Tag: VA-Sen

It’s looking like the GOP’s marquee candidate in Virginia, as expected, is about to enter the race against Jim Webb (or an open seat race, if Webb retires as has been threatened). We don’t have a source beyond Politico’s Mike Allen, but here’s what he knows:

George Allen, the former U.S. senator and Virginia governor, plans to tell supporters within a week that he is mounting a campaign to retake the Senate seat he lost to Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) in 2006. Allen, 58, the most prominent 2012 challenger to announce so far, has begun to line up key staff members.

While a Webb/Allen rematch would be one of the nation’s hottest general election races, there’s still the little matter of the primary election, where Allen already faces tea partier Jamie Radtke and may face a higher profile rival from the right. Former state party chair Jeff Frederick, in a just-released interview, is already promising he won’t back Allen:

He was complicit in all the big government conservatism that came out of the Congress during his years in the Senate, cheerleading for it all and never leading against it. Allen was a go-along member of the GOP majority that lost power because it lost its principles, and he really is the opposite of the ideal candidate for those of us looking for a constitutional, first-principles, non-GOP-status-quo type of candidate.  George Allen is the poster child for the establishment.

For some perspective on that position, Allen’s lifetime ACU rating was 92.6.

• AK-Sen: With the book about to close on 2010, so too is the last outstanding race of 2010, the Alaska Senate race. Today the state is planning to certify Lisa Murkowski as winner of the race, including hand-delivering the certification papers to Washington DC so there won’t be any possible obstacles to Murkowski’s swearing-in next week (and ensuing temporary loss of state clout). This, of course, follows a legal one-two punch to Joe Miller’s hopes: last week’s loss at the Alaska Supreme Court, which upheld the trial court’s decision that the write-in votes for Murkowski were properly counted, and then this week’s ruling by a federal district court judge dismissing his related federal suit and lifting the hold on the race’s certification. Miller will not stand in the way of the certification, although he says he is still considering whether to continue litigating the matter (which, if he did, would feature the 9th Circuit as the next stop).

The most ironic part of the whole tale is that the Tea Party Express, in their ill-advised RINO hunt, seem to have only succeeded in making Murkowski into more of a free agent. If you’ve noticed that Murkowski seems to be toeing the GOP line less since winning the election without running under the GOP banner, you’re not alone: she was the only Senate GOPer to vote with the Dems on all four big action items during the lame duck session (the tax compromise, DADT repeal, START, and the DREAM Act).

• DE-Sen: SSP isn’t about re-litigating old elections, but this is indeed relevant because Christine O’Donnell, looking to capitalize on her newfound celebrity, may yet be a fourth-time candidate for the Senate against Tom Carper in the future. That fourth run might be more difficult, though, if she’s in prison… perhaps possible as it seems like the federal government has decided it’s had enough of her once-every-two-years grifting tours and is now criminally investigating her use of campaign funds for personal purposes during her 2010 campaign. Anyway, she put out a truly epic statement today on the matter that ought to have you reaching for your copy of the DSM, so laden with paranoia and delusions of grandeur it is.

• MA-Sen: While everyone seems to be wondering which U.S. Rep. will step into the gap if nobody named Kennedy runs for the Senate, there’s always the outside possibility that someone with a business background and lots of his own money tries to move to the head of the pack in the Bay State. Robert Pozen may fit that bill, and he’s apparently been talking to party insiders about the possibility. The investment banker-turned-Harvard Business professor has some liabilities, though: he served briefly in Mitt Romney’s cabinet, which may help his bipartisan bona fides but could be poison in a primary, and his personality has been described as [John] “Silberesque,” which would just be all-purpose poison.

• MI-Sen: If the NRSC ever had any interest in Tim Leuliette as their Senate candidate in Michigan, that probably evaporated this week. The auto-parts magnate just said that he’s not comfortable with self-funding his campaign and wouldn’t put much of his “large fortune” into a run. Considering that that was the main (if not only) selling point for a candidacy from an otherwise unknown political newcomer, that should pretty much be end-of-story.

• MO-Sen, MO-Gov: A poll from Republican pollster Wilson Research (commissioned by consulting firm Axiom Strategies) has (big surprise) good news for Republicans in it, most notably Jim Talent. The ex-Sen. has a significant lead in a rematch against Claire McCaskill, ahead 51-40. Talent seems to have a big electability edge over Sarah Steelman, who’s tied 44-44 with McCaskill. McCaskill’s approvals are 48/45. They also look at the Governor’s race, finding a more competitive race than PPP did but not the lead that a Peter Kinder internal showed. They find Dem incumbent Jay Nixon leading Kinder 45-42, with Nixon’s approvals at 52%. Worth noting: the poll’s a little stale, taken Dec. 1-2.

• ND-Sen: It’s starting to look like Kent Conrad will face some serious opposition from Republicans this cycle (assuming the 62-year-old runs for re-election), although it’s not clear exactly from whom. Perhaps the heaviest-hitter available, the state’s ex-Gov. and the former Bush administration Agriculture Secretary, Ed Schafer, has just ruled it out. For now, the likeliest-sounding one right now seems to be Brian Kalk, one of the state’s three Public Service Commissioners, a statewide elected position. Kalk says he’s giving it “serious thought,” which contrasts with oft-mentioned AG Wayne Stenehjem’s statement that he doesn’t have “any plans” (although not closing “any doors” either) and with newly-promoted Gov. Jack Dalrymple, for whom it’s the “last thing” on his mind.

• NE-Sen (pdf): In case you weren’t sure whether or not Ben Nelson’s in trouble for 2012, um, yes, he’s in trouble. Republican pollster Magellan is out with a poll finding Nelson with an overall 29/59 re-elect, and trailing GOP AG Jon Bruning 52-38. He’s also trailing state Treasurer Don Stenberg (not yet a candidate, but sounding likely to run as well) 46-40. Hopefully we’ll get a look from PPP at this one soon for confirmation. It seems like the Dems are already treating Bruning as a serious threat, though, with the state party trying to throw obstacles in his path by filing FEC and IRS complaints against Bruning over shoddy campaign-committee setup.

• VA-Sen: So apparently all you have to do is append “Tea Party Activist” to your job description, and all of a sudden you’re magically promoted from Some Dude to Very Serious Candidate Worthy of National Media Attention. Or at least that’s the case with the campaign announcement from Jamie Radtke, head of the Judean People’s Front People’s Front of Judea Virginia Federation of Tea Party Patriots, whose main claim to fame seems to be organizing a gathering of 3,000 ‘baggers in Richmond. At any rate, Radtke is the first actually announced GOP candidate. Meanwhile, Jim Webb seems to be moving closer to making a decision on whether to run for re-election (though no clues on how he feels), saying he’ll sort it out over the holiday break and make an announcement in the first quarter of 2011.

• IN-Gov: This comes as a surprise, since there had been a lot of buzz about her as the nominee, with increasing moves from Rep. Mike Pence toward a presidential run instead. But Becky Skillman, Indiana’s Lt. Governor, recently announced that she wouldn’t run for Governor in 2012, citing “minor health issues.” Does this make likelier a Pence gubernatorial run, now that he’d have an easy stroll to the nomination? And if Pence doesn’t run, that seems to point to a truly wide open field, as no one seems to have contemplated a GOP field that didn’t include Pence or Skillman. Who else might step up? (I hear Mike Sodrel may still be looking for a job…)

• NC-Gov: Rounding out the troika of Republican polls showing Dem incumbents in trouble is one from North Carolina from Civitas, who have coordinated with a variety of pollsters and this time went straight to the big daddy of GOP pollsters, POS. The poll finds GOP former Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory cruising in a rematch against Dem incumbent Bev Perdue, who never really seemed to gain her footing after a narrow 2008 win: he leads her 51-36 (with Perdue getting only 64% among Democrats).

• WA-Gov: Two interesting developments mean this race isn’t as open-and-shut as I’d thought. One is that there’s increasing buzz linking Dow Constantine, just elected in 2009 as King County Executive, to the governor’s race. I’ve regarded Constantine (who’s 47) as a very likely Governor starting in 2020, but with Dems seeming a little edgy that none of their biggest-name candidates (Rep. Jay Inslee, whose WA-01 is centered in suburban Snohomish Co., Snohomish Co. Exec Aaron Reardon, Spokane-based state Sen. majority leader Lisa Brown) are from their stronghold of King County while likely GOP candidate Rob McKenna is, there might be some pressure on Constantine to move up his timetable. (It’s worth noting that Gary Locke became Gov. in 1996 after three years as King Co. Executive.) The other develompent is that Chris Gregoire isn’t categorically ruling out an attempt at a third term, which she’s legally entitled to do but Just Isn’t Done. (Although she might point out that the last time it was tried, 1972, Dan Evans was successfully re-elected… in fact, the last time a Republican was re-elected Governor in Washington.) She registered as a 2012 candidate with the Public Disclosure Commission, in order to “keep her options open.” (UPDATE: Big h/t to meekermariner, who points out in comments that this Gregoire article is nearly two years old, leaving me to wonder why Politico was linking to it with such enthusiasm. At any rate, the Gregoire committee remains open today, although that in itself isn’t much of a suggestion that a third term may be in the offing.)

• WV-Gov: This week was the deadline for filing briefs for the lawsuit that’s attempting to move up the special election to replace Joe Manchin up to 2011. We still don’t have an answer to when it will happen, but at least we know who’s on what side in the case: the state’s major unions (including the AFL-CIO and WVEA) want it sooner, and so does likely candidate and Dem state House speaker Rick Thompson. State Auditor Glen Gainer supports the expedited election too, while SoS Natalie Tennant (another possible Dem candidate) has basically punted on the issue. And if you’re wondering about Joe Manchin’s decision to duck DADT and DREAM Act votes in order to enjoy family holiday festivities, it seems like it wasn’t, first and foremost, a self-protecting profile in cowardice. With Manchin having survived probably his toughest challenge, he’s more interested now in clearing the way for ally and acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, and not interested in provoking a social issues-based civil war within the state Dem party that could undermine Tomblin’s shot at getting elected to a full term.

• OH-01: Guess who’s sounding like he’s gearing up for a rematch? Steve Driehaus, in an interview with the Cincinnati paper, took a variety of potshots at Steve Chabot, calling him a Boehner “follower” and saying he shouldn’t “sit too easy.” Driehaus has previously said he’s “open” to another attempt. (This is Cincinnati-based district is notorious for steep dropoff in African-American voting in off-years, so if any time would be the right time for Driehaus to try again, 2012 would be it.)

• LA-St. House: There was a long period of threatening and flirting, but now it’s official: state Rep. Noble Ellington switched to the Republican Party, formally flipping control of the state’s lower legislative chamber to the GOP for the first time since Reconstruction. Functionally, it may not make much perceptible difference, since there was already a Republican speaker, and many Dems were already quite conservative.

• NY-St. Sen.: Looks like the end of the line in one other outstanding race (which ultimately had the balance of the New York state Senate in play): the state’s Court of Appeals said no thanks to incumbent Dem Craig Johnson’s appeal of a lower court decision that said there didn’t need to be a hand recount of machine votes in New York’s 7th District. GOPer Jack Martins had been declared the winner in the race by several hundred votes, handing the state Senate back to the GOP by a 32-30 margin.

• PA-St. Sen.: Pennsylvania’s state Senate has been even more stubbornly Republican over the years than New York’s, and it looks like the Dems are going to have play a bit more defense there in an upcoming special election. Democratic minority whip Michael O’Pake (the state’s longest-serving legislator) died several days ago at age 70, leaving a vacancy in SD-11 that will need to be filled by special election at some point between March and May (date TBD). On paper, this looks like the kind of district that would be a major test case for whether the Dems are going to continue their run of bad luck in the Keystone State from the 2010 election: while it works out to about D+4 (going 59/40 for Barack Obama and 51/48 for John Kerry), it also gave 55% of the vote to Tom Corbett and 50.6% to Pat Toomey this year. However, this may all boil down to bench strength in a traditionally-Dem district (centered on the blue-collar city of Reading, although made purple by inclusion of its suburbs, too): insiders from both parties are treating Democratic former Berks Co. Commissioner Judy Schwank as “prohibitive favorite.”

• Approvals: PPP does us the favor of consolidating all their year-end Senate approval ratings and gubernatorial approvals in one (or two, really) places. In the Senate, the most popular Senator overall, in addition to most popular one up in 2012, is Amy Klobuchar (59/29); while outgoing Roland Burris is the overall goat, Joe Lieberman is in worst shape of anyone up in 2012 (33/54). Among the few governors facing 2012 re-election, Jack Markell is tops at 50/32 (with Jay Nixon not far behind at 44/30), while Chris Gregoire fares the worst, in case she actually runs (although this might dissuade her sudden interest in a third term); her 40/53 is actually a worse spread than Bev Perdue’s 35/44.

• Redistricting: The Fix has a good piece on redistricting out, that should pretty much serve as the last word on why GOP purely-redistricting-related House seat gains are likely to be limited to the single digits for 2012: thanks to their 2010 overperformance, they’re thoroughly maxed out in the big four prizes where they have total control (Texas, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania). That’s compounded by, in Florida, the new Fair Districts initiative, and in Texas, the need to create at least two more VRA districts while still protecting Blake Farenthold. Also, here’s one other redistricting implication that’s gotten totally overlooked in all the last few weeks’ discussion: although California didn’t lose or gain a seat, there’s been enough population shift within the state (thanks to stagnation in the Bay Area and rapid growth in the Inland Empire) that the net result will be the moving of most of one district from NoCal to SoCal. It’ll be interesting to see whether the new independent commission is able to do that in a way that lightly shifts boundaries southwards and protects the jobs of all 53 incumbents, or if someone from the north actually gets turfed out and an effectively new seat opens up in the south.

• Chicago mayor: A lot has happened in the Chicago mayoral race since we last checked: first, Rahm Emanuel cleared the first hurdle in ascertaining that he is, indeed, a Chicago resident and not a Kenyan (although there will be inevitable courtroom appeals for weeks to come, with opponents willing to go to the state Supreme Court). The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners last week rejected claims that Emanuel had abandoned his Chicago residency when he went to work in the White House. Also, we’ve seen two of Emanuel’s erstwhile opponents drop out of the race, narrowing the number of African-American candidates but still leaving that part of the field split between Danny Davis (last seen publicly urging Bill Clinton against coming to Chicago to campaign for Emanuel) and Carol Mosely Braun. State Sen. James Meeks dropped out, saying he didn’t want to further split the black vote, and Roland Burris also withdrew, via press release, from the race (although it’s unclear whether he ever really was in the race, since he never made any public appearances). Finally, we got another poll of the race from We Ask America, which may be most noteworthy for showing Gerry Chico in position to make the runoff. They find Emanuel at 44, Chico at 12, Braun at 8, Davis at 7, Miguel Del Valle at 6, and Meeks at 4.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clarus (pdf) (12/7-9, Virginia voters, no trendlines)

Jim Webb (D-inc): 41

George Allen (R): 40

Undecided: 19

Jim Webb (D-inc): 39

Bob McDonnell (R): 42

Undecided: 19

Jim Webb (D-inc): 44

Ken Cuccinelli (R): 33

Undecided: 23

MoE: ±4%

Yes, yes, I know Jim Webb was a Marine, not a Navy aviator, so the Top Gun/Kenny Loggins reference is a bit misplaced, but the point still stands. Despite leading likely opponent George Allen in their rematch, Jim Webb is in a fairly dangerous position, well below the 50% mark that supposedly represents safety, even below 50 against the simultaneously little-known and polarizing AG Ken Cuccinelli. (Although think about the Senators who squeaked by in November despite routinely polling nowhere near 50%…)

Webb’s approvals are actually quite good, at 47/24; given the dropoff, it seems like there are a fair share of Republican and indie voters who approve of the man but still don’t want a Democrat in office. The 29% who “don’t know” is also surprisingly high. (Mark Warner fares even better, at 57/23, as does new GOP governor Bob McDonnell, at 53/27.) There’s one other very interesting data point in the crosstabs that’s worth sharing, that says a lot about the parties in Virginia, who’s in what party, and the very bright line somewhere around Fredericksburg that demarcates the Northeast from the South: Webb’s approvals are much higher among people making over $100,000 per year (54%) than those making under (45%).

One other bit of Virginia news: ex-Rep. Tom Davis, last seen getting cock-blocked out of the 2008 Senate nomination by the decision to hold an nominating convention rather than a primary, has decided that the GOP has gone even further away from his direction and isn’t even going to bother with this cycle. Davis used to represent Dem-leaning VA-11 and is from the sorta-moderate-or-at-least-sane camp of Republicans that would make him an imposing general election competitor if there were a way anymore for him to emerge with a primary victory.

• AK-Sen: Tomorrow is now the expected date for the ruling from a state superior court judge on Joe Miller’s suit contesting 8,000 ballots (over spelling) and also alleging various instances of voter fraud. There’s an injunction in place that keeps the race from being certified until this case (which started in federal court and got moved) has been decided, although the judge is conceding that whatever he decides, it’s likely to get immediately appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court.

News also comes today that Joe Miller wound up finishing the Alaska Senate race with over $900K still in hand, an outrageous sum given how cheap the Alaska media market is. Much of that was intended to go toward post-game legal expenses, and some of that may have been the same problem that plagued other teabagger fundraising dynamos (like Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle), of not being able to find any ad slots to spend the money. Also worth a read: a wrapup over at Daily Kos from the Scott McAdams campaign’s media guy, especially his recounting of the adventure he went through to find the Incredible Hulk tie that appeared in McAdams’ TV spot. Finally, we’ll let Kagro X get the last word in on the state of the Alaska race:

Joe Miller keeps fighting on, like a 90 year old Japanese commando on a forgotten island…

• FL-Sen: The Florida GOP primary is looking like it’s going to be a very crowded affair after all: Adam Hasner, the former state House majority leader, has suddenly bubbled up over the last few days as a possible if not likely candidate. If the name sounds familiar, he considered and decided against a run in FL-22 this year; he’s one of the few Republicans from the Gold Coast and, in addition to being a key Marco Rubio ally, could tap quickly into Jewish Republican fundraising circles.

• PA-Sen: It’s looking more and more like Bob Casey Jr.’s challenger is going to come not from the U.S. House but the ranks of the state Senate; the question, though, is which one? The newest name to surface is Kim Ward, who says she’s starting to test the waters. She’s from Westmoreland County, maybe the most conservative of the once-blue, now-swingy collar counties around Pittsburgh, giving the GOP hopes they might eat into Casey’s strong backing in SW PA.

• RI-Sen: Don’t rule out soon-to-be-ex-Gov. Don Carcieri (who’d probably be the only Republican who could make this an interesting race here) from Senate race consideration. The 68-year-old two-termer says he isn’t ruling it out, but wants to take some time off before thinking about it.

• VA-Sen: George Allen is definitely acting candidate-ish now; having laid down markers against possible primary challenger Corey Stewart, now he’s moving on to direct attacks on Jim Webb (who, of course, may or may not be running for re-election), over voting against the earmark ban and the horrible sin of supporting collective bargaining rights for public safety officers.

• LA-Gov: Still no word on whether a strong Dem will get into the Louisiana governor’s race, but The Daily Kingfish takes a very interesting look at the field of possible challengers to Bobby Jindal, whose numbers indicate he’s popular but not bulletproof. They handicap the odds on a collection of possible challengers; interestingly, the guy they give the greatest odds to is ex-Dem John Kennedy (who presumably would take on Jindal while still wearing the “R” badge, although I guess anything’s possible in Louisiana, where party labels seem to get taken on and off like so much laundry). They also float the possibility of a Mary Landrieu run, in that she may be eager to bail out of Washington before her next re-election in 2014.

• WV-Gov: With a pileup of half a dozen Dems interested in the 2012 (or 2011?) gubernatorial race, who’s running for the GOP? The Beltway rumor mill seems, this week, to have Shelly Moore Capito more interested in going for the Gov race than the Senate or staying in the House. While she’d be the undisputed heavyweight, a few other second-tier GOPers are making their interest known (although it’s unclear whether they’d bother if Capito got in). Most prominent is ex-SoS Betty Ireland, one of the few GOPers around who’s held statewide office, and who had briefly considered running for Senate this year. State Sen. Clark Barnes is the only Republican who has committed to the race so far.

• CO-03, VA-11: Republican Keith Fimian, who came within a thousand votes of Gerry Connolly, is publicly saying he’s interested in another run. He wants to wait and see what the district looks like after redistricting before committing one way or the other, though. One other rematch that may or may not be on the table is Dem John Salazar in Colorado’s 3rd, who narrowly lost the reddish district to Scott Tipton and “is open” to a rematch.

• House: Politico takes a quick look at the Republicans that Democrats in the House are most likely to target in 2012. I don’t think any of the names (mostly surprise victors in Dem-leaning swing districts) will surprise any devoted SSP readers: in order, they discuss Chip Cravaack, Ann Marie Buerkle, the Illinois Five (especially Bobby Schilling), Blake Farenthold, Renee Ellmers, and Allen West.

• Votes: The DREAM Act passed the House today (although it looks like, so many other pieces of legislation, its next stop is a slow Senate death by neglect). It’s an interesting vote breakdown, with 38 Dems voting no (mostly Blue Dogs, and mostly ones on their way out the door) and 8 Republicans voting yes (almost all the non-white GOPers, along with the newly-liberated Bob Inglis). Most puzzling “no” vote may be Dan Lipinski, whose safe blue IL-03 is significantly Latino, and getting more so every day.

• Census: This is a strange video to go viral, but I’ve been seeing lots of links to this new video from the Census Bureau today, a catchy little explanation of what reapportionment is and how it works. Also a helpful Census Bureau release today: a release schedule of all the various parts and pieces that will be necessary for the redistricting process. The big enchilada, of course, is the reapportionment breakdown, which will be released at some point before the end of the year, although they’re still not specifying which date. According to today’s release, state numbers on race (down to the block level) will be out in February, so I’m sure there’ll be flurry of activity with Dave’s Redistricting App at that point.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• AK-Sen: A new profile of Sitka mayor Scott McAdams has him sounding unsure about using his newfound celebrity to run statewide again, as he cites the very apparent difficulty of winning statewide as a Democrat in Alaska. In the article is an interesting number that also shows just how well Lisa Murkowski did at getting moderates (and even Dems doing the game-theory thing) to fall in line behind her: Ethan Berkowitz, the Dem candidate in the standard 2-way race for Governor, picked up 96,000 votes, way more than McAdams’ 67,000.

• MA-Sen: Here’s a name that we haven’t heard associated with the Senate race, sounding more interested than assumed (well, he’s not sounding interested, but “mum” is not not interested). Barney Frank, who skipped the special election and was assumed not interested at the time because of his age and his chairmanship, is saying “ask me later” about challenging Scott Brown. Maybe being in the minority has changed his mind, since he has no gavel to give up anymore.

• ME-Sen: If there was any doubt that Olympia Snowe’s main problem in 2012 will be in the GOP primary, against a teabagger-to-be-named-later, check this out: she just signed on to an amicus brief challenging the constitutionality of the mandate portion of health care reform. That’s, of course, the same bill that she helped vote out of committee (though she voted against it on the floor).

• MI-Sen: The GOP field to go against Debbie Stabenow hasn’t really started to take shape yet, but here’s one potential name that’s getting some encouragement within conservative circles to run: soon-to-be-ex-Rep. Peter Hoekstra, who lost the GOP gubernatorial primary. He isn’t ruling it out, but is “predisposed to say no.”

• NE-Sen: While the entry of AG Jon Bruning (who has an exploratory committee) is considered pretty much an inevitability, there’s already one Republican formally in the race now: investment adviser Pat Flynn, who sounds like he’ll be flying the tea party flag. Flynn got 22% of the vote in the 2008 Senate GOP primary, losing to Mike Johanns.

• NM-Sen: If you’re waiting on pins and needles to find out whether Jeff Bingaman will run for another Senate term, you’ll need to wait a little longer. Bingaman is expected to announce his 2012 plans in March (the usual timetable he’s followed for previous re-elections). The article points out he recently raised $400K at a fundraiser, certainly the actions of a man planning another run.

• NV-Sen: It would have taken the confluence of a great Harry Reid campaign and a terrible opponent’s campaign for Harry Reid to win in a year like this, and it looks like that’s what we got. You’ve all seen the post-mortems about how effective Reid’s campaign was, and now here’s a nice Politico piece on the amateur-hour efforts from Team Angle, focusing on her campaign manager Terry Campbell, who often seemed unaware of the timing of ad buys or even how much money they had at a given moment. Maybe most telling: the Election Day phone bank shut down at 5 pm (despite polls being open until 7) in order to go set up the victory party. Never fear, though, it sounds like yet more Angle is on tap for 2012. However, it’s sounding more and more like the plan, instead of running against John Ensign in the Senate primary, will be to run for the open seat in NV-02 assuming Dean Heller runs for Senate. (Another option is running for the state Senate, as her long-time nemesis Bill Raggio will be vacating his Reno-area open seat.)

• TX-Sen: Here’s a boilerplate article on the speculation as to whether Kay Bailey Hutchison runs for re-election, but there’s an interesting tidbit buried within: Chet Edwards, who’ll be looking for work soon and has a better profile for running statewide than for his blindingly-red district, is getting a strong push to run on the Dem side. (The Texas Tribune has more on Edwards here. Another, maybe likelier, possibility, is an Obama administration job.)

• VA-Sen: The Virginia state GOP has decided to hold a primary to nominate its Senate nominee in 2012, not a convention (as they did in 2008). This is seen as a boost to establishment fave George Allen, who, flamingly right-wing as he is, would still be vulnerable to someone even to the right at a convention, which is dominated by the hardcore faithful. (As seen by Jim Gilmore’s near loss at the ’08 convention to the obscure state Del. Bob Marshall, reported to be interested in another try.)

• IL-17: There’s a fair number of defeated Dem House members that seem like it’d a good idea for them run again in 2012, but here’s one that, well, isn’t a good idea, who’s still quick to state his interest. Phil Hare (who lost by a significant margin to a pizza parlor owner in his first actively-contested election) says he’d like to try again. The real question may be what district he’d even be running in, considering that the weird-looking 17th (intended as a downstate Dem vote sink, albeit not a very effective one if the Dem can’t even hold it) is likely to be vaporized in redistricting.

• DCCC: It’s official: Rep. Steve Israel will be running the DCCC for the 2012 cycle, as the Dems seek to get back on the offensive. Israel will still need to be approved by the larger House caucus, but having gotten the Pelosi imprimatur, it’s considered a done deal.

• Polltopia: Pew is out with even more data on the cellphone polling issue, and it confirms what you probably already know, that the cellphone gap is not only real but growing. They found that in the polls they conducted in fall 2010, the landline-only surveys skewed in the Republican direction by 5.1% more than dual-frame surveys. That’s up from the 2.4% cellphone gap they found in 2008 polling. They also found that dual users (both cellphone and landline) reached by cell are still significantly more Democratic than dual users reached by landline, which would explain much of the skew.

• Redistricting: Good news for Dave’s App users. Having just unveiled Dave’s App 2.0 a few weeks ago, now he’s up to Dave’s App 2.0.1, incorporating a few tweaks (such as showing all districts all the time).

• AK-Sen: In the words of Bart Simpson, “he’s like some kind of non-giving-up guy!” Joe Miller just keeps contesting the Alaska Senate race despite rigor mortis having started to set in. Today he added another legal action to the already-long (and expensive) tally, asking a federal judge for an injunction stopping state officials from certifying the election. Miller’s latest gripe is that the state started the count a week earlier than scheduled, forcing him to pull together a volunteer ballot-challenging team on short notice, meaning that “an indeterminate number” of misspelled ballots got through. (That number would have to be several thousand for this challenge to have any hope of succeeding.) This, of course, has to work in parallel to a separate suit, still in process, where he’s trying to force the state from counting any misspelled ballots.

• CT-Sen: Since she apparently has absolutely nothing better to do with her piles of money, Linda McMahon is actually running a post-election “thank you” ad. Speculation is rising that she’s trying to stay top-of-mind for 2012, where there’s the possibility of running against Joe Lieberman (an option she said she wasn’t taking off the table). The article also cites increased buzz about Ted Kennedy Jr. running for the Dems. Rep. Chris Murphy is known to be interested too, and soon-to-be-ex-SoS Susan Bysiewicz, despite a year of nonstop bungling, is also in the mix.

• VA-Sen: Here are a couple more Republican names who are checking out the Senate race in Virginia. One is an establishment figure, Prince William Co. Chairman Corey Stewart, but the other is Bert Mizusawa, a retired Army Reserve brigadier general whom you might remember as the more-conservative opposition from the VA-02 GOP primary this year, who lost to Rep.-elect Scott Rigell. Also, the Tom Perriello buzz (in the event of Jim Webb not running again) seems to have gotten loud enough that the Washington Post has taken notice.

• NY-01, NY-25: The race in the 1st is down into the double digits, as Tim Bishop made up more ground yesterday as absentee ballots counted in his home turf of Southampton started reporting. Randy Altschuler’s lead is 81 votes, representing a gain of more than 200 for Bishop (although Altschuler’s camp says they did “better than expected” in Dem areas that reported, and that the more GOP-friendly Brookhaven has yet to report). In the 25th, Dan Maffei upped his percentage of the absentee votes coming in from the first half of votes from Onondaga County, enough to gain 521 votes, now trailing Ann Marie Buerkle by 303. He’ll still need to maintain that pace to win, though, as more GOP-friendly Wayne County has yet to report.

• DSCC: Harry Reid is now saying he’s “in no hurry” to fill the still-empty DSCC slot, but Beltway CW seems to find the fickle finger pointing more clearly in Patty Murray’s direction. With Michael Bennet having pretty thoroughly declined, Reid and the White House are now making a “full court press” on Murray (who also helmed the DSCC’s 2002 cycle).

• CO-St. House: 197 votes is all that kept Dems from controlling the trifecta in Colorado for 2012. The last outstanding race in the state House was concluded, with Republican Robert Ramirez beating Dem incumbent Debbie Benefield by 197, flipping the state House to the GOP by a 33-32 margin. (Dems control the state Senate and the governor’s chair.)

• IA-St. Sen.: It’s been two and a half weeks since an election, and you’re already hungry for another one? Well, we’ve already got one on tap coming up very soon: the legislative special election to fill Lt. Gov.-elect Kim Reynolds’ seat in SD-48, scheduled for Jan. 4. It’s light-red turf in Iowa’s rural southwestern corner, though, so likely GOP nominee Joni Ernst (the Montgomery Co. Auditor) is probably the favorite. The local parties will select their nominees next week; despite losing the state House, Dems still control the state Senate.

• Redistricting: Eight members of the new California citizens’ redistricting commission have been named (one of whom is a former US Census director). If you make unsupported assumptions based on their professions, it looks like we may have done well with the “unaffiliated” picks. Six more will be added before work begins.

• AK-Sen: Is there anyone other than Joe Miller left who wants Joe Miller to keep contesting the Senate race? The state GOP organization is now saying it “stands ready to embrace Lisa Murkowski” as the winner of the race, despite her not having won its primary. I’m sure they were secretly ready all along to do so… recall that the person issuing the statement, state party chair Randy Ruedrich, was the guy that Joe Miller was trying to orchestrate a palace coup against, which got him fired from his Fairbanks borough job. I can’t imagine much love lost between Ruedrich and Miller.

• IN-Sen: Richard Lugar, who just announced that he’s running for re-election, is laying down a pretty big marker (and one that probably helped convince him to run again). He’s out with an internal poll from American Viewpoint that, while it doesn’t specifically poll the 2012 GOP Senate primary, shows him with huge approvals, though apparently among all voters and not just registered Republicans. He’s at 66% favorable. Two of his potential GOP opponents, state Treasurer Richard Mourdock and state Sen. Mike Delph, have faves of 14% and 7% each.

• ND-Sen, NM-Sen: This Politico article doesn’t actually contain any hard facts that are newsworthy, but it does contain one alarming sentence, that both Kent Conrad and Jeff Bingaman are “weighing retirement” (without anything beyond that). Conrad and Bingaman, though both long-timers, are still in their early 60s. Buried deep in the article is also a throwaway line that Jon Kyl is also the subject of retirement “speculation.”

• NJ-Sen: That tea party push to have a recall election for Bob Menendez (despite, of course, the universally accepted legal principle that you can’t recall federal officials) seems to have finally died, courtesy of the New Jersey Supreme Court. I’m just surprised the case rose that far through the courts before, y’know, someone thought to crack open their 1L Con Law textbook, but the bright side is that every dollar right-wingers spend on pointless appellate legal fees is a dollar not spent on actually electing somebody. Menendez is up for a regularly scheduled election in 2012, anyway.

• NV-Sen: Everyone seems in a fit of instant nostalgia for Sharron Angle today, with the revelation that in the course of the campaign she said “Sometimes dictators have good ideas” (in reference to Augusto Pinochet and privatized pension systems), and the leaked release of the ad that she cut that never got released, probably because it takes a minute to make a point that should take five seconds and because the 70s-disaster-flick-style overacting overshadows any possible message. (You can click here to see the ad, bearing in mind that it opens in Windows Media Player.) The real news that got leaked today that might impact the 2012 race, though, is that none other than John Ensign helped Sharron Angle prep for her debate by playing the part of Harry Reid. I wonder if that’ll be the last nail in the coffin for the reputed Reid/Ensign non-aggression pact?

• RI-Sen: Add one more potential name to the roster for a Republican challenger to Sheldon Whitehouse: the state’s GOP chair, Giovanni Cicione (who has been encouraging outgoing Gov. Don Carcieri to run, as well as floating his own name as a last resort), is touting John Robitaille as a possible candidate. Robitaille (Carcieri’s former communications director) performed above expectations in the gubernatorial race in which he was supposed to be a sacrificial lamb, finishing second (though helped along by Frank Caprio’s last-minute implosion).

• VA-Sen (pdf): PPP’s Virginia Senate poll had a GOP primary portion that just got released separately; right now, George Allen is the consensus pick, although that may have more to do with the ex-Gov. and ex-Sen.’s broad name rec compared with the rest of the field. Allen is at 46, with the very-unlikely-to-run Eric Cantor at 18, right-wing AG Ken Cuccinelli at 16, Lt. Gov. Bill Boling and ex-Rep. Tom Davis both at 4, and state Del. Bob Marshall (who almost sneaked into the 2008 Senate nomination) at 2.

• NY-01, NY-25: Good news in the 1st, bad news in the 25th. Tim Bishop has made up some ground, as of the second day of absentee counting. Bishop picked up 108 votes on Randy Altschuler, cutting Altschuler’s lead down to 275, and that’s with Smithtown, Altschuler’s strongest area, having almost entirely reported. Bishop’s strongest turf is East Hampton, which will begin counting tomorrow. Ann Marie Buerkle, however, gained a small amount of ground in the 25th, contrary to expectations. Her lead is up to 824 votes, after a batch of small batch (230) of challenged ballots from Monroe County got opened and counted. The county to watch, though, will be Onondaga County, which is Dan Maffei’s base and where 7,000 absentees are yet to be counted.

• Redistricting: There are three different redistricting articles out today that are worth a read. One is about Texas, where it seems like the GOP is extended about as far as it can go (thanks to victories in TX-23 and likely TX-27); compounding the problem there is something that I’ve been pointing out for years, which is that at least two, possibly three, of its expected four new seats are going to have to be VRA seats, seeing as how the vast majority of Texas’s growth in the past decade has been among Hispanics. Trying to limit the creation of new Hispanic-majority seats will only make it harder to protect Quico Canseco and Blake Farenthold.

There’s also a piece looking at Nevada, more specifically the fight within the Dem-controlled legislature about for whom to tailor NV-04 (which will probably be a Dem-leaning suburban district, conceding a GOP-leaning NV-03 to Joe Heck). Both state Senate majority leader Steven Horsford and new state Assembly speaker John Oceguera have their eyes on the new seat. Finally, there are questions in Florida about just who’s behind the lawsuit, fronted by a bipartisan coalition of Mario Diaz-Balart and Corrine Brown, to stop implementation of Amendment 6, the one bright spot from Florida on Election Day (a new initiative that makes gerrymandering more difficult). The Orlando Sentinel traces the money trail back to a number of state legislators’ groups, including one led by GOP state Sen. Don Gaetz, the guy who… big surprise… is tasked with leading redistricting for the state Senate.