Tag: MI-08

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!

The Michigan Secretary of State’s office has confirmed that Kande Ngalamulume is finally OFF the MI-08 ballot!! Read the details–as well as the explanation for the delay on the part of the SoS office.

In any event, it’s official: Kande is now off the ballot, and the path has been cleared for Lance Enderle to replace him.

Note: For the backstory on the ongoing saga in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District, see this diary from August 1st. Much more has happened since then, as you’re about to see…

This is bigger than just the ongoing saga of MI-08; this is about the Michigan Secretary of State’s office playing games with the election process!

I just received the following press release, issued by the Democratic Congressional Committee of Michigan’s 8th District:

For Immediate Release

Contact: Judy Daubenmier, 734-612-7137

EAST LANSING – A special committee of the 8th District stands ready to appoint Lance Enderle as the Democratic nominee for the 8th Congressional District, but Republican Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land is putting up a roadblock.

Lance Enderle, a teacher from Clinton County, appeared before the special committee on Wednesday night and discussed his plans for a campaign to defeat Republican incumbent Mike Rogers in November. The committee recommended that Democrats in the 8th Congressional District endorse Enderle at their caucus on Saturday during the Michigan Democratic Party convention at Cobo Hall in Detroit.

Committee members are prepared to appoint him as the nominee but learned that Land has refused to accept that the party’s previous nominee, Kande Ngalamulume, has moved out of state, even though she directed Ingham County officials to remove him from the voter rolls. Ngalamulume has registered to vote in Pennsylvania and submitted to Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer a copy of his Pennsylvania voter registration receipt along with a notarized letter indicating that he has changed his permanent residency to Pennsylvania.

A copy of the letter was hand-delivered to the Bureau of Elections on Monday by the Michigan Democratic Party. State party Chair Mark Brewer informed the Bureau of Elections that the nomination was vacant and the Michigan Democratic Party would move promptly to fill the vacancy.

Under Michigan law, when a candidate for Congress moves out of state after the primary, the party may pick a replacement candidate to appear on the November ballot. The law provides that a committee made up of the chairs, secretaries and treasurers of each of the counties in the congressional district make the selection at a meeting convened by the secretary of the party’s state central committee. Nowhere does the law say that the party must wait for the secretary of state to declare a vacancy or remove a candidate’s name.

Committee members said since Ngalamulume was allowed to register to vote in Pennsylvania it is clear that he has moved out of Michigan and that Land is merely fabricating her own hurdles to try to keep a viable Democratic candidate off the ballot.

Land is term-limited and Democrats this weekend plan to nominate Jocelyn Benson, a Wayne State University professor of election law, as their candidate to replace her. Unlike the highly partisan Land, Benson has pledged to take an “Oath of Nonpartisanship” promising to be neutral and non-partisan in administering election laws.

The section of Michigan law in question says that once the party selects a replacement candidate, the candidate’s name “shall” be printed on the general election ballot and does not give Land authority to try to block the party’s action. The law states: “The name of the candidate so selected shall be certified immediately by the secretary of the state central committee to the secretary of state and to the board of election commissioners for each county, whose duty it is to prepare the official ballots; and said board shall cause to be printed or placed upon such ballots, in the proper place, the name of the candidate so selected and certified to fill such vacancy.”

(Paid for by the Eighth Democratic Congressional District Committee, P. O. Box 4278, East Lansing, MI 48826)

For anyone who doesn’t understand why this is diary-worthy (or Rec-worthy), I ask you to read the previous diary linked to above.

In addition, I’m working on additional updates/material as I type this, but needed to get this out there ASAP. Every minute is literally of the essence.

Note: I’ve added a scan of the letter in question. As you can see, it was notarized in Pennsylvania on August 17. The text of it reads:

“Pursuant to your request, here is my formal letter of withdrawal from the race for U.S. Congress in Michigan’s 8th District.

I have also taken steps to move my permanent residency back to Pennsylvania, where I am now registered to vote. It is my understanding that these actions should allow you and other officials to remove my name on the November ballot with a replacement candidate. I extend my warmest congratulations and best wishes to the eventual nominee.

All the best to you and everyone in the 8th District.

Sincerely,

[signed] Kande Ngalamulume

Included with the notarized letter declaring his change of residency, his change of voter registration and his explicit request to have himself removed from the November ballot, the letter also included a scan of the receipt he received from his voter registration in Delaware County, Pennsylvania on August 10, 2010.

Finally, both documents included a cover letter from the Michigan Democratic State Central Committee in Lansing, Michigan, sent to Chris Thomas, the Director of the Bureau of Elections, and signed by MDP Chair Mark Brewer, specifically requesting that Kande Ngalamulume be removed from the ballot. The cover letter specifies that all three documents were hand delivered to Mr. Thomas at the Treasury Building in Lansing.

Now, there’s two stories going on here:

The first is the backstory of the original Democratic candidate for MI-08, Kande Ngalamulume, who dropped out of the race back in June, after the Primary filing deadline, resulting in his name being the only one on the Primary ballot. OK, that was entirely his doing and his responsibility.

HOWEVER, the current situation is this: The Michigan Secretary of State’s office has now been hand-delivered official, undeniable, verifiable proof that Mr. Ngalamulume a) no longer lives in Michigan; b) is now legally residing in, and registered to vote in Pennsylvania; and c) Has explicitly and without any ambiguity declared his desire to be removed from the November 2010 Congressional Ballot for Michigan’s 8th District.

Ms. Land’s office could, prior to this development, rightly claim that the situation was not her fault nor her responsibility. However, with the 60-day change-of-ballot deadline quickly approaching (the lead time is needed in order to print and distribute absentee ballots), any further delay in removing Mr. Ngalamulume from the ballot–and, simultaneously, any further delay in replacing his name with that of Lance Enderle–is nothing more than pure political posturing and obstruction, denying the 600,000+ people of Michigan’s 8th Congressional District the right to choose an alternative to Mike “Let’s Drill for Oil in the Great Lakes!” Rogers.

Hopefully the SoS office will stop playing games, go ahead and strip Kande off the ballot, and replace him with Lance’s name immediately. With so little time to spare, however, Lance needs your help!

Find out more about him at his website:

Lance Enderle for Congress

Pony up a few bucks for Lance:

Lance’s ActBlue Page

Lance’s Facebook Page (link will be changed soon but this is the group for now)

Follow Lance on Twitter

Full disclosure: While I’m working at a substantial discount, I am still being paid. Mostly, however, I’m just upset at the mess caused by Kande’s withdrawl and am trying to help salvage the situation.

(cross-posted at dKos; if you feel this diary is worth people knowing about, please Recommend it there as well as here, thanks!)

OK. As many of you know, I’ve been posting diaries about the unusual situation going on in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District, where all-around wingnut Republican Mike Rogers has been in office for the past 10 years.

I’m not going to rehash the backstory in MI-08 again at this time; check this diary for the details.

For the record, MI-08 is the district of Mike “Kill the WikiLeaks Guy!” Rogers, who also wants to allow drilling in the Great Lakes.

The short version is this: Kande Ngalamulume–who had grown up in Lansing, Michigan, but had been living and working in Pennsylvania for several years before moving back to Lansing in order to run for Congress–filed for the Democratic nomination and ran a campaign for a few months.

Citing a lack of support and funding, he then decided to drop out of the race after the filing deadline. Since he was the only one who had filed in time, he was virtually guaranteed to be on the ballot in November, even though he had dropped out and moved back to Pennsylvania.

Lansing resident Lance Enderle decided that someone should actually face Rogers in November, and launched a last-minute, desperate write-in campaign for the Democratic nomination, which I promoted non-stop here and elsewhere in the blogosphere (Full disclosure: I’m also the campaign website developer; I’m not being paid much, but I am being paid).

Unfortunately, in spite of a flurry of last-minute activity, it just wasn’t to be: Lance only garnered around 2,100 votes out of 28,000 cast in the Democratic primary, or around 7.5%.

Now, on the one hand, this sucks given how much work and effort everyone on the campaign put in (along with some help from dKos and elsewhere).

On the other hand, typical write-in campaigns are lucky to get more than 1% of the vote at best, and that’s only when they have a decent amount of time and money, neither of which Lance had. For that matter, write-ins at the Congressional level are almost unheard of (I looked it up–there’s only been perhaps a half-dozen successful write-in campaigns in Congressional history, and that’s almost always been with much higher-profile candidates).

Lance only had about 40 days and a couple thousand dollars to scrape together his campaign.

Getting over 7% of the vote in a U.S. Congressional write-in campaign is actually pretty damned impressive, if you think about it.

ANYWAY…

Normally, this would be the end of it, right? Lance put in a good effort, but it just wasn’t meant to be, and he came up short.

HOWEVER…

Since the election, there’s been an important development:

After briefly flirting with the idea of jumping back into the race after all, Mr. Ngalamulume publicly announced that not only is he officially NOT running, but that–even more importantly–he is going to formally change his legal residency back to Pennsylvania, which would allow Michigans’ 8th District Democratic Party to have his name removed from the November ballot, and replace him with someone else’s name.

You know, someone like, say, Lance Enderle.

Yes, that’s right–Lance is now very likely to be named as the Democratic Congressional Nominee for the 8th District after all!

Now, I must stress that this hasn’t actually happened yet. For one thing, the various parties involved–the MI-08 Dems, the Michigan SoS office, and (I presume) the Pennsylvania SoS office, along with Lance, are all waiting for the actual paperwork to be filed. For another, it’s always possible that the MI-08 powers that be will name someone else to be the replacement candidate. However, this is considered pretty unlikely, especially since, to my knowledge, Lance is the only one who’s even expressed any interest in running.

The paperwork and legal processes necessary are expected to happen within the next few days. I’ve been holding off on posting about the situation until the process had completed. However, given the fact that every day that passes makes it that much more difficult to take on Mike Rogers, I’ve been given the OK to give an update on where things stand.

In the meantime, Lance needs your help to ensure that once his name is officially listed, he can get his (admittedly difficult) campaign up and running with minimal down time.

This coming weekend has a number of events–parades and other such things–that the campaign needs to retool for, and very little time to do so. To help prepare for this, we’re putting together a quickie money bomb goal of $3,000 for the coming week.

As for Lance himself, I just wanted to give a taste of one of the excellent 3rd-party blogosphere stories from The Political Carnival; to wit:

I just got off the phone with a someone I could have hung out with for hours. He owns a golden retriever he calls “Dude”, he is a 6th-12th grade social studies teacher going for his masters in special ed at Michigan State, and as lay back and wickedly funny as he is, he’s dead serious about representing the people of Michigan’s 8th district.

And when I say people I mean people. Not corporations. Not BP. Not K Street. Not like Republican Mike Rogers, the incumbent, who really ought to give the HBO movie “Gasland” a little look-see.

Oh, yeah–and I can’t forget the money quote:

After talking to him for quite awhile, I could easily draw parallels to Rep. Alan Grayson. IMHO, Enderle could very well become the new most dangerous man in Washington. Sort of an Alan Grayson with a James Earl Jonesish voice.

Yup. She went there.

You guys keep saying you want more Alan Graysons in Congress, right?

Now imagine Alan Grayson with Darth Vader’s voice.

Lance Enderle for Congress

Lance’s ActBlue Page

Lance’s Facebook Page

Lance on Twitter

GIVE LANCE A CHANCE!!

OK, first off, this is a very strange situation, so please bear with me. More importantly, please rec this diary up; we need as much exposure as possible, as quickly as possible.

Michigan’s 8th District has been “represented” (if you can call it that) by a Republican named Mike Rogers since 2000, when he won a squeaker of a race by just 111 votes to fill the U.S. House seat vacated by Debbie Stabenow when she was elected to the U.S. Senate.

You might be thinking that, given the closeness of the race, that MI-08 should be a district that the Dems could take back if they put their minds to it. Unfortunately, up until now, that hasn’t happened. He won 68/31 in 2002, 61/37 in 2004, 55/43 in 2006 and 56/40 in 2008.

The closest anyone has gotten to him was Jim Marcinkowski in 2006, a former CIA agent and Naval Operations Specialist–and that was in an extremely Dem-friendly year (Marcinkowski, a former Republican, actually ran for Congress mostly because he was furious about the outing of Valerie Plame, who was a friend of his from his CIA days).

Now, don’t get me wrong–Rogers isn’t a star in the GOP. As far as I can tell, he’s very good at raising money and getting re-elected, and not much else. Once in a while, he’ll pop his head up on TV long enough to say something incredibly stupid, like blaming Pres. Obama for McChrystal’s insults in Rolling Stone. Other than that, he’s kind of a cypher, a rubber stamp for the GOP, but boy is he good at keeping his seat.

OK, so, Rogers is sitting pretty, right? He has a million bucks in the bank, it’s a GOP-leaning year, and the district seems to have been pretty much ceded by the national Dems.

This, of course, is where Howard Dean’s 50-State Strategy kicks in, right? DON’T CEDE ANY DISTRICT TO THE REPUBLICANS; run a candidate everywhere, no matter how long the odds. At worst, you’ll at least make sure to get the Democratic message out and force the GOP incumbent to stick around their district and spend a few bucks out of their war chest. At best, the incumbent will be caught with their pants down (either figuratively or, more likely, literally), and voila, you pick up the seat after all!

Cut to the 2010 campaign.

Earlier this year, a young guy named Kande Ngalamulume (he was born in Zaire, now known as the Congo) decided to take a shot. No political experience, he’d lived outside of Michigan since 2002. His biggest claim to fame was having been a track star at Michigan State. However, he seemed like a good enough guy, and rightly got a lot of kudos for stepping up to the plate this year. He gave up his job in Pennsylvania to move back home.

I met him in February, and in March he hired me to take over the maintenance of his campaign website (someone else had set it up, but wasn’t able to do the day-to-day updates). I can’t afford to do campaign sites pro bono, but recognized the shoestring nature of his campaign and gave a hefty discount for my time. No one else seemed interested, so he was the only one to file, and had the Democratic nomination to himself; his name will be the only on on the ballot on the August 3rd primary.

Unfortunately, after finding a lack of financial support (he had only raised a total of around $25,000 or so, I believe), he dropped out of the race on June 2–and not only did so in a very public manner (via email press release), but did so several weeks after the filing deadline…and then left the state.

Since he waited until after the filing deadline to drop out, and was the only one to file, his name will remain on the August 3rd ballot anyway, unless either dies or registers to vote in a different state–and so far, he hasn’t filed elsewhere. If he does, then the 8th District Dems can legally challenge his name being on the ballot and could scramble to get someone else to replace him, but otherwise, they’re in a bind. Rogers now has a completely uncontested race, and is free to roam around the state, raising money for whoever the GOP has running against Democratic freshmen Mark Schauer (MI-07) and Gary Peters (MI-09), or turning over a chunk of his million-dollar war chest to the RNC, or whatever he likes. A GOP seat is now 100% safe, 2 Democratic seats are further threatened, and the 8th District Dems are in a pickle.

However, there is one more way out of this pickle: If someone runs as a write-in candidate against Kande Ngalamulume in the Democratic primary and wins, the problem is resolved. Yes, they’d still face the longest of odds against Rogers in November, but at least they’d be doing the yeoman’s job of keeping Rogers distracted, preventing him from helping the GOP out too much, and saving some face for the local party.

NOTE: Edited to remove the unnecessary negativity about Mr. Ngalamulume; I shouldn’t have been speculating on his reasons for doing what he did, and they’re irrelevant to the current situation anyway.

Which brings me to the point of this diary:

Meet Lance Enderle.

Lance is a government school teacher (he was laid off last year; don’t get me started about the state budget cuts by the GOP-controlled Michigan State Senate). He also happens to be a pro-choice, progressive Democrat, who was very active in Democratic politics in the ’90’s up north (He worked for Bart Stupak for a number of years; say what you will about Stupak, but aside from his recent HCR/Abortion debacle, he’s been a pretty solid Dem on most of the other important issues). He got burnt out and got out of the political game 10 years ago…until a couple of weeks ago.

Lance decided that he was so pissed off about the thought of Mike Rogers getting a free ride that he’s going to attempt the impossible improbable: He filed to run for U.S. Congress as a write-in Democrat.

Now, his previous political involvement is important for a couple of reasons: First, it means he has some idea of how to run a campaign; and secondly, it means that, unlike Kande Ngalamulume, he understands just how slim his chances are. His primary goal (pun intended) is to at least win the nomination. While stopping there would normally be pretty meaningless, given the unique circumstances at hand, this would be huge.

The bad news, of course, is that not only does he have to get more votes than the only name actually on the ballot on Aug. 3rd; not only does he have to hope that the voters of the district know how to spell his name; but he also only has 35 days to get the word out about it.

The good news (I hope) is that he has you…and me! Yep, after being burnt by one MI-08 Democratic Congressional Candidate, I’ve willingly signed on to help out another one, in the same race, even! I got in touch with Lance after hearing about him jumping into the ring and he’s brought me on board to handle HIS campaign website from top to bottom.

Now, I know what you’re saying: This guy doesn’t have a chance in hell. OK, probably, but if you’d told me on September 12, 2001 that the next President elected–with more votes than any other candidate in history, I might add–would be a black Democrat named Barack Hussein Obama, I’d have said you were nuts.

Alright, hyperbole and wishful thinking aside, Mike Rogers remains a total jackass. At the very least I think it’s worth a shot. Besides, look what happened to Mark Foley–a 12-year incumbent in a 65%+ Republican district. Then he gets caught sending porn messages to underage boys and voila! We have an extra Democrat in Congress! (Yeah, that guy turned out to be kind of a jerk as well, but you get my point; anything can happen in a political campaign, but if you don’t have someone running, you have no chance of picking up the pieces).

Here’s some articles/interviews about Lance:

Candidate against Rogers emerges

Post-Kande options open for local Dems

Teacher fills Dems’ void in House race

Radio interview with Lance on City Pulse Live (his segment starts appx. 15 min into show)

Radio Interview on A.M. Lansing (direct link to MP3)

So, with all of this in mind, I’d like to invite you to learn more about Lance, more about his campaign, and perhaps (of course) to pony up a few bucks for the underdog race of the year:

Lance Enderle for Congress (just launched)

Lance’s ActBlue Page (just launched)

Lance’s Facebook Page (this has been up for a couple of weeks now)

If you can’t donate money, please at least rec this up and spread the word. Thanks.

Full disclosure: While I’m working for far less than my normal rates, I am still being modestly paid. Mostly, however, I’m just pissed at the mess Kande caused and am trying to help salvage the situation.

Note: This digest was written entirely by DavidNYC.

AR-Sen: SEIU has a new ad out hitting Lincoln for her TARP vote and for her disloyalty during the health care debate. Props to CQ’s Matthew Murray for trying to nail down the size of the buy from SEIU, which would only say that the run is “comprehensive.” SEIU has gone pretty large in this race from day one, so they probably aren’t going cheap on us now.

CA-Sen: Carly Fiorina, in a move which will no doubt endear her to the teabaggers but embarrass her in the eyes of the state of California, has taken to decrying concerns about climate change as “worrying about the weather” in a new ad.

CO-Sen: I Do. Not. Care. about this stupid non-story. Why are journalists so damn breathless about crap like this? It’s like they’ve never heard of politics.

NV-Sen: According to an analysis by the WaPo, Chicken Lady may have spent $100K on her primary out of funds that were designated for the general election only. Lowden bought $220K worth of ad time, but had only about $100K of primary money (mostly a loan from herself) on hand, so that extra hundred grand had to come from somewhere. God, you know, I just can’t decide whom I’d rather face more: this crazy lady, or the other crazy lady. Harry Reid, you are one lucky dude. Just pray Danny Tarkanian doesn’t pull an Alice Kryzan/Creigh Deeds.

NV-Gov: A district court judge enjoined a shadowy conservative group, Alliance for America’s Future, from running ads until it registers with the Secretary of State, saying that voters have the right to know who is behind political advertising. The group, which has ties to Dick Cheney, had planned to spend $250K on behalf of GOPer Brian Sandoval.

SC-Gov: I don’t care about this story, either.

AR-02: In the AR-02 runoff, state House Speaker Robbie Wills, a white male, has been arguing that he’s “more electable” than state Senate Majority Leader Joyce Elliott, who is black and a woman. The chair of the Arkansas NAACP sees that a “code word for racism.” Wills responded by saying that Elliott has “extreme views” which are out of step with the district. I hope this primary doesn’t get much uglier, because words like that will be used by Republicans against whomever our nominee is.

CA-19: Dick Pombo is trying to win a GOP primary by reminding voters that he’s a longtime creature of Washington, DC. No wonder he lost.

ID-01: Dear Vaughn Ward: socks before shoes. Also, hire publicists to get your side of the story out before election day, not after. Actually, no – we love you, don’t change a thing!

MI-08: This is unfortunate. Kande Ngalamulume, the only Democrat running against GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, is dropping out of the race, just three weeks after formally announcing his candidacy. Though Ngalamulume hadn’t filed any FEC reports, Obama actually won this district 53-46 (a major swing from Bush’s 54-45 win over Kerry), and even being able to pin Rogers down just a bit would have been helpful. Michigan’s filing deadline was May 11th, and I’m not sure if local Dems can nominate a replacement.

NH-02: Some Teabagger Andrew Hemingway says he won’t get into the GOP primary in NH-02. Meh.

NY-13: It’s always confusing in NY-13, but here’s the deal: The state Conservative Party has given its backing to GOPer Michael Grimm, who was also endorsed by the Brooklyn wing of the party – even though the Staten Island Cons  recently got behind Dem Rep. Mike McMahon. (Party chair Mike Long wasn’t going to let McMahon get their nod, though.) To make things even more complicated, the SI Republican Party endorsed Grimm’s primary opponent, Michael Allegretti, as we mentioned last week, and the Brooklyn GOP did as well the week before. But Grimm has at least one big player on his side: Rudy Giuliani, who did a fundraiser for him earlier this week. Anyhow, I’m sure you can sniff the cat fud: Grimm has already locked up the Conservative line, but Allegretti could definitely win the Republican primary. There’s already a lot of bad blood between the two Republican Mikes, which means we could see something of an NY-23 redux here.

NY-18: Biden Alert! The VPOTUS squeezed in a fundraiser yesterday for… Nita Lowey? She has over $1.1 million on hand, and I’m not aware of any meaningful Republican challenger in this race. (Obama/Kerry: 62/58.) So what gives?

OK-02: This is interesting: Democratic state Sen. Jim Wilson says he’s going to launch a primary challenge to conservative Rep. Dan Boren. Wilson specifically cited Boren’s opposition to the healthcare reform bill in launching his campaign. The primary here is pretty soon, July 27th, though there’s also a run-off on August 24th. However, as of now, there are only two candidates in the race.

TN-08: The internal warfare continues in the GOP primary to replace retiring Rep. John Tanner. Though the NRCC is still touting agribusiness kingpin Stephen Fincher, ex-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott is doing a fundraiser for Shelby County Commissioner George Flinn. An establishment divided against itself… yields to a teabagger?

WI-07: Hah! We mentioned the other day that establishment efforts to clear the primary field for Dem Julie Lassa hit a snag when Some Dude Joe Reasbeck said he was going to run. Well, turns out he’s run for office before: as a write-in (wait, there’s more) in Texas (heh, there’s still more) as a Republican (not done yet), earning 89 votes. Hold on, hold on – more! Who was he running against? Well, only the most famous write-in candidate of all time, Snelly Gibbr! Shit like this is why I love politics.

Whilst the Massachusetts Senate Special and a series of dodgy house polls have Democrats convinced that the November midterms will be apocalyptic; the fact is that a number of Republican held House districts are in fact vulnerable to a takeover from Democratic challengers.

How many?

Below the fold for all the details and hey go check out the 2010 Race Tracker Wiki over at Open Congress for all your House, Senate and Gubernatorial needs.

***This diary should be read in conjunction with the diary by Silver Spring***

There are 5 groups of races that are or might become or potentially should be competitive in November. They include Obama Republican districts, districts with very good candidates and districts of a Republican PVI of R+4 and less.

The first ten races below are ranked in order of probability of takeover. These races WILL be competitive in November.

1. DE-AL (Castle) – D+7,

Stick a fork in this one it is done.

With Castle running for the Senate does anyone really think there is a Republican in Delaware who can hold this district for the GOP? Especially as the Democratic Party currently leads in voter reg – 288,380 to 180,620.

With Carney sitting on a 100/1 Cash on hand advantage as at the end of December and the only poll available showing Carney with a 23 point lead this 62% Obama district is certain to end up in the Democratic column in November.

2. LA-02 (Cao) – D+25,

Incumbent GOP Rep Anh Cao has one thing and one thing alone going for him – a Cash on Hand advantage of $91K as at the end of December – $316K-$225K.

Every other indicator tells us that presumptive Democratic nominee State Rep Cedric Richmond will steamroll his way through this race in November.

After all Obama got no less than 75% of the vote in this D+25 district. Also there are 237,103 registered Democrats and only 39,753 registered Republicans. And lastly of course, we can all remember how Cao only won in 2008 courtesy of an awfully corrupt Democratic incumbent – Bill Jefferson.

Cao is toast.

3. IL-10 (Kirk) – D+6,

With Republican Dold and Democrat Seals emerging from competitive primaries this open District race is definitely on the radar for 2010.

Dold leads in COH $198K/$145K (as at 13th January) but Seals has the rolodex to crank up the fundraising on his 3rd attempt at the district, particularly if supporters of his vanquished primary opponent – Julie Hamos – circle the wagons and pitch in (she did raise over $1 mill). To this point Seals has outraised Dold too.

Seals will win here for two interlinked reasons:

1) Obama got 61% of the vote here in 2008.

2) Dold is just not moderate enough to attract crossover votes the way Mark Kirk did.

– I should note I volunteered for Seals in 2008 and am ridiculously biased.

4. PA-06 (Gerlach) – D+4,

With Gerlach back in the race (but flat broke (and his aborted Gubernatorial race was flat broke too at the end) this one will be the focus of much attention.

Presumptive nominee Doug Pike has more than $1 Mill COH as at 31st December, although it is largely self funded. BTW at this stage in 2008 Gerlach had raised almost $1.5 mill and still almost lost 52%/48% over a 2nd tier candidate.

This D+4, 58% Obama district (that also voted for Kerry like all of my top 6 races) is at worst a 50/50 pick up chance.

5. PA-15 (Dent) – D+2,

For the first time Dent has a serious top tier opponent. Having dispatched a serious of 2nd tier candidates Dent is in for the race of his life in 2010. Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan seems to be the real deal. As well as already being a public official Callahan has in the last quarter outraised Dent and they are basically equal in  

COH.

Dent must be worried as his campaign released a very dodgy internal poll showing him leading 58%/27% but refused to release the internals to go with it (a sure sign of bodgy polling)as is the claimed Obama approval rating of 41% compared to a Pennsylvania wide 57% (According to Gallup). Obama won this district in 2008 56%/43%.

Callahan has a shot here. Either way it will be competitive.

6. WA-08 (Reichert) – D+3,

Washingtons’ 8th congressional district is one of a handful that are on the perennial target list for Democrats that we didn’t win in 2006 or 2008. Will 2010 be the year? Yeh quite possibly.

Obama carried this one 56%/42% in 2008 whilst Reichert was held to 52.78% by Darcy Burner.

So far so good.

As at the end of December Democrat Delbene led the COH race $773,327/$477,149 and had raised to that point $1,047,873 to Reicherts’$985,665. Whilst almost half of Delbenes’ total came from a loan from herself to the campaign she has shown herself to be adept at fundraising from others. Yep we have a self funder who can also fundraise.

Watch this one on election night – very closely.  

7. CA-03 (Lundgren) – R+6,

Well whoever would have thunk it; CA-03 as a competitive race!

Democrat Amri has just come off a $249K fundraising quarter and has more COH than  Republican Lungren ($739K/$526K), who only raised $138K. At this point in the cycle Amri has outraised Lungren as well ($871K/$732K).

Add to this the facts that Obama won the district 49.3%/48.8%, Lungren only won in 2008 by 49.49%/43.93% and the voter registration advantage for the GOP has decreased from 6.6% in 2006 to near parity (38.46%/39.04%)as of the start of 2010 and we have a race on our hands.

This one will be very interesting come November.

8. NE-02 (Terry) – R+6,

Yep hard to believe that a congressional district in Nebraska could be competitive but the 2nd shall be so. Remember that Obama carried this Omaha based district 50%/49% and the makings are there for a good race. State Senator Tom White is quite an adept fundraiser for a challenger too. After a 180K December quarter he has $343K COH compared to incumbent Republican Terry’s $543K COH. Given that challengers rarely lead the COH chase this one is set for a great race in November.

9. SC-02 (Wilson) – R+9,

SC-02 will be know as the 2010 Moneybomb District! Why? because at the end of December incumbent Republican Joe “you lie” Wilson and his Democratic challenger Robert Miller have raised a breathtaking $5.5 Million between them. Wilson has $2,341,915 COH and Miller has $1,678,436 COH! To be honest Millers’ COH should by itself make this one competive.

However when you consider that Wilson was held to 53.74% in 2008 and that whilst McCain won easily 54%/45%, that is only 1% better than the neighbouring 5th, held by Democrat John Spratt and you have a barn burner in the making.

This race will be fascinating on election night – no doubt about it!

10. KS-04 (Tiahrt) – R+14,

Despite its’ heavily Republican nature (McCain won here 58%/40%) this race will be competitive in November – absolutely.

Democrat Goyle is fundraising up a storm having raised $656K as at the end of December. His closest rival – Republican Pompeo – has only raised $429K. Last quarter Goyle managed a staggering (for a Kansas Democrat) $253K for the quarter and currently has $583K COH; a fair effort to say the least. Pompeo meanwhile managed only $78K for a COH total of $318K. Republican Kelsey FWIW, despite an impressive 233K quarter, has only $40K COH!

Love to see a poll here but definitely one to watch on election night.

This second group of Districts are likely to be competitive in November but are not there yet:

AL-03 (Rogers) – R+9,

Democrat Joshua Segall had a $100K December quarter and is behind in COH by only $216K/$392K.

He ran in 2008 and kept Rogers to 46%/54% as McCain carried the District 56%/43%.

Not a friendly district for Democrats but if Segall can file some 6 figure fundraising quarters then this race could well be up there in November.

CA-45 (Bono Mack) – R+3,

Democratic candidate (and Palm Springs Mayor) Stephen Pougnet is on the cusp of a very competitive challenge to GOP incumbent Mary Bono Mack – finally a top tier candidate here.

Obama carried this district 51.5%/46.9% and the GOP registration gap has shrunk from 10% to 3.48% between 2006 and the start of this year – 38.02%/41.50% currently.

The only fly in the ointment (apart from the national political environment!) is of course fundraising. Whilst Pougnet has outraised Bono Mack in two of the last three quarters and has slightly then than half as much COH as her $402K/$893K his COH actually went backwards by 10K last quarter despite a $150K quarter. Pougnet just needs a good solid $200K March Quarter IMHO to cash him up for the stretch and make this race definitely competitive.  

FL-25 (Diaz-Balart OPEN) – R+5,

With Mario Diaz-Balart bolting to run in the 21st to replace his retiring brother Lincoln this race will be one to watch.

McCain carried this one 50%/49% whilst Diaz-Balart was held to 53%. The Republican Voter registration advantage is only 3364; 137,913/134,549 as at the 2008 election. This is down from 21818 at the 21006 midterms.

Diaz-Balart had only $178K COH as at the end of December too BTW. Expect a top tier Dem to jump in here, maybe 2006 nominee Joe Garcia, and at that point this one should become competitive. The only Democrat currently running, Luis Rivera has yet to file a fundraising report having jumped in only a month or so ago.

MN-03 (Paulsen) – R+0,

Despite missing out on our preferred candidate State Sen Terri Bonoff there is every chance that this district that Obama carried 52%/46% in 2008 will be competitive. Democratic presumptive nominee Maureen Hackett only got into the race in October and self funded $103K of her $138K quarter ($129K COH). The March quarter will be telling but if as I suspect she has a really good go at fundraising up a storm this one will be competitive. The cloud on the horizon, of course, is incumbent Republican Paulsens’ $943K COH!

MN-06 (Bachmann) – R+7,

As luck would have it we have two viable candidates in this district that McCain carried 53%/45%.

Maureen Reed has 388K COH after a $208K December quarter.

Tarryl Clark (who I think will be the nominee) has yep $388K COH after a $294K December quarter. These are great numbers for both candidates. The only reason this one isn’t yet on the competitive list is batshit crazy Michelle Bachmanns’ $1 million COH!

If either Democrat can manage another $250K March quarter then this race is on for young and old despite its’ Republican bent.

OH-12 (Tiberi) – D+1,

Democratic candidate Brooks has her work cut out running against incumbent Republican Tiberi. He and his $1.2 mill COH! And his $449K December quarter haul. Brooks must we wondering what more she needs to do after her 4th quarter haul of $231K, leaving her with $328K COH – a very respectable set of numbers. Will this district that Obama carried 54%/44% be competitive in November? Dunno – but another 200K quarter will at least make Brooks (already a top tier challenger) quite viable.

Time will tell.

The third group of Districts are those that may, but are unlikely, to become competitive:

CA-48 (Campbell) – R+6,

Obama won this district 49.5%/48.6% and the GOP voter reg advantage has declined from 22% to a still whopping 15% as at Jan 1. That stat and Republican Campbells’ $1.031M/$171K COH advantage over Democrat Krom makes it unlikely that this race will become competitive. But it may. After all Krom has raised $299K so far this cycle including a reasonable but not great $90K in the December quarter. Campbell’s $500K December quarter makes it very tough though.

CA-50 (Bilbray) – R+3,

A 60K odd December quarter does not a competitive race make, especially when the COH only increases by $10K!. Busby has been beaten twice before by the current incumbent, and unfortunately seems headed that way again. Working in her favor is the fact that Obama carried the district 51.3%/47.1% and the GOP voter reg advantage has declined from 14% in 2006 to 7.58% (39.91%/31.33%) as at the start of this year. However this will be a what might have been IMHO.

MN-02 (Kline) – R+4,

With former Democratic State Rep Shelley Madore only jumping in at the start of January this race has yet to solidify. On the down side is the fact that McCain carried this district 50%/48%. On the upside incumbent Republican Kline has (only!) $358K COH after a modest $152K December quarter.

Wait and see but it may be a bit late in the cycle for this one to fire up.

NJ-07 (Lance) – R+3,

Yet another district where the Democratic candidate (Potosnak) has only just got into the race so it may take some time for things to play out. Obama carried this district 50%/49% and Leonard has only $347K COH (not a lot for a congressional race in New Jersey) and raised only 60K in the December quarter. Interestingly enough the Democrats have a 16K voter registration advantage here as at November 2009 – 121,553/105,943.

TX-32 (Sessions) – R+8,

A $151K 4th quarter and $114K COH should be a promising start. Unless your opponent is the head of the NRCC and has $1.075 million COH. Oh dear.

Roggio seems to be quite a credible candidate but without a monster March quarter he just isn’t going to be in a position to be competitive in November.

McCain carried this district 53%/46% too btw – red but not ruby red.

And fourthly these districts have either 3rd tier candidates or candidates whose fundraising precludes a competitive race at this stage:

CA-24 (Gallegly) – R+4,

A 15K December quarter for leading Democrat Tim Allison means this one can’t be competitive; the resources simply aren’t there. This is all the more so given that Gallegly has $836K COH to Allison’s $35K . Pity because Obama carried this one 50.5%/47.7% and the GOP voter reg advantage has declined from 10% to 5.75% (41.53%/35.78%) between 2006 and the start of this year.

CA-25 (McKeon) – R+6,

Our candidate, 2008 nominee Jackie Conaway hasn’t even registered with the FEC – Game over.

Pity as Obama carried the district 49.4%/48.3% and the GOP voter reg advantage has declined to 2% over the last 3 years!

CA-26 (Dreier) – R+3,

2008 Democratic challenger Warner had a poor December quarter raising only 37K and his COH is only $123K compared to incumbent Republican Dreier’s $1.025 million! Obama won the district 51/47 and the GOP voter reg advantage has dropped from 11% to 4.5% as of the start of 2010.

Despite that the COH gap and Warners’ poor December fundraising means this one is unlikely to be competitive this November alas.

CA-44 (Calvert) – R+6,

Obama won this district 49.3%/48.6% and the GOP voter reg advantage has decreased from 15% in 2006 to 8% as at Jan 5th 2010. Competitive race right? Wrong. Democrat Hedrick who only lost in 2008 48.8/51.2 just can’t seem to crank up the fundraising. Having raised only 29K in the December quarter he now trails in the COH race $95K/$519K.

Such a shame.

FL-10 (Young) – R+1,

State Sen Charlie Justice – what a great name for a congressional candidate – is the best candidate that the Democrats have run against republican incumbent Bill Young in years and years. It is such a pity then that Justices’ fundraising is so poor – $59K last quarter and $91K COH.

This is a District that should be competitive; Obama carried it 52%/47% and the Repub voter reg advantage declined from 169,982/153,728 in 2006 to 170,749/164,400 in 2008.

Alas but for that poor fundraising.

FL-12 (Putnam OPEN) – R+6,

Democrat Lori Edwards won’t make this a competitive election with a $26K December quarter ($60K COH). This is all the more so given that presumptive Republican nominee Dennis Ross has $273K COH as at the end of December after an admittedly poor December quarter; raising only $76K himself.

This is a pity given that McCain only carried the District 50/49 and the Democratic voter reg advantage INCREASED from 2006 – 2008 from 153,189/166,794 to 164,780/192,958. WOW

As an open seat this one will almost certainly be a what might have been in November unless Edwards can seriously step up her fundraising.

FL-15 (Posey) – R+6,

The Democratic candidate Shannon Roberts has not filed a fundraising report despite filing to run over a year ago. Game over.

Pity as this 51%/48% McCain district, with it s’ repidly decreasing GOP voter reg advantage (189,872/158,363 – 2006 199,669/183,100 – 2008) should really have been competitive. Oh well.

IL-06 (Roskam) – R+0,

The race has not yet really taken shape in this district that Obama carried 56%/43%. Democratic challenger Ben Lowe filed for the race halfway through November and raised a scant $14K. Republican incumbent Roskam on the other hand after a $350K December quarter is sitting on $547K.

We really won’t know whether this will be competitive or not until after the March fundraising filings come in. I suspect it won’t as both parties will be focused on tussles in the 10th, 11th and 14th.

Maybe in 2012.

IL-13 (Biggert) – R+1,

2008 Democratic nominee Harper is back in 2010 in this district that Obama carried 54%/44%.

Unfortunately a $42K December quarter ($90K COH) does not cut the mustard against Republican incumbent Biggert who had a $142K December quarter ($637K COH).

Harper is a good, credible candidate who kept Biggert to 53% in 2008. Unless he has a monster March quarter this one just isn’t going to be competitive in November.

IL-16 (Manzullo) – R+2,

Whilst Obama carried this district 53%/46% this one only just scraped in as a potentially competitive race. And it won’t be with Democrat Gaulrapp raising a scant $14K ($7K COH) in the December quarter. Manzullo raised $150K ($355K COH) in the same period.

IA-04 (Latham) – R+0,

This race is really still just coming together. However that Democrat Maske managed to fundraise only $12K in the last 2 months of 2009 I think we can safely predict another cakewalk for Republican Latham in this district that Obama won 53%/46%. BTW as at Feb 1st the Democrats had a 8000 voter registration advantage 126503/118484.

MI-11 (McCotter) – R+0,

Incumbent Republican McCotter has been on Democratic target lists for years in this 54%/45% Obama district. He was even held to 51% in 2008. Despite this the Democrats have always failed to get a top tier opponent against him. Will 2010 be the year? It is hard to tell honestly but i doubt it. When Democrat Mosher declared at the start of 2009 she struck me (and the party) as being at best 2nd tier.

And this turns out to be the likely case with Mosher raising only $37K in the December quarter ($44K COH) compared to McCotters’ $118K December quarter ($579K) COH. Lets see what the March quarter reports bring but don’t hold your breath.

OH-14 (LaTourette) – R+3,

With McCain just shading Obama by less than 1% this District should be competitive. But it is unlikely. Whilst 2008 Democratic candidate O’Neill is back for another shot he did get thumped by alomost 20% in 2008. The other Democrat in the race – Greene – hasn’t even registered with the FEC to fundraise despite being in the race since November. Whilst LaTourette only has a modest $447K COH as at the end of November this race is highly unlikely to be a show stopper.

VA-10 (Wolf) – R+2,

Another perennial Democratic target sees no less than 4 Democrats running here in 2010. And it is no wonder as Obama carried the district 53%/46% and this part of Virginia is rapidly bluing. Incumbent Republican Wolf has nothing to fear here though, as none of his putative opponents have more than $6K COH as at the end of December compared to Wolfs’ $346K COH. A really disappointing miss for team blue.

WI-01 (Ryan) – R+2,

Democratic challenger Garin has $546 COH as at the end of December; incumbent Republican Ryan has $1.565 million. Game over in this 51%/47% Obama district.  

The last group of Districts are those that at this stage do not seem likely to competitive.

as we do not have declared Democratic candidates as yet!

FL-18 (Ros-Lehtinen) – R+3,

MI-04 (Camp) – R+3,

MI-06 (Upton) – R+0,

MI-08 (Rogers) – R+2,

NJ-02 (LoBiondo) – D+1,

NY-03 (King) – R+4,

VA-04 (Forbes) – R+4,

WI-06 (Petri) – R+4,

So in summary:

10 competitive races.

6 races that should become competitive.

5 races that may become competitive.

15 races that should be competitive but are highly unlikely to be so.

8 races that should be potentially become competitive but won’t be unless we find a candidate.

Not a particularly pretty scenario for Democrats but not nearly as terrible as the GOP and the traditional media would have you believe.

On to November!  

• AR-Sen: PPP’s Tom Jensen has some interesting crosstabs from their AR-02 poll, which shed some light on Blanche Lincoln’s unique set of problems. Lincoln generates only lukewarm enthusiasm from her base: Barack Obama gets a 78% approval among Dems in the district, Rep. Vic Snyder is at 75%, and Mark Pryor is at 61%, but Lincoln is at only 43%, with 30% of Dems thinking she’s too conservative (although that may be coming to a head right now with her obstructionist role in the health care debate, which may not be much of an issue one year from now). Moving to the left, though, will cause her to lose votes with independents, though, among whom 49% think she’s too liberal.

• CT-Sen, CT-05: Local GOP party poohbahs are sounding eager to push state Sen. Sam Caligiuri out of the Senate race, where he’s rather, uh, underutilized, and into the 5th, for a race against Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy; Caligiuri says he’ll consider it. Problem is, Justin Bernier is already running there, and has had some fundraising success and gotten NRCC “Young Gun” status; as you might expect, Bernier is crying foul.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist has been trying to hide from his previous stimulus support, but Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson has the goods on him, dragging out an old interview from spring in which Crist says “absolutely” he would have voted for the stimulus had he been in the Senate at the time. Here’s one bit of good news for Crist, though; Marco Rubio‘s once-perfect A rating from the National Rifle Association is about to drop, thanks to Rubio’s compromise (from back when he was House speaker) on the take-your-gun-to-work law that recently became law.

• IL-Sen: Former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman has an internal poll of his own now, and while it doesn’t give numbers for the Dem primary matchup between Hoffman and frontrunner Alexi Giannoulias, it does point to some vulnerabilities for Giannoulias. The poll claims that without message-testing, GOP Rep. Mark Kirk leads Giannoulias 40-37 and leads Hoffman 40-30, but once positives and negatives are read, Kirk beats Giannoulias 47-30 and Hoffman beats Kirk 42-36. The negatives involve the Giannoulias family bank, which apparently has been connected to Tony Rezko. Meanwhile, Kirk took an embarrassing hit from the conservative Chicago Tribune editorial board, whose response to Kirk’s flip-flopping and fearmongering on trying terrorists in New York boiled down to “Give us a break.” Wondering why Kirk is so transparently turning into a right-winger? Kirk’s looking increasingly nervous about erstwhile opponent Patrick Hughes, who is currently seeking out a Jim DeMint endorsement.

• KY-Sen, NH-Sen: The NRSC is claiming it’s not getting involved in primary fights with fundraising, but you can’t make party leadership’s intentions any clearer than when Mitch McConnell hosts a fundraiser in New York on Dec. 7 for Trey Grayson and Kelly Ayotte. With both candidates facing mounting anti-establishment challenges, it seems like the bad publicity back home generated by these appearances — more grist for the movement conservative mill — might outweigh the financial benefit.

• NJ-Sen: Now that recently unemployed TV pundit Lou Dobbs has some time on his hands, he told Bill O’Reilly he’s considering a run for the Senate in New Jersey. There isn’t a seat available until 2012 (when Dobbs will be 67) — he’d be going up against Bob Menendez that year. Dobbs vs. Menendez? Hmmm, you can’t get any more weighed down with symbolism than that.

• SC-Sen: The county GOP in Berkeley County (in the Charleston suburbs) was prepared to have its own censure vote against Lindsey Graham, but they called off the vote after Graham’s chief of staff promised to meet with them first.

• CA-Gov (pdf): Lots of people have taken notice that the Republican field in the governor’s race isn’t a diverse bunch: three sorta-moderates from Silicon Valley. San Jose State University took a poll of those who would seemingly know the candidates the best: Republican likely voters in “Silicon Valley” (Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, plus small parts of Alameda and Santa Cruz Counties). Perhaps thanks to Tom Campbell’s tenure in the House representing much of this area, he has a wide lead, at 39%, compared with 11 for Meg Whitman and 7 for Steve Poizner.

• MI-Gov, MI-08: In case there was any doubt that Rep. Mike Rogers (the Michigan one) was going to run for re-election to his House seat and not for governor, we found a statement from way back in February to that effect. (H/t to Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, a blog devoted to all things MI-08.)

• MN-Gov: Rasmussen looks at the still-coalescing primary fields in the Minnesota governor’s races, and seems to be finding very name-recognition-driven results right now. On the Democratic side, most of the votes are going to former Senator Mark Dayton and Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak; both poll at 30, trailed by state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher at 8 and former state legislator Matt Entenza at 6. On the Republican side, ex-Sen. Norm Coleman dominates, with 50%; however, he’s not in the race, at least not yet, and is probably the only name that people know. Among the rest of the rabble, former House minority leader Marty Seifert is doing the best, at 11, with 5 for Laura Brod and 1 for Tom Emmer.

• OR-Gov: Most people have already mentally ruled out Rep. Peter DeFazio from the governor’s race, but he just said that he’s still somewhat interested, and that he won’t be making up his mind on it until… next March? He doesn’t seem too concerned about the delay, as Oregon law would let him transfer over his federal dollars and he alludes to private polling showing him in a dead heat with John Kitzhaber. While I still doubt he’ll follow through, that raises the question of who might fill a vacancy in OR-04; it’s looking less and less like it would be Springfield’s Republican mayor Sid Leiken, who was just fined $2,250 by the state for the phantom poll that may or may not have been conducted by Leiken’s mom.

• TX-Gov: Little-known fact: Kay Bailey Hutchison, despite the seeming overall malaise in her campaign, has a big edge in endorsements from Texas House Republicans. She has the endorsements of 10 of 20 (including Kay Granger, Kenny Marchant, and Michael Burgess), perhaps indicative of Rick Perry’s increasingly strident anti-Washington rhetoric. (Not that that will help much when the actual electorate is in an increasingly anti-establishment mood.) A couple other Dems are looking at the race: hair care magnate Farouk Shami (who’s willing to bring his own money to the race) is officially launching his campaign on Thursday, while El Paso-based outgoing state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh is publicly weighing a run.

• FL-19: West Palm Beach mayor Lois Frankel, who would have been maybe the highest-profile possible primary challenger to state Sen. Ted Deutch in the upcoming special election in the 19th, has decided not to run. Deutch has been endorsed by outgoing Robert Wexler and has an increasingly clear path to the nomination. Meanwhile, the only GOPer looking interested in running in the dark-blue district is Ed Lynch, who lost to Wexler last year.

• IL-06: Here’s a little more information about Benjamin Lowe, who’s the only Dem running in the 6th against Peter Roskam. While he’s something of a political unknown, it turns out he’s well-connected in the religious left community as well as the green jobs movement. He’s a graduate of evangelical Wheaton College (which is in the district) and has been active in the last few years in organizing students at other evangelical colleges on issues of environmental stewardship.

• NY-13: I don’t know if anything can top last year’s NY-13 race for political trainwrecks, but the Staten Island GOP may have gotten switched onto that same track again. Michael Allegretti, a 31-year old who caught attention for raising $200K for the race already, is a lawyer who also owns a share of the family business, Bayside Fuel and Oil — which employed Gambino family capo Joe “Joe Butch” Corrao for several decades. Over $40K of Allegretti’s contributions came from family members working for Bayside. To add to the made-for-TV drama: Allegretti’s potential Republican primary opponent, Michael Grimm, was on the FBI squad charged with investigating said crime family.

• NY-19: Republican Greg Ball — who puts the “Ass” in Assemblyman — is out with an internal poll putting him within single digits of Rep. John Hall. Hall leads the Hall/Ball matchup, 48-43 — although for some reason the poll was taken only in the portion of the district that’s east of the Hudson River. Hall still has strong favorables, at 57/25, while Ball is at 40/28.

• NY-23: Recounting in NY-23 is still on track to see Rep. Bill Owens remain in the House; Doug Hoffman is down 2,951 votes with 6,123 left, so about the best he can hope for is to lose by about 2,000. The Hoffman saga just got weirder when yesterday Hoffman, goaded along by his patron Glenn Beck, unconceded on national TV — yet today, his spokesperson un-un-conceded, not that any of that is legally binding, of course.

• NRCC: If the Republicans are going to make a serious dent in the Democratic edge in the House next year, they’re going to have to refill the NRCC’s coffers, which are still lagging the DCCC. Party leadership smacked down members in a closed-door session, trying to get them to pony up their $15K dues. The Hill also has an interesting profile of CA-22’s Kevin McCarthy, an up-and-comer who’s the NRCC recruitment chair now and likely to head the NRCC at some point in the near future. Turns out that McCarthy is quite the student of Rahm Emanuel.

• Mayors: SurveyUSA polls the runoff in the Atlanta mayor’s race, and they have quite the reversal of fortune for Mary Norwood, who led all polls before November and finished first in the election. State Sen. Kasim Reed, who finished 2nd, now leads Norwood, 49-46. Reed leads 69-25 among African-American voters, indicating that he picked up almost all of 3rd-place finisher Lisa Borders’ support.

• Special elections: Two legislative specials are on tap tonight. The big one is California’s AD-72, a Republican-leaning seat in the OC left vacant by the resignation of Mike Duvall (who resigned in disgrace after bragging about his affair with a lobbyist). It seems to be mostly a contest between two GOPers, Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby and activist Linda Ackerman (who’s been making much of Norby’s four divorces). Since this is California, assuming one of the Republicans doesn’t finish over 50%, it’ll move on to another round where the top Republican faces off against Dem John MacMurray. Also, in Mississippi, there’s a contest in Biloxi-based HD-117, to replace Republican state Rep. Michael Janus; candidates aren’t identified by party on the special election ballot, but the contestants are Patrick Collins (who ran against Janus several times) and Scott DeLano.

• Redistricting: You might want to check out the website called “Redistricting the Nation,” presented by GIS software company Avencia but full of fun widgets. Most interestingly, you can evaluate the compactness of any congressional district by four different criteria, and see the worst offenders in each category.

Special Teabaggers’ edition of the digest…

• NY-20 (pdf): The morning update on the NY-20 absentee count finds Scott Murphy padding his skimpy lead a bit, up to 168. There was a partial report of absentees from Warren County (one of the strongholds of the Murphy clan), and the expected report from Saratoga County (Tedisco country) didn’t materialize, so this may be only a temporary surge. Democratic number crunchers, starting with Nate Silver, are sounding increasingly sanguine about the direction the absentee ballots are taking, though. Nate projects about a 500-vote margin for Murphy when all is said and done.

The Albany Project has been all over the sudden increase in ballot challenges by the Tedisco camp (who’ve moved to challenge second-home voters and student voters in the last few days). In the battle of perceptions, however, the GOP may have gone a fridge too far with their latest step, challenging the absentee ballot of NY-20’s favorite resident, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Gillibrand visited the Great Orange Satan and HuffPo to blog about her experience.

• MO-Sen: Polls have given SoS Robin Carnahan a commanding position in the open Missouri senate race, and now she has fundraising numbers to match, posting $1,048,000 in the first quarter.

• OH-Sen: There’s one other SoS running for an open senate seat who didn’t fare so well, though. Jennifer Brunner pulled in a surprisingly low $200,000. That may pick up once she gets the expected EMILY’s List endorsement, but it leaves her lagging behind Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, who raised more than $1 million and is already wearing the mantle of ‘establishment’ Dem candidate.

• PA-Sen: Joe Torsella, who’s never held elective office before but is well-connected in Philadelphia’s corridors of power, reported a solid $584,000 in an abbreviated Q1 (only since mid-February).

• OK-Sen: Are you there, God? It’s me, Tom Coburn. I can’t decide whether or not to run for re-election. (He says he’s not playing games; it’s a “spiritual thing.”) The Club for Growth, in their first act since Chris “Count” Chocola took over, endorsed Coburn today, though.

• TX-Gov: Kinky Friedman, who got 12% of the vote as an independent in the chaotic 2006 Texas governor’s race, is doing it again, and this time he’s running in the Democratic primary. It’s unclear whether this will work to Friedman’s advantage, since a lot of his support comes from Paulists, Naderites, and other assorted weirdos who may not be registered Democrats, and Tom Schieffer gives Dem voters a ‘normal’ option.

• FL-10: Bill Young is always on ‘most likely’ to retire lists, but the 78-year-old is giving a little more fodder for that mill with today’s fundraising report. He raised only $7,100 in the first quarter, sitting on $412K CoH. (He only raised $15K in Q1 of 2007, though, and won easily in 2008.)

• MI-09: Joe Knollenberg won’t be back for a rematch against Gary Peters, who unseated him in 2008, but his former chief of staff will. Paul Welday, who’s also a former Oakland County GOP chair, will challenge him in 2010. Welday lost a race for the state house in 2008.

Better later than never, for MI-08 Democratic challenger Bob Alexander. Although the DCCC focused early on races in the neighboring 7th and 9th Districts, Alexander’s shoestring operation is going great guns in the home stretch.

Two polls have confirmed that the race is basically a dead heat, and Rogers’ own polling data must confirm this, since the MI GOP has mounted two negative attacks on Alexander in the past 10 days. The first volley came in the form of a telephone push poll, the second was a mailer focusing on bogus claims that Alexander wanted to provide national health care to 900 illegal aliens. These are clearly the defensive maneuvers of a worried incumbent.

After a long, tightly-budgeted campaign, contributions are coming in for Alexander, but it’s late in the game. A TV ad is ready to go, and an infusion of cash would let Alexander make media buys to increase his name recognition in a district that the incumbent gerrymandered to be heavily Republican. Alexander can absolutely win this race; it’s just a question of whether the cash comes in time.