Tag: ID-01

• CO-Sen: Politico’s Dave Catanese has an interesting profile on Ken Buck, who’s looking likelier and likelier to wind up as the GOP’s nominee in the Colorado Senate race. With a litany of fringy comments on eliminating Social Security, student loans, and the Dept. of Education, and on supporting “birther” legislation, the question is whether he’s poised to complete the troika of candidates (along with Rand Paul and Sharron Angle) whose very over-the-topness allows the GOP to pull defeat from the jaws of victory. Buck tells Politico that he “doesn’t recall” making some of those statements, and is seeking to walk back some of the most controversial. Not coincidentally, the US Chamber of Commerce just announced today that it’s backing Jane Norton in the primary, specifically citing electability and even taking an ad hominem swipe at Buck backer Jim DeMint.

• IA-Sen: Roxanne Conlin got the support of EMILY’s List last Friday. Conlin has her own money, but to make any headway against Chuck Grassley, she’ll need every penny she can round up.

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias has been subpoenaed to testify in Rod Blagojevich’s corruption trial (although it’s unclear whether he’ll actually ever have to take the stand). While there isn’t any suggestion that Giannoulias has done anything wrong, any mass-mediated association at all with the toxic Blagojevich isn’t good for Giannoulias; if nothing else, it might remove the local media’s target off Mark Kirk’s back, where it’s been squarely located for the last few weeks. The Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet is still keeping the pressure on Kirk, though, at least for now; her latest column excoriates Kirk for his non-disclosure and secretiveness, which has been a constant throughout his campaign even before his house of cards started falling down.

• MO-Sen: Even if I were a Republican I can’t imagine wanting to be seen in the same place as Karl Rove, but Roy Blunt — about as transparently power-hungry a member of the GOP Beltway establishment as can be — has always seemed strangely unconcerned about the optics of what all he does. Rove is hosting two fundraisers today for Blunt in the Show Me State, in St. Charles and Springfield.

• SC-Sen: Although it was looking like the Alvin Greene story was starting to go away, with the state Democrats’ decision not to challenge his primary victory and the state election board’s decision not to investigate, the story may get a few more chapters. The state ethics and disclosure commission and the state’s 5th circuit solicitor, instead, will get involved; they’re going to look into whether any laws were broken in his financial disclosures, and they may subpoena bank records to find out. At issue, of course, is where Greene came up with the $10K to pay his filing fee; if nothing else, if he had $10K sitting around, he shouldn’t have qualified for a public defender because of indigence. Perhaps not coincidentally, it’s been announced that Greene is no longer being represented by the 5th circuit’s public defender in his upcoming trial on obscenity charges.

• WA-Sen: Dino Rossi won’t be doing any more get-rich-quick real estate seminars in the midst of his Senate campaign. And here’s the weird part… it wasn’t because of his own decision, because of the terrible PR that’s likely to result. Instead, it was the decision of the seminar’s organizers, who called off the last seminar in the series this week. They were worried about how Rossi’s presence made them look bad, in terms of politicizing their ostensibly agenda-free program.

• FL-Gov: Does some sort of critical mass result when two of the most unlikeable Republicans — not in terms of policy, just in terms of purely personal characteristics — get together in one place? Newt Gingrich just endorsed Bill McCollum. Meanwhile, Bud Chiles has been enduring a lot of pressure from Democratic friends and well-wishers to get the heck out of his indie bid and not risk being a spoiler, but he’s standing pat for now.

• GA-Gov: Here’s some bad news for Dems in Georgia: weirdo teabagging millionaire Ray Boyd says he won’t follow through on his plans to run a $2 million independent campaign for governor. He was having trouble gathering the requisite signatures, and decided not to throw good money after bad. (Recall that he spent a few days in the GOP primary field before storming out, unwilling to sign the party’s “loyalty oath.”) With Boyd poised to draw a few percent off the electorate’s right flank, his presence would have been a big boost to Roy Barnes in his gubernatorial comeback attempt.

• MA-Gov: The Boston Globe, via Univ. of New Hampshire, has a new poll of the Governor’s race; while Deval Patrick has a significant lead, the poll seems to be good news for Republican Charlie Baker, and moreover the RGA, as it seems to vindicate their strategy of hitting out first at independent candidate Tim Cahill to try to make it a two-man race. The GOP’s ad blitz designed at wiping out Cahill seems to have taken him down a few pegs, as UNH sees the race at 38 Patrick, 31 Baker, 9 for Cahill, and 2 for Green candidate Jill Stein. (The previous UNH poll, from January against the backdrop of the MA-Sen election, was 30 Patrick, 23 Cahill, 19 Baker.) One other intriguing tidbit that’s gotten a lot of play today: for now, Scott Brown is the most popular political figure in the state, with a 52/18 approval, suggesting that unseating His Accidency in 2012 won’t be the slam dunk that many are predicting.

• MD-Gov: It was the last day for Bob Ehrlich’s talk radio show on Saturday. Ehrlich will be officially filing to run for Governor before the July 6 deadline. Of course, he’s been saying he’s a candidate for months now, but has held off on the official filing to keep on the air as long as possible to avoid prohibitions against that sort of illegal in-kind contribution to his campaign.

• MI-Gov: Rep. Peter Hoekstra has been seemingly losing a lot of endorsement battles in the last few weeks, but he pocketed a few helpful nods. One is from right-wing kingmaker Jim DeMint, who stumped with Hoekstra on Friday. The other is from the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, which gave a split endorsement to local boy Hoekstra and Mike Bouchard. (The statewide Chamber has already endorsed Mike Cox in the GOP primary.) GRACC also endorsed Steve Heacock in the GOP primary in Vern Ehlers’ MI-03, and Bill Huizenga in the GOP primary in Hoekstra’s MI-02.

• AL-02: Rick Barber seems to be reveling in his viral video celebrity, rolling out an even more feverish ad involving his hallucinations about the Founding Fathers and various other liberty-related heroes. Today’s ad includes a conversation with Zombie Lincoln, who compares health care reform to slavery.

• ID-01: Here’s more evidence that the ID-01 Republican primary really was a win-win situation for Democrats. State Rep. Raul Labrador is backing down from his withering critiques of his possible-future-boss John Boehner, upon the realization that he’ll need the NRCC’s financial help to get to Congress in the first place (seeing as how he currently has $35K to work with). Labrador had previously criticized Boehner by name for helping drive the Republican party into the ditch and letting the Dems take over in 2006.

• MS-01: Could Rep. Travis Childers rack up enough right-wing endorsements to save his bacon against Alan Nunnelee this cycle? Fresh off his NRA endorsement last week, now he’s gotten the endorsement of the National Right to Life.

• Polltopia: Daily Kos’s Steve Singiser is putting his freakishly comprehensive personal database of poll data to good use. He finds that there is, indeed, a wide disparity in internal polls released by the two parties compared with the previous few cycles, when Dems released more internals as they seemed to have more good news to report. (This cycle has a 3-to-1 GOP advantage; even in the fairly neutral year of 2004, it was about even between Dems and the GOP.) The caveat, however: most internals were released in a flurry in the last few months before the general elections, and this kind of early flooding-of-the-zone with internals is pretty unprecedented, so it’s still hard to interpret what it means.

• CT-Sen: You might recall that late last week Peter Schiff was looking unlikely to qualify for the ballot, not having enough signatures. Well, now it looks like he will qualify; I’m not sure whether the outcome was ever in doubt or he was gaming expectations. At any rate, he managed to get the signatures of 2% of all registered Republicans in the state, and the SoS announced his certification today. Also in the Nutmeg State, Joe Lieberman, who’d floated the idea of a Linda McMahon endorsement, now sounds like he’ll stay out of the Senate race entirely… given the choice between supporting arch-foe Richard Blumenthal or McMahon (who, given her unlikeliness of winning, isn’t a good use of political capital).

• IL-Sen: The optics on this just aren’t good for Mark Kirk: after an appearance at the Metropolitan Planning Council, Kirk literally ran out the door instead of taking questions from the media (who probably want to know about his military and teaching claims) and peeled out in his SUV. Alexi Giannoulias was also present; in a sign of how the worm has turned, instead of running out the door (as he probably would have several months ago) he lingered comfortably. Bad news on the cat fud front, though: Mike Niecestro, the rich guy who came out of nowhere last week to announce that he had 25,000 signatures and $1 million for an independent Senate bid to Kirk’s right, has had to back down. Turns out he didn’t have enough signatures after all. However, here’s some limited good news: Niecestro says he’s backing somebody by the name of Randy Stufflebeam, who’ll be running under the Constitution Party banner. Stufflebeam doesn’t seem to have Niecestro’s money, but he at least seems to have enough signatures to qualify. (Also on the filings front, pawnbroker-turned-LG-nominee-turned-laughingstock Scott Lee Cohen brought in 130K signatures for his independent IL-Gov bid, five times as many as he needs.)

• AL-Gov: The recount is over in Alabama, and as expected, Tim James’ $200K was very badly spent. The official tally: he now finished down by more than 200 votes, instead of the 167 he trailed by on Election Night. This means that Robert Bentley has clinched the slot in the GOP runoff against Bradley Byrne.

• IA-Gov: In what’s not a surprise, Terry Branstad has been on bended knee trying to get the backing of GOP primary rival Bob Vander Plaats, but it’s not going well. Vander Plaats reportedly requested the Lt. Governor spot, which Branstad isn’t going to do. However, this is a surprise to me: apparently Iowa doesn’t have a sore loser law, because now there’s talk of this leading to an independent run by Vander Plaats, which he’s now “seriously considering.” A kamikaze run by Vander Plaats that peels off 10% might actually give Chet Culver a route to staying in office.

• MI-Gov: Another EPIC-MRA poll of the Michigan governor’s race is out, this time only of the two primaries. On the Dem side, Andy Dillon has a 34-24 lead over Virg Bernero (leaving 42% undecided). On the GOP side, here’s a new development: Mike Cox is actually pulling into the lead, at 26. He leads Peter Hoekstra at 24, Rick Snyder at 20, Mike Bouchard at 16, and Tom George at 2, with 12 undecided. Is this just a blip, or is Cox really gaining some ground, having gotten some big conservative endorsements (Michigan Right to Life, the DeVos family) lately? Chances are it’s for real, now that there’s another round of attack ads out targeting Cox for allegedly helping cover up a party-out-of-bounds at then-Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s mansion. (The radio ad is paid for by the mysterious Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America, which the Cox camp seems to think is linked to Snyder.)

• NV-Gov: The Hatch Act is an obscure little piece of legislation, although it’s at the core of what the GOP thinks is illegal about the PA-Sen/Co-Sen “jobsgate.” Well, it might just bite the Republicans in the butt, too: there are increasing questions over whether Brian Sandoval, who stepped down from the federal district court in order to run for Governor, engaged in politicking with still on the bench. The RGA’s Haley Barbour and Nick Ayers reportedly heavily recruited Sandoval into the race; considering how little time passed between his resignation and his entry into the race, some of that recruiting must have happened while son the bench.

• SC-Gov: Mitt Romney really, really wants to see Nikki Haley as Governor (probably because he’d like to have someone in charge of S. Carolina in 2012 who owes him a favor or three); he just gave $42K to Haley, who faces a GOP runoff tomorrow. (He was able to give that much, despite contribution limits, by harnessing six different PACs.) There have also been some eyebrows raised over a $2,000 consulting fee paid to Haley in 2008 by a construction firm, revealed when she disclosed her tax returns; it has a quid pro quo-ish whiff to it (the firm’s head said it was to pay for business leads and “help with things”), but isn’t likely to put a dent in the outcome of tomorrow’s runoff at this point.

• CO-04: Cory Gardner’s decision to bail on a fundraiser with unpalatable Iowa Rep. Steve King may hurt him more than if he’d actually gone through with it. King is still harping on Gardner’s lack of fortitude. King was joined on a conservative radio talk show in Colorado last Friday by ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo, who took turns tag-team insulting Gardner for an hour.

• ID-01: I don’t know how much weight to give this, but Rep. Mike Simpson (from the 2nd) is publicly saying it’s possible that Rep. Walt Minnick could play a role in voting in a different speaker than Nancy Pelosi, if the Dem majority is small enough after 2010 and whatever Blue Dogs are left hold the vote in the balance. Minnick, for his part, shrugged it off, although without a categorical denial, saying it’s “premature.” In a weird way, though, Simpson might be doing Minnick a favor here. Already a beneficiary of endorsement as the Tea Party Express’s token Democrat, this gives Minnick further cover to keep Dem leadership at arm’s length in the runup to November.

• NC-08: “I’d do everything the crazy guy would do; I just wouldn’t do it in a crazy way,” seems to be the argument here, which may not be the best electability argument. But that’s Harold Johnson’s way of framing tomorrow’s GOP runoff in the 8th, saying that he’d vote the “basically the same way” as Tim D’Annunzio.

FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Florida Chamber of Commerce Political Institute and Cherry Communications (6/9-13, likely voters, no trendlines):

Rick Scott (R): 35

Bill McCollum (R): 30

Undecided: 33

(MoE: ±_%)

Alex Sink (D): 26

Rick Scott (R): 30

Bud Chiles (I): 15

Alex Sink (D): 26

Bill McCollum (R): 31

Bud Chiles (I): 15

(MoE: ±4%)

Kendrick Meek (D): 14

Marco Rubio (R): 31

Charlie Crist (I): 42

(MoE: ±4%)

IL-Sen: Really gotta wonder what’s going on here. The New York Times keeps digging into Mark Kirk’s past and finds that the nursery school where he claimed to teach for a brief spell in 1981 “never, ever considered” Kirk a teacher, according to a leader of its affiliated church.

UT-Sen: Mike Lee has an internal poll, conducted by Wenzel Strategies, showing him with a 45-35 lead over Time Bridgewater in the GOP primary. However, an independent poll conducted by Dan Jones and Associates for the Deseret News & KSL-TV has almost opposite numbers: 42 Bridgewater, 33 Lee.

IA-Gov: Chet Culver is out with his first ad of the general election campaign, attacking ex-Gov. Terry Branstad for his dodgy fiscal stewardship of the state during his long tenure in the governor’s mansion. No word on the size of the buy.

AR-02: Rove acolyte Tim Griffin is out with an internal poll from OnMessage showing him with a 50-34 lead over Joyce Elliott. He also announced the endorsement of weirdo D.C. Morrison – yeah, the guy who ran in the Democratic senate primary. Not really a surprise, though, since Morrison previously said he planned to support John Boozman in that race.

NY-23: Good news, everybody! I opened up the ballot box, and Schroedinger’s cat fud is very much alive! In fact, there’s a 100% chance of a right-wing split in NY-23 no matter what happens now. That’s because the Independence Party gave their line to Matt Doheny, who is also seeking the Republican nomination. But of course, our old friend Doug Hoffman is also vying for the GOP nod – and he already has the Conservative Party’s endorsement. This means that regardless of who wins the Republican primary, at least one ballot line will remain occupied by a legitimate Republican candidate.

ID-01: This is sorta weird. You remember that Vaughn Ward ripped off an Obama speech, right? Well, it turns out that he also ganked large chunks of a speech from Pat Meehan, too, who is running in PA-07. (At least Meehan’s a Republican.) What’s odd, though, is why is TV news station KTVB investigating this stuff now, weeks after Ward lost the GOP primary? Aren’t there actual candidates worth reporting about?

UT-02: Those same media organizations (see UT-Sen item above) also had Dan Jones poll the 2nd CD, finding Rep. Jim Matheson leading Claudia Wright 52-33 in the Democratic primary. That’s good for Matheson, but by no means great, given his almost comical spending advantage.

• AR-Sen: Here’s a non-surprise. Americans for Job Security, who poured $1.8 million into anti-Bill Halter ads during the primary, say they probably aren’t going to be doing any further work on behalf of Blanche Lincoln. The anti-labor group already got what it wants (two anti-labor candidates), so its work is done. Also worth noting, Nate Silver points out what a tough lift a Bill Halter victory would have been, revealing something called the ‘blogginess’ index (a factor of being white, liberal, and college-educated), on which Arkansas scores very low and Pennsylvania scores pretty high (by way of explaining how Pennsylvania was more responsive to a labor/netroots primary challenge — although I’d point out that actual labor and netroots support wasn’t the main factor in pushing Joe Sestak past Arlen Specter, whereas it was the driving force in Halter’s bid). I’m not sure if he noticed or not, but the rank ordering of the states on that index is quite similar to the graph of most liberal-to-conservative Democratic electorates that Andrew Gelman introduced last week.

• CO-Sen: Jane Norton is making a rhetorical rush to the right, if her new advertising is any indication: it’s all about stopping “Obamacare” and “yanking it out by the roots,” and it’s playing mostly in the dark-red Colorado Springs market. Wondering why? She’s probably seeing the same thing in her polling as what Republican pollster Magellan (who are getting quite active in offering public polls of Republican primaries where they don’t have a horse in the race) is seeing. They have a poll out today showing Weld County DA Ken Buck leading Norton, 42-32.

• IL-Sen: Worse to worst for Mark Kirk? It looks like frustration with his constant politicizing of his military service was present even within the Department of Defense, as a DoD memo has surfaced that expressed “concerns arising from his partisan political activities during his last two tours of active duty.” Kirk was required to get a waiver before deploying to Afghanistan in 2008, which required him to write out “an acknowledgment of limitations required for all candidates on active duty.”

• NC-Sen: This is kind of an out-of-the-blue endorsement, but it may help Elaine Marshall gain a little traction with the national netroots. Ohio SoS Jennifer Brunner is apparently OK with endorsing outside her own state’s boundaries, as she offered her support to Marshall.

• NV-Sen: Echoes of Rand Paul’s still-in-progress post-primary makeover? Jon Ralston notices that Sharron Angle’s wacky website just got scrubbed, with no discussion of her positions at this point (no mention of Social Security elimination, for instance). Meanwhile, the GOP signals that they’re going to actively get involved in breaking out the message massage oil and work on rehabbing Angle: RNC head Michael Steele has pledged his support. RNC funds will go to the Nevada GOP rather than directly to Angle, whose campaign actually was in the red ($139K CoH, $179K debt) on May 19. (Compare that to Harry Reid’s $9.1 million.) And Angle’s reaching out to the GOP establishment, too, to the extent that she says she’s willing to accept campaign help from John Ensign, a flip-flop from her pre-primary position. Fitting, though, since she’s been a big proponent of embracing radioactive waste in Nevada. (And while I don’t ordinarily like to honk my own horn, after looking back through the SSP attic, I have to remind everybody that I forecasted an Angle primary victory back in October.)

• SC-Sen: There’s a growing sense that something’s amiss with Alvin Greene’s entry to the race, to the extent that Jim Clyburn explicitly called him a “plant” today and asked for a probe. The real puzzle is the timeline on Greene’s obscenity arrest, obtaining a public defender because of his indigence, and then his filing for the race:

The South Carolina Commission on Indigent Defense, which operates the state’s public defender program, makes clear that courts take into account “the number of people in your household, whether you own any real estate, or have money in the bank” when deciding whether to assign a public defender to a defendant.

Greene has claimed that he paid the $10,400 filing fee out of his savings from his military pay. But he was discharged from the Army in August 2009 and says he hasn’t held a job since then.

So, in economic terms, the timeline goes like this: Greene’s military paychecks stopped in August. Three months later, he filed an affidavit with a South Carolina court claiming to be indigent. And four months after that he walked into the South Carolina Democratic Party headquarters with a personal check for $10,400.

Losing gubernatorial candidate Robert Ford (who’s African-American) also sheds some light on how Greene might have won despite his complete unknownness: apparently, in South Carolina, “Greene” (as opposed to “Green”) is understood to be an African-American last name. With South Carolina’s Democratic electorate with a black majority, voters with no other information about the two choices might vote based purely on that.

• UT-Sen: After previously having had some nice things to say about him, 4th place finisher Cherilyn Eagar went the whole way and endorsed Tim Bridgewater for the GOP Senate primary against Mike Lee.

• WI-Sen: Republican businessman Ron Johnson, who has some personal wealth to draw on in his bid against Russ Feingold, is launching his first television ads. A source tells SSP that this is a one-week statewide ad buy for about $350K.

• AL-Gov: Second-place finisher Robert Bentley is out with an internal poll (by Dresner Wicker) giving him a big lead in the runoff against Bradley Byrne, 45-29. That’s somewhat plausible, since Bentley seems likelier to consolidate the votes for the most conservative options, Roy Moore and Tim James, than is “moderate” Byrne. (Of course, since James is paying for a recount, it’s not a done deal that Bentley’s in the runoff.)

• CO-Gov: Scott McInnis, facing a primary from teabagger Dan Maes (who pulled even with him at the state convention), now says he “doesn’t remember” serving on the board of pro-choice group Republicans for Choice. However, paperwork filed with the FEC lists him on the group’s letterhead as a board member from 1996 to 2005… that’s ten years.

• SC-Gov: Nikki Haley is out with an internal poll giving her a big lead heading into the runoff against Gresham Barrett, 62-28 (suggesting she’s gotten the majority of the gains from the primary, where she led 49-22). Barrett‘s staying in (despite a sandbagging by the RGA), and he’s already out with a TV ad, where he appears with a drill sergeant who calls him “a Christian family man who won’t embarrass us.” I’m not sure if that cringeworthy line is supposed to be an anti-Mark Sanford dogwhistle or an anti-Haley dogwhistle; maybe it’s intended to do double-duty.

• GA-09: Despite losing the runoff in the special election in the 9th, Lee Hawkins is continuing to fight on; he’ll also challenge Rep.-elect Tom Graves in the regularly scheduled July primary. Hawkins didn’t fare as poorly as expected, staying within 56-44, and may be counting on the late-breaking news about Graves’s attempts to dodge a lawsuit over an unpaid business loan continuing to be a story in coming months.

• ID-01: Greg Smith & Associates released a poll (apparently not on any candidate’s behalf), showing Raul Labrador leading Democratic freshman Walt Minnick, 36-24. Recall, though, that this is the same pollster that found Minnick leading “the Republican” candidate 50-20 before the primary (and the link also helpfully provides a list of other times Smith has been way off the mark).

• VA-05: This should put to rest any notions that ex-Rep. Virgil Goode was considering a third-party independent teabagger-powered run in the 5th, or that he might throw his backing to one of the minor-league third-partiers running. Goode endorsed establishment Republican Rob Hurt to go against Rep. Tom Perriello.

AR-Sen: We knew the SEIU wasn’t going to fuck around. Their newest (and probably final) ad buy on behalf of Bill Halter (which we mentioned yesterday) is on the order of $370K. The League of Conservation Voters is also putting down $100K for a buy of their own, also in support of Halter.

KY-Sen: Rand Paul, the son of Ayn Rand and a Somali warlord, must be dying inside: He actually felt compelled to call for more regulation of offshore drilling. Upon hearing this, a thousand Austrian School economists tried to jump off a bridge, but couldn’t find one as the free market had decided a bridge was unnecessary.

NH-Sen: Former AG Kelly Ayotte is being called to testify before a state senate committee investigating the collapse of a mortgage company called FRM which is accused of running a Ponzi scheme – and which was allowed to continue in operation while Ayotte’s department was supposedly regulating it. It’s belated, but at least someone is watching the watchmen.

AL-Gov: Artur Davis: “I have no interest in running for political office again. The voters spoke in a very decisive way across every sector and in every section of the state. A candidate that fails across-the-board like that obviously needs to find something else productive to do with his life.”

NM-Gov: Diane Denish is already out with a negative ad trying to paint GOP opponent Susana Martinez as an ineffective prosecutor, saying she went soft on DWI felons and had the worst conviction record in New Mexico. No word on the size of the buy, though the Denish campaign says, according to Heath Haussamen, that the ad “is running statewide on network and cable television.”

NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo is trying to kill off the Working Families Party. He says he doesn’t want their ballot line this fall, without which the WFP has almost no hope of getting the 50,000 votes it needs to stay on the ballot for the next four years. The party is under investigation by the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office, and hyper-ventilators like the Daily News editorial page accuse it of sponsoring a “job-killing agenda,” so you might think there’s sufficient reason for Cuomo to avoid the WFP on the merits.

But I don’t think that adds up, because few voters pay attention to this stuff, which means that Cuomo will miss out on more votes without the WFP line than he’d risk losing by accepting the party’s endorsement – so it looks like a power play to me. (Note that state lawmakers friendly to the WFP are trying to introduce legislation which would allow a party to remain on the ballot if it got 50K votes in any statewide election, which would allow the party to bootstrap itself to, say, the Schumer or Gillibrand campaigns.)

FL-08: Uh, is this really an endorsement that you want? Former state House Speaker Daniel Webster, hoping to challenge Alan Grayson in the fall, secured the backing of ex-Rep. Tom Feeney. Feeney was last seen apologizing to voters for his role in the Abramoff scandal while getting his ass kicked by Suzanne Kosmas.

ID-01: I know we all miss Vaughn Ward terribly, but I think we’ll enjoy having Raul Labrador to kick around, too. It turns out that Labrador forgot to get his cooties vaccination, because the NRCC is keeping him in one of those glove-box containment zones. GOP brass has no plans, says Politico, to add the Lab to their Young Guns list – even though it already contains an absurd 110 names. Michael Steele, though, seems to like Raul just fine (which makes sense), sending some cash to help the Idaho GOP.

AL-Ag. Comm’r: May the Flying Spaghetti Monster bless Dale Peterson:

Boy!  We put up a tough fight in round one.  The thugs made a full court press to stop me by making hundreds of thousands of “robo calls” with lies about me.  

Rest assured, Dummy and the thugs at ALFA will not go quietly – so expect them to launch a full-scale attack against John McMillan in the coming weeks as the July 13 runoff draws near.  Just remember, the word “truth” is not in their vocabulary.

Because good ol’ Dale gives a RIIIIIP about Alabama, he promises that he’s “not going away.” Hooray!

Rasmussen: Commenters here have been all over it, but Markos lays out in bright orange letters exactly how fucked up Rasmussen’s recent polling in CT-Sen and KY-Sen has been.

Note: This digest was written entirely by DavidNYC.

AR-Sen: SEIU has a new ad out hitting Lincoln for her TARP vote and for her disloyalty during the health care debate. Props to CQ’s Matthew Murray for trying to nail down the size of the buy from SEIU, which would only say that the run is “comprehensive.” SEIU has gone pretty large in this race from day one, so they probably aren’t going cheap on us now.

CA-Sen: Carly Fiorina, in a move which will no doubt endear her to the teabaggers but embarrass her in the eyes of the state of California, has taken to decrying concerns about climate change as “worrying about the weather” in a new ad.

CO-Sen: I Do. Not. Care. about this stupid non-story. Why are journalists so damn breathless about crap like this? It’s like they’ve never heard of politics.

NV-Sen: According to an analysis by the WaPo, Chicken Lady may have spent $100K on her primary out of funds that were designated for the general election only. Lowden bought $220K worth of ad time, but had only about $100K of primary money (mostly a loan from herself) on hand, so that extra hundred grand had to come from somewhere. God, you know, I just can’t decide whom I’d rather face more: this crazy lady, or the other crazy lady. Harry Reid, you are one lucky dude. Just pray Danny Tarkanian doesn’t pull an Alice Kryzan/Creigh Deeds.

NV-Gov: A district court judge enjoined a shadowy conservative group, Alliance for America’s Future, from running ads until it registers with the Secretary of State, saying that voters have the right to know who is behind political advertising. The group, which has ties to Dick Cheney, had planned to spend $250K on behalf of GOPer Brian Sandoval.

SC-Gov: I don’t care about this story, either.

AR-02: In the AR-02 runoff, state House Speaker Robbie Wills, a white male, has been arguing that he’s “more electable” than state Senate Majority Leader Joyce Elliott, who is black and a woman. The chair of the Arkansas NAACP sees that a “code word for racism.” Wills responded by saying that Elliott has “extreme views” which are out of step with the district. I hope this primary doesn’t get much uglier, because words like that will be used by Republicans against whomever our nominee is.

CA-19: Dick Pombo is trying to win a GOP primary by reminding voters that he’s a longtime creature of Washington, DC. No wonder he lost.

ID-01: Dear Vaughn Ward: socks before shoes. Also, hire publicists to get your side of the story out before election day, not after. Actually, no – we love you, don’t change a thing!

MI-08: This is unfortunate. Kande Ngalamulume, the only Democrat running against GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, is dropping out of the race, just three weeks after formally announcing his candidacy. Though Ngalamulume hadn’t filed any FEC reports, Obama actually won this district 53-46 (a major swing from Bush’s 54-45 win over Kerry), and even being able to pin Rogers down just a bit would have been helpful. Michigan’s filing deadline was May 11th, and I’m not sure if local Dems can nominate a replacement.

NH-02: Some Teabagger Andrew Hemingway says he won’t get into the GOP primary in NH-02. Meh.

NY-13: It’s always confusing in NY-13, but here’s the deal: The state Conservative Party has given its backing to GOPer Michael Grimm, who was also endorsed by the Brooklyn wing of the party – even though the Staten Island Cons  recently got behind Dem Rep. Mike McMahon. (Party chair Mike Long wasn’t going to let McMahon get their nod, though.) To make things even more complicated, the SI Republican Party endorsed Grimm’s primary opponent, Michael Allegretti, as we mentioned last week, and the Brooklyn GOP did as well the week before. But Grimm has at least one big player on his side: Rudy Giuliani, who did a fundraiser for him earlier this week. Anyhow, I’m sure you can sniff the cat fud: Grimm has already locked up the Conservative line, but Allegretti could definitely win the Republican primary. There’s already a lot of bad blood between the two Republican Mikes, which means we could see something of an NY-23 redux here.

NY-18: Biden Alert! The VPOTUS squeezed in a fundraiser yesterday for… Nita Lowey? She has over $1.1 million on hand, and I’m not aware of any meaningful Republican challenger in this race. (Obama/Kerry: 62/58.) So what gives?

OK-02: This is interesting: Democratic state Sen. Jim Wilson says he’s going to launch a primary challenge to conservative Rep. Dan Boren. Wilson specifically cited Boren’s opposition to the healthcare reform bill in launching his campaign. The primary here is pretty soon, July 27th, though there’s also a run-off on August 24th. However, as of now, there are only two candidates in the race.

TN-08: The internal warfare continues in the GOP primary to replace retiring Rep. John Tanner. Though the NRCC is still touting agribusiness kingpin Stephen Fincher, ex-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott is doing a fundraiser for Shelby County Commissioner George Flinn. An establishment divided against itself… yields to a teabagger?

WI-07: Hah! We mentioned the other day that establishment efforts to clear the primary field for Dem Julie Lassa hit a snag when Some Dude Joe Reasbeck said he was going to run. Well, turns out he’s run for office before: as a write-in (wait, there’s more) in Texas (heh, there’s still more) as a Republican (not done yet), earning 89 votes. Hold on, hold on – more! Who was he running against? Well, only the most famous write-in candidate of all time, Snelly Gibbr! Shit like this is why I love politics.

Even the mailman takes off today. But not SSP….

AR-Sen: Mitch Berry, the son of retiring Dem Rep. Marion Berry, is stepping up his fight against Bill Halter’s purported war on common sense. Berry’s PAC, Arkansans For Common Sense, just filed a $150,000 media buy against Halter, bringing their total expenditures in this race to nearly $350K. (J)

NV-Sen: Salon notes that hard-charging teabagger Sharron Angle has been handing out her own newspaper-style pamphlet at campaign events, titled “The Angle Examiner.” Underneath eye-grabbing headlines like “Reid Waterboarding the Economy” are photos of Angle in various action poses, including one in which she’s firing her .44 Magnum, which she calls her “Dirty Harry Hand Cannon.” Salon editorializes that “the breathless tone of its writing, and the very un-slick design, makes it seem like one more piece of evidence that Angle may not be quite ready for prime time.”

Ready or not, Angle is getting some big help in the closing days of her insurgent campaign. The Club for Growth filed a half-million dollar expenditure report with the FEC, the bulk of which is being spent on direct mail and attack ads hitting front-runner Sue Lowden. At the same time, the Tea Party Express has upped their media buys supporting Angle by another $50K. (J)

AZ-Gov: Get a load of this tyranny. GOP Gov. Jan Brewer says that she “has removed” state AG Terry Goddard, a Democrat running against her this fall, from defending the state against possible litigation by the federal Department of Justice surrounding the state’s “papers please” immigration law. Apparently, Brewer thinks that Goddard is “colluding” with the DoJ after learning that he met with DoJ lawyers shortly before they met with the governor’s legal advisors. This is a routine practice for Justice Department attorneys when considering legal action against a state, but Brewer will have none of it. Goddard, for his part, insists that he will be “definitely defending the state” in any challenges to the law. (J)

NY-Gov: Ex-Rep. Rick Lazio scored the Conservative Party’s endorsement, but he didn’t exactly do it in fine fashion. Chairman Mike Long pushed the party convention a week ahead of the GOP confab, in the hopes of pressuring the Republicans to nominate Lazio instead of recent ex-Dem Steve Levy. But this move ruffled quite a few feathers, it seems, and supporters of Levy and ultra-creepbag Carl Paladino conspired to also put Erie County Conservative chair Ralph Lorigo on the ballot as well. This means that if Lorigo sees it through, Lazio could face a contested primary for the Conservative line. That would mean two different primaries for two different parties with two different sets of opponents for Lazio at the same time! I also have to wonder whether Long will also face backlash over his continued meddling in NY-23 as well. Ah, the Republicans: They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

CA-36: Not taking any chances, Dem Rep. Jane Harman is out with an incendiary ad against her primary opponent, activist Marcy Winograd. The ad, which began airing on local cable stations and FIOS last Thursday, hits Winograd for wanting to “kill the defense budget” and to “destroy Israel.”  Kudos to the Politico’s Alex Isenstadt for inquiring about the size of the ad buy, but shame on the Harman campaign for declining to provide details. (J)

CA-42: Teabagging accountant Phil Liberatore pumped another $375K of his own cash into his race against GOP Rep. Gary Miller. Liberatore has now spent half a million trying to unseat Miller, who has spent “only” $337K. There are also a couple of Some Dudes in this race. The primary is June 8th.

FL-10: Even though the House ethics office cleared Bill Young in the PMA lobbying scandal back in February, a criminal investigation is apparently underway at the Justice Department. (You may recall that several lawmakers were accused of steering defense-related earmarks to PMA clients, in exchange for campaign donations.) Dem Charlie Justice seems to be overplaying his hand here (if he even has one), calling for Young to resign from office.

GA-09: Sure, anyone can file a lawsuit, but banks aren’t Orly Taitz, and they usually only sue debtors when they mean it. So it’s a bit startling to see that a local bank is suing Tom Graves, the leading candidate in the GA-09 runoff, to recover an unpaid $2.25 million business loan. They’re also accusing him of fraudulently transferring some property in order to frustrate the bank’s collection efforts. This sounds pretty serious, and could be a real game-changer. The second round of this special election is on June 8th, where Graves, a former state rep., faces Lee Hawkins, a former state senator. (Graves led 35-23 in the first round.)

ID-01: Walt Minnick just rolled out a list of 100 key supporters across his district, including a bunch of prominent Republican donors and elected officials, like some county commissioners and the former head of the National Cattleman’s Beef Association. Whoo-eee!

IL-10: Biden alert! The VPOTUS will do a fundraiser for Dan Seals on June 21st in Chicago.

NC-08: It’s always the sign of a successful campaign when the candidate starts threatening to sue members of his own party for defamation. That’s what SSP fave Tim D’Annunzio is doing, claiming that the state GOP chair is spreading lies about him. Oh, and he wants $5 million. God speed, little Timmy!

NY-01: Bill Clinton will be doing a $2,400-a-head fundraiser for Rep. Tim Bishop in Manhattan this Thursday, while Henry Kissinger will be doing the same for Republican Chris Cox. (Cox is the grandson of Richard Nixon, who of course was BFF with Kissinger back in the day.) P.S. Note to CQ-Roll Call: There is no “furor” about this dumb Sestak job non-story.

SC-02: GOP Rep. Joe Wilson raised an unbelievable amount of cash after his infamous State of the Union outburst, and he’s spending at an equally prodigious clip, too. Wilson’s pre-primary fundraising report, filed with the FEC, indicates that his campaign brought in $190,000 in a six-week period following the end of March, but he also spent over $450,000 out of his war chest, leaving him with under $1.9 million cash-on-hand. All told, Wilson has spent a whopping $2 million on his re-election campaign already, despite not facing any primary opposition. (J)

UT-02: Rep. Jim Matheson scored the backing of the 18,000-strong Utah Education Association teachers union. It so happens that his primary opponent, Claudia Wright, has been a teacher for 30 years.

NRCC: A good observation by Steve Benen, who points out that the NRCC has recently begun lowballing expectations. While Republicans had for months been acting as though they were sure to retake the House, NRCC recruitment chair Kevin McCarthy has reduced his oddly specific takeover from 45 to 37 – just short of what the GOP would need for the majority. Benen wonders if the NRCC is playing a deep game here, trying to goad supporters into giving their all, lest they become complacent. But in the wake of PA-12 and other embarrassments in primaries, maybe the Republicans really have dialed back their hopes a bit.

NV-Sen: Chicken Lady, meet Couch Lady? Does Tea Party fave Sharron Angle have a Scientology problem? It looks like Angle scrubbed a passage from her campaign website about how she, along with actresses Kelly Preston and Jenna Elfman, lobbied John Ensign to sponsor legislation prohibiting school employees from requiring students to take psychotropic drugs. Preston and Elfman are noted Scientologists, and psychotropic drugs are considered to be anathema to that, uh, belief system. Another curious nugget is Sue Lowden’s attacks on Angle for “her support in 2003 of a drug-treatment program for inmates that included saunas and massages as treatment”. It’s amazing how this race has transformed itself from one of the most depressing to one of the most amusing.

MI-Gov: Hotline OnCall sits down for an entertaining interview with Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, the populist progressive choice in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Calling himself a “FDR-Kennedy-Truman-Obama Democrat” and the candidate most in-touch with average angry voter, Bernero is blasting his opponent, House Speaker Andy Dillon, as the “Speaker of the Mess”.

SC-Gov: Dick Cheney is showing his lovable mug in South Carolina, issuing an endorsement for Rep. Gresham Barrett, who was the House equivalent of Some Dude for most of us before he announced his gubernatorial campaign. One of Barrett’s opponents, state AG Henry McMaster, used the news as an opportunity to remind voters of Barrett’s vote for the Cheney-backed TARP legislation.

AL-05: If you want the endorsement of the freakshow Minuteman Project and its founder, Jim Gilchrist, be prepared to cut a fat check to the Election Impact Group, a political firm run by a close associate of Gilchrist. Ben Smith takes a thorough look at the financial strings attached to a Gilchrist endorsement, specifically honing in Republican Mo Brooks, who lobbied for a Gilchrist endorsement but was rebuffed after he refused to hire the Impact Group. Five months later, Gilchrist endorsed turncoat Rep. Parker Griffith instead… just two weeks after Griffith paid $6500 to the Gilchrist-connected firm. Sleazy stuff, all around.

CA-11: David Harmer, a demi-hero among Republicans for his decent performance against John Garamendi in the CA-10 special election last year, says that he is “disgusted” by healthcare reform, stimulus packages, and bailouts. The only problem? Harmer previously worked for Washington Mutual, which was acquired by JPMorgan Chase, who in turn received $25 billion in TARP funds. JPMorgan Chase then sent Harmer out the door with a $160,000 bonus and severance package.

ID-01: Raul Labrador proudly boasts that he’s been called one of the “most extreme conservatives in the legislature”. I love this guy.

KS-03: The Kansas City Star hears word that physician and teabagger Milton Wolfe — a cousin of Barack Obama — may run in the Republican primary for the seat of retiring Dem Rep. Dennis Moore. If he does, he’ll certainly turn the heads of a few national media types.

SC-01: National Research Inc for the Club for Growth (5/23-24, likely voters):

Tim Scott (R): 30

Carroll “Tumpy” Campbell III (R): 10

Paul Thurmond (R): 9

Clark Parker (R): 9

Larry Kobrovsky (R): 8

W. Stovall White (R): 6

Mark Lutz (R): 4

Others: 4

(MoE: ±5.7%)

For the sake of completeness (this is Swing State Project, after all), a poll from early April that we missed showed Tumpy in the lead. The poll, commissioned by ex-Charleston County School Board member Larry Kobrovsky and taken by Victory Communications, had Tumpy with 18%, the Club for Growth-backed Scott at 16%, and Kobrovsky at 10%.

SC-05: Public Opinion Strategies for Mick Mulvaney (5/17-18, likely voters, October in parens):

John Spratt (D-inc): 43 (48)

Mick Mulvaney (R): 41 (35)

(MoE: ±5.3%)

Twitter: As of this writing, SSP is only ten followers shy of a cool 2000 on Twitter. Who will step up to push us over the top? Begging is my business.

• Idaho: The numbers from Idaho’s primary election last night that everyone is focused on is state Rep. Raul Labrador’s somewhat surprising victory over Vaughn Ward in ID-01, by a 48-39 margin. This means that the NRCC-preferred, Sarah Palin-endorsed candidate lost… although given the way Ward’s wheels fell off over the last few weeks, Republicans may be breathing a sigh of relief. Not that Labrador may turn out that well either, as he’s poorly-funded and apparently not a favorite of the local establishment (as he’s tight with ex-Rep. Bill Sali). Democratic freshman Rep. Walt Minnick may actually be feeling… dare I say it… confident going into November?

ID-02 had some eyebrow-raising numbers too, consistent with mediocre primary performances from establishment incumbents on both sides of the aisle in previous months; Rep. Mike Simpson — not exactly a moderate, but certainly not the flamethrower you’d expect in such a dark-red district – had an unexpectedly rough time in the GOP primary, winning against Chick Heileson only 58-24. And incumbent GOP governor Butch Otter, who’d looked dominant in polling, got a teabagging of his own, scoring only 55% while rancher Rex Rammell (the only guy around with a name even manlier than “Butch Otter”) got 25%, as apparently there was a lot of resentment on the right over Otter’s failed attempt to raise the state gas tax. Dem nominee Keith Allred has a fundraising lead over Otter and good bipartisan credentials as former head of group Common Interest; combined with Otter’s underperformance in the primary, that leaves us thinking Allred might have a legitimate shot here.

• CA-Sen: Anti-abortion group the Susan B. Anthony List (whom you might remember from their involvement in the WV-01 Dem primary) is getting involved in California, in support of Carly Fiorina. They’re spending $215K in IEs, as Fiorina opposes the pro-choice Tom Campbell in the GOP primary.

• IN-Sen: The spotlight is starting to turn back toward Dan Coats’ lobbying past, with state Democrats demanding that Coats disclose a full list of his lobbying clients. Coats (who worked for law firm King & Spaulding as a lobbyist) is citing attorney-client privilege as a reason for keeping mum, although recent court cases have made clear that the privilege doesn’t extend to lobbying activities.

• KY-Sen: No matter how pure you try to be, someone’s always going to be more pure than you: dissatisfied with Rand Paul’s sops to Republican orthodoxy, the Libertarian Party is saying that they’re planning to run a candidate against him in November. They’re accusing Paul of having deviated from the Libertarian line on social issues and foreign policy. Meanwhile, the Paul camp’s emergency retooling continues apace; he’s hired Jesse Benton as his new campaign manager (to replace David Adams, who was the behind-the-scenes equivalent of Some Dude). Benton’s not a GOP establishment figure, though; he was the communications director for the 2008 Ron Paul presidential campaign.

• NV-Sen: The feathers are flying in the Nevada GOP primary, where the Club for Growth is taking aim at the very large target on Sue Lowden’s back, hitting her for voting to raise taxes while in the state Senate and her previous support for Harry Reid. The CfG, of course, endorsed opponent Sharron Angle last week.

• CA-Gov: MoveOn co-founder Peter Schurman apparently got tired of polling at 1% in the Democratic primary, and ended his recently-launched bid against Jerry Brown. Seeming satisfied that Brown has been stepping up his game lately, he threw his backing to Brown.

• FL-Gov: It’s looking like insiders are realizing that Bill McCollum screwed up by letting wealthy health care magnate Rick Scott run rampant on their airwaves for the last month, letting him get a major foothold in the GOP primary. Now rumors suggest that an unnamed independent group is about to start a major advertising blitz on McCollum’s behalf, to try and level the playing field.

• NV-Gov:  The most recent batch of polls have shown incumbent GOP governor Jim Gibbons down but not out in the Republican primary. But with the primary only a few weeks away, this new poll from the RGA by POS looks like Gibbons is in too deep a hole to dig out of: Brian Sandoval is at 50, with Gibbons at 27 and Mike Montandon at 11.

• NY-Gov: It’s convention time in New York, and now that Andrew Cuomo isn’t playing coy any more, his first order of business is picking a running mate. He’s chosen Rochester mayor Robert Duffy for the position. Duffy will still need to win his own primary, though, before getting joined to the ticket (a la Scott Lee Cohen in Illinois). Cuomo also got welcome news from the Independence Party: he’ll be getting that centrist third party’s line on the ballot in November. (The IP backed Eliot Spitzer last time, but rich weirdo Tom Golisano three times before that.)

• OH-01: In the War of the Steves, Republican ex-Rep. Steve Chabot is out with a poll giving himself a substantial lead over freshman Democratic Rep. Steve Driehaus. The poll by POS gives Chabot a 53-39 lead. That’s actually a smaller Chabot lead than that notorious Firedoglake poll from January, but regardless, Driehaus is going to need huge African-American turnout in Cincinnati if he’s going to pull this out.

• OH-16: If that wasn’t enough, there’s also a Republican poll of the 16th giving a significant lead to Jim Renacci, who has a 47-35 lead over fellow Democratic freshman Rep. John Boccieri. The press release touts this as an independent poll, but it was conducted by Republican pollster Fabrizio, McClaughlin, & Associates, and it was paid for by the innocuous-sounding U.S. Citizens Association who, if you go to their website, have a major ax to grind over health care reform (for which Boccieri was a ‘no’ to ‘yes’ vote).

• TN-06: Illegal immigration isn’t the kind of issue you’d expect to take center stage in rural Tennessee, but in the race to succeed retiring Bart Gordon, the two main GOP contestants are trying to outflank each other to the right on the issue. State Sen. Jim Tracy is accusing state Sen. Diane Black of trying to water down legislation requiring local authorities to report the arrest of illegal immigrants to ICE.

• Polltopia: Jonathan Chait joins the chorus of Rasmussen doubters, pointing nicely to Rasmussen’s role in the cycle of right-wing epistemic closure. Nate Silver also an interesting tidbit that promises to be part of a forthcoming larger revamping of his pollster ratings, one that seems likely not to see Rasmussen in as positive a light as his previous ratings: he finds that while Rasmussen was OK in 2004 and 2006,  its performance in 2000 was way off, as they missed seven states, with a Republican bias of 3.5%.

2:46am: Ada County is now all in, and it was a landslide for Labrador: 58-35. With that, SSP is calling it a night! Overall, Labrador has a 48-39 lead on Ward with 426 of 462 precincts reporting.

2:34am: Kootenai, the last best hope of mankind Ward, is now all in, closing the gap to 45.5-40.2 for Raul, but the margin is still 3400 votes with 378 precincts in. This thing rests on Boise, but the indications are that that’s Labrador country.

2:30am: If anyone is mopey about Vaughn Ward losing tonight, just remember these words: Raul Labrador is Bill Sali’s BFF.

2:27am: But that doesn’t mean we’ll stop updating! We’re now at 369/462 (using our corrected math that the AP has yet to notice) and Labrador still has a solid 3400 vote lead.

2:20am: SSP is going to call this baby for Raul Labrador, with our model showing him headed for a 47-40 victory over Vaughn Ward. (jeffmd)

2:11am: We actually think there’s a glitch on the AP’s back end (and our own). Ada county is actually reporting 64 precincts total — that is, for both ID-01 and ID-02. The actual number of Ada precincts that have reported in ID-01 is between 32 and 34 right now. This shouldn’t affect the final result, though, as Labrador is currently beating Ward by a wide margin there. So this brings us down to 348 precincts overall and a 46-40 edge for Labrador.

1:51am: We’re up to 371 precincts, and Labrador leads by 46-40 (or about 3400 votes). Labrador looks good to win this thing — and while I know that may seem disappointing to fans of Vaughn Ward’s idiocy, I have a hunch that this Bill Sali-grade Republican is gonna turn out to be a pretty fun guy to run against, too.

1:41am: I spoke too soon! Our sheet is now up to 332/462. Still a 46-40 Raul lead, though.

1:40am: Oops, the AP has leap-frogged us. Their count, at 325/462, has Labrador up by 46-40. We’ll update our sheet again soon.

1:26am: Check out GOP incumbent Mike Simpson’s sucky showing in ID-02. He’s surviving his required teabagging, but only has 57% of the vote with about three quarters reporting.

1:20am: Finally, some daylight. 286/462 now in, and Labrador leads by 47-40.

1:17am: Check it out, Swingnuts. We’ve now added a “projection” column on our spreadsheet — based on the votes we’re seeing so far, we currently project that Raul Labrador will win this sumbitch by 3255 votes.

1:12am: Oh whoa, we’re halfway there! 235/462 now in, and Raul leads by 4% (or about 1600 votes).

1:09am: 225/462 in (check out our spreadsheet, we’re faster than the AP!), and Labrador is up by just under 1500 votes.

1:04am: 214/462 now, and it’s 45-41 for the Lab.

12:59am: 195/462 now, and Raul leads by 44-41.

12:57am: If you want to see our results spreadsheet in action, click here. We’ll be keeping it updated!

12:51am: 168/462 now, and hey, movement! 45-41 for Labrador, who’s continuing to do well in the Southern part of the district. (jeffmd)

12:47am: 156 precincts in, and, guess what!!!! Still 44-42 for Raul.

12:41am: Pass the dutchie pon’ the lef’ ‘and side. 139 precincts in, and Raul still leads by 44-42.

12:36am: 132 precincts now, and Labrador still has a 44-42 lead. The biggest wildcard left seems to be Kootenai county, where Ward crushed among absentees. He’ll need to do well in the election day vote there to have a shot at winning this.

12:26am: 113 precincts plus the absentees gets us back to a 44-42 Labrador lead.

12:21am: 107 precincts and our assortment of absentees gives Labrador a 43-vote lead out of 21,000 votes counted so far.

12:18am: With 91 precincts and a grab-bag of absentees, Ward has pulled into a 43-43 tie with Labrador.

12:14am: We’re now at 81 precincts plus assorted absentees, and Labrador is still leading by 43-42. Geographically, Labrador is doing well in the north. Ward’s doing better in the south.

12:09am: The AP has also called the GOP gube nod for incumbent Butch Otter, who only has 55% of the vote so far. Not impressive at all!

12:07am: With 74 precincts in, plus absentee ballots from Ada and Kootenai counties, Labrador leads Ward by 44-43.

12:01am: And over in ID-02, the AP has called the race for GOP Rep. Mike Simpson. I’ll be interested to see his final margin, though.

12:00am: With 67 of 462 precincts reporting (plus Ada absentees), Raul Labrador now has a 47-41 lead on Vaughn Ward.

11:49pm: SSP’s latest count: With 36 precincts reporting (plus Ada), Labrador leads by 45-42.

11:40pm: Uh, for anyone anxiously waiting for more results out of Ada, check out what their website says: “As in previous years, it is our goal to update our Web results at least once every hour-and-a-half. More frequent Web updates would cause further delays in the counting process, since all counting machines must stop counting in order for us to update results.” Jeez Louise.

11:34pm: Now we’re at 15 precincts (plus Ada), giving Labrador a 46-42 lead. Simpson leads Heileson by 58-26.

11:30pm: The SSP bean-counters now have the race at 45-42 for Labrador. This count includes 10 precincts district-wide plus the Ada County absentees.

11:24pm: The AP has called the Democratic gubernatorial nomination for Keith Allred!

11:22pm: Keep an eye on ID-02, where GOP Rep. Mike Simpson is leading John Birch Society member M.C. Chick Heileson by 57-26 so far after adding up the nums from all sources.

11:14pm: Adding everything up from all sources (unfortunately, no one source has all the reported results just yet), Raul is up by 46-42 on Ward.

11:07pm: Alright, we have our first results. Check out the Ada County link at the bottom — Labrador leads Ward by 1,824 to 1,551 votes there. (These are the absentee ballots.)

10:53pm: We should get our first taste of results some time after polls close in the Pacific Time area of the state (in seven minutes), so hang tight. The key counties to watch are Kootenai (Couer d’Alene), Ada (Boise) and Canyon (Nampa).

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Most polls in Idaho close at 8 pm Mountain time (10 Eastern), with some closing at 8 pm Pacific (11 Eastern). We’re a little early for liveblogging, but we may as well get the results thread up now so that you can crack open a sixer and share your predictions in the comments. Also, if you have any additional results links, please post ’em in the comments.

RESULTS: SSP Master Doc | Associated Press | ID SoS | Ada County | Canyon County | Kootenai County | Other counties