primary (and having had a path cleared for him by Mike Pence’s lowering of the boom on Souder), he looks like the one to beat here.

• PA-07: Former local TV news anchor Dawn Stensland has decided to forego a vaguely-threatened independent run in the 7th. That leaves it a one-on-one battle between Dem Bryan Lentz and GOPer Pat Meehan.

• PA-12: The GOP seems to have settled on its preferred explanation for trying to spin away its underwhelming performance in the special election in the 12th, via their polling guru Gene Ulm. It’s all Ed Rendell’s fault, for scheduling it on the same day as the Senate primary, causing all those Joe Sestak supporters (of which there were many in that corner in Pennsylvania) to come out of the woodwork and vote in the 12th while they were at it.

• Unions: Now that’s a lot of lettuce. Two major unions are promising to spend almost $100 million together to preserve Democratic majorities this fall. The AFSCME is promising $50 million and the SEIU is planning $44 million.

• Enthusiasm Gap: This is something I’ve often suspected, but never felt like bringing up because the numbers weren’t there to prove the point (and also perhaps because saying so would put me at odds with the general netroots orthodoxy): the Democratic “enthusiasm gap” isn’t so much borne out of dissatisfaction with the insufficient aggressiveness of the Obama administration or the slow pace of getting watered-down legislation out of Congress as much as it’s borne out of complacency. In other words, there’s the sense by casual/irregular/low-information Dem voters that they did their job in 2008, got the country back on track, things are slowly improving, and because they aren’t angry anymore they don’t need to keep following up. PPP backs this up: among those “somewhat excited ” or “not very excited” about voting in November, Obama’s approval is a higher-than-average 58/35, and their supports for the health care bill is also a higher-than-average 50/38.

Minnesota Public Radio/Humphrey Institute (5/13-16, adults):

Mark Dayton (DFL): 35

Tom Emmer (R): 31

Tom Horner (IP): 8

Undecided/Other: 25

Margaret Anderson Kelliher (DFL): 29

Tom Emmer (R): 31

Tom Horner (IP): 10

Undecided/Other: 30

Matt Entenza (DFL): 28

Tom Emmer (R): 32

Tom Horner (IP): 11

Undecided/Other: 29

(MoE: ±5.8%)

DFL primary:

Mark Dayton (DFL): 38

Margaret Anderson Kelliher (DFL): 28

Matt Entenza (DFL): 6

Undecided/Other: 28

(MoE: “higher than” ±5.8%)

MPR and the wonks at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs have teamed up for the first public poll of the Democratic gubernatorial primary since state House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher won the DFL endorsement in late April. Their results give ex-Sen. Mark Dayton a reason to smile, as he’s coming out on top in the DFL primary, and is the only Democrat to lead Tom Emmer in the general election. Bear in mind, though, that MPR didn’t screen for likely voters, and their less than forthcoming attitude towards the primary sample’s margin of error suggests that the DFL-only sample size may be smaller than we’d see from other pollsters.

• AZ-Sen: A little tension here between John McCain and retiring Rep. John Shadegg? Shadegg has endorsed McCain (along with the rest of Arizona’s GOP House delegation) but was publicly laughing along with the Morning Joe crew to John McCain’s new TV ad on border security (which marks a big ‘ol flip-flop for the one-time pro-immigration reform McCain).

• NV-Sen: Everyone’s abuzz today about the new Mason-Dixon/LVRJ poll that has right-winger Sharron Angle moving into contention in the GOP primary, mostly as Sue Lowden’s expense. The numbers suggest that may have more to do with Angle’s higher profile after getting the Tea Party Express endorsement, rather than blowback from Lowden having laid an egg. We’ll have more on that poll once we have the general election numbers. Danny Tarkanian still seems to be in the thick of things, though; he’s touting an internal poll that has him tied with Lowden at 30-30, with Angle hanging back at 15. Tarkanian may also be able to blunt Angle’s surge a bit with a far-right endorsement of his own, from Minutemen co-founder Jim Gilchrist.

• NY-Sen-B: Rep. Peter King took a pass on challenging Kirsten Gillibrand after much public pondering, but today he’s announcing that he’s backing Bruce Blakeman in the GOP primary among the various lower-tier candidates who did get in.

• CA-Gov: Yesterday, Steve Poizner rooted around in his change jar and found an extra $2.5 million to go toward a final push in the GOP gubernatorial primary. Meg Whitman was unimpressed, raising the stakes with another $5 million (bringing her own campaign-long total to $64 million of her own money). “That’s not a ludicrous waste of money. Now this is a ludicrous waste of money,” she was overheard saying in an Australian accent.

• CT-Gov: Stop the presses! Rudy Marconi is out of the Democratic field for the gubernatorial race. Since this is probably the first you’ve heard of him and you may be thinking he’s the guy who invented the radio, no, he’s the First Selectman of Ridgefield. He was the last minor Dem to fall, making it a two-man fight between Ned Lamont and Dan Malloy. (Marconi endorsed Lamont on the way out.) Both Lamont and Malloy picked up some labor endorsements too, although it seems like Malloy got the bigger score, in the form of the SEIU’s two largest locals in the state. Lamont got the Laborers.

• MA-Gov: It looks like the RGA’s hard hit on indie Tim Cahill (echoes of their attacks on Chris Daggett in New Jersey) may have had the desired effects. A Rasmussen poll this week showed Cahill lagging into the teens, in the third place, with GOPer Charlie Baker moving up (unfortunately for them, it also seemed to suggest some Cahill votes moving to Patrick too, as he moved up even more than Baker and pushed into the 40s, but I suppose that’s part of the GOP’s plan to try and minimize Cahill and turn it into a traditional two-man race). It also blunted a social conservative uprising: a number of RNC national committee members had moved to stop the RGA from spending money on Charlie Baker because of his tolerant social views, but many of them withdrew that request shortly after seeing the polls indicating that the GOP attacks were actually working. UPDATE: National Journal has some additional background, and it seems like the back-down may have had more to do with some hard arm-twisting from Haley Barbour than a sudden epiphany on the part of the recalcitrant Iowans.

• MN-Gov: Looks like Margaret Anderson Kelliher, despite her DFL endorsement, is far from having things locked down in the Democratic primary. The United Steelworkers endorsed one of her opponents who didn’t bother with the party process, ex-sen. Mark Dayton.

• NV-Gov: One small tidbit from yesterday’s poll by Dem pollster Fairbank Maslin, that raised a lot of eyebrows over its NV-Sen numbers, escaped our attention. They also found Rory Reid within striking distance of likely GOP nominee Brian Sandoval, 46-41. (No word on a Reid/Gibbons result.)

• NC-07: Now here’s one of the last places I’d expected to see an intramural cat-fud fight. After attracting some good notices from the NRCC (including addition to the “On the Radar” tier) based on respectable fundraising and Iraq vet credentials, Ilario Pantano got over the 50% mark in the GOP primary. But now his two vanquished rivals, 2008 nominee Will Breazeale and Randy Crow, are uniting to fight against Pantano in the general. This doesn’t sound like a typical lame case of sour grapes: Breazeale, a vet himself, says he has a “moral obligation” to fight Pantano over his actions in Iraq. It turns out Pantano was charged with murder after shooting two Iraqis in his custody, although charges were eventually dropped. Pantano faces Dem Rep. Mike McIntyre, who’s had little trouble holding this R+5 seat so far.

• NY-01: With three rich guys duking it out in the GOP primary, Newt Gingrich, for some reason, waded into the fray to endorse the seemingly richest of the bunch: Randy Altschuler.

• WI-07: One more prominent local Dem decided against competing in the primary to replace retiring Rep. David Obey, leaving state Sen. Julie Lassa pretty much the consensus pick. Former state Sen. Kevin Shibilski said he liked the idea of getting in, but recognized the importance of avoiding a contested primary.

• West Virginia: Highly motivated voters in both parties this year? Guess again, if West Virginia’s primary is any indication. Turnout in the Mountain State was actually a record low, with only 166,000 votes cast, or 14% of registered voters.

• Florida: Mason-Dixon’s Senate and Governor poll included a whole bunch of downballot races too, offering a mixed bag for Dems. Maybe the most noteworthy finding: Dem ex-Tallahassee mayor Scott Maddox is leading the Ag Commissioner race, 31-30. That’s surprising, since the GOP fielded a top-tier opponent (in fact, several tiers above what this kind of race usually attracts) in the former of retiring Rep. Adam Putnam. In the CFO race, GOP state Senate president Jeff Atwater leads Dem ex-state Rep. Loranne Ausley, 33-26. For the AG race, they don’t poll the general but look at both primaries (where undecideds rule the day). On the Dem side, state Sen. Dan Gelber (who had run for Senate for a while) leads state Sen. Dave Aronberg (who really should be running in FL-16 instead) 15-12, while on the GOP side, Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp leads Pam Bondi 13-10.

• Demographics: While we’re talking about Florida, Josh Goodman has some interesting number-crunching about where the growth in Florida is, and what that may mean for redistricting. The fastest-growing counties in the state seem to be the dark-red exurbs around Jacksonville (like Clay County), but that’s counterbalanced somewhat by the fast growth in the Orlando area, where the growth isn’t quite as fast but where there’s also a Democratic trend in the electorate.

SurveyUSA (5/3-5, likely voters, no trend lines):

Margaret Anderson Kelliher (DFL): 33

Tom Emmer (R): 41

Tom Horner (IP): 9

Undecided: 17

Mark Dayton (DFL): 34

Tom Emmer (R): 42

Tom Horner (IP): 9

Undecided: 15

Matt Entenza (DFL): 31

Tom Emmer (R): 42

Tom Horner (IP): 10

Undecided: 16

(MoE: ±4.1%)

I have no doubt that this is going to be a very competitive race for the Republicans, especially considering the lameness of the Democratic field, but there are definitely some curiosities in this poll. Care to guess in which age bracket Republican Tom Emmer enjoys his largest leads over his Democratic opponents? If you guessed the 18-34 year-old bracket, you win a Jell-o mold in the shape of the state of Oklahoma. Emmer leads Kelliher by a whopping 51-23 among 18-34 year-olds, and by similarly lop-sided margins against Dayton and Entenza. We’ve seen this phenomenon in SUSA’s polls before, but this problem has been particularly exaggerated in Minnesota for some strange reason. (Just recall all those polls from 2008 showing Norm Coleman and John McCain being big hits with the kids.)

• AR-Sen: Barack Obama is cutting a radio ad in support of Blanche Lincoln as she faces a primary challenge from Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Also on the ad front, here’s an ad that both Lincoln and Halter agree on. Both have condemned the anti-Halter ad from Americans for Job Security as racist; the ad uses Indian actors and backdrops to accuse Halter of having offshored jobs. AJS’s head says he sees nothing wrong with the ad and won’t be pulling it; it’s a big ad buy and scheduled to run for the next two weeks in the leadup to the primary.

• KY-Sen: Lots happening in Kentucky, most notably a strange switcheroo by Christian right leader James Dobson. He outright switched his endorsement from Trey Grayson to Rand Paul, blaming GOP insiders for feeding him misinformation about Paul (such as that he was pro-choice). Dobson’s endorsement is bound to help the Paul attract some social conservative voters uneasy about his libertarianism, and also helps paint Grayson as tool of the dread insiders. True to form, Grayson is touting a new endorsement that’s pretty insidery: from Rep. Hal Rogers, the low-profile, long-term Rep. from the state’s Appalachian southeast corner and a key pork-doling Appropriations member. Grayson is also touting his own internal poll, which shows Paul and Grayson deadlocked at 40-40, contrary to, well, every public poll of the race.

• LA-Sen, LA-LG: Here’s the first non-Rasmussen poll of Louisiana we’ve seen in a while, not that it has Charlie Melancon in a particularly better position.  It was conducted by Southern Media & Opinion Research on behalf of businessman Lane Grigsby (a wealthy meddler in Republican politics, last seen swaying LA-06 in 2008 with hundreds of thousands of IEs from his own pocket). Vitter leads Melancon 49-31, and Vitter has 55/36 favorables. It also seems to be the first poll to take a look at the Republican all-party jungle primary in the developing Lt. Governor’s race (created by Mitch Landrieu’s election as New Orleans mayor). State Treasurer John Kennedy (the ex-Dem and loser of the 2008 Senate race) leads the pack at 21, followed by SoS Jay Dardenne at 15, Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell at 14, St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis at 6, and state GOP chair Roger Villere at 2. (Kennedy and Campbell, however, haven’t announced their candidacies yet.) (H/t Darth Jeff).

• NC-Sen: PPP has one last look at the Democratic primary in the Senate race, although this one may well be going into overtime (someone needs to break 40% to avoid a top-two runoff). They find Elaine Marshall leading Cal Cunningham 28-21 (a bigger spread than her 26-23 lead one week ago). Kenneth Lewis is at 9, with assorted others taking up another 9%. PPP also polls on the potential runoff, finding Marshall would beat Cunningham in a runoff 43-32 (as Lewis’s voters would break to Marshall by a 47-32 margin).

• NH-Sen: Kelly Ayotte seems to be leaving any “moderate” pretenses in the dust, as she just came out in favor of Arizona’s new anti-illegal immigrant law. (Of course, New Hampshire is one of the whitest and least Hispanic states in that nation, so it still may not wind up hurting her much.)

• NV-Sen: Research 2000, for Daily Kos, came out with a poll of the Nevada Senate race last Friday. Nothing unusual here, inasmuch as they find Harry Reid not looking as DOA as Rasmussen always does, though there are still lots of flies circling around him. Reid’s faves are 37/53, and he trails Sue Lowden 45-41 (with 4 for the Tea Party’s Scott Ashjian, 2 for “other,” and 2 for Nevada’s unique “None of the Above” line). He also trails Danny Tarkanian 43-41 and Sharron Angle 44-41. Despite Lowden getting low marks for her chicken bartering proposals (14/81 approval of that, including 27/68 among Republicans), she still has 42/34 favorables overall and is leading the way in the GOP primary, although perhaps by a narrowing margin: she’s at 38, to 28 for Tarkanian, 13 for Angle, and 12 for “other,” with 9 undecided.

• OH-Sen: One last poll sneaked under the finish line before tomorrow’s Democratic primary in the Ohio Senate race. Quinnipiac finds last-minute momentum for Lee Fisher (in the wake of actually spending some money on TV ads): he leads Jennifer Brunner 43-23. It pretty much seems to depend on name rec (which, in turns, depends on ads): Fisher has 44/8 favorables among likely primary voters, while Brunner is at 26/7 (with 65% having no opinion of her).

• AZ-Gov: I hadn’t been aware until today that controversial Maricopa Co. Sheriff Joe Arpaio was still seriously considering a run in the GOP gubernatorial primary (especially since, with Jan Brewer signing the anti-illegal immigrant law into effect, his main raison d’etre to challenge her was gone). At any rate, after making a big show of “major announcement today!” he then issued a brief press release saying that he wasn’t going to run.

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman is treading carefully in the wake of the Arizona immigration law’s passage, probably mindful of the California GOP’s short-term gains but long-term ruin in the wake of Proposition 187. Meg Whitman came out against it (while primary opponent Steve Poizner supports it), perhaps an indication that she feels safe enough to start charting a moderate course for the general election.

• CT-Gov: Two interesting developments in Connecticut: one, former HartStamford mayor Dan Malloy, Ned Lamont’s main Democratic primary opposition, will qualify for public financing of his campaign. This will help Malloy compete on a somewhat more level playing field against Lamont, who can self-finance. Also, the Democratic field shrank a little, as one of the minor candidates in the field, Mary Glassman (the First Selectwoman of Simsbury) dropped out and signed on as Lamont’s Lt. Governor running mate instead.

• IL-Gov: Democratic running-mate-for-a-day Scott Lee Cohen followed through on earlier threats, and today announced his independent candidacy for Governor. His rationale? “I believe that the people of Illinois have forgiven me.”

• MN-Gov: Needless to say, I’m feeling better about our chances in Minnesota, as newly-anointed GOP nominee Tom Emmer is laying down markers way, way outside the Minnesota mainstream. Turns out he’s a full-on “Tenther,” having recently sponsored state legislation that would purport to nullify all federal laws that are not approved by a two-thirds supermajority in the Minnesota legislature. (He also recently said that the Arizona immigration law was a “wonderful first step.”)

• NY-Gov: We’re getting very mixed signals on the Steve Levy campaign for the GOP nomination. On the one hand, Levy is claiming that the RGA is ready to pony up $8 million to $10 million in support of his campaign. On the other hand, state GOP chair Ed Cox, the guy who arm-twisted Levy to get into the race in the first place, is privately expressing worries that Levy won’t get the 50% of county chairs’ endorsements to get the ballot line, and there are rumors that he’s now floating the idea of a Rick Lazio-Steve Levy ticket.    

• OH-Gov: Incumbent Dem Gov. Ted Strickland is going on the air starting on primary election day, with a major TV ad buy of 1,000 points each in Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Dayton. Strickland has $2 million more cash than John Kasich, so he probably figures now’s the time to use it.

• OR-Gov: A variety of polls have popped up of the primaries in Oregon, whose fast-approaching primary is kind of dwarfed by higher-profile affairs in Arkansas, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania on the same day, May 18. Tim Hibbitts (on behalf of Nike and Standard Insurance, in case there was any doubt that Oregon is, in fact, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Phil Knight) found John Kitzhaber firmly in control of the Dem primary, leading Bill Bradbury 50-21. Local TV affiliate KATU also commissioned a poll by SurveyUSA, which was taken in mid-April but they seem to have sat on the results until now. It’s apparently the first public poll of the Republican primary; they find Chris Dudley, who’s been spending heavily on TV time, leading the pack at 28. Allen Alley is at 13, under-indictment Bill Sizemore is at 11, John Lim is at 7, and assorted tea-bagging “others” add up to 8.

• UT-Gov: Looks like those rumors that Democratic candidate Peter Corroon was going to pick a Republican running mate were right. Corroon tapped state Rep. Sheryl Allen, one of the legislature’s leading moderate GOPers, as his number two.

• OH-17: Insert obligatory “beam me up” joke here! Ex-Rep. Jim Traficant, out of prison, is looking to get back in the game, and he’ll be taking on his former employee, Rep. Tim Ryan, by running as an independent in his old district, the 17th. While there had been rumors that Traficant was also going to file to run in the next-door 6th (as, bizarrely, you can run in multiple different districts in Ohio), but he decided against that. Bear in mind that Traficant already ran against Ryan in the 17th as an independent shortly after his 2002 conviction and House expulsion, but only got 15% in that race.

The GOP endorsing convention seemed to wrap things up pretty quickly: state Rep. Tom Emmer will be their gubernatorial nominee.

To chants of “Marty! Marty!”, Rep. Marty Seifert bows out of the Republican gubernatorial race, and endorsed Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Delano, for the party’s gubernatorial endorsement.

“Put your Emmer stickers on!” Seifert told the roaring crowd.

After Emmer had gotten to 56% on the second ballot (60% was needed to endorse), apparently that was enough for Seifert to pull the plug, in the face of Emmer’s last-minute momentum. Emmer, considerably more conservative than the moderate Republicans who are usually the only type who can win statewide, can expect a tough go of it in the general — especially if Independence Party candidate Tom Horner soaks up a big share of moderate votes. (Seifert would have faced the same problem, but Emmer, who just got a Sarah Palin endorsement, seems especially out-of-whack with his state’s preferences.)  

• AR-Sen: The SEIU is turning their amps up to 11 in a final effort to beat Blanche Lincoln in the Democratic primary. They’re ponying up another $1 million for a new TV ad blitz, focusing on Lincoln’s support for NAFTA, CAFTA, and sundry other free-trade deals.

• FL-Sen: Looks like the “Help wanted” sign is going out at Charlie Crists’s office. As expected, much of his top-tier staff evacuated en masse; he lost communications director Andrea Saul, spokesperson Amanda Hennenberg, and campaign counsel Ben Ginsberg (all Beltway types left over from when Crist was the NRSC’s prize pony, who just headed back to the GOP’s mothership). Also former Crist marionette George LeMieux severed his strings: the seat-warming Senator says he won’t support Crist’s independent bid.

• NV-Sen: Imagine that… a Democrat actually taking to the airwaves to explain the benefits of the broadly-misunderstood (or just plain not-understood-at-all) health care reform bill and not just ceding the discursive arena to right-wing radio and astroturfers? Better late than never, I guess. Harry Reid is forging ahead with that, launching three different new TV ads featuring stories from actual Nevadans actually benefiting from HCR.

• OH-Sen (pdf): There’s one more poll of the Democratic Senate primary in Ohio, from Suffolk this time. They find an even bigger edge for Lee Fisher over Jennifer Brunner than did PPP; in fact, Suffolk has Fisher doubling up on her, 55-27. Voters may be thinking strategically: they also find that respondents feel Fisher has a better chance of beating Rob Portman than does Brunner, by a lop-sided 55-15 margin. Brunner voters report that, if Fisher wins the election, 74% will vote for Fisher and 8% for Portman.

• AZ-Gov: PPP has one more installment in its Arizona sample today: the Republican primary in the gubernatorial race. As other pollsters have found, once-wobbly incumbent Jan Brewer has strengthened her primary position (while destabilized her general election position) by signing off on Arizona’s new racial profiling law. Brewer leads the pack at 38, over fractured opposition led by NRA board member Owen Buz Mills at 19, state Treasurer Dean Martin at 16, and former university regent John Munger at 3. (In PPP’s last poll here, from September, Brewer was losing a head-to-head against Martin 37-26.) PPP also did a fantasy-baseball poll that included Maricopa Co. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who, as he does every four years, has been expressing interest in the race but not moving forward in it. Arpaio wins that version of the primary, taking 33%, with 25 for Brewer, 15 for Martin, 11 for Mills, and 1 for Munger.

• MN-Gov: With the Republican endorsing convention in Minnesota already underway, most media accounts are focusing on Sarah Palin’s last-minute endorsement of state Rep. Tom Emmer, but there’s a more important endorsement at work here in terms of potentially moving some delegates: Norm Coleman is now also backing Emmer and privately making calls to delegates on Emmer’s behalf. The GOPers have already endorsed in some of the downballot races, maybe most notably the Auditor’s race, where they endorsed former Auditor Pat Anderson (who had been running for Governor for a while, until she decided to drop down and try to get her old job back instead).

• UT-Gov: Mason-Dixon, on behalf of the Salt Lake Tribune, took another look at the general election in the Utah governor’s race, which is definitely looking like a heavy lift for Salt Lake County mayor Peter Corroon. The Democrat trails GOP incumbent Gary Herbert 61-30, an even better showing than Herbert’s 55-30 result in January.

• FL-16: Whew. After making some noises about a possible comeback attempt, ex-Rep. Tim Mahoney decided on filing day that he wouldn’t run to get his seat back. He still took a parting shot at Rep. Tom Rooney, saying he’s part of the GOP’s move to the “radical right.” Some Dudes Jim Horn and Ed Tautiva are all the Dems have on the ballot in this R+5 district, unless something changes in the next few hours.

• HI-01: The Republicans continue to very subtly funnel money into the 1st, somewhat mirroring their stealth strategy on how they got similarly-blue MA-Sen off the ground. Rather than the NRCC charging in with both barrels blazing, instead there’s a push for individual House GOP members to contribute directly to Charles Djou; about 40 have done so already.

• IN-02: The National Rifle Association slammed GOP candidate Jackie Walorski. No, that’s not because the right-wing Walorski suddenly had a change of heart on the gun issue; instead, it was because she was claiming the NRA’s endorsement. That was only for her 2008 legislative bid, the NRA said, and she has not been endorsed yet for this year for the different office.

• IN-03: Looks like Rep. Mark Souder isn’t going to be in the House much longer, regardless of how next week’s primary plays out. Brian Howey says Souder has been telling him that he’d already been contemplating retirement in 2012, and the stress of trying to win his unexpectedly-tough primary election has “sealed it” for him.

• PA-04: Here’s a last-minute sign of life for Keith Rothfus, who’d been the leading GOP contender here up until the moment when former US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan announced (although Rothfus beat Buchanan at fundraising last quarter). He got the endorsement today of Glen Meakem, a wealthy businessman and part-time talk radio host who’s something of a behind-the-scenes power in Republican circles in western Pennsylvania and who had briefly considered a Senate bid last year.

• SC-04: Rep. Bob Inglis’s main threat this year is in the GOP primary, not the general, and he launched two different ads reminding voters that he’s actually pretty conservative. One ad touts his NRA endorsement, while the other runs down the litany of things he opposed (health care reform, stimulus, cap-and-trade, auto industry bailout).

• NY-St. Sen.: A long-time Republican stalwart in the New York state Senate is retiring: Dale Volker (in office since 1975). Democrats looking to pad their narrow majority in the Senate may need to look elsewhere, though; this district in the Buffalo suburbs and surrounding rural counties is one of the most conservative in the state, with a 79K-to-65K GOP registration advantage, and won 54-40 by John McCain.

• Arizona: Arizona has been doing all kinds of weird things lately, and here’s one more to add to the list. One of the few states to not have a Lt. Governor (the SoS is 2nd in line of succession, which is how Jan Brewer became Governor), Arizona is planning to have a Lt. Governor… but only because they would eliminate the SoS position and give all those duties to the LG. What’s even weirder is that they’d start doing what Illinois just decided to stop doing because the results were so uniformly terrible: the Governor and LG candidates will run separately in the primary, but be joined together on one ticket via shotgun wedding for the general election. The idea cleared the legislature, but because it’s a constitutional amendment, the idea has to pass a voter referendum before it becomes law.

• Puerto Rico: The House approved allowing Puerto Rico to hold a plebiscite on its grey-area status (the last one was in 1998, where they decided to remain a commonwealth). It’ll be a two-step vote, where the first vote will ask whether it should remain a commonwealth or not. If the answer is “no,” the second vote will ask whether it should become independent, a U.S. state, still remain a commonwealth, or enter some other sovereign-but-connected-to-the-U.S. status. If it voted for statehood, Congress would still have to approve making it a state. Of course, this has to pass the Senate as well before the vote could happen, so it may get kicked down the road for a while.

• OFA: Nathan Gonzales has a thorough look at the Obama campaign’s state directors, and how they’re part of OFA’s pivot to focus on turning out the same voters for the 2010 midterms. Here’s a handy table of what all the directors are up to these days.

• History: Rhodes Cook has an interesting column that’s been getting linked all over the place in the last couple days: a much more apt comparison for what the Democrats are getting themselves this year, rather than 1994, is 1966. The parallels are that the Democrats were facing some inevitable snap-back after overperforming in the 1964 election (winning nearly 2/3s majorities in each chamber), and the GOP quickly got back up off the mat after the Dems pushed the limits in passing a variety of Great Society legislation (most notably Medicare). Of course, the Democrats still took a bath, losing 47 in the House and 3 in the Senate, so it’s still not really something the Democrats should aspire towards.

• FL-Sen: It’s come down to brass tacks for Charlie Crist. With fast-approaching April 30 the drop-dead date for switching over to an independent bid for the Senate, he’s set a Thursday deadline for making up his mind on the matter. So, we’ll know soon one way or the other.

• MO-Sen, IL-Sen: Robin Carnahan found an excuse to avoid Barack Obama last time he was in Missouri, but, apparently realizing that she needs to rev up her base, she’s appearing with him this week when he visits an ethanol plant in Macon. Obama is also extending some of his cred to the currently very-wobbly Alexi Giannoulias, appearing with him downstate in Quincy on the same road swing.

• NC-Sen: There are two different polls today of the Democratic primary in the North Carolina Senate race, both promising a very close race (with the election one week from today, although a runoff may be in the offing). SurveyUSA’s first look at the field finds SoS Elaine Marshall leading ex-state Sen. Cal Cunningham 23-19, with attorney Kenneth Lewis at 10, miscellaneous others adding up to 15, and 34% undecided. (Marshall has a 33-13 edge among liberals, while Cunningham has narrow leads among moderates and conservatives. And despite Cunningham’s relative youth, he’s in 3rd place among the 18-34 set; Kenneth Lewis actually leads among young voters, but barely makes a dent among older voters.) SurveyUSA also finds Richard Burr cruising in the GOP primary, at 59% with none of his opponents topping 6%. PPP (pdf) has similar numbers; Marshall leads Cunningham 26-23, with Lewis at 7, miscellaneous others at 10, and 34% undecided. (It’s a narrower spread from last month, where PPP saw Marshall leading Cunningham 23-17.)

• NY-Sen: Finally, someone put their head in the chopping block to go up against Chuck Schumer and his $21 million warchest. Republican political consultant and Fox commentator Jay Townsend will try to… well, you can’t even hope to contain Schumer, let alone beat him.

• UT-Sen: There’s yet another poll of the delegates to next month’s Republican convention in Utah, this time by Mason-Dixon on behalf of the Salt Lake Tribune. This one’s pretty bad for Bob Bennett too, suggesting he isn’t likely to even make it to the final round of convention balloting. He’s in third place among delegates’ expressed first choices. Mike Lee is at 37, Tim Bridgewater is at 20, and Bob Bennett is at 16, followed by Cherilyn Eagar at 11. (Inflammatory ex-Rep. Merrill Cook seems to have burned all of his bridges and then bagged and sold all the charcoal, as he’s polling at 1%.) Based on second choices, Lee would win the final round against Bridgewater 44-30, suggesting that Lee can’t nail it down at the convention and that he and Bridgewater would advance to the primary. (Lee wins a Lee/Bennett head-to-head 51-18.) Perhaps the most telling statistic, though, of what a thin slice of the hard right this sample is: of the delegates, 68% say they’re “supporters” of the Tea Party movement. Other Senator Orrin Hatch should be glad he’s not running this year, as he’s sufficiently impure that he’d be getting the same treatment: 71% say they’d be inclined to nominate someone other than Hatch.

• AL-Gov: Ah, nothing beats good old fashioned southern hospitality. Tim James (son of ex-Gov. Fob James), running for Alabama Governor, says he’ll save money by stopping offering the driver’s license test in other languages (because, apparently, complying with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is for suckers). James’s tagline? “This is Alabama. We speak English.”

• GA-Gov: Wealthy teabagger Ray Boyd — who just recently showed up on the scene in the GOP gubernatorial field — balked at signing a Republican “loyalty oath” that’s apparently a mandatory part of running for office as a Republican in Georgia. So, Boyd took his $2 million ball, went home, and is now planning to run as an independent. A few percentage of right-wingers peeled off by Boyd may make all the difference for Democratic ex-Gov. Roy Barnes in a close election, so consider this good news.

• ME-Gov: Former state House speaker John Richardson abruptly dropped out of the Democratic field in the Maine governor’s race. Richardson (already getting little traction, if another candidate’s internal is to be believed) hit ‘eject’ after finding he wouldn’t qualify for Clean Election Act public funding, after the state ethics committee found his campaign fudged documents about qualifying contributions. That brings a little more clarity to the almost-opaque Democratic field, reducing it to state Sen. President Libby Mitchell, ex-AG Steve Rowe, ex-Dept. of Conservation head Pat McGowan, and businesswoman Rosa Scarcelli.

• MN-Gov: This seems like a strange time for Ramsey Co. DA Susan Gaertner to drop out of the gubernatorial race, as she was one of the candidates who was ignoring the DFL nominating convention and planning to forge ahead in the primary regardless. Maybe she was counting on a R.T. Rybak endorsement and thus being the only female candidate in the primary? At any rate, Gaertner cited money woes as the main reason for her dropout; she stopped short of endorsing Margaret Anderson Kelliher but cited the historic nature of electing a female governor and said she didn’t want to be a spoiler for Kelliher.

• UT-Gov: Salt Lake County mayor Peter Corroon sounds like he’s looking to take a page from Brian Schweitzer and Kathleen Sebelius, two popular Dems who overcame their states’ reddish hue with a Republican as a running mate. Corroon didn’t name anyone specific, but said he has some GOPers on his Lt. Gov. short list.

• AL-05: I don’t know if this’ll help Rep. Parker Griffith much with the local rank-and-file (for instance, the Madison Co. Republican Committee, which refused to endorse him), but all of the state’s four other Republican House members endorsed him. Said the former Democrat and Deaniac: “They have seen first-hand how hard I’ve fought Nancy Pelosi’s liberal agenda that will ruin our country if we don’t stop it.”

• FL-25: Buried deep in a Roll Call article about the current state of play in the open seat in the 25th are some numbers from a month-old internal poll by Benenson taken for the DCCC. The poll may explain what got 2008 Democratic candidate Joe Garcia off the fence and back into the fight in the 25th: the poll had Garcia leading state Rep. David Rivera (looking like the likeliest GOP nominee) 38-35. As far as the GOP field goes, it doesn’t seem like rumored candidate state Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla is planning to show up; so far, Rivera’s main GOP opposition seems to be attorney Marili Cancio, who says she declined an invitation to the NRCC’s “Young Guns” program.

• HI-01: The DCCC is slapping down an $81K independent expenditure in the 1st. It’s a media buy, not on behalf of either Dem but against GOPer Charles Djou.

• KS-02: Too bad we don’t have much of a candidate on tap in the 2nd to exploit the carnage if the GOP primary goes nuclear. One-term Rep. Lynn Jenkins (who, believe it or not, hails from the “moderate” wing of the party despite a litany of right-wing-sounding gaffes) is getting a challenge from the teabag corps, in the form of state Sen. Dennis Pyle. Pyle has been threatening a bid for many months, but made it official today.

• MO-04: And here’s yet more cat fud, across the state line in Missouri’s 4th. While they haven’t done anything publicly, the NRCC is apparently starting to choose sides in the primary, favoring state Sen. Bill Stouffer over social conservative ex-state Rep. Vicki Hartzler. The NRCC arranged a sitdown between the two candidates, but Hartzler apparently blew it off after finding out the point of the NRCC’s meeting was to encourage her to drop out.

• WA-03: State Rep. Deb Wallace was the first Democrat to jump into the field after Rep. Brian Baird’s retirement; she got out fairly quickly once Denny Heck got in, realizing that she’d have to share the moderate side of the ledger with him and that she wouldn’t be able to compete with Heck’s financial resources. Wallace finally endorsed in the race today, opting for (no surprise here) Heck over the more liberal state Sen. Craig Pridemore (who just picked up the Sierra Club’s endorsement last week). Heck also has Baird’s endorsement, as well as that of Gov. Chris Gregoire.

We’re part of the way through Minnesota’s gubernatorial nominating convention, which you can follow at the Star Tribune. After three rounds of voting, it’s:

Kelliher, 414.5 or 30.7 percent

Rybak, 370 or 27.4 percent

Thissen, 295 or 21.8 percent

Rukavina 269 or 19.9 percent

State Sen. John Marty dropped out just after the second round. Otherwise, things have not shifted much. Sixty percent is needed to secure the nomination, though several other candidates are pledging to fight through to the primary.

UPDATE: Apparently, Rukavina has dropped out and endorsed MAK. This happened after the fourth ballot, it appears, which MinnesotaMike says went:

MAK 437 (42.8%)

Rybak 380.5 (28.6%)

Thissen 285 (21.4%)

Rukavina 226 (17%)

No Endorsement 4

Strike that – there was an error. Trying again:

MAK: 437 (32.80%)

Rybak: 380.5 (28.56%)

Thissen: 285 (21.39%)

Rukavina: 226 (16.96%)

UPDATE (James): Rybak has pulled out of the race and thrown his support to Kelliher:

Surrounded by a crowd of green-shirted supporters, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak took the podium at the DFL convention in Duluth Saturday night and withdrew from the race for governor, saying it was time for the DFL party “to come together and support Margaret Anderson Kelliher for governor.”

“Thank you so much,” he told a cheering crowd of activists who rose to their feet. “It is time for the greatest party in history to come together and support Margaret Anderson Kelliher.”