Tag: HI-01

• Tonight’s Preview: Tonight’s something of a small palate-cleanser in between the meaty primaries of last Tuesday and next Tuesday. The main event is WV-01, where there are competitive primaries on both sides of the aisle. Most of the attention is focused on the Democratic side, though, where Rep. Alan Mollohan could be the first House incumbent to get bounced out this cycle. Despite already being rather conservative, he’s been challenged from the right by state Sen. Mike Oliverio, who’s attacking Mollohan over not fighting hard enough against cap and trade, and for his earmarking. Both camps have released internal polls giving them the lead. On the GOP side, there’s a three-way fight between the establishment fave, former state Rep. and state GOP chair David McKinley, former state Sen. Sarah Minear, and businessman Mac Warner. Warner has gotten nailed for tax liens on his businesses, but may benefit from the infighting between the two others. Polls in WV close at 7:30 pm ET.

The special election to replace Nathan Deal in GA-09 is also tonight. With Democrats a non-factor in this R+28 district, but a crowded field of various Republicans, the likeliest outcome is a June 8 runoff between the top two conservative Republicans, most likely former state Rep. Tom Graves (the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks pick) and former state Sen. Lee Hawkins (who seems to generate less enthusiasm on the ground but who has some geographical advantages). TheUnknown285 also points out a handful of other legislative special elections in Georgia today, all of which are very unlikely to change hands; the most interesting may be in SD-42, where Jimmy Carter’s grandson may be able to take over a blue seat in Atlanta’s suburbs.

Finally, two other things you might watch, if you want to get way down in the weeds: Nebraska is the only other state with regularly scheduled primaries for today, although the only one worth a look is the GOP side in NE-02, where Rep. Lee Terry faces a teabagger with some money, Matt Sakalosky. Terry is likely to win, but the margin will be worth watching, as he’s one of the Dems’ few offense targets this year. And New Jersey has a host of mayoral elections today. The big name here is Newark’s Cory Booker, expected to face no trouble with re-election; an open seat in Trenton may provide some interest, though.

UPDATE: Marcus in comments points out a big miss on my part: the state Senate seat in Massachusetts left vacant by Scott Brown is up for special election tonight, too. (Rather than a boring number, it has a name: “Norfolk, Bristol, and Middlesex.” Still not quite as mellifluous as a lot of the British constituencies that we all got a crash course in last week though… especially “Vale of Glamorgan.”) Democratic physician Peter Smulowitz (a netroots fave who won an upset in the primary) faces off against GOP state Rep. Richard Ross. There’s also a safe blue seat up tonight that will shortly belong to Dem Sal DiDomenico.

• NH-Sen: It looks like those missing Kelly Ayotte e-mails, which are at the center of the growing questions surrounding the collapse of Financial Resources Mortgage and what the AG’s office did (or didn’t) do, may be retrievable after all via backup systems. State legislative hearings into the matter are beginning on Friday, so this issue could get bigger in coming weeks.

• NY-Sen, NY-Gov (pdf): Marist has a slew of data out of New York, all of it good for the Dems. Kirsten Gillibrand breaks 50% against all of her GOP contenders, leading Joe DioGuardi 50-30, Bruce Blakeman 52-28, and David Malpass 52-28. DioGuardi leads the GOP primary at 31, to 13 for Blakeman and 12 for Malpass. Chuck Schumer also has little trouble with his one announced opponent, Jay Townsend; he leads 66-27. On the gubernatorial side, Andrew Cuomo wins just as convincingly. He leads Rick Lazio 65-25, Steve Levy 63-25, and Carl Paladino 67-22.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): Today’s Muhlenberg tracker sustains the Joe Sestak lead over Arlen Specter, at 47-43. In the gubernatorial race, Anthony Williams seems to be emerging as the closest rival to Dan Onorato; Onorato still has a big edge, though, leading Williams 33-15 with Joe Hoeffel at 10 and Jack Wagner at 9. Word is that Franklin & Marshall will also have a poll out tomorrow giving Sestak the edge. Barack Obama appears in the newest TV ad on Specter’s behalf, but it sounds less likely that Obama, always careful about overextending his political capital, will be actually showing up to campaign for Specter. Finally, if you haven’t already, it’s worth a look at Chris Bowers‘ analysis of Specter vs. Sestak on general election electability (as you might expect, it boils down to Specter being universally-known and Sestak having the upside).

• UT-Sen: Bob Bennett still isn’t ruling out a write-in candidacy in November, and will continue to weigh his options. Bob, for what it’s worth, everyone here at SSP agrees that a write-in candidacy would be pure awesome.

• WA-Sen: Some more investment sleaze-by-association for Dino Rossi. He was one of the initial investors who established the Eastside Commercial Bank in 2001, a bank that’s currently teetering on the edge after the FDIC required it to raise another $3 million in the wake unsound lending practices. He didn’t have any managerial control over the bank, but it’s one more paper cut for Rossi.

• CT-Gov: Former Stamford mayor Dan Malloy announced his running mate choice today: state Comptroller Nancy Wyman. Rival Ned Lamont chose Simsbury First Selectwoman Mary Glassman (Malloy’s 2006 running mate) last week.

• OR-Gov, OR-Sen: SurveyUSA is out with a whole new gubernatorial primary poll (the one that got released last week was taken nearly a month ago; I’m not sure what the delay was about). Although the number of undecideds is dropping, the margins between the candidates is staying pretty much the same. For the Dems, John Kitzhaber is leading Bill Bradbury 59-25. On the GOP side, Chris Dudley leads Allen Alley 42-24 (while hopeless third and fourth wheels John Lim and Bill Sizemore are at 8 each). They also threw in Senate primary numbers, finding that Ron Wyden is pulling in 80% against some nobodies on the Dem side while the GOP side is a big question mark. Law professor Jim Huffman (the establishment’s choice to be sacrificial lamb) is at 20, while some dude Tom Stutzman isn’t that far behind at 13.

• FL-02: Here’s a race that wasn’t on anyone’s competitive list that’s suddenly bursting into view. An NRCC internal poll (by the Tarrance Group) that’s from mid-April but just got leaked to Chris Cillizza has no-name funeral home director Steve Southerland leading Rep. Allen Boyd, and not just squeaking it out, but up by a 52-37 margin. Boyd has a huge cash edge ($1.5 mil to Southerland’s $157K), although he’ll need to spend some first fighting a primary challenge against Al Lawson.

• HI-01: With news that the DCCC is pulling out, and polls giving a small but consistent edge to Charles Djou in the f’d-up jungle-style special election, SSP is moving our rating of this race to “Leans Republican” from “Tossup.”

• MI-01: Amidst all the hullaballoo over Connie Saltonstall’s dropout yesterday (wait, what’s the opposite of “hullaballoo?” how about “yawning?”), we missed another detail in the Democratic primary to succeed Bart Stupak: so too did Matt Gillard. That leaves state Rep. Gary McDowell as the only candidate left in the field, on this the last day of Michigan filings. That was easy.

• MN-06: We at SSP love us some taxes, but we’re also big fans of a certain something called “optics,” and state Senate DFLers created a mammoth screwup that, appearance-wise, really harms Taryl Clark’s chances against Michele Bachmann. Clark got stuck holding the Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky bag after she wound up casting the deciding vote in favor of a deficit-closing package that includes an income tax increase, after the vote was held open for her for 20 minutes deadlocked at 33-33. It may be a moot point as Tim Pawlenty has promised to veto, but still… (In her defense, Clark says she was delayed by a phone call with her son’s doctor.)

• NJ-03: Jon Runyan is getting accused of a “Rose Garden” strategy of campaigning in the GOP primary, sitting still and trading on his inevitability instead of, y’know, actually going out and debating with conservative opponent Justin Murphy. The John Adler camp is noticing too, and is out with their own “Where’s Jon?” video.

• RI-01: There’s a third contender in the Democratic primary to take over the 1st from retiring Rep. Patrick Kennedy. State Rep. David Segal is getting into the race, joining Providence mayor David Cicilline and former state Dem party chair William Lynch.

• WA-03: You keep hearing from Beltway media that state Rep. Jaime Herrera is the person to beat in the GOP primary for this open seat, but other than ex-Sen. Slade Gorton and her ex-boss, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers, I’m hard-pressed to think of any endorsements of consequence for her. David Castillo has lined up most of the local support within the 3rd, and now he got endorsements from a variety of local leaders in the evangelical community, including Joe Fuiten (probably the most prominent Christian right leader in Washington) and ex-Rep. Randy Tate (who briefly led the national Christian Coalition after getting bounced out of office).

• WI-07: Here’s another primary in the north woods where the Dems seem to have coalesced and it’s all over but the shouting. At the same time as state Sen. Julie Lassa was officially announcing that she’d run to succeed retiring Rep. David Obey, fellow state Sens. Russ Decker and Pat Kreitlow announced they wouldn’t run. Perhaps making the difference: Lassa’s seat isn’t up for re-election this year, so it’s a freebie for her, while Decker and Kreitlow’s seats are up. With Dems holding an 18-15 margin in the Senate and the GOP on the offensive, it’s the safe choice not to open up seats in the Senate too.

• NRSC: Hmmm, speaking of optics, the NRSC is hosting an “intimate” (Hotline’s words; I don’t know if that’s how the NRSC billed it) fundraiser with the under-investigation John Ensign as host. No word yet on whether anyone plans to show up.

• DE-AG: Best wishes for a quick recovery to Beau Biden, who’s currently hospitalized today after a minor stroke. The 41-year-old Biden, who passed on a Senate race this year, is expected to fully recover.

KY-Sen: Wendell Ford, the Democrat who held this seat before retiring Sen. Jim Bunning, endorsed AG Jack Conway. Conway is running a TV ad touting the endorsement, but no word (sigh) on the size of the buy. Meanwhile, Rand Paul is sticking both thumbs in the eye of the Kentucky GOP establishment: He says he’s not sure if he’ll support Mitch McConnell as Republican Senate leader. Given that McConnell has done everything in his power to flush Paul down the toilet, this isn’t so shocking, but it is extra-juicy.

NY-Sen-B, NY-14: The Working Families Party endorsed both Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Carolyn Maloney. NY-14 wannabe Reshma Saujani whinged about the “establishment endorsing the incumbent,” which is pretty rich, given that she herself signed a letter last summer asking Maloney not to challenge Gillibrand. Not too surprising, though, given that Saujani claimed last week she hasn’t “issue-tested or poll-tested” – even though she conducted a $50,000 focus group earlier this Spring.

MI-Gov, MI-12: Troy businessman David Kniffen’s gubernatorial signature drive fell short, so he’s decided instead to run against Rep. Sandy Levin in this D+12 district.

CA-36: Blue America PAC has thrown down a $13K independent expenditure on behalf of Marcy Winograd, who is challenging Dem Rep. Jane Harman in the primary.

FL-22: After attacking Marco Rubio for going ever-so-slightly wobbly on Arizona’s new immigration law, Allen West has now turned his fire on Jeb Bush. Even if this guy somehow wins, he’s going to have a hard time staying on anyone’s good side.

HI-01: Another one of those polls with too many significant digits: An outfit I hadn’t previously heard of, Aloha Vote (which is a subsidiary of a Mass. consulting shop called Merriman River Group), has Charles Djou at “39.5”, with Colleen Hanabusa and Ed Case at “25.5” apiece. Half of the sample had already voted, and among that group, Djou was at 45%.

IA-01: Some Dude Mike LaCoste is dropping out of the GOP primary less than a month before election day. A couple of Republicans remain in the race against Rep. Bruce Braley, but really, the GOP has wound up with stems and seeds here.

NC-08: Three Republicans who failed to make the runoff in the race to challenge Rep. Larry Kissell – Hal Jordan, Lou Huddleston, and Darrell Day – all endorsed rival Harold Johnson today, over crackpot freakazoid Tim D’Annunzio. What’s more, Johnson is in DC today and tomorrow to meet with NRCC chief Pete Sessions and other key GOP honchos. Dems just have to hope that D’Annunzio, who’s already plowed a million of his own into his campaign, keeps spending like an RNC official at a bondage club.

NY-01: A nice score for Rep. Tim Bishop: Bill Clinton is doing a $1000-a-head fundraiser for him in NYC on June 2nd.

NY-13: Though he’s repeatedly denied his interest, GOP ex-Rep. Vito Fossella – best known for a drunken driving arrest and fathering a child with a woman other than his wife – is supposedly interested in making a comeback attempt. In other words, he’s got perfect Republican values. Fossella would have to make a decision by next month, when nominating petitions must be circulated.

PA-12: Crikey – another quarter mil on paid media from the NRCC on this race. You can see the new TV ad, which hits Pelosi, here.

WI-07: It looks like Dems are quickly rallying around state Sen. Julie Lassa to fill retiring Rep. Dave Obey’s considerable shoes. Lassa has held office since 1998, first as a state representative, then as a state senator since 2003. She would not have to give up her current office to run for Obey’s seat. Meanwhile, Wausau attorney Christine Bremer says she won’t run, while state Rep. Donna Siedel sounds like she’s still considering it (albeit tepidly).

The DCCC has been telegraphing this for most of a week (ever since Colleen Hanabusa’s press conference to announce that she wasn’t dropping out), but it’s official today:

The DCCC is pulling out of the race to replace ex-Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), effectively ceding the heavily Dem seat to the GOP as intra-party feuding splits the vote.

“The DCCC will not be investing additional resources in the HI-01 (Abercrombie-open) special election. Local Democrats were unable to work out their differences,” DCCC communications director Jennifer Crider said in an emailed statement. “The DCCC will save the resources we would have invested in the Hawaii special election this month for the general election in November.”

It had been at least a week since the Dems invested any money in this race, but they’d spent $314K on anti-Charles Djou advertising (as well as sending around a Barack Obama robocall advising a vote “for a Democrat”). With about one in five (60K out of 317K) of the election’s mail-in ballots already returned (the deadline is May 22 for the all-mail election), the die is already looking pretty well cast, meaning the outcome could be set even with a last-minute NY-23 bombshell where one candidate bails out.

• CA-Sen: Hell hath no fury like a teabagger scorned, and now the swarm is turning its anger on the queen bee. Even Sarah Palin’s popularity apparently has limits, as she’s getting all sorts of blowback (at her Facebook page, mostly) from California’s right-wingers upset over her endorsement of corporate GOPer Carly Fiorina instead of true believer Chuck DeVore.

• KY-Sen: Research 2000, on behalf of various local news outlets, polled the primaries in Kentucky, finding, in the Democratic field, Dan Mongiardo leading Jack Conway 39-32 (with 12 opting for one of the three minor candidates). On the GOP side, Rand Paul leads Trey Grayson 44-32. The same poll has perilously low approvals for Majority leader Mitch McConnell, down to 41/49. And guess who’s taking notice? Democratic state Auditor Crit Luallen — one of our commenters, nrimmer, reports that she’s sending out fundraising e-mails raising the possibility of a 2014 challenge.

Dan Mongiardo is also out with an internal poll, in the wake of the Conway camp releasing one with Conway in the lead. Mongo’s poll, taken by Garin Hart Yang, has him up 46-34 (although he can’t be psyched about the trendlines; his internal poll from February had him up 43-25). One other note from this race: an Iowa-based group, American Future Fund, is running an anti-Paul ad on TV. AFF claims to be about “free market views,” so I’m not sure what their beef with Paul is (you don’t get much more free market than that), but at any rate, their ad features a chiming cuckoo clock in it, which nicely underscores Paul’s, um, cuckoo-ness.

• NC-Sen: Third-place finisher Kenneth Lewis finds himself in something of the kingmaker’s seat, after preventing Elaine Marshall or Cal Cunningham from avoiding a runoff in the Democratic primary. Lewis says he’s not sure who he’ll endorse or even if he will endorse, but both camps are, naturally, reaching out to him and his supporters (including Mel Watt and Harvey Gantt).

• PA-Sen/PA-Gov (pdf): There’s clearly a lot of day-to-day volatility in the Muhlenberg/Morning Call daily tracker of the Dem primaries, but you can’t deny this is a blockbuster result: Joe Sestak has drawn even with Arlen Specter for the first time, as they tie at 43-all today. Maybe that ad with all those purdy pictures of him with George Bush and Sarah Palin is having the desired effect? On the gubernatorial side, Dan Onorato is at 35, Joe Hoeffel at 11, Anthony Williams at 10, and Jack Wagner at 8.

• UT-Sen: Tomorrow may well be the end of the line for Bob Bennett, the three-term Senator from Utah. He’s poised to get kicked to the curb at tomorrow’s nominating convention by his state’s far-right activist base for the crime of actually trying to legislate. Bennett’s getting some last-minute hits from robocalls from the Gun Owners of America, but that’s pretty tame compared with some of the other over-the-top attacks being leveled at other candidates (like Mike Lee as Hitler?). Michael Steele, wary of treading on the base’s toes in a no-win situation, has announced his staying neutral in the nominating process.

• MA-Gov: Looks like you don’t want to get on Tim Cahill’s bad side (or maybe more accurately, on the bad side of media consultant John Weaver, who’s also working on the oddball campaigns of Rick Snyder in Michigan and Steve Levy in New York). After a hard hit from the RGA, the Cahill camp retaliated with a web video pegging RGA chair Haley Barbour as a Confederate sympathizer and corrupt lobbyist. The RGA fired back saying the Cahill camp had responded like “scalded apes” (strange metaphor, but it has a certain evocative charm).

• OR-Gov: That SurveyUSA poll that had Republican primary results that was leaked a few days ago is fully available now, and it also contains Democratic primary results. John Kitzhaber seems poised to roll over Bill Bradbury; he leads 54-16. (As reported earlier, Chris Dudley led on the GOP side, although only at 28%.)

• RI-Gov: The DGA is going on the offensive against independent Lincoln Chafee, seeing him (and certainly not Republican John Robitaille) as their main impediment to picking up the governor’s office. They’ve launched an anti-Chafee site… and here’s an indication of the candidates’ positioning in this scrambled race: they’re actually attacking Chafee from the right, focusing on Chafee’s love of taxes.

• HI-01: One candidate who isn’t running away from Barack Obama is Ed Case, who’s up with a new TV ad throwing his arms around the hometown favorite. “Only one candidate is strong enough to stand with the President: Ed Case!” intones the ad. Despite the White House’s behind-the-scenes finger-on-the-scale, though, Obama hasn’t officially come out in favor of Case.

• ID-01: I wonder what think tank the right-wing’s current fixation with the 17th Amendment recently bubbled up from? I thought it was a weird aberration when Steve Stivers started up about it, but now it’s an issue in the GOP primary in the 1st, where all of a sudden the two contestants, Raul Labrador and Vaughn Ward, are trying to out-Seventeenther each other. Has Frank Luntz actually tried running the idea through one of his focus groups of taking away people’s rights to vote for their Senators? Somehow I doubt it polls well.

• WATN?: Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Former Republican state Senate majority leader Joe Bruno just got sentenced to two years in federal prison for fraud and abuse of office. It’s worth noting, though, that the sentence was stayed until the SCOTUS can rule on the “honest services” issue that’s before it, so it could be a long time, if ever, before Bruno’s wearing stripes.

So it’s come to this:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is re-evaluating whether to continue to spend money in this month’s Hawaii special election, Chairman Chris Van Hollen told POLITICO Thursday. […]

Asked if the committee would continue to spend money in the 1st District special election, Van Hollen responded: “We’ll have to re-evaluate based on the situation. The Democrats haven’t been able to come together and resolve this issue. Right now, it’s extremely difficult. So right now, we’ll have to re-evaluate that.” […]

“I think you’ve got a very difficult situation. In that special election you’ve got three candidates – two of them Democrats,” said Van Hollen. “It’s very clear they’re splitting the vote. We’ve worked very hard to get that resolved, and unfortunately the Hawaii Democratic Party has not been able to sort that out. So that is what it is. All I can say about that is – regardless of what happens – right now, it’s extremely challenging, given the lineup. So it would be a different situation in November, obviously.”

It sounds like the DCCC is ready to kick the can on this race all the way to November, more or less letting the chips fall where they may for the special election on May 22nd. That’s a pretty huge development for a party that hasn’t lost one of their own seats in a special election in nearly a decade, but these are obviously exceptional circumstances.

Meanwhile, Independent Women’s Voice, a conservative 501 (c)(4) organization with ties to Lynne Cheney, is spending $200,000 on attack ads against Democrat Ed Case during the home stretch.

Uh, everything’s under control. Situation normal:

State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa said today that she would not drop out of the special election for Congress.

“I’m in this race until the end, and I’m in this race to win,” Hanabusa said at a news conference at her campaign headquarters off Ward Avenue.

How are things with you?

• NH-Sen: I’m still hazy on the backstory here, but it’s never a good sign when Politico is running big headlines titled “Fraud case complicates Ayotte bid.” New Hampshire’s Bureau of Securities Regulation director, Mark Connelly, just resigned his job to become a whistleblower, alleging a cover-up by the AG’s office and state banking commission in a fraud case where Financial Resources Mortgage Inc. defrauded New Hampshire investors out of at least $80 million. Connelly was pushing for charges against FRM as early as 2006; the AG in question, of course, was Kelly Ayotte, who resigned her post in mid-2009. Discovery in the matter may be complicated because all of Ayotte’s e-mail and calendars were wiped from her computer after she left the AG’s office.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): It looks like Muhlenberg College (on behalf of the Morning Call) is actually going to be doing a daily tracker on the Democratic primary races in the next two weeks as we count down to May 18. Today they find an even narrower gap in the suddenly-closer Arlen Specter/Joe Sestak race: Specter leads Sestak 46-42. Dan Onorato’s numbers in the gubernatorial race aren’t quite as showy, but still dominant: he’s at 36, with Anthony Williams at 9, Joe Hoeffel at 8, and Jack Wagner at 8. Quinnipiac also has similar numbers out today: they also have Specter leading Sestak by only single digits, at 47-39 (down from 53-32 a month ago). In the governor’s race, Qpac finds Onorato at 36, Hoeffel at 9, Wagner at 8, and Williams at 8. The DSCC seems to be sensing some trouble here for their preferred candidate, and they’re dipping into their treasury to help Specter out: the DSCC chipped in for $300K in Specter’s last $407K TV ad buy. Sestak just kicked off TV advertising two weeks ago but is going all in, outspending Specter in the last two weeks, which obviously coincides with his late surge.

• AZ-Gov: That Behavior Research Center poll of AZ-Sen from a few weeks ago contained a Republican gubernatorial primary question as well. Their findings mirror the other most recent polls of the primary: vulnerable incumbent Jan Brewer strengthened her hand among GOP primary voters by signing Arizona’s immigration law into effect. She’s at 22, not a lock but well ahead of any opposition: Owen Buz Mills is at 13, Dean Martin is at 10, and John Munger is at 4. (If your calculator isn’t handy, that leaves 51% undecided.)

• NH-Gov (pdf): Univ. of New Hampshire is out with another look at New Hampshire’s gubernatorial race, where Democratic incumbent John Lynch is well in control but still facing a tougher race than the last few times. They find Lynch leads GOP challenger John Stephen 49-32, little changed from the February poll where Lynch led 50-30.

• WI-Gov: Ex-Rep. Mark Neumann is very much the underdog in the Republican primary in the gubernatorial race (as the DC and local establishments have both embraced Milwaukee Co. Executive Scott Walker instead). But he added a hard-right endorsement to his trophy cabinet today; he got the nod from Tom Coburn.

• GA-08: In a clear sign that state Rep. Austin Scott (who recently bailed out of a long-shot gubernatorial campaign) is the man to beat in the GOP primary in the 8th, Angela Hicks got out of the race, saying she didn’t want to hurt Scott’s chances. Local businesswoman Hicks seemed to be considered the frontrunner among the GOPers prior to Scott’s entry, more by virtue of being the least weak rather than the strongest.

• HI-01: Barack Obama recorded a robocall for Democratic voters in his hometown district. Despite reports that the White House is joining the DCCC is putting a finger on the scale in favor of Ed Case rather than Colleen Hanabusa in the screwy special election, Obama didn’t name names; he simply urged a vote for “a Democrat.”

• NH-02: The largely forgotten state Rep. John DeJoie, the third wheel in the Democratic primary to replace Paul Hodes, cut short his bid today. Despite generally being regarded as from the progressive side of the ledger, DeJoie threw his support to Katrina Swett. DeJoie’s departure, on the balance, may help Ann McLane Kuster, though, by not splitting the progressive vote.

• PA-12: I have no idea whether this is good strategy or not, but Mark Critz, hoping to replace former boss John Murtha, is clinging hard to Murtha’s legacy in his new TV ad, seeming to put a lot of faith in polling data showing Murtha still a very popular figure in the district. Critz blasts back at Tim Burns for his own TV spots focusing on Murtha’s ethical woes, telling Burns ungrammatically to stop attacking “someone not there to defend themselves.” Meanwhile, the fight’s on for Murtha’s money: $7K from Murtha’s PAC found its way into Democratic pockets (including $5K for Critz), but the bulk of Murtha’s leftover money is headed for a charitable foundation established by his widow.

• CA-St. Sen.: For fans of legislative special elections, it looks like the marquee event between now and November will be the fight for California’s SD-15, a Dem-leaning central coast district vacated by Republican now-Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado. Republican Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee just got in the race, giving the GOP a solid contender to try and hold the seat as Dems try to push closer to the 2/3s mark in the Senate; he’ll face off against Democratic ex-Assemblyman John Laird in the June 22 election. (If neither candidate breaks 50%, there’ll be an Aug. 17 runoff.)

• Redistricting: Lots of redistricting-related action this week, going in two different directions. In Florida, the GOP-held legislature placed a redistricting measure on the November ballot that partially contradicts two citizen initiatives on the ballot that would prevent the legislature from drawing maps that favor one political party. The new proposal would still allow the legislature to take “communities of interest” into consideration when drawing maps. In Illinois, though, two attempts to change redistricting both failed, when the legislature couldn’t muster the votes to put it on the November ballot. Illinois’s arcane methods (which involve breaking ties by pulling a name out of a hat) will apparently still apply for the 2012 redistricting round.

• Deutschland: Our man in Cologne, SSPer micha.1976 has a hilarious and remarkable find from the streets of Germany. Remember the impeach-Obama Larouchie, Kesha Rogers, who won the Democratic nomination in TX-22? Her image is now being used on posters for a like-minded LaRouchie candidate in Germany! (J)

An all-House digest today – and it’s an hour earlier than usual! Remember, today is primary day in IN, NC & OH, so be sure to check out SSP’s handy election guide.

AL-07: Attorney Terri Sewell, who is probably the candidate ideologically closest to outgoing Rep. Artur Davis, is going up with a TV ad buy in Montgomery and Birmingham which will stay up through the primary (which is a month from now). No word on the size of the buy, though.

CT-02: Republicans are courting former television news anchor Janet Peckinpaugh to run against Rep. Joe Courtney, who has luckily skated by without much in the way of opposition this cycle. Peckinpaugh says she’s considering it. She was most recently seen shilling for a now-defunct mortgage company in deceptive, TV news-like ads, clearly trading on her reputation as a newsreader. The company, Lend America, shut down in December after it was placed under federal investigation.

FL-12: After screwing up the establishment’s efforts to clear the GOP primary field for ex-state Rep. Dennis Ross by jumping into the race, Polk County Comm’r Randy Wilkinson is bidding adieu to the Republican Party. Instead, he’s going to run as the Tea Party candidate (there’s an actual Tea Party in Florida, just like the Whigs). Wilkinson has raised very little money – his FEC reports are a mess, and he seems to like filing them in hand-written form, so he doesn’t even appear in their electronic database.

FL-21: What a bummer – zero Dems filed in the open 21st CD, which means that Mario Diaz-Balart will automatically inherit his brother Lincoln’s seat. I can’t really blame folks too much, though, as Florida has especially onerous ballot access requirements. If you don’t petition on, you have to pay a filing fee, which is an insane $10,000+.

HI-01: The DCCC threw down another $70K for negative ads against Charles Djou.

ID-01, OH-15: We mentioned the other day that GOPer Steve Stivers, busy with a rematch against Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy in OH-15, said he favors repealing the 17th amendment – the one which gives citizens the right to vote for their senators (rather than having them be appointed by state legislatures). Well, after taking a lot of much-deserved heat, he’s backed off that fantasy. But his would-be colleague, Vaughn Ward, is taking up the mantle. Ward, running against Rep. Walt Minnick in ID-01, offered a rationale worthy of Miss Teen South Carolina, saying “When you look at how come state’s rights have been so abrogated, it’s because of things like the 17th Amendment that has taken away those rights from our states.” Yuh huh. Exactly.

IL-08: Just click the link and read about the greatest political implosion of the entire cycle. (Thankfully, it’s the bad guys.) More here, here, and here.

KS-03: Along with Joe Garcia (see yesterday’s morning digest), the DCCC added another candidate to their Red to Blue list, Stephene Moore, who is the wife of retiring Rep. Dennis Moore.

MA-10: State Rep. Jeff Perry, running for Bill Delahunt’s open seat, scored an endorsement from ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney. Perry, who was also previously endorsed by Sen. Scott Brown, has a primary against ex-state Treasurer Joe Malone. Malone has some baggage-related cooties, which probably explains Perry’s run of good fortune.

MD-01 (PDF): Public Opinion Strategies (R) for Americans for Prosperity (R) (4/25-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Frank Kratovil (D-inc): 36

Andy Harris (R): 39

Richard Davis (L): 6

Other: 1

Undecided: 18

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Two things about this poll: First off, in contravention of appropriate practice, POS asked all kinds of axe-grindy issue questions (“Gov. O’Malley raised taxes by $1.3 billion”) before getting to the horserace question. This does damage to POS’s reputation as a supposedly respectable pollster. Secondly, the weird thing is that Harris switched pollsters – and his last survey, from the Tarrance Group back in November, had him up by a whopping 52-39. While it’s not a proper trendline, you gotta wonder – is Harris slipping? Or is he getting snowed by his various pollsters? (Update: D’oh! Our mistake — this poll was not done for Harris, but actually the right-wing consortium of douches known as the Americans for Prosperity.)

MI-01: Dem state Rep. Joel Sheltrown, who got into the race to replace Bart Stupak just a few weeks ago, is bowing out.

MI-09: Self-funder Gene Goodman is dropping out of the race to take on Rep. Gary Peters, despite having loaned his campaign $450K. That leaves ex-state Rep. Andrew “Rocky” Raczkowski and former Oakland County GOP Chair Paul Welday in the running, both of whom have had unimpressive fundraising – and in fact, Rocky is yet another victim (albeit a more minor one) of Base Connect.

Meanwhile, we missed a Welday internal poll from a couple of weeks ago (taken by Mitchell Research & Communications), which had Peters leading by just 44-43. The poll sampled just 300 LVs, though, and according to the Hotline, was in the field at two discontiguous times. Peters’ camp attacked the poll’s sample composition, but Steve Mitchell says he used the same methodology as he did in September of 2008, when (according to the article), ” he declared Peters was going to defeat Joe Knollenberg.” Is this hindsight proving to be 20/20? Mitchell’s poll from back then had the race tied.

NY-13: Global Strategy Group (D) for Mike McMahon (4/7-11, likely voters, no trendlines):

Mike McMahon (D-inc): 56

Mike Allegretti (R): 24

Undecided: 20

Mike McMahon (D-inc): 56

Mike Grimm (R): 23

Undecided: 21

(MoE: ±4.9%)

OH-09: Dem Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who is not really on anyone’s radar in terms of having a competitive race, is nonetheless facing a moneybags challenger. Former Food Town CEO Rich Iott just dumped $319,000 into his campaign. Kaptur has over a million on hand, and the 9th CD voted 62% for Obama and 58% for Kerry.

PA-12: Anzalone-Liszt (D) for the DCCC (4/27-29, likely voters, no trendlines):

Mark Critz (D): 43

Tim Burns (R): 41

(MoE: ±4.9%)

TN-08: A couple of disgusting low-lifes running for TN-08, Ron Kirkland and Randy Smith, had this delightful exchange at a candidate forum:

Kirkland, of Jackson, referred to his Army training during the Vietnam War and said: “I can tell you if there were any homosexuals in that group, they were taken care of in ways I can’t describe to you.”

Smith, a chef from Mercer who served in the Navy during the Gulf War, said: “I definitely wouldn’t want to share a shower with a homosexual. We took care of that kind of stuff, just like (Kirkland) said.”

These sick bastards have serious issues.

SD-AL: Heh – GOP state Rep. Kristi Noem has a biographical spot up on the air, talking about her return to her family farm after her father’s death. The only problem is that she shot the ad in Texas – which became apparent given that the backdrop (a grove of leafy green trees) is something you can’t really find in North South Dakota this time of year. Reminds me of when Bob Schaffer ran an ad pretending that Alaska’s Mount McKinley was actually Colorado’s famous Pikes Peak while running for CO-Sen in 2008.

Ben Smith reports that senior White House officials and DCCC staffers are circulating new polling numbers showing Ed Case in a much better position than Colleen Hanabusa in the May 22nd special election to fill the seat of ex-Rep. Neil Abercrombie:

The White House and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee see former Rep. Ed Case as a stronger candidate than State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa in a race that has divided Democrats. Hanabusa has the support of much of the state’s establishment, including both senators and key labor unions. […]

Harstad’s poll is the latest weapon in intense efforts to push Hanabusa out of the race, or at least move some of her institutional supporters to Case’s side.

“It is clear from this data — as from all the public polling – that Ed Case is the best chance that our party has of holding on to that seat,” said a senior White House official. “Given where Hanabusa is in al of this research, one has to be concerned about what the likely out come is if the dynamic remains unchanged.”

There are “a lot of conversations” under way between Washington Democrats and Hanabusa’s key supporters, the official said, though the official declined to make the White House’s goal explicit.

Am I the only one tired of these scaredy-cat blind quotes from anonymous “senior White House officials”? I hope someone asks Gibbs about this at his next presser. In any event, based on this memo, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the DCCC go all in for Ed Case pretty soon.

Harstad Research for the DCCC (4/26-28, likely voters):

Charles Djou (R): 36

Ed Case (D): 34

Colleen Hanabusa (D): 20

Undecided: 13

(MoE: ±4.4%)

The full polling memo is available below the jump.

AR-Sen: Former President and governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton cut two radio ads on behalf of Blanche Lincoln. One of them highlights Lincoln’s alleged support for Clinton’s economic agenda back in the 1990s – not an issue likely to resonate, especially in today’s economic climate.

FL-Sen: A Public Opinion Strategies poll for Charlie Crist, taken before he left the GOP primary, had him at 36, Marco Rubio at 28, and Kendrick Meek at 23. A McLaughlin & Associates poll (taken for “the Associated Industries of Florida,” also before the switcheroo) had Crist up as well, 33C-29R-15M. Meanwhile, The Buzz takes a look at which boldfaced names showed up to Crist’s first fundraiser following his political party reassignment surgery.

On the Dem side, zillionaire mortgage-shorting mogul Jeff Greene says he’ll “spend whatever it takes” to win his primary against Rep. Kendrick Meek. That must be music to Joe Trippi’s ears. Greene is unelectable but thanks to his monstrous bankroll, he can do a lot of harm to Democratic chances in this race. Trippi is aiding and abetting this bullshit, and will profit handsomely.

NY-Sen-B: Chris Dodd, in the midst of working on financial regulation reform, says he won’t attend a Wall Street-sponsored fundraiser on behalf of Kirsten Gillibrand in NYC tonight.

UT-Sen: A poignant poll for Bob Bennett: While Republican delegates to the state convention despise him (he’s in third place with just 16%), rank-and-file Republican voters like him much more (first place, 39%). In other states, the GOP would have cause for concern, since a convention process like this is clearly aimed at producing the most conservative candidate imaginable. But in Utah, it probably won’t matter. Though if Bennett gets toppled, I wonder if other nervous establishment officials might consider eliminating the convention and replacing it with an ordinary primary.

MI-Gov: Thank god: Geoffrey Feiger, Jack Kevorkian’s attorney and the Dems’ disastrous 1998 gubernatorial nominee, says he won’t run again. Now all we have to worry about is Andy Dillon.

HI-Gov, HI-01: Hawaii’s legislature unexpectedly passed a civil unions bill on the last day of the session, which now goes to Gov. Linda Lingle (she has until July 6th to decide whether to sign the bill into law or veto it). Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona (R), running to succeed Lingle, wants her to veto it. Ex-Rep. Neil Abercrombie is strongly in favor of the bill (and gay marriage), while his Democratic primary opponent, Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, opposes gay marriage but hasn’t expressed an opinion on the current bill.

This may also have repercussions in the HI-01 race, where state Sen. President Colleen Hanabusa may have pushed the bill through in an attempt to repair relations with the LGBT community after the same bill got scuttled in January. Hanabusa says she doesn’t support gay marriage, though, while Democratic rival Ed Case does. Republican Charles Djou opposes the measure.

FL-05: Unsurprisingly, local Republicans are grumbling about Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite’s filing-deadline handoff to Sherriff Ted Richard Nugent, including state Sen. Mike Fasano, who apparently has had his eye on this seat for some time. You have to wonder if this is the kind of thing which will taint Nugent and make him vulnerable to a primary challenge next cycle. Also among the complainers, interestingly, is state Sen. Paula Dockery, whose current district overlaps with the 5th CD. Dockery’s gotten nowhere in her FL-Gov primary against AG Bill McCollum, so you have to wonder if she isn’t gnashing her teeth about a lost opportunity here.

FL-25: Joe Garcia’s candidacy is a rare bright spot for Dems in this otherwise putrid cycle. Now the DCCC, which lobbied heavily for him to get into the race, has given Garcia their official stamp of approval, adding him to their Red to Blue list once again.

GA-09: Dems never had a chance in the special election in this ruby red district, but you gotta figure it’s almost always better to actually have a Democrat on the ballot rather than not. We had a candidate here, pastor Mike Freeman, but he dropped out a couple of weeks ago. Now, though, he says he’s back in the race, but his website is offline.

IN-08: Democratic state Rep. Trent Van Haaften, running to fill Brad Ellsworth’s open seat, has been talking to local teabaggers to see if they might support him. Yeah, I’m in as much disbelief as you are. But, as is always the case, there’s a lot of hostility between the tea partiers and the establishment, and at least one ‘bagger says they want to “teach the machine a lesson.”

PA-12: Freedom’s Defense Fund, an arm of the incredibly dodgy Base Connect (formerly BMW Direct) has made a $20K “independent” expenditure on behalf of Bill Russell, who is challenging Tim Burns in the GOP primary. (Recall that there’s both a special election and a primary on the same day.) FDF is supposedly distinct from Base Connect, but given that they share the same office (according to TPM), the idea that their expenditures are actually “independent” is a real stretch.

More importantly, the NRCC just threw down another quarter million bucks on behalf of Burns, bringing their total spending on this race to over $725K. The DCCC has yet to respond to this latest blast.

DCCC: The DCCC is about to begin its biennial rite of splitting off its independent expenditure arm. Thanks to stupid federal laws against “co-ordination,” the DCCC staffers who make spending decisions about IEs can’t be in contact with the rest of the D-Trip, because those folks are in contact with individual campaigns. This is senseless. Anyhow, political director Robby Mook will head up the IE arm, and John Lapp (who once ran this shop himself) will serve as a “senior advisor.” Incumbent retention director Jennifer Pihlaja will replace Mook as PD of DCCC proper (and keep her current title).