Tag: HI-01

• AR-Sen: Move along, nothing to see here. Talk Business, via Hendrix College, is out with another poll of the Arkansas Senate race. They find John Boozman leading Blanche Lincoln 56-29, with 5 for indie Trevor Drown. (The previous Talk Business poll, taken by Zata|3, had it at 57-32.)

• DE-Sen: Trying to put his money where his mouth is, Jim DeMint, via his Senate Conservatives Funds, is going on the air with a new cable TV spot on behalf of Christine O’Donnell. The buy is for at least $250K. As I expected, it makes very obvious hay out of Harry Reid’s dumb reference to Chris Coons as his “pet.”

• FL-Sen: This is a long read, but worth checking out, not just from a partisan standpoint but also as insight into the constant revolving door between politics, big law, academia, and the nebulous world of “consulting.” It’s a thorough going-over of Marco Rubio’s finances over the years, looking at some of the already-known stuff (his foreclosure problems and overuse of state party credit cards) but also at the connections that have gradually allowed him to enrich himself.

• KS-Sen, KS-Gov: SurveyUSA finds… brace yourselves… Republicans in the lead in Kansas! The Senate race appears to be out in no-man’s land, with Jerry Moran leading Lisa Johnston 66-24. The Governor’s race, however, remains moderately interesting, with Sam Brownback up over Tom Holland 59-32. Still not a good result, but that’s a 15-point swing in Holland’s favor from last time, as he now leads among self-described moderates.

• KY-Sen: This poll from last week is probably interesting enough for the front page… but it’s getting more than a little stale, after our having repeatedly fumbled attempts to write it up, so we’re just dropping it off here (figuring many of you have already seen it on over at Daily Kos). PPP, on behalf of Big Orange, finds that Rand Paul leads Jack Conway 49-42. On the plus side, not much of an enthusiasm gap here, thanks to Paul’s polarizing nature; it’s just a solidly red state.

• LA-Sen: Two different polls in Louisiana tell different stories. Dem pollster Bennett Petts & Normington, on behalf of the DSCC, sees a 10-point race, with David Vitter leading Charlie Melancon 48-38. On the other hand, Republican pollster Magellan sees it as an 18-point race: 52-34. The truth, as is often said, probably lies somewhere in between.

• UT-Sen: The Senate half of the Dan Jones poll (for the Deseret News and KSL-TV) finally showed up. In what could be called “not a surprise,” the Republican is winning in Utah. Mike Lee (who turfed out Bob Bennett at the state convention) is easily beating Sam Granato, 52-25.

• WA-Sen: Here’s a nice story about hypocrisy… or hypoc-Rossi, in this case. Dino Rossi made a campaign stop at a Whidbey Island shipyard last week, one that’s nearly doubled its workforce from 130 to 210. Turns out, though, that the shipyard received $841K in stimulus funds, and the yard’s owner says the expansion is a direct result of the stimulus. (Interestingly, Rossi, without any guidance from Admiral Ackbar, may have sailed right into A TRAP: he showed up at the invitation of the yard’s owner, who has donated to Patty Murray in the past.)

• WI-Sen: If that Rossi hypocrisy story seems kind of small potatoes to you, well, don’t worry, because Ron Johnson seems to have, over the last few weeks, been exposed as the absolute master of hypocrisy about engorging yourself on the government teat all the while raging against it. While he can claim that building-a-rail-spur-to-Pacur thing was in the distant past, now it comes out that in March 2009, in his role as board member of Oshkosh’s Grand Opera House, he sought stimulus funds for renovations to the opera. Y’know, the stimulus bill that’s KILLING US ALL AND ALL FUTURE GENERATIONS!!1!  

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin has had good relations with the state-level Chamber of Commerce, who’ve backed him in the past. They must have put in a good word for him with the national organization, as now the US Chamber of Commerce is endorsing him too, quite the rarity for a high-profile Dem.

• FL-Gov: Rick Scott’s previous defense against the massive Medicare fraud problems at his former healthcare company Columbia/HCA was that he’d have stopped them if only he’d known they were going on (which, considering his job was to run the company, should have demolished his credibility right there). But now it’s been revealed that his legal team was keeping him apprised, at least on the issue of trying to skirt a federal anti-kickback law.

• FL-22: They’ve had to call out the biggest fundraising gun of all for Ron Klein, seeing as how he’s up against a nutty opponent but one with a direct line into seemingly hundreds of thousands of teabaggers’ wallets in Allen West. Barack Obama will fundraise for Klein in the Miami area on Oct. 11 (at the home of former NBA star Alonzo Mourning).

• MS-01: The Tarrance Group is out with another Alan Nunnelee internal giving him a single-digit lead over Travis Childers in the 1st: this time, he’s up 48-41.

• NY-23: Would you believe the NY-23 count is still going on? Although it seems like Matt Doheny is the likely victor in the GOP primary, with a 582-vote lead right now, 1,969 military and overseas ballots remain to be counted. In Friday’s count, Doug Hoffman added 207 votes while Doheny added 177.

• American Crossroads: Rove, Inc., seems to be becoming the main conduit for billionaires looking to put their thumbs on the electoral scales but skeptical of the Michael Steele-helmed RNC: they raised $14.5 million in the last 30 days, almost doubling their year-to-date total.

• NRCC: The NRCC is out with a bonanza of IEs in 23 different districts (click the FEC link for specific numbers): PA-11, VA-09, PA-08, WI-07, NJ-03, PA-03, IL-14, MI-01, MI-07, PA-07, NC-07, IL-11, AL-02, AZ-01, CA-11, FL-02, KY-06, MS-01, TN-08, TX-23, VA-05, IN-02, and IL-10.

• SEIU: So, while the CoC is endorsing the Dem in West Virginia, the SEIU is endorsing the not-Dem in Rhode Island: they’ve thrown their backing behind indie Lincoln Chafee. (United Nurses and Allied Professionals will also endorse Chafee today, and the AFL-CIO is currently meeting about which way to go.) The SEIU is also out with a couple IEs of their own, spending $250K against Tim Walberg in MI-07 and $435K against deep-pocketed Jim Renacci in OH-16.

• SSP TV:

• CO-Sen: The DSCC is out with three different ads focusing on various aspects of Ken Buck’s nuttery, including the 17th Amendment and opposition to common birth control methods

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal’s ad focuses on pushback against various Linda McMahon misrepresentations

• FL-22: Ron Klein calls out Allen West for his various veiled calls for armed uprising

• HI-01: Charles Djou’s first ad of the general is a positive spot listing accomplishments from his short time in office

• IL-10: Bob Dold! ties Dan Seals to Nancy Pelosi in a health care-themed ad

• PA-10: Here’s the winner of the day: Chris Carney quickly and effectively summarizes the nasty links between Tom Marino and Louis DeNaples

• PA-15: Charlie Dent goes after John Callahan’s bookkeeping as mayor of Bethlehem

• WI-08: Steve Kagen dips into the well of 50s-era public-domain stock footage to hit Reid Ribble on his calls for Social Security phaseout

• Rasmussen:

• MD-Gov: Martin O’Malley (D-inc) 50%, Bob Ehrlich 47%

• MD-Sen: Barbara Mikulski (D-inc) 54%, Eric Wargotz (R) 38%

• NH-Gov: John Lynch (D-inc) 48%, John Stephen (R) 46%

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo (D) 54%, Carl Paladino (R) 38%, Rick Lazio (C) 0% because Rasmussen didn’t bother to include him

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 43%, Scott Walker (R) 51%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 50%, John Raese (R) 43%

• AK-Sen: Two positive developments in the Alaska Senate race, as Scott McAdams seeks to introduce himself in this suddenly-competitive race. He was the recipient of a Mark Begich-headlined fundraiser yesterday in Washington DC, and he’s also out with a radio ad stressing his Alaskan roots and that he’ll keep fighting for “schools, hospitals, roads, and other nuts and bolts” – both key ways to differentiate himself from Joe Miller. As for Lisa Murkowski’s plans, she’s saying that she’ll make her intentions known by Friday whether she wants to make a write-in bid (but her plans to return to DC might be a “no” tea leaf).

• DE-Sen: After running far, far away from Christine O’Donnell last night, the NRSC has done an about-face today, giving her the maximum $42K (with Mitch McConnell chipping in his own $5K). I’d be surprised if they give any more than that; this seems like an attempt to placate the base before they go ballistic. Mitt Romney is also backing O’Donnell and giving his own $5K, apparently more worried about getting past the base in the 2012 GOP primary than support for O’Donnell might look for him in the 2012 general. Meanwhile, for those hoping for outright support for Chris Coons from Mike Castle, the Castle camp has said there won’t be an endorsement. (Assistance can take a variety of other forms, though, that aren’t as likely to be apparent.) Finally, if you’re wondering about how Christine O’Donnell sees herself within the Middle Earth context, now you can find out.

• NH-Sen: Although New Hampshire recount law would allow Ovide Lamontagne to seek a recount (since he finished within 1.5% of the total votes cast), he just opted against such an action, conceding the race to Kelly Ayotte. He had until the end of the day to request it.

• AK-Gov: It’s the last day to get his name on the ballot in Alaska in any capacity (and not really at issue, since the AIP and Libertarians weren’t open to subbing him as their candidate). That leaves 2nd place GOP gubernatorial finisher Bill Walker with a write-in bid as his only option, too, and he sounds like such a bid is “unlikely.”

• CA-Gov: I don’t know if all is truly well now between Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown, or Clinton is just feeling that he’s adequately established himself as the alpha dog in the wake of Brown’s capitulation following their ill-advised sparring, but Clinton gave his endorsement to Brown. It remains to be seen what exactly Clinton does on Brown’s behalf, though.

• CO-Gov: Tom Tancredo is able to stay on the ballot, said a U.S. District Court judge yesterday. He’d been the subject of a challenge from local GOPers, but the judge ruled that it wasn’t relevant that Tancredo had been a member of the Republican Party up until launching his Constitution Party bid.

• FL-Gov: The DGA just plowed $1 million into the Florida governor’s race, showing that they indeed think this (thanks to Rick Scott’s presence) is one of their best pickup opportunities but also that the route to doing so will be through a whole lot of money.

• GA-Gov: Nathan Deal is fighting back against reports that he’s in such financial disarray right now that he might need to sell his house to avoid default on a large business loan. The $2.3 million loan is due on Feb. 1, which exceeds the Deal family’s net worth. (This was an investment in a business started by his daughter which failed completely; it’s entirely separate from the family auto salvage business that’s at the heart of the Ethics complaint that chased him out of the House.)

• MD-Gov: Looks like we won’t have any lingering bad feelings here, unlike a lot of other establishment/Tea Party GOP primaries: Brian Murphy, who lost badly to Bob Ehrlich, has offered his endorsement to Ehrlich “if he’s willing to accept it.”

• DSCC: I guess Charles Schumer looked at yesterday’s election results and decided he didn’t have much to worry about in November from Jay Townsend. He just transferred $1 million to the DSCC from his own cash yesterday, on top of a previous $1 million in August. That leaves him with “only” about $22 million CoH… about the same amount of cash on hand that the DSCC has!

• DCCC, NRCC: The DCCC and NRCC are out with slew of independent expenditures advertisements. (Expect to see that phrase in every digest for the next month and a half.) The DCCC rolled out three new IEs in HI-01, MI-01, and AL-02. The NRCC’s buy is in 10 districts: most significantly in IN-02 (for $135K), but also AZ-01, CA-11, FL-02, MS-01, TX-17, VA-05, WI-07 (for $79K), and TN-08 (for $105K). If you want more details on the NRCC’s bid, you can check out the actual FEC filing.

• Self-funders: The Wall Street Journal has a helpful rundown on how self-funders are faring this year. As with, well, pretty much every other year, they’re faring quite poorly. Of the 10 biggest self-funders in this cycle’s Senate races, only three actually are still running (Linda McMahon, Carly Fiorina, and Ron Johnson); the other seven (Jeff Greene, Steve Pagliuca, Bill Binnie, David Malpass, Sue Lowden, Jim Bender, and Terrence Wall) all fell by the wayside, often in spectacular fashion. Same story in the House, where only three of the top 10 self-funders (Tom Ganley, Randy Altschuler, and Matt Doheny) are still functional.

• Redistricting: Any SSP readers out in Arizona? Here’s your chance to get out from behind Dave’s App and actually get your hands on the real thing! The state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission is seeking applications from the public for appointment to the 5-member commission.

• SSP TV:

• 60+ Assoc.: The health care astroturfers are running anti-Dem ads in WI-03, WI-08, NY-01, NY-20, and PA-10

• AFF: AFF launches a total $2.3 million buy in seven Dem districts: AL-02, GA-08, MI-01, MI-07, NJ-03, SC-05, and WV-01

• American Crossroads: Rove, Inc., is spending $330K on a MO-Sen ad and $550K on a CO-Sen ad

• FL-Sen: The US Chamber of Commerce hits Charlie Crist, pointing to his many flip-flops

• NV-Sen: The Sharron Angle camp has another anti-Harry Reid ad, calling him “the best friend an illegal immigrant ever had”

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand’s out with her first ad, more or less explicitly introducing herself despite her two years or service

• NC-02: Bob Etheridge isn’t leaving anything to chance this year, rolling out an ad that’s mostly a pleasant bio spot

• OH-18: I mentioned Zack Space’s anti-NAFTA ad yesterday, but here’s an actual link to the ad

• PA-06: Jim Gerlach’s first ad has him stepping away from the Republican label, saying he’s “an independent voice for taxpayers”

• PA-10: Chris Carney’s ad goes there, hitting Tom Marino on his ties to sketchy casino entrepreneur Louis DeNaples

• SC-05: Mick Mulvaney’s new ad hits John Spratt for having gone native in Washington

• WI-07: Is the DCCC taking a page from the Fred Davis “Celebrity” ad that seemed to bizarrely work against Obama? Their new ad against Sean Duffy is rife with clips from his days on The Real World

• Rasmussen:

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 23%, Marco Rubio (R) 41%, Charlie Crist (I) 30%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43%, John Kasich (R) 50%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 41%, Pat Toomey (R) 49%

• VT-Gov: Peter Shumlin (D) 49%, Brian Dubie (R) 46%

• VT-Sen: Patrick Leahy (D) 62%, Len Britton (R) 32%

AK-Sen: Man, we are seriously close! Just $195 away from our goal of raising $2,400 for Dem Scott McAdams in the topsy-turvy Alaska senate race. We have 64 contributors right now – I’d love to see us get to 70 before all is said and done. And if we hit our target now, you get to stop seeing nags from me!

DE-Sen: One final (?) independent expenditure report from the Tea Party Express, good for another $20K of media on Christine O’Donnell’s behalf. Damn this one ought to be exciting tonight.

CA-Gov: Gah, this is just unspinnably bad. Meg Whitman releases an ad featuring footage of Bill Clinton attacking Jerry Brown in the 1992 presidential primary, so what does Brown do? He calls Clinton a liar – and manages to make a crack about Monica freakin’ Lewinsky. (Talk about stuck in a time warp.) After a day, Brown finally apologized.

FL-Gov: Alex Sink secured endorsed from two top law enforcement groups: the Fraternal Order of Police and the Police Benevolent Association. Her campaign says it’s the first time in two decades both orgs have endorsed a Dem (the FOP hasn’t does so in 16 years).

KS-Gov: Live by the bailout, die by the bailout. Dem Tom Holland smacked Republican Sam Brownback during a recent debate for supporting a $200 billion bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – leaving Brownback to sputter that he voted against the bailout. Well, yeah, he voted against the infamous TARP. But Holland had him dead-to-rights on a separate vote, from July of 2008, which did in fact provide money to prop up the two government-sponsored mortgage enterprises.

ME-Gov: Watch GOP nominee Paul LePage get seriously testy when reporters ask him about the fact that his wife received homestead tax exemptions for properties in both Maine and Florida in 2009. (More details here.)

FL-02: Hah! This is why it pays to keep good records! Republican Steve Southerland claimed on a radio show that he had never donated money to Allen Boyd – so Boyd’s campaign dug up a $100 check from 1997 (!) that Southerland had made out to Boyd. Nice work!

FL-08: Tea Party candidate Peg Dunmire is out with her first TV ad of the cycle – notable, of course, because you don’t often see third-party candidates on the air (especially two months out from election day), and also because Dunmire has claimed she plans to put $250,000 of her own cash into the race.

IL-14: Idiot: GOPer Randy Hultgren made two separate contributions (totaling $2,000) to his federal campaign committee… from his state campaign committee. That, my friends, is not allowed (and which is why Hultgren is returning the money).

MI-01 (PDF): Republican Dan Benishek is touting an internal poll from TargetPoint Consulting, showing him with a 54-31 lead over Dem Gary McDowell. The polling memo is written in a pretty grossly sycophantic way, and my spidey sense is twigged enough for me to wonder if the ballot test was asked up top, or after some axe-grindy “issue” questions.

TN-04: Republican Scott DesJarlais is touting an internal poll from Public Opinion Strategies, showing him four points behind Dem Rep. Lincoln Davis, 45-41. Note to TargetPoint Consulting: This is how a polling memorandum should look.

DCCC: Reid Wilson has a detailed report on the D-Trip shifting ad money around, but really, it doesn’t sound very good to me. In the waning days of WWII, my dad (in Poland) would tune in to Nazi-censored radio reports about the German troops “consolidating their positions” or “shifting to more strategically advantageous territory,” etc. It was all bullshit-speak code for “we’re retreating.” So you tell me if you think the DCCC is reducing its ad buys in Arizona because vulnerable Dems there “are running stronger than expected campaigns,” or if that, too, is bullshit. Similarly, should we be happy that the Dems are cancelling buys in North Dakota? Of course, those radio broadcasts my dad listened to were in fact good news….

Chicago-Mayor: I don’t know if we’ll be able to keep up with what I’m sure will be an avalanche of candidacy announcements, but former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun says she’s throwing her hat in the ring for the Chicago mayor’s race.

SSP-TV (written by James L.):

AL-02: The DCCC, as part of its huge $1.2 million ad reservation on behalf of Dem Bobby Bright, is hitting Martha Roby for being funded by “special interests working to privatize Medicare.” The ad is no longer publicly available on YouTube, though.

AZ-01: Rogue dentist Paul Gosar hits Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick over spending in irritatingly-produced ad

AZ-05: David Schweikert attacks Harry Mitchell on taxes, bailouts, the stimulus, and (ironically) negative ads

AZ-08: Republican Jesse Kelly dubiously claims that he’s running to protect Social Security (despite last year saying: “I would love to eliminate the program.”)

CT-04: Dan Debicella goes after sophomore Dem Rep. Jim Himes on the usual GOP complaints

FL-22: Allen West hides the crazy in his new ad, instead hitting Dem Rep. Ron Klein on the economy

HI-01: Democrat Colleen Hanabusa reintroduces herself to voters

IA-03: GOPer Brad Zaun calls fans of government shrinkage to join his campaign

IL-10: Bob Dold! points the finger at Cap and Trade and Healthcare Reform for economic malaise

NM-02: Steve Pearce says he’ll create jobs somehow

MI-07: Mark Schauer gets a bunch of angry seniors to berate ex-Rep. Tim Walberg over his scary views on Social Security. I like this one.

MO-03: Republican Ed Martin airs his first ad touting his efforts to save jobs

OH-01: Dem Steve Driehaus says that Steve Chabot won’t stand up to the Tea Party

SC-02: Joe Wilson, via a retired General, hits Democrat Rob Miller on receiving fundraising assistance from MoveOn.org. His second ad touts his job platform. On a related note, Joe Wilson has a startlingly robotic voice – he sounds like something a Macintosh LC 630’s speech synthesizer would be spitting out in 1994.

UT-02: Republican Morgan Philpot urges change in his first spot, and says that he’s gonna “wear this sucker out” in ad #2

WI-08: Roofing contractor Reid Ribble touts his record of teaching high school volleyball

NRCC ads: AL-02, AZ-01, CA-11, FL-02, KY-06, MS-01, TX-17, VA-05, WI-07

AK-Sen: On the topic of Lisa Murkowski’s declaration that she’s “still in this game” and her outreach efforts to a polite but seemingly unenthused Alaska Libertarian Party, The Mudflats sums up the situation pretty well:

   * She’s not technically in the race right now

   * She’s not out of the race

   * She’s not a quitter

   * She is who she is

   * She will likely not run as a Libertarian

   * She will likely not run as a write-in

   * She doesn’t know what she’s doing

NH-Sen: Businessman Bill Binnie is throwing down another $500K of his own money, with the GOP primary just a week in the way. Though ex-AG Kelly Ayotte leads in what little polling there’s been, I think this race is still up for grabs.

NV-Sen: The LVRJ has a detailed profile on Sharron Angle’s tumultuous years in the state Assembly, where votes in the 42-member body were often “41 to Angle.”

CO-Gov: Some Colorado Republicans are suing to try to knock Tom Tancredo off the ballot, saying his candidacy violates the American Constitution Party’s bylaws. Even if they’re right, I wonder if they have standing.

FL-08: Alan Grayson claims he raised half a million bucks in August, and says he has more than a million on hand, despite prepaying for a bunch of television advertising.

FL-24: GOPer Sandy Adams (and the NRCC, apparently) are touting a Public Opinion Strategies internal which has her leading Rep. Suzanne Kosmas 49-37.

HI-01: Colleen Hanabusa outraised Rep. Charles Djou in the pre-primary fundraising period, $330K to $206K. But Djou has slightly more cash on hand, $428K to $404K.

NY-14: Some Democrat she is. When asked by a reporter if she would vote for her opponent – not even endorse, just vote – in the general if she lost the primary, Reshma Saujani said she “didn’t know” whether she would pull the lever for Rep. Carolyn Maloney. I’ve been adamantly opposed to Saujani’s candidacy since I first learned about her, and with good reason. But this may be the most disgusting thing she’s said so far. How can I possibly trust the Democratic bona fides of someone who can’t even say if she’ll vote Democrat in her own district? And no, her campaign’s belated attempt to claim she’ll “vote a straight ticket” does not assuage me in the least. When the cameras were rolling and the pressure was on, Saujani admitted she wasn’t a team player. We don’t need people like her in Congress.

Turnout (PDF): According to data compiled by the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, the “average percentage of eligible citizens who voted in the primaries of each major political party” shows more a greater share of Republicans voting in primaries this year than Dems for the first time since 1930. Of course, 1930 was a pretty good year for Dems… but the trendlines are not inspiring.

SSP TV:

GA-Sen: GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson, not a guy you traditionally think of as being endangered (if you’ve ever even heard of him) touts his conservative record

NH-Sen: Paul Hodes compares Washington to… a hot dog eating contest

NV-Sen: Harry Reid continues to produce some of the best negative ads of the cycle

OH-Sen: We mentioned this ad in yesterday’s digest, wherein Lee Fisher sez: “Congressman Rob Portman knows how to grow the economy… in China!” Our update is that a GOPer says the buy is for $1.4 million and that the ad is running in Columbus and northern OH

FL-Gov: Alex Sink responds to Rick Scott’s attack ads, which she says are all about Obama, not Florida

CA-11: Jerry McNerney’s first ad, touting his support for veterans’ causes (I like that he has an actual veteran do the talking – much better than the usual candidate bragging or hackneyed voiceover)

CA-45: Dem Steve Pougnet is on the air with his first ad, kicking off a reported $100K/week TV & radio ad blitz from now through election day

CO-04: Betsy Markey has an anti-spending spot

NM-01: Republican Jon Barela has an ad complaining about the debt

NM-02: Harry Teague is up with his first ad of the cycle, a surprisingly authentic 60-second spot that’s worth watching

NM-02: Meanwhile, Americans for Job Security hits Teague over his vote for cap-and-trade (a “one-week” buy)

NY-02: If Steve Israel is worried enough to go up on the air….

VA-02: Glenn Nye touts his work to keep an aircraft carrier at Hampton Roads

• DE-Sen: Looks like New York mayor Michael Bloomberg had to show some of that patented post-partisanship, having endorsed Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania yesterday. He offered a counterpoint in the form of an endorsement of Mike Castle in Delaware as well, and is doing a New York-based fundraiser for him tonight.

• IN-Sen: That grinding sound you hear is old-school Republican Dan Coats shifting gears, trying to fit into the Tea Party template. Having won the Republican Senate nomination in Indiana probably with big help from the split among teabagger votes between Marlin Stutzman and John Hostettler, he’s now working on outreach to that set, trying to keep the focus on financial issues.

• LA-Sen: Chet Traylor (who’s been seen polling in the single digits in polls we’ve seen so far of the Republican Senate primary) is out with an internal poll that purports to have him within striking distance of incumbent David Vitter. The poll by Verne Kennedy gives Vitter a 46-34 lead, keeping Vitter down in runoff territory. However, there’s a huge caveat: that number comes after voters were informed about Vitter’s use of prostitutes and employment of sociopathic aides, and there’s no word of what the non-informed toplines were. Meanwhile, Traylor seems to be gaining little momentum on the fundraising front: he’s filed a fundraising report showing he’s raised $42K since announcing his bid last month, and has $41K on hand.

• NH-Sen: Bill Binnie, with little time left to catch up to Kelly Ayotte in the GOP primary, is defying orders from state party boss John Sununu to keep everything positive, and is rolling out two negative ads against Ayotte. Both ads focus on her time as Attorney General and her failure to pick up on anything wrong at Financial Resources Mortgage, which engaged in large-scale fraud and then collapsed.

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin hasn’t wasted any time on the fundraising front. He’s raised $410K already since declaring his candidacy last month, which may not initially seem like much but will go a long way in the cheap markets in West Virginia. Likely GOP opponent John Raese has raised only $30K, although he’s also poured $320K of his own money into the race.

• IA-Gov, IA-Sen: Local GOP blog The Iowa Republican commissioned some polls of Iowa through Voter/Consumer Research. In a non-surprise, the Republicans are leading. Terry Branstad leads Chet Culver 53-35 in the gubernatorial race and Chuck Grassley leads Roxanne Conlin 59-33 in the Senate race. (Down the ballot, though, things look OK for Dems in the AG, Treasurer, and Supreme Court races.)

• OH-Gov: This goes in the “nice work if you can get it” file. In further evidence of the high-dollar revolving door between politics and academia, there are more details out on John Kasich’s rich-guy sinecure at Ohio State University over the last decade. For instance, during 2008 he made $50K from OSU, but worked about four hours a month there, essentially making $4,000 for each visit to campus.

• PA-Gov: While the Dems got good news yesterday in the Senate race in Pennsylvania with the dropout of the Green Party candidate, they got bad news in the gubernatorial race today with the dropout of John Krupa. Krupa was running as the Tea Party candidate, but had to pull the plug after a GOP petition challenge left him with too few signatures.

• AZ-03: It looks like Ben Quayle’s week or two in the sun is pretty much over after a one-two punch of salacious website revelations and his own incompetent TV ad; conventional wisdom is treating him as having plunged out of front-runner status in the GOP primary in the open seat 3rd. Self-funding businessman Steve Moak seems to have that role now, followed by underfunded but better-known state Sen. Jim Waring. (The article alludes to polling, but irritatingly doesn’t offer any specifics.)

• FL-17: The Miami Herald offers interesting profiles of all nine Democrats competing in the primary to replace retiring Rep. Kendrick Meek. This dark-blue seat may be, of all the nation’s open seats, the one we’re most starved for information about, so it remains to be seen whether we can get an upgrade from Meek (who voted with an eye always toward his next promotion) in this seat.

• New York: Wow, there’s a serious race to the bottom going on among the New York House delegation, with regards to Cordoba House: Mike McMahon, Tim Bishop, and even non-endangered Steve Israel all offered statements saying they should look elsewhere to build. This is playing out most interestingly in NY-24, where Richard Hanna — one of the few conspicuously moderate Republicans on the front lines this year — offered support for the project last week. Then Dem Mike Arcuri came out in opposition… and Hanna, realized he was getting outflanked on the right, did a 180 and is now against it too. While it’s nice to see a GOPer getting caught in such a transparent and ad-worthy flip-flop, is this the kind of high-ground-ceding way we want to do it?

• NRCC: Everyone seems abuzz that the NRCC is out with its list of 40 targeted districts today and its plan to spend $22 million (more than their current $17 mil CoH). It’s worth noting, though, that unlike the DCCC’s $49 mil list of 60 districts from July, these aren’t even reservations (which require deposits – or a willingness to seriously piss off television stations if you try to cancel), only a telegraphing of their plans, so things may change. (They may also roll out more in two steps, as did the DCCC.) Most of the buzzing is about what got left out. (Where are the defenses in LA-02 and HI-01? There’s a grand total of one defensive buy: the open seat in IL-10.) National Journal also has an interesting analysis of the method behind the NRCC’s madness, noticing that they’re playing Moneyball, focusing on the cheaper media markets and letting some of the more expensive East Coast markets slide.

• Ads: Lots of ad miscellany today, starting with big buys from Karl Rove-linked GOP group American Crossroads, which is spending $425K on an anti-Michael Bennet piece in CO-Sen, and $500K on a pro-Rob Portman (doesn’t he have his own money?) spot in OH-Sen. Dina Titus and Betsy Markey, freshman Dems in tough defenses in NV-03 and CO-04, are both on the air with new spots with a similar strategy: go negative on TARP (they’re inoculated from it, not having been in Congress in the previous cycle). Finally, Scott Murphy is dipping into his huge cash stash with his first ad in NY-20, a feel-good piece featuring his enormous family that (like Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s ad) traffics in the metaphor that Washington sometimes eats too much (although luckily this ad doesn’t show anyone pooping).

• Rasmussen:

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 37%, Rob Portman (R) 45%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 37%, Pat Toomey (R) 46%

CO-Sen: Colorado Dems are concerned that if Andrew Romanoff topples Sen. Michael Bennet in the primary, he’ll be badly hamstrung in the general by his refusal to take PAC money. This problem is compounded by the fact he’s been a pretty crappy fundraiser in general. Romanoff also supposedly said he won’t accept the DSCC’s help – though luckily for us, independent expenditure rules mean that he can’t tell the DS what to do. This all reminds of Russ Feingold demanding that outside groups not spend money on his 1998 re-election campaign, which he won by barely 3% in an otherwise very strong Democratic year.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is up with a quarter million dollar ad buy on behalf of Jane Norton, touting an endorsement from Jan Brewer (whose instant celebrity strikes me as something on the level of a reality TV star).

FL-Sen: So it turns out that Kendrick Meek, who was initially left off some notices, will participate in Barack Obama’s August 18th Miami Beach fundraiser. But a Meek staffer tells Politico that he wants nothing less than a “prominent role” at the event and is “expecting the president to strongly reaffirm his endorsement.” If you have to float these kinds of things via blind leaks to the beltway press… well… that doesn’t exactly evince a great deal of confidence, does it?

Meanwhile, Tom Jensen confirms empirically something I’ve felt intuitively for a while (and mentioned on our panel at Netroots Nation): Charlie Crist is better off with Jeff Greene winning the Democratic primary rather than Kendrick Meek. In particular, black voters support Meek 39-33 over Crist, while they support Crist 61-17 over Greene.

IL-Sen: It’s confirmed: A federal judge ruled that the candidates on the special election ballot to fill out the remaining months of Sen. Roland Burris’s term will be the same as those on the regular election ballot – meaning Burris won’t be able to seek “re-election” for those two extra months (something he actually had considered doing). Phew.

KS-Sen: A final SurveyUSA poll of the GOP primary shows Todd Tiahrt, who has trailed badly for the entire race, closing the gap with Jerry Moran. Moran still leads by a sizable 49-39 margin, but two weeks ago, it was 50-36, and Tiahrt has gained 10 points over the last two months. The problem is, time’s up: The primary is tonight.

KY-Sen: The Club for Growth just endorsed Rand Paul, and undoubtedly it’s because of College Libertarian Society bullshit like this which comes out of his mouth:

The Republican running to replace outgoing Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) in the coal-mining hub of Kentucky said recently that Washington has no business formulating mine safety rules.

“The bottom line is: I’m not an expert, so don’t give me the power in Washington to be making rules,” Paul said at a recent campaign stop in response to questions about April’s deadly mining explosion in West Virginia, according to a profile in Details magazine. “You live here, and you have to work in the mines. You’d try to make good rules to protect your people here. If you don’t, I’m thinking that no one will apply for those jobs.”

“I know that doesn’t sound… I want to be compassionate, and I’m sorry for what happened, but I wonder: Was it just an accident?”

CA-Gov: Fellow humans of Earth! I have traveled back through time from the year 3000! And I come to tell you that in our wondrous and awesome future, the spending record for candidate self-funding is still held by Meg Whitman! I cannot tell you how much she spent in total, lest I create a temporal paradox and cause all of you never to have been born, but I can inform you that she has already spent one hundred million of your Earth dollars! Also, everyone in the future eats Dippin’ Dots!

Meanwhile, a more chronologically closer reporter informs us that Jerry Brown has $23 million on hand.

FL-Gov: The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Florida’s public financing law, whereby candidates whose opponents spend more than $25 million (as Rick Scott has) get added matching funds from the state. Apparently this system “chills free speech” (whatever). Bill McCollum is obviously none too happy, and is weighing a possible appeal – or an attack on another part of the law which limits the size of donations he can accept.

GA-Gov: Landmark Communications, a Republican pollster which says it has no ties to either candidate, is out with the first poll of the GOP runoff. They find Karen Handel leading Nathan Deal by a 46-37 margin. Deal, meanwhile, is out with a new ad, and props to the AJC’s Jim Galloway for getting the Deal campaign to cough up that the buy is for 850 gross ratings points in the Atlanta area. One rating point is equal to one percent of a potential audience, but because the same viewer might see the same ad more than once, you need a lot more than 100 GRPs to reach your full target audience. As things go, 850 is a pretty decent-sized buy, especially in an expensive market like Atlanta.

CA-47: This really doesn’t seem wise: Rep. Loretta Sanchez, locked in a competitive race with Assemblyman Van Tran, filed paperwork for state bid in 2014. She really couldn’t have waited until after November? Now-Rep. Tom McClintock (CA-04) did something similar last cycle, and it certainly did not seem to help him (he barely eked out a win in a decidedly red district). Speaking of Tran, by the way, here’s an interesting item from late last week: He secured the backing of the grifters running the Tea Party Express – not exactly a popular gang, I’m sure, in this 60% Obama district.

FL-08: You know how they say that if you wind up in prison, you should act all crazy on your first day so that the other inmates know better than to mess with you? Well, Alan Grayson’s tack seems to have been to act crazy so as to get his opponents to act even crazier and thus blow themselves up in the process. Republican state Rep. Kurt Kelly, reacting to Grayson’s absence during a vote on an Afghanistan war funding bill, spazzed: “He put our soldiers, our men and women in the military, in harm’s way and, in fact, maybe he wants them to die.” Said a Grayson spokesperson in response: “Kurt Kelly thinks the stupider he sounds, the more Republican votes he’ll get.” Heh.

HI-01: GOP Rep. Charles Djou is out with an internal poll from the Tarrance Group showing him up 50-42 over Colleen Hanabusa. Djou has about $380K on hand to Hanabusa’s $220K. I wonder if Hanabusa will release her own internal.

ID-01: I swear, some days it really feels like Bill Sali actually is running again. This time, apprentice fuckup Raul Labrador moved his campaign headquarters outside of the 1st Congressional District – a pretty remarkable feat given that Idaho has only two CDs. If this sounds extremely familiar, that’s because it is: Sali himself did the exact same thing, situating his campaign office in ID-02 as well. Let’s hope history repeats in November, too.

IL-10: Dem Dan Seals has donated $5,000 he received from ethically embattled Rep. Maxine Waters to charity – even though she gave that money to him last cycle. I wonder if other candidates will follow suit, ala Rangel.

NY-10: Even though he’s already spent an absurd $1.1 million and held 2008 challenger Kevin Powell to just 32% in the primary, Rep. Ed Towns is taking no chances in his rematch and is attempting to get Powell kicked off the ballot. However, Powell (who has raised very little and has just $30K on hand) collected 8,000 signatures, far more than the 1,250 he needed. So unless there are massive flaws (or fraud), this is going to be difficult for Towns.

WI-08: Organic farmer, Door County supervisor, and teabagger Marc Savard, who had raised very little, dropped out and endorsed roofing contractor Reid Ribble in the GOP primary. Ribble, who leads the fundraising field (but only has about $180K on hand), still faces former state Rep. Terri McCormick and current state Rep. Roger Roth. (And here’s a rather disturbing item we missed: While we noted retired radiologist Marc Trager’s departure from the race in mid-June, we were previously unaware that he committed suicide just a couple of weeks later.)

DCCC: Obama alert! The POTUS will do a fundraiser for the D-Trip on August 16 at the Los Angeles home of “ER” and “West Wing” executive produce John Wells. Nancy Pelosi and Chris Van Hollen are also expected to attend.

Or maybe they should be calling it “Keeping Blue Blue”. The list:

In their first batch of Red to Blue endorsements, the DCCC only snuck in two blue seats into the program. This time, only four GOP-held seats made the cut, including the one held by freshly-minted Hawaii Rep. Charles Djou. It’s interesting that the DCCC chose not to include Steve Raby (AL-05) and Matt Zeller (NY-29) just yet. Can you spot any other omissions?  

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: There’s one more poll in California, courtesy of Capitol Weekly (done for them by Republican pollster Probolsky Research). They’ve polled a few times before, but they’re calling this a “tracking poll,” suggesting they’ll be putting out more numbers as we count down to the June 8 primary. At any rate, there aren’t any surprises here: they too see the Carly Fiorina surge on the Senate side: she’s at 40, compared with Tom Campbell’s 25 and Chuck DeVore’s 13. In the Governor’s race, Meg Whitman leads Steve Poizner 54-24.

The big news here, though, is that Campbell, after saying he was going dark earlier this week, apparently pulled together enough last-minute contributions for a final TV ad. His closing argument is all about electability, centering around the recent LA Times/USC poll that gave him a lead over Barbara Boxer while Fiorina trailed. A candidate making a calm, logical pitch based on quantifiable data, instead of throwing together a mish-mash of fearmongering, jingoism, and meaningless buzzwords? I think Campbell might be running in the wrong party’s primary for that kind of thing to work. Fiorina, for her part, may have some backtracking to do after her deriding Boxer’s push on climate legislation as worrying about “the weather.” Back in October, before Campbell’s entry forced herself to recast herself as a conservative, she had lots of praise for cap and trade.

• KY-Sen: Rush disses Rand Paul! No, it’s not Rush Limbaugh; it’s just plain Rush, the pioneer 70s Canadian prog-rockers. They’ve told Paul to stop using Rush’s music at his rallies and in his web ads, citing copyright violations inasmuch as Paul has simply chosen his own Free Will and not asked them for, y’know, permission. The Paul campaign has used “The Spirit of Radio” pre-rallies (and here’s how big a Rush geek he is: he’s actually quoted that song’s lyrics on the stump). There’s always been a lot of overlap between Rush fans and libertarians, not just because many of Rush’s lyrics lean that way, but also because they both have a core audience of 14-year-old boys.

• NY-Sen-B: The Senate primary, for the right to go against Kirsten Gillibrand, is turning out to be just as much of a clusterf@ck as everything else the NY GOP has done lately. The GOP convention has left them with yet one more contested primary, as Bruce Blakeman and David Malpass split the vote (a weighted 42% for Blakeman and 40% for Malpass), leaving them to fight it out in a primary. They’re still likely to be joined by Joe DioGuardi, who only got 18% (missing the 25% threshold) but who intends to petition his way on to the ballot. Remember that DioGuardi is already on the ballot on the Conservative line, though, so he’s participating in November regardless of whether he gets into, let alone wins, the primary.

• CT-Gov: Here’s one advantage to running against a rich guy in a state with public campaign financing: every time your opponent pulls out more money, more money magically appears for you, too. Dan Malloy has raised $250K in contributions, which opens the door to another $1.25 million from the state, and on top of that, he’s entitled to a $938K bonus to match Ned Lamont’s spending. On the GOP side, Michael Fedele (with a rich guy problem of his own, in the form of Tom Foley) would like to do the same thing, but doesn’t look like he can rustle up $250K in contributions by the deadline.

• AL-05: Parker Griffith apparently isn’t switching back to being a Dem after his party-switching chicanery blew up in his face; he congratulated Mo Brooks at a press conference yesterday and said he’ll vote for him in November. “I was rejected by the constituents, they did not accept me. I appreciate that because that is how America is supposed to work,” said Griffith.

• CA-36: There are some internal polls floating around out there ahead of next week’s primary in the 36th. Jane Harman’s camp has a poll out giving her a 58-17 lead over Marcy Winograd (no word on the pollster, let alone any of the details). Winograd has her own internal, with even less detail: all they’re saying is that Harman is down at 43, although their silence about Winograd’s own number is pretty telling.

• FL-19: The FEC is telling ex-Rep. Robert Wexler to give back an unspecified amount of the contributions he received for the 2010 general election — which makes sense, considering he isn’t a participant. (He left to become president of the Center for Middle East Peace, although ongoing chatter has him on track to become the next Ambassador to Israel.) Unfortunately, that means less cash that he can offload to the> DCCC or other Dems this cycle.

• HI-01: I wasn’t aware that he hadn’t already weighed in in favor of Colleen Hanabusa, since most of the rest of the local old-guard Dem establishment had, but today ex-Rep. and gubernatorial candidate Neil Abercrombie endorsed Hanabusa. He also gave a hat tip to Ed Case for getting out of the way.

• Blogosphere: The New York Times actually got something right! They’re going to be partnering with Nate Silver, bringing a relaunched 538 under the NYT’s online umbrella in August. We’re glad to see that the legacy media are realizing that not only is there serious political journalism (if not scholarship) going on in the blogosphere, but that their last gasp at relevance may be by moving in that direction. Congrats to Nate, too!

I guess Ed Case doesn’t believe the DCCC’s polling was handed down on tablets at Mount Sinai either:

Former Rep. Ed Case (D-Hawaii) announced Sunday he won’t pursue the Democratic nomination to face Rep. Charles Djou (R-Hawaii), which improves his party’s chances of retaking the seat it lost in the recent special election.

“We’ve taken apart the results and analyzed our options every which way,” Case wrote in an email to supporters. “If it all lined up it’d be an easy decision, but it doesn’t.” …

“My heart tells me to stay in this fight, but my head says this has become the wrong fight. So today I’m withdrawing my candidacy for the U. S. House of Representatives from Hawaii’s great first district,” he wrote.

Case thanked his supporters and said he will continue to look for opportunities to serve.

Case’s abrupt exit leaves Colleen Hanabusa as the sole Democratic flagbearer against freshly-minted GOP Rep. Charles Djou. At the very least, we’ll all be spared his antics in a Democratic primary, but I suppose the possibility remains that another Democrat may seek to enter the race now that Case’s exit has cleared up some more oxygen in the room.

UPDATE: Let the Great Healing begin:

Case made the announcement during his remarks at the state Democratic convention at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki. State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, his main rival in the primary, joined him on stage and presented Case with a lei. …

“I thought it was the right thing to do, at the right time, for the right reasons,” he said. “That’s really what it came down to.”

U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, (D-Hawaii), who had endorsed Hanabusa and resisted pressure from national Democrats to abandon her in favor of Case, who many in Washington believed was more electable, told delegates that he was deeply moved by Case’s gesture.

“He showed that he was a Democrat,” Inouye said.

• Idaho: The only state holding primaries tonight is Idaho, where the only race that’s captivating is the Republican primary in ID-01 between Vaughn Ward and state Rep. Raul Labrador. Ward has quickly turned into one of this cycle’s SSP favorites, parlaying early establishment backing and financial advantages into a dead heat with the teabaggish Labrador through repeat instances of plagiarism and general cluelessness. In fact, the latest incident came just today, when Idaho’s senior senator Mike Crapo asked Ward to clarify an inaccurate e-mail that implied Ward had Crapo’s endorsement. In a Mason-Dixon poll from several days ago, Ward led Labrador 31-28. Politico has some extra background on the race today, focusing on the bizarre intramural rivalries within the Tea Party movement, as local Labrador-backing teabaggers have split off into the Tea Party People’s Front and the People’s Front of Tea Party over the national Tea Party Express’s backing of Ward.

The Republican primary in the Governor’s race is also tonight, with incumbent Butch Otter facing challenges from wacko businessman Rex Rammell (whom you may remember from the 2008 Senate race, where he ran as an independent) and Ada Co. Commissioner Sharon Ullman. Otter, who was a libertarian-leaning House member prior to being Governor, hasn’t really drawn the wrath of the Tea Party though, and is polling well; the same Mason-Dixon poll finds him at 60%, with no opponent over 6%. Most polls in Idaho close at 8 pm Mountain time (10 Eastern), with some closing at 8 pm Pacific (11 Eastern).

• AR-Sen: The AFSCME is up with an $855K ad buy with a negative ad throwing the kitchen sink at Blanche Lincoln, even making fun of her absentee ballot screwup on Election Day. In Arkansas’s cheap media markets, that’s enough to keep the ads running all the way through the runoff.

• CA-Sen: While we at SSP are pleased and even a little honored that political insiders seem to be not only reading us but actually taking seriously things that we say, we also realize that they might not be familiar with all internet conventions. SSP allows (and encourages) user diaries. What is said in these diaries is not reflective of the opinions of the site’s editors. So, for instance, if a user diary says that CA-Sen is a “Tossup,” that does not mean that Swing State Project is calling CA-Sen a “Tossup,” which is precisely what the Carly Fiorina campaign was busy tweeting today.

• NC-Sen: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Third-place Democratic primary finisher Kenneth Lewis has signed on as campaign chair for Elaine Marshall. Marshall faces a runoff against Cal Cunningham, who got a good endorsement of his own yesterday, from Jim Neal (who you might remember lost the 2008 Senate primary after running to Kay Hagan’s left).

• WI-Sen: You see allegations of this kind of thing in small-ball state legislative contests a lot, but usually when you get up to the U.S. Senate level, you have your staffers do this kind of thing. Well, I guess Ron Johnson is a man of the people, willing to go out there and get his own hands dirty tearing down his opponents’ signs (as seen on this video).

• AL-Gov: Artur Davis is out with a last-minute hit on Ron Sparks, throwing around “corruption” in reference to the thorny issue (in Alabama) of gambling. Usually campaigns like to close on a happy note; is Davis worried about a last-minute Sparks surge?

• MN-Gov: With Margaret Anderson Kelliher having announced a running mate pick, the other two guys in the Democratic primary have now, too. Mark Dayton picked state Sen. Yvonne Prettner Solon. She represents Duluth, an important but oft-overlooked Democratic stronghold in the state’s north. Matt Entenza seems to be going for star power rather than geographical balance, though, reportedly asking retiring news anchorwoman Robyne Robinson.

• CA-36: Looks like the Democratic primary between Rep. Jane Harman and activist Marcy Winograd is getting nationalized. Democracy for America (the descendant of the Dean campaign) is endorsing Winograd over the centrist Harman in this D+12 district.

• HI-01: A day after sounding noncommital about running in the regularly-scheduled primary in the 1st after finishing a surprising 3rd in the jungle-style special election, Ed Case is now confirming that he will keep running. Case has challenge Colleen Hanabusa to jointly commission a poll on who’s more competitive against Charles Djou (who was sworn in today, by the way) and the loser would drop out. Um, maybe the time to do that would be before the weird special election, not before the conventional primary where Hanabusa’s probably the favorite.

• OH-18: State Sen. Bob Gibbs and ex-state Agriculture Director Fred Dailey will have to wait a while longer for a conclusion to their super-close GOP primary, as SoS Jennifer Brunner ordered a recount. Gibbs finished ahead of Dailey by 156 votes, out of 52,700 (so it falls within the half a percentage point margin where an automatic recount is ordered by state law).

• VA-02: The GOP primary in the 2nd seems to be following a familiar pattern this cycle: the establishment candidate wins with a plurality after the Tea Partiers and assorted other hard-right constituencies can’t unite behind any one standard-bearer. A POS internal poll from wealthy auto dealer Scott Rigell (who has a bipartisan contibution record that must be dismaying to the local teabaggery) has Rigell way in the lead at 47, followed by 10 for Bert Mizusawa, 9 for Scott Taylor, 6 for Ben Loyola, and 1 each for Ed Maulbeck and Jessica Sandlin. Virginia’s primary is on June 8, but remember that, unlike most Southern states, they don’t employ runoffs.

• WI-07: EMILY’s List is getting involved in the open seat race in the 7th, now that state Sen. Julie Lassa has the Democratic field to herself. Their endorsement give her access to a nationwide donor base.

• Nevada: Democrats in Nevada have been able to point to a steadily increasing registration advantage over the last few years, but that petered out in the state’s newest release of numbers. The GOP increased its share, not by gaining more new registrations than the Dems, but by losing fewer registrations! Dems lost 42K since January, the GOP lost 20K, and nonpartisans went down 13K. I doubt people are burning their registration cards in a fit of pique, which instead suggests that there’s a lot of migration out of Nevada this year as it’s particularly hard hit by unemployment and foreclosures.

• Redistricting: Here’s some bipartisanship you can believe in: GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown — both beneficiaries of minority-majority districts, including an ugly gerrymandered one in Brown’s case — joined together to sue to stop the Fair Districts initiative that will be on Florida’s ballot in November.