Tag: IA-Gov

• AZ-Sen (pdf): Magellan is out with a poll of the Republican Senate primary, and finds (everybody say it with me now… 3… 2… 1…) good news! for John McCain! McCain leads J.D. Hayworth 52-29. The sample was taken on Tuesday, post-reveal of Hayworth’s Matthew Lesko-style free-money shilling.

• CO-Sen: Americans for Job Security, the mysterious conservative group who poured a lot of money into anti-Bill Halter ads in the Arkansas primary, have surfaced again, and this time they’re actually pro- somebody. They’re up with ads in Colorado pushing Weld Co. Ken Buck, who’s poised to knock off NRSC-touted Jane Norton in the GOP Senate primary.

• FL-Sen: An important-sounding behind-the-scenes Democrat has gotten on board the Charlie Crist campaign. Jeff Lieser, who was the finance director for Alex Sink’s successful 2006 CFO campaign, is going to be heading up Crist’s “Democratic fundraising efforts.”

• MO-Sen: Barack Obama will be doing a fundraiser with Robin Carnahan in Kansas City on July 8. Carnahan hid under a pile of coats when Obama was in Missouri last winter, so it’s good to see her changing her tune.

• AL-Gov: Robert Bentley, the state legislator who surprised many by squeaking into the GOP gubernatorial runoff, is picking up a key Tim James backer. Ex-Rep. Sonny Callahan, who represented AL-01 for decades, switched his backing to Bentley yesterday.

• AZ-Gov: The NRA really does seem to love its incumbents, as they’ve often been accused. The NRA weighed in to the GOP gubernatorial primary, endorsing appointed incumbent Jan Brewer. The only reason that’s a surprise is because her biggest rival is self-funding businessman Owen Buz Mills, who also happens to be on the NRA’s board of directors and who owns a shooting range.

• IA-Gov: Terry Branstad went with a relative unknown for his running mate, state Sen. Kim Reynolds, rather than one of the parade of recent losers whose names had been floated (Jeff Lamberti, Jim Gibbons, Rod Roberts). Perhaps most significantly, he didn’t pick GOP primary runner-up and social conservative extraordinaire Bob Vander Plaats, so now all eyes are on BVP to see whether he follows through with vague threats to run an independent candidacy. (While socially conservative personally, Reynolds isn’t known for running with the social conservative crowd.)

• MI-Gov: Virg Bernero is pretty universally considered the “labor” candidate in the Dem primary in the Michigan governor’s race, but rival Andy Dillon just got the backing of a big-time union: the statewide Teamsters. Bernero has the backing of the AFL-CIO (which, significantly for Michigan, includes the UAW); while they aren’t hitting the airwaves on Bernero’s behalf (at least not yet), they are gearing up for a large ground campaign.

• OR-Gov, OR-Sen: It looks like the Oregon gubernatorial race is going to be a close one (like New Mexico, this is shaping up to be a situation where what seemed like an easy race is turning into a battle because the outgoing Dem incumbent’s unpopularity is rubbing off on the expected successor). Local pollsters Davis, Hibbitts, and Midghall, on behalf of the Portland Tribune, find the race a dead heat, at a 41-41 tie between John Kitzhaber and Chris Dudley (with 6 going to minor party candidates). Tim Hibbitts is the go-to pollster in Oregon; the upside, I suppose, is that it’s good for Dems to realize now they’re going to need to fight this one hard, rather than realizing it in October after months of complacency. While the Gov. numbers here are closely in line with Rasmussen, the Senate numbers certainly aren’t: they find Ron Wyden leading Jim Huffman by a much more comfortable margin of 50-32.

• TX-Gov: Bill White got a big endorsement from Bill Clinton (although there’s no word yet if Clinton will stump in Texas on White’s behalf, which would be huge). Former Houston mayor White was also a Dept. of Energy official in the Clinton administration.

• LA-02: You might recall some sketchily-sourced information from a few days ago that a couple Democrats were considering launching independent bids in the 2nd, where a high-profile spoiler may be the only hope for another term for GOP freshman Rep. Joe Cao. Well, it seems like there’s some truth to the story, inasmuch as the person most likely to be affected by that, state Rep. Cedric Richmond (the likeliest Dem nominee here), is calling attention to the situation now. He’s accusing Republicans of a “South Carolina-style political ploy by convincing black candidates to run as independents.”

• MI-07: Although ex-Rep. Tim Walberg has the social conservative cred by the bushelful, he didn’t get an endorsement from Catholic Families for America. They instead backed his GOP primary rival, Brian Rooney. The Rooney backing makes sense, though, when you recall that Rooney is an attorney for the Thomas More Law Center, the Michigan-based nonprofit that’s a frequent filer of amicus briefs and bills itself as “Christianity’s answer to the ACLU.” The Center was founded by Domino’s Pizza baron Tom Monaghan, whose other attempts to mix ultra-conservative Catholicism and the law have included Ave Maria School of Law.

• WATN?: I had absolutely no idea that retiring Rep. Henry Brown was actually interested in demoting himself instead of leaving the political game altogether, but it turns out that, rather than take up golf or shuffleboard like a normal 74-year-old, he decided to run for the Board of Supervisors in Berkeley County (in Charleston’s suburbs). Here’s where it gets really pathetic… he didn’t even win that race. He got 44% of the vote on Tuesday in the GOP runoff (although in his sort-of defense, he was running against an incumbent).

• History: Here’s a very interesting article from Larry Sabato’s henchman Rhodes Cook, on why 2010 won’t be 1994. His gradation of “blue,” “purple,” and “red” districts is a little reductive, but it’s a nice look at how Democrats have somewhat less exposure in general this year. And if you’re looking for some amusing trivia, Univ. of Minnesota’s Smart Politics has a captivating look at which states have the most (South Carolina) and the fewest (Alaska by #, Idaho by %) governors who were born in-state.

• CT-Sen: You might recall that late last week Peter Schiff was looking unlikely to qualify for the ballot, not having enough signatures. Well, now it looks like he will qualify; I’m not sure whether the outcome was ever in doubt or he was gaming expectations. At any rate, he managed to get the signatures of 2% of all registered Republicans in the state, and the SoS announced his certification today. Also in the Nutmeg State, Joe Lieberman, who’d floated the idea of a Linda McMahon endorsement, now sounds like he’ll stay out of the Senate race entirely… given the choice between supporting arch-foe Richard Blumenthal or McMahon (who, given her unlikeliness of winning, isn’t a good use of political capital).

• IL-Sen: The optics on this just aren’t good for Mark Kirk: after an appearance at the Metropolitan Planning Council, Kirk literally ran out the door instead of taking questions from the media (who probably want to know about his military and teaching claims) and peeled out in his SUV. Alexi Giannoulias was also present; in a sign of how the worm has turned, instead of running out the door (as he probably would have several months ago) he lingered comfortably. Bad news on the cat fud front, though: Mike Niecestro, the rich guy who came out of nowhere last week to announce that he had 25,000 signatures and $1 million for an independent Senate bid to Kirk’s right, has had to back down. Turns out he didn’t have enough signatures after all. However, here’s some limited good news: Niecestro says he’s backing somebody by the name of Randy Stufflebeam, who’ll be running under the Constitution Party banner. Stufflebeam doesn’t seem to have Niecestro’s money, but he at least seems to have enough signatures to qualify. (Also on the filings front, pawnbroker-turned-LG-nominee-turned-laughingstock Scott Lee Cohen brought in 130K signatures for his independent IL-Gov bid, five times as many as he needs.)

• AL-Gov: The recount is over in Alabama, and as expected, Tim James’ $200K was very badly spent. The official tally: he now finished down by more than 200 votes, instead of the 167 he trailed by on Election Night. This means that Robert Bentley has clinched the slot in the GOP runoff against Bradley Byrne.

• IA-Gov: In what’s not a surprise, Terry Branstad has been on bended knee trying to get the backing of GOP primary rival Bob Vander Plaats, but it’s not going well. Vander Plaats reportedly requested the Lt. Governor spot, which Branstad isn’t going to do. However, this is a surprise to me: apparently Iowa doesn’t have a sore loser law, because now there’s talk of this leading to an independent run by Vander Plaats, which he’s now “seriously considering.” A kamikaze run by Vander Plaats that peels off 10% might actually give Chet Culver a route to staying in office.

• MI-Gov: Another EPIC-MRA poll of the Michigan governor’s race is out, this time only of the two primaries. On the Dem side, Andy Dillon has a 34-24 lead over Virg Bernero (leaving 42% undecided). On the GOP side, here’s a new development: Mike Cox is actually pulling into the lead, at 26. He leads Peter Hoekstra at 24, Rick Snyder at 20, Mike Bouchard at 16, and Tom George at 2, with 12 undecided. Is this just a blip, or is Cox really gaining some ground, having gotten some big conservative endorsements (Michigan Right to Life, the DeVos family) lately? Chances are it’s for real, now that there’s another round of attack ads out targeting Cox for allegedly helping cover up a party-out-of-bounds at then-Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s mansion. (The radio ad is paid for by the mysterious Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America, which the Cox camp seems to think is linked to Snyder.)

• NV-Gov: The Hatch Act is an obscure little piece of legislation, although it’s at the core of what the GOP thinks is illegal about the PA-Sen/Co-Sen “jobsgate.” Well, it might just bite the Republicans in the butt, too: there are increasing questions over whether Brian Sandoval, who stepped down from the federal district court in order to run for Governor, engaged in politicking with still on the bench. The RGA’s Haley Barbour and Nick Ayers reportedly heavily recruited Sandoval into the race; considering how little time passed between his resignation and his entry into the race, some of that recruiting must have happened while son the bench.

• SC-Gov: Mitt Romney really, really wants to see Nikki Haley as Governor (probably because he’d like to have someone in charge of S. Carolina in 2012 who owes him a favor or three); he just gave $42K to Haley, who faces a GOP runoff tomorrow. (He was able to give that much, despite contribution limits, by harnessing six different PACs.) There have also been some eyebrows raised over a $2,000 consulting fee paid to Haley in 2008 by a construction firm, revealed when she disclosed her tax returns; it has a quid pro quo-ish whiff to it (the firm’s head said it was to pay for business leads and “help with things”), but isn’t likely to put a dent in the outcome of tomorrow’s runoff at this point.

• CO-04: Cory Gardner’s decision to bail on a fundraiser with unpalatable Iowa Rep. Steve King may hurt him more than if he’d actually gone through with it. King is still harping on Gardner’s lack of fortitude. King was joined on a conservative radio talk show in Colorado last Friday by ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo, who took turns tag-team insulting Gardner for an hour.

• ID-01: I don’t know how much weight to give this, but Rep. Mike Simpson (from the 2nd) is publicly saying it’s possible that Rep. Walt Minnick could play a role in voting in a different speaker than Nancy Pelosi, if the Dem majority is small enough after 2010 and whatever Blue Dogs are left hold the vote in the balance. Minnick, for his part, shrugged it off, although without a categorical denial, saying it’s “premature.” In a weird way, though, Simpson might be doing Minnick a favor here. Already a beneficiary of endorsement as the Tea Party Express’s token Democrat, this gives Minnick further cover to keep Dem leadership at arm’s length in the runup to November.

• NC-08: “I’d do everything the crazy guy would do; I just wouldn’t do it in a crazy way,” seems to be the argument here, which may not be the best electability argument. But that’s Harold Johnson’s way of framing tomorrow’s GOP runoff in the 8th, saying that he’d vote the “basically the same way” as Tim D’Annunzio.

FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Florida Chamber of Commerce Political Institute and Cherry Communications (6/9-13, likely voters, no trendlines):

Rick Scott (R): 35

Bill McCollum (R): 30

Undecided: 33

(MoE: ±_%)

Alex Sink (D): 26

Rick Scott (R): 30

Bud Chiles (I): 15

Alex Sink (D): 26

Bill McCollum (R): 31

Bud Chiles (I): 15

(MoE: ±4%)

Kendrick Meek (D): 14

Marco Rubio (R): 31

Charlie Crist (I): 42

(MoE: ±4%)

IL-Sen: Really gotta wonder what’s going on here. The New York Times keeps digging into Mark Kirk’s past and finds that the nursery school where he claimed to teach for a brief spell in 1981 “never, ever considered” Kirk a teacher, according to a leader of its affiliated church.

UT-Sen: Mike Lee has an internal poll, conducted by Wenzel Strategies, showing him with a 45-35 lead over Time Bridgewater in the GOP primary. However, an independent poll conducted by Dan Jones and Associates for the Deseret News & KSL-TV has almost opposite numbers: 42 Bridgewater, 33 Lee.

IA-Gov: Chet Culver is out with his first ad of the general election campaign, attacking ex-Gov. Terry Branstad for his dodgy fiscal stewardship of the state during his long tenure in the governor’s mansion. No word on the size of the buy.

AR-02: Rove acolyte Tim Griffin is out with an internal poll from OnMessage showing him with a 50-34 lead over Joyce Elliott. He also announced the endorsement of weirdo D.C. Morrison – yeah, the guy who ran in the Democratic senate primary. Not really a surprise, though, since Morrison previously said he planned to support John Boozman in that race.

NY-23: Good news, everybody! I opened up the ballot box, and Schroedinger’s cat fud is very much alive! In fact, there’s a 100% chance of a right-wing split in NY-23 no matter what happens now. That’s because the Independence Party gave their line to Matt Doheny, who is also seeking the Republican nomination. But of course, our old friend Doug Hoffman is also vying for the GOP nod – and he already has the Conservative Party’s endorsement. This means that regardless of who wins the Republican primary, at least one ballot line will remain occupied by a legitimate Republican candidate.

ID-01: This is sorta weird. You remember that Vaughn Ward ripped off an Obama speech, right? Well, it turns out that he also ganked large chunks of a speech from Pat Meehan, too, who is running in PA-07. (At least Meehan’s a Republican.) What’s odd, though, is why is TV news station KTVB investigating this stuff now, weeks after Ward lost the GOP primary? Aren’t there actual candidates worth reporting about?

UT-02: Those same media organizations (see UT-Sen item above) also had Dan Jones poll the 2nd CD, finding Rep. Jim Matheson leading Claudia Wright 52-33 in the Democratic primary. That’s good for Matheson, but by no means great, given his almost comical spending advantage.

• LA-Sen: Two different polls have very different pictures of the Louisiana Senate race, which is moving into the foreground with Charlie Melancon getting a lot more media exposure criticizing BP while David Vitter acts as one of their biggest defenders. PPP (in a poll leaked to Roll Call, although I’m not sure if it’s a Melancon internal or on someone else’s behalf) finds Melancon within single digits, trailing Vitter 46-37. On the other hand, Republican pollster Magellan gives Vitter a 51-31 lead. (Magellan has been doing a lot of recent public polling of Republican primaries; this is for the general, though, and I’m not sure if they’re working for Vitter, for some other GOP interest, or just acting sua sponte.) Both polls find extremely high continued support for offshore drilling, not a surprise since that’s Louisiana’s bread and butter.

• NH-Sen: Yesterday was Kelly Ayotte’s day to testify before the state legislature about what she did and didn’t know about the collapsed mortgage banker FRM; for the most part, she staked out claims of not knowing anything about them (saying that the buck stopped with her, but the buck never made it to her AG’s desk). Legislators seemed underwhelmed by her responses, and even GOP state Rep. Rip Holden criticized her, saying she needed to accept some blame for the state’s failings.

• PA-Sen: Politico, always hungry for inside-baseball campaign drama, is highlighting a story titled “Sestak silence worries Pa. officials,” detailing concerns the local establishment has with Joe Sestak not sufficiently linking up with them as he pivots toward the general election. It’s actually an interesting article, but Pa2010‘s Dan Hirschhorn captures the overarching tone of it with his own meta-piece, “The Sestak-as-crazy-campaigner meme returns.”

• SC-Sen: Today’s 538 look at the South Carolina puzzle focuses on how Census microdata suggests that the Greene/Green difference may not have been the racial dogwhistle that people think it is: nationwide, a higher percentage of Greenes are white than are Greens. (H/t to our commenter KCinDC, who pointed out this same data point over the weekend.) In fact, the first name “Alvin” may be a clearer dogwhistle instead. (And, of course, there’s the danger in extrapolating national data to the state level, where things may be much different in South Carolina.)

• WA-Sen: As I’ve opined before, attacking Dino Rossi for having made money off foreclosed properties, and teaching other people how to do it, has a whiff of “what else have you got?” But what’s really weird here is that he just keeps scheduling more appearances at more real estate seminars, as he’ll being doing today. (Today’s burning question: “Is now the time to buy a waterfront home?”) If I were the NRSC, I’d be worried about how committed he is to a race he seemed to get dragged kicking and screaming into in the first place, if he’s still doing real estate seminars instead of campaigning 24/7. Is the Senate race a way to keep his name in the spotlight so he can get more money for more real estate seminar appearances?

• AK-Gov: P’oh! Former state official Bob Poe was the first Dem to get in the gubernatorial race (back when it would have been against Sarah Palin). But not having made much progress on the fundraising front against the higher-profile Ethan Berkowitz and Hollis French in the Democratic primary, he pulled out of the race yesterday.

• CA-Gov, CA-Sen: There’s a poll of the California races out from CrossTarget research on behalf of right-wing new media outlet Pajamas Media, so you might keep the salt shaker handy (especially remembering their decidedly optimistic polling of the MA-Sen special). That said, though, the gubernatorial numbers look perfectly plausible, with Jerry Brown leading Meg Whitman 46-43. The Senate race may be a little further off the mark, pegged at a 47-47 tie between Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina. Speaking of Whitman, she just wrote herself a check for another $20 million from her seeming bottomless reserves, bringing her total self-funding investment to $91 million. The main Whitman story that’s in the news today, though, presents a different picture of her from the rather serene Queen Meg that appears in all her advertising: it turns out she settled with an eBay employee for six-figures after shoving her during an argument.

• FL-Gov (pdf): When you’re reduced to leaking your own internal poll that has you tied with your opposition, well, let’s just say you’re in a world of hurt. But that’s what Bill McCollum is doing today to prove his continued relevance in the Florida GOP gubernatorial primary. His poll by McLaughlin & Associates has McCollum tied at 40-40 with Rick Scott.

• IA-Gov: As expected, the religious right isn’t planning to do much of anything to help Terry Branstad defeat Chet Culver in November. The Iowa Family PAC, who had backed Bob Vander Plaats, confirmed (as they’d threatened months ago) that they won’t endorse Branstad.

• CO-04: Credit GOP nominee Cory Gardner with having some sense of decency (or at least knowing when it’s not expedient to hitch his wagon to the crazy train). After Iowa Rep. Steve King’s comments about Barack Obama’s racist “default mechanism,” Gardner abruptly canceled a $100/person fundraiser he had scheduled for Saturday with King. (King, for his part, is doubling down on the crazy, with his impassioned defense of racial profiling yesterday.)

• KY-06: The Andy Barr campaign is out with an internal by the Tarrance Group showing him within sorta-striking distance of Democratic Rep. Ben Chandler. Chandler leads Barr 45-38. Chandler’s spokesperson said that Chandler “has a strong double-digit lead” in his own polling, but didn’t offer a polling memo.

• NC-08: The list of GOP Beltway figures piling on to support Harold Johnson instead of Tim D’Annunzio is a veritable House GOP who’s who. John Boehner and Eric Cantor are headlining a Thursday Capitol Hill fundraiser for Johnson, with Pete Sessions and Greg Walden also atop the list. Obviously plans for this must predate today’s PPP poll showing the huge disparity in viability between Johnson and D’Annunzio, so the NRCC has clearly had their eye on this one for a while.

• OK-02: Rep. Dan Boren is out with an internal poll as he faces a tough fight in a dark-red district… but he doesn’t seem concerned enough with his minor GOP opposition to even poll on that. Instead, he’s focused on a late-breaking primary challenge from the left from state Sen. Jim Wilson. His poll from Myers Research gives him a 68-24 lead over Wilson.

• OR-01: Tis the season for internal polls, I guess: there’s also one floating around out there from Rob Cornilles, the little-known but NRCC-touted businessman running against Rep. David Wu in the Portland suburbs. The Cornilles poll, by local Republican pollster Moore Information, gives Wu a 46-40 lead over Cornilles, suggesting that Wu is at least in for a tougher-than-usual challenge even if he has the district’s D+7 lean working in his favor.

• SC-06: The strange saga of the South Carolina Democratic primary is also playing out in the 6th, where Democratic House Whip Jim Clyburn easily beat Gregory Brown. Clyburn, who’s led the charge that Senate candidate Alvin Greene was a plant, is crying “foul” here as well, though, pointing out that Brown has been linked to a Republican consulting firm. The Brown campaign paid $23K to Stonewall Strategies (run by former Joe Wilson aide Preston Grisham) for “marketing;” Brown says he worked with them because they were the only ones willing to take him on as a client. Several African-American state legislators tell TPM that they’ve talked with Brown and figure that his campaign, while quixotic, was still “on the level.”

• TN-08: Allegedly humble gospel singer Stephen Fincher has gone negative against his opposition in the GOP primary, not the usual sign of a confident frontrunner. He’s launched a new ad against physician Ron Kirkland, attacking Kirkland for allowing thousands of dollars in contributions to Democratic candidates when he was head of the American Medical Group Association. He’s also charging that the Jackson Clinic, which Kirkland ran at the time, gave $8K to state Sen. Roy Herron, who’s now running for the Democratic nod in the 8th.

• VA-05: The hope of party unity for state Sen. Robert Hurt seems to be running into quite a few hitches, in the wake of his 48% victory in the GOP primary against fractured teabagging opposition. The Lynchburg Tea Party leadership says they won’t back Hurt (although they seem to be not backing anyone rather, than supporting right-wing indie Jeffrey Clark). TPM also claims that Jim McKelvey, who courted Tea Party support en route to finishing a distant second in the GOP primary, won’t be backing Hurt either.

• NRCC: Rep. Mike Rogers has a pretty easy job this year: he’s in charge of incumbent retention for the NRCC. He says there are, at this point, only nine incumbents who are in need of continued financial support: Dan Lungren, Mary Bono Mack, Charles Djou, Joseph Cao, Pat Tiberi, Jim Gerlach, Charlie Dent, and Dave Reichert. (You’d think he’s been looking at our House Ratings page or something.) There’s one other stray bit of good news for the NRCC: they’ve finally settled their several-years-old embezzlement case, paying a $10K civil penalty for improper reporting; they’ve also received a payout from their insurance company, covering $500K of their lost $724K in funds.

Meanwhile, wags have been having some great fun at the expense of the name of the NRCC’s offense program, named, of course, “Young Guns.” Despite the fact that the average Young Gun is 50 years old. Only 7 of the 105 members of the program are women, so maybe at least the Gun part is right.

• DCCC: Roll Call looks at the DCCC’s continued outreach to K Street. An “adopt a member” strategy is being cooked up where sympathetic lobbyists will work directly with the most embattled members to shepherd them through the electoral cycle.

• WATN?: If you’re wondering whatever became of ex-Rep. John Doolittle, who retired in shame in 2008 after getting caught up in the Jack Abramoff scandal, it turns out he won’t be facing any charges. The DOJ has finally closed the case on Doolittle, who had previously been named as a co-conspirator in the case against aide-turned-lobbyist Kevin Ring.

• CT-Sen, CT-Gov: Leftover from last Friday is the most recent Quinnipiac poll of Connecticut. Without much changing from their previous poll other than some within-the-margin-of-error gains for Linda McMahon, the poll is very digestible. Richard Blumenthal leads McMahon 55-35 (instead of 56-31 in late May), leads Rob Simmons (who has “suspended” his campaign) 54-33, and leads Peter Schiff 56-29. McMahon leads Simmons and Schiff in the GOP primary 45-29-13. They also included gubernatorial primaries (but not the general): for the Dems, Ned Lamont leads Dan Malloy 39-22, while for the GOP Tom Foley leads Michael Fedele and Oz Griebel 39-12-2.

• IL-Sen: With a growing sense that many Illinois residents would prefer to vote for neither Mark Kirk nor Alexi Giannoulias, a new right-winger with money to burn looks like he’s daring to go where Patrick Hughes didn’t. Mike Niecestro says he’s a “disgusted Republican who has had it with the people the party throws at us,” and differentiates himself from Kirk on cap-and-trade and immigration. Just another random teabagger who’s all talk and no $$$? No, Niecestro says he already has the 25,000 signatures he needs to qualify before the June 21 deadline, and also has $1 million of his own money ready to go, along with another $100K he’s raised elsewhere. Even if he winds up pulling in only a few percent off Kirk’s right flank, that could be what that Giannoulias needs to squeak by in what otherwise looks to be a close race.

• NV-Sen: Jon Scott Ashjian is turning into something of the white whale for the Nevada GOP. Even though his candidate lost the primary, Dan Burdish, former political director for Sue Lowden, is still filing complaints with the SoS’s office to get Ashjian off the ballot. It doesn’t look like it’ll go anywhere, though; Ashjian himself has qualified for the ballot, easily meeting the low 250-vote signature hurdle even though the “Tea Party” didn’t meet the signature requirements for its own ballot line. Of course, competing right-wing third party the Independent American Party is still trying to get Ashjian off the ballot too, and now the teabaggers in general have turned on Ashjian (who never really had much support from them in the first place) since one of their own, Sharron Angle, managed to snare the GOP nod.

• NY-Sen, NY-Sen-B (pdf): Siena has yet another poll out of both the Senate races in New York. There’s still very little of interest to report. Kirsten Gillibrand leads Bruce Blakeman 48-27, David Malpass 49-24, and Joe DioGuardi 47-29. DioGuardi leads the GOP primary over Blakeman and Malpass, 21-7-3. Chuck Schumer leads Jay Townsend 60-26 and Gary Berntsen 59-27. Townsend leads Berntsen in the other GOP primary, 20-15.

• SC-Sen: Vic Rawl, who lost the Democratic nomination to the baffling Alvin Greene last week, is now formally contesting the results of the election. The state party’s 92-member executive committee will meet on Thursday to hear evidence, but it’s unlikely they’ll do anything, as there’s no precedent in South Carolina for throwing out a primary election’s results.

• WA-Sen: The state GOP convention was over the weekend in Washington; unlike, say, Utah or Connecticut, there’s nothing at stake here, but the general sense in terms of signage, applause, and the like, was that the party’s activist base is pretty jazzed about Sarah Palin-endorsed Clint Didier, and much more tepid about Dino Rossi than they were in 2008, when he was a more apt vehicle for their resentments. A straw poll at a Patriot Coalition event associated with the convention (a subset of a subset of the most hardcore base, so take with much salt) gave Didier a 99-12 edge over Rossi.

• AL-Gov: Artur Davis isn’t giving up on being a douchebag just because he lost the gubernatorial nomination; he said he isn’t sure how Ron Sparks is going to be able to win the uphill fight in the general election, and that Sparks will need something “broader than bingo” to win. Also, this is a very strange time to be making any major staff changes, let alone plunging into what Reid Wilson is describing as “turmoil:” fresh off the triumph of (probably) making the GOP gubernatorial runoff against Bradley Byrne, Robert Bentley just sacked his campaign manager, communications director, and new media director. Bentley is bringing in members of the Mike Huckabee camp to take over (with Huckabee son-in-law Bryan Sanders the new CM), but it seems like his small-time help didn’t get demoted, but instead rudely shown the door by the new bosses.

• CO-Gov: Businessman Joe Gesundheit Schadenfreude Weltschmerz Gschwendtner has pulled the plug on his Republican gubernatorial bid, without endorsing anybody else. He wasn’t able to round up enough signatures to qualify, which is odd, considering that people only need to be able to spell their own names, not his.

• FL-Gov: With his once-clear path to the GOP nomination suddenly looking to be on life support, Bill McCollum got some help from a key GOP establishment figure: Mitt Romney. Romney will appear at two Sunshine State fundraisers today, handing out endorsements like candy to a number of other Republicans in better position too.

• IA-Gov: You may recall that, in the wake of Terry Branstad’s closer-than-expected victory over social conservative Bob vander Plaats, we lamented that the Dems didn’t try any Gray Davis-style meddling in the primary to get the more-conservative, less-electable guy over the top. Well, it turns out they did try a little of that; the Dems launched an independent expenditure committee called “Iowans for Responsible Government” that ran ads on Fox News and sent direct mail attacking Branstad for tax hikes and putting his face on a liberal Mt. Rushmore next to Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi. While it didn’t seal the deal, it may have contributed to the underwhelming showing by Branstad.

• MI-Gov: AG Mike Cox won the endorsement of Michigan Right to Life, a big endorsement that will help him as he fights for the social conservative vote in the GOP primary with Rep. Peter Hoekstra. Cox might be the Republican we most want to face out of the GOP field; Rasmussen joined the crowd today in finding that he polls the weakest against either Democrat.

• NY-Gov (pdf): Siena also polled the gubernatorial race; again, nothing noteworthy here, other than Andrew Cuomo having lost a few points since last time. Cuomo leads Rick Lazio 60-24, and leads Carl Paladino 65-23. Party-endorsed Lazio leads Paladino (assuming he can successfully petition onto the ballot) in the GOP primary, 45-18. Meanwhile, the race may get slightly more interesting as gadflyish New York city councilor Charles Barron seems to be moving forward on his quixotic plans to create a whole third party (New York Freedom Democratic Party) for a challenge to the left, mostly to protest Cuomo putting together an all-white ticket.

• OH-Gov: Incumbent Dem Ted Strickland won the NRA endorsement today, instead of GOP ex-Rep. John Kasich. That may seem a surprise, but Strickland has a lifetime “A” rating from the NRA while Kasich was always an unusually anti-gun Republican.

• GA-12: The Hill details how Rep. John Barrow’s fundraising from fellow Dems has fallen way off this year, perhaps an indication of blowback over his “no” vote on HCR. He’s only gotten money directly from five Democratic colleagues and five others’ PACs, compared with 53 in 2006 and 22 in 2008. (An alternative explanation, of course, is that he’s in no major trouble in the general election this year and that money may be more needed elsewhere.) Barrow still has the AFL-CIO’s endorsement, and about a 20:1 CoH advantage over primary challenger Regina Thomas. Speaking of one of his minor GOP opponents, Carl Smith, the fire chief of the small town of Thunderbolt, has a less-appealing resume now that he just got canned by his city council, which opted to stop paying for a fire department and return to an all-volunteer operation.

• IN-03: The Indiana state GOP met over the weekend to pick a nominee to fill the spot left behind by the resigned Rep. Mark Souder. It wasn’t much of a surprise: they picked state Sen. Marlin Stutzman, an up-and-comer who gave Dan Coats a challenge in the GOP Senate primary. Stutzman won on the second ballot, with state Rep. Randy Borror a distant second. It was a double pick: Stutzman will be replace Souder as the GOP candidate in the general election, and also will be the GOP’s candidate in the special election that will also be held on Election Day in November (which, assuming he wins, will allow him to serve in the post-election lame duck session).

• NC-02: Rep. Bob Etheridge, usually one of the more low-key members of the House, had an embarrassing flip-out in front of two GOP trackers/college students asking him if he “supported the Obama agenda,” grabbing one of them and his camera. Etheridge subsequently issued a statement apologizing.

• Polltopia: PPP is soliciting opinions on where the poll next, both multiple-choice and open-ended. Let ’em know what burning questions you’d like answered.

Taking the last non-Rasmussen polls (four as maximum) and calculating the average between the key numbers of the polls we have the next rank:

(Begining from the number of democratic senate seats and the number of democratic governors what need not run for reelection this year, the first number mean the number of democratic senate seats and governors what dems would have winning until every race of the list.)

(When I tell not the number of polls is because they are four or more)

(I bold emphasize the race with a negative poll what include an outsider key value what make down the average).

RANK OF SENATE AND GUBERNATORIAL RACES BY LAST NO-RASMUSSEN POLLS AVERAGE

41 senate seats in the democratic caucus need not run this year.

07 democratic governors need not run this year.

And taking L Chafee and C Crist as friendly candidates:

42S +??.??% VT-Sen 0 polls

43S +??.??% MD-Sen 0 polls

44S +??.??% HI-Sen 0 polls

08G +38.50% AR-Gov 2 polls

09G +37.75% NY-Gov

45S +36.67% NY-Sen 3 polls

10G +23.50% NH-Gov

46S +22.75% OR-Sen

47S +21.00% NY-Sen(s)

11G +20.00% RI-Gov 2 polls

48S +19.25% CT-Sen

49S +15.67% WI-Sen 3 polls

12G +10.67% HI-Gov 3 polls

13G +09.00% AZ-Gov

14G +07.67% CT-Gov 3 polls

15G +07.50% MA-Gov

16G +07.00% MD-Gov

17G +06.25% CA-Gov

50S +06.25% WA-Sen

51S +06.00% FL-Sen

18G +05.25% OH-Gov

19G +04.00% NM-Gov 2 polls

52S +04.00% CA-Sen

53S +03.00% OH-Sen

20G +02.00% MN-Gov

21G +02.50% OR-Gov 2 polls

22G +02.00% VT-Gov 1 poll

23G +01.75% CO-Gov

54S +01.50% CO-Sen

55S +01.25% PA-Sen

56S +01.00% MO-Sen

57S +00.75% NV-Sen

24G =??.??% ME-Gov 0 polls

25G – 00.50% IL-Gov

**** – 00.75% NJ-Gov

58S – 01.50% IL-Sen

26G – 01.50% GA-Gov

59S – 04.25% KY-Sen

60S – 04.75% NC-Sen

**** – 05.75% MA-Sen

27G – 06.00% TX-Gov

28G – 06.25% WI-Gov

29G – 06.50% FL-Gov

61S – 09.25% NH-Sen

30G – 10.00% SC-Gov 1 polls

31G – 11.00% NV-Gov

62S – 11.00% IN-Sen 2 polls

32G – 11.75% IA-Gov

33G – 12.67% AL-Gov 3 polls

34G – 13.00% PA-Gov

35G – 13.00% SD-Gov 1 poll

63S – 14.25% LA-Sen

**** – 14.25% VA-Gov

64S – 15.00% DE-Sen 2 polls

36G – 15.25% MI-Gov

65S – 15.25% AR-Sen

66S – 16.00% IA-Sen

37G – 16.25% OK-Gov

…

I take as the negative outsider polls, the polls what have a difference of -9.50 or more with the average (higher with the other polls for the race).

This is a rank of outsider values:

(The first number is the difference between the outsider value and the average for the race).

– 12.50% NH-Gov by PPP

– 11.00% PA-Gov by Muhlenberg College

– 10.75% MN-Gov by Survey USA

– 10.00% NM-Gov by Survey USA

– 10.00% IA-Sen by PPP

– 09.75% OR-Sen by Survey USA

– 09.75% WI-Gov by St Norbert College

– 09.50% IL-Gov by PPP

– 09.50% OR-Gov by Survey USA

The two colleges seems local pollsters attacking the democratic prospect in PA and WI. I worry about WI-Gov race because I think should be better than this and no-one is polling the race. Without the outsider poll, the average for WI-Gov race would be – 02.25%.

Survey USA seems begin a campaign for include outsider values for the races with lower number of polls (the poll for WA-Sen was too an outsider value but is not included because they are more recent polls for the race). ME-Gov with 0 polls and VT-Gov with 1 poll are good candidates for the next Survey USA poll in this strategy.

Just Survey USA polls create the alone positive outsider values at this level (+9.50 or more) because the average between the key value of two polls is in the middle of both values and if one is included as outsider, both values get as outsiders. A third poll would show what is the real outsider value.

And PPP has too some unpleasant polls. The dems from NH (the value for NH-Sen is not an outsider but is very bad too), IA and IL (Obama’s home state) are not favored by PPP what gives to they negative outsider key values in the polls. The new PPP poll of IL-Sen and IL-Gov races included after the updates, improves the previous numbers but still makes down the average of both races to negative numbers.

Of course all the races with positive average are races for fight and try win. And someone of the races with negative average can be too for fight but the democratic candidates need emerge. In the poll of the diary are included the 20 first races with negative average in the moment of write the diary (before the updates).

I will update the diary with the results of the new polls while the diary continues in the frontpage of SSP. I include too the reference of the NJ-Gov, MA-Sen and VA-Gov races with the average of the last four polls just before the elections of 2009 and 2010.

A super Tuesday of primaries means a super-sized Primary Roundup the day after!

Arkansas:

• AR-Sen (D): Blanche Lincoln’s 52-48 victory in the runoff over Bill Halter is being spun as a comeback, but she did, y’know, win the primary too, by a similar margin. A series of R2K polls plus the incumbent rule were the main reason most people mentally gave Halter the edge going into the runoff, but in the end, a pretty similar universe of voters showed up the second time, while the D.C. Morrison voters either split evenly or just stayed away. (C)
• AR-01 (D): Chad Causey, the former CoS to retiring Rep. Marion Berry, eked out a 51-49 runoff victory over former state Sen. Tim Wooldridge in a battle of conservadem vs. very-conservadem. Causey’s late endorsement by Bill Clinton may have helped push him over the top. (C)
• AR-02 (D): In another Dem runoff, liberal African-American state Sen. Joyce Elliott won a 54-46 victory over state House speaker Robbie Wills. They went hard negative on each other, meaning a lot of damage control before facing well-financed GOPer Tim Griffin in November. (C)
• AR-03 (R): In the dark-red 3rd, Rogers mayor Steve Womack won the GOP runoff against state Sen. Cecile Bledsoe, 52-48; Womack is almost certain to win in November. Bledsoe was the only Sarah Palin endorsee to lose last night (but then, Fiorina and Branstad were gimmees). (C)

California:

• CA-Gov (R): With only one outlier poll to the contrary, the primary between former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and current Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner wasn’t expected to be close. Poizner’s attempts to outflank Whitman on the right netted him only a 64-27 defeat; Whitman now goes on to face former Governor and current state Attorney General Jerry Brown. (JMD)
• CA-Sen (R): Yesterday wasn’t a dream for Carly Fiorina, who romped to a victory with 56% of the vote over former San Jose congressman Tom Campbell and Orange County Assemblyman Chuck DeVore. CarlyFornia gets to take on three-term incumbent Barbara Boxer. (JMD)
• CA-Lt. Gov (D): In just one of yesterday’s showings of the Northern California dominance of the California Democratic Party, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom beat LA City Councilwoman Janice Hahn 55-32, winning all but six counties. (JMD)
• CA-Lt. Gov (R): Incumbent Lt. Gov Abel Maldonado, appointed to replace now-Rep. John Garamendi, beat back a conservative challenge from term-limited State Senator Sam Aanestad by a 43-31 margin. Aanestad won the counties in his district and the OC, but not much else. (JMD)
• CA-Att. Gen (D): In this seven-way primary for the Dem nod to replace Jerry Brown who’s running for governor, San Francisco DA Kamala Harris withstood an aerial assault from Facebook Chief “Privacy” Officer Chris Kelly. Harris ended up more than doubling Harris’ vote totals, 33-16. Behind them were East Bay Assemblyman Alberto Torrico at 15%, LA County Assemblyman Ted Lieu, Santa Barbara Assemblyman Pedro Nava, and LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo at 10 apiece. All three Assemblyman were term-limited – better luck next time at musical chairs, guys. (JMD)
• CA-Att. Gen (R): Los Angeles County DA Steve Cooley, the lone moderate in the field of three, scores a convincing 47-34-19 victory over his more conservative opponents, Chapman University Law School dean John Eastman and Orange County Assemblyman Tom Harman. This sets up yet another NorCal-SoCal matchup for AG in November, LA County DA Steve Cooley against San Francisco (City and County) DA Kamala Harris. (JMD)
• CA-Sec. of State (R): O, RLY? No, not really. Some insiders were worried that Birther Queen Orly Taitz would inexplicably earn the GOP nod for Secretary of State, but she ended up getting thoroughly pasted by ex-NFLer Damon Dunn 74-26. While Dunn’s busy facing off against incumbent Dem SoS Debra Bowen, Orly can go back to getting thoroughly pasted (and fined) in court for filing frivolous suits. (JMD)
• CA-Init: The good news: Props 16 and 17 — pet projects for the private utilities and insurance companies, respectively — have both failed, both losing 52-48 after leading much of the night. The bad news (well, as far as most blogosphere chatter goes; as a Washingtonian with first-hand experience with the ‘top two’ system, my own feelings are a firm ‘meh’): Prop 14 passed 54-46, meaning California switches to a ‘top two’ primary system. (C)
• CA-02 (R): Longtime Republican incumbent Wally Herger survived an attempted teabagging from retired Air Force Col. Pete Siglich by a 65-35 spread. Siglich criticized Herger for his TARP bailout vote, earmarks, and, going all the way back to 2003, his support for Medicare Part D, but only spent $45,000 on the race. (JL)
• CA-11 (R): Attorney David Harmer, who carpetbagged across the border from the 10th after establishing his GOP bona fides in the special election there, captured the GOP nomination with a middling 36%. The publicity Brad Goehring got over his lib’rul huntin’ remarks seemed to catapult him into 2nd place, ahead of the other two more normal candidates, Tony Amador and Elizabeth Emken. (C)
• CA-19 (R): As in the 11th, the establishment GOPer (here, state Sen. Jeff Denham) was the victor with 36% against a fractured field. Denham, who got the backing of retiring Rep. George Radanovich, beat former Fresno mayor (and Club for Growth guy) Jim Patterson and slimy former CA-11 Rep. Richard Pombo. (C)
• CA-33 (D): Former Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, who’s LA-based 47th AD overlaps quite a bit with CD-33, beat out some minor opposition with 85% of the vote to win the Democratic nomination to succeed outgoing Dem. Diane Watson. Bass faces minor GOP opposition in November and will almost certainly be the next Congresswoman from this D+35 district. (JMD)
• CA-36 (D): Marcy Winograd’s second challenge to Jane Harman was better organized than her first run in 2006, and Jane Harman’s had her share of scandal since then, but the needle barely moved. Harman scored 58.8%, down from 62.5% in 2006, but Harman never looked like she was in any real danger last night. (JMD)
• CA-37 (D): In another case of an incumbent under 70%, scandal-ridden Laura Richardson scored a suprisingly weak 68% against three miscellaneous Democratic opponents in this Long Beach based district. (JMD)
• CA-42 (R): Who (other than Swing State Project, of course) would’ve guessed that out of all the dozens of incumbent House members up for re-election, the night’s second worst performance after Bob Inglis would come from Orange County’s Gary Miller? With problems including war record embellishment, ethical clouds, and a pro-TARP vote, Miller beat Phil Liberatore only 49-37. (C)
• CA-47 (R): Despite the presence of another Vietnamese candidate on the ballot, Garden Grove Assemblyman Van Tran still got a majority of the vote to challenge incumbent Democrat Loretta Sanchez in this majority-Hispanic district that went for Bush in 2004, but also went by 20% for Obama. (JMD)
• CA-50 (D): If Francine Busby takes another run after this one, she’s in serious danger of landing the kiss of death of being called “perennial candidate” in the press. Nevertheless, she won the booby prize of the Democratic nod against GOP Rep. Brian Bilbray over attorney Tracy Emblem with two thirds of the vote. This marks her fourth run for this seat, and her third against Bilbray (counting two races in 2006). It’s not quite Sodrel-esque, but it’s getting close. (JL)

Georgia:

• GA-09 (Special): Tom Graves was hit with some late scuttle in this race to succeed retiring GOPer Nathan Deal who resigned to run for Governor. Despite some weakness in Gainesville (Hall County), the former state Rep. beat out fellow Republican former state Senator Lee Hawkins by a 56-44 margin. The House now stands at 255 D, 178 R and 2 vacancies. (JMD)

Iowa:

• IA-Gov (R): Terry Branstad, to no one’s surprise, won the GOP primary for a fifth (!) term as Governor. The only surprise was the tepid margin; he beat social conservative Bob Vander Plaats 50-41 (with 9 for Rod Roberts). Unfortunately for Chet Culver (who may be ruing not trying some Gray Davis-style manipulation in the GOP primary), a weak Branstad win is still a Branstad win. (C)
• IA-02 (R): Move over Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky and M. Myers Mermel, because Mariannette Miller-Meeks is back in town. The ophthalmologist and 2008 nominee against David Loebsack won the GOP primary surprisingly easily (with 51%), considering she was against NRCC pick Rob Gettemy and two former Senate candidates. (C)
• IA-03 (R): The NRCC also hit the Fail jackpot in the 3rd, where their pick, former wrestling coach Jim Gibbons, lost decisively to the better-organized state Sen. Brad Zaun (who won with 42% to Gibbons’ 28%) in a race that had been expected to go to convention to be decided. desmoinesdem has a good diary up detailing the NRCC’s Iowa double-faceplant. (C)

Maine:

• ME-Gov (D): State Senate president Libby Mitchell seems on track to becoming Maine’s first female governor, winning the Democratic primary with 35%; a Bill Clinton endorsement may have helped her stand out from the ho-hum pack. She was followed by former AG Steve Rowe at 23, businesswoman Rosa Scarcelli at 22, and former state Conservation director (and former Avengers star) Patrick McGowan at 20. (C)
• ME-Gov (R): Waterville mayor Paul LePage, the Republican who’d been most closely associated with local Tea Partiers, won the GOP nomination with 38%. He finished ahead of a gaggle of moderates, including businessman Les Otten at 17, state Sen. Peter Mills at 15, ex-Collins CoS Steve Abbott at 13. Will a race between the very liberal Mitchell and very conservative LePage give a legitimate opening to centrist independent Eliot Cutler in November? (C)

New Jersey:

• NJ-03 (R): Former Eagles offensive lineman and establishment favorite Jon Runyan dispatched Tabernacle Township Committeeman and insurgent Justin Murphy by a 60-40 margin for the right to take on freshman Dem John Adler in this Burlington County-based R+1 district. (JMD)
• NJ-06 (R): Back in the egg-on-NRCC’s-face department, one of their “on the radar” candidates, Monmouth County GOP Vice Chair Diane Gooch, finds herself 61 votes behind Highlands mayor Anna Little. Winner takes on 11-term Dem Frank Pallone. (JMD)
• NJ-07 (R): Frosh GOP Rep. Leonard Lance was held to only 56% in his primary against a four-pack of underfunded teabaggers. His closest foe, businessman David Larsen, received 31% of the vote. (JL)
• NJ-12 (R): NRCC favorite Scott Sipprelle had a surprisingly close call (59-41) against the teabaggish David Corsi for the right to take on Dem Rush Holt in this central Jersey district. (JMD)

Nevada:

• NV-Gov (R): A pathetic end for a pathetic man: GOP Gov. Jim Gibbons claimed only 27% in his primary against ex-AG Brian Sandoval, who won the nod with 56%. Sandoval will try to take on Rory Reid’s lunch money in the fall. (JL)
• NV-Sen (R): Harry Reid must be doing the Angle Dance tonight, as the Dirty Harry Hand Cannon-packing, crypto-Scientologist, prohibitionist, Club for Growth-backed nutcake Sharron Angle trounced former NV GOP Chair Sue Lowden and ex-SoS candidate Danny Tarkanian by an absurd 40-26-23 spread. Harry Reid, you are one lucky bastard. (JL)

South Carolina:

• SC-Gov: State Sen. Vincent Sheheen easily claimed the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in South Carolina with 59% of the vote against the briefly-hyped SC School Superintendent Jim Rex (23%). He’ll have some time to replenish his reserves by the Republican race goes to a runoff, as state Rep. Nikki Haley weathered her recent controversies in fine form with 49% of the vote to TARP-loving US Rep. Gresham Barrett’s 22%. (JL)
• SC-Sen (D): This is just embarrassing. South Carolina Democrats had been hyping the candidacy of Charleston County councilman and ex-state Rep. Vic Rawl for months, but Rawl ended up losing to Alvin Greene, a 32-year-old unemployed ex-military guy who lives with his dad and somehow found the ten grand necessary to file for office. (And it wasn’t even close, either, at 59-41.) Do we have another Scott Lee Cohen on our hands? The morning-after news seems to suggest so, with court records confirming that Greene was charged with showing obscene pictures to a college student. This is now the second cycle in a row where SC Dems have nominated the less-than-ideal choice for Senate. (JL)
• SC-01: Oy. This is pretty damn embarrassing, too. Perennial candidate Ben Frasier (0 for 19!) upset the mildly touted Robert Burton, a former member of the Board of Commissioners of the State Housing Finance and Development Authority, for the Democratic nomination in this open seat. For the Republicans, we’re looking at a run-off between state Rep. Tim Scott (the Club for Growth’s choice), who won 31% of the vote, and legacy candidate Paul Thurmond, who placed second with 16%. (JL)
• SC-03 (R): This was a bit of a surprise. In the race to succeed Gresham Barrett in the House, businessman Richard Cash finished first with 25%, with state Rep. Jeff Duncan also advancing to the run-off with 23%. That’s something of an upset, as state Rep. Rex Rice, who placed third at 19%, was seen as a strong bet to make the run-off. (JL)
• SC-04 (R): Bob Inglis is utterly doomed. The increasingly sane GOP incumbent only won 28% of the vote in his primary against Spartanburg County Solicitor Trey Gowdy and other teabag also-rans. Gowdy ended the night with 39%, meaning that these two are headed for a run-off, but it’s hard to imagine how Inglis can survive this one. (JL)

South Dakota:

• SD-Gov (R): Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard easily sowed up the Republican gubernatorial nomination with 50% of the vote in a five-person field. He’ll face state Senate Minority Leader Scott Scott Heidepriem in November. (JL)
• SD-AL (R): This was always a hard race to fit into the usual Republican primary template, since all three of the GOP candidates (SoS Chris Nelson, and state Reps. Blake Curd and Kristi Noem) were establishment types, despite some teabaggish behavior (most notably Nelson, who’d been birther-curious). In the end, Noem prevailed, beating Nelson and Curd without a runoff, 42-35-23. Did Noem’s advertising make the difference, or did Nelson’s birtherism cost him his early frontrunner status? (C)

Virginia:

• VA-02 (R): Auto dealer Scott Rigell wrapped up the Republican nomination to face Dem Rep. Glenn Nye the Freshman Guy with 40% of the vote. Businessman Ben Loyola placed second with 27%. (JL)

• VA-05 (R): Despite being absolutely despised by the teabagging base in the district thanks to his vote for the tax hiking Mark Warner budget many moons ago, state Sen. Robert Hurt easily won the GOP nod against Democrat Tom Perriello with 48% of the vote. Hurt will have to look out on his right flank, though, as Danville businessman Jeff Clark has said that he would run as an independent if Hurt wins the nod. (JL)
  

Selzer & Co. for the Des Moines Register (6/1-3, likely voters, no trend lines):

Terry Branstad (R): 57

Bob Vander Plaats (R): 29

Rod Roberts (R): 8

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Research 2000 for KCCI-TV (5/31-6/2, likely voters):

Terry Branstad (R): 44

Bob Vander Plaats (R): 29

Rod Roberts (R): 12

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Public Policy Polling (5/25-27, likely voters):

Terry Branstad (R): 46

Bob Vander Plaats (R): 31

Rod Roberts (R): 13

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Rounding up the wave of Iowa polls that have been released over the past week, it doesn’t look like former Gov. Terry Branstad has anything to worry about today. How about the general election? The results are pure yuck for Chet Culver.

R2K:

Chet Culver (D-inc): 42

Terry Branstad (R): 51

Chet Culver (D-inc): 43

Bob Vander Plaats (R): 42

Chet Culver (D-inc): 45

Rod Roberts (R): 35

(MoE: ±4%)

PPP:

Chet Culver (D-inc): 37

Terry Branstad (R): 52

Chet Culver (D-inc): 38

Bob Vander Plaats (R): 43

Chet Culver (D-inc): 38

Rod Roberts (R): 40

(MoE: ±2.7%)

The Senate race:

R2K:

Roxanne Conlin (D): 42

Chuck Grassley (R-inc): 50

(MoE: ±4%)

PPP:

Roxanne Conlin (D): 31

Chuck Grassley (R-inc): 57

Tom Fiegen (D): 28

Chuck Grassley (R-inc): 56

Bob Krause (D): 26

Chuck Grassley (R-inc): 56

(MoE: ±2.7%)

Pick your poison.

• AR-Sen: The Bill Halter campaign is looking for last minute phonebanking help to seal the deal. And you can do it from the comfort of your own home.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov (pdf): The Senate GOP primary portion of the Field Poll came out over the weekend, and it’s right in line with the various other pollsters finding a last-minute Carly Fiorina surge into a double-digit lead. She leads Tom Campbell and Chuck DeVore 37-22-19. (Campbell led 28-22-9 in the previous Field poll in March.) Also, it looks like Campbell’s last-minute ad pitch, centered around his electability, may fall on deaf ears: 42% of primary voters think that Fiorina has the best chance of beating Barbara Boxer, while 22% think that Campbell does (and 12% think that Chuck DeVore does — which is also about the same percentage of Californians who believe there is a 1,000 foot high pyramid in Greenland). There are also primary polls out from Republican pollster Magellan (who don’t have a horse in this race), who find things even worse for Campbell: they have Fiorina leading Campbell and DeVore 54-19-16. They also give a big edge to fellow rich person Meg Whitman in the gubernatorial race; she leads Steve Poizner 64-22. The unfortunate moral of the story here: have a lot of money.

• DE-Sen: New Castle Co. Exec Chris Coons is pre-emptively getting ahead of Republican charges that he raised taxes, by, instead of hiding under the bed like conventional wisdom dictates, saying ‘guilty as charged’ and explaining how it helped. The county wound up with a AAA bond rating and a eight-digit surplus. Coons also previewed one of his lines of attack against Mike Castle: Castle’s role in deregulating the banking sector.

• FL-Sen: As Charlie Crist rebuilds his team from scratch, he’s rolling out a new media team that’s heavy on the Democratic ties. Most prominently, Chuck Schumer’s former chief of staff, Josh Isay, will be Crist’s lead media person. Isay’s firm SKD Knickerbocker may be best-known for helping out other moderate independents, like Joe Lieberman and Michael Bloomberg. One of the fires that Isay will have to put out as soon as he gets in the building, though, is what to do about the Jim Greer situation. Greer’s lawyer is saying that Crist gave the initial OK on Greer’s fundraising workaround which avoided usual party channels (which Greer allegedly turned into a scheme for filling his own pockets).

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk’s very, very bad week last week just seems to be spilling over into this week. There are allegations popping up that he fibbed on getting shot at in Afghanistan too, and also evidence that he made a lot of stuff up while talking off the cuff about the Somalia situation last year. Taking a page from Richard Blumenthal, late last week he finally dropped the playing offense against the charges and instead went to the Chicago Tribune’s e-board to say “I’m sorry” — but that apology comes after letting the story fester all week.

• NH-Sen: After a year and a half of having the Democratic primary to himself, there are hints that Rep. Paul Hodes might get some late-in-the-game company. Mark Connolly, the former head of the state’s Securities Division who resigned to become a whistleblower in the wake of the Financial Resources Mortgage coverup (the same one that’ll have Kelly Ayotte testifying before the state legislature soon), expressed some interest and said “he’s angry enough to do it.” (Looks like a common theme this year.) Speaking of Ayotte, it sounds like she doesn’t know how to read a poll: she says she won’t take drilling for oil off New Hampshire’s tiny coastline “off the table.”

• WA-Sen: You might remember from last week that the Univ. of Washington engaged in some methodologically weird stuff by adding an extra week’s worth of samples on the end of their already-released poll and re-releasing the numbers (which were nevertheless unchanged, at Patty Murray 44, Dino Rossi 40). Well, now they’re re-releasing the poll yet again with even more samples, with changed toplines and with specific numbers for that tiny extra sample for the days May 24-28 (following Rossi’s official announcement). The number that’s getting all the press is that Rossi led Murray 42-39 in that batch, although that’s only based on 221 likely voters with a margin of error of 6.6%, so its usefulness is, well, questionable. Their full numbers are now 42-40 for Murray for the entire RV sample and 46-40 for Murray for the entire LV sample (i.e. those who voted in 2006), and she leads Generic R 44-39 among RVs (and 46-41 in the May 24-28 sample), but this poll has gotten so methodologically convoluted I’m not really sure it’s worth much of anything at this point.

Murray got some good news today in the form of an endorsement, and it’s not from a human but a corporation: Boeing. While she’s received plenty of Boeing money in the past, I’m not aware of Boeing ever having explicitly endorsed her or anyone else before (although anyone with a pulse knows that Murray has taken over for Scoop Jackson as the “Senator from Boeing”). Frankly, in the state of Washington, this is a bigger endorsement than any human politician’s endorsement would be, considering the way Boeing’s tendrils reach so much of the state. Finally, the field of miscellaneous Republicans kept shrinking today, as chiropractor Sean Salazar (probably the first guy to try to grab the teabagger mantle here, although he got shoved over by Clint Didier) bailed out of the race and backed Rossi.

• WI-Sen: Here’s a strange vulnerability for Ron Johnson in the Wisconsin Senate race: his fixation on opposing bipartisan Wisconsin state legislation making it easier for victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue their abusers. That’ll require some explanation, and I assume it’ll be something other than his current explanation, that such legislation would only lead to more victims of sexual abuse by making organizations likelier to sweep it under the carpet.

• IA-Gov: After endorsing a variety of misspelled odds-and-ends last week (“Cecil Bledsoe,” “Angela McGowen,” and Joe Miller), Sarah Palin went with a big gun this weekend, and it was one who doesn’t match her carefully cultivated teabagging/religious right image at all: establishment retread Terry Branstad in Iowa. Is she counting on getting repaid by Branstad in the 2012 caucuses, if she decides to give up the grifting lifestyle and take the huge pay cut associated with running for President? (Branstad also has the backing of Mitt Romney, who seems more of a kindred spirit for him.)

• MI-Gov: The Schwarz is not with us after all. Joe Schwarz, the moderate ex-Rep. who got bounced from MI-07 in 2006 in the GOP primary by Tim Walberg, has decided against pursuing the independent bid in the Governor’s race that he’d been threatening. On the surface, the loss of a center-right indie looks like bad news for the Dems, but depending on which two candidates match up in November, Schwarz could just have easily pulled more left-of-center votes… and in all likelihood, he wasn’t going to rack up more than a few percent anyway.

• NY-Gov: In their standoff with Democratic nominee Andrew Cuomo, the Working Families Party seems to have blinked first. They went ahead and nominated placeholders in the Governor, Lt. Gov, and AG slots, presumably to allow coordination with the Dem choices later. Cuomo had been leaning hard on the WFP to do so. The person most affected by this is state Sen. Eric Schneiderman, a Cuomo foe who had been considered the most likely WFP candidate for AG; instead, the WFP may wind up going with Nassau Co. DA Kathleen Rice, who’s Cuomo’s preferred AG for his informal “ticket.”

• TX-Gov: The Greens are actually going to be on the ballot in Texas this year, for the gubernatorial race? I’m as surprised as you are, but it’s less surprising when you find out who’s behind it: Arizona Republican consultant Tim Mooney, who set up the petition drive to get them on the ballot (and who’s also a veteran of the 2004 efforts to get Ralph Nader on as many states’ ballots as possible). GOP incumbent Rick Perry faces a tough race from Dem former Houston mayor Bill White, and he can have a little breathing room if the Greens siphon off a few lefties.

• AR-01: Chad Causey has an interesting argument for Democratic runoff voters in the 1st not to vote for ex-state Sen. Tim Wooldridge: he’s likely to bolt for the Republican Party at his earliest convenience. Causey’s evidence for the flight risk posed by Wooldridge includes his very conservative voting record in the state legislature, starting with his pro-public hanging legislation. Wooldridge, for his part, said he’d never switch. The Wooldridge camp is also offering up an internal poll (no word on the pollster) claiming a 48-24 lead over Causey in the runoff.

• CA-19: SurveyUSA has one last poll of the race in the 19th’s GOP primary, which they’ve polled exhaustively (and found almost exactly the same thing each time). However, this time it’s a little more interesting: there seems to be some late movement to former Fresno mayor Jim Patterson, who now leads state Sen. Jeff Denham 34-30. Ex-Rep. Richard Pombo is back at 17, with Larry Westerlund at 8. On the Dem side, it’s a 26-26 tie between Loraine Goodwin and Les Marsden.

• MN-06: What started out as a thorny three-way primary (when Elwyn Tinklenberg was in the race) has turned into a walk for Democratic state Sen. Tarryl Clark. Maureen Reed, a physician and former Independence Party Lt. Gov. candidate, ended her bid and endorsed Clark against Rep. Michele Bachmann. Reed had done surprisingly well at fundraising, but didn’t have the institutional advantages that Clark did, especially once Clark got the DFL endorsement. Clark still has an uphill fight against Bachmann, who’s insulated against likely future foot-in-mouth incidents by the district’s reddish lean as well as a huge war chest.

• TN-08: A Hill piece on the possibility of another NRCC-touted candidate (in the form of Stephen Fincher) going down in flames actually has some nice dirt on all three Republicans contesting the primary in the 8th. Fincher, of course, is widely noted for his hypocrisy on attacking the federal government while receiving millions in farm subsidies, but it’s also been revealed that he has voted in three Democratic primaries in the last eight years, “used virtually the same TV ad as a candidate for Alabama Agriculture Commisioner” (I have to assume it was an ad from one of the “thugs,” since if he’d riiiiiiipped off Dale Peterson’s ad, the whole blogosphere would already know about it by now), and perhaps most pathetically, misspelled “Tennessee” in a mailer. His challengers, Ron Kirkland and George Flinn, have their own troubles; Kirkland contributed to outgoing Democratic Rep. John Tanner in 2000 and 2004, while Flinn tried to cover up a lawsuit by a contractor who wasn’t paid for remodeling work.

If Sarah Palin runs for president in 2012, she will regret endorsing Terry Branstad Thursday in the Republican primary for governor.

First thoughts on how this will play out are after the jump.

Before the scenario-spinning begins, here’s a question for SSPers: could an endorsement be any less substantial than what Palin wrote on her Facebook page?

   Iowa, your great state’s motto is “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.” That motto will be well served by voting for Terry Branstad for governor next Tuesday!

   Please join me in supporting Governor Branstad’s campaign. Visit his website here, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

That’s not an excerpt, that’s the entire Facebook post. I doubt Palin is prepared to answer specific questions about why Republicans wanting to safeguard their liberties and rights should vote for Branstad instead of Bob Vander Plaats or Rod Roberts. Does she even know the policy differences between the candidates, or the reasons many Iowa conservatives are uncomfortable with Branstad?

Endorsements are rarely “game-changers” under any circumstances, but at least James Dobson explained why he’s backing Vander Plaats, and his reasons reinforce the Vander Plaats campaign narrative. Chuck Norris will draw crowds and free media coverage for Vander Plaats this weekend in Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Council Bluffs, northwest Iowa and West Des Moines. If Palin had planned ahead, she could have done something similar for Branstad, but instead she threw up an empty Facebook post.

It seems likely that Palin expects Branstad to be the next governor and wants to be on his good side when she campaigns here in 2011 and 2012. At least, that’s how many politically engaged Iowans interpreted the move.

Vander Plaats campaign manager Eric Woolson told the Des Moines Register,

“I think that she’s seriously damaged her 2012 presidential prospects,” […] “This says to me she’s either not running for president or she doesn’t understand Iowa very well because she has just alienated herself from her natural base. If you look at her Facebook page, all of the comments are saying ‘Terry Branstad? Really?'”

Woolson has an interest in downplaying the endorsement, of course, but in this case I agree with him. Palin has discredited herself with her natural allies in Iowa. Conservative Shane Vander Hart, whose site Caffeinated Thoughts is part of the “Blogs 4 Palin” network, had this to say last night:

I get the emails from SarahPAC so I usually hear about this in a rather timely fashion. I was traveling today and just read the endorsement in my inbox.

I emailed SarahPAC for an explanation since the endorsement announcement was rather thin. I have to admit I’m surprised and rather disappointed since Branstad doesn’t meet up with her standards of being a “commonsense conservative.” I can understand a general election endorsement, but didn’t think she’d endorse during the primary since she hadn’t yet.

I’m thinking this isn’t an enthusiastic endorsement since it was brief, doesn’t give any explanation, and is rather last minute.

Vander Hart is backing Rod Roberts for governor, by the way.

Let’s look at how various outcomes in the governor’s race would affect Palin.

If Branstad wins the primary easily, Palin will not get credit, because she didn’t do much for him.

If Branstad wins the primary narrowly, many social conservatives will be angry that she helped him even in a small way.

If Vander Plaats surprises us all and wins the primary, everyone will know that Palin’s endorsement carries no weight with social conservatives. Even Branstad supporter Craig Robinson admits, “if Vander Plaats pulls off an upset next Tuesday, a potential caucus campaign would become exponentially more difficult [for Palin].”

No matter what happens in the primary, Republicans who voted for Vander Plaats or Roberts will remember that Palin did the politically expedient thing instead of standing up for the principles she outlined in her own book.

If Branstad wins the primary and loses to Governor Chet Culver, GOP activists will see the outcome as proof that Republicans should have nominated a “real conservative.”

If Branstad defeats Culver, I don’t see Palin getting a lot of credit from Branstad’s inner circle or the business wing of the Iowa GOP. Most of those people supported Mitt Romney in 2008 and would lean toward him again if he makes a play for Iowa in 2012. Romney endorsed Branstad weeks ago and kicked in $10,000 from his PAC.

More important, if Branstad is elected in November he will probably govern with a Democratic-controlled legislature. He is unlikely to deliver on many of his campaign promises and he probably won’t strike as confrontational a tone with Democrats as the GOP base would like. By late 2011 and early 2012, when Republican activists are deciding whom to caucus for, I doubt they will view Branstad as a conservative hero.

Remember also that caucus turnout in 2012 will almost certainly be lower than the turnout for next Tuesday’s primary. In 2002, about 199,000 Iowans voted in the three-way GOP primary for governor. Only about 116,000 Iowans took part in the 2008 Republican caucuses.

It’s possible that even if Branstad wins the gubernatorial primary with 50 to 60 percent of the vote, supporters of Vander Plaats or Roberts could comprise a majority in the universe of 2012 Republican caucus-goers. Vander Plaats has been winning straw polls across Iowa this spring, which reflects his strong support among dedicated party activists. Palin would have been in a better position to appeal to them if she had stayed out of our governor’s race.

The Cedar Rapids Gazette’s Todd Dorman read the Bleeding Heartland version of this post and responded:

I get all the arguments, that Palin’s pick looks bad if Vander Plaats wins and that Branstad’s camp, which is full of Romneyites, won’t give her much credit if TB wins etc. Seems logical.

But I don’t think picking a winner can be bad, especially when her candidate-picking track record lately has been spotty. And even if Vander Plaats wins, I don’t buy the notion that it will hurt her all that much if she runs for prez.

I’ve talked to people who love Palin and want her to run in 2012. They don’t care that she resigned halfway through her term, or that she doesn’t appear to grasp important issues or that her life is a soap opera filmed on a crazy train.

So I don’t think they’ll care if she picked the wrong horse in the primary.

If Palin had crafted an image as someone who picks winners, I would agree with Dorman. But she has spent the last year crafting an image as someone who stands on principle and is not afraid to go “rogue” against the power-brokers and conventional wisdom. She just undermined her own brand.

Maybe Palin isn’t planning to run for president and merely wanted to pick the likely winner in Iowa’s primary. Rand Paul, whom she endorsed, won the Kentucky U.S. Senate primary last month, but Palin’s preferred candidate just lost the primary in Idaho’s first Congressional district, and her pick in the Washington U.S. Senate race is probably going to lose too. Palin’s choice in the South Carolina governor’s race, Nikki Haley, is in a tough fight. If she loses next Tuesday but Branstad prevails here, Palin will at least be associated with one winner.

Speculate away in the comments.