Tag: AR-Sen

• CA-32: Congratulations to Judy Chu, who will be the newest member of the House Democrats. She defeated Republican Betty Chu in last night’s special election, by a margin of 62-33, with the balance going to Libertarian Chris Agrella. (It’s a bit of an underperformance in the district, where Obama won 68-30, so I’m wondering if the Chu/Chu confusion actually ate into her share a bit. Or, it could just be a highly unmotivated base on a day when nothing else was on the ballot.)

• AR-Sen: State Senator Kim Hendren, last heard from calling Chuck Schumer “that Jew” when he couldn’t think of his name, had something of a reprise yesterday, referring to African-American federal judge Brian Miller as “this new minority judge.” Don’t confuse Hendren with other GOP candidate Curtis Coleman, who’s the one who thought you should “get shots” before going down to southeast Arkansas.

• IL-Sen: Mark Kirk — who’s had some past problems with the space-time continuum — has pinned down a date for announcing his Senate candidacy: Monday the 20th. Meanwhile, he’s been lunching with his would-be colleagues among the Senate Republicans at their weekly policy luncheon.

• NV-Sen: Both the Nevada GOP and minority leader Mitch McConnell sound more than a little uncomfortable with the idea of John Ensign running for re-election in 2012. Meanwhile, Nevada’s other Senator, Harry Reid, pulled down $3.25 million last quarter, a very large haul indeed for someone who can’t count on mommy and daddy to write him a big check.

• NY-Sen-B: Two more endorsements for Kirsten Gillibrand in the face of a potential primary with Rep. Carolyn Maloney, both of which ought to help her with the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party: Planned Parenthood’s political wing, and, reportedly, Howard Dean himself. Latest fundraising reports point to Gillibrand doubling up on Maloney, both in terms of 2Q results and cash on hand.

• MN-Gov: Dems dodged a bullet in Minnesota: former GOP Rep. Jim Ramstad (of MN-03) announced that he won’t run for governor in 2010, either as a Republican or (as sometimes rumored) for the Independence Party. The likable and generally moderate Ramstad would have been probably the toughest foe the GOP could have put up. (Norm Coleman is better known, of course, but not very well-thought-of anymore, if that recent PPP poll is any indication.)

• NC-Gov: PPP took a look at Bev Perdue’s job approvals halfway through her first year in office, and, well, let’s just say we should be glad she isn’t up for re-election in 2010. Her approvals are now 25-55, down from a high of 44% in March. PPP says that’s the worst individual performance of anyone they’ve polled this year except for Roland Burris!

• CA-47: Shades of Tom McClintock, anybody? GOP Assemblyman Van Tran, who’s running against Loretta Sanchez in the 47th (and had a good fundraising quarter, pulling down $250,000), has just filed the paperwork to run for State Senate in 2012. Considering that the State Senate (and its term limits) can’t really be seen as a promotion from the U.S. House, could this be a sign of how confident Tran is about the future of his challenge to Sanchez?

• FL-10: In the wake of Mike Castle’s tepid fundraising numbers, a similar number leaps out from the Bill Young camp: he only raised $50,155 last quarter (with $437K CoH). Is retirement on the horizon? Of course, his Dem challenger, state Sen. Charlie Justice, hasn’t been burning up the charts either, with an $86K quarter.

• NC-08: Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory is getting his name out there, perhaps while testing the waters for an NC-08 run, CQ observes. He’s joining Americans for Prosperity (a group that’s been linked to the teabagging movement) on their “Patients First Tour” in several North Carolina cities (including a stop in Wingate, which is in the 8th).

• PA-06: No surprise: with Rep. Jim Gerlach officialy out (and in the gubernatorial race), next-in-line state Rep. Curt Schroder officially got in the race to be the GOP nominee in the 6th. On the Dem side, Doug Pike seems to be marching unopposed to the nomination; rather than seeing other Dem candidates jump in now that Gerlach finally hit ‘eject,’ he’s starting to score some endorsements, starting with Rep. Patrick Murphy from the nearby 8th today.

• OH-???: This is kind of strange way to drum up publicity, but former Sen. Mike DeWine has announced that next week he’ll announce his campaign plans for “statewide office,” without specifying which one. Attorney General seems likely, since John Kasich already has a firm grasp on the governor’s race. Does Ohio have a statewide “dogcatcher” position?

• AL-St. House: In a special election last night, Dems lost an open, Dem-held state House seat in the Huntsville area (the same area where they lost a special election for a Dem-held open state Senate seat earlier this year). The seat was open because state Rep. Sue Schmitz was forced to resign because she was convicted of fraud, so this race kind of had a pall over it from the beginning. GOPer Phil Williams beat Dem Jenny Askins 60-39; this cuts the Dem advantage in the House to 61-44.

• AR-Sen: There seems to be a competition among Arkansas Republican Senate candidates to see who can make the biggest ass of himself. It was businessman Curtis Coleman’s turn this time; yesterday, in reference to southeast Arkansas (where most of the state’s African-American population is), he said you “might as well get a visa and shots” before heading down there. Not content to stop digging his own hole, today he explained that what he meant was “accentuate or maybe even celebrate the enormous diversity we have in Arkansas…. I love Southeast Arkansas and meant it only as a metaphor.” Oh, well, if it’s only a metaphor, I guess that makes it OK.

• DE-Sen: After Rep. Mike Castle made an inartful comment a few days ago (“They’ve asked me to run for Senate as a Republican. I don’t know if I’m going to do that.”), he went ahead and clarified that he isn’t intending to switch parties.

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio picked up a potentially useful endorsement in the GOP Senate primary: Rep. Jeff Miller, who represents FL-01 in the dark-red Panhandle, an area of the state where Rubio is little known so far but where his hard-right conservatism is likely to play well. Miller endorsed Charlie Crist in the 2006 governor’s primary.

• MO-Sen: Here’s another minor tea leaf that former Treasurer Sarah Steelman won’t be getting into the Senate primary: prominent Missouri political operative Gregg Keller, who was reportedly set to work for Steelman, instead went to Connecticut to manage Tom Foley’s CT-Sen campaign.

• NC-Sen: Here’s some good news out of North Carolina: former state Senator and Iraq vet Cal Cunningham seems to be moving to get into the Senate race for the Dems. Cunningham described his efforts to put together a campaign in a post to his Facebook supporters group.

• NH-Sen: With establishment figures dithering on whether to get into the GOP Senate primary, businessman Fred Tausch is jumping into the void, launching a TV spot promoting his fiscal-discipline advocacy group, STEWARD of Prosperity. He says he’s interested in the Senate race, although not ready to publicly declare.

• VT-Sen: It wasn’t a done deal that 69-year-old Pat Leahy would be back for another term in the Senate, but he confirmed yesterday he’ll be back for a seventh term.

• AZ-Gov: Former Democratic state party chair and 2006 Senate candidate Jim Pederson said today that he won’t run for Arizona governor, despite earlier statements of his interest. This leaves AG Terry Goddard (who has said he “intends” to run) with a pretty clear shot at the Dem nomination; it remains unclear if Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, armpit-deep in a frustrating fight with her GOP-held legislature, will run for a full term.

• CA-Gov: Rep. Loretta Sanchez announced she won’t be running for Governor but will seek another term in the House; she naturally became a topic of conversation with LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s exit from the race, leaving the Dem field without a SoCal, Hispanic, or female candidate. On the GOP side, Rep. John Campbell’s defection from the Steve Poizner camp to the Meg Whitman camp was just the tip of the iceberg: three state legislators and a county chair just flipped.

• SC-Gov: State Rep. Nikki Haley has been the subject of breathless conservative hype over the past few months as the anti-spending candidate to replace Mark Sanford (and also Sanford’s preferred choice for the job, if you read the tea leaves). See this pre-Sanford-implosion Politico piece from earlier this week to see what I mean. But with revelations that Sanford hasn’t been able to keep it in his pants or on this continent (a snap SUSA poll finds 60% of state residents think he should resign, with only 34% saying stay in office), Haley has moved to distance herself from Sanford, scrubbing all traces of him from her website where he was once prominently featured. (J)

• UT-Gov: Soon-to-be Gov. Gary Herbert looks like he won’t have a free ride at the nominating convention in the 2010 special election. Univ. of Utah professor Kirk Jowers, who reportedly had been offered the role as Herbert’s Lt. Gov., is the subject of a draft movement and may challenge Herbert for the top job instead — with Josh Romney (son of Mitt) as his LG. Rep. Jason Chaffetz appears to be in their corner.

• ID-01: Idaho pollster Greg Smith tested the approvals of local politicians, and Idahoans just like their politicians, gosh darn it, even that Demmycrat Walt Minnick (whose approval is 47/20, good news heading into a potentially very tough re-election). Governor Butch Otter has the most troublesome numbers, and even he’s at 47/35.

• IL-07: Here’s a potential open seat, although at D+35, not one we’re going to have to sweat very hard. Rep. Danny Davis, who had been vaguely associated with the IL-Sen primary, now looks to be taking concrete steps toward running for President of the Cook County Board, forming an exploratory committee. Davis was runner-up in that race three years ago. This time, he says he has a poll giving him a 7-point lead over county commissioner Forrest Claypool, who was presumptive frontrunner but pulled out of the race last week. With over 5 million constituents, it seems like a pretty good gig.

• NY-23: New York county Democratic leaders set an initial timeline for finding a nominee for the upcoming special election to replace Rep. John McHugh. July 17 is the deadline for declaring interest.

• PA-03: With no GOPer left to challenge freshman Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, Elaine Surma formed an exploratory committee to consider a bid. With no elective track record, she’s a senior agent with the state Attorney General’s office.

• PA-15: Bethlehem mayor John Callahan’s seeming change of heart about running against Rep. Charlie Dent comes after having been called by Joe Biden last week with promises of White House support in the race.

• VA-02, VA-05: Roll Call looks at the prospects for the Virginia freshmen. Ex-Rep. Virgil Goode is apparently close to making a decision on whether to try to wrest the 5th back from Rep. Tom Perriello, with state Del. Rob Bell or state Sen. Rob Hurt as backup plans. In the 2nd, none of the local elected GOP officials seem to be moving toward the race, and the GOP field is more a hodge-podge of various businessmen/veterans: Chuck Smith, Ed Maulbeck, Ben Loyola, and possibly Scott Rigell.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• AR-Sen: The leader of Arkansas teabaggers’ movement, Tom Cox, has decided that he’ll run for the GOP nomination for Senate to run against Blanche Lincoln. Cox is the owner of Aloha Pontoon Boats, where he had a little trouble last year with a federal raid turned up 13 illegal immigrants working for him… which doesn’t sound like it’ll play well with his ideal base voters. In the primary, he’ll face off against an anti-semitic state senator and some Huckabee buddy who owns a food safety company.

• FL-Sen: The movement conservatives continue to square off against the establishment in the GOP Florida Senate primary. Jim DeMint, probably the most conservative senator by most metrics and with a sizable grass roots following, just endorsed Marco Rubio.

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk still refuses to say what exactly he’s doing, but he promises that he’s raising money “for a big campaign.” (His last few House races have been big-money affairs, so who knows what that means?)

• KS-Sen: Dems seem to be moving closer to actually having a candidate in the Kansas Senate race: former newspaper editor Charles Schollenberger, who formed an exploratory committee.

• KY-Sen: State Senate President David Williams had publicly contemplated getting into the GOP primary against Jim Bunning, even meeting with the NRSC, but he said yesterday that he won’t run. He refused to officially endorse anybody, but said he was most excited about philanthropist and former ambassador Cathy Bailey among the possible candidates.

• NY-Sen-B: Rep. Carolyn Maloney has set a July 4th deadline for deciding whether or not to run in the Senate primary. Meanwhile, Kirsten Gillibrand picked up two endorsement from groups with a lot of on-the-ground firepower: New York State United Teachers and (cue the Phase 5 wingnut freakout) ACORN. Rep. Peter King, on the GOP side, set his own deadline, saying he’ll decide whether or not to run by Labor Day. Also today is word that Barack Obama had King in his sights as he cut a swath through Northeast Republicans by offering him a job — in his case, ambassador to Ireland, which King declined.

• PA-Sen: Looks like that Act of God never happened, because Rep. Joe Sestak is actively staffing up for a Senate primary challenge to Arlen Specter.

• WV-Sen: With 91-year-old Robert Byrd having been in the hospital for nearly a month now and not planning an immediate return to the Senate, there have been some behind-the-scenes discussions of what happens if he can’t return to office. West Virginia state Democratic party chair Nick Casey is seen as the consensus choice to serve as placeholder until the 2010 election, if need be.

• AZ-Gov: This can’t be helping Jan Brewer (the Republican SoS who ascended to the governor’s mansion to replace Janet Napolitano) as she considers whether or not to run for a full term: she’s in a standoff with her Republican-controlled legislature over the budget, almost single-handedly leaving the state on track to a government shutdown.

• FL-Gov: David Hill, a top GOP pollster in Florida, is leery about the chances for AG Bill McCollum (who’s already lost statewide twice, and now is trying to transparently reboot himself as a Charlie Crist-style moderate) in the gubernatorial election. He says he’s been actively encouraging state Senator Paula Dockery to follow through on jumping into the primary.

• KS-Gov: Sen. Sam Brownback got some good news: SoS Ron Thornburgh decided to get out of the GOP primary, leaving Brownback a clear path. (Not that Thornburgh was going to pose much of a threat, which is why he got out.) And finally a Democratic state Senator, Chris Steineger, seems to be getting into the race for Team Blue — although he sounds like a bit of a loose cannon, having pissed off most of the state party establishment at various points.

• MI-Gov: George Perles, the 75-year-old former football coach at Michigan State and currently an MSU trustee (which is a statewide elected position) announced that he’s running for the Democratic nomination. He joins Lt. Gov. John Cherry in the field, who seems to have most of the establishment backing so far.

• MN-Gov: Contrary to earlier reports, Rep. Michele Bachmann hasn’t quite ruled out a bid for Governor in 2010, what with Tim Pawlenty stepping down. She expresses her ambivalence with some nice Harlequin romance novel phrasing: “If my heart moved in the other direction and I had the tug, I’d do it. I wouldn’t be afraid to run for office. I just don’t feel the tug.”

• NV-Gov: Another GOPer is sniffing out the governor’s race (kind of a no-brainer, given the world of shit Jim Gibbons is in): Reno mayor Bob Cashell, who was last seen endorsing Harry Reid a few weeks ago. Of course, there’s the risk that if too many credible GOP challengers get in, Gibbons has a better shot at surviving the primary via a badly split vote… although facing a wounded Gibbons in the general would probably be the best scenario for the Dems.

Blanche Lincoln catches a break:

Former interim U.S. Attorney and Karl Rove aide Tim Griffin says he’s no longer considering running for the Republican nomination to challenge Sen. Blanche Lincoln next year.

Griffin said Sunday that he’s focused on his other responsibilities, including his service in the U.S. Army Reserves’ Judge Advocate General’s Corps as a major. Griffin told The Associated Press that he thinks Lincoln, a Democrat seeking a third term, is still vulnerable and will keep a close eye on the race.

Who knows what “keep a close eye on the race means” – maybe he’d let himself be dragged back into it in the future. But for now, at least, Griffin is laying down his arms. And it’s a good thing for us, too, as the lone poll of this race showed him quite competitive with the incumbent Lincoln. Griffin has all sorts of baggage, as a Rove acolyte who was at the epicenter of the Alberto Gonzalez-US Attorney scandal – but still, we’re better off without him in our faces, since the GOP bench is otherwise not terribly strong:

State Sen. Kim Hendren, as one Republican operative recently put it, “that Jewed” himself out of the race with his completely inappropriate reference to Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. State Sen. Gilbert Baker has yet to make up his mind. That leaves Curtis Coleman, the Little Rock biotech executive, who recently formed an exploratory committee. He’s the only candidate inching toward the race.

Lincoln may get very lucky in the end.

• LA-Sen: David Vitter may get a serious primary challenger after all (Family Research Council honcho Tony Perkins and ex-Rep. John Cooksey have declined, and SoS Jay Dardenne has been laying low). It’s someone we haven’t seen in a while, though: former state Elections commissioner Suzanne Haik Terrell, who let her interest be known last week. Terrell’s last appearance in the spotlight was the 2002 Senate race, where she lost narrowly to Mary Landrieu. Terrell is the only Republican woman to have ever held office in Louisiana.

• NY-Sen-B: Like a giant game of Whack-a-mole, Kirsten Gillibrand jammed a couple potential primary challengers back into their holes last week, but now a new one popped up: Rep. Jose Serrano. The Bronx-based Serrano might be able to make a lot of hay out of the immigration issue, but he may not have the cash to make a race of it (although as an Appropriations cardinal, he’s well-connected). Meanwhile, Gillibrand nailed down endorsements from three other Reps. — John Hall, Mike Arcuri, and Scott Murphy — as well as Nassau County Dem party chair Jay Jacobs (important because he has a lot of sway over Rep. Carolyn McCarthy).

• PA-Sen: Roll Call tried to pin down the Democratic House members from Pennsylvania on whether or not they’d endorse Arlen Specter in a potential Democratic primary with Rep. Joe Sestak. Interestingly, PA’s most liberal Dem, Chaka Fattah, was probably the most enthusiastic and unconditional endorser of Specter, while its most conservative Dem, Jason Altmire, was most reluctant to offer an endorsement one way or the other, although more out of admiration for Sestak than on ideological grounds. Tim Holden also endorsed Specter and Bob Brady came as close as possible to it, while Patrick Murphy took a “wait and see” attitude and the others simply punted the question.

• AR-Sen: State Senator Kim Hendren (having recently shot himself in the foot by calling Charles Schumer “that Jew”) is now vacillating and may not run in the GOP Senate primary after all, despite having announced his candidacy.

• IL-Sen: Here’s some confirmation on what we speculated last week: Rep. Mark Kirk isn’t lost in space; he’s just deferring any decisions on the Senate race because he’s waiting to see what AG Lisa Madigan does. He reportedly won’t run for Senate if Madigan does.

• FL-Gov: Ag Commissioner Charles Bronson will announce today that he won’t run for the open governor’s seat, leaving an unimpeded path to the GOP nomination for AG Bill McCollum. Bronson is term-limited out of his job in 2010 and looking to move up, but couldn’t buck the pressure from state chair Jim Greer — I mean, the guy doesn’t have a Death Wish.

• CO-Gov: Ex-Rep. Scott McInnis officially filed yesterday to enter the Colorado governor’s race, amidst sniping that he started soliciting funds before filing his campaign paperwork. State Senate minority leader Josh Penry also launched into an oblique attack on McInnis, suggesting he might be interested in a primary battle.

• CA-Gov: Dianne Feinstein, occasionally rumored to be interested in what has to be the least desirable job in America (California governor), has said that she “might” run for governor next year, depending on her assessment of the other candidates’ plans for dealing with California’s seemingly perpetual budget crisis. Polls that have included Feinstein have shown her dominating the race if she got in.

• IL-13: 71-year-old Rep. Judy Biggert just confirmed that she’ll be running for re-election in 2010, despite a return engagement with Scott Harper, who held her to 54%, and the district’s shift to only R+1. (Of course, her inclusion in the first round of 10 in the NRCC’s Patriots program Tuesday showed her hand already.)

• AL-02: Republicans have at least one candidate lined up to go against Rep. Bobby Bright as he seeks his first re-election in this R+16 district: 32-year-old Montgomery city councilor and attorney Martha Roby. GOP State Rep. Jay Love, who narrowly lost to Bright last time, may also try again.

• MI-13: Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, who narrowly won a 3-way primary in 2008, may have to face off against both of the same challengers again in 2010: state Sen. Martha Scott and former state Rep. Mary Waters. Former interim mayor Ken Cockrel also is mentioned as interested. Kilpatrick may be less vulnerable in 2010, though, as the brouhaha surrounding her son (former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick) recedes in the distance.

• Maps: Here’s another interesting map for the geography nerds out there. It’s a map of which party controls all the state House seats throughout the South. (It’s a lot bluer than you might initially think.)

• PA-Sen: It looks like the threat of a primary from the left may be having some of the desired effect on Arlen Specter. He’s engaged in negotiations on a compromise version of EFCA, and said yesterday that “prospects are pretty good” for such a bill (although it remains unclear what exactly would get cut from the bill).

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand will receive an important endorsement tomorrow: from NARAL. This may help solidify Gillibrand’s pro-choice credentials in the face of possible Senate primary challenges from Reps. Steve Israel or Carolyn Maloney.

• DE-Sen: Rep. Mike Castle, the one guy who can make the open Delaware Senate race interesting, isn’t promising anything right now. Castle set a decision-making deadline of “the next two months,” though. (Unclear whether that’s two real months or two Mark Kirk months.)

• AR-Sen: In the wake of state Senator Kim Hendren’s comments about Chuck Schumer yesterday, a more competent sounding Republican has surfaced to take on Sen. Blanche Lincoln. Curtis Coleman, the CEO of SafeFoods (a “food-safety services company,” whatever that is) and a close friend of Mike Huckabee, announced formation of his exploratory committee this week. Former US Attorney and Rove protege Tim Griffin may also get in; he’s announced a June 1 deadline for deciding.

• KY-Sen: Rand Paul, the son of Rep. Ron Paul, moved one step closer to running in the Republican Senate primary (theoretically against Jim Bunning), launching his exploratory committee.

• NY-Gov: Observers are noting that Rudy Giuliani is definitely not looking like a candidate for next year’s gubernatorial race. The tipoff is the recent departure of at least three key staff members, including former chief of staff Tony Carbonetti.

• MN-Gov: This should be something of a red flag to Tim Pawlenty: 57% of Minnesotans, according to SurveyUSA, don’t want him to run for a third term as Governor. A lost gubernatorial race would basically doom his 2012 presidential aspirations, so this may up the chances of an open seat instead.

• KS-Gov: New Democratic Governor Mark Parkinson appointed a new Lt. Gov., Troy Findley. Unfortunately, Findley promptly announced that, like Parkinson, he won’t be running for Governor in 2010, leaving Kansas Democrats with bare shelves in both the open senate and governor’s races.

• CA-36: Earlier this week, Marcy Winograd (who got 38% of the vote against Jane Harman in the 2006 Democratic primary) officially kicked off her campaign for a rematch.

• Gay marriage: We’re on the precipice of gay marriage in one more state, as New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch confirmed that he was willing to sign it into law. One catch: Lynch wants a slightly different bill, that includes additional language stating that churches aren’t compelled to marry anyone they don’t want. The legislature is expected to move quickly to add the new language.

• Demographics: Hispanics and Asians are still the fastest-growing groups in America, but their growth rates have slowed down in recent years as the economic downturn has cut into immigration. In particular, Hispanic growth in the Southeast slowed down. This pushes back projections of when the U.S. becomes a minority-majority country, to the 2040s. In other census news, Orange County, Florida (Orlando) became a minority-majority county in the last year (good news for Alan Grayson as he attempts to hold FL-08).

• Redistricting: Utah has an initiative on the table for the 2010 election, proposing an independent redistricting commission (instead of letting the overwhelmingly GOP legislature draw the boundaries). Interestingly, the idea just got a prominent Republican backer: former 11-term Rep. Jim Hansen.

• NJ-Gov: Believe it or not, we’re in the home stretch heading toward the June 2 primary in the New Jersey governor’s race, and Rasmussen takes a quick look at the GOP primary field. US Attorney Chris Christie leads former Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan 39-29, with 3% voting for someone else and 29% still undecided. That’s a lot of undecideds with just a few weeks to go, and I have no way of knowing whether they’d tend to break for the better-known establishment figure of Christie, or the anti-tax raging of Lonegan.

• TX-Sen: The last thing John Cornyn wants is a special election on his watch at the NRSC, but he may get one anyway. Despite his pressure on fellow Texan Kay Bailey Hutchison to remain in place while she runs for Governor, Cornyn is now publicly warning to expect her resignation “this fall sometime.”

• PA-Sen: Seems like the GOP is going through its whole Rolodex looking for someone more normal than Pat Toomey to run in the Pennsylvania primary. Two of the more moderate members of the Keystone State’s House delegation, Charlie Dent and Todd Platts, felt compelled to announce today that they won’t be running. Dent, in fact, endorsed Toomey, the previous holder of PA-15 (making him the first PA House GOPer to endorse Toomey).

• AR-Sen: State Senator Kim Hendren, the GOP’s only candidate so far against Blanche Lincoln (and they may want to keep looking…), has been in politics a long time (one claim to fame is that he lost a gubernatorial race to Bill Clinton). But now he actually seems to be caught in a timewarp from a different century. Today he’s trying to walk back having called Chuck Schumer “that Jew” (and, in doing so, tried using The Andy Griffith Show by way of explaining himself).

• IL-Sen: Speaking of shifts in the space-time continuum, Mark Tiberius Kirk’s end-of-April deadline on announcing his Senate plans has seemingly disappeared into a wormhole, while the GOP waits impatiently for him to emerge at the other end. (No backup date for a decision has been set.) A likely explanation is that he’s waiting to see what Lisa Madigan does, and he may meekly go wherever she doesn’t.

• SC-Gov: Who would’ve guessed that the South Carolina governor’s race would be one of 2010’s hottest tickets? Two more GOPers are trying to hop onto that ride: state Senator Larry Grooms, who officially launched a campaign, and state Rep. Nikki Haley, who now says she’s considering it. (Haley is a young rising star who’s a close ally of Mark Sanford and the hardcore anti-taxers.) They’d join Rep. Gresham Barrett and professor Brent Nelsen, as well as likely candidates Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer and AG Henry McMaster, in the hunt for the GOP nod.

• NC-08: Freshman Rep. Larry Kissell has drawn a potential opponent with no previous political background, but very high name rec: Mike Minter, who was safety for the Carolina Panthers for 10 years until recently retiring. Kissell handily beat incumbent Rep. Robin Hayes in 2008 in this now R+2 district, but Minter, who’s still scoping out the race, is well-connected in the local megachurch community and could also eat into Kissell’s African-American support. Minter is apparently looking with Hayes’ encouragement, suggesting that the 10-year Congressman is looking to spend more time with his money instead of seeking out a rematch.

• NRSC: Here’s a double shot of John Cornyn news: in another one of his occasional reality-based moments, Cornyn slapped down strange remarks by his NRCC counterpart, Rep. Pete Sessions, alleging that Barack Obama is intentionally sabotaging the American economy. When asked if he was comfortable with Sessions still leading the NRCC, Cornyn equivocated, deferring the judgment of the House Republicans on the matter. (Because “judgment” and “House Republicans” always go together so well.)

• DNC/RNC: The RNC seems to win the fundraising month for March, in a bit of a split decision. The DNC reported $7.57 million in contributions last month, while the RNC pulled in $6.7 million. However, $2 million of those Democratic dollars were transferred from the Obama campaign. More ominously, the RNC is sitting on $23.9 million cash on hand and no debt, while the DNC has $9.7 million cash on hand and $6.9 million in debt.

• IL-Sen: Hot on the heels of his $845 fundraising quarter, the new Rasmussen poll shows Roland Burris might want to make some post-2010 plans. 4% of respondents say they will “definitely” vote for him and 54% will vote against, with 39% saying it depends on who’s running. 62% think he should resign, with 24% believing he should remain in the Senate. (The poll doesn’t test Burris in any head-to-heads.) The poll also finds Jesse Jackson Jr. looking badly tarnished in the wake of the Blagojevich implosion: his favorables are now 32-63. One other tidbit that makes Lisa Madigan’s job harder if she runs for IL-Gov: Pat Quinn’s job approval is a surprisingly high 61-37.

• AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln has drawn at least one legitimate challenger for 2010: state senate minority leader Kim Hendren has announced his candidacy. Hendren has self-funding abilities and a strong base in northwest Arkansas (the traditionally Republican part of the state), which at least gives him a leg up in the primary. Hendren, however, is old (71)… old enough that one claim to fame is that he lost a race to Bill Clinton (the 1982 gubernatorial primary, when Hendren was still a Democrat)… and promising to serve only one term. Lincoln defeated state senators in both her 1998 and 2004 bids.

• NV-Sen, NV-02: GOP Rep. Dean Heller says that “his plan today” is to run for re-election, but he’s also refusing to rule out a run against Handsome Harry Reid. (J)

• IL-14: After getting their pants kicked in by Democrat Bill Foster in two consecutive elections, the Illinois GOP may turn to the Name You Know in 2010 — Dennis Hastert’s son, Ethan. 31 year-old Ethan Hastert, a Chicagoland attorney, says that he’s “exploring” a run for his dad’s old seat, and is already polling his name against Foster in a trial poll. Ethan’s previous claim to fame: serving as assistant to Lewis “Scooter” Libby. (J)

• FL-05: Jim Piccillo will be challenging Ginny Brown-Waite in this light-red district. Piccillo has an interesting backstory: no previous political experience, and was a Republican until last year when he was driven away by the tenor of the campaign, but the recipient of a lot of media exposure after being profiled by the NYT in a feature on Florida Republicans abandoning the party. At least he sounds better than this guy.

• DE-AL, FL-10: Our top-shelf Democratic recruits have launched new websites: John Carney and Charlie Justice. (D)

• Polltopia: Our friends at Public Policy Polling are once again letting readers decide which Senate race they’ll poll next. The choices: Georgia, Illinois, and Oklahoma. Get busy voting and then tell us which race you picked in the comments. (J)

• NJ-Gov: The latest poll of the New Jersey governor’s race shows that things aren’t getting any worse for Jon Corzine, but he is settling into a deep rut. Fairleigh Dickinson finds that he loses 42-33 to Chris Christie, the same 9-pt margin as their previous poll one month ago (41-32). Corzine’s approval rating is 40/49, and he beats even nuttier GOPer Steve Lonegan by only 37-36. There is some good news, though: he’d still win in a Democratic primary, if for some reason senate president Richard Codey or Newark mayor Corey Booker challenged him.

Could An incumbent Democratic governor of New Jersey come back after trailing by double digits in the polls for most of the campaign? It happened once before, when Gov. Brendan Byrne beat Republican Raymond Bateman, despite being down as much as twelve points in September of 1977. “Hopeful” at Blue Jersey does some excellent digging through the archives to tell Byrne’s story. (D)

• VA-Gov: National politics just injected itself into the Virginia governor’s race in a big way, as the GOP-held House of Delegates rejected $125 million in federal stimulus funds that would have extended unemployment benefits. Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell supported his party’s callous move.

• AK-Sen: Ted Stevens just filed his exploratory paperwork to get his old job back, by running for senator in 2014 (when he’ll be 91). Don’t actually expect to see Ted 2.0, though; his spokesman says it’s just a receptacle to receive donations that came in after the November election.

• FL-Sen, NH-Sen: In other unlikely comeback news, though, this one appears to be for real: Bob Smith, the former senator from New Hampshire, has filed the paperwork to run for Senate again… in Florida, where he now lives. This seems odd, since there are political titans jostling for the Florida nomination while the New Hampshire nomination still seems to be pretty much free for the asking. (As an indication of how far down the totem pole the NH GOP is looking, Ovide Lamontagne, last seen losing the 1996 gubernatorial race, is now eyeing NH-Sen.)

• AR-Sen: Mediocre polling and pressure on EFCA seem to have gotten Blanche Lincoln worried, but she may be able to breathe a little easier after her first quarter fundraising haul: $1.7 million, with $1 million of that coming at a campaign kickoff event headlined by Joe Biden.

• MI-Gov: Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson has announced that he won’t seek the GOP nomination for the governor’s race next year. Patterson narrowly led the primary field in a recent poll, so that leaves a wide-open field with a possible advantage to 2nd-place finisher Rep. Pete Hoekstra.

• TN-Gov: State senator Roy Herron entered the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, joining former state house majority leader Kim McMillan and Nashville businessman Ward Cammack. Mike McWherter, son of former governor Ned McWherter, also seems a likely candidate.

• PA-06: We have at least a warm body lined up in PA-06: Doug Pike, who hasn’t held elected office but wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer for a number of years, was an aide to Paul Tsongas, and is the son of Rep. Otis Pike (of New York). A better-known candidate may still crop up, especially if Rep. Jim Gerlach follows through on his likely plans to bail on his increasingly-Democratic seat (Obama won 58-41) and run for Pennsylvania governor instead.