Tag: Susan Bysiewicz

• AK-Sen: Everyone’s watching Joe Miller’s next move, as tomorrow is the day he has to decide whether or not to appeal a trial court decision in order to keep fighting his largely-hopeless fight with Lisa Murkowski. On Friday afternoon, a state superior court judge ruled against Miller’s lawsuit, and in pretty withering fashion, saying he presented no evidence of fraud or malfeasance, only “hearsay, speculation, and… sarcasm.” This comes on top of other comments on Friday by state elections director Gail Fenumiai strongly disputing one of Miller’s cornerstone issues, that there was a strange sudden influx of felons voting in the state.

• CT-Sen, CT-04: Rep. Jim Himes confirms that he isn’t going to run for Senate in 2012 against Joe Lieberman (if Lieberman even decides to stick around). It’s also pretty clear confirmation that Rep. Chris Murphy is ready to run on the Dem line, as Himes said he’s deferring to his slightly-more-senior colleague and might consider running if Murphy changed his mind. (The article also mentions that Rep. Joe Courtney is “considering” the race. Ex-SoS Susan Bysiewicz’s interest is well-known as well, although I doubt she’ll be able to manage to file her candidacy papers successfully.)

• HI-Sen: Sometimes the Beltway media’s parsing of every innocent word from a potential candidate gets a little maddening, but this throw-away line from Linda Lingle’s website flagged by David Catanese is actually pretty suggestive of a future run (probably against Dan Akaka in 2012): the site is titled “Looking Back, and Forward,” and her first blog post is “Continuing the Journey.”

• MD-Sen: Contrast that with Bob Ehrlich, who seems ripe to fall into the Dino Rossi trap but has just made it pretty clear that he won’t be running for anything else again. He says a Senate run would be “very highly unlikely.”

• ME-Sen: The only story that seems to be here is that the viable Tea Party candidate that has been promised to emerge to take on Olympia Snowe is starting to look like more of a mirage. A must-read (for sheer hubris and wtf?ness) interview with the state’s self-appointed head teabagger, Andrew Ian Dodge, makes it sound like the candidate that Dodge is allegedly talking to is either imaginary, or else is Dodge himself (seeing as how he’s from southern Maine and has his own money).

• MI-Sen: PPP includes a GOP primary portion in their Michigan Senate poll, and like a lot of other polls this far out, name rec seems to rule the day. Ex-Gov. John Engler, despite eight years out of the picture, has the lead (in fact, that may be good news, as the general electorate doesn’t remember him fondly; he underperforms Debbie Stabenow, losing by 7, compared with Peter Hoekstra, who loses by 1). It’s Engler 31, Hoekstra 24, with 12 for ex-AG Mike Cox, Terri Lynn Land (who may be interested in this race after all) at 7, Candice Miller at 5, Mike Rogers at 4, Thad McCotter at 3, and Tim Leuliette (the most-interested candidate so far) at 0.

• NJ-Sen: The Hill has an article that’s mostly about how no GOPers are stepping up to express their interest in an uphill fight against Bob Menendez, but it does include the obligatory list of possible contenders. Top of the list is a rematch from state Sen. (and gubernatorial progeny) Tom Kean Jr., but also mentioned are Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, state Sen. Joe Kyrillos, Anna Little (a small-town mayor who was competitive against Rep. Frank Pallone this year), state Sen. Jennifer Beck, former state Sen. Bill Baroni, and state GOP chair Jay Webber if all else fails.

• NY-Sen: Rep. Peter King does some coulda-woulda-shoulda in a recent interview, saying he definitely would have run in 2010 had Caroline Kennedy been the appointee. As for a run in 2012 against Kirsten Gillibrand (when she’s up for election for her first full term), he’s only “keeping his options open,” apparently leery of her fundraising prowess.

• PA-Sen: Rep. Charlie Dent is usually at the top of the list for Senate race speculation, but a recent interview has him sounding rather un-candidate-ish: he’s about to land a plum spot on Appropriations, and speaks of it in terms of “one never rules anything out,” which to my ear sounds a few steps down the Beltway-ese totem pole from “considering” it. One other interesting rumor bubbling up is that ex-Gov. Mark Schweiker is being courted to run. The question is whether anybody even remembers Schweiker; he spent less than two years on the job in the early 00s after getting promoted after Tom Ridge moved to the Bush administration, and declined to run for his own full term.

• VT-Sen: Could Bernie Sanders see a real opponent? While he isn’t specifically threatening to run yet, State Auditor Tom Salmon is taking to Facebook to attack Sanders over his anti-tax deal agitating (including attacking Sanders for being a socialist, which doesn’t quite have the same effective power with Sanders as with most Dems since he’s likely just to say “guilty as charged”). At any rate, going after the entrenched Sanders seems like an odd move if it comes to pass, as Peter Shumlin, who narrowly won the open gubernatorial race, seems like a much easier target in a blue state that’s willing to elect Republican governors but has sworn them off at the national level.

• CA-Gov: Steve Poizner sounds likely to make another run at the governor’s mansion in 2014, publicly telling various people that he would have made a much better candidate than Meg Whitman. Poizner will have to step it up on the financial situation next time, though; self-funding only to the tune of eight digits, instead of nine, was pretty weak sauce.

• IN-Gov: With Evan Bayh apparently out of the gubernatorial sweepstakes, Brad Ellsworth seems to be jockeying to the front of the line today, although with some of the requisite hedging. The other main contender, of course, is Evansville mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel, although the impact of redistricting changes (at the hand of the now-GOP-held legislature) could drive Reps. Joe Donnelly or Baron Hill into the race. Two lesser Dem names who’ve been bandied about, Hammond mayor Thomas McDermott and former state House speaker John Gregg, are already taking their names off the table, lining up behind others for now: McDermott backing Ellsworth and Gregg backing Weinzapfel. One final new Dem name to keep an eye on: Lake County Sheriff Roy Dominguez.

• MS-Gov: For now, the Democratic side on the Mississippi governor’s race seems to be between two men: Hattiesburg mayor Johnny DuPree (that city’s first African-American mayor) and businessman Bill Luckett, who has his own money (and the backing of Morgan Freeman… apparently for real, unlike with NC-04’s B.J. Lawson).

• WA-Gov: Here’s a good take from Joel Connolly (dean of the local press corps) on the 2012 gubernatorial election in Washington state, which the Beltway press seems to treat like an open book but everyone local knows is going to be between Rep. Jay Inslee and AG Rob McKenna, who’s probably the best shot the GOP has had in decades of winning the governor’s race. (Chris Gregoire can, by law, run for a third term, but, in practice, that would be unheard of even if she weren’t already too unpopular to do so feasibly.)

• NY-15: Is the Charles Rangel era actually coming to a close? He’s not ruling out another run in 2012 but saying he’ll have to think about retirement. And in public comments he is actively pointing to a generation of successors, citing state Sens. Adriano Espaillat and Robert Rodriguez, and state Assemblyman Keith Wright. (Although Harlem is the core of the district, it now has more Hispanics than it does African-Americans… and the wild card is that the fastest growing group in this district is white regentrifiers.)

• LA-St. Leg.: The hemorrhaging of Dem state legislators to the GOP in Louisiana continues apace, with one of its most prominent state Reps., the mellifluously-named Noble Ellington, sounding about ready to pull the trigger on a switch. He’d follow two state Sens., John Alario and John Smith, who also recently crossed the aisle.

• Philly mayor: You’d think that at age 80, you’d want to think about retirement, but not if you’re Arlen Specter, apparently. There’s word of a poll making the rounds (from Apex Research, with no mention of who paid for it or why) that not only links the outgoing Senator to a mayoral run (in the city where he got his start generations ago as the DA) but actually has him in the lead. The poll has Specter at 28, with incumbent Michael Nutter at 19, Sam Katz at 9, Anthony Hardy Williams at 8, Tom Knox at 7, Bob Brady at 6, and Alan Butkovitz (anybody care to let me know who he is?) at 6.

• WATN?: Try as he may, Artur Davis just can’t get the douchiness out of his system. On his way to the private sector, he’s still taking the pox-on-both-your-houses approach on his way out the door, writing an op-ed calling for an independent party as the solution to all of Alabama’s woes. Meanwhile, Mariannette Miller-Meeks has landed on her feet, after losing a second run in IA-02 in a rare setback for the Ophthalmologists (who elected at least two more of their own to Congress this year): Terry Branstad just named her head of Iowa’s Dept. of Public Health.

• Census: Finally, this may be the most exciting news of the day: we have a reporting date for the first real batch of 2010 Census data. Dec. 21 will be the day the Census Bureau releases its state population counts, which also includes reapportionment data (i.e. how many House seats each state will get… at least prior to the inevitable litigation process among the most closely-bunched states).

• AK-Sen: In the words of Bart Simpson, “he’s like some kind of non-giving-up guy!” Joe Miller just keeps contesting the Alaska Senate race despite rigor mortis having started to set in. Today he added another legal action to the already-long (and expensive) tally, asking a federal judge for an injunction stopping state officials from certifying the election. Miller’s latest gripe is that the state started the count a week earlier than scheduled, forcing him to pull together a volunteer ballot-challenging team on short notice, meaning that “an indeterminate number” of misspelled ballots got through. (That number would have to be several thousand for this challenge to have any hope of succeeding.) This, of course, has to work in parallel to a separate suit, still in process, where he’s trying to force the state from counting any misspelled ballots.

• CT-Sen: Since she apparently has absolutely nothing better to do with her piles of money, Linda McMahon is actually running a post-election “thank you” ad. Speculation is rising that she’s trying to stay top-of-mind for 2012, where there’s the possibility of running against Joe Lieberman (an option she said she wasn’t taking off the table). The article also cites increased buzz about Ted Kennedy Jr. running for the Dems. Rep. Chris Murphy is known to be interested too, and soon-to-be-ex-SoS Susan Bysiewicz, despite a year of nonstop bungling, is also in the mix.

• VA-Sen: Here are a couple more Republican names who are checking out the Senate race in Virginia. One is an establishment figure, Prince William Co. Chairman Corey Stewart, but the other is Bert Mizusawa, a retired Army Reserve brigadier general whom you might remember as the more-conservative opposition from the VA-02 GOP primary this year, who lost to Rep.-elect Scott Rigell. Also, the Tom Perriello buzz (in the event of Jim Webb not running again) seems to have gotten loud enough that the Washington Post has taken notice.

• NY-01, NY-25: The race in the 1st is down into the double digits, as Tim Bishop made up more ground yesterday as absentee ballots counted in his home turf of Southampton started reporting. Randy Altschuler’s lead is 81 votes, representing a gain of more than 200 for Bishop (although Altschuler’s camp says they did “better than expected” in Dem areas that reported, and that the more GOP-friendly Brookhaven has yet to report). In the 25th, Dan Maffei upped his percentage of the absentee votes coming in from the first half of votes from Onondaga County, enough to gain 521 votes, now trailing Ann Marie Buerkle by 303. He’ll still need to maintain that pace to win, though, as more GOP-friendly Wayne County has yet to report.

• DSCC: Harry Reid is now saying he’s “in no hurry” to fill the still-empty DSCC slot, but Beltway CW seems to find the fickle finger pointing more clearly in Patty Murray’s direction. With Michael Bennet having pretty thoroughly declined, Reid and the White House are now making a “full court press” on Murray (who also helmed the DSCC’s 2002 cycle).

• CO-St. House: 197 votes is all that kept Dems from controlling the trifecta in Colorado for 2012. The last outstanding race in the state House was concluded, with Republican Robert Ramirez beating Dem incumbent Debbie Benefield by 197, flipping the state House to the GOP by a 33-32 margin. (Dems control the state Senate and the governor’s chair.)

• IA-St. Sen.: It’s been two and a half weeks since an election, and you’re already hungry for another one? Well, we’ve already got one on tap coming up very soon: the legislative special election to fill Lt. Gov.-elect Kim Reynolds’ seat in SD-48, scheduled for Jan. 4. It’s light-red turf in Iowa’s rural southwestern corner, though, so likely GOP nominee Joni Ernst (the Montgomery Co. Auditor) is probably the favorite. The local parties will select their nominees next week; despite losing the state House, Dems still control the state Senate.

• Redistricting: Eight members of the new California citizens’ redistricting commission have been named (one of whom is a former US Census director). If you make unsupported assumptions based on their professions, it looks like we may have done well with the “unaffiliated” picks. Six more will be added before work begins.

• IL-Gov: The DGA is sending ’round a press release congratulating Pat Quinn on his who’da-thunk-it re-election victory. No official call yet, but the trendlines in the count (with a margin now of 20,000 votes) make it pretty clear what’s happening. Bill Brady says he isn’t ready to concede… yet. UPDATE: CNN has called it.

• CT-Gov: More vacillation in the Connecticut count, this time with Dan Malloy back on top by about 6,000 votes. This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with actual counting, but simply with the AP getting its facts straight (it seemed to be missing a large slab of urban and assumedly heavily Democratic votes, mostly from New Haven). Final tallies remain unknown because we’re still waiting on Bridgeport (another Dem stronghold), although SoS Susan Bysiewicz has promised results by the end of the day. (Doesn’t seem like she’ll make it, though.) Relatedly, Dan Debicella in CT-04 is “waiting and seeing” what the Bridgeport situation is before conceding, although that race has already been called against him.

• FL-Gov: This was pretty well decided yesterday, but Alex Sink officially conceded, finalizing the transaction on Rick Scott’s self-financed purchase of the gubernatorial election.

• NE-Sen: Ben Nelson says he won’t switch parties. (Why the heck would he want to, considering that the Dems still have a Lieberman-proof majority in the Senate, that he’s part of? He’d just get teabagged to death in the 2012 GOP primary a la poor Parker Griffith.) It’s worth wondering, though, if any House Dems are considering a switch… but, with the possible exception of Dan Boren, all of the most likely suspects have already lost, saving us the trouble of such speculation. UPDATE: Although here’s an interesting post-script to the Nelson story: GOP Gov. Dave Heineman, who’s led a few hypothetical polls against Nelson for 2012, has already announced that he won’t run for the Senate in two years.

• NV-Sen: The one major race where the polls really seemed off was Nevada, where Harry Reid’s 4-pt average deficit turned into a 5-point victory and in retrospect, that’s easy to explain: pollsters weren’t reaching Latinos. Exit polls suggest that Latinos did turn out well in Nevada (thanks in no doubt to the Reid-friendly hotel unions in Las Vegas). Nate Silver graphs the variance in other states with large Latino populations: it may also have played a role in Colorado, although the poll variance wasn’t as bad there, though it was enough to predict a Ken Buck victory… and Latino turnout didn’t seem to work in Texas, where Rick Perry exceeded polling predictions (and which explains the sudden and probably brief appearance of Rep. Blake Farenthold).

• KY-06: Here’s a race that’s definitely going to recount. Andy Barr, trailing Ben Chandler by about 600 votes, has formally requested a “routine recanvass.”

• NC-02: Here’s one more race where we’re not quite dead yet. Bob Etheridge hasn’t conceded, it turns out, nor should he: he’s down only 1,646 votes, after cutting his deficit against Renee Elmers by more than 500 in late counting yesterday.

• NC-11: When Heath Shuler announced that he’d challenge Nancy Pelosi for Speaker, the proper response was laughter, although my main question at the time was whether he planned to challenge her for minority leader. It sounds like, yes, he does still plan to go through with his kooky gambit (made all the kookier because there aren’t any core Blue Dogs left besides him who need to follow through on their promises to not vote for Pelosi). Anyway, the scuttlebutt seems to be leaning toward a voluntary sword-falling and a painless transition to Steny Hoyer, in which case the Shuler challenge would be even more pointless.

• WV-01: After maintaining for most of yesterday that he wasn’t dead yet (given the narrow margin, currently 1,357), Mike Oliverio did wind up conceding eventually late yesterday.

• Redistricting: As much as the mess in the state legislatures really messes up hopes of wresting an advantage out of the redistricting process, here’s some good news: Amendment 6 in Florida surprisingly passed, clearing the super-high 60% hurdle at 63%. This doesn’t create a commission, but it does impose requirements that redistricting be done without political consideration (but without violating federal law, namely the Voting Rights Act). However, two U.S. Reps… probably the two in Florida who have the most to lose from having less friendly districts drawn for them… Corrine Brown and Mario Diaz-Balart, are challenging the law in court. With the passage of Proposition 20 in California, though, which creates an independent redistricting commission there, it’s all kind of a wash, as a less-bad Florida map is balanced out by not being able to aggressively redistrict California. (Similarly, while it takes some sting out of Alex Sink’s narrow loss, it also deflates the impact of Jerry Brown’s victory.)

• CO-Sen: Colorado’s state party conventions are this weekend. Most of the drama is on the Democratic side in the Senate race — actually, even there, it’s not that dramatic, as underdog Andrew Romanoff is expected to prevail at the convention because of his connections to party insiders and his former fellow legislators (and also based on his performance at precinct-level caucuses). Michael Bennet is still expected to meet the 30% threshold that gets him on the ballot without signatures, though, and victory here for Romanoff may be pyrrhic anyway, as the Dem convention winners have fared poorly in the actual primary (ex-Sen. Ken Salazar, for instance, lost the 2004 convention to Mike Miles). The GOP convention should be less interesting because, realizing they have little hope among the revved-up base, establishment-flavored Jane Norton and Tom Wiens aren’t bothering, simply opting to qualify for the primary by petition, so Weld Co. DA and Tea Party fave Ken Buck is expected to romp.

• CT-Sen, CT-Gov: Likewise, the state conventions are scheduled for this weekend in Connecticut as well. Although there’s a competitive battle in the Dem convention on the gubernatorial side between Ned Lamont and Dan Malloy, it seems like all eyes will be on Richard Blumenthal instead, to see if there’s any sort of challenge to him that pops up (other than the minor candidacy of Merrick Alpert). If someone is going to get drafted as a last-minute Blumenthal replacement, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be the newly-freed-up Susan Bysiewicz, who, seemingly caught off-guard by this week’s Supreme Court ruling about her AG eligibility, is now saying she won’t run for anything in 2010. There’s also the Senate face-off in the GOP convention, where ex-Rep. Rob Simmons’ connections and institutional support will be measured up against Linda McMahon’s gigantic wealth; McMahon, for her part, is back to touting her camp’s leak of the Blumenthal story to the NYT after hiding it yesterday.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist couldn’t square his support for Elena Kagan today with his opposition to Sonia Sotomayor, telling the Miami Herald that he really couldn’t recall why he opposed Sotomayor. (Um, maybe because he was a Republican back then?) On the plus side, Crist is coming out in favor of the Fair Districts initiatives on the ballot this November, which would smooth out the most pernicious tendencies toward gerrymandering and thus is strongly opposed by the state’s large Republican legislative majorities.

• IL-Sen: Hmmm, I wonder where this ranks on the hierarchy of misstating your military credentials? Rep. Mark Kirk told a gathering last May that “I command the war room in the Pentagon.” Kirk does have a high-profile role in the National Military Command Center, but the war room is run by one-star general, and that’s something that Kirk most definitely is not. Let’s see what the NYT does with this one.

• KY-Sen: After a bad news day yesterday, Rand Paul is continuing to run his mouth, whining about how he was supposed to get a media honeymoon after Tuesday’s Randslide, and also going the full Bachmann against Barack Obama, saying it “sounds Unamerican” for him to be criticizing BP over its massive oil spill because “accidents sometimes happen.” (So that “B” in BP stands for American Petroleum now?) Paul is scheduled for this weekend’s Meet the Press, for what his handlers hope is damage control but may turn into extended hole-digging.

Paul also expounded yesterday on the Americans with Disabilities Act, and he should be lucky the media were too fixated yesterday on his Civil Rights Act statements to provide any fact-checking about his bizarre ignorance of the ADA. Paul’s example of the ADA’s suckage is that it would be reasonable, if an employee used a wheelchair at a two-story business, to just give that person a first-floor office instead of forcing the employer to install an elevator at terrible cost. That’s true; it would be “reasonable” — which is exactly why the ADA asks employers to provide “reasonable accommodation” to disabled employees, a prime example of which might be letting someone work on a lower floor. Removal of architectural barriers is not required if it isn’t “readily achievable” (in other words, easily accomplished, without much difficulty or expense) — which means, grab bars in the bathroom stall or a curb cut, yes, an elevator in an old two-story building, no. Paul’s attack on the ADA seems entirely based on having failed to, as the teabaggers have often urged us to do, “read the bill.”

• NC-Sen: There’s a late-in-the-game shakeup at the Cal Cunningham camp, as his campaign manager and communications director are out the door. Cunningham’s spokesperson says it’s a necessary retooling for the different nature of the runoff, with less focus on the air war and more on grassroots and shoe-leather.

• PA-Sen: Sigh. The DSCC, which isn’t exactly rolling in money these days, spent $540K in coordinated expenditures trying to prop up one-year Democrat Arlen Specter in his 54-46 loss to Joe Sestak in the primary.

• MN-Gov: Margaret Anderson Kelliher reached across the aisle, or at least in the pool of bipartisan budget wonkery, for a running mate, picking John Gunyou. Gunyou was the finance commissioner for Republican Gov. Arne Carlson; he also worked as finance director for Minneapolis mayor Don Fraser and is currently city manager of the suburb of Minnetonka.

• CO-07: The GOP already had its district-level convention in the 7th, as a prelude to the statewide convo. The two main rivals, Lang Sias and Ryan Frazier, both cleared the 30% mark to get on the ballot; the minor candidates didn’t clear the mark and won’t try to get on by petition. Frazier got 49%, while Sias got 43%. Sias’s nomination was seconded by ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo, as well as the 7th’s former Rep. Bob Beauprez.

• CT-04: Thom Hermann, the First Selectman of Easton and a guy with a lot of wealth at his disposal, is making his presence known in the GOP primary field in the 4th, heading into the weekend’s convention. He’s out with an internal poll, via Wilson Research, giving him a large lead over presumed frontrunner state Sen. Dan Debicella among those primary voters who’ve decided. It’s reported in a strange, slightly deceptive way, though: he has a 44-25 lead over Debicella among those who’ve decided, but only 36% have decided! (So by my calculations, it’s more like a 16-9 lead in reality?)

• FL-02: Dem Rep. Allen Boyd seems to be taking nothing for granted this year. He’s already up with his second TV ad against his underfunded primary opponent, state Sen. Al Lawson, this time hitting Lawson for votes to cut back funding for healthcare and construction jobs. (J)

• HI-01: We’re up to 48% of all ballots having been returned in the 1st, with tomorrow being the deadline in the all-mail-in special election to replace Neil Abercrombie (152K out of 317K).

• ID-02: I have no idea what this is about, but I thought I’d put it out there, as it’s one of the weirdest IEs we’ve seen in a while. Not only did someone plunk down $8K for polling in the 2nd, one of the most reliably Republican top-to-bottom districts anywhere where Rep. Mike Simpson only ever faces token opposition, but the money’s from the American Dental Association. Making sure Idahoans are brushing properly?

• IN-03: State Sen. Marlin Stutzman made it official today: he’s running in the special election for the seat just vacated by Rep. Mark Souder. Having performed well in the Senate primary (and having had a path cleared for him by Mike Pence’s lowering of the boom on Souder), he looks like the one to beat here.

• PA-07: Former local TV news anchor Dawn Stensland has decided to forego a vaguely-threatened independent run in the 7th. That leaves it a one-on-one battle between Dem Bryan Lentz and GOPer Pat Meehan.

• PA-12: The GOP seems to have settled on its preferred explanation for trying to spin away its underwhelming performance in the special election in the 12th, via their polling guru Gene Ulm. It’s all Ed Rendell’s fault, for scheduling it on the same day as the Senate primary, causing all those Joe Sestak supporters (of which there were many in that corner in Pennsylvania) to come out of the woodwork and vote in the 12th while they were at it.

• Unions: Now that’s a lot of lettuce. Two major unions are promising to spend almost $100 million together to preserve Democratic majorities this fall. The AFSCME is promising $50 million and the SEIU is planning $44 million.

• Enthusiasm Gap: This is something I’ve often suspected, but never felt like bringing up because the numbers weren’t there to prove the point (and also perhaps because saying so would put me at odds with the general netroots orthodoxy): the Democratic “enthusiasm gap” isn’t so much borne out of dissatisfaction with the insufficient aggressiveness of the Obama administration or the slow pace of getting watered-down legislation out of Congress as much as it’s borne out of complacency. In other words, there’s the sense by casual/irregular/low-information Dem voters that they did their job in 2008, got the country back on track, things are slowly improving, and because they aren’t angry anymore they don’t need to keep following up. PPP backs this up: among those “somewhat excited ” or “not very excited” about voting in November, Obama’s approval is a higher-than-average 58/35, and their supports for the health care bill is also a higher-than-average 50/38.

• CA-Sen: Good news for Tom Campbell, in the form of the Senate half of M4’s poll of the California GOP primary: he leads Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore, 33-28-15. (Of course, with his plans to briefly go dark to conserve funds, that gives Fiorina a chance to play catchup when the margin’s not that big.) Bad news for Campbell, though: the NRA has him in its metaphorical crosshairs, sending out a mailer to members attacking Campbell and, while not endorsing, offering kind words for Fiorina and DeVore.

• CT-Sen: This is going to make it a lot easier for Richard Blumenthal to make the case that the “in Vietnam” controversy is something of a cheap shot. A longer-form video release of the appearance (provided, ironically, by the Linda McMahon campaign, undercutting their own hatchet job) where the offending phrase occurred have him correctly referring to having “served in the military, during the Vietnam era” in the very same speech. That’s not stopping Vietnam vet Rob Simmons, who, sensing an opening, has rolled out web advertising with “Blumenthal Lied About Vietnam” in very large letters.

Blumenthal is getting more explicit backing from Democratic bigwigs now, as his mea culpa/attempt to get back on the offense seems to have had the desired effect. Rep. Chris Murphy, the likeliest guy to pick up the pieces if Blumenthal had to bail out, offered his unqualified support; so too did Howard Dean. And here’s one thing that’s actually good about Rasmussen‘s one-day, no-callback samples: they can strike fast. They polled Connecticut, and while the trendlines aren’t appealing, they find Blumenthal still beating McMahon even in the heat of the moment before the story has had time to digest, and beating the other, unmoneyed GOP opponents by pretty wide margins. Markos has some really nice pushback against Rasmussen in general, today, asking why they always poll quickly when there’s the potential for a good Republican narrative but not when the narrative doesn’t fit (as seen in their failure to poll the Sorta Super-Tuesday primaries).

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist has been trying to woo union support, starting with a speech at the state AFL-CIO convention this weekend. It’s another indication that he’s trying to move squarely onto Kendrick Meek’s turf and monopolize as much of the left-of-center vote as he can, now that he’s free from his GOP shackles. Meanwhile, quixotic Democratic candidate Jeff Greene has apparently been seen wooing Ukrainian strippers, in 2005 on his 145-foot yacht while cruising the Black Sea. Not so, claims his campaign spokesperson; he was busy traveling with his rabbi at the time instead.

• KY-Sen: In case you needed one more data point on how thin-skinned Rand Paul and how likely a meltdown from him is at some point before November, here’s an anecdote from last night: he refused to take the customary concession call from Trey Grayson, at least according to the Grayson camp.

• NC-Sen: Here’s a big score for Elaine Marshall: Third-place finisher Kenneth Lewis gave his backing to Marshall in her runoff against Cal Cunningham. This move isn’t so surprising, given that Lewis’s supporters, like Rep. Eva Clayton, were already gravitating toward Marshall, but it ought to steer much of Lewis’s African-American and youth base in her direction as well.

• NV-Sen: Three items, all of which are very, very bad for Sue Lowden. First, the Club for Growth finally weighed into the Senate primary, and they backed right-winger Sharron Angle (maybe not that surprising, since they backed her in the 2006 primary for NV-02). That ought to give Angle a further shot of adrenaline, though, on top of her Tea Party Express endorsement and polling momentum. Lowden is also still bogged down in controversy over her luxury bus, doubling-down on her claims that use of the $100K vehicle was leased despite also having stated elsewhere that the bus was “donated” (which means it would have needed to be reported as an in-kind contribution). That’s nothing, though, compared to the (by my count) quintupling-down on Chickens-for-Checkups, simultaneously trying to fight top Nevada journo Jon Ralston on the fact that, yes, people are bartering for health care while trying to claim that she never actually said anything about Chickencare at all.

• NY-Sen-B: The only GOP big name left who hadn’t said anything definitive about participating in the GOP Senate primary for the right to get creamed by Kirsten Gillibrand finally said a public “no.” Orange County Executive Ed Diana said he’ll stick with his current job, to which he was elected in November to a third term.

• UT-Sen: Looks like that teabaggers’ victory in Utah might be short-lived. Bob Bennett seems to be more interested than before in running as a write-in in the general (where, despite the complex dynamics of a write-in campaign, he faces better odds with the broader electorate than with the narrow slice of extremists running the GOP convention). We may know tomorrow what his plans are, as he emphasized “Stay tuned tomorrow.”

• WA-Sen: If Dino Rossi really is still interested in running for Senate, this isn’t a particularly good way of showing it. Rossi is scheduled to make a blockbuster appearance on May 25… to give opening remarks at a dinnertime seminar for local real estate investors focusing on strategies for profiting off foreclosures. Because nothing says “I’m a man of the people” than knowing all the ins and outs of how to profit off the people’s misery.

• AL-Gov: Artur Davis is out with an internal poll, that seems mostly oriented toward countering the sense that he’s losing ground among his African-American base. The poll shows Davis leading Democratic primary rival Ron Sparks 46-33. It also shows Davis leading 50-25 among African-Americans (despite the defections of some prominent local black groups), while trailing Sparks 42-41 among whites.

• FL-Gov: Bill McCollum is going to have to start taking moneybags Rick Scott seriously, and he’s striking hard, sending out a press release calling him an “embarrassment” and a “fraud,” presumably in reference to allegations leveled against Scott’s health care firm. Scott’s ginormous introductory ad buy is now estimating at $6.3 million.

• KS-Gov: Sam Brownback is drawing some heat for taking things out of context. Now, politicians take things out of context all the time, but his sleight-of-hand in attempting to fight efforts to more tightly regulate the business of car loans to military members may be a fridge too far.

“CNN Money on May 13 reported that ‘Raj Date … agreed that the additional (Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection) regulation might cause some dealers to stop arranging loans,” Brownback said in the letter.

But Brownback’s letter did not include the rest of Date’s comment, which was this, “There will be some dealers who say, ‘If I have to play by an honest set [of] rules, then I can’t be in this business anymore.’ I’m not going to shed any tears for these dealers.”

• MA-Gov: You may recall last week’s Rasmussen MA-Gov poll where, in an effort to find some sort of good news, they found that, if liberal activist Grace Ross somehow beat incumbent Dem Deval Patrick in the primary, she would lost to GOPer Charlie Baker. Well, it’s looking like Ross is in danger of not even making it onto the ballot. The state SoS says she has only a little more than half of the 10,000 signatures she needs; Ross promises an announcement tomorrow morning on her next step. (The upside for Patrick, if Ross qualifies for the primary though, would be $750K in public financing for his campaign, which he wouldn’t be entitled to if he were running unopposed.)

• ME-Gov: There’s been some ongoing controversy in the sleepy Maine governor’s race about how Republican candidate Steve Abbott (former CoS to Susan Collins) wound up with GOP voter lists, but this is a strange turn: the state Republican party chair, Charlie Webster, is now saying that Abbott’s camp flat-out “stole” it.

• GA-09: The special election to replace Nathan Deal (where GOPers Tom Graves and Lee Hawkins are in a runoff) seems to have winnowed the Republican field for the regularly-scheduled GOP primary, too. Former state Senate majority leader Bill Stephens has dropped out of contention in that field.

• HI-01: Even if something incredibly dramatic happens between now and Saturday’s drop-dead date in the special election in the 1st, things are still pretty much cast in stone. In the all-mail in election, now 43% of all ballots sent out have been returned.

• IN-03: State Sen. Marlin Stutzman (whose name rec is sky-high right now after running fairly well in the GOP Senate primary against Dan Coats) says that he’s going to strike while the iron is hot, and get into the race to replace resigning Rep. Mark Souder. Other GOPers confirming that they’ll run include state Rep. Randy Borror, Ft. Wayne city councilor Liz Brown, and recent primary loser Phil Troyer. Another recent primary loser, Bob Thomas, is a potential candidate.

• OH-16: After having found an excuse to hide behind the door the last time Barack Obama came to Ohio, Rep. John Boccieri was proudly with him when he visited Youngstown yesterday. Perhaps he can sense a bit of a turning of the tide? Troublingly, though, Senate candidate Lee Fisher wasn’t present.

• PA-12: PPP digs through the data from their last pre-election poll in the 12th and finds what may really have done the Republicans in. There’s one entity in the district even more unpopular than Barack Obama (who had 30% approval), and that’s Congressional Republicans, who were at a miserable 22/60. In nationalizing the election, Tim Burns tied himself to the nation’s least favorite people of all.

• PA-19: After having surviving his primary last night despite publicly seeking another job, it looks like Rep. Todd Platts exposed himself to all that danger for no reason at all. Platts announced yesterday that the Obama administration had let him know that he wasn’t going to be selected for the Government Accountability Office job he’d been angling for.

• CT-AG: Here’s one of the weirdest career crash-and-burns I’ve seen lately: SoS Susan Bysiewicz went in a few months from likely next Governor to somehow not even eligible to run for the lower-tier job she dropped down to. Connecticut’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled that she didn’t meet the criteria for legal experience required to become AG, reversing a lower court’s decision. Former Democratic state Sen. George Jepsen now has the AG job pretty much to himself. At any rate, with Bysiewicz now combing the “Help Wanted” section, that gives the Connecticut Dems a fallback plan for the Senate if Richard Blumenthal does need to bail out (although Bysiewicz may be seriously damaged at this point too).

• OR-St. House: Here are a couple races with interesting implications that I forgot to watch last night: two Republican state Reps. from the high-desert parts of Oregon (the state’s Republican stronghold) committed the unthinkable heresy of not only bipartisanship but supporting tax increases to close the state’s budget gap. Both Bob Jenson and Greg Smith survived their primaries, though, after teabaggers, right-to-lifers, and even their state House minority leader turned their wrath against them.

• Arizona: One other election result from last night that most people, us included, seemed to overlook was Proposition 100 in Arizona. In a surprise, at least to those people who think that it’s a rabidly anti-tax year (which would be those people who didn’t pay any attention to Measures 66 and 67 earlier this year in Oregon), the people of this red state voted by a fairly wide margin for a temporary sales tax increase as part of a package of changes to close the budget gap. It’s a victory for Jan Brewer, actually, who backed the plan (perhaps feeling safer to do so, having solidified her position with her support for the “papers please” law).

• 1994: When you have a wave, a lot of dead wood washes up on the beach. Prompted by ’94 alum Mark Souder’s mini-scandal and resignation, Dana Milbank looks back at the wide array of scoundrels and rogues who were swept in in 1994.

• History: History’s only barely on the side of Blanche Lincoln when it comes to runoffs. It turns out that the person who finishes first in a runoff wins 72% of the time, but when that’s limited only to runoffs in primaries, the success rate is only 55%… and Lincoln’s victory over Bill Halter last night was a particularly close one.

FL-Sen: Some more lulzy shit from Charlie Crist: Now he says he won’t engage in any more negative campaigning. He also re-iterated that he’s pro-life (jeez) and that he doesn’t like Arizona’s new immigration law. I think there might be six people in America who belong to his crazy-ass, Garanimals-style mix-n-match political party. Meanwhile, ex-North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns is abandoning the Democratic primary (where he never got even the slightest bit of traction) and running for the state senate seat being vacated by Dem Dan Gelber, who is running for AG.

NV-Gov: Ralph Waldo Emerson surely had Brian Sandoval in mind when he sagely observed that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. When he ran for state AG in 2002, he told the editorial board of the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he viewed it as the AG’s job to defend any state law, no matter how constitutionally suspect. Since he was clearly out sick the day they taught the Socratic method in law school, Sandoval, when pressed, even said that he would enforce a law requiring Jews to wear yellow stars. Yeah. But now it’s Gov. Jim Gibbons’ turn to sound ridiculous, since he put out a press release that directly compared Sandoval to the Nazis. Sigh. I would have flunked Sandoval had I been his civpro professor, but this charge is a bit much, to say the least.

IL-14: The Tarrance Group (R) for Randy Hultgren (5/3-4, likely voters, no trendlines):

Bill Foster (D-inc): 44

Randy Hultgren (R): 45

(MoE: ±5.7%)

MO-08: GOP Rep. Jo Ann Emerson was reportedly short-listed to become chair of the Credit Union National Association (whose current chief will step down at the end of the year), but she’s denying that she’s interested. Dem Tommy Sowers, who has shown some surprising fundraising prowess in this deep red district, had been making some hay about this.

MS-01: Former FOX News talking head Angela McGlowan flip-flopped and now says she’ll support whoever the Republican nominee is against Travis Childers. Previously, she said she refused to back NRCC fave Alan Nunnelee if he won the GOP nod, citing some tax apostasy.

OH-18: Four local labor unions (SEIU, CWA, UFCW and UAW) held a rally to announce that they officially plan to withhold their support from Rep. Zack Space. Space, as you’ll recall, switched his vote from “yes” to “no” on the healthcare bill. SEIU is actually encouraging folks to “Skip a Space” and not vote for him altogether (though the other unions did not go that far).

CT-AG: It’s official (for now) – Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz can run for AG. You may recall a weird issue came up some months ago – namely, CT requires that its attorneys general have “actively practiced” law for ten years. A Superior Court judge ruled today that Bysiewicz’s service as SoS, which involved ruling on legal matters related to elections, met that requirement. (Had it not, she would have failed to qualify.) The state GOP may still appeal.

Campaign Finance: A little-noticed provision of the so-called DISCLOSE Act, which is aimed at blunting the impact of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, would have a major impact on party committees like the DCCC and NRCC. As you know, every two years, these committees must set up walled-off departments which make independent expenditures on behalf of campaigns – but can never communicate with those same campaigns. The DISCLOSE Act would redefine the test for impermissible coordination, only barring the party committees from making IEs if they are “controlled by, or made at the direction of” the candidate. That will be a pretty easy problem to avoid, if the bill passes. Mr. Reid, Ms. Pelosi – tear down that wall!

• NC-Sen: The newest Elon University poll of North Carolina finds that, as with most pollsters, that Richard Burr is strangely anonymous for a Senator: he has a favorable of 34/17. His best-known Democratic competitor, SoS Elaine Marshall, is at 18/8. The poll doesn’t contain head-to-heads, and also, bear in mind that it only polls “residents,” not even registered voters, which would explain the super-low awareness.

• TX-Sen: 20 of Texas’s Republican House members wrote a letter to Kay Bailey Hutchison, asking her to reconsider and stay on as Senator. (Recall that she planned to resign once she was done “fighting health care.”) I wonder if the letter was signed by Joe Barton, who was pretty public about his desire to take over that seat back when a resignation seemed likelier.

• UT-Sen: Tonight’s the night we get our first hard impression of what degree of trouble Bob Bennett is in. Tonight are neighborhood caucuses, where delegates to the state convention are elected. A particularly ultra-conservative-skewing convention could pose some trouble to Bennett, although with so many GOP challengers, it seems likely no one will hit the 60% mark at the convention needed to avoid a primary.

• CT-Gov: You might recognize these numbers from last week; we’ve been waiting for Quinnipiac to release general election numbers in the Governor’s race but they just don’t seem to be forthcoming, so here are their primary numbers. On the Dem side, Ned Lamont is leading at 28, followed by former Stamford mayor Dan Malloy at 18, Mary Glassman at 4, Rudy Marconi at 2, and Juan Figueroa at 1. (Susan Bysiewicz has a big edge over George Jepsen, 54-10, in the AG primary, despite concerns about her eligibility for the job.) On the GOP side, Tom Foley is dominating at 30, followed by Lt. Gov Michael Fedele collapsing down to 4, Danbury mayor Mark Boughton at 4, ex-Rep. Larry DeNardis at 2, and Oz Griebel and Jeff Wright at 2.

• CA-Gov: Wondering how Meg Whitman pulled into a huge lead in the primary and a small lead in the general in California governor’s race? She’s spent a mind-boggling $27 million on her race so far this year (for a total of $46 million), compared with Steve Poizner’s $3 million and Jerry Brown’s $142K.

• OR-Gov: Former Portland Trail Blazer Chris Dudley is the first candidate to hit the TV airwaves in the Oregon governor’s race so far, touting his “outsider” credentials.

• PA-Gov: AG Tom Corbett, who oh just coincidentally happens to be running for Governor this year, finally got a conviction in the Bonusgate investigation, against former state Rep. Mike Veon and several of his staffers. The timing is certainly helpful to Corbett, for whom the investigation has been dragging out and the possibility of mistrials (or no convictions before November) was starting to loom. Trials against several other former Democratic House leaders, including GOPer John Perzel and Dem Bill DeWeese, are still in the pipeline.

• WY-Gov: The Democrats are about to land a gubernatorial candidate: attorney Paul Hickey, who plans an announcement later this week. If the name is familiar, he’s the son of former Governor J.J. Hickey. Democratic State Sen. Mike Massie hasn’t ruled out a run yet either, although he may run for one of the statewide offices.

• IL-11: Here’s one more district that hasn’t been high on people’s watch lists but will need to be monitored, at least if a new internal poll from Republican pollster POS is to be believed. They find their patron, Adam Kinzinger, leading freshman Rep. Debbie Halvorson 44-38.

• MA-09: With primary challenges moving onto the radar against HCR “no” votes Jason Altmire and Mike Arcuri, another one may be taking shape: Needham Town Meeting member (and, well, college classmate of mine) Harmony Wu has pulled papers for the race and is gauging local sentiment for a primary run against Stephen Lynch.

• NY-01: Whoever faces off against Tim Bishop for the Republicans is going to have to fight through an arduous primary to get there. Any hopes of an easy coronation for Randy Altschuler seem to have vaporized, as now Chris Cox (Republican party insider and Nixon grandson) is setting his own Wall Street-powered fundraising operation in motion. And a 3rd option, former SEC prosecutor George Demos, has had his own fundraising success.

• NY-20: One more Republican, Queensbury town supervisor Dan Stec, bailed out of the field today, suggesting that the GOP is finally coalescing behind retired Col. Chris Gibson as a standard-bearer against freshman Dem Rep. Scott Murphy, in what’s one of their slowest races to take shape.

• OK-05: Finally, we have a Democrat on tap for the open seat race in Oklahoma’s dark-red 5th, where there’s already a half-dozen GOPers jousting. Tom Guild is secretary of the Oklahoma County Democratic Party, and was a poli sci professor at Univ. of Central Oklahoma for many years.

• PA-11: Things got easier for Lou Barletta in the race in the 11th, where his Republican primary challenger, Chris Paige dropped out, citing family concerns. Paige, an attorney, was underfunded but had delivered some surprisingly-hard hits to Barletta, especially on Barletta’s signature issue of immigration.

• SC-01: The Club for Growth weighed into another GOP primary in a reddish open seat, endorsing state Rep. Tim Scott. Scott faces off in the primary against several well-known last names: Carroll Campbell III and Paul Thurmond.

• HCR: The Republican pivot from health care reform to health care repeal has some implications in the gubernatorial races. Rep. Peter Hoekstra is going full-on repeal, stopping by Sunday’s teabagger rally to pledge to fight that battle. It’s also showing up in a number of races where the Republican AG is running for Governor and joined the multi-AG suit against HCR on easily-rebuttable 10th Amendment grounds (hint to teabaggers: read Scalia’s opinion in Raich) – many in dark-red states where it probably helps more than hurts (like Henry McMaster in South Carolina). There are a few blue state AGs involved, though, like Tom Corbett (although he probably feels like he has a safety cushion to do so, thanks to his Bonusgate-related popularity). Most puzzling, though, is Washington’s Rob McKenna, who got where he is only by acting moderate. Throwing off his well-maintained moderate mask and joining forces with the wackjob likes of Ken Cuccinelli seems like a weird gamble for his widely-expected 2012 run, where success is utterly dependent on making inroads among suburban moderates.

• NC-Sen: Former state Sen. Cal Cunningham is going with an interesting focus for his campaign: filibuster reform. He’s pledging to end the filibuster “in its current form.” Certainly an idea worth exploring at the policy level, but is it a winner at the campaign-soundbite level (when most people don’t even seem to know of the filibuster and cloture process, if polls are to be believed)? Fellow Dem candidate Elaine Marshall also broached the topic in her recent diary at Daily Kos.

• OH-Sen: Two different new Democrats entered the primary election hunt in Ohio, Traci “TJ” Johnson and Charleena Renee Bradley. Bradley appears to have come out literally nowhere, but Johnson is a former state Rep. candidate and, more notably, she worked for the AG’s office when current Lt. Governor Lee Fisher held that position. That’s led to some suspicions of shenangians on the part of the Fisher campaign (who might benefit from another female candidate cutting a bit into Jennifer Brunner’s primary vote share), but Fisher’s camp says that they weren’t involved in Johnson’s decision and that Fisher hasn’t spoken to Johnson in over a year.

• WA-Sen: SurveyUSA has some surprisingly low approval numbers for Patty Murray, as she faces a re-election that could get tough if someone top-tier shows up to challenge her. She’s at 43/50 (which is lower than colleague Maria Cantwell, at 46/45, probably the first time that’s ever happened). What’s strange here is that, although SurveyUSA actually included some young people in this poll, Murray fares worst among the 18-34 set and best among seniors, which is completely counterintuitive (although it kept showing up in their WA-Gov and WA-08 polls last year too). Serious question: has anyone ever studied whether young people who are cellphone-only are disproportionately Democratic and those who actually answer their landlines are more Republican?

• WI-Sen: Rasmussen looks at the Wisconsin Senate race again, and like last time, finds Russ Feingold trailing Tommy Thompson, on the off chance that Thompson decides to say no thanks to all that sweet, sweet hedge fund money. Feingold trails Thompson 48-43, while leading minor Republican opponents Dave Westlake (47-37) and Terrence Wall (47-39). Feingold’s approval is 50/48.

• AR-Gov: Here’s one Arkansas Democrat we don’t have to worry about. Incumbent Gov. Mike Beebe has sported inhuman approval levels and hasn’t even drawn a Republican opponent yet. And now comes news that he raised more than $1 million toward his re-election in the month of January alone.

• FL-Gov, FL-Sen: There’s more pile-on on the issue of Alex Sink’s yawn-inducing and seemingly message-free gubernatorial campaign… and some of that is spilling over into Kendrick Meek’s Senate campaign, which doesn’t seem to be getting anyone fired up either.

• MI-Gov: Another Democrat seems to be moving closer toward a run for Governor: Genesee County treasurer Dan Kildee is opening up an exploratory committee. (Kildee may be getting some urging from a celebrity friend: Michael Moore.) Meanwhile, on the Republican side, long-shot rich guy Rick Snyder is actually letting his fans on his website choose which ad to air next; both ads focus on Snyder’s “nerd” credentials. Unfortunately, it sounds like Ted Nugent, who field strips nerds and eats their entrails for breakfast, is turning down requests that he run for governor (on the GOP side, natch). The Motor City Madman still contends that he’d make a good governor, though, in that he’d “bring in my machete and hack away at the waste and the cronyism.”

• MN-Gov: One more Republican fell by the wayside in the Minnesota gubernatorial race, in the wake of a weak straw poll showing: state Sen. David Hann, who’ll run for another Senate term instead. In an indication that state House minority leader Marty Seifert is feeling confident about winning the GOP nomination, he’s already moved on to picking a running mate: Anoka County Commissioner Rhonda Sivarajah.

• NE-Gov: Nebraska, like Kansas, has been another state where the Dems have had a bad time trying to find a gubernatorial candidate. The search finally seems to be focusing on agribusiness executive Mark Lakers, who insiders say is very interested. (Ben Nelson and Bob Kerrey both emerged from the private sector to defeat incumbent GOP governors, for whatever that’s worth.)

• RI-Gov: Republicans have another option in their gubernatorial primary in Rhode Island: accountant Victor Moffitt. Moffitt is a former state Rep. but may be better know for being a frequent letter-to-the-editor writer. He’ll face John Robitaille, communications director to current Republican Gov. Don Carcieri, in the primary.

• SC-Gov: Attorney Mullins McLeod is dropping out of the race to be the Democrats’ gubernatorial candidate, and throwing his support behind state Sen. Vincent Sheheen. There’s no word whether McLeod, as rumored, is planning to move over to the Senate race against Jim DeMint, currently devoid of a Democratic challenger.

• AZ-03: Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon is definitely gauging possibilities for a run for the House, as he’s been polling the district. Interestingly, based on the poll questions, Gordon is considering a run as an independent as well as a Democrat. Gordon, although there’s a “D” next to his name, is quite the centrist and even endorsed John McCain in 2008, which could make a Democratic primary against deep-pocketed Jon Hulburd difficult. The poll also asks whether stories about Gordon’s payments to his girlfriend (for fundraising for his campaigns) would be a campaign liability.

• FL-05: GOP Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite has scheduled a “major announcement” tonight at a local Republican function, prompting speculation from all corners that a retirement, or perhaps even resignation, decision has been made. (J)

• FL-25: You may remember Annette Taddeo, the Democratic businesswoman who acquitted herself well while running in FL-18 in 2008. Some insiders (starting with Steny Hoyer, apparently) are encouraging her to take a look at running in the open seat race in the 25th this year. Taddeo says that if Joe Garcia (the 2008 candidate in the 25th, who’s reported to be moving toward a run) gets in, she’ll support him, but wouldn’t rule out a run in his absence.

• ID-01: One more Republican got into the field in the 1st: Michael Chadwick, who doesn’t seem to have run for office before but used to be an aide to Orrin Hatch. There’s still no word from ex-Rep. Bill Sali, though, as to whether he’ll join the fun.

• KS-03: With top Dem prospect and Kansas City, Kansas mayor Joe Reardon having ruled out a run in the open seat race for the 3rd, Dems are starting to look to state Sen. Kelly Kultala (who represents part of KCK) as the next best option (no word if she’s interested, though). One other name that’s getting attention now, though, is retiring Rep. Dennis Moore’s wife, Stephene, who’s “mulling it over.”

• NJ-07: Republican freshman Rep. Leonard Lance may have a rougher time of it in the GOP primary than the general. Lance will be facing businessman David Larsen, who appears to be challenging Lance from the right (upset over Lance’s cap and trade vote) and may be bringing up to $300K of his own money with him. Appraiser Bruce Baker is also in the GOP primary, flying the teabagger flag, although he may not have the money to make an impression.

• PA-04: Former US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan seems to be having trouble making the transition from the legal world to the somewhat thicker-skinned electoral politics world. Her response when local talk radio host Marty Griffin hosted Cyril Wecht (the Allegheny Co. Coroner who’s had a longstanding legal battle with Buchanan) was to call in to Griffin’s show and threaten on air to sue him for defamation.

• PA-12: Lots more movement in the 12th. One more heavyweight, former Lt. Governor Mark Singel, isn’t deterred by fears that the 12th will be dismantled in a few years: he told the Johnstown paper today that he’ll be running. However, he (like Barbara Hafer) couched that by saying that he wouldn’t run if John Murtha’s widow, Joyce, decided she wanted the job. Cambria Co. Controller Ed Cernik Jr. is publicly stating his interest too, and Westmoreland Co. Commissioner Tom Ceraso is circulating petitions. Meanwhile, there seem to be more GOPers passing on the race than expressing any interest; the only new name to surface is businessman Mark Pasquerilla, who can self-fund; the few elected Republicans whose names were floated, state Reps. Jeff Pyle and Dave Reed, and state Sen. Kim Ward, aren’t running.

• CT-AG: Here’s an about-face from Susan Bysiewicz, who had previously said she would just plow ahead with her AG run despite uncertainty as to whether she legally qualified for the job. Apparently, there’s been enough behind-the-scenes doubt on that front that is was putting into jeopardy her chances at the state nominating convention, so now she’s suing in order to get a declaratory judgment on the question. There’s no indication on what, if anything, she’d run for if it turns out she isn’t qualified to be AG (remember she bailed out of the governor’s race despite being the frontrunner, and with a May 25 filing deadline, potentially she could get back in, although she may have badly hurt her prospects with this whole business).

• Election Results: With 99.1% of precincts reporting (97 remain, apparently mostly in Cook County), both sides of the governor’s race remain too close to call. Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn has declared victory, sitting on a 7,000 vote lead (50.4%-49.6%) and with the remaining precincts in Cook County likely to go his way, although Dan Hynes hasn’t conceded yet. On the GOP side, we’re looking most likely at a recount, as state Sen. Bill Brady leads fellow state Sen. Kirk Dillard currently by a 751-vote margin (20.3%-20.2%), as they both squeaked past the two presumed frontrunners, former state party chair Andy McKenna and former AG Jim Ryan. The fact that the remaining votes are from Cook County, however, may be poised to help the moderate suburbs-based Dillard, though, rather than the conservative downstate Brady, so this race seems likely to get even closer (Nate Silver actually projects a one-vote victory for Brady based on broader Cook County trends). Recount procedures make it sound like a protracted process – an initial vote tally won’t happen until March 5, and then the process “could take months to complete” – giving Quinn a big headstart on whoever the GOP victor turns out to be.

As expected, Alexi Giannoulias and Mark Kirk are the Senate nominees, although both won their races with somewhat underwhelming percentages (39% for Giannoulias, and 57% for Kirk, who could have been in more trouble had the teabagging right coalesced behind one person in particular). Conservatives did triumph over establishment candidates in several GOP House primaries, though, as Bob Dold! beat state Rep. Beth Coulson in the 10th, and state Sen. Randy Hultgren beat Ethan Hastert in the 14th.

In Florida, as expected, state Sen. Ted Deutch easily won the special election primary to succeed Rep. Robert Wexler, beating former Broward Co. Commissioner Ben Graber 86-15. It looks like he’ll face Republican Ed Lynch (the 2008 nominee), who defeated Joe Budd by only 46 votes (but with only 8,000 total GOP votes, that’s outside the margin for an automatic recount). And here’s a surprise out of Kentucky: Democrats picked up a state House seat in the dark-red HD 24, which was recently vacated when Republican Jimmy Higdon got promoted to the state Senate in another special election. Terry Mills won, 54-46, based on an overwhelming edge (89-11) on his home turf of Marion County, reminding us that, at the end of the day, all politics is local.

Finally, last night was caucus and straw poll night in Minnesota. Only 80% of precincts have reported yet – I guess they go to bed early in Minnesota – but the straw poll in the Democratic governor’s race points to only a lot of chaos at this point. Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak led with 21.8%, followed closely by state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher at 20.2%. However, “uncommitted” is a solid 3rd at 15%, there are five other candidates who managed to break 5% (John Marty, Tom Rukavina, Paul Thissen, Matt Entenza, and Tom Bakk), and ex-Sen. Mark Dayton doesn’t even seem to be bothering with the whole process, planning on going straight to the primary, so there’s not much clarity on how the field will shake out. The GOP field seems much more clear-cut, where former state House minority leader Marty Seifert beat state Rep. Tom Emmer 50-39, with the rest of the field in the low single digits.

• AZ-Sen: With the imminent entry of ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth into the Republican primary against John McCain, we’re already looking at dueling internal polls. McCain offers up a poll from POS, giving him a 59-30 lead over Hayworth. Hayworth has his own poll from McLaughlin, which, not surprisingly, shows him much closer, trailing 49-33.

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek, NASCAR dad? Meek plans to call attention to his campaign by shelling out to be the lead sponsor of Mike Wallace’s car in an upcoming race at Daytona.

• IN-Sen: With the surprising announcement by ex-Sen. Dan Coats last night that he’s interested in a comeback and would start seeking the signatures to qualify for the Indiana GOP nod, the oppo pretty much writes itself. For starters, Coats can’t even sign his own petition – he’s been a registered voter in Virginia for more than a decade, not Indiana. And what’s he been doing for much of that time? Lobbying… for King & Spalding, on behalf of nice people like the Carlyle Group and Bank of America. The Plum Line also points to Coats accusing Bill Clinton of “wagging the dog” when he started going after al-Qaeda in 1998, allegedly to distract the press from his peccadilloes… and we all know how that turned out.

• ND-Sen: Democrats have, well, somebody ready to go if ex-AG Heidi Heitkamp doesn’t get into the Senate race to replace retiring Byron Dorgan. State Sen. Tracy Potter, who represents Bismarck, will be announcing his candidacy on Friday. Other potential candidates seem to be holding back, waiting to see what Heitkamp does; she’s been strangely silent since initially expressing interest in the seat last month.

• NY-Sen-B: Quinnipiac’s first poll of the New York Senate race after the Harold Ford Jr. boomlet began finds, well, pretty much what everyone else has found: Kirsten Gillibrand beats him by a wide margin but doesn’t break 50%. Gillibrand beats 36-18, with Jonathan Tasini at 4. Quinnipiac also tests general election matchups against Republican port commissioner Bruce Blakeman (they don’t even bother testing ex-Gov. George Pataki, who doesn’t seem to be making any moves to get into the race). Gillibrand beats Blakeman 44-27, and Ford beats him 35-26. Gillibrand is slowly gaining some more name rec, up to a 42/28 approval. Blakeman may not have the GOP primary to himself, though, as a strange blast from the past is re-emerging to say he’s interested in the race: ex-Rep. Joseph DioGuardi. In case the name doesn’t ring a bell, DioGuardi served in the House representing Westchester County from 1984 to 1988, when he was defeated by Nita Lowey.

• NY-Gov: The same Quinnipiac sample looks at the governor’s race, finding huge approval gaps between Andrew Cuomo (54/16) and David Paterson (34/49). Cuomo wins the Democratic primary 55-23. Cuomo beats Rick Lazio 57-25, while Lazio manages to get past Paterson 40-39. There’s also one other bit of good news for Cuomo (who’s seemed gunshy about taking on Paterson, perhaps out of bad memories of his race against Carl McCall). The poll asked if his candidacy would be “racially divisive,” and respondents answered “no” by an 80-14 margin, including 73-22 among African-Americans. Marist (pdf) also just released the gubernatorial half of its recent Senate poll, finding generally similar numbers. Cuomo wins the primary 70-23. Cuomo beats Lazio 64-27, while Lazio edges Paterson 46-43.

• TN-Gov: Add one more candidate running for higher office who’s publicly copped to being birther-curious: Lt. Gov. (and GOP gubernatorial candidate) Ron Ramsey. Not having made much of an impression in terms of polling (where Rep. Zach Wamp has an edge) or fundraising (where Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam is cleaning up), this seems like the most attention Ramsey has gotten so far.

• TX-Gov: Here’s more evidence that the Texas GOP gubernatorial primary may be headed for a runoff: the new Rasmussen poll of the primary doesn’t have anyone coming even close to 50%. Incumbent Rick Perry leads at 44, with Kay Bailey Hutchison lagging at 29, and Paulist insurgent Debra Medina all the way up to 14 on the strength of some buzz coming out of her debate performances. KBH may be counting on a runoff as her only way left to salvage this race, but somehow it seems like, in a runoff, Medina votes are a lot likely to gravitate toward the secession-invoking Perry rather than consummate DC insider Hutchison. In the general, all three defeat Democratic ex-Houston mayor Bill White, although, as one would expect, KBH puts up the biggest margin: 49-36. Perry wins 48-39, while Medina wins by only 41-38.

• AR-02: One of the non-Tim Griffin candidates in the Republican field, David Meeks, dropped out of the race today, probably realizing he was in over his head with the kind of attention open seat races get. One other candidate, restaurant owner Scott Wallace remains, and he may well carry the teabagger flag against Beltway creature Griffin. Realizing the best way to win this is by painting Griffin as insider, the DCCC is turning their attention to Griffin’s past as GOP behind-the-scenes fixer, calling attention to his efforts at voter suppression. Over in the diaries, ARDem takes a look at the developing Dem field, which currently contains state House speaker Robbie Wills, liberal state Sen. Joyce Elliott, and retiring Vic Snyder’s chief of staff, David Boling. It won’t contain, however, Little Rock mayor Mike Stodola, or Public Service Commissioner Paul Suskie, who had seemed to be laying the groundwork for a run.

• CA-12, CA-AG: False alarm: Rep. Jackie Speier is staying put in the 12th District, where’s she been in place for only a couple years. Rumors that she was about to move over to the state AG’s race had many of the state legislators on the Peninsula angling to replace her.

• GA-04: In the wake of an internal from Rep. Hank Johnson showing him crushing his three opponents in the Dem primary in this solidly-blue district in Atlanta’s suburbs, one of those opponents got out of the way: DeKalb Co. Commissioner Lee May. May is an ally of former DeKalb Co. CEO Vernon Jones, so it’s possible that he’s getting out of the way primarily so that Jones can get a bigger share of the non-Johnson vote.

• MA-10: With the general sense that this is the most vulnerable district in Massachusetts (as seen with its votes in the Senate special election last month), Republicans are taking more of an interest in challenging Rep. William Delahunt in this usually-ignored seat. Former state treasurer Joe Malone is probably the biggest name to express interest, but at least one other credible contender, state Rep. Jeffrey Perry, is already announcing his candidacy. State Sen. Robert Hedlund is also expressing some interest.

• NJ-07: One big hole in the Dems’ recruitment schedule has been the 7th, narrowly won by freshman GOP Rep. Leonard Lance in 2008. They’ve managed to fill the gap with Ed Potosnak, who’s elevated slightly above Some Dude status by the full Rolodex he brings with him after working for a number of years as a Hill staffer for Rep. Mike Honda.

• PA-11: Lackawanna Co. Commissioner Corey O’Brien has a compelling argument for why he should win the primary in the 11th: he says Rep. Paul Kanjorski has “zero” chance of defeating Republican Lou Barletta in their third face-off, citing Kanjorski’s low approval ratings. O’Brien has been fundraising well ($180K last quarter, not far from Kanjo’s $237K) and recently hit the airwaves with a small cable buy for his first TV spot.

• CA-LG: Is San Francisco mayor (and gubernatorial race dropout) Gavin Newsom actually thinking about a run for the dead-end job that is California’s #2? Officially he’s not interested, but he hasn’t said no, and a new public poll from Tulchin gives him a big lead in a hypothetical LG primary, with Newsom at 33 against the two declared candidates: Los Angeles city councilor Janice Hahn at 17 and state Sen. Dean Florez at 15. Meanwhile, the state Senate this week takes up the issue of filling the current vacancy in the LG’s chair (vacated by now-Rep. John Garamendi); there’s actually talk of blocking Ahnold appointee state Sen. Abel Maldonado, despite that getting the moderate Republican Maldonado out of his seat would open up his Dem-leaning district for a takeover and help push the Dem edge in the Senate toward the magic 2/3s mark.

• CT-AG: The story of Susan Bysiewicz just gets stranger and stranger; she decided that rather than run for governor, she’d prefer to run for AG, but now the job’s current occupant, Richard Blumenthal, says that possibly she can’t. An AG opinion interprets state law requiring ten years of legal practice as unclear and urges a declaratory ruling on Bysiewicz’s case from a court. Bysiewicz, for her part, said she won’t seek the declaratory ruling and is simply plowing ahead with her AG campaign, although it’s possible one of the other candidates in the race might force the issue in the courts.

• Polltopia: The skepticism toward those SurveyUSA polls commissioned by Firedoglake continues to grow, this time from political science professor and frequent Pollster.com contributor Alan Abramowitz. His gravest concerns are with the leading questions in the issues portions of the poll on health care reform, but he also points to serious problems with the samples’ compositions that we were quick to flag. He observes that the samples deeply underrepresent younger votes, and that the youth subsets are so small that there’s no good way to “weight up” younger voters to a more proportionate level.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (1/11-13, likely voters):

Richard Blumenthal (D): 54

Rob Simmons (R): 35

Undecided: 11

Richard Blumenthal (D): 56

Linda McMahon (R): 34

Undecided: 10

Richard Blumenthal (D): 56

Peter Schiff (R): 33

Undecided: 11

(MoE: ±4%)

While Blumenthal isn’t producing margins similar to the utter insanity of the latest Quinnipiac poll, I think we can all be happy with where we’re at here.

R2K also polled the gubernatorial race, including match-ups with Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who may or may not run:

Susan Bysiewicz (D): 52

Michael Fidele (R): 33

Undecided: 15

Susan Bysiewicz (D): 51

Tom Foley (R): 35

Undecided: 14

Susan Bysiewicz (D): 52

Mark Boughton (R): 32

Undecided: 16

Ned Lamont (D): 46

Michael Fidele (R): 36

Undecided: 18

Ned Lamont (D): 46

Tom Foley (R): 37

Undecided: 17

Ned Lamont (D): 46

Mark Boughton (R): 32

Undecided: 20

Dan Malloy (D): 44

Michael Fidele (R): 35

Undecided: 21

Dan Malloy (D): 43

Tom Foley (R): 37

Undecided: 20

Dan Malloy (D): 44

Mark Boughton (R): 34

Undecided: 22

Unfortunately, Susan Bysiewicz, the Secretary of State, has decided to pull out of her gubernatorial campaign in favor of a run for Attorney General. However, as we noted in today’s digest, the legality of her candidacy is an open question. If the legal hurdles prove too challenging to clear for Bysiewicz, reversing course and running for Governor again would probably look foolish (though maybe not fatal), but if she’s just looking for another place to bide her time before she makes a run against Joe Lieberman in 2012 (as some have speculated), perhaps she’ll just end up running for re-election.

And finally, the 2012 Senate picture:

Chris Murphy (D): 25

Jodi Rell (R): 47

Joe Lieberman (I-inc): 23

Chris Murphy (D): 45

Joe Lieberman (I-inc): 26

I kinda doubt that Rell would pull the trigger on a run like this, but you never know.