Tag: Chuck Devore

• CA-Sen: Good news for Tom Campbell, in the form of the Senate half of M4’s poll of the California GOP primary: he leads Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore, 33-28-15. (Of course, with his plans to briefly go dark to conserve funds, that gives Fiorina a chance to play catchup when the margin’s not that big.) Bad news for Campbell, though: the NRA has him in its metaphorical crosshairs, sending out a mailer to members attacking Campbell and, while not endorsing, offering kind words for Fiorina and DeVore.

• CT-Sen: This is going to make it a lot easier for Richard Blumenthal to make the case that the “in Vietnam” controversy is something of a cheap shot. A longer-form video release of the appearance (provided, ironically, by the Linda McMahon campaign, undercutting their own hatchet job) where the offending phrase occurred have him correctly referring to having “served in the military, during the Vietnam era” in the very same speech. That’s not stopping Vietnam vet Rob Simmons, who, sensing an opening, has rolled out web advertising with “Blumenthal Lied About Vietnam” in very large letters.

Blumenthal is getting more explicit backing from Democratic bigwigs now, as his mea culpa/attempt to get back on the offense seems to have had the desired effect. Rep. Chris Murphy, the likeliest guy to pick up the pieces if Blumenthal had to bail out, offered his unqualified support; so too did Howard Dean. And here’s one thing that’s actually good about Rasmussen‘s one-day, no-callback samples: they can strike fast. They polled Connecticut, and while the trendlines aren’t appealing, they find Blumenthal still beating McMahon even in the heat of the moment before the story has had time to digest, and beating the other, unmoneyed GOP opponents by pretty wide margins. Markos has some really nice pushback against Rasmussen in general, today, asking why they always poll quickly when there’s the potential for a good Republican narrative but not when the narrative doesn’t fit (as seen in their failure to poll the Sorta Super-Tuesday primaries).

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist has been trying to woo union support, starting with a speech at the state AFL-CIO convention this weekend. It’s another indication that he’s trying to move squarely onto Kendrick Meek’s turf and monopolize as much of the left-of-center vote as he can, now that he’s free from his GOP shackles. Meanwhile, quixotic Democratic candidate Jeff Greene has apparently been seen wooing Ukrainian strippers, in 2005 on his 145-foot yacht while cruising the Black Sea. Not so, claims his campaign spokesperson; he was busy traveling with his rabbi at the time instead.

• KY-Sen: In case you needed one more data point on how thin-skinned Rand Paul and how likely a meltdown from him is at some point before November, here’s an anecdote from last night: he refused to take the customary concession call from Trey Grayson, at least according to the Grayson camp.

• NC-Sen: Here’s a big score for Elaine Marshall: Third-place finisher Kenneth Lewis gave his backing to Marshall in her runoff against Cal Cunningham. This move isn’t so surprising, given that Lewis’s supporters, like Rep. Eva Clayton, were already gravitating toward Marshall, but it ought to steer much of Lewis’s African-American and youth base in her direction as well.

• NV-Sen: Three items, all of which are very, very bad for Sue Lowden. First, the Club for Growth finally weighed into the Senate primary, and they backed right-winger Sharron Angle (maybe not that surprising, since they backed her in the 2006 primary for NV-02). That ought to give Angle a further shot of adrenaline, though, on top of her Tea Party Express endorsement and polling momentum. Lowden is also still bogged down in controversy over her luxury bus, doubling-down on her claims that use of the $100K vehicle was leased despite also having stated elsewhere that the bus was “donated” (which means it would have needed to be reported as an in-kind contribution). That’s nothing, though, compared to the (by my count) quintupling-down on Chickens-for-Checkups, simultaneously trying to fight top Nevada journo Jon Ralston on the fact that, yes, people are bartering for health care while trying to claim that she never actually said anything about Chickencare at all.

• NY-Sen-B: The only GOP big name left who hadn’t said anything definitive about participating in the GOP Senate primary for the right to get creamed by Kirsten Gillibrand finally said a public “no.” Orange County Executive Ed Diana said he’ll stick with his current job, to which he was elected in November to a third term.

• UT-Sen: Looks like that teabaggers’ victory in Utah might be short-lived. Bob Bennett seems to be more interested than before in running as a write-in in the general (where, despite the complex dynamics of a write-in campaign, he faces better odds with the broader electorate than with the narrow slice of extremists running the GOP convention). We may know tomorrow what his plans are, as he emphasized “Stay tuned tomorrow.”

• WA-Sen: If Dino Rossi really is still interested in running for Senate, this isn’t a particularly good way of showing it. Rossi is scheduled to make a blockbuster appearance on May 25… to give opening remarks at a dinnertime seminar for local real estate investors focusing on strategies for profiting off foreclosures. Because nothing says “I’m a man of the people” than knowing all the ins and outs of how to profit off the people’s misery.

• AL-Gov: Artur Davis is out with an internal poll, that seems mostly oriented toward countering the sense that he’s losing ground among his African-American base. The poll shows Davis leading Democratic primary rival Ron Sparks 46-33. It also shows Davis leading 50-25 among African-Americans (despite the defections of some prominent local black groups), while trailing Sparks 42-41 among whites.

• FL-Gov: Bill McCollum is going to have to start taking moneybags Rick Scott seriously, and he’s striking hard, sending out a press release calling him an “embarrassment” and a “fraud,” presumably in reference to allegations leveled against Scott’s health care firm. Scott’s ginormous introductory ad buy is now estimating at $6.3 million.

• KS-Gov: Sam Brownback is drawing some heat for taking things out of context. Now, politicians take things out of context all the time, but his sleight-of-hand in attempting to fight efforts to more tightly regulate the business of car loans to military members may be a fridge too far.

“CNN Money on May 13 reported that ‘Raj Date … agreed that the additional (Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection) regulation might cause some dealers to stop arranging loans,” Brownback said in the letter.

But Brownback’s letter did not include the rest of Date’s comment, which was this, “There will be some dealers who say, ‘If I have to play by an honest set [of] rules, then I can’t be in this business anymore.’ I’m not going to shed any tears for these dealers.”

• MA-Gov: You may recall last week’s Rasmussen MA-Gov poll where, in an effort to find some sort of good news, they found that, if liberal activist Grace Ross somehow beat incumbent Dem Deval Patrick in the primary, she would lost to GOPer Charlie Baker. Well, it’s looking like Ross is in danger of not even making it onto the ballot. The state SoS says she has only a little more than half of the 10,000 signatures she needs; Ross promises an announcement tomorrow morning on her next step. (The upside for Patrick, if Ross qualifies for the primary though, would be $750K in public financing for his campaign, which he wouldn’t be entitled to if he were running unopposed.)

• ME-Gov: There’s been some ongoing controversy in the sleepy Maine governor’s race about how Republican candidate Steve Abbott (former CoS to Susan Collins) wound up with GOP voter lists, but this is a strange turn: the state Republican party chair, Charlie Webster, is now saying that Abbott’s camp flat-out “stole” it.

• GA-09: The special election to replace Nathan Deal (where GOPers Tom Graves and Lee Hawkins are in a runoff) seems to have winnowed the Republican field for the regularly-scheduled GOP primary, too. Former state Senate majority leader Bill Stephens has dropped out of contention in that field.

• HI-01: Even if something incredibly dramatic happens between now and Saturday’s drop-dead date in the special election in the 1st, things are still pretty much cast in stone. In the all-mail in election, now 43% of all ballots sent out have been returned.

• IN-03: State Sen. Marlin Stutzman (whose name rec is sky-high right now after running fairly well in the GOP Senate primary against Dan Coats) says that he’s going to strike while the iron is hot, and get into the race to replace resigning Rep. Mark Souder. Other GOPers confirming that they’ll run include state Rep. Randy Borror, Ft. Wayne city councilor Liz Brown, and recent primary loser Phil Troyer. Another recent primary loser, Bob Thomas, is a potential candidate.

• OH-16: After having found an excuse to hide behind the door the last time Barack Obama came to Ohio, Rep. John Boccieri was proudly with him when he visited Youngstown yesterday. Perhaps he can sense a bit of a turning of the tide? Troublingly, though, Senate candidate Lee Fisher wasn’t present.

• PA-12: PPP digs through the data from their last pre-election poll in the 12th and finds what may really have done the Republicans in. There’s one entity in the district even more unpopular than Barack Obama (who had 30% approval), and that’s Congressional Republicans, who were at a miserable 22/60. In nationalizing the election, Tim Burns tied himself to the nation’s least favorite people of all.

• PA-19: After having surviving his primary last night despite publicly seeking another job, it looks like Rep. Todd Platts exposed himself to all that danger for no reason at all. Platts announced yesterday that the Obama administration had let him know that he wasn’t going to be selected for the Government Accountability Office job he’d been angling for.

• CT-AG: Here’s one of the weirdest career crash-and-burns I’ve seen lately: SoS Susan Bysiewicz went in a few months from likely next Governor to somehow not even eligible to run for the lower-tier job she dropped down to. Connecticut’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled that she didn’t meet the criteria for legal experience required to become AG, reversing a lower court’s decision. Former Democratic state Sen. George Jepsen now has the AG job pretty much to himself. At any rate, with Bysiewicz now combing the “Help Wanted” section, that gives the Connecticut Dems a fallback plan for the Senate if Richard Blumenthal does need to bail out (although Bysiewicz may be seriously damaged at this point too).

• OR-St. House: Here are a couple races with interesting implications that I forgot to watch last night: two Republican state Reps. from the high-desert parts of Oregon (the state’s Republican stronghold) committed the unthinkable heresy of not only bipartisanship but supporting tax increases to close the state’s budget gap. Both Bob Jenson and Greg Smith survived their primaries, though, after teabaggers, right-to-lifers, and even their state House minority leader turned their wrath against them.

• Arizona: One other election result from last night that most people, us included, seemed to overlook was Proposition 100 in Arizona. In a surprise, at least to those people who think that it’s a rabidly anti-tax year (which would be those people who didn’t pay any attention to Measures 66 and 67 earlier this year in Oregon), the people of this red state voted by a fairly wide margin for a temporary sales tax increase as part of a package of changes to close the budget gap. It’s a victory for Jan Brewer, actually, who backed the plan (perhaps feeling safer to do so, having solidified her position with her support for the “papers please” law).

• 1994: When you have a wave, a lot of dead wood washes up on the beach. Prompted by ’94 alum Mark Souder’s mini-scandal and resignation, Dana Milbank looks back at the wide array of scoundrels and rogues who were swept in in 1994.

• History: History’s only barely on the side of Blanche Lincoln when it comes to runoffs. It turns out that the person who finishes first in a runoff wins 72% of the time, but when that’s limited only to runoffs in primaries, the success rate is only 55%… and Lincoln’s victory over Bill Halter last night was a particularly close one.

SurveyUSA (5/6-9, likely voters, 4/19-21):

Meg Whitman (R): 39 (49)

Steve Poizner (R): 37 (27)

Others (R): 7 (9)

Undecided: 14 (15)

(MoE: ±4.3%)

Jerry Brown (D): 66 (63)

Richard Aguirre (D): 4 (6)

Others (D): 9 (13)

Undecided (D): 19 (18)

(MoE: ±3.8%)

Wow. If these results are accurate, Whitman apparently has one hell of a glass jaw. Whitman had the airwaves to herself for a long, long while, and Poizner has only recently responded on the air with attack ads of his own. We’ve seen evidence that this race was getting mildly close for a few weeks now, but this is something else.

Meanwhile, in the Senatorial primary, ex-Rep. Tom Campbell maintains a clear edge on the GOP field:

Tom Campbell (R): 35 (34)

Carly Fiorina (R): 24 (27)

Chuck DeVore (R): 15 (14)

Tim Kalemkarian (R): 3 (3)

Undecided: 23 (23)

(MoE: ±4.3%)

• CA-Sen: Hell hath no fury like a teabagger scorned, and now the swarm is turning its anger on the queen bee. Even Sarah Palin’s popularity apparently has limits, as she’s getting all sorts of blowback (at her Facebook page, mostly) from California’s right-wingers upset over her endorsement of corporate GOPer Carly Fiorina instead of true believer Chuck DeVore.

• KY-Sen: Research 2000, on behalf of various local news outlets, polled the primaries in Kentucky, finding, in the Democratic field, Dan Mongiardo leading Jack Conway 39-32 (with 12 opting for one of the three minor candidates). On the GOP side, Rand Paul leads Trey Grayson 44-32. The same poll has perilously low approvals for Majority leader Mitch McConnell, down to 41/49. And guess who’s taking notice? Democratic state Auditor Crit Luallen — one of our commenters, nrimmer, reports that she’s sending out fundraising e-mails raising the possibility of a 2014 challenge.

Dan Mongiardo is also out with an internal poll, in the wake of the Conway camp releasing one with Conway in the lead. Mongo’s poll, taken by Garin Hart Yang, has him up 46-34 (although he can’t be psyched about the trendlines; his internal poll from February had him up 43-25). One other note from this race: an Iowa-based group, American Future Fund, is running an anti-Paul ad on TV. AFF claims to be about “free market views,” so I’m not sure what their beef with Paul is (you don’t get much more free market than that), but at any rate, their ad features a chiming cuckoo clock in it, which nicely underscores Paul’s, um, cuckoo-ness.

• NC-Sen: Third-place finisher Kenneth Lewis finds himself in something of the kingmaker’s seat, after preventing Elaine Marshall or Cal Cunningham from avoiding a runoff in the Democratic primary. Lewis says he’s not sure who he’ll endorse or even if he will endorse, but both camps are, naturally, reaching out to him and his supporters (including Mel Watt and Harvey Gantt).

• PA-Sen/PA-Gov (pdf): There’s clearly a lot of day-to-day volatility in the Muhlenberg/Morning Call daily tracker of the Dem primaries, but you can’t deny this is a blockbuster result: Joe Sestak has drawn even with Arlen Specter for the first time, as they tie at 43-all today. Maybe that ad with all those purdy pictures of him with George Bush and Sarah Palin is having the desired effect? On the gubernatorial side, Dan Onorato is at 35, Joe Hoeffel at 11, Anthony Williams at 10, and Jack Wagner at 8.

• UT-Sen: Tomorrow may well be the end of the line for Bob Bennett, the three-term Senator from Utah. He’s poised to get kicked to the curb at tomorrow’s nominating convention by his state’s far-right activist base for the crime of actually trying to legislate. Bennett’s getting some last-minute hits from robocalls from the Gun Owners of America, but that’s pretty tame compared with some of the other over-the-top attacks being leveled at other candidates (like Mike Lee as Hitler?). Michael Steele, wary of treading on the base’s toes in a no-win situation, has announced his staying neutral in the nominating process.

• MA-Gov: Looks like you don’t want to get on Tim Cahill’s bad side (or maybe more accurately, on the bad side of media consultant John Weaver, who’s also working on the oddball campaigns of Rick Snyder in Michigan and Steve Levy in New York). After a hard hit from the RGA, the Cahill camp retaliated with a web video pegging RGA chair Haley Barbour as a Confederate sympathizer and corrupt lobbyist. The RGA fired back saying the Cahill camp had responded like “scalded apes” (strange metaphor, but it has a certain evocative charm).

• OR-Gov: That SurveyUSA poll that had Republican primary results that was leaked a few days ago is fully available now, and it also contains Democratic primary results. John Kitzhaber seems poised to roll over Bill Bradbury; he leads 54-16. (As reported earlier, Chris Dudley led on the GOP side, although only at 28%.)

• RI-Gov: The DGA is going on the offensive against independent Lincoln Chafee, seeing him (and certainly not Republican John Robitaille) as their main impediment to picking up the governor’s office. They’ve launched an anti-Chafee site… and here’s an indication of the candidates’ positioning in this scrambled race: they’re actually attacking Chafee from the right, focusing on Chafee’s love of taxes.

• HI-01: One candidate who isn’t running away from Barack Obama is Ed Case, who’s up with a new TV ad throwing his arms around the hometown favorite. “Only one candidate is strong enough to stand with the President: Ed Case!” intones the ad. Despite the White House’s behind-the-scenes finger-on-the-scale, though, Obama hasn’t officially come out in favor of Case.

• ID-01: I wonder what think tank the right-wing’s current fixation with the 17th Amendment recently bubbled up from? I thought it was a weird aberration when Steve Stivers started up about it, but now it’s an issue in the GOP primary in the 1st, where all of a sudden the two contestants, Raul Labrador and Vaughn Ward, are trying to out-Seventeenther each other. Has Frank Luntz actually tried running the idea through one of his focus groups of taking away people’s rights to vote for their Senators? Somehow I doubt it polls well.

• WATN?: Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Former Republican state Senate majority leader Joe Bruno just got sentenced to two years in federal prison for fraud and abuse of office. It’s worth noting, though, that the sentence was stayed until the SCOTUS can rule on the “honest services” issue that’s before it, so it could be a long time, if ever, before Bruno’s wearing stripes.

• CA-Sen: Huckabee hearts Chuck DeVore. The once and perhaps future presidential contender endorsed the conservative Assemblyman, who’s buried deep in third place in the GOP Senate primary but still flying the right-wing flag with pride.

• UT-Sen: Bob Bennett finally reeled in the endorsement that’ll help him salvage his career at the state convention… Karl Rove! OK, I’m being a little facetious, but Utah is dark-red enough that Rove might actually still be more asset than liability here.

• WA-Sen: The DSCC sent opposition researchers to Washington to comb-over Dino Rossi’s business dealings in a Dan Coats-style pre-emptive attack, and already unearthed an interesting nugget: $20,000 in back taxes on an investment property owned by an investment group in which Rossi is a partner. Also, I’d speculated last week that minor candidate (and Rossi friend) Chris Widener‘s dropout may foreshadow a Rossi entry. Not so, Widener is now saying: he has no insight into Rossi’s plans, and his departure had nothing to do with Rossi one way or the other. Widener felt that Don Benton and Paul Akers were coalescing as front-runners in a non-Rossi field, leaving Widener not much of a shot even with Rossi out.

• CT-04: Things got whittled down in the GOP field in the 4th, to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Jim Himes. Former state Sen. Rob Russo, a former aide to and ally of ex-Rep. Chris Shays, dropped out and threw his support to his former colleague, the somewhat more conservative state Sen. Dan Debicella. Russo seemed squeezed by the late entry of moneybags Thomas Herrmann.

• GA-08: The 8th was one of the GOP’s biggest recruiting failures in a year that saw them round up a remarkably full dance card; it’s an R+10 district where Democratic Rep. Jim Marshall has never won by a crushing margin, but they were left with only an assortment of non-self-funding businessmen and local cranks. That may change, though, as reports suggest state Rep. Austin Scott, who’s had little luck breaking out of the low single-digits in the GOP gubernatorial primary field, may be willing to try his hand in the 8th instead. (Scott had also been urged to get into the Lt. Governor primary against Casey Cagle.) It still seems an uphill fight for Scott (especially getting in the fundraising game so late), but definitely an upgrade for the GOP; Scott will have to finalize his decision soon, as Friday is the filing deadline.

• KS-03: One more Republican decided to get into the field in the open seat race in the 3rd, where there’s a gaping hole where presumed front-runner state Sen. Nick Jordan used to be (after his surprising dropout). Lawyer and ice rink owner Jean Ann Uvodich launched her candidacy today.

• MI-01: Connie Saltonstall, who got NARAL and NOW endorsements in the primary in the 1st back when Bart Stupak was still planning to run, is saying if she doesn’t win the primary she won’t back a general election candidate who isn’t pro-choice. That seems to limit her choices: of the three state legislators who piled into the Dem field after Stupak’s retirement, only one (Matt Gillard) is pro-choice; Gary McDowell and Joel Sheltrown are pro-life. EMILY’s List is still pondering whether to get behind Saltonstall, polling the race to see if she’s a viable candidate.

• NJ-03: Rep. John Adler has turned out to have a more conservative voting record (characterized by his anti-HCR vote) than pretty much anyone expected, given his track record in the state legislature. Adler’s standing among the Democratic base will get put the test with a primary challenge, it turns out: Barry Bendar, the chair of the local Democratic committee in Lacey Township (in Ocean County), will run against Adler. Bendar says he’ll still support Adler in the general in the very likely event he doesn’t win the primary.

• Michigan: At the Michigan Liberal blog, they’re taking a look at the prospects in the state Senate and House in November… and they’re using a variation on Swing State Project’s own House Vulnerability Index as the metric for making predictions. Democrats look likely to lose a few seats in the House (where they have a decent-sized majority) but the Senate (where they’re a few flips away from the majority) looks like it could be anyone’s game at this point.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: SurveyUSA (4/19-21, likely voters):

Tom Campbell (R): 34

Carly Fiorina (R): 27

Chuck DeVore (R): 14

Tim Kalemkarian (R): 3

Undecided: 23

(MoE: ±4.3%)

Meg Whitman (R): 49

Steve Poizner (R): 27

Others (R): 9

Undecided: 15

(MoE: ±4.3%)

Jerry Brown (D): 63

Richard Aguirre (D): 6

Lowell Darling (D): 6

Peter Schurman (D): 1

Others (D): 6

Undecided (D): 18

(MoE: ±3.6%)

It’s nice to see SurveyUSA getting into the game in California (although this poll is primaries only); they find, as did Capital Weekly yesterday, that Meg Whitman’s big lead over Steve Poizner is dissipating. However, with only a few weeks left until early voting begins (on May 10), it seems unlikely Poizner will be able to catch up all the way. Unlike Capital Weekly, though, they find, like most pollsters, that Tom Campbell’s lead over Carly Fiorina in the Senate primary is down in the single-digits. And apparently Jerry Brown has some primary opposition. Who knew? Peter Schurman is one of the founders of MoveOn.org, who launched a last-minute candidacy, but his lack of name recognition seems to relegate him behind some other no-names who at least have more interesting-sounding names (Lowell Darling?).

• FL-Sen: Awwwwwk-ward. George LeMieux is Charlie Crist’s former chief of staff and his hand-installed seat-warmer in the Senate seat that Crist assumed was his for the taking. But now, LeMieux is weighing whether he’ll have to say that he’ll endorse Marco Rubio for the seat if Crist pulls the trigger on his anticipated independent bid. LeMieux is reportedly interested in a 2012 Senate bid against Bill Nelson, and unless he too plans to take the indie route, can’t afford to anger the GOP rabble. PPP’s Tom Jensen takes a look at LeMieux and finds that, with his 13/33 approval (including 15/29 among Republicans), he isn’t likely to be a viable 2012 candidate regardless of how he plays his cards next week.

• KY-Sen: It looks like the story about Dan Mongiardo’s housing stipend may have some legs to it. It was revealed a few weeks ago that Mongiardo was living with his in-laws in Frankfort but still accepting the housing stipend that comes with his job, but now the news is that he used his $30K/yr. housing allowance to buy a Frankfort-area farm where he didn’t live but that, in 2003, he looked into trying to develop as a subdivision. There’s also a last-minute hit on the Republican side of the race, as Trey Grayson filed complaints with a variety of agencies alleging that Rand Paul hasn’t been paying the proper withholding taxes on some of his campaign staff. (They’re listed as “independent contractors,” which means there’s no withholding, but it’s doubtful they meet the legal criteria for being independent contractors.)

• LA-Sen: Local Democrats are asking for federal investigation into allegations that David Vitter threatened to pull federal funds to the (private) University of New Orleans if it allowed Charlie Melancon to speak at a Democratic committee meeting scheduled on campus on April 10. The meeting was subsequently canceled.

• NV-Sen: There’s a debate among the Republican candidates for Senate in Reno tonight; it’s the first major public appearance for Sue Lowden after the chickens-for-care fiasco, so it’ll be interesting to see whether her opponents shower her with derision or if they try to outflank her on the right by throwing even more white meat to the base. Here’s a clue: one of Lowden’s predecessors, former state party chair Chuck Muth, says “It is absolutely breathtaking at how badly the Lowden camp has mishandled the situation.”

• MI-Gov: Ordinarily Mitt Romney endorsements don’t get too much ink here, but this is an interesting one: he endorsed Rep. Peter Hoekstra for Michigan governor. This is relevant in a couple ways: one, Romney is the son of ex-Gov. George Romney and those are meaningful connections, seeing how he fared well in the Michigan primary in 2008, so it carries some weight. And two, if Romney is going to try to be the moderate, sane guy in the 2012 GOP primary, you’d think he’d find a different way to show it than by endorsing the hard-right, strident Hoekstra.

• MN-Gov: The DFL endorsing convention in Minnesota is tomorrow, and the main event is who gets the gubernatorial endorsement… which, given the big crowd, could require many ballots to decide. Six Dems are still left contesting the nomination: Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak, state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher (considered the two frontrunners, based on the precinct-level straw polling), state Sen. John Marty, state Reps. Tom Rukavina and Paul Thissen, and former state Rep. Matt Entenza. Former Sen. Mark Dayton and Ramsey Co. DA Susan Gaertner are also running, but plan to contest the primary no matter what and therefore aren’t bothering with seeking the endorsement. (Entenza also plans to be in the primary no matter what, which means he’s unlikely to get any support at the convention, but still is participating at the convention.)

• NY-Gov: Remind me again why Suffolk Co. Exec Steve Levy is running for Governor as a Republican? I suppose it was because state chair Ed Cox promised him a smooth ride to the nomination, but if the endorsements of the various county-level GOP chairs around New York is any indication, it looks like Cox sold Levy a bill of goods. Levy has been endorsed by only 14 county chairs, with a weighted vote of 26%, while ex-Rep. Rick Lazio has the backing of 27 county chairs with a weighted vote of 51%. 19 chairs remain neutral.

• OH-Gov: When we talk about the money chase, it’s usually focused on the federal races, but Ohio is a good reminder that the money pours into the state-level races too. Big money is at work in the Buckeye State, as incumbent Dem Ted Strickland raised $1.6 million last quarter and has $7.1 million CoH, while GOP challenger John Kasich raised $2 million and has $5.1 million CoH. Even the downballot races aren’t immune: GOP SoS candidate Jon Husted has $2 million in the bank (dwarfing Democratic opponent Maryellen O’Shaughnessy), while Democratic Auditor candidate David Pepper is sitting on $785K, giving him a huge advantage over his GOP opponents.

• FL-08: Former state Sen. Daniel Webster (who’s known for not following through on his intentions to run for things) decided to go through with his threats to run against Rep. Alan Grayson, getting a late start on the race. Webster probably could have cleared the field if he’d gotten in the first time around, half a year ago, but now the various primary opponents (state Rep. Kurt Kelly, Bruce O’Donoghue, Todd Long) say they won’t get out of the way. Webster comes to the table with two big-name endorsements, though, which might help him make up some fundraising ground quickly: Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee. The local GOP establishment is fractured, though, as Mel Martinez is sticking with his ally O’Donoghue.

• GA-04: Rep. Hank Johnson, facing a competitive Dem primary with Vernon Jones, got a big endorsement today, from one Barack Obama. (Johnson was the first member of the Georgia delegation to endorse Obama.) With Obama having won the black-majority 4th by a 79-21 margin, it’s an endorsement I’d expect that Johnson welcomes.

• NM-02: Apparently there had been some goading of Democratic freshman Rep. Harry Teague from Republican quarters for him to release his internal polling, which he hasn’t done previously. Ask and ye shall receive… Hamilton Campaigns finds Teague leading ex-Rep. Steve Pearce 47-46. That compares favorably to Teague’s internal from August, which, unsurprisingly, he didn’t release; there, Teague trailed 52-42. The one public poll of the race, from PPP in February, gave Pearce a 43-41 lead.

• NY-19: Here’s a weird story out of the GOP primary in the 19th, where ophthalmologist Nan Hayworth is already brandishing lots of money. Apparently there’s a phantom candidate out there by the name of Kristia Cavere, who’s claiming to have raised $300K in a matter of weeks and is now sitting on $400K CoH. That can’t be verified, however, because Cavere’s camp hasn’t filed an FEC Q1 report yet, though, and her spokesperson pointed to a loophole that doesn’t really exist. Furthermore, no one really seems sure what the 31-year-old Cavere does, other than having recently gotten a master’s degree, or how she’d have access to such money.

• OH-13: This is one of those “huh?” moments that makes you check the calendar to see what century you’re living in. The Medina County GOP sent out a mailer with a bullet-pointed list of to-do items. One of them was “Let’s take Betty Sutton out of the House and put her back in the kitchen!”

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: I’m starting to think there’s some actual truth to this “Whitman is slipping (having passed the point of diminishing returns on saturation advertising)” meme that’s developing, perhaps illustrated most clearly in yesterday’s Rasmussen poll of the general. That may also be at play in the primary, though, where a new poll from Capital Weekly (by Probolsky Research) finds a smaller (though still dominant) edge for Meg Whitman in the GOP primary; she leads Steve Poizner 47-19 (a 28-pt. lead, quite different from the Field Poll’s 49-point lead last month). Over on the Senate side, Tom Campbell seems to be putting some distance between himself and his competitors; he’s at 31%, with Carly Fiorina at 17 and Chuck DeVore at 14. (No general election matchups were tested.)

• FL-Sen: Although everyone’s sitting and watching, the other shoe still hasn’t dropped yet in Florida. The state GOP is already preparing for the likely independent bid from Charlie Crist, telling its other candidates that they can’t back anybody who isn’t running under the GOP banner. They’ve also rolled out their chief enforcer, Dick Cheney, who endorsed Marco Rubio and who will be inviting Crist-supporting GOPers on hunting trips. Meanwhile, there’s growing speculation that the credit card/fancy-livin’ scandal that’s engulfing the RPOF, and has taken some of the shine off Rubio’s halo, may actually spatter mud as far afield as Crist himself (via for state party chair and key Crist ally Jim Greer). The possibility of a split between two damaged GOPers may be luring a new Democrat to the race, too: billionaire investor Jeff Greene is considering jumping in the primary field (although, considering that every news account about him today seems to be more interested in his relations with Mike Tyson, Heidi Fleiss, and Ron Howard, than with his political chops, I doubt this will be more than a curiosity).

• LA-Sen: While everyone’s still waiting to see if right-wing gadfly James Cain shows up to challenge David Vitter, another lesser-known member of the teabagging set has confirmed that he’s going to run as an independent in the Senate race. Mike Spears, owner of a web design firm, apparently doesn’t have self-funding capacity. He offers up a 5-point plan for “restoring the America he knew growing up,” point 1 of which is the rather ominous, if weird-sounding, “neutralizing party strongholds.”

• PA-Sen: Joe Biden is making his first trip back to Scranton since his election, to stump for Arlen Specter. Fellow members of the local political establishment Bob Casey, Paul Kanjorski, and Chris Carney will be at the event too.

• WA-Sen: Here’s some more food for thought for Dino Rossi, who may still be contemplating a Senate bid (and it seems to be what Tommy Thompson and George Pataki already seemed to understand). No one* in the last decade has launched a Senate bid this late in the game and gone on to win (* = Frank Lautenberg won under unusual circumstances as a last minute fill-in for Bob Torricelli). The closest anyone has come is Mark Dayton, who won in 2000 despite announcing on April 3. The majority of successful non-incumbents ran for more than one year. And prominent members of the state GOP are starting to see the handwriting on the wall, too: state House minority leader Richard DeBolt got tired of waiting and endorsed state Sen. Don Benton in the race instead.

• KS-Gov: This isn’t the right time for Sam Brownback’s approvals to go negative for the first time in years; he’s at 41/47 according to SurveyUSA. Brownback, of course, is looking to make the leap to Governor, facing Democratic state Sen. Tom Holland. Fellow Senator Pat Roberts — less of social values warrior and more of an uncontroversial Main Street type — fares much better at 51/38.

• MN-Gov: Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak picked up a couple more endorsements, starting with Rep. Betty McCollum (who represents mostly St. Paul, rather than Minneapolis). McCollum had previously backed Steve Kelley, who dropped out several months ago. And while the SEIU won’t be endorsing, its state president, Javier Morillo-Alicea, individually weighed in on Rybak’s behalf.

• OR-Gov: Blue Oregon has a rundown on the money chase in the Oregon gubernatorial race. GOPer and ex-NBAer Chris Dudley has been raising the most, but also spending the most: raising $1.3 million over the course of the race, but with $276K CoH. Democrat John Kitzhaber has raised $1.2 million, but is sitting on $575K. Everyone else is down in the five digits.

• MO-08: Tommy Sowers has been attracting a lot of attention this week with his second straight quarter of outraising Jo Ann Emerson, but she retaliated with an internal poll showing that Sowers has a long way to go toward knocking her off in this R+15 district. According to pollster American Viewpoint, she leads 71-18.

• NY-23: More evidence that the institutional might is pushing away from 2009 spoiler Doug Hoffman and toward investment banker Matt Doheny instead, for the GOP nomination. Hoffman’s fundraising numbers for Q1 were weak: he took in $14K in outside contributions, and loaned himself $100K. He’s sitting on $263K CoH, but also $205K in debt.

• NY-29: We Ask America has been trying to break into the polling game lately, although we gotta wonder what’s up with their love of significant digits. Are they that sure about their results? They polled the 29th, finding that, if the special election were held today, GOP Corning mayor Tom Reed would beat currently-little-known Democratic candidate Matthew Zeller 41.38%-24.01%. A majority also support having a special election, rather than waiting till November to fill the seat.

• SD-AL: The first candidate to hit the TV airwaves in the GOP primary in South Dakota isn’t the well-known one (SoS Chris Nelson) or the one with money (Blake Curd), but, well, the other one. State Rep. Kristi Noem is up with an introductory spot.

• VA-02: This may seem way, way down in the weeds, but it could help Glenn Nye out a lot, considering that he has the most Navy-centric district in the nation. The main fight of Nye’s short political career has been to keep the Navy from moving one of its carrier groups from Norfolk to Jacksonville; while he lost the first skirmish on that, the Navy now says the move won’t happen until 2019, sparing his district any immediate economic pain.

• CA-LG: The Democrats in the California state Assembly somehow wised up and, reversing their previous decision, decided to confirm moderate Republican state Sen. Abel Maldonado to the vacant Lt. Governor position. With the 51-17 vote, that means that Maldonado will be opening up the Democratic-leaning SD-15 on the central coast, which will be filled by special election (and has the potential to get the Dems one step closer to the magic 2/3s mark in the state Senate).

• WA-Init: In the wake of Oregon voters approving a high-income surtax, it looks like Washington may follow their lead. Proposed Initiative 1077 would create an income tax (Washington currently has none) on individuals making more than $200K, and in exchange lower property taxes and eliminate the nettlesome B&O tax. SurveyUSA polled the topic and found an almost astonishingly high level of support: 66 are in favor, 27 against. More evidence that new taxes, when properly framed, can be a winner at the ballot box.

• RNC: The RNC is subtly getting involved in the HI-01 special election, transferring $90K to the state party in March that went toward a TV spot for Charles Djou. The bigger story about the RNC today, though, may be about the financial disarray in its house: it’s spending more money courting top-dollar donors that it actually gets back from them.

• WATN?: After weighing a variety of different possible candidacies (state CFO? FL-25?), we’re glad to see 2008 FL-18 candidate Annette Taddeo taking another stab at elective office, as we need to expand our Hispanic bench in the bluening Miami area. She’s running for a seat on the Miami-Dade County Council.

• AZ-Sen: Looks like the Maverick has finally been broken (as he’s decided that it’s preferable to spend six years chewing his cud while fenced in the GOP pasture, instead of getting sent prematurely to the glue factory). In the face of a potentially serious primary from the right from J.D. Hayworth, John McCain says not only is he no longer a maverick, but he “never considered himself a maverick.” (Except for in all those campaign ads from two years ago?) In response, Hayworth said McCain is trying to “encourage amnesia.”

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: There’s a new LA Times/USC poll of the two major races in California, with a mixed bag of results for Democrats. Like most pollsters, they find that Republican Meg Whitman has pulled into a small lead over Jerry Brown in the governor’s race, thanks to her nonstop deluge of self-funded advertising; she leads Brown 44-41, while she leads Steve Poizner in the GOP primary 60-20. On the Senate side, Barbara Boxer leads a Generic Republican by a surprisingly wide 48-34. Polling Generic R seems pretty weird, though, considering that there are only two likely opponents for her: Tom Campbell leads Carly Fiorina in the GOP primary 29-25, with Chuck DeVore lagging at 9. One other bit of good news for Dems: by a 46-29 margin, voters prefer to back a candidate who backed health care reform.

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet is playing it safe, making plans for a petition drive to make sure his name is on the ballot in November. He needs at least 30% at the Democratic state convention to qualify, but his Plan B seems to be an acknowledgment that he may be facing a rough time at the convention too. Remember that he lost at the caucus level to former state House speaker Andrew Romanoff (whose main source of strength seems to be insiders and activists, rather than the broader population).

• IN-Sen: CQ takes a look at the NRSC’s private teeth-gnashing over the possibility that kooky ex-Rep. John Hostettler might beat ex-Sen. Dan Coats in the primary, something that can’t be ruled out in an anti-establishment year like this one. They’d then have to decide whether they want to financially prop up Hostettler, a legendarily poor fundraiser who’s relied on shoestring campaigns and religious right ground troops. Still, a reasonably competent Hostettler ought to be able to make short work of Coats in the GOP primary, given the amount of material he has to work with: for instance, it turns out that Coats, when lobbying for King & Spaulding, lobbied Congress in favor of cap and trade, the same legislation he claims he now opposes.

• NV-Sen: If there’s one reason not to quite count out Harry Reid yet, it’s his ability to bring in the campaign cash. He brought in more than $1.5 million for the quarter, giving him more than $10 million in receipts so far this cycle. Sue Lowden, ostensibly the GOP’s top contender, says she raised about $500K and will match that dollar-for-dollar from her own personal stash. Danny Tarkanian raised $445K last quarter.

• NY-Sen-B (pdf): These numbers are a little stale, but we found there were some more useful numbers buried in that Marist poll from last week where the topline was just the usual rigamarole about the Kirsten Gillibrand vs. George Pataki matchup that’s very unlikely to happen (especially not if Al D’Amato has anything to say about it). They also tested some head-to-heads with the lesser GOPers who are actually in the race: Gillibrand beats Bruce Blakeman 54-25, Joe DioGuardi 54-27, and David Malpass 54-25. They also looked at the GOP primary, finding DioGuardi winning it with 18, followed by Blakeman at 10, Malpass at 9, and non-candidate Dan Senor at 4. A permutation including Pataki finds Pataki at 62, with DioGuardi at 7, Blakeman at 4, and Malpass and Senor at 2. In other news, Gillibrand picked up an endorsement today from one of her biggest skeptics, Assemblyman and Kings Co. Dem chair Vito Lopez. Lopez had been considering backing Harold Ford Jr., way back in those heady days of February.

• WA-Sen: Dino Rossi is still saying he’s “completely undecided” about running for Senate, but will do it if he thinks he has a “50% chance” of winning. Here’s one more bit that might help move his decision along, though: financially, he’d be starting from scratch against Patty Murray, who raked in another $1 million last quarter, bringing her total war chest to $5.9 million.

• AL-Gov: I gather from the comments that SSP is full of mustache aficionados, and this news might prove heartbreaking to them: Ron Sparks shaved off his legendary ‘stache. He says this was a spur-of-the-moment decision at the barber shop (and hopefully not the result of thorough focus grouping?). I just hope Travis Childers doesn’t decide to follow suit.

• NY-Gov: Wealthy businessman Carl Paladino has decided to go ahead with his teabaggish-sounding campaign for Governor, kicking off his bid today in Buffalo. He’ll be running in the GOP primary, although he’d previously made noises about a possible independent run. Unfortunately, his rollout might be overshadowed by other news today… that he had a daughter with his mistress 10 years ago, and kept the child secret from his wife until last year.

• OH-Gov: In response to pressure to release his financials, John Kasich released his 2008 tax returns. Kasich earned $615K from now-kaput Lehman Brothers in 2008, including $183K base and a $432K bonus (but no “golden parachute” as Lehman Brothers collapsed). Oh, by the way, he also earned $265K as a Fox News commentator, $166K in speaking fees, $62K as an associate for Schottenstein Property Group, $45K as an Ohio State Univ. lecturer, $77K for being on the board of directors of two companies, and $122K in interest and dividends. Just your average teabagging Joe Lunchpail.

• HI-01: Charles Djou is trying to get some mileage out of the fact that neither Ed Case nor Colleen Hanabusa lives in HI-01. This kind of thing usually doesn’t matter much even in most other states, and seems to matter even less in Hawaii, though, where the island of Oahu gets split between the two districts and no one seems to care that Mazie Hirono lives in the 1st instead of HI-02.

• CO-04: Rep. Betsy Markey is near the top of most people’s vulnerable Dems lists, especially after her pro-HCR vote, but her cash haul may go along way toward allaying fears. She pulled in $505K, with $355K of that coming between Mar. 21 (the HCR vote) and Mar. 31. Her vote (plus being in Sarah Palin’s sorta-metaphorical crosshairs) seems to have helped, not hurt. Likely GOP opponent Cory Gardner raised only $75K last quarter after the HCR vote.

• ND-AL: One GOPer who is doing well on the fundraising front is state Rep. Rick Berg, who pulled in $483K in the first quarter. $330K of that came in the last 10 days of the quarter, although that seems to have more to do with his winning the state party’s endorsement rather than the HCR vote. Most of the rest of that took the form of $100K from his own pocket. Between this and the downdraft from John Hoeven at the top of the ballot, looks like Rep. Earl Pomeroy’s in for a real race this year.

• PA-06: Doug Pike picked up another labor endorsement, and it’s a big one: the AFL-CIO. They also backed Paul Kanjorski in the 11th, who’s being challenged by Corey O’Brien in the primary.

• RI-01: Here’s one more huge House Democratic fundraising haul, although this isn’t a race that the DCCC has been sweating too hard. Providence mayor David Cicilline pulled in a huge $725K (although some of that was checks re-written away from his mayoral fund to his newly-established House fund). His main Democratic rival, former state party chair William Lynch, raised $230K (including $100K of his own money).

• TX-17: Bill Flores pulled in an endorsement that will help in his GOP primary runoff against Rob Curnock, from perhaps the most unlikable man in the entirety of American politics, ex-Sen. Phil Gramm. In fact, that district may be conservative enough that it might still be a positive in the general.

• LA-LG: Republican SoS Jay Dardenne’s plan for an easy upgrade to the position of Lt. Governor (left vacant by Mitch Landrieu’s move to mayor of New Orleans) ran into a bit of a snag. He’s facing GOP primary opposition now from the state GOP chair, Roger Villere.

• CA-Init: Proposition 15 looks to be the only interesting initiative on the June primary ballot in California, and it lays some important groundwork for countering the flood of corporate money into elections. The Fair Elections Act, as it’s called, is a pilot program for public financing of state races; if passed, it’ll publicly fund the 2014 and 2018 Secretary of State races, which, if successful, could lead to a broader system.

• Fundraising: There are a number of other fundraising roundups today, courtesy of National Journal’s Reid Wilson and also the crew at TPM. Other highlights include Tom Campbell, Pat Toomey, Bob Dold!, Colleen Hanabusa, Bruce O’Donoghue, and various OR-Gov contestants.

• Teabaggers: Ed Kilgore continues his hot streak of dismantling the myth of the teabaggers, pointing to today’s Gallup/USA Today poll as more evidence that they’re nothing more than louder, angrier Republicans (who’d like access to a time machine). Only 7% say they’re Democrats, and while many say they’re independents, all evidence suggests they’re not from the center but those indies who think the GOP is too establishment, too liberal, or just too unsalvageable.

• RNC: You might remember several weeks ago the RNC lost a case in the D.C. District Court, squelching their desires for unlimited “soft money” contributions, which they felt they should be able to do in the wake of Citizens United. The RNC has decided to go ahead and appeal the case to the Supreme Court, although it doesn’t seem likely it’ll be decided in time for this year’s general election. (If you’re wondering why the case is bypassing the DC Circuit, McCain-Feingold allows challenges to it to leapfrog directly from the trial level to SCOTUS.)

• Census: Here’s an interesting tidbit: despite her early anti-Census fearmongering, Michele Bachmann’s district is actually well outpacing much of the nation on Census form return rates. Counties in her district have had an especially high return rate, ranging from 68-71% (compared with the current national average of 50%). Perhaps Republicans have decided it’s better in the long-term to, y’know, get conservative parts of the country to get accurately represented, rather than to try to appeal to the black-helicopters fringes, if Karl Rove cutting an ad urging Census participation is any indication.

• O2B: Finally, over at the Great Orange Satan, there’s an open call for nominations for the Orange to Blue program. Stop by and suggest some names of candidates who should get the netroots’ financial help this year.

AR-Sen: Bill Halter has a new ad up going after Sen. Blanche Lincoln for her vote in favor of TARP – aka the bailout. As is all too often the case with these kinds of reports, there’s no indication of how big the ad buy is.

CA-Sen, CA-Gov: Man, the news cycle moves fast these days. The RNC bondage-themed nightclub scandal (which I’m sure you’ve read all about) already had some same-day blowback. GOP senate candidate Chuck DeVore says he’s “severed all ties” with Erik Brown, a consultant who seems to be responsible for the expenses racked up at Voyeur West Hollywood. The Daily Caller (which broke the story originally) also says that Brown did work for Republican gubernatorial hopeful Steve Poizner. Meanwhile, Politico’s Dave Catanese tweets that freshman Sen. Claire McCaskill is sending out a fundraising email for Barbara Boxer.

CT-Sen: In the somewhat strange Connecticut Republican senate primary, Paulist economist Peter Schiff has put out his first TV ad… and it doesn’t mention that he’s a Republican. Schiff is spending half a mil to run the ad statewide for two weeks. Schiff also promised to run in the August primary even if he doesn’t get the party nomination at the May convention.

KS-Sen: Things have gotten a little worse for Todd Tiahrt in his race against Jerry Moran in the GOP primary to succeed outgoing Sen. Sam Brownback: SUSA now shows Moran up 42-32. Two months ago, Moran led by seven points – and by just three two months before that. The Kansas primary is not until August 3rd, so Tiahrt still has time, but he doesn’t seem to be gaining much traction.

KY-Sen: Now things are getting good:

Trey Grayson, Kentucky’s secretary of state, used his latest ad to again hammer his rival, Bowling Green eye surgeon Rand Paul, on national security issues.

“Paul even wonders whether 9/11 was our fault,” a female announcer says in the spot that began airing Thursday. The commercial then shows Paul speaking at a Blue Grass Policy Institute forum in March 2009, saying: “Maybe some of the bad things that happen are a reaction to our presence in some of these countries.”

I just hope that Grayson doesn’t nuke Paul before our nominee (hopefully Jack Conway) gets a chance to pummel him in the general.

NC-Sen: A good get for former state Sen. Cal Cunningham: Gen. Wesley Clark endorsed his fellow Army veteran for the Democratic senate nod. Interestingly, Clark specifically noted Cunningham’s support for ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

NY-Sen-B: Marist finds ex-Gov. George Pataki with the narrowest of leads over Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, 47-45, essentially unchanged from last month’s 48-45 margin. This is all well and good for Republicans, but Pataki hasn’t given the slightest indication that he’s interested in running.

GA-Gov: Looks like Nathan Deal didn’t quit quite fast enough. The Office of Congressional Ethics found (according to the NYT) that Deal “appeared to have improperly used his office to pressure Georgia officials to continue a vehicle inspection program that generated hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for his family’s auto salvage business.”  I wonder how much of an impact this will have in the governor’s race, though, since Deal had mostly been floundering in the polls. Maybe it’ll just be the final nail in his political coffin – a suiting end for a party-switching ex-Democrat.

IA-Gov: GOP ex-Gov. and comeback hopeful Terry Branstad is up with his first TV ad of the campaign. No word on the size of the buy, though.

MD-Gov: The Baltimore Sun profiles would-be GOP gubernatorial candidate (and ex-gov) Bob Ehrlich and finds that his current job is “‘rainmaker’ for the Baltimore branch of North Carolina-based law firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice. Ehrlich describes his job as being ‘the face of the firm,’ with his duties including ‘speeches, coffees, dinners, lunches, meetings.'” Sounds like Ehrlich’s been working on honing his Dan Coats/Tommy Thompson pedigree.

FL-08: Rep. Alan Grayson, one of the wealthiest members of Congress and a man who has largely self-funded his past campaigns, raised almost half a million dollars in a recent “moneybomb.”

NY-13: It looks like the GOP has some primary woes of its own in the 13th CD. Though the Republican establishment is coalescing around former FBI agent Mike Grimm, lawyer Michael Allegretti is vowing to fight on. He’s recently gone up with an ad on cable (so presumably a small buy) demanding repeal of the healthcare reform bill.

NY-23: Hah! Could the unlikable Doug Hoffman foment yet another right-wing split? Hoffman is laying claim to the Conservative Party line in this fall’s election, and he’s making the argument that whoever runs for the Republicans will need both lines in order to win. (Pretty plausible!) This is pissing off local GOP leaders, though, who are taking this as a threat to nominate Hoffman – or else face yet another divided ballot. This is some Fancy Feast-level cat fud we’re talking about.

NY-29: A more complete list of candidates interviewed by upstate Dems as potential nominees for the special election to fill ex-Rep. Eric Massa’s seat:

Mary Wilmot, an aide to Gov. David Paterson, Assemblyman David Koon of Perinton, past candidate for state Senate and businessman David Nachbar of Pittsford, Southern Tier native Matthew Zeller, and Michael McCormick of Allegany County

Wonder if we might be missing a name, though, since yesterday word was that the Dems would be interviewing six people.

OH-16, OH-18: CQ: “Businessman Jim Renacci, who is taking on freshman Rep. John Boccieri in the 16th district, and state Sen. Bob Gibbs, who is running against two-term Rep. Zack Space in the adjacent 18th district, established a joint fundraising committee, ‘Gibbs-Renacci for Congress’ and will split the proceeds evenly.”

PA-06: Manan Trivedi is chipping away at Doug Pike’s big lead among organized labor. He picked up a couple of local union endorsements, from the Transport Workers and the Iron Workers.

TN-08: Republican potentates are showering even more love on Steve Fincher, this time in the form of a campaign tour with GA Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (of “Obama is uppity” fame). Fincher has a lot of money, but like almost every GOP candidate with establishment backing, he faces a primary from ever-truer conservatives.

Census: There’s some speculation that anti-government attitudes (and paranoid black-helicopterism) might be the cause of low Census response rates in Texas. Though the biggest challenge for the Census is typically presented by undercounted groups like blacks and Latinos, some of the lowest response rates are in fact coming from very Republican counties. It’ll be very interesting to compare response rates and voting history when all is said and done.

Redistricting: Nathan Gonzales has a detailed look at the powers that are gathering on both sides for the upcoming post-census redistricting battle.

• CA-Sen: Republican Assemblyman Chuck DeVore is still lagging in the single digits in polling, but prominent conservatives keep coming to his aid. He just got the endorsement of libertarian-minded Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake, and also of the Tea Party Express (the corporate wing of the teabaggers’ movement).

• DE-Sen: “Repeal!” of HCR has become the rallying cry for almost every Republican candidate for federal office lately, but Rep. Mike Castle has stood out from the crowd with his reluctance, saying repeal is not “realistic.” Now that’s turning into an issue in his GOP primary, where his far-right opponent, marketing consultant and occasional Fox News contributor Christine O’Donnell, is accusing him of “breaking faith” with Delaware voters by not supporting it. A few other of the more sensible GOPers running in blue states, like Rob Simmons and Tom Campbell, are also keeping repeal at arms-length.

• FL-Sen: Good news for Charlie Crist, I suppose: Mason-Dixon has polled the GOP primary, and they find that he’s losing to Marco Rubio by a mere 11 points (much less than a number of other pollsters, ranging from Rasmussen to R2K, have found): 48-37. Crist leads Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek 50-26, while Rubio leads Meek 44-29, although half of respondents didn’t know who Meek was. Meanwhile, you might have forgotten (as I often did) that ex-New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith was, as far as he was concerned, in the GOP primary as well. Well, not anymore: Smith shuttered his campaign today, citing (big surprise) fundraising problems.

• WA-Sen: If there’s one group that should be getting behind Dino Rossi’s possible Senate candidacy, it’s the Washington Association of Realtors. Not only are they a usually conservative-leaning organization with close ties to the builders’ lobby, but also Rossi is one of them: his day job is real estate salesperson. So, hot on the heels of yesterday’s R2K poll, here’s another problem Rossi needs to seriously contemplate: WAR just endorsed Patty Murray.

• CA-Gov: Remember Pete Wilson? The former Governor is largely responsible for turning the California Republican Party’s name into mud, among Latinos, in the 1990s with his support for anti-immigrant Proposition 187 — a decision that may have had short-term benefits but has turned into a long-term disaster as the state’s demographics change. The California Accountability Project is shining the spotlight back on Wilson in his new job: campaign chair for Meg Whitman.

• MI-Gov: Um, no. Just no. Mop-topped attorney Geoffrey Fieger is best known for his defense of Jack Kevorkian, but he also somehow wound up with the 1998 Democratic gubernatorial nomination and went on to lose to John Engler by a 62-38 margin after a slew of bone-headed remarks. Fieger now says he’s considering another run at the Democratic nomination.

• NY-Gov (pdf): Marist has a new poll of the New York gubernatorial race, finding that party-switching Suffolk Co. Executive Steven Levy is in for a rude reception from the GOP. He’s losing the primary to ex-Rep. Rick Lazio, 53-21. Andrew Cuomo dispatches either one, 61-30 against Lazio or 65-26 against Levy. Meanwhile, the saga of David Paterson (with a 16/80 job rating according to Marist) keeps getting sadder/weirder/yuckier, with a NYT article today about his attempts to secure an endorsement from the woman involved in a domestic dispute with one of his top aides.

• TN-Gov: The GOP side in the gubernatorial race shrank today, with the withdrawal of Shelby County DA Bill Gibbons from the race. He had the advantage of being the only western Tennessee candidate in the primary, but he never got very far on the fundraising front. Meanwhile, among what’s left of the Democratic field, beer baron Mike McWherter just got an endorsement from Memphis’s new mayor, A.C. Wharton. McWherter’s only remaining Dem opponent is former state House majority leader Kim McMillan.

• AR-03, PA-07: Mike Huckabee offered up two different endorsements, one right on his home turf. He endorsed former state Rep. Doug Matayo in the open seat race to succeed John Boozman in the dark-red 3rd. The other place seems kind of odd: endorsing ostensibly moderate Pat Meehan in the Dem-leaning, heavily Catholic, decidedly non-Southern-fried PA-07.

• HI-01: The final candidate list for the May 22 all-mail special election in the 1st is out. The only three candidates of consequence are, as expected, Colleen Hanabusa and Ed Case for the Dems, and Charles Djou for the GOP. With the winner-takes-all nature, minor candidates may weigh heavily on the outcome, but there’s a pretty even split with three extra no-name Democrats and four extra GOPers, as well as four independents.

• KS-03: Stephene Moore, the wife of retiring Rep. Dennis Moore, backed off slightly from reports yesterday that she was entering the race to succeed him. She said that she was going to continue thinking about it and would have a formal statement soon. Chris Cillizza has sources, though, who say it’s a done deal.

• IL-LG: It sounds like Pat Quinn has settled on something of an outsider (albeit one with a famous family name) for his Lt. Governor running mate: Sheila Simon, the daughter of former Sen. (and former LG) Paul Simon. She’s a law professor at Southern Illinois Univ., whose only political experience seems to be losing a race for Carbondale mayor. State Sen. Susan Garrett appears to have been bypassed over not supporting Quinn’s income tax plan, which Simon supports. Meanwhile, supporters of African-American Rep. Art Turner are warning of depressed black turnout in November if Quinn doesn’t opt for Turner instead.

• RNC: A decision from the trial-level U.S. District Court in Washington DC was a fundraising setback for the RNC, which wanted to be able to raise unlimited soft money from corporations and individuals but didn’t receive the green light to do so.

• CA-Sen (pdf): The apparently nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California has put out another statewide poll, and the numbers look very similar to those in the Field Poll last week. Barbara Boxer is in a dead heat with Tom Campbell, down 44-43, and not faring much better against Carly Fiorina, where Boxer leads 44-43. (She led Campbell by 4 and Fiorina by 8 two months ago.) Boxer’s doing better against Chuck DeVore, with a 46-40 edge. The big change from the Field Poll is that PPIC finds Fiorina actually in the lead in the GOP primary, the first pollster to see that in a while; she’s up 24-23-8, an improvement from January’s 27-16-8 Campbell edge. Are reluctant social conservatives getting off the fence and behind Fiorina, sensing DeVore isn’t gaining traction? Or did the Demon Sheep ad actually sway some ovinophobic voters?

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway’s on the air with a TV spot in the wake of the health care vote, trying to get some mileage out of Democratic primary opponent Dan Mongiardo’s stated opposition to the bill that passed.

• NY-Sen-B: Wall Street exec David Malpass, fresh off his smashing success as chief economist of Bear Stearns, looks like he’s doubling down on trying to be the GOP nominee to go against Kirsten Gillibrand. He’s promising $1 million of his own money to kick-start his campaign, where he first needs to get out of a primary against Bruce Blakeman and Joe DioGuardi.

• UT-Sen: It’s all still anecdotal, but the preliminary reports for how caucus night went for Bob Bennett sound pretty bad. Observers report strong anti-Bennett sentiment in general, although what might save him is that there was no coalescing behind any of his particular challengers. Turnout was maybe twice that of caucuses two years ago, suggesting a highly-motivated anti-Bennett base.

• CA-Gov (pdf): PPIC also has California gubernatorial numbers, again similar to the last Field poll. Meg Whitman’s outspending of Jerry Brown by a 200:1 margin or so is definitely paying temporary dividends, as she’s leading the gubernatorial race 44-39 (up from a 41-36 Brown lead two months ago). Brown leads Steve Poizner 46-31, basically unchanged from two months ago, suggesting this change is pretty Whitman-specific and not an across-the-boards phenomenon; Whitman leads Poizner 61-11.

• GA-Gov: Republican Governor Sonny Perdue is engaging in a remarkable end-run around Democratic AG Thurbert Baker, appointing a “special attorney general” to join in the suit against the health care reform brought by Republican AGs after Baker refused to do so and called it “political gamesmanship.” If nothing else, the fireworks between Perdue and Baker ought to raise Baker’s profile (who’s currently lagging in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, but might be poised to make an impact if he switched to the mostly-vacant Senate race).

• MA-Gov: Here’s some trouble for independent gubernatorial candidate Tim Cahill: the SEC has charged that John Kendrick, an executive with Southwest Securities, won $14 billion in bond deals after co-sponsoring a fundraiser for Cahill. That’s a violation of federal rules against contributions to officials who oversee bond sales. The SEC says that the Cahill campaign (which is returning the contributions) didn’t break any laws by accepting the money, though.

• OH-Gov, TX-Sen: Two more GOPers who still seem to be charging full speed ahead on “repeal” are Ohio’s John Kasich and, more interestingly, John Cornyn, who’d been cited in Ezra Klein‘s piece yesterday, on the GOP’s rapidly dialed-down rhetoric, as supporting only piecemeal tinkering but now seems to be reversing course again.

• WY-Gov: Whoops, that was a short-lived candidacy-to-be. Wyoming Democrats looking for a gubernatorial candidate are back to square one after attorney (and gubernatorial progeny) Paul Hickey reversed course and said “no” to a run.

• CO-07: Tom Tancredo weighed in with an endorsement in the Republican primary field in the 7th and, guess what… he endorsed the white guy. He gave the nod to former John McCain campaign official Lang Sias, despite Tancredo’s general antipathy toward all things McCain.

• HI-01: State Sen. Colleen Hanabusa is finally making some moves in the special election to replace resigned Rep. Neil Abercrombie. She’s out with her first TV ads, for the all-mail-in election with a May 22 deadline.

• NY-13: More blowback for Rep. Mike McMahon for his “no” vote on HCR, which could cost him the Working Families ballot line and/or get him a primary opponent. NYC council speaker Christine Quinn has backed out of a previously planned fundraiser for McMahon, citing his vote.

• SC-05: The NRCC seems to be feeling confident about state Sen. Mick Mulvaney, their challenger to Rep. John Spratt in the reddish 5th. They’ve promoted him to the 2nd level (“Contender”) in their 3-tiered fundraising pyramid scheme for challengers.

• Illinois: We Ask America seems to be taking great pains to confirm that, yes, they really are a legitimate pollster. I don’t know if they’re helping their case by releasing results with two significant digits, but they have a lot of Illinois House race data; we’ll leave it to you to decide how much salt you want to apply. Perhaps weirdest, they have teabagging businessman Joe Walsh leading Melissa Bean in IL-08 by 38.33%-37.61%. They also have leads for GOPers in the 11th (Adam Kinzinger leads Debbie Halvorson 42-30, way worse than Kinzinger’s own recent internal) and the 14th (Randy Hultgren leads Bill Foster 38-36), while Dems lead in the 10th (Dan Seals beats Bob Dold 40-37) and the not-on-the-radar 17th (Phil Hare leads pizza parlor owner Bobby Schilling 39-32).

• CA-Init: It’s been confirmed that the initiative to legalize the possession and sale of marijuana in California has qualified for the ballot in November. A 2009 Field Poll shows such an initiative could actually pass, with 56% of Californians supporting such an initiative. Of course, it’s unclear how such a change in state law would mesh with federal law, but if nothing else, it may help motivate a lot of bong-toting slackers to get off their couches to vote in November who otherwise might not vote (and cast votes for Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer while they’re at it).

• DCCC: Freshman Rep. Jared Polis has been a strong fundraiser (and has his own fortune, too), and he’s looking to spread the wealth. His joint fundraising committee, the Jared Polis Majority Fund, has already distributed $400K this spring to the DCCC, to vulnerable incumbents (Frank Kratovil, Betsy Markey, Scott Murphy, Bill Owens, Tom Perriello, Harry Teague, Dina Titus), and to four up-and-comers (Ami Bera, Steve Pougnet, John Carney, and David Cicilline).

• DNC: I guess the DNC is feeling its oats these days, or just figuring that the best defense is a good offense: they’ve doubled the number of GOPers on the receiving end of pro-HCR attack ads for their “no” votes. They’ve added Pat Tiberi, Lee Terry, Dan Lungren, Mary Bono Mack, and Charlie Dent.

• Census: Remember the Census? It’s back! In Pog form!