Tag: Mark Kirk

• AR-Sen: The leader of Arkansas teabaggers’ movement, Tom Cox, has decided that he’ll run for the GOP nomination for Senate to run against Blanche Lincoln. Cox is the owner of Aloha Pontoon Boats, where he had a little trouble last year with a federal raid turned up 13 illegal immigrants working for him… which doesn’t sound like it’ll play well with his ideal base voters. In the primary, he’ll face off against an anti-semitic state senator and some Huckabee buddy who owns a food safety company.

• FL-Sen: The movement conservatives continue to square off against the establishment in the GOP Florida Senate primary. Jim DeMint, probably the most conservative senator by most metrics and with a sizable grass roots following, just endorsed Marco Rubio.

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk still refuses to say what exactly he’s doing, but he promises that he’s raising money “for a big campaign.” (His last few House races have been big-money affairs, so who knows what that means?)

• KS-Sen: Dems seem to be moving closer to actually having a candidate in the Kansas Senate race: former newspaper editor Charles Schollenberger, who formed an exploratory committee.

• KY-Sen: State Senate President David Williams had publicly contemplated getting into the GOP primary against Jim Bunning, even meeting with the NRSC, but he said yesterday that he won’t run. He refused to officially endorse anybody, but said he was most excited about philanthropist and former ambassador Cathy Bailey among the possible candidates.

• NY-Sen-B: Rep. Carolyn Maloney has set a July 4th deadline for deciding whether or not to run in the Senate primary. Meanwhile, Kirsten Gillibrand picked up two endorsement from groups with a lot of on-the-ground firepower: New York State United Teachers and (cue the Phase 5 wingnut freakout) ACORN. Rep. Peter King, on the GOP side, set his own deadline, saying he’ll decide whether or not to run by Labor Day. Also today is word that Barack Obama had King in his sights as he cut a swath through Northeast Republicans by offering him a job — in his case, ambassador to Ireland, which King declined.

• PA-Sen: Looks like that Act of God never happened, because Rep. Joe Sestak is actively staffing up for a Senate primary challenge to Arlen Specter.

• WV-Sen: With 91-year-old Robert Byrd having been in the hospital for nearly a month now and not planning an immediate return to the Senate, there have been some behind-the-scenes discussions of what happens if he can’t return to office. West Virginia state Democratic party chair Nick Casey is seen as the consensus choice to serve as placeholder until the 2010 election, if need be.

• AZ-Gov: This can’t be helping Jan Brewer (the Republican SoS who ascended to the governor’s mansion to replace Janet Napolitano) as she considers whether or not to run for a full term: she’s in a standoff with her Republican-controlled legislature over the budget, almost single-handedly leaving the state on track to a government shutdown.

• FL-Gov: David Hill, a top GOP pollster in Florida, is leery about the chances for AG Bill McCollum (who’s already lost statewide twice, and now is trying to transparently reboot himself as a Charlie Crist-style moderate) in the gubernatorial election. He says he’s been actively encouraging state Senator Paula Dockery to follow through on jumping into the primary.

• KS-Gov: Sen. Sam Brownback got some good news: SoS Ron Thornburgh decided to get out of the GOP primary, leaving Brownback a clear path. (Not that Thornburgh was going to pose much of a threat, which is why he got out.) And finally a Democratic state Senator, Chris Steineger, seems to be getting into the race for Team Blue — although he sounds like a bit of a loose cannon, having pissed off most of the state party establishment at various points.

• MI-Gov: George Perles, the 75-year-old former football coach at Michigan State and currently an MSU trustee (which is a statewide elected position) announced that he’s running for the Democratic nomination. He joins Lt. Gov. John Cherry in the field, who seems to have most of the establishment backing so far.

• MN-Gov: Contrary to earlier reports, Rep. Michele Bachmann hasn’t quite ruled out a bid for Governor in 2010, what with Tim Pawlenty stepping down. She expresses her ambivalence with some nice Harlequin romance novel phrasing: “If my heart moved in the other direction and I had the tug, I’d do it. I wouldn’t be afraid to run for office. I just don’t feel the tug.”

• NV-Gov: Another GOPer is sniffing out the governor’s race (kind of a no-brainer, given the world of shit Jim Gibbons is in): Reno mayor Bob Cashell, who was last seen endorsing Harry Reid a few weeks ago. Of course, there’s the risk that if too many credible GOP challengers get in, Gibbons has a better shot at surviving the primary via a badly split vote… although facing a wounded Gibbons in the general would probably be the best scenario for the Dems.

• 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.)

• NJ-Gov: Believe it or not, we’re in the home stretch heading toward the June 2 primary in the New Jersey governor’s race, and Rasmussen takes a quick look at the GOP primary field. US Attorney Chris Christie leads former Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan 39-29, with 3% voting for someone else and 29% still undecided. That’s a lot of undecideds with just a few weeks to go, and I have no way of knowing whether they’d tend to break for the better-known establishment figure of Christie, or the anti-tax raging of Lonegan.

• TX-Sen: The last thing John Cornyn wants is a special election on his watch at the NRSC, but he may get one anyway. Despite his pressure on fellow Texan Kay Bailey Hutchison to remain in place while she runs for Governor, Cornyn is now publicly warning to expect her resignation “this fall sometime.”

• PA-Sen: Seems like the GOP is going through its whole Rolodex looking for someone more normal than Pat Toomey to run in the Pennsylvania primary. Two of the more moderate members of the Keystone State’s House delegation, Charlie Dent and Todd Platts, felt compelled to announce today that they won’t be running. Dent, in fact, endorsed Toomey, the previous holder of PA-15 (making him the first PA House GOPer to endorse Toomey).

• AR-Sen: State Senator Kim Hendren, the GOP’s only candidate so far against Blanche Lincoln (and they may want to keep looking…), has been in politics a long time (one claim to fame is that he lost a gubernatorial race to Bill Clinton). But now he actually seems to be caught in a timewarp from a different century. Today he’s trying to walk back having called Chuck Schumer “that Jew” (and, in doing so, tried using The Andy Griffith Show by way of explaining himself).

• IL-Sen: Speaking of shifts in the space-time continuum, Mark Tiberius Kirk’s end-of-April deadline on announcing his Senate plans has seemingly disappeared into a wormhole, while the GOP waits impatiently for him to emerge at the other end. (No backup date for a decision has been set.) A likely explanation is that he’s waiting to see what Lisa Madigan does, and he may meekly go wherever she doesn’t.

• SC-Gov: Who would’ve guessed that the South Carolina governor’s race would be one of 2010’s hottest tickets? Two more GOPers are trying to hop onto that ride: state Senator Larry Grooms, who officially launched a campaign, and state Rep. Nikki Haley, who now says she’s considering it. (Haley is a young rising star who’s a close ally of Mark Sanford and the hardcore anti-taxers.) They’d join Rep. Gresham Barrett and professor Brent Nelsen, as well as likely candidates Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer and AG Henry McMaster, in the hunt for the GOP nod.

• NC-08: Freshman Rep. Larry Kissell has drawn a potential opponent with no previous political background, but very high name rec: Mike Minter, who was safety for the Carolina Panthers for 10 years until recently retiring. Kissell handily beat incumbent Rep. Robin Hayes in 2008 in this now R+2 district, but Minter, who’s still scoping out the race, is well-connected in the local megachurch community and could also eat into Kissell’s African-American support. Minter is apparently looking with Hayes’ encouragement, suggesting that the 10-year Congressman is looking to spend more time with his money instead of seeking out a rematch.

• NRSC: Here’s a double shot of John Cornyn news: in another one of his occasional reality-based moments, Cornyn slapped down strange remarks by his NRCC counterpart, Rep. Pete Sessions, alleging that Barack Obama is intentionally sabotaging the American economy. When asked if he was comfortable with Sessions still leading the NRCC, Cornyn equivocated, deferring the judgment of the House Republicans on the matter. (Because “judgment” and “House Republicans” always go together so well.)

When former Commerce Secretary William Daley pulled the plug on his never-really-began Senate campaign in Illinois, it was starting to look like everyone was coalescing around state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias (with Roland Burris providing an amusing footnote to Giannoulias’s victory lap). All of a sudden, though, the race is back in the spotlight (maybe people are no longer worried that Burris and his $845 could sneak through the primary as a spoiler).

Rep. Jan Schakowsky has seemed reluctant to give up her safe House seat and junior leadership role for a run at the Senate, but the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that’s she revving up her fundraising machine. She says she’ll announce by June 8 whether or not she’s running for Senate (although one of her erstwhile potential opponents, Mark Kirk, has had no compunctions about disregarding his own timeline). In the meantime, she has a star-studded fundraiser on tap:

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), mulling a Senate run, throws her annual “women’s power lunch” fundraiser Monday at the Hyatt Regency with marquee speakers White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, Director of Public Liaison Tina Tchen and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).

Jarrett’s an interesting get, as she’s perhaps the pre-eminent Friend of Barack (as seen by her almost-selection as Commerce Secretary). One of Giannoulias’s electoral strengths is his close connections to Obama’s inner circle… but then, Schakowsky was also one of Obama’s biggest congressional backers during the 2008 primaries, so she may be entitled to some payback too.

But an even heavier heavyweight than Schakowsky may be looming in the distance in the Senate primary: Illinois AG Lisa Madigan. While she had previously explicitly ruled out a Senate run and had done little to hide her gubernatorial ambitions, Cillizza is now reporting that she’s at least reconsidering. While a recent PPP poll showed Madigan beating incumbent governor Pat Quinn by a healthy margin in a Dem primary, he still has high approval ratings, and an open Senate race might be more of a sure thing for her (PPP also showed her dominating that field as well). So, the rethink makes sense, although which ever route she takes, she’s poised to dominate.

On top of all that, Chris Kennedy (never before elected, but a big wheel in Chicago’s commercial real estate world and, as son of RFK, possessor of that magical last name) has been privately making a splash as he “explores” the race, to the extent that Obama henchman Rahm Emanuel has been reportedly talking him up as potentially the strongest candidate. What tangled webs we weave…

April 15, 2009:

“I’m going to be spending the next two weeks doing a very careful analysis of the issues presented in Illinois on both sides and then make a decision about whether I would run for Congress again or look to the Senate or governorship,” [Mark] Kirk told reporters after a speech at the City Club of Chicago. “And so, I have set a deadline for myself of making a decision by the end of the month and we’ll stick to that.”

Huh, see the current stardate? I guess Captain Kirk must still be stuck in spacedock.

April 15, 2009:

“I’m going to be spending the next two weeks doing a very careful analysis of the issues presented in Illinois on both sides and then make a decision about whether I would run for Congress again or look to the Senate or governorship,” Kirk told reporters after a speech at the City Club of Chicago. “And so, I have set a deadline for myself of making a decision by the end of the month and we’ll stick to that.”

Well, look at that: it appears that the current stardate is already past Mark Kirk’s self-imposed decision-making “deadline”, with nary a peep out of his camp yet on the results of his deliberations. So what’s it gonna be, Captain?

Just a quick blurb is all so far:

WASHINGTON — Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) is poised to jump in the 2010 Illinois Senate race.

Developing …

More as it comes. Earlier today, James posted a PPP poll which showed Kirk in the mid-30s against all contenders except the embarrassing Roland Burris.

If Kirk does make the move, this will be great news for open seat fans. At D+6, this is the second-bluest seat held by a Republican nationwide. Obama won the district (in his home state, of course) by a monstrous 61-38 margin according to SSP’s analysis, and even Kerry carried it 53-47. Democrats also have a strong contender at the ready for this seat, state Sen. Michael Bond, though I’d expect others to become interested if it opens up.

UPDATE (James): In a bit of a sleazy move, Lynn Sweet of the Sun-Times has wiped over her original blog post on Kirk’s supposed entry without making a note of her revision, and replaced it with a new entry saying that he is merely “mulling” the race — hardly a newsworthy nugget at all.

Public Policy Polling (4/24-26, registered voters):

Roland Burris (D-inc): 19

Mark Kirk (R): 53

Undecided: 28

Jan Schakowsky (D): 33

Mark Kirk (R): 37

Undecided: 30

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 35

Mark Kirk (R): 35

Undecided: 29

Lisa Madigan (D): 49

Mark Kirk (R): 33

Undecided: 18

(MoE: ±3.1%)

You’ve gotta figure that if Mark Kirk had a clear shot at a one-on-one race against Roland K. Burris, he’d leap at the opportunity… but the problem for him is that pesky Democratic primary, which is all but certain to weed out Burris from contention. While on the surface, Kirk polls very competitively against any Democrat for the Senate race other than Lisa Madigan (who does not appear to be a likely candidate), a disproportionate number of undecideds are Democratic voters (around 30% in the Schakowsky and Giannoulias head-to-heads), compared to only 19% of Republicans who are on the fence. In other words, once that money starts rolling, the Democratic nominee will have a lot more room for growth.

And who may that nominee be? PPP took a look at the Senate primary yesterday, too (4/24-26, likely Democratic voters):

Roland Burris (D-inc): 20

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 49

Undecided: 30

Roland Burris (D-inc): 16

Jan Schakowsky (D): 26

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 38

Undecided: 21

Roland Burris (D-inc): 13

Jan Schakowsky (D): 11

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 19

Lisa Madigan (D): 44

Undecided: 14

(MoE: ±4.8%)

No matter which way you slice it, Burris is done. As for Lisa Madigan, it seems that whichever race she chooses, she’s favored to win it (see David’s piece yesterday for the gubernatorial primary numbers). She’s also performing even more strongly than incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn in the gubernatorial general election against GOP state Sen. Bill Brady:

Lisa Madigan (D): 46

Bill Brady (R): 27

Undecided: 26

Pat Quinn (D-inc): 39

Bill Brady (R): 32

Undecided: 29

(MoE: ±3.1%)

Lisa’s got options.

That’s Bond, Michael Bond:

State Sen. Michael Bond (D) is gearing up to run for Rep. Mark Kirk’s (R) seat, according to sources familiar with the situation. Kirk is pondering a bid for Senate in 2010, and his departure would make his north Chicagoland seat a prime pickup opportunity for Democrats.

Bond has tapped John Lapp to do his media campaign, Bennett, Petts & Normington to his polling and Ed Peavy to do direct mail for the race, according to one source familiar with the arrangement. The source also said a former aide to Rep. Melissa Bean (D), Brian Herman, will manage his campaign.

Kirk himself has set a pretty definite timeline for deciding his 2010 plans (“by the end of the month”), but the fact that Bond is already putting a campaign team together may indicate a willingness to run regardless of Kirk’s intentions. In any case, Bond may have company in an open seat race — fellow state Sen. Susan Garrett says that she’s considering a bid, and ’06/’08 nominee Dan Seals is known to be interested to run again if Kirk bails on the seat.

More info on Bond is available here.