Tag: Rick Perry

• CA-Sen: Rasmussen piggybacked another California Senate poll on their gubernatorial poll from yesterday. Despite finding some gains for Meg Whitman yesterday, they don’t see any improvement for Carly Fiorina or Chuck DeVore. Barbara Boxer leads Fiorina 46-37 (it was 49-39 in September) and DeVore 46-36 (previously 46-37).

• DE-Sen: Mike Castle’s fundraising was weak earlier this year (in fact, that was why most people figured he wasn’t going to run for Senate), but now Republican Senators are moving to quickly fill up his coffers. Four Senators gave large contributions, the largest being $10,000 from Thad Cochran. Castle had $853K in his last report.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: The shortest possible explanation in New York is that nobody still has the faintest clue what Rudy Giuliani is up to. Food for thought, though, comes from the new Marist poll (pdf). They find Giuliani beating Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand 54-40. They also found Giuliani with the upper hand in a potential (if extremely unlikely) primary against ex-Gov. George Pataki; Giuliani demolishes him, 71-24. (For some reason, Marist didn’t poll Gillibrand/Pataki, but Rasmussen just did, finding Gillibrand beating Pataki 45-42. Rasmussen didn’t poll Gillibrand/Giuliani, though.)

Marist (pdf) also has gubernatorial numbers, which don’t offer any surprises beyond the sheerly absurd dimensions of David Paterson’s unpopularity. Paterson has a 20/76 approval, and a 30/63 verdict on whether people want him to run for re-election. Paterson loses the primary to Andrew Cuomo, 72-21, although he ties Rick Lazio in the general, 44-44. Cuomo makes short work of Lazio, 69-24. They also have Giuliani numbers (which are looking obsolete now): Rudy annihilates Lazio in the primary, 84-13, and beats Paterson 60-35, but loses to Cuomo, 53-43.

• CA-Gov: Republican Ex-Rep. Tom Campbell announces that he’s passed the $1 million cumulative mark in fundraising for the gubernatorial race, which indicates he’s at least getting some traction as people notice he’s polling well. In most states, that would be pretty impressive. In California, where you have to reach more than 30 million sets of eyeballs and where $1 million is Meg Whitman’s budget just for ivory backscratchers, though, it’s kind of a drop in the bucket.

• OR-Gov: As quickly as he appeared, he went away; former Hewlett-Packard VP Steve Shields pulled the plug on his brief Democratic gubernatorial campaign, not having had much luck on the fundraising front. Meanwhile, SoS Bill Bradbury got a big boost in his uphill climb against ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber. Bradbury’s environmentalist bona fides earned him an endorsement from Al Gore. (Also a likely factor: a long-running behind-the-scenes feud between Kitz and Gore.)

• TX-Gov: Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison are both out with TV ads as they enter the stretch run toward their March gubernatorial primary. Perry attacks Washington (and by extension, KBH, who works there), while KBH is more intent on explaining that she’s keeping her Senate job to fight against Democratic health care proposals.

• CO-07: Going from being a music promoter to a Representative is a strange career leap, but that’s what Jimmy Lakey is fixing to do. The Colorado Republican has opened an exploratory committee to go up against Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter, although he’ll need to get past Aurora city councilor Ryan Frazier (who dropped down from the Senate race) first.

• FL-02: Al Lawson, the African-American state Senator who’s challenging Blue Dog Rep. Allen Boyd in a Democratic primary, is out with an internal poll via The Research Group that actually gives Lawson the lead: 35-31. Boyd was a vote against health care reform and the stimulus, which may provide him some cover in the general in this now R+9 district, but probably hurts him in the primary, where African-Americans make up a sizable portion of the Democratic electorate.

• IA-03: The appearance yesterday of well-known wrasslin’ coach Jim Gibbons was no deterrent to state Sen. Brad Zaun, setting up an epic smackdown in the GOP primary. Zaun, formerly the mayor of Des Moines suburb Urbandale, had made clear his interest in the race before Gibbons surfaced; he’ll formally launch his campaign in early December.

• IL-10: State Rep. Beth Coulson, probably the only Republican in the field in the 10th with the name rec and moderate profile needed to overcome the 10th’s Democratic lean, is meeting with RNC head Michael Steele today to discuss her campaign — the same Steele who has warned moderates that, in the wake of NY-23, he’s gunning for them. She’s loudly touting the meeting in the press, although it’s unclear whether she’s trying to make clear she’s a GOP team player, or that she’s trying to play up her moderate reputation by standing up to Steele.

• MD-01: If there’s one freshman Democrat who’s looking endangered coming into 2010, it’s Frank Kratovil, who barely won in a dark-red district thanks in large measure to a lousy opponent (Andy Harris) and an Obama downdraft. The Harris camp is now out with an internal poll via the Tarrance Group that quantifies that, giving that same lousy opponent a 52-39 edge over Kratovil, despite Kratovil’s 43/30 favorables.

• MN-01: Former state Rep. Allen Quist followed through on his plans to challenge Rep. Tim Walz in the rural 1st District. Quist has been out of the limelight for a while, but was a darling of the religious right in the 1990s; his wife is Michele Bachmann’s district director.

• NY-23: Appropriately enough, given that Fort Drum is the largest employer in his district, Bill Owens was given a seat on the Armed Services Committee, taking former Rep. Ellen Tauscher’s spot. Owens himself is a former Air Force captain, and his predecessor, Army Secretary John McHugh, had been the top-ranking Republican on the committee. (D)

Also in the 23rd, it’s all over but the shouting of the wronged wingnuts. The Watertown Times reports that Owens leads Hoffman by 3,105 with 3,072 absente ballots left to count. Also worth noting is the increasingly hostile tone of the Watertown Times (maybe the district’s largest newspaper) to Hoffman and his post-electoral antics, which bodes ill for getting a fair shake out of them if he runs again.

• NRCC: There’s a very important addendum to yesterday’s story about the NRCC’s big TV spot ad buy to go against Vic Snyder, John Spratt, and Earl Pomeroy. The total of the ad buy was $6,300, including only 35 gross rating points in the Charlotte market (2,000 GRPs are considered “saturation-level”), and the ads are running only on Fox News. In other words, the cash-strapped NRCC isn’t paying for anybody to actually see the ads — they’re just a foot in the door to get media coverage of the ads.

• Redistricting: The DLCC’s blog has an interesting look at the redistricting conundrums in Louisiana, where the loss of a House seat and a Katrina-remodeled population loom large. Dems ostensibly control the legislature but also face a Republican gubernatorial veto (although Dems control the tiebreaking Supreme Court, too).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Politico:

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) will announce she is delaying her resignation from the Senate so that she can continue to represent Texas in the Senate while pursuing the Republican nomination for governor in the Lone Star state. […]

The decision also gives Hutchison an employment insurance policy: If she loses the primary, she’ll still have the Senate seat until at least 2012.

What an embarrassing climb-down for Hutchison; after enjoying years of media acclaim as the state’s most popular pol, her lack of traction against Gov. Rick Perry and his teabagging base sure makes it seem like she’s losing her confidence in a race that, at one point, seemed like it would be hers for the taking. It almost makes you wonder if Hutchison will bother challenging Perry at all!

Assuming Hutchison can’t beat Perry in the gubernatorial primary, this also means that the Democratic candidates who were laying the groundwork for a spring 2010 special Senate election — former Comptroller John Sharp and current Houston Mayor Bill White — will have to decide whether or not to extend their campaigns for 2012. It’s also conceivable that one of the two may feel compelled to shift gears to the gubernatorial race.

UPDATE: The Associated Press reports that KBH is still planning to resign from the Senate regardless of the result… just not before the primary:

Hutchison, a Republican, plans to tell Republican women in a speech in Galveston on Saturday that she is stepping down in 2010 because there are too many important issues facing Congress for her to quit this fall as she had originally planned. Her campaign provided the prepared remarks to The Associated Press on Friday.

“I realize this will keep me in the Senate past the primary election,” Hutchison’s speech says. “These issues are too important to leave the fight to a newly appointed freshman senator who will be selected in the midst of a political storm.”

In the speech, she makes it clear that she will leave the Senate in March regardless of whether she or Perry wins the primary.

I guess we’ll see about that one. (Hat-tip: conspiracy)

LATER UPDATE: Both the White and Sharp campaigns wasted no time in contacting me and reiterating that yes, they’ll be running for Senate regardless of when the election takes place. (And according to BOR, that includes 2012.)

• FL-Sen: Here’s a big score for Marco Rubio, who’s quickly cementing himself as darling for the conservative movement. He got the keynote address at CPAC’s 2010 gathering, the conservative movement’s version of Lollapalooza. Charlie Crist‘s response? Re-flip-flop on the stimulus! Today he said it was “pretty clear” he did support it at the time. The civil war in Florida is also resulting in a larger spotlight being shone on state party chair (and key Crist ally) Jim Greer, who’s the subject of an interesting (and very critical) Miami Herald piece.

• KY-Sen: A strange kerfuffle erupted in the GOP primary in Kentucky, when Rand Paul earlier this week declined to promise to support Mitch McConnell for minority leader in the face of a hypothetical leadership challenge by Jim DeMint. Paul’s rival, SoS Trey Grayson, pledged fealty to McConnell and attacked Paul for being more beholden to his “Libertarian donor base” than his fellow Kentuckians. Then, yesterday, Paul met privately with McConnell in Louisville, and after having had his brain implant installed a productive conversation, emerged filled with praise for McConnell and saying he had “no reason not to support him.”

• MA-Sen (pdf): Another poll from local pollsters Suffolk give a big lead to AG Martha Coakley, who’s pulling in 44% of the Democratic primary vote. She’s trailed by Stephen Pagliuca at 17, Rep. Michael Capuano at 16, and Alan Khazei at 3. (Coakley was at 47 and Capuano at 9 in September according to Suffolk.) Also, there appears to be one route to victory for Republican state Sen. Scott Brown: make sure that Alan Khazei somehow wins the primary. Brown beats Khazei 33-30, while losing 58-27 to Coakley, 48-29 to Capuano, and 49-27 to Pagliuca. (Brown leads perennial candidate Jack E. Robinson 45-7 in the GOP primary.)

Meanwhile, Capuano got another endorsement from among the ranks of his House colleagues, this one pretty high-profile: Nancy Pelosi. Pagliuca, on the other hand, is trying to dig out of his self-created hole, when he “misunderstood” a debate question and said that he supports reinstating a military draft.

• AL-Gov: Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks seems to have hit on an issue that differentiates him from Rep. Artur Davis in their Democratic gubernatorial primary fight: health care reform. Davis voted against it (seemingly earning him the sudden enmity of the entire netroots), and now Sparks has been loudly touting the public option, as he did at an appearance before the Madison County Democratic Women yesterday.

• CO-Gov: State Senate minority leader Josh Penry thumbed his nose rather unsubtly at ex-Rep. Scott McInnis as he departed the governor’s primary race, saying in a recent interview that not only was he not endorsing McInnis, but also that he still felt that he would be the better candidate. Is he heading for a Tom Tancredo endorsement instead? (After all, Tancredo did a lot to boost Penry’s campaign.) We can only hope.

• IL-Gov: State GOP chair (and would-be Mark Kirk antagonist) Andy McKenna got a substantial boost in his quest for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. He got the endorsement of Tom Cross, the state House minority leader.

• MD-Gov: Republican ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich seems to be giving more weight to the idea of a rematch against Martin O’Malley, if recent comments to the press are any indication. The Republican gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey may be giving him some added incentive.

• TX-Gov: A new Rasmussen poll finds Gov. Rick Perry opening up a big lead over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican gubernatorial primary: 45-36, with 4% to Paulist Debra Medina. This is a big reversal from September’s Rasmussen poll, which gave KBH a 40-38 edge. Hutchison is still racing to the right, as she said that she’d be likely to try to opt out of the public option as governor, but Perry is leading that race too, cheerfully let us know that Barack Obama is “hell-bent on taking America towards a socialist country.”

• DE-AL: State Rep. Greg Lavelle, one of the names dropped by Rep. Mike Castle as suggestions for a successor, said that he won’t take on the uphill task of trying to hold Castle’s seat. Businessman Fred Cullis is the only Republican running so far.

• NC-11: Rep. Heath Shuler’s role in a 2007 land swap has the potential to hurt him next year. The Tennessee Valley Authority’s inspector general cleared him of wrongdoing in the matter (as did the House Ethics committee), but the TVA is saying that Shuler wasn’t honest to the press about it, when he said that there hadn’t been any contact between himself and the TVA.

• NY-23: Although there’s nothing to suggest that Doug Hoffman is in a place where he can catch up to Bill Owens, it’ll still be a while till the election can be certified — possibly not till early next month. (Unfortunately, this means putting off the final results of our predictions contest from last week! We’ll keep you posted.)

• SC-04: Republican Rep. Bob Inglis keeps backing away from his party’s right wing (and probably away from his job, in his dark-red district). He said that he can’t “identify” with what we called the “hard right.” Interestingly, he still identifies as “religious right,” but seems to counterpose that against the teabaggers’ movement, also saying: “As a religious right guy, I’m thinking there was a guy named Jesus who had some things to say about these kinds of concepts. And I don’t want to live in a society that lets a few test cases die on the steps of the hospital. I can’t go there.”

• VA-St. Sen.: The Democrats still control the Virginia state Senate (thanks to none of its seats being in the balance in the election last week), but it’s a fragile 21-19 edge. Especially troublesome: 83-year-old Charles Colgan only reluctantly ran for reelection in 2007, Ralph Northam considered flipping to the Republicans earlier this year, and now Bob McDonnell seems interested in taking a page from Steve Beshear and Eliot Spitzer by appointing Senate Dems to cushy jobs in his administration. On the plus side, though, there are two special elections coming up, to replace Republicans who were elected to other positions last week. The seat of Ken Stolle (new Virginia Beach sheriff) is pretty Republican-leaning, but new AG Ken Cuccinelli’s seat in Democratic-leaning Fairfax County is a potential pickup.

• Redistricting: This is interesting; Republicans keep pushing to make redistricting fairer in Indiana, despite that they’ll control the process coming out of the next census. SoS Todd Rokita has already pushed for laws to make it a more neutral process, and now state Senate President Pro Tem David Long is pushing for an independent commission to draw legislative boundaries.

• Votes: Here’s a first: Republicans actually regretting doing something wrong. They’re privately saying that they “failed to anticipate” the political consequences of a no vote on the Franken amendment, that leaves them exposed to charges of insensitivity to rape victims and hands ammo to Democrats. (Well, maybe that’s more regretting getting caught, rather than regretting doing something wrong…)

• OFA: Organizing for America is firing up the Batsignal, summoning volunteers on the ground in 32 districts that were won by Obama but are held by House Republicans. The plan is for the volunteers to visit the Reps’ offices and demand support for health care reform.

Has anybody heard anything about there being an election of some sort today? I’ll look into it, but this is the first I’ve heard. In the meantime…

• AR-Sen (pdf): Talk Business Quarterly had a strange poll earlier in the year where they had a huge disparity between Blanche Lincoln’s favorables (mediocre) and her re-elect (terrible), and now they’re back with another poll showing pretty much the same thing. Her favorable is 42/46, but she gets a 25/61 on the oddly worded question “Would you vote to re-elect Blanche Lincoln as your United States Senator no matter who ran against her?” Gov. Mike Beebe doesn’t have much to worry about, though; he may be the nation’s most popular politico these days, with a favorable of 71/15.

• NC-Sen: Research 2000 did another poll on behalf of Change Congress, this time looking at North Carolina. They see the same pattern as PPP and most other pollsters: tepid re-elect numbers for Burr (21 re-elect/45 someone new, with 39/46 favorables), but a decent lead for Burr against SoS Elaine Marshall (42-35) and Rep. Bobby Etheridge (43-35).

• NJ-Gov (pdf): One last poll straggled across the finish line yesterday afternoon, from Fairleigh Dickinson University. They give Jon Corzine a 43-41-8 edge over Chris Christie and Chris Daggett, but it’s a very large timeframe (Oct. 22 to Nov. 1). Unusually, this incorporates the smaller sample that was the basis for the standalone poll that FDU released over the weekend (which was in the field from Oct. 22 to Oct. 28) had a topline of 41-39-14 for Christie)… which is good news, I suppose, as it showed either movement to Corzine in the last few days or just that more Corzine voters were picking up their phones over the weekend, but a strange technique (why not release the Oct. 29-Nov. 1 data as a separate poll?). Because of the sample overlap, Pollster.com didn’t add this one to the pile, leaving their final regression line total at a remarkable 42.0-42.0.

Meanwhile, this being Jersey, both parties are engaged in some last-minute chicanery: the Democrats are reportedly robocalling Republicans to encourage them to vote for Daggett, while Republicans are seeing what we’re all seeing — a race that’s within a percentage or two, and one that’s possibly to be decided in the post-game of recounts and even litigation — and are getting a jump on the post-election framing by leveling allegations of ‘election fraud’ (without proof, or even specifics, of course).

• TX-Gov, TX-Sen: The first Univ. of Texas/Texas Tribune poll of the GOP gubernatorial primary gives a bigger edge to incumbent Rick Perry than other pollsters have; he leads Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison 42-30, with a surprisingly large 7% going to Debra Medina from the party’s Paulist contingent. (Rasmussen has the most recent poll of the race, from September, and actually found KBH ahead, 40-38.) On the Democratic side, they find only chaos, with Kinky Friedman actually in the lead with 19, followed by Tom Schieffer at 10, Ronnie Earle at 5, and Hank Gilbert at 3. In the general, Perry is surprisingly vulnerable to Generic D (34-33, with 8 going to “Generic third party”), while Hutchison performs better (36-25, with 9 to third party) against Generic D. Against actual human Democrats, though, Perry seems safe (beating Friedman 38-23 and Schieffer 36-25).

They also look at the Senate race that may or may not ever happen and get more inconclusive results; polling all participants together in one pool, they find Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Democratic Houston mayor Bill White tied at 13 each, followed by Democrat John Sharp at 10 and a gaggle of other Republicans, none of whom break 3. Here’s the poll’s one heartening tidbit: Barack Obama actually has a better favorable (41/52) than either Perry (36/44) or Hutchison (39/27).

• MD-04: Here’s one more potential challenge to Rep. Donna Edwards in the safely Democratic 4th. (Delegate Herman Taylor is already scoping out the primary.) Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey, a former senior staffer on the Hill, is now considering a run in the Dem primary too. The bulk of the district’s votes are in mostly-black Prince George’s County in the DC suburbs. It sounds like members of the local business community are looking for a more establishment challenge to the fiercely progressive Edwards.

• NY-23: New York State, the last state in the nation to comply with the Help America Vote Act, is finally switching over to optical scan machines from its ancient (but awesome) lever machines. The 2009 election is just a “pilot” run, so the entire state hasn’t adopted the new machines yet, but most of the counties which make up the 23rd CD have. This means one of two things: results will come in more quickly than usual thanks to speedier and more reliable equipment… or results will come in more slowly that usual, thanks to the inevitable learning curve. (D)

Meanwhile, this seemed inevitable: overzealous electioneering by revved-up teabaggers. Police have been called to several locations in the North Country for violations of the 100-foot polling barrier by rabid Doug Hoffman fans.

• SC-05: Republican State Sen. Mick Mulvaney today made official his race against veteran Democratic Rep. John Spratt. Mulvaney is one of Mark Sanford’s closest allies, so in the next year expect to see lots of the photo that’s at this link.

• Mayors: One last mayoral poll out, in a close race between two different flavors of progressive. Joe Mallahan leads Mike McGinn 45-43 in the Seattle mayoral race, according to SurveyUSA. SurveyUSA also finds Democrat Dow Constantine surging into a comfortable lead over stealth Republican Susan Hutchison in the King County Executive race, 53-43. Previous SUSA polls had given a small edge to Hutchison, suggesting that a lot of voters weren’t paying much attention yet and hadn’t found out that she was a Republican.

• Illinois Filings: Yesterday was the filing deadline in Illinois, and lots more names trickled in after yesterday’s digest. For starters, we actually did get a Dem on the ballot in IL-06 (and all the other GOP-held House districts), although it really seems to be Some Dude: the heretofore unknown Benjamin Lowe. In IL-07, more electeds eventually showed up, in addition to state Sen. Rickey Hendon. So too did alderwoman Sharon Dixon, alderman Bob Fioretti, and former state Rep. Annazette Collins. And I’m left wondering about the weird saga of Patrick Hughes, the great wingnut hope in the Senate race; after rumors of not having enough signatures, he withdrew around 10 am yesterday, but then filed again after 4 pm. Most likely that was a ploy to get the last line on the ballot (which was why Cheryle Jackson waited so long to file on the Democratic side) — but I’m preferring to envision a scenario where he had to hold a benefit show to scrape together those last few signatures, then rush back to Chicago along Lower Wacker Drive, trashing about 80 police cars while trying to get to the Cook County Assessor’s Office Board of Elections before it closed.

• Teabaggers: Could it be that the legacy media are finally noticing that the rise of the teabaggers, as seen in their decapitation of the Republican establishment candidate in NY-23, could spell only deeper trouble for Republicans in 2010? Politico and Roll Call both take notice today, that this dynamic is poised to repeat itself in the crucial Senate race in Florida… and, for that matter, Connecticut, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Nevada, Missouri, Arkansas, Colorado, and Illinois. In fact, the real question may be: where are the Senate races where there won’t be a hot establishment/movement Republican primary? (Weirdly, Pennsylvania may be that place, where running the teabagger that nobody loved may actually turn out to be an asset for the GOP.)

• Babka: Hey! Do you want not just bragging rights among your fellow electoral junkies, but also a delicious chocolate babka? Don’t forget to submit your entries in the SSP elections prediction contest! Do it in the prediction thread, though, not in the digest, at least if you want it to count.

• Volunteering: Marriage/partnership equality campaigns in three states are looking for help down the home stretch. The best part is, you don’t even have to leave your chair – all three organizations are looking for folks to make calls to help get out the vote. So if you’d like to help, follow the links for Maine, Washington state, and Kalamazoo, Michigan. The folks in Kalamazoo are also looking for in-person volunteers – click here if you are in the area. (D)

• CT-Sen: With Joe Lieberman back to his usual self-promoting mavericky ways, vis a vis the public option, and with the netroots worked up into a lather, it’s a perfect time for Ned Lamont to step back into the spotlight. The 2006 Democratic primary winner attacked Lieberman’s statements, although he sounded interested but noncommital about the idea of a 2012 rematch.

• FL-Sen: Here’s another sign that the Charlie Crist camp is starting to take the Marco Rubio threat more seriously. They’ve launched an anti-Rubio website, TruthAboutRubio.com.

• KS-Sen: Oklahoma’s Jim Inhofe endorsed Rep. Todd Tiahrt in the GOP primary in the open seat Senate race in Kansas. Inhofe seems to be the first sitting senator to endorse Tiahrt (although Rick Santorum already did); several senators (John McCain, John Thune, and Inhofe’s colleague Tom Coburn) have already endorsed the less hardline Rep. Jerry Moran.

• MA-Sen: Rep. Niki Tsongas (the only woman in the Massachusetts House delegation) endorsed AG Martha Coakley in the Dem primary for the upcoming Senate special election. It’s Coakley’s first endorsement from a House member; four other House members have gotten behind Rep. Michael Capuano.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): Franklin & Marshall has another poll of the Pennsylvania races out, and like a lot of other pollsters, they’re finding that people aren’t very enthused about Arlen Specter, and are getting even less enthusiastic, giving him a 28/46 favorable (down from 35/42 in August), and a 23/66 reading on the “deserves re-election” question. Specter currently leads ex-Rep. Pat Toomey 33-31 (down from 37-29 in August), and beats Rep. Joe Sestak in the Dem primary 30-18 (down from 37-11). Sestak loses to Toomey, 28-20. F&M also look at the gubernatorial primaries (no general matchups, though). AG Tom Corbett leads on the GOP side over Rep. Jim Gerlach, 30-8, while the Dem field plays out: 10 for Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato, 9 from Auditor Jack Wagner, 6 for ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel, 3 for Tom Knox, and 3 for Scranton mayor Chris Doherty.

• SD-Sen: Democrats may turn to an old family name for a Senate candidate against John Thune: Mark McGovern, the 37-year-old grandson of former Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern. McGovern is state director for Repower America, a clean energy advocacy group, and was state director for the 2008 Obama campaign.

• CT-Gov: The campaign for Democratic SoS Susan Bysiewicz is making references to an internal poll that has her trailing by only 6 to the once-thought-unassailable Jodi Rell in 2010, 47-41. (And that assumes Rell runs — given her fundraising, and now the possibility of a hard race, she may not be on track to do so.) The poll also finds Bysiewicz overperforming Stamford mayor Dan Malloy (who loses to Rell 52-31), and beating Malloy in the primary, 44-12.

• SC-Gov: An impeachment resolution against Mark Sanford was introduced today by Republican state Rep. Greg Dellenny during the brief special session. However, fellow Republican speaker Bobby Harrell ruled it out of order, as outside the scope of the special session. It’ll have to wait until January.

• VA-Gov (pdf): Looks like we’ll have to wait another day (and probably a lot longer than that) for signs of life in the Virginia gubernatorial race. Virginia Commonwealth issued their first poll of the race, giving Bob McDonnell a 54-36 edge over Creigh Deeds (51-33 without leaners pushed). Rasmussen chimes in with similar numbers at 54-41 for McDonnell (finding a spreading McDonnell lead like most pollsters; two weeks ago they had it at 50-43). Pollster.com‘s regression line has the overall total moving today to the exact same result: 54-41.

• TX-Gov: Maybe this falls under the category of an endorsement you don’t really want to tout, but Kay Bailey Hutchison needs every vote she can get in what looks like a tight GOP primary with incumbent Gov. Rick Perry. KBH secured the endorsement of Dick Cheney today.

• CA-19: I’m still not sure what conservative Rep. George Radanovich did to wrong the local GOP, but the hunt goes on for an even more conservative Republican to challenge him in the primary. One possible challenger is former Fresno mayor Jim Patterson, who’s looking for a new political gig. (Patterson ran for Congress in 2002 in then-new CA-21, losing the GOP primary to Devin Nunes.) Patterson may also be interested in replacing termed-out Mike Villines in the state Assembly.

• FL-08: Buried in a longer Politico piece titled, appropriately, “Rivals shy away from Alan Grayson” are three more potential Republican challengers: first-term state Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, attorney Will McBride (who lost the 2006 Senate primary to Katherine Harris), and businessman Bruce O’Donoghue. O’Donoghue, who’s close to Mel Martinez, sounds like the likeliest of those three to run.

• NY-23: Big money continues to flow into the 23rd on the pro-Bill Owens side, with another $245K from the DCCC, and $200K from the AFSCME. MoveOn.org has also started flogging this race in its fundraising e-mails, saying that it’s a chance to rebuke the Palin/teabagger wing of the GOPers. Meanwhile, Doug Hoffman continues to rack up the endorsements from people that no one in the 23rd has ever heard of: South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, and even Oklahoma House candidate Kevin Calvey and California Senate candidate Chuck DeVore. RNC chair Michael Steele is still standing by Dede Scozzafava, though.

• TN-09: It looks like former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton may self-destruct before Rep. Steve Cohen even lays into him in the Dem primary in the 9th. Herenton is reportedly the target of a criminal probe by the local US Attorney’s office focusing on “personal business transactions” during his time as mayor. Herenton, naturally, is calling the investigation politically-motivated.

• VA-02: Here’s a screwup for Ben Loyola, one of the Republicans jostling to take on freshman Dem Rep. Glenn Nye and one who made a big self-funding impact last quarter. Loyola may have low-balled estimates of the value of a division of his company that he sold to a Swedish firm, at best a disclosure violation in terms of reporting his net worth, and at worst an illegal campaign contribution.

• EMILY’s List: EMILY’s List added four Democratic House members to its list of endorsees. Three are swing-district freshmen (Debbie Halvorson, Ann Kirkpatrick, and Dina Titus), and the other one is the perpetually shaky Carol Shea-Porter.

• WA-Init: A slew of polls out of Washington yesterday and today, containing good news. UW’s Washington Poll finds that R-71 (a referendum in favor of expanded domestic partnership) is passing 57-38, while I-1033 (the latest TABOR-style anti-tax initiative from initiative huckster Tim Eyman) is failing 40-49. These numbers are confirmed by SurveyUSA, which finds R-71 passing 50-43, and I-1033 going down 38-50. The Washington Poll also looks at the King County Executive race, which (though ostensibly nonpartisan) sees Democratic county councilor Dow Constantine beating Republican former news anchor Susan Hutchison 47-34 — they don’t have trendlines, and the only comparison point is SurveyUSA, who last showed Hutchison with a surprising 47-42 lead, so this one still bears watching. The Washington Poll finds Joe Mallahan leading Mike McGinn in the Seattle mayor’s race, 44-36.

• Census: An independent analysis of the effect of the proposed David Vitter legislation that would only count U.S. citizens for purposes of reapportionment finds a very different looking House. California post-2010 would lose five House seats, and Texas would gain only one House seat (instead of the projected three). The proposed change would also spare Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania the expected loss of one seat each. (The study is worth a look also because it projects which states gain and lose seats according to normal rules, and also looks at which metro areas are experiencing ‘brain drain.’)

• MA-Sen: Here’s another academic name popping up in connect with Ted Kennedy’s vacant senate seat. The Center for American Progress Action Fund thinks that Deval Patrick should appoint Harvard prof and Boston-based surgeon Atul Gawande to the post. Gawande is best-known these days for his seminal article this summer in the New Yorker about health-care costs, but he also was a healthcare advisor to Bill Clinton in the early 90s. (D)

Also in the Bay State, Rep. Mike Capuano got a potentially helpful endorsement, from fellow Rep. Barney Frank. Frank’s imprimatur may help Capuano prove his liberal bona fides and win over some voters in the Boston suburbs who may not be familiar with him.

• NH-Sen: Despite Kelly Ayotte’s reputed field-clearing abilities, yet another Republican is adding his name to the list of possible candidates in the New Hampshire Senate race. Real estate investor William Binnie is quite literally from the country club wing of the GOP — he’s owner and president of the Wentworth-by-the-Sea Country Club and owner/driver of an auto racing team. Another suggestion he may be running to the left of Ayotte (although her intentionally amorphous political persona gives no clue about her ideology); Binnie is tight with moderate GOP ex-Rep. Andrew Zeliff, and has given money to Democratic candidates in the past.

• TX-Sen: Rumors out of Texas have Kay Bailey Hutchison resigning her seat at year’s end (on Dec. 31 or Jan. 1) in order to pursue her gubernatorial bid against Rick Perry. Under Texas law, this would lead to a short-term appointment, and then a special election on May 8.

• IA-Gov: Incumbent Dem Chet Culver continues to sport rather good favorables, clocking in at 50/37, but his re-elect numbers may give him some pause (28% say “definitely vote for,” 27% say “consider an alternative,” and 21% say “definitely vote for alternative”). Republican ex-Gov. Terry Branstad, who’s been receptive to the idea of a bid for a return to office, is still remembered fondly by Iowans, with favorables of 59/22. Sen. Chuck Grassley is the state’s best-liked figure, though, with 64% favorables and a 45% “definitely vote for.” (H/t Steve Benen.)

• NJ-Gov (pdf): Neighborhood Research is a Republican internal pollster (they worked with primary loser Steve Lonegan), but they were the first pollster to find Jon Corzine moving back within the margin of error. They’re back with a new poll, showing Corzine still within striking distance, trailing Chris Christie 37-33 (although that’s down from their August finding of 37-35) with Chris Daggett at 6. Meanwhile, Chris Daggett has joined a voter suit challenging ballot ordering in New Jersey, which favors the two major-party candidates.

• PA-Gov: Montgomery County Commissioner and ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel says he’s moving ahead with plans to run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. No formal announcement date is set, but the progressive from the Philly suburbs is starting to staff up, and is bolstered by an internal poll he commissioned through Lake Research, showing him leading the nebulous field at 15%, with Allegheny County Exec Dan Onorato and state Auditor Jack Wagner both at 12, Scranton mayor Chris Doherty at 6, and Philly businessman Tom Knox at 5.

• NY-23: With the 23rd now officially vacant, Dem candidate Bill Owens is the first to put up a TV spot. He stresses his military roots and efforts to generated jobs via the redevelopment of the old Plattsburgh AFB.

• TN-01: Get ready for Roe vs. Davis III in the 1st. Ex-Rep. David Davis, who defeated current Rep. Phil Roe in the 2006 GOP primary and then lost the 2008 GOP primary to him (in this R+21 district), has been publicly blasting Roe’s record.

• NY-Lt. Gov: On Friday, Sept. 11th, New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, heard oral arguments regarding David Paterson’s appointment of Richard Ravitch as Lt. Governor. According to reports, Paterson’s camp seemed to have gotten its most favorable treatment to date. Lawyers on both sides, says the NYT, expect a decision within two weeks, which would mean the end of this week or the beginning of next. One possibility is that the court could rule that Republican leader Dean Skelos simply didn’t have standing to sue, which would leave the Ravitch appointment intact. (D)

• NYC-Mayor: Marist finds that Democratic city Comptroller William Thompson, despite a convincing primary win, still trails Independent/Republican incumbent Mike Bloomberg in the general, 50-39 among RVs and 52-43 among LVs. It’s still some improvement for Thompson, who trailed 48-35 among RVs in July.

• Ads: Conservative PAC the Family Research Council has published its own target list for the 2010 cycle: Michael Bennet and Chris Dodd, plus the Missouri and Ohio open seats, in the Senate, and John Boccieri, Steve Driehaus, Parker Griffith, Mary Jo Kilroy, Ann Kirkpatrick, Betsy Markey, Walt Minnick, John Murtha, Glenn Nye, Tom Perriello, and Dina Titus in the House.

• CO-Sen: Former state House speaker Andrew Romanoff officially kicked off his primary challenge to Michael Bennet yesterday, with appearances in Pueblo, Colorado Springs, and Denver. Romanoff, however, wasted no time in demonstrating that he won’t be running to Bennet’s left, saying that he’s opposed to the card-check portion of EFCA. If he isn’t going to run to Bennet’s left, that leads to the question of: what other kind of an angle can he work, other than just “it’s my turn?”

• IL-Sen: Here’s an interesting development in the Illinois Senate race: EMILY’s List has weighed in, endorsing (surprise) Cheryle Jackson. EMILY’s List isn’t always a magic bullet in these type situations (see Tinker, Nikki), but it does expose Jackson to a nationwide base of donors. Politico does observe something odd, though: EMILY’s List hasn’t endorsed a female Senate candidate who seems to have at least somewhat better odds of making it out of her primary… Jennifer Brunner.

• NY-Sen-B (pdf): Some leftovers from yesterday’s Marist poll of NY-Gov: Kirsten Gillibrand is still having some growing pains, with an approval of 26% excellent or good, 38% fair, and 9% poor (with 27% not sure) and losing a head-to-head against ex-Gov. George Pataki, 48-44 (Pataki has been completely silent on the issue, but you’ve gotta wonder if the consistent numbers are getting him more interested). For yucks and giggles, they also matched Gillibrand up against Eliot Spitzer in a Dem primary, which she won 57-29. (Spitzer also loses a primary to David Paterson 60-31, and receives a general “no” on the issue of running again, 27/69.)

• IL-Gov: State GOP chair Andy McKenna, who briefly provoked a Mark Kirk temper tantrum when he said he’d run in the Illinois senate primary, has decided he still really wants to run for office, and instead has headed over to the Governor’s race, where there was no top-tier candidate or even clear frontrunner. This seemed to spook one of the candidates, suburban state Sen. Matt Murphy, who bailed out of the race and signed on as McKenna’s running mate. While McKenna has the fundraising connections and can self-fund as well, McKenna has never won a race (he finished 4th in the GOP Senate primary in 2004, meaning he lost not only to Jack Ryan but also Jim Oberweis), and he’ll still have to face DuPage County Board Chair Bob Schillerstrom (who has at least 900,000 constituents) as well as a gaggle of other state Senators. (H/t GOPVOTER.)

• MI-Gov: SoS Terri Lynn Land has signed onto Oakland Co. Sheriff Michael Bouchard’s ticket as his running mate. Land, you’ll recall, was widely expected to run for Governor but surprised everyone by endorsing Bouchard instead. (There was a brief rumor that she’d run in MI-03 after a Vern Ehlers retirement, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.)

• NH-Gov: Rasmussen throws in gubernatorial numbers as part of its sample from Sep. 14 that found Kelly Ayotte up on Paul Hodes by 8 in the Senate race. The results help cast a little more doubt on the composition of that particular sample, as the state’s widely popular Democratic Governor, John Lynch, leads former Senator John Sununu (who I’ve never seen mentioned in connection with that race) by only 48-43. Lynch beats the only announced candidate, businessman Jack Kimball, 52-31, and vaguely interested state Senator Chuck Morse 51-29.

• NJ-Gov: PPP tried out some alternate scenarios in New Jersey involving replacement Democrats for Jon Corzine (although Corzine hasn’t made any moves to get out, and it’s unclear why he would at this point, with his numbers improving somewhat). The bottom line is, it wouldn’t help anyway; Rep. Frank Pallone loses big-time to Chris Christie 43-23 (with Chris Daggett at 15). Newark mayor Corey Booker doesn’t fare much better, even though he has very high approval ratings: he loses 41-33-13.

• OR-Gov: We’ll definitely have a contested primary on the Democratic side, despite the entry of heavyweight ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber. Former SoS Bill Bradbury is staying in the race, preparing to announce today, and yesterday releasing a video endorsement from his most prominent backer, former Gov. Barbara Roberts, who preceded Kitzhaber in office. Meanwhile, Kitzhaber released a literal shitload of endorsements yesterday, with many of the state’s key Democrats (AG John Kroger, Treasurer Ben Westlund, Superintendent of Education Susan Castillo, Multnomah County Chair Ted Wheeler, ex-Portland mayor Vera Katz, ex-Rep. Darlene Hooley) and some names who’d been bandied about as possible candidates (state Sen. Mark Hass, Portland city counilor Randy Leonard) on board — not a lot of oxygen left for Bradbury, or for Rep. Peter DeFazio, if he still wants to get in.

• PA-Gov: Scranton mayor Chris Doherty is almost certain to run for the Democratic nod for Governor, insiders are saying. He’s staffing up (including some heavy hitters, including media pro Tad Devine) and polling.

• TX-Gov: Rasmussen’s new poll of the Texas governor primary on the Republican side has a big surprise: it’s the first poll in ages (since May) to give a lead to Kay Bailey Hutchison. KBH leads incumbent Rick Perry 40-38, with somebody named Debra Medina, who’s from the Ron Paul wing of the party, pulling in 3% of the vote… apparently pulling in enough of Perry’s base of teabag/secession nuts to flip the race to KBH. Rasmussen’s May poll had Perry up 42-38.

• CA-42: Republican Rep. Gary Miller has drawn a wealthy primary challenger, Lee McGroarty, an executive with an investment firm. Ethical clouds related to real estate deals have followed Miller, but he’s probably more vulnerable to an anti-insider primary challenge than a Democrat in this R+10 Orange County district.

• NY-23: After Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts dropped their barely-explicable holds on the confirmation of Rep. John McHugh for Secretary of the Army, the New York Republican was confirmed last night. The three candidates — Democrat Bill Owens, Republican Dede Scozzafava, and Conservative Doug Hoffman — now are waiting to see when the special election is scheduled. State law requires David Paterson to schedule the election between 30 and 40 days from his announcement of the date, so in order to schedule the election on the regular election day of Nov. 3 (like everyone expects will happen), he’ll need to delay the announcement for at least another week.

• Campaign Finance: Last month, a federal judge ruled that Connecticut’s relatively new campaign matching fund system violated the First Amendment, saying it impermissibly put unfair burdens on “hopeless” minor party candidates that it did not also place on equally hopeless major party candidates running in uncompetitive districts. (The decision was in part based on the Supreme Court case that struck down the federal Millionaire’s Amendment last year.) AG Dick Blumenthal is appealing to the Second Circuit. Meanwhile, some folks in Arizona are concerned that this ruling might implicate their own public financing system. (D)

• FL-Sen: Ileana Ros-Lehtinen says she won’t endorse in the GOP Senate primary or in the general election, out of deference to Kendrick Meek. Says IRL: “Kendrick was a gentleman and I’m a lady back to him,” because he didn’t lift a finger to help Annette Taddeo last year, “despite all the nasty bloggers egging him on.” Next time, we’ll just have to egg harder. (D)

Meanwhile, in the contest purely in Charlie Crist‘s mind over who to appoint to replace Mel Martinez, Crist will reportedly name someone by week’s end from his not-so-short list of eight or so names.

• OR-Sen: John Frohnmayer, the former head of the National Endowment for the Arts under Bush I, was reportedly considering a bid for the Senate against Ron Wyden, but has now decided against it. (You may remember Frohnmayer had tried running as an Indie in the 2006 Smith/Merkley Senate race, but decided against that too.) Interestingly, the story makes it completely unclear whether he was planning to run as a Democrat or an Independent (probably not as a Republican, despite that he’s from one of the state’s brand-name GOP families, considering that the once-dominant moderates have been routed from the state party), but it sounded like he’d be going after the usually-liberal Wyden from the left, as he’d been reaching out to Democratic activists upset over Wyden’s foot-dragging on health care reform. No GOPer has stepped forward to take on Wyden from the right.

• NJ-Gov: One more wheel popped off the suddenly overloaded Chris Christie bus: the woman who allegedly received the undisclosed loan from Christie while working for him has resigned. Michele Brown was the acting first assistant U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, but she quit yesterday, saying she didn’t want to be a distraction for the campaign.

• NY-Gov: Politico’s Alex Isenstadt offers a rebuttal to the NYT’s speculations that Rudy Giuliani is prepping for a gubernatorial run. Close associates say that while he’s not saying no, he isn’t fundraising either, and that his bids for attention may have more to do with paying down campaign debts from his epic presidential fail.

• SC-Gov: Two Republican state Reps, Nathan Ballentine (known as a Mark Sanford ally) and Gerry Simrill met privately with Sanford to let him know that if he doesn’t step down, the GOP-held legislature will impeach him. (Sanford told them he’s staying.) Also, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer publicly called for Sanford to resign today (and, by the way, give him his job). Bauer said he’d drop his 2010 gubernatorial bid if he were to become governor, though.

• TX-Gov: It looks like there’ll be an alternative to Bush-backer Tom Schieffer and weirdo self-promoter Kinky Friedman in the Democratic primary after all: Hank Gilbert, a cattle rancher who lost the 2006 Agriculture Commissioner race (although he did do the best of any Dem statewide candidate that year), says he’ll run. Burnt Orange Report sounds very pleased. Meanwhile, Kay Bailey Hutchison faced down a truckload of pigs brought to one of her rallies by snout-wearing pro-Rick Perry, anti-pork activists. KBH is also looking to sell her mansion in McLean, Virginia, a tea leaf that a) she’s serious about bailing out of the Senate and b) she needs money.

• WI-Gov: There’s already a Republican internal poll from the Scott Walker camp done by the Tarrance Group, reflecting the new post-Jim Doyle configuration of the Wisconsin governor’s race. As one might expect from a Walker poll, he leads all comers, although the Milwaukee Co. Exec barely beats Milwaukee mayor and ex-Rep. Tom Barrett, 44-43. Walker posts bigger numbers over Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, 48-40 and Rep. Ron Kind, 49-39, and an even-bigger number against GOP primary rival ex-Rep. Mark Neumann, 57-21. Barrett leads a Dem primary over Lawton and Kind, 39-25-19 (only Lawton has committed to the race so far, though).

• NYC-Mayor: The mayor’s race in New York seems to be in a holding pattern, with I/R incumbent Michael Bloomberg beating Democratic Comptroller William Thompson, 50-35, not much change from last month’s 47-37 spread. Thompson leads city councilor Tony Avella 45-10 in the primary. Further down the ballot, it looks like Air America head Mark Green is poised for a comeback as Public Advocate (a job he held 1994-2001), with 38% in a 4-way Dem primary field.

• Ads: The DNC has launched a series of radio ads providing cover for 13 potentially vulnerable Dems, regarding their earlier stimulus and SCHIP votes: Berry, Himes, Donnelly, Kissell, Teague, Rodriguez, Perriello, Ross, Hill, Etheridge, Brad Miller, Pat Murphy, and Inslee. (OK, those last four don’t seem vulnerable at all, but whatever.) Also, a coalition of MoveOn, Americans United for Change, the Sierra Club, and the League of Conservation Voters launched TV spots against 5 Republicans over cap-and-trade: McCotter, Rehberg, Blunt, Wolf, and Cantor… and print ads against 2 Dems who also were ‘no’ votes: Jason Altmire in the Pittsburgh suburbs and Ann Kirkpatrick in rural Arizona.

• MO-Sen: This is actually starting to be a theme with Rep. Roy Blunt: he’s willing to go on the record as hating Medicare. An interview this weekend included the comments:  “We’ve had Medicare since 1965, and Medicare has never done anything to make people more healthy.” I think tens of millions of senior citizens might take exception to that.

• NC-Sen: SoS Elaine Marshall is “pretty seriously leaning toward” getting into the race against Richard Burr, according to strategist Thomas Mills in CQ (although with no mention of whether or not he was speaking on her behalf or just running his mouth). He says she doesn’t have a firm timeline, but will let us know in late summer or early fall.

• TX-Sen/Gov: When the tradmed actually refers to a conversation with a Senator as a “bizarre series of interviews,” you know something’s seriously gone awry. Kay Bailey Hutchison seemed to try to walk back her resignation announcement from yesterday when talking with the Houston Chronicle, but after some more probing, made it sound more like all she wanted was for Rick Perry to get out of the race. Because it’s her turn. Sounds exactly like something someone who’s leading in all the polls would do for her.

In the meantime, Rick Perry said he’d consider moving up the date of the special election to replace KBH, by way of mocking her resignation sort-of-decision, saying that there were too many important things going on in Washington. (Although I’m not sure Texas law would let him do so; it’s pretty clear about the election’s date.) Also, all this dissonance can only help Democratic Houston mayor Bill White in the special election, who got some good news from the FEC yesterday: they issued an advisory opinion saying he can go ahead and additional funds for the special election that technically doesn’t exist yet. (It’s kind of complex; he’s already raised $4 million in his regular 2012 Senate fund, but now he can raise additional money from the same maxed-out donors in the new fund.)

• CA-Gov: It’s not just Democratic governors who are taking a hit in approvals. Arnold Schwarzenegger is running at 28% approval and 59% disapproval in California, according to PPIC. (By contrast, Obama is at 65/27 in the state!)

• PA-Gov: Rep. Jim Gerlach is making coy reference to an internal poll that shows him losing the GOP primary to AG Tom Corbett, but with “the profile” to win. The poll says Corbett beats Gerlach (and Pat Meehan) 39-11-7 overall, but that Gerlach leads in the Philly area and that he wins when only biographical info is read. (For those not familiar with the concept, the “biographical info” poll question is the internal polling equivalent of a Hail Mary pass.)

• UT-Gov/Sen/02: Here’s one more name to take off the Open Seat Watch: Jim Matheson verified that he will run for re-election to his House seat, rather than roll the dice on a Senate bid or a run in the 2010 gubernatorial special election (despite having a conceivable shot against as-yet-to-be-promoted Gary Herbert or whatever other weirdo makes it out of the convention process).

• AK-AL: Nice to see that Rep. Don Young isn’t being forgotten, despite the gravitation of all of Alaska’s Democratic talent (ex-state Rep. Ethan Berkowitz, State Sen. Hollis French) toward the gubernatorial race. State Rep. Harry Crawford says he’s interested in the race, and has met with the DCCC in DC about it.

• CT-04: Here’s a bullet dodged for Democrats, and a miss for the NRCC, who’ve haven’t had too many targets decline them lately: state Senate minority leader John McKinney, a noted environment-minded moderate and son of former Rep. Stewart McKinney, who represented the area prior to Chris Shays, said he won’t run against freshman Rep. Jim Himes. The GOP may look to fellow state Sen. Dan Debicella instead.

• HI-01: Another bit of good news on the recruiting front: state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa has met in DC with the DCCC about the open seat being left behind by gubernatorial candidate Neil Abercrombie. She’d probably be our best bet at keeping ex-Rep. Ed Case from making a comeback.

• IL-07: The first Democratic candidate has filed for the open seat that Danny Davis is likely to leave behind. Darlena Williams-Burnett is the Cook County chief deputy recorder of deeds; she’s married to Chicago alderman Walter Burnett.

• MI-07: Although ex-Rep. Tim Walberg is committed to running to regain his seat from freshman Democrat Mark Schauer, it looks like he’ll have some competition in the primary and may not even be the establishment’s choice in the GOP primary. Brian Rooney, an attorney at the right-wing Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, brother of Florida Rep. Tom Rooney, and grandson of Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney, has been talking to the NRCC about the race.

• MN-03: One more recruiting tidbit. This one sounds like it’s far from a sure thing, but state Sen. Terri Bonoff has said she’s “undecided” but taking a MN-03 race “under consideration.” (Bonoff lost the DFL endorsement to Ashwin Madia in MN-03 last year.)

• TX-32: I’m not sure why stories involving blimps are just inherently funny, but Rep. Pete Sessions got into a bit of a blimp-related brouhaha. The ardent foe of all things earmark got busted by Politico, of all places, for very slowly and quietly steering a $1.6 million earmark for blimp construction to an Illinois company with no track record of government contracting, let alone blimp making — but it did have one of Sessions’ former aides lobbying for it.