Tag: Jim Bunning

Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson has formed an exploratory committee to run for Jim Bunning’s Senate seat, according to the Politico. Grayson insists that he has no intention of challenging Bunning in a primary:

In a statement, Grayson said he doesn’t plan on running against Bunning, and is merely making preparations to run in case Bunning does not run for a third term.

“I have formed an exploratory committee to allow me to formally raise and spend funds as I seek support for a bid for U.S. Senate,” Grayson said in a statement.

Grayson’s camp is saying that the decision to form an exploratory was done at Bunning’s suggestion — indicating that Bunning is leaning heavily toward retirement:

“Trey did this with Bunning’s blessing,” said van Lohuizen.

Earlier this week, Grayson flew to Washington to meet with Bunning and tell him of his plans to form the exploratory committee, according to a Kentucky-based GOP operative.   The operative said it’s a clear sign that Bunning does not plan to run for another term.

“Jim Bunning is the one who initiated the conversations with Trey to take this step. This wasn’t Trey lashing out, this is Jim Bunning reaching out to Trey and offering this idea,” said the GOP operative.

In the past, Bunning has been mostly firm (in fact, very firm) on his desire to seek re-election — with the exception of resignation rumors and some waffling last month on the certainty of his decision. But this news will give us a pretty clear window to his true intentions — Bunning famously lashed out at any suggestion that he was considering retirement earlier in the year, and you would have to assume that he would shoot down this story if he wasn’t considering abandoning the Republican tortoise.

Assuming Bunning is out and Grayson is in, this race will get a lot tougher for Team Blue, but it would still be quite winnable if the Democratic primary does not devolve into a demolition derby.

(H/T: Zeitgeist9000)

UPDATE: Roll Call‘s sources are confirming Bunning’s blessing of Grayson, and Kentucky Republicans believe a retirement announcement could come as soon as May 9 at the state’s Lincoln Day Dinner. Meanwhile, Camp Bunning is staying mum.

LATER UPDATE: Bunning’s team is now refuting the retirement rumors:

But a spokesman for Mr. Bunning, Mike Reynard, refuted those rumors. “Senator Bunning has every intention of running, ” he said in an e-mailed statement. […]

[A senior Republican Congressional] aide was at a loss to explain why Mr. Bunning would then say on Thursday evening that he had every intention of running.

Is there a chance that these rumors are being planted by operatives of Mitch McConnell? It wouldn’t be too surprising, given how desperately he wants Bunning out of the picture. Still no confirmation or denial from Bunning himself about the Grayson “recruitment”.

• PA-Sen: Apparently, Arlen Specter’s campaign has only received 15 requests for donation refunds so far in the wake of his switch to the Democratic Party. The returned funds only add up to a paltry $15K. (J)

The NRSC has launched a new robocall targeting Specter, by linking him to the NRSC’s arch-enemy… George W. Bush? (It replays Bush’s 2004 endorsement of then-GOPer Specter.) Apparently, the goal is to soften Specter up among the Dem electorate to lose a Democratic primary to a more reliable Dem, who would then be a little more vulnerable to Pat Toomey in the general… or something like that? This is one of those moments when you can’t tell if the GOP is crazy like a fox, or just crazy.

Specter bringing his decades of seniority with him over to the Democratic caucus is angering some key Democrats who get bumped down the totem pole as a result, according to The Hill. Specter could find himself wielding the gavel in an Appropriations subcommittee, or even back in charge of Judiciary if Patrick Leahy takes over Appropriations in 2010.

Specter’s switch has the whining flowing among some of the GOP’s sourest senators: Jim Bunning says the GOP “coddled” Specter for too long, while Jim Inhofe shows his grasp of GOP dead-ender logic, saying that Specter’s fleeing the party is a sign of conservatism’s strength and presages a comeback. In much the same way that if my house is on fire, that indicates that its value is about to go up, because it’s finally clearing out all that clutter.

• FL-Sen: The DSCC is pulling out all the stops against Charlie Crist, and he hasn’t even taken any steps toward getting into the Senate race yet. They’ve launched a new TV spot (airing in the Tallahassee market) that attacks Crist for leaving Florida in financial disarray to jump to Washington, and attacks his heavy-on-socializing, light-on-work schedule.

• CO-Sen: The GOP’s Weld County DA Ken Buck is trapped in the grey area between candidate and not-candidate for Senate; his website is up and running and has a “donate” button, but hasn’t filed his official paperwork and denied Monday’s reports that he was officially in.

• RI-Gov: Lincoln Chafee seems to be having similar problems on just how official a candidate he is, too. His exploratory committee is open and he said he “is” running when appearing on Rachel Maddow on Tuesday, but then issued a release yesterday walking that back, to “my intentions are” to run for governor.

• WI-Gov: The GOPers aren’t waiting any longer for Gov. Jim Doyle to publicly announce his re-elections; Milwaukee Co. Scott Walker launched his campaign yesterday. Walker (who briefly ran in the primary in 2006) doesn’t have the race to himself, though; last week, Mark Neumann, who represented WI-01 from 1994 to 1998 and then lost the 1998 senate race to Russ Feingold, announced his candidacy, touting his support from Tommy Thompson surrogate James Klauser.

• AL-Gov: Not one but two more Republicans are sizing up the governor’s race, although neither one seems top-tier material: Hoover mayor (in the Birmingham suburbs) Tony Petelos, and Bill Johnson, the head of the Alabama Dept. of Economic and Community Affairs. (Johnson has a colorful backstory that wouldn’t help him much in the primary.)

• OR-Gov: Local Republican pollster Moore Insight polled potential Dem candidates for governor on their favorables. Ex-gov. John Kitzhaber and Rep. Peter DeFazio posted pretty similar numbers: 49/21 for Kitz, 48/17 for the Faz. (Kitzhaber has higher negatives among Republicans, thanks to all those vetoes he handed out.) Former SoS Bill Bradbury is at 29/10, and Steve Novick, who barely lost the 2008 Senate primary, is at 14/4.

• GA-01: Long-time Rep. Jack Kingston has often been the subject of speculation in the Georgia governor’s race, but he confirmed that he’ll be running for re-election to the House. Interestingly, he’s supporting state senator Eric Johnson in the race instead of fellow Rep. Nathan Deal, but that’s because Johnson is a fellow Savannah resident and his son’s godfather.

• VA-10: The subject of much retirement-related speculation due to age and a rapidly bluening seat (now R+2), Rep. Frank Wolf confirmed he’ll be running for re-election in 2010. He may face state senator Mark Herring or delegate David Poisson.

• OH-18: Rep. Zack Space has been added to the DCCC’s defense-oriented Frontline program. Space was the target of an NRCC TV spot earlier, but this isn’t so much a question of newfound vulnerability as it’s confirmation he’s done flirting with a Senate run and committing to his House seat for 2010.

• CA-36: Suddenly embattled Rep. Jane Harman has hired Clinton-era fixer Lanny Davis to help her negotiate the legal and PR minefield she finds herself in, regarding the wiretap imbroglio. 2006 primary challenger Marcy Winograd is revving up her efforts, sensing Harman’s weakness. Winograd, who earned 38% in 2006, has begun raising funds for another try.

• NY-20: Republican Jim Tedisco says that he is “not planning” on seeking a rematch against freshly-minted Democratic Rep. Scott Murphy, but refuses to explicitly rule out a run. (J)

• WA-08: One more tea leaf that Suzan DelBene may be left holding the bag in WA-08: State Rep. Ross Hunter, one of the first Dems to crack the GOP stranglehold on the Eastside and a potentially strong contender in WA-08, is running for King County Executive. The already-crowded Exec race is in Nov. 2009, not 2010, but indicates Hunter’s interests lie locally, not in DC.

• Votes: The 17 Democrats who voted against the Obama budget are all familiar dissenters, and most of them are in difficult Republican-leaning districts: Barrow, Boren, Bright, Childers, Foster, Griffith, Kratovil, Kucinich, Markey, Marshall, Matheson, McIntyre, Minnick, Mitchell, Nye, Taylor, and Teague.

• CA-32: Chu-mentum! Board of Equalization chair Judy Chu seems to be building up speed as we head toward the May 19 special election. Last week, Chu reported a sizable fundraising edge, raising $823K in the first quarter (compared with $568K for state senate Gil Cedillo and $153K for investment banker Emanuel Pleitez). And now, Chu received the unanimous endorsement of the state Democratic Party over the weekend.

• MN-Sen: No real surprise; Norm Coleman filed notice of intent to appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court. Cost of 1,000 more billable hours: $500,000. Cost of another month of keeping the Democrats down to only 58 votes? Priceless.

• PA-Sen: Arlen Specter has picked up another Democratic opponent; Bill Kortz, a member of the state House representing Allegheny County, has announced that he intends to file his statement of candidacy with the FEC soon. Kortz, a relatively fresh legislator (he successfully beat an incumbent Democrat in 2006), may find a statewide primary challenging — Rendell ally Joe Torsella has been in the race for a while and has raised nearly $600K, while other candidates, such as fellow state Rep. Josh Shapiro, are also eyeballing the race. In any event, his first item of business should be to upgrade his website. (J)

• MD-Gov: Bob Ehrlich is reportedly weighing a rematch with Martin O’Malley in 2010. If Ehrlich (Maryland’s only Republican governor in the last 30 years) doesn’t run, next in line may be Anne Arundel Co. Executive John Leopold.

• OK-Gov: State senator Randy Brogdon announced his run for the GOP gubernatorial nod this weekend, preventing Rep. Mary Fallin from having a clear shot at the nomination (after Rep. Tom Cole declined). A couple bigger names, ex-Rep. J.C. Watts and mmmmaybe Sen. Tom Coburn (who’s been sounding ambivalent about re-election to the senate), may still get in too.

• MN-06: There are mixed signals cropping up on whether Elwyn Tinklenberg is angling for a rematch with Archduchess Cuckoobananas Michele Bachmann. The Minnesota Independent says he’s “all but declaring himself a candidate.” On the other hand, he just gave almost $250,000 to the DCCC, suggesting he won’t be using it (unless he’s doing it to make amends for winding up with $500K in the bank at the end of the campaign last year… not exactly his fault, though, since almost all his cash arrived at the very last minute). State senator Taryl Clark is also eyeing the race.

• AL-07: The field to replace Artur Davis is getting clearer. Jefferson Co. Commissioner Sheila Smoot launched her campaign. State senate president pro tem Rodger Smitherman, however, said he won’t run. Smoot joins attorney Terri Sewell and state rep. Earl Hilliard Jr.

• FL-22: The GOP’s leading recruit to take on Democrat Ron Klein next year, state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, has decided that a congressional bid is not in the cards for him. (J)

• NY-19: GOP Assemblyman Greg Ball, who has been “testing the waters” in anticipation of a congressional bid for months now, will formally announce his candidacy for the seat of two-term Dem Rep. John Hall on May 9th. Ball was previously courted to run for this seat after gajillionaire businessman Andrew Saul unexpectedly terminated his bid against Hall in 2007. (J)

• CA-04: Third time’s the charm? Democrat Charlie Brown is telling local activists that he’s actively considering another run for the northeast California seat he narrowly lost last November to GOP wingnut Tom McClintock. Brown says that he expects to make up his mind “by this fall”. (J)

• WA-08: The Seattle Times strikes again, going on the early offensive against just-announced Dem candidate Suzan DelBene. Turns out DelBene didn’t vote in nine elections over the last five years (including the 2006 general, where Dave Reichert barely beat Darcy Burner the first time). (On the other hand, better this come out now than Oct. 2010.)

• TN-01: Rep. Phil Roe and ex-Rep. David Davis may get a nice Baron Hill/Mike Sodrel-style relationship going. Davis may be gearing up for a third run at Roe in the 2010 GOP primary. (Davis defeated Roe in an overcrowded 2006 primary when this was an open seat, then the slightly-less-conservative Roe defeated Davis in a two-man contest in 2008.)

• NM-01: The 2010 race in NM-01 promises to be fun(ereal). Kevin Daniels, owner of a chain of funeral homes, is exploring the race on the GOP side and, if nothing else, has the capacity to self-finance.

• Friendship: In the diaries, possumtracker makes a hilarious catch from a recent Hill survey in which all 41 Republican Senators were asked to name the Democrats whom they most enjoy partnering with on legislation. While most of the Senators gave thoughtful (and sometimes surprising) answers, Kentucky’s Jim Bunning could only muster up one word in response to the idea of collaborating with a Demmycrat: “No.” (J)

• NY-20 (pdf): This morning’s official tally from the BoE gives Scott Murphy a whopping lead of 268. This new number reflects the addition of all the remaining absentees from Columbia County, where Murphy performed well on Election Day and apparently even better among absentees. There are still 1,200 absentee ballots that haven’t been counted because they were subject to challenge; they’ll be reviewed starting Monday.

Jim Tedisco isn’t waiting around for those ballots, though; he’s already asking the courts to declare him the victor. Wait… what? Isn’t he the one who’s behind? (The Tedisco camp has tried to clarify that they were re-filing a motion that they filed on Election Day, to also have Tedisco declared the winner, as some sort of ‘insurance policy.’ OK, that makes me feel much better.)

• CA-10: BigDust broke the story yesterday in diaries: Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, seeing his gubernatorial campaign sputtering and lured by the siren call of a term-limits-free job, has more-or-less confirmed that the rumors are true and he’s jumping into the 10th District special election, where state senator Mark DeSaulnier had already nailed down the ‘establishment’ candidate mantle. (Unlike other frequent job-hopper Tom McClintock, Garamendi actually has the advantage of living in the district.)

• KY-Sen, SD-Sen: The message can’t get much clearer than this. Mitch McConnell is hosting a fundraiser in the state of Kentucky for his fellow senator… John Thune? That’s right; McConnell would rather help a guy from South Dakota defending a safe seat than help his fellow Kentuckian Jim Bunning, who has already been complaining about how McConnell is sucking up all the fundraising oxygen in the state.

• CT-Sen: Chris Dodd may have raised a million bucks last quarter, but only five donors were from his home state of Connecticut. And before you can say “But what about donations below $200 which don’t require detailed disclosure?”, we’ll just point out that Dodd took in under $2,300 total from that category of donors. Sigh. (D)

On the plus side for Dodd, he got a hearty endorsement and a promise of future help from someone a little more popular than him: Barack Obama. “Chris is going through a rough patch,” says Obama.

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes raised $225K this quarter, which doesn’t seem like a whole lot, does it? (D)

• NJ-Gov: Governor Jon Corzine, facing a tough re-election, has another problem: his gross income last year was negative $2.75 million. You’ve got to assume that his overall net worth (once estimated at $300 million) has taken a much, much larger hit, so that calls into question his willingness, if not ability, to moneybomb the race as he did with his last two runs for office.

• TX-Gov: I never thought I’d have to say this out loud, but Governor Rick Perry may not have a winning issue on his hands when he makes veiled secession threats. A Rasmussen snap-poll finds that 75% of Texans would prefer to remain a part of the USA. 18% prefer secession, and 7% just aren’t sure. Not coincidentally, a similar percentage of the Texas state senate (71%) just voted, 22-9, to ignore Perry and accept the $550 million in federal stimulus money to keep their state unemployment trust fund from going broke.

• Words: Here’s a fun time-suck: a website that lets you create a word cloud for most-used words in a particular day, week, month, or year in the Congressional Record, or for a particular lawmaker.

Jim Bunning has been telegraphing bad fundraising numbers for some time now, especially with his public admission last month that his fundraising was “lousy.” With the numbers he released today, we can see the full scope of “lousy:” he raised $263,000 in the first quarter, and has $375,000 cash on hand. This looks like the Bunning campaign starting to enter a death spiral: perceptions that he can’t win lead to low fundraising, which leads to perceptions that he can’t win (and certainly that’s not helped by polls showing him losing by double digits).

Also, bear in mind this is less than his potential Dem challenger Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo has; Mongiardo raised more than $429,000 last quarter (although Mongiardo will need to spend a lot this year to stay competitive with AG Jack Conway in the primary). And while you might be thinking $263K can still go a long way in a cheap state like Kentucky, that’s not quite true; Kentucky is a very inefficient state for advertising dollars, as you have to pour a lot of money into the Cincinnati and Evansville markets, so blanketing Kentucky costs more than the cost of blanketing some states with significantly larger populations.

Still, Bunning is rich as Croesus compared with fellow Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Coburn reports having raised all of $17,000 in the first quarter, and holds $57,000 cash on hand. While Coburn has been making public noises lately about being unsure about whether to run for re-election (saying yesterday that he was seeking divine guidance on the issue, as well as saying that “Being a doctor is more fun”), these numbers speak pretty loudly on the issue.

It’s been widely rumored for several weeks, but today it became official: Kentucky AG Jack Conway will be running for the Democratic nomination in the 2010 Senate race.

Attorney General Jack Conway said today that he will seek the Democratic nomination next year for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Jim Bunning….

The attorney general is expected to kick off his campaign with a press conference Monday attended by Luallen, Chandler, U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-3rd District, and perhaps other Democratic leaders who are backing him.

This comes hot on the heels of yesterday’s blockbuster PPP poll that showed every possible Democrat beating Jim Bunning. The poll showed Rep. Ben Chandler in the best position vis a vis Bunning, leaving me momentarily wondering if Chandler would try elbowing Conway aside, but it looks like the informal troika of Chandler, Conway, and Luallen have successfully resolved the issue of who gets to run for Senate, and will all be appearing together. (The same poll shows Conway beating Bunning by 9, so we’re still in great shape with him.)

This won’t be an uncontested primary. Far from it, as Conway will still need to get past Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo, who doesn’t match up as well against Bunning according to PPP, but has the advantage of having come within a few points of Bunning in 2004, and who has the endorsement of Gov. Steve Beshear. As with the Democratic primary in Ohio, the trick will be keeping the primary competitive enough that the candidates get the free media needed to raise their profiles going into the general, but keeping it from lapsing into the negativity that can wound the primary winner going forward. (H/t MediaCzech and generalleeferd.)

(crossposted at Barefoot and Progressive)

I’m thrilled to report that the next Senator from the state of Kentucky has just announced his candidacy this morning. Our state’s 11-year nightmare of Jim Bunning is about to end in November 2010, and here is the man that will end it.

Meet KY Attorney General Jack Conway.

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As you can see in his announcement video on his site, Conway will have his official in-person rally to kick off his campaign Monday in Louisville. I can’t go into all of the details now, but let’s just say that Ben Chandler, Crit Luallen, John Yarmuth, and about every big KY Democrat past and present whose name isn’t Steve Beshear will be there. And a “surprise guest”.

Now, let me discuss the primary battle that we face here in Kentucky over the next year.

There are those who say that since Kentucky is a conservative state, we have to settle for a conservative Blue Dog Democratic candidate in order to compete for the Senate seat. Dan Mongiardo is the Blue Dog that some are pointing to, as he co-sponsored the Rovian anti-gay amendment here in 2004, he constantly shills for the abomination that is mountaintop removal mining, and he has no problem speaking at NRA conventions in between Glenn Beck, Karl Rove and Mitt Romney bashing Democrats who will “take away their guns”.

Let me say, in no uncertain terms, that the PPP poll that came out yesterday absolutely killed that meme. DEAD.

Not only are the much more progressive Jack Conway’s approval ratings higher than Dan Mongiardo’s (Conway at 40/21, Mongiardo at 41/34), but Conway performs better in a head-to-head match-up against Bunning, winning 42%-33%.

We don’t need a Blue Dog to beat Jim Bunning. Jack Conway is a progressive Democrat with integrity that can whip Jim Bunning any day of the week.

But let’s say that KY Republicans like Mitch McConnell are able to successfully force Bunning out of the race and replace him with the much more formidable KY Sec. of State Trey Grayson. Even in this scenario, the PPP poll shows Jack Conway beating Grayson by 4 points. Mongiardo? He loses to Grayson by 4 points.

Again: we don’t have to settle for a conservative Blue Dog in this race. We have Jack Conway.

Kentucky progressives are already stepping up and showing that we don’t have to settle for the lesser of two evils in this race. The Facebook group I started “Kentuckians Against Homophobia, Mountaintop Removal, and Dan Mongiardo” has more members than the Mongiardo for Senate Facebook group. We know that Bunning is vulnerable, and we don’t have to settle for another Ben Nelson or Blanche Lincoln.

Please check out Jack Conway’s campaign website, and please consider throwing some turkee his way. We have a great candidate with a great shot of taking another big seat away from the Party of No in November 2010.

PPP (4/2-3, registered voters):

Ben Chandler (D): 47

Jim Bunning (R-inc): 33

Jack Conway (D): 42

Jim Bunning (R-inc): 33

Crit Luallen (D): 42

Jim Bunning (R-inc): 34

Dan Mongiardo (D): 43

Jim Bunning (R-inc): 36

Ben Chandler (D): 40

Trey Grayson (R): 34

Jack Conway (D): 37

Trey Grayson (R): 33

Crit Luallen (D): 34

Trey Grayson (R): 36

Dan Mongiardo (D): 36

Trey Grayson (R): 40

(MoE: ±4%)

We’ve had lots of clues that Jim Bunning is in trouble: a Research 2000 poll from January showing him in dead heats with Democratic challengers, reports of “lousy” fundraising, and not-so-private efforts by Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn to give him his gold watch and usher him out the back door. But now we have a poll, via PPP, that shows just how dire things have gotten for him. Bunning’s job performance approval is 28/54 (notably worse than anything Chris Dodd has put up lately), and only 42% of Republicans approve.

Bunning loses by fairly wide margins to all four of his potential Democratic challengers, most significantly losing by 14 to Rep. Ben Chandler. (Chandler, AG Jack Conway, and Auditor Crit Luallen all seem to be in a semi-friendly standoff over which one gets to run; maybe these numbers will prompt Chandler to jump.) Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo is the only candidate in the race; although he would seem to have a name rec advantage from having run against Bunning in 2004, Mongiardo actually fares the least well, winning by ‘only’ 7. Mongiardo is the best-known of the Big 4, but has the highest negatives too, with 41/34 favorability. (The Lexington-based Chandler is at 38/28.)

The best favorability numbers in the poll, however, belong to Republican SoS Trey Grayson, who’s at 46/19. In head-to-heads Grayson also fares much better than Bunning, losing to Chandler by 6, to Conway by 4, and narrowly beating Luallen and Mongiardo. This points to one potential danger for Democrats: that Bunning is hitting his nadir too early, giving him plenty of time to shuffle off into retirement and allow the more likable Grayson time to ramp up for a competitive run. Of course, that scenario presupposes a rational Bunning interested in doing what’s best for the whole state GOP, not just for Jim Bunning.

PPP also polls state senate president David Williams as a potential GOP candidate (Williams met with Cornyn regarding a possible run). However, Williams fares even worse than Bunning in head-to-heads, losing 45-30 to Chandler, 43-29 to Conway, 41-31 to Luallen, and 43-32 to Mongiardo. I initially assumed the problem with Williams is he’s a little-known state legislator, but he seems as well-known as the Democratic candidates; he just has lousy favorability ratings (28/41). So for the GOP, it’s starting to look like Grayson or bust.

• NY-20: Paper ballots to be recanvassed will be released after today’s court hearing. As of the end of the day on Friday, the state Board of Elections found the race was a true tie, with 77,225 votes apiece. These numbers didn’t account for two recanvasssed counties, which would give Scott Murphy a 198-vote lead for the time being, according to the New York Observer.

On a mostly unrelated note, the guy who could still be representing NY-20, John Sweeney, just got arrested for DWI over the weekend… for the second time in 17 months. He’s gotta learn to stay away from those frat parties.

• KY-Sen: Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo pulled in a respectable-sized fundraising haul in Q1: $420,000. This may well beat opponent Jim Bunning, who has publicly admitted that his fundraising has been “lousy.”

• CT-Sen: The stink lines coming off Chris Dodd seem to be attracting even more challengers. Businessman Jack Orchulli, who got demolished by Dodd in 2004 (66-32), is suddenly looking for a rematch. He’ll face a crowded primary, though, but unlike ex-Rep. Rob Simmons and state sen. Sam Caligiuri, Orchulli can draw on deep pockets to self-finance. (If ex-Ambassador Tom Foley decides to get in, he’s also a potential self-financer.)

• IA-Gov, IA-Sen: A Des Moines register poll showed surprisingly low re-elect numbers for Gov. Chet Culver, who isn’t facing a top-tier challenge (yet). Only 35% said they would definitely re-elect, while 28% would consider an alternative and 18% definitely would not. (Sen. Chuck Grassley, by contrast, can plan on another six years if he wants; he’s already at 48% definitely re-elect.)

• AL-07: State representative Earl Hilliard Jr. announced he’ll be running for the open seat being vacated by Artur Davis, who’s running for Alabama governor. If the name sounds familiar, he’s the son of ex-Rep. Earl Hilliard, who was defeated in a 2002 primary from the right by Davis. He’ll have a name recognition advantage in a crowded field: attorney Terri Sewell is already running, and they may be joined by Jefferson Co. Commissioner Sheila Smoot, and state senators Rodger Smitherman, Bobby Singleton, and Hank Sanders. This is one of our best opportunities to replace a centrist with a progressive in a dark-blue district without primarying an incumbent.

• CA-32: A late entrant to the special election to replace Hilda Solis has an ace in the hole: she’s a former aide to Solis. Benita Duran launched her campaign website today. With the entry of another prominent Latino candidate to split the field, this may help Board of Equalization chair Judy Chu at the expense of state senator Gil Cedillo. Or, on the other hand, with the entry of another woman to split the field, this may work to Cedillo’s advantage.

• CO-04: Former State Senator and current Larimer County Commissioner Steve Johnson is said to be weighing a challenge to freshman Dem Betsy Markey. SSP’s analysis shows that McCain barely won this district, 50-49, after a 17-point Bush win in 2004. (D)

• NY-19: After drawing a weak opponent in 2008, John Hall hopes he’ll be Still the One for NY-19 voters in the face of a stronger challenge in 2010. State assemblyman Greg Ball has formed an exploratory committee. Obama won this district by only 3 points (same as in NY-20), but Ball is a bomb-throwing conservative who seems out of step with the district’s Rockefeller Republican roots.

• OH-SoS: Ohio Dems have a strong candidate lined up to try and hold the crucial Secretary of State position, as current SoS Jennifer Brunner goes for the promotion to Senate: Franklin County Commissioner Marilyn Brown. She’s likely to face GOP state senator (and former state house speaker) Jon Husted, who just announced his candidacy.

• DCCC: The DCCC is moving aggressively to target the 8 districts in California where Obama won but a GOP representative hangs on. A new study shows that GOP registration has dropped precipitously in these districts, so there may be something more significant going on in California suburbs than just a big one-time Obama downdraft.

Also on the DCCC front, the NY Times profiles Rep. Chris Murphy, a rising star who, with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is heading the DCCC’s Frontline program for defense of vulnerable incumbents (mostly freshmen).

• NH-Sen: The scurvy dogs at ARG! take their first reading of the 2010 New Hampshire senate race since Judd Gregg announced his retirement, finding that Rep. Paul Hodes beats ex-Sen. John Sununu 42-36. Hodes leads Sununu 38-31 among independents. (MoE ±4.2%)

• KY-Sen: In the days leading up to 1Q fundraising reports, Jim Bunning has publicly admitted that his fundraising has been “lousy,” although he says “Surprisingly, we’ve had pretty good success the last month.” He’s looking forward to some April fundraisers starring such luminaries as Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, and fellow baseball celeb Tommy Lasorda.

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes is sounding very interested in another try at the governor’s race. Barnes got bounced by Sonny Perdue after one term in 2002, but populist anger plus demographic changes in Georgia may make a Barnes comeback feasible. (Insider Advantage found earlier this month that Barnes would defeat several of the likely GOP candidates.)

• LA-02: Joseph Cao is signaling he may actually break ranks and vote for the Obama budget this week, telling The Hill that his constituents are “split.” (In the sense that they are likely to “split” his head open if he keeps voting the party line.)

• History: Roll Call takes an interesting look back at the spate of special elections during the 1993-1994 session of Congress, and the structural reasons we aren’t likely to see a repeat of the disastrous 1994 election again.