Tag: Andy Dillon

• CA-Sen: Ex-Rep. Tom Campbell is getting an endorsement that may boost his cred with the socially conservative right: from the man who couldn’t even beat Gray Davis, Bill Simon. Simon hopes socially conservative voters will still take a look at Campbell’s fiscal credentials.

• IN-Sen: Retiring Evan Bayh hasn’t said anything specific about what he’s doing with his gigantic $13 million federal war chest. But a spokesperson gives some hints: “What he has said is that you can expect him to help the Democratic Senate nominee in Indiana and to help like-minded Democrats – people who want to get things done, who are practical and who want to reach out and forge principled compromises.”

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway is pointing out an important ideological fracture line, which seems to have gotten little media attention in the Democratic primary in the Bluegrass State. Conway says he supports the health care legislation passed yesterday, while Dan Mongiardo has previously said he’d “throw it out and start over.”

• NH-Sen: Speaking of HCR, Kelly Ayotte was quick to abandon her previous flavorless, position-less campaign and get on the “repeal!” bandwagon. With Paul Hodes having been a “yes” in the House, this may become one of the marquee issues in this race, and by extension, the battle for the Senate.

• NY-Sen-B (pdf): Siena has a new poll out of the Empire State which includes a couple head-to-heads in the Senate race. They just won’t let up on the George Pataki front, finding that he leads Gillibrand 45-39 in a hypothetical race, while Gillibrand leads actual candidate Bruce Blakeman 48-24. There are a couple other names on the “actual” candidate front they might want to try out instead — Joe DioGuardi and David Malpass — and now it looks like one more is poised to get in. Dan Senor apparently has enough Wall Street support behind him to go ahead and launch his bid. One other name who’s now saying she won’t run, though, is former Lt. Gov. and malfunctioning health insurer spokesbot Betsy McCaughey, who it turns out is backing Malpass.

• MI-Gov (pdf): It turns out there was a lot more meat to that Insider Michigan Politics/Marketing Resource Group poll than what got leaked on Friday. They also looked at the Democratic primary, finding state House speaker Andy Dillon in charge at 21, followed by Lansing mayor Virg Bernero at 9 and state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith at 6. They also did a whole bunch of general election permutations, all of which were won by the GOPers by suspiciously large margins (at least when compared with other recent polls): Mike Bouchard over Dillon 41-26, Mike Cox over Dillon 44-27, Peter Hoekstra over Dillon 43-27, Rick Snyder over Dillon 42-26, Bouchard over Bernero 45-23, Cox over Bernero 45-26, Hoekstra over Bernero 43-27, and Snyder over Bernero 44-24.

• NY-Gov (pdf): Naturally, Siena also has a gubernatorial half to its poll. They find newly-minted Republican Steve Levy’s entry to the field to be rather unwelcome: ex-Rep. Rick Lazio is beating him 45-16 in the GOP primary. Either way, Democratic AG Andrew Cuomo (with a 63/22 approval) seems to have little to worry about; in November, Cuomo beats Lazio and Libertarian candidate Warren Redlich 59-21-3, while beating Levy and Redlich 63-16-4.

• OH-Gov: John Kasich is still reaching out to teabagger nation as his core of backers, and consistent with that, he’s having Fox gabber Sean Hannity host a Cincinnati fundraiser for him on April 15. I sure hope Kasich gets a bigger cut of the proceeds than Hannity’s military charity recipients seem to.

• OR-Gov: The last big union left to endorse in the Democratic gubernatorial primary finally weighed in, and Oregon’s AFSCME went with ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber rather than ex-SoS Bill Bradbury, who’d gotten the teachers’ union endorsements. The AFSCME also endorsed newly appointed Treasurer Ted Wheeler in his primary bid against state Sen. Rick Metsger, and also, in an unusual step, endorsed two Republican state Reps. in rural eastern Oregon who voted “yes” on raising income taxes, probably figuring that non-wingnut GOPers is probably the best we’re going to do in those districts.

• LA-02: Republican Rep. Joe Cao probably ended any hopes of hanging onto his dark-blue (and 21.7% uninsured) seat by voting against health care reform yesterday, but just in order to emphasize the way in which he slammed the door shut on himself, he also compared abortion as a moral evil comparable to slavery. Because that’s a comparison just bound to go over well in his black-majority district.

• MA-10: Former Republican state Treasurer (from the 1990s) Joe Malone made it official: he’s running in the 10th to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Bill Delahunt. He’ll still have to get past state Rep. Jeff Perry in the GOP primary, though.

• PA-06: Manan Trivedi and Doug Pike traded union endorsements in their Dem primary battle in the 6th. Trivedi got the backing of the Iron Workers local, while Pike got the nod from the local AFSCME.

• PA-12: Bill Russell seems like he just can’t take a hint, despite the GOP uniting behind Tim Burns. Russell says he’ll write himself in for the special election between Burns and Democrat Mark Critz, in addition to continuing to contest the same-day GOP primary against Burns. Meanwhile, the pro-life Critz’s main opponent remaining, Navy vet Ryan Bucchanieri, got an endorsement that ought to give him a financial boost, from the National Organization for Women.

• WV-01: We’ve heard rumors that the local Democratic establishment wasn’t very enthused about propping up Rep. Alan Mollohan, who faces both a credible primary challenge and a self-funding Republican opponent. Here’s some of the first public whiff of that: the state Democratic chair, Nick Casey, says he won’t be taking sides in the primary battle between Mollohan and state Sen. Mike Oliverio (although he did predict that Mollohan would be the eventual victor).

• Redistricting: Cillizza has a little more background on the Democrats’ efforts to gear up for the 2012 redistricting battles, which we discussed last week in terms of the DLCC’s efforts. The DGA is getting in on the act, too, with a Harold Ickes-led effort called Project SuRGe (for “Stop Republican Gerrymandering”), also focused on maximizing Dem control of state legislatures.

• Votes: Lots of slicing and dicing in the media today regarding who voted which way, and why, on yesterday’s historic health care reform vote. Nate Silver has a bunch of nice charts up, which show that district lean and Reps’ overall ideology was much more determinative than whether the Rep. is considered vulnerable in November in terms of a “yes” or “no” vote. And Some Dude over at Salon has a more concise look at Reps who most mismatched their districts with their votes. Finally, if you want to see the “(some) Dems are still doomed” conventional wisdom in full effect, they’ve got that in spades over at Politico.

• Passings: Our condolences to the Udall family, which lost family patriarch Stewart Udall over the weekend. Udall, 90, was Congressman from Arizona and then John F. Kennedy’s Interior Secretary, and many of our environmental protections that we take for granted today bear his stamp.

• $$$: The fundraising quarter is almost over, and Adam B. is opening up another round of “We’ve Got Your Backs” over at Daily Kos (and cross-posted here), dedicated to showing some (financial) love to the House Dems in the most difficult districts who did the right thing on health care reform.

• NV-Sen, NV-Gov: The filing period in Nevada is now open, and there was one more surprise credible entrant in the Republican field for the Senate race, attracted by the stink lines coming off of Harry Reid. Assemblyman Chad Christensen of suburban Las Vegas, who at one point was minority whip, decided to take the plunge. That takes the number of Republicans jostling to face Reid up to a whopping 10. In other filings news, New York investment banker John Chachas decided to follow through on his planned expensive run despite usually polling with 0%, and on the gubernatorial side, Jim Gibbons put to rest any retirement rumors by filing for re-election.

• NY-Sen-B: It looks like the GOP has managed to find another warm body to take on Kirsten Gillibrand. Ex-Rep. Joe DioGuardi, ousted by voters from Congress over 20 years ago and now a darling of the local teabaggers, says that he’ll enter the race. (JL) (Port Authority commissioner Bruce Blakeman is already in the race, and has gotten a lot of county-level endorsements, while the Beltway media is treating former Bush aide Dan Senor as their flavor of the day, seeing as how he’s a guy they’re all familiar with.)

• UT-Sen: The start of the Utah Republican caucus process is in just two weeks, and Utah’s GOP chair is busy telling outside groups to butt out, warning them that they risk a backlash for their negative campaigning. He’s referring to Club for Growth, who’ve been advertising and robocalling to attack incumbent Bob Bennett (although they aren’t endorsing a particular opponent).

• MI-Gov: Much has been made of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andy Dillon’s poor relations with organized labor, with the assumption that labor is now getting behind Lansing mayor Virg Bernero instead. However, Dillon managed to nail down at least one union endorsement, from the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council.

• CO-07: He’d gotten Tom Tancredo’s endorsement, but that wasn’t enough to keep music promoter Jimmy Lakey in the race. Not having gotten much traction against Aurora city councilor Ryan Frazier in the primary, he bailed out.

• IN-03: I’m not sure if that rumored teabagger challenge to Republican Rep. Mark Souder – near-legendary for his lackluster campaigning – from attorney and former Dick Lugar staffer Phil Troyer ever came to pass, but now it sounds like Souder is facing another challenge from the right (or at least from the land of the awake). Auto dealer Bob Thomas (a former head of the national Ford dealers association) is planning a run and expected to advance himself $500K to get things rolling. If he has two insurgent opponents, look for Souder to survive the split… but one well-financed one could give him fits.

• MA-10: I’m not sure that “top aide to Deval Patrick” is the thing you want on your resume right now, but Ted Carr is now considering a run for the open seat in the 10th in the Democratic primary (where he’d join state Sen. Robert O’Leary and Norfolk Co. DA William Keating). Carr is currently the director of the Massachusetts Office of International Trade and Investment and is also a selectman in Cohasset.

• NJ-07: Looks like Dems finally have a candidate nailed down in the 7th, although probably not one who’s going to put the contest against freshman Rep. Leonard Lance squarely on the map. The Union Co. Dems endorsed educator and former Hill aide Ed Potosnak for the race, and his principal rival, Zenon Christodoulou, vice-chair of the Somerset Co. Democrats, dropped out and endorsed Potosnak.

• NY-29: Here’s a big break for Corning mayor Tom Reed, and, in terms of avoiding a toxic split of the kind that’s sabotaged many a House special election for them, possibly for Republicans in general. Monroe Co. Executive Maggie Brooks has decided not to run in the special election to replace Eric Massa, whenever that might be held, which leaves Reed (who was running before Massa’s resignation) as the consensus choice. On the other hand, Brooks is probably better known than Reed and may also have better fundraising connections (on which front Reed has been lackluster so far), so she might have turned out to be a better bet for the GOP. The Dems still have nobody lined up, although several Assembly members have floated their names.

• PA-06: The Manan Trivedi Express keeps gaining steam, scoring a big endorsement last night from the Montgomery County Democratic Committee. Trivedi can place this endorsement in his back pocket — right alongside his endorsement from the Chester County Democrats last month. (The MontCo Dems also endorsed local fave Joe Hoeffel for Governor, and declined to endorse for Senate.) Meanwhile, The Hill notes that Trivedi’s primary opponent, the moneyed Doug Pike, is taking a “silence is best” approach on the topic of healthcare reform, refusing to respond to multiple requests for comment on the bill. (JL)

• DCCC: Barack Obama’s wading into the Congressional electoral fray on May 13, hosting a big-dollar fundraiser in New York hosted by the DCCC.

• CA-LG: State Sen. Dean Florez decided to jump out of the way of the Gavin Newsom juggernaut, ending his own Lt. Governor bid. It looks like the LG race will come down to Newsom vs. Los Angeles city councilor Janice Hahn.

• NY-St. Sen.: Here’s one of those polls that helps restore your faith in humanity. Ex-state Sen. Hiram Monserrate does not appear to be on track to win back the Senate seat he got expelled from after being convicted of assault, according to a new Siena poll of the SD-13 special election. Democratic Assemblyman Jose Peralta is polling at 60%, followed by Monserrate (now an independent) at 15, with Republican Robert Beltrani at 9. The election is scheduled for next Tuesday.

• Georgia: I can’t think of how to connect this story to national politics, but it’s certainly interesting just from the perspective of geographical geekery. Ever wonder about the strange shape of Fulton County, Georgia (which is kind of arrow-shaped, where the pointy part is a cluster of right-leaning mostly-white exurbs far to the north of Atlanta)? It turns out that Fulton County is a conglomerate of three former counties (Milton and Campbell), and now the Republicans in the state House are pushing legislation that would allow historic merged counties to reconstitute themselves. The racial undertone, of course, is that the wealthy exurbs of former Milton County (like Roswell and Alpharetta) would like to split off from mostly-black Fulton County… which would be a big hit on Fulton County’s property tax base, so Democrats are opposed. The plan may not succeed though, as it would require two-thirds of the legislature because it requires amending the state constitution.

• Humor: If you missed Scott Rasmussen’s appearance on the Colbert Report last night, check it out. The actual interview itself wasn’t revelatory, but the self-feeding sausage machine bit that precedes it is amazing.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• AZ-Sen: J.D. Hayworth’s new online fundraising ad actually depicts John McCain in blueface. (Click the link for a visual.) The joke, apparently, is an Avatar reference, in that McCain is being nominated for an award for “best conservative actor.” Or something like that. At least he’s not in blackface.

• NY-Sen-B: The GOP is still intent on mounting some sort of challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand; there’s just the small problem of finding a willing sacrifice. They may have found one, although I don’t know if he’d present much of an upgrade from Port Commissioner Bruce Blakeman (who’s already running and has secured a number of endorsements). Scott Vanderhoef, who just got elected to a fifth term as Executive of suburban Rockland County, is publicly weighing a bid. (If his name sounds vaguely familiar, he was John Faso’s running mate in 2006, en route to getting 29% of the vote against Eliot Spitzer.)

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak pulled in a potentially useful endorsement in terms of both fundraising and ground troops, from the National Organization of Women. NOW says it’s more a positive endorsement of Sestak than a negative reflection on Specter (although I suspect the specter of Anita Hill still looms large in their memories). Let’s hope the timing works out a little better on this one than Sestak’s last endorsement — Tuesday’s endorsement from fellow Navy vet Eric Massa.

• SC-Sen: Democrats acted quickly to fill the gap left by the recent dropout of attorney Chad McGowan in the South Carolina Senate race; in fact, it may be something of an upgrade, with the entry of Charleston County Councilor and former judge Victor Rawl. Victory still seems highly unlikely, but it’s good to mount a credible challenge against DeMint to keep him pinned down in the Palmetto State in the campaign’s closing months instead of letting him roam the country freely.

• CT-Gov: Ned Lamont got an endorsement from a key legislative figure in his battle for the Connecticut Democratic gubernatorial nomination: Senate president Donald Williams. Lamont’s main rival for the nod is former Stamford mayor Dan Malloy.

• IL-Gov: It’s finally official: state Sen. Bill Brady will be the Republican nominee in the gubernatorial race. Earlier in the day, the state certified Brady as the winner, by a razor-thin margin of 193 votes, over fellow state Sen. Kirk Dillard. And only moments ago, Dillard conceded, saying that he wouldn’t seek a recount and offered his support to Brady. (Dillard had previously said he’d contest it only if he was within 100 votes, give or take a few.) While I’d prefer to see a long, drawn-out nightmare for the Illinois GOP, this is still a pretty good outcome: the conservative, downstate Brady isn’t as good a matchup against Pat Quinn as Dillard would be. In fact, PPP’s Tom Jensen is already seeing some parallels between Brady and another guy who stumbled across the finish line after the presumptive frontrunners nuked each other: Creigh Deeds.

• MA-Gov: Here’s more evidence that former Democratic treasurer Tim Cahill is trying to move onto center-right turf as he forges ahead in his indie bid against incumbent Dem governor Deval Patrick. He’s bringing aboard several key members of John McCain’s 2008 campaign, including McCain right-hand-man Mark Salter and former chief strategist John Weaver. In fact, Reid Wilson wonders if Cahill is going to try to run to the right of the leading GOP candidate, Charlie Baker, who’s a socially-liberal big-business type.

• MI-Gov: Ex-Genesee County treasurer Dan Kildee has ended his campaign for Governor. The decision seems to have been made after the political arm of the UAW decided to throw their support to Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero. Kildee says he wanted to “avoid splitting the support of organized labor and the votes of progressives,” who now seem likely to coalesce behind Bernero rather than centrist Andy Dillon (although liberal state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith also remains in the race). (J)

• NY-Gov: Quinnipiac did another snap poll on the status of David Paterson (whose downward spiral seems to be continuing, as today he lawyered up. In this installment, 46% said he should continue his term and 42% said resign; not catastrophic numbers, but ominous trendlines from only 31% saying “resign” in their previous poll, just two days earlier.

• MA-10: Contestants are already lining up in the wake of William Delahunt’s not-so-surprising retirement announcement yesterday in this D+5 district (albeit one that was colored decidedly Brown in January). For the GOP, state Rep. Jeffrey Perry is already in, but he’s likely to get shoved over by former state Treasurer Joe Malone, who’s announcing his bid today. (Malone’s statewide status may be hindrance as much as help, as he was at the helm during an embezzlement scandal involving underlings at the Treasurer’s office, although he was never accused of any wrongdoing himself.) GOP state Sen. Robert Hedlund has ruled out a bid. On the Dem side, Norfolk Co. District Attorney William Keating has expressed interest, and he may have an advantage because of his high-profile role in the controversy over the Amy Bishop shooting. Other possible Dems include state Sen. Robert O’Leary, wealthy businessman Philip Edmundson, state Reps. James Murphy and Ronald Mariano, former state Rep. Phil Johnston, and state Energy and Environmental Affairs Sec. Ian Bowles. Johnston and Bowles both lost to Delahunt in the 1996 open-seat primary.

• NY-25: This seat is low on the list of Dems’ worries this year, and it may get a little easier with the threat of a Republican primary battle looming. The local GOP endorsed pro-life activist candidate Ann Marie Buerkle over the occasionally NRCC-touted Mark Bitz, a political novice but a self-funder. Bitz says he’ll consult with his wallet as to whether to mount a primary rather than abide by the endorsement. Buerkle, who briefly was on the Syracuse Common Council, also got the Conservative and Right-to-Life party lines.

• NY-29: This isn’t promising for Corning mayor Tom Reed; he’s already had to get up and confirm that he’s staying in the race, despite some bigger GOP names sniffing around now that it’s an open seat race. The biggest is probably Maggie Brooks, the Monroe County Executive, who’s “seriously considering” and will make a decision in the next few days. On the Dem side, one other name that’s bubbling up is John Tonello, the mayor of Elmira (the district’s largest city).

• State legislatures: Politico’s David Catanese has an interesting observation, how polling shows that there’s something even less popular than Congress or individual incumbent politicians: state legislatures. That’s maybe most egregious in New York, where the state Senate gets 16% positive marks according to the most recent Marist poll, although Pennsylvania (where the “Bonusgate” investigation is constantly in the news) isn’t much better, where the lege has 29% approval according to Quinnipiac. While this trend might work to our advantage in red states where we’re trying to make gains, it could be a pain in the butt in New York, where we need to hold the Senate to control the redistricting trifecta, and even more so in Pennsylvania, where (if we lose the gubernatorial race) we need to hold the narrowly-held House in order to stave off Republican control of the redistricting trifecta.

• Votes: There was some interesting party-line breaking in yesterday’s House vote on the jobs bill. It passed pretty narrowly, but that wasn’t so much because of worried votes by vulnerable Dems (Tom Perriello and Steve Driehaus voted no, but with Harry Teague, Bobby Bright, and even Walt Minnick voting yes) but rather a bloc of the most liberal members of the Congressional Black Caucus voting no, apparently from the perspective that it doesn’t go far enough. Six GOPers got on board, all of the moderate and/or mavericky variety: Joe Cao, Dave Camp, John Duncan, Vern Ehlers, Tim Murphy, and Don Young.

• Blogosphere: I’m pleased to announce that, in addition to my SSP duties, I’ll be writing for Salon.com’s politics section several times a week, as part of their new feature “The Numerologist.” Today I deconstruct National Journal ratings; please check it out (especially if you’re curious what my real name is).

• AR-Sen: That didn’t take long; Lt. Gov. Bill Halter is already hitting the TV airwaves in his freshly-launched primary challenge to Blanche Lincoln. Now, you may be wondering how he’s paying for that, considering that he’s starting almost from scratch. Turns out he’s coming into this with promises of huge financial backing from organized labor; three unions under the AFL-CIO umbrella are committing $3 million to independent expenditures in the race, which in the cheap Arkansas media markets will allow him to get on a solid footing against Lincoln’s $5 mil. That’s on top of $600K that poured in from the netroots (from MoveOn and the PCCC). See what happens when you piss off your base?

Rasmussen also snapped into action, putting out some further Arkansas numbers, and oddly, they aren’t anywhere near as catastrophic for Lincoln as last month. They still don’t have her in salvageable shape, though: Lincoln loses to Rep. John Boozman 48-39 (compared with 54-35 last month), state Sen. Gilbert Baker 45-40 (compared with 52-33 last month), state Sen. Jim Holt 45-38, state Sen. Kim Hendren 43-38, and businessman Curtis Coleman 43-41. This is Rasmussen’s first time testing Bill Halter, and for now, he’s performing about the same or somewhat worse than Lincoln. Halter trails Boozman 52-33, Baker 44-37, Holt 42-38, Hendren 42-35, and Coleman 38-35.

• CA-Sen: DavidNYC’s description of this development pretty much speaks for itself: “The lord taketh away Harold Ford, but may grace us with — I know it’s hard to imagine — an even BIGGER douchebag.” Mickey Kaus, the contrarian, Conservadem blogger, is apparently considering a run for Senate in California, taking out (though not yet filing) the appropriate candidate paperwork. Interestingly, I see no discussion of whether he plans to run in the Democratic primary against Barbara Boxer, or as an indie or a GOPer — not that he’s likely to provide much more than comic relief in any of the three categories.

• GA-Sen: Democrats may be kicking themselves for dropping the recruitment ball this year on a challenger to Johnny Isakson for his first re-election bid to the Senate. Rasmussen found him leading Generic D by a not-overwhelming 49-36 last week, and now PPP finds him with a similar but even less convincing win over Generic D, 46-37. Isakson’s approvals are a rather Richard Burr-ish 36/38. However, as seen in North Carolina, Generic D overperforms Real D: in case AG Thurbert Baker was considering jumping over from the gubernatorial race (where he badly lags ex-Gov. Roy Barnes in the primary), he trails Isakson 49-31. Jim Martin, who performed fairly well in the 2008 Senate election, does a little better, losing 47-35.

• KY-Sen: As Jim Bunning keeps up his Bizzaro-world Mr. Smith Goes to Washington impression (filibustering to cut off Boy Scouts’ dads’ unemployment compensation), he’s drawing the attention of two of his would-be successors. Democratic Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo has called for a rally at Bunning’s Lexington office to protest Bunning’s crazy last stand, while Rand Paul’s campaign in now responding with its own counter-rally in support Bunning’s efforts. (Paul won’t be there himself, and it’s not clear if Mongiardo will either.)

• NY-Sen-B: There’s speculation that Harold Ford Jr.’s decision to abandon his Senate plans may have a lot to do with the likelihood of a Mort Zuckerman run on the Republican side — and that a lot of Ford’s moneybags donors were telling him they were with Zuckerman instead if he got in. Or, maybe Ford just got wind of his poll numbers in today’s Marist poll (pdf), giving him little shot at pulling the upset. In the Dem primary, Ford trailed Kirsten Gillibrand 50-19 (with 3 for Jonathan Tasini). Considering that Ford collapsed from an already-bad 44-27 in late January’s Marist poll as he gained notoriety all last month, that seems like plenty of incentive to get out. Gillibrand trails the unlikely-to-run George Pataki in the general 48-45, but demolishes Zuckerman, 59-26, as well as the already-running Bruce Blakeman, 58-28. In the other Senate race, undeclared candidate Larry Kudlow might want to save his money; Charles Schumer leads Kudlow 69-24.

• OK-Sen: Rasmussen keeps polling everything that’s pollable, and today that includes the Oklahoma Senate race. No Democrat of note has stepped up to challenge Tom Coburn, and that may be just as well, as the Dems’ best possible candidate, the state’s popular, termed-out Democratic Governor  Brad Henry, still finds himself losing a hypothetical battle to Coburn, 52-40.

• TX-Sen: Kay Bailey Hutchison is still insisting that she’s going to resign from the Senate at some point this year, despite the very very very very high likelihood of not winning the Texas gubernatorial primary which looked like hers for the taking a year ago. She still isn’t sure about a date, although it’s pegged to the legislative calendar, as before resigning she plans to, in her words, “stay and fight health care.” PPP’s Tom Jensen sees some interesting possible winners in Hutchison’s fall: Robin Carnahan and Lee Fisher. The scope of Hutchison’s loss tonight may give some insight into just how much this year’s discontent is an anti-Beltway insider, rather than anti-Democratic, bubble. The former, of course, would be a boost to statehouse vets Carnahan and Fisher (ahem, or Jennifer Brunner) as they fight DC hacks Roy Blunt and Rob Portman.

• CA-Gov: Apparently, after having spent months meditating away whatever bad vibes he may have felt about the role thrust upon his shoulders as the only man who can save California, Jerry Brown has emerged from his Fortress of Solitude and officially declared his candidacy for Governor. Unfortunately, while he was away, Ursa and Non have had uncontested months to rampage around the city destroying things… although thanks to Brown’s super-powers of bafflement and misdirection, they’ve gotten bamboozled into slugging it out viciously with each other instead. (Meanwhile, General Zod has already left town for the more interesting Senate race.)

• GA-Gov: Insider Advantage has polls of both primaries in the Georgia gubernatorial race, although no general election head-to-heads. No surprises on either side: on the Dem side, Roy Barnes is cruising at 36, followed by Thurbert Baker at 7, DuBose Porter at 3, and David Poythress at 2. On the GOP side, John Oxendine leads at 27, followed by Karen Handel at 13, Nathan Deal at 9, Eric Johnson at 7, and Other at 8. While Nathan Deal’s resignation is being spun as allowing him to focus full-time on his seemingly tractionless bid, there’s a darker side to it, too: TPM reports on how he was getting out one step ahead of the Ethics Committee, which was starting to look into allegations of Deal pressuring state officials to intervene on behalf of an auto inspection business that Deal co-owns. With Deal out of the House, the case is closed, at least at the federal level.

• MI-Gov: May the Schwarz be with us! It may be the only way we can salvage the Michigan gubernatorial race. Joe Schwarz, the ticked-off moderate ex-Rep. from MI-07 (who got teabagged by Tim Walberg in a GOP primary before getting teabagged was fashionable), is launching an exploratory committee for a gubernatorial run as an independent. This could be a big break for Dems in the gubernatorial race — especially if obnoxious Rep. Peter Hoekstra is the GOP nominee, as Schwarz seems poised to soak up a fair number of moderate votes unenthused by Hoekstra’s right-wing grandstanding. Schwarz seems more likely to be Chris Daggett than Jesse Ventura, though, and if things get really scrambled — for instance, an all-centrist three-way between Andy Dillon, Rick Snyder, and Schwarz — he could potentially harm the Dems as much as the GOP.

• NY-Gov (pdf): Marist also takes a look at the Governor’s race. Seeing as how this is their first poll after David Paterson’s announcement that he wouldn’t run for re-election, it’s also the first poll in a long time to contain any good news for Paterson: only 28% of respondents want him to resign, as opposed to 66% who say finish his term. And only 18% think Paterson has done anything illegal, as opposed to a mere 40% who think he merely did something unethical, not illegal. (The bad news: his approval is down to 23/71, which has to be a new low.) With the participants in November’s election now pretty much locked in, they find AG Andrew Cuomo beating ex-Rep. Rick Lazio 64-28. Cuomo’s halo may be shining even brighter as his office begins investigating Paterson; Cuomo’s approval is 67/28.

• RI-Gov: One more Rasmussen poll to add to the pile, and they’re seeing more or less what Brown Univ. saw last week, regarding the Rhode Island gubernatorial race. Independent ex-Sen. Lincoln Chafee is definitely in the driver’s seat, although Dem state Treasurer Frank Caprio polls better against him than does AG Patrick Lynch. Only difference here: Rasmussen sees Republican John Robitaille performing much better, although he’s still deep in third place. Chafee wins the Caprio race 37-27-19, while he wins the Lynch race 38-24-22.

• GA-07: One of the guys considered a heavyweight in the GOP field in this newly-opened-up seat in the R+16 7th has decided against a run. State Sen. David Shafer announced he’ll take a pass. Fellow state Sen. Don Balfour is already in the running, with state Rep. Clay Cox and Gwinnett Co. Commissioner Mike Beaudreau also expected to join him soon.

• MA-10: Maybe I spoke too soon in thinking that Joe Kennedy III’s decision not to run next year was an indication of another term of William Delahunt. It turns out Delahunt has been on a bit of a grotesque spending spree, burning through $560K of his campaign cash last year (including campaign staff salaries for a number of family members). This cuts his war chest in half, and he only raised $42K last year — all actions of a man eyeing the exits. If Delahunt needs something to do with his money, I can think of a certain “DCCC” that could really use help right now, probably much more so than his family members. (H/t Adam B.)

• MI-03: State Sen. Bill Hardiman (termed-out from his current job) announced that he’ll run for the open seat in the 3rd, left behind by retiring Vern Ehlers. Hardiman faces state Rep. Justin Amash, already coronated as frontrunner by western Michigan GOP power brokers Dick and Betsy DeVos. If the former Kentwood mayor survives his primary, he’s on his way to returning the Republicans back to having at least one African-American in Congress.

• NY-St. Sen.: Give Hiram Monserrate credit for persistence, I guess. Having become the first sitting New York state Senator to get expelled in decades after an assault conviction, Monserrate promptly picked himself up, dusted himself off, and began running in the special election to replace himself. This time, Monserrate is running as an independent, against Democratic Assemblyman Jose Peralta. Peralta has the advantage of the support of the entire Democratic establishment, but Monserrate has one thing on his side: name recognition (not necessarily for good PR, but still…).

• Ads: 501(c)(4) League of American Voters is running anti-health care reform TV ads against a whole slew of swing-district Democrats, hoping to sway a few wobblies in the run-up to the next House vote: Mike Arcuri, Dan Maffei, Chris Carney, Paul Kanjorski, Kathy Dahlkemper, Baron Hill, Steve Kagen, Alan Mollohan, Nick Rahall, Tom Perriello, Mark Schauer, Zach Space, and Harry Teague.

• Special elections: And you thought the Texas primary was all that was on tap tonight? No, there are two special elections for state Houses, both of which look pretty competitive. The Dems are trying to hold a seat in Virginia in HD-41 in a swingy part of Fairfax County, recently vacated by Dave Marsden’s promotion to the state Senate. The Democratic candidate, Eileen Filler-Corn, may have the edge, in that she has a 3-to-1 fundraising edge over Kerry Bolognese, and the district went for Obama with 57%. On the other hand, Bolognese came within 50-49 of Marsden last fall, and Bob McDonnell won the district with 55%. (Both candidates, unappealingly enough, are lobbyists by day.) The GOP has the edge in the House of Delegates, 59-38-2. And in Connecticut, Democrats are gunning for a pickup in the Stratford-based HD-120, which was vacated by Republican John Harkins becoming Stratford mayor. Democrat Janice Anderson lost against Republican state Sen. Dan Debicella in 2008, although she beat Debicella in the portion of that district that comprises the 120th. She faces off against GOPer Laura Hoydick; the stakes are a little lower here, as the Dems control the state House 114-36.

EPIC-MRA for Detroit Free Press, WXYZ-TV, WOOD-TV, WJRT-TV, and WILX-TV (2/22-25, likely voters, 1/24-25 in parens):

Andy Dillon (D): 17 (6)

Dan Kildee (D): 12 (5)

Virg Bernero (D): 8 (5)

Alma Wheeler Smith (D): 7 (2)

Someone else: 12 (31)

Undecided: 45 (51)

Peter Hoekstra (R): 27 (22)

Mike Cox (R): 21 (26)

Rick Snyder (R): 12 (3)

Mike Bouchard (R): 10 (13)

Tom George (R): 1 (3)

Someone else: 3 (0)

Undecided: 26 (32)

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Andy Dillon (D): 37 (32)

Peter Hoekstra (R): 41 (40)

Undecided: 21 (28)

Andy Dillon (D): 36 (30)

Mike Cox (R): 43 (47)

Undecided: 21 (23)

Dan Kildee (D): 37

Peter Hoekstra (R): 41

Undecided: 22

Dan Kildee (D): 37

Mike Cox (R): 46

Undecided: 17

(MoE: ±4%)

With the official entry into the race by Democratic state House speaker Andy Dillon, it’s starting to look like the Michigan gubernatorial race is coming back into focus again. You’ll recall that it got completely scrambled over the last few months, with Lt. Gov. John Cherry’s unexpected departure from the race and then the somewhat surprising decision by Denise Ilitch not to seek the nomination. The newest poll from EPIC-MRA shows Dillon leading the way in the Democratic primary, although only with 17% of the vote. Dillon has an advantage in being the only centrist (socially conservative and business-friendly) Dem in the field, while former Genesee County treasurer Dan Kildee, Lansing mayor Virg Bernero, and state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith divide up the more liberal votes. If there’s some winnowing of the field on the left, it seems like one labor-backed candidate could pull ahead of Dillon.

Despite their ideological differences, Dillon and Kildee poll pretty similarly against Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra and AG Mike Cox. Head-to-heads were tested only for the top two candidates from each party. While these numbers still find the Democrats losing (although only by 4 against the right-wing Hoekstra, whose appeal to moderates seems limited), these are better numbers than Cherry — linked inextricably with the unpopular Jennifer Granholm administration — was putting up, as he was often down by double digits. On the GOP side, though, it seems like Hoekstra and Cox might want to be watching over their shoulders for wealthy businessman Rick Snyder, whose “one tough nerd” ads (which included a Super Bowl spot) have succeeded in buying him a lot of name rec and vaulting him into contention. The surge by the moderate Snyder seems to come partly at Cox’s expense, which allows Hoekstra to push into the lead among the GOPers.

RaceTracker Wiki: MI-Gov

• AZ-Sen: One more endorsement for John McCain, as the GOP establishment circles the wagons around him in the face of a primary challenge from J.D. Hayworth. Today, it was former presidential rival Mitt Romney’s turn to boost McCain.

• FL-Sen: Rasmussen follows up with a look at the Senate general election in Florida, and pretty consistent with its last few polls, gives double-digit leads to both Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio over Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek. Crist leads 48-32, while Rubio leads 51-31. It’s looking dicier for Crist to make it to the general, though, and that’s reflected with an increasing number of staffers seeing the handwriting on the wall and bailing out. Political director Pablo Diaz announced his departure, and new media consultant Sean Doughtie is already out.

• IN-Sen, IN-08: Dem Rep. Baron Hill, still apparently mulling a Senate bid, says that he probably will make a decision “this week”. Meanwhile, presumptive Dem nominee Brad Ellsworth has officially removed his name from the 8th CD Democratic primary ballot, leaving state Rep. Trent Van Haaften as the consensus Democratic choice. (J)

• MA-Sen: Unless you were under a rock yesterday, you know that the Senate jobs bill cleared the cloture hurdle with the aid of five Republicans, most notably Scott Brown, who actually seems to be thinking ahead to getting re-elected and, in doing so, has royally pissed-off his nationwide base of teabagging donors. On top of that comes another revelation that ought to further take the bloom off his status as living embodiment of angry-white-guy rage: that truck that signified he was an average blue-collar guy? Turns out he owns it in order to haul his daughter’s horse.

• NV-Sen: One more data point in the Nevada Senate race, this one not looking so good for Harry Reid. Research 2000 polls the race again, this time on behalf of the PCCC, and finds Reid trailing Sue Lowden 53-39 and Danny Tarkanian 54-40. The real point of the poll, though, is to try to show him that his support would go up if he successfully got a public option into the health care reform bill, with 31% saying they’d be likelier to vote for him if so (with 15% saying less likely and 51% saying no difference). Bear in mind that this poll, unlike the interesting POS poll from yesterday, doesn’t factor in the sudden emergence of a 3rd party Tea Party option.

• CT-Gov: After some brief flirtations with the idea, ex-Rep. Chris Shays has decided not to run for Connecticut governor after all, saying he couldn’t make it work financially. Although he didn’t address the also-rumored possibility of running again in CT-04, the same logic may apply there too.

• FL-Gov: The seeming dwindling of the Alex Sink campaign continues apace, at least if you go by Rasmussen’s trendlines. Republican AG Bill McCollum is up to 13-point lead against the Democratic CFO, 48-35.

• GA-Gov: More Rasmussenny goodness in neighboring Georgia, where they take their second look at the general election in the gubernatorial race. While Democratic ex-Gov. Roy Barnes led several of the GOP contestants in the previous Rasmussen poll, trailing only Insurance Comm. John Oxendine, this time he doesn’t fare as well. Barnes loses to Oxendine 45-37, to Rep. Nathan Deal 43-37, to SoS Karen Handel 45-36, and ties state Sen. Eric Johnson 37-37.

• IL-Gov: The GOP primary contestants are still waiting for the last ballots to trickle in today, the last day for counties to submit their numbers to the state. (The state has until March 5 to announce official results.) Estimates last week were that there were fewer than 2,000 votes, mostly provisional votes, to count. State Sen. Kirk Dillard, currently trailing by a little more than 200 votes, doesn’t plan to make a decision on whether to concede or keep fighting until after the 5th. On the Democratic side, the search for a Lt. Governor goes on. Pat Quinn had publicly said that his top choice would be current Deputy VA Secretary Tammy Duckworth, but she has taken herself out of consideration today.

• MI-Gov: Looks like Genesee County Treasurer Dan Kildee is in the gubernatorial race for the Democrats; he’s skipping right over the exploratory phase and filing as a candidate for governor. He joins Lansing mayor Virg Bernero and state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith, with state House speaker Andy Dillon likely to enter soon.

• PA-Gov: State Sen. Anthony Williams didn’t meet his very high $4 million fundraising bar, but he seems to feel heartened enough by the $2 million he has to officially pull the trigger on a gubernatorial run. With Chris Doherty and Tom Knox both out of the Democratic field now, it seems like there’s room for one more SE Pennsylvania candidate in the field; Williams, from Philadelphia, will be the only African-American in the race.

• WI-Gov: One more Rasmussen gubernatorial poll to look at, featuring (surprise!) the Republican in the lead. Milwaukee Co. Exec Scott Walker leads Democratic Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett 49-40, while ex-Rep. Mark Neumann has a much smaller lead over Barrett, 44-42. That’s actually a smidge better than last month’s Rasmussen poll.

• AR-03: State Sen. Cecile Bledsoe got the endorsement of one of her predecessors in the 3rd, ex-Rep. and former DEA Director Asa Hutchinson. A wide cast of characters, including Rogers mayor Steve Womack, is either already in the hunt for the GOP nod or considering it, in this dark-red district.

• AZ-05: Rep. Harry Mitchell can probably consider this to be good news: another divisive Republican primary, which helped him to a comfortable victory in 2008, is brewing this year. Former state Rep. Susan Bitter Smith jumped into the GOP field yesterday, which pits her in a rematch against former Maricopa Co. Treasurer David Schweikert (who won the 2008 primary). Businessman Jim Ward and his ability to self-fund is in the mix too, as something of a wild card.

• AZ-08: State Sen. Jonathan Paton has resigned from the state Senate, in order to focus full-time on running against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the 8th. He leaves behind one piece of legislation underway that’s actually a pretty cool idea: instituting “question time,” a la the UK’s parliament, where the Governor has to show up for a biweekly grilling in front of the legislature. Paton becomes the third Republican state Senator to resign in the span of a few weeks, with Pam Gorman and Jim Waring both having bailed out to pursue the open seat in AZ-03.

• FL-24: Former Ruth’s Chris Steakhouses CEO Craig Miller went ahead and got into the GOP field in the 24th, despite already having taken on some damage from preemptive salvos fired by the DCCC over statements opposed to stronger drunk-driving laws. Potentially self-funding Miller has become the NRCC’s new fave in the race, after state Rep. Sandy Adams and Winter Park city councilor Karen Diebel have floundered at fundraising.

• FL-25: Joe Garcia, the Democratic 2008 candidate who almost knocked off Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, met with the DCCC’s Chris Van Hollen yesterday. This only serves to increase speculation Garcia will try again, now that the 25th is an open seat. The DCCC has also been interested in Miami-Dade Co. state’s attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle.

• KS-03: Republican State Sen. Nick Jordan, who lost in the 3rd to Democratic Rep. Dennis Moore, looks to be on track to succeed the retiring Moore. Jordan’s own internal poll from POS shows him ahead of state Rep. Kevin Yoder 27-9, with former state Rep. Patricia Lightner and Charlotte O’Hara both at 5 (leaving about half of the voters undecided). Jordan’s poll didn’t look at the general, but there’s nothing to see there yet, seeing as how the Dems haven’t, um, found an interested candidate yet.

• MA-10: In the event of a retirement by Rep. William Delahunt, state Senate majority leader Therese Murray says she won’t try to succeed him. On the GOP side, possible candidate ex-Treasurer Joe Malone may come with more liabilities than were initially apparent when he first started touting himself for the race. After Malone’s tenure ended in 1999, it was discovered that several of his top aides had stolen over $9 million from the state. Malone himself was never accused of being involved, but reminding voters about it will inevitably lead to questions about his judgment.

• NM-02: Ex-Rep. Steve Pearce has released an internal poll performed on his behalf by the Tarrance Group that gives him a small lead over Democratic Rep. Harry Teague, 48-44. The good news for Teague is that R beats D in a generic ballot test 47-37, showing that the conservative Teague overperforms the Democratic brand despite his vote in favor of cap and trade in this heavily oil-dependent district.

• NY-01: Despite the NRCC’s seeming preferences for rich guy Randy Altschuler, he’s already in a difficult primary, and now he may be facing a three-way contest with a local elected official too. State Assemblyman Michael Fitzpatrick says he’s exploring the race.

• OH-06, OH-17: Ex-Rep. Jim Traficant didn’t meet the filing deadline to file as a Democrat for any race in Ohio, but now he’s saying that he’s planning to run as an Independent instead (which would require filing by early May). He’s still not saying where he’s going to run, although neither of the two possibilities look terribly promising: either the strongly-Democratic 17th (which he used to represent), or the swingy 6th, where he’d have to introduce himself to most of the voters

• PA-06, PA-07: Here’s a big get for Manan Trivedi, as he seeks the Democratic nomination in the 6th. He got the endorsement of the Chester County Democrats. With Trivedi already strong in Berks County and Doug Pike strong in Montgomery County, suburban/exurban Chester County is somewhat the pivotal county in the district. (They also endorsed Bryan Lentz over his minor primary opposition in the 7th.)

• PA-12: This is another solid break for the Dems in special election in the 12th: Republican businessman Mark Pasquerilla, with deep pockets, seemed to be one of the few GOPers who could make this race competitive. Something of a John Murtha ally, though, he had previously said he wouldn’t run if Joyce Murtha got in. She didn’t, but Pasquerilla still didn’t bite; instead, he’s endorsing Murtha’s district director, Mark Critz, who announced his candidacy yesterday. This basically moves the GOP back to square one, with the candidates who were already in place for the regularly scheduled election: businessman Tim Burns (who doesn’t seem quite as able to self-fund), or veteran/BMW Direct frontman Bill Russell.

• WV-01, WV-03: Worries have been emanating out of West Virginia’s governor Joe Manchin about the re-election prospects of Reps. Alan Mollohan and Nick Rahall, who despite their no votes on cap-and-trade often get tagged as not being sufficiently pro-coal. The United Mine Workers have no trouble supporting the duo, though; they endorsed both of them this weekend.

• DSCC: There have been some rumblings about DSCC chair Bob Menendez’s lackluster ways, at least by comparison to his manic predecessor, Chuck Schumer. Here’s a telling quote:

“Chuck – wow – he would call all the time, three, four times a week, when he needed something, but I don’t ever hear from Menendez unless I initiate the contact,” said a Washington-based donor who has bundled tens of thousands of dollars in contributions to the committee. “You just don’t have the same level of energy from Bob; he just doesn’t push you like Chuck would,” the source added. “And that makes it a lot easier to say no.”

• DCCC: The DCCC is trying to get some mileage out of fanning the flames in some of the most divisive GOP primaries between the GOP establishment and teabagger-powered movement conservatives (which they’re cheekily calling “Palin’s primaries”). Targets include MS-01, VA-02, VA-05, NH-01, CA-11, and TN-08.

• Polltopia: Mark Blumenthal takes another look at Rasmussen, asking if they’ve been “flooding the zone” and thus shaping the overall narrative by sheer numeric dominance of the data that get released. (Sound familiar? He gives a shout-out to a diary here by our own spiderdem that first raised the point.) It’s quite true that Rasmussen has done many more Senate polls this cycle than last (45 vs. 13 at this point in the cycle), but so too have some of the other new players (especially PPP, 21 vs. 5). (He also notices what we’ve noticed, that SurveyUSA is polling less this cycle; they poll only when hired to do so, and he speculates that TV stations and newspapers have cut back their polling budgets.) Interestingly, he also points to why Rasmussen is able to do so: a “major growth capital investment” from private equity firm Noson Lawen. (Noson Lawen, and what their potential agenda might be, sounds like an interesting topic for enterprising investigative bloggers…)

• 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.

• 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Facebook: SSP is on Facebook now. Become a Fan today!