Tag: Bill Halter

Mason-Dixon (5/3-5, likely voters, 1/18-20 in parens):

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 44 (52)

Bill Halter (D): 32 (34)

D.C. Morrison (D): 7 (n/a)

Undecided: 17

(MoE: ±5%)

John Boozman (R): 48

Jim Holt (R): 17

Gilbert Baker (R): 11

Kim Hendren (R): 5

Conrad Reynolds (R): 2

Curtis Coleman (R): 1

Other: 1

Undecided: 15

(MoE: ±5%)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 35

John Boozman (R): 52

Undecided: 13

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 39 (39)

Gilbert Baker (R): 47 (43)

Undecided: 14 (18)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 40 (43)

Jim Holt (R): 45 (37)

Undecided: 15 (20)

Bill Halter (D): 32

John Boozman (R): 56

Undecided: 12

Bill Halter (D): 34

Gilbert Baker (R): 42

Undecided: 24

Bill Halter (D): 36

Jim Holt (R): 42

Undecided: 22

(MoE: ±4%)

Remember, in Arkansas, if one candidate fails to get 50% on May 18, then we’ll have a run-off on June 8th. The entry of weirdo Paulist D.C. Morrison suggests that this is a possibility on the Dem side, and the fractured GOP field might also yield a run-off, unless John Boozman can seal the deal soon – which he may be close to doing. In light of this, run-off hopeful Gilbert Baker has released his own numbers (PDF) from The Political Firm showing him in second place with 22% (with Boozman at 44 and Jim Holt! in third with just 8). Research 2000 will have a new survey out this week, and I’m sure they won’t be alone.

AR-Sen: While offering a commencement address at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Michelle Obama gave a shout-out to all the Democratic bigwigs sharing the dais with her: Gov. Mike Beebe, his wife Ginger, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Sen. Mark Pryor and even state AG Bobby Dustin McDaniel. Everyone, that is, except for Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who was also on stage. Stay classy, Michelle.

KS-Sen: The not-particularly pleasant GOP race to succeed Sam Brownback has gotten even uglier, with Rep. Todd Tiahrt accusing frontrunner Rep. Jerry Moran of pulling “a John Kerry” flip-flop on tax cuts. Moran, leading in the polls, has largely been sticking to a Rose Garden strategy and refusing to respond to Tiahrt’s provocations.

NV-Sen: Sue Lowden’s mom must have taught her as a child that if you pick at a scab repeatedly, it will heal faster. That can be the only explanation for Lowden’s newest TV ad, in which she brings up the damn chicken business yet again!

PA-Sen: Joe Sestak now has a four-point lead over Arlen Specter in Muhlenberg’s tracking poll, 46-42. A day earlier, Sestak took his first-ever lead in public polling in the tracker. Also, here’s a good observation: Specter voted against Elana Kagan when she was nominated to be Solicitor General. Now that it looks like she’s going to be tapped for the Supreme Court, he’ll have to very publicly flip-flop on this one barely a week before the primary.

UT-Sen: As you probably saw by now, longtime Utah Sen. Bob Bennett was denied renomination at the GOP convention this past Saturday. Instead, businessman Tim Bridgewater and attorney Mike Lee will duke it out in a June 22nd primary. Lee seems to be the teabagger fave, as he immediately garnered Jim DeMint’s endorsement once he made it past the third and final round of voting.

Meanwhile, Bennett is still holding out the possibility of waging a write-in campaign – which is not out of the question given that Utahns in general like him a lot more than Republican convention delegates. My understanding, though, is that he could only run as a write-in in the general election, not the primary.

Anyhow, while Bennett’s never self-funded before (so far as I know), he is actually extremely wealthy, with assets potentially in excess of $30 million. If turnout is about 600K voters and a Dem can get a third of that, then Bennett only needs 200K to win a squeaker. On the flipside, John Cornyn is pledging to support the GOP nominee, and in modern times, I think only Strom Thurmond has gotten elected to the Senate via write-in. But nevermind all that – do it, Bob… for America!

FL-Gov: Surely by now you’ve heard about anti-gay activist George Rekers’ European escapades with a young man he hired from a site called Rentboy. If not, read this now. The story just got a lot better, though, with word that Florida AG Bill McCollum once paid Rekers at least $60,000 to serve as an expert witness for the state’s attempt to ban gay adoptions. Rekers’ testimony was rejected by the judge as not credible, and the ban was found unconstitutional. All in a day’s work!

KY-Gov: Kentucky’s gubernatorial seat isn’t up until 2011, but a trio of media outlets commissioned a poll from Research 2000 nonetheless. It finds Gov. Steve Beshear leading House Speaker Greg Stumbo in a hypothetical primary, 55-28. In the general election, it shows Beshear up 44-37 over GOP Ag. Comm’r Richie Farmer. Beshear’s job approval is 46-43 and he has $1.9 million in the bank.

NY-Gov: Ordinarily, you need 25% of the weighted delegate vote at a state convention to qualify for the ballot in New York. But because Steve Levy is not yet a registered Republican, GOP rules require him to get 50%. It sounds, though, like there may be some movement afoot to more or less knock that requirement back down to 25%.

CT-05: Some Dude Kie Westby is dropping out of the crowded GOP race to take on Rep. Chris Murphy. Westby endorsed state Sen. Sam Caligiuri on his way out. Quite a few Republicans remain in this primary.

MD-04: State Del. Herman Taylor says he’s challenging Rep. Donna Edwards in the Democratic primary. It sounds like Taylor might be taking Edwards on from the right, saying she’s “out of touch with the business community” (those are the Maryland Gazette’s words, not necessarily his). Meanwhile, it sure sounds like Edwards herself has gone native: Despite the fact that she owes her seat to a primary challenge, she now says “it would be ‘very hard’ for her to support a primary challenger like herself,” according to The Nation. It never changes.

MI-09: Former state Rep. Rocky Raczkowski put out an internal poll showing him up 26-15 over businessman Paul Welday, with a whole lotta people undecided.

NY-23: Like some kind of Archie Comics love triangle involving Betty, Veronica, and Jughead, newcomer Matt Doheny is wooing the Club for Growth away from their former not-so-golden boy, Doug Hoffman. (The Club now says it’s “hard to say” whom they will endorse, if anyone.) Maybe toss in Moose, too, since the Conservative Party is making it extra-interesting by sticking with Hoffman.

PA-12: This ain’t good news for Team Blue: Dem Mark Critz reported having just $73K in the bank in his pre-election FEC report, while GOPer Tim Burns has $308K. I don’t feel too good about this one.

UT-02: In case you missed it, Dem Rep. Jim Matheson is being forced into his first-ever primary come June 22nd, thanks to the vote taken at the state’s Democratic convention this past weekend. Retired teacher Claudia Wright nabbed 45% of the delegates on Saturday, clearing the 40% hurdle to get her name on the primary ballot. The winner will take on ex-state Rep. Morgan Philpot, who has raised just $27K so far. Wright has raised $9K, while Matheson has taken in a million bucks and has $1.4 mil on hand.

WV-01: I was wondering when this was going to happen: The DCCC has finally sent some help to Rep. Alan Mollohan, who faces a stiff primary challenge from the right in the form of state Sen. Mike Oliverio. The election is tomorrow, though, so I wonder if, Coakley-style, this assistance is going to be too little, too late. While I carry no brief for Mollohan, he is almost certainly better than Oliverio, who is buddy-buddy with the state GOP.

Meanwhile, on the GOP side, the cat fud is flying fast and furious. Attorney Mac Warner says he won’t support ex-state Rep. David McKinley if he wins the nomination, claiming McKinley’s “gone way over the line in personal attacks and distortions of the truth.” (Welcome to politics, bub.) In general, the primary has been very negative, with much of the fire aimed at McKinley.

New Jersey: A New Jersey appellate court dinged Chris Christie’s attempt to unilaterally restrict campaign contributions by unions, saying that legislation would instead be required.

Polling: Tom Jensen, who has penned many dour but accurate notes about the rough shape Dems find themselves in this cycle, draws together some surprising threads and finds recent good polling news for Team Blue in five senate races.

• AR-Sen: Americans for Job Security strikes back! They’re launching a new ad against Bill Halter on the outsourcing front… well, it’s pretty much the same ad, just not as, y’know, openly racist. They’re spending almost $500K on the TV ad buy, supplementing the large amounts they’ve already dropped in this race.

• FL-Sen: Mason-Dixon has a new post-party-switch poll of the Senate race. They find Charlie Crist with a narrow lead, at 38, compared with Marco Rubio at 32 and Kendrick Meek at 19, but they also warn that Crist’s sitting on a house of cards, as more than half of Crist’s support is from Democrats and that may erode as Meek gets better known (Meek is at 40% unknown). I trust Mason-Dixon more than the three other pollsters who’ve also released results this week, but they all seem to be reaching a sort of consensus on this race (Rasmussen at 38C-34R-17M, McLaughlin at 33C-29R-15M, and POS for Crist at 36C-28R-23M). Meanwhile, the candidates are fumbling around trying to pin down their respective bases with various flipfloppery: Rubio is walking back his previous disdain for Arizona’s immigration law, now saying he’s all for it, while the occasionally pro-life Crist is prepared to veto a bill requiring pregnant women to view a fetal ultrasound before being able to have an abortion.

• IL-Sen: This is probably good news for Alexi Giannoulias, although it was more a question of when it would happen rather than if it would happen, given the media’s tendency to get distracted by the next shiny object. A local TV reporter more or less called out Mark Kirk for incessant focus on the Broadway Bank scandal and asked him what else he was planning to talk about in the future, perhaps indicative of a growing media boredom with the story.

• PA-Sen/Gov: Today’s tracker in the Muhlenberg/Morning Call poll shows a narrower spread in the Senate race: Arlen Specter leads Joe Sestak 45-40. In the Governor’s primary, Dan Onorato is at 34, Joe Hoeffel is at 12, and Anthony Williams and Jack Wagner are at 8. Meanwhile, the Sestak camp is hitting Specter with a new TV ad focusing on what’s probably Specter’s biggest vulnerability in the Democratic primary: the fact that he was a Republican Senator for, y’know, three decades or so. The ad’s replete with lots of photos of Specter and G.W. Bush, together again. The tightening race and aggressive tone has the Pennsylvania Dem establishment worried, and state party chair T.J. Rooney is sounding the alarm, calling a possible Sestak win “cataclysmic” and making various electability arguments in favor of Specter.

• AL-Gov: We don’t have any actual hard numbers to report, but local pollster Gerald Johnson (of Capital Survey Research Center) has been leaking reports that there’s significant tightening in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, with Ag Commissioner Ron Sparks moving within the margin of error of Rep. Artur Davis. Davis’s numbers seem to have dropped following his anti-HCR vote. Meanwhile, on the GOP side, Tim James‘ attention-grabbing, race-baiting ad seems to have had its desired effect. He just released an internal poll showing him taking the lead, with him at 26, Roy Moore at 21, Bradley Byrne at 20, and Robert Bentley at 7. (The previous James internal had Moore at 27, Byrne at 18, and James at 14.)

• CA-Gov (pdf): Another gubernatorial primary where there’s some tightening is on the Republican side is the GOP primary in California. Steve Poizner is touting an internal poll from POS that his him within 10 points of the once-unstoppable Meg Whitman, 38-28. It seems like Whitman lost a whole lot of inevitability once someone than her actually started advertising on TV, too.

• CT-02: That was fast… it was only a few days ago that former TV anchor Janet Peckinpaugh’s interest in running the 2nd became known. Now she’s officially launched her campaign, with Connecticut’s nominating convention fast approaching (May 21).

• PA-12: The DCCC paid for another $170K in media buys on behalf of Mark Critz, bringing their total investment in this special election up to $641K. (J) The GOP is bringing one more big gun to the district to campaign on Tim Burns’s behalf, too: Rep. Mike Pence.

• VA-05: In the wake of his surprising decision to join the Constitution Party, ex-Rep. Virgil Goode had to clarify several things: most notably, he said that, no, he’s not running in the 5th this year as a Constitution Party candidate (or as anything else), although he wouldn’t rule out a future run. Furthermore, he isn’t leaving the Republican Party; he doesn’t view membership as mutually exclusive. Meanwhile, Politico is wondering what’s up between the NRCC and the establishment candidate in the 5th, state Sen. Robert Hurt. Hurt hasn’t been added to the NRCC’s Young Guns list, despite their tendency to add anyone with a pulse everywhere else. The NRCC hasn’t added any names in this district and says they’d prefer to wait until after the primary — although in other contested primaries, they’ve added multiple names to the list, which suggests that they’re trying to lay low in this race, which has become a rather emblematic flash point in the establishment/teabagger rift this year.

• WA-03: Both Democratic candidates in the 3rd nailed down labor endorsements in the last few days. Denny Heck got the endorsement of the Boeing Machinists (maybe the state’s most powerful union) and the local IBEW, while Craig Pridemore got the nod from the pulp and paper workers.

• WI-07: With David Obey’s surprising retirement announcement yesterday, we’re moving the open seat in the 7th to “Tossup” status (from Likely Dem). On the one hand, it’s a D+3 district with a solid Democratic bench of state legislators, but on the other hand, GOP challenger Sean Duffy is sitting on a lot of money and establishment support, and there’s, of course, the nature of the year. CQ lists a whole herd of possible Democratic successors in the district: the big name on the list is probably Russ Decker, the state Senate’s majority leader. Others include state Sens. Julie Lassa and Pat Kreitlow, state Rep. Donna Seidel, and attorney Christine Bremer. Another area state Sen., Robert Jauch, has already taken himself out of the running. And one other Republican isn’t ruling out a bid, which could complicate Duffy’s path: state Rep. Jerry Petrowski.

• CA-Init: It looks like Californians will get the chance to vote on an initiative that proposes to move congressional redistricting to the same independent commission process as legislative redistricting, as the initiative just qualified for the ballot. I’m genuinely torn: on the one hand, the naïve idealist in me admits some fondness for compactly-drawn swingy districts, but on the other hand, Dems have a good shot at controlling the trifecta in California and with the ability to wring some additional Dem-leaning seats out of the map, control of the 2012 House may well be at stake here.

• NRCC: The NRCC promoted 13 members of its Young Guns framework to the top tier (the “Young Guns” level). This includes not only the aforementioned Sean Duffy, but also the winners of the three contested primaries in Indiana… and a surprise in the form of Morgan Griffith, who’s taking on Rep. Rick Boucher in VA-09 but who’s still sitting on a five-figure cash stash and on the wrong end of a 22:1 CoH ratio.

• AR-Sen: Barack Obama is cutting a radio ad in support of Blanche Lincoln as she faces a primary challenge from Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Also on the ad front, here’s an ad that both Lincoln and Halter agree on. Both have condemned the anti-Halter ad from Americans for Job Security as racist; the ad uses Indian actors and backdrops to accuse Halter of having offshored jobs. AJS’s head says he sees nothing wrong with the ad and won’t be pulling it; it’s a big ad buy and scheduled to run for the next two weeks in the leadup to the primary.

• KY-Sen: Lots happening in Kentucky, most notably a strange switcheroo by Christian right leader James Dobson. He outright switched his endorsement from Trey Grayson to Rand Paul, blaming GOP insiders for feeding him misinformation about Paul (such as that he was pro-choice). Dobson’s endorsement is bound to help the Paul attract some social conservative voters uneasy about his libertarianism, and also helps paint Grayson as tool of the dread insiders. True to form, Grayson is touting a new endorsement that’s pretty insidery: from Rep. Hal Rogers, the low-profile, long-term Rep. from the state’s Appalachian southeast corner and a key pork-doling Appropriations member. Grayson is also touting his own internal poll, which shows Paul and Grayson deadlocked at 40-40, contrary to, well, every public poll of the race.

• LA-Sen, LA-LG: Here’s the first non-Rasmussen poll of Louisiana we’ve seen in a while, not that it has Charlie Melancon in a particularly better position.  It was conducted by Southern Media & Opinion Research on behalf of businessman Lane Grigsby (a wealthy meddler in Republican politics, last seen swaying LA-06 in 2008 with hundreds of thousands of IEs from his own pocket). Vitter leads Melancon 49-31, and Vitter has 55/36 favorables. It also seems to be the first poll to take a look at the Republican all-party jungle primary in the developing Lt. Governor’s race (created by Mitch Landrieu’s election as New Orleans mayor). State Treasurer John Kennedy (the ex-Dem and loser of the 2008 Senate race) leads the pack at 21, followed by SoS Jay Dardenne at 15, Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell at 14, St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis at 6, and state GOP chair Roger Villere at 2. (Kennedy and Campbell, however, haven’t announced their candidacies yet.) (H/t Darth Jeff).

• NC-Sen: PPP has one last look at the Democratic primary in the Senate race, although this one may well be going into overtime (someone needs to break 40% to avoid a top-two runoff). They find Elaine Marshall leading Cal Cunningham 28-21 (a bigger spread than her 26-23 lead one week ago). Kenneth Lewis is at 9, with assorted others taking up another 9%. PPP also polls on the potential runoff, finding Marshall would beat Cunningham in a runoff 43-32 (as Lewis’s voters would break to Marshall by a 47-32 margin).

• NH-Sen: Kelly Ayotte seems to be leaving any “moderate” pretenses in the dust, as she just came out in favor of Arizona’s new anti-illegal immigrant law. (Of course, New Hampshire is one of the whitest and least Hispanic states in that nation, so it still may not wind up hurting her much.)

• NV-Sen: Research 2000, for Daily Kos, came out with a poll of the Nevada Senate race last Friday. Nothing unusual here, inasmuch as they find Harry Reid not looking as DOA as Rasmussen always does, though there are still lots of flies circling around him. Reid’s faves are 37/53, and he trails Sue Lowden 45-41 (with 4 for the Tea Party’s Scott Ashjian, 2 for “other,” and 2 for Nevada’s unique “None of the Above” line). He also trails Danny Tarkanian 43-41 and Sharron Angle 44-41. Despite Lowden getting low marks for her chicken bartering proposals (14/81 approval of that, including 27/68 among Republicans), she still has 42/34 favorables overall and is leading the way in the GOP primary, although perhaps by a narrowing margin: she’s at 38, to 28 for Tarkanian, 13 for Angle, and 12 for “other,” with 9 undecided.

• OH-Sen: One last poll sneaked under the finish line before tomorrow’s Democratic primary in the Ohio Senate race. Quinnipiac finds last-minute momentum for Lee Fisher (in the wake of actually spending some money on TV ads): he leads Jennifer Brunner 43-23. It pretty much seems to depend on name rec (which, in turns, depends on ads): Fisher has 44/8 favorables among likely primary voters, while Brunner is at 26/7 (with 65% having no opinion of her).

• AZ-Gov: I hadn’t been aware until today that controversial Maricopa Co. Sheriff Joe Arpaio was still seriously considering a run in the GOP gubernatorial primary (especially since, with Jan Brewer signing the anti-illegal immigrant law into effect, his main raison d’etre to challenge her was gone). At any rate, after making a big show of “major announcement today!” he then issued a brief press release saying that he wasn’t going to run.

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman is treading carefully in the wake of the Arizona immigration law’s passage, probably mindful of the California GOP’s short-term gains but long-term ruin in the wake of Proposition 187. Meg Whitman came out against it (while primary opponent Steve Poizner supports it), perhaps an indication that she feels safe enough to start charting a moderate course for the general election.

• CT-Gov: Two interesting developments in Connecticut: one, former HartStamford mayor Dan Malloy, Ned Lamont’s main Democratic primary opposition, will qualify for public financing of his campaign. This will help Malloy compete on a somewhat more level playing field against Lamont, who can self-finance. Also, the Democratic field shrank a little, as one of the minor candidates in the field, Mary Glassman (the First Selectwoman of Simsbury) dropped out and signed on as Lamont’s Lt. Governor running mate instead.

• IL-Gov: Democratic running-mate-for-a-day Scott Lee Cohen followed through on earlier threats, and today announced his independent candidacy for Governor. His rationale? “I believe that the people of Illinois have forgiven me.”

• MN-Gov: Needless to say, I’m feeling better about our chances in Minnesota, as newly-anointed GOP nominee Tom Emmer is laying down markers way, way outside the Minnesota mainstream. Turns out he’s a full-on “Tenther,” having recently sponsored state legislation that would purport to nullify all federal laws that are not approved by a two-thirds supermajority in the Minnesota legislature. (He also recently said that the Arizona immigration law was a “wonderful first step.”)

• NY-Gov: We’re getting very mixed signals on the Steve Levy campaign for the GOP nomination. On the one hand, Levy is claiming that the RGA is ready to pony up $8 million to $10 million in support of his campaign. On the other hand, state GOP chair Ed Cox, the guy who arm-twisted Levy to get into the race in the first place, is privately expressing worries that Levy won’t get the 50% of county chairs’ endorsements to get the ballot line, and there are rumors that he’s now floating the idea of a Rick Lazio-Steve Levy ticket.    

• OH-Gov: Incumbent Dem Gov. Ted Strickland is going on the air starting on primary election day, with a major TV ad buy of 1,000 points each in Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Dayton. Strickland has $2 million more cash than John Kasich, so he probably figures now’s the time to use it.

• OR-Gov: A variety of polls have popped up of the primaries in Oregon, whose fast-approaching primary is kind of dwarfed by higher-profile affairs in Arkansas, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania on the same day, May 18. Tim Hibbitts (on behalf of Nike and Standard Insurance, in case there was any doubt that Oregon is, in fact, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Phil Knight) found John Kitzhaber firmly in control of the Dem primary, leading Bill Bradbury 50-21. Local TV affiliate KATU also commissioned a poll by SurveyUSA, which was taken in mid-April but they seem to have sat on the results until now. It’s apparently the first public poll of the Republican primary; they find Chris Dudley, who’s been spending heavily on TV time, leading the pack at 28. Allen Alley is at 13, under-indictment Bill Sizemore is at 11, John Lim is at 7, and assorted tea-bagging “others” add up to 8.

• UT-Gov: Looks like those rumors that Democratic candidate Peter Corroon was going to pick a Republican running mate were right. Corroon tapped state Rep. Sheryl Allen, one of the legislature’s leading moderate GOPers, as his number two.

• OH-17: Insert obligatory “beam me up” joke here! Ex-Rep. Jim Traficant, out of prison, is looking to get back in the game, and he’ll be taking on his former employee, Rep. Tim Ryan, by running as an independent in his old district, the 17th. While there had been rumors that Traficant was also going to file to run in the next-door 6th (as, bizarrely, you can run in multiple different districts in Ohio), but he decided against that. Bear in mind that Traficant already ran against Ryan in the 17th as an independent shortly after his 2002 conviction and House expulsion, but only got 15% in that race.

Research 2000 (4/26-28, likely voters, 4/12-14 in parens):

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 43 (45)

Bill Halter (D): 35 (33)

Other: 7 (6)

Undecided: 15 (16)

(MoE: ±5%)

Halter has made a bit of an ascent over the past couple of weeks, pulling within single digits of Lincoln for the first time after previously stalling at a gap of 12 points. Pay close attention to that “Other” number, which presumably are the votes that tea-flavored Democrat D.C. Morrison is targeting. If no one wins 50% on May 18th, this sucker is going nuclear to a runoff on June 8th. In that event, this could be a race where time may be on Halter’s side.

And for the general election match-ups:

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 42 (43)

John Boozman (R): 52 (50)

Undecided: 6 (7)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 40 (41)

Gilbert Baker (R): 47 (48)

Undecided: 13 (11)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 40 (42)

Kim Hendren (R): 50 (49)

Undecided: 10 (9)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 42 (43)

Curtis Coleman (R): 46 (46)

Undecided: 12 (11)

Bill Halter (D): 42 (41)

John Boozman (R): 47 (48)

Undecided: 11 (11)

Bill Halter (D): 43 (43)

Gilbert Baker (R): 44 (45)

Undecided: 13 (12)

Bill Halter (D): 43 (43)

Kim Hendren (R): 45 (46)

Undecided: 12 (11)

Bill Halter (D): 43 (44)

Curtis Coleman (R): 41 (43)

Undecided: 16 (13)

(MoE: ±4%)

Rasmussen also has some numbers that, while not looking anything quite like this, at least corroborate the idea that Halter is less of a general election liability than Lincoln.

AR-Sen: Bill Halter and Blanche Lincoln are having a debate on Friday, and Politico’s Dave Catanese, one of the moderators, is asking for questions. Click the link to find his email address or Twitter account. Meanwhile, Blanche Lincoln, who has refused to return $4,500 she received from Goldman Sachs’s PAC, has cancelled a fundraiser with the firm.

CO-Sen: Struggling GOP front-runner Jane Norton has booted her top advisors in favor of some new names, including one which may sound a bit familiar: Josh Penry. He’s Norton’s new campaign manager… and also happens to be the sitting state Sen. Minority Leader who briefly ran for governor last year before getting pushed aside for ex-Rep. Scott McInnis. The Colorado legislative session is set to end soon (May 12), so maybe this won’t interfere too much with Penry’s day job.

IN-Sen: This is crappy even for John Hostettler, who usually makes the likes of Larry Kissell and Carol Shea-Porter look like fundraising champs: He raised just $37K since joining the race and has just $10K in the bank. Meanwhile, the hapless Dan Coats got an endorsement from fellow Hoosier Mike Pence, the third-ranking Republican in the House, presidential wannabe, and all-around moran.

WA-Sen: Though Dino Rossi has been largely dragging his feet about a run against Sen. Patty Murray, the DSCC is concerned enough that they supposedly have sent a squad of researchers to Washington to start digging up oppo. But wouldn’t Gov. Christine Gregoire, who beat Rossi twice, already have a mile-long file on him? Meanwhile, Teabagger King Jim DeMint says he won’t endorse anyone against Rossi if he gets in the race – and if anything, seems excited to give Rossi his support.

FL-08: The cast of characters running in the GOP primary in Florida’s 8th CD has been an ever-changing, tumultuous mix – and the field is about to get even more shook-up. Former State Sen. Daniel Webster, who said no to a run back in October, looks like he’s ready to change his mind and hop into the race after all. But while Webster might have cleared the field half a year ago, no one seems interested in bowing out for him now. We can only pray for cat fud galore.

Census: The nationwide census participation rate hit 71% earlier this week, just a point below the 2000 response rate, which officials say is unexpectedly high, given what they perceive as a growing mistrust of government. The Census Bureau had budgeted for a response rate of only 67%, so we’ve already saved $425 million.

Polling: Gallup has a new midterm-focused blog up and running called “2010 Central.”

Fundraising: CQ has a great chart compiling Senate fundraising numbers for Q1. SSP will have its usual House chart up at the end of this month.

Wall Street: Is financial regulation finally the issue that will let Dems find their mojo? Back to Dave Catanese again, who says that Paul Hodes, Lee Fisher and – believe it or not – Charlie Melancon are all bashing their opponents for standing in the way of Wall Street reform. Melancon’s cruddy voting record has made it hard for the DSCC to push out a coordinated message on most issues (he’s voted against a lot of big-ticket Dem legislation), but maybe now we can all speak with one voice on this topic.

NV-Sen: Who runs Bartertown? Sue Lowden runs Bartertown!

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (4/12-14, likely voters, 3/22-24 in parentheses):

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 45 (44)

Bill Halter (D): 33 (31)

Other: 6 (0)

Undecided: 16 (25)

(MoE: ±5%)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 43 (42)

John Boozman (R): 50 (49)

Undecided: 7 (9)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 41 (41)

Gilbert Baker (R): 48 (49)

Undecided: 11 (10)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 42 (43)

Kim Hendren (R): 49 (48)

Undecided: 9 (9)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 43 (44)

Curtis Coleman (R): 46 (47)

Undecided: 11 (9)

Bill Halter (D): 41 (40)

John Boozman (R): 48 (48)

Undecided: 11 (12)

Bill Halter (D): 43 (44)

Gilbert Baker (R): 45 (46)

Undecided: 12 (10)

Bill Halter (D): 43 (44)

Kim Hendren (R): 46 (45)

Undecided: 11 (11)

Bill Halter (D): 44 (45)

Curtis Coleman (R): 43 (44)

Undecided: 13 (11)

(MoE: ±4%)

There’s hardly any change here in the topline numbers from the R2K poll of Arkansas released last Friday, either in the primary, or especially in the general. (There were also Tom Cox matchups; I’m leaving them out, as he’s dropped out.) Undecideds are dropping in the primary, but the real gainer here is “other,” probably in the form of previously unknown conservadem D.C. Morrison.

The numbers to note in this poll are the approvals: Blanche Lincoln’s problem is that everyone has an opinion of her, and the majority of that is negative: 43/53. Bill Halter, by contrast, is at 47/30. 23% still haven’t formed an opinion of him, giving him room to grow. Lincoln, by contrast, has hit her ceiling and is upside down — not the conditions that get you re-elected.

Zata|3 (D) for Talk Business (4/14, likely voters, no trendlines):

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 38

Bill Halter (D): 31

D.C. Morrison (D): 10

Undecided: 20

(MoE: ±3%)

Zata|3 (yes, the pipe is actually part of their name) is yet another polling firm I’m not familiar with, but at least Talk Business is mixing it up – for their CD-level polls, they used a Republican outfit, while Zata is a Dem firm. Unhappy (of course) about these results, the Lincoln campaign did something we haven’t seen a whole lot of this cycle – they released a dueling internal. A Lincoln spokesbot also attacked the Talk Business poll for being “very unreliable” because it was automated (eyeroll).

Benenson Strategy Group (D) (PDF) for Blanche Lincoln (4/5-7, likely voters, no trendlines):

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 53

Bill Halter (D): 35

D.C. Morrison (D): 4

Undecided: 8

(MoE: ±3.8%)

Note that I’m using the numbers with leaners as detailed in the PDF, rather than the non-leaner numbers cited in the press release, which have Lincoln up 51-34. Incidentally, D.C. Morrison is some weirdo conservative Paulist that I’d never heard of until, well, just now.

• Election results: Yesterday’s big event was the special election in FL-19, the first real electoral test after the passage of HCR. The allegedly massive opposition to healthcare reform on the part of the district’s many seniors never really materialized. Democratic state Sen. Ted Deutch beat Republican Ed Lynch 62-35, with very little falloff from Obama’s 65-34 performance in 2008. (Contrast that with John Garamendi’s so-so 53-43 performance in November’s CA-10 special election, a similarly 65-33 district in 2008.)

I should also pause to offer a little credit to Texas’s Republicans, who voted for the less crazy candidates in the Board of Education and Supreme Court runoffs, and in a bigger surprise to me, for the Hispanic-surnamed candidates in the TX-17 and TX-23 runoffs (which, based on incumbent Victor Carrillo’s trouncing in the Railroad Commissioner primary, seemed unlikely to happen). The NRCC has to be pleased to see the wealthier and less wingnutty Bill Flores and Quico Canseco emerge. Rep. Chet Edwards, however, is one guy who knows how to stand and fight, and he wasted no time hitting Flores hard and defining him as a carpetbagger in big oil’s pocket.

One other leftover issue from last night: two races in California, as expected, are headed to runoffs. In Republican-held SD-12, Republican Assemblyman Bill Emmerson will face off against Democrat Justin Blake (the GOPers combined got more than 60% of the vote, so this is a likely hold), while in safely-Democratic AD-43, Democratic lawyer Mike Gatto will face off with Republican Sunder Ramani to replace now-LA city councilor Paul Krekorian. Gatto seemed to shoot the gap in this heavily Armenian-American district after the two Armenian candidates, Chahe Keuroghelian and Nayiri Nahabedian, nuked each other.

• AR-Sen: Bill Halter’s primary campaign gained more momentum, as he picked up an endorsement from the Alliance for Retired Americans, pleased with his time as a Social Security Administration official. One group that really isn’t getting on board with Halter, though, is the Berry family; first outgoing Rep. Marion Berry dissed Halter, and now his son, Mitch, is head of a group, Arkansans for Common Sense, that’s running ads attacking Halter on the Social Security front. (Are there any Arkansans who are actually against common sense?)

• CO-Sen: Looks like GOP establishment candidate Jane Norton sees the handwriting on the wall and is taking a page from Democrat Michael Bennet’s book: not able to rely on getting on the ballot via activist-dominated convention (where teabagger-fueled Ken Buck seems likely to triumph), she’s making plans to qualify by finding 1,500 signatures in each of the state’s seven congressional districts. Speaking of Bennet, he’s still the fundraising kingpin in this race; he just announced he raised $1.4 million last quarter, well ahead of Norton’s $816K.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist may have sounded Shermanesque last week in his determination not to switch to an Independent bid for Governor, but apparently now there’s increasing moves within his inner circle to move in that direction. Unnamed advisors are floating the idea to the WSJ today.

• IN-Sen: Dan Coats seems to be having more trouble making the transition from the free-wheelin’ world of high-stakes lobbying back to the humdrum electoral politics world, where you actually have to follow the rules and stuff. He’s 10 days overdue on filing his finance disclosure reports with the FEC. One note that the Beltway press seemed to miss though: his main GOP primary opponent, ex-Rep. John Hostettler hasn’t made his filing yet either. (Of course, fundraising was never Hostettler’s strong suit. Or even his weak suit.)

• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP issued its latest installment in polls of the Senate general election in its home state. Maybe the biggest surprise is that incumbent Republican Richard Burr’s approvals are just continuing to fall; he’s currently at 32/41 (while likeliest opponent Elaine Marshall is in positive territory at 19/11). Also encouraging, I suppose, is that the actual human Democrats are starting to draw even with Generic D (while previous polls have had Generic D far outpacing them), showing they’re getting better-defined. Burr leads Generic D 43-38, while he leads Marshall 43-37, and leads both Cal Cunningham and Kenneth Lewis 43-35.

• NY-Sen-B: With ex-Gov. George Pataki’s phantom interest in this race finally having been dispelled, Swing State Project is removing this race from its “Races to Watch” list.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): One more poll in the rapidly-becoming-overpolled Pennsylvania Senate race, this time from Republican pollster Susequehanna. They use an LV model, and find Pat Toomey with a 48-38 lead over Arlen Specter. Of more immediate consequence, they find Specter leading Joe Sestak 42-28 in the Dem primary. They also polled both primaries in the gubernatorial race, finding Dan Onorato seeming to break away from the ill-defined pack among the Dems. Onorato is at 32, followed by Joe Hoeffel at 13, Jack Wagner at 6, and Anthony Williams at 4. Tom Corbett beats down Sam Rohrer on the GOP side, 50-7. After marshaling his resources, Specter is finally starting to open fire; he’s up with his first TV ad of the cycle starting today.

• WI-Sen: The only thing that’s sure is that Tommy Thompson likes to see his name in the press. There’s been a lot of conflicting reporting about Tommy Thompson today, with many outlets running with the story that he’s decided against running for Senate (that all traces back to one leak to a local TV station, although it sounds like Politico got some confirmation from an anonymous GOP source). Other outlets are emphasizing that Thompson’s spokesperson says that Thompson hasn’t made a final decision, though. Either way, Thompson will be announcing his plans at a Tea Party rally tomorrow in Madison, so our pain will be ended tomorrow one way or the other.

• MA-Gov: Here’s more evidence for my expectation that Dem-turned-indie Tim Cahill will be running to the right (or at least to the incoherent-angry-working-class-Catholic-guy-position) of the Republican in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race this year. He’s appearing at today’s Tea Party rally on Boston Common today, the same one with Sarah Palin that Scott Brown ditched (although MA-10 candidate Joe Malone and GOP gubernatorial underdog Christy Mihos will be there). Likely GOP gubernatorial nominee Charlie Baker (from the party’s old-school moderate WASP tradition) decided against attending, probably out of fears that he might get jostled by some ruffian and spill some of his gin and tonic on his white Bermuda shorts.

• MN-Gov: Two blasts from the past in the Minnesota gubernatorial race. Walter Mondale weighed in in favor of Democratic state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, while a guy I’ve never heard of named Al Quie, who claims to have been governor from 1979 to 1983, endorsed Republican Marty Seifert.

• NE-Gov: Via press release, the campaign for Democratic candidate Mark Lakers let us know that he took in $314K, impressive considering his late entry to the campaign.

• AL-07: State Rep. Earl Hilliard Jr. got an endorsement from the United Steelworkers, a union that seems to still have a lot of clout in Birmingham, once a major steel town.

• AZ-03: Now here’s some news I didn’t expect: the fundraising champ in the 3rd isn’t one of the many state legislators running here, but rather attorney (and vice-presidential progeny) Ben Quayle. He pulled in $550K in the first quarter, thanks no doubt to family connections. There are a couple other self-funders in the race too, but the elected officials seem to be lagging: case in point, well-known ex-state Sen. Pamela Gorman, who raised only $37K and ends with $23K CoH.

• FL-24: Rep. Suzanne Kosmas announced a haul of $260K for the first quarter. That’s less than the $340K reported by her likely GOP opponent, steakhouse mogul Craig Miller (although a slab of his money was apparently carved out of his own personal funds); Kosmas has a big CoH advantage, though, sitting on more than $1 million.

• GA-07: Retiring Republican Rep. John Linder didn’t look far to endorse a replacement for him: he gave his nod to his former chief of staff, Rob Woodall.

• HI-01: Sen. Dan Inouye just transferred $100K of his money to the DCCC, despite appearances that they’re actively backing Ed Case, rather than Colleen Hanabusa, who has the support of Inouye (and pretty much everyone else in the local Democratic establishment). Inouye has apparently been working behind the scenes, including reaching out to Nancy Pelosi, to get the DCCC to dial back their Case support, so maybe the cash infusion will give him a little more leverage. (Inouye is sitting on $3.2 million and faces little if any opposition this year.)

• IN-03: Nice fundraising numbers from Democrat Tom Hayhurst, who ran a surprisingly close race against Rep. Mark Souder in 2006 and is back for another try. Hayhurst has racked up $234K CoH, more than Souder ($99K in the first quarter).

• IN-05: Politico has a look at Rep. Dan Burton’s difficult primary in the 5th, in Indianapolis’s dark-red suburbs. While Burton may actually be safer this year compared with 2008 (since he has four opponents instead of just one), the article traces the roots of the local GOP’s discontent with him, and also shows the magnitude of his collapse in support: only 2 of the 11 local party organizations are supporting Burton this time.

• MO-08: Another Dem in a dark-red seat who keeps impressing everybody with his tenacity is Tommy Sowers. The veteran and college instructor, who’s challenging Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, raised $295K in the first quarter and is now sitting on $675K CoH.

• NM-02: Ex-Rep. Steve Pearce can write himself his own checks if he needs to, but he may not need to at this rate. Pearce raised $277K in the first quarter, and now sits on $708K. Democratic Rep. Harry Teague hasn’t reported yet, but in the duel of wealthy oil guys, he can self-fund too if need be.

• NY-14: With Democratic primary challenger Reshma Saujani having some success on the financial front, Rep. Carolyn Maloney got some top-tier help from Barack Obama, who endorsed her and sent out a fundraising appeal on her behalf.

• PA-11: If this doesn’t wake up Rep. Paul Kanjorski from his nap, I don’t know what will. Three-time Republican opponent Lou Barletta raised $300K in the first quarter. An important caveat: there was no mention of cash on hand, which is telling because Barletta was still saddled with a lot of debt from his 2008 campaign when he decided to run again. (UPDATE: Barletta’s CoH is now $205K.)

• PA-17: Republican state Sen. David Argall raised a tolerable but not-too-impressive $125K in the first quarter. He’ll need more than that to battle Rep. Tim Holden, who, if nothing else, has great survival skills (he had the worst district of any freshman who survived 1994, and then survived a 2002 gerrymander designed to rub him out). In fact, he’ll need more than that just for his primary; heretofore unknown GOP opponent ex-Marine Frank Ryan raised $70K in the first quarter.

• Redistricting: Maryland beat out New York to be the first state in the nation to enact legislation that will, in terms of redistricting, treat prisoners as residents of their last known address, rather than where they’re incarcerated (and thus move the center of gravity back toward the cities from the countryside). Also, on the redistricting front, if there’s one group of people who are the target audience for a whole movie about redistricting (Gerrymandering), it’s the crowd at SSP. The film’s director has a diary up, touting its release in two weeks at the Tribeca Film Festival.

• Special elections/Runoffs: Believe it or not, it’s a busy election night tonight. Top of the list is the special election in FL-19, where the successor to Robert Wexler will be chosen. In this D+15 district in the more middle-class parts of the Gold Coast, the Democrat, state Sen. Ted Deutch, is heavily favored. The parties haven’t gotten involved, and Republican Ed Lynch (who lost a lopsided decision to Wexler in 2008) is hamstrung by the presence of independent right-wing candidate Jim McCormick.

It’s runoff day in Texas, with almost all the action on the GOP side. TX-17, between self-funder Bill Flores and 2008 candidate Rob Curnock, and TX-23, between self-funder Quico Canseco and ex-CIA agent William Hurd, are the marquee races as far as the U.S. House goes. There are also some GOP runoffs in some state House races, an interesting mixed bag of open seat succession races, teabaggish challenges to GOP incumbents, and challenges to vulnerable Dems. Finally, there’s a culture war clash between just-very conservative and super-duper conservative in two statewide contests: one for the Supreme Court (with Rick Green, the former state Rep. known for punching the guy who beat him in 2002, representing Team Crazy), and one for the Board of Education (between Marsha Farney and Brian Russell, with Russell the movement conservative here).

Finally, there’s some state legislature action in Massachusetts, California, and Florida. Primaries for two state Senate seats are in Massachusetts, the ones held by now-Sen. Scott Brown and now-disgraced Anthony Gallucio. This is the de facto election in Gallucio’s dark-blue seat, seeing as how no Republicans are running, but the winner between state Rep. Lida Harkins and doctor Peter Smulowitz in the Dem primary will face off against GOP state Rep. Richard Ross on May 11 to succeed Brown. In California, there are two legislative specials; using the California system, each one will likely head to a runoff (unless someone in the cluttered fields breaks 50%). Both seats will likely turn out to be holds: SD-37 is in Republican exurban Riverside County, while AD-43 is in Democratic Glendale in LA County. And in the Florida Panhandle, dark-red HD-04 should be an easy Republican hold.

• AR-Sen: Looks like Blanche Lincoln picked the wrong week to stop acting like a Democrat. She got seriously outraised by Bill Halter in the first quarter, earning $1.3 million (Halter got $2 mil). She also spent more than she earned, running a blitz of TV ads, probably to the tune of $2 million, as her cash on hand dropped $700K –although it’s still a high $4.7 million. Still no word yet from the race’s key Republicans.

• CA-Sen: Carly Fiorina filled in the last blank in the California Senate race; her fundraising total for the first quarter was $1.7 million, edging out Tom Campbell (who pulled in $1.6 million). Both GOPers lagged Barbara Boxer’s $2.4 million.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is still trying to find something that’ll stick to Marco Rubio, and he’s trying again to link ex-state House speaker Rubio to some of the other less savory elements among legislative leadership. He’s up with a new ad trying Rubio to another former speaker, Ray Sansom, who’s currently under indictment for charges of falsifying state budget items.

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias is lagging Mark Kirk on the cash front; he raised $1.2 million last quarter, compared with Kirk’s $2.2 million. Giannoulias didn’t release cash on hand figures, which may not be too impressive either considering that he had to fight through a competitive primary.

• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP looked at the primaries only in the North Carolina Senate race (they’re on May 4). On the Dem side, former state Sen. Cal Cunningham is still within striking distance of SoS Elaine Marshall; she leads Cunningham 23-17, with Kenneth Lewis at 9 and 5% for assorted minor candidates. (Last month, Marshall led Cunningham and Lewis 20-16-11.) On the GOP side, Richard Burr is at 67%, with his closest competition, Brad Jones, at 7.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Quinnipiac finds a lot of same-ol’-same-ol’ in the Empire State: Andrew Cuomo crushing, and Kirsten Gillibrand crushing anyone non-Pataki. Gillibrand trails non-candidate George Pataki 45-40 but leads actual candidate Bruce Blakeman 47-25 (none of the other third-tier GOPers get polled); she’s also sporting her highest-ever approvals, at 47/25. (Pataki beats Blakeman in a GOP primary, 64-15.) On the Governor’s side, Rick Lazio is still poised to be GOP nominee; he leads Steve Levy and Carl Paladino 34-11-11 (note that the poll was in the field prior to the whole bestiality thing). Andrew Cuomo dispatches Lazio 55-26, Levy 57-24, and Paladino 60-24.

• OH-Sen: I’d assumed Lee Fisher had been on the air before, but he’s just now launching his first TV spots of his campaign with the primary only weeks away (apparently marshaling his resources for the general). Fisher also pulled down the endorsement of Cleveland mayor Frank Johnson, although he didn’t gain the backing of his own home town’s Democratic party (in Shaker Heights), which instead declined to endorse.

• PA-Sen: Here’s a bit of a surprise: Joe Sestak succeeded in his ballot challenge, getting last-minute conservadem entrant Joe Vod Varka kicked out of the Democratic primary, setting up a two-man fight against Arlen Specter. If Sestak’s going to have any hope of knocking off Specter, he’ll need to consolidate every anti-Specter vote (and also not have the Slovak-American vote — a big segment in western Pennsylvania — split).

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold had a successful fundraising quarter, considering right now he’s only running against the specter of Tommy Thompson. Feingold earned $1.34 million, leaving him with $4.26 million CoH.

• FL-Gov: Rick Scott has decided, rather belatedly, to throw his hat in the ring in the Republican field in the Governor’s race. If the name’s familiar, he’s a former hospital-industry businessman who funded much of the initial anti-HCR astroturfing efforts via his organization Conservatives for Patient Rights. He’s sound teabaggish themes about establishment candidate AG Bill McCollum (despite McCollum taking the lead on the GOP AGs’ anti-HCR lawsuit). Considering that state Sen. Paula Dockery is already trying to run against McCollum from the right and getting no traction, it’s hard to see Scott going anywhere with this, though.

• NM-Gov: Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, the lone Dem in the race, is dominating the fundraising front; she raised $1.1 million in the six-month reporting period and has $2.6 million CoH. Among the GOPers, former state party chair Allen Weh leads both in money raised ($691K, although $500K was a personal loan) and CoH ($544K). Dona Ana County DA Susana Martinez raised $428K and sits on $364K CoH.

• PA-Gov: Here’s a blow to, well, everybody in the Democratic field; after not being able to find two-thirds support for anybody, the AFL-CIO won’t be endorsing any particular candidate in the Dem primary. Former Philadephia city controller Jonathan Saidel got their Lt. Gov. endorsement.

• AL-05: Party-switching Rep. Parker Griffith (most recently in the news for forgetting his party-switch and billing the DCCC for expenditures) surprised his GOP primary opponents at a debate by asking them sign a unity pledge that the losers of the primary would campaign for the winner in November. No thanks, said both Mo Brooks and Les Philip.

• DE-AL: Looks like wealthy self-funder Michelle Rollins, the NRCC’s preferred recruit in the race, has some competition on the big bucks front in the GOP primary. Real estate developer Glen Urquhart just announced that he has $512K in his account (of course, $500K of that came from his own pocket).

• FL-08: Alan Grayson had another big fundraising quarter, thanks in large part to netroots moneybombing (especially his March event which brought in $500K). He raised $803K in the last three months, bringing his CoH total to $1.5 million (along with the possibility of writing checks to himself).

• HI-01: CQ has an interesting piece on HI-01 that focuses primarily on just how difficult it is (especially for “mainland” pollsters) to poll in Hawaii. With only two polls of this race having seen light of day so far, the main takeaway may be that anyone’s guess is as good as mine where the race stands.

• MI-01: One of the top Republicans on everyone’s candidate list for the newly-opened seat in MI-01 has said that he won’t run. State House minority leader Kevin Elsenheimer said he won’t run, even though he’s termed out of the House and needs something else to do. (Elsenheimer, from the Traverse City area, is disadvantaged by not coming from the Upper Peninsula portion of the district.)

• MS-04: Here’s one other eye-catching fundraising note: a Dem incumbent who got outraised by Republican opposition previously considered inconsequential. Rep. Gene Taylor raised $41K and has $221K CoH, while GOP state Rep. Steven Palazzo raised $125K and has at least $100K CoH. Let’s hope Taylor doesn’t hit the “snooze” button for another quarter. National Journal’s latest fundraising outline also has noteworthy numbers from Charlie Dent (PA-15), Dan Debicella (CT-04), and Rick Crawford (AR-01).

• Redistricting: With the Fair Districts redistricting initiative seeming destined to make the ballot in Florida, now the Republican-controlled legislature is trying to get its own redistricting initiative on the ballot, in an apparent effort to clarify (or gut) the Fair Districts proposals. The Senate’s proposal deals with the thorny questions of VRA-mandated districts and communities of interest, which aren’t addressed in satisfactory manner by the original initiatives, which forbid designing districts in a manner that is favorable to one party or the other.

• Demographics: Josh Goodman has an interesting look at population change in Texas, similar to some work we’ve done at SSP over the last few years; he finds that while Texas’s largest counties are becoming swingier, its fastest-growing counties are still pretty solidly Republican (although the growth in these counties is in demographics that aren’t likely Republican). Of course, the parts of the state that are becoming less and less of the state, percentage-wise — the rural parts — have become even more conservative than the fast-growing exurbs, so in a way that’s progress too.