Tag: Sarah Steelman

• MO-Sen: Ed Martin, who lost narrowly in MO-03, has kept spamming me (and presumably everybody else who writes about politics) with press releases vaguely hinting at voter fraud. It’s seeming like maybe there’s something more there to it than just garden-variety sore-loserism; there’s growing buzz that he’s trying to stay top-of-mind for a possible run for the GOP Senate nomination. Now, you might be saying, that’s a whole lot of hubris for a guy who couldn’t even win a House seat to go up against Sarah Steelman and possibly Jim Talent, but Martin might be able to grab the tea party mantle considering that the local ‘baggers are quite adamant that they aren’t as enamored with her as the national-level ones are. Martin is apparently also considering another run for the House; part of his decision will be what happens with redistricting, as MO-03 may be on the chopping block, between St. Louis-area depopulation and Republican legislative control.

• MT-Sen: Trying to decipher Rep. Denny Rehberg’s intentions, about a possible run against freshman Dem Jon Tester? David Catanese is actually picking through his Christmas card to read the tea leaves. Rehberg tells his supporters (and extended family members) that he’s “not taking anything off the table” in terms of his next step, which is interesting, as it may mean he’s thinking about the open seat gubernatorial race too.

• NE-Sen: Now here’s a blast from the past: ex-Gov. Kay Orr is so old-school that she was actually defeated for Governor by Ben Nelson, way back in 1990. Despite 20 years out of the political scene, her name is being floated as a possibility for the GOP Senate primary for the right to take on Nelson in 2012. Orr herself says she’s undecided, but sounds leaning against it. The Fix also seems to think that state Treasurer (and another long-ago loser to Nelson, although at least this time in a Senate race) Don Stenberg is likely to run, which would force a primary against AG Jon Bruning.

• PA-Sen: There are two different overviews of the Pennsylvania situation today; one is from Alex Roarty at National Journal (and unfortunately is behind a paywall, so I’ll give you the gist). The one new name that surfaces in it is GOP Rep. Tim Murphy (from PA-18 in the Pittsburgh-suburbs); while he isn’t pushing forward on it, he’s shown more behind-the-scenes interest in it than Charlie Dent or Jim Gerlach, both of whom have gotten more touting but seem content with their cushy new committee posts. He also mentions that state Sen. Kim Ward is now leaning against, and confirms that ex-Gov. Mark Schweiker is at the top of the GOP’s wish list but probably a pipe dream. A Philadelphia Magazine article tries to handicap the GOP field, with absolutely nobody on the first tier, Gerlach alone on the second tier, and state Sen. Jake Corman (and Ward) comprising the third tier.

• VA-Sen: Newsmax has an interview with new right-wing hero Ken Cuccinelli, who despite his new HCR-related celebrity is taking the opportunity to make clear that he isn’t running for Senate in 2012 (which would remove George Allen’s main impediment for the GOP nomination). He wouldn’t rule out running for Governor in 2013, though. (I wouldn’t link to Newsmax if you paid me to, so you’ll have to take my word for it.)

• IN-Gov: Rep. Joe Donnelly is another option for Dems for Indiana Governor, although a run by Donnelly would require him giving up his seat. What if the GOP decides to get really aggressive in gerrymandering and build a nightmare seat for him (for instance, creating a dumbbell-shaped district linking Gary and his town of South Bend, forcing him to run against Lake County-based Pete Visclosky or else to move to a mostly rural red district)? South Bend’s Dem party chair is now saying that Donnelly would look at a statewide race in the event that the House map is too unfavorable.

• FL-22: I think I’m going to greatly enjoy Allen West’s two years in the House, if only because he has the skill of digging his own hole deeper every time he opens his mouth. Fresh off the outrageous suggestion that the government should “censor” mainstream media outlets that publish information obtained via WikiLeaks (and apparently having had someone explain First Amendment jurisprudence carefully to him), now he’s claiming that he was misinterpreted, and that he actually said “censure” instead.

• IL-17: Now here’s a fool’s errand: declaring your intention to run for a district that’s about to vaporize. Soon-to-be-ex-Rep. Phil Hare has already expressed his interest in a rematch with Bobby Schilling, but he may have some company. Both former Rock Island mayor Mark Schweibert and state Rep. Mike Boland said they’re interested in running in the Dem primary, too. (Hare, former aide to Lane Evans, was picked over Schweibert by local party heads to be the 2006 nominee after Evans dropped out of the race post-primary.) The 17th seems like the likeliest district on the Illinois chopping block, though, seeing as how most of the state’s population loss has been Downstate and there’s not much point for the Dem-held legislature to preserve a Democratic vote sink if it’s not even going to elect a Democrat.

• KS-??: Despite his various Sherman-esque statements when he first announced he wouldn’t run for a full term as Governor, outgoing Dem Gov. Mark Parkinson is saying in an exit interview that he won’t rule out running for something in the future. (In the meantime, he’s heading to DC to rule the nursing home trade association.) It’s unclear what he’d run for, though… KS-03 is certainly a possibility, as it’s the most Dem-friendly part of the state and Parkinson is an Olathe resident.

• NY-10: This may be taking tea leaf reading a step too far here, but the subtext to Ed Towns’ surprising decision not to seek the ranking member position on the Oversight committee (and back Carolyn Maloney for it) may be that he’s about to wind down his entirely unremarkable decades-long House tenure. Towns will be 78 in 2012.

• KY-AG: It looks like Jack Conway is getting some GOP opposition after all, although not from as serious a threat as outgoing SoS Trey Grayson. Todd P’Pool, the state attorney for planet Vulcan Hopkins County (population 46K) has announced that he will challenge Conway in a battle to the death for the right to mate with T’Pring the 2011 election. Cue the epic fight music!

• OR-St. Sen.: Who woulda thunk that the Oregon state Senate would be one of the last question marks to get resolved this year? The GOP-funded recount in SD-3, where Dem Alan Bates narrowly won, and the retaliatory Dem-funded recount in the race where Martha Schrader narrowly lost (she had been appointed to fill the seat vacated by her husband, now-Rep. Kurt Schrader), are over, with the numbers barely budging at all. The Dems retain a 16-14 majority.

• TX-St. House: Two more party switchers to report, this time in the Texas state House, where Dems had actually entertained the notion of flipping the body a while ago and instead are now facing the wrong end of a supermajority. Aaron Pena and Allan Ritter have both announced that they’re joining the GOP, despite their blue districts (in fact, Pena’s Hidalgo County district went over 70% for Obama), apparently for the same rationale that the Georgia party-switchers are giving: deep in the minority, it’s the only way for them to have any effectiveness in the capitol.

• Mayors: There’s a new Chicago mayoral poll out, where again the main question seems to be whether Rahm Emanuel can win outright without a runoff. That’s not looking likely, given the crowded field, although he still has a substantial lead in the new Tribune/WGN poll, at 32%. Gery Chico and Danny Davis are at 9, James Meeks is at 7, Carol Mosely Braun is at 6, Miguel del Valle is at 3, and Roland Burris is at 2, leaving 30 undecided. Emanuel leads among both blacks (with 19%) and Hispanics (27%).

One other mayoral race (or “situation,” really) that’s heating up is in San Francisco, where there’s a regularly scheduled 2011 election but also a looming vacancy with Gavin Newsom about to become Lt. Governor. The Board of Supervisors will have to choose an interim mayor to serve out those 11 months, and they’ll have to choose between one of their own who may be considering a November run, or an elder-statesman placekeeper. However, the Board is split any number of ways, and if there’s nobody who gets 6 of its 11 votes, the Board’s President, David Chiu, becomes acting mayor. The only person who seems in position to pick up at least six votes would be state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano.

• Census: All manner of data analysis is pouring forth, in the wake of yesterday’s massive data dump of the Census Bureau’s five-year ACS estimates (which is where you’re going to find a lot of the information that used to be on the “long form”). Perhaps most amazingly of all is a new mapping tool from the New York Times, which lets you zoom in or out from the state level to the block level anywhere in the country to look at race and foreign-born status. (Set aside a few hours to explore this one.) Also worth reading are new articles on changes in racial segregation (in major decline in certain metro areas, especially Atlanta and Miami, which can have major VRA implications in terms of it being harder to cobble together districts that have a majority of any particular group) and in rural populations (declining rapidly, as you might imagine).

• CT-Sen: Following his loss in the CT-Gov primary after leading the polls almost all the way, I hadn’t heard much discussion about Ned Lamont making a repeat run against Joe Lieberman for the 2012 Senate race. Lamont confirms that, saying he’s “strongly disinclined” to try again.

• FL-Sen: Here’s a dilemma for temp Sen. George LeMieux, as he gave his farewell speech from the Senate floor. Acknowledge the man without whom he’d be utterly unknown and thus not in a position to run again for Senate in 2012… or invoke said man, whose name is utterly mud in Florida GOP circles, thus reminding everyone of those connections that can only hurt in a 2012 primary? In the end, basic human decency prevailed, and LeMieux thanked Charlie Crist for appointing him.

• ME-Sen: This is pretty big news, as everyone has been treating newly-elected Gov. Paul LePage’s imprimatur as a make or break for Olympia Snowe’s hopes in a GOP primary in 2012. LePage, of course, was the tea party choice in the primary, and his say-so would go a long way toward either encouraging or discouraging a teabagger challenge to Snowe. LePage just came out with a statement of support for Snowe in the primary, saying he’d back her in the face of a possible primary challenge.

• MO-Sen: Sarah Steelman continues to rack up support from the GOP’s far-right, as she girds for a possible GOP primary showdown against ex-Sen. Jim Talent. Steelman met with Jim DeMint, the Senate’s de facto kingmaker of the tea party set, and those involved expect DeMint’s Senate Conservative Fund to back Steelman shortly (which would be his first endorsement of the 2012 cycle).

• PA-Sen: Moran gets brain? Perhaps sensing the steep uphill climb of a challenge against the Casey name brand in Pennsylvania in a presidential year, random rich guy John Moran has done an about-face on a threatened possible Senate run that first emerged last week. Another central Pennsylvanian, though, state Sen. Jake Corman, seems to be interested in taking on Bob Casey Jr.

• UT-Sen: In case there was any doubt about Orrin Hatch running again — in his 70s and facing a likely difficult primary/convention — well, he is. He released a statement this morning saying “I intend to run, and I intend to win.” That comes in the face of the formation of a new leadership PAC by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, which would likely point to stepped-up fundraising efforts in the face of a intra-party challenge. (Hatch is sitting on $2.32 million CoH, while Chaffetz has $179K. If the targeted audience isn’t all Utahns but a few thousand nuts at the state convention, though, money is less of an issue.)

• IN-Gov: Soon-to-be-ex-Sen. Evan Bayh is issuing something of a timeline regarding whether or not he runs for his old job as Governor again in 2012. Bayh says he’ll make a decision by the end of the year, and is saying it’s a “possibility but [not] a probability.” (Rep. Baron Hill and Evansville mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel are other fallback options.)There’s no timeline, though, from Rep. Mike Pence, who probably would be the strongest candidate the GOP could put forth, but seems more interested in going straight for the Presidency. One GOPer who isn’t waiting for Pence’s decision is Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman, who has moved forward on fundraising although she hasn’t officially declared anything. Soon-to-be-Rep. Todd Rokita warns not to underestimate Skillman.

• MN-Gov: This is kind of a moot point in view of his concession this morning, but in case you’re wondering what suddenly motivated Tom Emmer to drop his challenge to Mark Dayton and move on, this was probably the last straw: yesterday the Minnesota Supreme Court denied his petition asking for all counties to perform a reconciliation of number of voters with number of ballots cast. With the recount already done, the reconciliation would have been the only practical way of even stringing this thing out for a while longer, let alone finding an extra 9,000 votes.

• MO-Gov: In marked contrast to the recent PPP poll giving Jay Nixon a clear edge, Republican Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder (now looking more like a candidate than ever) is pointing to an internal poll by American Viewpoint taken way back in late September that gives him a 47-38 lead over Nixon. The poll finds Nixon still popular, though, with 51% approval.

• ND-Gov: Today was the first day on the job for North Dakota’s new Governor, ex-Lt. Gov. Jack Dalrymple, who took over as John Hoeven resigned in order to join the Senate soon. Hoeven is the first-ever North Dakota Governor to resign voluntarily. Taking over as Lt. Gov. is ex-US Attorney Drew Wrigley. Dalrymple will be watched carefully as to what happens in 2012: he could either run for election to a full term, or move over to a Senate run against Kent Conrad.

• MN-08: Newly-elected Rep. Chip Cravaack will have one of the tougher re-elects of any of the new House Republicans (he’s in a D+3 district that includes the Dem stronghold of Duluth), but one of the bigger-name Dems in the district is saying he won’t be the challenger. State Sen. Tom Bakk (one of the 5,589,358,587,568,120 people who ran for the DFL gubernatorial nomination this year) is staying where he is, especially since he’s about to become minority leader.

• GA-St. House: One more D-to-R party switcher to report, and it’s a fairly big name within the confines of the Georgia legislature: Doug McKillip, who was previously #2 among Democrats. Interestingly, he’s not from a dark-red rural district but represents the college town of Athens, and he says he’ll be better able to agitate for the University’s needs from within the majority… although, that, of course, would depend on getting re-elected again from that (presumably blue) district.

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (11/29-12/1, Missouri voters, no trendlines):

Jim Talent (R): 53

Peter Kinder (R): 26

Sarah Steelman (R): 17

Undecided: 4

(MoE: ±4.9%)

PPP’s first look at the GOP Senate primary in Missouri shows, for now, the power of name rec over the reputed power of the tea party. Ex-Sen. Jim Talent is out to a big lead over ex-Treasurer Sarah Steelman, the only announced candidate so far. That’s despite a lot of hoopla that surrounded Steelman’s announcement last week that focused on her grass-roots popularity and some touting from those on the far-right, like the Club for Growth. Talent, despite the CfG’s attacks on him as pork-hungry, doesn’t seem to have much trouble with the very-conservative-leaning Missouri GOP electorate, with 55/13 favorables. Steelman, by comparison, is at 25/13 (with 62% unknown).

The big question here, though is what happens to the Peter Kinder vote (as the Lt. Governor is widely expected to run for Governor, not Senator)? Is his 26% part of an anti-Talent bloc, which is likely to gravitate toward Steelman, or is it Kinder-specific, and likely to break evenly between the two if it’s a Talent/Steelman matchup?

A Talent/Steelman matchup still isn’t a done deal, by the way; Jeremy Jacobs talked to a variety of GOP insiders in Missouri, and some think he’s hesitant to run, saying he hasn’t been aggressively reaching out to donors. The same article has some interesting wrinkles for Steelman, though; despite the wet kiss that she got from the inside-the-Beltway teabaggers (i.e. the CfG), the locals seem a lot more skeptical. The St. Louis Tea Party Coalition, in fact, has sent around e-mails to supporters questioning her credentials, and saying there is no Tea Party candidate in the race yet. The main problem seems to be her husband, who’s a leader among the state’s trial lawyers, giving rise to accusations that she was pro-trial lawyer while in the state Senate.

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (11/29-12/1, Missouri voters, no trendlines):

Jay Nixon (D-inc): 47

Peter Kinder (R): 39

Undecided: 14

Jay Nixon (D-inc): 46

Sarah Steelman (R):  35

Undecided: 19

(MoE: ±4.3%)

There’s also the matter of Missouri’s gubernatorial race in 2012, which is where we’re much more likely to see Kinder running. Despite Missouri’s seeming turn to the right in the last few years, Nixon seems on track to gut this one out, thanks to a mix of centrism and personal appeal (good for getting the vote of 14% of Republicans). He has 44/30 approvals (compared with 23/22 favorables for Kinder, good for a 54% unknown), making him the 6th-most popular governor according to PPP’s tally — despite a sample that breaks down 39% GOP and 36% Dem. This could get closer as the GOP opposition gets better known, but for now it’s one of the Dems’ lesser worries for 2012.

• AK-Sen: You might recall that yesterday the state of Alaska asked to intervene in Joe Miller’s state-court case disputing the Senatorial election, demanding an expedited result. Now the judge is allowing Lisa Murkowski herself to intervene in the case as well; she says the state wouldn’t adequately represent her interests, and she’s still trying to get an additional 2,000 ballots out there (that weren’t counted for her) counted for her as icing on the cake.

• FL-Sen: He isn’t even in the House yet, but there’s growing buzz for Daniel Webster for the 2012 Senate race, as a possible opponent to Bill Nelson. Of course, as far as I can tell from today’s article, that buzz seems to be coming from Webster’s own coterie, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard his name associated with the race. (Reading between the lines, it looks like Rep. Vern Buchanan — whose myriad lawsuits regarding campaign finance chicanery and his car dealership seem to have faded into the background — is another name to keep an eye on here.)

• MO-Sen: Sarah Steelman already has one key backer, in the event the quest for the GOP nomination in Missouri turns into a heated primary. The Club for Growth is already lining up behind Steelman, not formally endorsing but sending around a press release touting her and also taking some swipes at Jim Talent for his earmark-lovin’ ways.

• NM-Sen: More Some Dude news in New Mexico, where another random guy who lost a NM-02 primary is getting in the GOP Senate field: Greg Sowards (who lost the 2008 primary to succeed Steve Pearce). Further up the food chain, ex-Rep. Heather Wilson seems to be on GOPers’ wish list, but she says she isn’t focused on that. (I can’t see her running unless Jeff Bingaman decides to retire, and since he has fundraisers planned in coming months, he doesn’t seem to be acting like a retiree.)

• NV-Sen: The big news yesterday was that John Ensign is no longer considered a target for investigation by the DOJ, in connection to that whole ooops-sorry-I-boned-your-wife-here-have-a-lobbying-job thing. He still faces internal Senate Ethics grilling, which could lead to discipline or even expulsion. How are we supposed to feel about this? A bad day for objective justice, perhaps… but probably a net plus for the Democrats, seeing as how this makes it likelier that Ensign runs again and survives a GOP primary (which a recent PPP poll, before this news, already showed him in position to do so) and enters the general election in weakened form. The local GOP seems to be reading this the same way, still feeling very leery about an Ensign run and very much preferring to see Rep. Dean Heller as their 2012 candidate.

• VA-Sen: With Prince William Supervisor Corey Stewart already firing some potshots across George Allen’s bow in advance of 2012’s GOP Senate primary, now it seems like Allen’s camp is returning fire with some heavier-gauge guns. Stewart has to run for re-election to his current job in 2011, and Allen’s camp is supposedly vowing to encourage backers to pour in financial support to Stewart’s opposition in that race (whoever that might be), in order to decapitate a Stewart run before it can materialize.

• MN-Gov: This is taking damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t to a new level: Tom Emmer’s team’s wave of frivolous (and when I say frivolous, I’m not being hyperbolic, as you can see here) ballot challenges in the Minnesota recount has mounted so high that officials have had to add more counting tables… and now Emmer is threatening to sue over the fact that they’ve added more counting tables, saying that that somehow indicates bias against Emmer. The SoS says that adding more tables can’t possibly violate any rules. At any rate, moving on to Day 4 of counting, the official tally now finds that the numbers have still barely budged: Mark Dayton has gained 17 votes since Election Day while Emmer has gained 14, with 84% of the vote recounted, meaning there’s really no path to victory here for Emmer.

• VT-Gov: We mentioned yesterday that Peter Shumlin brought his GOP opponent, Brian Dubie, into his inner circle, and now he’s doing the Team of Rivals thing with his closest competitor from the Dem primary. Ex-Lt. Gov. Doug Racine, who Shumlin beat by 100-or-so votes, is being brought on board as Shumlin’s head of the Agency of Human Services, where his key task will be starting up the state’s planned single-payer health care system.

• WV-Gov: Democratic SoS Natalie Tennant is making even more candidate-ish noises, saying she’s “strongly considering” a gubernatorial run, especially if it occurs in 2011, which would mean not having to give up her current job. Not only are acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and state House speaker Richard Thompson expected to run for the Dems, but state Sen. Jeff Kessler and state Treasurer John Perdue are also interested.

• MA-01, MA-02: The news from the Bay State is that veteran Democratic Reps. John Olver and Richard Neal are both publicly saying that they’re running for re-election. In any other year, that would be purely yawn-inducing, but this year, that’s fascinating, as it potentially sets them up on a collision course. My expectation was the Massachusetts redistricting conundrum would probably be solved by a retirement from the 74-year-old Olver, and parceling out pieces of the 1st into Neal’s 2nd and Jim McGovern’s 3rd. With Olver and Neal both sticking around, the subtraction is likelier come from the Boston area, where it seems likely that at least one Rep. will vacate in order to take on Scott Brown in 2012 (which would make sense since not only is Mike Capuano sounding the likeliest, but his Cambridge-based 8th is the state’s most depopulated district)… but if none of them take the plunge, the lost seat may come the state’s west. Complicating matters even further is that Pittsfield-based ex-state Sen. Andrea Nuciforo has already announced that he’s running in the MA-01 primary in 2012, Olver or not. (Would she he run in a primary against both Amherst-based Olver and Springfield-based Neal if they all get smooshed together?)

• NY-01: As we mentioned yesterday, Tim Bishop’s team is urging Randy Altschuler to “give in to the math.” Yesterday’s gain from the first day of counting challenged ballots was a net gain of 27 more for Bishop.  

• Redistricting: Here’s one more comprehensive redistricting resource to add to your pile, if you haven’t already seen it. The Brennan Center’s guide includes a rundown on who controls what and what procedures are used state-to-state.

• New York: This is a staggeringly large number, that somehow seems disproportionate to the rather blasé NYT headline: “New York City Board of Elections Finds 200,000 Votes a Month After Election.” It’s a mishmash of affidavit, absentee, and military ballots that apparently were just now added to the totals. 80,000 of those ballots were from Queens alone, which is 31% more than that borough reported on Election Day. While there were some close races in Queens, the city says that this wasn’t enough to reverse the results in any election (and the one race that could have been worrisome, SD-11, actually saw a gain for Tony Avella, who beat GOP incumbent Frank Padavan, from 53-47 to 54.3-45.7).

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (11/29-12/1, Missouri voters, no trendlines):

Claire McCaskill (D): 45

Sarah Steelman (R): 44

Undecided: 12

Claire McCaskill (D): 45

Jim Talent (R): 47

Undecided: 8

Claire McCaskill (D): 44

Peter Kinder (R): 46

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4.3%)

With Sarah Steelman’s surprise announcement today already declaring her candidacy for the 2012 Senate race, PPP rushed out some numbers for the race (apparently cutting their sample a little short — note that the sample period extends as far as today!). In a state that’s polarized deeply between urban and rural voters and has become accustomed to extremely close races — this was the narrowest Obama/McCain margin of any state, and Claire McCaskill’s 2006 defeat of Jim Talent was by only 2% — it looks like we’re on track for yet another close one. McCaskill has a statistically insignificant lead over Steelman and a similar deficit against Talent (and also against Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, who is pretty well committed to the gubernatorial race at this point).

The innards show pretty much what you’d expect in this light-red and deeply-split state: McCaskill’s popularity is pretty middling (43/44, with 77% of Dems approving and 77% of GOPers disapproving), though better than Barack Obama’s (43/52). The main problem for the GOPers is that they aren’t especially well-known and are basically functioning as Generic Rs (even ex-Sen. Talent, who may not have made much of an impression in his initial four years). Talent is at 36/32, while Steelman is 59% unknown at 22/19. McCaskill should feel lucky she’s running in 2012, a presidential year when turnout by casual Dem voters is likely to be high, instead of having had to run in 2010.

After a few days of suddenly ramped-up chatter about Sarah Steelman getting in the Senate race, all of a sudden, she’s officially in:

Before filing as a candidate with the Secretary of the Senate this afternoon, Steelman will launch a campaign website this morning that outlines her decision to become the first Republican in the race against Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill.

“I want to do my part in fighting for America’s future. That’s why I have decided to run for the United States Senate,” Steelman writes on the homepage of her revamped website, www.SarahSteelman.com.

Steelman’s entry complicates matters greatly for Jim Talent, who’d been expected to seek a rematch against Claire McCaskill (who beat him in 2006) but now must go into a GOP primary flying the establishment flag against a challenger with a cadre of tea-party supporters. Steelman, of course, played the same role in the 2008 gubernatorial primary, badly damaging then-Rep. Kenny Hulshof en route to his wide loss in the general; she had also briefly considered running in 2010 against Roy Blunt in the GOP primary. Yesterday she got some assurances from the NRSC that they wouldn’t take sides in a Talent/Steelman primary, and (unlike 2010, where Blunt’s early entry seemed to drive her off) that was apparently enough for her to jump in quickly before Talent (who says he’ll have a decision in coming months) could get entrenched.

• AK-Sen: Joe Miller lost yet another courtroom round yesterday, although this one was kind of inconsequential from a legal standpoint: he’d wanted his court challenges to the election to be held in his town of Fairbanks, but the venue will be the state capital, Juneau, instead. In most states that wouldn’t be a big deal, but given the difficulty of getting from one town to the other, that provides one more logistical disincentive for Miller to continue his lost cause.

• FL-Sen: After having spent every day for the last two years laboriously typing out “Alexi Giannoulias” over and over, now I’m going to have to get used to “Mike Haridopolos.” The newly minted Republican state Senate President is already acting Senate-candidate-ish, doing the DC circuit today, including a visit to the all-powerful US Chamber of Commerce.

• ME-Sen: Maine-area tea partiers are breathlessly telling everybody that they’ve found a primary challenger to Olympia Snowe who is “credible” and has the financial resources to become an “instant contender.” The problem is, they’re stopping there and not saying specifically who the mystery person is, although an announcement allegedly will happen in early 2011. (UPDATE: There’s one useful piece of news buried deep in the article, actually: Chellie Pingree says she won’t run for the Dems for this seat in 2012.)

• MO-Sen: This may be the most interesting news of the day: despite a likely run from a former one of their own (Jim Talent), the NRSC is actively encouraging Sarah Steelman’s interest in the race, with John Cornyn assuring her that they’d stay neutral in a Talent/Steelman primary. As a former state Treasurer, she seems to have more credible chops than the Sharron Angle/Ken Buck axis that cost the GOP a couple seats this year, but still has enough credibility with the tea partiers so that it looks like the NRSC isn’t trying to shove them back in the attic; they probably also think a female candidate might match up better against Claire McCaskill.

• MN-Gov: The numbers didn’t budge much during the first full day of the Minnesota gubernatorial recount (where Mark Dayton leads by just shy of 9,000): Dayton gained 20 votes, while Tom Emmer lost four, after 44% of the ballots were recounted yesterday. Emmer challenged 281 ballots; Dayton challenged 86. While there weren’t any write-ins for “Lizard People” this time, there was one vote cast for “Who Farted?”

• MO-Gov: Republican Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder’s interest in running against his boss, Dem Jay Nixon, has been pretty clearly telegraphed for years already, but he’s starting to make that look more tangible. He now says he won’t run for another term as LG, and he also appeared at last week’s RGA conference in San Diego.

• NY-01: Tim Bishop lost some minor ground with the counting of military ballots in the last House race still undecided. There weren’t very many of them, but they broke pretty heavily in Randy Altschuler’s way: 44-24. Bishop’s lead is now apparently 215.

• WA-08: Maybe this one is better filed as “WATN?” Suzan DelBene, who narrowly lost to Dave Reichert, has landed on her feet; she was just appointed by Chris Gregoire as the new director of the state Dept. of Revenue. It’s unclear, though, whether this is intended to raise her statewide profile and give her some governmental experience for future runs, or if this takes her off the table for a 2012 run in WA-08 (or hypothetical WA-10).

• NY-St. Sen.: Democratic state Sen. Antoine Thompson conceded to GOP challenger Mark Grisanti yesterday in the Buffalo-based SD-60. That means there are 31 GOP-held seats in the New York Senate; to get to a 31-31 tie, the Dems will need to hold both Suzi Oppenheimer’s SD-37 (looking likely) and Craig Johnson’s SD-7 (not looking likely, as he trails by several hundred, with the exact number not clear yet). (Or alternately, they could, as occasionally rumored, flip Grisanti, who was a Dem up until when he ran for the race and will essentially need to be one in order to be re-elected.) Thompson’s loss is, in fact, pretty mystifying — I knew this was a Dem-heavy district, but it went 77-22 for Obama (the equivalent of D+24 based on just 2008 numbers)! Ordinarily, a Dem would have to be under indictment or in dead-girl/live-boy territory to lose in that kind of district; in fact, everyone seems mystified, but the theory is that an upsurge in white votes in that district motivated by the candidacy of local fave Carl Paladino pushed Grisanti over the hump (although there are claims (we don’t have the data to confirm yet) that Andrew Cuomo still managed to win in the 60th, which would tend to counteract that theory).

• State legislatures: We already mentioned four party-switchers from the Dems to the GOP in the Alabama legislature, following the change in the majority there, but there’s also a handful of other changes to mention (though not as many changes as we saw in 1994): 13 changes in 5 states. That includes 5 in the Georgia House and 1 in the Georgia Senate, 1 in the South Dakota Senate, 1 in the Maine House, and in 1 in the Louisiana House (which had the consequence of officially flipping the chamber to GOP control, although that body already had a GOP speaker). Politico has more on the changes in the south (in a rather hyperbolically titled article).

• DSCC: It’s official: Patty Murray is the one who got left holding the burning bag of dog doo. She signed on for a second stint as head of the DSCC for the 2012 cycle. She also ran it during the 2002 cycle, when the Democrats lost two seats.

• DGA: One of the other Dem holes needing to be filled also got filled today: Martin O’Malley, fresh off a surprisingly easy victory in Maryland (and possibly looking at something bigger in 2016), is taking over the helm at the DGA. With only a couple troublesome holds on the horizon in 2012, I’d imagine this job was a little easier to fill than the DSCC.

• Demographics: Democracy Corps (or GQR, if you prefer) is out with a memo that’s worth a read. Most of it is about messaging, which is a little outside SSP’s scope (though still worth a read, in terms of what worked, and mostly didn’t work, in 2010, and what recent polls have shown works better going forward). There’s also some discussion of demographics, though, in terms of what kind of a turnout model they’re expecting (or at least hoping for) in 2012.

• AK-Sen: When Norm Coleman… the man who has pretty much set all current standards for pointlessly dragging out an election for partisan purposes… is telling you to pack it in, believe me, it’s time to pack it in. The ex-Sen. from Minnesota is the latest GOPer to tell Joe Miller to stop the madness. (What’s his angle? He may have designs on behind-the-scenes Beltway leadership, possibly RNC chair, and with that in mind would probably like to discourage nonsensical R-on-R courtroom violence.)

• IL-Sen: The 59-41 Dem edge in the Senate drops to 58-42 for the rest of the lame duck session today, as Rep. Mark Kirk gets sworn in as the newest member. (Illinois, of course, was the only of the special election seats that flipped to the GOP.)

• IN-Sen: This NYT story doesn’t really have any new specifics about Richard Lugar’s upcoming teabagging that you don’t already know, but it has a spectacular quote from former Missouri Sen. John Danforth, another Republican who occupied the same pretty-conservative-but-not-a-jerk-about-it space as Lugar:

If Dick Lugar… having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption.

• MA-Sen: The Boston Globe takes a look back at Deval Patrick’s reelection town-by-town, and also wonders what it may mean for Scott Brown’s first re-election battle in 2012. Patrick, for instance, won back many of the larger blue-collar (and usually Democratic) communities like Lowell and Quincy that Brown won. The question for 2012, though, is: how much of Brown’s initial success was unique to Brown (more charismatic than your garden-variety blue-blood Republican like Charlie Baker), and, by contrast, how much of that was unique to the turnout model produced by the special election?

• MD-Sen: Republicans may already be settling on a favorite for the Maryland Senate race in 2012, and they’re considering the same strategy as 2006, running an African-American against Ben Cardin. (In ’06, recall, Michael Steele, well, still lost badly, but made the race more competitive than Maryland is used to.) There’s a lot of buzz surrounding Charles Lollar, who just ran against Steny Hoyer in MD-05 and apparently wowed a lot of people on the stump. Of course, he also lost 64-35, but, well, you’ve gotta start somewhere. (Eric Wargotz, who just lost to Barb Mikulski, is also reportedly interested in trying again.)

• MO-Sen: The Beltway seems abuzz about a potential Claire McCaskill/Jim Talent rematch (thanks to McCaskill tweeting about her random airport meet-up with Talent, no doubt), but the missing part of the story seems to be that Talent, if he runs, could be walking right into a juicy establishment/tea party battle. Ex-Treasurer Sarah Steelman, who lost a feisty gubernatorial primary in 2008 and threatened a 2010 primary run against Roy Blunt, has been turning up the volume on a potential run too. Ed Martin, last seen losing narrowly in MO-03, has also become the subject of some speculation. One unlikely run at this point, though, is former Ambassador to Luxembourg (which is code for “very wealthy donor”) Ann Wagner, who has been linked to the Senate race but just announced a bid for RNC chair instead this morning.

• NJ-Sen: When did Bob Menendez’s numbers start to look like Richard Burr’s? A poll from Fairleigh Dickinson (favorables only, no head-to-heads) finds vast indifference about the Garden State’s junior Senator. At least he’s above water, with 31/25 faves, but 29% are unsure and 15% have never heard of him.

• NM-Sen: Jeff Bingaman, assuming he runs again, is already facing his first GOP opponent, although one from the Some Dude end of the spectrum. William English ran (apparently in the GOP primary) for the open NM-02 seat in 2002, although he seems best known for saying controversial things in his local newspaper, perhaps most notably that Barack Obama “literally amounts to an African dictator.”

• TX-Sen: Yet more names are surfacing on the GOP side for possible primary challenges to Kay Bailey Hutchison: today, it’s Houston-area state Sen. Dan Patrick.

• VA-Sen: Corey Stewart is the Prince William County Supervisor and a likely candidate in the GOP Senate primary, if his latest pronouncements are any indication. He’s started firing shots across the bow of presumptive favorite George Allen’s comeback, saying he had a “mediocre” Senate record and that his base has moved on.

• MN-Gov: The recount of the 2.1 million ballots in the Minnesota gubernatorial race officially kicks off today. You probably already know the candidates, but the Star-Tribune today profiles the really key players at this juncture: the lawyers. One of them, interestingly, is Eric Magnuson, who you may remember from the 2008-09 recount as state supreme court chief justice and head of the canvassing board; having left the court, now he’s on Tom Emmer’s team.

• WV-Gov: It’s still not clear when the election will even occur (to set a permanent replacement for Joe Manchin), but acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin isn’t going to get a free pass in the Dem primary, facing likely opposition from two of the people most actively involved in establishing when that election will happen. Both SoS Natalie Tennant and state House speaker Rick Thompson are eyeing the race, with Thompson “planning” to run and Tennant “seriously considering.”

• CA-20: Look for a likely rematch in the 20th, which turned into one of the nation’s closest races this year. Andy Vidak “promises” he’ll try again vs. Jim Costa in 2012, although if he couldn’t make it this year, the odds of him getting over the hump in a presidential year model seem even slimmer. (Unless, of course, the boundaries of the 20th get changed by the citizens’ commission, but the VRA is likely to keep compelling a Hispanic-majority Fresno-to-Bakersfield district.)

• CA-45: Further south, Palm Springs mayor Steve Pougnet is another potential rematch. The Democrat already filed for a 2012 campaign, although he says he hasn’t ruled another race in or out and is establishing the committee to settle up some unpaid bills from his 2010 race.

• CT-05: And here’s one more: Justin Bernier, who was initially the GOP’s preferred candidate in the primary in the 5th but got shoved over after Sam Caligiuri dropped down from the Senate race, is saying he’s considering another run in 2012 (motivated in part by the likelihood of an open seat with Chris Murphy’s likely Senate run).

• PA-11: Don’t assume that Corey O’Brien is going to be the Dem nominee in the effort to take back the 11th in 2012, as there’s a long list of possible contenders on the bench in this bluish seat. At the top is Scranton mayor (and, briefly, gubernatorial candidate) Chris Doherty, but other names you might see are Wilkes-Barre mayor Tom Leighton, former Pittston mayor (and Paul Kanjorski crony) Michael Lombardo, state Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, Wilkes-Barre solicitor William Vinsko, and new state Sen. John Yudichak.

• California: Finally, those of you not living on the West Coast may be unaware that there are parts of the country where the Republicans are the ones in “what did we do wrong?” soul-searching mode. The WaPo looks at the epicenter of that, in California (where they didn’t pick up any House seats, lost all the statewide races, and even lost ground in the state legislature), where local GOPers are flummoxed by the state’s changing demographics.

(General h/t to Brian Valco, bearer of many of today’s links.)

• AK-Sen: All signs are pointing to Lisa Murkowski winning this race, and joining Strom Thurmond in the won-a-Senate-write-in-race club. At the end of yesterday’s counting, which took us up to nearly half of all the write-in votes analyzed, the state Division of Elections is reporting that nearly 98% of all write-ins are being successfully counted for Murkowski. Even the rate of challenges, even if they were all successful (and few of them are), is inadequate for Joe Miller to make up all the needed ground (he’d need to shave off 12%, and isn’t even challenging at quite that rate). 45,132 write-ins have been analyzed so far, and only 1.52% have been successfully challenged by the Miller camp. Seemingly realizing the gap can’t be made up, the Miller camp, while still harping on the spelling issue and keeping that line of argument alive, is now turning to nebulous claims of voter fraud as their next line of attack, threatening a second potential lawsuit. His team is setting up a voter fraud hotline for people to report fraud, voter intimidation, and voter bullying. (Kind of a strange angle to explore, when you’re the campaign that has its own paramilitary goon force.)

• HI-Sen: The Republican bench in Hawaii basically begins and ends with outgoing Gov. Linda Lingle. As far as her running against octogenarian Dan Akaka in 2012, she says she’s going to take six months off from thinking about politics, and then give the race some “serious consideration” at that point.

• IN-Sen: Baron Hill is also looking for work in a few months, and he’s one of the biggest names on the Dems’ bench in Indiana. However, even with his potential choice of running for the Senate, for Governor, or his old seat in 2012, it sounds like he doesn’t plan on any of those.

• MO-Sen: Could we see a 2006 rematch in the 2012 Senate election in Missouri? Ex-Sen. Jim Talent seems to be prepping toward that, with GOP operatives saying he’s “furthest along” of all potential challengers to Claire McCaskill, who beat him in 2006. Other potential GOP names include ex-Treasurer Sarah Steelman, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder (who’s probably likelier to run for Governor in 2012), and Ann Wagner, wealthy person (former RNC vice-chair and Ambassador to Luxembourg, the kind of goodies doled out to itinerant rich donors) and former campaign manager to Roy Blunt.

• ND-Sen: Jeremy Jacobs lists a few possible challengers for Kent Conrad, who looks vulnerable after Republicans ran up the score in North Dakota this year. Mentioned are Jack Dalrymple (the Lt. Governor, who’s about to become Governor once John Hoeven resigns, although he may be likelier to run for a full term as Gov. in 2012), AG Wayne Stenehjem, and Public Service Commissioner Brian Kalk.

• Chicago mayor: And here I thought I was done with having to laboriously type out “Alexi Giannoulias” every day, like I have for the last few years. The recently vanquished Senate candidate is now at least considering the idea of pivoting over to the Chicago mayoral race, presumably under the principle of striking while the iron is hot in terms of his name recognition and donor base. He’s getting urging from several anti-Rahm Emanuel aldermen. (UPDATE: OK, scratch that. A Giannoulias spokesperson now says no, he’s not running for mayor.)

• DSCC: I think we’ve gotten closer to getting someone willing to hold the burning bag of dog doo than we have so far: Harry Reid personally asked Michael Bennet to lead the DSCC next cycle, and Bennet “didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no.”

• DCCC: Dan Boren is moving the anti-Nancy Pelosi push to a new front: demanding that the position of DCCC chair be up for a true vote by the whole caucus, not a de facto appointment by leadership. He’s being seconded in the effort by Larry Kissell, of all people (the same guy who got $1.7 million in DCCC aid this cycle after stinking it up on the fundraising front, and may be worried that another Pelosi ally might cut bait with him next time and make him catch his own fish). It’s not clear who they’d rather see than likely chair Steve Israel, especially since they both had praise for departing chair Chris Van Hollen.

• Redistricting: Guess who’s leading the push for Utah to switch to a independent redistricting commission, instead of it being done by the heavily Republican legislator? Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson, who may figure he’ll be given an even worse version of UT-02 in 2012 than he currently has. (Interestingly, there’s the possibility that a commission might give him a worse district, though; it’s also possible that a GOP gerrymander might decide to concede a swing seat to him (probably the best Matheson could hope for) and go for three safe GOP seats, instead of risking a push for a 4-0 map.) Also on the redistricting front, here’s a good overview from Real Clear Politics’ Sean Trende, who goes state-by-state with possible outcomes.

• WATN?: Ashwin Madia (whom you probably remember for losing the MN-03 race in 2008) is taking over the helm for VoteVets for the time being while its current head, Jon Soltz, is deployed to Iraq. Also in the news is Andy Dillon, who lost the 2010 Dem gubernatorial primary after being termed-out as state House speaker. Turns out the centrist Dillon is crossing the aisle one last time: he just signed on as state Treasurer at Rick Snyder’s request (it’s an appointed position in Michigan).

• Money: When they write the tale of the 2010 election, the role of the Chamber of Commerce (and other third-party GOP backers, but especially the Chamber) will probably loom a lot larger in retrospect than it does right now. The Chamber spent $32 million, almost entirely on GOP candidates. The Fix also takes a look at self-funders, and calculates how much they spent per vote. The biggest fail was probably Linda McMahon, spending $97 per vote in a losing effort, outpacing Meg Whitman who spent only $57 per vote to lose by a similar margin (albeit for a much bigger price tag overall). Rick Scott spent “only” $29 per vote to win; the biggest bargain may have been Ron Johnson, who won spending only $7 per vote (although he did a lot of conventional fundraising too). In House races, Tom Ganley spent $29 per vote to lose ignominiously; the biggest spender was the victorious Scott Rigell in VA-02, at $30 per vote.

• Post-mortem: If you’re still feeling down about last week’s losses in the House and need some rationalization about it, here are a couple pieces that don’t really try to put a happy face on the results but still show how very predictable the whole thing was. Alan Abramowitz, certainly no mindless cheerleader for the Dems, points out some of the ways in which it was something of a mile-wide, inch-deep victory for the GOP. And while the teeth-gnashing that accompanies the graph is worth a read too, here’s a piece built around an amazing scatterplot from John Sides that shows how Democratic House candidate performances tracked presidential preferences district by district.

• Maps: If you’re tired of looking at glitzy, state-of-the-art political maps, here’s an amusing look back at the New York Times’ earliest attempts at mapping the nation’s political geography, going back as far as 1896. (As you might expect, their graphics capacity has evolved considerably.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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