Tag: Quico Canseco

FL-Sen: Appointed Republican Sen. George LeMieux apparently has no intention of being a mere seat-warmer. He’s carving out a pretty active profile, and the speculation is that he wants to take on Bill Nelson in 2012.

SC-Gov: The once-expansive Democratic gubernatorial primary in South Carolina has been whittled down even further with the exit of attorney/lobbyist Dwight Drake on Friday. We’re now essentially left with a two-way race between state Superintendent Jim Rex and state Sen. Vincent Sheheen, although underfunded state Sen. Robert Ford is also in the mix. (JL)

IN-04: Republican pollster Public Opinion Strategies has a pair of surveys out in two adjacent, dark red Hoosier State districts. The first poll, taken for Secretary of State Todd Rokita, has him at 40%, with a 50-6 approval rating. State Sen. Mike Young is in second place at 10%, and two other dudes are in single digits. Everyone tested apart from Rokita has sub-30% name ID. A ton of candidates have filed for this seat, and the primary is just two months away.

IN-05: Meanwhile, GOP Rep. Dan Burton is also brandishing a POS poll, this one showing him with 46% of the vote and no one else in double digits. Burton barely survived a challenge from Marion County coroner John McGoff in 2008 (winning 52-45), though I don’t think that internal looks all that great. McGoff is running again, but in Burton’s favor, so are five other dudes.

MA-10: State Sen. Robert O’Leary (D) is officially in the race to succeed Bill Delahunt. Many other Dems are likely to jump in, including Norfolk D.A. William Keating. State House Assistant Majority Leader Ronald Mariano is also weighing a run. Incidentally, we ran the numbers, and MA-10 is the most Irish district in America, at 33%. (The rest of the top ten: PA-07, MA-09, PA-13, PA-08, MA-06, NY-01, MA-07, NY-03, and NJ-01.)

NY-29: Politico reports that former Corning Mayor Tom Reed is becoming the consensus choice for the Republican Party. Seven of eight county chairs in the district have backed Reed, and these are the guys who will pick a nominee if there’s a special election. Considering that Reed hadn’t raised very much, and that other big names are now weighing the race, this is a somewhat surprising development.

TX-23: Ex-CIA spook Will Hurd, in a runoff with richie rich Quico Canseco, picked up the endorsement of the third-place finisher, physician Robert Lowery, who scored 22% in the first round of the Republican primary. 2008 nominee Lyle Larson, who himself beat Quico in a primary, also threw his support to Hurd.

Consultants: The Hotline has a monster-sized searchable database of consultants – you can see which consultants worked for which campaigns, or vice-versa, in several different specialties (polling, mail, media, etc.). Very cool.

Number Crunching: Did you know that Microsoft Excel 2010 Beta is available as a free download? A list of key new features is here.

Busy night in Texas last night, although both sides in the gubernatorial race turned out being pretty anticlimactic. Incumbent Republican Rick Perry just barely managed to cleared the 50% hurdle and avoid a runoff; he got 51 to Kay Bailey Hutchison’s 30 and Debra Medina’s 19. Medina’s 19 is higher than anyone would have imagined a few months ago, but it also may reflect there’s a ceiling on what teabaggers can accomplish, and she may have reached that; that’s confirmed with the range of teabagger challenges to Republican incumbents in the House and the state legislature. Challenges to Ron Paul (81%) and Pete Sessions (84%) barely made a ripple, and while self-funding teabagger Steve Clark racked up 30% in TX-04, that’s mostly by virtue of running against the mummified remains of Ralph Hall rather than a vigorous opponent. In what seems like the two most competitive House races in November, the Republicans are headed to runoffs: Quico Canseco vs. Will Hurd in TX-23, and Bill Flores vs. Rob Curnock in TX-17. (Considering how uncontroversial incumbent Railroad Commissioner Victor Carrillo surprisingly lost a one-on-one to an underfunded unknown with an Anglo surname, I wonder if Canseco and Flores should be worried going into the runoffs.)

Bill White doesn’t get the advantage of a facing a runoff-addled Rick Perry in the general, but he’s coming into it with a head of steam, racking up 76% in the Dem primary to 13% for Farouk Shami. He’s likely to get a boost from Latino turnout as he’s backed up by two Latino ticket-mates who won last night: Lt. Governor candidate Linda Chavez-Thompson and Land Commissioner candidate Hector Uribe (who ended at 52% after trailing most of the night). (He’ll also be backed up by a non-annoying Ag Commissioner candidate, in the form of Hank Gilbert, who narrowly defeated Kinky Friedman.)

Further down the ballot, in what many considered the most important race of the night, in the GOP primary for District 9 of the state Board of Education, incumbent wingnut Don McLeroy lost narrowly to moderate Thomas Ratliff. Moderate Geraldine Miller lost in a surprise to George Clayton, though (although he says he wants books to be “agenda-free”). The balance of power between creationists and “moderates” (by Texas standards) on the SBOE may yet come down to a runoff in one other race, between Marsha Farney and Brian Russell.

Two other states had special elections in their state House of Representatives, with the Dems and GOP each holding seats they’d previously occupied. It was a nail-biter in Virginia’s HD-41 in suburban Fairfax County, where Democrat Eileen Filler-Corn prevailed by 42 votes over Republican Kerry Bolognese to keep the seat vacated by now-state Sen. Dave Marsden. (Theoretically, that was close enough for a recount, but the GOP won’t request one and Filler-Corn is being seated today.) In Connecticut, Republican Laura Hoydick defeated Democrat Janice Anderson to keep in GOP hands the seat vacated by Stratford’s new mayor John Harkins; the two will face off again in November.

• CA-Sen (pdf): The Public Policy Institute of California takes a look at the California Senate race, and find it a fairly close-looking race if ex-Rep. Tom Campbell survives the primary against wealthy Carly Fiorina and teabagger-powered Chuck DeVore. Unfortunately, it looks like he’s poised to that, leading Fiorina and DeVore 27-16-8. Barbara Boxer leads Campbell 45-41 in the general, while she leads Fiorina by a more comfortable 48-40 and DeVore 47-39. (By comparison, Boxer leads Campbell by 10 in the most recent sample by the widely-respected Field Poll, who found Campbell leading Fiorina 35-25-6.) Another bit of bad news for Fiorina: apparently people at her former company doesn’t think that much of her. Boxer has received the maximum $10K from Hewlett-Packard’s PAC, while Fiorina has gotten nothing.

• IL-Sen: I don’t know if anyone was banking on Jacob Meister and the 1% of voters he was pulling in, but the wealthy attorney running a quixotic bid folded his hand and threw his backing behind Alexi Giannoulias with only a day to go before the primary. He cited David Hoffman’s negative ads and that Hoffman is “more conservative” than he lets on. PPP’s Tom Jensen also has some thoughts on the Republican primary, wondering why Patrick Hughes fizzled while other tea party-fueled insurgent candidates (Rand Paul) have caught a spark; basically, it has to do with money, and not just one’s own money (with Hughes has lots of) but institutional money (from folks like the Club for Growth) instead.

• KY-Sen: Speaking of Rand Paul, he got a top-drawer endorsement today, from Sarah Palin, as the common cause between teabaggers and Paulists now seems fully stitched-together. (Of course, whether that endorsement translates into dollars is another question, especially with today’s revelation that SarahPAC spent more money buying copies of “Going Rogue” to push it up the best-seller lists than on contributions to actual candidates.)

• NV-Sen: While he hasn’t taken any official steps, Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki is souding more and more like a Republican candidate for the Senate, publicly saying “I can beat Senator Reid.” (And, the implication probably is, that the second-tier odds and ends currently cluttering the race can’t, once the gloves come off.) With Krolicki being courted by the John Cornyn at the NRSC, that’s just arousing the wrath of the anti-establishment set, though, and even some local bigwigs, like ex-Gov. (and current RNC committee member) Bob List, who’s telling Cornyn to back off.

• NY-Sen, NY-Sen-B (pdf): No particular surprises in Marist’s new poll of the Senate landscape in New York, finding that a hypothetical George Pataki challenge, rather than Harold Ford Jr., is the biggest threat to Kirsten Gillibrand. She wins the primary against Ford and Jonathan Tasini 44-27-4. Gillibrand loses to Pataki 49-43, while easily beating the only announced Republican, Port Authority commissioner Bruce Blakeman, 52-30. Ford also loses the general to Pataki, 52-35, while getting past Blakeman 39-35. They even test out the other Senate race, the one no one has been thinking about but that talk show host Larry Kudlow has made some noises about joining. Charles Schumer mops the floor with Kudlow, 67-25.

• WA-Sen: I don’t know if this is going to strike much fear in the heart of Patty Murray, who has flattened three prominent Republican U.S. Representatives over the course of her career, but a poll from Moore Insight (a Republican polling firm in Oregon) clearly designed to lure 2004 and 2008 gubernatorial loser Dino Rossi into the race finds Rossi leading, 45-43. Rossi says “I never say never,” but also says he has “no plans to run for any office at this point.”

• CA-Gov: That same PPIC poll has gubernatorial numbers as well, finding that Jerry Brown shouldn’t take his race for granted either. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman has moved into commanding position in the GOP primary, between her outrageous spending and the disappearance of Tom Campbell from the race; she leads Insurance Comm. Steve Poizner 41-11 (an improvement from 32-8 in December). Brown leads Whitman by five, 41-36 (he led by 6 in December), while he leads Poizner 44-29. Calitics has some advice on how Brown should engage the race if and when he emerges from his Fortress of Solitude, and also some details on how Poizner isn’t going down without a fight, calling for federal investigation into Whitman’s efforts to push him out of the race.

• MD-Gov: Ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich seems to be moving closer to a rematch with the man who defeated him in 2006, Democrat Martin O’Malley. He’s been lining up fundraisers and a statewide “listening tour,” although he says he wants to hear what people actually say on said tour before making a decision one way or the other on the race. Another indicator that Ehrlich is likely to run: the only Republican in the race right now, Larry Hogan, a close Ehrlich friend who said he’s get out of the way for Ehrlich and was in the race as something of a placeholder, has ended his campaign, saying that he’s convinced Ehrlich is getting in.

• MI-Gov: Lt. Gov. John Cherry’s withdrawal from the gubernatorial race is certainly different from what we saw Connecticut and Colorado: instead of leading to an instant upgrade, we’re just seeing a lot of confusion, with none of the options seeming that much better. The newest EPIC-MRA poll of the race finds pizza magnate Denise Ilitch in the best position in the scrambled Dem primary, leading state House speaker Andy Dillon and Lansing mayor Virg Bernero 23-8-5, with a majority undecided. AG Mike Cox leads the Republican field, beating Rep. Peter Hoekstra and Oakland Co. Sheriff Mike Bouchard 32-25-16. Specific head-to-head numbers aren’t reported, but Ilitch reportedly trails Cox by 18 and Hoekstra by 7, with Dillon and Bernero faring even worse. (UPDATE: Thanks to RCP, those toplines are: Cox 48, Ilitch 30; Cox 47, Dillon 30; Cox 50, Bernero 28; Hoekstra 42, Ilitch 35; Hoekstra 40, Dillon 32; Hoekstra 45, Bernero 27.)

• PA-Gov: With rich guy Tom Knox suddenly out of the governor’s race, another Philadelphian is looking to fill his void in a Democratic primary dominated by western Pennsylvania figures. State Sen. Anthony Williams has been sounding out the race; he’d be the only African-American in the field.

• AR-03: We’ve already dissected the possible fields in Arkansas’ 1st and 2nd districts, but now that it looks like the 3rd will be vacant too, let’s see who might step up. One top name is John Arthur Hammerschmidt, the son of the guy who held the seat for more than 20 years (and who notably beat a young Bill Clinton many years ago). A possible return engagement by ex-Rep. and ex-DEA head Asa Hutchinson is also mentioned. Other names for the GOP include former US Attorney Bob Balfe, state Rep. Jonathan Barnett, former state Sen. Dave Bisbee, state Sen. Cecile Bledsoe, former state Sen. John Brown, state Rep. Rick Green, city councilor Kurt Maddox, former state Rep. Doug Matoyo, former state Rep. Daryl Pace, current Senate candidate Buddy Rogers, retired general Bernard Skoch, and Rogers mayor Steve Womack. Fayetteville city attorney David Whitaker seems to be the lone Democrat interested in this dark-red district.

• CA-12: Nothing sets off a stampede like an open U.S. House seat in California, where term limits keep people cycling in and out of the state legislature. With Rep. Jackie Speier sounding likely to run for state AG, state sen. Leland Yee, state Assemblyman Jerry Hill, and Assemblywoman Fiona Ma also have said they’re revving up for a run in the Democratic primary in this safely-blue seat.

• LA-02: Rep. Joe Cao seems to have gotten sucked into the downward spiral of direct mail marketing. He raised a pretty good $248K during the last quarter, but somehow managed to spend $283K, meaning he burned $35K and is sitting on only $316K CoH anymore.

• MN-03: Bad news in the 3rd: state Sen. Terri Bonoff, who probably should have been our candidate there in 2008, isn’t going to run there in 2010, instead going for another term in the state Senate. Maureen Hackett and Jim Meffert are facing off for the Democratic nod, but neither of them has Bonoff’s stature in the swingy suburban district.

• NY-15: The Memphis newspaper has an interesting profile of one of the candidates seeking to knock off increasingly-sketchy Rep. Charlie Rangel in the Democratic primary, Harlem community banker Vincent Morgan. What’s the Memphis angle on all this? Morgan is really a Ford; he’s the estranged son of currently imprisoned former state Sen. John Ford, and the cousin of former TN-09 Rep. and current possible NY-Sen candidate Harold Ford Jr. Morgan isn’t close with the family, and prefers to downplay the link.

• PA-08: The minor GOP candidates in the 8th seem to be bailing out, in the wake of the entry of a relative heavyweight, in the form of ex-Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, back to reclaim his seat. Attorney and Iraq vet Dean Malik, who seemed to be as close to a frontrunner as the GOP had pre-Fitzpatrick, dropped out last week and endorsed Fitzpatrick. The self-proclaimed teabagger in the race, Rob Mitchell, also pulled out and threw his support to Fitzpatrick.

• TN-04: Rep. Lincoln Davis had previously made it clear that he was running again, but it’s official today: he filed his paperwork for another run. That’s gotta be a relief for the DCCC, already trying to plug two holes in TN-06 and TN-08.

• TX-23: Former Bexar Co. Commissioner Lyle Larson, who torpedoed the GOP’s preferred candidate (Quico Canseco) in the 2008 primary and then went on to get swamped by Rep. Ciro Rodriguez in the general, won’t be running again this year. Instead, he’s getting into an open seat race for a Texas state House seat instead, giving Canseco a clearer shot this time.

• WV-01: A last-minute primary challenge to Rep. Alan Mollohan sneaked in, and it’s a rather serious one, from long-time state Sen. Mike Oliverio. Oliverio is giving up his Senate seat this year, maybe in hopes that Mollohan would retire; when Mollohan filed for re-election anyway, he may have figured he had nothing to lose by running anyway (although with Mollohan’s ethical cloud having been recently lifted, I’m not sure what Oliverio’s angle would be anymore). Also worth noting: state Sen. Clark Barnes, considering a leading GOP challenger, didn’t even file to run, apparently thinking better of it after the party started touting former state Rep. (and more importantly, potential self-financer) David McKinley instead. (You can check out all the Kentucky and West Virginia filings action in benawu‘s new diary.)

• Facebook: Which political website are you? If you answered “Swing State Project,” you can become a fan of us on Facebook and get regular updates in a largely quiz-free environment.

• NY-23: Well, it didn’t take long for Doug Hoffman to start bringing the crazy. (Maybe his new mentor Glenn Beck is already rubbing off on him.) First came the unconceding (and un-unconceding, as the absentee count wasn’t getting him any closer), but now he’s sending around a fundraising letter saying that “ACORN, the unions, and the Democratic Party” “tampered” with the election results, and that he was “forced to concede” on election night. Hoffman presents no evidence, the Republican elections commissioner of Jefferson County says that’s “absolutely false,” and the Owsego County Republican party chair says that’s “not accurate,” but why should that stop Hoffman? It’s actually a good argument to make, considering that it came out today that more than half of all Republicans polled by PPP think that ACORN stole the presidential election for Barack Obama (by stuffing the ballot boxes with more than 9 million votes, apparently). Meanwhile, aware of the risk next year from hordes of revenge-seeking teabaggers, the DCCC added new Rep. Bill Owens to its Frontline list of key defenses.

• KS-Sen: A lot of smoke seems to be pouring out from under the hood of Republican Rep. Todd Tiahrt’s Senate campaign, and this can’t help matters. Tiahrt’s campaign’s field coordinator in the state’s most populous county (Johnson Co., in the Kansas City suburbs) resigned after it was revealed he had been arrested in July for an alleged sexual assault in 2008.

• MA-Sen: With the fundraising reporting deadline past for the Oct. 1-Nov. 18 period, Rep. Michael Capuano reported raising $1.8 million during the period, leaving him with $1.1 million cash on hand. That’s dwarfed by AG Martha Coakley, though, who reports via press release that she raised $4.1 million during the same period It looks like Coakley’s press release reported cumulative totals – she actually raised around $2 million, with $1.9 million cash on hand left.

• UT-Sen: Lawyer Mike Lee (son of Reagan-era Solicitor General and former BYU president Rex Lee) is in Washington DC this week and is making a big play for Club for Growth backing in his potential primary duel with incumbent GOP Senator Bob Bennett. Bringing the CfG into Utah would open up one more front in the GOP civil war.

• TN-Gov: The Democratic primary field in the Tennessee governor’s race is as clear as mud, and current governor Phil Bredesen isn’t clearing anything up. He confirmed that he won’t endorse anybody.

• CO-04: There’s one more candidate in the GOP field in the 4th, and he’s pretty explicit about his status as what’s come to be known at SSP as “Some Dude.” Dean Madere works for a heating and air-conditioning company, and is a self-proclaimed “regular guy” who’s upset about the country’s direction (and, surprise surprise, is a member of Glenn Beck’s 9/12 movement).

• FL-24: He seems a little late to the party, but one more elected Republican is getting into the field in the 24th: former Winter Springs mayor (from 1998 to 2002) Paul Partyka. Winter Park city councilor Karen Diebel and state Rep. Sandy Adams are already in the hunt to go up against freshman Rep. Suzanne Kosmas.

• IA-03: There were rumors of a top-rate Republican challenger to Rep. Leonard Boswell, and we got our first look at him: former Iowa St. wrestling coach Jim Gibbons.  Gibbons doesn’t have previous electoral experience (and isn’t guaranteed a free path in the primary, as state Sen. Brad Zaun had sounded likely to run), but college wrestling is a high-profile sport in Iowa. (Maybe he and Linda McMahon win, they can form the Congressional Wrestling Caucus.)

• MN-06: State Sen. Tarryl Clark got a high-profile endorsement as she preps for a Democratic primary fight against Maureen Reed in the 6th. Al Franken threw his support behind Clark.

• TX-23: Rep. Ciro Rodriguez got a second GOP opponent; former CIA agent Will Hurd filed to run in the 23rd. Hurd will face a GOP primary against wealthy lawyer Quico Canseco, who lost the 2008 primary despite establishment backing.

• Ads: The NRCC is dipping into its skimpy funds to hit three veteran Dems who voted “yes” on health care with weeklong runs of TV spots: Reps. Vic Snyder, John Spratt, and Earl Pomeroy. Snyder seems to have a real race on his hands against Tim Griffin and Spratt is up against a state Senator, but Pomeroy faces only token opposition so far.

• Fundraising: This is odd; the NRCC and NRSC have canceled their President’s Dinner for next year. The joint fundraiser, held in June each year, is one of the Republicans’ biggest fundraising nights of the year. (Remember the brouhaha last year when Sarah Palin couldn’t decide whether or not she was headlining the fest.) The committees are exploring other more effective ways to fundraise now that they, uh, don’t have a Republican President anymore.

• Election law: Important election reforms passed the state House in Ohio yesterday, although it remains to be seen what happens in the GOP-held Senate. Reforms include: increasing number of locations for in-person early voting, requiring absentee ballots to be ready earlier, simplifying voter ID requirements, reducing the number of categories that require provisional ballots, adding automatic motor-voter and high-school-graduation registration, and automatically updating voting records upon changes to driver’s license records.

• DE-Sen: Rep. Mike Castle yesterday told a radio interviewer that he’d decide “in the next month or so” what, if anything, he’s going to run for. One possible hint, though, is that he said that there are some “good young elected officials in the state who possibly could run on a statewide basis and should be looked at,” and he specifically named some state legislators like state sen. Charlie Copeland and state Reps. Tom Kovach and Greg Lavelle.

• FL-Sen: Here’s another sign of trouble looming in the GOP primary for Charlie Crist, at least within the activist base, hot on the heels of his big loss in the Pasco County straw poll. The Volusia County GOP actually voted to censure him, over a list of grievances including his moderate judicial appointments, support of the Obama stimulus, and lack of support for Tom Feeney and Ric Keller last year. (Volusia Co.’s main city is Daytona Beach and population is over 400,000, so this isn’t one of those little Dixiecrat panhandle counties, either.)

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk downplayed the story of his Tweeting while on active military duty (as a Naval Reservist) at a news conference yesterday, but apologized for having done so.

• NH-Sen: Skepticism behind-the-scenes seems to be growing in New Hampshire, especially among conservative activists, about the ordination of Kelly Ayotte as Senate candidate, handed down from on high from the Beltway. Various on- and off-the-record insiders are unsure of her political leanings, ‘meh’ about her speaking style, and worried that she’s never had to raise funds before. A lot of this agitation has been coming from the state’s largest paper, the Manchester Union-Leader, which has a notably hard-right editorial page and has been fannish of likely primary opponent Ovide Lamontagne in the past.

• MN-Gov: This seemed to slip through the cracks last week, but Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak is sounding more like a candidate now. While giving a stump-ish speech to local Democrats, Rybak said that he’s “very likely” to enter the open seat gubernatorial race.

• NJ-Gov (pdf): In another indication that things are getting worse, not better, for Jon Corzine, the new poll from Monmouth shows him trailing Chris Christie by 14 points among likely voters, 50-36, with 4% to independent Chris Daggett. This is particularly troublesome because Monmouth has been the pollster most favorable to Corzine; he trailed by only 8 in the July poll. Interestingly, though, Corzine trails by only 4 (43-39) among registered voters, a narrower gap than in July — suggesting that his only hope is getting a lot of unlikely voters to turn out. Democrats countered with their own internal poll (pdf) today, showing Corzine down by “only” 7, 42-35-6.

• TX-Gov: You may recall that the Kay Bailey Hutchison campaign decided to pull the hidden phrase “rick perry gay” from its website’s code, but left a bunch of other hidden phrases (in the code, not meta-tags). That’s a big-time search-engine optimization party foul, though, and it led to Google and Yahoo pulling the website from their search indexes this weekend.

• CA-10: State Senator Mark DeSaulnier may have lost one of his most potent weapons: the State Department asked him to stop using the endorsement of his predecessor (and current Undersecretary of State for arms control) Ellen Tauscher. It’s not illegal, but they want to avoid any ethical impropriety. The primary special election is Sept. 1.

• FL-24: Rep. Suzanne Kosmas may find herself up against a celebrity candidate next year: former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz, who now lives in the Orlando area. Holtz has been in contact with the NRCC about the race, and certainly brings name recognition, but comes with a couple drawbacks: one, he’s 72 years old, ancient for a House freshman, and two, he raised some eyebrows last year after having to apologize for calling Hitler a great leader.

• LA-02: Kudos to Rep. Joseph Cao for having the courage to say out loud what we’re all thinking: “I know that voting against the health care bill will probably be the death of my political career.” Strange to give that sort of ammunition to potential opponents when it’s clear from his fundraising that he’s intending to run again.

• LA-03: Scott Angelle, natural resources secretary under both Kathleen Blanco and Bobby Jindal and former Democratic St. Martin parish president, is maintaining his interest in the possibly-vacant LA-03 seat. However, rumor has it that he may run for the seat as a Republican, and he did go on the record saying he’d “consider” swapping party labels (which are especially porous in Louisiana). State Rep. Nickie Monica says he’s in the race (as a Republican) regardless of whether or not Charlie Melancon pulls the trigger on a Senate run. One other Democrat not mentioned before who’s considering the race is 27-year-old New Orleans corporate lawyer Ravi Sangisetty, who grew up in Houma.

• MD-01: State Sen. Andy Harris is taking steps to solve one of the two problems that hampered him in last year’s election against Rep. Frank Kratovil: he’s coming to the Eastern Shore. He isn’t moving, but he will be working part-time (he’s a mild-mannered anesthesiologist by day) at the hospital in Salisbury, in order to bolster his Eastern Shore cred. It’ll be a little harder to paper over his other problem, which is that he’s a Club for Growth wacko. Harris was just named one of the NRCC’s Young Guns, despite the fact that he might still face a primary against less conservative and Eastern Shore-based state Sen. E.J. Pipkin, who seems like he’d pick up most of the votes that went for Wayne Gilchrest in the 2008 primary (although Pipkin may be looking at running for state Comptroller instead).

• NY-23: Despite interest from some colorful-sounding “activists,” it looks like the Conservative Party line in the upcoming special election is likely to go to a more establishment figure, accountant Doug Hoffman, who you may recall was one of the Republican wannabes not selected by the party apparatus. Hoffman attacked the hypothetical Democratic nominee and GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava as “Mr. Bad or Mrs. Worse.”

• MO-03: Rep. Russ Carnahan doesn’t usually draw more than a passing glance from the GOP in his D+7 district, but it looks like he’ll have a somewhat credible opponent in 2010. Ed Martin opened an exploratory committee for the race; he hasn’t been elected before, but has consummate insider credentials as Gov. Matt Blunt’s chief of staff for four years.

• RI-02: In an almost-one-party state like Rhode Island, primary challenges are a routine part of life. Rep. Jim Langevin fought off a primary challenge from professor Jennifer Lawless in 2006; in 2010, he’ll likely face state Rep. Elizabeth Dennigan (who had been planning to run for Lt. Governor, but had to drop that plan when incumbent Elizabeth Roberts decided to run for re-election instead of Governor). Although abortion was the flashpoint in 2006 (Langevin is pro-life), Dennigan says she won’t make much of an issue of it.

• TX-23: Pete Sessions is probably pounding his head on his desk right now. After getting self-funder Quico Canseco to come back for a clear shot at Rep. Ciro Rodriguez in the 23rd, Bexar Co. Commissioner Lyle Larson, who upset Canseco in the GOP primary in 2008, is saying he’s thinking of coming back for another try — potentially setting up another self-destructive primary.

• WI-03: Rep. Ron Kind is facing a real opponent for the first time in a while. State Sen. Dan Kapanke, who’s been acting candidate-ish for a long time, made it official yesterday that he’ll challenge the 14-year incumbent in 2010.

• OH-SoS: With Jennifer Brunner giving up her job to run in the Senate primary, the Secretary of State open seat race is turning into one of Ohio’s hottest tickets. While Democratic Franklin Co. Commissioner Marilyn Brown is in the race, she is trailing GOP state Sen. Jon Husted (who has $1.3 million) by about a 10-to-1 ratio for cash-on-hand. Now a second Democrat, state Rep. Jennifer Garrison from Marietta in the state’s southeast, is getting into the race. It’s a key race, as the SoS is one of the votes on the 5-member state legislative apportionment board, which Dems currently control 3-2, and which they’ll need to hold if they’re going to undo Republican-favorable gerrymanders in the state legislature.

• AR-Sen: I’m not sure what it is about the Arkansas Senate race that’s making it flypaper for never-before-elected wingnuts. At any rate, former Army colonel Conrad Reynolds, from Conway, announced his candidacy on Monday.

• FL-Sen: The Fix confirms that Marco Rubio will stay in the Florida GOP Senate primary, despite a terrible fundraising disparity and a brief public flirtation with dropping down to the AG race in the hopes of, y’know, not getting demolished.

• IL-Sen: Newly elected Rep. Mike Quigley became the third Democratic House member from Illinois to endorse Alexi Giannoulias today (although the endorsement may not even be necessary if Chris Kennedy doesn’t get around to showing up).

• MO-Sen: State Senator Chuck Purgason has been sending around e-mails telling the press that tomorrow he’ll hold a press conference (at the Ozark Cafe, in West Plains, if you happen to be in the area) where he’ll announce his plans for the GOP primary race against Rep. Roy Blunt. Spoiler alert! Purgason’s own e-mail goes on to say “It is expected that Purgason will announce that he will enter the race…”

• NH-Sen: Here are two items that fall in the “well, duh” file: Kelly Ayotte has set up an exploratory committee so she can consider running for Senate, and Senator Judd Gregg hints strongly that he plans to endorse her.

• WV-Sen: Here’s some good news, not just because we like to see our friends stay healthy but because he’s badly needed for cloture votes: Robert Byrd is back on the job on the Hill, after six weeks of hospitalization and some additional time to recuperate.

• KS-Gov: Kansas Democrats are back to Plan A in the 2010 Governor’s race (not that they ever really had a Plan B): going back to Gov. Mark Parkinson and begging him to reconsider his decision not to run for election to a full term. Parkinson remains adamant, though.

• ME-Gov: Another entrant to the Democratic field in the slow-to-take-shape Maine governor’s race: Portland businesswoman Rosa Scarcelli, who owns a housing company. Former state House Speaker and AG Steve Rowe still seems to have inside track for the Dems; the GOP, by contrast, doesn’t seem to have anyone yet.

• MI-Gov: The GOP primary in the Michigan governor’s race got even more cluttered today, when, as expected, businessman Rick Snyder got into the race. Snyder is a venture capitalist who briefly served as CEO of PC maker Gateway back in the 1990s.

• NJ-Gov: Chris Christie picked Monmouth County Sheriff Kimberly Guadagno as his Lt. Gov. candidate yesterday. It’s consistent with his approach of running a law and order, outsider-ish campaign. Christie supposedly also gave a lot of consideration to picking Rep. Frank LoBiondo, who, had he won, would have created a tasty pickup opportunity in NJ-02.

• UT-Gov: This week’s confirmation hearing of Jon Huntsman as ambassador to China is expected to be a quick affair. He could be in his new job before the summer recess, leaving Gary Herbert in charge of Utah in a matter of weeks.

• AL-07: In the wake of recent fundraising reports, Roll Call takes a look at the race to fill the open seat left behind by Rep. Artur Davis, running for Alabama governor. Corporate attorney Terri Sewell, thanks to her job, seems to have the best fundraising connections, and leads the money chase by far ($173K last quarter). However, she probably trails two other candidates in name recognition: state Rep. Earl Hilliard Jr. (son of the former Representative that Davis beat in a primary) and Jefferson Co. Commissioner Shelia Smoot, who is also known for having her own radio show. Also in the race are former Selma mayor James Perkins Jr., attorney Martha Bozeman (Davis’s former campaign manager), and businessman Eddison Walters (who racked up 9% against Davis in a 2006 primary).

• KS-02: Former Rep. Nancy Boyda landed on her feet, getting sworn in yesterday to her new job at the Pentagon, as deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for manpower and personnel. This would suggest she won’t be running again in KS-02, which is fine, as she seems better suited for a policy job than one that requires a lot of campaigning.

• NY-23: In other confirmation news, John McHugh’s confirmation hearing as Secretary of the Army won’t happen until after the August recess (although no one expects holds on the moderate Republican to be a problem). McHugh will remain in office until his confirmation, and after that there will still be several months’ lead time until a special election.

• TX-23: Republican lawyer and banker Quico Canseco is back for another whack at Rep. Ciro Rodriguez in the San Antonio-based 23rd. Actually, Canseco never got that whack in 2008 — highly touted by the NRCC, Canseco was upset in the GOP primary by Bexar Co. Commissioner Lyle Larson, despite spending over $1 million of his own money.

• Mayors: You may remember businessman Greg Fischer, who lost the 2008 Democratic Senate primary in Kentucky to Bruce Lunsford. He announced that he’ll run for Louisville mayor in 2010, as 20-year mayor Jerry Abramson recently announced he won’t run again.