Tag: John McCain

• AZ-Sen: The establishment is moving in to shore up John McCain’s re-election bid, as the rest of Arizona’s GOP congressional delegation endorsed yesterday (over their former colleague J.D. Hayworth): Jon Kyl, plus Reps. Trent Franks, John Shadegg, and Jeff Flake. Yesterday McCain also got a perhaps more surprising endorsement yesterday, from Grover Norquist, who’s been supportive of a lot of insurgent bids this year… but Norquist is more interested in purely economic issues and may not have much common cause with the more resentment-based social conservative politics of Hayworth.

• CO-Sen: Here’s a sign of life for the strangely low-profile Andrew Romanoff primary campaign: he just got the endorsements of two of the state’s major unions, the Teamsters and the UFCW. Michael Bennet did just vote to confirm Craig Becker to the NLRB, but the unions take issue with his lack of support for the card-check provision of EFCA. Meanwhile, Tom Wiens is offering one of the strangest excuses I’ve ever heard for his failure to get much traction in the GOP primary: there are a whole lot of Nortons in Colorado, and people reflexively will vote for any of them.

• IN-Sen: Another day, another damning revelation about Dan Coats’ lobbying past. Today, it turns out that his lobbying firm, King & Spalding, was lobbying on behalf of Bank of America at a time it was seeking patent approval for a formula that would help companies evaluate whether and how to outsource their operations to lower-overhead countries.

• NC-Sen: Richard Burr has drawn a primary challenger as he seeks his first re-election the Senate. Asheboro city councilor Eddie Burks, however, doesn’t have the kind of high-profile position that’s likely to make much of an impact. But even weirder is the nature of the challenge. You’d think he might get some traction if he reached out to the teabaggers and accused Burr of being insufficiently bloodthirsty, but instead it’s a surprisingly level-headed critique of Burr’s inaccessibility and general anonymity.

• NY-Sen: Speaking of random primary challenges, now Chuck Schumer is facing one too, from Phil Krone, an Illinois and/or Florida political consultant who was just involved in Dan Hynes’ unsuccessful campaign. Krone says he’ll dive in only if he can raise $10K in contributions before April 1; given the strangeness of his bid, even that seems kind of a high bar to reach.

• NY-Sen-B: Finally, there’s one other carpetbagging primary challenge that’s only slightly less random: that of Harold Ford Jr. against Kirsten Gillibrand. This latest discovery isn’t likely to help Ford’s case much: Ford claims that paying New York taxes has helped make him a New Yorker… except he hasn’t paid any New York income taxes. Ford has continued to maintain Tennessee residency, which is convenient, seeing as how Tennessee doesn’t have an income tax on wages. I guess what he meant is that he pays sales tax on all his New York pedicures.

• WI-Sen: Ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson sure likes keeping his name in the news. Despite his recently signing on to work for a hedge fund on agribusiness matters (and his various other private sector projects, including being a partner at DC biglaw firm Akin Gump, he’s still refusing to rule out a Senate bid. “I’m going through a process,” he says cryptically.

• NY-Gov: Looks like we will have David Paterson to kick around for at least a few months more. Despite the mounting tsunami of crap threatening to engulf him, and facing very likely annihilation by Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, Paterson has been e-mailing supporters to tell them that on Feb. 20 or 21 he’ll officially launch his bid to stay Governor. He is adopting the “outsider” mantle for his run, since, of course, nothing says “outsider” more than being the sitting Governor of New York.

• MI-03: CQ compiles a list of a truckload of different Republicans who might seek the seat opened up this week by retiring Rep. Vern Ehlers in the Grand Rapids-based 3rd. Prime contenders include state Sens. Bill Hardiman and Mark Jansen, former state Rep. Jerry Kooiman, and former state Sen. Majority leader Ken Sikkema, all of whom say they’ll decide soon. Former Lt. Gov., and gubernatorial candidate, Dick Posthumus, has ruled out a bid, and it seems unlikely that SoS Terri Lynn Land (who’d been associated with the seat when Ehlers retirement rumors popped up early last year) will run, as she might have her sights on the LG slot. While the GOP has the stronger bench here, Dems who might run include former state Reps. Michael Sak and Steve Pestka, and state Rep. Robert Dean.

• NY-20: One seat that should be attractive to Republicans, given the narrowness of Rep. Scott Murphy’s special election victory, is the 20th, but it’s proven be one of their biggest recruiting headaches. Assemblyman Marc Molinaro is the latest GOPer to decline. Jim Tedisco, who lost to Murphy in the special, shut down his account from that election but hasn’t fully ruled out another run. Murphy is already sitting on $1.4 million, which certainly acts as a deterrent.

• OH-06: The rural, Appalachian-flavored 6th (at R+2, and a negative trend from Kerry to Obama) is another district that should be a Republican target, but where Rep. Charlie Wilson hasn’t drawn a serious opponent yet. Some Dude, however, has stepped up, in the form of businessman Bill Johnson. Johnson had been considering a run next door in the 17th (where he lives) against Rep. Tim Ryan, but recently seemed to realize the 6th would be easier sledding.

• CA-LG: The confirmation of Abel Maldonado as California’s new Lt. Governor has become a bizarre clusterf@ck. First off, there’s the question of why legislative Democrats would want to keep Maldonado in his Dem-leaning, pick-up-able Senate seat instead of promoting him to the entirely harmless LG slot. Clearly the Senate Dems like the idea of getting to the magic 2/3s mark, as Maldonado’s appointment cleared the Senate easily, but then enough Dems in the Assembly voted against it that his appointment failed, with 37 voting yes and 35 voting no. Confused? Well, some would say that he needed 41 votes (a majority of the 80-seat chamber) in order to be confirmed. Arnold Schwarzenegger is claiming victory, though, and planning to swear in Maldonado anyway, claiming that there would need to be 41 votes against Maldonado for the confirmation to fail. Several election law experts say Ahnold has a good point with that, although there’s guidance from a 1988 state treasurer appointment that says otherwise. Looks like this is headed to the courts.

• Teabaggers: Ed Kilgore picks apart the recent CBS poll regarding the tea party movement, and comes to the same conclusions that I’ve been teasing out… that there’s really nothing new in the movement, and that it’s just the most conservative elements of the Republican coalition in just a particularly revved-up, radicalized mood, and with a handy new name to distinguish themselves. This is particularly seen that 62% of them have a favorable view of the Republican party, despite their vague claims to be a movement separate from the parties.

• AZ-Sen: This has to be a bit of disappointment for J.D. Hayworth, as he mounts a right-wing primary challenge to John McCain: South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, who’s been active in endorsing insurgent candidates in GOP primaries and whose stamp of approval has become the gold standard for aspiring wingnuts, has declined to get involved in the Arizona primary.

• CA-Sen: Bringing to the table the business acumen and keen understanding of the law that made her such a smashing success at Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina put forth a worst-case scenario solution for the cash-strapped state of California: declaring bankruptcy. One slight problem here: while municipalities may, states can’t declare bankruptcy.

• IN-Sen: Former Sen. Dan Coats made his official announcement during a radio interview today, saying he’s “answering the call” to challenge Evan Bayh. Coats said he’s “off and running,” and by running, that means his staffers are running madly around the state trying to round up at least 500 signatures in each congressional district before the Feb. 16 filing deadline; so far, he has turned in no signatures at all (and his efforts may be greatly hampered by this week’s spell of inclement weather). At a more general level, Politico has a story today titled “The Nuking of Dan Coats,” a retrospective of all the damage Coats has sustained last week as the Dems (gunshy about a repeat of their asleep-at-the-wheel Massachusetts election) pounced quickly and rolled out pushback-free hit after hit on Coats’s lobbying past and residency.

• CA-Gov: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown is sitting on more than $12 million, which would be enough to annihilate everyone and everything in sight in most states. But in freakishly-expensive California and facing billionaire Meg Whitman, who can cut herself a $20 million check the way most of us reach into the change jar on the way to the store, he needs a little outside help. He’s getting that from “Level the Playing Field 2010,” a coalition of unions and wealthy donors who are launching a $20 million independent expenditure effort of their own, to keep Whitman from dominating the airwaves here in the slow season.

• MI-Gov: This is kind of surprising, considering that she’d been getting a disproportionate share of the gubernatorial buzz, some not-so-subtle encouragement from inside the Beltway, and a primary lead in recent polling. Denise Ilitch, UM regent and one-time pro sports magnate & pizza baroness, decided today against a run for the Democratic nod. She pointed to the late date, saying there was too much catching-up to do at this point, although she said she’d be interested in running for something in the future. This means the Democratic field is likely to be centrist state House speaker Andy Dillon and populist Lansing mayor Virg Bernero going mano-a-mano.

• NY-Gov: You can tell it’s not shaping up to be a good week when it starts out with having to point out that, no, you’re not resigning. David Paterson batted down rumors about forthcoming resignation in the face of an allegedly-emerging sex scandal (which so far has yet to emerge), but something even more ominous is looming on the horizon: federal prosecutors are starting to look into alleged misdeeds related to awarding gambling contracts at the Aqueduct racetrack in Queens. The angle may be that the recipient, Aqueduct Entertainment Group, includes ex-Rep. Floyd Flake, still a prominent black leader in Queens and one who’d been pondering endorsing Andrew Cuomo instead in a primary, and that the contract may have been intended to curry Flake’s favor.

• PA-Gov: Scranton mayor Chris Doherty may be looking for an exit, although he maintains he’s staying in the Democratic primary field. Rumors have abounded that he’s looking to downshift to the Lt. Governor position, and the decision by two locally prominent pols (Wilkes-Barre mayor Tom Leighton and Luzerne Co. Commissioner Maryanne Petrilla) to back rival Dan Onorato instead may hasten his decision. Doherty is also getting urged to drop down to the state Senate, in order to hold the Scranton-area seat being vacated this year by Senate minority leader Robert Mellow (who just announced his retirement) after decades in the Senate. (However, SD-22 is Democratic-leaning and probably doesn’t need someone of Doherty’s stature to hold it.)

• RI-Gov: I’m not exactly sure where the rumors that Democratic state treasurer Frank Caprio was considering a switch to an independent or even Republican run for governor (presumably in order to avoid an irritating primary with more liberal AG Patrick Lynch, although polls have given Caprio the edge in that primary) were coming from, but Caprio tamped them down, confirming he’s staying on board as a Democrat. At any rate, regardless of how things sort out, it looks like Rhode Island will have a governor next year who’s in favor of gay marriage: Caprio, Lynch, and independent candidate Lincoln Chafee have all pledged to sign it into law. (Republican candidate John Robitaille won’t, although even he’s in favor of civil unions; polls have shown him to be an electoral non-factor though.)

• AL-05: Suddenly the floodgates are open in the 5th for Democratic challengers to former Dem Parker Griffith. Taze Shepard and Mitchell Howie both confirmed they’ll run yesterday, and now a third person has stepped forward: Steve Raby, a political consultant whose biggest claim to fame is a long stint as the chief of staff to Sen. Howell Heflin. A fourth possible candidate, former Huntsville school board president David Blair, however, said that he won’t get involved in the race. The filing deadline isn’t until April 2.

• CA-11: The establishment seems to be coming together behind attorney David Harmer as their pick in the GOP primary in the 11th, where there’s a wide assortment of Republicans, some of whom can self-fund, but none with an electoral background. Harmer, you’ll recall, ran in the special election in the much-bluer 10th last year and overperformed the district’s lean against then-Lt. Gov. John Garamendi. Harmer just got the endorsement of Reps. Wally Herger and Buck McKeon, as well as CA-11’s 2008 loser, former Assemblyman Dean Andal.

• CT-04: Ex-Rep. Chris Shays is starting to seem like he wants to run for something this year, seeing as how Republican fortunes are improving. He’d previously been linked with a gubernatorial run, but today’s rumor has him interested in a rematch against Rep. Jim Himes, who knocked him out in 2008. Shays would be a more imposing foe than the state Senators currently in the GOP field, but would still have an uphill run against the district’s D+5 lean.

• MA-AG: If politicians had to have professional licenses in order to practice, Martha Coakley’s would have been revoked for gross political malpractice. Instead, though, she’s free to run for re-election… and that’s just what she’s announced that she’s doing.

• OH-AG: A Republican internal poll from Newhouse gives ex-Sen. Mike DeWine a sizable edge over incumbent Democratic Richard Cordary in the Ohio AG’s race, 50-32. That’s actually plausible, as DeWine, who spent two terms as Senator, has much greater name recognition than Cordray, who filled in mid-term in the wake of Marc Dann’s resignation.

• NY-St. Sen.: The state Senate actually sacked up and did it: they expelled Hiram Monserrate, several months after his assault conviction. The vote was 53-8. A special election has been called for March 16 (in which Monserrate plans to run anyway); the compressed timetable is largely because Monserrate’s absence means the Dems are down to only a 31-30 edge in the Senate, making it impossible for the Dems to move legislation on party lines (as bills need 32 votes to pass).

• NY-St. Ass.: Bad news for suburban New York Democrats, who lost two separate Assembly seats in special elections last night (although one, in Suffolk County, is close enough that it could be salvaged through absentee ballots). The victory of Republican Robert Castelli in AD-89, centered on White Plains in affluent Westchester County, may be particularly alarming for Democrats, especially when coupled with the surprise loss of Westchester Co. Exec Andy Spano in November. It’s a bellwether-ish but generally Dem-leaning part of suburbia, and if it’s turning right, that could endanger state Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins (complicating Dem plans to expand the Senate majority) and possibly even NY-19 Rep. John Hall (who represents a further north, but more conservative, part of Westchester as part of his district). Assembly control, however, is hardly hanging in the balance: Dems now control the chamber 105-42-3.

• Election Results: With 99.1% of precincts reporting (97 remain, apparently mostly in Cook County), both sides of the governor’s race remain too close to call. Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn has declared victory, sitting on a 7,000 vote lead (50.4%-49.6%) and with the remaining precincts in Cook County likely to go his way, although Dan Hynes hasn’t conceded yet. On the GOP side, we’re looking most likely at a recount, as state Sen. Bill Brady leads fellow state Sen. Kirk Dillard currently by a 751-vote margin (20.3%-20.2%), as they both squeaked past the two presumed frontrunners, former state party chair Andy McKenna and former AG Jim Ryan. The fact that the remaining votes are from Cook County, however, may be poised to help the moderate suburbs-based Dillard, though, rather than the conservative downstate Brady, so this race seems likely to get even closer (Nate Silver actually projects a one-vote victory for Brady based on broader Cook County trends). Recount procedures make it sound like a protracted process – an initial vote tally won’t happen until March 5, and then the process “could take months to complete” – giving Quinn a big headstart on whoever the GOP victor turns out to be.

As expected, Alexi Giannoulias and Mark Kirk are the Senate nominees, although both won their races with somewhat underwhelming percentages (39% for Giannoulias, and 57% for Kirk, who could have been in more trouble had the teabagging right coalesced behind one person in particular). Conservatives did triumph over establishment candidates in several GOP House primaries, though, as Bob Dold! beat state Rep. Beth Coulson in the 10th, and state Sen. Randy Hultgren beat Ethan Hastert in the 14th.

In Florida, as expected, state Sen. Ted Deutch easily won the special election primary to succeed Rep. Robert Wexler, beating former Broward Co. Commissioner Ben Graber 86-15. It looks like he’ll face Republican Ed Lynch (the 2008 nominee), who defeated Joe Budd by only 46 votes (but with only 8,000 total GOP votes, that’s outside the margin for an automatic recount). And here’s a surprise out of Kentucky: Democrats picked up a state House seat in the dark-red HD 24, which was recently vacated when Republican Jimmy Higdon got promoted to the state Senate in another special election. Terry Mills won, 54-46, based on an overwhelming edge (89-11) on his home turf of Marion County, reminding us that, at the end of the day, all politics is local.

Finally, last night was caucus and straw poll night in Minnesota. Only 80% of precincts have reported yet – I guess they go to bed early in Minnesota – but the straw poll in the Democratic governor’s race points to only a lot of chaos at this point. Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak led with 21.8%, followed closely by state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher at 20.2%. However, “uncommitted” is a solid 3rd at 15%, there are five other candidates who managed to break 5% (John Marty, Tom Rukavina, Paul Thissen, Matt Entenza, and Tom Bakk), and ex-Sen. Mark Dayton doesn’t even seem to be bothering with the whole process, planning on going straight to the primary, so there’s not much clarity on how the field will shake out. The GOP field seems much more clear-cut, where former state House minority leader Marty Seifert beat state Rep. Tom Emmer 50-39, with the rest of the field in the low single digits.

• AZ-Sen: With the imminent entry of ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth into the Republican primary against John McCain, we’re already looking at dueling internal polls. McCain offers up a poll from POS, giving him a 59-30 lead over Hayworth. Hayworth has his own poll from McLaughlin, which, not surprisingly, shows him much closer, trailing 49-33.

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek, NASCAR dad? Meek plans to call attention to his campaign by shelling out to be the lead sponsor of Mike Wallace’s car in an upcoming race at Daytona.

• IN-Sen: With the surprising announcement by ex-Sen. Dan Coats last night that he’s interested in a comeback and would start seeking the signatures to qualify for the Indiana GOP nod, the oppo pretty much writes itself. For starters, Coats can’t even sign his own petition – he’s been a registered voter in Virginia for more than a decade, not Indiana. And what’s he been doing for much of that time? Lobbying… for King & Spalding, on behalf of nice people like the Carlyle Group and Bank of America. The Plum Line also points to Coats accusing Bill Clinton of “wagging the dog” when he started going after al-Qaeda in 1998, allegedly to distract the press from his peccadilloes… and we all know how that turned out.

• ND-Sen: Democrats have, well, somebody ready to go if ex-AG Heidi Heitkamp doesn’t get into the Senate race to replace retiring Byron Dorgan. State Sen. Tracy Potter, who represents Bismarck, will be announcing his candidacy on Friday. Other potential candidates seem to be holding back, waiting to see what Heitkamp does; she’s been strangely silent since initially expressing interest in the seat last month.

• NY-Sen-B: Quinnipiac’s first poll of the New York Senate race after the Harold Ford Jr. boomlet began finds, well, pretty much what everyone else has found: Kirsten Gillibrand beats him by a wide margin but doesn’t break 50%. Gillibrand beats 36-18, with Jonathan Tasini at 4. Quinnipiac also tests general election matchups against Republican port commissioner Bruce Blakeman (they don’t even bother testing ex-Gov. George Pataki, who doesn’t seem to be making any moves to get into the race). Gillibrand beats Blakeman 44-27, and Ford beats him 35-26. Gillibrand is slowly gaining some more name rec, up to a 42/28 approval. Blakeman may not have the GOP primary to himself, though, as a strange blast from the past is re-emerging to say he’s interested in the race: ex-Rep. Joseph DioGuardi. In case the name doesn’t ring a bell, DioGuardi served in the House representing Westchester County from 1984 to 1988, when he was defeated by Nita Lowey.

• NY-Gov: The same Quinnipiac sample looks at the governor’s race, finding huge approval gaps between Andrew Cuomo (54/16) and David Paterson (34/49). Cuomo wins the Democratic primary 55-23. Cuomo beats Rick Lazio 57-25, while Lazio manages to get past Paterson 40-39. There’s also one other bit of good news for Cuomo (who’s seemed gunshy about taking on Paterson, perhaps out of bad memories of his race against Carl McCall). The poll asked if his candidacy would be “racially divisive,” and respondents answered “no” by an 80-14 margin, including 73-22 among African-Americans. Marist (pdf) also just released the gubernatorial half of its recent Senate poll, finding generally similar numbers. Cuomo wins the primary 70-23. Cuomo beats Lazio 64-27, while Lazio edges Paterson 46-43.

• TN-Gov: Add one more candidate running for higher office who’s publicly copped to being birther-curious: Lt. Gov. (and GOP gubernatorial candidate) Ron Ramsey. Not having made much of an impression in terms of polling (where Rep. Zach Wamp has an edge) or fundraising (where Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam is cleaning up), this seems like the most attention Ramsey has gotten so far.

• TX-Gov: Here’s more evidence that the Texas GOP gubernatorial primary may be headed for a runoff: the new Rasmussen poll of the primary doesn’t have anyone coming even close to 50%. Incumbent Rick Perry leads at 44, with Kay Bailey Hutchison lagging at 29, and Paulist insurgent Debra Medina all the way up to 14 on the strength of some buzz coming out of her debate performances. KBH may be counting on a runoff as her only way left to salvage this race, but somehow it seems like, in a runoff, Medina votes are a lot likely to gravitate toward the secession-invoking Perry rather than consummate DC insider Hutchison. In the general, all three defeat Democratic ex-Houston mayor Bill White, although, as one would expect, KBH puts up the biggest margin: 49-36. Perry wins 48-39, while Medina wins by only 41-38.

• AR-02: One of the non-Tim Griffin candidates in the Republican field, David Meeks, dropped out of the race today, probably realizing he was in over his head with the kind of attention open seat races get. One other candidate, restaurant owner Scott Wallace remains, and he may well carry the teabagger flag against Beltway creature Griffin. Realizing the best way to win this is by painting Griffin as insider, the DCCC is turning their attention to Griffin’s past as GOP behind-the-scenes fixer, calling attention to his efforts at voter suppression. Over in the diaries, ARDem takes a look at the developing Dem field, which currently contains state House speaker Robbie Wills, liberal state Sen. Joyce Elliott, and retiring Vic Snyder’s chief of staff, David Boling. It won’t contain, however, Little Rock mayor Mike Stodola, or Public Service Commissioner Paul Suskie, who had seemed to be laying the groundwork for a run.

• CA-12, CA-AG: False alarm: Rep. Jackie Speier is staying put in the 12th District, where’s she been in place for only a couple years. Rumors that she was about to move over to the state AG’s race had many of the state legislators on the Peninsula angling to replace her.

• GA-04: In the wake of an internal from Rep. Hank Johnson showing him crushing his three opponents in the Dem primary in this solidly-blue district in Atlanta’s suburbs, one of those opponents got out of the way: DeKalb Co. Commissioner Lee May. May is an ally of former DeKalb Co. CEO Vernon Jones, so it’s possible that he’s getting out of the way primarily so that Jones can get a bigger share of the non-Johnson vote.

• MA-10: With the general sense that this is the most vulnerable district in Massachusetts (as seen with its votes in the Senate special election last month), Republicans are taking more of an interest in challenging Rep. William Delahunt in this usually-ignored seat. Former state treasurer Joe Malone is probably the biggest name to express interest, but at least one other credible contender, state Rep. Jeffrey Perry, is already announcing his candidacy. State Sen. Robert Hedlund is also expressing some interest.

• NJ-07: One big hole in the Dems’ recruitment schedule has been the 7th, narrowly won by freshman GOP Rep. Leonard Lance in 2008. They’ve managed to fill the gap with Ed Potosnak, who’s elevated slightly above Some Dude status by the full Rolodex he brings with him after working for a number of years as a Hill staffer for Rep. Mike Honda.

• PA-11: Lackawanna Co. Commissioner Corey O’Brien has a compelling argument for why he should win the primary in the 11th: he says Rep. Paul Kanjorski has “zero” chance of defeating Republican Lou Barletta in their third face-off, citing Kanjorski’s low approval ratings. O’Brien has been fundraising well ($180K last quarter, not far from Kanjo’s $237K) and recently hit the airwaves with a small cable buy for his first TV spot.

• CA-LG: Is San Francisco mayor (and gubernatorial race dropout) Gavin Newsom actually thinking about a run for the dead-end job that is California’s #2? Officially he’s not interested, but he hasn’t said no, and a new public poll from Tulchin gives him a big lead in a hypothetical LG primary, with Newsom at 33 against the two declared candidates: Los Angeles city councilor Janice Hahn at 17 and state Sen. Dean Florez at 15. Meanwhile, the state Senate this week takes up the issue of filling the current vacancy in the LG’s chair (vacated by now-Rep. John Garamendi); there’s actually talk of blocking Ahnold appointee state Sen. Abel Maldonado, despite that getting the moderate Republican Maldonado out of his seat would open up his Dem-leaning district for a takeover and help push the Dem edge in the Senate toward the magic 2/3s mark.

• CT-AG: The story of Susan Bysiewicz just gets stranger and stranger; she decided that rather than run for governor, she’d prefer to run for AG, but now the job’s current occupant, Richard Blumenthal, says that possibly she can’t. An AG opinion interprets state law requiring ten years of legal practice as unclear and urges a declaratory ruling on Bysiewicz’s case from a court. Bysiewicz, for her part, said she won’t seek the declaratory ruling and is simply plowing ahead with her AG campaign, although it’s possible one of the other candidates in the race might force the issue in the courts.

• Polltopia: The skepticism toward those SurveyUSA polls commissioned by Firedoglake continues to grow, this time from political science professor and frequent Pollster.com contributor Alan Abramowitz. His gravest concerns are with the leading questions in the issues portions of the poll on health care reform, but he also points to serious problems with the samples’ compositions that we were quick to flag. He observes that the samples deeply underrepresent younger votes, and that the youth subsets are so small that there’s no good way to “weight up” younger voters to a more proportionate level.

• AZ-Sen: Ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth has made it pretty clear already that he’s taking on John McCain in the Republican Senate primary, and now he’s made it official when he’s going to make it official. The launch date for his campaign: Feb. 15.

• CT-Sen, CT-02: Ex-Rep. Rob Simmons did a whole lot of bobbing and weaving when an interviewer yesterday kept pressing him on the issue of whether he’d consider dropping down to run for his old House seat again (although a spokesperson followed up afterwards, saying he will not running for anything else, “period”). The idea has to be tempting to Simmons, though, who just watched his Senate dreams vaporize with Democratic AG Richard Blumenthal’s entry, and who may by enviously eyeing efforts by some of the other 2006 victims (like Mike Fitzpatrick) to turn back the clock.

• KS-Sen: There’s still six months to go before their Republican Senate primary, but time’s running out for Rep. Todd Tiahrt to make a move against fellow Rep. Jerry Moran. Moran leads this month’s SurveyUSA poll 40-33 (two months ago Tiahrt pulled within 3, but that’s the closest he’s been). Moran is currently up 38-23 in the state’s northeast, which will be the decisive region (as they each have their respective districts already locked down).

• NV-Sen: File this under “it’s bad news even if you have to be out there repeatedly saying this,” but Harry Reid again denied (this time to Las Vegas political reporter Jon Ralston) that he’d drop out of his fizzling Senate race to make way for a different candidate. On the GOP side, one potential opponent, Sue Lowden, is up with her first TV spot, a soft-focus biographical ad. Taking note of these developments, no doubt, are Dick Durbin and Charles Schumer; insiders are observing that the two of them are both busy doling out campaign cash to their colleagues in order to build loyalties for what looks like the fight to be the next majority leader.

• NY-Sen-B: In case you missed it, last night’s point-by-point dismantling of Harold Ford Jr. by Stephen Colbert is a must-see. It clearly wasn’t the coming-out gala that Ford had envisioned.

• UT-Sen: The establishment is riding to the rescue for Bob Bennett, who could be threatened in this year’s primary if the teabagging rabble somehow coalesced behind one of his many opponents. The NRSC just handed $43K to Bennett’s campaign (an important sign to other institutional contributors), and Newt Gingrich is headlining a big-bucks fundraiser for Bennett.

• CA-Gov: Republican pollster McLaughlin & Associates (apparently not working on behalf of any of the candidates) released a poll of the Republican gubernatorial primary, finding zillionairess Meg Whitman leading zillionaire Steve Poizner, 39-12. Apparently they were in the field when Tom Campbell bailed out, as they also offer up a three-way head-to-head, which was 31 Whitman, 17 Campbell, 5 Poizner.  

• CT-Gov: A couple comings and goings in Connecticut today: as expected, Danbury mayor Mark Boughton got in the Republican field. On the Democratic side, state Sen. Gary LeBeau, who’d been polling in the low single digits, dropped out. In a moment of unusual honesty for a politician, LeBeau said, “The state has no idea who Gary LeBeau is.”

• OR-Gov: This is a bit of a surprise, but in the wake of Al Gore’s endorsement, it’s certainly an indication that ex-SoS Bill Bradbury (something of an underdog in the Democratic primary against ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber) has some powerful friends back in DC. Howard Dean will appear at several fundraisers for Bradbury in Oregon next week.

• FL-08: Here’s another surprise: brash 20-something real estate developer Armando Gutierrez dropped out of the GOP field in the 8th, despite having attracted a lot of favorable buzz and even picked up a few endorsements from members of Florida’s House delegation. The national party never warmed up to him, though, seemingly put off by his line-crashing, and he may have finally gotten the message, between the NRCC’s preferred pick, businessman Bruce O’Donoghue, officially filing yesterday, and the endorsement by neighboring Rep. Cliff Stearns of yet another Republican in the crowded field, state Rep. Kurt Kelly.

• FL-19: In all the madness over the Illinois primaries today, it’s been almost universally forgotten that the primary in the safely-blue 19th to replace resigned Rep. Robert Wexler is also today. It’s hardly worth a look, though, as state Sen. Ted Deutch pretty much has it locked down, having raised many times more money than anyone else and nailed down the establishment endorsements. Former Broward Co. Commissioner Ben Graber is the only other candidate of note.

• IN-04: Despite the advantages that his statewide profile brings him, SoS Todd Rokita won’t have the GOP field to replace retiring Rep. Steve Buyer to himself. He’ll have to face state Sen. Brandt Hershman too. Hershman has one key advantage himself: he works as an aide to Buyer, and has Buyer’s backing.

• NV-03: Here’s some good news for ex-state Sen. Joe Heck: he just got $10K to go toward his campaign against vulnerable Dem freshman Rep. Dina Titus. The bad news is: that $10K came from the PAC of John Ensign, who just won’t stop trying to make himself useful to Nevada’s other Republicans despite the fact that he’s about as popular as shingles right now. But then Heck got some more good news: he won’t face a seriously contested primary, as self-funding businessman Rob Lauer dropped his teabaggish challenge to Heck to run for SoS instead.

• NY-13: A lot of people are asking who Michael Grimm is, after he banked over $300K last quarter to go up against Democratic Rep. Michael McMahon. He’s a former FBI agent, who apparently has a lot of friends in high places… in places outside of his district. Only $3,500 of that amount came from within the actual district, and $2,000 of that was from Staten Island Republican guru Guy Molinari.

• NY-14: Live by the primary challenge, die by the primary challenge. Rep. Carolyn Maloney now faces one of her own, a well-funded challenge from the apparent right from 30-something attorney Reshma Saujani, who has previously raised serious dollars within the Indian-American community for other Democratic candidates. Saujani, believe it or not, is running on an unashamedly pro-Wall Street platform (although this is maybe the one district in the country where that might still work).

• PA-06: Two more prominent local Democrats who had endorsed Doug Pike when he was the only game in town have switched their endorsements to Manan Trivedi instead. Significantly, they’re both in Berks County (which is also where Trivedi is from, and which is where Dems have tended to run the weakest in the district in the past): Reading mayor Tom McMahon and Berks Co. Commissioner Kevin Barnhardt.

• TN-01: Would you believe that there’s a Republican who lost in one of the wave elections who isn’t running for something this year? However, before you get too excited, it’s ex-Rep. David Davis, who’d been mulling a third matchup against Rep. Phil Roe, who knocked him off in a GOP primary in this super-red district in eastern Tennessee. The not-insane Roe may be the best we can hope for in this district, especially compared with Davis, who’d been making outreach to the local teabaggers in preparation for another run.

• WV-03: A credible challenger to Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall sneaked under the rope at the filing deadline: former state Supreme Court justice Elliott Maynard. Maynard was, until recently, a Democrat, but switched parties pushed along largely by his perception of Democrats’ anti-coal environmental policies (and no doubt also influenced by West Virginia’s reddish turn over the last decade).

• OH-SoS: This was painless and easy: not only did a more progressive alternative to conservative state Rep. Jennifer Garrison get into the Secretary of State race – Franklin Co. Court Clerk Maryellen O’Shaughnessy – but she won’t even face a contested primary. Getting the message that her establishment support was practically nil, Garrison got out of the race. Meanwhile, on the Republican side, the GOP establishment seems to have settled the trouble it was having finding a replacement Auditor candidate after Mary Taylor ditched the job to run for Lt. Governor. They got Delaware Co. Prosecutor Kevin Yost to switch over from the AG’s race, where he was facing ex-Sen. Mike DeWine in a primary. That caused a lot of consternation among the state’s right-wingers, though – they were looking forward to Yost picking off the unacceptably moderate (and generally underwhelming) DeWine in the primary. Both the SoS and Auditor positions are key from a redistricting perspective, as along with the Governor they control the state’s legislative redistricting process.

• Republicans: If you haven’t checked out the details of Research 2000’s in-depth poll of the state of what Republicans believe today, please do. Although I’m not really still sure what to do with all this knowledge… except maybe acknowledge that you can’t negotiate with such irrational actors.

• Redistricting: CQ’s Josh Kurtz takes an interesting look at redistricting in California over the decades, as seen through the prism of a new book that covers the many ups and downs of legendary California Rep. Philip Burton. Will it be an incumbent protection map or an aggressive push, and how will the state’s fast-growing Latino population be accommodated?

• AZ-Sen: CQ has an interesting tidbit about Rodney Glassman, the young Tucson city councilor who’s the top Democrat in the Senate race right now. The general sense has been that it would be good to have someone with some self-funding capacity to be able to jump in and make a race of it in case the bombastic J.D. Hayworth somehow takes out John McCain in the GOP primary… and it turns out that Glassman has been that guy all along. He’s been capping contributions to his campaign at $20 for now, but the Dems’ state chair says Glassman can step in with his own money in case things heat up.

• IA-Sen: Rasmussen takes a pretty dim view of the odds for Roxanne Conlin (or any other Democrat) against Chuck Grassley in 2010. They see Conlin, a wealthy attorney last seen losing the 1982 gubernatorial race, losing to Grassley 59-31. The other less-known Dems, both veterans of the state legislature, fare only slightly worse: Bob Krause loses 59-26, and Tom Fiegen loses 61-25.

• IL-Sen: One last component from Rasmussen’s poll of the Illinois primary fields dribbled in late yesterday: a look at the Republican Senate field. Like other pollsters, they find Rep. Mark Kirk way ahead of his nearest competitor in the GOP primary, real estate developer Patrick Hughes. Unlike others, though, they at least see Hughes in the double-digits, losing 53-18 (with 12 for “some other candidate”).

• NC-Sen: Rasmussen also examines North Carolina, and while they find Republican incumbent Richard Burr with a significant lead, he’s not quite in the safety zone. Burr leads Democratic SoS Elaine Marshall 47-37, and he leads former state Sen. Cal Cunningham 50-34. Rasmussen also finds Burr’s knowns to be much, much higher than anyone else has found them: he has an approval of 56/32, with only 12% not sure (whereas most pollsters find his unknowns to be well into the 30s).

• NY-Sen-B: After rumors of his renewed interest in challenging Kirsten Gillibrand in a Democratic Senate primary, Rep. Steve Israel sounds like he’s backing off. His chief of staff says “definitively that he’s not running,” although there’s no comment from Israel himself. Israel, however, did commission another poll in recent weeks to take the race’s temperature, so it’s clear his interest was briefly re-piqued.

• AK-Gov: Former state House speaker John Harris had been a rumored candidate to oppose appointed Gov. Sean Parnell in the GOP gubernatorial primary, but has made clear that he won’t run and will run for re-election to the House instead. Another former speaker, Ralph Samuels, was also in the race, leaving Harris little room to grab whatever anti-Parnell vote might be out there. (A PPP poll finds the uncontroversial Parnell with a 58/19 approval, so it’d be an uphill run anyway.)

• FL-Gov: Rasmussen has new numbers out for the Governor’s race in Florida, and they’re very similar to what Quinnipiac released yesterday. Republican AG Bill McCollum leads Democratic CFO Alex Sink 46-35. (Presumably, this means they’ll have Senate numbers shortly.)

• MI-Gov: We’re getting strange signals out of the Virg Bernero camp. The Lansing mayor sent out an e-mail soliciting interns for his gubernatorial run (which would be a strange way of announcing your run, which he hasn’t done so far, although he does have an exploratory committee up). It was quickly followed up with word that Bernero hasn’t decided whether or not to run, and it should have said interns sought for his exploratory committee only.

• NY-Gov: Here’s a sign of how unenthused the state GOP is with the idea of ex-Rep. Rick Lazio as their standard-bearer for the Governor’s race: they’re actually sitting down with Suffolk Co. Exec Steven Levy, who has recently expressed some interest in the race, to discuss the possibility of him running as a Republican. Levy, of course, is a Democrat, although a rather conservative one (particularly on immigration issues) and one who received a Republican cross-endorsement during his barely-contested 2007 re-election. The crux of the matter may be that Levy has a $4 million warchest available, while Lazio is sitting on $637K. State party chair Ed Cox offered this stirring endorsement of Lazio on Wednesday: “At the moment, he is the candidate.”

• WI-Gov: One final Rasmussen poll to look at today: it’s the other half of their Wisconsin sample, the one that found 68-year-old ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson leading Russ Feingold in a hypothetical match. They find Republican ex-Rep. Mark Neumann leading Democratic Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett 42-38, while Milwaukee Co. Exec Scott Walker leads Barrett 48-38 (again, a much more Republican-favorable view of the race than other pollsters have seen it).

• AR-01: Dems won’t be getting their most-desired candidate to succeed Marion Berry in the 1st: AG Dustin McDaniel already announced that he won’t run. Possible Dem candidates sniffing out the race, though, including state Rep. Keith Ingram, state Sen. Robert Thompson, and former state party chair Jason Willett. CQ also mentions former state Rep. Chris Thyer, former state Sen. Tim Woolridge, and Berry’s CoS, Chad Causey.

• AR-02: In the 2nd, Democratic state House speaker Robbie Wills seems to be getting into the race to succeed Vic Snyder. State Sen. Shane Broadway has also expressed interest, but says that he’ll head for the Lt. Governor race if LG Bill Halter gets into the field in the 2nd. State Public Service Commissioner Paul Suskie is already putting campaign infrastructure into place, and a potential wild card people are eyeing is Little Rock’s mayor, Mark Stodola.

• CA-19: Smackdown in the Central Valley! Retiring Republican Rep. George Radanovich lashed out at CA-11 ex-Rep. Richard Pombo, seeking to replace him, saying that he should have “run in his own district.” Radanovich backs state Sen. Jeff Denham in the GOP primary, and was seeking to quash Pombo claims that Radanovich wouldn’t have endorsed Denham had he known Pombo was going to run. In other news, Rep. Tom McClintock at some point endorsed Pombo, finally making it clear that McClintock, used to running for something new every two years, wasn’t going to reflexively abandon his district and run in the 19th instead.

• GA-04: A primary is the only way to dislodge Rep. Hank Johnson in this safely blue district, and it looks like Johnson is poised to keep his seat even though he’s drawn several prominent opponents (at least some of whom would be coming at him from the right), former DeKalb Co. CEO Vernon Jones and DeKalb Co. Commissioners Connie Stokes and Lee May. Johnson has an internal poll from Lake Associates out showing him with 47% of the vote, leading Jones at 19, Stokes at 12, and May at 5.

• KY-06: Just days after attorney Andy Barr was named to the bottom tier of the NRCC’s “Young Guns” program, another Republican has jumped into the fray to take on Rep. Ben Chandler in this Republican-leaning district. Mike Templeman retired last year as CEO of Energy Coal Resources, and is touting his business experience.

• NH-02: Ex-Rep. Charlie Bass is touting an internal poll that has him in commanding position, at least as far as the GOP primary is concerned. He leads the 2008 Republican candidate, talk radio host Jennifer Horn, by a 42-19 margin (with 4 for state Rep. Bob Giuda). No numbers for the general election in this Dem-leaning district, however.

• NY-01: Rep. Tim Bishop is pushing back against, well, everything: he said, as far as retirement rumors go, he’s “sure as hell” not going to back down from a fight now. He also announced strong fundraising (a $378K quarter) in the face of wealthy opposition, Randy Altschuler and George Demos. (There are also rumors that Chris Cox, the grandson of Richard Nixon and son of new state GOP chair Ed Cox, may get into the race.) Bishop’s camp also alluded to (although didn’t specifically release) an internal poll showing him over the 50% mark against his Republican opponents, in contrast to other recent polls.

• PA-03: I wouldn’t have expected freshman Kathy Dahlkemper’s 3rd to be only 4th or 5th among Pennsylvania Democratic seats in terms of vulnerability this year, but them’s the breaks. The GOP hasn’t found a top-tier recruit here yet, but another Republican got into the race: Mike Kelly, a car dealer from the suburban Pittsburgh part of the district. It sounds like he’ll be able to partly fund his own way, which will help him compete against fellow businessman Paul Huber.

• PA-10: Former US Attorney Tom Marino finally announced his long-rumored bid against Rep. Chris Carney this week. While Marino seems imposing on paper, there are a number of problems here for him: for starters, Carney quickly used the December efforts of GOPers to recruit him to party-switch to boost his own bipartisan bona fides. Marino also faces questions over his relationship with Louis DeNaples, a developer who was the target of probes over links to organized crime, and particularly a casino license granted to him (where Marino was a reference on DeNaples’ gaming application). And a number of state legislators – at least in the far western part of the district where Malcolm Derk is from – are lining up behind Derk instead of Marino in the GOP primary. With chiropractor David Madeira, who’s been reaching out to the teabaggers, also in the race, even the primary won’t be an easy ride for Marino.

• PA-15: One more internal poll, this one not looking so good for Democrats. Republican Rep. Charlie Dent, in his first competitive race, well, ever, against Bethlehem mayor John Callahan, has a big edge in his own poll conducted by the Tarrance Group. The poll gives Dent a 53-27 lead, with 8 going to teabagging independent Jack Towne. The moderate Dent pulls in one-quarter of all Democratic voters.

• TN-08: He’s in like Flinn. George Flinn, that is: the official entry of the Shelby Co. Commissioner, who’s also a radiologist and radio station owner in his spare time, expanded the Republican field in the 8th. With two money-bags candidates already in the picture, physician Ron Kirkland and most prominently farmer Stephen Fincher, Republicans look poised to bleed each other badly in an expensive primary while state Sen. Roy Herron looks to have the Democratic field mostly to himself in this open seat race.

• VA-05: Another primary that’s getting out of control for the GOP is the one in the 5th, where there’s a backlog of die-hards each claiming to be the “true conservative” as opposed to establishment fave state Sen. Robert Hurt. Real estate investor Lawrence Verga seems to have had the most success at gaining the attention of the teabaggers (although Verga‘s spotty voting record can’t help his image much), but now rival real estate developer Jim McKelvey just slammed down half a million dollars on the table to up the ante. Even more delicious in terms of cat fud: McKelvey is also making threats that he’ll run as an independent if things don’t go his way in the primary. With right-winger Bradley Rees already running as a Tea Party-powered indie, there could be enough fracturing on the right to let vulnerable Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello have a shot at survival.

• VA-09: Here’s a seat that would have been a bear to defend in the event of a retirement, but where we got the final word that the incumbent is staying put. Rep. Rick Boucher confirmed he’ll go for a 15th term in the Fightin’ 9th in southwestern Virginia. He’s still not out of the woods, as Republican state House majority leader Morgan Griffith may get in the race, although for now Boucher doesn’t have an opponent.

• WA-03: This caught me, and seemingly a lot of other people, by surprise: Gov. Chris Gregoire weighed into the Democratic primary in the 3rd with an endorsement, and she bypassed the two sitting state legislators in the field to go for ex-state Rep. Denny Heck, suggesting that rumors that he’s got a lot of behind-the-scenes establishment support are quite true. Heck, who subsequently founded a public affairs cable channel and did a lot of successful for-profit investing as well, can spend a lot of his own money on the race, which is probably why he’s getting the establishment backing despite having been out of office for decades.

• WV-01: After a rather protracted four-year investigation, the Justice Dept. ended its investigation of Rep. Alan Mollohan over earmark steering, removing the ethical cloud from over his head. Mollohan had been on retirement watch lists, in the face of several decent Republican challengers, but he recently filed for re-election and now his opponents have less ammo to use against him.

• OH-SoS: Progressives have been dismayed that socially conservative state Rep. Jennifer Garrison is the only Democratic option in the Secretary of State primary anymore, but that sounds like it’s about to change. Franklin Co. Clerk of Courts (and former Columbus city councilor) Maryellen O’Shaugnessy is rumored to be about to enter the race, and it also sounds like she’ll have the backing of the state party’s power brokers, starting at the top with Gov. Ted Strickland (who can’t afford to have progressives stay home in 2010, as he needs them to save his own bacon in what promises to be a tight gubernatorial race).

• Census: New York state Senate Democrats are proposing changes in the way that prison inmates are counted. They’d like for them to be considered residents of the district where their last known address was, not where they’re currently incarcerated. It’s actually a very important issue, considering that there are more than 58,000 state prisoners in New York, most of whom are from cities but are currently in rural Upstate, and it could tip the balance significantly in redistricting the state Senate. In other Census news, Robert Groves talked extensively to Pew about increasing participation, tracking turnout, and overcoming language barriers.

• Humor: Finally, here’s a cartoon that SSP fans are uniquely positioned to enjoy.

• AR-Sen: Despite the seemingly imminent entry of Rep. John Boozman into the GOP field in the Arkansas Senate race, soon-to-be-former-frontrunner state Sen. Gilbert Baker says he’s staying in the race. The alternative would be to run for Baker, who represents Little Rock suburbs, to run for the open seat in AR-02 instead – but there he’d face a tough primary against Beltway GOP favorite Tim Griffin, who’s already established a solid fundraising foothold. (Some of the seven dwarves in the GOP field, who seem concentrated in the state’s right-leaning northwest, may be interested in switching to Boozman’s open seat in AR-03, though.) And unbelievably, yet another Republican is interested in getting in the Senate race: former NFL player Jim Lindsey is readying for a bid. Lindsey is a real estate developer and former University of Arkansas trustee.

• AZ-Sen: Sarah Palin is still dancin’ with the one who brung her. She announced yesterday that she’ll appear on behalf of John McCain, who plucked her from near-obscurity and is now needs a favor of his own as he’s facing a primary challenge from the right from ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth. Needless to say, this provoked a lot of disappointment from her supporters among the teabagging set, who would prefer to see her stab McCain in the back and then field dress him.

• CO-Sen: With right-wingers filled with antipathy toward establishment choice ex-Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, there’s been a lot of casting about for an alternative. Weld County DA Ken Buck seems more and more like he’ll be that guy, as he’s been making common cause with the Paulists, who are now planning to pay for a statewide advertising campaign on Buck’s behalf. Meanwhile, on the Dem side, primary challenger Andrew Romanoff is trying to energize his sleepy campaign with a big hire – pollster Celinda Lake, whose previously sterling reputation got driven off a cliff with her handling of the Martha Coakley campaign.

• CT-Sen: There’s not much left to see for the 2010 race, but everyone’s thinking ahead to 2012, with the new rumor afoot that – with the Senate Kennedy-free for the first time in more than half a century – Ted Kennedy Jr. may run against Joe Lieberman in 2012. Lieberman himself is up to his usual asshattery, speculating out loud that he could conceive of becoming a Republican, and also saying that he might support Linda McMahon in the 2010 race… seeing as how Richard Blumenthal (tepidly) supported Lamont in the 2006 general while McMahon supported Lieberman. Apparently Lieberman learned his politics from watching the Godfather: it’s not business. Just personal. (Lieberman also seems to be a believer in leaving the cannoli, and taking the guns.)

• FL-Sen: In the wake of new polling showing him falling behind Marco Rubio in the GOP Senate primary, the questions are getting louder about whether Charlie Crist might consider running as an independent instead. He said no to that idea… but people are noticing he didn’t rule out switching parties altogether. With Crist appearing side-by-side with Barack Obama today in Florida (something he wouldn’t consider doing if he saw any hope in trying to compete with Rubio – who just got the endorsement of ur-conservative Steve Forbes — on conservative bona fides alone), could that actually be a consideration? If so, he’d need to switch parties by April 30.

• MA-Sen: There are a couple more retrospectives worth reading on Massachusetts, as people try to make sense of the mixed messages sent by exit polls (with one particularly intriguing tidbit: 52% of Scott Brown voters approved of Ted Kennedy’s performance). Mark Blumenthal also looks at the shift in polling over the last few weeks, wondering again about the differing results gotten by live interviewers vs. robocallers, while also pointing to questions of how much pollsters’ views of a race can actually change the overall momentum of the race (fundraising and perception-wise) and thus become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And get ready for the teabaggers’ week-long love affair to end very soon: Scott Brown (who apparently has some self-preservation instincts) just served notice on the GOP that he won’t always vote with them.

• ND-Sen: This isn’t going to make the teabaggers any happier: Gov. John Hoeven, now running for the Senate, joined the Democratic Party in 1996 (at a time when he was head of North Dakota’s state-owned bank), ditching them in 2000 for his gubernatorial run. With Hoeven already on their naughty list for his insufficiently anti-government stances, now he’s just going to get more wrath.

• NH-Sen: Former AG Kelly Ayotte is wielding an internal poll by the Tarrance Group that gives her a big edge in the GOP primary against her challengers. She leads Ovide Lamontagne, coming at her from the right, 43-11. Random rich guys Bill Binnie and Jim Bender clock in at 5 and 3 apiece. No general election numbers were released.

• NV-Sen: One more disastrous poll for Harry Reid, which came out from Research 2000 a few days ago. This poll closely echoed one from PPP a few weeks ago that tested alternative Democrats, and finds that only Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman beats the Republicans (while Rep. Shelly Berkley and SoS Ross Miller don’t fare much better than Reid). Unfortunately, this was all rendered moot a few days ago by Goodman’s announcement that he wasn’t going to run for either Governor or Senator. Reid loses 52-41 to Danny Tarkanian and 51-42 to Sue Lowden. Berkley loses 46-40 to Tarkanian and 45-40 to Lowden, while Miller loses 44-36 to Tarkanian and 43-37 to Lowden. Goodman beats Tarkanian 44-41 and Lowden 44-40. Rep. Dina Titus, facing a tough re-election of her own, doesn’t seem to think much of Reid’s chances anymore: she publicly said “Reid is done; he’s going to lose.”

• NY-Sen-B: One other Research 2000 poll to talk about: they looked at the Democratic primary in New York, and find about what everyone else has found. Kirsten Gillibrand leads ex-Rep. Harold Ford Jr. by a 41-27 margin (with 3 for Jonathan Tasini), looking solid but still with a ton of undecideds. This also exists merely at the level of rumor, but with the potential presence of Ford scrambling things for the ever-so-briefly-thought-to-be-safe Gillibrand, sources say that Democratic Rep. Steve Israel (who got dissuaded from a primary challenge) and Republican ex-Gov. George Pataki (who hasn’t sounded interested until now) are both giving the race a little more consideration.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): Franklin & Marshall’s previous polls in Pennsylvania have tended to have unusually high undecideds, suggesting that they don’t do any pushing of leaners at all – but this may have reached an all-time high with their new poll. Most notably, they find Allegeheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato completely dominating the Democratic gubernatorial primary… at 10% (more than doubling up on Jack Wagner, Joe Hoeffel, and Chris Doherty, all at 4)! They also find similarly low numbers in the Senate race, where Republican ex-Rep. Pat Toomey leads incumbent Dem Arlen Specter 45-31 and Rep. Joe Sestak 41-19 (?!?), and where Specter beats Sestak in the primary 30-13. (They didn’t do a general election poll in the Governor’s race, but find Republican AG Tom Corbett leading his remaining rival, state Rep. Sam Rohrer, 23-5 in the primary.)

• UT-Sen: The Mason-Dixon poll that gave us some (not so good) gubernatorial results also threw in some vague questions about the Senate race too. Incumbent Bob Bennett leads a Generic R in the primary, 46-27, and a Generic D 53-26 in the general. Nevertheless, Bennett drew yet another primary opponent, albeit someone seemingly of the Some Dude variety: local businessman Christopher Stout.

• WI-Sen: Wherever there’s a vacillating Republican needing convincing to get into a Senate race, there’s Rasmussen. (Whaddya wanna bet they have a Patty Murray/Dave Reichert poll in the field right now?) Contrary to PPP’s view of the race, Rasmussen finds ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson leading incumbent Dem Russ Feingold, 47-43. They find Feingold with a perplexingly low 47/48 approval.

• CT-Gov: Is ex-Rep. Chris Shays looking to get into the Governor’s race? Suddenly, it sounds like he’s at least thinking about it, saying he’d like to do it but not sure if it’s feasible. He’s currently in Washington as head of the Wartime Contracting Commission, meaning he’d need to re-establish his Connecticut residency, but given his long-time popularity in his district (which eventually got too blue for him to hold) he might have a leg up on the so-so GOPers already in the field.

• FL-Gov: Quinnipiac released the gubernatorial half of its Florida poll yesterday, finding that Republican AG Bill McCollum has a somewhat bigger lead on Democratic CFO Alex Sink, 41-31 (McCollum led 36-32 in October). Sink leads state Sen. Paula Dockery 35-29, but considering that McCollum leads Dockery 44-6 in the GOP primary, that configuration doesn’t seem likely.

• MI-Gov: Two guys who had been unlikely candidates for the Democratic nomination for Governor both announced they wouldn’t run. Rep. Bart Stupak is the big name to say “no,” which is good as far as the DCCC is concerned, as he’s needed to hold down the fort in his R+3 district. The other is Detroit Pistons head of basketball operations Joe Dumars, who probably realized he’d get pretty banged up out there without Bill Laimbeer to run interference for him. One other interesting rumor of who might run, though, is ex-Rep. Joe Schwarz, the GOP moderate who got bounced out in a 2006 Club for Growth-fueled primary by Tim Walberg. And get this… he’s talking about running as an independent. Could he actually peel off enough center-right votes for the Dems to salvage this race?

• NY-Gov: Research 2000’s New York poll also looked at the Democratic gubernatorial primary, finding AG Andrew Cuomo defeating incumbent David Paterson, 63-19. Paterson is laboring under 34/54 approvals. The GOP primary to see who gets flattened by Cuomo is looking pretty uneventful: Erie Co. Exec Chris Collins, who continued to express vague interest despite having gaffed his way out of contention several months ago, finally pulled the plug on his exploratory committee. That leaves ex-Rep. Rick Lazio as the only major GOPer in the race, to few people’s enthusiasm.

• TX-Gov: Looks like Gov. Rick Perry isn’t much of a fan of the librul media, or at least he realizes that his key demographics aren’t really the newspaper-reading types. He’s decided not to sit for editorial board interviews prior to their pre-primary endorsements.  

• Site News: SSP is instituting a one-week waiting period for new users to post diaries. New accounts can still post comments right away.

• AL-Sen: This race has to rank somewhere around 32 or 33 in order of likelihood to change hands among Senate races this November, but at least we’re showing up to compete: Birmingham-area attorney William Barnes announced that he’ll run against Richard Shelby for Team Blue. It’s his first run for office, and he says it’ll be a “total grassroots” effort (which I think is code for “can’t self-finance”).

• AZ-Sen: J.D. Hayworth and Dana Rohrabacher always seemed like kindred spirits in their particularly loudmouthed version of ultra-conservatism. That seems to continue today, as the Orange County Congressman gave his former colleague his first big-name endorsement in his newly-minted primary challenge to John McCain.

• MA-Sen (pdf): There’s a wealth of data in the Washington Post’s post-game poll of the Massachusetts special election; it’s well-worth looking through the whole memo. As with other polls, it points to a confluence of Republican enthusiasm and a Democratic failure to define the opposition (or themselves). Interestingly, only 60% of Brown voters say they favor Republican policies in Congress, and only 19% of them want him to work mostly to oppose Democratic policies instead of working to get Republican ideas into Democratic policy.

• NY-Sen-B: His helicopter’s warming up on the launch pad: Harold Ford Jr. seems to be moving closer to a Senate primary run. An ally says he’s “80 percent” likely to run, and various steps he’s taking suggest he’s getting his ducks in a row – reserving web domains, and even crisscrossing the state, visiting that previously unknown sixth borough of New York City known as “Buffalo.”

• WA-Sen: Republican insiders seem to be wondering if they can use the Massachusetts results to coax a top-tier (or any-tier, really) Republican to get into the race against Patty Murray. The problem for them is that there are really only two GOPers who are appealing and moderate enough to play at the statewide level, and AG Rob McKenna already seems to have his ticket booked for a 2012 gubernatorial run. That leaves Rep. Dave Reichert, whose spokesperson made a run sound unlikely, while still saying he “is not one to shut doors on any opportunity.”

• IL-Gov: It may be news to you that someone named Bob Schillerstrom was running for Governor. Apparently it was news to the people of Illinois, too, as he dropped out at a strangely late stage (after consistently polling in the low single digits) and endorsed ex-AG Jim Ryan for the Republican nod. Schillerstrom’s lack of traction is kind of strange, since, as DuPage County Board Chairman, he has nearly a million constituents. His name will remain on the ballots, which have already been printed.

• MD-Gov: The one elected Republican who seemed to be following through on running for Maryland governor decided against it and opted for a different course instead. State Del. Patrick McDonough is now running for Baltimore County Executive. McDonough had previously said he wouldn’t run if ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich tried for a rematch, and while Ehrlich hasn’t done anything public on that end, McDonough said he thinks Ehrlich is planning to do it.

• OH-Gov: More polling bad news for incumbent Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland: he’s trailing ex-Rep. John Kasich 51-45 in the new poll from the Univ. of Cincinnati. (Strickland led 49-46 in their previous poll in October.) One bit of the poll gives Strickland a potential way forward, though, if he can get his messaging to work: “When asked who’s to blame for Ohio’s economic misery, Bush ranked first, at 24 percent, followed by Wall Street and financial institutions at 23 percent and the U.S. Congress, 19 percent. President Barack Obama got the blame from 13 percent while just 3 percent blamed Strickland.”

• PA-Gov: Another poorly-kept rumor panned out to be true: that wealthy Philadelphia businessman Tom Knox was going to drop out of the race and endorse Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato, which happened over the weekend. Knox said he could have funded a big ad blitz to get competitive (he’d been polling in single digits) but didn’t want to hand ammunition to the Republicans. It’s unclear whether the big beneficiary here is Onorato, though, or ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel, who benefits from being the only Philadelphia-area candidate left.

• SC-Gov: Looks like Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer isn’t going to lay claim to the mantle of “compassionate conservatism” any time soon. The would-be successor to Mark Sanford compared poor people to stray animals over the weekend, saying: “You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that.” He tried walking that back today, regretting his choice of words and also adding that he’s “not against animals,” either.

• UT-Gov: Enthusiasm about our chances in the Utah governor’s race, thanks to the entry of Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon and a recent Deseret News poll showing a competitive race, has to be tempered by the new Mason-Dixon poll of the race on behalf of the Salt Lake Tribune. They find incumbent GOP Gov. Gary Herbert with a more substantial lead over Corroon, 55-30.

• WY-Gov: Former US Attorney Matt Mead made his widely-anticipated entry into the race official, as the backlog of top-tier Republicans running for the state house continues to grow. There’s still no word from incumbent Dem Dave Freudenthal on what his plans are, regarding the possibility of challenging the state’s term limits law and running for another term.

• PA-08: Ex-Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick had only a short exploratory period before an official launch of his campaign to get back his seat from Rep. Patrick Murphy; he announced his candidacy at a public appearance on Saturday.

• PA-10: Some Dude named Ted Yale announced his candidacy on the Republican side in the 10th. Considering that the news story doesn’t even note his occupation, I’m not convinced Yale poses much of a threat, but there is something more interesting buried in the article… former US Attorney Thomas Marino is now “expected” to announce his candidacy next week.

• Retread watch: Can you believe that more than 20 former House Republicans are running again this year, either for Senate, governor, their old seat or, in the case of Richard Pombo, some completely other seat? The Hill runs down the full list.

• Redistricting: Republicans have realized that the way back to power lies in the state legislatures, via their control over the post-2010 redistricting process in most states, and they’re budgeting accordingly. A new enterprise, the American Majority Project, and an old one, the Republican State Leadership Committee, are looking to get more involved in closely-controlled legislatures, and they have some big-name backers involved.

Another firehose-blast of Rasmussen polls….

AZ-Sen (1/20, likely voters, 11/18 in parens):

John McCain (R-inc): 53 (45)

J.D. Hayworth (R): 31 (43)

Chris Simcox (R): 4 (4)

Other: 3 (2)

Undecided: 8 (7)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

CA-Gov (1/19, likely voters, 9/24 in parens):

Jerry Brown (D): 43 (44)

Meg Whitman (R): 39 (35)

Other: 7 (3)

Undecided: 11 (18)

Jerry Brown (D): 45 (45)

Steve Poizner (R): 35 (32)

Other: 9 (5)

Undecided: 11 (18)

Dianne Feinstein (D): 43

Meg Whitman (R): 42

Other: 6

Undecided: 9

Steve Poizner (R): 39

Dianne Feinstein (D): 43

Other: 8

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4.5%)

GA-Gov (1/20, likely voters, no trendlines):

Roy Barnes (D): 42

John Oxendine (R): 44

Other: 6

Undecided: 8

Roy Barnes (D): 43

Nathan Deal (R): 42

Other: 7

Undecided: 8

Roy Barnes (D): 43

Karen Handel (R): 42

Other: 5

Undecided: 10

Thurbert Baker (D): 32

John Oxendine (R): 50

Other: 8

Undecided: 10

Thurbert Baker (D): 32

Nathan Deal (R): 49

Other: 7

Undecided: 11

Thurbert Baker (D): 34

Karen Handel (R): 46

Other: 8

Undecided: 11

(MoE: ±4.5%)

MO-Sen (1/19, likely voters, 12/15 in parens):

Robin Carnahan (D): 43 (46)

Roy Blunt (R): 49 (44)

Some other: 3 (4)

Not sure: 5 (6)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

NY-Gov (1/18, likely voters, 11/17 in parens):

David Paterson (D-inc): 38 (37)

Rick Lazio (R): 45 (41)

Other: 9 (13)

Undecided: 8 (8)

Andrew Cuomo (D): 54 (57)

Rick Lazio (R): 35 (29)

Other: 5 (6)

Undecided: 7 (9)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

NY-Sen-B (1/18, likely voters, no trendlines):

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 39

Republican Candidate: 34

Harold Ford, Jr. (I): 10

Not sure: 17

(MoE: ±4.5%)

PA-Sen (primary) (1/18, likely voters, 12/8 in parens):

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 40 (42)

Pat Toomey (R): 49 (46)

Other: 4 (4)

Undecided: 8 (8)

Joe Sestak (D): 35 (38)

Pat Toomey (R): 43 (44)

Some other: 6 (6)

Not sure: 16 (13)

(MoE: ±3%)

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 53 (48)

Joe Sestak (D): 32 (35)

Other: 4 (3)

Not sure: 11 (14)

(MoE: ±5%)

Some of the tastiest cat fud yet from Arizona:

Former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth says he is planning to run against John McCain for his U.S. Senate seat.

Hayworth, a Republican, told The Associated Press late Friday he stepped down as host of his radio program on KFYI-AM, a conservative radio talk show in Phoenix. Legally, he would not have been able to remain host of the program and be an active candidate. […]

“We will formally announce at a later time, but we’re moving forward to challenge John McCain,” he said. “I think we all respect John. I think his place in history is secure. But after close to a quarter-century in Washington, it’s time for him to come home.”

He said he wasn’t serious about running against McCain until a recent “outpouring of support” from Arizonans asking him to run changed his mind.

“Arizonans have a clear choice — a clear, commonsense, consistent conservative, or they can remain with a moderate who calls himself a maverick,” Hayworth said.

Pass the popcorn.

UPDATE (David): Can it be that Hayworth really doesn’t have a campaign website? Who the hell announces for a statewide race without one ready to go?

RaceTracker Wiki: AZ-Sen

• AR-Sen: Talk Business Net has occasionally polled Arkansas for approvals of its local political figures, and they see Blanche Lincoln sinking further into oblivion: she’s currently at a 38/56 approval, down from 42/46 in October. One Arkansas Dem who isn’t suffering is Governor Mike Beebe, who’s at an inhuman 82/9. Beebe obviously plans for re-election and isn’t in a position to relieve us of Lincoln in a primary, but Accountability Now is looking a little further down the totem pole and launching drafthalter.com to try and get Lt. Gov. Bill Halter into the race (although he’s been sounding more interested in the open seat in AR-02).

• AZ-Sen: This is good news! For John McCain! However, it has to be bad news for the hordes of teabaggers who had about one day of thinking they’d elected one of their own to the Senate before finding out they’d gotten just got another New England RINO. Newly-elected Scott Brown’s first act was to record a robocall in favor of the insufficiently zealous McCain, who may or may not field a challenge from the raving right from J.D. Hayworth. Believe it or not, this wasn’t even Brown’s first endorsement (the guy’s doling out the political capital without having even been sworn in yet). The Hill had a piece this morning titled “Brown’s First Endorsement May Backfire,” which I assumed was about McCain – but it turns out his first endorsement was of William Hudak, a nobody running in MA-06 against John Tierney. Hudak is a loud-and-proud birther, and now Brown’s camp is already trying to figure out how to walk that one back (and getting blasted by Hudak for doing so).

• IN-Sen: With rumors flying about Rep. Mike Pence checking out a possible Senate race against Evan Bayh, key Pence ally Tony Perkins (head of the Family Research Council) said that he doubts there’ll be a Pence run for the Senate, and he alluded vaguely to the “possibility” of a 2012 presidential run instead. The Club for Growth, seeing a kindred spirit in Pence, though, has been joining in the chorus pushing him to run.

• NC-Sen (pdf): Not much change in the North Carolina Senate race since PPP’s last visit, although there’s some fluctuation upward in Richard Burr’s head-to-head numbers. The faceless Burr’s approvals are still very ho-hum, at 36-33 (with 31 still not sure), but he’s still holding his own against Generic D (45-36, up quite a bit from a one-digit gap last month, which was probably too optimistic). Encouragingly, though, SoS Elaine Marshall is starting to overperform Generic D; she trails 44-37. Ex-state Sen. Cal Cunningham trails 45-36, and attorney Kenneth Lewis (who was recently endorsed by Rep. G.K. Butterfield) trails 46-34.

• NY-Sen-B: Harold Ford Jr.’s Senate campaign-type-thing seems ill-timed to coincide with the Democrats’ belated and tentative moves to try and tap into anti-bankster anger. Sensing some trouble on that front, he’s been refusing to say exactly what kind of work he’s been doing for Merrill Lynch. Politico previously described his role (“senior policy adviser”) as sort of a nothing-and-everything job: “rainmaker and image buffer, there to impress clients, make connections and put a politic foot forward in public settings.”

• AL-Gov: More general douchery from Rep. Artur Davis as he tries to run to the right of Ag Comm. Ron Sparks in the Democratic primary, saying of health care reformer supporter Sparks: “Ron Sparks, who supports the flawed health care legislation in Washington, should realize that he is not only out of touch with the state he wants to lead, Ron Sparks would even be out of touch in Massachusetts.”

• CO-Gov: Here’s one sign that the John Hickenlooper camp was caught flat-footed by Gov. Bill Ritter’s retirement announcement: they don’t own johnhickenlooper.com. Wanna buy it? It’ll only cost you $995, and the Hickenlooper camp doesn’t seem to have plans to try to buy it.

• IL-Gov: Dan Hynes, who’s been running some hard-hitting (some might say “Willie Horton-esque”) ads against incumbent Pat Quinn in the Democratic primary, is now touting an internal poll that has him quickly closing the gap to within 7, down 44-37. (Quinn is also getting hit from the right by anti-tax ads from GOPer Andy McKenna.) Hynes’s poll also claims that Quinn’s approval is down to 36/60 among primary voters – if that doesn’t turn around for Quinn after the primary once he isn’t getting squeezed from both sides (if he even survives, as his trendline is pointing down), that would certainly bode ill for the general. One other plus for Hynes: he has a cash advantage of more than $1 million against the incumbent.

• NY-Gov: The NYT reports on mounting impatience among New York Democratic leaders for AG Andrew Cuomo to get over it and declare his gubernatorial bid already. Insiders say he’s already made up his mind to run and is waiting possibly as late as April to announce, though – and already holding a $16 million to $3 million funds edge over David Paterson, he doesn’t have to hustle. Still, Stuart Applebaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, is publicly endorsing Cuomo today, as a subtle nudge to get him off his butt.

• PA-Gov: Businessman Tom Knox got a lot of early attention in the Democratic governor’s primary, but hasn’t made much an impression in the polls since then. Rumors have been abounding that Knox was about to drop out of the race and endorse rival Dan Onorato instead, after meeting with Onorato this week. Knox’s campaign manager has been tamping those rumors down, today, though.

• TX-Gov: With Dick Cheney already offering his endorsement (of questionable value), another Bush administration veteran is about to endorse Kay Bailey Hutchison too in the Texas gubernatorial primary: George Bush himself. Now before you start sputtering, that’s Bush the Elder (aka 41, aka Poppy, aka H.W.).

• AR-01: In a piece on Rep. Marion Berry sounding pessimistic about passing health care reform, there’s also an even more unsettling tidbit buried, saying Berry sounds “a little unsure” about whether he’ll even bother running for re-election this year, even though he’s not facing much in the way of a GOP challenge (yet). The quickly reddening 1st is not somewhere we want to be defending another open seat.

• NY-19: Conservative Republicans who’ve been looking for an alternative to the country-clubbish Nan Hayworth as a challenger to Democratic Rep. John Hall may have found someone to fit that bill. Thomas DeChiaro, owner of a local winery, says he’ll run. As an indication of where he’s coming from, he said he’s already met with Conservative Party leader Michael Long and “plans to” meet with Republican party leaders soon.

• PA-06: It’s official: Steven Welch is staying in the GOP primary in the 6th, despite Rep. Jim Gerlach pulling his gubernatorial ripcord and plummeting back into his old seat. Welch may be motivated by nothing more than sunk costs at this point, but he claims he’s bolstered by a decent 40% showing at a recent insider straw poll. Looking for an angle in a moderate-vs.-moderate duel, he’s also been reaching out to the local teabaggers, but they may be very suspicious of his past support of Democrats.

• PA-08: Ex-Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick had sounded kind of coy about a rematch with 2006 victor Rep. Pat Murphy, but all signs are now pointing toward a 2010 run. He’s scheduled a Saturday press conference in the district to talk about his plans.

• MA-AG: Martha Coakley, now that she has some time on her hands, is planning to run for re-election as Massachusetts Attorney General. It remains to be seen whether she’ll draw any primary challengers, now that it’s been exposed that she has a glass jaw and turned off a lot of former supporters; some of the county DAs who’d been planning to run to succeed her may be interested in forging ahead anyway.

• Governors: Josh Goodman looks at the link between what happened in gubernatorial races in midterm elections where there was a wave at the congressional level. As you’d expect, the party gaining in Congress gains state houses too, although seemingly mostly through open seats.

• Filing deadlines: Don’t forget to check out our handy SSP calendar, which covers filing deadlines and primary election dates. Kentucky and West Virginia have filing deadlines next week – and then Illinois has its freakishly-early primary in just two more weeks.