Tag: Bill Ritter

• NY-Sen-B: The speculation about a primary challenge had in the last month mostly shifted over from Rep. Carolyn McCarthy to Rep. Steve Israel and now Rep. Carolyn Maloney, but in case there was still any doubt, McCarthy made it official yesterday that she won’t be challenging Kirsten Gillibrand in the Senate primary. Is this another tea leaf that Maloney is, in fact, running? (McCarthy said she’d stand down if someone younger ran, and although it may not be what McCarthy had in mind, Maloney, at 60, is 4 years younger.) Maloney did confirm her phone chat with Joe Biden, but said he didn’t try to push her out of the race. Meanwhile, Gillibrand got two endorsements that are important in the African-American community: Al Sharpton and Rep. Greg Meeks. (All three are key David Paterson allies, so perhaps not too surprising.)

• NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall, who’s been Secretary of State since 1996, hasn’t been the subject of much Senate speculation. However, she just publicly expressed her interest (while saying that she’s not actively testing the waters). Marshall ran for Senate once before, finishing third in the 2002 Democratic primary behind Erskine Bowles and Dan Blue.

• CO-Gov: Bill Ritter may be facing a tough re-election bid, so the last thing he needs to be doing is turning friends into enemies… so it’s strange to see him so frequently ticking off labor, most recently the firefighters’ union by vetoing a bill that would have given them collective bargaining rights. And on top of that, he’s a terrorist sympathizer… at least according to Rep. Mike Coffman, who doesn’t like that Ritter blocked expansion of a local Army training site.

• OR-Gov: Although he’s been reluctant to show any interest in the race, don’t fully rule out Rep. Peter DeFazio yet. Hot on the heels of ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber having his coming-back-out party in front of the state movers-and-shakers at Portland’s City Club, now DeFazio will have his turn addressing them in two weeks. Hmmm… after several months worrying that neither DeFazio nor Kitzhaber would get into the race, now I’m left wondering what happens if both of them get in?

• VT-Gov: Democrats have seemed lukewarm about taking on Gov. Jim Douglas the last few cycles, but there seems to be more optimism this time, and it’s attracting more contenders. State Senator Susan Bartlett (who chairs Appropriations) announced her candidacy, joining ex-Lt. Gov. Doug Racine and possibly SoS Deb Markowitz. One item of note that Steve catches: Douglas, who’s been in office since Howard Dean’s 2002 retirement, hasn’t yet announced that he’s running for re-election. There may be a growing sense that the seat could be open.

• VA-St. House: Josh Grossman from Progressive Punch, guest blogging at 538, takes an interesting look at Democratic chances for flipping Virginia’s House of Delegates in the 2009 election (the last one prior to Virginia redistricting). It includes a nice chart ranking the swing districts according to 2008 presidential percentage… although it’s dismaying to see how many don’t have a Democratic candidate yet.

• WA-Wahkiakum County Clerk: A never-before-elected retired musician by the name of Krist Novoselic has filed to run for the position of county clerk in Wahkiakum County (approx. population 4,000) in the fall 2009 election. Although he’s been involved in Democratic Party politics as a committeman, he’s running as “prefers Grange Party” rather than as a Dem, probably because of his appreciation of the Grange, a populist movement from the turn of the previous century (or else he just misspelled “Grunge Party”).

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (4/17-19, “Colorado voters,” no trendlines):

Bill Ritter (D-inc): 41

Scott McInnis (R): 48

Undecided: 11

Bill Ritter (D-inc): 42

Josh Penry (R): 40

Undecided: 11

(MoE: ±3%)

These numbers are pretty disturbing at first glance – incumbent Dem Bill Ritter is well under 50 and trails former Rep. Scott McInnis by a substantial margin, and barely beats Colorado state Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry. What gives? PPP doesn’t offer much in the way of explanation, just noting that Ritter’s approvals have dropped over their last three polls. He also didn’t fare so hot when PPP paired him up against some other names back in January (PDF) – just 46-40 over former (and 2006 opponent) Rep. Bob Beauprez.

PPP seemed to have a weirdly low approval rating for Obama in this poll, just 49-45. By way of comparison, PPP recently had Obama at 47-45 in Arkansas and 46-45 in Kentucky, while showing him at 54-38 in North Carolina. So it’s easy to see why the CO numbers just feel off. Apart from PPP (which is testing this particular matchup for the first time), I’m not aware of anyone even polling this race yet. We’ll have a better sense, of course, whenever they (or another firm) release a new survey.

• CA-45: After years of letting California’s 45th district (the most Democratic-leaning district in California still represented by a Republican, where Obama won 52-47) lay fallow, the Democrats actually seem to have a top-tier (or close to it) challenger lined up. Palm Springs mayor Steve Pougnet just started a campaign committee for a face-off against Mary Bono Mack. The openly gay Pougnet has been mayor of the city of 40,000 since 2007.

• KY-Sen: Dr. Dan may get some company in the primary. 39-year-old Attorney General Jack Conway has announced “there’s a good chance” he’ll run for Senate in 2010. Subtexts in other quotes suggest that he’s been negotiating with Rep. Ben Chandler and Auditor Crit Luallen, who may be stepping aside for him.

• CO-Gov: Now this seems unexpected. Ex-Rep. Scott McInnis, after butting heads with more conservative elements in the state GOP and studiously avoiding the 2008 and 2010 senate races in Colorado, has chosen a much more uphill battle: he’s running for governor against Democratic incumbent Bill Ritter. He may still face a primary battle against up-and-coming state senator Josh Penry (who used to be McInnis’s press secretary).

• PA-Gov, PA-06: Jim Gerlach acknowledged in an interview that people have been soliciting him to run against Arlen Specter in the 2010 senate primary (which would turn it into moderate/moderate/fiscal wingnut/religious wingnut chaos). However, he’s still charging full speed ahead on his gubernatorial bid instead.

• MI-12: Here’s one of the least likely places you could imagine for a heated primary, but it may happen. State senator Mickey Switalski will challenge 14-term incumbent Sander Levin in this reliably Dem (65-33 for Obama) district in the Detroit suburbs. (To give you an idea how long Levin has been around, he’s Carl Levin’s older brother.) This doesn’t seem to be an ideological challenge as much as Switalski is term-limited out of the state senate in 2010 and needs somewhere else to go.

• CA-10: San Francisco city attorney analyst (and former political editor for the San Francisco Examiner) Adriel Hampton has announced his candidacy for the open seat being vacated by Ellen Tauscher. What may be most memorable about this is that his may be the first ever candidacy announcement made by Twitter; he faces long odds against state senator Mark DeSaulnier (who won’t announce until Tauscher’s resignation is official).

• New Dems: One other musical chairs item left in the wake of Tauscher’s resignation is who takes over as the chair of the New Dems. The New Dems have five vice-chairs, but it looks like the hyper-ambitious Joe Crowley has enough support nailed down to take command bloodlessly. The CW is wondering whether this will complicate Crowley’s efforts to join House leadership (he lost a caucus vice-chair bid in 2006), but my question is what the heck is a New Dem doing in NY-07 (which went for Obama 79-20)?

• FL-20: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz told the Miami Herald on Saturday that she successfully battled breast cancer over the past year. We wish her good health as she continues her recovery. (D)

• Maps: For those of you who enjoy seeing maps breaking things down by congressional districts, here’s a new one from real estate site hotpads.com: which CDs have the highest foreclosure rates.