Tag: 2010 House Open Seat Watch

• NY-Sen-B: The speculation about a primary challenge had in the last month mostly shifted over from Rep. Carolyn McCarthy to Rep. Steve Israel and now Rep. Carolyn Maloney, but in case there was still any doubt, McCarthy made it official yesterday that she won’t be challenging Kirsten Gillibrand in the Senate primary. Is this another tea leaf that Maloney is, in fact, running? (McCarthy said she’d stand down if someone younger ran, and although it may not be what McCarthy had in mind, Maloney, at 60, is 4 years younger.) Maloney did confirm her phone chat with Joe Biden, but said he didn’t try to push her out of the race. Meanwhile, Gillibrand got two endorsements that are important in the African-American community: Al Sharpton and Rep. Greg Meeks. (All three are key David Paterson allies, so perhaps not too surprising.)

• NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall, who’s been Secretary of State since 1996, hasn’t been the subject of much Senate speculation. However, she just publicly expressed her interest (while saying that she’s not actively testing the waters). Marshall ran for Senate once before, finishing third in the 2002 Democratic primary behind Erskine Bowles and Dan Blue.

• CO-Gov: Bill Ritter may be facing a tough re-election bid, so the last thing he needs to be doing is turning friends into enemies… so it’s strange to see him so frequently ticking off labor, most recently the firefighters’ union by vetoing a bill that would have given them collective bargaining rights. And on top of that, he’s a terrorist sympathizer… at least according to Rep. Mike Coffman, who doesn’t like that Ritter blocked expansion of a local Army training site.

• OR-Gov: Although he’s been reluctant to show any interest in the race, don’t fully rule out Rep. Peter DeFazio yet. Hot on the heels of ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber having his coming-back-out party in front of the state movers-and-shakers at Portland’s City Club, now DeFazio will have his turn addressing them in two weeks. Hmmm… after several months worrying that neither DeFazio nor Kitzhaber would get into the race, now I’m left wondering what happens if both of them get in?

• VT-Gov: Democrats have seemed lukewarm about taking on Gov. Jim Douglas the last few cycles, but there seems to be more optimism this time, and it’s attracting more contenders. State Senator Susan Bartlett (who chairs Appropriations) announced her candidacy, joining ex-Lt. Gov. Doug Racine and possibly SoS Deb Markowitz. One item of note that Steve catches: Douglas, who’s been in office since Howard Dean’s 2002 retirement, hasn’t yet announced that he’s running for re-election. There may be a growing sense that the seat could be open.

• VA-St. House: Josh Grossman from Progressive Punch, guest blogging at 538, takes an interesting look at Democratic chances for flipping Virginia’s House of Delegates in the 2009 election (the last one prior to Virginia redistricting). It includes a nice chart ranking the swing districts according to 2008 presidential percentage… although it’s dismaying to see how many don’t have a Democratic candidate yet.

• WA-Wahkiakum County Clerk: A never-before-elected retired musician by the name of Krist Novoselic has filed to run for the position of county clerk in Wahkiakum County (approx. population 4,000) in the fall 2009 election. Although he’s been involved in Democratic Party politics as a committeman, he’s running as “prefers Grange Party” rather than as a Dem, probably because of his appreciation of the Grange, a populist movement from the turn of the previous century (or else he just misspelled “Grunge Party”).

• CT-Sen: Ex-Rep. Rob Simmons needs to look like one of those allegedly-not-quite-extinct moderate New England Republicans in order to get elected in Connecticut, but he’s not doing himself any favors by appearing with Newt Gingrich at the annual Prescott Bush Awards Dinner. With a large Puerto Rican population in Connecticut, Simmons probably doesn’t want to be anywhere near Sonia Sotomayor’s loudest and most toxic critic. Another problem for Simmons: businessman Tom Foley, the former ambassador to Ireland, made his official entry into the GOP primary field today. Foley, unlike Simmons, has deep pockets he can self-fund with.

• MN-Sen: Sources close to Norm Coleman are suggesting he won’t appeal at the federal level if he loses his case with the Minnesota Supreme Court. Republicans still publicly say they’ll try to stop any Dem efforts to seat Al Franken until Coleman has conceded or exhausted his appeals. John Cornyn has sent some mixed signals, though, saying it’s “entirely” Coleman’s decision whether to keep fighting and that he’s “amazed that Sen. Coleman’s been willing to persevere as long as he has.”

• NV-Sen: Wondering why the GOP is having a hard time attracting a challenger to supposedly-vulnerable Harry Reid? Maybe it’s because of his deep levels of support among much of the state’s Republican establishment. The Reid camp released a list of 60 GOP endorsers, including, most prominently, soon-to-be-ex-First Lady (and former NV-02 candidate) Dawn Gibbons, Reno mayor Bob Cashell, and, in a move guaranteed to nail down the key 18-29 demographic, Wayne Newton.

• NH-Sen: Could it be that the NRSC could actually be stuck running Ovide Lamontagne against Rep. Paul Hodes? Just the very fact that the NRSC is talking to Lamontagne (a businessman whose one claim to fame is losing the 1996 governor’s race to Jeanne Shaheen) with an apparently straight face should be a red flag that their top-tier possibilities (ex-Sen. John Sununu, ex-Rep. Charlie Bass) aren’t looking likely.

• NY-Sen-B: Joe Biden reportedly had a sit-down earlier this week with Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who may or may not be running in the Senate primary against Kirsten Gillibrand. Presumably the meeting would contain some of the same content as Barack Obama’s now-famous phone call to Rep. Steve Israel.

• OH-Sen: If a candidate falls in the woods with no one around, does he make a sound? State Rep. Tyrone Yates has been exploring the Senate race for several months, and apparently found nothing that would help him overcome Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and SoS Jennifer Brunner, as he bowed out of the race.

• NJ-Gov: Rasmussen has the first post-primary poll of the New Jersey governor’s race. Chris Christie may have gotten a bit of a brief unity bounce in the wake of his primary victory, as he’s up to a 51-38 edge over Jon Corzine now, as opposed to 47-38 last month. There’s one spot of ‘good’ news, as it were, for Corzine: his approval rating is back up to 42%.

• AZ-08: Construction company executive and ex-Marine Jesse Kelly seems to be the establishment GOP’s choice to go against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in 2010. He announced endorsements from three House members: Trent Franks, Duncan Hunter, and Frank Wolf. (Not quite clear how endorsements from Hunter and Wolf help him in Arizona, though.)

• KS-01: State Senator Jim Barnett got into the race for the seat being vacated by Rep. Jerry Moran, who’s running for Senate. Barnett may quickly become front-runner, based on his name recognition from being the 2006 GOP gubernatorial candidate (where he lost the state as a whole to Kathleen Sebelius, but won the dark-red 1st). He’s up against a more conservative state Senator Tim Huelskamp, and Sam Brownback’s former chief of staff, Rob Wasinger. The primary is the whole shooting match in this R+23 district.

• KY-01: After the purchase of “whitfieldforsenate.com” got people’s attention yesterday, Rep. Ed Whitfield had to tamp that down, confirming that he’s running for re-election in his R+15 House seat.

• MN-06: Even if this goes nowhere, it’s great to have a GOPer doing our framing for us… attorney Chris Johnston is publicly mulling a primary challenge to (his words, on his website) “‘anti-American’ hurling, malaprop-spouting, ‘they took me out of context'” Rep. Michele Bachmann. He confirms that he and Bachmann share “strong conservative beliefs;” he just thinks the 6th would prefer someone “who thinks before they speak.”

• NH-02: Attorney Ann McLane Kuster is launching an exploratory committee to run for the open seat left behind by Rep. Paul Hodes. St. Rep. John DeJoie is already in the primary field, and they may soon be joined by Katrina Swett.

• NY-03: Dems are scoping out potential candidates in Long Island’s NY-03 (which fell to R+4 in the wake of 2008), thinking that even if Rep. Peter King doesn’t vacate to run for Senate he’s still vulnerable. The biggest fish would be Nassau Co. Exec Tom Suozzi, who seems to have bigger fish to fry (reportedly AG if Andrew Cuomo vacates). The next-biggest fish would Nassau Co. DA Kathleen Rice. Smaller fish listed include Isobel Coleman of the Council of Foreign Relations, and minor league baseball team owner Frank Boulton.

• NH-Legislature: It took a rewrite of a couple sentences that Gov. John Lynch didn’t like, but after a few weeks of back-and-forth New Hampshire finally enacted gay marriage. Both chambers passed the amended bill yesterday (clearing the House 198-176) and Lynch signed it into law on the same day.

The lede of this CQ piece has a surreal feel to it:

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney plans to announce a primary challenge to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on her Web site Thursday morning, according to two sources including a member of New York’s congressional delegation.

Maloney disputed that characterization in a brief hallway interview.

“Where did you get that from?” she asked. “It’s not true.”

Regardless of the timing or venue, several of her New York colleagues, including Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Anthony D. Weiner, said Maloney has told them she will run. She has also indicated to political allies in her “silk stocking” district on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that she is preparing a bid.

So CQ has knowledgeable, high-level sources who say that Maloney is preparing a run, but Maloney denies it to their faces? Perhaps she was just disputing CQ’s claims about the “timing or venue,” as they say, but even so, this is kind of embarrassing. If you’re going to take on someone with as much grit, fundraising prowess, and establishment backing as Kirsten Gillibrand, faltering out the gate like this is seriously small-time. I guess we’ll find out the truth tomorrow, but still… weak.

Anyhow, if Maloney does run, I’m sure it will set off a hot primary in her safe blue (D+26) seat – which just so happens to be the Congressional district I’ve lived in for my entire life. So what do you say, folks? State Sen. Liz Krueger, Assemblyman Jonathan Bing, Councilwoman Jessica Lappin… or SSP Blogfather and People-Powered Prophet DavidNYC? James will be accepting applications for my campaign staff in the comments.

• UT-Sen: Democrats nailed down a candidate in dark-red Utah, not a likely place for a pickup but somewhere we want to be standing by to clean up in case the Republican primary turns into an insane bloodbath: Sam Granato, the head of the state Liquor Control Board.

Speaking of which, a third challenger just got into the GOP primary against long-time incumbent Bob Bennett: businesswoman and activist Cherilyn Eagar, who’s never run for office before but seems connected to some of the fringier members of Utah’s legislature, such as state Senator Margaret Dayton, who praised Eagar in that: “She’s a very impressive woman in her looks, intelligence and presentation.” Eagar’s rationale is that, in her words, “Utah’s conservative principles are no longer being represented in the U.S. Senate and no conservative has entered this race,” which seems bizarre considering that AG Mark Shurtleff and former Utah County GOP chair Tim Bridgewater are already challenging the very conservative Bennett from the right. Eagar also offered up this very strange mix of literary allusions: “Gulliver has been tied down by socialist gnomes for many years, but he’s starting to wake up.”

• AZ-Gov: Arizona’s AG Terry Goddard is probably the Dems’ best chance to take back this seat, which just went to Republican ex-SoS Jan Brewer when Janet Napolitano vacated it (Brewer has not announced whether she’ll run for a full term). He recently stated that he “intends” to run for governor. (Arizona Republicans then tried to invoke Arizona’s resign-to-run law, which would require him to give up his AG job to become a governor’s candidate; so this weekend Goddard issued a lengthy explanation of why “intent” doesn’t make him a candidate.)

• NM-Gov: Lt. Gov. Diane Denish has been considered Bill Richardson’s heir apparent in 2010, but it seems like she may not get a free ride on the way to the nomination. Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, according to his Facebook page, has formed an exploratory committee. Denish has a $1.7 million headstart on fundraising, though.

• MD-04: Rep. Donna Edwards, who won a surprise primary in 2008 against out-of-touch incumbent Al Wynn, but is facing some within-the-district misgivings from local Jewish leaders (apparently up to 15% of the active electorate in her district is Jewish). This turns mostly on her decision to vote ‘present’ on January’s resolution recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself and condemning Hamas. State Delegate Herman Taylor has been gauging support within the Jewish community for a primary challenge to Edwards. While this wouldn’t seem to be a dominant issue in this African-American-majority district, two successful primary challenges from the right in 2002 (Artur Davis over Earl Hilliard in AL-07 and Denise Majette over Cynthia McKinney in GA-04) focused largely on Israel policy.

• MD-06: Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, who turns 83 tomorrow, is often the source of open seat speculation. However, today he announced that he’ll be back for another term in his R+13 district in Maryland’s rural west.

• SC-04: As an occasionally sane Republican (who voted for the bailout and against the Surge) in an R+15 district that’s an evangelical hotbed, Rep. Bob Inglis seems vulnerable this year, as the revved-up base seems less and less tolerant of apostasy. State Sen. David Thomas announced he’s seriously thinking of challenging Inglis and will make his announcement within days; Solicitor (equivalent to DA) Trey Gowdy also just announced that he’s entering the race. They’ll join an already crowded field including businessmen Andrew Smart and Jim Lee and professor Christina Jeffrey. While Inglis looks poised to win against this fractured field, if he does it with less than 50%, he’s facing a one-on-one runoff.

• Gay marriage: The New York Senate is the only remaining obstacle to gay marriage in New York, and now state Senator Thomas Duane, prime mover of the legislation, says he now has the votes to get it passed (without naming names). Meanwhile, it’s not full marriage, but Nevada is poised to adopt domestic partnership. Over the weekend, both chambers of the legislature just overrode Governor Jim Gibbons’ veto of previously passed domestic partnership legislation (there was doubt whether it could clear the Assembly, where it passed by a bare 28-14 margin).

• Meta: Wow, that year went fast: it’s my one-year blogiversary on SSP’s front page. Thanks to David and James for taking an interest in my writing, and to all the readers and commenters as well.

Whoa mama joe:

Representative John M. McHugh, a Republican congressman from New York, will be nominated by President Obama to be secretary of the Army, according to officials….

Mr. Obama formally offered the Pentagon position to the lawmaker on Monday afternoon, and his nomination is expected to be announced later on Tuesday, officials said. …

The nine-term House member, who represents a sprawling northern New York district that includes the Fort Drum Army base, is the senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee and has a solid reputation with members of both parties for his knowledge of military affairs. He also serves on the Board of Visitors for the United States Military Academy at West Point.

This is obviously huge news for open seat fans, as this R+1 district went for Obama by 52-47 last year. A resignation would prompt another special election. As you may recall from the recent NY-20 special, there is no fixed timetable for Gov. Paterson to actuall call a new election, so the date is up in the air.

As for possible candidates, Chris Cillizza gets the ball rolling:

The list of potential candidates for the McHugh opening is in its infant stages. State Sen. Darrel Aubertine, who won a special election in a district that covers much of the western half of the 23rd in February 2008, could be an attractive candidate for Democrats. Some Republican insiders have already begun to tout Robert Taub, McHugh’s chief of staff, as a potential candidate.

Politics on the Hudson offers a couple more:

On the Republican side, Assemblywoman Diedre Scozzafava was mentioned, as well as Assemblyman Will Barclay, who lost to Aubertine in the special election in 2008.

Any other names coming to mind? (More here from HC Liberal.)

Well, this sure is unexpected:

U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, confirms that she is launching an exploratory campaign for U.S. Senate, and said an internal statewide poll shows her comfortably ahead of any Democratic contender including Kendrick Meek.

“Experience,” she said, when asked why the 17-year U.S. House member would be a stronger candidate than Meek. “I like Kendrick and I love his mother but this is about making sure we have someone at the table when we’re talking about energy, we’re talking about education, we’re talking about jobs, we’re talking about health care.”

I’d be pretty surprised if Brown actually went through with her primary threat, considering that she’d be starting behind the eight ball in terms of fundraising and endorsements (two things that Meek has been gobbling up at a decent clip so far this year). At last glance, Brown held a paltry $81K in her House campaign war chest.

Brown’s 3rd District is safely Democratic territory — its PVI is D+18 and it delivered 73% of its vote for Obama last year, so we’d have nothing to worry about should the seat become open. Brown says that she expects to announce a decision “within a few weeks”.

Via the Daily News:

Citing a combination of factors – from Mayor Bloomberg’s overwhelming financial advantage to his own desire to “build a family” – Rep. Anthony Weiner has officially bowed out of this year’s mayoral race via an OpEd in the New York Times.

The news comes just hours after the Queens Democrats endorsed Comptroller Bill Thompson, giving him a clean sweep of the city’s five  Democratic county committees, and in the wake of a City Hall news report that Weiner had decided not to challenge Thompson for their party’s mayoral nomination.

Thompson will have a hell of a time against Bloombo’s $80 million, but this at least means Dems can avoid a potentially divisive primary, something Weiner specifically cited as he pledged to help Thompson.

• PA-Sen: Now that Rep. Steve Israel got chased out of the New York Senate race, the Dems have turned their negative-charm offensive to Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania. No phone call from the POTUS, apparently, but the DSCC and Bob Menendez are on the case. (Sestak has been dialing down the rhetoric on Arlen Specter in the last week, so he may already be arriving at this decision on own.) Meanwhile, on the GOP side of the ledger, the party seems reconciled to Pat Toomey‘s candidacy. They’ve stopped (publicly, at least) looking for a more moderate alternative to Toomey for the primary.

• OK-Sen: Insiders seem to believe that Tom Coburn is going to opt for re-election to the Senate, despite his public unenthusiasm. Potential successors Reps. Tom Cole and Dan Boren both told the Oklahoman that they’re confident he’ll run again.

• FL-Sen: He hadn’t sounded likely to run even before Charlie Crist got into the race, but Rep. Ron Klein finally made it official that he won’t run for Senate and will run for re-election instead. If state Sen. Dan Gelber jumps to the AG race, that leaves only Rep. Kendrick Meek alone for the nomination. (H/t Senate Guru.)

• IL-Sen: With the Republicans steeling themselves for the possibility that Rep. Mark Kirk doesn’t come to save them in the Senate race, they’re starting to coalesce around an unexpected Plan B: Steve Preston, who was the HUD Secretary during the last year of the Bush administration. Preston has never been elected before, and “Bush cabinet” isn’t exactly good resume material these days, but he would at least bring fundraising connections to the table.

• NY-Gov: Ed Cox, a Manhattan lawyer best known for being Richard Nixon’s son-in-law, is considering the New York Governor’s race. He’s a behind-the-scenes guy (he ran the McCain campaign in New York and may run for the next state GOP chair), but may emerge from behind the curtain to run if Rudy Giuliani doesn’t get into the race. Also, Siena has another poll (PDF) of both the Gov & Sen races, but little has changed except for a drop in support for gay marriage.

• NC-08: The NRCC’s plans to mount a high-profile challenge to freshman Rep. Larry Kissell in the 8th just got intercepted. Mike Minter, former Carolina Panthers safety who’s never run for office but is well-connected among local megachurchers, declined to run after a lot of wooing. (I could have said Minter punted, but that wouldn’t have made as much sense.)

• AL-05: The Republicans did land an African-American candidate to run against freshman Rep. Parker Griffith in the Huntsville-based 5th, though, albeit a lower-profile one. Lester Phillip is a navy veteran who’s currently the state GOP’s “minority outreach director.”

• LA-Sen: David Vitter may get a serious primary challenger after all (Family Research Council honcho Tony Perkins and ex-Rep. John Cooksey have declined, and SoS Jay Dardenne has been laying low). It’s someone we haven’t seen in a while, though: former state Elections commissioner Suzanne Haik Terrell, who let her interest be known last week. Terrell’s last appearance in the spotlight was the 2002 Senate race, where she lost narrowly to Mary Landrieu. Terrell is the only Republican woman to have ever held office in Louisiana.

• NY-Sen-B: Like a giant game of Whack-a-mole, Kirsten Gillibrand jammed a couple potential primary challengers back into their holes last week, but now a new one popped up: Rep. Jose Serrano. The Bronx-based Serrano might be able to make a lot of hay out of the immigration issue, but he may not have the cash to make a race of it (although as an Appropriations cardinal, he’s well-connected). Meanwhile, Gillibrand nailed down endorsements from three other Reps. — John Hall, Mike Arcuri, and Scott Murphy — as well as Nassau County Dem party chair Jay Jacobs (important because he has a lot of sway over Rep. Carolyn McCarthy).

• PA-Sen: Roll Call tried to pin down the Democratic House members from Pennsylvania on whether or not they’d endorse Arlen Specter in a potential Democratic primary with Rep. Joe Sestak. Interestingly, PA’s most liberal Dem, Chaka Fattah, was probably the most enthusiastic and unconditional endorser of Specter, while its most conservative Dem, Jason Altmire, was most reluctant to offer an endorsement one way or the other, although more out of admiration for Sestak than on ideological grounds. Tim Holden also endorsed Specter and Bob Brady came as close as possible to it, while Patrick Murphy took a “wait and see” attitude and the others simply punted the question.

• AR-Sen: State Senator Kim Hendren (having recently shot himself in the foot by calling Charles Schumer “that Jew”) is now vacillating and may not run in the GOP Senate primary after all, despite having announced his candidacy.

• IL-Sen: Here’s some confirmation on what we speculated last week: Rep. Mark Kirk isn’t lost in space; he’s just deferring any decisions on the Senate race because he’s waiting to see what AG Lisa Madigan does. He reportedly won’t run for Senate if Madigan does.

• FL-Gov: Ag Commissioner Charles Bronson will announce today that he won’t run for the open governor’s seat, leaving an unimpeded path to the GOP nomination for AG Bill McCollum. Bronson is term-limited out of his job in 2010 and looking to move up, but couldn’t buck the pressure from state chair Jim Greer — I mean, the guy doesn’t have a Death Wish.

• CO-Gov: Ex-Rep. Scott McInnis officially filed yesterday to enter the Colorado governor’s race, amidst sniping that he started soliciting funds before filing his campaign paperwork. State Senate minority leader Josh Penry also launched into an oblique attack on McInnis, suggesting he might be interested in a primary battle.

• CA-Gov: Dianne Feinstein, occasionally rumored to be interested in what has to be the least desirable job in America (California governor), has said that she “might” run for governor next year, depending on her assessment of the other candidates’ plans for dealing with California’s seemingly perpetual budget crisis. Polls that have included Feinstein have shown her dominating the race if she got in.

• IL-13: 71-year-old Rep. Judy Biggert just confirmed that she’ll be running for re-election in 2010, despite a return engagement with Scott Harper, who held her to 54%, and the district’s shift to only R+1. (Of course, her inclusion in the first round of 10 in the NRCC’s Patriots program Tuesday showed her hand already.)

• AL-02: Republicans have at least one candidate lined up to go against Rep. Bobby Bright as he seeks his first re-election in this R+16 district: 32-year-old Montgomery city councilor and attorney Martha Roby. GOP State Rep. Jay Love, who narrowly lost to Bright last time, may also try again.

• MI-13: Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, who narrowly won a 3-way primary in 2008, may have to face off against both of the same challengers again in 2010: state Sen. Martha Scott and former state Rep. Mary Waters. Former interim mayor Ken Cockrel also is mentioned as interested. Kilpatrick may be less vulnerable in 2010, though, as the brouhaha surrounding her son (former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick) recedes in the distance.

• Maps: Here’s another interesting map for the geography nerds out there. It’s a map of which party controls all the state House seats throughout the South. (It’s a lot bluer than you might initially think.)

• AL-07: Former Selma Mayor James Perkins (who was defeated in his attempt to seek a third term in 2008) is jumping into the open seat race here. He is likely to draw support away from Terri Sewell, Artur Davis’s preferred successor, also a Selma native.

• AL-Gov: Speaking of good ol’ Artur, he’s released an internal poll which shows him up 56-26 over Ron Sparks and 54-25 over Sue Bell in the Dem primary. He also purports to lead Republican Bradley Byrne by a 43-38 margin. I’m finding it hard to believe that a congressman has such high name rec (59-6 for Davis among Dems statewide!). But the best checksum: This survey has Obama’s favorables at 58%. Last month, SUSA had them at just 48%. Which do you think is more likely? In other AL-Gov news, state Sen. Roger Bedford (D) says he won’t run.

• IA-Gov: State Auditor David Vaudt, one of only two Republicans holding statewide office in Iowa, has declined to challenge incumbent Gov. Chet Culver next year.

• NC-Sen: Both Reps. Bob Etheridge and Mike McIntyre are leaving the door open to a Senate bid, with McIntyre sounding more enthused. Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton is “not considering” the race, Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker is “not looking at running,” and state Rep. Grier Martin claims his “decision to decline a chance to run against Elizabeth Dole was also not to run in 2010.”

• NV-Gov: Jim Gibbons’ poll numbers are just horrendous – in a new Mason-Dixon survey for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, 54% say they would “definitely vote to replace” him. Gibbons’ campaign manager claims things are lookin’ up, because his boss’s approvals were 25-69 in a January Reno Gazette poll but are an awesome 17-52 in this one.

• NV-Sen: Meanwhile, the same poll finds pretty lousy numbers for Harry Reid as well, but better than Gibbons’. Reid gets 45% “definitely replace,” but his approvals are “only” 38-50. The big difference, of course, is that the GOP doesn’t really have any strong candidates to challenge Reid, while plenty of folks are lining up to take a whack at Gibbons.

• FL-CFO: Checking in with an old friend, it looks like Annette Taddeo is considering a run to replace Alex Sink as Florida’s Chief Financial Officer.

• Redistricting: CQ has a story on five key races that could affect congressional redistricting. Roll Call has published the second half of its two-part series on the same subject (part one here). And finally, the National Conference of State Legislatures is holding the first in a series of training seminars on redistricting in San Francisco, June 11-14.