Tag: Rob McKenna

• WA-Sen: I’m not sure how this will work, practically speaking, but the two Tea Partiers in the race, rancher Clint Didier and fastener mogul Paul Akers, are “joining forces.” They’ll be doing joint ads and joint online forums for the remaining few weeks. They can’t, of course, be jointly voted-for, so I don’t know what the endgame is, but it probably doesn’t matter, as both have been polling in the single digits in polls of the jungle primary. Apparently, it does give them a better venue for airing their grievances with the GOP establishment’s selection of Dino Rossi as standard-bearer; maybe this way, Akers can distract the ref while Didier puts Rossi in a sleeper hold.

Also on the weird timing front, Washington’s Republican SoS, Sam Reed, is just out with a new book on the 2004 gubernatorial election and the protracted recount and court challenges he oversaw. Relations between Reed and the rest of the state Republicans were severely tested during the recount, seeing as how the scrupulous Reed wanted to, y’know, follow the rules. While the book doesn’t seem to paint Rossi in a terribly unfavorable light, it can’t help but remind everyone of his “perennial candidate” status.

• AZ-Gov: You might recall that NRA board member Owen Buz Mills recently ended his GOP primary campaign against the once-endangered, now-all-powerful Jan Brewer several weeks ago. Well, he’s not quite done, his spokesperson is now saying: he’s going to enter a Rob Simmons-style state of electoral limbo. Mills won’t be spending any more money on the race, but he will leave his name on the ballot. (Other dropouts Dean Martin and John Munger have filed papers of formal withdrawal from the race.)

• OR-Gov, OR-05: Now that Oregon has opted to join New York in the weird world of fusion voting, now it even has its own Independent Party trying to quirkily play it down the middle. Based on its online straw poll of members (with a vote total of a whopping 2,290), the IP gave its backing to Democrat John Kitzhaber in the gubernatorial race, but to Republican state Rep. Scott Bruun in OR-05 (instead of incumbent Dem Kurt Schrader).

• TX-Gov: A number of prominent Dallas business leaders have signed on to a letter announcing their support for Bill White in the gubernatorial race. About half of the signatories, a mix of moderate Republicans and independents, are, in fact, former Kay Bailey Hutchison supporters.

• WY-Gov: I think this trumps her earlier Wilford Brimley endorsement. State auditor Rita Meyer (the only woman in the four-way GOP primary field) got added to Sarah Palin’s stable of Mama Grizzlies late last week.

• AL-02, AL-05: The “generally conservative” Alabama Farmer’s Federation handed out helpful endorsements to two Dems today: not just to Rep. Bobby Bright (who seems to fit their profile well) but also to Steve Raby, running in the 5th. Raby seems well connected with the agriculture world through his former work for ex-Sen. Howell Heflin.

• MI-02, MI-03: A poll for the Grand Rapids Press, taken by Practical Political Consulting, looks at the GOP primaries in the two western Michigan open seats. In the 2nd (Peter Hoekstra’s seat), former NFL player and Family Research Council executive Jay Riemersma has a small lead at 22, followed by former state Rep. Bill Huizenga and teabagging businessman Bill Cooper, both at 15, and state Sen. Wayne Kuipers at 13. In the 3rd (Vern Ehlers’ seat), state Rep. Justin Amash (anointed as chosen one by the DeVos family) leads at 28, followed by African-American state Sen. Bill Hardiman at 23 and ex-Kent Co. Commissioner Steve Heacock (the moderate in the field, and Ehlers’ endorsee) at 17.

• FL-12: We keep mentally writing this race off due to Lori Edwards’ paltry fundraising, and then polling evidence to the contrary shows up. For the second time, the Edwards camp has released an internal poll giving them a lead in this R+6 open seat. Edwards leads GOP ex-state Rep. Dennis Ross 35-32 in a poll taken by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. The catch here is one of the most legitimate Tea Party candidates anywhere is here: Randy Wilkinson, a Polk Co. Commissioner who briefly sought the GOP nomination before deciding to go the third-party route. Wilkinson polls at 20%, although we’ll have to see if the near-broke Wilkinson can keep those numbers up through November.

• TN-03: Newt Gingrich handed out a last-minute seal of approval in the GOP primary in the 3rd. He’s backing the more-or-less establishment candidate, former state GOP chair Robin Smith. Smith’s main opponent is Chuck Fleischmann, a partly-self-funding attorney who seems tighter with the Mike Huckabee crowd than the teabaggers.

• WA-03: The Beltway media seems to take it as an article of faith that GOP state Rep. Jaime Herrera is going to be Denny Heck’s opponent in November, but David Castillo shouldn’t be counted out. Not being on the ground, they wouldn’t pick up on the general sense of underwhelmingness that seems to surround Herrera, but it seems like they would, at some point, have noticed that nearly all the endorsements of consequence in the district have gone to Castillo. He got endorsements from the newspapers in Vancouver, Longview, and Centralia, as well as the out-of-district Seattle Times. AG Rob McKenna, probably the state’s best-liked Republican, had endorsed Castillo before Rep. Brian Baird’s retirement and Herrera’s entry, but he’s been pointedly sticking by his endorsement, hosting a Castillo fundraiser last week.

• House: Nate Silver’s out with a new toy that SSPers will certainly be interested in: having found that Democratic House candidates tend to overperform vis-à-vis presidential numbers in districts with lower median household income, he’s created a new index that’s a mashup of prez numbers and income, called the Partisan Propensity Index. (He looked at only results in open seat races, which eliminates the main problem with trying to fit House numbers on top of prez numbers, which is the overwhelming staying power of incumbents.) At the end of the day, it’s still not too different from PVI, inasmuch as Chet Edwards has the worst district of any Dem and Joe Cao has the worst district of any GOPer, but it does reflect the reality that suburban Sun Belt districts that are truly swingy at the presidential level are a harder nut for Dems to crack at the House level than rural Appalachian districts that are red at the presidential level.

• Rasmussen:

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 40%, Brian Sandoval (R) 50%

• OK-Gov: Jari Askins (D) 36%, Mary Fallin (R) 57%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 39%, Tom Corbett (R) 50%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 39%, Pat Toomey (R) 45%

• SC-Gov: Vincent Sheheen (D) 35%, Nikki Haley (R) 49%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 49%, Dino Rossi (R) 47%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 48%, Clint Didier (R) 45%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 48%, Paul Akers (R) 42%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 45%, Mark Neumann (R) 44%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 43%, Scott Walker (R) 50%

• NC-Sen: The newest Elon University poll of North Carolina finds that, as with most pollsters, that Richard Burr is strangely anonymous for a Senator: he has a favorable of 34/17. His best-known Democratic competitor, SoS Elaine Marshall, is at 18/8. The poll doesn’t contain head-to-heads, and also, bear in mind that it only polls “residents,” not even registered voters, which would explain the super-low awareness.

• TX-Sen: 20 of Texas’s Republican House members wrote a letter to Kay Bailey Hutchison, asking her to reconsider and stay on as Senator. (Recall that she planned to resign once she was done “fighting health care.”) I wonder if the letter was signed by Joe Barton, who was pretty public about his desire to take over that seat back when a resignation seemed likelier.

• UT-Sen: Tonight’s the night we get our first hard impression of what degree of trouble Bob Bennett is in. Tonight are neighborhood caucuses, where delegates to the state convention are elected. A particularly ultra-conservative-skewing convention could pose some trouble to Bennett, although with so many GOP challengers, it seems likely no one will hit the 60% mark at the convention needed to avoid a primary.

• CT-Gov: You might recognize these numbers from last week; we’ve been waiting for Quinnipiac to release general election numbers in the Governor’s race but they just don’t seem to be forthcoming, so here are their primary numbers. On the Dem side, Ned Lamont is leading at 28, followed by former Stamford mayor Dan Malloy at 18, Mary Glassman at 4, Rudy Marconi at 2, and Juan Figueroa at 1. (Susan Bysiewicz has a big edge over George Jepsen, 54-10, in the AG primary, despite concerns about her eligibility for the job.) On the GOP side, Tom Foley is dominating at 30, followed by Lt. Gov Michael Fedele collapsing down to 4, Danbury mayor Mark Boughton at 4, ex-Rep. Larry DeNardis at 2, and Oz Griebel and Jeff Wright at 2.

• CA-Gov: Wondering how Meg Whitman pulled into a huge lead in the primary and a small lead in the general in California governor’s race? She’s spent a mind-boggling $27 million on her race so far this year (for a total of $46 million), compared with Steve Poizner’s $3 million and Jerry Brown’s $142K.

• OR-Gov: Former Portland Trail Blazer Chris Dudley is the first candidate to hit the TV airwaves in the Oregon governor’s race so far, touting his “outsider” credentials.

• PA-Gov: AG Tom Corbett, who oh just coincidentally happens to be running for Governor this year, finally got a conviction in the Bonusgate investigation, against former state Rep. Mike Veon and several of his staffers. The timing is certainly helpful to Corbett, for whom the investigation has been dragging out and the possibility of mistrials (or no convictions before November) was starting to loom. Trials against several other former Democratic House leaders, including GOPer John Perzel and Dem Bill DeWeese, are still in the pipeline.

• WY-Gov: The Democrats are about to land a gubernatorial candidate: attorney Paul Hickey, who plans an announcement later this week. If the name is familiar, he’s the son of former Governor J.J. Hickey. Democratic State Sen. Mike Massie hasn’t ruled out a run yet either, although he may run for one of the statewide offices.

• IL-11: Here’s one more district that hasn’t been high on people’s watch lists but will need to be monitored, at least if a new internal poll from Republican pollster POS is to be believed. They find their patron, Adam Kinzinger, leading freshman Rep. Debbie Halvorson 44-38.

• MA-09: With primary challenges moving onto the radar against HCR “no” votes Jason Altmire and Mike Arcuri, another one may be taking shape: Needham Town Meeting member (and, well, college classmate of mine) Harmony Wu has pulled papers for the race and is gauging local sentiment for a primary run against Stephen Lynch.

• NY-01: Whoever faces off against Tim Bishop for the Republicans is going to have to fight through an arduous primary to get there. Any hopes of an easy coronation for Randy Altschuler seem to have vaporized, as now Chris Cox (Republican party insider and Nixon grandson) is setting his own Wall Street-powered fundraising operation in motion. And a 3rd option, former SEC prosecutor George Demos, has had his own fundraising success.

• NY-20: One more Republican, Queensbury town supervisor Dan Stec, bailed out of the field today, suggesting that the GOP is finally coalescing behind retired Col. Chris Gibson as a standard-bearer against freshman Dem Rep. Scott Murphy, in what’s one of their slowest races to take shape.

• OK-05: Finally, we have a Democrat on tap for the open seat race in Oklahoma’s dark-red 5th, where there’s already a half-dozen GOPers jousting. Tom Guild is secretary of the Oklahoma County Democratic Party, and was a poli sci professor at Univ. of Central Oklahoma for many years.

• PA-11: Things got easier for Lou Barletta in the race in the 11th, where his Republican primary challenger, Chris Paige dropped out, citing family concerns. Paige, an attorney, was underfunded but had delivered some surprisingly-hard hits to Barletta, especially on Barletta’s signature issue of immigration.

• SC-01: The Club for Growth weighed into another GOP primary in a reddish open seat, endorsing state Rep. Tim Scott. Scott faces off in the primary against several well-known last names: Carroll Campbell III and Paul Thurmond.

• HCR: The Republican pivot from health care reform to health care repeal has some implications in the gubernatorial races. Rep. Peter Hoekstra is going full-on repeal, stopping by Sunday’s teabagger rally to pledge to fight that battle. It’s also showing up in a number of races where the Republican AG is running for Governor and joined the multi-AG suit against HCR on easily-rebuttable 10th Amendment grounds (hint to teabaggers: read Scalia’s opinion in Raich) – many in dark-red states where it probably helps more than hurts (like Henry McMaster in South Carolina). There are a few blue state AGs involved, though, like Tom Corbett (although he probably feels like he has a safety cushion to do so, thanks to his Bonusgate-related popularity). Most puzzling, though, is Washington’s Rob McKenna, who got where he is only by acting moderate. Throwing off his well-maintained moderate mask and joining forces with the wackjob likes of Ken Cuccinelli seems like a weird gamble for his widely-expected 2012 run, where success is utterly dependent on making inroads among suburban moderates.

• Site News: SSP is instituting a one-week waiting period for new users to post diaries. New accounts can still post comments right away.

• AL-Sen: This race has to rank somewhere around 32 or 33 in order of likelihood to change hands among Senate races this November, but at least we’re showing up to compete: Birmingham-area attorney William Barnes announced that he’ll run against Richard Shelby for Team Blue. It’s his first run for office, and he says it’ll be a “total grassroots” effort (which I think is code for “can’t self-finance”).

• AZ-Sen: J.D. Hayworth and Dana Rohrabacher always seemed like kindred spirits in their particularly loudmouthed version of ultra-conservatism. That seems to continue today, as the Orange County Congressman gave his former colleague his first big-name endorsement in his newly-minted primary challenge to John McCain.

• MA-Sen (pdf): There’s a wealth of data in the Washington Post’s post-game poll of the Massachusetts special election; it’s well-worth looking through the whole memo. As with other polls, it points to a confluence of Republican enthusiasm and a Democratic failure to define the opposition (or themselves). Interestingly, only 60% of Brown voters say they favor Republican policies in Congress, and only 19% of them want him to work mostly to oppose Democratic policies instead of working to get Republican ideas into Democratic policy.

• NY-Sen-B: His helicopter’s warming up on the launch pad: Harold Ford Jr. seems to be moving closer to a Senate primary run. An ally says he’s “80 percent” likely to run, and various steps he’s taking suggest he’s getting his ducks in a row – reserving web domains, and even crisscrossing the state, visiting that previously unknown sixth borough of New York City known as “Buffalo.”

• WA-Sen: Republican insiders seem to be wondering if they can use the Massachusetts results to coax a top-tier (or any-tier, really) Republican to get into the race against Patty Murray. The problem for them is that there are really only two GOPers who are appealing and moderate enough to play at the statewide level, and AG Rob McKenna already seems to have his ticket booked for a 2012 gubernatorial run. That leaves Rep. Dave Reichert, whose spokesperson made a run sound unlikely, while still saying he “is not one to shut doors on any opportunity.”

• IL-Gov: It may be news to you that someone named Bob Schillerstrom was running for Governor. Apparently it was news to the people of Illinois, too, as he dropped out at a strangely late stage (after consistently polling in the low single digits) and endorsed ex-AG Jim Ryan for the Republican nod. Schillerstrom’s lack of traction is kind of strange, since, as DuPage County Board Chairman, he has nearly a million constituents. His name will remain on the ballots, which have already been printed.

• MD-Gov: The one elected Republican who seemed to be following through on running for Maryland governor decided against it and opted for a different course instead. State Del. Patrick McDonough is now running for Baltimore County Executive. McDonough had previously said he wouldn’t run if ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich tried for a rematch, and while Ehrlich hasn’t done anything public on that end, McDonough said he thinks Ehrlich is planning to do it.

• OH-Gov: More polling bad news for incumbent Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland: he’s trailing ex-Rep. John Kasich 51-45 in the new poll from the Univ. of Cincinnati. (Strickland led 49-46 in their previous poll in October.) One bit of the poll gives Strickland a potential way forward, though, if he can get his messaging to work: “When asked who’s to blame for Ohio’s economic misery, Bush ranked first, at 24 percent, followed by Wall Street and financial institutions at 23 percent and the U.S. Congress, 19 percent. President Barack Obama got the blame from 13 percent while just 3 percent blamed Strickland.”

• PA-Gov: Another poorly-kept rumor panned out to be true: that wealthy Philadelphia businessman Tom Knox was going to drop out of the race and endorse Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato, which happened over the weekend. Knox said he could have funded a big ad blitz to get competitive (he’d been polling in single digits) but didn’t want to hand ammunition to the Republicans. It’s unclear whether the big beneficiary here is Onorato, though, or ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel, who benefits from being the only Philadelphia-area candidate left.

• SC-Gov: Looks like Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer isn’t going to lay claim to the mantle of “compassionate conservatism” any time soon. The would-be successor to Mark Sanford compared poor people to stray animals over the weekend, saying: “You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that.” He tried walking that back today, regretting his choice of words and also adding that he’s “not against animals,” either.

• UT-Gov: Enthusiasm about our chances in the Utah governor’s race, thanks to the entry of Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon and a recent Deseret News poll showing a competitive race, has to be tempered by the new Mason-Dixon poll of the race on behalf of the Salt Lake Tribune. They find incumbent GOP Gov. Gary Herbert with a more substantial lead over Corroon, 55-30.

• WY-Gov: Former US Attorney Matt Mead made his widely-anticipated entry into the race official, as the backlog of top-tier Republicans running for the state house continues to grow. There’s still no word from incumbent Dem Dave Freudenthal on what his plans are, regarding the possibility of challenging the state’s term limits law and running for another term.

• PA-08: Ex-Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick had only a short exploratory period before an official launch of his campaign to get back his seat from Rep. Patrick Murphy; he announced his candidacy at a public appearance on Saturday.

• PA-10: Some Dude named Ted Yale announced his candidacy on the Republican side in the 10th. Considering that the news story doesn’t even note his occupation, I’m not convinced Yale poses much of a threat, but there is something more interesting buried in the article… former US Attorney Thomas Marino is now “expected” to announce his candidacy next week.

• Retread watch: Can you believe that more than 20 former House Republicans are running again this year, either for Senate, governor, their old seat or, in the case of Richard Pombo, some completely other seat? The Hill runs down the full list.

• Redistricting: Republicans have realized that the way back to power lies in the state legislatures, via their control over the post-2010 redistricting process in most states, and they’re budgeting accordingly. A new enterprise, the American Majority Project, and an old one, the Republican State Leadership Committee, are looking to get more involved in closely-controlled legislatures, and they have some big-name backers involved.

• KY-Sen: Jim Bunning’s conference calls with reporters are always good for comedy gold, and his most recent one was no exception, as he heads further off the reservation and out into Howard Beale territory: he referred to Mitch McConnell as a “control freak,” and said he’d be better off without McConnell’s endorsement. He also challenged a reporter, who’d questioned his fitness to serve, to an arm-wrestling match.

• NY-Sen-B: Another primary challenger to Kirsten Gillibrand dropped out of the race, but unlike Steve Israel’s disappearance, this one barely made a ripple in the pond. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said he’ll run for re-election instead, citing Barack Obama’s desire for a clear path (nothing about an actual phone call from the POTUS, though). Gillibrand is also starting to rack up endorsements from some of her former House colleagues — Maurice Hinchey and Yvette Clarke — as well as state Senate leader Malcolm Smith, Assemblyman Peter Rivera (who was one of her loudest opponents at first), and NARAL New York.

• MN-Sen: The NRSC has better places to spend its money (like trying to salvage NH-Sen, OH-Sen, and MO-Sen), but they’re giving $750,000 to help Norm Coleman with his legal bills in his prolonged fight to get back his seat (or at least keep it empty as long as possible). Meanwhile, Rasmussen now finds that Minnesotans want Coleman to concede right now, 54-41.

• MO-Sen: New (likely) entrant to the race Tom Schweich has wasted no time in lighting Rep. Roy Blunt up like a Christmas tree. Responding to Blunt’s criticisms of a one-time donation by Schweich to Claire McCaskill, Schweich referenced Blunt’s “vintage Washington-style smear campaign” and made fun of Blunt’s big poll gap against Robin Carnahan. How sad is it (for Blunt) that he’s having already playing defense against a never-elected law professor instead of Carnahan?

• UT-Sen: Bob Bennett, suddenly facing a likely primary challenge from AG Mark Shurtleff, got high-profile help from Mitt Romney, who cut a TV spot for Bennett. Bennett’s decision to spend big and spend now may be timed to encourage Shurtleff to think more about the 2010 governor’s race that also just materialized.

• MA-Sen: Harry Reid backed down today on yesterday’s comments that Ted Kennedy’s cancer is in remission and that he’ll be back in the Senate after Memorial Day. He said he’ll leave the timeline up to Kennedy and his doctors.

• OK-Sen: Tom Coburn told the Tulsa World that he’ll announce on June 1 what he’ll do with his political future. (Not sure if that’s real world June 1, or Mark Kirk June 1.)

• NY-Gov: Rasmussen takes their first look at the NY-Gov morass. No big surprises: David Paterson has 31/67 approvals. Paterson loses 58-30 to Rudy Giuliani and 47-33 to George Pataki, while Andrew Cuomo beats Giuliani 55-37 and Pataki 57-29. Meanwhile, the GOP is putting together a Plan B in the likelihood that, as recently rumored, Rudy doesn’t even show up; with Rick Lazio exciting nobody, they’re increasingly interested in Erie County Exec Chris Collins.

• WA-Gov: Yes, it’s never too early to start thinking about 2012. AG Rob McKenna, the only Republican who poses a real threat to Dems in this blue state, seems to be staffing up with an eye toward bigger electoral challenges, hiring Randy Pepple (a prominent Republican strategist) as his new chief of staff.

• TN-03: Robin Smith, Tennessee’s GOP chair, quit her job in order to focus full-time on exploring the TN-03 race (to replace the retiring Zach Wamp, running for Governor). Insiders view Smith as the likely frontrunner for the GOP nod; she faces Bradley Co. Sheriff Tim Gobble in the primary, and maybe state Sen. Bo Watson as well.

• GA-12: Another Republican is getting into the race against Rep. John Barrow in this rural Georgia district, despite Wayne Mosely’s made-up statistics that he’s one of the NRCC’s Top 3 recruits. Carl Smith is the fire chief and former city councilor of “Thunderbolt.” (Yes, it’s a real town. I checked the atlas.)

• WI-08: Rep. Steve Kagen also got another Republican challenger: Brown County Supervisor Andy Williams, who represents De Pere on the county board. Marc Savard (Door County Supervisor) is already in the race, so GOP voters will apparently think they’re choosing between an NHL player and the guy who sang “Moon River.”

• FL-AG: Bill Nelson is trying to broker a truce to avoid a three-way primary between state Sen. Dan Gelber, Rod Smith (’06 gube candidate) and state Sen. Dave Aronberg for the AG slot. This could be a pretty important downballot test for Dems here — if a Dem could win this race, they could be the star player of the farm team in Florida for quite some time. (J)

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (2/16-18, registered voters):

Patty Murray (D-inc): 53

Dave Reichert (R): 40

Patty Murray (D-inc): 55

Rob McKenna (R): 39

(MoE: ±4%)

Research 2000 takes a look at the 2010 Washington Senate race for Daily Kos, and there’s really not much to see here. Patty Murray wins easily against two of the few Republicans that people in Washington actually like, Rep. Dave Reichert and Attorney General Rob McKenna. But neither of them have given any indication of running for the Senate, and if either of them had any urges, this poll is likely to squelch those.

McKenna has his sights set on the 2012 gubernatorial race (which will presumably be an open seat), while Reichert is (as I’ve talked about at length) the GOP’s only hope of holding onto the Democratic-leaning WA-08 and the state GOP won’t want to sacrifice him for a longshot bid against Murray. With Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers climbing the House leadership ladder and Dino Rossi having seen the extinction of his career, there just aren’t any top-tier elected GOPers in the state to make this race.

Expect them to take the route they took in 2006 with Mike! McGavick and pick some super-wealthy self-funder you’ve never heard of, who won’t break 40% but will at least be able to pay for his own funeral. (It’s been long-threatened, but it may finally be John Stanton‘s turn in the dunk tank.)