Tag: Bill Brady

• NV-Sen: It really seems Sharron Angle is trying to “soften” her image… maybe? For starters, she’s reversed course on attending a Tea Party rally this weekend on the U.S./Mexico border (probably not wanting to be photographed in proximity to the signs that attendees are going to be waving at such an event), despite having confirmed her appearance there last week. And her newest TV ad also focuses on how she wants to “save” Social Security, although her definition of “save” might vary considerably from yours or mine. Harry Reid’s out with his own TV ad, too, calling her “dangerous” and “crazy” over her now-infamous “2nd Amendment remedies” line.

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown just got $20,000 from a very unusual source: Alex Spanos, owner of the San Diego Chargers and usually a staunch Republican donor (as well as a real estate developer who has recently clashed with Brown, as AG, over land-use laws). Spanos hasn’t contributed to Meg Whitman’s campaign. Apparently Spanos and the Brown family go way back; Spanos was a financial backer for Brown’s first gubernatorial campaign in 1974.

• MA-Gov: There’s a new poll of the governor’s race out, from somebody called Mass Insight (taken by Opinion Dynamics): since the only place I can find a link to the poll is Red Mass Group (not even Mass Insight’s own site?) and their site describes themselves as a consulting and research firm that focuses on “market-driven solutions,” I think it’s safe to call this a Republican-ish poll. At any rate, they find Democratic incumbent Deval Patrick leading GOPer Charlie Baker and independent Tim Cahill 30-25-16. And in a two-way race (which, of course, would require Cahill to drop out), Baker leads Patrick 42-37. The poll also reports that 54% of respondents are either “somewhat or very likely” to vote against their incumbent Congressman (all of whom are Democrats, of course) this year.

• MI-Gov (pdf): The Detroit News is out with its first poll of the gubernatorial race after the primary elections, conducted by the Glengariff Group. GOPer Rick Snyder leads Democrat Virg Bernero 51-32, leading in all parts of the state except Detroit proper. Snyder’s faves are 41/15, pretty remarkable considering he just got out of a heated four-way primary, while Bernero’s are 21/27.

• ID-01, OH-18, PA-04: The NRCC is pushing back today after the New York Times, as part of a longer piece talking about Dem House incumbents, said that Walt Minnick, Zack Space, and Jason Altmire were “no longer seen by Republicans as easy targets.” I guess one can quibble over what “easy” means, which is different from saying the GOP has cut these districts loose, but still, to talk with that level of specificity, the NYT had to have gotten that idea from somewhere.

• MA-10: Well, this open seat race just keeps getting weirder and weirder, with the entry of yet another sorta-prominent former Dem running as an indie. Former state Rep. (and way back in the mists of time, aide to Tip O’Neill) Maryanne Lewis will run as a moderate independent. (Recall that former Quincy mayor James Sheets is already running as an indie, too.) I understand the desire to circumvent the Dem primary in this district, which already has two heavyweights in it, but too many indie cooks could spoil the broth here in November.

• MI-01: This photo-finish race in the GOP primary has been outstanding for almost two weeks now, but the state board of canvassers is preparing to certify the election tomorrow. According to physician Dan Benishek’s camp, he leads by 15 votes over state Sen. Jason Allen. Allen is taking a wait-and-see attitude, though a recount sounds likely (which will be cumbersome, in this 31-county district… something I’m sure Dem nominee Gary McDowell doesn’t mind, I’m sure).

• MS-01: Rep. Travis Childers, in for a tough fight against Alan Nunnelee, is out with his first TV ad. As one would expect, in his dark-red district, he’s talking up how he’s one of the “most independent” members of the House, and name-drops his NRA and National Right to Life endorsements. NWOTSOTB.

• VA-09: One last ad to report, and it’s from a very strange source: the Some Dude in the Bloody 9th, running as an independent, is actually hitting the airwaves. I’m not sure with what money, as he’s raised $20K over the cycle (almost all self-funded) and at the end of June had $88 CoH. (There’s not a K missing. That’s literally $88.) Anyway, he wants you to know that he’s never taken money from special interests (which should be abundantly clear from his fundraising report) and never will.

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 41%, Ken Buck (R) 46%

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 35%, Bill Brady (R) 48%

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 43%, Roy Blunt (R) 50%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 41%, Scott Walker (R) 49%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 43%, Mark Neumann (R) 45%

• CT-Sen: Now that was fast. Only days after his bizarre and probably hopeless parachuting back into the long-abandoned Connecticut Senate race, Rob Simmons just got the primary endorsement from the state’s largest newspaper, the Hartford Courant. That’s a pretty clear indicator of how they feel about Linda McMahon. Meanwhile, out in Crazy Town, former presidential candidate Steve Forbes weighed in, giving an endorsement to Paulist economist Peter Schiff.

• KY-Sen: Rogue ophthalmologist Rand Paul is certainly a glass-half-full (or mountain-half-still-there?) kind of guy. He’s come out in favor of the environmentally destructive mountaintop removal method of coal mining, justifying it, true to form, with economics gobbledygook: “the land is of enhanced value, because now you can build on it.” In fact, it’s really just a branding problem: “I think they should name it something better.”

• WA-Sen: Here’s a rather unexpected endorsement: hard-right kingmaker Jim DeMint is coming out in favor of Dino Rossi, who was very much a moderate back when he ran for governor in 2004. I suppose Rossi taking the plunge as the first major Senate candidate to call for repeal of financial reform was enough for DeMint’s satisfaction. I still have to wonder why Rossi would seek out this kind of endorsement, as it’s certainly not going to help matters in the general election in this blue state; is he actually feeling enough heat from Sarah Palin-backed Clint Didier in the primary that he needs to go to the right-wing well?

• WI-Sen: If you’ve been following the Wisconsin Senate race, Ron Johnson has been vacillating all week on whether or not to sell his hundreds of thousands of dollars in BP stock and plow it into his campaign, move it into a blind trust, or just tape all his stock certificates together and use them to club baby seals. Now he’s just saying he’s going to sit on it and sell when market conditions are favorable — not because it’s the right thing to do, just because he wants a better profit on it.

• NH-Gov: PPP also has gubernatorial general election numbers are part of their New Hampshire sample. We’d been wondering if John Lynch, whose previous PPP numbers were kind of lukewarm, might be ready to sneak onto the list as Likely D, but today’s numbers seem to suggest otherwise. (In fact, the once-unassailable Mike Beebe may now be likelier to fill that role.) Lynch’s approvals are up to 52/36, and he leads his likeliest GOP opponent, ex-state HHS director John Stephen, 51-34. He also leads Jack Kimball 52-29, Karen Testerman 52-28, and Frank Emiro 48-28.

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid just got gifted some serious help in the Nevada governor’s race (and having seen him on the stump at Netroots Nation, he’s going to need all the help he can get…), via a gaffe from Brian Sandoval. Sandoval has denied previous allegations that he’d said on TV that his kids didn’t look Hispanic, but now Univision has dug up the tape. Perhaps even more troublesome for Sandoval: he said that in the context of his kids’ appearance being why he was not worried about his kids being racially profiled under Arizona’s new law.

• NY-Gov: Unfortunately, Carl Paladino has confirmed that no cat fud will be served in the general election in November (not that Andrew Cuomo, polling over 60%, needs any shenanigans to win). Paladino says he won’t puruse a third-party bid on the yet-to-be-named teabagger ballot line if he loses the GOP gubernatorial primary to newly-minted Islamophobe Rick Lazio.

• AZ-03: John McCain waded into the overstuffed GOP primary field in the race to replace retiring Rep. John Shadegg to flag a favorite. He’s backing state Sen. Jim Waring. McCain had his choice of endorsers to pay back (Waring, as well as Vernon Parker and Ben Quayle, are supporting McCain, while Sam Crump is the only out-and-proud J.D. Hayworth backer in the field).

• CA-47: While there’s nothing really newsworthy going on the 47th, Politico has a very interesting look below the surface at this forgotten race in a demographically-complex district. Both Loretta Sanchez and GOP challenger Van Tran seem aware that the Vietnamese minority in this low-turnout Hispanic-majority district is the district’s electoral linchpin.

• DE-AL: Michelle Rollins was supposed to be the moderate in the GOP field in Delaware, but the wealthy philanthropist seems to be going the full Sharron Angle. She joined the swelling Republican ranks of candidates saying that extending unemployment benefits just takes away people’s motivations to go out and get real jobs.

• FL-08: The main story here may be that Zogby, the pollster ubiquitous in 2004 and once though to be in the Dems’ pocket, is now reduced to doing internal polls for low-priority GOP House candidates? Anyway, they did a poll on behalf of attorney/talk show host Todd Long (the guy who almost successfully primaried Ric Keller in 2008). Long’s poll gives him a 46-38 lead over Rep. Alan Grayson. Of course, Long isn’t a likely bet to emerge from the primary (which he shares with ex-state Sen. Daniel Webster, state Rep. Kurt Kelly, and rich guy Bruce O’Donoghue), and there’s no mention of primary numbers.

• IN-03: If this were two years ago, an open seat in the 3rd (especially with 2006 candidate Tom Hayhurst on board) might have been a good pickup opportunity. Not so this year, apparently. GOP nominee state Sen. Marlin Stutzman is out with an internal from American Viewpoint giving him a 56-29 lead. Hayhurst has the financial advantage, though, and may be able to use that to make up at least some of that ground.

• KS-04: SurveyUSA has one last pre-primary look at the primary races in the 4th. There’s a lot of movement in the 4th, where businessman Wink Hartman seems to be rapidly deflating (as the carpetbagging issue may have gotten some traction) and moderate state Sen. Jean Schodorf is quickly gaining (as people realize the other candidates are all wackos). RNC committee member Mike Pompeo is still in the lead, though, at 31. Schodorf is at 24 (up 8) and Hartman at 21 (down 8), with 13 for Jim Anderson. On the Dem side, state Rep. Raj Goyle’s ad blitz seems to have had its desired effect, which was to raise his name rec and prevent him from getting VicRawl’d. (Ah, sweet memories of 2008.) Having trailed Some Dude Robert Tillman in the previous SUSA poll, Goyle now leads 63-19.

• KY-03: This race seemed to move onto the map (albeit just barely) with Republican Todd Lally having narrowly outraised Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth last quarter. Yarmuth seems to be acting quickly to squelch any sense that he’s in unusual trouble, though, rolling out an internal from Cooper & Secrest that gives him a 58-32 lead over Lally.

• OK-05: Everyone in the Beltway seems to be wondering a) what the heck went wrong with state Rep. Kevin Calvey, who was deemed frontrunner in the GOP primary in the 5th based on his Club for Growth and American Conservative Union backing, but finished second, and b) who the heck is James Lankford? The youth camp director and newbie to politics won thanks to grassroots mobilizing in the social conservative community. At any rate, this sets up a GOP runoff that’s similar to a number of others we’ve seen in southern states: a faceoff between the CfG and Mike Huckabee (a Lankford endorser) sub-wings of the right wing.

• DCCC: Here’s an interesting piece from National Journal that runs the DCCC’s list of 60-some districts for ad buys through some demographic sifting. It’s based on “quadrants” developed by Ronald Brownstein (which are pretty simple, really, just education and racial diversity — we’ve been working behind the scenes here at SSP on something similar but more sophisticated, which hopefully will see the light someday soon). As you might expect, most of the vulnerable seats, and the DCCC’s ad buys are in the low-education, low-diversity (i.e. mostly white) districts, which is where Obama tended to perform the weakest in 2008.

• Rasmussen:

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 37%, Bill Brady (R) 44%

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 43%, Roy Blunt (R) 49%

• OR-Sen: Ron Wyden (D-inc) 51%, Jim Huffman (R) 35%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 46%, Ron Johnson (R) 48%

On the Rasmussen front, it’s also worth checking out Chris Bowers‘ latest Senate projections at Open Left. He ran separate Rasmussen-free and Rasmussen-included versions, and the difference is remarkable.

CO-Sen: An unknown group called New Leadership Colorado hired Zata|3 to take a poll of the Dem primary, and survey says that Sen. Michael Bennet has a slim 44-40 lead over upstart Andrew Romanoff. As Colorado Pols points out, even though NLC claims to have no relationship with either campaign, the group’s interests must lie with Romanoff – because no one affiliated with Bennet would want to release a poll that makes him look so vulnerable. Colorado Pols also observes that Zata|3, until this cycle, was not known as a pollster but rather as a firm that does robocalls and direct mail – and wonders why they’ve been tapped to do actual surveys.

FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek is refusing to say whether he’d back gajillionaire asshole Jeff Greene should Greene win the Democratic primary. (According to Politico, Greene has “signaled he would support Meek.”) Politically speaking, if Meek crashes and burns, I wonder if he’d be better off endorsing Charlie Crist. After all, Crist is about a hundred (at least) times more likely to win the general than Greene, and since it seems he’d have to caucus with the Dems, backing him could earn Meek a chit or two down the line.

MO-Sen: A bunch of teabaggers are complaining that Michele Bachmann is coming to town to stump for her House colleague Roy Blunt – and not Chuck Purgason, the state senator who has failed to gain any traction in his primary bid. When Bachmann, the recent founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, isn’t passing purity tests, you know your movement has reached “Judean People’s Front” levels of absurdity.

NH-Sen: UNH, polling for WMUR, has AG Kelly Ayotte beating Dem Rep. Paul Hodes 45-37. That’s actually an improvement for Hodes from April’s 47-32 margin.

CO-Gov: The Denver Post has a helpful look at the American Constitution Party, the right-wing lunatic party whose line Tom Tancredo plans to run on for governor. Among other planks of their platform: repeal of the 17th amendment, repeal of the Endangered Species Act, and repeal of the Voting Rights Act. Sounds like they have a lot in common with the Republicans – they’re both the party of no!

IL-Gov, IL-10: Capitol Fax busts two Republicans for engaging in shady Internet-related shenanigans. First up, someone claiming to be with Bill Brady’s gubernatorial decided to vandalize Brady’s Wikipedia page, turning it into a campaign press release, more or less. Of course, the encyclopedia’s trusty editors quickly reverted these ridiculous edits – which only led to a revision war, as Brady’s stupid minions kept trying to push their nonsense. The page is now locked. As Capitol Fax reiterates, all this shit is permanent. As in, you get to look like an idiot forever.

Meanwhile, in suburban Chicago, GOPer Bob Dold’s campaign doesn’t seem to understand this lesson. He put up an item on his Facebook page the other day saying he supports Rep. Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future” – you know, the economic “plan” which calls for destroying Medicare and Social Security, among other things. After Dan Seals lacerated Dold’s punk ass for this, Dold took the post down. But the enterprising ArchPundit was smart enough to grab a screen capture while the post was still live. Explaining the deletion, a Dold hack said, “It’s Facebook. We put things up and take things down all the time.” Um, no – you don’t actually get to do that. Trust me on this one – I’m from the Internet.

TN-Gov: Dem gubernatorial candidate Mike McWherter is up on the air with his first ad, a positive bio-ish spot. NWOTSOTB, of course.

NC-07: Barf: Kelsey Grammer, that rare breed of Hollywood Republican, is coming to North Carolina to do fundraisers for GOPer Ilario Pantano, who is running against Rep. Mike McIntyre. Pantano, as you probably know, is best known for emptying two magazines from his M-16 into two Iraqi prisoners, killing them both, because he wanted to “send a message.”

NY-15: We’ll probably stop following this whip count soon, but anyhow, freshman Dem Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick is now the third House incumbent to call on Charlie Rangel to resign. If the floodgates do open up on this, any latecomers to the bandwagon will see diminishing returns on their calls for resignation.

PA-06: Yesterday, we mentioned a Jim Gerlach internal which had him up 54-29 over Manan Trivedi. Well, the team down at the SSP Records & Storage went dumpster diving through our deep archive to dig up an old Gerlach internal from September of 2008. That survey showed him up 57-28 over Some Dude Bob Roggio. (SSPR&S believes that this might have actually been the very first “Some Dude” reference on SSP.) You will recall that Gerlach beat Roggio by just 52-48.

TN-06: That’s interesting: Veteran Brett Carter launched a TV ad touting his military experience. Then veteran Ben Leming launched a TV ad, touting his military experience. What’s interesting is that both of these guys are running in the Democratic primary – in a seat largely written off by national Dems. NWOTSOTB for either candidate, but both men have limited cash-on-hand (Carter $100K, Leming $35K).

DNC: The DNC just transferred $2.5 million to a number of sister organizations, including the DSCC, DCCC and three marquee gubernatorial campaigns (FL, MD and PA). Click the link for the complete breakdowns.

Hello SSP! We just wanted to make sure that those of you in Illinois or with friends/family in Illinois know that Bill Brady has built a 17 year political career consistently working against the interests of working women, and how that will affect him in this campaign.

As is this is all about politics here at SSP, not necessarily policy, it’s important to note how women are slipping away from the Brady campaign. See Rich Miller’s article analyzing a Rasmussen poll taken before the Stop Bill Brady campaign launched by the DGA:

http://tinyurl.com/2cyvs53

If you’d like to see the latest ad hitting Bill Brady on issues important to working women, take a minute to visit our new website, http://www.StopBillBrady.com, and watch the video highlighting Bill Brady’s opposition to working women, his opposition to Equal Pay, his opposition to paid family medical leave, his opposition to paid maternity leave, his opposition to life-saving mammogram screenings and his opposition to a woman’s right to choose, even in the case of rape.

Here’s a sampling of what voters in Illinois will learn by November:

* Bill Brady opposed enhanced penalties for domestic abuse.

* Bill Brady sponsored bill to allow pharmacists to deny women contraception based on their personal beliefs.

* Bill Brady voted against creating the Minority and Female Franchise Act.

* Bill Brady was one of two reps who voted against a bill that required mothers be provided with a minimum of 48 hours of in-patient care after delivery and a minimum of 96 hours of in-patient care following a C-section.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!  If you’re as disturbed by the idea of a Bill Brady as Governor of Illinois as we are, then you’ll see why this will have a real impact on this race.

If you’re on Facebook or Twitter, make sure you “like” us and follow us:

http://www.facebook.com/StopBi…

http://twitter.com/StopBillBrady

Thanks!

The Interactive Team at StopBillBrady.com

P.S. We promise to read any thoughts and questions posted in the comments.

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway is pulling in some big fundraising numbers now that Dems are seeing an opening here. He raised $1.4 million last quarter (although $400K of that was a loan from himself). That tops Rand Paul’s $1.1 million raised, although Paul will point out that all of his haul came from donors. No word on either side’s CoH.

• LA-Sen: It seems like the scandal that’s emerged surrounding David Vitter’s employment of violent aide Brent Furer was what pulled ex-state supreme court justice Chet Traylor into a last-minute credible challenge to Vitter in the GOP primary. Traylor says “if Vitter was in good shape, I wouldn’t be running,” and his camp says they’ll be focusing on Vitter’s “personal foibles” rather than ideological differences. In fact, Traylor’s campaign manager (whom the Monroe local newspaper identifies as “sweet potato kingpin” Lev Dawson) says “I don’t think there’s a difference politically.” Traylor also tells ABC News that many local GOP establishment figures urged his last-minute entry out of fears that Vitter may be too badly damaged politically to survive the general against Charlie Melancon. Meanwhile, we’ve all known that Vitter is quite willing to experiment with interesting new, um, practices, but as he seeks to move even further right in view of Traylor’s challenge, he’s now going birther-curious.

• NC-Sen: If there’s a reason Richard Burr is able to hold on to the “cursed” seat this year, it’s going to be his bank account. The GOP freshman Senator raised $1.9 million last quarter, and is sitting on $6.3 million CoH. While Elaine Marshall seems to have gotten a good fundraising boost after the Democratic runoff, she’s likely to have only a fraction of that.

• SC-Sen: Be afraid. Be verrrrrrrrry afraid. (Alvin Greene is about to give his first formal speech as candidate, addressing a local NAACP chapter on Saturday.)

• WA-Sen: Here’s the good news for Patty Murray: she had a $1.6 million quarter, which is a lot of money in the “other” Washington. She’s sitting on $6.8 million CoH. The bad news is that conservative group American Action Network is spending $750K on a statewide buy for TV ads attacking Murray. The ad, continuing in Demon Sheep/Boxer Blimp impresario Fred Davis’s avant-garde performance-art tradition, features various Joe and Jane Sixpacks lying in the dirt getting walked all over by an unseen figure in white tennis shoes.

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin’s giving a little more clarity to his timeline in West Virginia. He says he expects to fill Robert Byrd’s seat with a temporary appointment by “this Sunday,” possibly as early as Friday if the special legislative session about the special election is done by then. He’ll announce after that (probably by Monday) whether he intends to run in the special.

• CO-Gov: This is a surprisingly amateurish thing to get taken down over: the Denver Post has observed that a series of articles on water rights “written” by Republican ex-Rep. Scott McInnis as part of a 2005-06 fellowship were simply plagiarized from articles written twenty years earlier by Gregory Hobbs, who’s now a Colorado Supreme Court justice. The foundation McInnis was working for would like the salary returned to them that they paid him. It’s unclear how much damage this will do to McInnis, or how this stacks up compared with allegations of dishonesty leveled at Mark Kirk and Richard Blumenthal… but locked in a dead heat with John Hickenlooper, McInnis doesn’t have any margin of error to shed a few points over character issues. (For what it’s worth, RCP seems to think he’s finished. Too bad the only GOP alternative, Dan Maes, is completely broke and in campaign-finance hot water.)

• IL-Gov: The DGA is out with a new ad running on Chicago area TV stations, trying to introduce the area’s many residents to downstate state Sen. Bill Brady and disabuse them of any notion that he’s the sort of GOP moderate that’s typically occupied the state house over the last few decades. The ad points out his extreme positions on reproductive health and minimum wage.

• TN-Gov: Republican Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam is still the man with the money, although everybody’s moved into the seven digits. Haslam has $2 million CoH, compared with Ron Ramsey’s $1.35 million and Zach Wamp’s $1.29 million. On the Dem side, Mike McWherter has $1.5 million CoH, having raised $315K last quarter.

• AR-01: Radio broadcaster Rick Crawford, the GOP nominee, has a small cash edge in the 1st, as Democrat Chad Causey’s pretty depleted after having to go through a runoff. Crawford raised $131K post-primary and has $221K CoH. Causey raised $416K over the quarter, but spent $420K on the primary. No word on Causey’s CoH (although I assume it’s something higher than -$4K).

• CO-04: With Corey Gardner having released his financial numbers, it’s clear Betsy Markey has the money edge for now. His $377K raised last quarter is still pretty impressive, but it’s less than Markey raised, and Gardner’s $763K CoH is about half of Markey’s $1.5 million.

• FL-25: Joe Garcia reports raising $700K last quarter, including $230K in online contributions (thanks, netroots!). He still lags behind likely GOP nominee David Rivera, though.

• NH-02: Of the candidates in the 2nd, Ann McLane Kuster (another netroots project) was the big raiser. She pulled in $316K, for $745K CoH. Fellow Dem Katrina Swett raised $188K, but has more CoH at $1.15 million. GOPer Charlie Bass leads in the polls but not at the bank: he raised $170K, for $360K CoH.

• NJ-03: Freshman Democratic Rep. John Adler is out with an internal poll that has him sprinting for the end zone while Jon Runyan limps along behind: the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll gives Adler a 51-34 lead over Runyan, with 12 to independent teabagger Peter DeStefano (I’d imagine that lead would tighten as the DeStefano share shrinks). Runyan raised $501K last quarter (a bit more than Adler’s $415K), but $301K was from donors and the other $200K was from himself. Runyan seemed to burn a lot on his surviving his primary, though; he’s sitting on $472K CoH compared with Adler’s more than $2 million.

• NV-03: Rep. Dina Titus is in good shape financially (less so, poll-wise). The freshman Dem raised $426K and has $1.2 million CoH.

• PA-04, PA-17: Keystone State Blue Dogs Jason Altmire and Tim Holden posted good numbers. Altmire raised more than $300K in May and June and is sitting on $1.4 million CoH. Holden raised $213K in that period and is sitting on $885K CoH, which isn’t huge but far more than David Argall (who had $70K before the primary he barely survived) is likely to have.

• TN-09: Here’s a big score for Steve Cohen, facing a primary from former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton that’s, as is usually the case in the 9th, all about the race card. Cohen just got an endorsement from prominent African-American politician Barack Obama, as well as financial backing from several key House CBC members (John Lewis, Alcee Hastings, William Clay) apparently unenthused with the specter of the potentially-embarrassing Herenton joining their ranks.

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Sen: Andrew Romanoff (D) 42%, Jane Norton (R) 44%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 40%, Jane Norton (R) 47%

• CO-Sen: Andrew Romanoff (D) 42%, Ken Buck (R) 47%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 39%, Ken Buck (R) 48%

• MD-Sen: Barbara Mikulski (D-inc) 58%, Eric Wargotz (R) 33%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 43%, Sharron Angle (R) 46%

If you’re Scott Rasmussen, what do you like to do on your day off? Well, you might like to go on a cruise. A cruise for fans of conservative magazine National Review, as their all-expenses-paid guest.

• CO-Sen: Both Jane Norton and Ken Buck found something else to do when Michael Steele showed up in town yesterday, eager to take his off the hook, technically avant-garde message to Colorado’s urban-suburban hip-hop settings. Seems like Steele has a bad case of the cooties in the wake of his Afghanistan comments.  Buck instead went to hang with the decidedly non-hip-hop Tom Tancredo at a rally yesterday instead, where Tancredo called Barack Obama the “greatest threat to the United States today.” Buck subsequently had to distance himself from Tancredo’s comments via conference call… I’m wondering if Buck would have rather appeared with Michael Steele after all.

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle rolled out her campaign’s first ad; perhaps wisely, she isn’t in it at all, other than a voiceover doing the required disclaimer at the end. Instead, it’s just a narration-free black-and-white montage of the economic woe that, of course, Harry Reid caused. Which completely contradicts her own message that she’s touted in public appearances, which is that it’s not a Senator’s job to create jobs, and that it was in fact a bad thing for Harry Reid to intervene to save 22,000 jobs at a local construction project. To top all that off, Angle said Wednesday that Reid’s attempts to fight back on the jobs issue were an attempt to “hit the girl.” (UPDATE: Jon Ralston uncovers that Angle’s ad buy was for a whopping total of $5K. Add this one to the growing pile of bullshit ad buys aimed at getting free media.)

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher’s fundraising numbers are out. The good news is: he finally had a seven-digit quarter, pulling in at least $1 million last quarter and giving him “more than” $1 million CoH. The bad news is: that’s less than half what Rob Portman raised last quarter, and it’s a more than 8:1 CoH advantage for Portman.

• AL-Gov: Two different polls are out in the Republican runoff in Alabama, and they paint very different pictures. One is from GOP pollster Baselice, working on behalf of a group called Public Strategy Associates. They give Robert Bentley a 53-33 lead over Bradley Byrne. The other is an internal from the Byrne camp; they’re claiming a four-point lead, although without any details about topline numbers or even the pollster. They’re also claiming that Byrne has gained 7 points in the last week while Bentley has lost 7, presumably because of Byrne’s attacks on Bentley’s friendliness with the Alabama Education Association, the teachers’ union that has particularly had it in for Byrne. Byrne also rolled out endorsements from two of Alabama’s sitting House members, Spencer Bachus and Jo Bonner.

• CA-Gov: Seems like Jerry Brown took a look at the internals at the latest Field Poll and realized he’d better do something about his standing among Latino voters. He held a press conference yesterday with 14 Latino leaders, criticizing the sincerity of Meg Whitman’s softening of her immigration stance since the GOP primary. Xavier Becerra pointed out that “Jerry Brown broke bread with Cesar Chavez. His opponent breaks bread with Pete Wilson.” (Wilson, of course, was the driving force behind Prop 187 last decade.)

• CO-Gov: Dan Maes, the insurgent candidate in the GOP primary, is pretty much out of gas. He raised all of $33K last quarter, with $23K CoH. That cash on hand is somewhat less than the $27K fine he’s going to have to pay for various campaign finance violations he’s committed.

• GA-Gov: SurveyUSA has more polls of the fast-approaching gubernatorial primaries. They find John Oxendine at 32 and Karen Handel at 23, meaning they’re likely to advance to a GOP runoff. Nathan Deal and Eric Johnson are lagging at 12, with Ray McBerry at 5. On the Democratic side, Roy Barnes is at 56, which would let him avoid a runoff against Thurbert Baker (who’s at 18). Dubose Porter and David Poythress languish at 6 and 5, respectively. (SUSA also has Dem Senate and downballot numbers, if you click the link.) PPP (pdf) is also out with a poll, although this is one of their rare internals that makes it to the public view; it’s on behalf of J.C. Cole, a Thurbert Baker backer. They find Barnes just under the runoff mark: 49 Barnes, 19 Baker, 4 Porter, and 3 Poythress.

• MA-Gov: The money race in Massachusetts is a pretty close three-way race, although Tim Cahill, corresponding with his slide in the polls, has also lost his financial edge. GOPer Charlie Baker has the most cash on hand with $2.97 million, with Cahill at $2.95 million. Dem incumbent Deval Patrick has the least, $2.37 million, but seems to be expecting some help from the state Dem party, which has a big CoH edge over the state GOP.

• NE-Gov: The Nebraska governor’s race is turning into a bit of Democratic debacle, as the departure of Mark Lakers has left Dems looking high and low for someone willing to take his place at this late date. Ben Nelson says someone’s likely to emerge before the July 23-25 state convention, although he didn’t volunteer any particular names.

• TN-Gov: Knoxville mayor (and oil baron) Bill Haslam seems on track to be Tennessee’s next governor, according to a poll for local TV affiliate WSMV. (The poll was conducted by Crawford, Johnson, and Northcott, a firm I’ve never heard of.) The free-spending Haslam leads the GOP primary in the open seat race at 32, with Rep. Zach Wamp at 21 and Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey at 11. Haslam also performs the best against Mike McWherter, the only Dem left in the hunt. Haslam wins 60-34, while Wamp wins 59-35 and Ramsey wins 51-41.

• FL-22: Allen West continues to post gaudy fundraising numbers; he says he raised $1.4 million in the last quarter, likely to be the biggest total for any Republican House challenger. West, of course, is a client of BaseConnect, and a lot of that money gets churned through for direct-mail expenses, but he is steadily expanded his cash on hand, claiming to be up to $2.2 million. Rep. Ron Klein had $2.6 million CoH at the end of the previous quarter in March.

• GA-08: Here’s a fundraising success for a late entrant for the GOP: state Rep. Austin Scott, who bailed out of the gubernatorial primary to run an uphill fight against Democratic incumbent Rep. Jim Marshall, outraised Marshall last quarter. Scott raised $251K last quarter (including $56K of his own money), leaving him with $213K CoH. Marshall raised $165K, but has $981K in his war chest.

• MI-03: In case there was any doubt who the DeVos family (the power behind the Republican throne in western Michigan) was backing, they made it explicit today. Dick DeVos announced his support for state Rep. Justin Amash in the GOP primary to succeed retiring Vern Ehlers.

• MN-01: One more surprise GOP fundraising score to report: state Rep. Randy Demmer had a good quarter, pulling in $303K, leaving him with $251K. Democratic Rep. Tim Walz hasn’t released numbers, but had $856K CoH banked last quarter.

• NY-23: Scozzafava endorses Bill Owens! No, it’s not quite what you think. It’s Tom Scozzafava (apparently absolutely no relation to special election opponent-turned-endorser Dede Scozzafava), the Supervisor of the town of Moriah. Owens also got some probably more significant good news on Tuesday: Don Kasprzak, the Republican mayor of Plattsburgh, offered some public praise of Owens and, while stopping short of endorsing him, said that he couldn’t vote for either Doug Hoffman or Matt Doheny.

• OH-12: With Rep. Pat Tiberi having dropped an internal poll yesterday showing him dominating Democratic challenger Paula Brooks, today it was Brooks’ turn. She offered up an internal poll from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, which also showed her losing, but by a much smaller margin. The poll sees the race at 48-36 in favor of Tiberi, with 10% going to Libertarian candidate Travis Irvine.

• CA-Init (pdf): The Field Poll also provided numbers for four initiatives that are likely to be on the ballot in November. Like several other pollsters, they see a close race for Prop 19, which proposes to legalize marijuana: it’s failing 44-48. Perhaps the most significant race, though, is Prop 25, which would solve the Sacramento gridlock by allowing passage of a budget by a mere majority vote; support for Prop 25 is very broad, at 65-20, with even Republicans favoring passage. Voters don’t support Prop 23, a utilities-funded push to overturn the state’s greenhouse gases emissions law; it’s failing 36-48. Finally, there’s 42-32 support for Prop 18, a bond to pay for water supply improvements.

• Fundraising: A couple more fundraising tidbits from the Fix: Democratic GA-Gov candidate Roy Barnes raised $1.3 million last quarter, while GOPer Nathan Deal raised $570K. And in NH-Sen, Bill Binnie reported raising $550K, but bear in mind he can write himself checks as need be.

• Rasmussen:

•  IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 40%, Bill Brady (R) 43%

•  SD-AL: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc) 44%, Kristi Noem (R) 49%

IL-Sen, IL-Gov: Nothing like collateral damage on the campaign trail. Mark Kirk has been trying to make a weird issue out of the fact that Alexi Giannoulias didn’t pay any income taxes last year. It’s weird because Giannoulias lost millions of dollars last year, and it would be a little hard to tax a negative number. But it’s also been a foolhardy crusade, because Kirk’s ticket-mate, gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady, is in the exact same position as Giannoulias – and so Kirk was compelled to criticize his fellow Republican as well, for a total non-issue. D’oh!

Meanwhile, Giannoulias fired back with a hit of his own, attacking Mark Kirk for pulling a Kasich and refusing to release his tax returns. But wait, there’s more! Kirk’s also been busy pulling yet another Kirk, too:

Also during Kirk’s news conference, the congressman would not discuss the latest question about his military career, this time from a statement he made in a Sun-Times questionnaire that he was “shot at” while serving with a Dutch armor unit in Kandahar.

IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth is out with his first ad of the campaign. As always, NWOTSOTB (that’s “No Word On The Size Of The Buy” in English – get used to seeing that around here).

OH-Sen: Cap-and-trade has proven to be perilous territory for more than one Republican candidate this cycle, with flip-flops as persistent as vuvuzela blasts at a World Cup match. That’s because trading emissions credits had long been one of those rare non-insane Republican ideas that a lot of Republicans had cottoned to. But because Dems have embraced the idea, too, it’s now political poison in GOP circles. So, no surprise to see Rob Portman blasting cap-and-trade a “job killer” – and then getting instantly hammered by Dems for having supported it during his career in Congress. Whoops!

GA-Gov: Dem Roy Barnes is out with a new ad whaling on the idiocy regularly perpetrated by Republicans in the state legislature – like attempting to ban stem cell research, passing bills “about microchips in the brain,” and talking about seceding from the union – which he says makes it hard to recruit jobs to the state. NWOTSOTB.

HI-Gov: Outgoing Gov. Linda Lingle (R) vetoed a civil unions bill yesterday, her final day to do so. Whether this becomes a potent issue on the campaign trail remains to be seen, but at least two of the big three candidates in the race have come out with statements on Lingle’s action: Neil Abercrombie (he’s for civil unions) and Duke Aiona (he’s against them).

FL-25: GOP state Rep. David Rivera, a hardline extremist when it comes to supporting the Cuban embargo, has taken some heat for his alleged friendship with businessman Ariel Pereda. Pereda has been an active proponent of trade with Cuba, and Rivera has denied that the two have a relationship. But Mariana Cancio, another Republican candidate, posted a video of Pereda standing behind Rivera at Rivera’s campaign kick-off.

IN-09: Republican Todd Young has an internal out from Public Opinion Strategies (feel like I’ve been seeing that name a lot) which shows him trailing Baron Hill by 41-34. Note that the poll had just 300 respondents. (When you click the link, scroll all the way to the bottom for the poll press release.)

LA-03: In a bit of a throwaway sentence in a bigger article about the start of the candidate qualifying period in Louisiana, the Times-Picayune notes that Dems are still trying to recruit interim Lt. Gov. Scott Angelle to run for Rep. Charlie Melancon’s open House seat.

LA-05: Teabagging businessman (but I’m guessing Some Dude) Todd Slavant is planning to challenge notorious Democrat-cum-Republican turncoat Rodney Alexander in the GOP primary. I tend to doubt that Alexander will meet with Parker Griffith’s fate, though.

MO-08: Dem Tommy Sowers is out with his first ad, a semi-biographical spot which features his “combat bible.” NWOTSOTB.

MT-AL: This is a weird echo of something in the not-too-distant past of Montana’s political world. Denny Rehberg is suing the Billings fire department for allegedly failing to contain a fire that occurred on his property almost exactly two years ago. The fire chief is saying that saving, you know, lives is their number one priority (none were lost) – and pointing out that the folks who worked to put out the blaze had given up their holiday weekend. Oh, and that odd rhyme? Folks with keen memories will recall that former Montana Sen. Conrad Burns went out of his way to insult bone-weary firefighters to their faces who had schlepped all the way from Virginia to put out blazes back in 2006.

Iowa: Ugh: Iowa SoS Michael Mauro reports that the 100,000 voter registration edge Democrats held in the Hawkeye State just six months ago has been cut in half. However, Mauro points out that the Dems had a 40K deficit in 2002 and yet both Sen. Tom Harkin and then-Gov. Tom Vilsack won re-election.

Maryland: Candidate filing closed in Maryland yesterday. Click the link for a full list of candidates. Incidentally, only five states still have open filing periods: LA, WI, NY, HI, and DE, which brings up the rear with a July 30th deadline.

Fundraising: Reid Wilson has a few fundraising nums we haven’t seen before, including figures from AL-07, LA-03, and MA-10. Shelia Smoot’s weak haul in AL-07 is disappointing but not surprising.

Public Policy Polling (pdf) (6/12-13, likely voters, 4/1-5 in parens):

Pat Quinn (D-inc): 30 (33)

Bill Brady (R): 34 (43)

Rich Whitney (G): 9 (NA)

Undecided: 27 (24)

(MoE: ±4.2%)

If you have a 27/50 approval rating — as Illinois governor Pat Quinn currently does — that means you’re rather unlikely to win an election. There are a few other governors who are plumbing these depths of unpopularity, but they aren’t running for re-election (or in the case of Jim Gibbons, already got bounced in the primary).

Quinn should feel lucky that the GOP put their worst foot forward with Bill Brady, though, as he’d be probably be in unsalvageable territory against, say, Kirk Dillard. A majority have no opinion about Brady, and those who do are split at a tepid 22/22. That gives Quinn the opportunity to try and define Brady as too right-wing for Illinois, and, while it’s too much to hope that Brady can become as unpopular as Quinn, get him unpopular enough that Illinois’s Democratic lean can do the rest of the work. Quinn might also be heartened by the high performance for Rich Whitney (who, it should be noted, also polled in double digits against Rod Blagojevich in 2006 — but that wasn’t a close race, and anti-Blago Dems were free to cast protest votes). In a close race, strategic-minded left-leaning voters might sigh and decide to vote for Quinn, nose held, than waste a protest vote on Whitney, given the conservative alternative in Brady.

Research 2000 for Markos Moulitsas’ Wonder Emporium (5/3-5, likely voters, 2/22-24):

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 38 (43)

Mark Kirk (R): 41 (36)

Undecided: 19 (19)

Pat Quinn (D-inc): 36 (47)

Bill Brady (R): 39 (32)

Undecided: 25 (20)

Pat Quinn (D-inc): 35

Bill Brady (R): 39

Scott Lee Cohen (I): 3

Undecided: 23

(MoE: ±4%)

Lots of yuck here from Research 2000, who see both Alexi Giannoulias and Pat Quinn’s fortunes slide. In the wake of Giannoulias’ family bank collapsing, his favorables have fallen from 49-34 in February to 38-46. It remains to be seen whether the worst is over in terms of the bad press that has consistently dogged Giannoulias for months like a set of nasty stink lines.

And as for those gubernatorial numbers… well, can anyone think of examples of incumbents who have polled in the 30s and survived in a general election (without a freakish third-party challenger muddying the waters)? Bill Brady may be wildly out of whack with his state, but 2010 could be just the type of year that allows a few nutters like him to slip through the cracks.

• AZ-Sen, AZ-Gov: The signature by Gov. Jan Brewer (which may have helped her survive the GOP primary, but may also hurt her in the general) of Arizona’s new aggressive anti-immigrant law was the key motivating factor in a new Democratic candidate getting into the Senate race: civil rights activist Randy Parraz. He’ll face Rodney Glassman in the Democratic primary. (Why not the, y’know, Arizona Governor’s race instead? Apparently Glassman looks like easier primary opposition than AG Terry Goddard in the governor’s race… and at any rate, John McCain and J.D. Hayworth have both been beating the war drums on immigration.) And here’s an interesting take on the immigration law: ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo just came out in opposition to it, saying, “I do not want people here, there in Arizona, pulled over because you look like should be pulled over.” If even Tom Tancredo thinks you’re doing it wrong… you’re probably doing it wrong.

• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon’s campaign doesn’t seem to be doing anything illegal here, but there’s still no good way to spin this: the campaign has been offering students an extra $5 bounty (on top of a flat hourly rate) for every Republican registered during a Univ. of Connecticut voter registration drive. It’s a practice that the DOJ has frowned upon.

• IL-Sen: In the wake of the seizure of the Broadway Bank, Alexi Giannoulias wasted no time in getting an explanatory ad on the air, laying it out in easy-to-grasp points: one, he hadn’t worked there in years and when he left it was fine, two, the broader economy took the bank down, and three, speaking of that economic downturn, don’t vote for unemployment-benefits-denying Mark Kirk.

• MD-Sen: OK, maybe all those Barb Mikulski retirement rumors will finally go away. She just had her campaign’s official kickoff event on Friday. She has 24 times the cash of her likeliest Republican opponent, Queen Anne’s Co. Commissioner Eric Wargotz.

• NC-Sen: Elon University’s out with another poll; they still aren’t doing head-to-heads, but have some assorted other numbers that Richard Burr would probably rather not see. His approvals (among flat-out everybody, not even RVs) are 28/37 and 26% say he “deserves re-election” with 44% saying “time for a new person.”

• NV-Sen: A poll for the Nevada News Bureau performed by PMI finds Sue Lowden leading the pack in the GOP Senate primary, at 41. Danny Tarkanian is at 24, Sharron Angle is at 17, and “someone else” is at 18. The poll was taken on the 22nd, shortly after Lowden laid out her support for trading chickens in exchange for poultices and tinctures.

• NY-Sen-B: Long-time Rockland Co. Exec Scott Vanderhoef has decided not to pursue a run against Kirsten Gillibrand, after having spent a month in exploratory mode, saying the money’s just not there. Vanderhoef probably found he didn’t have the name rec outside of Rockland Co. to have an advantage against the odds and ends in the GOP primary, let alone in the general.

• UT-Sen: Another poll of GOP delegates for the convention in Utah isn’t as bad for Bob Bennett as the one leaked to Dave Weigel last week, but it still looks pretty bad for him. Mike Lee leads the way among first-choice votes at 31%, followed by Bennett at 22% (and then Tim Bridgewater at 17% and Cherilyn Eagar at 10%). 41% of delegates say they will “absolutely not” vote for Bennett, so even if Bennett picks up the other 59%, he still can’t nail down the nomination at the convention (as there’s a 60% threshold).

• WA-Sen: Everyone seemed a little taken by surprise by Friday’s SurveyUSA poll of the Washington Senate race, which has non-candidate (for now) Dino Rossi leading Patty Murray 52-42 (and leading the various no-name GOPers actively in the race by 2 or 3 points). Even the Rossi camp is downplaying it, saying that their internal polling places Murray in the lead – which is an odd strategy for someone who got gifted an outlying poll, unless either he’s trying to rope-a-dope Murray into complacency or privately cursing the results saying “aw crap, now I have to run for Senate.” One of the no-namers, motivational speaker Chris Widener, got out of the race on Friday, which may also portend a Rossi run (or just having taken a stark look at his own finances). Murray’s camp may have gotten advance warning of the SurveyUSA poll, as on Friday they leaked their own internal from Fairbank Maslin giving Murray a 49-41 lead over Rossi, very consistent with R2K’s recent poll.

• IL-Gov: Oh, goody. Scott Lee Cohen, having bailed out/gotten booted off the Democratic ticket as Lt. Governor nominee after his criminal record became news, still has a political issue that needs scratching. He’s announcing that he’s going to run an independent bid for Governor instead. Considering how thoroughly his dirty laundry has been aired, he seems likely to poll in the low single digits; I have no idea whether his candidacy (which now appeals mostly only to the steroid-addled pawnbroker demographic) is more harmful to Pat Quinn, Bill Brady, or just the world’s general sense of decency.

• MI-Gov: When I heard a few weeks ago that Geoffrey Fieger (the trial lawyer best known for defending Jack Kevorkian and second-best-known for his awful turn as 1998 Democratic gubernatorial nominee) was pondering another gubernatorial run, I laughed it off. The new EPIC-MRA poll makes it seem a bit more serious, though… which, in turn, if he won the primary, would pretty much foreclose any Democratic shot at winning the general. They only polled the Democratic primary and find, thanks to name rec within the Detroit metro area, Fieger is actually comfortably in the lead at 28%. Andy Dillon is at 20, Virg Bernero is at 13, Alma Wheeler Smith is at 8, other is at 2, and 29% are undecided. Fieger hasn’t moved much to act on his interest, though, and has only three weeks to collect the necessary 15,000 signatures to qualify.

• FL-24: Karen Diebel earned the backing of Tom Tancredo in the GOP primary in the 24th, focusing on (with Tancredo, what else?) in the immigration issue. It seems less of a pro-Diebel endorsement than more of a slap against her GOP opponent Craig Miller, though; in a 2006 Miami Herald op-ed, Miller (who was at that point chairman of the National Restaurant Association) came out pretty solidly on the “cheap labor” side of the Republican split on immigration.

• GA-12: Democrats looking for an upgrade from ex-state Sen. Regina Thomas (who raised $10K last quarter and has $4K CoH) for a primary challenge to recalcitrant Blue Dog John Barrow are going to have to keep looking. State Sen. Lester Jackson decided to take a pass, and will stay neutral in the Barrow/Thomas race. He’ll focus instead of supporting the Senate bid of Labor Comm. Michael Thurmond (another rumored, but no-longer, challenger to Barrow).

• LA-03: Bobby Jindal just appointed Scott Angelle, the state’s Sec. of Natural Resources, to the vacant position of Lt. Governor. Why is this filed under LA-03? Angelle was rumored to be one of the top contenders to run for the 3rd (although it was unclear whether he was going to do it as a Dem or a GOPer… Angelle was a Dem in the legislature, but appointed by GOP Gov. Jindal to his cabinet). With Angelle saying he’ll return to his job at Natural Resources after a permanent replacement is elected, that means that former state House speaker Hunt Downer is pretty well locked-in as the GOP nominee in the 3rd, and the Dems aren’t likely to get an upgrade from attorney Ravi Sangisetty, making this open seat a very likely GOP pickup. (H/t GOPVOTER.)

• NY-01: Randy Altschuler got the endorsement from the Suffolk County Conservative Party on Friday, which guarantees him a place on the ballot if he wants it. He’ll still need to overcome Chris Cox and George Demos in the competitive three-way moneybags duel in the GOP primary (where the county GOP recently switched its endorsement from Altschuler to Cox). It’s unclear whether he’d keep the Conservative line if he lost the GOP primary, as that would create a NY-23 type situation and pretty much assure Rep. Tim Bishop’s safety. (Unlike the patchwork of counties in the upstate districts, all of the 1st is within Suffolk.)

• NY-29: The GOP would really, really like to have a special election in the 29th, despite David Paterson’s apparent intention to play out the clock until November (and prevent a possible GOP pickup, given the difference in strength between the likely candidates). Several GOP party chairs within the district are preparing a lawsuit that would force a special election; the state GOP plans to assist.

• OH-02: Bad news for Jean Schmidt: although she got the Hamilton Co. GOP’s endorsement in the previous two elections, she’s going to have to proceed without it this year. They’re staying neutral as she faces several primary challengers, most notably Warren Co. Commissioner Mike Kilburn.

• PA-12: In battling independent expenditures in the 12th, the GOP went large, as the NRCC plunked down $235K on media buys. The DCCC also spent $16K on media buys.

• SC-04: The dean at Bob Jones University (the crown jewel in the buckle of the Bible Belt, in Greenville in the 4th), Robert Taylor, has announced he’s supporting Trey Gowdy in the GOP primary instead of incumbent Rep. Bob Inglis. The occasionally-moderate Inglis (more stylistically than in actual voting substance, though) faces at least three right-wing competitors in the primary, but could run into trouble if he doesn’t clear 50% and gets forced into a runoff with one of them.

• WV-01: There are dueling internal polls in the 1st, in the Democratic primary. State Sen. Mike Oliverio was first to release a poll, saying he led Rep. Alan Mollohan 41-33. (One caveat: Oliverio’s pollster is Orion Strategies, owned by Curtis Wilkerson, who also just happens to be Oliverio’s campaign manager.) Mollohan struck back with a poll from Frederick Polls giving him a 45-36 lead over Oliverio, with the primary fast approaching on May 11.

• MA-AG: Despite it now being widely known that Martha Coakley has a glass jaw (or what’s something more fragile than glass? what do they make those fake bottles out of that they use in bar fights in the movies?), she may actually get re-elected Attorney General without facing any GOP opposition whatsoever this fall. Of course, that may have something to do with the fact that the GOP’s entire bench in Massachusetts just got elected to the Senate.

• Pennsylvania: The Philadelphia Inquirer has an interesting look at the changes in registration in Pennsylvania over the last decade. The Democratic Party grew substantially in the state’s east, gaining 550,000 registrations up to 4.3 million voters. The GOP shrank by 103,000 registrations down to 3.1 million votes. The Dems lost 20,000 voters in the state’s southwest, though; in 2002, 27.8% of the state’s Dems were in the Pittsburgh area, but that’s down to 23.8%. Contrast that with the Philadelphia metro area: in its five counties, the number of Republicans dropped 13.5%, from a million to 873,000.

• Redistricting: Here’s the last redistricting resource you’ll ever need: a handy map showing congressional and legislative redistricting procedures for all 50 states. There’s also an accompanying document (pdf) which goes into remarkable detail about the various processes, and even contains an appendix of some of the ugliest current gerrymanders.