Tag: Cal Cunningham

• AR-Sen: State Sen. Gilbert Baker has generally been treated as the frontrunner in the Arkansas GOP’s Senate field, and that became a little clearer over the weekend with the state party’s straw poll. It was a close race, though: Baker got 35% (out of 700 votes), followed closely by businessman and Huckabee crony Curtis Coleman at 33. The biggest surprise may be who finished 3rd: former Army colonel and “Christian identity” enthusiast Conrad Reynolds, at 23, followed by head teabagger Tom Cox at 4, state Sen. Kim Hendren an embarrassing 2, and some dudes Fred Ramey and Buddy Rogers at 2 and 1 apiece.

• LA-Sen: Republican SoS Jay Dardenne isn’t seeming to take any steps to gear up for a primary challenge to Sen. David Vitter, but he keeps not doing anything to make the rumors go away, either. Dardenne recently said he’s considering polling the race soon, which would require setting up an exploratory committee. The only poll of a Vitter/Dardenne matchup, from R2K in March, gave Vitter an 11-pt edge.

• MT-Sen: If Max Baucus is running again in 2014, this is the kind of publicity he doesn’t need in the meantime. It turns out that Baucus, who separated from his wife last year, then began an affair with his office director Melodee Hanes — and then nominated her to be Montana’s new US Attorney. She didn’t get the position, although she does now work in a different role for the DOJ.

• NC-Sen: After a lot of back and forth, former state Sen. Cal Cunningham made his campaign for the Democratic Senate nomination official today. You can see his launch video at the above link. However, Chapel Hill mayor Kevin Foy, who’d floated his name out there for the Democratic nod, confirmed that he won’t be getting in the race.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: After trumpeting the rumors a few weeks ago that Rudy Giuliani was poised to enter the Senate race against Kirsten Gillibrand, now the Daily News is assessing Rudy’s decision to take on a long-term, high-profile consulting gig as security expert for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and concluding that he’s not looking so likely as a candidate for anything now. Meanwhile, over on the Dem side of the aisle, Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer, who briefly planned a primary challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand, has now finally offered an endorsement to her.

• PA-Sen: Rep. Joe Sestak pulled in his first endorsement from a fellow Congressperson in his primary campaign against Arlen Specter. Rep. Barney Frank offered his support today, saying that he considers Sestak one of the most valuable members of Congress.

• NV-Gov: With a recent Mason-Dixon poll showing Democratic Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman with a small lead as an independent in various gubernatorial race permutations, Goodman is now publicly weighing the race. He says he’ll have an answer “real soon,” but that his wife has already given him the green light on a run.

• AL-02: Can teabagging save Bobby Bright next year? Not by him doing it (or we can only hope)… instead, Montgomery city counilor Martha Roby, the NRCC’s pick in the race, is going to face a primary challenge from the ultra-right. Businessman Rick Barber, who’s been active in local tea parties and the 9/12 Washington march, is planning to take on Roby. He has to be encouraged by an interesting new poll from Rasmussen, which suggests that, given a choice between a Democrat, a Republican, and a Tea Party member in the upcoming election, the Tea Partier would beat the Republican, 23-18 (with the Democrat prevailing at 36%).

• PA-06: Wealthy pharma executive Steven Welch, who fled from the race in the 7th to the 6th when Patrick Meehan appeared, is now earning “RINO” labels and the enmity of the RedStaters. Welch not only gave Joe Sestak $300 in 2006, but also was a registered Democrat from 2006 through 2008. Also, another GOPer is sniffing out the race (as the possible fifth entrant in the GOP field): Scott Zelov, commissioner of very wealthy and moderate Lower Merion Township on the Main Line.

• TN-08: State Sen. Roy Herron is fighting back against the wide-ranging attacks leveled against him by the NRCC, as his candidacy for the 8th enters its second week. (Recall from last week that the NRCC has been gay-baiting Herron.) Herron called the NRCC’s attacks “ridiculous and desperate,” to which the NRCC said Herron was “foaming at the mouth” and “hurling ‘Yo mama’-style insults.” As much as the NRCC is transparently guilty of what they accuse Herron of, they at least win some points for evocative language here. An article from the Tennessean lists a few other Dems who may be interested in the seat, despite Herron’s quick entry, one of whom is a big name: former state House speaker Jimmy Naifeh (who had considered a run in 1988, when John Tanner took over the seat). They also list state Sen. Doug Jackson as a possibility.

• NY-St. Sen.: State Sen. Hiram Monserrate is managing to escape his misdemeanor assault conviction with no jail time, leaving his colleagues wondering what to do with him (including censure, suspension, or expulsion). Also, good news for the Dems as they look for ways to expand their narrow majority: one of the last Republicans left in the Senate within the New York City limits, Frank Padavan, may get a top-tier challenge next year from former city councilor Tony Avella (last seen losing the mayoral primary to William Thompson).

• Mayors: Kasim Reed has been certified as elected as the new mayor of Atlanta. His opponent, city councilor Mary Norwood, still plans to request a recount of the election, decided by a margin of less than one thousand votes. In New York City, guess who finished fourth in the mayoral race: fictional character C. Montgomery Burns, who got more write-in votes than any other candidate. Why just vote for a billionaire buying the office who’s only a little bit creepy and evil, when instead you can go the Full Monty?

• History: Here’s an interesting piece of trivia: a woman was not elected to the U.S. Senate, without having been the wife or daughter of a previous Senator, until 1980. That woman was Republican Paula Hawkins, who served as Florida’s Senator for one term, and in her outspoken self-proclaimed averageness, telegenic ultra-conservatism, and resentments of liberal media elites, was something of a Sarah Palin prototype. Hawkins died over the weekend at age 82.

• Polltopia: Here’s another thoughtful article at Pollster.com on what’s driving Rasmussen’s perceptibly pro-Republican house effects, from professor Alan Abramowitz. He says that there’s more going on than just their use of a likely voter model; he sees a major difference between Rasmussen and other pollsters in terms of the Democratic advantage in party identification. Meanwhile, PPP is asking for your help yet again: they’d like your input on which House district to poll next. Should it be CO-03, CO-04, ID-01, NH-01, NM-01, NM-02, or SD-AL?

Two separate sources have informed the Swing State Project that former state Sen. Cal Cunningham has reconsidered his earlier decision and will enter the Democratic primary for the 2010 North Carolina senate race. This is reminiscent of the situation two years ago, when state Sen. Kay Hagan got into the race against Elizabeth Dole after initially saying she would not run. We hope to hear more from Cunningham soon.

Also, our condolences to Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, whose husband passed away this past weekend.

UPDATE: Another source writes in to tell us that Cunningham will be delaying his announcement out of respect for Marshall.

• CT-Sen: It’s a rumor that’s been going around for a few weeks that seemed ridiculous, but it only seems to be getting louder, so it’s worth a mention: Ralph Nader is considering a run for the Senate in Connecticut under the Green Party’s banner, and is gauging grass-roots support for a race. The knee-jerk reaction is that this is one more piece of bad news Chris Dodd doesn’t need, but it’s worth considering that Nader may actually help Dodd more than hurt him, by diluting the pool of anti-Dodd votes, giving an option for Dems and indies who are specifically anti-Dodd and anti-bankster, other than voting for the Republican.

• IL-Sen: Freshman Rep. Aaron Schock gave his endorsement to Rep. Mark Kirk in his quest to win the GOP Senate nomination. People are treating this like it boosts Kirk’s conservative bona fides, but Schock has turned out to be more of a low-key, establishment player since getting into the House than his loose-lipped statements during his campaign would have suggested.

• KY-Sen: Rand Paul and the NRSC seem to be in a standoff, over the same old issue, whether or not the NRSC plans to endorse in the primary. Paul was spreading the word last week, based on conversations with the NRSC, that the NRSC would not endorse, but spokesperson Brian Walsh now says the NRSC doesn’t “anticipate” endorsing but reserves the right to do so.

• MA-Sen: Rep. Michael Capuano got an endorsement from one of the deans of Bay State politics, former Gov. (and presidential candidate) Mike Dukakis. However, he might be overshadowed a little by Alan Khazei, who’s attracted little attention so far but seems to be closing strong, if the last Rasmussen poll is any indication. Khazei snagged endorsements from both the Boston Globe and retired Gen. Wesley Clark.

• NC-Sen: Campaign Diaries managed to snag an internal polling memo for the Elaine Marshall campaign, which leads me to wonder why the DSCC is stiff-arming her and still pining for former state Sen. Cal Cunningham to get in the race. Marshall leads with 42% in the primary, with attorney Kenneth Lewis at 7 (including 14% of African-Americans) and Cunningham at 5. At some point, the DSCC’s tepidness about her, if it doesn’t change, is going to start affecting broader perceptions of her — likely to create a fundraising vicious circle of not being able to raise funds well because she’s not perceived as not being able to win because she can’t raise funds well. The poll was conducted by PPP, although Marshall has previously used Lake Research as her pollster.

• NY-Sen-B: Rasmussen took their first look at a Rudy-centric Senate race in New York, finding Rudy Giuliani beating Kirsten Gillibrand 53-40 (a very similar margin to last week’s Marist poll). Giuliani has 63/33 favorables, while Gillibrand is at 46/41 (this has to be the best-known Gillibrand has ever been, but one of Rasmussen’s many quirks is to show everyone as being well-known). The New York Post also has the scoop on a Republican who seems likelier to run (although it’s on the gossip page rather than the politics section!): Port Authority Commissioner Bruce Blakeman is considering a running for the Republicans. Blakeman lost the 1998 state Controller’s race to Carl McCall; also, his ex-wife is now dating Paul McCartney, which is apparently Page Six’s angle on all this.

• UT-Sen: Here’s an interesting ploy: Rep. Jason Chaffetz (rumored as a potential Senate candidate) is taking a highly visible stand against the Obama administration’s decision to deploy additional troops to Afghanistan, saying it’s time to bring them home and that he’s opposed to “nation building.” That puts him up against the party orthodoxy, but it also leads to the question of whether Chaffetz is a bit of an outlier here or if the movement conservatives are going to be moving in more of an isolationist direction heading into 2012 (and whether that’s because of their paranoid nativist worldview, or just because it gives them one more thing to oppose the President on).

• AL-Gov: Two endorsements in the Alabama governor’s race, where there are heated primaries on both sides. Mitt Romney has endorsed Treasurer Kay Ivey, perhaps as payback for chairing his Alabama campaign but also a potential thumb-in-the-eye to the religious right, who are naturally supporting Roy Moore in the race. On the Dem side, Sam Jones, the first African-American mayor of Mobile, endorsed Rep. Artur Davis.

• MA-Gov: Rasmussen threw in some gubernatorial numbers to their sample last week of the Senate special election primary, and they continue to find that incumbent Dem Deval Patrick has the edge. It’s a little narrower than their last poll or Suffolk’s recent poll — Patrick leads independent Tim Cahill and Republican Christy Mihos 32-28-26 and leads Republican Charlie Baker and Cahill 33-28-25 — but it still shows Patrick benefiting from Cahill splitting the anti-Patrick vote.

• MI-Gov: A poll of the Republican field in the Michigan gubernatorial race by Mitchell Research for the Detroit News finds a small lead for AG Mike Cox. Cox leads Rep. Peter Hoekstra 27-24, with 12 for Oakland Co. Sheriff Mike Bouchard and 3 each for state Sen. Tom George and businessman Rick Snyder. The poll also finds Cox beating Democratic Lt. Gov. John Cherry by 16 points in the general, although specific numbers aren’t reported for some reason.

• NY-Gov: Another brave Republican is considering taking on the gubernatorial race: Emil Henry Jr. He’s got just the right resume for these troubled times: He was assistant Treasury Secretary in the Bush administration, and before that, an executive at Lehman Brothers. Ex-Rep. Rick Lazio is already in the GOP field.

• UT-Gov: Democratic Salt Lake County mayor Peter Corroon is sounding more like a candidate for governor, in next year’s special election against appointed GOP incumbent Gary Herbert. A recent Deseret News/KSL-TV poll finds Herbert leading Corroon 56-32. Corroon actually sounds encouraged by these numbers; considering it’s Utah, I suppose they could be much worse.

• CA-45: More Mitt Romney news, and it’s a tea leaf that the GOP is concerned about defending Mary Bono Mack in the 45th even as they go on the offense in swing districts elsewhere: Romney will be appearing at a Bono Mack fundraiser in the district on Jan. 9.

• FL-19: Charlie Crist moved the date on the general special election to replace resigning Rep. Robert Wexler, which had been originally scheduled Apr. 6. He moved it to Apr. 13, so it wouldn’t conflict with Passover (a problem in this heavily Jewish district).

• GA-08: Democrats dodged a bullet in the 8th, where Rep. Jim Marshall may get the easiest ride of any Dem in a dark-red southern district next year. Republican State Sen. Ross Tolleson said he’d like to run for Congress at some point, but this won’t be the year. Tolleson threw his support to Angela Hicks, a businesswoman who’s one of several little-known candidates in the hunt.

• GA-12: It’s official: former state Sen. Regina Thomas will be challenging Rep. John Barrow in the Democratic primary next year. Barrow is unusual among the most problematic Blue Dogs because he’s in a district with a Democratic-leaning PVI and thus one where a better Dem could still win a general election (although it’s one where African-American voting tends to fall off during off-year elections). Thomas piqued some netroots interest last year because of this unusual circumstance, but between a late start, a low-visibility strategy focused on word-of-mouth through black churches, and an Obama endorsement of Barrow, she only cleared 24% in last year’s primary. We’ll have to see if the earlier start helps this time.

• IA-02: Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who came within 18 points of Rep. David Loebsack last year thanks to a lot of help from those meddling Ophthalmologists, says she’ll try again in 2010. She’s not alone in the GOP field, though; interestingly, she’s up against two guys who both ran for Senate in 2008, businessman Christopher Reed (who made it through to the general against Tom Harkin, only to get flattened) and Steve Rathje (who lost the primary).

• NH-01: I don’t know if this is a case of once-highly-touted Manchester mayor Frank Guinta losing momentum, or just Some Dude with delusions of grandeur, but businessman Richard Ashooh is filing exploratory paperwork to run in the GOP primary. The winner faces Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter in what’s likely to be a close race.

• TN-06: The GOP is trying to cajole a state Senator into getting into the race against long-time Democratic Rep. Bart Gordon in the once-swingy, now R+13 6th. Jim Tracy says he’s strongly considering the race. There’s one catch: Rutherford County Republican chair Lou Ann Zelenik is already in the race, and has the ability to self-fund.

• TX-17: Here’s a Dem in a dark-red district who caught a big-time break on the recruiting front, though: Rep. Chet Edwards won’t be facing state Sen. Steve Ogden, as had been rumored. Ogden announced that he’ll run for another term in the Senate instead. (Thanks to the small size of Texas’s Senate, Ogden actually has more constituents than Edwards.) 2008 candidate Rob Curnock, who came within single-digits of Edwards, is running again, though.

• GA-Super. of Education: Georgia’s Republican Superintendent of Education, Kathy Cox, is persisting in running for re-election next year despite having recently filed for bankruptcy to escape $3.5 million in debt. The story gets even weirder: this is despite Cox having won $1 million on “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” — despite having pledged to give that money to charity, her creditors are now coming after that money. (Is there any precedent for a statewide elected official appearing on a game show?) Cox now faces opposition in a GOP primary from former state Rep. Roger Hines.

• Nassau Co. Exec: The counting of absentee ballots in Nassau County is finally winding down in this month’s most drawn-out election, and it looks like Republican challenger Ed Mangano may actually succeed in upsetting incumbent Dem Tom Suozzi. Mangano leads by 217 with few ballots remaining. Even if the count concludes today, it won’t be the last word, as legal challenges to a number of votes will still need to be resolved.

• Mayors: New Orleans mayoral candidate James Perry is getting a jump on political advertising, and his ad is certainly attention-grabbing too. It includes a variety of bleeped-out profanities as local residents (or actors portraying them) let everyone know how they feel about career politicians.

• NY-St. Ass.: Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava says she’s going to stay a Republican, despite losing her leadership position in the wake of her imploded House campaign. Despite her many impure thoughts, she says she’d still clock in at 7 out of 10 on the RNC’s new purity test.

• Redistricting: CQ Politics sits down with filmmaker Jeff Reichert, whose upcoming documentary on redistricting is slated for release next year. I’ve been emailing with Jeff about this project for a while now, and it looks very interesting. (D)

The Fix:

North Carolina Rep. Bob Etheridge has decided against running for the Senate in 2010, according to informed sources, a choice that hands Democrats another setback in their recruiting efforts against Sen. Richard Burr (R). […]

Attorney Cal Cunningham, who also drew some interest from the DSCC, announced earlier this week he also would not run, although it’s likely that national party strategists will make another run at him in the wake of the Etheridge decision. Secretary of State Elaine Marshall is also running.

The writing for this one was pretty much on the wall ever since we got word that the DSCC wanted Etheridge to bury his announcement at the end of the week. Perhaps Cal Cunningham’s decision to pull the plug was a tad premature — but now he’ll have what appears to be the undivided interest of the DSCC. Will he have a change of heart, Kay Hagan-style?

RaceTracker Wiki: NC-Sen

The Democratic field for the race against GOP Sen. Richard Burr just got a bit thinner tonight. Cal Cunningham, a former state Senator and Iraq vet who had been enthusiastically exploring the race for several months, is out of the running:

Cal Cunningham, a Lexington Democrat who had been exploring a U.S. Senate bid for months, said late Monday that he will not run.

The decision is a possible indicator the U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge will seek the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. Richard Burr in 2010. Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and Durham lawyer Kenneth Lewis have already announced they are in the primary.

Etheridge, who represents an R+2 district in the Raleigh area, is expected to make a decision on this race very, very soon. Cunningham seemed pretty jazzed to jump into this race, so perhaps his withdrawal may be a sign that Etheridge is leaning toward a run.

RaceTracker wiki: NC-Sen

• CO-Sen: Here’s an amateur-level mistake from the Bennet campaign: electioneering in the Denver public schools (where Michael Bennet used to be Supernintendo before being appointed Senator). The campaign sent mailings to a school asking for the principal’s support and fliers were given to principals at a district workshop.

• FL-Sen: The Kendrick Meek campaign is touting its own fishy poll that says that Meek leads Charlie Crist… among voters who know both of them. The lead is 45-43 for Meek among those 25% of the sample who know who the heck Meek is. In the larger sample, Crist is up 47-31.

• KS-Sen: Kansas Senate news three digests in a row? I’m as surprised as you are. Anyway, retired advertising executive and journalist Charles Schollenberger confirmed that he will run for the Senate. With seemingly no Dems higher up the totem pole interested in the race, Schollenberger may wind up carrying the flag.

• NC-Sen: It’s not quite confirmed, but the rumor mill is churning up stories that youthful former state Senator and Iraq vet Cal Cunningham is moving to formally jump into the North Carolina Senate race. SoS Elaine Marshall is already in the Democratic primary field.

• PA-Sen: There’s an unexpected fourth Democratic participant in the Senate primary all of a sudden: Doris Smith-Ribner, a recently retired Commonwealth Court (which apparently is one of two intermediate appellate courts in Pennsylvania; don’t ask me why there are two) judge for two decades. Her presence could prove nettlesome to Rep. Joe Sestak, by eating a bit into his share of liberal anti-Arlen Specter votes in what’s likely to be a close primary. (“Fourth,” you say? State Rep. Bill Kortz is running too, and has been for many months.)

• AZ-Gov: He was probably seeing the same terrible polls that everyone else was, and ex-Governor Fife Symington decided to put the kibbosh on a gubernatorial comeback. Instead, Symington endorsed not the current Governor, Jan Brewer, but one of her minor opponents, former state GOP chair John Munger.

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman scored a victory of sorts with the publication of a story titled “Meg Whitman’s voting record not as bad as originally portrayed.” It turns out she was registered at several points in California in the 1980s and 1990s, but there’s still no indication that she actually voted during this period.

Meanwhile, Whitman’s primary rival ex-Rep. Tom Campbell may get a big leg up: rumors persist that he may get picked as California’s new Lt. Governor (once John Garamendi gets elected to CA-10). I’d initially thought that was a way of scraping him out of the gubernatorial primary and giving him a door prize, but it could give him a higher profile and bully pulpit to compensate for his vast financial disadvantage as he stays in the race. Campbell was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Finance Director for a while, and they operate in the same centrist space, so maybe Ahnold would do him the favor? (Of course, he’d still have to survive confirmation by the Dem-controlled legislature, who might be reluctant to promote Campbell, who they rightly see as the most dangerous general election opponent.)

• FL-Gov: It had seemed like state Sen. Paula Dockery, who threatened repeatedly during the spring to run in the GOP gubernatorial primary, had faded back into the woodwork. However, she’s front and center again today, saying that she’s “leaning toward” running and giving herself a three-week timeline (she put off the decision because of her husband’s surgery this summer). Another minor embarrassment for her primary opponent, AG Bill McCollum: the co-chair of his campaign, former state GOP chair Alex Cardenas, had to explain that, no, he didn’t actually host a fundraiser for Democratic rival Alex Sink. (It was hosted by Democratic partners in Cardenas’s lobbying firm.)

• NJ-Gov: Jon Corzine and Chris Christie have sufficiently reduced each other’s statures that the state’s largest newspaper, the Newark Star-Ledger, took what may be an unprecedented step, and endorsed the independent candidate in the race: Chris Daggett. I still can’t see this giving Daggett the momentum to break 20%, but more Daggett votes are good, as they seem to come mostly out of the Christie column. Meanwhile, Chris Christie got an endorsement he may not especially want in the blue state of New Jersey — from the Family Research Council (who also just endorsed Conservative Doug Hoffman over Republican Dede Scozzafava in the NY-23 special election). Also, Christie is living large after getting an endorsement that may carry more weight, from the New Jersey Restaurant Association.

• VA-Gov (pdf): There’s one new poll of VA-Gov to report today: Mason-Dixon, and they come in with a 48-40 edge for Bob McDonnell over Creigh Deeds, closely tracking today’s Pollster.com average of 51-43. The poll finds Deeds getting only 81% of the African-American vote (with 9% to McD), far too little, especially in combination with what PPP‘s Tom Jensen is seeing, as he teases that he’s projecting abysmal black turnout of 12% in the coming election. At any rate, Deeds is now touting his underdog status in fundraising e-mails, and is alluding to more possible visits from Barack Obama in the stretch run.

• FL-20: Here’s an understatement: Republican candidate Robert Lowry, hoping to defeat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz in this D+13 district, conceded it was a “mistake” to shoot at a target labeled “DWS” while at a Southeast Republican Club gathering at a gun range.

• MN-06: As state Sen. Tarryl Clark seems to be building a fundraising and labor endorsement edge, her primary opponent for the Democratic nomination, Maureen Reed, says she won’t follow traditional decorum and abide by the DFL endorsement. Reed (a former member of the Independence Party) says she’ll keep open the option of taking the fight all the way to the primary, a reversal of her position from months earlier (although from before Clark got into the race and Elwyn Tinklenberg left). (UPDATE: The Reed campaign writes in to say that the Minnesota Public Radio story that underpins this story is incorrect and that Reed never stated whether or not she would abide by the DFL endorsement.)

• NC-11: One reddish southern district where the Republicans are still at square one on recruitment is the 11th. Businessman Jeff Miller said that he won’t challenge sophomore Dem Heath Shuler.

• NY-15: As ethics allegations take a toll against long-time Rep. Charlie Rangel, he’s getting a primary challenge… from his former campaign director. Vince Morgan, now a banker, says “it’s time for a change.”

• OH-17: Republicans may have found someone to run in the 17th against Rep. Tim Ryan: businessman and Air Force vet Bill Johnson, who’s now exploring the race and will decide in December. Ryan probably isn’t too worried, as he’s won most of his races with over 75%, in this D+12 district.

• PA-04: Pennsylvania Western District US Attorney Mary Buchanan is reportedly considering running as a Republican against Dem sophomore Jason Altmire. (Hopefully she isn’t violating the Hatch Act too much while she considers it.) Buchanan was one of the USAs who weren’t fired in the Bush-era purge (in fact, she allegedly helped consult on the list of those who were fired). State House minority whip Mike Turzai has been reputed to be the GOP’s desired recruit here, but Buchanan’s flack says that Turzai is focused on winning back GOP control of the state House in 2010 instead.

• PA-11: Attorney and hedge fund manager Chris Paige is the first Republican to take on Paul Kanjorski (or Corey O’Brien, if Kanjorski goes down in the Dem primary). Still no word on whether Hazleton mayor Lou Barletta is interested in yet another whack at the race.

• Supreme Courts (pdf): News from two different state supreme court races? Sure, why not. In Pennyslvania, there’s another Dane & Associates poll out, of a hotly contested 2010 race for a state supreme court seat; Democrat Jack Panella leads Republican Joan Orie Melvin 38-35. Also, in Texas, Democrat Bill Moody, who came close to winning a seat in 2006 (better than any other Dem statewide candidate that year), will try again in 2010, and he has an interesting new campaign gimmick: he’s going to tour the state in a big orange blimp.

Things are starting to take shape in North Carolina; Elaine Marshall, the state’s Secretary of State and first woman elected to statewide office, looks like she will become the first top-tier Democratic challenger to Richard Burr.

Secretary of State Elaine Marshall filed paperwork Tuesday to create a campaign committee to run for the U.S. Senate next year.

“We’ll have a more formal announcement in the future,” said Thomas Mills, a consultant for Marshall. “We were feeling we just needed to get started in moving forward.”

Durham attorney Kenneth Lewis is the only announced Democratic candidate so far. Charismatic former state Senator Cal Cunningham seems likely to get in as well, while former Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker and Rep. Bob Etheridge are still considering it.

• MA-Sen: AG Martha Coakley wasted no time in announcing her candidacy for the special election for the Massachusetts Senate seat; unlike the myriad members of the House delegation, she’s not waiting to see if a Kennedy gets in. Meanwhile, people are definitely talking about a candidacy by Curt Schilling, retired from the Boston Red Sox. If Schilling runs, he’s ineligible to do so as a Republican, though; he’s registered as an independent, and he doesn’t have enough time under Massachusetts to change his registration to be able to run as an R. (Schilling himself acknowledges he may not be the best candidate, although he clearly is enjoying the spotlight.)

• NC-Sen: Former state Sen. and Iraq vet Cal Cunningham seems to be acting more like a candidate, and he got a big boost from a recent speech to a Democratic group in Charlotte which has gone viral, as they kids say these days. He lit Burr up with zinger after zinger, effectively summing up the anonymous Burr this way: “In 15 years on Capitol Hill you can’t name one thing that Richard Burr has done to make your life better, and I can’t either.”

• NV-Sen: Feeling confident after seeing several polls giving her an edge over Harry Reid, Nevada GOP chair Sue Lowden is resigning her post, presumably with an eye toward a Senate run. Since there are already announced candidates (former SoS candidate Danny Tarkanian), she’s resigning as of Sep. 30 to avoid a conflict of interest.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): Franklin & Marshall is out with a poll of the Pennsylvania races, although the undecideds are bizarrely large. Case in point, Arlen Specter leads Joe Sestak 37-11 in the Dem primary (with 46% don’t know and 6% other). Specter bests Pat Toomey in the general, 37-29, while Toomey beats Sestak, 26-22. (As an amusing aside, Sestak and Toomey had a Specter-free debate at Muhlenberg College last night and then adjourned to a local pub together for a round of beers and further private trash-talking of Specter.) F&M also polled the GOP gubernatorial primary, where Tom Corbett leads Jim Gerlach 15-6 (with 73% don’t know!). Outgoing Gov. Ed Rendell has quickly plunged from most popular figure in the state to least popular, with a favorable of 32/53.

• MN-Gov: Former Dem state House leader Matt Entenza recently hired Friend of SSP Dana Houle to manage his campaign for governor. Congrats to Dana, and best wishes to Entenza, who made a wise choice. (D)

• NV-Gov: You know your political career is over when other members of your own party are using your name as a cudgel against their opposition. Minor GOP gubernatorial candidate Mike Montandon issued a press release attacking John Ensign over his alleged recruiting of recently-retired federal judge Brian Sandoval into the gubernatorial primary. (Although presumably the intent was to besmirch his opponent Sandoval, by linking him to Ensign.)

• VA-Gov: One more poll to mention in Virginia, not as favorable as the PPP poll from Tuesday. Rasmussen’s latest look at the race gives Bob McDonnell a 51-42 lead over Creigh Deeds with leaners (49-39 without), not much changed from the early August sample of 47-38. The entire one-day sample was on Sep. 1, after news of McDonnell’s anti-fornicator manifesto had broken. Speaking of said master’s thesis, Deeds is already on the air with radio spots (wisely airing only in northern Virginia) attacking McDonnell over the thesis. In another sign of Dems’ renewed confidence in this race, the DNC is pouring a truckload of cash into the race: $5 million.

• CA-50: Dave Roberts, a city councilor and former mayor in Solana Beach, confirmed today that he’ll be a candidate in the 50th against GOP Rep. Brian Bilbray. Roberts, an openly gay veteran, has sounded more conservative notes than the other Dems in the primary, 2006 candidate Francine Busby and attorney Tracy Emblem; he recently changed his registration from Independent to Democratic. (UPDATE: The Roberts camp informs us that he is not a veteran.)

• FL-16: The DCCC sounds happy with its recruit to go against freshman Tom Rooney, 36-year-old St. Lucie County Commissioner Chris Craft. He also has a compelling backstory, as seen in this recent interview.

• NH-01: Here’s a poll of the hotly contested race in the 1st, courtesy of Populus Research (the same guys who polled NH-Sen a few weeks ago and found no undecideds) on behalf of the conservative site Now Hampshire. Carol Shea-Porter leads GOP mayor of Manchester Frank Guinta, 46.3%-43.4% (I’m not sure what’s up with the extra significant digits when the MoE is still 4%, but who am I to nitpick?). Guinta previously released an NRCC internal poll in April that had him down 43-34.

• NY-23: Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava seems to have one Achilles heel in the NY-23 open seat special election: her brother Thomas (in the fine tradition of Billy Carter, Roger Clinton, and Neil Bush). Turns out she owns $1 million in preferred stock (and a 3% voting stake) in her brother’s troubled company, Seaway Valley Capital Corporation, a holding company whose subsidiaries owe $192,000 in back taxes. She maintains she’s a mere “passive investor,” although she is COO of an affiliated company, Seaway Capital Partners.

• KY-State Sen.: It looks like Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear is going to continue his stealth plan to dismantle the GOP’s majority in the Kentucky state Senate, one seat at a time. Still riding high off of Democrat Robin Webb’s recent win of a GOP-held state Senate seat, Republican Senate President David Williams is pre-emptively whining in the press about Beshear’s efforts to see that GOP Senate Majority Leader Dan Kelly gets nominated to a vacant circuit judgeship. This move has been rumored for some time, and back in July, the names of two Democrats were floated for a potential special election in Kelly’s seat in central Kentucky’s Bourbon territory: former state Rep. Jodie Haydon of Bardstown or Nicky Rapier, the son of the late House leader Kenny Rapier. (J)

A backlog of polls have built up over the last couple days, none of which are that remarkable. Let’s clear the decks:

• NJ-Gov (pdf): Monmouth finds Chris Christie leading incumbent Jon Corzine 45-37 among likely voters (43-37 among RVs), with independent Chris Daggett pulling in 4%. That looks better than the Quinnipiac poll from Tuesday, but it’s a drop from the last Monmouth in April, where Christie led 39-35 among registered voters. Also troublesome: they ask whether Obama’s upcoming visit and endorsement will have any effect on how to vote, and 70% say it would have no effect.

• NY-Sen-B: Rasmussen polls the Democratic primary in New York’s senate special election for the first time, and finds Carolyn Maloney with a 33-27 edge over Kirsten Gillibrand, although 9% opt for “some other candidate” (presumably Jonathan Tasini, although some might just holding out for someone better). Both have high favorables: Gillibrand is at 49-25, while Maloney is at 44-24. They also looked at the NY-Gov Democratic primary, and found Andrew Cuomo whomping David Paterson, 61-27.

• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP’s latest suggests it’s time for someone in North Carolina to legally change his name to “Generic Democrat.” GOP incumbent Generic Republican Richard Burr leads Generic Democrat only 40-38 (after trailing G.D. 41-38 last month). Turning to actual human candidates, Burr leads former state Sen. Cal Cunningham 40-31 and attorney Kenneth Lewis 42-31. Burr also shows a small uptick in his approval rating, 36-29, maybe the first time this year his “approves” have exceeded the “don’t knows” (at 35%).

• TX-Gov: Rasmussen finds that Gov. Rick Perry’s lead over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Texas governor’s GOP primary is growing. He holds a 46-36 lead, while he led only 42-38 in May. Hutchison may be having second thoughts about giving up her day job.

• VA-Gov: Finally, Rasmussen polls the Virginia governor’s race, and like the other most recent polls here, Dem nominee Creigh Deeds seems to have come down from his post-primary bump and it’s settled down into a very close equilibrium with a tiny advantage for GOPer Bob McDonnell. McD leads 44-41, while Deeds was up in their previous poll last month, 47-41. Both men are well-liked; McDonnell’s favorables are 50-27 and Deeds’ are 49-35.

• FL-Sen: Although Rep. Corrine Brown, who’s expressed interest in running in the Democratic Senate primary, has been pretty inactive on the fundraising front, she did get at least one prominent donor to her Senate exploratory account: Rep. Donna Edwards, who gave her $1,000. (Edwards also gave to Rep. Kendrick Meek’s account on the same day — but only $250 to him.)

• KY-Sen: Jim Bunning finally released his fundraising numbers, and they’re still “lousy.” He raised $285K for the quarter, with $595K CoH, which is less than half of the amount raised by the guy who says he won’t run against Bunning in the primary, SoS Trey Grayson (who raised $603K). Both, of course, are dwarfed by Democratic AG Jack Conway, who raised $1.32 million for the quarter and is increasingly looking like the man to beat. (Conway’s primary rival, Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo, pulled in a lukewarm $303K.) Meanwhile, in another indication of Bunning’s dwindling power, lots of elected GOP officials seem willing to out themselves as Grayson supporters: Grayson got contributions from three state Reps., city councilors from Louisville and Lexington, and executives from three large counties.

• NH-Sen: One more indicator that there’s still going to be a contested GOP primary in New Hampshire: local political insider and long-time friend of AG Kelly Ayotte Mike Dennehy isn’t going to be working for Ayotte. He’s been working with businessman Fred Tausch on his anti-tax STEWARD organization since last fall, and will continue to do so.

• NC-Sen: Kenneth Lewis, a Durham corporate attorney who’s planning to run for the Democratic Senate nomination in 2010, made a big hire: Joe Trippi. It suggests, if nothing else, Lewis plans to spend a lot of money on the race, and maybe also that he’s interested in reaching out the netroots (although he may have some competition on that front, if he runs, from former state Sen. Cal Cunningham).

• NM-Gov: If ex-Rep. Heather Wilson doesn’t get in, the New Mexico GOP is left with a bunch of third-stringers for the governor’s race. Here’s a newly interested potential candidate, though, who’s at least interesting from a demographic perspective: Susana Martinez. She’s the DA of Dona Ana County, location of Las Cruces and New Mexico St. Univ., the state’s second-most populous county and one of its Democratic anchors. Running a Latina against an Anglo (likely Dem nominee Lt. Gov. Diane Denish) might also help the GOP peel off some ordinarily-Dem votes.

• NY-14: Roll Call previews the many possible Democratic replacements for Carolyn Maloney, if she follows through on her planned Senate race. On the Manhattan side of the East River, state Sen. Liz Krueger is at the top of the list. Younger up-and-comers, though, include city councilor Dan Garodnick, state Assemblyman Jonathan Bing (both of whom are Maloney allies and unlikely to run against each other), and city councilor Jessica Lappin. On the Queens side, there’s also city councilors Eric Gioia and Peter Vallone Jr. (son of the former council speaker), and Assemblyman Michael Gianaris. Karenna Gore Schiff (Al Gore’s daughter) has also been rumored, although she told TPM today she won’t run.

• PA-06: With Rep. Jim Gerlach gone, the primary opponents are descending on this open seat… but contrary to what I would have expected a few months ago, it’s happening on the GOP side. While state Rep. Curt Schroder got in, as expected, he didn’t clear the field: Chester County Recorder of Deeds Ryan Costello also said he’s likely to get in. Also, Guy Ciarrocchi, Gerlach’s former chief of staff, is interested, and Chester County Commissioner Carol Aichele’s name has been floated, although she’s already exploring a Lt. Gov. race. On the Dem side, Doug Pike’s early fundraising dominance may have locked things down for him, although the Hill says potential heavyweight state Sen. Andy Dinniman is still “eyeing” the race, as well as Manan Trivedi (a former health care policy advisor to the Obama campaign).

• VA-05: One last fundraising tidbit, that apparently couldn’t fit in James’s fundraising wrap-up because it rounds off to $0. Ex-Rep. Virgil Goode raised sub-Roland Burris totals last quarter: $154. Not the kind of money that suggests a rematch against Rep. Tom Perriello.

• Demographics: Two interesting reads you’ll want to check out: one from Ruy Teixeira, on how the rise of the millennial generation, more “seculars,” and more Latinos all point to an imminent end to the “culture wars.” And also an important 538 piece from Nate Silver, where he somehow got his hands on polling data on uninsured voters broken down by CD, finding that — unlike voting against cap-and-trade, where their districts tend to be more carbon-reliant and voting against the measure might seem short-term rational — Blue Dogs are disproportionately from districts that are heavy on uninsured voters and voting for the bill would, if framed correctly, be a big boon for their districts’ voters. With the public option still hanging in the balance, if you’re represented by a Blue Dog (although, if you’re reading SSP, chances are that you aren’t), this would be a great piece to forward to them.