Tag: MI-13

• MO-Sen: Most likely you already saw this story yesterday, but the big story in the Missouri Senate race is that Politico’s Dave Catanese seems to be the recipient of various leaks that ex-Sen. Jim Talent will announce soon that he isn’t going to run for Senate. We won’t start jumping up and down and honking our clown horn until we actually hear it from Talent, but this isn’t a surprise, based on previous rumors out of the Show Me State and Talent’s seeming decision to focus on hitching his wagon to Mitt Romney’s star instead. Without a dominant establishment candidate in the field, it looks like even more GOPers are starting to sniff out the race: MO-08 Rep. Jo Ann Emerson is now on the record as at least “considering” a run. Emerson, who’s had some mavericky moments in the House, would easily be the most moderate GOPer in the field if she ran (and may see a path there, with multiple tea partiers seeming poised to cannibalize each others’ votes). Emerson’s potential departure would create an open seat in the currently R+15 8th, an area that actually went for Bill Clinton but has fallen off the cliff for Dems in recent years, most recently with the fizzle of the touted Tommy Sowers campaign last year.

• NJ-Sen: PPP, while “cleaning out their fridge” as they said, found some week-old GOP Senate primary numbers from their New Jersey sample. They find state Sen. and 2006 candidate Tom Kean Jr. in good shape, with support from both moderates (which is probably what he would qualify as) and conservatives; he leads Lou Dobbs 42-30 with Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno at 7, “someone else” at 6, and 15 undecided.

• KY-Gov: Filing day came and went without any last-minute shenanigans in Kentucky. Steve Beshear will get a totally free ride in the Democratic primary (looks like that primary from the scrap metal dealer didn’t materialize), and will face one of three GOP opponents: state Senate president David Williams, teabagging businessman Phil Moffett, or Jefferson Co. Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw. The general election field in the AG race is already set; Jack Conway and Todd P’Pool didn’t draw any primary challengers. The most activity seems to be in the Ag Commissioner race (vacated by Richie Farmer, who’s running for Lt. Gov.), with 5 Dems and 2 GOPers running.

• MN-08: This probably isn’t a surprise, but after his upset loss last year, 76-year-old Jim Oberstar has decided to opt for retirement rather than a rerun against new Rep. Chip Cravaack. Two other high-profile Dems, Duluth mayor Don Ness and state Sen. Tony Lourey have also recently said no. Two DFLers who are considering the race, though, are Duluth-based state Sen. Roger Reinert and Daniel Fanning, Al Franken’s deputy state director.

• Omaha mayor: Omaha mayor Jim Suttle narrowly survived a recall attempt in last night’s special election. He won 51-49. Suttle vows to do a better job of communicating with voters in the election’s wake, although it remains an open question whether he runs again in 2013.

• Redistricting: Here’s a new wrinkle in the fight over the Fair Districts initiatives in Florida: Rick Scott seems to be stalling implementation of the new standards (which would limit the state legislature’s ability to gerrymander districts). The state “quietly withdrew” its request that the federal DOJ approve implementation of the initiatives, which jeopardizes whether they’ll be in place in time for the actual business of redistricting. Florida, as a one-time part of the Deep South, is one of those states that requires DOJ preclearance for changes to its electoral regime under the Voting Rights Act.

Politico also has an interesting article today about the Congressional Black Caucus and redistricting, which will reshape many of their districts, seeing as how some of their members’ districts have had the biggest population losses of any districts in the nation (OH-11, MI-13, MI-14, and MO-01 in particular). These districts seem like they can absorb some suburban votes without losing their lopsided Dem advantages, but they’re probably more worried about members getting pitted against each other (as might happen with the two Detroit districts) or against another Dem (possible for Marcia Fudge and Lacy Clay). Other lingering questions are whether Sanford Bishop’s GA-02 (the only CBC-held district that’s legitimately swingy) gets shored up or made worse, and whether South Carolina can be compelled to eke out a second VRA seat.

• Turnout models: I rarely get the chance to say this, but if you look at only one scatterplot today, it should be this one. It’s a remarkably-clear slope showing how predictable presidential approval is across demographic groups, and more evidence that the swing in the 2010 election was uniform across groups in response to macro factors (i.e. the stupid economy) rather than a failure of microtargeting. And here are some further thoughts on the matter from Larry Sabato’s new book, pointing out the really steep dropoffs in 2010 turnout for the groups I tend to label the “casual voters” (reliably Dem lower-information voters, mostly young and/or people of color, who turn out for presidential races but not the less compelling stuff in between), and how the 2010 model isn’t anything like what the 2012 model will resemble.

• KS-Sen: In this social conservative-fiscal conservative battle for the soul of the GOP, 1st CD Rep. Jerry Moran prevailed over 4th Cd Rep. Todd Tiahrt by a narrow 50-45 margin. Each won big in his home congressional district, but Moran narrowly carried the neutral territory in between. This represents somewhat of a win for would-be rightwing kingmaker Jim DeMint, who endorsed Moran… over would-be rightwing kingmaker Sarah Palin, who endorsed Tiahrt. Moran starts as the presumptive favorite over Dem Lisa Johnston, who won her primary with 31% of the vote over publisher Charles Schollenberger. (JMD)

• KS-01 (R): With the last poll of the race from SurveyUSA showing the top three contenders tied, Growther (and Dodge City-area state Sen.) Tim Huelskamp pulled away from fellow state Sen. Jim Barnett and real estate broker Tracey Mann, earning a more comfortable-than-expected 35-25 win over Barnett. Mann finished in third with 21. Huelskamp, of course, was expected to be the most conservative of the bunch. (JMD)

• KS-02 (R): Great White Dope Lynn Jenkins survived an under-the-radar teabagging from Atchison-area state sen. Dennis Pyle, who unabashedly ran at Jenkins’ already-conservative right flank. Jenkins gets her name added to the list of weak performing incumbents, at 57%. (JMD)

• KS-03: As expected, faux-moderate Overland Park state Rep. Kevin Yoder easily clinched the GOP nomination for the seat of the retiring Dennis Moore. Despite having aligned himself with the conservative faction in the Kansas legislature, he still earned 44% in this Johnson County-based district, where the KS GOP internecine war has traditionally benefited Dems in the past up and down the ballot. Patricia Lightner finished second with 37%; Yoder goes on to face Moore’s wife, Stephene Moore, who clinched her own nomination without much trouble. (JMD)

• KS-04: RNC Committeeman Mike Pompeo easily secured the GOP nomination to replace Todd Tiahrt, scoring 39% against the pro-choice Planned Parenthood endorsed Jean Schodorf with 24%; she narrowly edged out Wink Hartman, who earned 23% and had seat-buying tendencies unseen this side of Meg Whitman. Up-and-coming Wichita State Rep. Raj Goyle – who lagged in an earlier poll – was easily nominated on the Dem side with 80% of the vote. (JMD)

• MI-Gov: Given a pretty clear ideological choice, Democrats opted for the loudly populist Lansing mayor Virg Bernero over centrist state House speaker Andy Dillon, 59-41. Bernero, who trailed in most polls until the last couple weeks, benefited from a late push from organized labor. He’ll face an uphill battle in November against GOP winner Rick Snyder. The sorta-moderate Snyder benefited from a three-way split among conservatives out of the four viable candidates. While it’s nice to know that Michigan’s governor won’t be a nut and that Peter Hoekstra got sent packing, Snyder, with his moderate appeal, is probably the toughest matchup of all the GOPers for Bernero in November. (C)

• MI-01 (R): This wound up being the closest major race of the night, if not all cycle. Right now, physician Dan Benishek leads Jason Allen by 14 votes, 27,078-27,064. (Our final projection of the night was for Benishek by 10 votes, so we were way off.) Assuming Benishek’s lead survives, he’ll face Democratic state Rep. Gary McDowell for Bart Stupak’s open seat. (Also worth noting: that Inside Michigan Politics poll that we derided for its small sample size foresaw a tie for Benishek and Allen, so they can feel vindicated too.) (C)

• MI-02 (R): Another close race happened in the Republican primary in the 2nd, to fill the dark-red open seat left by Peter Hoekstra. We may also be waiting a while before this race is formally resolved, as former state Rep. Bill Huizenga and former NFL player Jay Riemersma are both at 25%, with Huizenga with a 658-vote lead. State Sen. William Kuipers (22) and businessman Bill Cooper (19) were also competitive. (C)

• MI-03 (R): 30-year-old state Rep. Justin Amash, a favorite of the Club for Growth and local powerbroker Dick DeVos, won a surprisingly easy victory in the Republican primary over two less strident opponents, state Sen. Bill Hardiman and former Kent Co. Commissioner Steve Heacock, 40-24-26. There’s been some speculation on whether the combination of hard-right Amash (in a district that Obama narrowly won, and that’s only elected moderate Republicans like Vern Ehlers and, going way back, Gerald Ford) and well-connected Democratic opponent Patrick Miles might put this race on the map, but, well, probably not this year. (C)

• MI-06 (R): This race wasn’t really too high on anyone’s radar screens (we last mentioned it back in March), but incumbent Rep. Fred Upton was held to a surprisingly weak 57-43 primary win over ex-state Rep. Jack Hoogendyk, who was last seen getting badly pummeled by Carl Levin in 2008’s Senate race. Hoogendyk ran on a full ‘bagger platform, hitting Upton for his votes in favor of TARP, No Child Left Behind, and S-CHIP. Upton’s performance certainly wasn’t inspiring, especially considering he outspent Hoogendyk by an absurd margin. (JL)

• MI-07 (R): Rooney eats it! Ex-Rep/’08 loser Tim Walberg handily dispatched attorney and Steelers family grandson Brian Rooney by 58-32 margin. Walberg will now advance to a rematch against Democrat Mark Schauer, who I expect is pleased by this result. (JL)

• MI-09 (R): Ex-state Rep. Rocky Raczkowski won the right to take on frosh Dem Rep. Gary Peters in this slightly Dem-tilting suburban seat. Rocky beat ex-Rep. Joe Knollenberg’s former chief of staff, Paul Welday, by a convincing 42-28 margin, meaning that you can add Raczkowski’s name to the list of Base Connect clients who successfully withstood a well-funded primary challenge. (JL)

• MI-12 (D): Veteran Dem Rep. Sander Levin easily beat back a challenge from his right, creaming term-limited state Sen. Michael Switalski by a 76-24 spread. Nothing to see here, folks. (JL)

• MI-13 (D): Two years after escaping political death with her 39% primary win over a split field of credible challengers, Dem Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick finally bit the dust last night, losing her primary to state Sen. Hansen Clarke by a 47-41 margin. Cheeks Kilpatrick becomes the fourth House incumbent to lose a primary this year (after Parker Griffith, Alan Mollohan, and Bob Inglis), and Hansen Clarke, as noted in the comments by DCCyclone, is on track to become the first Democrat of (partial) South Asian descent to serve in Congress since Dalip Singh Saund in the 1950s. (JL)

• MO-Sen (R): The teabaggers’ last stand in Missouri (which went so far as to include their turning against their own spiritual leader Michele Bachmann, for her support of Roy Blunt) really seemed to go nowhere in the Republican primary, as their man, state Sen. Chuck Purgason, never gained any traction. Establishment Rep. Roy Blunt won ridiculously easily over Purgason, 71-13. Blunt will face Democratic SoS Robin Carnahan in the general election, in one of the year’s marquee Senate races. (C)

• MO-04 (R): Despite the local GOP establishment’s preference for state Sen. Bill Stouffer, former state Rep. Vicki Hartzler emerged victorious from their air war, and won the right to challenge longtime Dem Ike Skelton by a fairly convincing 40-30 margin. If Hartzler’s endorsements – including Reps. Marsha Blackburn (sigh of disgust), Virginia Foxx (evil grandmotherly sigh of disgust), and Jean Schmidt (nuclear waste-tinged sigh of disgust) – are predictive, we’d better hope for Ike to hold on. (JMD)

• MO-07 (R): In the race to fill the dark-red seat left behind by Roy Blunt, the winner was self-funding auctioneer Billy Long. (An auctioneer makes enough money to self-fund? His company’s website doesn’t exactly scream wealth… or having been updated since the Netscape era…) Overcoming a late attack from the mysterious Americans for Job Security, he defeated state Sens. Jack Goodman and Gary Nodler 37-29-14. (C)

Only the first in a month chock-full of primaries.

Kansas:

• KS-Sen (R): The main event in Kansas is the GOP Senate primary; with underfunded Democratic opposition (and Kansas’s many decades of sending only Republicans to the Senate), this basically determines its next Senator. It’s a geographical and ideological battle between two of Kansas’s four Representatives: Jerry Moran, who represents KS-01 across the state’s empty western two-thirds, and Todd Tiahrt, from the Wichita-area KS-04. Moran, while no one’s idea of a “moderate,” doesn’t have a hard-right reputation; yet, he’s the preferred choice of many on the right (like Jim DeMint) because of his fiscal hawkishness and Tiahrt’s role ladling out pork on Appropriations. Tiahrt is the favorite of the social conservatives, and boasts a Sarah Palin endorsement. Moran has led all polling, ranging by anywhere from 3 to 20 points, with Moran leading by 10 in SurveyUSA‘s final poll released yesterday. (C)
• KS-Sen (D): Democrats have a primary here too, for the privilege of being a speed bump for Moran or Tiahrt in November. Retired newspaper publisher Charles Schollenberger was originally expected to be the nominee, then state Sen. David Haley showed up. However, professor Lisa Johnston has led the few polls of the race. (C)
• KS-01 (R): In a CD that gave Barack Obama a mere 30% of its vote in 2008 (a high-water mark for Dems, considering Gore and Kerry languished in the 20s here), the only party with a keg and a boom box is on the Republican side of the fence — and everyone’s jumpin’. In a crowded field, the GOP primary for Moran’s open seat is coming down to state Sen. Jim Barnett, realtor Tracey Mann, and Club For Growth favorite state Sen. Tim Huelskamp. SUSA’s most recent poll had the trio tied at exactly 24% each — a true three-way tossup. Barnett’s probably the most “moderate” of the three, but the most at stake here is the difference between Very Conservative and Ultra Douchey Wingnut Conservative. (JL)
• KS-03 (R): State Rep. Kevin Yoder has been labeled a moderate by the national press, which is curious due to his allegiance with the conservative factions of the Kansas state legislature. Whatever the case, it looks like he has a solid grip on the Republican nomination for the seat of retiring Dem Rep. Dennis Moore. As of mid-July, he’s out-raised his conservative primary challenger, ex-state Rep. Patricia Lightner, by an 8-to-1 margin. The winner will square off against Stephene Moore, Dennis Moore’s wife, this fall. (JL)
• KS-04 (D): Will state Rep. Raj Goyle, a fundraising machine, get VicRawl’d? For a brief while, it looked like Goyle, one of the DCCC’s few bright lights this cycle, was in serious danger of losing to Some Dude Robert Tillman, a retiree who has not filed a fundraising report with the FEC. It looks like Goyle successfully turned up the volume on his campaign, though, as SUSA’s final poll of the primary gave Goyle a commanding 63-19 lead. (JL)

• KS-04 (R): In the scramble to replace dry rub-flavored wingnut Todd Tiahrt, the most recent SUSA poll has given RNC committee member Mike Pompeo a 31-24 lead over state Sen. Jean Schodorf (who was actually endorsed by Planned Parenthood), with 21% going to carpetbagging businessman Wink Hartman, who has invested over $1.5 million of his own funds into his campaign. That represents something of a slide for Hartman and a surge for Schodorf, but there may not have been enough time left on the clock for Schodorf to steal this one. (JL)
  

Michigan:

• MI-Gov (D): Pugnacious populist vs. smooth centrist. That’s the easy alliterative description of the choice Democratic voters have, between Lansing mayor Virg Bernero and state House speaker Andy Dillon, in the gubernatorial primary. Bernero caught the eye of many on the left with his strong advocacy for government assistance to the automakers and has AFL-CIO backing (which includes the UAW), while the pro-life and business-friendly Dillon has had often strained relations with labor (although he does have some labor backing of his own, including the Teamsters). Dillon has led most polls thanks to better name rec in the Detroit area, but Bernero seems to have caught a late bounce and led this weekend’s EPIC-MRA poll. (C)
• MI-Gov (R): There are potentially four different candidates who could win the Republican gubernatorial primary. Rick Snyder, the former CEO of Gateway Computers who made a name for himself with his “one tough nerd” ad campaign, had a tiny lead in this weekend’s EPIC-MRA poll, and may have a path to victory in that he basically has the moderate vote to himself (and is relying on crossover votes from indies in the open primary), while the others are all fighting over the conservative share. Rep. Peter Hoekstra and AG Mike Cox have traded polling leads back-and-forth throughout most of the campaign (with Hoekstra having a built-in advantage as the only western Michigan candidate), with Oakland Co. Sheriff Mike Bouchard always hanging back within striking distance. Michigan doesn’t use runoffs, so whoever wins will be doing so with only about 30%. (C)
• MI-01 (R): This race spent last year on no one’s radar screen, but with Rep. Bart Stupak’s surprise retirement, it attracted some additional Republican interest. Physician Dan Benishek was the only Republican running for the spot before Stupak’s announcement. State Sen. Jason Allen got in afterwards, but Benishek stayed in. Allen has the “establishment” mantle here, but may be geographically hampered by being from the Traverse City area, not the Upper Peninsula. Benishek is opting for the “true conservative” route, pointing to Allen’s insufficient hatred of labor. The lone poll of the primary found Allen and Benishek tied. (C)
• MI-02 (R): The race to replace retiring Rep. Peter Hoekstra will no doubt find the torch being passed to another ultra-conservative Dutch-American, which should be no surprise, given the district’s profile. The frontrunner appears to be former NFL tight end and Family Research Council executive Jay Riemersma, who raised more than twice the money of any other candidate and also a lead in the lone poll. He faces state Sen. Wayne Kuipers and former state Rep. Bill Huizenga. One potential wild card is businessman Bill Cooper, who’s been reaching out to the Tea Partiers and who has a base in the Muskegon area, unlike the others, all from the district’s population center of Ottawa County. (C)
• MI-03 (R): Republican voters in the 3rd are choosing between three options to replace retiring Rep. Vern Ehlers: brash young state Rep. Justin Amash (who’s the Tea Party fave, but also the protege of the DeVos family, the Republican power behind the throne in Michigan), termed-out state Sen. Bill Hardiman, and former Kent Co. Commissioner Steve Heacock. Amash had raised the most money, and has a narrow lead in the one poll of the race. Heacock is the most moderate in the field and has the backing of Ehlers and a number of other local politicians. (C)
• MI-07 (R): Former Rep. Tim Walberg is attempting to make a comeback after his defeat at the hands of now Rep. Mark Schauer, but he’ll have to get through attorney Brian (and grandson of Steelers owner Art) Rooney. Walberg is playing the social conservative angle as always, but has some surprising endorsements, including one Rudolph Giuliani. Rooney’s playing the moderate angle somewhat, having garnered the endorsement of former Rep. Joe Schwarz, who Walberg primaried out in 2006; the Detroit Free Press has opted as well for Rooney. Walberg is no doubt out there, but he is winning the money race and this is a district that’s booted a moderate at least once. (JMD)
• MI-09 (R): Republicans sense an opportunity to knock off freshman Dem Gary Peters, with four candidates having jumped into the fray. The two frontrunners – former Farmington Hills State Rep. Andrew “Rocky” Raczkowski and former 9th CD Rep. Joe Knollenberg’s former Chief of Staff Paul Welday (what a mouthful) – have gone after each other, trying to out-conservative the other. Raczkowski put out a poll in May giving him a 26-15 lead, but that was ages, a Detroit Free Press endorsement for Rocky, and at least $100k in TV ads ago; this race remains quite the tossup. (JMD)
• MI-12 (D): What happens when you implement term limits? Politicians start playing musical chairs, of course. Term-limited state Senator Mickey Switalski of suburban Macomb County is challenging 14-term incumbent Sander (and older brother of US Senator Carl) Levin. Switalski – who’s challenged his party in the state Senate – is hitting Levin from the right, emphasizing the deficit (eye roll) and “bipartisanship” (double eye roll). An ancient poll in March, which had Levin leading 62-14, and Switalski’s $32k in cycle-to-date expenditures make it hard to imagine that he’s getting much traction in this quixotic challenge. (JMD)
• MI-13 (D): Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick stumbled across the finish line two years ago with 39% against two opponents who split the anti-Kilpatrick vote, and she’s drawn five opponents this year. However, things seem to be a little different, with one of her challengers – State Senator Hansen Clarke, who represents a section of the city of Detroit, presenting himself as the clear not-Kilpatrick. While Cheeks Kilpatrick might take solace that her scandal-plagued son – former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick – is out of the news (and in state prison, no less), she ought to be worried that she’s up against only one credible challenger. With several recent polls and the Detroit Free Press having given Clarke sizeable leads and an endorsement respectively, Cheeks Kilpatrick may very well find her name next to Alan Mollohan’s and Parker Griffith’s on the list of incumbents bounced in this year’s primaries. (JMD)

Missouri:

• MO-Sen (R): Back in the early days of teabagger ferment, when it seemed like those plucky little nutbars could take on the entire GOP empire themselves, it was at least plausible to imagine state Sen. Chuck Purgason giving Rep. Roy Blunt a run for his money. Alas, as we’ve learned, that’s still the one thing you need in this world, even if you are fueled by the paranoid fury of a million mouthbreathers: money. And Purgason has none of it. Blunt has outspent him literally 100-to-1, and Purgason doesn’t even have enough cash left over to treat his staff to Starbucks. Blunt may be a despised creature of the establishment, but like Mark Kirk, he should have no problem kicking teabagger ass. (D)
• MO-04 (R): While something like a dozen Republicans signed up in the primary to face longtime Dem Rep. Ike Skelton, only two have raised money above the “surely you must be joking” level: state Sen. Bill Stouffer ($450K) and former state Rep. Vicky Hartzler ($500K). Both candidates are on the NRCC’s Young Guns list, but the local establishment, apparently preferring Stouffer, tried to talk Hartzler out of the race back in March. That obviously didn’t work, and in the last couple of weeks, both candidates have taken to the airwaves, with each accusing the other of raising taxes. This is definitely anybody’s race. Hartzler’s stronghold should be Cass County (the site of her old district), in CD 4’s northwest corner. Stouffer hails from Saline County in the north-central part of the district, and his state senate district also covers Ray and Lafayette counties in the 4th. (D)
• MO-07 (R): The primary in this dark-red district in southwestern Missouri is principally a three-way affair between self-funding auctioneer Billy Long and two state senators, Jack Goodman and Gary Nodler. Long has tried to wear the “true conservative” mantle (he’s been endorsed by Mike Huckabee), but he’s also been attacked by the shadowy Americans for Job Security as an earmark-happy member of a local airport’s board of directors. Long fired back with an ad of his own, accusing both of his opponents of the same sin. There have actually been a bunch of internal polls of this race, but they mostly just show the top three candidates jumbled together somewhere around 20 points, plus or minus a few. Nodler hails from Jasper County on the Kansas border, while Goodman lives in adjacent Lawrence County, just to the east. Long, meanwhile, is from Springfield, MO, which is in the next county over, Greene. (D)

• AZ-Sen: Sounds like this weekend’s GOP primary, full of barbs and genuinely angry potshots between J.D. Hayworth and John McCain had only one beneficiary: random teabagger Jim Deakin, who didn’t seem to suffer any collateral damge.

• DE-Sen: The Susan B. Anthony List has endorsed minor-league primary challenger Christine O’Donnell instead of the pro-choice Mike Castle in the GOP Senate primary in Delaware. Delaware isn’t exactly known for its large social conservative vote share, so it remains to be seen whether this changes anything.

• MT-Sen: There have been odd rumors that Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who’ll be looking for something to do starting in 2012, was considering a primary challenge to Max Baucus in 2014, motivated at least in part over their different approaches to health care reform. Schweitzer ruled out running for the Senate, though (also ruling out a possible 2012 seat-swap with Jon Tester, which also had been rumored). The possibility of what he’d do if the septuagenarian Baucus retired in 2014, though, didn’t seem to get broached.

• NH-Sen: One more addition to the Mama Grizzly corral, and it’s a big name who’s, well, a woman, but has some competition from her right: Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire. Interesting that Sarah Palin refudiated the more teabaggish challengers (Ovide Lamontagne and Jim Bender).

• CO-Gov: Scott McInnis is not dropping out and is still in it to lose it, he vows, pressure and polling notwithstanding. He will, however, be repaying that $300K to the foundation that employed him to write and not plagiarize his research papers for them. However, it seems some of his underlings are clearly seeing the handwriting on the wall. Three key staffers (his policy director, political director, and regional director) all announced they were leaving the campaign.

• MI-Gov: A Detroit News/WDIV poll (conducted by the Glengariff Group) finds, like everybody else, a very close race in the Republican primary. They have Mike Cox and Peter Hoekstra both at 26, with Rick Snyder at 20, Mike Bouchard at 12, and Tom George at 2. They see a possible route for Snyder to win over undecideds, based on his low unfavorables (he’s at 36/8). Mike Bouchard also has a couple new endorsements to his name, although they’re from the spouses of two once-important politicians: the wives of ex-Gov. John Engler and ex-Sen. Spencer Abraham. The spouse endorsement, of course, is the time-honored method of boosting your behind-the-scenes friend while still not getting your hands dirty wasting political capital on a sure loss (see the Deval Patrick spousal endorsement of Mike Capuano in the MA-Sen primary).

• NE-Gov: After much speculation that the Dems were simply going to leave their ballot line blank and let Dave Heineman run unopposed to another gubernatorial term, they’ve found a willing victim candidate to fill the place left by Mark Lakers (who dropped out post-primary but pre-convention). It’s Mike Meister, a trial attorney who lost the 2002 Attorney General’s race.

• OH-Gov: John Kasich’s new ad is weak. I know, I know, I’m a partisan, but if this were a Democrat running this ad, I’d be pounding my head on the desk. His first TV spot starts out with him on the defensive, pointing out that he didn’t run Lehman Brothers, just profited handsomely off it.

• OR-Gov: Chris Dudley ruffled some feathers over the weekend by ducking the decades-long traditional debate that opens the campaign season in this civic-minded state, held by the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association. Dudley said that he’d already had plans for a family vacation then, and Democrats predictably said that this was part of a bigger pattern of ducking issues. (Note: don’t piss off the people who buy ink by the bucket. Newspaper e-boards across the state, even the conservative ones, have been scornful.) Then he got really busted: his family vacation just happened to be combined with a visit with the RGA, and its many donors, at an event in Aspen, Colorado. Oregonians aren’t likely to begrudge him for a little downtime, but lying about what he’s doing… not so much.

• WI-Gov: This seems a little too convenient. GOP Milwaukee Co. Executive Scott Walker’s staff just gave a no-bid contract for emergency structural engineering inspections to Graef-USA… a contractor that just happens to be a major Walker campaign contributor.

• MI-13: There are two new polls that look at the Democratic primary in the 13th, and both give a small lead to Hansen Clarke, over Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick. Clarke leads 38-30 in the Detroit News/WDIV poll, and Clarke leads 44-31 in an EPIC-MRA poll released last week. That’s on top of a third poll from last week that we already mentioned that also had a Clarke lead, so I’m sensing a pattern here. There’s a handful of other candidates, but they’re only polling in low single digits… it seems like having only one credible challenger (Clarke, a termed-out state Senator) to Kilpatrick, instead of two like in 2008, is the key to winning the race.

• Legislatures: There are two different stories out today looking at the lay of the land in two legislative chambers that seem among the likeliest to flip to Republican control this year: the Iowa State House, and the Pennsylvania State House, with mentions of some of the most competitive seats in each case.

• NRCC: With the House GOP pretty much assured of gaining a significant number of seats this year, it’s been a while since we’ve done one of these. But could it be time for another… Pete Sessions Deathwatch®? Texas GOPer Tom Pauken, a Rick Perry ally who was state party chair in the 1990s, has been talking Sessions down, saying he’s “not up to the job” and he should be replaced by “a smart conservative who knows what needs to be done.” That news comes on a day when NRCC staff are busy doing damage control, mopping up behind Sessions after his comments that “we need to go back to the exact same agenda” of the Bush years.

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Gov: Ethan Berkowitz (D) 34%, Sean Parnell (R-inc) 43 53%

• AK-Gov: Hollis French (D) 29%, Sean Parnell (R-inc) 57%

• AK-Gov: Ethan Berkowitz (D) 36%, Ralph Samuels (R) 48%

• AK-Gov: Hollis French (D) 30%, Ralph Samuels (R) 49%

• AK-Gov: Ethan Berkowitz (D) 38%, Bill Walker (R) 46%

• AK-Gov: Hollis French (D) 32%, Bill Walker (R) 50%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 38%, Pat Toomey (R) 45%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 44%, Scott Walker (R) 48%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 45%, Mark Neumann (R) 43%

Also a must read today: a new piece from Nate Silver makes the point that “Hey, YouGov’s internet-only polling isn’t that methodologically bad,” but that’s by way of comparing it to Rasmussen’s sampling techniques, which (no shock to SSP readers) aren’t likely to produce a very accurate cross-section of the population.

CA-Sen, CA-Gov: SurveyUSA (7/8-11, likely voters, no trend lines):

Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 45

Carly Fiorina (R): 47

Other: 3

Undecided: 5

Jerry Brown (D): 39

Meg Whitman (R): 46

Other: 7

Undecided: 8

(MoE: ±4%)

CO-Sen: It looks like Ken Buck’s efforts to distance himself from his earlier efforts to distance himself from Tom Tancredo’s recent declaration that Barack Obama is the “greatest threat to the United States today” have hit a bit of a snag. A local FOX News affiliate has obtained audio of Buck in the middle of a major facepalm a day after Tancredo first made his controversial remarks at a Buck rally: “I can’t believe that guy opened his mouth.” Whoops! See, this is the thing with running a successful primary campaign in today’s Republican Party: you either have to fully embrace the crazy, or become Charlie Crist.

KS-04: Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates for Mike Pompeo (7/6-8, likely voters, May in parens):

Mike Pompeo (R): 27 (19)

Wink Hartman (R): 21 (38)

Jean Schodorf (R): 13 (13)

Jim Anderson (R): 4 (5)

(MoE: ±5.3%)

LA-02: Verne Kennedy for Joe Cao (5/27-6/2):

Cedric Richmond (D): 26

Joe Cao (R-inc): 51

(MoE: ±5%)

Cao being in the lead is probably correct (though I have my doubts as to the extent of the lead), given that no one really knows who Cedric Richmond, a state representative, is. Hopefully we’ll see more general election polling once Richmond and fellow state Rep. Juan LaFonta fully engage their primary campaigns.

MI-13: Incumbent Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick is losing by 27-19 to one of her Democratic primary opponents, state Sen. Hansen Clarke, according to a poll released last month. The only problem, though, is that this poll, conducted by some firm called Practical Political Consulting on behalf of Inside Michigan Politics, has an absurdly small sample (n=137), meaning that the margin of error on this sucker is a monkey-fuck ridiculous 8.4%.

MS-01: Dem Rep. Travis Childers accepted the “Spirit of Enterprise Award” last week from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in recognition of being a “friend of business for the entire country”. It’s another conservative score for Childers, who’s also earned the endorsements of the NRA and the National Right to Life.

NY-13: Democrat Mike McMahon may yet face a primary… for the Independence Party nomination. ’09 NYC city council candidate John Tabacco says he’s laying the groundwork for a bid, and will base his decision to run on the amount of signatures his volunteers can gather.

TX-23: It just wouldn’t be a congressional race without a story of some rich fuck running for office with a limo full of tax liens. KT over at Burnt Orange Report shares the news that Republican candidate Francisco “Quico” Canseco has been hit with over $700,000 worth of “federal, state and mechanics liens over unpaid payroll taxes and contracting fees since the early 1980s”.

AK-Sen: It’s not every day you see an incumbent agreeing to debate a primary challenger, but Sen. Lisa Murkowski has done just that. She’ll meet Joe Miller for three debates in the middle of August, just before the primary on the 24th.

CT-Sen: This Politico story reminds me of that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where, amidst the Black Plague, the peasant exhorts everyone to “Bring out yer dead!” and dump them on his cart. One not-quite victim protests, “But I’m not dead yet!” So, too, the Rob Simmons campaign. A whole bunch of people – including Rob Simmons himself – plan on voting for Simmons in the August 10th primary. But it’s pretty clear that hope indeed seems to be the plan here, since Simmons still isn’t campaigning and seems to just be praying for an unlikely win. At least it’s a better system of governance than strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords.

FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is pulling the trigger on a special legislative session in which he’ll ask lawmakers to add a constitutional amendment to the November ballot which would allow voters to ban offshore drilling. The Miami Herald notes that Crist didn’t lay any groundwork for this special session with state House leaders, meaning he could potentially get negged here. But even that could redound to Crist’s benefit, as he’d be able to campaign against the legislature’s failure to give the people a voice on this pressing issue.

KY-Sen: It’s like John Galt forgot the fact that his motors still had to be delivered along public roads: Rand Paul is taking heat from local officials on account of his distaste for using federal money for drug treatment programs. Note that we aren’t talking about the “war on drugs” here, but money used to treat addicts – which Paul says should come from local sources. But the people who actually have to deal with the problem say that Paul doesn’t understand how important federal dollars are for these programs. Not really surprising, given Rand Paul Math:

When tax money flows to the nation’s capitol, half stays there, half is wasted and half of it goes to political cronyism, Paul said.

LA-Sen: David Vitter got a somewhat-prominent primary challenger at the very last minute: retired LA Supreme Court Judge Chet Traylor. There’s also at least one other Some Dude in the race. If for some reason Vitter can’t get 50% in the primary – which is not until August 28th – then he’d have to deal with a runoff on October 2nd, barely a month before the general. Also interestingly, Republican state Rep. Ernest Wooton qualified for the race, too – as an independent. This might be a rare bit of good news for Charlie Melancon. (H/t Darth Jeff.)

NV-Sen: At the state GOP convention, Sharron Angle expressed her support for the party’s platform – a wonderfully nutty document, as Jon Ralston points out, that touts its opposition to a “one-world government.” Angle was later seen leaving the convention on a black helicopter. Meanwhile, President Obama just did a fundraiser for Harry Reid late last week, which apparently raised $800K.

SC-Sen: Alvin Greene won’t face any charges regarding the $10,440 filing fee he paid to run for senate, or over whether he misrepresented his finances when he asked for a public defender after being charged with a crime (showing an obscene photo) last fall. It turns out that Greene really did pull together the scratch himself, mostly from his Army exit pay and a hefty tax refund. It’s not how I would have spent my last ten thousand bucks, but to each his own.

SD-Sen: With zero opponents on the ballot – not even a Some Dude independent – John Thune is shuttering his campaign team. While it’s always painful to see a Republican senate seat go completely uncontested like this, I wonder if this might not be for the best in terms of Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s re-election chances. At the very least, it means that Thune won’t be out there stumping on the campaign trail – and won’t provide an attractive top-of-the-ticket draw in November. While it’s probably unprovable, I know a lot of folks here feel that Dick Lugar’s lack of an opponent probably helped us win three house races in Indiana in 2006, a sentiment I tend to share.

WI-Sen: Cute: Zillionaire teabagger Ron Johnson had previously criticized President Obama for pushing BP to set up a fund to pay out claims for damage their oil spill has caused. It turns out that Johnson owns at least $116,000 worth of BP stock. Johnson laughably tried to point out that Wisconsin’s public employee pension fund also invests in BP – and that Russ Feingold is a member of that fund (he was a state legislator before being elected to Congress). Srsly?

WV-Sen: It looks like that statement is no longer operative. On Friday, Gov. Joe Manchin told Politico’s Ben Smith that he would “declare his intentions about a Senate run Monday.” The next day, though, he informed Politico’s Jonathan Martin that he’s going to hold off until two things happen: first, he wants the state legislature (called back for a special session) to clarify the law on special election to replace Sen. Robert Byrd. Second, he wants to name an interim office-holder. Manchin also said that the special session will be held this Thursday at noon. (And in an odd aside, Manchin – who seems all but certain to run for Byrd’s seat – just became head of the National Governors Association.)

AL-Gov: This is probably too late to help much, but term-limited Gov. Bob Riley is endorsing former college chancellor Bradley Byrne in tomorrow’s runoff against state Rep. Robert Bentley. Still, Bentley seems to be in the better position. Despite being something of a dark horse in the first round, Bentley has apparently done a good job of consolidating conservatives, and internal polling has generally showed him in the lead.

AL-02: It’s not like we can love Bobby Bright – but we probably can credit him with running a good campaign. Republican Martha Roby is trying to paint herself as a champion against illegal immigration, but as Politico points out, in past battles on the subject, Bright took a harder line than Roby did. As Alex Isenstadt says, “It’s the newest iteration of a recurring challenge for Roby’s campaign: How do you run to the right of a Democrat who’s been squarely on the conservative end of his party since even before he was elected?” Roby still has a runoff fight tomorrow with Rick “The Barber” Barber.

CA-11: David Harmer, running against Dem Rep. Jerry McNerney, pulled in more than $400K last quarter.

FL-25: Marili Cancio, running against establishment favorite David Rivera in the GOP primary, accused him of “repeat domestic violence” on her Facebook page. There have been some rumors circulating about a potential story here (you can Google for more).

LA-02: State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, who lost a runoff to then-Rep. Bill Jefferson in 2006, will not seek to challenge Rep. Joe Cao. This leaves state Reps. Cedric Richmond and Juan LaFonta as Cao’s most likely opponents. I’m actually a bit surprised that more big names didn’t get into the race, given how tempting a target Cao seems to be.

MI-13: The Detroit Free Press takes a look at the field challenging Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick in the Dem primary – and points out that Kilpatrick, who only took in 39% in the 2008 primary – doesn’t even have a website. The Freep thinks her two toughest challengers are state Sen. Hansen Clarke and businessman John Broad, while three other Some Dudes round out the field. No one has raised very much, and even Kilpatrick has only $300K on hand. But she may yet benefit from a split field for the second cycle in a row, much like Jean Schmidt.

NM-02: Handsome Harry Teague raised some $320K in Q2 and has $1.2 mil in the bank.

NY-14: Reshma Saujani is claiming that Carolyn Maloney agreed to a debate – but Maloney’s camp says no such thing ever happened. Given Maloney’s consistent stance of refusing to credit Saujani in any way, I have a very hard time believing anything Saujani’s team says about this. And meanwhile, the Washington Post has a pretty puffy profile of Saujani, which if nothing else confirms that she truly is the candidate of the banksters.

NY-18: Self-funding venture capitalist Paul Wasserman has dropped his bid to take on Rep. Nita Lowey in this suburban New York district. Westchester County Republicans are now instead backing 2008 nominee Jim Russell, who has a decidedly less-gaudy campaign warchest ($5,000).

Fundraising: A couple of memos – which were probably designed to be leaked – are now circulating which detail Democratic fears that they will be outspent by conservative interest groups this fall. What I don’t get is why every cycle, people always act like one side outspending the other is some kind of big surprise. New 527s come and go all the time, and it’s not like big Dem or GOP donors all of a sudden forget every January that, hey, there’s an election on! Maybe we should look into this newfangled 527 thing? This stuff is cyclical, and the fact that we’re getting our asses kicked in 2010 is not really news. But if memos like these spook a few rich Dems into opening their wallets, then okay.

Polltopia: Or more like poll dystopia. Media Matters has a distressing piece on McClatchy’s decision to stop polling altogether as part of a budget cutback. (They had previously done about a dozen polls a year with Ipsos.) The piece also details how many, many other news organizations, particularly local newspapers, have also pared down or eliminated their polling in recent years. I know there are far worse problems in the world, but as far as Swingnuts are concerned, this is very, very sad and unfortunate.

CA-Gov: This video (the second one on the page) is a couple of months old but is worth watching if you haven’t seen it yet. I think it goes a ways toward explaining Meg Whitman’s glass jaw. It’s a local news piece detailing an ugly snub of the media by Whitman at a campaign stop she specifically invited the press to – and it’s about as harshly negative as a straight news piece can be. When ordinary people imagine rich douchebags behaving douchily, this is what we envision.

KY-Sen: Republican muckety-muck Cathy Bailey, who almost ran in this race herself, endorsed Rand Paul, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorse Trey Grayson. They must love fiat currency.

PA-Sen, PA-07: Joe Sestak just endorsed Bryan Lentz to succeed him in PA-07… but Lentz faces zero primary opposition. The real news is that Lentz in turn endorsed Sestak, which may help him snare an extra vote or two in the Philly burbs.

UT-Sen: Is Orrin Hatch setting himself up to be Bob Bennett 2.0? He said that the teabaggers “don’t have an open mind and they won’t listen.”

FL-Gov: Rick Scott loves his chocolate milk: The uber-wealthy gubernatorial candidate (who has been flooding the Florida airwaves) opposes a Charlie Crist-backed amendment to the state constitution which would ban offshore drilling. It’s interesting to see how this is playing among conservative circles, where even Bill McCollum largely supports Crist’s idea. On the flipside, both Scott and McCollum luv Arizona’s new immigration law.

MA-04: Consultant and Marine vet Sean Bielat announced that he will challenge Rep. Barney Frank as a Republican.

MI-13: Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick may survive yet another primary. She narrowly escaped last cycle thanks to a split field again, and may yet do so again. Four opponents filed against her, including state Sen. Hansen Clarke.

NY-23: Keep the cat fud a-comin’: Conservative Party chair (and newfound progressive hero) Mike Long sent out a memo to North Country GOP leaders explicitly comparing Matt Doheny to Dede Scozzafava and pleding to stick with Doug Hoffman. Long points out that Doheney (who sought his party’s nomination last year) maxed out to Dede after she got the nod, and also said, “I’m going to do everything I can for her, and more.” If Doheny wins the Republican primary, it could be Hoffman’s turn to play spoiler on the Conservative line. History is definitely starting to rhyme.

OH-18: There were fat ladies… all around… but he never heard them singing…. State Sen. Bob Gibbs “declared victory” over a disgruntled Fred Dailey, even though official results have not yet been declared. Dailey called the move presumptuous and said the fat lady ain’t sung. The Secretary of State doesn’t have to certify results until 20 days after the election, and then, since the margin of victory was less than half a percent, we could see a recount – which might take until June. You know Zack Space is doing a happy dance.

PA-12: Big Dog coming to town: Bill Clinton is coming to Johnstown on May 16th to do a rally for Dem Mark Critz.

PA-17 (PDF): Susquehanna Polling & Research (5/7-8, likely voters, no trendlines):

Tim Holden (D-inc): 54

Sheila Dow-Ford (D): 27

Undecided: 18

(MoE: ±4.9%)

David Argall (R): 21

Frank Ryan (R): 17

John First (R): 7

Allen Griffth (R): 5

Undecided: 47

(MoE: ±4.3%)

While Dow-Ford probably can’t unseat Holden, these are some uninspiring numbers for the incumbent, who only gets 38% re-elects. Obama’s job approval is 32-56.

SD-AL: Chris Nelson, South Dakota’s Republican Secretary of State who is hoping to take on Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, is at least birther-curious, claiming that “many people” contacted him as SoS “asking how Obama could be on our ballot given this controversy.” Nelson’s primary opponents (who were asked the same question) didn’t take the bait, so you gotta wonder if Nelson is trying to out-teabag them.

NY State Sen.: Among his many un-endearing habits, Mike Bloomberg has long used his zillions to prop up Republicans in the state Senate. However, Bloombo flack Howard Wolfson is now hinting that this tradition may come to an end. His Bloombleness has already endorsed Dem Craig Johnson of Long Island.

NRSC: Michael DuHaime, a top strategist for Chris Christie’s gubernatorial campaign (and before that, political director for John McCain’s presidential bid), is being tapped by the NRSC to head up their independent expenditure arm this year.

IL-Sen: Have I mentioned lately that Mark Kirk is an utter wiener? No? Well, Mark Kirk is an utterly predictable wiener. After charging gung-ho in the direction of “Repeal!”, Kirk has decided to quickly drop his push to roll back healthcare reform, preferring instead to remind everyone how expensive it is.

NV-Sen: Here’s some bitter tea for fans of right-wing vote-splitting. It appears that Tea Party candidate Scott Ashjian is facing criminal charges for theft relating to bad checks he allegedly wrote for his asphalt business. Ashjian won’t have to withdraw his candidacy if arrested, but headlines like these can’t help him syphon off any substantial amount of votes from the GOP’s flank.

PA-Sen: Arlen Specter landed a huge endorsement in his primary battle against Joe Sestak yesterday, with the news that the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO has elected to back the five-term incumbent.

TX-Sen: Kay Bailey Hutchison will announce her future plans in San Antonio this morning, flanked by Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn. I think it’s probably a safe guess to say that she’s likely going to serve out the remainder of her term, despite her many promises otherwise.

FL-Gov: Republican Bill McCollum leads Democrat Alex Sink by 49-34 according to the latest Mason-Dixon poll of the race.

GA-Gov: 31 douchebags Republican state legislators have signed a resolution calling for the impeachment of Democratic AG Thurbert Baker after his refusal to challenge the constitutionality of the recent healthcare reform legislation. Baker, who has been struggling in the polls for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination against ex-Gov. Roy Barnes, is probably enjoying the free publicity, if nothing else.

MA-Gov: State Treasurer Tim Cahill got busted for sending out a mass fundraising solicitation for his Independent gubernatorial bid to state legislators from his official e-mail account, which is a violation of Massachusetts campaign finance rules.

MD-Gov: Former Gov. Bob Ehrlich confirmed on Tuesday that he will attempt a comeback against Democrat Martin O’Malley this year.

AR-01: This one ranks pretty low on the list of unexpected political news. Retiring Democratic Rep. Marion Berry will endorse his former chief of staff, Chad Causey, for the Dem nomination to succeed him. Causey also recently picked up the support of the Arkansas AFL-CIO.

FL-19: At least one of these things may strain your credulity. Republican Ed Lynch, running in the April 13 special election to replace Democrat Robert Wexler in the House, says that his fundraising has seen “probably a thousand percent increase” since Congress passed healthcare reform, and that “polling we’ve done” shows him ahead of Democrat Ted Deutch. Of course, his campaign isn’t coming forward with any evidence of the existence of any such polls.

GA-12: Republican Ray McKinney, a nuclear power project manager who lost the GOP primary in 2008 for the right to take on John Barrow, says that he’s going to try again this year. McKinney joins Thunderbolt Fire Chief Carl Smith, retired businessman Mike Horner, activist Jeanne Seaver and restaurant owner George Brady in the GOP primary.

MI-13: Metro Detroit pastor Glenn Plummer, the founder of the African American Christian Television Network, has announced that he’ll challenge Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick in the Democratic primary, joining state Sen. Hansen Clarke for a three-way race. Don’t expect Plummer to be a progressive choice, though: he freely admits that he voted for Bush in 2004, spoke to a GOP convention that same year, and has also used his pulpit to argue in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Yuck.

MO-03: Rusty Wallace — not the NASCAR champion, but a CAD technician and avid teabagger — will join the highly-touted Ed Martin in the Republican primary for the right to upset Dem Rep. Russ Carnahan.

MO-07: It looks like a couple of high profile candidates have slipped under the wire for the race to fill the seat of Senatorial aspirant Roy Blunt. Ex-state Rep. Steve Hunter will become the ninth GOP candidate in the mix, which some local observers suspect may be a ploy from one of the other candidates to syphon off votes from state Sen. Gary Noodler, who shares Hunter’s regional base. For the Democrats, Scott Eckersley, an attorney who served in ex-Gov. Matt Blunt’s administration, also filed to run for this R+17 seat. Eckersley settled a wrongful termination lawsuit with the state last year after alleging that he was dismissed for raising questions within the administration over the destruction of controversial state e-mails. Eckersley isn’t committed to a run, though, and said he filed in order to keep his options open.

NV-03: Ex-state Sen. Joe Heck (R) is leading Democratic frosh Rep. Dina Titus by 40-35, according to a new internal poll conducted by Wilson Research Strategies for Heck’s campaign.

NY-29: Local Democrats still haven’t settled on a nominee for the special election in this upstate New York district, but at least we now know the names of six of the potential candidates:

The interviewed candidates include Southern Tier native Matthew Zeller, former Allegany County District 4 Legislator Michael McCormick, David Nachbar, a former state Senate candidate and businessman from Pittsford, Rush-Henrietta Central School District teacher David Rose, and Assemblyman David Koon, D-Perinton. Mary Wilmot, an aide to Gov. David Paterson, was the lone women interviewed.

PA-10: I never thought I’d say this, but why can’t we have more Dems like Chris Carney? After harshly criticizing Sarah Palin for putting his House district in literal cross hairs, Carney defended his HCR vote to a local TV station:

“You can’t vote worried about your career, you have to vote the right way,” Carney said. “You have to vote your conscience and for me this was a vote of conscience.”

Remember when the GOP tried to recruit Carney to join their caucus?

SC-05: John Spratt is a true hero. Just a day after filing for re-election in the face of persistent retirement rumors fueled by NRCC schemers and beltway natterers, Spratt has announced that he’s been diagnosed with early stage Parkinson’s disease. Spratt insists that his symptoms are mild and that his condition won’t impede his ability to serve in Congress — or run a vigorous re-election race.

SD-AL: Physician Kevin Weiland has dropped his plans to challenge Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in the Democratic primary, citing his concern for party unity. Weiland issued a joint press release with Herseth Sandlin announcing the news, and based his decision partly on assurances from Herseth Sandlin that she would not vote to repeal healthcare reform. (Hat-tip: doug tuttle)

TN-06: Democrats have finally found a candidate to run for the seat held by retiring Democratic Rep. Bart Gordon. Marine Capt. Ben Leming, an Iraq War veteran, received permission from the secretary of the Navy to file his candidacy. However, Leming can’t actively campaign until his active duty ends on May 1st.

WA-01: This seat isn’t on anyone’s radar, but Republican businessman James Watkins recently released an internal poll, conducted by Moore Information, showing him trailing Democrat Jay Inslee by 41-27.

WI-03: Is this what state Sen. Dan Kapanke signed up for when he decided to run for Congress against Democrat Ron Kind? Kapanke jumped into the race with much fanfare in the anticipation that Kind would bail on the race to run for Governor. That didn’t happen, and now Kapanke is facing a primary from ex-banker Bruce Evers, who has some truly wild ideas on constraining government spending.

• CO-Sen: Gee, tell us what you really think, Jane Norton! The supposed front-runner for the GOP nod just referred to Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” while appearing at a teabagger forum. I’m sure the 600,000 or so Coloradans who receive Social Security will be glad to hear that.

• FL-Sen: PPP’s Tom Jensen has some observations on the Florida race, that also seem generalizable to the national landscape and pretty much every other race. Very few people are changing their minds between the parties, he finds: only 8% of Obama voters plan to vote for Marco Rubio, actually lower than the 11% of McCain voters planning to vote for Kendrick Meek. The difference is in the intensity between the parties, which shapes the likely voter model. Barack Obama won Florida by 3, while PPP’s sample went for McCain by 4; that 7-point shift is similar to what they found in New Jersey and Massachusetts as well.

• OH-Sen: We’re very short on details, but Chris Cillizza is pointing to a DSCC poll (taken by Mark Mellman) finding Democratic Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher leading GOP ex-Rep. Rob Portman 37-36 in the Senate race. (There’s no mention of primary numbers or a Jennifer Brunner matchup.) We’ll fill in the blanks more if we see a copy of the memo.

• MI-Gov: Michigan-based pollster Denno-Noor takes another look at the primaries in the Michigan governor’s race. On the GOP side, Rep. Peter Hoekstra leads at 28% (up from 21 in November), followed by self-proclaimed nerd Rick Snyder at 18 (up from 5). This poll confirms the most recent EPIC-MRA poll’s finding of Snyder’s advertising-based surge, and the subsequent decline for AG Mike Cox. He’s at 12 in this poll, down from 15. Oakland Co. Sheriff Mike Bouchard is at 8, and state Sen. Tom George is at 2. On the Democratic side, they find a lot of uncertainty: state House speaker Andy Dillon leads Lansing mayor Virg Bernero 13-11, with 6% each for state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith and for Dan Kildee, who has since dropped out (although he was in the race while the poll was in the field). Undecided wins, at 56%. There are no trendlines on the Dem side, given the dropout of Lt. Gov. John Cherry since the last poll. (Speaking of Cherry, there are odd rumors out there that unions are asking the woeful Cherry to get back into the race, which doesn’t jibe with the UAW’s recent decision to back Bernero.)

• NY-Gov: This is what passes for a good news day for David Paterson: the growing likelihood that he won’t face any criminal charges over allegations of witness tampering in the domestic violence investigation involving a top aide. On the GOP side, ex-Rep. Rick Lazio rolled out one more endorsement from the party’s old war horses as party bosses keep looking elsewhere for a suitable candidate; today, it was Rep. Peter King‘s turn to give Lazio the thumbs-up.

• PA-Gov: More progress on the endorsements front in the fight for the Democratic nomination. Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato got the endorsement of the state’s largest teachers union, the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Meanwhile, Auditor Jack Wagner continued to dominate in terms of endorsements from county-level party apparatuses, getting the endorsement in Schuylkill County, out in coal country.

• MI-13: This isn’t a good day for Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick. She and one of her aides just got subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, in the investigation into her son, former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. On top of that, state Sen. Hansen Clarke made official his primary challenge to Kilpatrick. She barely survived the Democratic primary in 2008, and that was largely because of a split among several challengers.

• NY-23: Doug Hoffman is making a move… to the 23rd District, where he plans to run again. One knock against Hoffman last year was that he lived in Lake Placid, which is outside the district. He’s moving nine miles down the road to Saranac Lake, which falls in the 23rd’s lines.

• PA-07: With filing day having passed in Pennsylvania, now it’s time to count the signatures, and one candidates who’s running into some trouble is a surprise: the squeaky-clean former US Attorney Pat Meehan, the Republican running in the 7th. He’s asked the Delaware County DA to investigate his own signatures, after finding about some potentially fraudulent signatures on his lists. Meanwhile, Meehan seems to have dodged a long-rumored primary challenge from former TV news reporter Dawn Stensland, who never filed to run.

• CA-LG: San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom looks like he’s going to go ahead and voluntarily demote himself to the no-man’s land that is Lt. Governor. He paid his filing fee yesterday, and will have an official kickoff for his campaign either today or tomorrow.

• Demographics: Alan Abramowitz has a very interesting piece on demographic change and how it only bodes ill for Republicans (or at least the current angry-white-guy version of the Republicans) in the long run. That angry white base keeps shrinking as a percentage of the population, with non-whites on track to be 35% of the electorate by 2020.

• Branding: With his presidential run (and its ubiquitous star and blue background) fading in the rear-view mirror, John McCain has launched a completely new logo to go with his new persona. It has a flowing flag instead, on a background that’s much… um… whiter.

Believe it or not, the world continues to turn today, even outside Massachusetts…

• Site News: A minor site change: We’ve had to disable HTML on user bio pages (like this one). We apologize if this winds up killing your links or spewing ugly HTML characters in your bio, so you may want to edit yours if so. You can still post links – they just won’t be HTML-ized. The reason we did this is because spammers have been exploiting the bio pages to post links to their own sites. It’s easy for us to catch them when they post comments or diaries, but harder to stop them from creating new accounts. This takes away their incentive. Suck on it, spammer scum! (D)

• NV-Sen: I don’t know what you envision when you see “probe” and “John Ensign” in the same sentence, but this is rich: the FBI is getting involved in the investigation, indicating this may go beyond the Senate Ethics Committee, headed in the direction of a criminal inquiry. The Feds have been contacting former aides about the Hampton affair.

• NY-Sen-B: Ex-Rep. Harold Ford Jr. just seems to be digging his self-inflicted hole deeper, as he runs damage control from the NYT profile that portrayed him as a helicopter-riding, pedicure-getting richie-rich. For his new interview with the Daily News, he insisted that it be limited to his rationale for running, not “issues” (issues, of course, are for the little people). Still, that contrasts with his defense of the pedicure thing, about which he said: “This race isn’t about feet, it’s about issues.” Meanwhile, observers are wondering if Al Sharpton (who has endorsed Kirsten Gillibrand) is telegraphing a potential switch in sides.

• IA-Gov: Ex-Gov. Terry Branstad is out with an internal poll showing him in commanding position in the Republican primary as he seeks to regain his old job, despite the discomfort some social conservatives have with him. Branstad polls at 62%, followed by Bob Vander Plaats lagging at 18%, with Christopher Rants at 4 and Rod Roberts at 2.

• IL-Gov: Next door in Illinois, though, where things don’t seem quite as settled in the Republican primary, three different candidates are citing polls that claim to have them in the lead. State Sen. Kirk Dillard has an internal that has him leading at 22, with state party chair Andy McKenna at 14 and ex-AG Jim Ryan at 10 – which is odd, since the Chicago Tribune’s poll several weeks ago gave Ryan a substantial lead and saw Dillard in fourth place. McKenna also claims to have a poll with him in the lead, although he didn’t even bother giving any details. Dillard seems to be the “moderate” horse in the GOP race, with endorsements from ex-Gov. Jim Edgar, Rep. Judy Biggert, and even the Illinois Education Association (hopefully only as far as the primary goes).

• TX-Gov: Rasmussen is out with fresh polls of the Texas governor’s race, and this time, they’re even doing the general, now that it got competitive, with the entry of Democratic Houston mayor Bill White. As one might expect, both incumbent Rick Perry and GOP primary rival Kay Bailey Hutchison lead White, and KBH overperforms Perry. Hutchison leads White 52-37, while Perry leads 50-40. (In the unlikely event White faces off against Paulist activist Debra Medina, he wins 44-38.) More interestingly, Medina seems to be getting a serious foothold in the GOP primary, which seems like it has the potential to push the Perry/Hutchison battle to a runoff, keeping Perry below 50%. Perry leads Hutchison and Medina 43-33-12.

• MI-Gov, MI-13: The amazingly brief gubernatorial campaign of state Sen. Hansen Clarke ended yesterday, after about one week in existence. It seems like party insiders steered him in a different direction, saying that he’s been offered big financial support if he takes on vulnerable (in a primary) Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick instead, and he says he’s strongly considering that race now. Kilpatrick (mother of embattled former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick) nearly lost a 3-way primary in 2008.

• AZ-03: One aspiring House Republican didn’t wait long to announce her run to fill the recently-vacated seat of Rep. John Shadegg. State Sen. Pamela Gorman announced her campaign.

• MI-07: One more race that hasn’t drawn much scrutiny yet but where it looks like Dems will have to play hard defense is in the 7th. Freshman Rep. Mark Schauer faces a rematch with ex-Rep. Tim Walberg, who is now promoting his own internal poll showing him with 46-37 edge over Schauer. There’s been some establishment skepticism over whether the polarizing Walberg is “electable” enough, which may really be the point of the poll: it also shows attorney Brian Rooney, the supposedly more palatable (but currently less-known) GOPer, trailing Schauer 39-31.

• PA-04: Republicans are banking on former US Attorneys to get them back a few House seats in the Keystone State, and they got one of their desired recruits. Mary Beth Buchanan, one of the chief enforcers among the “loyal Bushies,” has apparently decided that she’ll take on Rep. Jason Altmire in the GOP-leaning 4th in Pittsburgh’s suburbs, and may announce her candidacy later this week.

• WV-01: The NRCC had hoped to put a scare into longtime Democratic incumbent Alan Mollohan, frequently drum-beating his name as a potential retirement. Unfortunately for them, Mollohan has filed his paperwork to seek a 15th term in Congress. (J)

• OH-Lt. Gov: Ted Strickland announced today that he’s tapping ex-Franklin Co. Judge Yvette McGee Brown to be his running mate. Brown is the president of the Center for Child and Family Advocacy, a Columbus organization based at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital. (J)

• Mayors: Another election to keep an eye on is a runoff for Birmingahm’s next mayor. The seat became vacant in October upon the conviction of Larry Langford on corruption charges. Langford and other insiders have endorsed William Bell (who currently holds Langford’s former seat on the county conmission). Naturally, Patrick Cooper is running against Bell on a change platform. The campaign has been full of nasty accusations and innuendo with many glad it’s coming to an end. (T)

• Polltopia: Mark Blumenthal looks at the rapidly reducing cost of polling, and only sees even more of a proliferation of it in the near future as robo-calling gets within the reaches of the masses, even the crazy bloggers. Even Rasmussen is getting into the act, with plans to spin off a new service that will allow anyone to poll on anything for a fee of $600. That leaves Blumenthal wondering how to screen in the future for proper quality and against abuse of time-honored standards.