Tag: NM-Sen

Senate:

• MT-Sen: TPM’s headline says it all: “23rd Richest Member Of Congress: I’m ‘Struggling Like Everyone Else.'” Those words were indeed uttered by Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg, who is worth anywhere from $6,598,014 and $56,244,998. It’s not quite Fred Heineman, but it’s not exactly far off, either.

• NM-Sen (PDF): Republican robo-pollster Magellan has a new survey out for the GOP primary. They find ex-Rep. Heather Wilson at 59, Lt. Gov. John Sanchez at 17, teabagging businessman Greg Sowards at 2, 11 other and 11 undecided. The supposedly RINO Wilson has what seems like preposterously good favorables, 84-12, among members of her own party. The linked PDF has faves for a whole host of other candidates, including some who weren’t tested in the head-to-heads.

• NV-Sen: Joe Trippi’s really becoming the go-to guy for rich vanity candidates whom no one wants to see run, isn’t he? Fresh off the vomit-caked Jeff Greene debacle, Trippi’s been hired by wealthy lawyer Byron Georgiou, who so far as refused entreaties to clear a path for Rep. Shelley Berkley. Georgiou’s also arranged to bring on Dan Hart, a local consultant, and pollster Paul Maslin (as in Fairbank Maslin).

• WA-Sen, WA-Gov: Republican Rep. Dave Reichert suggested back in January that he might be thinking about a gubernatorial run, something he affirmed in a recent interview with a local tv station. What seems to be new is that he says he’s also thinking about a run against Sen. Maria Cantwell. I can’t imagine that working out well for him, and he’s also quoted as saying that the “hardest part” of adjusting to life in DC was “getting used to sitting on the airplane.” If he’s still grumbling about those transcontinental flights all these years later, then it sounds to me like he’d prefer the governor’s mansion to the Senate.

Gubernatorial:

• WV-Gov: Rick Thompson has a new spot specifically noting that “across the country, the rights of workers are under attack” – and promising that he’ll “stand up for workers” in West Virginia.

House:

• NH-01: Joanne Dowdell, who is described as a “Portsmouth businesswoman” and has had some involvement in national Dem politics (she was a DNC committeewoman), says she plans to go up against ex-Rep. Carol Shea-Porter in the Democratic primary. It sounds like her politics, by her own admission, are pretty similar to CSP’s, so I’m not really sure what the point of this is.

• NV-02: Gov. Brian Sandoval has set Sept. 13 as the date for the special election to replace Rep. Dean Heller. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Ross Miller will announce the rules for the special at a press conference later today. Oh, and Sharron Angle’s sent out a fundraising email (decrying the “left wing of the Republican Party”), so she’s obviously hoping Miller’s framework leaves the door open for her.

• NY-13: The New Yorker has just about the most fearsome fact-checking department in the English-speaking world, so if you’re going to call them liars, you’re probably going to get your ass handed to you. That’s exactly what’s happening to Rep. Mike Grimm, who called Evan Ratliff’s piece on his FBI days “fiction,” “a witch hunt,” and “a hatchet job.” Ratliff has responded, and in so doing nailed Grimm on a few mistruths of his own. I don’t know that this whole saga is going to have a huge impact in Grimm’s district (I think the Ryan vote is a much bigger deal), but there are still a lot of documents we haven’t seen. We may never see them, but they still loom out there like a sword of Damocles.

• NY-26: New ads from Jane Corwin and Crazy Jack Davis. Corwin’s touts her record on creating jobs, while Davis goes on a rampage, talking directly to the camera about how both parties give bailouts to Wall Street, but he “can’t be bought.” NWOTSOTB in both cases. Meanwhile, NARAL is endorsing Dem Kathy Hochul, but also no word as yet if money will follow.

Other Races:

• Wisconsin Recall: A local judge agreed with the Government Accountability Board that eight recall elections (so not including one for GOPer Rob Cowles) could get consolidated on July 12. Democrats had asked that the recalls against Dan Kapanke and Randy Hopper be certified right away, since those petitions were turned in first, and they’re the two most-vulnerable Republicans, but the request was denied. Things may still get delayed if there are petition challenges, which are all but certain – indeed, Dems have already discovered the signature of a Democratic state Rep.’s long-dead father on one. (Republicans amusingly accused Democrats of planting the sig.)

The Journal Sentinel also has a look at state Assembly members who may run in these recalls, on both the Republican and Democratic sides. It’s a tempting proposition because it’s a free shot: These folks don’t have to give up their current seats in order to run. Some of these names have already announced, while others are still considering. And finally, WisPolitics has a roundup of fundraising numbers for all the recall targets.

Grab Bag:

• Dark Money: Democrats have finally followed the GOP’s lead and decided to create organizations to counter Karl Rove’s American Crossroads/Crossroads GPS. Former Obama aide Bill Burton and former Rahm Emanuel aide Sean Sweeney will head up “Priorities USA” and “Priorities USA Action,” with a goal of raising $100 million to help President Obama. These groups will be allowed to take in unlimited undisclosed donations. No word yet if they also plan on getting involved downballot.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Colorado: Election lawyers out west looking for work now have at least one redistricting battle they can probably look forward to. Steam is coming out of Republican ears now that they’ve seen the Dems’ new map, and I can’t imagine any sort of compromise taking place now. The map the Democrats are going with is one that they’ve released before, called “City Integrity 4”; you can find a PDF of the bill as formally introduced before the legislature here.

• Missouri: Finally, the Dems do something right in redistricting: Gov. Jay Nixon just vetoed the legislature’s last-minute compromise map, almost right after it landed on his desk. The CW said Nixon would wait until the very end of the legislative session to veto, to make an over-ride that much more difficult (or possibly push it into September), but it looks like Nixon chose instead to look publicly magnanimous. He’s asked the GOP to send him a new map before the session ends, which makes him look gracious. I suspect that he also knows they can’t over-ride, and his veto letter offered no specific complaints about the map, so he’s cleverly made it impossible for the Republicans to satisfy him.

The GOP could try to make Nixon look bad by forcing a second veto, but given how difficult it was to hammer out a deal between the House and Senate, I think they’d have a hard time sending him a map that looked any different from the one he just axed. So it would look like silly gamesmanship if they tried to put forward the exact same plan. (That didn’t exactly work out for Dick Saslaw in Virginia.) As long as the over-ride fails and Nixon sticks to his guns, this map will end up in court, which would count as a big win for Team Blue.

• Mississippi: I have to say, I never imagined this would work – but here we are. A three-judge federal court says they are “inclined” to agree with Democrats and the NAACP that state legislative elections should be held this year under maps that were approved in each chamber but not the other (and hence never signed into law), in order to correct serious one-person, one-vote imbalances. The court could still choose to allow elections under current lines, or draw its own map, but this seems to be the path of least resistance. Note that in VRA cases which go before three-judge trial court panels, appeals are taken directly to the Supreme Court – and the SCOTUS must rule on the case (they can’t kick it by declining certiorari), which is a real legal rarity.

• Nevada: Nevada Democrats have released their congressional map, but we can’t seem to find a copy of it online. If you see it anywhere, please let us know in comments.

• Virginia: Well, it’s a done deal. Gov. Bob McDonnell signed the new legislative maps into law. (You can see them here.) Now we move on to the congressional map. The GOP could (and I guess will) probably try to wait until 2012 to do that, since they’ll have a chance at re-taking the state Senate this fall. My view is that Democrats would be idiots to compromise and should take their chances with the voters this fall so that they can kick the map-making to the courts next year. Even if we get rocked this year, what’s the worst the Republicans can do to us? Draw an 8-3 map? That’s the only “compromise” they’ll accept now anyway, and even that might not pass VRA muster. So there’s no reason not to wait.

Site News:

• REMINDER! We’re moving over to Daily Kos Elections tomorrow, Tuesday, so bookmark our new home and be sure to create an account immediately, since there’s a 24-hour waiting period before you can post comments. Full details on the move here.

Senate:

• FL-Sen: It’s official: Former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, who filed paperwork last week, formally joined the GOP Senate field yesterday, making his announcement on right-wing radio host Mark Levin’s show. Despite his establishment pedigree, Hasner has endeared himself to movement conservatives, hitting almost all of the right notes in what I call “Tribal Clef” – like so, but when you sing just the right tune to please the teabaggers. He was for Marco Rubio before it was cool, likes to hate on Muslims, and tried to push a state constitutional amendment that would let Florida “opt out” of card check should the Employee Free Choice Act ever pass. One odd thing, though, is his support for electric cars, something that Rush Limbaugh likes to mock as some liberal attempt at social engineering.

• MA-Sen: Activist Bob Massie has hired one-time Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi. Trippi was once a netroots icon but really fell out of favor after he went to run the Senate campaign of zillionaire asshole Jeff Greene in Florida last year.

• ME-Sen: One possible Dem name we hadn’t yet heard of as a possible challenger to Sen. Olympia Snow is state Sen. Phil Bartlett. Bartlett is just 32 years old, but will already be term-limited next year. (Maine seems to have a lot of very young legislators!) In the classic formulation, he says he’s “not ruling out” a race.

• MO-Sen, MO-02: It’s Apes-A-Poppin in the Missouri Senate race –  and beyond. As Rep. Todd Akin inches closer to a senatorial run, teabagger favorite Ed Martin says he’s thinking about running for Akin’s potentially vacant seat, rather than competing against him in the Senate primary. Martin came close to beating Rep. Russ Carnahan in MO-03 last year, but that district is all but certain to get caved into Akin’s present 2nd CD. Martin is a resident of St. Louis, though, so I’m not sure if he’d wind up in the new 2nd district (not that it necessarily matters).

Martin’s newfound open-mindedness seems to come in response to a move by former state GOP chair Ann Wagner to create an exploratory committee for a possible run in whatever winds up being the successor to Akin’s seat –  again, assuming Akin runs for Senate, which Wagner thinks is “likely.”

• NE-Sen: Ben Nelson told a Rotary Club gathering that he hasn’t yet decided whether he’ll run again in 2012. Also, help me out here, because I’m not understanding this: Is Nelson also saying in this article that he voted for healthcare reform because if he hadn’t, a public option would have passed? I’m not getting this one at all.

• NM-Sen: Dem Hector Balderas, another candidate who telegraphed his intentions last week, also made his entry into his state’s Senate primary official yesterday. He employed some good framing in his intro video:

Accountability and fiscal responsibility are not Republican words. And I’m tired of hearing them used as excuses to shortchange our children and break promises to our seniors.

As Sean Sullivan notes, he does take an indirect jab at Rep. Martin Heinrich, saying he doesn’t have “the most connections in Washington” and that he “won’t be the candidate of the lobbyists or the insiders.” The contours of this race seem superficially akin to those in Connecticut, where a more powerful congressman is facing off against a (former) statewide elected official, but I’m hoping everyone keeps their noses clean here.

• NV-Sen: Silver State Dems are trying to do everything they can, it seems, to pressure Gov. Brian Sandoval into not appointing Rep. Dean Heller to John Ensign’s soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat. I’m doubtful any of this will work (why should Sandoval care?), but if you’re curious to see what Democrats are up to, click the link.

Gubernatorial:

• IN-Gov: We’re getting close to landing a pretty strong gubernatorial candidate in the Hoosier State. Former Dem state House Speaker John Gregg (whom we’ve mentioned in the past) says that he’ll soon form an exploratory committee and that his “mind is made up.” He’s been pressing the flesh at Jefferson-Jackson dinners across the state lately, trying to re-build his name rec after a decade out of office. Still, with Mike Pence looking awfully lazy, I’m feeling perhaps a touch optimistic about this race.

House:

• AR-04: The NRCC is airing a radio ad (I assume for peanuts) against Dem Rep. Mike Ross, attacking him for voting against all five budget proposals which came up for a vote in the House on April 15th. The main Republican Medicare-killing plan sponsored by Paul Ryan, the even crazier Republican Study Committee plan sponsored by Scott Garrett (which Dems almost tricked the GOP into passing), the Progressive Caucus plan sponsored by Raul Grijalva, the Congressional Black Caucus plan sponsored by Emanuel Cleaver, and I guess what you’d call the mainstream Democratic plan sponsored by Chris Van Hollen, which hasn’t gotten a lot of attention.

So amusingly, the NRCC is trying to ding Ross for not voting for everything from Scott Garrett’s vision for dystopia to a plan they’d readily denounce as neo-Stalinist. Ross should easily be able to turn this around and cast himself as an ardent defender of Medicare. (I’m sure I don’t need to give him any pointers about wanking on the Grijalva or Cleaver plans.) They’re also doing robocalls in another dozen or so seats held by other Dems who also voted against all five plans. Maybe this line of attack will work, but there are really very few districts left where it can.

• IN-08: Former six-term state Rep. Dave Crooks, who left office in 2008, says he’s “pretty close to pulling the trigger” on a run against freshman Rep. Larry Bucshon. The 8th CD looks like it’ll get made a touch more Democratic, something that Crooks acknowledges has figured in his plans. What’s more, Bucshon so far has proven to be no great shakes – he had the poorest fundraising quarter of any congressman in Indiana. (Shades of John Hostettler, the last Republican to hold this seat before Bucshon?) I also like the fact that Crooks is already coming out hard against the Ryan plan.

In any event, Crooks says he’s likely to make a formal announcement in the next 30 days, which would be a very good get for Team Blue. Warrick County Democratic Party Terry White is already in the race (which we noted previously), and former state Rep. Trent Van Haaften (who ran last year) is also still weighing a run.

• MN-08: Democrats have finally landed a challenger to the really meager Rep. Chip Cravaack: Daniel Fanning, the deputy state director for Sen. Al Franken and an Iraq war vet. I suspect that this will not be the last word on the Dem primary field, though. UPDATE: Seems I read the article a little too hastily. Fanning is just saying he’s likely to run. He hasn’t officially declared.

• NV-02: Speaking of Dean Heller (see NV-Sen bullet above), Sharron Angle is supposedly threatening to do exactly what I predicted she would, which is run an independent campaign in the free-for-all special election to replace Heller if she isn’t tapped by the Republican Party. However, this “news” comes from the Las Vegas Review-Journal “newspaper” (as Jon Ralston would put it), and they admit it’s nothing more than a rumor, calling it “the word circulating Monday.”

Here’s something that’s not mere rumor: Dem Assemblywoman Debbie Smith says she won’t run in any special in NV-02. We do still have other options here, though, like Treasurer Kate Marshall.

• NY-26: The first candidate-on-candidate Medicare attack ad belongs to Kathy Hochul, who nails Republican Jane Corwin for her support of the Ryan budget plan. The Fix says the buy is for 1,000 points, which is substantial. If I were Hochul, I’d hit this theme and little else for the next four weeks.

• OR-01: Whoa. After a couple months of nothing doing, it looks like the Democratic jalopy is about to start getting very full. Former state Sen. Ryan Deckert is now the third Dem to get in or near the race to unseat Rep. David Wu, and current state Sen. Suzanne Bonamici is the fourth, with both saying they are “considering” a run. Guys, you realize what happens when everyone piles into this rustbucket, right? Former Jeff Merkley state director Jon Isaacs says he thinks Wu can probably score from 35-45% of the vote, which means that unseating him will be very hard with more than one opponent. I’m inclined to agree.

• TX-14: LOL, I guess we have to put Ron Paul on the 2012 House Open Seat Watch now.

Other Races:

• NJ-St. Sen.: Even though an administrative judge already said he could run, Republican Secretary of State Kim Guadagno ruled that Carl Lewis is ineligible to appear on the ballot this November as a Democrat. It just so happens that Guadagno is also the Lt. Gov., which means, of course, she’s under Chris Christie’s considerable thumb. Why does this matter? Because Lewis had the temerity to insult the thin-skinned Don Christeone when he decided to run for office while also pursuing a plan to develop a state youth athletic program under the governor’s auspices. That plan now sleeps with the fishes, and Guadagno’s latest move amounts to delivering the dead carp wrapped in newspaper. Fortunately, Lewis says he’ll appeal.

• WI Recall: Good news for Dem state Sens. Lena Taylor and Fred Risser: The deadline for the GOP to submit recall petitions for them came and went with nary a whisper. Meanwhile, Democrats plan to file signatures against a sixth (and probably final) Republican, Rob Cowles, this week.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Colorado: Any attempts at bipartisan compromise have totally fallen apart at this point, with the GOP saying they’ll produce a new plan of their own in response to the Democrats’ announcement they they’ll introduce a new map. With the legislature split, I have to believe this will head to court, unless the Dems can present something that the GOP fears less than the prospect of a judge-drawn map.

• Missouri: Republicans are still scrambling to try to create a new map that both the House and Senate can agree on in time to put it on Gov. Jay Nixon’s desk and be able to schedule a veto over-ride before the current legislative session ends on May 13. The problem is that today is really the last day they can squeeze this in. Nixon has 15 days to review any bill he gets). It would take quite a breakthrough for this to happen, and lawmakers are apparently worried that if they have to wait until September to try an over-ride, Nixon will have the chance to sway wobbly legislators to his side. The GOP’s redistricting chair says: “If you’re term-limited out and looking for a job, the governor can dangle something in front of you.” Dangle away, Jay!

• Virginia: Oh god. This is just not a headline I wanted to see: “Senate opens bipartisan negotiations on redistricting.” Dems claim they “won’t negotiate away our majority,” but what does that mean? The Democratic majority in the state Senate is already cut pretty close to the bone, so I don’t see how they have much room to give. At least if they go with a court-drawn map instead, they get a) a better map in the House even if they risk a worse map in the Senate and b) a shot at a second set of elections in 2012 with Obama at the top of the ticket  –  and fighting hard for VA, you can be sure. But if they play nice with Gov. Bob McDonnell, they could wind up with something resembling a dummymander. I’m pretty worried.

Senate:

• ND-Sen: North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Brian Kalk will announce his formal entry into the Senate race to replace Kent Conrad tomorrow. Kalk, a Republican, raised a really lame $32K in Q1.

• NM-Sen, NM-03: Facing an already-crowded primary field and the prospect of giving up a safe House seat, Rep. Ben Ray Lujan said yesterday that he won’t seek the Democratic nod to replace Jeff Bingaman in the Senate.

• OH-Sen: I think we didn’t spot this mid-April poll from GOP pollster Wenzel Strategies until now… but definitely take it with something stronger than mere salt. For one thing, they’ve regularly done polls for WorldNetDaily (I mean, seriously?), and for another, they released a seriously weird-ass poll last cycle that purported to show Rep. Norm Dicks losing to a perennial candidate. (Dicks won by 16.)

But even if you didn’t know all that, you’d have to laugh at their absurd spin: They call Sherrod Brown’s favorables “dangerous” and his re-elects “disastrous”… even though his head-to-head margin is 49-36 over Ken Blackwell, 50-36 against Mary Taylor, and 48-33 paired with Josh Mandel. In a Republican poll! Anyhow, if you want to chase this one all the way down the rabbit hole, Wenzel also had a component testing the anti-union legislation called SB5, which will very likely appear on the ballot this fall (people want it repealed by a 51-38 spread).

Gubernatorial:

• WI-Gov: Another recall poll from another not-especially-prominent pollster. Republican polling firm Etheridge & Associates (based out of Tennessee) found 44% in favor of recalling Walker and 51% opposed. They also put Walker head-to-head with a real candidate (which is what would happen in a recall election) and found him tied with Russ Feingold at 48 apiece.

House:

• ND-AL: This is a very good report from Kristen Daum, who writes the “Flickertales” blog for the Fargo-Moorhead Forum. She nails freshman GOP Rep. Rick Berg on two counts: First, last year Berg ran heavily on the theme that Earl Pomeroy was mostly relying on out-of-state money while he, Berg, was raking it in from North Dakotans. Well, with the Q1 reports in, Daum observes that about 80% of Berg’s campaign cash is now coming from interests outside of ND, including quite a bit from DC. Better still, Berg’s staff claimed he hasn’t held any fundraisers or solicited contributions… but the Sunlight Foundation’s “Party Time” website scrounged up a copy of an invite to high-dollar event held on Berg’s behalf by Eric Cantor and a couple of PACs. Whoops!

• NY-13: I’m not even going to summarize what’s at the link, except to say it’s a truly explosive story about GOP freshman Mike Grimm. Just click and read it.

• WI-01: Businessman Rob Zerban is already running against Rep. Paul Ryan, but The Fix suggests another possible Democratic name: state Sen. Chris Larson.

Grab Bag:

• Americans United: That Americans United for Change ad buy against four Republicans we mentioned yesterday apparent totals $35K. That’s at least in the ballpark of real money, and I’m very glad to see groups like AUFC and House Majority PAC start doing these thousand-papercuts sort of campaigns early.

• Polling & Demographics: Ben Smith has an interesting little exchange between a couple of pollsters with experience in working with the Latino community. One, André Pineda (who has polled for Obama, among others), says he thinks that pollsters who gather Hispanic samples by relying on surnames miss a lot of Hispanics who don’t have such names, typically because their families have lived in the US longer. These voters, says Pineda, lean more to the right than newer immigrants. But Matt Barreto of the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity and Race says that Pineda’s estimates are “way off base.” Barreto says only 5-10% of Hispanics do not have Hispanic surnames, whereas Pineda’s memo suggests that the number is far higher.

• Town Halls: Want to see if your member of Congress is having a town hall during this recess so that you can go and give them what for? MoveOn has a tool that lets you plug in your ZIP code and find town halls near you.

• Voter Suppression: Unsurprisingly, the Florida legislature is moving forward with a big election law bill that’s principally designed to suppress the Democratic vote, as always in the name of preventing VOTER FRAUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111. Changes include shortening the early voting period, adding onerous restrictions on third-party groups which register voters, and preventing voters from changing their addresses at the poll (something which Florida has allowed for forty years). Republicans are also moving forward with bills that would eliminate payroll deductions for union dues, force unions to get each member’s permission before spending money on elections, and make it harder for trial lawyers to bring medical malpractice cases. In short, as one Democratic lawmaker put it, it’s the entire GOP wish list.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Florida: This is sorta interesting. One Florida lawmaker on the legislature’s redistricting committee is telling his fellow legislators not to talk to him about redistricting – at all. The new “Fair Districts” law says that districts can’t be drawn to favor or disfavor incumbents, so mapmakers are concerned that if their colleagues start telling them about how they’d like to see the lines crafted, that could later be used as evidence in court.

• Virginia: And so it goes: A week after saying he wouldn’t change a thing about his party’s map, Dem Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw now says of Gov. Bob McDonnell: “We are talking to him. We are trying to meet all of his concerns.” I can’t see how this is going to end well for Democrats, who now seem to face a choice between a crappy gerrymander in the Senate and a court-drawn map… and I guess would prefer the former, based on Saslaw’s hints. Sigh.

Meanwhile, Republicans are apparently pretty pissed at McDonnell for vetoing their plans, supposedly with almost no warning, but there’s a lot that doesn’t add up here. For one, the article says that the legislature doesn’t have enough votes to over-ride McDonnell’s veto, but that’s simply not true. If House Republicans really wanted their map badly enough, they could have prevailed on their counterparts in the Senate to vote for the package deal, ensuring it was safe from McDonnell’s veto pen.

For the governor’s part, he’s also full of shit. His spokesman said that he would have preferred the House and Senate maps had been sent to the governor in separate bills, but jeez, this is classic “born yesterday” crap. There’s no way the Senate would have given away its one piece of leverage like that. Still, it does sound like the Republican anger at McDonnell is quite real (and not just limited to redistricting), which means a serious derail is not impossible. So maybe there’s still a way for Saslaw to snatch something other than defeat from the jaws of… defeat.

• Utah: The state will apparently make redistricting software available to citizens on its website, but the linked article isn’t very clear where that will happen. Any ideas?

One expected, one not as expected:

New Mexico State Auditor Hector Balderas, the youngest Hispanic statewide official ever elected in the country, filed statements of candidacy and organization with the FEC on Wednesday.

Former Florida State House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, previously in the exploratory phase of his deliberations, sent in statements of candidacy and organization on Monday, according to the office of the Secretary of the Senate. …

Sources familiar with both campaigns signaled that formal announcements were likely to come next week, after the Easter holiday.

I can’t work up much energing over Hasner’s pending entrance into the GOP field in Florida, but Balderas moving forward is definitely interesting. As you may recall, he sounded very bullish on a run when Jeff Bingaman first announced his retirement two months ago, but then waited to pull the trigger. In the meantime, Rep. Martin Heinrich became the first Democrat to actually launch a campaign, and in so doing established himself as the likely frontrunner. It looked like Heinrich might have boxed Balderas out, and indeed, Democratic power-brokers were supposedly suggesting that Balderas could instead run for Heinrich’s now-open House seat.

But it looks like it’s full steam ahead for Balderas, setting up what ought to be a serious battle with Heinrich. It’s hard to know exactly where the fault-lines will fall in this race, though ethnicity may play a role here (Balderas is Hispanic, Heinrich is white) – but I’d caution against coming to any facile conclusions about how things might shake out on account of this. In any event, I think Heinrich is probably favored, but I don’t think anything is set in stone.

Senate:

• AZ-Sen: Board of Regents member Fred Du Val, who I don’t think we’d discussed before, said he won’t seek the Democratic nomination to replace Jon Kyl. The article also mentions another possible Dem name that I hadn’t previously seen, U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke.

• FL-Sen: This article makes George LeMieux’s candidacy appear exactly as lame as you’d expect. Not only is he lamely courting teabaggers, but a recent “Tax Day” rally drew “less than 100.” Sounds like a lot less.

• MA-Sen: Apologies for the paywalled-link-not something I’d ordinarily do, but this story isn’t available elsewhere. Anyhow, bigwigs constantly talking about him to the media has just got to be frustrating for Newton Mayor Setti Warren. First it was Gov. Deval Patrick, blabbing to the press that he was sure Warren was going to run. (Warren had to publicly back away from Patrick’s remarks.) Now, it’s the opposite: Rep. Barney Frank for some reason thought it would be a good idea to tell the National Journal: “I think it’s a mistake for him to run, I’ve told him that.” Well, if Frank’s told Warren this, then why the fuck does he also have to tell the NJ and turn it into a public spectacle? And it’s not just one off-hand remark – Frank made multiple statements talking down Warren’s chances. Sheesh, just let Warren do what he wants to do. Jeez.

• ME-Sen: Dem House Minority Leader Emily Cain says she won’t challenge Olympia Snowe next year. (Cain, just 30 years old, can certainly bide her time.) The same piece mentions another possible Democratic name, businessman Donato Tramuto, who may also be interested in a 2014 gubernatorial bid.

• MO-Sen: As Eli Yokley of PoliticMo observes, Todd Akin’s visit with a bunch of teabaggers in Joplin, Missouri took him three hundred miles outside of his congressional district, as sure a sign as any that he’s interested in taking on Sen. Claire McCaskill. Akin says he’ll decide “in the near future.” Interestingly, at the end of this article, he also whined about Democrats “beating up” Republicans over wanting to end Social Security and Medicare as we know it. That kvetching means our attacks are already working-and when you have to start explaining yourself in full-length paragraphs (as Akin tries to do), you’re on the defensive and flailing.

• NM-Sen: Auditor Hector Balderas said on Friday that he’ll decide whether to seek the Dem nod to replace the retiring Jeff Bingaman “within the next two weeks.”

• TX-Sen: It appears that Democrats may have landed an interesting recruit in this race: Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former top military commander in Iraq. Sanchez said he wouldn’t “confirm or deny” the reports, but former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, a Dem, decided to crack out of turn, saying he spoke with Sanchez and that it sounded “like he’s close to being a candidate.” One black mark: Sanchez was in command of US forces during the Abu Ghraib scandal, and he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram it was “pretty fair” to say the event ended his military career (though of course neither he nor any high-ranking officers were ever held responsible).

In other TX-Sen news, another one of Ron Paul’s offspring, Fort Worth physician Robert Paul, says he has “thought about running” for Senate… but that’s pretty much all he’s said.

Gubernatorial:

• NH-Gov: Mark Connolly is an interesting figure in New Hampshire politics: He’s the former director of the state’s Bureau of Securities Regulation, until he resigned last year to publicly blow the whistle on the state’s mishandling of an investigation into a ponzi scheme run by an entity called Financial Resource Management. (You may recall that this scandal also tainted Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who had been NH AG at the time, but not enough to derail her Senate bid.) In any event, Connolly says he thinks Gov. John Lynch should seek a fifth-term and he’d support him if he does-but if Lynch declined to run, Connolly “would consider” doing so himself. (Note that Connolly also briefly considered a Senate run himself last cycle, but was wise enough to stand aside.)

• WA-Gov: I’m not really understanding Rob McKenna’s path to victory. He’s spent most of his career trying to convince people he’s a “moderate,” non-insane Republican, but then he signed on to the multi-state suit by mostly red-state Republican AGs to try to have the Affordable Care Act declared unconstitutional. He’s since continued in that surprising vein: He just attended a teabagger “Tax Day” rally and seems to think he needs to court the wingnuts in order to be successful. Is he worried about a primary? Or is he concerned he can’t win without teabaggers pushing for him at full throttle? Either way, it seems like he’s screwing himself.

House:

• FL-22: Kinda interesting: Former Gov. Charlie Crist just gave $1000 to Democrat “no not that” Patrick Murphy’s campaign to oust Allen West. (They share a consultant in common.) Really, I can’t believe Crist just didn’t switch parties when he had the chance.

• OR-01: Carla Axtman, writing at the you-should-bookmark-`em-if-you-haven’t-yet Blue Oregon, goes as far down into the weeds as it’s possible to go without spontaneously commencing photosynthesis. In a look at the possible Dem field shaping up to primary Rep. David Wu, she mentions a couple of candidates we hadn’t previously seen named before: state Rep. Brad Witt and Clatsop County Commissioner Dirk Rohne, a recent R-to-D switcher.

Other Races:

• NYC-Mayor: Kill me now: Dick Grasso, the d-bag ex-director of the New York Stock Exchange, says that if Eliot Spitzer runs for mayor, so will he. I just pray Spitzer isn’t stupid enough to actually run, but if anything, this challenge from Grasso probably has Eliot’s blood flowing and makes him more likely to do it. God.

Grab Bag:

• WATN?: Alan Hevesi, who had once served as NYC Comptroller and later comptroller for the whole state, was sentenced to one to four years in prison, after pleading guilty last fall to one count of official misconduct. Hevesi took bribes from financial firms (politely called “pay-to-play”) in exchange for steering the state to invest its considerable pension funds with those firms. What a piece of shit. Anyhow, he could be out of jail in less than a year.

Another ex-pol who has very much landed on his feet is former PA Gov. Ed Rendell. Of course, you’d expect nothing less from Fast Eddie, and if you really are curious as to what he’s up to, you’re going to have to click the link, because it’s way more than I can summarize.

Senate:

• FL-Sen: Dem Sen. Bill Nelson said he raised over $2 million in Q1 and would report somewhere between $4.5 and $5 million on hand. Republican Mike Haridopolos said he raised $2.6 million and would show $2.5 mil in the bank.

• HI-Sen: So that weird SMS poll we showed you yesterday which only pitted Ed Case vs. Mufi Hannemann in a Dem primary had another, more useful component. They also included favorables for a whole host of Hawaii politicians. Mazie Hirono was best (62% fave), while Linda Lingle was worst (44% unfave). Click the link for the rest. (And no, we still don’t know who SMS took this poll for. They’re just saying it was a private client.)

• MI-Sen: Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) raised $1.2 million in Q1 and has $3 million on hand.

• MO-Sen: Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) raised over $1 million in Q1 and has about $1.8 million on hand.

• NM-Sen: Teabagging businessman Greg Sowards raised $150K in Q1… but it sounds like that’s all his own money. The writeup is unclear, though – it’s possible he raised $150K from outside sources and threw in an equal amount on his own.

• NV-Sen: Wealthy Dem attorney Byron Georgiou raised $1.1 million in Q1, with $500K of that coming from his own pockets.

Gubernatorial:

• ME-Gov: We previously mentioned a proposed constitutional amendment in Maine that would require gubernatorial candidates to receive 50% of the vote (a hurdle almost no one has reached in recent decades). That proposal just died in the state Senate, so it’s basically dead for this term.

• MT-Gov: Democratic state Sen. Larry Jent officially announced he is running for governor. He faces fellow state Sen. Dave Wanzenried in the primary. State AG Steve Bullock may also run.

House:

• AZ-06: Ex-Rep. Matt Salmon, who served in a similar seat in the 1990s, says he’s now thinking about running for Jeff Flake’s open seat. Salmon previously said he was considering a run for governor.

• CA-03: Dem Ami Bera, seeking a rematch against Dan Lungren, says he raised over $230K in Q1. If this haul only dates to the time of his official announcement (just two weeks before the end of the quarter), it’s nothing short of un-fucking-believable. However, he gets a demerit for emailing me a press release without putting it on his website so that I can link to it directly. Boo!

• CA-06: Activist Norman Solomon became the second Dem to file in Lynn Woolsey’s district, in the event that she retires this cycle.

• CT-05: Dem Dan Roberti, a 28-year-old public relations exec whose father Vincent was a state rep, officially announced his entrance into the race to succeed Chris Murphy. On the GOP side, businesswoman Lisa Wilson-Foley, who sought the Republican nomination for Lt. Gov. last year, also said she was getting in.

• FL-22: Lois Frankel announced she raised $250K in Q1. Previously, we mentioned that fellow Dem “no not that” Patrick Murphy said he raised $350K.

• IN-02: Dem Rep. Joe Donnelly announced he raised $363,288 in Q1, his best single quarter ever. Dude’s not going down without a fight.

• NM-01, NM-Sen: An unnamed advisor to state Auditor Hector Balderas says he won’t seek Rep. Martin Heinrich’s now-open House seat (something that insiders apparently were encouraging him to do, in the hopes of avoiding a contested primary). According to this advisor, Balderas is still considering a Senate run. Personally, I think it was a mistake for Balderas to say he was almost definitely going to run, only to be upstaged by Heinrich, who of course said he was actually going to run. I think Heinrich has the advantage in a primary, but Balderas needs a way to save face here if he doesn’t want that fight any longer.

• NY-19: Freshman GOPer Nan Hayworth announced she raised $330K in Q1 and has a similar amount on hand. Question of the day: Do you think Hayworth could get teabagged to death?

• NY-26: Dem Kathy Hochul announced she raised $350K for the special election coming up on May 24th.

• OR-01: It took a little time, but Dems are now finally drawing out the knives for Rep. David Wu in earnest. Oregon Labor Commissioner (an elected position) Brad Avakian is putting together a team of political advisors and is likely to challenge Wu in the Dem primary. Another Dem elected official, Portland Commissioner Dan Saltzman, also apparently became the first Democrat to openly call for regime change (though he says he isn’t interested in running). All eyes will certainly be on Wu’s fundraising report, due on Friday.

• PA-07: Republican frosh Pat Meehan raised $325K in Q1.

• WI-07: Former state Sen. Pat Kreitlow has formed an exploratory committee for a possible challenge to freshman GOP Rep. Sean Duffy. Kreitlow served a single term in the Senate after defeating a Republican incumbent, before losing in last year’s red tide. This could be a pretty good get for us if he goes through with it (which seems likely, just reading this article).

Other Races:

• NJ Lege: Johnny Longtorso has a good summary of the candidate filing for New Jersey’s legislative races this November. Out of 120 seats, only four total are unopposed (though there may be signature challenges).

• Suffolk Co. Exec.: Will seriously no one hire Rick Lazio? Perennially a contender for Saddest Sack of the Year, Lazio is apparently considering a run for Suffolk County Executive, now that the seat will be open in the wake of Steve Levy’s unusual plea agreement with law enforcement (which involved him not seeking re-election).

Grab Bag:

• Dark Money: Dems are finally starting to play catchup with the David Kochs of the world. Ali Lapp, a former DCCC official (and wife of one-time DCCC ED John Lapp) will head up a new “Super PAC” called the House Majority PAC. Such groups are actually not all that shadowy – they do have to disclose their donors. But they can raise and spend in unlimited amounts, and engage in direct “vote for/vote against” advocacy.

• EMILY’s List: EMILY announced four new GOP targets: Bob Dold (IL-10), Frank Guinta (NH-01), Adam Kinzinger (IL-11), and Steve Stivers (OH-15). The group only endorses women, and there are no declared Dems in any of these races yet, but I note with interest that they claim “there is major Democratic female talent waiting in the wings.” In NH-01, they could be expecting a rematch from ex-Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, and I guesss maybe Debbie Halvorson in IL-11 and Mary Jo Kilroy in OH-15, but those seem very unlikely. Any ideas?

Redistricting Roundup:

• Iowa: It looks like Iowa’s new maps will indeed pass into law very shortly. A state Senate committee approved them unanimously, and now the full body is deliberating. The state House will take the issue up today. Republican Gov. Terry Branstad hasn’t yet said whether he’ll support the new plans, but it’d be pretty explosive if he nuked the maps in the face of widespread backing among legislators. This has all been a very interesting process to watch, especially since after the initial federal map threw both Republican congressmen together, it was easy to imagine that the GOP would want to go back to the drawing board. But the fear of the unknown has pushed politicians to accept what they have before them, rather than risk something worse.

• Indiana: With the new GOP maps looking very much like reality (how Bobby Jindal must envy Mitch Daniels), the state legislator shuffle is set to begin. The AP notes that the new state House map “has three districts that put two current Republican legislators together, three districts with at least two Democrats and four districts with a Republican and a Democratic incumbent,” which doesn’t sound so bad, but Democrats point out that “five of their House members from Indianapolis were drawn into just two districts.”

• Michigan: The MI lege is about to start the redistricting process. State law says maps have to be drawn by Nov. 1st.

• Texas: Republicans in the lege have introduced a bill that would require any new maps (or voter ID bills) to get litigated before a three-judge panel in D.C., rather than go through the DoJ for pre-clearance. Rick Perry apparently is already interested in this alternative. As I’ve speculated before, he may be hoping for a more favorable hearing from potentially conservative judges. However, I’ll note that you can still sue even after the DoJ renders a pre-clearance decision, so I’m not sure why you wouldn’t just take the (cheaper and easier) free shot first.

Also of note, the Latino civil rights group MALDEF released two proposals for nine majority-minority districts in Texas. (They deliberately did not offer a map that covered the entire state.) MALDEF is no random organization: They were part of the LULAC v. Perry litigation in 2006, in which the Supreme Court forced Texas to redistrict yet again because Tom DeLay’s map had improperly diluted Hispanic voting strength.

• Virginia: So what’s going on with this supposed deal? In a rather public bit of horse-trading, Dems (who control the state Senate) and Republicans (who control the state House and the governor’s mansion) agreed that each body would get to gerrymander itself (that sounds kind of dirty, huh?), and would also agree to an incumbent protection map for congress, which would of course lock in the GOP’s 8-3 advantage. But now Republicans and Democrats have each produced separate federal maps, and they are quite different, with the Dems deliberately trying to create a second district likely to elect a minority.

The oddest part of this deal is that the legislative parts of the deal have already passed – the congressional map is now an entirely separate beast, which I don’t really get, since they each seemed to constitute one leg of a three-legged stool. I guess that’s why the Senate Dems felt free to reject the House’s federal plan, which suggests that the agreement has fallen apart. But Republicans don’t seem to be howling that the Dems have somehow reneged, so maybe we didn’t understand this deal properly in the first place. In any event, we’re very much at an impasse here, but sometimes these logjams break apart very abruptly (see Louisiana and Arkansas).

That’s the story according to a couple of dudes that the Associated Press spoke to, at least:

U.S. Rep. Martin Heinrich plans to run for the Senate seat being vacated by longtime Sen. Jeff Bingaman, two New Mexico Democrats close to the congressman and familiar with his political plans said Friday.

The two state Democrats, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid upstaging Heinrich’s formal announcement, told The Associated Press that Heinrich will announce his candidacy for U.S. Senate on Saturday. Heinrich, 39, is the first prominent Democrat to jump into the race as his party seeks to hold onto the seat that has been held by Bingaman since 1982.

Heinrich spokeswoman Whitney Potter declined to comment Friday on the congressman’s political plans.

When he announces, Heinrich will be the first New Mexico Democrat of any stature to formally launch a campaign for retiring Dem Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s seat. (State Auditor Hector Balderas is expected to run, but he hasn’t yet made his plans public.) It would appear that Heinrich, in his second term in the House after a stint serving as an Albuquerque city councilman, would have the jump on his would-be Democratic primary opponents — at least according to a recent but meagrely-sampled poll by Tulchin Research for the Defenders of Wildlife. Heinrich led the field with 32%, followed by ex-Lt. Gov. Diane Denish at 25%, 3rd CD Rep. Ben Ray Luján at 15%, Balderas at 5% and 24% undecided.

Heinrich will leave behind an extremely swingy open seat in the House, but if a solid replacement candidate can be found, the Obama turnout machine should be a formidable advantage for Team Blue here.

(Hat-tip: MinnesotaMike)

UPDATE: Here’s one potential replacement for Heinrich in the House — state Sen. Eric Griego, who wasted no time in setting up an exploratory committee:

“I am seriously considering entering the Congressional race, but need to discuss my final decision with my family, my employer, and of course my supporters,” Griego said in a statement sent to the media. “This is an important decision not just for me and my family, but for our whole community and it warrants serious soul searching and a sober review of what kind of Democrat we want fighting for us in Washington.”

In addition to his position in the Senate, Griego currently is the Executive Director of the non-profit New Mexico Voices for Children.

“It is a very critical time for our state and our country,” Senator Griego said. “We need a Democratic Congressional candidate who will unapologetically stand up for working families and take on those who would put large corporate interests ahead of our children, our environment and our local businesses.”

UPDATE 2 (David): Heinrich makes it official, with a video (and transcript) on his website:

Senate:

• HI-Sen: Ex-Rep. Ed Case said he expects to decide by “mid-April” whether he’ll seek Hawaii’s open Senate seat. Case also says that the Merriman River Group took a poll for him and claims he kicked ass in both the primary and general-but he’s only released a couple of selected toplines (click the link if you want them). PPP will have an HI-Sen general election poll out on behalf of Daily Kos/SEIU in the next couple of days.

• ME-Sen: Democrat Hannah Pingree, former Speaker of the state House and daughter of 1st CD Rep. Chellie Pingree, left the state legislature earlier this year. Only 34, she’s lately been managing the family’s inn & restaurant and serving on a local school board, so she seems like a good potential candidate to run for office once again-perhaps even to challenge Sen. Olympia Snowe. But Pingree just gave birth to her first child a week ago, which probably makes her less likely to get back into the game this year.

• MI-Sen: A GOP operative passes along word to Dave Catanese that Pete Hoekstra is turning down the chance to appear at some Lincoln Day dinners-which this source thinks is a sign that Hoekstra isn’t planning to run for Senate. Hoekstra’s would-be pollster (the same guy who was basically spinning lies about PPP last week) vociferously disputes this interpretation. We’ll see, but I personally think Hoekstra is going to tell us he plans to spend more time building turtle fences with his family.

• MT-Sen: Activist Melinda Gopher says she is contemplating a primary challenge to Dem Sen. Jon Tester. She explains her reasoning here. She received 21% of the vote and finished third in the Dem primary for MT-AL last year. I could not find any FEC reports for her.

• ND-Sen, ND-AL: Another good catch by Greg Giroux: ex-Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D) just closed his federal campaign account. While it’s not dispositive, of course, this probably means he’s not interested in seeking his old seat, or the retiring Kent Conrad’s spot in the Senate. Note that Pomeroy didn’t completely slam the door on a gubernatorial run, but I’m guessing that’s not terribly likely, either.

• NM-Sen: New Mexico’s Republican Lt. Gov., John Sanchez, sounded very much like a candidate on a recent trip to DC. He spent some time slagging ex-Rep. Heather Wilson (the only declared candidate so far) in an interview with The Hill, criticizing her moderate credentials, but also being careful to try to put a little daylight between himself and the teabaggers. Sanchez indicated he’d decide “in the spring,” and perhaps hinted he’d announce on or around April 15th… because it’s totally not teabaggish to make a fetish out of Tax Day. He also says he’ll be back in Washington next week to meet with the NRSC (this trip was occasioned by a gathering of the all-important National Lieutenant Governors Association).

House:

• FL-22: Ex-Rep. Ron Klein (D) definitively slammed the door on a rematch this cycle, saying he’s “looking forward to the private sector” (he’s taking a job with the law firm of Holland & Knight). But he did hold out the possibility he might return to office some day (he’s only 53). The same article also mentions a new possible Democratic candidate (despite the entrance of West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel in recent days): state Rep. Joseph Abruzzo, who says he’s keeping his options open. (Abruzzo, hardly alone among Democrats, backed Charlie Crist over Kendrick Meek in last year’s Senate race.)

In other news, a firm called Viewpoint Florida released a very questionable poll pitting Rep. Allen West against Frankel. Really, the only reason you’d put out a survey of a district which is guaranteed to get reshaped is because you’re hoping to set a narrative among people who don’t know better (like, say, the tradmed… this piece doesn’t even mention the word “redistricting”). In addition, the poll is way too Republican, and also purports to be of “likely” voters, about one billion years before election day.

• MI-09 (?): The question mark is there because who knows what districts are going to look like, or where state Rep. Marty Knollenberg-who says he’s considering a run for Congress-will wind up when all is said and done. That name ought to sound familiar: Marty’s dad is, of course, George McFly ex-Rep. Joe Knollenberg, who lost to current 9th CD Rep. (and potential redistricting victim) Gary Peters in 2008. Of note, Marty sits on a redistricting committee in the state lege, so maybe a House race is his… density.

• NY-25: This is the kind of news I like to hear! Dan Maffei, who lost a heart-breaker last year, sent an email to supporters saying that he is “strongly considering running again” for his old seat. Maffei was always a great vote and a strong progressive voice, despite his decision to take a job after the election with the annoying “moderate” group Third Way. (I don’t begrudge the guy needing to eat, though, and the market was pretty saturated with one-term Democratic ex-Congressmen in need of a job.) We don’t know how this district will wind up, of course, but I’d be surprised if there were nowhere for Maffei to run.

• NY-26: Teabagger David Bellavia looks pretty doomed-despite having enough signatures (in theory), he failed to file a key piece of paperwork with the Board of Elections, which will probably terminate his candidacy. It’s all the more poignant because, according to this article, the other campaigns said they would not challenge his signatures-and seeing as he submitted just 100 more than the 3,500 target, it’s a good bet he was in the danger zone. (Is it really true that Republican Jane Corwin said this, though?)

Speaking of Corwin, she’s got a third ad out, once again returning to small business themes (as she did in her first spot), rather than the negative attacks in her second ad.

• PA-17: Tim Holden could be in that rare bucket of Democrats who might not actually benefit from their seats being made bluer in redistricting. The conservative Holden could have Lackawanna County added to his district, according to a possible GOP plan, which might open him up to a primary challenge from the left. It would also move a couple of ambitious pols from the county into his district, including Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien (who attempted to primary ex-Rep. Paul Kanjorski last year) and Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty. PoliticsPA also says that Holden’s 2010 primary challenger, activist Sheila Dow-Ford, is “rumored” to be considering another run. (Dow-Ford lost 65-35 in a race fueled in large part by Holden’s vote against healthcare reform.)

• VA-05: Last cycle, few establishment figures were as absolutely hated by the teabaggers as now-Rep. Robert Hurt. He won his primary with just 48%, against a typically fractured People’s Front of Judea/Judean People’s Front field. (We really need an acronym for that. PFJJPF, anyone?) The teabaggers have now taken to protesting Hurt’s votes in favor of continuing budget resolutions outside of his district office, but given their feeble efforts to unite around a standard-bearer last time, I’m skeptical that they have the organizational power to threaten Hurt next year.

Other Races:

• Wisconsin Sup. Ct.: The Greater Wisconsin Committee is running a very negative new ad against Republican Justice David Prosser, accusing him of refusing to prosecute a child-molesting priest back when he was a D.A.-and explaining that the same priest went on to molest other kids after a parish transfer.

Remainders:

• Census: New York City pols, led by His Bloomberginess, got wiggy almost immediately after seeing the Census Bureau’s largely stagnant new population figures for the city. Pretty much everyone is convinced that NYC grew by more than 2.1%, because, they say, the bureau undercounted immigrants. And here’s a pretty good supporting piece of data: The city added 170,000 new homes over the last decade, so how could it grow by only 166,000 people? (There are no huge swaths of abandoned properties in New York, though the Census does claim vacancies increased.) As a result, city officials are planning to challenge the figures (which they think should be about a quarter million higher). But it’s worth noting that a similar challenge 20 years ago wound up failing.

• Votes: The New York Times is getting into the party unity score game, finding that (according to their methodology) 14 Dems have voted with Team Blue less than 70% of the time this Congress. It’s pretty much just a list of the remaining white conservative Blue Dogs who sit in red districts, though three names from bluer districts stand out: Dennis Cardoza (CA-18); Jim Costa (CA-20); and Gary Peters (MI-09).

Redistricting Roundup:

• Louisiana: A state Senate committee passed a plan for redistricting its own lines last Thursday; a vote by the full body could come this week. Notably, the new map increases the number of majority-minority districts from 10 to 11. Things are delayed on the House side, though.

• Virginia: A teachable moment in Virginia: Democrats in the state Senate adopted a rule that would limit the population variance in any new maps to no more than ±2%, while Republicans in the state House are using a ±1% standard. This issue often comes up in comments, but it’s simple: For state legislatures, courts have said that a 10% total deviation is an acceptable rule of thumb-that is, if the difference in population between the largest district and the smallest district is no more than ±5% of the size of an ideal district, then you’re okay. However, at least one map which tried to egregiously take advantage of this guideline (total deviation of 9.98%) was nonetheless invalidated, so while the “ten percent rule” is still probably a reasonable safe harbor, it may not be a sure thing. For congressional maps, it’s even simpler: Districts have to be perfectly equipopulous unless the state can justify the difference as necessary to achieve legitimate state policy. (For instance, Iowa state law forbids splitting counties to draw a federal map; this is considered an acceptable goal by the courts, so Iowa’s districts have slight variances.)

• AZ-Sen: Rep. Jeff Flake, long known for his non-insane stance on immigration, has bluntly announced that he’s flip-flopping. Just like John McCain before him, Flake says he no longer supports comprehensive immigration reform and now just wants to discuss border security. Clearly, Flake is terrified of getting teabagged in the senatorial primary, even though he doesn’t have any actual opponents yet. I suspect that Rep. Trent Franks (or someone else with strong movement conservative bona fides) will get into the race, though, and I doubt that Flake’s last-minute conversion will incline the teabaggers to forgive him.

And I also wonder if it might not tick off his patrons at the Club for Growth, who just proudly announced that they’ve raised $350K for him. The CfG is backed by people and organizations who are what you’d call “cheap labor conservatives.” That is, they prefer to see a steady flow of illegal immigrants because they represent a ready pool of workers they can cheaply exploit. The kind of immigration reform that Flake once favored also pleased his corporate masters, because it would have created a temporary worker program-almost as good, but blessed by the law! I doubt that the CfG, which pushed Flake hard to get into the race (and immediately endorsed him once he did) will abandon ship over this offense, but maybe they’ll start focusing their energies on more reliable stooges.

• FL-Sen: I’m really glad that Mike Haridopolos is the only announced Republican candidate of any note because he’s such a walking train-wreck (if you can visualize such a thing)-almost every new story about him is yet another disaster. His eye for optics is particularly atrocious: In his role as President of the state Senate, he just removed a piece of ethics legislation from the body’s agenda-despite having co-sponsored the very same bill last year. Even better, you may recall that Haridopolos was just admonished by the Senate for failing to properly disclose his finances on required forms. I love this guy!

• MI-Sen: A Republican firm who seems to be affiliated with ex-Rep. (and potential candidate) Pete Hoekstra, Strategic National, released bits and pieces of a survey to Dave Catanese. They claim that Dem Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s approval rating is just 30-38, in contrast with PPP’s poll from yesterday which had her at 46-39. The only head-to-head they released showed Hoekstra trailing just 41-38 (PPP has him back 50-38). To Strategic National’s credit (by the way, we’d never heard of this firm until this year), they released their sample makeup. To their discredit, the sample was 46 R, 44 D & 10 I. In other words, from Mars.

• NM-Sen: Could Greg Sowards be the next Christine O’Donnell or Joe Miller? I’d be shocked if you’ve ever heard of this teabagger, but he did spent $300K of his own money to get pasted in the NM-02 primary in 2008. (He also has a fucking funny URL-just Google his name.) With “moderate” Heather Wilson the only big-time candidate in the race so far, a surprising number of winger outfits are giving Sowards a look: He’s in DC visiting with Jim DeMint’s people and the Tea Party Express, among others. Sowards also appeared to get under Rep. Steve Pearce’s skin by saying he didn’t think Pearce would run for the Senate again. Click the link for Pearce’s prickly response.

• NV-Sen: Rep. Shelley Berkley (D) will be keynoting the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in rural Churchill County this Friday, which either means she’s spreading out her feelers for a statewide run, just doing someone a favor, enjoys spending time way up in the northern part of the state, or absolutely nothing.

• OH-Gov: On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I saw John Kasich, and his poll numbers sucked. Quinnipiac sez he’s at 30-46 approvals, while GOP-affiliated pollster We Ask America says he’s at an astoundingly bad 35-58. Q also asked about SB5 (the anti-union bill) with a couple of different wordings; either way, voters are opposed.

• WV-Gov: State House Speaker Rick Thompson’s been cleaning up with the union endorsements (teachers, AFL-CIO), and now he’s racked up a huge one: the United Mine Workers of America.

• AK-AL: This story is so disturbing, I won’t even attempt to summarize:

A Republican congressman from Alaska, who also is on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association, now is attempting to distance himself from a Fairbanks militia leader accused in a high-profile firearms, murder and kidnapping plot.

In April 2009, with a video camera rolling, Rep. Don Young signed a “Letter of Declaration” being circulated by the Second Amendment Task Force/Alaska Peacemakers Militia, led by Francis Schaeffer Cox. The “declaration” called on “sovereign Americans” to “alter or abolish” any government that tries to “further tax, restrict or register firearms” or prevents individuals from exercising their “God-given right to self-defense [that] precedes all human legislation.”

• CA-36: Democracy for America, the activist organization that emerged from the Howard Dean campaign, is endorsing SoS Debra Bowen, though it’s not clear what kind of support they plan on providing. DFA previously endorsed Bowen when she sought re-election to her current job last year.

• IL-10: Activist Ilya Sheyman posts a diary to Daily Kos, saying that he’s “considering running” against Republican Bob Dold! in Illinois’ 10th CD.

• NY-01: Republican Randy Altschuler, who lost the second-closest House race in 2010 (only IL-08 was closer), will be in DC “for a series of meeting”-and that’s all Roll Call has to say about it. Supposedly this means he’s considering a rematch against Rep. Tim Bishop, but we don’t even know who his meetings are with. Maybe he’s talking to the Brewery Soft Drink Beer Distr Optical Dental Misc Workers Warehouseman Help Local 830 PAC, for all we know.

• OR-01: Blue Oregon scored quite the coup: I believe they are the first local print media outfit to get an interview with Rep. David Wu. They say they talked to him for an hour, and promise that they asked tough questions. The contents of the interview will appear in a multi-part series over the next day (just as soon as they finish transcribing). You can read part one and part two now.

• SC-05: I don’t think anyone was expecting that ex-Rep. John Spratt, at age 68 and with 14 terms under his belt, would seek a rematch, and indeed he’s not. At an emotional event to honor Spratt’s many years of service, he said that he might teach, or join a DC think tank, but that whatever he does, “it’ll be part-time.” Godspeed.

• Mayors: Kansas City, MO elected the awesomely-named Sly James as mayor in a runoff last night; he beat fellow Dem Mike Burke 54-46. And in Tampa, Dem Bob Buckhorn crushed Republican Rose Ferlita by a 63-37 margin.

• Campaign Committees: So it looks like the DCCC and NRCC are engaged in a minor skirmish, but with Rahm Emanuel gone, it seems like the Chicago Way means, you come at me with a butter knife, I come at you with a spork. Anyhow, the D-Trip announced it was targeting robocalls and a bit of other media at ten Republicans (click link for districts) regarding Social Security and Medicare, so the NRCC did the exact same thing, except about gas prices. The NRCC also released what it claims is are television ads (but what our friend Nathan Gonzales would call a “video press releases”) against Heath Shuler and Nick Rahall. I’ll bet the amount spent on these buys isn’t enough to buy John Shimkus a meatball sub.

Redistricting Roundup:

• California: The new chair of the CA GOP spazzed about the selection of Q2 Data and Research as the redistricting commission’s map-drawing technical consultant, hollering that the firm has ties “to the Democrat Party.” Zing! Only problem is that the commission (which of course includes Republicans) voted 13-0 to pick Q2.

• Maryland: Last year, Maryland passed new legislation requiring that, for the purposes of redistricting, the state count prisoners as residents where they last lived, rather than where they are serving their sentences. State agencies just certified a count of 22,000 prisoners, and while some Baltimore-area legislative districts gained a bit as a result, the overall effects were slight. (Side note: The US government refused to share “last known address” data concerning the 1,500 inmates incarcerated in Maryland’s lone federal prison.) The only other states with similar legislation are Delaware and New York; while this information affects local as well as state redistricting efforts, congressional redistricting is based on US Census data, and I’m pretty sure these laws don’t cover that.

• Virginia: Winners were announced in the college competition to redistrict the state of Virginia. You can find the maps at the link. I don’t think they got any babka, though.

• NM-Sen (PDF): What happens if you took a poll and no one answered? That’s what this Tulchin Research poll (taken on behalf of the Defenders of Wildlife) feels like to me, what with its sample size of just 213 likely Democratic primary voters. If you’re trying to figure out the margin of error, you’ll need to start counting on your other hand – it’s 6.7%. Anyhow, the results, such as they are: 1st CD Rep. Martin Heinrich: 32; Lt. Gov. Diane Denish: 25; 3rd CD Rep. Ben Ray Luján’s: 15; State Auditor Hector Balderas: 5; and 24% undecided. I think it’s very unlikely that the field would develop this way, but I still think these “round up the usual suspects” polls can be valuable – if they have enough respondents, that is.

• OH-Sen: This kind of speculation is always seriously moronic… but hey, I live to serve. So in case you want to imagine a world where the Republican presidential nominee wins next year, and he’s picked Sen. Rob Portman as his running mate, Roll Call is happy to indulge your grim dystopian fantasy about a suddenly open Senate seat in Ohio come Jan. 20, 2013.

• WV-Gov: Democratic State House Speaker Rick Thompson just earned the endorsement of two teachers’ unions:  The West Virginia Federation of Teachers and the West Virginia Education Association. The primary here for this oddly-timed special election (necessary because of ex-Gov. Joe Manchin’s Senate victory last year) is coming up very soon, May 14th.

• CT-05: Kevin Rennie mentions a couple of possible Democratic prospects to replace Rep. Chris Murphy, who of course is running for Senate. One is 28-year-old pr strategist Dan Roberti, whose father Vincent was once a state rep. The other is CNBC reporter and former local news anchor Brian Schactman.

• NV-02: A piece in the WaPo has 2006 and 2008 Dem nominee Jill Derby sounding pretty interested – she said she’s considering forming an exploratory committee. (Ridiculous as that sounds – I mean, she’s considering whether to consider? – that actually counts as pretty aggressive talk in this hyper-cautious age.) The story also mentions another possible name, Assemblywoman Debbie Smith, as well as noting that state Treasurer Kate Marshall (whom we flagged as another potential candidate yesterday) calling the race “absolutely winnable.”

• NY-26: Republican Jane Corwin has her first ad out (NWOTSOTB), in which she repeatedly touts her supposed small business credentials but doesn’t mention that she’s a Republican. In some not-so-happy news, New York’s Green Party is saying they are likely to endorse Ian Murphy, the guy behind the fake David Koch call to WI Gov. Scott Walker, as their nominee. That means they probably won’t cross-endorse whoever winds up being the Democratic nominee… and that signals a long four years ahead of us. (Thanks to scoring 50,000 votes in last year’s gubernatorial election, the Greens get an automatic ballot spot in every race in the state through 2016.) Green Party co-chair Peter LaVenia says he doesn’t think that Murphy will “siphon votes” from the Dem… oy, christ, this is giving me nightmarish flashbacks to debates with idiotic Naderites in 2000. I can’t do this again.

• Wisconsin Recall: Let’s talk about Randy Hopper. If you’ll click the link, you can hear a ridiculously misleading radio ad that he’s just gone up with. The lying isn’t the point – it’s the fact that he’s on the defensive, a place you never want to be. And he knows, it, too – which is why he’s gone out and hired Jeff Harvey, who most recently managed Rep. Dave Reichert’s (WA-08) successful campaign last year. That’s a pretty big gun to bring in to a state lege race, so how can Hopper afford something like that? Well, state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and several lackeys (including recall target Alberta Darling) were in DC last night, picking up cash at a high-dollar fundraiser held at Haley Barbour’s lobbying firm (more-or-less in exchange for gunning through that infamous bit of right-to-work legislation). The optics couldn’t be better! But cold, sweet cash can move mountains.

In related news, HuffPo’s Sam Stein tries to track down elusive information about the state of the attempted recalls of Democratic senators. It sounds like it’s going poorly: An uncoordinated mess by different groups which launched different efforts at different times. The Wisconsin Republican Party has refused to get involved, and apparently the recall has been whittled down to just three target senators (from the original eight). I would not be hugely surprised if they would up with zero.

• Philly Mayor: This is pretty funny: Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter faces no real primary opposition, but he’s still trying to bounce the crazy brother of former Mayor John Street, Milton, from the ballot. Among other things, Nutter is alleging that Street doesn’t meet the residency requirements, which say that candidates have to live in the city for three years prior to the election. Where was Street? Serving a 30-month sentence in federal prison on tax evasion charges – in Kentucky.

• SF Mayor: SurveyUSA has a poll out for the San Francisco mayoral race slated for this November. SF uses instant run-off voting (IRV), so SUSA asked people to pick their first, second, and third choices. Interim Mayor Ed Lee (who filled in for Gavin Newsom when he won the Lt. Gov. race last fall) says he isn’t running but actually gets the most first-choice votes. Here’s the full field:

Ed Lee, interim Mayor, 17%

Michaela Alioto-Pier, former Board of Supervisors member, 12%

Leeland Yee, State Senator, 11%

David Chiu, Board of Supervisors President, 10%

Dennis Herrera, City Attorney, 9%

Bevan Dufty, former Supervisor, 8%

Click through the link to see second and third choices.

• DCCC: Steve Israel talked a bunch with the Hotline about candidate recruitment. The most interesting thing is his “alumni association” of former members of Congress who are thinking about running again. He holds “semi-regular” (Hotline’s phrase) conference calls with “the vast majority of former members.” Israel says that in recent weeks, interest and attendance has spiked, and I have to guess that recent Democratic enthusiasm inspired heavily by protests in the Midwest has been a factor. Israel also insists that ex-MoCs who have closed down their campaign accounts or taken lobbying jobs are not necessarily taking themselves out of the game; he sympathetically argues that some folks simply need the cash. Of course, optics aside, K Street might just seem a lot more comfortable than the campaign trail grind to many of these folks

• DNC: The usual unnamed Democrats are telling Politico they think Ted Strickland is a “strong contender” to replace Tim Kaine at the DNC if the latter decides to run for the Senate in Virginia. I think the world of Strickland, but I’d hate to see his considerable talents get muzzled at the DNC. I just don’t think that a proud populist is going to be able to speak his mind while at the Obama DNC.

• Votes: Dave Catanese has a run-down on the House members seeking (or likely to seek) statewide office and how they voted on the most recent temporary budget bill. A big swath of Republicans voted “no” (i.e., against their party), after having previously voted for the prior continuing resolution, likely out of fears of getting teabagger (because the bills don’t cut spending enough). Meanwhile, several Democrats in the same boat all voted “yes.”

• WATN?: My word:

A seven-count indictment accuses Tom Ganley, a high-profile auto dealer and onetime congressional candidate, of kidnapping a 39-year-old Cleveland woman and having sexual contact with her.

Ganley, 68, faces three felony charges of gross sexual imposition, and single counts of kidnapping, abduction, solicitation, and menacing by stalking, according to Ryan Miday, a spokesman for County Prosecutor Bill Mason.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Mississippi: Looks like Lt. Gov. and gubernatorial aspirant Phil Bryant is getting his ass handed to him. Bryant attempted to interfere with the state Senate’s attempt to draw a new map by instead offering his own. Bryant’s plan was rejected by the Senate (which we noted on Tuesday). Now, the Senate’s original plan has been adopted by the House. So it looks like an incumbent-protection deal has been reached, with the Democratic-held House and the Republican-controlled Senate each getting their way. But even with a Dem gerrymander, you’ve got to believe it’s only a matter of time before the House falls, too.

• General: Politico has a piece discussing the GOP’s overall strategy of playing it safe with redistricting this decade, and to avoid “dummymanders” like the one in Pennsylvania which proved (at least temporarily) disastrous to the party.