Tag: NY-Sen-B

• AR-Sen: Talk Business Net has occasionally polled Arkansas for approvals of its local political figures, and they see Blanche Lincoln sinking further into oblivion: she’s currently at a 38/56 approval, down from 42/46 in October. One Arkansas Dem who isn’t suffering is Governor Mike Beebe, who’s at an inhuman 82/9. Beebe obviously plans for re-election and isn’t in a position to relieve us of Lincoln in a primary, but Accountability Now is looking a little further down the totem pole and launching drafthalter.com to try and get Lt. Gov. Bill Halter into the race (although he’s been sounding more interested in the open seat in AR-02).

• AZ-Sen: This is good news! For John McCain! However, it has to be bad news for the hordes of teabaggers who had about one day of thinking they’d elected one of their own to the Senate before finding out they’d gotten just got another New England RINO. Newly-elected Scott Brown’s first act was to record a robocall in favor of the insufficiently zealous McCain, who may or may not field a challenge from the raving right from J.D. Hayworth. Believe it or not, this wasn’t even Brown’s first endorsement (the guy’s doling out the political capital without having even been sworn in yet). The Hill had a piece this morning titled “Brown’s First Endorsement May Backfire,” which I assumed was about McCain – but it turns out his first endorsement was of William Hudak, a nobody running in MA-06 against John Tierney. Hudak is a loud-and-proud birther, and now Brown’s camp is already trying to figure out how to walk that one back (and getting blasted by Hudak for doing so).

• IN-Sen: With rumors flying about Rep. Mike Pence checking out a possible Senate race against Evan Bayh, key Pence ally Tony Perkins (head of the Family Research Council) said that he doubts there’ll be a Pence run for the Senate, and he alluded vaguely to the “possibility” of a 2012 presidential run instead. The Club for Growth, seeing a kindred spirit in Pence, though, has been joining in the chorus pushing him to run.

• NC-Sen (pdf): Not much change in the North Carolina Senate race since PPP’s last visit, although there’s some fluctuation upward in Richard Burr’s head-to-head numbers. The faceless Burr’s approvals are still very ho-hum, at 36-33 (with 31 still not sure), but he’s still holding his own against Generic D (45-36, up quite a bit from a one-digit gap last month, which was probably too optimistic). Encouragingly, though, SoS Elaine Marshall is starting to overperform Generic D; she trails 44-37. Ex-state Sen. Cal Cunningham trails 45-36, and attorney Kenneth Lewis (who was recently endorsed by Rep. G.K. Butterfield) trails 46-34.

• NY-Sen-B: Harold Ford Jr.’s Senate campaign-type-thing seems ill-timed to coincide with the Democrats’ belated and tentative moves to try and tap into anti-bankster anger. Sensing some trouble on that front, he’s been refusing to say exactly what kind of work he’s been doing for Merrill Lynch. Politico previously described his role (“senior policy adviser”) as sort of a nothing-and-everything job: “rainmaker and image buffer, there to impress clients, make connections and put a politic foot forward in public settings.”

• AL-Gov: More general douchery from Rep. Artur Davis as he tries to run to the right of Ag Comm. Ron Sparks in the Democratic primary, saying of health care reformer supporter Sparks: “Ron Sparks, who supports the flawed health care legislation in Washington, should realize that he is not only out of touch with the state he wants to lead, Ron Sparks would even be out of touch in Massachusetts.”

• CO-Gov: Here’s one sign that the John Hickenlooper camp was caught flat-footed by Gov. Bill Ritter’s retirement announcement: they don’t own johnhickenlooper.com. Wanna buy it? It’ll only cost you $995, and the Hickenlooper camp doesn’t seem to have plans to try to buy it.

• IL-Gov: Dan Hynes, who’s been running some hard-hitting (some might say “Willie Horton-esque”) ads against incumbent Pat Quinn in the Democratic primary, is now touting an internal poll that has him quickly closing the gap to within 7, down 44-37. (Quinn is also getting hit from the right by anti-tax ads from GOPer Andy McKenna.) Hynes’s poll also claims that Quinn’s approval is down to 36/60 among primary voters – if that doesn’t turn around for Quinn after the primary once he isn’t getting squeezed from both sides (if he even survives, as his trendline is pointing down), that would certainly bode ill for the general. One other plus for Hynes: he has a cash advantage of more than $1 million against the incumbent.

• NY-Gov: The NYT reports on mounting impatience among New York Democratic leaders for AG Andrew Cuomo to get over it and declare his gubernatorial bid already. Insiders say he’s already made up his mind to run and is waiting possibly as late as April to announce, though – and already holding a $16 million to $3 million funds edge over David Paterson, he doesn’t have to hustle. Still, Stuart Applebaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, is publicly endorsing Cuomo today, as a subtle nudge to get him off his butt.

• PA-Gov: Businessman Tom Knox got a lot of early attention in the Democratic governor’s primary, but hasn’t made much an impression in the polls since then. Rumors have been abounding that Knox was about to drop out of the race and endorse rival Dan Onorato instead, after meeting with Onorato this week. Knox’s campaign manager has been tamping those rumors down, today, though.

• TX-Gov: With Dick Cheney already offering his endorsement (of questionable value), another Bush administration veteran is about to endorse Kay Bailey Hutchison too in the Texas gubernatorial primary: George Bush himself. Now before you start sputtering, that’s Bush the Elder (aka 41, aka Poppy, aka H.W.).

• AR-01: In a piece on Rep. Marion Berry sounding pessimistic about passing health care reform, there’s also an even more unsettling tidbit buried, saying Berry sounds “a little unsure” about whether he’ll even bother running for re-election this year, even though he’s not facing much in the way of a GOP challenge (yet). The quickly reddening 1st is not somewhere we want to be defending another open seat.

• NY-19: Conservative Republicans who’ve been looking for an alternative to the country-clubbish Nan Hayworth as a challenger to Democratic Rep. John Hall may have found someone to fit that bill. Thomas DeChiaro, owner of a local winery, says he’ll run. As an indication of where he’s coming from, he said he’s already met with Conservative Party leader Michael Long and “plans to” meet with Republican party leaders soon.

• PA-06: It’s official: Steven Welch is staying in the GOP primary in the 6th, despite Rep. Jim Gerlach pulling his gubernatorial ripcord and plummeting back into his old seat. Welch may be motivated by nothing more than sunk costs at this point, but he claims he’s bolstered by a decent 40% showing at a recent insider straw poll. Looking for an angle in a moderate-vs.-moderate duel, he’s also been reaching out to the local teabaggers, but they may be very suspicious of his past support of Democrats.

• PA-08: Ex-Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick had sounded kind of coy about a rematch with 2006 victor Rep. Pat Murphy, but all signs are now pointing toward a 2010 run. He’s scheduled a Saturday press conference in the district to talk about his plans.

• MA-AG: Martha Coakley, now that she has some time on her hands, is planning to run for re-election as Massachusetts Attorney General. It remains to be seen whether she’ll draw any primary challengers, now that it’s been exposed that she has a glass jaw and turned off a lot of former supporters; some of the county DAs who’d been planning to run to succeed her may be interested in forging ahead anyway.

• Governors: Josh Goodman looks at the link between what happened in gubernatorial races in midterm elections where there was a wave at the congressional level. As you’d expect, the party gaining in Congress gains state houses too, although seemingly mostly through open seats.

• Filing deadlines: Don’t forget to check out our handy SSP calendar, which covers filing deadlines and primary election dates. Kentucky and West Virginia have filing deadlines next week – and then Illinois has its freakishly-early primary in just two more weeks.

• CO-Sen, CO-Gov: After some flirtation with the idea of switching over to the open seat Governor’s race, or even endeavoring to become Lt. Governor, former State House speaker Andrew Romanoff announced yesterday that he’s going to keep doing what he’s doing (despite having made little headway at it so far): challenging appointed incumbent Michael Bennet in the Democratic Senate primary. Romanoff also threw his support to Denver mayor John Hickenlooper in the gubernatorial primary.

• FL-Sen: I wonder if we’ll see more of this from insurgent Democratic candidates. Former Miami mayor Maurice Ferre, looking for some sort of angle to use against front-running Rep. Kendrick Meek for the Democratic Senate nomination, has come out against the current health care reform plan (although not against HCR in general), calling it “a special interest plan that raises taxes and favors insurance and pharmaceutical companies.”

• KS-Sen: The PMA scandal has mostly left House Democrats tarred with its brush, especially crusty old-school guys from that Appropriations clique, like John Murtha and Pete Visclosky. However, it’s now expanding to take in a key Republican member on Appropriations – one who’s in a tight battle for a promotion to the Senate and can’t afford to get besmirched in any way. The House ethics panel is now looking at the links between Rep. Todd Tiahrt’s donations and defense earmarks.

• NY-Sen-B: Rasmussen checks out the race that’s suddenly on everyone’s mind (and that doesn’t even exist yet, although Harold Ford Jr. just took a monthlong leave of absence from Merrill Lynch to “explore” the race – I wonder if he’ll be doing most of his recon by helicopter). They find numbers very similar to local pollsters Marist and Siena: Kirsten Gillibrand beats Ford, 48-23 (with a surprisingly large 10 for “some other,” presumably Jonathan Tasini although maybe it’s more just “anybody else, please”). Where Rasmussen parts ways with the other pollsters is Gillibrand’s high favorables (and high knowns, period): they have her at 59/27.

• OH-Sen, OH-Gov: Take this with a bag of quick-melting rock salt, if you choose, as it’s a poll commissioned by Ohio Right to Life and conducted by Republican pollster Wenzel Strategies. Still, the numbers clock in pretty close to what Rasmussen has been seeing lately. They see John Kasich with a 43-33 lead in the Governor’s race, and Rob Portman up in the Senate race: 37-31 over Lee Fisher and 40-35 over Jennifer Brunner.

• MD-Gov: One more poll, and it actually shows a Democrat in reasonably good shape. Incumbent Gov. Martin O’Malley is up 9 points against the GOP’s best possible offering, potential candidate ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich, 48-39, according to local pollster Gonzales Research. (Gonzales saw it an 11-point race last September.) O’Malley’s approvals (46%) could use some improvement, but considering that Ehrlich hasn’t sounded likely to get in (although he might be doing a rethink given last night’s events), there are certainly many other races higher on the worry-about list.

• AL-05: If Rep. Parker Griffith thought he’d be welcomed with open arms into the Republican fold, well, he’s got another thing coming. The only good news for him from last night’s meeting of the Madison County (i.e. Huntsville) Republican Executive Committee was that, in the end, they decided not to attempt to get Griffith removed from the primary ballot as a Republican. The real question of the meeting, though, was whether it would be better strategy for Republicans to try to beat him in the primary or via an independent candidacy in November.

• AR-02: Democratic candidates who sound committed to running to replace retiring Rep. Vic Snyder are already piling up – and we haven’t even gotten to Lt. Gov. Bill Halter or ex-Gen. Wesley Clark yet. State House Speaker Robbie Wills today stopped short of saying he’s running, but says he’s “excited” about running. State Sen. Joyce Elliott also sounds very likely to run, while Public Service Commissioner Paul Suskie is in the “seriously considering” stage.

• AZ-03: On the other side of the aisle and of the country, Republicans from the deep local bench are piling into the open seat race in the 3rd, vacated by Rep. John Shadegg. Paradise Valley mayor Vernon Parker is ending his long-shot gubernatorial campaign and heading over to the 3rd, and he’s being joined by state Sen. Jim Waring (who’s dropping his state Treasurer campaign to do so). They join already-in state Sen. Pamela Gorman and state Rep. Sam Crump.

• IL-10: State Rep. Julie Hamos and Dan Seals continue to split key endorsements in their primary fight for the Democratic nod in the open 10th. Hamos got the endorsements of both the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times, while Seals picked up the smaller-circulation Daily Herald’s endorsement.

• ND-AL: Add one more confirmed name to the list of GOPers sniffing out the at-large House seat in North Dakota, hoping John Hoeven’s Senate bid gives them some coattails against the entrenched Democratic incumbent, Rep. Earl Pomeroy. Former House majority leader Rick Berg kicked off his campaign yesterday.

• TN-04: Rep. Lincoln Davis has been pretty much assured a bumpy ride, thanks to Tennessee’s rapidly-reddening status. He got a new Republican challenger today, in the form of attorney Jack Bailey. It’s unclear whether the never-before-elected Bailey will be stronger than physician Scott DesJarlais (or can even get past him in the primary), but he’s a former Hill staffer (ex-CoS for Missouri Rep. Scott Akin) so he probably still has a full Rolodex for fundraising purposes.

• TN-08: State Sen. Roy Herron keeps looking like he’ll have an easy path to the Democratic nomination to replace retiring Rep. John Tanner. Former state Rep. Phillip Pinion, an oft-floated name, said he wouldn’t get into the race.

• OR-Init: Oregon voters have a chance to deal a major setback to the coalescing conventional wisdom that voters prefer service cuts to tax hikes to plug state budget gaps, with Measures 66 and 67. The state legislature passed raises in the $250,000-plus tax bracket and certain corporate income taxes, which are now subject to a people’s veto (via an all-mail special election with a deadline of Jan. 26). Well-regarded local pollster Tim Hibbitts, paid for by a coalition of local media, finds both measures passing: 52-39 for 66 and 50-40 on 67.

• Mayors: One other election result from last night: Jefferson Co. Commissioner William Bell defeated attorney Patrick Cooper in a runoff, to become Birmingham, Alabama’s new mayor, 54-46. Cooper had won the most votes in the general, but Bell seemed to consolidate previously-split African-American votes.

• Polltopia: One more interesting follow-up on the increasing democratization of polling (on the heels of yesterday’s piece by Mark Blumenthal): the Hill looks at the increasing move by groups like Firedoglake and the PCCC toward commissioning polls – and even has an anecdote about PPP’s Tom Jensen getting berated by a nameless Beltway person for broaching the unmentionable and polling potential alternatives to Harry Reid.

• Social media: At some point during the flurry of activity yesterday, Swing State Project shot past 1,000 Twitter followers (gaining more than 100 yesterday alone). Not a follower yet? Check us out. You can also receive SSP updates via Facebook, if you’re one of those Luddites who like to read things that are longer than 140 characters.

Believe it or not, the world continues to turn today, even outside Massachusetts…

• Site News: A minor site change: We’ve had to disable HTML on user bio pages (like this one). We apologize if this winds up killing your links or spewing ugly HTML characters in your bio, so you may want to edit yours if so. You can still post links – they just won’t be HTML-ized. The reason we did this is because spammers have been exploiting the bio pages to post links to their own sites. It’s easy for us to catch them when they post comments or diaries, but harder to stop them from creating new accounts. This takes away their incentive. Suck on it, spammer scum! (D)

• NV-Sen: I don’t know what you envision when you see “probe” and “John Ensign” in the same sentence, but this is rich: the FBI is getting involved in the investigation, indicating this may go beyond the Senate Ethics Committee, headed in the direction of a criminal inquiry. The Feds have been contacting former aides about the Hampton affair.

• NY-Sen-B: Ex-Rep. Harold Ford Jr. just seems to be digging his self-inflicted hole deeper, as he runs damage control from the NYT profile that portrayed him as a helicopter-riding, pedicure-getting richie-rich. For his new interview with the Daily News, he insisted that it be limited to his rationale for running, not “issues” (issues, of course, are for the little people). Still, that contrasts with his defense of the pedicure thing, about which he said: “This race isn’t about feet, it’s about issues.” Meanwhile, observers are wondering if Al Sharpton (who has endorsed Kirsten Gillibrand) is telegraphing a potential switch in sides.

• IA-Gov: Ex-Gov. Terry Branstad is out with an internal poll showing him in commanding position in the Republican primary as he seeks to regain his old job, despite the discomfort some social conservatives have with him. Branstad polls at 62%, followed by Bob Vander Plaats lagging at 18%, with Christopher Rants at 4 and Rod Roberts at 2.

• IL-Gov: Next door in Illinois, though, where things don’t seem quite as settled in the Republican primary, three different candidates are citing polls that claim to have them in the lead. State Sen. Kirk Dillard has an internal that has him leading at 22, with state party chair Andy McKenna at 14 and ex-AG Jim Ryan at 10 – which is odd, since the Chicago Tribune’s poll several weeks ago gave Ryan a substantial lead and saw Dillard in fourth place. McKenna also claims to have a poll with him in the lead, although he didn’t even bother giving any details. Dillard seems to be the “moderate” horse in the GOP race, with endorsements from ex-Gov. Jim Edgar, Rep. Judy Biggert, and even the Illinois Education Association (hopefully only as far as the primary goes).

• TX-Gov: Rasmussen is out with fresh polls of the Texas governor’s race, and this time, they’re even doing the general, now that it got competitive, with the entry of Democratic Houston mayor Bill White. As one might expect, both incumbent Rick Perry and GOP primary rival Kay Bailey Hutchison lead White, and KBH overperforms Perry. Hutchison leads White 52-37, while Perry leads 50-40. (In the unlikely event White faces off against Paulist activist Debra Medina, he wins 44-38.) More interestingly, Medina seems to be getting a serious foothold in the GOP primary, which seems like it has the potential to push the Perry/Hutchison battle to a runoff, keeping Perry below 50%. Perry leads Hutchison and Medina 43-33-12.

• MI-Gov, MI-13: The amazingly brief gubernatorial campaign of state Sen. Hansen Clarke ended yesterday, after about one week in existence. It seems like party insiders steered him in a different direction, saying that he’s been offered big financial support if he takes on vulnerable (in a primary) Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick instead, and he says he’s strongly considering that race now. Kilpatrick (mother of embattled former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick) nearly lost a 3-way primary in 2008.

• AZ-03: One aspiring House Republican didn’t wait long to announce her run to fill the recently-vacated seat of Rep. John Shadegg. State Sen. Pamela Gorman announced her campaign.

• MI-07: One more race that hasn’t drawn much scrutiny yet but where it looks like Dems will have to play hard defense is in the 7th. Freshman Rep. Mark Schauer faces a rematch with ex-Rep. Tim Walberg, who is now promoting his own internal poll showing him with 46-37 edge over Schauer. There’s been some establishment skepticism over whether the polarizing Walberg is “electable” enough, which may really be the point of the poll: it also shows attorney Brian Rooney, the supposedly more palatable (but currently less-known) GOPer, trailing Schauer 39-31.

• PA-04: Republicans are banking on former US Attorneys to get them back a few House seats in the Keystone State, and they got one of their desired recruits. Mary Beth Buchanan, one of the chief enforcers among the “loyal Bushies,” has apparently decided that she’ll take on Rep. Jason Altmire in the GOP-leaning 4th in Pittsburgh’s suburbs, and may announce her candidacy later this week.

• WV-01: The NRCC had hoped to put a scare into longtime Democratic incumbent Alan Mollohan, frequently drum-beating his name as a potential retirement. Unfortunately for them, Mollohan has filed his paperwork to seek a 15th term in Congress. (J)

• OH-Lt. Gov: Ted Strickland announced today that he’s tapping ex-Franklin Co. Judge Yvette McGee Brown to be his running mate. Brown is the president of the Center for Child and Family Advocacy, a Columbus organization based at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital. (J)

• Mayors: Another election to keep an eye on is a runoff for Birmingahm’s next mayor. The seat became vacant in October upon the conviction of Larry Langford on corruption charges. Langford and other insiders have endorsed William Bell (who currently holds Langford’s former seat on the county conmission). Naturally, Patrick Cooper is running against Bell on a change platform. The campaign has been full of nasty accusations and innuendo with many glad it’s coming to an end. (T)

• Polltopia: Mark Blumenthal looks at the rapidly reducing cost of polling, and only sees even more of a proliferation of it in the near future as robo-calling gets within the reaches of the masses, even the crazy bloggers. Even Rasmussen is getting into the act, with plans to spin off a new service that will allow anyone to poll on anything for a fee of $600. That leaves Blumenthal wondering how to screen in the future for proper quality and against abuse of time-honored standards.

• CA-Sen: Rasmussen popped up late Friday with a California Senate poll, taken to reflect the recent entry of ex-Rep. Tom Campbell to the race. Although a Campbell internal showed him dominating the primary field, he isn’t particularly polling better or worse than the rest of the field against three-term Dem incumbent Barbara Boxer. Campbell trails her 46-42, while Carly Fiorina trails 46-43 and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore trails 46-40. Note that this is probably the closest that Rasmussen has had this race, which other pollsters (especially the Field Poll) have always had in double digits for Boxer.

• IL-Sen: In the Democratic Senate primary, Alexi Giannoulias got an endorsement from one of the state’s few well-liked politicians, long-time SoS Jesse White. His long-shot rival David Hoffman got an endorsement that comes with a lot of voters and organizational firepower behind it, though: the Illinois Education Association, the state’s major teacher’s union.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov(pdf): Siena, following Marist from late last week, has gotten in the act, of polling a Kirsten Gillibrand/Harold Ford Jr. Democratic primary. Siena’s numbers pretty closely match Marist: they find Gillibrand with a 41-17 lead over Ford (with 5 for Jonathan Tasini), where Marist gave her a 43-24 lead. Where Siena breaks with Marist is in seeing how a hypothetical Gillibrand matchup with ex-Gov. George Pataki goes; they see Pataki leading 51-38 (and Ford doing even worse, 54-32). Also a bit ominous: Gillibrand’s negatives are creeping up, as she’s currently with a 30/32 favorable. Pataki, however, still is showing no signs of interest, and it’s getting late if he’s going to make a move.

No real surprises in the Governor’s race, according to Siena: Paterson’s popularity, while still awful, is ticking up a little, with a 38/52 approval. Paterson ties Republican ex-Rep. Rick Lazio 42-42 and Erie Co. Exec Chris Collins 40-40, but he’s very unlikely to survive the primary: he loses to Andrew Cuomo 59-21, with potential new entrant Suffolk Co. Exec Steve Levy pulling in 6. Cuomo stomps Lazio 66-24 and Collins 65-23, while Levy leads the Republicans too, beating Lazio 40-33 and Collins 42-26.

• CT-Gov, CT-AG: I’m labeling this as potentially “CT-Gov” even though SoS Susan Bysiewicz announced last week that she wasn’t going to run for Governor (despite having command of the polls), in order to run for AG and, based on her coy responses to the question of whether she’d serve a full term, then run against Joe Lieberman in 2012. There’s been some discussion of whether she even qualifies to run for AG, as one requirement is ten years of legal practice in Connecticut. She practiced for six years before becoming SoS, so the central question here is whether serving as SoS counts as the practice of law or not. This may need to be resolved by the courts – and given the timetable on running a campaign and that she may not be able to wait for a decision, she may have to swallow her disappointment and settle for having to be Governor instead.

• MI-Gov, MI-01: The DCCC may be sighing with relief at this: Rep. Bart Stupak (who holds down an R+3 district) is now sounding unlikely to run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Michigan, despite some interest last week. He tells Politico that it’s “hard for [him] to envision” a campaign, as he’s still bogged down with health care reform in the House and would be starting behind the 8-ball on fundraising and organization.

• NM-Gov: That was a strangely fast exploratory period: never-before-elected attorney Pete Domenici Jr. is officially launching his candidacy, after his name bubbled up from nowhere just last week. He has a lot of name recognition thanks to his ex-Senator dad, but it’s still a question whether he has the chops to make it out of the GOP primary, let alone how he’d fare in November against the seeming juggernaut that is Lt. Gov. Diane Denish.

• PA-Gov: I didn’t even know there were any “celebrity pathologists,” but not only is there one, but he’s planning to run a long-shot campaign for the Democratic gubernatorial nod in Pennsylvania. The “colorful” Cyril Wecht, Allegheny County Coroner for 20 years and a county commissioner for four more, is interested in the race. Wecht has drawn a lot of attention over the years for his skepticism over the Kennedy assassination, but his entry here is newsworthy because of his potential to split the Pittsburgh-area votes (already split between Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato and state Auditor Jack Wagner). In fact, there’s speculation he’s running mostly because of his grudge against Allegheny Co. DA Stephen Zappala, and, by extension, Onorato.

• AZ-08: Here’s another recruiting step-up for the Republicans in a potentially competitive race. They finally found a state Senator, Jonathan Paton, willing to take on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her sizable war chest. The GOP’s best bet here previously had been 28-year-old veteran Jesse Kelly, who’d at least gotten some traction on the fundraising front.

• GA-09: If there’s one open seat race I have trouble summoning up any interest in, it’s the GOP primary in the 9th, where there are half a dozen indistinguishable wingnuts trying to out-wingnut each other to replace wingnut Nathan Deal in one of the nation’s darkest-red districts. The field shrunk a bit today, with the dropout of the state’s former Transportation Director, Mike Evans, despite his prior status in the field’s top tier.

• NJ-12: A rich guy apparently with $250K burning a hole in his wallet has Rep. Rush Holt in his sights: Prinecton-area investment banker Scott Sipprelle has decided to take on Holt, and started his campaign with a jolt of self-funding.

• OK-01: I don’t think Republican Rep. John Sullivan has actually voted the wrong way on anything, so I’m wondering if he did something behind the scenes to tick off the local establishment, or if it’s just random teabaggery. Either way, there’s a movement underway in Tulsa’s right-wing circles to draft Dave Rader, who was the University of Tulsa’s football coach in the 1990s, for a primary run against Sullivan.

• PA-06: Rep. Jim Gerlach seems to be retaining most of his establishment support as he reconnects with his district after pulling the plug on his gubernatorial campaign. For instance, he got the support of the Montgomery County GOP chair, Bob Kerns. Gerlach also won a straw poll among GOP leaders in Chester County, although Steven Welch made enough of a dent there (pulling in 40%) that he might be tempted to stick around.

• UT-02: Former state Rep. and current Salt Lake County GOP vice-chair Morgan Philpot has resigned his role in the party, giving rise to speculation that he’s going to challenge Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson in this Republican-leaning seat. (Interesting trivia: the youngish Philpot is a graduate of Ave Maria Law School, the Domino’s Pizza empire’s attempt to branch out into legal education.)

• VA-05: With a substantial percentage of the losers of 2006 and 2008 now considering rematches, here’s one more name who had earlier ruled out a bit but just won’t stop sniffing around his old seat: Rep. Virgil Goode. He may be sensing an opening in the primary by being able to unify the squabbling factions in the GOP primary field in the 5th, torn between establishment fave state Sen. Robert Hurt and various teabagging insurgents.

• Census: One more state is getting into the act, of spending state dollars to make sure that state residents participate in the fast-approaching Census. Florida is starting a marketing blitz to make sure that hard-to-count groups (Hispanics especially, but also college students and farmworkers) respond. With the stakes including not only millions of dollars in federal grant money but also one or two more House seats, Florida certainly has incentive here.

Marist (pdf): (1/13-14, registered voters, 11/16-17 in parentheses)

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 43

Harold Ford Jr. (D): 24

Undecided: 33

(MoE: ±5%)

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 45 (45)

George Pataki (R): 42 (47)

Undecided: 13 (8)

Harold Ford Jr. (D): 36

George Pataki (R): 42

Undecided: 22

(MoE: ±3.5%)

With the once-fanciful idea of Tennessee’s Harold Ford Jr. running for the Senate in New York seeming a little closer to reality with each week, Marist decided to poll the question. (This comes despite various Democratic bigwigs trying to warn Ford off — this time, it was fellow centrist Martin Frost‘s turn.) Marist finds that Kirsten Gillibrand has a large edge over Ford in the Democratic primary, although with a substantial number of unknowns, suggesting that Gillibrand doesn’t have things locked down and that people don’t really know what to make of Ford yet (if they’ve even heard of him, which I suspect most New Yorkers haven’t).

In the general, they find that Gillibrand has improved her position against Republican ex-Gov. George Pataki slightly over the last few months, while Ford loses by 6 (although, again, that may have to do with Ford not being well-known). Also, there’s very low likelihood of Pataki running; while he hasn’t ruled it out, his actions lately have pointed more toward a dark horse run for the Presidency. In fact, another Republican is tired of waiting, and went ahead and declared his candidacy: Port Authority Commissioner Bruce Blakeman. Given the GOP’s recruitment woes in this race, he may be the best they can put forward.

What I’d like to see, though (and I’m a little disappointed Marist didn’t poll on the question) is how Ford would fare as an independent candidate a general election matchup against Gillibrand. To me, this seems like the only way he seems like he’d ever actually get anywhere in New York, by trying, a la Joe Lieberman 2006, to grab the center and most of the right with a marginal Republican having little effect in a general election. Closed primaries in New York prevent him from taking advantage of GOPers and right-leaning indies, but the general election doesn’t have that problem. Taegan Goddard, in particular, has been wondering out loud about this angle, and he’s saying today that Ford didn’t completely shoot down the idea (albeit in a statement saying he would be a Democrat but loaded with weasel words):

I’m a proud Democrat, and I think I’m going to remain that. I think Democrats are looking for a stand-up, independent guy to represent them in this race… So, in that sense, I would run as an independent.

RaceTracker Wiki: NY-Sen-B

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: This shouldn’t surprise anyone, as it’s been telegraphed from far away, but it’s official today: ex-Rep. Tom Campbell is shifting gears, getting out of the Governor’s race and moving over to the penny-ante (relatively speaking) table in the Senate race. This makes his third attempt to get into the Senate. Also, it’s provoking some debate as to whether this hurts Carly Fiorina or Chuck DeVore more. My sense is it hurts Carly Fiorina, as she’s perceived as the “moderate” in the race, but there’s also a school of thought that the libertarian-minded Campbell eats into DeVore’s base of fiscal conservatives (seeing as how social conservatism seems to be of little concern to the teabagging and Club for Growth types currently in the ascendancy in the GOP).

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk is behaving like a typical front-runner, pretending that his opposition isn’t actually there. He’s refusing to debate his gaggle of GOP primary rivals at a Feb. 2 televised debate sponsored by the local ABC affiliate.

• NY-Sen-B: The dissing of Harold Ford Jr. (considering a primary challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand) has gotten taken up a notch. Some of that is coming from Gillibrand herself, engaging the topic for the first time; she said that his views “may be right for Tennessee,” but are out of step with New York voters. She focused in particular on his opposition to health care reform as an example. However, Ford’s former House colleague, Rep. Anthony Weiner, got in the act too, and he got all the good lines. Weiner said that we “don’t need another Joe Lieberman,” and in a reference to Ford’s quote yesterday about visiting the outer boroughs by chopper, said, “Maybe when his helicopter lands in Queens next I can ask him.”

• PA-Sen: You know your campaign wasn’t meant to be when the most attention it gets is when you drop out. Pittsburgh-area state Rep. Bill Kortz had been running in the Senate Democratic primary, running to the field’s left and trading on his ties with organized labor. Having had no success fundraising, he opted out yesterday, not endorsing either candidate yet. With former appellate judge Doris Ribner-Smith out too, it’s back to a two-man race between Joe Sestak and Arlen Specter.

• MI-Gov: With the potential candidacy of Denise Ilitch seeming to gain ground (her family owns Little Caesar’s Pizza, as well as the Tigers and Red Wings), with her visit to Washington DC to discuss a run, local Democrats are taking a wait-and-see attitude. Labor leaders and other state-level insiders sound unsure about her actual positions, and are wondering what she brings to the table besides business experience. Also, there’s one more business-friendly name to add to the rapidly-growing list of potential Democratic candidates: Tony Earley, the chairman of DTE Energy, who said he’s being arm-twisted to run but will probably back state House speaker Andy Dillon.

• MN-Gov: State House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher and the state DFL were each fined by the state’s Campaign Finance Board for their role in a weird campaign finance violation, where Kelliher donors were illegally told to donate to the DFL, which then bought her an expensive voter database. No other candidates were given this favorable arrangement with the DFL.

• PA-Gov: AG Tom Corbett chased his main rival, Rep. Jim Gerlach, out of the race, and is now on the verge of locking down a formal endorsement from the state GOP in his gubernatorial run, following a strong showing in a straw poll of party leaders from southeast Pennsylvania. Corbett’s only primary opposition left comes from state Rep. Sam Rohrer, running on the right flank of the already pretty conservative Corbett.

• SC-Gov: While Education Superintendent Jim Rex has been seen as having a likely route to the Democratic gubernatorial nod, state Sen. Vince Sheheen has been hanging in there. And Sheheen got a boost today, with an endorsement from one of the state’s most durable political figures, Charleston mayor Joe Riley, who’s been in office for 35 (!) years. That gives Sheheen, who hails from the state’s rural north, an inroads in the Low Country.

• FL-10: The CW on Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young is that he’s undecided on re-election. He says he won’t announce anything for a few more weeks, but has indicated that he’s being “heavily lobbied” to run for another term.

• IL-10: Fresh off of his endorsement of the hard-to-spell Ovide Lamontagne, Dan Quayle issued another endorsement: Bob Dold. Although this poses the question of whether he thought he was endorsing Bob Dole, and remembered to leave off the “e” from the end of the word this time. (Actually, the real question is: what gives with Dan Quayle’s first trip into the limelight in something like 10 years?) On the Dem side, state Rep. Julie Hamos sports a newly-minted Sierra Club endorsement, while Dan Seals got thumbs-up from another local organization, the Shields Township Democrats.

• KS-03: Former Kansas City, Kansas mayor Carol Marinovich has said that she isn’t going to run for the Democratic nomination to replace retiring Rep. Dennis Moore. That appears to clear the path for her mayoral successor, Joe Reardon… if he wants to run. If he doesn’t, that leaves the Dems with a big question mark as they seek to retain this R+3 seat.

• NH-02: After the secret pretty much got let out of the bag yesterday, it’s official today: Katrina Swett is seeking the Democratic nomination in the 2nd. Swett brings with her $850K stockpiled from her cut-short 2008 Senate bid. Her main opponent, Ann McLane Kuster, sought to diminish the impact of that by rolling out endorsements from 50 state legislators (snark all you want about how New Hampshire has something like 8,000 state Representatives, but five of those endorsers were state Senators, of which there are precious few).

• NY-St. Sen.: Convicted misdemeanant Hiram Monserrate finds himself one step closer to expulsion, resignation, or some other ignominious end. A nine-member panel of Senators found him “unfit to serve” and recommended an immediate vote to remove him from office.

• House: Let’s just call it unscientific, but it’s an interesting conversation piece. The monthly National Journal insiders poll, usually on non-quantifiable topics, asks GOP and Democratic insiders this month what their over/under on losing seats in the House will be this year. GOPers sound optimistic, predicting an average of 33 pickups, with even the most pessimistic predicting in the 20s and 1 in 3 saying they’ll reclaim the majority. Dems are predicting an average of 15 seats lost, with only 1 predicting a loss in control.

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• CO-Sen: Republican Senate candidate Jane Norton has finally realized that she might be her own worst enemy. Having reeled off a serious of gaffes and wtf? moments that were captured on tape in recent months (sitting silently while a speaker called Barack Obama a “Muslim,” saying that Obama cares more about terrorists’ rights than protecting the country, and just recently saying that government shouldn’t be involved in health care at all), she’s decided that, rather than stopping saying dumb things, the best approach is to have that nasty Democratic tracker banned from all her appearances.

• NY-Sen-B: Ex-Rep. Harold Ford Jr. has gotten a green light of sorts (or at least a shrug of the shoulders) from David Paterson regarding a primary challenge, who said it was “OK” but that he might look for a different state to do it in. A new piece in the NYT today (who seem to have been interested in promoting his candidacy) may do Ford more harm than good, filled with details of helicopter flights and chauffeured cars that help paint him as an out-of-touch Wall Streeter, not exactly a position you want to run from these days (maybe most damning: “He has breakfast most mornings at the Regency Hotel on Park Avenue, and he receives regular pedicures. (He described them as treatment for a foot condition.)” Ford also might need to explain to the electorate when he decided that Kirsten Gillibrand was no longer acceptable; it turns out that he gave her $1,000 just seven months ago. Finally, with Ford making clear that he’s going to run against health care reform, and awash in a history of pro-life pronouncements, PPP’s Tom Jensen looks at New York exit polls and finds a way for Ford to get to 25% in the primary, but wonders where that other 75% is going to come from.

• PA-Sen: The Joe Sestak candidacy continues to have its desired effect: Arlen Specter just changed his position on the Dawn Johnsen nomination, and will vote for her confirmation, taking it to 60 votes. One possible unintended consequence, though: the more Sestak succeeds at pushing Specter to the left, the less opportunity for differentiating himself in (and thus a basis for winning) the Democratic primary.

• TX-Sen, TX-Gov: We have dueling rumors coming out of Texas, regarding Kay Bailey Hutchison. Fox’s El Paso affiliate is reporting that KBH no longer plans to resign her Senate seat, either before or after the Republican gubernatorial primary. However, a spokesperson from the KBH camp is now saying that report is wrong, and she will resign only when the health care and cap-and-trade debates are over.

• AZ-Gov: A serious primary challenge just hit Arizona Governor Jan Brewer in the eye, like a big pizza pie. State Treasurer Dean Martin put an end to the speculation and officially announced his candidacy today. (There’s still no report on whether CA-41’s Rep. Jerry Lewis will offer his endorsement, or if their feud is still continuing.) While Martin is the highest-profile GOPer to challenge Brewer so far, he’ll still have to fight his way through a crowd of other anti-Brewers, perhaps most prominently former state party chair John Munger.

• CT-Gov: It looks like the Republican gubernatorial field in Connecticut will be limited to Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele, rich guy Tom Foley, and now Larry DeNardis, a 71-year-old who most recently was president of the University of New Haven, but served one term in the U.S. House, representing New Haven from 1980 to his defeat in 1982. (Little known bit of trivia: the guy DeNardis defeated in that House race? Joe Lieberman.) State Senate minority leader John McKinney (who previously demurred from a CT-04 run) just reversed course and said he wouldn’t run; state House minority leader Lawrence Cafero, another potential candidate, also recently said ‘no.’

• IA-Gov: Here’s an iceberg on the horizon for the seemingly unsinkable Terry Branstad campaign: poor relations with the state’s religious right, coming to a head now with the prominent Iowa Family PAC endorsing rival Bob Vander Plaats and having unkind words for the insufficiently conservative Branstad, whom they won’t endorse for the general even if he is the nominee. (Discussion underway in desmoinesdem‘s diary.)

• MA-Gov: A day after PPP polled him as a Democratic fill-in for Deval Patrick in the gubernatorial race, SoS William Galvin said that, no, he wasn’t planning on launching a primary challenge against Patrick. Galvin, who’s been SoS since 1994, instead said he might be interested in moving to AG, assuming Martha Coakley becomes Senator.

• SC-Gov: Well, that was kind of anticlimactic. L’affaire Sanford wrapped up today with a quick censure vote of Gov. Mark Sanford that passed the state House by a 102-11 margin.

• FL-25: A longer CQ piece on the House landscape in Florida has an interesting tidbit that suggests that former Miami mayor Manny Diaz, who would have been a top-tier contender in the 25th had he run, won’t be running. Diaz has taken a fellowship appointment at Harvard’s JFK School, which would probably preclude a run. After Democrats running strong in all three Cuban-American districts in 2008, it looks like free passes will be handed out this year.

• MD-04: All previous indications had been that a primary challenge from the right against Rep. Donna Edwards was a go, but instead Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey had announced he won’t pursue that. He’d also been linked with possible runs for county executive and state Senate, so his next step is uncertain.

• NC-08: PPP adds a little information from yesterday’s poll of the 8th, which had freshman Rep. Larry Kissell comfortable against his GOP opposition. The possibility of a primary from the left, from attorney Chris Kouri, has been floated, but Kissell dispatches Kouri easily, 49-15. Only 29% of Democratic respondents in the district want Kissell replaced with someone more progressive, and 27% think Congressional Dems are too liberal vs. 12% who think they’re too conservative, suggesting (in tandem with his general election strength) that his occasional breaks from the party line may be helping more than hurting him.

• NH-02: Gonna make you Swett! The long-rumored  candidacy by wealthy Lieberdem Katrina Swett may be finally getting off the ground, as an invitation to a Jan. 31 Swett event says “Come meet our next U.S. Congresswoman!”

• OH-02: After looking into the possibility of an independent run against Rep. Jean Schmidt and probably Dem nominee David Krikorian, now Surya Yalimanchili (aka that guy from “The Apprentice”) says he’ll get into the Democratic primary instead, saying that his focus on jobs and economic growth is better served there.

• SC-01: After renewed interest in the race following the retirement announcement of GOP Rep. Henry Brown, 2008 candidate Linda Ketner has finally decided against another run. She instead asked her supporters to take a look at Robert Burton, already an announced candidate. On the GOP side, state Sen. Larry Grooms, a frequent Mark Sanford nemesis, cut short his long-shot gubernatorial bid, boxed out by bigger names like Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer and AG Henry McMaster. This might presage a run in the still-developing GOP field in the 1st, but he said that’s “unlikely” and he’d rather concentrate on the state Senate.

• TX-04: Add one more serious teabagger primary challenge to the ever-growing list, this time a challenge in the super-dark-red 4th to long-time Rep. Ralph Hall. Jerry Ray Hall (no relation, apparently) is throwing $350K of his own money into race in the fast-approaching March primary. It’s unclear what his beef with the conservative other Hall is (he was a Democrat until 2004 – albeit the most conservative one in the House — so that’s probably good enough).

• VA-11: Rep. Gerry Connolly (by virtue of his Dem-leaning suburban district) still seems the safest of the three Virginia freshman, but things got harder for him with the entry of another GOP challenger: Fairfax Co. Supervisor Pat Herrity (who narrowly lost the race to become County Chairman after Connolly ascended to the House). Herrity still faces a primary against self-funding Keith Fimian, who lost big-time to Connolly in the open seat race in 2008 and won’t get out of Herrity’s way; Fimian may still be able to beat the better-known Herrity based on his big cash stash.

• WA-02: No one has really thought of Rep. Rick Larsen as vulnerable lately, as he dismantled his at-least-somewhat-touted Republican opponents in the last two elections in this D+3 district. Still, a long-time foe has taken a look at the more favorable Republican landscape and decided to take another whack at Larsen. John Koster (a state Rep. at the time) ran against Larsen and lost in 2000, when it was an open seat following Republican Rep. Jack Metcalf’s retirement. Koster has spent most of the decade on the suburban Snohomish County Council (where he’s currently the only Republican).

• Election results: A lot happened last night, most notably the upset victory by Democratic state Del. Dave Marsden in Virginia’s state Senate district 37 by 317 votes, good for a pickup and a slightly bigger (22-18) Democratic edge in that chamber – which helps insulate against Bob McDonnell trying to Beshear the Dems back into the minority there. Also in Virginia, businessman Jeff McWaters held dark-red Senate district 8 for the GOP, defeating Democrat Bill Fleming by a 79-21 margin. Two other dark-red legislative districts (both made vacant because of Republican sex scandals) stayed in GOP hands, as California’s AD-72 was held by Chris Norby, 63-31, and Tennessee’s HD-83 was won 67-30 by Mark White. In New Hampshire, the field is now set in a potentially competitive general election to fill SD-16 on Feb. 16 (the swing district was vacated by GOPer Ted Gatsas, elected Manchester mayor). State Rep. David Boutin won the GOP nod; he’ll face off against Dem state Rep. Jeff Goley. Dems can push up to a 15-9 edge with a pickup here.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: There have been rumors about this before that didn’t pan out, but based on the amount of chatter out there, it’s seeming very likely all of a sudden: ex-Rep. Tom Campbell sounds poised to drop his gubernatorial bid (where he’s been polling well, but is way financially outgunned) and move over to the Senate race. He sounds likely to announce this on Thursday, seeing as how he has said he will be appearing at a Los Angeles County GOP event then, but “not as a candidate for Governor.” Weirdly, this could wind up helping Assemblyman Chuck DeVore in the Senate primary, as Campbell was one of three ostensible moderates (with no right-winger) in the Governor’s race, but now Campbell and Carly Fiorina will be splitting the moderate vote in the Senate primary, potentially letting ultra-conservative DeVore crash the gate.

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio has been winning his fair share of county GOP straw polls lately, but this one was more eagerly awaited than most, because it’s Charlie Crist’s home county. Rubio continues his winning streak, winning the straw poll in moderate-leaning Pinellas County (home of St. Petersburg) by a 106-54 margin.

• IL-Sen: This seems like a good get for David Hoffman, as he seeks to make up some ground on Alexi Giannoulias in the Senate primary: he got the Dem primary endorsements of both Chicago’s major papers, the Tribune and Sun-Times (although getting the endorsement of the more conservative and anti-machine Tribune doesn’t seem odd for Hoffman, given his reformist message). On the GOP side, Rep. Mark Kirk got an endorsement from one of his fellow moderates from the state delegation, downstate Rep. Timothy Johnson.

• MA-Sen: If you were thinking, in the wake of a couple good polls in Massachusetts, that it was safe to unbuckle your seatbelt and resume walking around the cabin, guess again. Republican state Sen. Scott Brown, taking a page from the Paulists, used the one-day “moneybomb” technique to good effect, raking in $1.1 million and basically ensuring he’ll be able to stay on the air up until Election Day. Brown has yet another TV spot up on the air, in response to Coakley’s first negative ad; Brown‘s firing back with the ol’ “tsk, tsk on you for going negative” approach. Between the contradictory polls, Brown’s fundraising, and other signs of life (like a Boston Herald endorsement for Brown – although that’s not a surprise from the conservative Herald), the Beltway Dems have decided to leave nothing to chance, and are getting more involved, as the DNC is sending in some ground troops, and the DSCC is ponying up for $567K for more ad time for Coakley – meaning, in its own way, that the GOP already won a moral victory here by getting the DSCC to pry open its checkbook.

• NH-Sen: I don’t know if anyone really cares one lick about what former Vice-President Dan Quayle is up to these days, but he popped up long enough to endorse Ovide Lamontagne in the GOP Senate primary in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, wealthy businessman Bill Binnie is tapping his own personal money to get a head start on the ad wars in the NH primary, with an introductory bio spot.

• NV-Sen: For a while there, it was looking like Harry Reid was even starting to have some trouble within his caucus, as Russ Feingold publicly criticized Reid yesterday over his insensitive language regarding Barack Obama, wondering out loud if he should continue as Majority Leader. Feingold dialed it back a little today, though, saying that he supports Reid staying on it that role. With Chris Cillizza today joining many other pundits in wondering if the fork is ready to be stuck in Reid, there comes word (buried in a longer Politico story), via anonymous sources, of a “a whisper campaign in Nevada that it would be possible for him to step aside and find someone else who could win.”

• NY-Sen-B: Ex-Rep. Harold Ford Jr. is beating the Senate drum a little louder today, saying in a New York Post (interesting choice of venue) that he’s “strongly considering” the race. In an interview with Chris Mathews, he also had his version of the “Ich bin ein Berliner” moment, enunciating that “I am a New Yorker, I am a New Yorker.” (Although I believe, in the local dialect, that’s pronounced “Hey! I’m a fuggin’ New Yorker here already, now step off!”)

• MA-Gov (pdf): Hot on the heels of the MA-Gov poll from the Boston Globe comes another one from PPP, part of its MA-Sen sample. Their sample finds incumbent Dem Deval Patrick in slightly worse position than the Globe (with an awful 22/59 approval), although he’s still in the lead. Interestingly, this poll also sees the Republicans in much better shape than the Globe did, as independent candidate Tim Cahill slouches into third place here. Patrick leads GOPer Charlie Baker and Cahill 29-27-21, while in a Patrick/Cahill/Christy Mihos three-way, Cahill moves into second with a 28-25-21 outcome. (This certainly points to the composition difference between the PPP sample, which may have overweighted Republicans, and the Globe/UNH sample, which may have overweighted Democrats. The Senate special election results may give us a clue which of these MA-Gov polls is closer.) PPP also tested Democratic SoS William Galvin as a replacement for Patrick, finding little difference, with a 26-26-18 race among Galvin, Baker, and Cahill, and a 26-22-20 race among Galvin, Cahill, and Mihos.

• MN-Gov: The Republican field in the Minnesota governor’s race may actually be dwindling down into the single digits, as things sort themselves out. Former Auditor Pat Anderson is dropping her gubernatorial bid, and instead is looking at a return to her old job. She’ll be running against Democratic incumbent Rebecca Otto, who unseated Anderson in 2006.

• RI-Gov: Things are getting pretty dire for the Reupblicans in Rhode Island, where former Cranston mayor (and 2006 Senate primary candidate) Stephen Laffey decided for the second time that he isn’t going to run for Governor. With businessman Rory Smith’s dropout, the GOP still has nobody here, although salvation may be coming in the form of current Gov. Don Carcieri’s communications director, John Robitaille, who is filling the gap by filing as a candidate. (Robitaille’s only political experience is losing a state Rep. race in 2006.) Meanwhile, Josh Goodman has been wondering if independent candidate Lincoln Chafee, while a former Republican, might actually run to the left of the Democrat in this race (telegraphed by his statements on possible tax hikes). A local consultant tells Goodman that Chafee may in fact get labor backing on the race, perhaps depending on which Dem Chafee faces. (Chafee might get labor support if he’s against Treasurer Frank Caprio, although the more liberal AG Patrick Lynch would probably have a lock on labor support if he survives the Dem primary.)

• LA-02: The prospect is lessening for a free-for-all Democratic primary in New Orleans for what’s likely to be an easy race to defeat GOP incumbent Rep. Joe Cao. State Rep. Cedric Richmond seems to be locking down establishment support as a consensus candidate here, and that was underscored by an endorsement from former Sen. John Breaux. Fellow state Rep. Juan LaFonta is still in the primary, but state Rep. Karen Carter Peterson (who took Bill Jefferson to a runoff in 2006) is running for state Senate instead of LA-02, and none of Richmond’s 2008 primary opponents seem to be getting in the race.

• PA-06: After earlier vows that he wouldn’t get out the GOP primary in the 6th despite the re-entry of incumbent Rep. Jim Gerlach, yesterday state Rep. Curt Schroder saw the fundraising-related handwriting on the wall and got out of the race. With former Revenue Secretary Howard Cohen and Lower Merion Twp. Commissioner Scott Zelov already having stood down, that leaves only self-funder Steven Welch and several some-dudes in Gerlach’s way.  

• RI-01: Maybe he’s been comparing notes with Jim Traficant on how to restart your political career after spending several years in prison. Republican former Providence mayor Buddy Cianci, fresh off of four and a half years in jail over criminal acts while mayor, is now considering a challenge to Rep. Patrick Kennedy.

• VA-09: Despite having dodged a bullet with state Del. Terry Kilgore deciding against a run, Rep. Rick Boucher may still have to avoid some incoming fire in November. The state House’s majority leader, Morgan Griffith, said he’s “considering” the race and may get in if someone stronger doesn’t. (Since the only other person who’s probably stronger is state Sen. William Wampler Jr., and it doesn’t sound like he’ll run in the 9th, as he’s probably banking on a Republican takeover of the state Senate soon, in which case he’d become Finance chair, it may in fact fall to Griffith.) Griffith does have one slight problem: he doesn’t live in the 9th, although he’s apparently within walking distance of the district lines.

• FL-CFO: Florida Democrats finally found a CFO candidate to help round out their slate of candidates: former state Rep. Loranne Ausley, who decided on a CFO run and ended her state Senate bid. The bigger implication is that state Sen. Al Lawson – who’s flirted off and on with a CFO bid – is probably staying for good in the FL-02 primary now. (Interestingly, Ausley, like Lawson, hails from the Tallahassee area.)

• OH-Auditor: Buzz in Ohio is that incumbent Mary Taylor (the only statewide Republican right now) is going to drop a bid for another term as Auditor and run as John Kasich’s running mate for Lt. Governor instead. This probably strengthens Kasich’s bid against incumbent Dem Ted Strickland… but an open Auditor seat is also good news for the Dems, as Hamilton Co. Commissioner David Pepper was already running a strong race against Taylor. Remember that the Auditor is one of the seats on Ohio’s state legislative redistricting board, so an Auditor pickup would compensate there for a loss at Governor or SoS (but not both).

• MT-St. Sen.: The Missoulian has a very early look at prospects in the state legislature in Montana. Because of the open seat situation in the Senate, Democrats might have a shot at retaking that body (the GOP controls 27-23). Of the 25 seats up this year, 16 are held by Republicans and 9 by Democrats, with a total of 15 of the 25 being open seats.

• VA-St. Sen.: Two special elections are on tap for tonight, one of which is very interesting. The 37th, a swingy area in suburban Fairfax County, was left vacant by new Republican AG Ken Cuccinelli; it’s being contested by Democratic Del. Dave Marsden and Republican former Fairfax Co. School Board member Steve Hunt. There are echoes of the gubernatorial race here, as Marsden is running a moderate-enough campaign that he may be at risk of losing the base’s interest, while Hunt is trying to downplay controversial social conservative remarks from his past. Hunt has an internal poll showing him up, and Dem enthusiasm may still be down thanks to the post-Creigh Deeds hangover, so the GOP seems poised to eke this one out, helping them to keep holding the Dems to a narrow 21-19 edge in the Senate. The other race is in the solid-red 8th in Virginia Beach, where GOP businessman Jeff McWaters should have little problem beating Democratic Bill Fleming to replace Republican Ken Stolle, who just became Virginia Beach Sheriff.

• NRCC: The NRCC bumped up four more challengers in their “Young Guns” framework today, most prominently a move to “Contender” (the 2nd of three tiers) for Jim Renacci, challenging Rep. John Boccieri in OH-16. Also entering at the lowest level (“On the Radar”) are former FBI agent Mike Grimm, running in NY-13, state Sen. Dan Debicella, running in CT-04, and state Rep. John Loughlin, running in RI-01 against Rep. Patrick Kennedy. That last entry may seem like the longest of long shots; it may in fact be more of a deterrent by the NRCC to keep Buddy Cianci (see above) from running here, and the accompanying bad PR that would go with that.

• Redistricting: Martin Frost’s former CoS, Matt Angle, is the center of Democratic efforts to un-gerrymander Texas’s House map after the 2010 census. Roll Call looks in depth at how he’s built a complex fundraising network that’s primarily aimed at Democratic gains in the state House (where they are down only 77-73), so Dems can get a better share of the four seats Texas is expected to add.

• Grant money: People with a professional interest in studying Congress might want to apply for research grants available from the Dirksen Congressional Center. It sounds particularly oriented toward graduate students and fellows, but I’m sure some of SSP’s readership fits that bill.

• Redistricting Contest: A reminder – if you haven’t sent in your .DRF.XML file to Jeff, please do so ASAP – jeffmd [at] swingstateproject [dot] com. Please be sure to include your SSP username and a link to your diary. Thanks! (D)

• AR-Sen: Alleged United States Senator Blanche Lincoln is whinging that actually doing her job in December cost her $300,000 in fundraising receipts. This is probably her way of saying her numbers will be lighter than expected this quarter. Why on earth would you go public with this, though? This is not exactly the kind of message you want to communicate to the public – or your opponents. (D)

• CA-Sen: A lot of Republicans seemed dismayed by Carla Fiorina’s suggestions a few months ago that she wasn’t going to be dipping into her personal money in order to fund her Senate bid – I mean, that was the whole point of her running, wasn’t it? At any rate, she’s just reversed course, with her latest finance report, which reveals that she loaned her campaign $2.5 million. Having burned through most of her outside donations, that leaves her with $2.7 million on hand.

• FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Charlie Crist’s message discipline seems to be gotten completely unglued, as he searches for the just-right pitch that’s moderate enough and yet conservative enough. Today, he’s acknowledging support for the stimulus package and “being nice” to Barack Obama, and not apologizing for either one. Meanwhile, there’s still that persistent rumor out there involving Crist bailing on the Senate race and going back to another term as Governor. That’s not happening if GOP AG Bill McCollum has anything to say about it; he says he won’t stand down for Crist.

• MA-Sen: Everyone’s still milling around waiting for that rumored close Boston Herald poll, but in the meantime, a new Democratic internal poll floated to the surface this morning, and it seems to give some credence to that Boston Globe/UNH poll that gave a solid 15-point margin to Democratic AG Martha Coakley. The internal, conducted by Mark Mellman’s firm, gives Coakley a 50-36 lead over Republican state Sen. Scott Brown, with Libertarian candidate Joe Kennedy (no relation to the Kennedy clan) pulling in a surprisingly-high 6 (which may be coming out of Brown’s share). If Brown has internals showing the race a dead heat like he claims, now would be the time for him to lay them on the table. Also today comes word that Barack Obama has no plans to campaign for Coakley, although I don’t know whether to interpret that as a sign of Democratic confidence, or of Obama not wanting to risk political capital on something that’s less than a slam dunk.

• ND-Sen: Gov. John Hoeven had said he needed a few weeks to get some stuff out of the way before saying anything official about the Senate race, but it looks like the stuff was more easily cleared away than anticipated: he’s now expected to announce his candidacy at an appearance at a GOP district convention in Bismarck tonight.  

• NY-Sen-B: Republican Rep. Peter King announced, for something like the third or fourth time, that he is no longer considering running for the Senate, and instead will run for another term in NY-03. Stay tuned for next month, when King will at some point remember that he hasn’t been on cable news for a while and will reveal that he’s considering a run for the Senate. Meanwhile, the political establishment is continuing to take seriously the possibility of a Harold Ford Jr. primary challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand, going all the way up to the White House, which today confirmed that it will back Gillibrand over Ford. Ford, meanwhile, is doing some serious remodeling of his image to better comport with New York codes: he’s now done a complete 180 on gay marriage, which he’s now for, and on abortion, where he claims that when he said he was pro-life, it was to “take back” the term from its right-wing appropriators. Finally, the Republicans will have to look elsewhere than ex-Rep. Susan Molinari for their nominee; after a brief flirtation, Molinari (who’s making big money consulting and probably doesn’t want the pay cut) just declined.

• UT-Sen: This should come as no surprise, but the NRSC, tasked with defending incumbents, confirmed that it’s supporting Bob Bennett in his re-election bid against several right-wing primary challengers. The Club for Growth has painted a bullseye on Bennett’s back, although they haven’t settled on which challenger to support.

• CO-Gov: Denver mayor John Hickenlooper hasn’t leaped as quickly into the Governor’s race (following the withdrawal of Bill Ritter and demurral of Ken Salazar) as many had expected; he’s saying he’ll make a decision within the next five days, so stay tuned. Former House speaker Andrew Romanoff, currently an invisible presence in the Senate primary, has also been consulting with Democratic officials about getting in, although it sounds like he’d do so only if Hickenlooper didn’t. Another rumor getting bandied about: Romanoff joining forces and running as Hickenlooper’s Lt. Gov. candidate; at any rate, it sounds like Romanoff is looking for an exit from the Senate race. Hickenlooper’s decision may get helped along by a certain Barack Obama, who apparently called Hickenlooper to encourage him to get into the race (Hickenlooper says that doesn’t change his decision, though).

• KS-Gov: Kansas Democrats are getting way, way down the totem pole as they look for a gubernatorial candidate, with Tom Wiggans’ recent withdrawal. Board of Regents chair Jill Docking, whose name frequently appears as Democrats’ Plan B in a variety of races, said she won’t run, and now the fickle finger seems to be pointing at Lawrence-area state Sen. Marci Francisco. (H/t Campaign Diaries.)

• MA-Gov: The Boston Globe/UNH poll of the Senate race also asked about 2010’s gubernatorial race, and it’s more confirmation for the apparent trend that Dem incumbent Deval Patrick seems bolstered by the presence of state Treasurer Tim Cahill’s independent bid (despite Patrick’s 39/50 favorables and Cahill’s 39/15). Rather than Cahill dominating the middle, as he may have expected, instead he just winds up splitting the anti-Patrick vote, leaving the race’s GOPers a distant third. A Patrick/Cahill/Charlie Baker ballot plays out 30-23-19, while Patrick/Cahill/Christy Mihos is a similar 32-23-19.

• CA-11: The GOP hasn’t quite found a top-tier candidate to take on Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney, the only Golden State Dem who’s even remotely vulnerable. But they might get something of an upgrade with the newly-announced candidacy of David Harmer, the Republican attorney who acquitted himself fairly well in the special election last year in much bluer CA-10. He can bring residual name rec and fundraising connections to the race, and one of the race’s lesser lights, former San Jose city councilor Larry Pegram, is already moving to get out of the race. Still, Harmer doesn’t live in the district, and he exposes himself to the same carpetbagging charges he brought to his race against John Garamendi in the 10th.

• CA-19: Kevin McCarthy looks a little flaky after this whole incident: it was reported last Friday that the Bakersfield-area Republican was sticking with his earlier endorsement of state Sen. Jeff Denham in the 19th while admitting a bit of a man-crush on ex-Rep. Richard Pombo. But now the Fresno Bee is reporting that McCarthy has gone all the way, spurned Denham, and is now endorsing Pombo.

• HI-01: The local political establishment weighed in heavily on the side of state Sen. Colleen Hanabusa in the upcoming special election to replace resigning Rep. Neil Abercrombie. The decision of Sen. Daniel Akaka to endorse Hanabusa over his nemesis Ed Case should be no surprise, but this was accompanied by endorsements from the state’s other Senator, Daniel Inouye, and a variety of labor leaders as well. Case does have one endorsement which he’s touting in ads, though, from ex-Governor Ben Cayetano.

• NY-23: Doug Hoffman won’t have the GOP primary field to himself in the 23rd after all. He’ll face a fight with a fellow conservative, albeit more of a team player: Assemblyman Will Barclay, who passed on a run in the special election in the 23rd, says he’s begun exploring the general election race.

• OK-02: Rep. Dan Boren can always be counted on to say something douchey, and today’s no exception. He tells the Tulsa World (in an article titled “Boren: Democrats May Lose Congress”) that Dems are likely to lose seats in Congress, and that’s good news for Oklahoma and especially for him personally. “”In the 112th (Congress), I probably will have the most influence I have ever had, no matter who has the majority,” he says.

• TN-08: It remains to be seen how much of an impact this will have on the race to succeed retiring Dem Rep. John Tanner, but the Republican primary just shrunk by one: computer consultant Donn Janes has announced that he’s going to run instead as a Tea Party-aligned independent. (J)

• Mayors: That Rahm Emanuel-running-for-Chicago-mayor thing seemed to last a whole couple days. Emanuel yesterday praised Richard Daley and backed him for another term starting in 2011.

• Florida: For all the general black clouds hanging over the Democrats regarding 2010, there’s always a lot of nuts-and-bolts numbers that somehow still look favorable, such as party committee fundraising and registration numbers. In Florida, both are actually advantage Team Blue, as the state Democratic party is sitting on $2.6 million cash on hand, $1 million more than state Republicans. Democrats have also built up their registration advantage over Republicans in Florida, to a margin of more than 800,000.

• Tea Partiers: TPM has an interesting look at the civil war growing within the Tea Party movement, a microcosm of the larger civil war within the Republican party. Front and center today is the big teabaggers’ convention in Nashville (with Sarah Palin as keynoter), which is too expensive for many of the teabagging rank and file to attend, leading some to question whether there’s a usurpation of the movement by the Republicans’ Beltway professional class. Meanwhile, Think Progress has some new additions to its ongoing compendium of teabagger primary challenges to establishment GOPers.

• Redistricting contest: Attention all redistricting nerds! Our New York redistricting contest deadline is Sunday, midnight Eastern time, so get your maps done. Don’t forget that people need to email their .DRF.XML files to jeffmd at swingstateproject dot com.

• AR-Sen, MO-Sen: Here’s an interesting alliance between two prominent female Senate candidates, one perhaps our most vulnerable incumbent and the other our likeliest pickup. Blanche Lincoln and Robin Carnahan have formed a joint fundraising committee, the Missouri Arkansas Victory Fund.

• CT-Sen: I had almost forgotten about Merrick Alpert, a young entrepreneur who’d been trying to carve out some space for himself in the Democratic primary against Chris Dodd as the “clean” outsider (and had been polling in the low double digits in primary polls, by virtue of his non-Dodd-ness). With the departure of Dodd and his replacement with the squeaky-clean Richard Blumenthal, it looks like Alpert’s going to need to do some message retooling. At any rate, Alpert says he’s sticking around in the race no matter what.

• DE-Sen: A politician voting against something, and then take credit for its benefits after it passes anyway? Why, I’m sure that’s never happened before. Still, it’s not the kind of thing you might expect Rep. Mike Castle to do… but he’s doing it anyway, touting $5 million in aid to the Delaware state government that came from the stimulus package he voted against.

• FL-Sen: I’m not sure if Charlie Crist actually thinks this’ll work; it seems like a transparent-enough ploy that the teabaggers will see through it like Grandma’s underpants. At any rate, he’s spinning to the paranoid right as quickly as the newly-rabid John McCain, decrying “Obamacare secrecy” in HCR negotiations, and also engaging in a little revisionist history about his stance on abortion.

• MA-Sen: Everyone’s getting Twitter-pated about PPP’s early teasings of its poll of this race, which they say is “loseable” for the Democrats; the actual numbers should be out this weekend. Still, you’d think that if there were an actual fire going on here, you’d see the national committees getting involved, and they aren’t (yet)… although the RNC has been sending around an e-mail asking for money on state Sen. Scott Brown’s behalf. Meanwhile, Martha Coakley has a big fundraiser scheduled for next Tuesday in DC (with all the state’s Congressional delegation and other moneybags luminaries like the Podestas) — although, given how gigantic a cash advantage she already has for blanketing the airwaves, it seems like that day might be better spent actually working on the ground than heading to Washington.

• ND-Sen: It turns out R2K had a perfectly good poll of North Dakota in the field on Tuesday, which got spoiled when Byron Dorgan suddenly retired. Still, it sheds some light on Dorgan’s retirement decision, as the final result is Hoeven 54, Dorgan 37 (which may be skewed toward Hoeven because they kept asking polling after Dorgan’s announcement, but Dorgan was still losing before the announcement too). That’s despite Dorgan’s sky-high approvals of 63%… just what happens when the state’s natural lean is against you, and someone even more popular than you comes along (just ask Lincoln Chafee). Remember that R2K found a 57-35 lead for Dorgan back in February over Hoeven; the flip was driven in large part by independents, who moved decisively from Dorgan to Hoeven over the year. One other Democratic name is getting floated as a potential Dorgan successor: former Dorgan aide and former state Senator Kristin Hedger.

• NY-Sen-B: Lots of New York’s power players are trying to talk Harold Ford Jr. down from the ledge regarding his potential primary challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand, starting with Gillibrand’s mentor Charles Schumer. Rep. Jerry Nadler, who came around late to supporting Gillibrand but is firmly in her column now, also joined in the chorus telling Ford (who’s been huddling with advisors from Michael Bloomberg’s coterie) to back off. The campaign against Ford almost seems to write itself, starting with his pro-life proclamations and the fact that he’s been registered to vote in New York for only six weeks. That’s only the tip of the iceberg, though; Campaign Diaries has the definitive takedown of his record.

• NV-Sen: Some more intraparty sniping in Nevada, where Rep. Dean Heller is still complaining that John Ensign continues to tarnish the GOP’s brand in the state, which could hurt its chances in the Senate and Governor’s races in 2010. Heller said he wouldn’t call for Ensign to resign, “at least not on this show.”

• PA-Sen: Former Commonwealth Court judge Doris Smith-Ribner ended her longshot bid in the Democratic primary in the Senate race, having made no fundraising progress. She made so little impact I don’t see this changing much of anything, although maybe it helps Rep. Joe Sestak a bit via less splitting of the anti-Arlen Specter vote. She’s switching over to the Lt. Governor’s race, although she faces a longshot bid there too for the Dem nod against former Philadelphia controller Jonathan Saidel.

• UT-Sen: Maybe yesterday’s news that Jason Chaffetz wouldn’t challenge him was good news for Bob Bennett, but things aren’t getting any better for Team Bob. He’s now officially a target of the Club for Growth, unhappy with his occasionally moments of across-the-aisle comity. The CfG doesn’t have a preferred horse in the race, yet, as they seem torn between Mike Lee, Tim Bridgewater, and Cherilyn Eagar; for now, they’re calling all three of them “superior” to Bennett.

• NM-Gov: The New Mexico GOP has only a number of second-stringers running for Governor (with Dona Ana County DA Susana Martinez maybe the most interesting), so they still seem to be casting about. They’ve gotten a nibble from a local attorney with no electoral experience but a prominent family name: Pete Domenici Jr.

• SD-Gov: One more Republican got into the field in the South Dakota gubernatorial race, bringing the total to five. State Sen. Gordon Howie seems to be laying claim to the teabaggers’ mantle in the race, via his presidency of the Tea Party-linked Citizens for Liberty. (I’d rather see him run for the House, where he could someday form the Guys Whose Names Seem To Be Out Of Order Caucus, along with Rodney Tom and Nickie Monica.)

• TX-Gov, TX-Sen: Kay Bailey Hutchison’s gubernatorial run has been giving John Cornyn nonstop heartburn since he took over the NRSC, and now he seems to be strategically leaking that he’d prefer that she drop her gubernatorial bid altogether (despite the primary being only two months away) to avoid the prospect of an expensive special election. Note to Cornyn: she’ll lose the gubernatorial primary anyway, and you’ll have her back shortly. While smart Texans (see White, Bill) seem to be backing away from the Senate-Race-that-probably-won’t-exist, one more Republican is floating his name for the hypothetical race. And it’s a guy I didn’t know even had any political inclinations: ESPN talking head Craig James.

• UT-Gov: Democrats got a good candidate to run in the 2010 gubernatorial special election: Salt Lake County mayor Peter Corroon confirmed that he’ll run. Corroon still faces a steep uphill fight, given the state’s crimson hue, but Dems have a better opening than usual, given the muddled Republican field in view of possible convention and/or primary challenges to appointed Gov. Gary Herbert.

• CA-19: Neighboring Representatives are taking sides in the Republican primary in the open seat race in the 19th. Kevin McCarthy, who leads NRCC recruitment efforts, is sticking with his initial endorsement of state Sen. Jeff Denham despite ex-Rep. Richard Pombo’s entry to the race (although he confesses that he “likes” Pombo too), while Devin Nunes has endorsed his ex-colleague Pombo. Denham also benefits from endorsements from many of the other state GOP House members (Dreier, Royce, Campbell, Issa, and Herger), although Duncan Hunter Jr. switched to “neutral” from Denham after Pombo’s entry.

• IN-09: It’s on… for the fifth freakin’ time. Ex-Rep. Mike Sodrel is launching another run against Democratic Rep. Baron Hill. (Hill has a 3-1 win record in their meetings so far.) The trouble is, unlike previous tries, Sodrel will have to get through a primary this time; attorney Todd Young has already raised substantial money and has many establishment endorsements (including some statewide officials). With Sodrel increasingly buddying up to the teabaggers, this looks like it has the potential to turn into one more skirmish in the establishment/movement battle.

• ND-AL: Republicans suddenly seem more interested in taking on the usually untouchable Democratic Rep. Earl Pomeroy, no doubt heartened by the knowledge that they’d be running downticket from John Hoeven in the Senate race and might benefit from coattails. State Rep. Rick Berg is sounding the loudest, although former Insurance Comm. Jim Poolman also is expressing interest. Public Service Commission member Kevin Cramer (who’s lost twice to Pomeroy before) was scoping out a run even before Byron Dorgan’s retirement.

• NH-02: With a crowd already formed in the NH-02 Democratic primary, Executive Councilor Debora Pignatelli declined to run. She didn’t endorse attorney Ann McLane Kuster, state Rep. John DeJoie, or Katrina Swett (who hasn’t formally declared yet), though.

• PA-04: There are rumors of a potential primary challenge from the left to Rep. Jason Altmire (despite the R+6 character of his suburban Pittsburgh district). Businesswoman Georgia Berner — who lost the 2006 primary to Altmire, who went on to defeat GOP Rep. Melissa Hart in the general — is dissatisfied with Altmire’s Blue Doggish record and is considering a rematch.

• VA-05: Some more delicious cat fud in the 5th, where state Sen. Robert Hurt, the Republican establishment’s pick in the race, has told the teabaggers to get bent. He’ll be skipping two debates sponsored by Tea Party organizations (although he cites the legislative calendar as the reasons for not showing up).

• Polltopia: Nate Silver has a very interesting deconstruction of Rasmussen, one of the best things I’ve seen written about them yet. He looks at why they keep finding right-wing insurgent candidates (Marco Rubio, Rand Paul) overperforming against Democratic candidates compared to Republican establishment rivals, contrary to other pollsters. What he sees is that between their exclusionary likely voter screen and their one-day polling periods (with no callbacks), they’re disproportionately reaching the most informed, motivated, and ideologically-driven voters.