Tag: NH-Sen

• NY-20 (pdf): This morning’s official tally from the BoE gives Scott Murphy a whopping lead of 268. This new number reflects the addition of all the remaining absentees from Columbia County, where Murphy performed well on Election Day and apparently even better among absentees. There are still 1,200 absentee ballots that haven’t been counted because they were subject to challenge; they’ll be reviewed starting Monday.

Jim Tedisco isn’t waiting around for those ballots, though; he’s already asking the courts to declare him the victor. Wait… what? Isn’t he the one who’s behind? (The Tedisco camp has tried to clarify that they were re-filing a motion that they filed on Election Day, to also have Tedisco declared the winner, as some sort of ‘insurance policy.’ OK, that makes me feel much better.)

• CA-10: BigDust broke the story yesterday in diaries: Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, seeing his gubernatorial campaign sputtering and lured by the siren call of a term-limits-free job, has more-or-less confirmed that the rumors are true and he’s jumping into the 10th District special election, where state senator Mark DeSaulnier had already nailed down the ‘establishment’ candidate mantle. (Unlike other frequent job-hopper Tom McClintock, Garamendi actually has the advantage of living in the district.)

• KY-Sen, SD-Sen: The message can’t get much clearer than this. Mitch McConnell is hosting a fundraiser in the state of Kentucky for his fellow senator… John Thune? That’s right; McConnell would rather help a guy from South Dakota defending a safe seat than help his fellow Kentuckian Jim Bunning, who has already been complaining about how McConnell is sucking up all the fundraising oxygen in the state.

• CT-Sen: Chris Dodd may have raised a million bucks last quarter, but only five donors were from his home state of Connecticut. And before you can say “But what about donations below $200 which don’t require detailed disclosure?”, we’ll just point out that Dodd took in under $2,300 total from that category of donors. Sigh. (D)

On the plus side for Dodd, he got a hearty endorsement and a promise of future help from someone a little more popular than him: Barack Obama. “Chris is going through a rough patch,” says Obama.

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes raised $225K this quarter, which doesn’t seem like a whole lot, does it? (D)

• NJ-Gov: Governor Jon Corzine, facing a tough re-election, has another problem: his gross income last year was negative $2.75 million. You’ve got to assume that his overall net worth (once estimated at $300 million) has taken a much, much larger hit, so that calls into question his willingness, if not ability, to moneybomb the race as he did with his last two runs for office.

• TX-Gov: I never thought I’d have to say this out loud, but Governor Rick Perry may not have a winning issue on his hands when he makes veiled secession threats. A Rasmussen snap-poll finds that 75% of Texans would prefer to remain a part of the USA. 18% prefer secession, and 7% just aren’t sure. Not coincidentally, a similar percentage of the Texas state senate (71%) just voted, 22-9, to ignore Perry and accept the $550 million in federal stimulus money to keep their state unemployment trust fund from going broke.

• Words: Here’s a fun time-suck: a website that lets you create a word cloud for most-used words in a particular day, week, month, or year in the Congressional Record, or for a particular lawmaker.

• 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.

• NY-20: Jim Tedisco has moved into a 12-vote lead as the counties continue to engage in recanvassing of the lever-pull machines, which will continue next week. (Paper ballots are impounded at least until the scheduled court hearing on the 6th.)

In other news, Tedisco stepped down from his role as minority leader in the Assembly today. (That shouldn’t necessarily be seen as a sign of confidence in winning the election; he was facing a no-confidence vote from his caucus.)

• SD-Sen: The 2010 South Dakota senate race isn’t looking very fruitful for Dems, even in the unlikely event we run a top-tier recruit. (If Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin goes for a promotion, at this point she seems more interested in governor.) R2K polls SD for Daily Kos and finds that John Thune runs ahead of both ex-Sen. Tom Daschle, 53-40, and Herseth Sandlin, 51-39. All three have pretty good favorables; South Dakotans just seem to prefer to keep Thune where he is.

• CT-Sen: In the wake of yesterday’s terrible poll, a primary challenger to Chris Dodd has already popped out of the woodwork. Roger Pearson, the former First Selectman of Greenwich, has formed an exploratory committee. He seems little-known outside (or even inside) of Greenwich, but we’ll have to see if he can catch an anti-Dodd wave.

• AL-Gov: Looks like the Democratic primary for Governor is about to get pretty crowded; state Sen. Roger Bedford is now openly mulling a run, and the inside chatter appears that the controversial but powerful northern Alabama legislator is pretty serious about a bid.

Meanwhile, ArturD2 is kvetching like a five year-old over the probable entry of Ag Comm’r Ron Sparks into the race. (J)

• NH-Sen: Despite entreaties from the NRSC, Judd Gregg says he won’t seek re-election. Apparently, he wants to devote all his time to supporting the president’s agenda in the Senate. (D)

• CO-Sen: Appointed senator Michael Bennet pulled in startling fundraising numbers for the 1st quarter, raising $1.37 million. Bennet is facing a paltry field of GOPers so far (with ex-Rep. Bob Beauprez their best bet), so this may actually serve more to cause former state house speaker Andrew Romanoff to think twice about a primary challenge.

• AK-Sen: With charges dropped against Ted Stevens, Alaska GOP chair Rudy Reudrich wants a do-over on last year’s election. Gov. Sarah Palin also endorsed the idea, despite her taking an anti-Stevens stand in the closing weeks of the election. However, Rep. Don Young doesn’t support the idea, saying Mark Begich “will be in the Senate and will do a good job.” (In fact, Young has a totally different idea: Stevens should run for governor in 2010 against Palin.) Stevens’ friends in the Senate also seemed resigned to the election being over.

• RI-Gov: Ex-Sen. Lincoln Chafee seemed to back off a bit from previous statements that he will be running for governor as an independent, saying that he will decide by May whether or not to run, once his current position (teaching at Brown) ends.

• Votes: Yesterday was the big vote in the House on the Obama budget. After a lot of public vacillation, even Joe Cao voted no, joining every other Republican. 20 Democrats voted no; it’s a who’s who of who’s vulnerable (with a few entrenched Blue Dogs joining them): Barrow, Boren, Bright, Childers, Donnelly, Foster, Griffith, Kosmas, Kratovil, Kucinich, Markey, Marshall, Matheson, McIntyre, Minnick, Mitchell, Nye, Perriello, Taylor, and Teague. The only ‘nay’ votes in districts won by Obama were John Barrow (who’s actually been fairly cooperative so far this session), Bill Foster (usually a good guy, but a deficit hawk), and Dennis Kucinich (who assumedly voted against the budget from the left for not containing enough magic ponies). In the Senate, a few hours later, Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson were the only defections.

• NASA: Here’s a guy we’re glad to see land on his feet: Nick Lampson, who used to represent NASA’s Houston-area facilities in TX-22, is now on the short list of potential NASA Administrators. Even Pete Olson, the guy who defeated Lampson, is advocating for Lampson.

• NH-Sen: The scurvy dogs at ARG! take their first reading of the 2010 New Hampshire senate race since Judd Gregg announced his retirement, finding that Rep. Paul Hodes beats ex-Sen. John Sununu 42-36. Hodes leads Sununu 38-31 among independents. (MoE ±4.2%)

• KY-Sen: In the days leading up to 1Q fundraising reports, Jim Bunning has publicly admitted that his fundraising has been “lousy,” although he says “Surprisingly, we’ve had pretty good success the last month.” He’s looking forward to some April fundraisers starring such luminaries as Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, and fellow baseball celeb Tommy Lasorda.

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes is sounding very interested in another try at the governor’s race. Barnes got bounced by Sonny Perdue after one term in 2002, but populist anger plus demographic changes in Georgia may make a Barnes comeback feasible. (Insider Advantage found earlier this month that Barnes would defeat several of the likely GOP candidates.)

• LA-02: Joseph Cao is signaling he may actually break ranks and vote for the Obama budget this week, telling The Hill that his constituents are “split.” (In the sense that they are likely to “split” his head open if he keeps voting the party line.)

• History: Roll Call takes an interesting look back at the spate of special elections during the 1993-1994 session of Congress, and the structural reasons we aren’t likely to see a repeat of the disastrous 1994 election again.

• NH-Sen, NH-01: Carol Shea-Porter has announced she won’t seek the Senate nomination, giving Paul Hodes a clear path and also preventing us the trouble of holding an open seat.

• PA-Sen: Ed Rendell told a local news affiliate that he, Bob Casey Jr., and Joe Biden have all tried to talk Arlen Specter into switching over to the Democratic Party, but he remains “bound and determined to stay a Republican.”

• NH-02: Stonyfield Farms CEO Gary Hirshberg, a possible candidate to replace Paul Hodes, just wrote his first diary at Daily Kos (on coal power). Is he gearing up to take on a higher political profile? (D)

• TN-Gov: Chris Cillizza fingers Mike McWherter, the son of former Gov. Ned McWherter, as the likely Democratic nominee for Tennessee’s gubernatorial election in 2010 according to “informed insiders”. McWherter, a businessman who has never held elected office, considered running for Senate last year, but ultimately decided to keep his powder dry. (J)

• AL-Gov: Alabama’s AG Troy King plans to run for re-election, rather than pursue the governor’s seat as had been rumored. King may not even survive his re-election, though, what with a gambling-related federal investigation.

• CA-Gov: Got a spare $50 million sitting around? Meg Whitman does, and apparently that’s how much she’s willing to spend out-of-pocket on her quest to become the Golden State’s next governor.

• Demography (warning: big pdf): Ruy Teixeira comes through with yet more demographics-as-destiny wizardry. His new report on the state of the nation sees an America that’s no longer a majority white Christian nation within the next ten years (where four-fifths of growth is non-white), where culture war appeals have diminished force, and where the white working class becomes small enough to lose its iconic swing vote status.

The Bassmaster:

Rep. Charlie Bass (R), whom Hodes defeated in 2006 by a 7-point margin, has expressed interest in running for his old seat, but he is also mulling a Senate bid.

“If I feel like people here in New Hampshire are ready for a right-of-center pragmatist, then I’ll consider running,” Bass said.

Bass added that if he runs for his old House seat and wins it, he’ll be able to use his six terms of seniority to return to his work on the Energy and Commerce Committee where, he said, he was “rudely interrupted” by his re-election loss. Nonetheless, Bass cautioned that he would not make a decision for a while, but certainly before the June 2010 filing deadline. (Emphasis added)

I can has seniority back?

• NH-Sen: Oh, darn. Ex-Sen. Bob Smith isn’t planning to run in the GOP primary for Judd Gregg’s open senate seat. He said he prefers to remain a Florida resident.

• OH-Sen: Add a fourth candidate (and, with Tyrone Yates, a second African-American with a less-than-statewide profile) to the mix in the Ohio senate primary: Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones. Last week he told Ohio Daily Blog that he’d be forming an exploratory committee this week. (No telling if that actually happened.)

• OH-02: You may remember David Krikorian, an independent who racked up double-digits in last year’s Schmidt/Wulsin faceoff. He’s announced that he’s going to seek the Democratic nomination for a rerun, as a loud ‘n’ proud Blue Dog.

• IL-05: It’s the last weekend of campaigning before the Mar. 3 primary for the special election to fill Rahm Emanuel’s seat. With 12 candidates and projected low turnout, basically anything can happen. While Emanuel hasn’t endorsed, Politico does observe that there’s a Sara Feigenholtz sign in his yard in Chicago.

• DCCC: Chris Van Hollen announced his 2009-10 chair for candidate recruitment: Rep. Steve Israel (of NY-02). He also announced that Robby Mook, most recently Jeanne Shaheen’s campaign manager, will take over as the DCCC’s political director.

• FEC: This ought to make James’s job a lot easier: Russ Feingold has introduced legislation, widely expected to pass, requiring Senate candidates to electronically file their campaign finance reports with the FEC, the way House candidates already do. Currently, Senate filings are paper-only.

• KY-St Sen.: Here’s a bit of good news that’s a few weeks old that eluded us until now: a Democratic candidate, Mike Reynolds, won the Feb. 11 special election to fill the state senate seat vacated by Republican Brett Guthrie (elected in KY-02 in November). The 32nd, based in Bowling Green, is in a deep red area at the federal level, but apparently still maintains a downballot Dem tradition. The GOP still controls the state senate, 21-16-1.

• NYC: SSP doesn’t usually delve into county-level governance, but this involves one of the legal community’s most legendary members: Bob Morgenthau, the District Attorney of New York County (aka Manhattan), has decided not to go for a 10th term. Currently 89 years old, he’s been in office for 35 years.

• Retread Watch: Yeah, there’s some precedent for this. But isn’t it a little sad that twice-defeated House loser Jeb Bradley is considering a run for New Hampshire state Senate?

This could be truly delightful if it pans out:

Well-placed sources close to former US Senator Bob Smith (R) tell Politics1 that Smith has shifted away from his earlier plan to run for US Senate in Florida, where he has lived for the past few years. Instead, Smith – who has maintained a home in New Hampshire – now plans to return to the Granite State and run for US Senate in the GOP primary next year if former US Senator John Sununu Jr. runs for Judd Gregg’s open seat. One of Smith’s consultants, who asked not too be named, said Smith will emphasize his pro-gun rights, pro-life and pro-environment stances against Sununu. Smith lost for renomination to Sununu in the bitter 2002 primary, so part of Smith’s motiviation for running against Sununu would be to inflict as much political damage as possible on Sununu.

If these sources are telling the truth, then Smith wants to get in purely out of spite – and wants the world to know it. It’s a motive straight out of a Seinfeld episode. Dean Barker explains just how fantastic this could be for Team Blue:

1) Bob Smith, by virtue of what was done to him by Sununu in 2002, is not beholden to the Sununu-Sununu lockdown on the Senate nomination.  So while all the other NHGOPers are not preparing and raising money while they wait for John E. to make up his mind, Smith can walk right in and blow this holding pattern to… smithereens (sorry; couldn’t resist).  This, in turn, gives the green light to others to go in too, despite the first and last name of the NHGOP Chair. “Well, if there’s going to be a primary regardless, etc….”

2) A Smith-Sununu contest would be incredibly confusing on the issues for the right, and has the potential to be very divisive.  Sununu is tied and bound to the Bush years, anti-choice, doesn’t really focus much on guns, and doesn’t believe in anthropogenic climate change.  Smith is not tied to the Bush years, more progressive on environmental issues, but more openly conservative on others, especially social issues like abortion and guns.  Confusing!

More at the link, and some Blue Hampshire commenters worry that this could, perversely, help Sununu. I just don’t see it, especially with New Hampshire’s very late (September) primary. This really could be quite a lot of fun.

Wow:

Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire has withdrawn his nomination to become President Barack Obama’s commerce secretary.

In a statement released by his office, the New Hampshire senator cites “irresolvable conflicts” on issues including the economic stimulus package.

I wonder if these “irresolvable conflicts” included the humiliation of being stripped of authority over the 2010 Census.

So Gregg goes back to the Senate (he never left). Does this mean he’ll run again in 2010? There had been a considerable amount of doubt about that point for a while before his Cabinet nomination, and his initial acceptance of the Cabinet slot seemed to confirm that he was losing interest in his Senate career.

SSP currently rates this race as a Tossup, but we are monitoring Gregg’s re-elections plans closely and will update our ratings if need be.

(Hat-tip: Cheekster)

UPDATE: First Read and the Union Leader both confirm that Gregg won’t run for another term in 2010. (Hat-tips: LeftistAddiction and omarka)

Public Policy Polling (2/6-8, registered voters):

Paul Hodes (D): 40

Charlie Bass (R): 37

Paul Hodes (D): 46

John Sununu (R): 44

Carol Shea-Porter (D): 42

Charlie Bass (R): 43

Carol Shea-Porter (D): 45

John Sununu (R): 46

(MoE: ±2.7%)

While all the matchups tested here by our friends at PPP are well within the margin of error, Hodes starts off the 2010 Senate race in the best shape — indeed, he even has more room to grow than Shea-Porter does. A full 24% of voters have no opinion of Hodes, while only 17% of voters don’t know enough about CSP to give an opinion.

Sununu has near-universal name recognition, which is hardly a surprise given his recent humiliating defeat at the polls, but that suggests that his numbers here may be something of a high water mark. Bass, on the other hand, has the least name recognition of the bunch, and those who do know him don’t seem to care for him all that much — his favorability score clocks in at 33-37. I’d be pretty surprised if the Bassmaster threw his hat into the ring.