Tag: Lee Fisher

KY-Sen: Obnoxious theocrat James Dobson is endorsing establishment dude Trey Grayson over weirdo Rand Paul. It feels like it’s gotten late early around here, with Grayson badly trailing in the last few polls, so you gotta wonder whether this or anything else can make much of a difference.

NV-Sen: According to Reid Wilson, the Tea Party Express (the political action wing, such as it is, of the teabaggers) says they’ll spend $100 to $150K on behalf of wingnut favorite Sharron Angle. Angle’s trailed pretty badly in most polling, though.

OH-Sen: With Ohio’s primary around the corner, the Hotline is reporting that the DSCC will apparently step into the race on Lee Fisher’s behalf. The not-terribly-well-funded Fisher is facing off against the almost-penniless Jennifer Brunner, but apparently Bob Menendez doesn’t want to take any chances.

WI-Sen: One-time beer baron Dick Leinenkugel officially decided to join the now-crowded GOP field hoping to take on Sen. Russ Feingold. Leinenkugel’s chief problem appears to be the fact that he just resigned as the governor’s Commerce Secretary… and the governor of Wisconsin is Jim Doyle, a Democrat. The Kugel’s new opponents were, needless to say, quick to point this out.

AZ-Gov: A couple of tidbits from a PPP poll that is slated to be released later today:

• Brewer has seen a significant improvement in her job approval numbers with Republicans. When we looked at the state in September she was under water even with voters of her own party, as 37% of them expressed disapproval of her job performance while only 28% felt she was doing a good job. Now 54% of Republicans approve of her and only 27% disapprove, so she’s seen a good deal of improvement on that front, which should be particularly helpful for her prospects of winning nomination for a full term against a crowded field of primary opponents.

• At the same time Democratic candidate Terry Goddard leads Brewer 71-25 with Hispanics. That may seem ho hum, but consider this: Barack Obama only won Hispanic voters in the state by a 56-41 margin. So Goddard’s outperforming him by more than 30 points there. And on our September poll Goddard was up just 53-33 with Hispanics so it’s a 26 point improvement on the margin even relative to that.

FL-22: Combustible Republican Allen West is flashing an internal poll (from Wilson Research Strategies) which allegedly has him up 44-42 over incumbent Dem Ron Klein.

IN-09: Todd Young, seeking the GOP nod against ultra-retread Mike Sodrel, has a new ad up on TV, trying to paint himself as the “true conservative” choice. To CQ’s credit, they asked how much is being spent on the ad. To the Young campaign’s discredit, they declined to say.

MI-01: The Republican field in this race is getting’ mighty crowded here, too. GOP state Sen. Jason Allen, who is term-limited, is the latest to seek the Republican nod to replace Bart Stupak.

Fundraising: CQ has a handy chart of pre-primary fundraising filings in the three states which have primaries next week: Indiana, North Carolina, and Ohio.

Immigration: The Hill surveys the races out West where Arizona’s new immigration law may bolster Latino turnout – and help Dems. Jon Ralston notes that Brian Sandoval, the GOP’s would-be savior in the NV-Gov race, has come out in favor of the law. This could all get very ugly – well, even uglier than it already is.

AR-Sen: Bill Halter and Blanche Lincoln are having a debate on Friday, and Politico’s Dave Catanese, one of the moderators, is asking for questions. Click the link to find his email address or Twitter account. Meanwhile, Blanche Lincoln, who has refused to return $4,500 she received from Goldman Sachs’s PAC, has cancelled a fundraiser with the firm.

CO-Sen: Struggling GOP front-runner Jane Norton has booted her top advisors in favor of some new names, including one which may sound a bit familiar: Josh Penry. He’s Norton’s new campaign manager… and also happens to be the sitting state Sen. Minority Leader who briefly ran for governor last year before getting pushed aside for ex-Rep. Scott McInnis. The Colorado legislative session is set to end soon (May 12), so maybe this won’t interfere too much with Penry’s day job.

IN-Sen: This is crappy even for John Hostettler, who usually makes the likes of Larry Kissell and Carol Shea-Porter look like fundraising champs: He raised just $37K since joining the race and has just $10K in the bank. Meanwhile, the hapless Dan Coats got an endorsement from fellow Hoosier Mike Pence, the third-ranking Republican in the House, presidential wannabe, and all-around moran.

WA-Sen: Though Dino Rossi has been largely dragging his feet about a run against Sen. Patty Murray, the DSCC is concerned enough that they supposedly have sent a squad of researchers to Washington to start digging up oppo. But wouldn’t Gov. Christine Gregoire, who beat Rossi twice, already have a mile-long file on him? Meanwhile, Teabagger King Jim DeMint says he won’t endorse anyone against Rossi if he gets in the race – and if anything, seems excited to give Rossi his support.

FL-08: The cast of characters running in the GOP primary in Florida’s 8th CD has been an ever-changing, tumultuous mix – and the field is about to get even more shook-up. Former State Sen. Daniel Webster, who said no to a run back in October, looks like he’s ready to change his mind and hop into the race after all. But while Webster might have cleared the field half a year ago, no one seems interested in bowing out for him now. We can only pray for cat fud galore.

Census: The nationwide census participation rate hit 71% earlier this week, just a point below the 2000 response rate, which officials say is unexpectedly high, given what they perceive as a growing mistrust of government. The Census Bureau had budgeted for a response rate of only 67%, so we’ve already saved $425 million.

Polling: Gallup has a new midterm-focused blog up and running called “2010 Central.”

Fundraising: CQ has a great chart compiling Senate fundraising numbers for Q1. SSP will have its usual House chart up at the end of this month.

Wall Street: Is financial regulation finally the issue that will let Dems find their mojo? Back to Dave Catanese again, who says that Paul Hodes, Lee Fisher and – believe it or not – Charlie Melancon are all bashing their opponents for standing in the way of Wall Street reform. Melancon’s cruddy voting record has made it hard for the DSCC to push out a coordinated message on most issues (he’s voted against a lot of big-ticket Dem legislation), but maybe now we can all speak with one voice on this topic.

NV-Sen: Who runs Bartertown? Sue Lowden runs Bartertown!

CT-Sen: It looks like Dick Blumenthal, who hasn’t run a competitive race in 20 years, has a lot of rust to shed on the campaign trail. An NYT article paints an unflattering portrait of Blumenthal’s political skills, describing his long-winded and legalistic answers to simple questions, and a flop in a debate against an unknown primary opponent. (Please tell me why Blumenthal’s campaign team consented to a debate against Merrick Alpert in the first place?) None of this is making me feel very good.

KY-Sen: Heh – from the king of fuck-yous comes a final hurrah: Retiring Sen. Jim Bunning is endorsing weirdo Rand Paul in the Republican primary to succeed him, snubbing establishment pick Trey Grayson. Considering that Bunning was shoved aside very much against his will to make way for Grayson, this last knife-twist makes sense.

NY-Sen-B: Here’s one clear reason why Kirsten Gillibrand has scared off legions of opponents, including George Pataki: She raked in another $1.6 million in the first quarter, bringing her total raised since she became a senator to $8.8 million. No word on her cash-on-hand yet, though.

OH-Sen: Dem Lee Fisher’s Q1 haul doesn’t look too pretty – just $550K, and with only $1.8 million on hand, and his warchest will undoubtedly shrink heading into his primary with SoS Jennifer Brunner (Fisher just went up with an introductory TV ad). For her part, Brunner hasn’t released her numbers yet. (GOPer Rob Portman has $7.6 million on hand.)

FL-Gov: Yowza. Republican rich guy Rick Scott, who appeared on the gubernatorial scene out of nowhere just days ago, says he’ll spend $1.5 million of his own money on a statewide TV and radio ad buy this week. Is he trying to Meg Whitman his way into contention?

PA-12: The NRCC has spent another $50K on media on behalf of Tim Burns. The D-Trip hasn’t laid out any cash here yet.

TN-08: We noted in a previous digest that Rob Kirkland has been filing independent expenditures on behalf of his brother, Ron Kirkland, who is in the midst of a competitive GOP primary to replace retiring Rep. John Tanner. The two claim they are no longer communicating (if they did, they’d be violating the no-coordination rules required for IEs), but a local attorney (who is supporting another campaign, but won’t tell which) says he doesn’t buy it and has filed a complaint with the FEC.

WATN?: This is very good news: President Obama has nominated former Rep. Don Cazayoux to be U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Louisiana. Here’s hoping he is swiftly confirmed. Cazayoux is only 46, so this post would put him in great position to stage a return to electoral politics some day, if he so chooses.

• Special elections/Runoffs: Believe it or not, it’s a busy election night tonight. Top of the list is the special election in FL-19, where the successor to Robert Wexler will be chosen. In this D+15 district in the more middle-class parts of the Gold Coast, the Democrat, state Sen. Ted Deutch, is heavily favored. The parties haven’t gotten involved, and Republican Ed Lynch (who lost a lopsided decision to Wexler in 2008) is hamstrung by the presence of independent right-wing candidate Jim McCormick.

It’s runoff day in Texas, with almost all the action on the GOP side. TX-17, between self-funder Bill Flores and 2008 candidate Rob Curnock, and TX-23, between self-funder Quico Canseco and ex-CIA agent William Hurd, are the marquee races as far as the U.S. House goes. There are also some GOP runoffs in some state House races, an interesting mixed bag of open seat succession races, teabaggish challenges to GOP incumbents, and challenges to vulnerable Dems. Finally, there’s a culture war clash between just-very conservative and super-duper conservative in two statewide contests: one for the Supreme Court (with Rick Green, the former state Rep. known for punching the guy who beat him in 2002, representing Team Crazy), and one for the Board of Education (between Marsha Farney and Brian Russell, with Russell the movement conservative here).

Finally, there’s some state legislature action in Massachusetts, California, and Florida. Primaries for two state Senate seats are in Massachusetts, the ones held by now-Sen. Scott Brown and now-disgraced Anthony Gallucio. This is the de facto election in Gallucio’s dark-blue seat, seeing as how no Republicans are running, but the winner between state Rep. Lida Harkins and doctor Peter Smulowitz in the Dem primary will face off against GOP state Rep. Richard Ross on May 11 to succeed Brown. In California, there are two legislative specials; using the California system, each one will likely head to a runoff (unless someone in the cluttered fields breaks 50%). Both seats will likely turn out to be holds: SD-37 is in Republican exurban Riverside County, while AD-43 is in Democratic Glendale in LA County. And in the Florida Panhandle, dark-red HD-04 should be an easy Republican hold.

• AR-Sen: Looks like Blanche Lincoln picked the wrong week to stop acting like a Democrat. She got seriously outraised by Bill Halter in the first quarter, earning $1.3 million (Halter got $2 mil). She also spent more than she earned, running a blitz of TV ads, probably to the tune of $2 million, as her cash on hand dropped $700K –although it’s still a high $4.7 million. Still no word yet from the race’s key Republicans.

• CA-Sen: Carly Fiorina filled in the last blank in the California Senate race; her fundraising total for the first quarter was $1.7 million, edging out Tom Campbell (who pulled in $1.6 million). Both GOPers lagged Barbara Boxer’s $2.4 million.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is still trying to find something that’ll stick to Marco Rubio, and he’s trying again to link ex-state House speaker Rubio to some of the other less savory elements among legislative leadership. He’s up with a new ad trying Rubio to another former speaker, Ray Sansom, who’s currently under indictment for charges of falsifying state budget items.

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias is lagging Mark Kirk on the cash front; he raised $1.2 million last quarter, compared with Kirk’s $2.2 million. Giannoulias didn’t release cash on hand figures, which may not be too impressive either considering that he had to fight through a competitive primary.

• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP looked at the primaries only in the North Carolina Senate race (they’re on May 4). On the Dem side, former state Sen. Cal Cunningham is still within striking distance of SoS Elaine Marshall; she leads Cunningham 23-17, with Kenneth Lewis at 9 and 5% for assorted minor candidates. (Last month, Marshall led Cunningham and Lewis 20-16-11.) On the GOP side, Richard Burr is at 67%, with his closest competition, Brad Jones, at 7.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Quinnipiac finds a lot of same-ol’-same-ol’ in the Empire State: Andrew Cuomo crushing, and Kirsten Gillibrand crushing anyone non-Pataki. Gillibrand trails non-candidate George Pataki 45-40 but leads actual candidate Bruce Blakeman 47-25 (none of the other third-tier GOPers get polled); she’s also sporting her highest-ever approvals, at 47/25. (Pataki beats Blakeman in a GOP primary, 64-15.) On the Governor’s side, Rick Lazio is still poised to be GOP nominee; he leads Steve Levy and Carl Paladino 34-11-11 (note that the poll was in the field prior to the whole bestiality thing). Andrew Cuomo dispatches Lazio 55-26, Levy 57-24, and Paladino 60-24.

• OH-Sen: I’d assumed Lee Fisher had been on the air before, but he’s just now launching his first TV spots of his campaign with the primary only weeks away (apparently marshaling his resources for the general). Fisher also pulled down the endorsement of Cleveland mayor Frank Johnson, although he didn’t gain the backing of his own home town’s Democratic party (in Shaker Heights), which instead declined to endorse.

• PA-Sen: Here’s a bit of a surprise: Joe Sestak succeeded in his ballot challenge, getting last-minute conservadem entrant Joe Vod Varka kicked out of the Democratic primary, setting up a two-man fight against Arlen Specter. If Sestak’s going to have any hope of knocking off Specter, he’ll need to consolidate every anti-Specter vote (and also not have the Slovak-American vote — a big segment in western Pennsylvania — split).

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold had a successful fundraising quarter, considering right now he’s only running against the specter of Tommy Thompson. Feingold earned $1.34 million, leaving him with $4.26 million CoH.

• FL-Gov: Rick Scott has decided, rather belatedly, to throw his hat in the ring in the Republican field in the Governor’s race. If the name’s familiar, he’s a former hospital-industry businessman who funded much of the initial anti-HCR astroturfing efforts via his organization Conservatives for Patient Rights. He’s sound teabaggish themes about establishment candidate AG Bill McCollum (despite McCollum taking the lead on the GOP AGs’ anti-HCR lawsuit). Considering that state Sen. Paula Dockery is already trying to run against McCollum from the right and getting no traction, it’s hard to see Scott going anywhere with this, though.

• NM-Gov: Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, the lone Dem in the race, is dominating the fundraising front; she raised $1.1 million in the six-month reporting period and has $2.6 million CoH. Among the GOPers, former state party chair Allen Weh leads both in money raised ($691K, although $500K was a personal loan) and CoH ($544K). Dona Ana County DA Susana Martinez raised $428K and sits on $364K CoH.

• PA-Gov: Here’s a blow to, well, everybody in the Democratic field; after not being able to find two-thirds support for anybody, the AFL-CIO won’t be endorsing any particular candidate in the Dem primary. Former Philadephia city controller Jonathan Saidel got their Lt. Gov. endorsement.

• AL-05: Party-switching Rep. Parker Griffith (most recently in the news for forgetting his party-switch and billing the DCCC for expenditures) surprised his GOP primary opponents at a debate by asking them sign a unity pledge that the losers of the primary would campaign for the winner in November. No thanks, said both Mo Brooks and Les Philip.

• DE-AL: Looks like wealthy self-funder Michelle Rollins, the NRCC’s preferred recruit in the race, has some competition on the big bucks front in the GOP primary. Real estate developer Glen Urquhart just announced that he has $512K in his account (of course, $500K of that came from his own pocket).

• FL-08: Alan Grayson had another big fundraising quarter, thanks in large part to netroots moneybombing (especially his March event which brought in $500K). He raised $803K in the last three months, bringing his CoH total to $1.5 million (along with the possibility of writing checks to himself).

• HI-01: CQ has an interesting piece on HI-01 that focuses primarily on just how difficult it is (especially for “mainland” pollsters) to poll in Hawaii. With only two polls of this race having seen light of day so far, the main takeaway may be that anyone’s guess is as good as mine where the race stands.

• MI-01: One of the top Republicans on everyone’s candidate list for the newly-opened seat in MI-01 has said that he won’t run. State House minority leader Kevin Elsenheimer said he won’t run, even though he’s termed out of the House and needs something else to do. (Elsenheimer, from the Traverse City area, is disadvantaged by not coming from the Upper Peninsula portion of the district.)

• MS-04: Here’s one other eye-catching fundraising note: a Dem incumbent who got outraised by Republican opposition previously considered inconsequential. Rep. Gene Taylor raised $41K and has $221K CoH, while GOP state Rep. Steven Palazzo raised $125K and has at least $100K CoH. Let’s hope Taylor doesn’t hit the “snooze” button for another quarter. National Journal’s latest fundraising outline also has noteworthy numbers from Charlie Dent (PA-15), Dan Debicella (CT-04), and Rick Crawford (AR-01).

• Redistricting: With the Fair Districts redistricting initiative seeming destined to make the ballot in Florida, now the Republican-controlled legislature is trying to get its own redistricting initiative on the ballot, in an apparent effort to clarify (or gut) the Fair Districts proposals. The Senate’s proposal deals with the thorny questions of VRA-mandated districts and communities of interest, which aren’t addressed in satisfactory manner by the original initiatives, which forbid designing districts in a manner that is favorable to one party or the other.

• Demographics: Josh Goodman has an interesting look at population change in Texas, similar to some work we’ve done at SSP over the last few years; he finds that while Texas’s largest counties are becoming swingier, its fastest-growing counties are still pretty solidly Republican (although the growth in these counties is in demographics that aren’t likely Republican). Of course, the parts of the state that are becoming less and less of the state, percentage-wise — the rural parts — have become even more conservative than the fast-growing exurbs, so in a way that’s progress too.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (4/5-7, likely voters, 7/6-8 in parentheses):

Lee Fisher (D): 43 (42)

Rob Portman (R): 39 (35)

Undecided: 18 (23)

Jennifer Brunner (D): 41 (40)

Rob Portman (R): 40 (36)

Undecided: 18 (24)

(MoE: ±4%)

Lee Fisher (D): 35 (22)

Jennifer Brunner (D): 26 (17)

Undecided: 39 (61)

(MoE: ±5%)

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 45 (44)

John Kasich: 40 (39)

Undecided: 15 (17)

(MoE: ±4%)

Things may finally be coming into focus in Ohio, according to R2K; while most polls of Ohio have been notable in terms of how few people were paying attention, it’s looking like people are starting to make up their minds with the May 4 primary now approaching. On the Senate side, the “no opinion”s for Lee Fisher (41/24 favorables), Jennifer Brunner (38/26), and Rob Portman (39/30) are all down into the 30s. Fisher leads Brunner in the Dem primary and also performs a tiny bit better against Portman, probably indicative of his huge financial edge — you can’t win an election with good intentions alone.

With Barack Obama (46/45) and Gov. Ted Strickland (47/41) seeming to be recovering a bit, and HCR tolerated by the public (43 support/37 repeal), Ohio (as also seen in the last Quinnipiac poll) may be starting to seem less-bad for the Dems right now than a number of other swing states. Strickland’s 45 is still ominous given that almost everyone has an opinion on him and he has little room to grow; both these races are poised to be very close, every-vote-counts affairs in November.

RaceTracker Wiki: OH-Sen | OH-Gov

Quinnipiac (3/23-29, registered voters, 2/16-21 in parens):

Lee Fisher (D): 41 (37)

Rob Portman (R): 37 (40)

Undecided: 21 (21)

Jennifer Brunner (D): 38 (35)

Rob Portman (R): 37 (40)

Undecided: 23 (23)

(MoE: ±2.5%)

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 43 (44)

John Kasich (R): 38 (39)

Undecided: 15 (15)

(MoE: ±2.5%)

Compared to many of the other offerings we’ve seen out of Ohio lately, this poll contains some pretty welcome news. Still, it’s worth keeping in mind that Quinnipiac has had one of the friendlier records for Democrats in the gubernatorial race, probably due to the fact that Quinnipiac does not screen for likely voters.

Still, there’s good news to be found here for sure: Obama’s job approval has improved from 44-52 in February to 47-48 today, and the favorability of healthcare reform has shot up to 43-50 from 36-55. Those are the kinds of numbers that Democrats will need to see stabilized in order to have a shot in the Senate race.

Quinnipiac (3/25-28, likely voters, 2/16-21 in parens):

Lee Fisher (D): 33 (29)

Jennifer Brunner (D): 26 (20)

Undecided: 40 (48)

(MoE: ±3.1%)

The votes in this race won’t be counted until primary day on May 4th, but early voting begins today, meaning this primary should be in high gear right about now. Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher has had a small but consistent lead in all of the primary polling we’ve seen of this race (done almost entirely by Quinnipiac, it should be mentioned), but with 40% of voters undecided and 65% of those who are backing a candidate saying they might change their mind, plenty of votes are still up for grabs.

The question, though, is how can Brunner, whose fundraising woes are by this point well-documented, swoop up those undecided and soft Fisher voters? A well-funded campaign might have had the ability to make a real impression right now, which is exactly why Brunner is paying for her months of weak fundraising efforts so dearly today. As it is, she can rely on activist shoe leather to keep Fisher on guard, but snatching the primary win may turn out to be an opportunity that Brunner blew when she couldn’t persuade donors to invest in her campaign.

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (3/20-21, Ohio voters, 6/17-19/2009 in parens):

Jennifer Brunner (D): 37 (40)

Rob Portman (R): 38 (32)

Undecided: 24 (29)

Lee Fisher (D): 36 (41)

Rob Portman (R): 41 (32)

Undecided: 23 (27)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Considering how poorly Ted Strickland fared in PPP’s new Ohio sample, it’s a pleasant surprise to see the Senate race still within striking distance for the Dems. (The trendlines are terrible, but obviously a lot of stuff has happened over the last nine months.) This race will, as much as any Senate race, probably be a referendum on the Democrats and on the White House in November, as all the candidates (Lee Fisher at 22/24, Jennifer Brunner at 15/22, and Rob Portman at 16/19) are little-known and only inspiring ambivalence for now. With this a fairly conservative-looking sample (with 40/53 Obama approval, 39/54 HCR approval, and a 47/45 vote for McCain in 2008), improvement in the national climate could still help push the Democratic nominee over the finish line.

Here’s one additional detail that, I’m sure, won’t escape the notice of the Fisher and/or Brunner camps. PPP also asks the question “Do you think that Columbus politicians or Washington politicians are better equipped to deal with Ohio’s problems?” Maybe it’s not a surprise, but Columbus wins that one 65-11. Guess what the lead argument for Lt. Gov. Fisher or SoS Brunner is going to be against ex-Rep., ex-Bush admin budget director, ex-Bush admin trade rep Rob Portman will be?

RaceTracker: OH-Sen

• CA-Sen: Wow, it actually looks like conservadem blogger Mickey Kaus is forging ahead with his planned challenge to Barbara Boxer; he submitted papers to run in the Democratic primary. It sounds like he’s approaching the race with rather limited expectations, though; in an interview with the New York Times, Kaus said that, in comparison to Al Franken: “I do not expect to win, and that is the difference between Franken and me. This is an issue-raising candidacy.”

• LA-Sen: The Charlie Melancon camp is offering up another Anzalone-Liszt internal, this one taken in mid-February, to show that things aren’t quite as bad off as Rasmussen would have you believe. Melancon’s poll shows David Vitter leading him, 48-38.

• NV-Sen: Ex-Assemblywoman Sharron Angle is on the air with a 60-second radio spot, her first of the campaign. It’s really more of an ad for the teabaggers than for herself, though, as it focuses on critiquing the TARP program and promoting the Tea Party rally planned for Harry Reid’s tiny town of Searchlight.

• NY-Sen-B: There’s been a remarkable churn-and-burn of celebrities showing up, saying they’re interested in challenging Kirsten Gillibrand, and then backing away after doing the math. This time, it was former state banking official and Michael Bloomberg girlfriend Diana Taylor. Politico is also abuzz about George Pataki’s dodging of questions of running for Senate when at a Rick Lazio rally, since of course his basic polite desire not to step on Lazio’s message means that Pataki is secretly planning to run for Senate.

• OH-Sen: This guy looks like he’s destined to end up with about one or two percent of the vote, but in what could be a super-close race between Lee Fisher and Rob Portman (if recent polling is any indication), that fraction could make all the difference. Surgeon Michael Pryce announced his independent candidacy for the Senate at a Tea Party gathering last week. (Of course, there’s still the little matter of his gathering those signatures.)

• PA-Sen: Arlen Specter pulled in another union endorsement over the weekend, and it’s one with a lot of boots on the ground: the state chapter of the SEIU, with nearly 100,000 members.

• MN-Gov: Howard Dean is weighing in with a pay-back endorsement in another Democratic gubernatorial primary. This time, it’s in Minnesota, and he’s backing Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak. Rybak was chair for Dean’s 2004 primary campaign in Minnesota.

• OR-Gov: This isn’t the kind of news that helps your gubernatorial campaign gain traction. Bill Sizemore, at one point one of the most dominant forces in Oregon’s GOP (and still persisting in running for Governor in spite of the odds), is facing three counts of tax evasion. He finally relented and accepted the help of a public defender despite previous plans to go it alone. He hasn’t been getting any private donations for his legal defense fund and is working as a landscaper to make ends meet, so he qualifies.

• SC-Gov: Rep. Gresham Barrett’s having a hard time washing the stench of Washington off his hands while running for the GOP gubernatorial nod in South Carolina. Under attack over his inside-the-Beltway vote in favor of TARP from inside-the-Beltway group Americans for Job Security, Barrett has decided to use his inside-the-Beltway federal campaign funds to run ads in South Carolina to defend himself, which is permissible because he’s defending his voting record rather than touting his gubernatorial campaign.

• UT-02: Despite the entry several months ago of former state Rep. and state party co-chair Morgan Philpot, the GOP is looking for a better option to go against Rep. Jim Matheson. GOP recruiters have been trying to get four-term state Rep. Greg Hughes to get in the race, who apparently offers more gravitas than the young Philpot.

• WA-03: Retiring Rep. Brian Baird took a while to settle on an endorsement for a replacement, but he’s going with ex-state Rep. and TVW founder Denny Heck. The Dem establishment (starting with Gov. Chris Gregoire) seems to be coalescing behind Heck, who faces off against liberal state Sen. Craig Pridemore in the primary.

• New York: New York’s Working Families Party is laying it all on the line: the party’s central committee voted to prohibit the endorsement of any member of Congress who votes against the pending healthcare bill. The WFP’s line provided the margin of victory for both Scott Murphy and Bill Owens in their special elections last year. It also (sigh) provided Eric Massa’s margin in 2008. (D)

• Demographics: An interesting University of Southern California study points to an trend that got underway in the 1990s that’s really started to show up lately in Census estimates: that immigrants to the U.S. are increasingly skipping the traditional ports of entry (New York, Los Angeles) and instead heading directly for the nation’s midsize metropolitan areas. The numbers of recent immigrants had the steepest gain, percentage-wise, in places like Nashville, El Paso, Bakersfield, and Stockton.

• CO-Sen: Gee, tell us what you really think, Jane Norton! The supposed front-runner for the GOP nod just referred to Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” while appearing at a teabagger forum. I’m sure the 600,000 or so Coloradans who receive Social Security will be glad to hear that.

• FL-Sen: PPP’s Tom Jensen has some observations on the Florida race, that also seem generalizable to the national landscape and pretty much every other race. Very few people are changing their minds between the parties, he finds: only 8% of Obama voters plan to vote for Marco Rubio, actually lower than the 11% of McCain voters planning to vote for Kendrick Meek. The difference is in the intensity between the parties, which shapes the likely voter model. Barack Obama won Florida by 3, while PPP’s sample went for McCain by 4; that 7-point shift is similar to what they found in New Jersey and Massachusetts as well.

• OH-Sen: We’re very short on details, but Chris Cillizza is pointing to a DSCC poll (taken by Mark Mellman) finding Democratic Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher leading GOP ex-Rep. Rob Portman 37-36 in the Senate race. (There’s no mention of primary numbers or a Jennifer Brunner matchup.) We’ll fill in the blanks more if we see a copy of the memo.

• MI-Gov: Michigan-based pollster Denno-Noor takes another look at the primaries in the Michigan governor’s race. On the GOP side, Rep. Peter Hoekstra leads at 28% (up from 21 in November), followed by self-proclaimed nerd Rick Snyder at 18 (up from 5). This poll confirms the most recent EPIC-MRA poll’s finding of Snyder’s advertising-based surge, and the subsequent decline for AG Mike Cox. He’s at 12 in this poll, down from 15. Oakland Co. Sheriff Mike Bouchard is at 8, and state Sen. Tom George is at 2. On the Democratic side, they find a lot of uncertainty: state House speaker Andy Dillon leads Lansing mayor Virg Bernero 13-11, with 6% each for state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith and for Dan Kildee, who has since dropped out (although he was in the race while the poll was in the field). Undecided wins, at 56%. There are no trendlines on the Dem side, given the dropout of Lt. Gov. John Cherry since the last poll. (Speaking of Cherry, there are odd rumors out there that unions are asking the woeful Cherry to get back into the race, which doesn’t jibe with the UAW’s recent decision to back Bernero.)

• NY-Gov: This is what passes for a good news day for David Paterson: the growing likelihood that he won’t face any criminal charges over allegations of witness tampering in the domestic violence investigation involving a top aide. On the GOP side, ex-Rep. Rick Lazio rolled out one more endorsement from the party’s old war horses as party bosses keep looking elsewhere for a suitable candidate; today, it was Rep. Peter King‘s turn to give Lazio the thumbs-up.

• PA-Gov: More progress on the endorsements front in the fight for the Democratic nomination. Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato got the endorsement of the state’s largest teachers union, the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Meanwhile, Auditor Jack Wagner continued to dominate in terms of endorsements from county-level party apparatuses, getting the endorsement in Schuylkill County, out in coal country.

• MI-13: This isn’t a good day for Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick. She and one of her aides just got subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, in the investigation into her son, former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. On top of that, state Sen. Hansen Clarke made official his primary challenge to Kilpatrick. She barely survived the Democratic primary in 2008, and that was largely because of a split among several challengers.

• NY-23: Doug Hoffman is making a move… to the 23rd District, where he plans to run again. One knock against Hoffman last year was that he lived in Lake Placid, which is outside the district. He’s moving nine miles down the road to Saranac Lake, which falls in the 23rd’s lines.

• PA-07: With filing day having passed in Pennsylvania, now it’s time to count the signatures, and one candidates who’s running into some trouble is a surprise: the squeaky-clean former US Attorney Pat Meehan, the Republican running in the 7th. He’s asked the Delaware County DA to investigate his own signatures, after finding about some potentially fraudulent signatures on his lists. Meanwhile, Meehan seems to have dodged a long-rumored primary challenge from former TV news reporter Dawn Stensland, who never filed to run.

• CA-LG: San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom looks like he’s going to go ahead and voluntarily demote himself to the no-man’s land that is Lt. Governor. He paid his filing fee yesterday, and will have an official kickoff for his campaign either today or tomorrow.

• Demographics: Alan Abramowitz has a very interesting piece on demographic change and how it only bodes ill for Republicans (or at least the current angry-white-guy version of the Republicans) in the long run. That angry white base keeps shrinking as a percentage of the population, with non-whites on track to be 35% of the electorate by 2020.

• Branding: With his presidential run (and its ubiquitous star and blue background) fading in the rear-view mirror, John McCain has launched a completely new logo to go with his new persona. It has a flowing flag instead, on a background that’s much… um… whiter.