Tag: PA-04

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Rasmussen:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• CO-Sen: Isn’t this the second time this has happened in about a month? Tom Tancredo says something ridiculous, Republican candidate with an eye on the general repudiates the statement, then walks back the repudiation once he realizes that the teabaggers’ widdle feewings might get hurt. This time it was Ken Buck (on whose behalf Tancredo called Barack Obama the “greatest threat to the United States today” last week); he might have been helped along in his flip-flopping after Jane Norton, who’s losing the primary because Buck outflanked her on the right, started going on about how she agreed with Tancredo,.

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio’s having a good day so far: he rolled out a ridiculously big fundraising number for the second quarter: $4.5 million raised. No mention of his CoH, though. (All eyes turn to Charlie Crist, though, for his first report after switching to an indie bid, to see whether that shrank or expanded his pool of donors.) Rubio’s second bit of good news is an endorsement from Crist’s former right-hand-man, temporary Sen. George LeMieux. (Since LeMieux reportedly has designs on Bill Nelson’s seat, and he seems to prefer running as a Republican and not on the Crist For Florida line, what else is he going to do, though?)

• NH-Sen: I know, I know, straw poll, terrible gauge of broad public support, take with salt, bla bla bla. Still, here’s a barometer of where the hardcore Live Free or Die crowd currently stands: Ovide Lamontagne dominated the straw poll at the Taxpayer Reunion Picnic, an annual gathering of those who were teabagging long before it was cool. He won 109 to 74 over Jim Bender, a rich guy who’s going the crazy viral ad route. Establishment candidate Kelly Ayotte and moderate outsider Bill Binnie were at 23 and 10.

• WA-Sen: Clint Didier, apparently aware of the stink lines of rank hypocrisy radiating off him, said that he’s swearing off farm subsidies in the future. (Seeing as how it made him look like the worst possible caricature of the teabaggers’ mantra of “I hate the gub’ment! Except when it’s giving me money for doing nothing!”) Apparently that was enough absolution for Rep. Ron Paul‘s satisfaction, as he threw his backing behind Didier this weekend.

• WV-Sen: Rep. Shelly Capito Moore is at least honest about being scared about running for Senate (almost certainly against highly popular Gov. Joe Manchin), although she isn’t couching it in terms of being afraid of Manchin per se, instead saying “I’m afraid to lose momentum that I think I provide for the state.” At any rate, she says she’ll make her (seeming unlikely) decision whether to run in the next few days, probably coinciding with the clarification on the election’s when and how, to be decided in a July 15 legislative special session.

• AZ-Gov: Ain’t that a kick in the head? State Treasurer Dean Martin, who was regarded as something of a frontrunner when he jumped into the GOP primary earlier this year, is suspending his campaign, ostensibly because he didn’t want to be a distraction to Gov. Jan Brewer as she fights lawsuits over SB 1070. In reality, Martin never really caught fire, first when rich self-funder Owen Buz Mills grabbed the not-Brewer mantle and then, mostly, when Brewer suddenly became belle of the right-wing ball when she signed SB 1070.

• FL-Gov: Bill McCollum apparently didn’t want to be touting his fundraising numbers, but they’re out anyway, thanks to a court filing pertaining to Rick Scott’s challenge to the state public financing system. At any rate, McCollum’s sitting on a paltry $800K in cash, a mere blip compared to what Scott can pull out of his own wallet. Of course, Scott could still pull defeat out of the jaws of victory, by antagonizing pretty much the entire RPOF by trying to hang ex-state party chair Jim Greer around McCollum’s neck… and by staking his pro-life credentials on a family who are loudly preferring that he shut up about them.

• GA-Gov: InsiderAdvantage, which offered its poll of the GOP primary last week, has a matching Dem poll today. The question for Dems isn’t whether Roy Barnes gets the most votes but whether he avoids a runoff, and they seem to err on the side of “no runoff:” Barnes is at 59, with Thurbert Baker at 15, and Dubose Porter and David Poythress both at 2, behind someone by the name of Bill Bolton (at 3). Meanwhile, on the GOP side, it seemed like something of an oversight that this endorsement hadn’t happened before, but Sarah Palin finally added Karen Handel to the ever-growing list of Mama Grizzlies. UPDATE: Thurbert Baker just got a top-tier endorsement, from Bill Clinton. It may be too late for that to matter much, though, because at this point Baker needs to not only win all the undecideds but peel away a significant number of Barnes voters. (H/t TheUnknown285.)

• MI-Gov: Motor City endorsements aplenty in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Michigan: Andy Dillon got the backing of former Detroit mayor Dennis Archer, who many observers thought would have made the strongest candidate had he run. Virg Bernero got endorsements from Detroit’s two House members, John Conyers and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick.

• MN-Gov: Republican nominee Tom Emmer seems to have dug a large hole for himself with his proposal to start including tips toward restaurant servers’ minimum wage requirement (which has the effect of slashing their hourly base pay); he’s planning on doing a “listening tour” with servers as atonement. Also adding to Emmer’s worries is blowback from his Sarah Palin endorsement, which helped him upset Marty Seifert at the GOP convention but is now already being used as a cudgel in general election advertising (courtesy of Matt Entenza). Meanwhile, Entenza’s Democratic rival Margaret Anderson Kelliher is running her first TV spot; the total buy is for only about $50K, though.

• NE-Gov: Democrats in Nebraska seem to be actively considering just punting the ball, rather than trying to find a replacement candidate for nominee Mark Lakers. On the plus side, that would free up local Democratic money for other ventures (like the race in NE-02), in what was destined to be a thorough loss even with Lakers in the race. On the other hand, Tom White’s challenge to Lee Terry would probably benefit from having, well, something at the top of the ballot.

• PA-Gov: If Tom Corbett is trying to position himself as a moderate for the general election, well, this isn’t the way. He’s publicly using the Sharron Angle line of argumentation that unemployment benefits cause more unemployment, because, naturally, people would rather live on their meager checks than go out and get one of those many abundant jobs that are out there. The ads write themselves… presuming the Democrats ever get around to actually writing them.

• TN-Gov: A mysterious 527 (is there any other kind?) has emerged to pour money into the Tennessee GOP primary. There’s no word on who’s the power behind the throne for Tennesseans for a Better Tomorrow, but they’ll be advertising on behalf of Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, who’s back in third in the polls and needs a surrogate to do the dirty work of negative advertising against Bill Haslam.

• AZ-03: Jon Hulburd’s fundraising (and self-funding ability) is the main thing keeping this red-district open seat race at least somewhat on the map for the Dems; he’s announcing $250K raised last quarter. (No word on CoH.)

• CO-04: Freshman Rep. Betsy Markey had a strong quarter, raising $530K and sitting on $1.5 million CoH. In this Republican-leaning district, she’ll need every penny of it to get through this year.

• KS-04: Democratic State Rep. Raj Goyle, whose fundraising skills have put this dark-red open seat onto the map, is out with an introductory TV spot. Seems a little earlier for that, doesn’t it? We’d guess that he’s concerned about the primary (remember that there was a SurveyUSA poll a few weeks back that showed him not that far ahead of Some Dude with, well, a more ‘Merican sounding name) and not wanting to go the route of historical footnote Vic Rawl.

• MO-08: Tommy Sowers, if nothing else, is showing a lot of hustle in his long-shot bid against GOP Rep. Jo Ann Emerson in this dark-red rural district. He says he’s passed the $1 million mark for funds raised over the total cycle (nothing specific on 2Q or CoH, though).

• NJ-03: Democratic freshman Rep. John Adler seems to be putting some fundraising distance between himself and Jon Runyan. Adler raised $415K in 2Q to break the $2 million mark for CoH, while Runyan has about $500K in cash.

• NY-01: Randy Altschuler’s got a whole lotta cash: he’s reporting $1.8 million CoH. A lot of that is coming right of the Altschuler family piggy bank, though. He raised a decent $257K last quarter, but loaned himself another $500K on top of that.

• OH-16: Yikes! GOP nominee Jim Renacci must have some deep-pocketed connections from the high-stakes world of Arena Football, because he’s reporting $725K raised last quarter. (No word on CoH.)

• PA-04: This is kind of a small haul to be touting (touting may not be the right word, actually, when even your own campaign adviser calls it “not half bad”), but maybe it’s a good amount when you weren’t even supposed to have won the primary in the first place. Keith Rothfus, who blasted establishment fave Mary Beth Buchanan in the GOP primary, says he has $200K CoH (up from $157K in his pre-primary report … no word on what he actually raised).

• VA-05: Finally, here’s the delicious cherry on top of the shit sundae of fundraising reports: Tom Perriello announces that he raised $660K last quarter, giving him $1.7 million CoH. No word yet from Robert Hurt, but with $121K on hand in his May 19 pre-primary report, I can imagine it’s not in Perriello’s ballpark. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has an interesting compare-and-contrast enterprise in how Perriello and fellow vulnerable freshman Dem Glenn Nye are approaching their re-elections (Perriello emphasizing his base, Nye emphasizing his independence); clearly, based on these numbers, playing to the base can pay off, at least at the bank.

• CA-LG (pdf): We’re still sweeping up from that last installment of the Field Poll. In the Lt. Governor’s race, there’s surprisingly good news for Dems, with Gavin Newsom looking solid against appointed GOPer Abel Maldonado, leading 43-34. The Attorney General results aren’t that surprising: Republican Los Angeles Co. DA Steve Cooley has a narrow edge over SF DA Kamala Harris, 37-34.

• Illinois: It looks like we’ll never have another Scott Lee Cohen scenario again (or for that matter, probably not even another Jason Plummer scenario). Pat Quinn signed into law new legislation requiring, from now on, that Governor and Lt. Governor tickets are joined together before the primary, not after.

• Rasmussen:

• IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth (D) 30%, Dan Coats (R) 51%

• MD-Gov: Martin O’Malley (D-inc) 46%, Bob Ehrlich (R) 47%

Last night was a lot of fun, but with over two dozen races worth watching, it’s easy to lose track of some of those important but lesser-heralded contests while getting mesmerized by some of the more marquee races that went down last night. Let’s do a brief re-cap of everything:

Arkansas:

• AR-Sen: The big story out of Arkansas is Bill Halter’s strong finish in the Democratic Senate primary against Blanche Lincoln. Lincoln ultimately ended the night with a 45-43 result, which was good enough to send this race to a runoff on June 8. Everyone is aflutter that Paulist weirdo D.C. Morrison managed to scoop up 13% of the vote, a higher mark than the polls expected. While it might be tempting to speculate that Morrison’s votes will flock to the more right-wing choice in the runoff (Lincoln), I don’t really think that’s how it works. I’d expect Halter to pick up a share of these voters based purely on anti-incumbent spite, while others may simply crawl back into the woodwork, dissatisfied with both options. And for what it’s worth, Morrison says that he won’t be supporting either Dem in the runoff (or the general), and guesses that his supporters will split evenly between the two of them.

  On the Republican side, GOP Rep. John Boozman cleared the primary with an easy 53% of the vote over a very fractured Republican field. While Boozman gets the luxury of extra time to refill his war chest, it’s not the biggest loss in the world for Dems — we’re only talking about three weeks worth of time here.

• AR-01: Ex-state Sen. Tim Wooldridge is headed to a runoff against Marion Berry’s former Chief of Staff Chad Causey for the Democratic nomination here. Wooldridge, a fairly conservative fellow whom Bill Halter beat in a runoff for the Democratic Lt. Governor nod in 2006, came in first with 39% of the vote. Causey, who was endorsed by Berry and some labor groups, scored 27%. The winner of the runoff will face Republican radio broadcaster Rick Crawford, who easily beat Princella Smith, a former aide to future ex-Rep. Joe Cao, by a 73-27 margin.
• AR-02: Republicans nominated ex-US Attorney and Rove acolyte Tim Griffin over teabagging restaurateur Scott Wallace by a 62-38 margin, while Democrats sent state Sen. Joyce Elliott, a liberal African-American, to a runoff against state House Speaker Robbie Wills. Elliott won 40% of the vote to 28% for Wills. Departing Dem Rep. Vic Snyder’s former Chief of Staff, David Boling, came in third with 19%.
• AR-03: In a district that is essentially the home base of Republican muscle in Arkansas, it’s too bad ex-state Sen. Gunner DeLay didn’t manage to force himself into the runoff, if only to give us more opportunities to namedrop him. Instead, Republicans chose Rogers Mayor Steve Womack (31%) and state Sen. Cecile Bledsoe (13%) to advance to the runoff out of a very crowded field.

Kentucky:

• KY-Sen: In a night of amazing finishes, this one caused a lot of bubbly to be spilled in the SSP comments section. While Rand Paul sleepwalked to a 59-35 win over Trey Grayson, Attorney General Jack Conway executed a remarkable surge in the remaining weeks of the campaign, escaping a double-digit deficit to beat Dan Mongiardo by 44-43 for the Democratic nomination. Perhaps surprisingly, though, Mongiardo is holding out for a recanvass of the vote before he concedes. A recount will unlikely do much good for Dr. Dan, especially when you consider that there are still 13 precincts left to count in Conway-loving Jefferson County.

  Also, if this is any indication of Rand Paul’s campaign skills — hosting his victory party at an exclusive country club and then defending the choice on Good Morning America as non-elitist… because Tiger Woods brought golf to “the city youth” — this should be a pretty fun campaign.

• KY-03: Here’s another mild surprise. Despite a financial disadvantage, Air Force vet Todd Lally crushed Pizza Hut franchise baron and presumed front-runner Jeff Reetz by a 52-17 margin for the Republican nod to take on two-term Dem Rep. John Yarmuth. Reetz, in fact, did so poorly that he finished in third — right behind real estate investor Larry Hausman, who took 25% of the vote.
• KY-06: We initially expected retired coal executive Mike Templeman to give attorney Andy Barr a run for his money for the GOP nod to take on Democratic fixture Ben Chandler, but this race was nothing short of a blow-out. Barr dispatched Templeman by a 64-10 spread.

Oregon:

• In Oregon, surprises were few and far between. Polling had given ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber a big edge over ex-SoS Bill Bradbury going into the Democratic primary, and that was borne out by Kitzhaber’s 66-30 win. Although Bradbury was rhetorically running to Kitzhaber’s left, progressives don’t need to be disappointed by the result; Kitzhaber’s track record is as a health care innovator, and he’s clearly eager to push forward on that now that he has a reliably Democratic legislature and the state-level flexibility afforded by the new HCR law. Kitzhaber faces off against Republican victor Chris Dudley, who won with 40% of the vote in a crowded GOP field (which is still less than his 46% career free throw average in the NBA). Dudley fought off a late surge from Allen Alley, who finished at 32%, after trying to make inroads with the conservative wing once Dudley staked out the same moderate turf where Alley had hoped to compete.

  In the Senate race, Dem incumbent Ron Wyden picked up 90% of the vote; he faces a not-very-competitive race against Republican law professor Jim Huffman, the best known out of seven nobodies, who prevailed with 42%. The NRCC got its desired candidates in the two House districts where it’s hoping to compete this year. State Rep. Scott Bruun had a solid performance in OR-05, winning with 62%, while Rob Cornilles was a bit more underwhelming, winning with 41% against a teabagger-clogged field in OR-01. (Crisitunity)

Pennsylvania:

• PA-Sen: You gotta hand it to Joey Sestak. After months of stagnating in the polls and storing his powder safely in airtight Ziploc containers, he used some well-timed late hits to topple Arlen Specter by 54-46 in the Democratic primary. Given that Sestak has actually been performing more competitively than Specter against Republican Pat Toomey (who won his primary over Peg Lutsik by 63 points), this is probably good news over all for team blue.
• PA-Gov: In the end, it wasn’t close. Allegheny Co. Executive Dan Onorato beat state Auditor Jack Wagner by 45-24 for the Democratic gubernatorial nod. Two Philly-area candidates, state Senator (and school voucher advocate) Anthony Williams and ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel combined for 31% of the vote. Onorato faces a bigger challenge now in defeating Republican AG Tom Corbett. Corbett beat his no-name opposition with 69% of the vote.
• PA-03: Auto dealer and ex-city councilman Mike Kelly narrowly beat well-funded retired businessman Paul Huber by 28-26. Kelly will be the Republican nominee against frosh Dem Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper this fall.
• PA-04: Politics ain’t beanbag, and Bush-era US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan found that out the hard way last night. Expected to easily clinch the Republican nomination against Democrat Jason Altmire by beltway progs when she entered the race, her ineptitude on the campaign trail resulted in attorney Keith Rothfus pasting her by 33%. Better luck next time, Mary Beth!
• PA-06: In a night that gave us some pretty good news all around, this one is particularly special for SSP. Democratic physician Manan Trivedi upset rich guy Doug Pike, who had donated over $1 million of his own money to his campaign effort, by a 51-49 spread. It looks like Pike still hasn’t conceded, but he’ll have to face the truth sooner rather than later. And here’s a nickel’s worth of free advice that I’ll give to anyone who’s interested in running for Congress in the future: You Don’t Mess With The Project.
• PA-10: Another ex-Bush era US Attorney, Tom Marino, was touted as a strong recruit who’d have little difficulty winning his party’s nomination against Democrat Chris Carney. Things got a little dicey last night, but Marino did end up succeeding where Mary Beth Buchanan failed. Marino won the nod with a 41% plurality over chiropractor David Madeira and Snyder Co. Commissioner Malcolm Derk.
• PA-11: If there’s one race where things didn’t really work out for Democrats, it’s this one. Crusty incumbent Rep. Paul Kanjorski beat a divided Democratic primary field with only 49% of the vote — one of the weakest performances we’ve seen by an incumbent House member this cycle. That probably doesn’t bode well for the general election, where Kanjorski will face off with Lou Barletta for the third time.
• PA-12: Wow. After all the Republican swagger, did anyone honestly expect Democrat Mark Critz to beat Republican Tim Burns by 53-45 in the special election to replace John Murtha? Certainly Republicans appeared stunned, because I don’t think they would have tried to spin yarns like this one if they weren’t reeling from the result:
  

  “Republican Tim Burns ran an excellent campaign in one of the bluest of congressional districts,” Mr. Steele said in a statement Tuesday night. “Despite the fact that Pennsylvania’s 12th District has been a Democratic stronghold for more than 30 years and Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by more than 2 to 1, Republican Tim Burns pushed his Democratic opponent to the wire.”

  “One of the bluest” CDs? Shah! Right! Obviously Mikey was not reading from the same hymnbook as ex-Rep. Tom Davis:

  Tom Davis, a former Republican House member and top party campaign strategist, saw the win by Democrat Mark Critz, a former aide to Mr. Murtha, over Republican Tim Burns as a serious blow to the Republican claim to be within reach of the 40 seats needed to recapture the House.

  “If you can’t win a seat that is trending Republican in a year like this, then where is the wave?” asked Mr. Davis, who said Republicans will need to examine what went wrong. “It would be a huge upset not to win this seat.”

  Or Charlie Cook, for that matter, from late April:

  Republicans have no excuse to lose this race. The fundamentals of this district, including voters’ attitudes towards Obama and Pelosi, are awful for Democrats. And Democratic party registration advantages here are just as obsolete as GOP’s advantages in Upstate New York were last year. Timing is no excuse for Republicans either. This special election, not the competitive statewide Democratic primaries held the same day, will be driving turnout on May 18th.

  Meanwhile, Burns managed to win his primary over direct mail scammer Bill Russell by 57-43, which means he gets the pleasure of facing Critz again in November. It’s pretty rare for the loser of a special election to win the rematch in the next general election. The last example of such a casualty, that I can come up with, was half-term Dem Rep. Peter Barca, who won a special election against Republican Mark Neumann in 1993. Neumann came back to beat Barca in ’94. Otherwise, this type of situation is pretty rare.

• PA-17: Democrat Tim Holden seemed to aggravate the base of his party with his vote against HCR, resulting in only a 65% win last night over his no-money primary challenger, Sheila Dow-Ford. On the Republican side, state Sen. Dave Argall only managed to beat veteran Frank Ryan by 1.4%.
• PA-19: Despite speculation that semi-sane GOP Rep. Todd Platts was endangering himself by openly seeking an appointment from Barack Obama to lead the Government Accountability Office, Platts dispatched teabagging challenger Mike Smeltzer by a 70-30 margin.

Maybe we can’t quite call it the “Super Tuesday” of congressional primary days, but based on the gravity of some of the races that will be decided this week, it wouldn’t be far off the mark. Two Democratic incumbent Senators are embroiled in stiff primary fights, and the outcome of both party primaries in Kentucky’s Senate race will weigh heavily on the competitiveness of that seat in November. All told, there are 28 elections worth watching today (by our count), with the promise of run-offs in Arkansas on June 8 if no candidate achieves a majority of the vote in their respective races. Also on tap for the weekend is the special election to replace Dem Rep. Neil Abercrombie in Hawaii’s 1st District, which is shaping up to be a disaster of Abercrombie’s making.

Arkansas:

• AR-Sen (D): Polling seems to indicate that the odds of Bill Halter coming out ahead of two-term incumbent Blanche Lincoln as falling somewhere between slim and none, but the presence of Paulist weirdo D.C. Morrison on the Democratic ticket may draw enough votes away from Lincoln to force a runoff in June. Outside groups have already spent millions on this race; labor has lined solidly behind Halter while Chamber of Commerce-types have funneled significant resources behind Lincoln, telling you everything you need to know about the ideological fault lines of this primary battle. If a runoff becomes a reality, expect this race to find yet another gear.
• AR-Sen (R): Again, first place isn’t at all in question here. GOP Rep. John Boozman’s superior name recognition has given him a big edge on the other seven dwarves of the GOP field. What is at stake, though, is whether or not Boozman (like Lincoln) can avoid a resource-draining runoff, and if not, which Republican contender will advance to the next round along with him. Boozman has stayed close to the 50% mark in recent polling, with ex-state Sen. Jim Holt (the GOP’s ’04 nominee against Lincoln) and state Sen. Gilbert Baker clawing for second place.
• AR-01 (D): With Marion Berry hitting the exits, four Dems have lined up to replace him, making a runoff a safe bet. Ex-state Sen. Tim Wooldridge, a pretty conservative dude who lost a runoff for Lt. Governor in 2006 to Bill Halter, is seen as the front-runner — a notion confirmed by the lone poll we’ve seen of this race. However, Berry’s ex-Chief of Staff, Chad Causey, leads the money race, and state Sen. Steve Bryles has raised six figures, too. State Rep. David Cook, who is probably the most liberal choice in this race (he favors the public option, according to his campaign site) is also the least well-funded, pulling in just $54,000 through the end of April.
• AR-01 (R): Republicans made a lot of noise about stealing Berry’s seat after he announced his retirement decision, but that sense of optimism didn’t result in an upgrade in terms of candidate recruitment. Radio broadcaster Rick Crawford started his race off slowly, but has begun to pick up the pace after Berry hit the exits, and that may be enough to make this a very competitive contest in November. The only candidate to join him the Republican primary is Princella Smith, a former aide to future ex-Rep. Joe Cao. Smith has proven to be something of a dud, only raising $67K for her primary against Crawford.
• AR-02 (D): The primary to replace retiring Rep. Rick Snyder is a pretty interesting one, with state House Speaker Robbie Wills seemingly leading the way in terms of November electability and insider connections, and state Sen. Joyce Elliott enjoying the support of the district’s liberal base. Snyder’s former Chief of Staff, David Boling, is also in the race and has raised nearly as much as Wills, so his presence can’t be overlooked, either. The Dem field is rounded out by former Clinton School of Public Service programming director Patrick Kennedy and assistant Attorney General John Adams, both of whom have not raised much money are not expected to win a significant share of the vote.
• AR-02 (R): Rove acolyte and ex-US Attorney Tim Griffin is expected to win this primary pretty easily, seeing as how he’s been out-raising Little Rock restaurateur Scott Wallace by a 6-to-1 margin. Wallace, however, tied Griffin at 20-20 in an early April poll of the race, and enjoys the backing of Mike Huckabee.
• AR-03 (R): Good luck sorting through this orgy of teabaggery. A whopping eight Republicans are duking it out for the right to succeed John Boozman in the House, pretty much guaranteeing that this sucker is going to a runoff in June. That early April Talk Business poll suggested that we’re looking at a three-way race between state Sen. Cecile Bledsoe, Rogers Mayor Steve Womack, and the aptly-named ex-state Sen. Gunner DeLay, but ex-DEA official Steve Lowry, businessman Kurt Maddox, and ex-state Rep. Doug Matayo could also compete.

Hawaii:

• HI-01 (Special): There’s not a whole lot that need be said about this crazy-ass jungle election, where Republican Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou looks poised to steal this seat. He of course faces off against state Sen. President Colleen Hanabusa and ex-Rep. Ed Case, who used to represent the state’s other CD. The one final point I do want to make is that I blame this all on Neil Abercrombie. Had he not resigned unexpectedly, we’d never have wound up on this situation. I can appreciate that campaigning for the governorship of Hawaii when you are needed in D.C. can be quite a tiring task, especially for a septuagenarian. But Abercrombie knew he wanted to run long ago. He should either have stuck out his term, or not have stood for re-election in 2008. (DavidNYC)

Kentucky:

• KY-Sen (D): The Big One. While the tradmed seems to neglect this race in favor of seemingly shinier objects like Arlen Specter’s primary in Pennsylvania or Rand Paul’s surprising strength among Kentucky Republicans, the Democratic primary is the true race to watch out of Kentucky tonight. 2004 nominee and current Lt. Governor Dan Mongiardo had enjoyed a consistent and seemingly impenetrable lead against state AG Jack Conway, the candidate with less baggage to exploit in the general election. However, recent polls have suggested that Conway is coming on strong in the home stretch of this campaign, perhaps making the race a dead heat. Research 2000 had Conway pulling within three points while SUSA only had Conway down by one. This one should be tight.
• KY-Sen (R): This one shouldn’t be tight. You know things are bad when Trey Grayson is whining like a DUMBocrat about Fox News’ apparent preferential treatment of Rand Paul. Despite the best efforts of Mitch McConnell and Dick Cheney, it looks like the teabaggers are poised to make a major victory tonight, as Paul leads by 18 points in the latest poll of this race. A Paul win today will make this a fascinating race in the fall — one that could potentially yield some major GOP headaches.
• KY-03 (R): Republicans are truly leaving no stone unturned in their quest to take back the House, and have a couple of warm bodies to take on two-term Dem Rep. John Yarmuth. Jeffrey Reetz, some guy who owns 25 Pizza Hut franchises, is facing off against Air Force vet Todd Lally. Both of these guys have raised six figures for their campaigns.
• KY-06 (R): After rocking his GOP opponent by 30 points in 2008, Ben Chandler has attracted a pack of mouth-breathers this time around, two of whom are somewhat well-funded. Attorney Andy Barr has been in the race the longest, and has raised over $400K. Retired coal executive Mike Templeman is his chief competition, while four other Republicans have only managed to raise chump change for the primary and are expected to be non-factors tonight.

Oregon:

• OR-Gov (D): The main story on May 18 in Oregon may be the 30th anniversary of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, as there’s been little activity that would qualify as volcanic in either party’s open seat gubernatorial primary. The Democratic primary has been a low-key and civil contest between two long-time friends, former Governor John Kitzhaber (termed out after two terms in 2002, but angling for a return) and former Secretary of State Bill Bradbury. Bradbury has big endorsers in his corner (Al Gore, Howard Dean) and gotten local progressives revved up by running to Kitzhaber’s left, but polling gives a wide edge to Kitz. (Crisitunity)
• OR-Gov (R): After bigger names like Greg Walden and Jason Atkinson passed, the question in the GOP primary was whether anybody other than Allen Alley, a former high-tech CEO who lost the 2008 Treasurer race, was going to show up at all. Eventually Chris Dudley, a former Portland Trail Blazers center from the 1990s, showed up and immediately assumed front-runner status simply by virtue of name rec and money. Most polling has given a lead to Dudley, but Alley seems to be closing in on him, thanks in part to Dudley’s (very large) empty-suit-ishness. Both are from the moderate end of the GOP; the more conservative options, ex-state Sen. John Lim and anti-tax initiative grifter Bill Sizemore, are there mostly to provide comic relief. (C)
• OR-01 (R): Sports industry consultant Rob Cornilles seems to have piqued the NRCC’s interest, as they’ve touted him as the man to take down Democratic Rep. David Wu in this D+8 suburban district. Before he can tackle Wu, though, he has to survive the GOP primary. Stephan Brodhead attracted some attention with his large bankroll, but SurveyUSA‘s poll of the primary indicates the main rival to Cornilles is teabagging mortgage broker John Kuzmanich. (C)
• OR-05 (R): Similarly, the NRCC has its favorite pony in the 5th: state Rep. Scott Bruun, a moderate from the wealthy suburban portion of this somewhat rural district. There was some brief hubbub that Bruun was vulnerable to a challenge from Tea Party-aligned retired businessman Fred Thompson (no, not that Fred Thompson), but SurveyUSA recently found that Bruun is on track to nail down the nomination. (C)

Pennsylvania:

• PA-Sen (D): The big kahuna. For a long time, a lot of observers (myself included) wondered when – or even if – Rep. Joe Sestak would go on the attack against the party-switching Sen. Arlen Specter. Well, Sestak’s certainly proved all the doubters very wrong. Polls are as tight as can be, and while he may not pull it off in the end, Sestak seems to have timed things perfectly. This should be quite the barnburner. (D)
• PA-Gov (D): A funny thing happened on the way to the primary: After a year of desultory polling showing pretty much all candidates in the teens and single digits, Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato completely pulled away from the pack. According to Pollster’s trendlines, Jack Wagner, Anthony Williams, and Joe Hoeffel are all still mired in nowheresville, so unless a lot of polling is very wrong, Onorato will be the Dem gubernatorial nominee. (D)
• PA-03 (R): There’s a crowded field to take on freshman Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, but only two dudes have shown serious scratch – and both because they’re self-funders: retired businessman Paul Huber, who raised $200K and loaned himself another $300K, and auto dealer and ex-city councilman Mike Kelly, who lent himself $165K on top of $80K in individual contributions. Other wannabes include Cochranton insurance agent Steven Fisher, teabagger Clayton Grabb, physician Martha Moore, and Some Dude Ed Franz, who have all raised about $30K or less. Both Huber and Kelly have been on the air with TV advertisements. A big question is whether Huber’s fundraising edge will outweigh the fact that he was a registered Democrat for 33 years – and only switched parties in 2008. (D)
• PA-04 (R): When Bush-era US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan (one of the names that kept cropping up in the US Attorney firings scandal) got into the race, Beltway pundits seemed to think the GOP primary would be a mere formality for her before posing a strong challenge to Democratic Rep. Jason Altmire in this R+6 district in Pittsburgh’s suburbs. They didn’t count on one thing: Buchanan’s apparent ineptitude at jumping from legal practice to electoral politics. We don’t have any polls to go by, but her anti-establishment opponent, attorney Keith Rothfus has outraised her and is certainly making fewer unforced errors. (C)
• PA-06 (D): This race pits an SSP fave, physician and veteran Manan Trivedi, against someone we simply aren’t very fond of, newspaper publisher Doug Pike. But putting aside our personal preferences, what’s going to happen here? It’s hard to say, especially since we haven’t seen any polls. Pike, thanks to massive donations from himself totaling more than a million dollars, has a big money edge. He’s also gotten his share of labor endorsements, though Trivedi has scored some of his own, as well as the backing of some key county committees. I’m rooting for Trivedi, to be sure, but I think he has an uphill fight against Pike’s bucks. (D)
• PA-10 (R): Here’s another district where the GOP thought a former US Attorney would be just what the doctor ordered, and they didn’t quite get what they thought. Tom Marino was their hyped pick for the race, but questions about Marino’s relationship with sketchy developer Louis DeNaples have loomed large over his campaign. Marino’s fundraising has been subpar as well; what is likely to help him pull it out in the primary is that his anti-establishment opposition is split, with Snyder Co. Commissioner Malcolm Derk his most prominent foe. (C)
• PA-11 (D): Even though there’s a long-long-time Democratic incumbent here, Rep. Paul Kanjorski, the primary is on the Democratic side, rather than for the GOP (where 2008 opponent Lou Barletta is on tap for a rematch). Up-and-coming Lackawanna Co. Commissioner Corey O’Brien is taking on Kanjorski. While he has only a fraction of Kanjorski’s money, he’s trying to outhustle the crusty Kanjorski on the ground, and also making electability arguments about the incumbent, who barely beat Barletta in the much-more favorable 2008. Without any polling, it’s hard to guess whether we’re looking at a WV-01-style unplanned retirement for Kanjorski. (C)
• PA-12 (Special): This, by rights, should be the main event tonight, as it’s the only Democrat vs. Republican matchup anywhere. It has all the makings of a dead heat, not only in terms of polling (most recently a 1-point lead for Republican Tim Burns over Democrat Mark Critz, according to PPP), but also the lay of the land. It’s an historically Democratic district with a huge registration advantage, but it’s trending in the Republican direction as district’s aged population gets its marching orders from Fox News instead of the union hall now. Much has been made of how this R+1 district was the nation’s only one to go from backing Kerry in 2004 to McCain in 2008. Critz’s close ties to John Murtha, and the fact that the special coincides with the hotly contested Democratic Senate primary, may help Dems win the day, though. (C)
• PA-12 (D/R): The regularly scheduled primary elections in the 12th for November are also on the same day as the special. While it’s likely that, whatever the special election outcome, Mark Critz and Tim Burns will be facing each other again in the general, that’s not guaranteed. Critz is likely to beat Ryan Bucchanieri on the Dem side, but Burns is facing a tough challenge from Bill Russell and leading only narrowly according to a recent Susquehanna poll. Russell, who was passed over by the state party for the nomination, was the 2008 candidate; he’s best known as frontman for direct-mail scammers BaseConnect, and as such, has had enough money for TV ads. Could we see a Neil Abercrombie-type result where Burns wins a special and loses a primary on the same day? (C)
• PA-17 (D/R): Most observers expect November to be a matchup of long-time incumbent Democratic Rep. Tim Holden, and top-tier-ish GOP recruit state Sen. David Argall. Both, however, have primaries to get through first. Holden faces Democratic activist Sheila Dow-Ford, who’s attacking him over his anti-HCR vote. Meanwhile, Argall (vulnerable over the issue of legislative pay raises) is barely keeping his head above water against fractured opposition, led by veteran Frank Ryan, who’s had some surprising fundraising success. (C)
• PA-19 (R): This has the potential to be a surprise: Rep. Todd Platts is an unusually moderate Republican given the R+12 lean of this rural district, and he’s also painted a target on his own back by publicly expressing interest on getting out of that job and moving over to head the Government Accountability Office instead. Opponent Mike Smeltzer is hoping to use that as a basis for giving Platts a good teabagging. (C)

• AK-Sen: Moose man endorses Some Dude. That’s SSP shorthand for: Todd Palin just endorsed Joe Miller, the right-wing lawyer who’s taking on Lisa Murkowski in the Republican Senate primary. Recall that Mr. Palin has had some fairly fringey politics in the past (as with his membership in the Alaskan Independence Party), so I wonder if this was done with his wife’s approval (or, given her busy schedule these days, whether he was even able to block out some time with her to get her say-so). Given her rumored brief interest in taking on Murkowski in the primary herself (back when she was still Governor rather than itinerant book-selling motivational-speaking grifter), and her long-standing beef with all things Murkowksi, I’d suppose yes.

• CA-Sen: Carly Fiorina, trying to make up last-minute ground in the GOP primary against Tom Campbell, has thrown $1.1 million of her own money into her campaign. On top of previous loans to her campaign, that brings her total self-contributions to $3.6 million. Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner were both heard scoffing loudly.

• CT-Sen: Chalk this one up to bad, bad timing. Linda McMahon just sent out a mailer proposing to “put Connecticut back to work” by “increasing offshore drilling and production” (um, in Long Island Sound?). The mailer features a large, lovely picture of a (non-burning) offshore oil rig.

• NH-Sen: Has Kelly Ayotte just given up on any pretense of trying to look moderate? She’s appearing at a Susan B. Anthony List (the anti-abortion group) fundraiser today, headlined by Sarah Palin, along with a supporting cast like Rep. Steve King. I know that she still needs to survive her GOP primary, but her main opposition these days is looking like moderate Bill Binnie, not right-wing Ovide Lamontagne.

• NV-Sen: Steve Kornacki looks at the Nevada Senate race and the “what if” scenario if Sharron Angle somehow wins the primary. History indicates that Harry Reid can’t pin too many hopes on winning just because the GOP puts forth its most extreme candidate… maybe the biggest case in point, the Carter camp’s hopes that wacko Ronald Reagan would make it out of the GOP primary in 1980.

• NY-Sen: Wow, there’s actually going to be a GOP primary for the right to get mulched by Chuck Schumer! Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos, who’s only been on the job half a year, is already looking to move up. He’ll still have to get past political consultant Jay Townsend in the primary.

• UT-Sen: She stopped short of a formal endorsement, but fringey activist Cherilyn Eagar, who finished fourth at the GOP convention, said that Tim Bridgewater would be “an excellent senator” and complimented him on a “clean, honest race.” Eagar is back to her day job fighting the menace posed by gnomes.

• AL-Gov: I’m losing track of all the weird outside groups popping up to play dirty pool in the Alabama governor’s race. Today’s entrant is the mysterious New Sons of Liberty, whose main agenda seems to be Barack Obama’s birth certificate. They’ve reserved $1.1 million in TV airtime, although it’s unclear what they’ll be advertising about or on behalf of whom. The leader of a group, Basics Project, affiliated with the New Sons is mystified at where they would have gotten that kind of money, so it seems like they’re being used as a conduit for… well, somebody.

There’s also a new poll out of the Republican primary, by Republican pollster Baselice (on behalf of local PR firm Public Strategy Associates… there’s no word on whether any of the candidates are their client). They find Bradley Byrne barely leading Tim James 24-23. Roy Moore, who many thought would be the man to beat, is lagging at 18, with Robert Bentley at 12 and Bill Johnson at 2. The juicier numbers might be down in the AG race, where GOP incumbent Troy King is in all kinds of trouble. He’s losing 50-25 to challenger Luther Strange. There are three Dems in the AG field, most prominently James Anderson, ready to try to exploit the cat-fud fight.

• AR-Gov: One thing we didn’t mention in our writeup of Research 2000’s AR-Sen poll from yesterday is that they were the first pollster to throw the Arkansas Governor’s race into the mix. Incumbent Dem Mike Beebe routinely sports some of the highest favorables of any politician (64/24 here), and he seems immune from Arkansas’ reddish trend and the nation’s overall anti-incumbent fervor. He leads Republican former state Sen. Jim Keet, 62-19.

• CT-Gov: Former Stamford mayor Dan Malloy picked up another potentially useful endorsement today as we make our way toward Connecticut’s endorsing conventions. He got the nod from Rep. John Larson, the #4 man on the House totem pole. UPDATE: On the GOP side, ex-Rep. Chris Shays has an endorsement of his own: Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele.

• NY-Gov: It’s kind of more meta than we’d like, to report on an announcement about an announcement (about an announcement), but it sounds like we’re getting closer to pinning down a date from Andrew Cuomo. It’s being reported that he’ll announce his gubernatorial candidacy on or around May 25, the start of the state Democratic convention.

• AL-05: Rep. Parker Griffith is already up with a negative ad hitting one of his Republican primary opponents, Madison Co. Commissioner Mo Brooks, calling him a “career politician” and “big spender.” Brooks observed, perhaps correctly (although the Alabama primary is fast approaching), that an incumbent attacking a challenger is a big-time sign of weakness.

• GA-09: Former state Rep. Tom Graves, in the runoff for the special election in this seat against fellow Republican Lee Hawkins, got the endorsement from nearby Rep. Lynn “Uppity” Westmoreland. In a district this red, that may actually be a plus.

• MN-06: An unaffiliated independent, Troy Freihammer, may appear on the ballot, in addition to Independence Party nominee Bob Anderson. He needs 1,000 signatures by month’s end, though, so he may not make that hurdle. Getting him on might be a net plus for the Dems, as his website makes pretty clear he’s a Tenther and he’s only likely to take votes away from Michele Bachmann.

• OR-01: SurveyUSA is way down in the weeds here (although that’s because the poll where they get paid to do so, in this case by local TV affiliate KATU), with a look at the primaries in the 1st. In a four-way field on the GOP side, the NRCC’s preferred candidate, sports-industry consultant Rob Cornilles, leads at 31, beating mortgage broker John Kuzmanich at 19. The other guy whose name you hear in connection with this race, Stephan Brodhead (mostly because he somehow summoned up $298K CoH) is polling at all of 3, probably because his main campaign activity seems to be trolling the online comment sections of local newspapers and people have ascertained thusly that he’s a wackjob. Rep. David Wu is at 75% against token opposition on the Dem side.

• PA-04: What was supposed to be a victory lap for former US Attorney and loyal Bushie Mary Beth Buchanan has turned into a real dogfight with attorney Keith Rothfus, seemingly helped along by her apparent ineptitude at electoral politics. She’s currently drawing fire for a “deceitful” mailer which uses the National Rifle Association logo without its permission. Things have actually been going badly enough on the message-control front that improbable rumors have her dropping out of the race (with days to go), although her camp is saying her “major political announcement” is just a press conference to go on the offensive against Rothfus.

• Census: An interesting article from Stateline looks at what various states are doing to amp up Census participation. The real interest, here, is a neat map they’ve put together rating the states not on their overall participation percentages, but on the overall shifts in participation percentage from 2000 to 2010. Intriguingly, the biggest improvements in participation were clustered in the Deep South (especially North and South Carolina, both of which are on the cusp of adding another seat), while the Mountain West states suffered the most. California also seemed to fall off a bit, as budget limitations kept them from doing much outreach this time around, which could conceivably hurt their hopes of staying at 53 seats.

• AR-Sen: The SEIU is turning their amps up to 11 in a final effort to beat Blanche Lincoln in the Democratic primary. They’re ponying up another $1 million for a new TV ad blitz, focusing on Lincoln’s support for NAFTA, CAFTA, and sundry other free-trade deals.

• FL-Sen: Looks like the “Help wanted” sign is going out at Charlie Crists’s office. As expected, much of his top-tier staff evacuated en masse; he lost communications director Andrea Saul, spokesperson Amanda Hennenberg, and campaign counsel Ben Ginsberg (all Beltway types left over from when Crist was the NRSC’s prize pony, who just headed back to the GOP’s mothership). Also former Crist marionette George LeMieux severed his strings: the seat-warming Senator says he won’t support Crist’s independent bid.

• NV-Sen: Imagine that… a Democrat actually taking to the airwaves to explain the benefits of the broadly-misunderstood (or just plain not-understood-at-all) health care reform bill and not just ceding the discursive arena to right-wing radio and astroturfers? Better late than never, I guess. Harry Reid is forging ahead with that, launching three different new TV ads featuring stories from actual Nevadans actually benefiting from HCR.

• OH-Sen (pdf): There’s one more poll of the Democratic Senate primary in Ohio, from Suffolk this time. They find an even bigger edge for Lee Fisher over Jennifer Brunner than did PPP; in fact, Suffolk has Fisher doubling up on her, 55-27. Voters may be thinking strategically: they also find that respondents feel Fisher has a better chance of beating Rob Portman than does Brunner, by a lop-sided 55-15 margin. Brunner voters report that, if Fisher wins the election, 74% will vote for Fisher and 8% for Portman.

• AZ-Gov: PPP has one more installment in its Arizona sample today: the Republican primary in the gubernatorial race. As other pollsters have found, once-wobbly incumbent Jan Brewer has strengthened her primary position (while destabilized her general election position) by signing off on Arizona’s new racial profiling law. Brewer leads the pack at 38, over fractured opposition led by NRA board member Owen Buz Mills at 19, state Treasurer Dean Martin at 16, and former university regent John Munger at 3. (In PPP’s last poll here, from September, Brewer was losing a head-to-head against Martin 37-26.) PPP also did a fantasy-baseball poll that included Maricopa Co. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who, as he does every four years, has been expressing interest in the race but not moving forward in it. Arpaio wins that version of the primary, taking 33%, with 25 for Brewer, 15 for Martin, 11 for Mills, and 1 for Munger.

• MN-Gov: With the Republican endorsing convention in Minnesota already underway, most media accounts are focusing on Sarah Palin’s last-minute endorsement of state Rep. Tom Emmer, but there’s a more important endorsement at work here in terms of potentially moving some delegates: Norm Coleman is now also backing Emmer and privately making calls to delegates on Emmer’s behalf. The GOPers have already endorsed in some of the downballot races, maybe most notably the Auditor’s race, where they endorsed former Auditor Pat Anderson (who had been running for Governor for a while, until she decided to drop down and try to get her old job back instead).

• UT-Gov: Mason-Dixon, on behalf of the Salt Lake Tribune, took another look at the general election in the Utah governor’s race, which is definitely looking like a heavy lift for Salt Lake County mayor Peter Corroon. The Democrat trails GOP incumbent Gary Herbert 61-30, an even better showing than Herbert’s 55-30 result in January.

• FL-16: Whew. After making some noises about a possible comeback attempt, ex-Rep. Tim Mahoney decided on filing day that he wouldn’t run to get his seat back. He still took a parting shot at Rep. Tom Rooney, saying he’s part of the GOP’s move to the “radical right.” Some Dudes Jim Horn and Ed Tautiva are all the Dems have on the ballot in this R+5 district, unless something changes in the next few hours.

• HI-01: The Republicans continue to very subtly funnel money into the 1st, somewhat mirroring their stealth strategy on how they got similarly-blue MA-Sen off the ground. Rather than the NRCC charging in with both barrels blazing, instead there’s a push for individual House GOP members to contribute directly to Charles Djou; about 40 have done so already.

• IN-02: The National Rifle Association slammed GOP candidate Jackie Walorski. No, that’s not because the right-wing Walorski suddenly had a change of heart on the gun issue; instead, it was because she was claiming the NRA’s endorsement. That was only for her 2008 legislative bid, the NRA said, and she has not been endorsed yet for this year for the different office.

• IN-03: Looks like Rep. Mark Souder isn’t going to be in the House much longer, regardless of how next week’s primary plays out. Brian Howey says Souder has been telling him that he’d already been contemplating retirement in 2012, and the stress of trying to win his unexpectedly-tough primary election has “sealed it” for him.

• PA-04: Here’s a last-minute sign of life for Keith Rothfus, who’d been the leading GOP contender here up until the moment when former US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan announced (although Rothfus beat Buchanan at fundraising last quarter). He got the endorsement today of Glen Meakem, a wealthy businessman and part-time talk radio host who’s something of a behind-the-scenes power in Republican circles in western Pennsylvania and who had briefly considered a Senate bid last year.

• SC-04: Rep. Bob Inglis’s main threat this year is in the GOP primary, not the general, and he launched two different ads reminding voters that he’s actually pretty conservative. One ad touts his NRA endorsement, while the other runs down the litany of things he opposed (health care reform, stimulus, cap-and-trade, auto industry bailout).

• NY-St. Sen.: A long-time Republican stalwart in the New York state Senate is retiring: Dale Volker (in office since 1975). Democrats looking to pad their narrow majority in the Senate may need to look elsewhere, though; this district in the Buffalo suburbs and surrounding rural counties is one of the most conservative in the state, with a 79K-to-65K GOP registration advantage, and won 54-40 by John McCain.

• Arizona: Arizona has been doing all kinds of weird things lately, and here’s one more to add to the list. One of the few states to not have a Lt. Governor (the SoS is 2nd in line of succession, which is how Jan Brewer became Governor), Arizona is planning to have a Lt. Governor… but only because they would eliminate the SoS position and give all those duties to the LG. What’s even weirder is that they’d start doing what Illinois just decided to stop doing because the results were so uniformly terrible: the Governor and LG candidates will run separately in the primary, but be joined together on one ticket via shotgun wedding for the general election. The idea cleared the legislature, but because it’s a constitutional amendment, the idea has to pass a voter referendum before it becomes law.

• Puerto Rico: The House approved allowing Puerto Rico to hold a plebiscite on its grey-area status (the last one was in 1998, where they decided to remain a commonwealth). It’ll be a two-step vote, where the first vote will ask whether it should remain a commonwealth or not. If the answer is “no,” the second vote will ask whether it should become independent, a U.S. state, still remain a commonwealth, or enter some other sovereign-but-connected-to-the-U.S. status. If it voted for statehood, Congress would still have to approve making it a state. Of course, this has to pass the Senate as well before the vote could happen, so it may get kicked down the road for a while.

• OFA: Nathan Gonzales has a thorough look at the Obama campaign’s state directors, and how they’re part of OFA’s pivot to focus on turning out the same voters for the 2010 midterms. Here’s a handy table of what all the directors are up to these days.

• History: Rhodes Cook has an interesting column that’s been getting linked all over the place in the last couple days: a much more apt comparison for what the Democrats are getting themselves this year, rather than 1994, is 1966. The parallels are that the Democrats were facing some inevitable snap-back after overperforming in the 1964 election (winning nearly 2/3s majorities in each chamber), and the GOP quickly got back up off the mat after the Dems pushed the limits in passing a variety of Great Society legislation (most notably Medicare). Of course, the Democrats still took a bath, losing 47 in the House and 3 in the Senate, so it’s still not really something the Democrats should aspire towards.

• CO-Sen: The nomination process in Colorado has worked its way up to the county-level assemblies now, and former state House speaker Andrew Romanoff still has an edge over appointed incumbent Michael Bennet in the race for Democratic Senate primary delegates. Romanoff has a 57-42 edge over Bennet, bolstered by strong numbers in the urban Denver and El Paso Counties.

• CT-Sen: This may not turn out to be much, but it’s another drip-drip hurting Linda McMahon’s credibility. It’s been revealed that in 1989, she gave advance warning to a doctor, George Zahorian, of a pending federal investigation; Zahorian was later convicted of selling steroids to WWF wrestlers. (Only Zahorian was convicted; the government’s case against the WWF fell apart.)

• IN-Sen: Take this with as much salt as you’d like, as it’s a leak of an Indiana GOP Senate primary poll to a right-wing blog and the leak doesn’t even say which candidate’s camp it came from, let alone who the pollster is. Nevertheless, it shows a tight race between Dan Coats and John Hostettler: Coats leads 29-26, with Marlin Stutzman not to be counted out either at 18.

• MA-Sen: Here’s more evidence that Scott Brown is intent on trying to have a long career as a moderate New England Senator, rather than flaming out in half a term of teabagging glory. He said thanks but not thanks to appearing with Sarah Palin at a teabagger rally on Boston Common on Wednesday.

• OH-Sen: Another big quarter for Rob Portman, who’s started to fall behind in recent polling against his Democratic opposition but who will have a huge cash advantage over whoever his opponent is. He pulled in $2.3 million last quarter, bringing his CoH total to a ridiculous $7.6 million.

• WA-Sen: Here’s what may be a tea leaf that Dino Rossi isn’t likely to run for Senate this year: state Sen. Don Benton, who’s already in the race for the GOP and is a friend of Rossi, says “I don’t believe Dino would allow me to sacrifice my family time and my business if he was going to run for the U.S. Senate,” and “If he had serious plans, I really believe he would have told me that.” Of course, this may also be a shot across Rossi’s bow, especially since Benton also points out that his fundraising ($130K last quarter) has suffered as everyone watches Rossi instead.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): I don’t know why so many small schools in the Northeast feel the need to have their very own polling operation, but now Muhlenberg College is getting in on the act too. Their apparently first look at the Senate race uses a likely voter model, so as you might expect, it gives a bit of a lead to Pat Toomey. Toomey leads Arlen Specter 47-40 and leads Joe Sestak 33-22 (with leaners). There’s a whole lotta undecideds in the gubernatorial race, but Tom Corbett has a clear advantage among those who’ve decided: he leads Dan Onorato 42-18, Jack Wagner 44-16, and Joe Hoffel 45-11.

• GA-Gov: Ethics questions are continuing to follow around ex-Rep. Nathan Deal even though he’s left the House now, in order to pursue his gubernatorial bid. Turns out he spent $20K from his state campaign account to pay for legal fees related to the House Ethics inquiry into his car inspection business. The state’s ethics board says it’s unclear whether or not it’s a violation, as it’s a situation they’ve never dealt with before.

• NY-Gov: With his teabag-flavored gubernatorial campaign only a few weeks old, Carl Paladino’s campaign manager is already in damage control mode, acknowledging today that, yes, his boss send out some e-mails to political and business contacts that were “off-color” and “politically incorrect.” If, by politically incorrect, you mean including an African tribal dance photo entitled “Obama Inauguration Rehearsal,” and hardcore bestiality photos.

• PA-Gov: Two House members endorsed in the Democratic governor’s primary, and given their geographical connections, neither one should be a surprise. Pittsburgh-area Rep. Mike Doyle endorsed Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato, while PA-01’sBob Brady (who just happens to be chair of the Philadelphia City Democrats in his spare time) backs state Sen. Anthony Williams. Getting the Philly machine officially behind Williams, currently lagging his opponents, may help him gain a little ground on his competition.

• SC-Gov: AG Henry McMaster had a strong fundraising quarter in the race to replace Mark Sanford, pulling in $464K and sitting on $1.4 million CoH. He’s almost caught up with Rep. Gresham Barrett, who was last year’s fundraising leader; Barrett raised $427K and holds $1.5 million CoH.

• HI-01: Looks like it’s turning into the DCCC vs. everybody else in the 1st. The AFL-CIO and Longshoremen, undeterred by the D-Trip’s preferences, are both weighing into the race with mailers on behalf of Colleen Hanabusa, pointing out Ed Case’s anti-labor record.

• MI-01: More local politicians are starting to jump into the race in the 1st, with last Friday’s sudden departure of Bart Stupak. Democratic State Rep. Joel Sheltrown said he’ll get in the race (joining Connie Saltonstall, who had been challenging Stupak in the primary). One problem for Sheltrown, though, is that he’s a “troll” (i.e. from under the bridge, instead of from the Upper Peninsula, where the district’s center of gravity is). One other sorta-big-name possible contender who doesn’t quite live in the district, ex-Rep. Jim Barcia (who’s got gerrymandered out of MI-05 in 2002, dropped down to the state Senate, which he’s now term-limited out of), confirmed he wouldn’t run. Roll Call also has the names of a few other potential Dems that we haven’t mentioned yet, including state Reps. Jeff Mayes, Judy Nerat, and Steve Lindberg, and state Agriculture Director Don Koivisto. Other possible GOPers include state Sen. Jason Allen, former state Rep. Tom Casperson (who lost by a wide margin to Stupak in 2008), and former state Rep. Scott Shackleton.

• NY-24: Republican repeat challenger Richard Hanna raised $350K in the first quarter for the race against Rep. Mike Arcuri; that’s on top of the $600K he loaned himself.

• PA-04: The growing scandal surrounding the Orie family (centered on state Sen. Jane Orie, who allegedly had staff in her office working on campaign work on the state’s dime) spilled over into the 4th. Mary Beth Buchanan’s campaign manager, Kurt Acker, resigned on Friday after it came out that he was one of those Orie staffers participating in the violations.

• TN-08: Looks like we’ve got a good case of the dueling rich guys in the GOP primary in the 8th: physician Ron Kirkland is reporting $607K raised last quarter. Throw in the $250K he lent himself, and he’s already drawn almost even with Stephen Fincher, who’s already gotten the NRCC’s imprimatur based on his own fundraising.

• VA-05: Freshman Rep. Tom Perriello also put up excellent fundraising numbers this quarter, and that seems to have more to do with getting the base excited about him (with his tough vote in favor of HCR) rather than dipping into his own wallet. Perriello raised $600K in the first quarter, leaving him with $1.4 million CoH for what’s sure to be a bruising general election campaign.

• WV-01: There have been some indications that Rep. Alan Mollohan was on the outs with the West Virginia Democratic establishment (starting top-down with Gov. Bob Manchin), but here’s an interesting clue that suggests otherwise: Mollohan’s primary opponent, state Sen. Mike Oliverio, complained at a candidate forum that he’d requested registered voter files from the state committee and hadn’t received them, and he wondered if Mollohan’s influence had anything to do with that.

• Polltopia: Mark Blumenthal has some added nuance on the issue of the House generic ballot, which pundits have been pointing to lately as evidence of possible huge Republican gains in the House in November. The Gallup generic ballot poll does have some predictive value… but that’s only the final Gallup poll before the election, making it a not-terribly-reliable measure at this point in time.

FL-Sen: It’s official: Charlie Crist wants to lose. He definitively says he won’t run as an independent, “once and for all.” Given the way his statement is worded, though, he could still run as a Democrat.

KY-Sen: Is the Rand Paul money train slowing down? Trey Grayson raised $733K in Q1, topping Paul’s $630K. Given that Paul is the only Paulist running much of a campaign this cycle, I’m wondering why his freakazoid coterie hasn’t raised more for him. What’s more, Grayson is touting an internal poll from Jan van Lohuizen showing him with a narrow 39-37 primary lead – the first time we’ve seen a good poll for Grayson in some time. This is a case when I’d expect Paul to produce a dueling internal – if he has a decent one.

NV-Sen: I got awful tired of this kind of story after Mark Sanford managed not to resign despite multiple stories, week after week, of people “pressuring” him to quit. So the fact that a couple of Republican semi-bigs in NV want John Ensign to go don’t impress-a me much. You want to get someone to drop out, you need to threaten to support a credible primary challenger and cut off their fundraising. And hell, even that doesn’t always work. (Just look at Gov. Jim Gibbons!)

UT-Sen: Looks like Sen. Bob Bennett is ignoring his job in order to try and save it. Congress is on a recess right now and will reconvene next week, but Bennett is going to stay behind in Utah to campaign until the May 8th GOP caucus. While Bennett probably can’t get the 60% of convention votes he would need to secure the Republican nomination, he can try to block someone else from doing so, thus forcing a primary in June.

FL-Gov: Alex Sink has parted ways with her campaign manager, Paul Dunn, who came on board last year after managing Rep. Suzanne Kosmas’s 2008 campaign. “Longtime Sink confidante” Jim Cassady will take over the helm.

CA-36: Marcy Winograd, challenging Rep. Jane Harman in the primary, succeeded in denying Harman the “pre-endorsement” of the California Democratic Party by collecting 300 delegate signatures. Now the fight for the party’s endorsement goes to the floor of the state convention, which meets in L.A. next week. Winograd can still fight on to the June primary regardless of what happens with the endorsement, though.

GA-08: Some Paulist is dropping out of the GOP primary to spend more time with her gold bullion. Valerie Meyers says she won’t continue in the race to challenge Dem Rep. Jim Marshall. WMAZ (click the link) has a good primer on who else is still in the running.

HI-01: The Asian American Action Fund, a pro-Dem group, is slamming the DCCC for getting involved in the race, and particularly for siding with the white guy. The organization isn’t hesitating to point out that Hawaii’s 1st CD is 58% Asian and Pacific Islander. Meanwhile, Republican Charles Djou is – as James Hell envisaged – attacking the DCCC as a “mainland group” and criticizing its “outside interference.” If Djou’s framing takes hold, it’s possible that both Colleen Hanabusa and Ed Case will get tainted as a result. That would be just great – and eminently predictable. (BTW, Hanabusa says she raised $450K in Q1.)

PA-04: Labor leader Jack Shea, who had been considering a write-in or independent challenge to Dem Rep. Jason Altmire on account of his vote against healthcare reform, has decided against a run.

PA-08: Zoiks! Republican Mike Fitzpatrick’s campaign tells PoliticsPA that they raised $500K in just two months. Fitzpatrick is trying to win his seat back from Rep. Patrick Murphy.

PA-12: A source tells the Hill that the NRCC plans to go up with some TV ads in the special election to fill Jack Murtha’s seat. Aaron Blake recites my favorite line, though: “There is no indication as to the size of the NRCC buy.” They’ll have to file an independent expenditure report soon enough, though (if this buy is for real).

TN-08: Somewhere in the Sonoran Desert, John McCain’s head just exploded. That’s because one Robert Kirkland just filed an independent expenditure report… on behalf of his brother, Ronald. What hath McCain-Feingold wrought? Now these two can’t even speak to one another at the family Fourth of July barbecue!

WV-01: Some fundraising numbers from Republican candidates in West Virginia. David McKinley says he’s raised $300K, while Sarah Minear has raised $272K (but a quarter mil of that was a self-loan). Mac Warner, a third candidate, hasn’t released any nums yet.

North Carolina: SEIU says it’s trying to form a new third party in NC, called North Carolina First, with the goal of running candidates in this fall’s elections. The Tarheel State is home to three Dems who voted “no” on healthcare reform: Heath Shuler, Mike McIntyre and Larry Kissell. SSP rates Shuler and Kissell as Likely Dem and McIntyre as Safe Dem, but a third-party challenge from the left could of course alter that calculus.

Data: A new site called Transparency Data is offering contributor data for the last twenty years… for federal and state races. Looks like a good one to bookmark.

FL-08: Former hospital administrator Peg Dunmire has left the Republican Party and will officially challenge Alan Grayson as a member of Florida’s new Tea Party.

GA-09: The special election for Nathan Deal’s now-vacant seat has been set for April 27th. This is an all-party “jungle” election, with the winner needing 50% to win. If no one hits that mark, a runoff would be held on May 25th. With 11 Republicans and only one Democrat (former Navy chaplain Mike Freeman) running, is it completely insane to imagine…? Also note that Georgia has a “resign to run” rule, so folks who hold other offices will have to quit before getting into this race, setting off a domino chain of further special elections.

IN-05: Former state Rep. Luke Messer is on the air with a biographical tv spot. He’s one of several Republicans challenging Rep. Dan Burton in the primary.

MA-05: Seven Republicans and four independents have lined up so far to take on Dem Rep. Niki Tsongas. Scott Brown won this district 56-43 in January.

NY-13: The Brooklyn Conservative Party has endorsed former FBI agent Mike Grimm. This has touched off another fight with Staten Island Conservatives who, as they did in 2008, seem inclined to endorse Democratic Rep. Mike McMahon. But back then, the Brooklyn Cons (who represent a much smaller part of the district) engineered a coup at the state party level with the backing of chair Michael Long in order to thwart the will of their SI counterparts. It looks like the same might happen again this cycle.

OK-05: SoonerPoll.com surveyed the GOP primary for the open 5th CD, which Rep. Mary Fallin is leaving to run for governor. They find former state Rep. Ken Calvey leading with 20, while state Rep. Mike Thompson is at 9 and “political newcomer” James Lankford is at 7. State Rep. Shane Jett, who just joined the field, was not included.

PA-04: Could Jason Altmire get Arcuri’d? Thanks to his vote against the healthcare reform bill, Jack Shea, the president of the Allegheny County Labor Council, says he’s considering a primary challenge. The problem is that Pennsylvania’s filing deadline closed earlier this month, so Shea would have to run as a write-in. Alternately, he could run as an independent (indies have a much later filing deadline).

PA-19: Rep. Todd Platts is expected to be on a shortlist of four possible names to fill the top spot at the Government Accountability Office. The House and Senate are compiling this list and will send it to the White House “soon.” President Obama can then select a nominee from this slate, or pick his own. Either way, his choice is subject to confirmation in the Senate.

RI-01: Retired Superior Court Judge Roy Pfeiffer is weighing a run for the now-open 1st CD as a Republican. The GOP actually already has a candidate here, state Rep. John Loughlin.

SD-AL: I’m unsurprised – Obama strategist Steve Hildebrand says he won’t challenge Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in the Dem primary, even though she voted against healthcare reform.

TN-08: Roy Herron will have the Democratic field to himself: Educator and former John Tanner staffer Luther Mercer has dropped out, citing difficulties in fundraising. On the, well, non-Dem side, meanwhile, the knives are out for GOP frontrunner Stephen Fincher.  Teabaggy independent Donn Janes is slamming Fincher for claiming to want to cut DC spending despite having been a big beneficiary of farm subsidies.

VA-05: Ex-Rep. Virgil Goode will appear at a fundraiser on the 25th for state Sen. Rob Hurt, who is seeking to reclaim Goode’s seat for the Republicans. Hurt is the establishment favorite in this race, but the teabaggers truly seem to hate him and are determined not to let him win the primary. So it remains to be seen whether Goode can sprinkle him with winger fairy dust, or befoul him with DC stink lines.

WY-AL: Democrats have found a candidate to take on freshman Cynthia Lummis: David Wendt, president of the Jackson Hole Center for Global Affairs. Wendt specifically cited Lummis’s vote against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and also congressional inaction on emissions, as reasons for his run.

Polltopia: The boys at PPP are choosing between AL, IL, MD & WA for their next poll, and you can go over there to vote. I can also tell you that R2K will have a WA poll out this week (as well as polls in AR and WI).

Passings: Fred Heineman, a one term congressman from North Carolina, passed away this past weekend at the age of 80. The Republican Heineman beat Dem Rep. David Price in the 1994 Republican Revolution, but Price won his seat right back in 1996. Heineman’s brief tenure had a lot to do with how mind-bogglingly clueless he was, most infamously remarking:

“When I see a first-class individual who makes $80,000 a year, he’s lower middle class. When I see someone who is making anywhere from $300,000 to $750,000, that’s middle class. When I see anyone above that, that’s upper middle class.

• AZ-Sen: Ex-Rep. and FreedomWorks honcho Dick Armey decided not to endorse in the Arizona Senate GOP primary, which may be good news! for John McCain, seeing as how Armey (currently trying to manage the herd of cats that are the teabaggers) lines up stylistically more with Hayworth. Armey apparently doesn’t think much of Hayworth at a personal level, though, as he followed up with a postscript referring to Hayworth’s “fairly short, undistinguished congressional career.” McCain did bag a few more endorsements from two guys who served with Hayworth in the House in the 90s: Jim Kolbe and Matt Salmon. McCain himself is off campaigning in support of Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire today, making a little clearer where the ideological fault lines lie in that primary.

• IL-Sen: The Alexi Giannoulias camp has released another internal poll from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, which has the Democratic state treasurer leading Republican Rep. Mark Kirk, 49-45. That margin is very consistent with GQR’s last couple polls prior to the primary, which would suggest that Giannoulias weathered the nasty primary all right (although, of course, it doesn’t jibe with how Rasmussen sees the race; they most recently gave Kirk a 46-40 lead).

• KY-Sen: Another internal poll, this one from Lt. Governor Dan Mongiardo, by way of Garin Hart Yang. It gives Mongo a mondo edge over AG Jack Conway in the Democratic Senate primary, 43-25. No numbers are given for the general election, though.

• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP’s release for their newest NC-Sen poll is titled “Same Old Story in Senate race,” and that pretty much sums it up. Richard Burr is still sitting on mediocre approvals and high unknowns (35/35), but thanks to the national environment and second-tier Democratic challengers, he’s still looking to survive in November. He leads SoS Elaine Marshall 43-33, ex-state Sen. Cal Cunningham 44-32, and attorney Kenneth Lewis 44-31. “Generic Democrat” loses to Burr 42-35 (which was 45-36 a month ago).

• AK-Gov: Here’s a bit of a surprise out of Alaska, where appointed Gov. Sean Parnell is somewhat lagging his most prominent GOP primary opponent, former state House speaker Ralph Samuels, on the fundraising front. Parnell still brought in a little more last year ($215K to Samuels’ $179K) but Samuels raised all of his money only in December, with a lot of Samuels’ money coming from in-state big-money real estate and mining interests. Former state House minority leader Ethan Berkowitz leads fundraising efforts in the three-candidate Democratic field.

• CA-Gov: I don’t know how many times Dianne Feinstein has said that she isn’t running for Governor, but she said it again yesterday. This time it seems to be truly official and she seems to be getting it to stick.

• IL-Gov: State Sen. Kirk Dillard seems to have closed the gap in the Illinois GOP primary, with the count of absentee and provisional ballots, but it’s not clear whether it’ll be enough to turn it around, or even enough to merit a recount. Dillard says he cut Bill Brady’s 420-vote margin “in half,” but he’d previously said he wouldn’t look into a recount unless he was within 100 votes. (You do the math.) There’s no recount required by law in Illinois regardless of the margin, so it’s up to Dillard.

• KS-Gov: State Sen. Tom Holland confirmed that he’s in the Kansas gubernatorial race, filling a glaring hole that has bedeviled Kansas Democrats for a year. He’ll still be a long shot against retiring Sen. Sam Brownback, but Holland has proven resilient in beating Republicans in the rural/exurban turf between Kansas City and Lawrence.

• NV-Gov: The Nevada Education Association (the teacher’s union) commissioned a poll, by Grove Insight, that focused mostly on policy questions but also asked about the gubernatorial race. In line with other pollsters, they find Democratic Clark Co. Commissioner Rory Reid trailing Republican former AG Brian Sandoval 44-35, but whomping Republican incumbent Gov. Jim Gibbons 49-33. Time for the Dems to start running pro-Gibbons ads?

• NY-Gov: This is way too meta, where a non-story becomes a story simply by virtue of its non-story-ness. Nevertheless, that promised scandal that was about to erupt about David Paterson has turned out to be pretty much a non-issue: it concerns his advisor (or body man, really) David Johnson, who it turns out has a nasty-sounding rap sheet from his distant past.

• RI-Gov: There’s a whole new centrist party in Rhode Island, the Moderate Party. And despite the fact that there’s already a prominent centrist independent running in the governor’s race (Lincoln Chafee), somehow the two aren’t getting together. Instead, the Moderate Party just announced it’s running its own centrist independent, party founder Kenneth Block. (Weirdly, he’s running instead of former US Attorney Robert Corrente, who’s becoming the new party chair in Block’s absence. Corrente might have the name rec to actually make an impression in the race.) If centrist state treasurer Frank Caprio winds up the Dem nominee, I have no idea how the votes will split — we’ll just have a whole buncha moderates trying to out-moderate each other.

• TX-Gov: Kay Bailey Hutchison has gotten the lion’s share of the establishment endorsements in the GOP gubernatorial primary in Texas, but Rick Perry landed a big name: former Gov. Bill Clements, who in 1978 was the first Republican elected governor since Reconstruction.

• AR-03: DeLay to run for the House again! Don’t worry, though, it sounds like The Hammer is sticking with Dancing with the Stars. Instead, it’s Gunner DeLay, a Republican former state Senator for Ft. Smith (which apparently puts him at a geographical disadvantage, as the district’s center of gravity is around Bentonville and Fayetteville). DeLay lost the 2006 AG race to Dem Dustin McDaniel, and lost the 2001 GOP primary in the AR-03 special election to now-Rep. John Boozman, finishing second.

• CA-33: As expected, term-limited state Assembly speaker Karen Bass just announced her candidacy to replace retiring Rep. Diane Watson in the dark-blue 33rd. She also secured Watson’s endorsement; between that and Bass’s prompt entry, the real question is whether anyone else even bothers contesting the race.

• NH-02: Maybe there’ll be two Basses in the next Congress? Republican ex-Rep. Charlie Bass made it official today, shedding the exploratory label and kicking off his campaign. Most people had been treating him as a candidate already, but he’d included some odd hedges when he announced his exploratory fund (saying it was just a place to stash old contributions) that seemed to leave him an out. With a recent UNH poll giving him the lead in the open seat race to reclaim his seat, he seems to feel confident enough to pull the trigger.

• NY-19: Ophthalmologist Nan Hayworth got a promotion in the NRCC’s Young Guns framework, moving up to the middle tier of “Contender.” However, the interesting story (buried at the bottom of the article) is that Hayworth, whose money seemed to drive Assemblyman Greg Ball out of the GOP primary, is getting a different more-conservative challenger: former Tuxedo Park mayor David McFadden, who’ll officially announce his candidacy on the 27th. Wall Street guy Neil DiCarlo is also already in the race, and Orange Co. GOP chair William DeProspo, who’s had some withering public statements about Hayworth’s qualifications, now is exploring the race as well. Cat fud, anyone?

• OH-02: Despite his celeb-reality status, former Apprentice contestant Surya Yalamanchili seems to be getting the local Democratic establishment to take him seriously. He just got the endorsement of the last two Democrats to lose close elections in this seat (which is deep-red, although Jean Schmidt’s continuing presence here makes it competitive): Vic Wulsin and Paul Hackett. He also got the endorsement of Cincinnati mayor Mark Mallory a few weeks ago. Looks like David Krikorian’s path to the nomination isn’t so certain anymore.

• PA-04: After people were starting to wonder what was with all the foot-dragging, former US Attorney (and, in that position, loyal Bushie) Mary Beth Buchanan officially entered the race for the GOP to go against Democratic Rep. Jason Altmire. She’d been a rumored candidate since October.

• PA-12: As was almost universally expected, it was decided to hold the special election to replace Rep. John Murtha on May 18, the same day as the primaries. Ed Rendell’s office justified this by saying it would cost an extra $600K to have it any other day, but this also bolsters Dem hopes here by having it on the same day as the hotly-contested Dem Senate and Governor primaries (and the barely-contested GOP primaries).

• RI-01: Two big names decided not to get into the Democratic field in the 1st (which already contains Providence mayor David Cicciline): most significantly, Lt. Governor Elizabeth Roberts, who says she’ll run for re-election instead. Secretary of State Ralph Mollis, who’d publicly considered a run, confirmed he won’t run either.

• SC-03: The Club for Growth weighed in in the GOP open seat primary in the R+17 3rd, where the choices are basically wingnut or super-wingnut. Apparently, state Rep. Jeff Duncan is the super-wingnut, as he got the endorsement over fellow state Rep. Rex Rice (who has Mike Huckabee’s endorsement, but is out because he apparently voted for a cigarette tax once).

• VA-05: How many teabaggers can they fit into the phone booth that is the GOP field in the 5th? Contractor Scott Schultz joined the quest to take on Rep. Tom Perriello, making him the 8th GOPer in the race.

• Election results: Democrats lost two legislative special elections last night, although neither one was on particularly favorable turf. While it was a hold for the Republicans rather than a GOP pickup (Dems still have a 14-10 Senate edge), the margin in New Hampshire’s SD-16 (a traditionally Republican area located in part of Manchester and its suburbs) may still leave NH Dems nervous. State Rep. David Boutin defeated Democratic state Rep. Jeff Goley 58-42. In Alabama’s HD-40, though, Republicans picked up a Dem-held open seat (in rural NE Alabama, which has been dark-red at the presidential level and blue at the state level for a long time but where the red is starting to trickle down downballot). Funeral home owner K.L. Brown defeated teacher Ricky Whaley 56-42. Dems still control the Alabama House (for now), 60-45.