Tag: Patrick Lynch

• Election Results: No big surprises last night in the Alabama runoffs. Robert Bentley, who’d had the edge in the one public poll shortly before the runoff, beat Bradley Byrne in the gubernatorial GOP runoff, 56-44; he and Ron Sparks are now promising each other a positive, issues-oriented race. (Assorted wonks are trying to figure out today if Bentley, friendly – or at least friendlier – with the AEA, was helped along by Democratic crossover votes… and the answer appears to be no, not really.) In the GOP runoff in AL-02, Mike Barber is sending his gathered armies back home after losing by a 60-40 margin to Martha Roby. In the Dem runoff in AL-07, Terri Sewell beat Shelia Smoot 55-45, and is almost certain to succeed Artur Davis. Finally, the closest race of the night was the GOP Agriculture Commissioner runoff, where Dale Peterson-powered John McMillan sent Dorman Grace back to his chicken farm, 52-48.

• AZ-Sen, AZ-Gov (pdf): A new Rocky Mountain poll from the Behavior Research Center finds [insert usual “good news” joke here]. John McCain leads J.D. Hayworth (seeming DOA after the free-grant-money thing) in the GOP primary 64-19, with 5 for someone named Jim Deakin. They also polled the now-irrelevant gubernatorial primary, finding Jan Brewer at 57, with 12 for Owen Buz Mills and 9 for Dean Martin (both of whom have dropped out since the poll’s completion). Matthew Jatte remains in the primary, but he polled at “less than 1%.”

• FL-Sen: Here’s some good news for Kendrick Meek, who seems to be counting on a last minute Democratic surge: Bill Clinton will be appearing on his behalf in August, to stump for him in August. Dem primary rival Jeff Greene has some less good news: he just lost his campaign manager Josh Morrow. (It’s unclear whether he fled, or was pushed.) The St. Petersburg Times has an interesting profile of Greene today, too, that delves below the headline-grabbing superficial weirdnesses.

• KS-Sen: Tancredo sez: get a brain, Moran! (No, I’m never going to get tired of that joke.) The loudmouthed ex-Rep., last seen torpedoing ally Ken Buck, today barged back into the Kansas GOP Senate primary and admitted he had gotten it all wrong. He withdrew his earlier backing for Rep. Jerry Moran and switched over to Rep. Todd Tiahrt instead, saying that Moran had “deceived him” on his apparently inadequate hatred for teh brown people. In other news, did you know there was actually a third guy running in the primary, and he wasn’t just Some Dude® but a former state Attorney General? Of course, he was AG from the years 1965 to 1969 Anno Domini, so you could be forgiven for not remembering Robert Londerholm. At any rate, Londerholm dropped out of the race today.

• LA-Sen: Bobby Jindal had previously hedged on his support for David Vitter, showing up at some fundraising events but never actually going so far as to say that he endorsed him. That’s going to be more of an issue now that Vitter has some serious primary opposition from Chet Traylor, and Jindal is doubling down on his neutrality, saying he’s not focused on the race. At least Vitter continues to have the NRSC in his corner.

• NC-Sen: SurveyUSA is out with another poll in NC-Sen, on behalf of WRAL. Richard Burr continues to have a lead over Elaine Marshall, currently at 46-36, with 6 to Libertarian Mike Beitler. Burr’s favorables are 28/27 (with 23 neutral and 22 no opinion), while Marshall is at 25/12 (with 28 neutral and 35 no opinion), so usual caveats at Marshall’s room to grow apply. Interestingly, SurveyUSA followed their WA-Sen lead and added a cellphone oversample, which in various permutations had little effect on the toplines.

• NV-Sen: No polling memo to link to, at least not yet, but Jon Ralston calls our attention to a new poll from Dem pollster Fairbanks Maslin on behalf of the Patriot Majority. If it’s a quasi-internal, you can probably guess where we’re going with this… it actually has Harry Reid in the lead, over Sharron Angle 44-40. Both Reid (45/52) and Angle (40/41) have net-negative favorables, though.

• FL-Gov: Rick Scott lost a court battle (though the war over the Millionaire’s Amendment is no doubt not over, though). A federal district court judge denied Scott’s request for an injunction against Florida’s campaign finance law, which would give a truckload of money to the near-broke Bill McCollum because of Scott’s aggressive self-funding.

• MI-Gov: There are two separate polls of the Michigan GOP gubernatorial primary floating around today. One is a public poll from Mitchell Research & Communications; it sees a flat-out three-way tie between Mike Cox, Peter Hoekstra, and Rick Snyder, each of them at 18, with Mike Bouchard at 9 and Tom George at 2. Not quite content with that, Bouchard rolled out an internal poll (from McLaughlin & Associates) which, in marked contrast with, well, every other poll, had Bouchard tied for the lead. His poll has him and Hoekstra at 19, with Cox at 16, Snyder at 12, and George at 3. Mitchell also has numbers from the Dem primary, where they find Andy Dillon leading Virg Bernero 35-15.

• RI-Gov: This seems out of the blue, although he had been lagging in fundraising and underperforming in the polls: Democratic AG Patrick Lynch will be dropping out of the gubernatorial primary, effective tomorrow. That leaves state Treasurer Frank Caprio as de facto Dem nominee, sparing him a primary battle with the more liberal Lynch. It’s the day before nominating papers are due, so maybe he’ll re-up for more AGing. The main question now seems to be positioning for the general election… maybe most notably whether independent ex-GOP ex-Sen. Lincoln Chafee finds himself running to the left of the generally moderate Caprio.

• WA-08: Via press release, we have fundraising numbers from Suzan DelBene, who’s raising strongly despite little netroots interest so far. She raised $378K last quarter, and is sitting on $1.04 million CoH. She’s raised $1.65 million over the cycle.

• Rasmussen:

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 42%

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 45%, Roy Blunt (R) 47%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 37%, Kelly Ayotte (R) 49%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 40%, Ovide Lamontagne (R) 43%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 38%, Bill Binnie (R) 49%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 39%, Jim Bender (R) 43%

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 36%, Brian Sandoval (R) 57%

• FL-Sen: As much as Charlie Crist seems to have benefited from his switch to an independent bid, he still has to deal with blowback from a lot of ticked-off Republicans. A group of GOPers, led by state Rep. Tom Grady, has filed a class action lawsuit against Crist to get back their contributions which they thought would be used to support a Republican. Meanwhile, with Crist running around looking gubernatorial amidst the oil spill crisis, and the media having lost interest with the Republican primary settled, Marco Rubio now finds himself in an unusual position (which may be reflected in recent polls): the guy who isn’t getting any attention.

• IL-Sen: Well, it took Mark Kirk a couple months to do what Richard Blumenthal took a few days to do, but he finally got around to apologizing today in a press conference for his various “careless” embellishments of his military and teaching records.

• KS-Sen: SurveyUSA (6/24-27, likely voters, 5/21-23 in parens):

Jerry Moran (R): 53 (52)

Todd Tiahrt (R): 33 (29)

Other: 5 (4)

Undecided: 9 (15)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

SurveyUSA also looks at the Democratic Senate primary (where little-known college professor Lisa Johnston is the surprise leader, at 24, followed by somewhat higher-profile candidates like former newspaper editor Charles Schollenberger at 16 and state Sen. David Haley at 11), and at the Republican gubernatorial primary (where I didn’t even know there was a contest anymore, but where Sam Brownback leads Joan Heffington 76-17).

• KY-Sen: With the primary resolved and with Rand Paul having gone into media-related hiding, his fundraising seems to have dwindled accordingly. He held another online moneybomb yesterday, which used to be his bread and butter, but the bomb was more of a dud this time: he banked only $90K by yesterday evening. That’s was off from the $400K generated by his largest one last August.

• NJ-Sen: A couple items of good news for Frank Lautenberg: first, he’s announced that, after having been treated for lymphoma, his cancer is now in remission. And today, he got Robert Byrd‘s gavel for the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle, in contrast to Rand Paul, is at least temporarily breaking her media silence tonight… and she’s doing it not exactly the friendliest environment either, going on local reporter Jon Ralston’s TV show. (Ralston is one of the best left of the dying breed of state-level political reporters; his Twitter feed is highly recommended.) Meanwhile, Nevada Dems are hitting Angle for her decidedly extreme position on abortion (legal under absolutely no circumstances), while the once-thought-ominous Karl Rove 527 American Crossroads is out with a new ad attacking Harry Reid over unemployment.

• WV-Sen: There’s quite a long list of potential temporary appointees developing in West Virginia, but ex-Gov. (and current College Board president) Gaston Caperton won’t be one of them; he took his name out of the running. In addion to former state party chair Nick Casey and current chair Larry Puccio, other names, all of whom are well-connected with Gov. Joe Manchin, bubbling up today include former Manchin counsel Carte Goodwin, businessman Perry Petropolis, former state Supreme Court justice Richard Neely, and first lady Gayle Manchin.

• AL-Gov: Robert Bentley is touting an internal poll from Dresner Wicker & Associates giving him a substantial lead over Bradley Byrne in the GOP runoff; Bentley leads 46-27, and has 59/9 favorables. Bentley has also pledged no negative ads from his camp, which may be a relief to many Alabamians (and which may have been the secret to Bentley’s surprise success in the primary, as he dodged the heavy crossfire between Byrne and Tim James).

• CA-Gov: There’s a clear difference in strategy in California’s governor’s race, with Jerry Brown (who needs to draw Meg Whitman out into the open) agreeing to ten debates and Whitman (who needs to hide behind her ads) agreeing to one. New ads run by Brown surrogates seem to be taking increasing aim at Whitman’s tendency to hide behind her large piles of money, too.

• RI-Gov, RI-01, RI-02: The Rhode Island Democratic party issued its endorsements yesterday, and the results weren’t good for the party’s former state chair (or his brother). Bill Lynch lost the RI-01 endorsement to Providence mayor David Cicilline, while AG Patrick Lynch lost the RI-Gov endorsement to state Treasurer Frank Caprio. In the 2nd, incumbent Jim Langevin got the endorsement over primary challenger state Rep. Betsy Dennigan.

• TX-Gov: The situation with the Texas Greens ballot line isn’t quite going away yet. A lower court decided last week to block them from the ballot because their petition drive was illegally funded with an in-kind corporate contribution (with roots tracing back to Rick Perry’s former chief of staff). The decision, however, was just appealed to the Texas Supreme Court (which, of course, is Republican-controlled and not averse to the occasionally nakedly political decision).

• ID-01: Here, maybe, is another instance of the Chamber of Commerce realizing that conservative Democrats do a better job of addressing big business’s needs for a functioning physical and educational infrastructure than do the group of anarchists who seem to have seized control of the GOP? The US Chamber of Commerce just gave freshman Dem Walt Minnick their endorsement.

• LA-02: Rep. Joe Cao has had to back down on a fundraising letter that strongly implies that the local Catholic diocese and Archbishop Gregory Aymond backed his candidacy. Cao apologized for taking Aymond’s praise for him out of context.

• MI-03: Well, at least we now know who to cheer against in the GOP primary to replace retiring Rep. Vern Ehlers. The Club for Growth announced yesterday that they’re backing state Rep. Justin Amash, meaning that Amash must have impressed the far-right group with his level of disdain for public spending. (JL)

• PA-07: Philly’s just a short Amtrak ride from Washington DC, and Joe Biden will be there July 19 to host a combined fundraiser for the DCCC and for the Dem candidate in the 7th, state Rep. Bryan Lentz.

• TX-17: Here’s an article that’s an interesting reminder of how all politics is, in the end, local, and how it can turn on stuff that’s a million miles away from inside-the-Beltway concerns. Politico looks at the race in the 17th, which is very much a Waco/Baylor (Chet Edwards) vs. College Station/Texas A&M (Bill Flores) contest, with the recent (now irrelevant, though) proposal to break apart the Big 12 a key flashpoint.

• WV-01: Old man yells at cloud? Initially, the idea of a legendary West Virginia Democratic politician setting up a PAC with the pure intent of stopping Democratic nominee Mike Oliverio from winning in November sounds like a game-changing impediment. From the backstory, though, it sounds like former SoS Ken Hechler may not have that much oomph behind his vendetta, which seems mostly motivated by Oliverio’s 2004 failed primary challenge to him in the SoS primary, where Oliverio’s entire argument seemed predicated on the fact that Hechler was 89. (If you do the math, that makes him 95 now. I guess the secret to longevity is to become a Democrat in West Virginia!)

• CA-Init: Don’t count on California making the switch to the Washington-style top-two primary just yet, despite the passage of Proposition 14 earlier this month. The major and minor parties are weighing legal challenges to it, and they’re watching with interest the latest round of litigation on the matter in Washington. (The US Supreme Court has already upheld a state’s authority to switch to a top-two primary, but there’s a new suit pending on new grounds.)

• FL-Sen: Remember the good ol’ days of 2009, when Charlie Crist’s huge cash advantage would make him inevitable even if insurgent Marco Rubio somehow caught on with the teabagger set? Yeah, I’m having trouble remembering too. Rubio just brought in $3.6 million this quarter, the best of any candidate reporting so far. (Crist has yet to report, and even if he loses the quarter may yet lead in total cash.) Rubio may be getting himself into some trouble, though, with the all-important senior demographic in Florida, though, as his recent comments about changing Social Security (by, among others, raising the eligibility age) may not sit well with the state’s 3.5 million beneficiaries.

• IL-Sen: Looks like the biggest fundraising news today is coming from the GOP side of the aisle: Mark Kirk had a strong quarter, too, as he pulled in $2.2 million, leaving him with $3 million in the bank.

• NY-Sen: With all the state’s second-tier Republican talent interested in taking on Kirsten Gillibrand, where they might at least have some hope of an upset, no one’s signing up for the truly quixotic task of taking on Chuck Schumer in the other Senate race. That may change, as political consultant Jay Townsend is talking about stepping out from behind the curtain and trying his hand as a candidate. Townsend is currently working for Nan Hayworth’s campaign in NY-19.

• WI-Sen: A new Republican is stepping forward to run in the primary for the right to take on Russ Feingold… and, no, it’s not Tommy Thompson. Dick Leinenkugel, a former state Commerce secretary (an appointed position), plans to enter the race soon regardless of whether or not Thompson gets in. (Cillizza says, as far as Thompson goes, he’ll decide by early May and “most informed speculation seems to suggest he will take a pass.”) If Leinenkugel’s name is somehow evocative of hungover collegiate Sunday mornings, he’s from the family that owns the similarly-named brewery.

• GA-Gov: A sudden late entrant to the already-crowded Republican field in the Georgia governor’s race is bringing a lot of his own money with him. Ray Boyd is a wealthy real estate executive, and he kicked off his campaign by writing himself a $2 million check. He promises to reach out to the state’s teabaggers for support. The newest Insider Advantage poll of the GOP primary field doesn’t include Boyd; it finds Insurance Comm. John Oxendine with a solid lead at 26. Ex-Sos Karen Handel is at 18, ex-Rep. Nathan Deal is at 9, state Sen. Eric Johnson is at 5, and “Other” racks up 11, with 31% still undecided.

• MD-Gov: Ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich officially kicked off his campaign to get back his old job from Martin O’Malley in November. The DNC, however, is trying to tie Ehrlich today to his former #2 man, who’s gone on to rather overshadow Ehrlich for the last few news cycles: ex-LG and current RNC boss Michael Steele.

• MI-Gov: There’s another EPIC-MRA poll of the Michigan governor’s race, suggesting they’re going to be polling pretty frequently. This time, they find the likeliest matchup, Democratic state House speaker Andy Dillon vs. Rep. Peter Hoekstra, goes to Hoekstra, 40-33 (one month ago Hoekstra led 41-37). Mike Cox beats Dillon 43-34 and Rick Snyder beats Dillon 42-30, while Lansing mayor Virg Bernero loses to Hoekstra 42-29, to Cox 44-30, and to Snyder 42-26. Dillon leads the Dem primary 22-15 (with 11 for Alma Wheeler Smith), while Hoekstra leads the GOP primary at 27, with Cox at 21, Snyder at 15, Mike Bouchard at 13, and Tom George at 3.

• NV-Gov: Here’s some strategic thinking from the camp of Reid the Younger. The Committee to Protect Nevada Jobs (headed by Rory Reid’s consultant Dan Hart) is running ads bolstering incumbent Gov. Jim Gibbons and attacking GOP primary rival Brian Sandoval (who’ll provide a much more difficult opponent for Reid than the thoroughly-trashed Gibbons).

• RI-Gov: The Association of Democratic City and Town Chairpersons — the umbrella group for the Dem party chairs of each of the state’s 39 municipalities — issued endorsements for a number of key races. Maybe there’s some tension between them and the state party, as they endorsed Treasurer Frank Caprio for the Governor’s race (instead of AG Patrick Lynch) and in RI-01, Providence mayor David Cicilline (instead of former state party chair William Lynch, brother of Patrick). They also endorsed Jim Langevin in RI-02, where he faces a primary challenge from a state Rep.

• WY-Gov: Democrats in Wyoming seem to have moved somewhere back behind square one in their search for a gubernatorial candidate. Their seeming best bet in the wake of Gov. Dave Freudenthal’s decision not to go for re-election, state Sen. Mike Massie, has decided to run for state superintendent of public instruction instead, where he’ll face incumbent GOPer Jim McBride.

• DE-AL: The NRCC has to be happy to get something of an upgrade in the open seat race in Delaware, shaping up to be their likeliest loss in the House. Michelle Rollins, a wealthy philanthropist, has confirmed that she’ll run. She hasn’t run for office before, but the DCCC already started attacking her several weeks ago, indicating they take her (or at least her wallet) more seriously than the Some Dudes already running. Former Lt. Gov. John Carney is the Democratic candidate, and has had a long head-start on the race.

• MA-09: Progressives looking for a primary challenge to Stephen Lynch (in the wake of his “no” vote on HCR) will have to look somewhere other than Needham town meeting member Harmony Wu; she announced via Facebook that she won’t be running.

• MI-01: Seems like Rep. Bart Stupak got his feelings hurt after taking a serious pounding from the left, from the right, and from pretty much all points in between during his last-minute obstruction of the health care reform passage. He’s saying that, although he has the signatures prepared for another run, he’s not ruling out retirement this year. Assuming he runs again, he faces a primary from the pro-choice left as well as a general election challenge from angry teabaggers on his right. If he does retire, Menhen is already on top of it in the diaries, listing some potential replacement candidates.

• NY-23: Paul Maroun, a Franklin County Legislator who got passed over by local GOP heads in favor of Dede Scozzafava in the special election in the 23rd, had been planning to run in the primary this year, but just decided against it. That leaves only two remaining contenders, Doug Hoffman (who ran on the Conservative Party line last year and is still doing his part to cheese off the local GOP), and self-funding investor Matt Doheny.

• PA-15: Bethlehem mayor John Callahan keeps on being one of the Dems’ few bright lights among its challengers this cycle, pulling in $320K this quarter, with $825K CoH. For more numbers, Reid Wilson’s out with today’s fundraising wrapup at the Hotline, with other numbers worth checking out including everybody in PA-Gov and FL-Gov.

• DNC: Michael Steele rolled out the RNC’s gaudy committee fundraising numbers early as a means of distracting the media from, well, everything else that’s happening at the RNC. Unfortunately, that kind of backfired, as the DNC put out numbers that topped the RNC’s already-high numbers. The DNC pulled in more than $13 million in March (compared to $11 million for the RNC), showing (via the HCR victory) that nothing succeeds like success.

• RNC: Speaking of the RNC’s numbers, here’s an interesting accounting trick that’s just come to light: the RNC had a deal going with the Michigan GOP to give money back and forth to each other, in order to inflate the RNC’s fundraising numbers. Not really the day that Michael Steele would have chosen for this news to come out.

• 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.

• FL-Sen: There’s one more poll of the GOP primary in the Florida Senate race, and it’s even more dire for Charlie Crist than the Rasmussen poll from earlier in the week: Crist trails Marco Rubio 48-30, according to a poll commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce. (Remember that their previous poll, back in October, had Crist leading Rubio 44-30, and even that was considered something of a warning sign at the time.) Meanwhile, Jim DeMint seems to be actively goading Crist into switching parties – something he might want to be careful about, thinking back to that R2K poll showing that was Crist’s best shot at being Florida’s next Senator. (And Aaron Blake is certainly noticing that Crist is sounding more “independent,” for what that’s worth.) Finally, while Jeb Bush will probably never come right out and endorse Rubio over Crist, he’s pretty much hitting us over the head with a sledgehammer as to how he feels about the race, saying that Crist’s support of the stimulus was “unforgivable.”

• IN-Sen: While Baron Hill is continuing to let his interest in filling in as Senate candidate be known, DSCC head Bob Menendez seems to be moving full speed ahead on coronating fellow Rep. Brad Ellsworth, saying he “is going to be a great candidate.” (In other Menendez news today, he’s confirming that there aren’t going to be any more Democratic retirements this cycle.) Meanwhile, Evan Bayh is trying to walk back his douchey comments delivered as he walked out the door last week about how the stimulus didn’t create any new jobs (in the face of CBO estimates that indicated he was off by about 2 million). Now he’s downgraded that to it’s “probably largely true if limited to the last six months,” whatever that means.

• KY-Sen (pdf): Who would’ve thought, even half a year ago, that Republican SoS Trey Grayson’s biggest problem wouldn’t be the general election but even getting out of the primary? Republican pollster Magellan (independent of either candidate) released a poll of the GOP primary, finding Rand Paul overwhelming Grayson, 44-23. Grayson and Paul are busy trading blows over coal, each accusing the other of being insufficiently pro-coal.

• NY-Sen-B: As the search goes on for a celebrity candidate for the Republican nomination to go up against Kirsten Gillibrand, a new name has just bubbled up that may leave some people scratching their heads: Dan Senor, the former Bush adviser (and husband to CNN’s Campbell Brown). He’s currently talking to “money types” about the race.

• PA-Sen: Franklin & Marshall’s new poll of the Pennsylvania Senate race doesn’t contain much good news for either Arlen Specter or Joe Sestak; they’re both losing to ex-Rep. Pat Toomey, at least among likely voters. Specter trails Toomey 44-34 and Sestak is down by an even worse 38-20. However, they fare much better among registered voters, with Specter beating Toomey 33-29 and Toomey beating Sestak 25-22. (As far as trendlines go, last month Toomey and Specter were tied among RVs at 40 each, and Toomey led Specter 45-31 among LVs, so it’s actually a bit of an improvement.) Specter has the edge in the Democratic primary, up 33 to 16 (little changed from 30-13 last month). Meanwhile, Toomey has tried publicly to put some distance between himself and his Wall Street past, but it’s clear that he’s privately still eager to take their money in order to fight his opponents’ “populist” agenda. (Hmm… that may be the first time in history anyone has ever called Arlen Specter “populist.”) Toomey’s approach is just part of a larger movement, profiled in detail by the Washington Post, about how Wall Street contributions are increasingly flowing away from the Dems and back toward their usual friends in the GOP.

• CA-Gov: One more poll has Meg Whitman overwhelming Insurance Comm. Steve Poizner by a wide margin in the GOP primary: 60-12, suggesting that her ad blitz while the other candidates have stayed silent has paid off (for now). The poll was taken by M4 Strategies on behalf of the Small Business Action Committee (although it’s not clear if they have a horse in the race).

• FL-Gov: There are dueling ads in the Florida governor’s race already. In an indication of how topsy-turvy everybody’s messaging has gotten in the last year, the RGA is attacking the Democratic candidate, Alex Sink, for being an elitist banker, while the Democrats are attacking Bill McCollum for voting for congressional pay raises and to lift the debt limit.

• IA-Gov: Ed Fallon, whom you may remember for his primary challenge to Rep. Leonard Boswell a few years ago, sounds like he’s sniffing out the possibility of a primary challenge to Gov. Chet Culver now. Fallon says the party needs someone stronger than Culver (who’s in bad position in the polls vis-à-vis Terry Branstad, although that has more to do with Branstad’s strength than Culver’s own approvals).

• PA-Gov: The same Franklin & Marshall poll doesn’t look at general election matchups in the gubernatorial race, seeing as how the Democratic field is completely unsettled (although, given the Senate numbers and the lack of name rec for all the Dems, I wouldn’t expect those numbers to be very appealing). At any rate, they find Tom Corbett on track to win the GOP nod, beating state Rep. Sam Rohrer 26-4. The Dem side is utterly dominated by “undecided,” with Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato, Auditor Jack Wagner, and ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel all tied for the lead at 6. (That’s not a misprint.) Scranton mayor Chris Doherty (who just dropped out) is at 4, with state Sen. Anthony Williams still in close striking distance at 1.

• RI-Gov: Here’s one of the first definitive-sounding polls in a very interesting gubernatorial race, courtesy of Brown University. Ex-Sen. Lincoln Chafee seems to be in pole position in his independent bid, although his lead over Democratic state Treasurer Frank Caprio isn’t that big: Chafee leads 34-28, with 12 for Republican John Robitaille. Chafee has a bigger lead over Democratic AG Patrick Lynch 32-17, with 13 for Robitaille. There are still a lot of undecideds in the Dem primary, but Caprio leads Lynch, 30-21.

• TX-Gov: Rasmussen takes what may be its last look at the Texas gubernatorial race before the primary next Tuesday. The real question may be shaping up to be whether Rick Perry can escape the primary without a runoff. Perry’s in the lead with 48, with Kay Bailey Hutchison at 27 and Debra Medina at 16. (The last Rasmussen poll was three weeks ago, before both Medina’s surge and then subsequent crash, so the numbers really aren’t that different from that poll’s 44-29-14.) Rasmussen also finds a competitive general election, with nice trendlines for Democratic candidate Bill White from the last poll. White loses to Rick Perry 47-41 (instead of 48-39), and loses to KBH 47-38, while beating Medina 47-37 (instead of losing to her 41-38, like last time). Kay Bailey Hutchison may have signaled that she’s thrown in the towel, admitting in an AP interview that she’s been flummoxed by Perry’s success at casting her as a Washington insider. John Cornyn is now saying that he hopes KBH decides to stick around as a Senator “if” she loses the governor’s race — I don’t think you have too much to worry about there, John.

• KS-01: SurveyUSA has a poll out of the GOP primary in a race that’s gotten little attention: the election to fill the open seat left behind in the dark-red 1st by Rep. Jerry Moran’s Senate run. At R+23, the only question is whether semi-wingnut or super-wingnut wins. It actually looks like semi-wingnut might win: state Sen. Jim Barnett (who seems more in Moran’s mold) is leading fellow state Sen. Tim Huelskamp (the Club for Growth’s endorsee) 23-16. Former Sam Brownback CoS Rob Wasinger is in 3rd place at 8.

• PA-06: Some cryptic comments from Lower Merion Twp. Commissioner Brian Gordon have him sounding like his short campaign in the 6th is about to come to an end (after he managed only 1 vote at the Chester Co. Democratic Party endorsement shindig where Manan Trivedi prevailed), with an eye toward another whack at Rep. Jim Gerlach in two years. He said “I’m either the last candidate out for 2010 or the earliest guy in for 2012.”

• PA-12: Now we know the dates for the party meeting where the nominees for the May 18 special election in the 12th get picked. For the Dems, the state executive committee will pick a nominee on March 8. For the GOP, a convention held in Latrobe on March 11 will pick the nominee. One other Dem is also floating his name out there for the nod: former Cambria County Controller Albert Penska. Meanwhile, no one’s quite sure what happens to the half a million dollars in campaign cash left behind by Rep. John Murtha. It looks like money reserved for the upcoming general election will need to be refunded, but the money in his leadership PAC is up for grabs.

• VA-05: I wonder if this presages an independent/Tea Party run by ex-Rep. Virgil Goode, or if he’s just looking to keep his face in the news? Goode is planning to address a Lynchburg teabagger gathering next week. Goode, who briefly was an Independent in between being a Democrat and a Republican during his Congressional tenure, has already announced that he won’t run for the Republican nomination again.

• VA-09: It sounds like Republican state House majority leader Morgan Griffith is pulling the trigger on a run against Rep. Rick Boucher in the 9th, and has the endorsement of the other two GOP legislators who’d considered the race. Boucher is already acting fast to shore up his right flank, touting his most recent endorsement from the NRA.

• WA-03: There’s one less Republican in the GOP field in the 3rd, as Washougal mayor pro tem Jon Russell pulled out of the race and endorsed state Rep. Jaime Herrera. (Interestingly, businessman David Castillo, rather than Herrera, seems to have most of the endorsements from area politicians in this race, despite not being an elected official — although he seems to have locked many of these endorsements down before Brian Baird retired and Herrera got in.) Russell is still looking to move up; he’ll be running for the House seat in LD-18 vacated by Herrera.

• Blue Dogs: The Center for Responsive Politics takes a look at fundraising by the Blue Dogs, and finds that they easily outraise their more liberal counterparts among the Dems. The average Blue Dog raised $693K last year, $75K more than the average non-Blue Dog Democrat. Is it a question of them being more vulnerable and needing more money, or them being more corporate-friendly? Or more accurately, is it a question of them being more vulnerable and thus needing more money and thus needing to be more corporate-friendly in order to get money from the people who have money to give?

• Redistricting: In its ongoing series looking at redistricting battles in various states, the Rose Institute at Claremont McKenna College has a very thorough rundown of what all is at stake in Florida in the next few years. Complicating matters is the potential passage of a “Fair Districts” initiative that will be on the ballot this year (and seems to be on track to pass), which would restrict the parties’ ability to gerrymander.

• 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.

• IN-Sen: The Dan Coats rollout is turning into more of a field day for Democratic opposition researchers than the strike-fear-in-the-hearts-of-Democrats moment that Republicans may have hoped for. I’m not even sure what to lead off with… that Coats dissed his own state, saying that North Carolina, where he intended to retire, was a “better place” than Indiana (although Coats’ spokesperson is now saying that Coats intends to “do his part” and sell his $1.8 million waterfront house in Wilmington, NC)… or that Coats has been active in lobbying on behalf of foreign powers, representing India himself, while his firm was lobbying on behalf of extremist hotbed Yemen. I’m starting to wonder if the GOP would actually be better off sticking with the somewhat nuttier and flakier John Hostettler, who isn’t stepping aside for Coats. While Hostettler won’t have Coats’ Beltway money, he at least has the profile to keep the various right-wing weirdo elements (teabaggers, Paulists, the religious right) at fever pitch.

• NV-Sen: I’m not sure which is more of an overstuffed clown car: the Republican Senate field in Arkansas, or Nevada. It looks like one more GOPer may join the fun in Nevada: retired Navy commander Kirk Lippold, whose main claim to fame is commanding the USS Cole when it was attacked (in Yemen).

• NY-Sen: TV talking head and economic conservative Larry Kudlow is “80 or 90%” likely to run against Charles Schumer, according to Kudlow ally John Lakian. Even if he runs, though, it sounds like Kudlow is in no hurry to decide (he wants to keep his TV show as long as possible, which he’d have to give up if he became a candidate). This isn’t the first time Kudlow, a veteran of the Reagan White House, has been the subject of Senate speculation; he was considered a Senate contender way back in the early 90s, before getting derailed by drug and alcohol problems.

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand is taking aim at Harold Ford Jr.’s associations with Merrill Lynch and the Bank of America. Ford’s camp has had little to say after Gillibrand called for Ford to disclose details of his Merrill Lynch bonuses. Ford, in the meantime, is busy comparing himself to Robert F. Kennedy. How? Well, the liberal establishment opposed him too… or at least Eleanor Roosevelt did… or at least she would have, if she hadn’t in fact died several years before he ran for Senate.

• PA-Sen: Arlen Specter got the endorsement of the statewide Democratic party committee over the weekend, winning a solid majority of the votes, underscoring his establishment support. (Of course, one of his biggest establishment supporters, Ed Rendell, lost the state party’s 2002 endorsement in the gubernatorial race to Bob Casey and went on to win the primary anyway.) Part of the proceedings was a feisty debate between Specter and Joe Sestak, with Specter going hard after Sestak’s number of missed votes in the House recently.

• WA-Sen: Republicans got at least something of an upgrade in the Senate race against Patty Murray: long-time state Sen. Don Benton decided to get into the race. (The best they had so far was ex-NFL player and current teabagger Clint Didier.) Benton has represented the Vancouver suburbs for many years; in fact, his biggest claim to fame is narrowly losing the WA-03 open seat race to Brian Baird way back in 1998. In fact, I’m a little surprised he isn’t looking to the again-open 3rd if he’s going for an upgrade, where he would have a good chance at shoving aside the other less-known GOPers in the field, whereas he faces long odds against Murray unless things go completely kerflooey for the Democrats. Unfortunately, the race is a freebie for Benton; he isn’t up for re-election in 2010, so Dems won’t get a shot at his swingy Senate seat in LD 17. It remains to be seen whether Benton got an official behind-the-scenes green light after nobody better (Dino Rossi, Dave Reichert) was interested in the race, or just that Benton decided to roll the dice regardless.

• RI-Gov: A poll by Fleming & Associates on behalf of WPRI finds that a race between independent ex-Sen. Lincoln Chafee and Democratic state treasurer Frank Caprio is a dead heat: Chafee pulls in 31 and Caprio is at 30, with Republican candidate John Robitaille flailing at 13. AG Patrick Lynch, the other possible Dem nominee, doesn’t fare as well; he loses to Chafee 34-23, with Robitaille at 18.

• HI-01: Hawaii Democrats have avoided a potential problem with the decision of state Sen. Will Espero not to get involved in the still-not-scheduled special election in the 1st. Under Hawaii law, the special election is an all-party, winner-take-all affair, so the worries have been that with two prominent Dems already in the race, a fractured field could allow Republican Charles Djou to sneak through (although the one poll of the race seems to disabuse us of that notion). Neil Abercrombie’s resignation is now scheduled for Feb. 28.

• KS-03: Democrats are pretty much at square one in trying to find a nominee to replace retiring Rep. Dennis Moore. Joe Reardon had been pretty much everyone’s top pick, but Reardon, whose official title is “Mayor/CEO of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas,” won’t run. With his mayoral predecessor, Carol Marinovich, also taking a pass, this R+3 seat seems on track to be one of the Dems’ likeliest losses – although Reardon’s demurral may open the door to a candidate from suburban Johnson County instead, which may still work out better since that’s where most of the district’s votes are.

• LA-03: “Entrepreneur” Chris Leopold filed to get into the GOP field in the open seat race in the 3rd, but what may be most noteworthy here is who all hasn’t filed. Attorney Ravi Sangisetty is the only Dem, and while Leopold’s entry brings the GOP field up to 4, the only elected official is state Rep. Nickie Monica. The GOP establishment still seems to be waiting on Hunt Downer, the former state House speaker and current assistant adjutant general of the state’s National Guard. The problem is that few people seem interested in a two-year stint in the House, only to see the 3rd get vaporized due to Louisiana losing a seat for 2012.

• MS-01: Here’s a strange development, considering how much effort the NRCC spent to clear the path for state Sen. Alan Nunnelee: Fox News commentator Angela McGlowan will be running in the GOP primary too. McGlowan kicked off her bid with an appearance at Teabag-o-rama in Nashville this weekend. It looks like the Republican establishment will be trying to prevent McGlowan from getting any traction, as they privately point to her various negatives: having lobbied for Steve Wynn’s gambling empire (not a popular issue in this heavily evangelical area), and claiming an opposition research treasure trove from her past interviews. There’s also a geographical problem: her base (not that a base really matters, as she’s spent little time in the state in years) is the college town of Oxford, which puts her in neither bloc in terms of the Memphis suburbs/Tupelo split in the district.

• NH-01: Former NRC committee member Sean Mahoney, who had earlier thought about and then ruled out a run in the GOP field, is starting to sound interested again. Mahoney (who lost the NH-01 GOP primary in 2002 to Jeb Bradley) dropped out when the NRCC seemed content with Manchester mayor Frank Guinta, but with Guinta’s star fading the wake of mediocre fundraising, he may sense an opening. Compounding that is the recent entry into the primary by businessman Rich Ashooh; Guinta and Ashooh are both from Manchester, so the Portsmouth-based Mahoney may think he can ride the geographical split to victory.

• PA-03: Democratic freshman Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper keeps attracting random money bags challengers, even as none of the district’s elected Republicans seem interested in a promotion. Today it’s yet another one of those freakin’ ophthalmologists: Tom Trevorrow, who kicked off his campaign with $150K out of his own pocket and hired some expensive-sounding consultants.

• SC-01: A swap in races in South Carolina means that there’s the plausible possibility of the Republicans having their first African-American House member since J.C. Watts retired. State Rep. Tim Scott dropped his bid to become the next Lt. Governor, and instead switched over to the open seat race in the 1st, where he’ll face the scions of two prominent political families: Paul Thurmond, and Carroll “Tumpy” Campbell III.

• Minnesota: Minnesota lawmakers are moving up the primary date this fall, in order to better comply with federal law that requires overseas voters get at least 45 days to return their absentee ballots. They’re planning to move the election from September, up to Aug. 10. (This is probably good, in terms of giving the winner of the DFL gubernatorial primary more time to recover from what’s likely to be a giant clusterf@ck.)

• NRCC: The NRCC will unveil more changes to its “Young Guns” program this week, with 14 new entrants to its lowest tier (“On the Radar”) and some promotions to higher tiers as well. They aren’t releasing the full list yet, but some leaked names moving onto the list include state Rep. Scott Bruun in OR-05, former state Rep. David McKinley in WV-01, and ex-Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick in PA-08. We’ll discuss this in more detail once the full list is available.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• FL-Sen: Rep. Bill Young usually steers clear of endorsements, and the GOP Senate primary is no exception, even though Charlie Crist is a resident of his district. After attending a Pinellas County GOP event with Marco Rubio, Young reiterated that he wasn’t endorsing — and that his wife’s repeated gushing to the press that “I love Marco!” wasn’t an endorsement either. (A Pinellas County straw poll is set for January, which could be a big repudiation for Crist if he loses a straw poll in his own county.)

• IL-Sen: The Cheryle Jackson camp has an internal poll via Celinda Lake on the Democratic primary field in Illinois (although Chris Cillizza seems to be the only person who’s seen it yet). State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias has a big, though not insurmountable, lead at 31, followed by Jackson at 13 and David Hoffman at 8. That leaves 45% still undecided, with only about three months to go.

• MA-Sen: One more endorsement for Rep. Michael Capuano in the Senate special election. With the endorsement of fellow Rep. John Olver, Capuano has the backing of the majority of the state’s House delegation.

• ME-Sen: These numbers might be alarming for Olympia Snowe if there was more of a Republican bench in Maine: PPP finds that her approval rating among Republicans is down to 40/46, and Republicans would opt for a more conservative alternative in a hypothetical 2012 primary, 59-31. Snowe has 64% approval among all liberals and moderates, but even in Maine, 68% of GOPers identify as conservatives. Hopefully the Club for Growth already has these numbers and are rubbing their hands together gleefully, which can only serve to drive her further into our camp.

• NY-Sen-B: With William Thompson having acquitted himself well in his narrow mayoral loss, rumors are now flying that have him running for just about everything. Most notably, Rep. Jose Serrano (who had flirted with the idea of a primary challenge for Kirsten Gillibrand) is now floating the idea of having Thompson run in a Gillibrand primary challenge instead. Thompson hasn’t said anything about it himself, but sources close to him say there’s one thing he doesn’t want to do, and that’s challenge Bill diNapoli in a primary to be state comptroller.

• UT-Sen: In the wake of AG Mark Shurtleff’s abrupt departure from the Republican primary field in the Senate race, two more names have surfaced to scope out the race against long-time incumbent Bob Bennett. Neither one has elected experience, but one has conservative bona fides (lawyer Mike Lee) and one has a lot of money (Fred Lampropoulos, who owns a medical equipment company).

• CO-Gov, CO-03: Up-and-coming state Senate minority leader Josh Penry dropped his longshot bid in the GOP gubernatorial primary, where he’s been lagging his former boss, ex-Rep. Scott McInnis, in fundraising and overall traction. Penry says, in wake of seeing what worked and what didn’t work in Tuesday’s election, he’s dropping out so the GOP could present a united front (and also, unspoken, he didn’t want to damage his brand for future runs). With Penry leaving a hole on the right, compared to the occasionally-moderate McInnis, another name-brand conservative is now interested in the race: ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo. As unpalatable as Tancredo might be in a general, he has enough name rec and devoted followeres to make things competitive in the primary. You gotta love seeing the GOP civil war spill over into the gubernatorial races now too.

Rumors started flying that Penry was going to switch over to run against Democratic Rep. John Salazar in the 3rd, but that doesn’t look like it’s happening. One Republican who is running in the 3rd as of yesterday, though, is state Rep. Scott Tipton. It’ll be a rematch, as Tipton lost widely to Salazar in 2006. DA Martin Beeson is also in the Republican field.

• CT-Gov: I wonder if Jodi Rell had advance notice of this poll, and if its ominous results had anything to do with her seemingly sudden decision not to run for re-election next year? Quinnipiac’s newest CT-Gov poll found Rell only narrowly leading SoS Susan Bysiewicz, 46-40 (a bad trend from February, where Rell led 53-32). Rell fared better against Ned Lamont, 53-33, and Stamford mayor Dan Malloy, 52-33. With the race now an open seat, though, the most relevant part of the poll is the Dem primary, which found a close race between Bysiewicz and Lamont, 26-23 for Bysiewicz, with 9 for Malloy, 3 for state House speaker Jim Amman, and 2 for state Senator Gary LeBeau (February’s poll, pre-Lamont, gave Bysiewicz at 44-12 lead over Malloy, indicating that Lamont ate mostly into Bysiewicz’s share). Bysiewicz also beats Lamont’s favorables (43/11, vs. 31/24). They didn’t look at any of the other potential Republican figures in the field.

• NV-Gov: A Republican internal poll (apparently conducted for right-leaning blog Nevada News and Views by PMI) finds former AG Brian Sandoval with a substantial lead in the Republican gubernatorial primary over incumbent Gov. Jim Gibbons. Sandoval leads 36-24, with North Las Vegas mayor Michael Montandon pulling in 7. Democrats, of course, would prefer to face Gibbons, who already comes pre-tarred-and-feathered.

• RI-Gov: An internal poll from ex-Republican Senator and independent gubernatorial candidate Lincoln Chafee gives him the lead going into 2010, despite his campaign’s fundraising and organizational problems. Chafee leads Democratic state Treasurer Frank Caprio and Republican businessman Rory Smith 36-34-8, while Chafee leads Democratic AG Patrick Lynch and Smith 37-24-15. This race looks like it’s shaping up along the lines of the 2006 Connecticut Senate race, with a tossup between D and I, and a Republican spoiler struggling to escape the single digits.

• VT-Gov: The Vermont gubernatorial race is getting even more cluttered, but both developments seem to bode well for the Democrats. For starters, Anthony Pollina, who has run several times as a Progressive and then an independent spoiler (although spoiler may not be the best word since he managed to finish second last year ahead of the hapless Dem), is making noises that he’ll try running as a Democrat next year. With establishment votes already getting split a number of ways in the primary, Pollina has a shot at winning the Democratic primary. The other development is that old-school moderate Republican Michael Bernhardt is considering running as an independent, which presumably would siphon votes out of the Republican column. The 72-year-old Bernhardt is the former state House minority leader, last seen losing the 1988 gubernatorial race to Democratic incumbent Madeleine Kunin.

• NC-Sen: Republican pollster Civitas poked at the Senate race, not doing head-to-heads but looking at favorables for Richard Burr and two of his likeliest challengers, SoS Elaine Marshall and Rep. Mike McIntyre. Marshall and McIntyre are little-known, with 12/7 favorables for Marshall and 13/10 and McIntyre (although he was at 38/12 in his district). The bad news for Burr? He’s barely doing better than them, with 31/19 favorables (meaning 50% don’t know him or have no opinion).

• NY-Sen-B: Marist dribbles out the Senate half of its newest New York poll today (Gov was yesterday), and it finds a super-tight race in the Dem primary in wake of yesterday’s sorta-kinda entry by Carolyn Maloney: Maloney leads Kirsten Gillibrand, 38-37 (compared with a 36-31 Gillibrand lead in May). Gillibrand wins against both George Pataki (46-42, up from a 46-38 deficit last time) and Peter King (48-32). Marist doesn’t do general election head-to-heads with Maloney, although for some reason they poll a GOP primary between Pataki and King (51-36 for Pataki) despite the decreasing likelihood that either of them run.

Also of interest: Bill Clinton will be appearing at a Maloney fundraiser scheduled for July 20. Clinton isn’t wading into the race with an endorsement at this point, though; this was in the works long before Maloney announced her run, as payback for Maloney’s 2008 primary support for Hillary Clinton, and he also headlined a Gillibrand fundraiser in March.

• PA-Sen: Pat Toomey got another endorsement from one of the more conservative members of Pennsylvania’s House GOP delegation: PA-09’s Bill Shuster.

• AL-Gov: The Democratic field in the governor’s race in Alabama seems to be solidifying; the last question mark, Supreme Court Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb, announced that she won’t be running. With a lot of establishment figures waiting on the fence to see if an alternative to Rep. Artur Davis and Ag Comm. Ron Sparks shows up, expect them to start choosing sides soon. Davis, meanwhile, has been staffing up with some key political players, adding Joey Ceci and David Mowery to his team (who managed the successful campaigns of freshman Reps. Parker Griffith and Bobby Bright).

• CA-Gov: Sure, California’s an expensive state, but Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman have reported gigantic hauls even by the Golden State’s outsized standards. Brown raised $7.3 million in the year’s first half, while Whitman raised $6.5 million. Steve Poizner and Gavin Newsom raised huge sums and are still far behind — Poizner raised $1.3 million and loaned himself another $4 million, while Newsom raised $1.6 million, much of it online.

• MN-Gov: The tradmed seems to be intent today on talking up Norm Coleman’s next logical step as being running for Governor of Minnesota, although Minnesota reporters and politicians in the know are trying to point out the sheer ridiculousness of that idea. (If Norm’s going to be doing any running soon, it’s running away from the FBI, as they investigate his links to Nasser Kazeminy.)

• RI-Gov: The Democratic primary for the open Rhode Island Governor’s seat was looking to be a three-way slugfest, but Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts yesterday announced that she would run for re-election instead of for Gov. Although she had started staffing up for the race, she couldn’t have been encouraged by poll numbers which showed her at a disadvantage with likely opponents Treasurer Frank Caprio and AG Patrick Lynch.

• SC-Gov: Gov. Mark Sanford seems to have taken a few steps backwards this week. A snap poll from yesterday by SUSA now finds 69% of South Carolinians saying resign, as opposed to 28% saying stay. 63% say they have “no trust” in Sanford. Here’s an interesting red flag: only 20% say Lt. Gov/party boy Andre Bauer is “completely prepared” to become Governor, with 38% saying “somewhat prepared” and 34% saying “not prepared.”

• WI-Gov: Real estate developer and ex-Rep. Mark Neumann, who held WI-01 from 1994 to 1998 before losing narrowly to Russ Feingold, announced his gubernatorial candidacy yesterday. Neumann’s entry had been widely anticipated; he’ll face off against Milwaukee Co. Executive Scott Walker in the GOP primary.

• CA-45: With Rep. Mary Bono Mack having defected on the cap-and-trade vote, the rightosphere has been calling for her head. Their favored replacement, term-limited state Senator Dennis Hollingsworth, quickly said “no” to a primary challenge, so their wish-list has turned to ex-state Sens. Jim Battin and Ray Haynes and ex-state Rep. Bonnie Garcia.

• IL-14: A second GOP challenger got into the race against Rep. Bill Foster, although this guy doesn’t sound like he’ll pose much of a threat to Ethan Hastert for the nom. Jeff Danklefsen hasn’t run for office before and is “maintenance manager for a property management company.”

• LA-03: The Hill reported last week that Democratic efforts to find a replacement to Rep. Charlie Melancon have focused on state Rep. Gary Smith, who was going to run for the open seat in 2004 but deferred to Melancon. State Rep. Fred Mills was also interested, but state Rep. Damon Baldone, who might be the highest-profile candidate, is about to run in a special election for a state Senate seat and is unlikely to follow that with a U.S. House run.

• PA-06: With the 2nd quarter just wrapped up, look for lots of financial reports to start getting leaked. Here’s a nice place to start: Doug Pike, in the 6th, is looking at a haul of over $500K for the quarter, thanks a recent D.C. fundraiser starring Allyson Schwartz and Patrick Murphy.

• WI-08: We’re building up a backlog of Republicans trying to take on Rep. Steve Kagen. Businessman Reid Ribble jumped into the field, joining Door Co. Supervisor Marc Savard and Brown Co. Supervisor Andy Williams.

• WV-02: With some prodding from the DCCC, Gov. Joe Manchin’s former general counsel, Carte Goodwin, is looking into challenging Rep. Shelly Capito Moore in the Charleston-based 2nd.