Tag: Daily Digests

• AZ-Sen: This has to be a bit of disappointment for J.D. Hayworth, as he mounts a right-wing primary challenge to John McCain: South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, who’s been active in endorsing insurgent candidates in GOP primaries and whose stamp of approval has become the gold standard for aspiring wingnuts, has declined to get involved in the Arizona primary.

• CA-Sen: Bringing to the table the business acumen and keen understanding of the law that made her such a smashing success at Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina put forth a worst-case scenario solution for the cash-strapped state of California: declaring bankruptcy. One slight problem here: while municipalities may, states can’t declare bankruptcy.

• IN-Sen: Former Sen. Dan Coats made his official announcement during a radio interview today, saying he’s “answering the call” to challenge Evan Bayh. Coats said he’s “off and running,” and by running, that means his staffers are running madly around the state trying to round up at least 500 signatures in each congressional district before the Feb. 16 filing deadline; so far, he has turned in no signatures at all (and his efforts may be greatly hampered by this week’s spell of inclement weather). At a more general level, Politico has a story today titled “The Nuking of Dan Coats,” a retrospective of all the damage Coats has sustained last week as the Dems (gunshy about a repeat of their asleep-at-the-wheel Massachusetts election) pounced quickly and rolled out pushback-free hit after hit on Coats’s lobbying past and residency.

• CA-Gov: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown is sitting on more than $12 million, which would be enough to annihilate everyone and everything in sight in most states. But in freakishly-expensive California and facing billionaire Meg Whitman, who can cut herself a $20 million check the way most of us reach into the change jar on the way to the store, he needs a little outside help. He’s getting that from “Level the Playing Field 2010,” a coalition of unions and wealthy donors who are launching a $20 million independent expenditure effort of their own, to keep Whitman from dominating the airwaves here in the slow season.

• MI-Gov: This is kind of surprising, considering that she’d been getting a disproportionate share of the gubernatorial buzz, some not-so-subtle encouragement from inside the Beltway, and a primary lead in recent polling. Denise Ilitch, UM regent and one-time pro sports magnate & pizza baroness, decided today against a run for the Democratic nod. She pointed to the late date, saying there was too much catching-up to do at this point, although she said she’d be interested in running for something in the future. This means the Democratic field is likely to be centrist state House speaker Andy Dillon and populist Lansing mayor Virg Bernero going mano-a-mano.

• NY-Gov: You can tell it’s not shaping up to be a good week when it starts out with having to point out that, no, you’re not resigning. David Paterson batted down rumors about forthcoming resignation in the face of an allegedly-emerging sex scandal (which so far has yet to emerge), but something even more ominous is looming on the horizon: federal prosecutors are starting to look into alleged misdeeds related to awarding gambling contracts at the Aqueduct racetrack in Queens. The angle may be that the recipient, Aqueduct Entertainment Group, includes ex-Rep. Floyd Flake, still a prominent black leader in Queens and one who’d been pondering endorsing Andrew Cuomo instead in a primary, and that the contract may have been intended to curry Flake’s favor.

• PA-Gov: Scranton mayor Chris Doherty may be looking for an exit, although he maintains he’s staying in the Democratic primary field. Rumors have abounded that he’s looking to downshift to the Lt. Governor position, and the decision by two locally prominent pols (Wilkes-Barre mayor Tom Leighton and Luzerne Co. Commissioner Maryanne Petrilla) to back rival Dan Onorato instead may hasten his decision. Doherty is also getting urged to drop down to the state Senate, in order to hold the Scranton-area seat being vacated this year by Senate minority leader Robert Mellow (who just announced his retirement) after decades in the Senate. (However, SD-22 is Democratic-leaning and probably doesn’t need someone of Doherty’s stature to hold it.)

• RI-Gov: I’m not exactly sure where the rumors that Democratic state treasurer Frank Caprio was considering a switch to an independent or even Republican run for governor (presumably in order to avoid an irritating primary with more liberal AG Patrick Lynch, although polls have given Caprio the edge in that primary) were coming from, but Caprio tamped them down, confirming he’s staying on board as a Democrat. At any rate, regardless of how things sort out, it looks like Rhode Island will have a governor next year who’s in favor of gay marriage: Caprio, Lynch, and independent candidate Lincoln Chafee have all pledged to sign it into law. (Republican candidate John Robitaille won’t, although even he’s in favor of civil unions; polls have shown him to be an electoral non-factor though.)

• AL-05: Suddenly the floodgates are open in the 5th for Democratic challengers to former Dem Parker Griffith. Taze Shepard and Mitchell Howie both confirmed they’ll run yesterday, and now a third person has stepped forward: Steve Raby, a political consultant whose biggest claim to fame is a long stint as the chief of staff to Sen. Howell Heflin. A fourth possible candidate, former Huntsville school board president David Blair, however, said that he won’t get involved in the race. The filing deadline isn’t until April 2.

• CA-11: The establishment seems to be coming together behind attorney David Harmer as their pick in the GOP primary in the 11th, where there’s a wide assortment of Republicans, some of whom can self-fund, but none with an electoral background. Harmer, you’ll recall, ran in the special election in the much-bluer 10th last year and overperformed the district’s lean against then-Lt. Gov. John Garamendi. Harmer just got the endorsement of Reps. Wally Herger and Buck McKeon, as well as CA-11’s 2008 loser, former Assemblyman Dean Andal.

• CT-04: Ex-Rep. Chris Shays is starting to seem like he wants to run for something this year, seeing as how Republican fortunes are improving. He’d previously been linked with a gubernatorial run, but today’s rumor has him interested in a rematch against Rep. Jim Himes, who knocked him out in 2008. Shays would be a more imposing foe than the state Senators currently in the GOP field, but would still have an uphill run against the district’s D+5 lean.

• MA-AG: If politicians had to have professional licenses in order to practice, Martha Coakley’s would have been revoked for gross political malpractice. Instead, though, she’s free to run for re-election… and that’s just what she’s announced that she’s doing.

• OH-AG: A Republican internal poll from Newhouse gives ex-Sen. Mike DeWine a sizable edge over incumbent Democratic Richard Cordary in the Ohio AG’s race, 50-32. That’s actually plausible, as DeWine, who spent two terms as Senator, has much greater name recognition than Cordray, who filled in mid-term in the wake of Marc Dann’s resignation.

• NY-St. Sen.: The state Senate actually sacked up and did it: they expelled Hiram Monserrate, several months after his assault conviction. The vote was 53-8. A special election has been called for March 16 (in which Monserrate plans to run anyway); the compressed timetable is largely because Monserrate’s absence means the Dems are down to only a 31-30 edge in the Senate, making it impossible for the Dems to move legislation on party lines (as bills need 32 votes to pass).

• NY-St. Ass.: Bad news for suburban New York Democrats, who lost two separate Assembly seats in special elections last night (although one, in Suffolk County, is close enough that it could be salvaged through absentee ballots). The victory of Republican Robert Castelli in AD-89, centered on White Plains in affluent Westchester County, may be particularly alarming for Democrats, especially when coupled with the surprise loss of Westchester Co. Exec Andy Spano in November. It’s a bellwether-ish but generally Dem-leaning part of suburbia, and if it’s turning right, that could endanger state Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins (complicating Dem plans to expand the Senate majority) and possibly even NY-19 Rep. John Hall (who represents a further north, but more conservative, part of Westchester as part of his district). Assembly control, however, is hardly hanging in the balance: Dems now control the chamber 105-42-3.

• AZ-Sen: As the Arizona GOP Senate primary heats up, ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth has pulled in a prominent backer, one of the state’s unfortunately most popular politicians: Maricopa Co. Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arpaio – a hero of the anti-immigrant set who’d been the subject of calls to get into the gubernatorial race this year – wrote a fundraising letter for Hayworth that’s being sent around nationally.

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio got two more endorsements today from the GOP’s right flank: from Indiana’s Rep. Mike Pence, #3 in the House GOP and a favorite of the social values set, and on the economic-conservative side of the party, bathtub-drowning fan Grover Norquist.

• NH-Sen (pdf): A couple different polls are out today in the New Hampshire Senate race, although both from pollsters in the “take with salt” category. UNH looks at the general election, finding a lead for Kelly Ayotte over Paul Hodes that’s about in line with most other pollsters: 41-33. Hodes leads the lesser GOPers in the race, though; he beats Jim Bender 36-27, William Binnie 34-30, and Ovide Lamontagne 38-29. What about that thorny GOP primary, though? Republican internal pollster Magellan has some answers, although it’s not clear if this poll was on the behalf of any particular candidate. They see Ayotte at 37%, but contrary to that recent R2K poll, they have Binnie in second place at 23% and Lamontagne back at 12. (Binnie seems to be the most moderate in the field, and gained a lot of attention, at least in the Boston media market parts of the state, for running ads on behalf of Scott Brown in Massachusetts.) In case anyone was wondering about the GOP gubernatorial primary, that’s in there too, although nobody has any idea who these candidates are: Jack Kimball beats Karen Testerman 18-5.

• AL-Gov: There’s one other interesting poll from a Republican pollster of a Republican primary (this time in Alabama); it’s from Baselice, and they’re explicit about not working on behalf of any of these candidates. Former higher ed system chancellor Bradley Byrne has a narrow lead, and he has a lot of company. Byrne is at 20, followed closely by wingnut judge Roy Moore at 17. Real estate developer (and gubernatorial spawn) Tim James is at 8, state Rep. Robert Bentley is at 4, state treasurer Kay Ivey is at 3, and former Economic Development Dir. Bill Johnson is at 2.

• AL-05: Democrats now have two candidates lined up to go against Parker Griffith (or whatever other GOPer teabags him out of a job): the new one is attorney (and former Air Force JAG) Mitchell Howie. Howie is young and doesn’t have electoral experience, but is the grandson of a well-loved local physician. Prominent attorney Taze Shepard made his candidacy official today as well (via press release).

• AL-07: EMILY’s List weighed in with an endorsement in the Democratic primary in the 7th. Interestingly, they showed their hand even though there are two women well-positioned in the field – and they went with attorney Terri Sewell, who’s something of the moneyed-interests candidate in the race with ties to outgoing Rep. Artur Davis, rather than the more progressive option of Jefferson Co. Commissioner Shelia Smoot.

• AR-02: Add one more Dem to the field in the 2nd, to replace retiring Rep. Vic Snyder. Assistant Attorney General John Adams launched a bid today, although it’s unclear whether he’ll pose much of an obstacle to state House speaker Robbie Wills.

• AZ-03: One of the widely-expected candidates to run in the open seat vacated by Rep. John Shadegg has decided not to get involved, after all. Shadegg’s former chief of staff Sean Noble said he won’t run. The field is already top-heavy with Republicans, including former state Sens. Pamela Gorman and Jim Waring (both of whom resigned to run, per state law), former state Rep. Sam Crump, Paradise Valley mayor Vernon Parker, and former Paradise Valley mayor Ed Winkler.

• CO-03: Hat-tip to Daily Kos’s Steve Singiser, who, while rummaging through the used-polls bin, found a stale Republican internal poll of the race in the 3rd that hadn’t caught anyone’s notice before. It points to a close race in the Republican-leaning, mostly-rural district; Democratic Rep. Pete Salazar leads GOP state Rep. Scott Tipton (who lost the 2006 race to Salazar) 46-44.

• NH-01, 02 (pdf): Both of the New Hampshire House races are looking like tossups, according to the same UNH poll mentioned above. In the 1st, they find Rep. Carol Shea-Porter in bad shape against any of her GOP challengers; she loses 43-33 to Frank Guinta, 36-33 to Bob Bestani, 36-33 to Rich Ashooh, and 39-32 to Sean Mahoney. (Of course, UNH repeatedly showed her in a tight spot in 2008 until the closing weeks of the campaign – although without Obama coattails this year, she may not get that late boost.) And in the 2nd, Dems only win one potential matchup: Katrina Swett beats Jennifer Horn 30-26. Swett loses to Charlie Bass 37-30, while Ann McLane Kuster loses to both Bass (39-28) and Horn (28-25). (One other caveat: these are small samples, with 6.2% MoEs.)

• NJ-02: Add Rep. Frank LoBiondo to the long list of establishment Republicans getting a good teabagging this year. Schoolteacher and tea partier Michael Conte will challenge LoBiondo in the GOP primary. Conte seems most put out about LoBiondo’s cap-and-trade vote, and supports opening up the Jersey Shore to offshore oil drilling. (Somehow, I can’t see that part being popular.)

• TX-14: The epidemic of own-eating on the teabagging right has reached French Revolution proportions, to the extent that now Ron Paul, pretty much the spiritual forefather of the movement, is facing not one but three teabagging primary challengers. Weirdly, one of their knocks against Paul is that he’s “too extreme,” and also that he’s against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan… all pretty suggestive that there’s nothing “new” about the Tea Party movement, just that it’s a catchall for conservative Republicans who are feeling extra-agitated about things.

• TX-32: The DCCC has been stepping up its attacks on Rep. Pete Sessions, maybe in part to keep the NRCC head pinned down a bit, but also because they may sense this is one of the few places where they have a legitimate shot at playing offense. Between the district’s rapidly changing demographics, Sessions’ ties to Ponzi schemer “Sir” Alan Stanford, a serious primary challenge from a teabagger, and good fundraising from Dem challenger Grier Raggio, there may be some substance to that.

• IL-LG: With Dan Hynes having taken his name out of consideration for the now-vacant LG slot for the Dems in Illinois, Lynn Sweet runs down the top contenders. First on the docket is state Rep. Art Turner, who finished second to Scott Lee Cohen in the primary and now has state House speaker Michael Madigan’s stamp of approval. Other possibilities include state Sen. Rickey Hendon, state Sen. Terry Link, or state Rep. Mike Boland (all of whom fared worse in the primary), or if they want to go with a woman, either state Rep. Julie Hamos (who narrowly lost the IL-10 primary, and is now campaigning for the LG slot) or VA Deputy Sec. Tammy Duckworth.

• CfG: A couple more endorsements, as the Club for Growth picked the zaniest of the bunch in a few competitive primaries in dark-red seats that are open. They endorsed former state GOP chair Robin Smith in TN-03, and businessman Mike Pompeo in KS-04.

• NRCC: Here’s a good catch from the Boston Phoenix: the NRCC is really putting the “guns” in “Young Guns,” as a whopping total of 4 of the 64 members of its offense program are women – with only one, Martha Roby (in AL-02) looking like she’s in position to possibly make it through both the primary and general.

• NY-St. Ass.: There are not one, but four, special elections for open seats in New York’s Assembly tonight, all resulting from legislators getting elected to something better-paying in November. The Democrats are defending seats in Queens (although there the Republican lineholder is a lifelong Democrat), Suffolk County, and Westchester County, while the Republicans are defending a Nassau County seat.

• Polltopia: More back-and-forth in the discussion over the polls that SurveyUSA performed for Firedoglake, that we may have accidentally triggered (pointing out the dramatically low young-voter composition of the polls). SurveyUSA’s Jay Leve responded “vehemently” (Mark Blumenthal’s words) to last week’s critique from poli sci professor Alan Abramowitz, while Blumenthal offers some interesting graphs showing the disparity between the SurveyUSA numbers and actual Catalist records. PPP’s Tom Jensen offered some qualified support for SurveyUSA, though, by pointing out that even if you “weighted up” the youth numbers to the levels seen in Catalist (the Dems’ voter database), it wouldn’t tend to impact the topline numbers by a significant amount.

• FL-Sen: Jeb Bush has studiously avoided explicitly taking sides in the Florida Senate primary, but various actions (like sending out his sons to endorse Marco Rubio) have tipped his hand. Another moment like that today, as he said on a radio interview that he’s “proud” of Rubio and the challenge he’s mounted. Meanwhile, Charlie Crist seems to be digging in rather than making plans to switch to an indie or Dem bid: he’s saying “he’s no RINO,” and perhaps more tellingly, now saying he opposes the repeal of “don’t ask don’t tell,” a wedge issue he could be using to propel himself out of the GOP if he so chose. (h/t sapelcovits)

• OH-Sen: Geez, this is just bad to worse for Jennifer Brunner. She’s been holding off on reporting her fundraising again, and here’s why: she raised $93,000 in the fourth quarter, and managed to burn through more than that, leaving her sitting on a whopping total of $60,000 in the bank (1% of what Rob Portman has). Clearly she thinks someone is going to bail her out at some point – I’m just wondering who she thinks it’ll be.

• FL-Gov (pdf): Republican internal pollster McLaughlin & Assocs. finds a sizable lead for Republican AG Bill McCollum over Democratic state CFO Alex Sink: 41-30. That’s right in line with both Rasmussen and Quinnipiac’s most recent looks at the race, so this one seems to be moving away from Sink for the time being.

• IL-Gov: With all the new allegations popping up about pawnbroker-turned-LG nominee Scott Lee Cohen – on top of yesterday’s news about his rap sheet, today’s news features his steroid use and resulting ‘roid rage and sexual violence — I’m starting to wonder where the other Lt. Governor candidates were in terms of doing opposition research. For that matter, where was the media? That’s the kind of thing that sells papers, if nothing else. At any rate, Cohen is saying he isn’t stepping down (having invested more than $2 million of his own money in winning the race purely on name rec), while Pat Quinn is reduced to saying that “the situation will resolve itself.” Ex-Sen. Adlai Stevenson is advising Quinn to take the same route he did in 1986 when he was saddled with a LaRouchie running mate, which is to abandon ship and make a third-party run. Of course, that didn’t work too well for Stevenson, who lost anyway, although he was running an uphill fight against popular Gov. Jim Thompson.

The one bright spot for the Dems in all this is that the GOP may be months away from having a candidate. State Sen. Kirk Dillard, who came up 406 votes short, isn’t conceding, and is saying let’s wait until all the absentee and provisional ballots (possibly up to 10,000 of them) are counted. Even if he wants a recount, that won’t be able to start until the race’s certification in early March.

• MN-Gov: The Democratic field in the Minnesota governor’s race got a little smaller, as state Sen. Steve Kelley dropped out. He was probably motivated by his poor showing on Tuesday’s informal straw poll, where he finished with 4%, behind at least half a dozen other candidates and “uncommitted” as well.

• OR-Gov: With ex-SoS Bill Bradbury getting a Howard Dean endorsement, ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber just rolled out an endorsement of his own from another netroots favorite: Steve Novick, who barely lost the 2008 Senate primary. Kitzhaber, of course, was one of the few establishment figures to line up behind Novick, so Novick is returning the favor. (You’ve gotta love the photo of the two of them at the link.)

• AL-05: Looks like the Democrats are moving closer to a candidate to take on Parker Griffith (or whoever defeats him in the GOP primary). Taze Shepard, a Huntsville attorney and elected member of the state Board of Education in the 90s, is considering the race. He has quite the pedigree, too: he’s the grandson of John Sparkman, who represented the 5th from 1936-1946 and then was Alabama’s senator from 1947 to 1979 (and was the Democratic VP nominee in 1952). Also, Griffith may have a little more company in the GOP primary, and it’s an old foe: businessman Wayne Parker, who narrowly lost to the Democratic version of Griffith in the open seat race in 2008.

• MA-10: There are increasing retirement rumors about Rep. William Delahunt, since, of course, the dominant narrative is that Democrats start to cry and run home as soon as usually-ignored Reps face a halfway-credible challenge. Also feeding the rumors, perhaps, are Delahunt’s fundraising numbers from last quarter: $31K (although he is sitting on $568K). What may be most interesting is that the rumors all come with a likely replacement attached: Joe Kennedy III.

• WA-08: Ex-Microsoft executive Suzan Del Bene brings her own money to the race (and lots of it – she already has $773K on hand, compared with Rep. Dave Reichert’s $477K), but now she’s poised to tap into a nationwide donor base, with an endorsement from EMILY’s List.

• Mayors: So primary season is here for real: the primary election in the New Orleans mayoral race is tomorrow. With a highly cluttered field and one clear frontrunner looming over the field (Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu), the real question here seems to be who manages to get into a runoff with Landrieu (who was polling at 45% in the most recent poll of the race). Other major opponents include John Georges, Rob Couhig, Nadine Ramsey, James Perry, and Troy Henry.

• CA-Sen: Possibly the most bizarre political ad (well, web video) of all time has just gotten unveiled by the Carly Fiorina campaign, which makes their “Carlyfornia Dreaming” website look reasoned and well-thought-out. I mean, they’re going to be studying this in political rhetoric classes 50 years from now, as an example of what not to do. Not only is the imagery laughable (check out the glowing-eyed demon sheep at 2:24) but the metaphor completely falls apart (Tom Campbell is a “FCINO” (financial conservative in name only) and thus a crafty wolf, while good politicians are a herd of helpless mindless sheep?).

• CT-Sen: Even Rasmussen can’t find a way to put a happy face on the tombstone piledriver the Connecticut GOP suffered with the Chris Dodd-for-Richard Blumenthal swap. They find Blumenthal leading ex-Rep. Rob Simmons 54-35 and Gorgeous Lady of Wrestling Linda McMahon 56-36. Simmons is actually very well-liked, at 60/26 favorables, but that’s no match for Blumenthal at 70/27.

• IL-Sen: Republicans can content themselves with Rasmussen’s first post-primary poll of the Senate field; they find GOP Rep. Mark Kirk leading Dem state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias 46-40. This, of course, doesn’t jibe with not only last week’s PPP poll (with a 42-34 Alexi lead) but the last Rasmussen poll of the general, from December (with a 42-39 Alexi lead). Both those polls predate the strangely-timed consent decree between the FDIC and the Giannoulias-family-owned Broadway Bank, so it’s possible Giannoulias might have taken a hit from that. Also, Rasmussen’s numbers aren’t that far off from an internal (pdf) from Magellan that the Kirk campaign was quick to release yesterday: 47-35. One suggestion that might cast a little doubt on the samples, though, is Barack Obama’s approval ratings in his home state, oddly low at 54% and 51% respectively, only a few points ahead of his national average.

• IN-Sen: Ex-Sen. Dan Coats is leaving himself a lot of elbow room with the way he’s carefully phrased what he’s doing: “as I test the waters for a potential challenge…” I realize that SSP is pretty much powerless to change the nature of the political discourse, but we’re getting very tired of the whole “I’m not running, but I’m running, wink wink” kabuki that seems to be standard practice these days (John Boozman, we’re talking to you too). We fully intend to change the rating on this race, but not until Coats truly and officially gets in. At any rate, Coats may be wise leaving himself an escape hatch, if the dribs and drabs like this one keep piling up: one of his lobbying clients has been Hugo Chavez-connected oil company Harvest Natural Resources (but, then, making nice with Chavez is IOKIYAR, I guess).  

• WI-Sen: If you’re looking for a tea leaf on whether or not ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson is interested in taking on Russ Feingold this year, look no further: he just took a position as an advisor to a hedge fund. He’ll consult with Peak Ridge Capital Group on agribusiness matters. Not only will that keep him occupied in the near future, but it’s not really the kind of thing you want on your resume if trying to run at a time of anti-banker agitas. (Another hint: the talk of an ex-Rep. Mark Neumann switch from the Governor’s race, to a rematch with Feingold, suddenly bubbling up.)

• IL-Gov: We have winners in the gubernatorial primaries, as all of Illinois’s precincts reported by the end of the day yesterday. Pat Quinn wound up with a more than 8,000 vote margin over Dan Hynes (good for 50.4%), and Hynes conceded this morning. On the Republican side, state Sen. Kirk Dillard didn’t make up as much ground in Cook County on fellow state Sen. Bill Brady as anticipated, and Brady wound up finishing with a 406-vote margin. There’s no automatic recount law in Illinois, so it’s up to Dillard to decide whether or not to proceed with a challenge.

Meanwhile, down the ballot, both parties seem somewhat aghast at the winners of their Lt. Governor primaries. News came out today that pawnbroker Scott Lee Cohen, winner of the Democratic nod, was arrested four years ago for misdemeanor assault after holding a knife to the throat of a girlfriend (who had also been convicted of prostitution). Needless to say, Quinn is already distancing himself from Cohen, calling on him to step aside. (Although Governor and Lt. Governor are elected separately in primaries, they’re then lashed together as a ticket for the general, which is how Rod Blagojevich and Quinn got put together despite their antipathy – I’m not sure if any other state does it that way.) Which isn’t to say that the Republicans fared much better on that front, nominating random teabagging businessman Jason Plummer (who, like Cohen, won by pouring his own money into the race) instead of state Sen. Matt Murphy.

• NY-Gov: I can’t see this being of any interest unless something goes seriously wrong and we somehow wind up with a David Paterson/Rick Lazio matchup and we need to shunt off some right-wing votes to get Paterson over the hump. But now there’s a teabagger-linked rich guy, Buffalo real estate developer Carl Paladino, saying that he’s considering a gubernatorial run, and that he “would go in as a pure independent.”

• PA-Gov: Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato has the big financial edge in the Dem gubernatorial primary, and now he has some key labor backing as well. The Teamsters are the first major union to endorse in the primary, and they went for Onorato.

• TX-Gov: Looks like there’s going to be a crazy Wang Dang Tango at Rick Perry’s Houston rally on Sunday: not only is Sarah Palin going to be there to endorse Perry, but so too is the Motor City Madman, the Ten Terrible Fingers of Doom, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Caveman: Ted Nugent (who plans to perform). In case you’re wondering where the normally reserved and understated Nugent stands on all things political, he recently said: “I think that Barack Hussein Obama should be put in jail. It is clear that Barack Hussein Obama is a communist. Mao Tse Tung lives and his name is Barack Hussein Obama. This country should be ashamed. I wanna throw up.”

• AR-01: The first Democrat making moves to replace retiring Rep. Marion Berry is Berry’s very own Chief of Staff, Chad Causey, who has already scheduled a fundraiser. State Sen. Steve Bryles, state Rep. Keith Ingram, and former state party chair Jason Willett are other Dems publicly eyeing the race. For the GOP, broadcaster Rick Crawford probably won’t have the race to himself, with state Sen. Johnny Key interested. Princella Smith is also likely to get in – she’ll definitely need a new job starting in November, as she’s currently a staffer to Rep. Joe Cao.

• FL-24: The 24th seems like an apt target for Republicans, with a Republican lean and freshman Rep. Suzanne Kosmas not quite finding her footing – but fundraising has gone poorly for the two GOPers in the race, state Rep. Sandy Adams and Winter Park city councilor Karen Diebel, neither of whom has broken into the six digits in the last few quarters. The NRCC is now touting the likely entry of Craig Miller, the former CEO of Ruth’s Chris Steakhouses. He’s never held office before, but at least he brings his own money with him.

• NC-10: In the dark-red 10th, the only way odious chickenhawk Rep. Patrick McHenry is going to get dislodged is in a GOP primary – and it’s starting to look like that’s a possibility this year. Not one but two different opponents have outraised him (although mostly by dipping into their own wallets): dentist and Iredell Co. Commissioner Scott Keadle and businessman Vance Patterson. Keadle has some electoral experience, coming within 14 points of Mel Watt in NC-12 in 1998, during the brief period when the frequently-modified VRA district had a sizable white plurality. Keadle claims to be coming at McHenry from the right, which is hard to fathom as McHenry is already one of the most stridently conservative members of the House.

• NH-01: Another one-time NRCC fave who’s fallen by the side of the road somewhat as he’s put up quarter after quarter of mediocre fundraising is former Manchester mayor Frank Guinta. Sensing an opening, several other contenders have gotten into the GOP field; one, Richard Ashooh, has been exploring the race but made it official today. He comes with his own set of insider credentials, though: he’s the VP of governmental relations for large locally-based defense contractor BAE Systems.

• NY-23: Talk about not learning from the past. If Assemblyman Will Barclay wins the GOP nomination, he may find himself getting Scozzafavaed by the same guy. Doug Hoffman plans to run on both the Republican and Conservative lines, but Conservative party chair Mike Long says he’ll continue to back Hoffman on the Conservative line even if Hoffman loses the Republican primary.

• Redistricting: There’s still a chance to get on the newly-created California legislative redistricting board. The deadline to submit an application is Feb. 12. The state is taking notice that 73% of applicants are non-Hispanic whites and 70% are males, neither of which is very representative of the state’s makeup, and is shelling out for a last-minute outreach campaign to bring in some more minority applicants. Part of the problem is that applicants can’t have run for office or worked for a politician, which filters out many of the most politically engaged in minority communities. At any rate, it’s an opportunity to get more progressives behind the wheel of shaping a more competitive legislative map for next year, so any SSPers in the Golden State are urged to apply.

• Election Results: With 99.1% of precincts reporting (97 remain, apparently mostly in Cook County), both sides of the governor’s race remain too close to call. Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn has declared victory, sitting on a 7,000 vote lead (50.4%-49.6%) and with the remaining precincts in Cook County likely to go his way, although Dan Hynes hasn’t conceded yet. On the GOP side, we’re looking most likely at a recount, as state Sen. Bill Brady leads fellow state Sen. Kirk Dillard currently by a 751-vote margin (20.3%-20.2%), as they both squeaked past the two presumed frontrunners, former state party chair Andy McKenna and former AG Jim Ryan. The fact that the remaining votes are from Cook County, however, may be poised to help the moderate suburbs-based Dillard, though, rather than the conservative downstate Brady, so this race seems likely to get even closer (Nate Silver actually projects a one-vote victory for Brady based on broader Cook County trends). Recount procedures make it sound like a protracted process – an initial vote tally won’t happen until March 5, and then the process “could take months to complete” – giving Quinn a big headstart on whoever the GOP victor turns out to be.

As expected, Alexi Giannoulias and Mark Kirk are the Senate nominees, although both won their races with somewhat underwhelming percentages (39% for Giannoulias, and 57% for Kirk, who could have been in more trouble had the teabagging right coalesced behind one person in particular). Conservatives did triumph over establishment candidates in several GOP House primaries, though, as Bob Dold! beat state Rep. Beth Coulson in the 10th, and state Sen. Randy Hultgren beat Ethan Hastert in the 14th.

In Florida, as expected, state Sen. Ted Deutch easily won the special election primary to succeed Rep. Robert Wexler, beating former Broward Co. Commissioner Ben Graber 86-15. It looks like he’ll face Republican Ed Lynch (the 2008 nominee), who defeated Joe Budd by only 46 votes (but with only 8,000 total GOP votes, that’s outside the margin for an automatic recount). And here’s a surprise out of Kentucky: Democrats picked up a state House seat in the dark-red HD 24, which was recently vacated when Republican Jimmy Higdon got promoted to the state Senate in another special election. Terry Mills won, 54-46, based on an overwhelming edge (89-11) on his home turf of Marion County, reminding us that, at the end of the day, all politics is local.

Finally, last night was caucus and straw poll night in Minnesota. Only 80% of precincts have reported yet – I guess they go to bed early in Minnesota – but the straw poll in the Democratic governor’s race points to only a lot of chaos at this point. Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak led with 21.8%, followed closely by state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher at 20.2%. However, “uncommitted” is a solid 3rd at 15%, there are five other candidates who managed to break 5% (John Marty, Tom Rukavina, Paul Thissen, Matt Entenza, and Tom Bakk), and ex-Sen. Mark Dayton doesn’t even seem to be bothering with the whole process, planning on going straight to the primary, so there’s not much clarity on how the field will shake out. The GOP field seems much more clear-cut, where former state House minority leader Marty Seifert beat state Rep. Tom Emmer 50-39, with the rest of the field in the low single digits.

• AZ-Sen: With the imminent entry of ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth into the Republican primary against John McCain, we’re already looking at dueling internal polls. McCain offers up a poll from POS, giving him a 59-30 lead over Hayworth. Hayworth has his own poll from McLaughlin, which, not surprisingly, shows him much closer, trailing 49-33.

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek, NASCAR dad? Meek plans to call attention to his campaign by shelling out to be the lead sponsor of Mike Wallace’s car in an upcoming race at Daytona.

• IN-Sen: With the surprising announcement by ex-Sen. Dan Coats last night that he’s interested in a comeback and would start seeking the signatures to qualify for the Indiana GOP nod, the oppo pretty much writes itself. For starters, Coats can’t even sign his own petition – he’s been a registered voter in Virginia for more than a decade, not Indiana. And what’s he been doing for much of that time? Lobbying… for King & Spalding, on behalf of nice people like the Carlyle Group and Bank of America. The Plum Line also points to Coats accusing Bill Clinton of “wagging the dog” when he started going after al-Qaeda in 1998, allegedly to distract the press from his peccadilloes… and we all know how that turned out.

• ND-Sen: Democrats have, well, somebody ready to go if ex-AG Heidi Heitkamp doesn’t get into the Senate race to replace retiring Byron Dorgan. State Sen. Tracy Potter, who represents Bismarck, will be announcing his candidacy on Friday. Other potential candidates seem to be holding back, waiting to see what Heitkamp does; she’s been strangely silent since initially expressing interest in the seat last month.

• NY-Sen-B: Quinnipiac’s first poll of the New York Senate race after the Harold Ford Jr. boomlet began finds, well, pretty much what everyone else has found: Kirsten Gillibrand beats him by a wide margin but doesn’t break 50%. Gillibrand beats 36-18, with Jonathan Tasini at 4. Quinnipiac also tests general election matchups against Republican port commissioner Bruce Blakeman (they don’t even bother testing ex-Gov. George Pataki, who doesn’t seem to be making any moves to get into the race). Gillibrand beats Blakeman 44-27, and Ford beats him 35-26. Gillibrand is slowly gaining some more name rec, up to a 42/28 approval. Blakeman may not have the GOP primary to himself, though, as a strange blast from the past is re-emerging to say he’s interested in the race: ex-Rep. Joseph DioGuardi. In case the name doesn’t ring a bell, DioGuardi served in the House representing Westchester County from 1984 to 1988, when he was defeated by Nita Lowey.

• NY-Gov: The same Quinnipiac sample looks at the governor’s race, finding huge approval gaps between Andrew Cuomo (54/16) and David Paterson (34/49). Cuomo wins the Democratic primary 55-23. Cuomo beats Rick Lazio 57-25, while Lazio manages to get past Paterson 40-39. There’s also one other bit of good news for Cuomo (who’s seemed gunshy about taking on Paterson, perhaps out of bad memories of his race against Carl McCall). The poll asked if his candidacy would be “racially divisive,” and respondents answered “no” by an 80-14 margin, including 73-22 among African-Americans. Marist (pdf) also just released the gubernatorial half of its recent Senate poll, finding generally similar numbers. Cuomo wins the primary 70-23. Cuomo beats Lazio 64-27, while Lazio edges Paterson 46-43.

• TN-Gov: Add one more candidate running for higher office who’s publicly copped to being birther-curious: Lt. Gov. (and GOP gubernatorial candidate) Ron Ramsey. Not having made much of an impression in terms of polling (where Rep. Zach Wamp has an edge) or fundraising (where Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam is cleaning up), this seems like the most attention Ramsey has gotten so far.

• TX-Gov: Here’s more evidence that the Texas GOP gubernatorial primary may be headed for a runoff: the new Rasmussen poll of the primary doesn’t have anyone coming even close to 50%. Incumbent Rick Perry leads at 44, with Kay Bailey Hutchison lagging at 29, and Paulist insurgent Debra Medina all the way up to 14 on the strength of some buzz coming out of her debate performances. KBH may be counting on a runoff as her only way left to salvage this race, but somehow it seems like, in a runoff, Medina votes are a lot likely to gravitate toward the secession-invoking Perry rather than consummate DC insider Hutchison. In the general, all three defeat Democratic ex-Houston mayor Bill White, although, as one would expect, KBH puts up the biggest margin: 49-36. Perry wins 48-39, while Medina wins by only 41-38.

• AR-02: One of the non-Tim Griffin candidates in the Republican field, David Meeks, dropped out of the race today, probably realizing he was in over his head with the kind of attention open seat races get. One other candidate, restaurant owner Scott Wallace remains, and he may well carry the teabagger flag against Beltway creature Griffin. Realizing the best way to win this is by painting Griffin as insider, the DCCC is turning their attention to Griffin’s past as GOP behind-the-scenes fixer, calling attention to his efforts at voter suppression. Over in the diaries, ARDem takes a look at the developing Dem field, which currently contains state House speaker Robbie Wills, liberal state Sen. Joyce Elliott, and retiring Vic Snyder’s chief of staff, David Boling. It won’t contain, however, Little Rock mayor Mike Stodola, or Public Service Commissioner Paul Suskie, who had seemed to be laying the groundwork for a run.

• CA-12, CA-AG: False alarm: Rep. Jackie Speier is staying put in the 12th District, where’s she been in place for only a couple years. Rumors that she was about to move over to the state AG’s race had many of the state legislators on the Peninsula angling to replace her.

• GA-04: In the wake of an internal from Rep. Hank Johnson showing him crushing his three opponents in the Dem primary in this solidly-blue district in Atlanta’s suburbs, one of those opponents got out of the way: DeKalb Co. Commissioner Lee May. May is an ally of former DeKalb Co. CEO Vernon Jones, so it’s possible that he’s getting out of the way primarily so that Jones can get a bigger share of the non-Johnson vote.

• MA-10: With the general sense that this is the most vulnerable district in Massachusetts (as seen with its votes in the Senate special election last month), Republicans are taking more of an interest in challenging Rep. William Delahunt in this usually-ignored seat. Former state treasurer Joe Malone is probably the biggest name to express interest, but at least one other credible contender, state Rep. Jeffrey Perry, is already announcing his candidacy. State Sen. Robert Hedlund is also expressing some interest.

• NJ-07: One big hole in the Dems’ recruitment schedule has been the 7th, narrowly won by freshman GOP Rep. Leonard Lance in 2008. They’ve managed to fill the gap with Ed Potosnak, who’s elevated slightly above Some Dude status by the full Rolodex he brings with him after working for a number of years as a Hill staffer for Rep. Mike Honda.

• PA-11: Lackawanna Co. Commissioner Corey O’Brien has a compelling argument for why he should win the primary in the 11th: he says Rep. Paul Kanjorski has “zero” chance of defeating Republican Lou Barletta in their third face-off, citing Kanjorski’s low approval ratings. O’Brien has been fundraising well ($180K last quarter, not far from Kanjo’s $237K) and recently hit the airwaves with a small cable buy for his first TV spot.

• CA-LG: Is San Francisco mayor (and gubernatorial race dropout) Gavin Newsom actually thinking about a run for the dead-end job that is California’s #2? Officially he’s not interested, but he hasn’t said no, and a new public poll from Tulchin gives him a big lead in a hypothetical LG primary, with Newsom at 33 against the two declared candidates: Los Angeles city councilor Janice Hahn at 17 and state Sen. Dean Florez at 15. Meanwhile, the state Senate this week takes up the issue of filling the current vacancy in the LG’s chair (vacated by now-Rep. John Garamendi); there’s actually talk of blocking Ahnold appointee state Sen. Abel Maldonado, despite that getting the moderate Republican Maldonado out of his seat would open up his Dem-leaning district for a takeover and help push the Dem edge in the Senate toward the magic 2/3s mark.

• CT-AG: The story of Susan Bysiewicz just gets stranger and stranger; she decided that rather than run for governor, she’d prefer to run for AG, but now the job’s current occupant, Richard Blumenthal, says that possibly she can’t. An AG opinion interprets state law requiring ten years of legal practice as unclear and urges a declaratory ruling on Bysiewicz’s case from a court. Bysiewicz, for her part, said she won’t seek the declaratory ruling and is simply plowing ahead with her AG campaign, although it’s possible one of the other candidates in the race might force the issue in the courts.

• Polltopia: The skepticism toward those SurveyUSA polls commissioned by Firedoglake continues to grow, this time from political science professor and frequent Pollster.com contributor Alan Abramowitz. His gravest concerns are with the leading questions in the issues portions of the poll on health care reform, but he also points to serious problems with the samples’ compositions that we were quick to flag. He observes that the samples deeply underrepresent younger votes, and that the youth subsets are so small that there’s no good way to “weight up” younger voters to a more proportionate level.

• AZ-Sen: Ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth has made it pretty clear already that he’s taking on John McCain in the Republican Senate primary, and now he’s made it official when he’s going to make it official. The launch date for his campaign: Feb. 15.

• CT-Sen, CT-02: Ex-Rep. Rob Simmons did a whole lot of bobbing and weaving when an interviewer yesterday kept pressing him on the issue of whether he’d consider dropping down to run for his old House seat again (although a spokesperson followed up afterwards, saying he will not running for anything else, “period”). The idea has to be tempting to Simmons, though, who just watched his Senate dreams vaporize with Democratic AG Richard Blumenthal’s entry, and who may by enviously eyeing efforts by some of the other 2006 victims (like Mike Fitzpatrick) to turn back the clock.

• KS-Sen: There’s still six months to go before their Republican Senate primary, but time’s running out for Rep. Todd Tiahrt to make a move against fellow Rep. Jerry Moran. Moran leads this month’s SurveyUSA poll 40-33 (two months ago Tiahrt pulled within 3, but that’s the closest he’s been). Moran is currently up 38-23 in the state’s northeast, which will be the decisive region (as they each have their respective districts already locked down).

• NV-Sen: File this under “it’s bad news even if you have to be out there repeatedly saying this,” but Harry Reid again denied (this time to Las Vegas political reporter Jon Ralston) that he’d drop out of his fizzling Senate race to make way for a different candidate. On the GOP side, one potential opponent, Sue Lowden, is up with her first TV spot, a soft-focus biographical ad. Taking note of these developments, no doubt, are Dick Durbin and Charles Schumer; insiders are observing that the two of them are both busy doling out campaign cash to their colleagues in order to build loyalties for what looks like the fight to be the next majority leader.

• NY-Sen-B: In case you missed it, last night’s point-by-point dismantling of Harold Ford Jr. by Stephen Colbert is a must-see. It clearly wasn’t the coming-out gala that Ford had envisioned.

• UT-Sen: The establishment is riding to the rescue for Bob Bennett, who could be threatened in this year’s primary if the teabagging rabble somehow coalesced behind one of his many opponents. The NRSC just handed $43K to Bennett’s campaign (an important sign to other institutional contributors), and Newt Gingrich is headlining a big-bucks fundraiser for Bennett.

• CA-Gov: Republican pollster McLaughlin & Associates (apparently not working on behalf of any of the candidates) released a poll of the Republican gubernatorial primary, finding zillionairess Meg Whitman leading zillionaire Steve Poizner, 39-12. Apparently they were in the field when Tom Campbell bailed out, as they also offer up a three-way head-to-head, which was 31 Whitman, 17 Campbell, 5 Poizner.  

• CT-Gov: A couple comings and goings in Connecticut today: as expected, Danbury mayor Mark Boughton got in the Republican field. On the Democratic side, state Sen. Gary LeBeau, who’d been polling in the low single digits, dropped out. In a moment of unusual honesty for a politician, LeBeau said, “The state has no idea who Gary LeBeau is.”

• OR-Gov: This is a bit of a surprise, but in the wake of Al Gore’s endorsement, it’s certainly an indication that ex-SoS Bill Bradbury (something of an underdog in the Democratic primary against ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber) has some powerful friends back in DC. Howard Dean will appear at several fundraisers for Bradbury in Oregon next week.

• FL-08: Here’s another surprise: brash 20-something real estate developer Armando Gutierrez dropped out of the GOP field in the 8th, despite having attracted a lot of favorable buzz and even picked up a few endorsements from members of Florida’s House delegation. The national party never warmed up to him, though, seemingly put off by his line-crashing, and he may have finally gotten the message, between the NRCC’s preferred pick, businessman Bruce O’Donoghue, officially filing yesterday, and the endorsement by neighboring Rep. Cliff Stearns of yet another Republican in the crowded field, state Rep. Kurt Kelly.

• FL-19: In all the madness over the Illinois primaries today, it’s been almost universally forgotten that the primary in the safely-blue 19th to replace resigned Rep. Robert Wexler is also today. It’s hardly worth a look, though, as state Sen. Ted Deutch pretty much has it locked down, having raised many times more money than anyone else and nailed down the establishment endorsements. Former Broward Co. Commissioner Ben Graber is the only other candidate of note.

• IN-04: Despite the advantages that his statewide profile brings him, SoS Todd Rokita won’t have the GOP field to replace retiring Rep. Steve Buyer to himself. He’ll have to face state Sen. Brandt Hershman too. Hershman has one key advantage himself: he works as an aide to Buyer, and has Buyer’s backing.

• NV-03: Here’s some good news for ex-state Sen. Joe Heck: he just got $10K to go toward his campaign against vulnerable Dem freshman Rep. Dina Titus. The bad news is: that $10K came from the PAC of John Ensign, who just won’t stop trying to make himself useful to Nevada’s other Republicans despite the fact that he’s about as popular as shingles right now. But then Heck got some more good news: he won’t face a seriously contested primary, as self-funding businessman Rob Lauer dropped his teabaggish challenge to Heck to run for SoS instead.

• NY-13: A lot of people are asking who Michael Grimm is, after he banked over $300K last quarter to go up against Democratic Rep. Michael McMahon. He’s a former FBI agent, who apparently has a lot of friends in high places… in places outside of his district. Only $3,500 of that amount came from within the actual district, and $2,000 of that was from Staten Island Republican guru Guy Molinari.

• NY-14: Live by the primary challenge, die by the primary challenge. Rep. Carolyn Maloney now faces one of her own, a well-funded challenge from the apparent right from 30-something attorney Reshma Saujani, who has previously raised serious dollars within the Indian-American community for other Democratic candidates. Saujani, believe it or not, is running on an unashamedly pro-Wall Street platform (although this is maybe the one district in the country where that might still work).

• PA-06: Two more prominent local Democrats who had endorsed Doug Pike when he was the only game in town have switched their endorsements to Manan Trivedi instead. Significantly, they’re both in Berks County (which is also where Trivedi is from, and which is where Dems have tended to run the weakest in the district in the past): Reading mayor Tom McMahon and Berks Co. Commissioner Kevin Barnhardt.

• TN-01: Would you believe that there’s a Republican who lost in one of the wave elections who isn’t running for something this year? However, before you get too excited, it’s ex-Rep. David Davis, who’d been mulling a third matchup against Rep. Phil Roe, who knocked him off in a GOP primary in this super-red district in eastern Tennessee. The not-insane Roe may be the best we can hope for in this district, especially compared with Davis, who’d been making outreach to the local teabaggers in preparation for another run.

• WV-03: A credible challenger to Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall sneaked under the rope at the filing deadline: former state Supreme Court justice Elliott Maynard. Maynard was, until recently, a Democrat, but switched parties pushed along largely by his perception of Democrats’ anti-coal environmental policies (and no doubt also influenced by West Virginia’s reddish turn over the last decade).

• OH-SoS: This was painless and easy: not only did a more progressive alternative to conservative state Rep. Jennifer Garrison get into the Secretary of State race – Franklin Co. Court Clerk Maryellen O’Shaughnessy – but she won’t even face a contested primary. Getting the message that her establishment support was practically nil, Garrison got out of the race. Meanwhile, on the Republican side, the GOP establishment seems to have settled the trouble it was having finding a replacement Auditor candidate after Mary Taylor ditched the job to run for Lt. Governor. They got Delaware Co. Prosecutor Kevin Yost to switch over from the AG’s race, where he was facing ex-Sen. Mike DeWine in a primary. That caused a lot of consternation among the state’s right-wingers, though – they were looking forward to Yost picking off the unacceptably moderate (and generally underwhelming) DeWine in the primary. Both the SoS and Auditor positions are key from a redistricting perspective, as along with the Governor they control the state’s legislative redistricting process.

• Republicans: If you haven’t checked out the details of Research 2000’s in-depth poll of the state of what Republicans believe today, please do. Although I’m not really still sure what to do with all this knowledge… except maybe acknowledge that you can’t negotiate with such irrational actors.

• Redistricting: CQ’s Josh Kurtz takes an interesting look at redistricting in California over the decades, as seen through the prism of a new book that covers the many ups and downs of legendary California Rep. Philip Burton. Will it be an incumbent protection map or an aggressive push, and how will the state’s fast-growing Latino population be accommodated?

• CA-Sen (pdf): The Public Policy Institute of California takes a look at the California Senate race, and find it a fairly close-looking race if ex-Rep. Tom Campbell survives the primary against wealthy Carly Fiorina and teabagger-powered Chuck DeVore. Unfortunately, it looks like he’s poised to that, leading Fiorina and DeVore 27-16-8. Barbara Boxer leads Campbell 45-41 in the general, while she leads Fiorina by a more comfortable 48-40 and DeVore 47-39. (By comparison, Boxer leads Campbell by 10 in the most recent sample by the widely-respected Field Poll, who found Campbell leading Fiorina 35-25-6.) Another bit of bad news for Fiorina: apparently people at her former company doesn’t think that much of her. Boxer has received the maximum $10K from Hewlett-Packard’s PAC, while Fiorina has gotten nothing.

• IL-Sen: I don’t know if anyone was banking on Jacob Meister and the 1% of voters he was pulling in, but the wealthy attorney running a quixotic bid folded his hand and threw his backing behind Alexi Giannoulias with only a day to go before the primary. He cited David Hoffman’s negative ads and that Hoffman is “more conservative” than he lets on. PPP’s Tom Jensen also has some thoughts on the Republican primary, wondering why Patrick Hughes fizzled while other tea party-fueled insurgent candidates (Rand Paul) have caught a spark; basically, it has to do with money, and not just one’s own money (with Hughes has lots of) but institutional money (from folks like the Club for Growth) instead.

• KY-Sen: Speaking of Rand Paul, he got a top-drawer endorsement today, from Sarah Palin, as the common cause between teabaggers and Paulists now seems fully stitched-together. (Of course, whether that endorsement translates into dollars is another question, especially with today’s revelation that SarahPAC spent more money buying copies of “Going Rogue” to push it up the best-seller lists than on contributions to actual candidates.)

• NV-Sen: While he hasn’t taken any official steps, Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki is souding more and more like a Republican candidate for the Senate, publicly saying “I can beat Senator Reid.” (And, the implication probably is, that the second-tier odds and ends currently cluttering the race can’t, once the gloves come off.) With Krolicki being courted by the John Cornyn at the NRSC, that’s just arousing the wrath of the anti-establishment set, though, and even some local bigwigs, like ex-Gov. (and current RNC committee member) Bob List, who’s telling Cornyn to back off.

• NY-Sen, NY-Sen-B (pdf): No particular surprises in Marist’s new poll of the Senate landscape in New York, finding that a hypothetical George Pataki challenge, rather than Harold Ford Jr., is the biggest threat to Kirsten Gillibrand. She wins the primary against Ford and Jonathan Tasini 44-27-4. Gillibrand loses to Pataki 49-43, while easily beating the only announced Republican, Port Authority commissioner Bruce Blakeman, 52-30. Ford also loses the general to Pataki, 52-35, while getting past Blakeman 39-35. They even test out the other Senate race, the one no one has been thinking about but that talk show host Larry Kudlow has made some noises about joining. Charles Schumer mops the floor with Kudlow, 67-25.

• WA-Sen: I don’t know if this is going to strike much fear in the heart of Patty Murray, who has flattened three prominent Republican U.S. Representatives over the course of her career, but a poll from Moore Insight (a Republican polling firm in Oregon) clearly designed to lure 2004 and 2008 gubernatorial loser Dino Rossi into the race finds Rossi leading, 45-43. Rossi says “I never say never,” but also says he has “no plans to run for any office at this point.”

• CA-Gov: That same PPIC poll has gubernatorial numbers as well, finding that Jerry Brown shouldn’t take his race for granted either. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman has moved into commanding position in the GOP primary, between her outrageous spending and the disappearance of Tom Campbell from the race; she leads Insurance Comm. Steve Poizner 41-11 (an improvement from 32-8 in December). Brown leads Whitman by five, 41-36 (he led by 6 in December), while he leads Poizner 44-29. Calitics has some advice on how Brown should engage the race if and when he emerges from his Fortress of Solitude, and also some details on how Poizner isn’t going down without a fight, calling for federal investigation into Whitman’s efforts to push him out of the race.

• MD-Gov: Ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich seems to be moving closer to a rematch with the man who defeated him in 2006, Democrat Martin O’Malley. He’s been lining up fundraisers and a statewide “listening tour,” although he says he wants to hear what people actually say on said tour before making a decision one way or the other on the race. Another indicator that Ehrlich is likely to run: the only Republican in the race right now, Larry Hogan, a close Ehrlich friend who said he’s get out of the way for Ehrlich and was in the race as something of a placeholder, has ended his campaign, saying that he’s convinced Ehrlich is getting in.

• MI-Gov: Lt. Gov. John Cherry’s withdrawal from the gubernatorial race is certainly different from what we saw Connecticut and Colorado: instead of leading to an instant upgrade, we’re just seeing a lot of confusion, with none of the options seeming that much better. The newest EPIC-MRA poll of the race finds pizza magnate Denise Ilitch in the best position in the scrambled Dem primary, leading state House speaker Andy Dillon and Lansing mayor Virg Bernero 23-8-5, with a majority undecided. AG Mike Cox leads the Republican field, beating Rep. Peter Hoekstra and Oakland Co. Sheriff Mike Bouchard 32-25-16. Specific head-to-head numbers aren’t reported, but Ilitch reportedly trails Cox by 18 and Hoekstra by 7, with Dillon and Bernero faring even worse. (UPDATE: Thanks to RCP, those toplines are: Cox 48, Ilitch 30; Cox 47, Dillon 30; Cox 50, Bernero 28; Hoekstra 42, Ilitch 35; Hoekstra 40, Dillon 32; Hoekstra 45, Bernero 27.)

• PA-Gov: With rich guy Tom Knox suddenly out of the governor’s race, another Philadelphian is looking to fill his void in a Democratic primary dominated by western Pennsylvania figures. State Sen. Anthony Williams has been sounding out the race; he’d be the only African-American in the field.

• AR-03: We’ve already dissected the possible fields in Arkansas’ 1st and 2nd districts, but now that it looks like the 3rd will be vacant too, let’s see who might step up. One top name is John Arthur Hammerschmidt, the son of the guy who held the seat for more than 20 years (and who notably beat a young Bill Clinton many years ago). A possible return engagement by ex-Rep. and ex-DEA head Asa Hutchinson is also mentioned. Other names for the GOP include former US Attorney Bob Balfe, state Rep. Jonathan Barnett, former state Sen. Dave Bisbee, state Sen. Cecile Bledsoe, former state Sen. John Brown, state Rep. Rick Green, city councilor Kurt Maddox, former state Rep. Doug Matoyo, former state Rep. Daryl Pace, current Senate candidate Buddy Rogers, retired general Bernard Skoch, and Rogers mayor Steve Womack. Fayetteville city attorney David Whitaker seems to be the lone Democrat interested in this dark-red district.

• CA-12: Nothing sets off a stampede like an open U.S. House seat in California, where term limits keep people cycling in and out of the state legislature. With Rep. Jackie Speier sounding likely to run for state AG, state sen. Leland Yee, state Assemblyman Jerry Hill, and Assemblywoman Fiona Ma also have said they’re revving up for a run in the Democratic primary in this safely-blue seat.

• LA-02: Rep. Joe Cao seems to have gotten sucked into the downward spiral of direct mail marketing. He raised a pretty good $248K during the last quarter, but somehow managed to spend $283K, meaning he burned $35K and is sitting on only $316K CoH anymore.

• MN-03: Bad news in the 3rd: state Sen. Terri Bonoff, who probably should have been our candidate there in 2008, isn’t going to run there in 2010, instead going for another term in the state Senate. Maureen Hackett and Jim Meffert are facing off for the Democratic nod, but neither of them has Bonoff’s stature in the swingy suburban district.

• NY-15: The Memphis newspaper has an interesting profile of one of the candidates seeking to knock off increasingly-sketchy Rep. Charlie Rangel in the Democratic primary, Harlem community banker Vincent Morgan. What’s the Memphis angle on all this? Morgan is really a Ford; he’s the estranged son of currently imprisoned former state Sen. John Ford, and the cousin of former TN-09 Rep. and current possible NY-Sen candidate Harold Ford Jr. Morgan isn’t close with the family, and prefers to downplay the link.

• PA-08: The minor GOP candidates in the 8th seem to be bailing out, in the wake of the entry of a relative heavyweight, in the form of ex-Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, back to reclaim his seat. Attorney and Iraq vet Dean Malik, who seemed to be as close to a frontrunner as the GOP had pre-Fitzpatrick, dropped out last week and endorsed Fitzpatrick. The self-proclaimed teabagger in the race, Rob Mitchell, also pulled out and threw his support to Fitzpatrick.

• TN-04: Rep. Lincoln Davis had previously made it clear that he was running again, but it’s official today: he filed his paperwork for another run. That’s gotta be a relief for the DCCC, already trying to plug two holes in TN-06 and TN-08.

• TX-23: Former Bexar Co. Commissioner Lyle Larson, who torpedoed the GOP’s preferred candidate (Quico Canseco) in the 2008 primary and then went on to get swamped by Rep. Ciro Rodriguez in the general, won’t be running again this year. Instead, he’s getting into an open seat race for a Texas state House seat instead, giving Canseco a clearer shot this time.

• WV-01: A last-minute primary challenge to Rep. Alan Mollohan sneaked in, and it’s a rather serious one, from long-time state Sen. Mike Oliverio. Oliverio is giving up his Senate seat this year, maybe in hopes that Mollohan would retire; when Mollohan filed for re-election anyway, he may have figured he had nothing to lose by running anyway (although with Mollohan’s ethical cloud having been recently lifted, I’m not sure what Oliverio’s angle would be anymore). Also worth noting: state Sen. Clark Barnes, considering a leading GOP challenger, didn’t even file to run, apparently thinking better of it after the party started touting former state Rep. (and more importantly, potential self-financer) David McKinley instead. (You can check out all the Kentucky and West Virginia filings action in benawu‘s new diary.)

• Facebook: Which political website are you? If you answered “Swing State Project,” you can become a fan of us on Facebook and get regular updates in a largely quiz-free environment.

• AZ-Sen: CQ has an interesting tidbit about Rodney Glassman, the young Tucson city councilor who’s the top Democrat in the Senate race right now. The general sense has been that it would be good to have someone with some self-funding capacity to be able to jump in and make a race of it in case the bombastic J.D. Hayworth somehow takes out John McCain in the GOP primary… and it turns out that Glassman has been that guy all along. He’s been capping contributions to his campaign at $20 for now, but the Dems’ state chair says Glassman can step in with his own money in case things heat up.

• IA-Sen: Rasmussen takes a pretty dim view of the odds for Roxanne Conlin (or any other Democrat) against Chuck Grassley in 2010. They see Conlin, a wealthy attorney last seen losing the 1982 gubernatorial race, losing to Grassley 59-31. The other less-known Dems, both veterans of the state legislature, fare only slightly worse: Bob Krause loses 59-26, and Tom Fiegen loses 61-25.

• IL-Sen: One last component from Rasmussen’s poll of the Illinois primary fields dribbled in late yesterday: a look at the Republican Senate field. Like other pollsters, they find Rep. Mark Kirk way ahead of his nearest competitor in the GOP primary, real estate developer Patrick Hughes. Unlike others, though, they at least see Hughes in the double-digits, losing 53-18 (with 12 for “some other candidate”).

• NC-Sen: Rasmussen also examines North Carolina, and while they find Republican incumbent Richard Burr with a significant lead, he’s not quite in the safety zone. Burr leads Democratic SoS Elaine Marshall 47-37, and he leads former state Sen. Cal Cunningham 50-34. Rasmussen also finds Burr’s knowns to be much, much higher than anyone else has found them: he has an approval of 56/32, with only 12% not sure (whereas most pollsters find his unknowns to be well into the 30s).

• NY-Sen-B: After rumors of his renewed interest in challenging Kirsten Gillibrand in a Democratic Senate primary, Rep. Steve Israel sounds like he’s backing off. His chief of staff says “definitively that he’s not running,” although there’s no comment from Israel himself. Israel, however, did commission another poll in recent weeks to take the race’s temperature, so it’s clear his interest was briefly re-piqued.

• AK-Gov: Former state House speaker John Harris had been a rumored candidate to oppose appointed Gov. Sean Parnell in the GOP gubernatorial primary, but has made clear that he won’t run and will run for re-election to the House instead. Another former speaker, Ralph Samuels, was also in the race, leaving Harris little room to grab whatever anti-Parnell vote might be out there. (A PPP poll finds the uncontroversial Parnell with a 58/19 approval, so it’d be an uphill run anyway.)

• FL-Gov: Rasmussen has new numbers out for the Governor’s race in Florida, and they’re very similar to what Quinnipiac released yesterday. Republican AG Bill McCollum leads Democratic CFO Alex Sink 46-35. (Presumably, this means they’ll have Senate numbers shortly.)

• MI-Gov: We’re getting strange signals out of the Virg Bernero camp. The Lansing mayor sent out an e-mail soliciting interns for his gubernatorial run (which would be a strange way of announcing your run, which he hasn’t done so far, although he does have an exploratory committee up). It was quickly followed up with word that Bernero hasn’t decided whether or not to run, and it should have said interns sought for his exploratory committee only.

• NY-Gov: Here’s a sign of how unenthused the state GOP is with the idea of ex-Rep. Rick Lazio as their standard-bearer for the Governor’s race: they’re actually sitting down with Suffolk Co. Exec Steven Levy, who has recently expressed some interest in the race, to discuss the possibility of him running as a Republican. Levy, of course, is a Democrat, although a rather conservative one (particularly on immigration issues) and one who received a Republican cross-endorsement during his barely-contested 2007 re-election. The crux of the matter may be that Levy has a $4 million warchest available, while Lazio is sitting on $637K. State party chair Ed Cox offered this stirring endorsement of Lazio on Wednesday: “At the moment, he is the candidate.”

• WI-Gov: One final Rasmussen poll to look at today: it’s the other half of their Wisconsin sample, the one that found 68-year-old ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson leading Russ Feingold in a hypothetical match. They find Republican ex-Rep. Mark Neumann leading Democratic Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett 42-38, while Milwaukee Co. Exec Scott Walker leads Barrett 48-38 (again, a much more Republican-favorable view of the race than other pollsters have seen it).

• AR-01: Dems won’t be getting their most-desired candidate to succeed Marion Berry in the 1st: AG Dustin McDaniel already announced that he won’t run. Possible Dem candidates sniffing out the race, though, including state Rep. Keith Ingram, state Sen. Robert Thompson, and former state party chair Jason Willett. CQ also mentions former state Rep. Chris Thyer, former state Sen. Tim Woolridge, and Berry’s CoS, Chad Causey.

• AR-02: In the 2nd, Democratic state House speaker Robbie Wills seems to be getting into the race to succeed Vic Snyder. State Sen. Shane Broadway has also expressed interest, but says that he’ll head for the Lt. Governor race if LG Bill Halter gets into the field in the 2nd. State Public Service Commissioner Paul Suskie is already putting campaign infrastructure into place, and a potential wild card people are eyeing is Little Rock’s mayor, Mark Stodola.

• CA-19: Smackdown in the Central Valley! Retiring Republican Rep. George Radanovich lashed out at CA-11 ex-Rep. Richard Pombo, seeking to replace him, saying that he should have “run in his own district.” Radanovich backs state Sen. Jeff Denham in the GOP primary, and was seeking to quash Pombo claims that Radanovich wouldn’t have endorsed Denham had he known Pombo was going to run. In other news, Rep. Tom McClintock at some point endorsed Pombo, finally making it clear that McClintock, used to running for something new every two years, wasn’t going to reflexively abandon his district and run in the 19th instead.

• GA-04: A primary is the only way to dislodge Rep. Hank Johnson in this safely blue district, and it looks like Johnson is poised to keep his seat even though he’s drawn several prominent opponents (at least some of whom would be coming at him from the right), former DeKalb Co. CEO Vernon Jones and DeKalb Co. Commissioners Connie Stokes and Lee May. Johnson has an internal poll from Lake Associates out showing him with 47% of the vote, leading Jones at 19, Stokes at 12, and May at 5.

• KY-06: Just days after attorney Andy Barr was named to the bottom tier of the NRCC’s “Young Guns” program, another Republican has jumped into the fray to take on Rep. Ben Chandler in this Republican-leaning district. Mike Templeman retired last year as CEO of Energy Coal Resources, and is touting his business experience.

• NH-02: Ex-Rep. Charlie Bass is touting an internal poll that has him in commanding position, at least as far as the GOP primary is concerned. He leads the 2008 Republican candidate, talk radio host Jennifer Horn, by a 42-19 margin (with 4 for state Rep. Bob Giuda). No numbers for the general election in this Dem-leaning district, however.

• NY-01: Rep. Tim Bishop is pushing back against, well, everything: he said, as far as retirement rumors go, he’s “sure as hell” not going to back down from a fight now. He also announced strong fundraising (a $378K quarter) in the face of wealthy opposition, Randy Altschuler and George Demos. (There are also rumors that Chris Cox, the grandson of Richard Nixon and son of new state GOP chair Ed Cox, may get into the race.) Bishop’s camp also alluded to (although didn’t specifically release) an internal poll showing him over the 50% mark against his Republican opponents, in contrast to other recent polls.

• PA-03: I wouldn’t have expected freshman Kathy Dahlkemper’s 3rd to be only 4th or 5th among Pennsylvania Democratic seats in terms of vulnerability this year, but them’s the breaks. The GOP hasn’t found a top-tier recruit here yet, but another Republican got into the race: Mike Kelly, a car dealer from the suburban Pittsburgh part of the district. It sounds like he’ll be able to partly fund his own way, which will help him compete against fellow businessman Paul Huber.

• PA-10: Former US Attorney Tom Marino finally announced his long-rumored bid against Rep. Chris Carney this week. While Marino seems imposing on paper, there are a number of problems here for him: for starters, Carney quickly used the December efforts of GOPers to recruit him to party-switch to boost his own bipartisan bona fides. Marino also faces questions over his relationship with Louis DeNaples, a developer who was the target of probes over links to organized crime, and particularly a casino license granted to him (where Marino was a reference on DeNaples’ gaming application). And a number of state legislators – at least in the far western part of the district where Malcolm Derk is from – are lining up behind Derk instead of Marino in the GOP primary. With chiropractor David Madeira, who’s been reaching out to the teabaggers, also in the race, even the primary won’t be an easy ride for Marino.

• PA-15: One more internal poll, this one not looking so good for Democrats. Republican Rep. Charlie Dent, in his first competitive race, well, ever, against Bethlehem mayor John Callahan, has a big edge in his own poll conducted by the Tarrance Group. The poll gives Dent a 53-27 lead, with 8 going to teabagging independent Jack Towne. The moderate Dent pulls in one-quarter of all Democratic voters.

• TN-08: He’s in like Flinn. George Flinn, that is: the official entry of the Shelby Co. Commissioner, who’s also a radiologist and radio station owner in his spare time, expanded the Republican field in the 8th. With two money-bags candidates already in the picture, physician Ron Kirkland and most prominently farmer Stephen Fincher, Republicans look poised to bleed each other badly in an expensive primary while state Sen. Roy Herron looks to have the Democratic field mostly to himself in this open seat race.

• VA-05: Another primary that’s getting out of control for the GOP is the one in the 5th, where there’s a backlog of die-hards each claiming to be the “true conservative” as opposed to establishment fave state Sen. Robert Hurt. Real estate investor Lawrence Verga seems to have had the most success at gaining the attention of the teabaggers (although Verga‘s spotty voting record can’t help his image much), but now rival real estate developer Jim McKelvey just slammed down half a million dollars on the table to up the ante. Even more delicious in terms of cat fud: McKelvey is also making threats that he’ll run as an independent if things don’t go his way in the primary. With right-winger Bradley Rees already running as a Tea Party-powered indie, there could be enough fracturing on the right to let vulnerable Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello have a shot at survival.

• VA-09: Here’s a seat that would have been a bear to defend in the event of a retirement, but where we got the final word that the incumbent is staying put. Rep. Rick Boucher confirmed he’ll go for a 15th term in the Fightin’ 9th in southwestern Virginia. He’s still not out of the woods, as Republican state House majority leader Morgan Griffith may get in the race, although for now Boucher doesn’t have an opponent.

• WA-03: This caught me, and seemingly a lot of other people, by surprise: Gov. Chris Gregoire weighed into the Democratic primary in the 3rd with an endorsement, and she bypassed the two sitting state legislators in the field to go for ex-state Rep. Denny Heck, suggesting that rumors that he’s got a lot of behind-the-scenes establishment support are quite true. Heck, who subsequently founded a public affairs cable channel and did a lot of successful for-profit investing as well, can spend a lot of his own money on the race, which is probably why he’s getting the establishment backing despite having been out of office for decades.

• WV-01: After a rather protracted four-year investigation, the Justice Dept. ended its investigation of Rep. Alan Mollohan over earmark steering, removing the ethical cloud from over his head. Mollohan had been on retirement watch lists, in the face of several decent Republican challengers, but he recently filed for re-election and now his opponents have less ammo to use against him.

• OH-SoS: Progressives have been dismayed that socially conservative state Rep. Jennifer Garrison is the only Democratic option in the Secretary of State primary anymore, but that sounds like it’s about to change. Franklin Co. Clerk of Courts (and former Columbus city councilor) Maryellen O’Shaugnessy is rumored to be about to enter the race, and it also sounds like she’ll have the backing of the state party’s power brokers, starting at the top with Gov. Ted Strickland (who can’t afford to have progressives stay home in 2010, as he needs them to save his own bacon in what promises to be a tight gubernatorial race).

• Census: New York state Senate Democrats are proposing changes in the way that prison inmates are counted. They’d like for them to be considered residents of the district where their last known address was, not where they’re currently incarcerated. It’s actually a very important issue, considering that there are more than 58,000 state prisoners in New York, most of whom are from cities but are currently in rural Upstate, and it could tip the balance significantly in redistricting the state Senate. In other Census news, Robert Groves talked extensively to Pew about increasing participation, tracking turnout, and overcoming language barriers.

• Humor: Finally, here’s a cartoon that SSP fans are uniquely positioned to enjoy.

• AR-Sen: Despite the seemingly imminent entry of Rep. John Boozman into the GOP field in the Arkansas Senate race, soon-to-be-former-frontrunner state Sen. Gilbert Baker says he’s staying in the race. The alternative would be to run for Baker, who represents Little Rock suburbs, to run for the open seat in AR-02 instead – but there he’d face a tough primary against Beltway GOP favorite Tim Griffin, who’s already established a solid fundraising foothold. (Some of the seven dwarves in the GOP field, who seem concentrated in the state’s right-leaning northwest, may be interested in switching to Boozman’s open seat in AR-03, though.) And unbelievably, yet another Republican is interested in getting in the Senate race: former NFL player Jim Lindsey is readying for a bid. Lindsey is a real estate developer and former University of Arkansas trustee.

• AZ-Sen: Sarah Palin is still dancin’ with the one who brung her. She announced yesterday that she’ll appear on behalf of John McCain, who plucked her from near-obscurity and is now needs a favor of his own as he’s facing a primary challenge from the right from ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth. Needless to say, this provoked a lot of disappointment from her supporters among the teabagging set, who would prefer to see her stab McCain in the back and then field dress him.

• CO-Sen: With right-wingers filled with antipathy toward establishment choice ex-Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, there’s been a lot of casting about for an alternative. Weld County DA Ken Buck seems more and more like he’ll be that guy, as he’s been making common cause with the Paulists, who are now planning to pay for a statewide advertising campaign on Buck’s behalf. Meanwhile, on the Dem side, primary challenger Andrew Romanoff is trying to energize his sleepy campaign with a big hire – pollster Celinda Lake, whose previously sterling reputation got driven off a cliff with her handling of the Martha Coakley campaign.

• CT-Sen: There’s not much left to see for the 2010 race, but everyone’s thinking ahead to 2012, with the new rumor afoot that – with the Senate Kennedy-free for the first time in more than half a century – Ted Kennedy Jr. may run against Joe Lieberman in 2012. Lieberman himself is up to his usual asshattery, speculating out loud that he could conceive of becoming a Republican, and also saying that he might support Linda McMahon in the 2010 race… seeing as how Richard Blumenthal (tepidly) supported Lamont in the 2006 general while McMahon supported Lieberman. Apparently Lieberman learned his politics from watching the Godfather: it’s not business. Just personal. (Lieberman also seems to be a believer in leaving the cannoli, and taking the guns.)

• FL-Sen: In the wake of new polling showing him falling behind Marco Rubio in the GOP Senate primary, the questions are getting louder about whether Charlie Crist might consider running as an independent instead. He said no to that idea… but people are noticing he didn’t rule out switching parties altogether. With Crist appearing side-by-side with Barack Obama today in Florida (something he wouldn’t consider doing if he saw any hope in trying to compete with Rubio – who just got the endorsement of ur-conservative Steve Forbes — on conservative bona fides alone), could that actually be a consideration? If so, he’d need to switch parties by April 30.

• MA-Sen: There are a couple more retrospectives worth reading on Massachusetts, as people try to make sense of the mixed messages sent by exit polls (with one particularly intriguing tidbit: 52% of Scott Brown voters approved of Ted Kennedy’s performance). Mark Blumenthal also looks at the shift in polling over the last few weeks, wondering again about the differing results gotten by live interviewers vs. robocallers, while also pointing to questions of how much pollsters’ views of a race can actually change the overall momentum of the race (fundraising and perception-wise) and thus become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And get ready for the teabaggers’ week-long love affair to end very soon: Scott Brown (who apparently has some self-preservation instincts) just served notice on the GOP that he won’t always vote with them.

• ND-Sen: This isn’t going to make the teabaggers any happier: Gov. John Hoeven, now running for the Senate, joined the Democratic Party in 1996 (at a time when he was head of North Dakota’s state-owned bank), ditching them in 2000 for his gubernatorial run. With Hoeven already on their naughty list for his insufficiently anti-government stances, now he’s just going to get more wrath.

• NH-Sen: Former AG Kelly Ayotte is wielding an internal poll by the Tarrance Group that gives her a big edge in the GOP primary against her challengers. She leads Ovide Lamontagne, coming at her from the right, 43-11. Random rich guys Bill Binnie and Jim Bender clock in at 5 and 3 apiece. No general election numbers were released.

• NV-Sen: One more disastrous poll for Harry Reid, which came out from Research 2000 a few days ago. This poll closely echoed one from PPP a few weeks ago that tested alternative Democrats, and finds that only Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman beats the Republicans (while Rep. Shelly Berkley and SoS Ross Miller don’t fare much better than Reid). Unfortunately, this was all rendered moot a few days ago by Goodman’s announcement that he wasn’t going to run for either Governor or Senator. Reid loses 52-41 to Danny Tarkanian and 51-42 to Sue Lowden. Berkley loses 46-40 to Tarkanian and 45-40 to Lowden, while Miller loses 44-36 to Tarkanian and 43-37 to Lowden. Goodman beats Tarkanian 44-41 and Lowden 44-40. Rep. Dina Titus, facing a tough re-election of her own, doesn’t seem to think much of Reid’s chances anymore: she publicly said “Reid is done; he’s going to lose.”

• NY-Sen-B: One other Research 2000 poll to talk about: they looked at the Democratic primary in New York, and find about what everyone else has found. Kirsten Gillibrand leads ex-Rep. Harold Ford Jr. by a 41-27 margin (with 3 for Jonathan Tasini), looking solid but still with a ton of undecideds. This also exists merely at the level of rumor, but with the potential presence of Ford scrambling things for the ever-so-briefly-thought-to-be-safe Gillibrand, sources say that Democratic Rep. Steve Israel (who got dissuaded from a primary challenge) and Republican ex-Gov. George Pataki (who hasn’t sounded interested until now) are both giving the race a little more consideration.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): Franklin & Marshall’s previous polls in Pennsylvania have tended to have unusually high undecideds, suggesting that they don’t do any pushing of leaners at all – but this may have reached an all-time high with their new poll. Most notably, they find Allegeheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato completely dominating the Democratic gubernatorial primary… at 10% (more than doubling up on Jack Wagner, Joe Hoeffel, and Chris Doherty, all at 4)! They also find similarly low numbers in the Senate race, where Republican ex-Rep. Pat Toomey leads incumbent Dem Arlen Specter 45-31 and Rep. Joe Sestak 41-19 (?!?), and where Specter beats Sestak in the primary 30-13. (They didn’t do a general election poll in the Governor’s race, but find Republican AG Tom Corbett leading his remaining rival, state Rep. Sam Rohrer, 23-5 in the primary.)

• UT-Sen: The Mason-Dixon poll that gave us some (not so good) gubernatorial results also threw in some vague questions about the Senate race too. Incumbent Bob Bennett leads a Generic R in the primary, 46-27, and a Generic D 53-26 in the general. Nevertheless, Bennett drew yet another primary opponent, albeit someone seemingly of the Some Dude variety: local businessman Christopher Stout.

• WI-Sen: Wherever there’s a vacillating Republican needing convincing to get into a Senate race, there’s Rasmussen. (Whaddya wanna bet they have a Patty Murray/Dave Reichert poll in the field right now?) Contrary to PPP’s view of the race, Rasmussen finds ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson leading incumbent Dem Russ Feingold, 47-43. They find Feingold with a perplexingly low 47/48 approval.

• CT-Gov: Is ex-Rep. Chris Shays looking to get into the Governor’s race? Suddenly, it sounds like he’s at least thinking about it, saying he’d like to do it but not sure if it’s feasible. He’s currently in Washington as head of the Wartime Contracting Commission, meaning he’d need to re-establish his Connecticut residency, but given his long-time popularity in his district (which eventually got too blue for him to hold) he might have a leg up on the so-so GOPers already in the field.

• FL-Gov: Quinnipiac released the gubernatorial half of its Florida poll yesterday, finding that Republican AG Bill McCollum has a somewhat bigger lead on Democratic CFO Alex Sink, 41-31 (McCollum led 36-32 in October). Sink leads state Sen. Paula Dockery 35-29, but considering that McCollum leads Dockery 44-6 in the GOP primary, that configuration doesn’t seem likely.

• MI-Gov: Two guys who had been unlikely candidates for the Democratic nomination for Governor both announced they wouldn’t run. Rep. Bart Stupak is the big name to say “no,” which is good as far as the DCCC is concerned, as he’s needed to hold down the fort in his R+3 district. The other is Detroit Pistons head of basketball operations Joe Dumars, who probably realized he’d get pretty banged up out there without Bill Laimbeer to run interference for him. One other interesting rumor of who might run, though, is ex-Rep. Joe Schwarz, the GOP moderate who got bounced out in a 2006 Club for Growth-fueled primary by Tim Walberg. And get this… he’s talking about running as an independent. Could he actually peel off enough center-right votes for the Dems to salvage this race?

• NY-Gov: Research 2000’s New York poll also looked at the Democratic gubernatorial primary, finding AG Andrew Cuomo defeating incumbent David Paterson, 63-19. Paterson is laboring under 34/54 approvals. The GOP primary to see who gets flattened by Cuomo is looking pretty uneventful: Erie Co. Exec Chris Collins, who continued to express vague interest despite having gaffed his way out of contention several months ago, finally pulled the plug on his exploratory committee. That leaves ex-Rep. Rick Lazio as the only major GOPer in the race, to few people’s enthusiasm.

• TX-Gov: Looks like Gov. Rick Perry isn’t much of a fan of the librul media, or at least he realizes that his key demographics aren’t really the newspaper-reading types. He’s decided not to sit for editorial board interviews prior to their pre-primary endorsements.  

• 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.