Tag: Mayors

• CT-Sen: This is starting to sound like a broken record, but Rep. Joe Courtney is in the news again for saying that he’s still vaguely interested in getting into the Dem Senate primary. At least he has a somewhat more definite timetable, saying he’ll decide “by the end of this month.”

• FL-Sen: Quinnipiac is out with its first Florida poll of the 2012 cycle, and it’s remarkably similar to the other polling they’ve been doing so far this cycle (like OH and PA): they find a surprisingly high number of people with no opinion about the incumbent Democrat, and find him polling in the mid-40s on a generic ballot question, but still winning by an OK margin. Bill Nelson’s specific numbers vs. Generic R are 41-36; his approvals are pretty good at 45/21 and his re-elect is 43/33. On a related note, Nelson has the most cash of any Dem heading into 2012, in what, if only by virtue of the state’s population, may be 2012’s most expensive Senate race; he has more than $3 million CoH.

• MA-Sen, MA-04: I was a little surprised to see Barney Frank’s name even on the long list of potential candidates for the Massachusetts Senate race – he’s 70 years old and, if for some reason there’s a Democratic wave election in 2012 he could get his gavel back – so it’s not unusual to see his announcement today that he’s running for another term in the House in 2012.

• MN-Sen: Courtesy of Minnesota Public Radio, here’s a long list of additional Republicans who aren’t running for Senate in Minnesota. (The list of ones who are running would be more interesting but is much shorter, since it has zero names on it, with the possible exception of Harold Shudlick, who lost the 2006 Senate nomination with a proto-teabag candidacy.) Most notably it includes former state Rep. Laura Brod (who’s apparently on the short list to become a Univ. of Minnesota Regent instead), but also state Sen. Julie Rosen, state Sen. David Hann, Hennepin Co. Sheriff Rich Stanek, attorney Ron Schutz, and Bill Guidera, who is the state party’s finance chair but is employed as “lobbyist for News Corp.”  A Roll Call article from several weeks ago buried a few other “no thanks” too: businesswoman Susan Marvin, former T-Paw CoS Charlie Weaver, and former state Rep. Paul Kohls. (H/t Brian Valco.)

• MT-Sen, MT-AL: After a lot of rumors last week, it’s official as of today: Republican Senate candidate Steve Daines is dropping down to the open seat House race, where he probably becomes something of a frontrunner (rather than a speed bump for Denny Rehberg). He can transfer over the $200K he raised for his Senate race. The Fix has some additional names who might consider the House race (in addition to Democratic state Rep. Franke Wilmer, who started floating her name several days ago): businessman Neil Livingstone and state Sen. Roy Brown for the GOP, and state Sen. minority whip Kim Gillan, state Sen. Larry Jent, up-and-coming state Sen. Kendall Van Dyk (netroots candidate, anybody?), or attorney Tyler Gernant.

• WI-Sen: Is this the opening salvo of the 2012 Senate race? It comes from a familiar face (one who lost the 1998 Senate general election and 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary), ex-Rep. and real estate development magnate Mark Neumann. He engaged in the traditional pre-announcement tactic of penning an op-ed attacking the incumbent, in this case Herb Kohl and his vote against HCR repeal. If so, it would set up the battle of the self-funders.

• WV-Sen: The NRSC is out with its first ad of the cycle, and they’re getting right to work going after Joe Manchin, after he surprised at least some people by keeping ranks with the Dems and voting against HCR repeal. No trucker hats or plaid here… instead, they seem to be taking that “San Francisco values” (read: gay gay gay!) tack pioneered by Sam Graves in a notorious MO-06 ad in 2008, by comparing joined-at-the-hip pals Barack Obama and Joe Manchin to other legendary campy duos, like Sonny and Cher, and Siegfried and Roy.

• IN-Gov: Somebody’s not waiting for Mike Pence to make his move on the Indiana governor’s race! I say “somebody” because I really have no idea who this guy is, although he’s one step up from Some Dude by virtue of having been a Hamilton County Commissioner. Jim Wallace is the first to actually say he’ll seek the Republican nomination; he’s touting his business background (as a consultant to health insurance companies).

• WV-Gov: I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such a chaotically-planned election before, but now the state House and Senate in West Virginia can’t agree on what date they’re going to set for the special election to replace Joe Manchin. The House moved it up to Sep. 13, but then the Senate’s bill kept it at Oct. 4, which was the date proposed by Earl Ray Tomblin. At least they’re in agreement on the primary date, June 20. (There’s also a rundown on filings so far: the three Dems to file are the one’s you’d expect (Tomblin, Natalie Tennant, and Rick Thompson), while in addition to two expected GOPers (Betty Ireland, Mark Sorsaia), there’s also one whose name I hadn’t heard before, state Del. Patrick Lane.

• FL-25: You know you’re in for a short stay in the House when the Beltway media is already compiling lists of likely successors during your first month on the job. The Fix’s list of possible Republicans who might pick up after David Rivera in the event of a resignation/expulsion includes state Sen. Anitere Flores, former state Sen. Alex Villalobos, state Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, Miami-Dade school board member Carlos Curbelo, and former state Rep. J.C. Planas.

• MS-LG: With Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant the likeliest person to become Mississippi Governor in 2011, the jockeying to become Lt. Gov in 2011 (and thus probably become Governor in 2019) is underway. Republican state Treasurer Tate Reeves is the first to announce his bid.

• DCCC/Crossroads: The announcement that they were targeting 19 vulnerable Republicans this early in the cycle was a good move for the DCCC, but a lot of the wind subsequently went out of their sails when it was revealed (courtesy of Nathan Gonzales) that the effort was really more of a press release backed up by tiny radio ad buys, with a total of about $10,000 spent, working out to about $500 per member (and as low as $114 in VA-05, which is a cheap market, but still…). That was met by a retaliatory buy from the Karl Rove-linked GOP dark money outfit American Crossroads, where the clearly telegraphed subtext was “You’re broke; we have money.” They spent $90,000 to air radio ads in those same markets, which at less than $5,000 per member is still chicken feed but, in terms of The Math, noticeably larger. Of course, that $114 is a pretty good return on investment, if it got Robert Hurt publicly backpedaling on just how much he wants to cut infrastructure spending.

• Mayors: The Las Vegas mayoral race just took an interesting turn yesterday, when former school board president (and more notably, wife of outgoing mayor-for-life Oscar Goodman) Carol Goodman reversed course and said that she would, in fact, run for mayor. By virtue of name rec, that may catapult her to the front of the line.

• Redistricting: This may be our first-ever episode of Swingnuts in the News, but Josh Goodman (now writing for Stateline) has an interview with Dave Bradlee (of Dave’s Redistricting App fame) in his new article on the rise of DIY redistricting in general. (He also briefly cites abgin’s now-legendary map of New York state.) He also points out that at least two states, Idaho and Florida, will make similar applications available online for tinkerers, as well as the Public Mapping Project’s efforts to create a more comprehensive public service.

• Census: The 2010 data for Louisiana, Missisippi, New Jersey, and Virginia is out… at least in cumbersome FTP form. American FactFinder won’t have the data until later today or tomorrow. (Looks like Dave Wasserman’s already cracked open the data and has tweeted one interesting tidbit: New Orleans’ population came in 29.1% lower than 2000, and even 3.1% below the 2009 ACS estimate.

• CT-Sen: Murphmentum! Rep. Chris Murphy, in the race to replace Joe Lieberman, seems to have a sizable early edge in both the primary and general elections, at least according to his internal poll from the Gotham Research Group (with a Jan. 3-5 sample period, so pre-Murphy’s campaign launch and pre-Lieberman’s retirement). In the primary, he leads a two-way race against Susan Bysiewicz, 40-31. In the general, he leads Linda McMahon 54-35 and leads Rob Simmons 46-34 (which is quite the testament to McMahon’s toxicity). The spread on the primary numbers is close to the 47-35 mystery poll that was widely mentioned on Murphy’s announcement day, although the Murphy campaign reiterates that that poll wasn’t theirs.

• MN-Sen: Norm Coleman (currently heading American Action Network, who were big players on the dark money front in 2010) is saying that he’s not ruling out another run for office, although couching that by saying he’s enjoying being out of the news on a regular basis. No indication what he wants to run for, though.

• MO-Sen: Here’s one more name to add to the list for Missouri… or to add back to the list, after briefly being off the list while the pursued the chairmanship of the RNC. Ann Wagner, a former ambassador to Luxembourg, former RNC vice-chair, and former campaign manager to Roy Blunt (can’t get much more GOP establishment than that resume), is publicly weighing the race again. (She says she’d defer to Jim Talent, though, but that’s looking less likely.) And here’s an early endorsement for Ed Martin, the former MO-03 candidate who’s emerging as something of the tea party favorite in the field, if he decides to run; he got the endorsement of Phyllis Schlafly, Missouri-based 80s right-wing icon who still has a lot of pull in social conservative circles.

• OH-Sen: Rep. Jim Jordan is back in the news for saying that he’s “leaning against” a run against Sherrod Brown. If I recall correctly, he’s been “leaning against” the race for months, so things don’t seem to have changed much here.

• LA-Gov: Louisiana Democrats seem to be turning their attention toward something that’s previously eluded them: a potentially willing candidate to go up against Bobby Jindal. Former SoS Al Ater, well-regarded for getting the state electoral system back in gear after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, still sounds pretty noncommittal, perhaps most about the idea of spending his own money on the race (self-financing seems to be the Dems’ main criteria for the race, and while Ater has money, he doesn’t sound happy about spending much of it).

• IA-03: Christie Vilsack is seemingly moving toward a run for the House in 2012, meeting with donors and labor leaders to lay some groundwork. This seems strange, though, because all three of the state’s House Dems say they’re running for re-election, including 77-year-old Leonard Boswell. (Vilsack would be likeliest to run in the 3rd, or whatever the Des Moines-area district will be called once redistricting happens.) She won’t make a formal decision until April, when the new four-district redistricting maps will be unveiled, but for now it looks like, unless she’s going to run against Steve King, there’s a collision course with an existing Dem.

• Chicago mayor: Fresh off a surprising setback in the Illinois Appellate Court, which reversed lower court rulings that he was a Chicago resident and eligible to become mayor, Rahm Emanuel has appealed to the state Supreme Court; they’ve announced they’ll hear the case on an expedited basis, with no oral arguments, so we should be out of limbo pretty soon. There was a brief period where it looked like the city was going to go ahead and start printing ballots without Emanuel’s name (which would basically be the kiss of death), but also today, a stay was ordered that pushes back the ballot printing until the case is fully decided. Also, in case you though this was all just about a legitimate case of differences in statutory interpretation, with grownups disagreeing about what an inadequately-specific law means, guess again. (Forget it, Jake. It’s Chicago.) It turns out that two of the three Appellate Court judges on the case were slated by the 14th district Alderman Edward Burke, a local powerbroker who’s a staunch Emanuel rival and a key Gery Chico backer. This leads to the question of whether supreme court justice Anne Burke, who may have a certain loyalty to Edward seeing as how she’s married to him, will recuse herself from the Emanuel case.

• Omaha mayor: There’s one special election on tap today: a recall election in Omaha, against mayor Jim Suttle. There’s no scandal or malfeasance alleged, just anger about over usual teabagger grievances like “excessive taxes, broken promises, and union deals,” as well as the unspoken obvious: while it’s an ostensibly nonpartisan job, Suttle’s a Democrat. (Omaha seems particularly trigger-happy about recalls; Mike Boyle was successfully recalled in 1987.)

• Senate: Somehow it doesn’t seem unusual, but what George Allen is attempting (and what Jim Talent could attempt, too) is, in fact, highly unusual. Only five Senators have lost re-election and then come back to the Senate… but most of them (Slade Gorton most recently) were elected to their state’s other Senate seat. What Allen is doing is even more unusual: defeating the guy who beat you six years ago in order to reclaim your seat seems to have happened all of once in history. Thanks to UMN’s Smart Politics, it looks like the one time was in 1934, when Rhode Island Democrat Peter Gerry (the great-grandson of Elbridge Gerry, in case you’re wondering) beat one-term Republican Felix Hebert, who had knocked him out in the GOP tsunami of 1928.

• DGA: The Democratic Governor’s Association announced its new hires for the cycle, including the Patriot Majority’s Dan Sena as its political director. We’re especially happy to see their new hire for communication director: friend-to-the-site Lis Smith, last seen on Ted Strickland’s campaign.

• Redistricting: There’s some redistricting-related drama looming in New York, where the Senate Republicans are backing away from promises of a non-partisan redistricting map. Andrew Cuomo has signaled that he’d veto any map that wasn’t non-partisan, but is now suggesting he can negotiate on that, in exchange for other priorities. There was also a smaller battle in Georgia, won by Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle (who, in his role as Senate president, got to reassert his authority over the process), where the stakes are lower since the GOP controls the trifecta. The battle was against Senate president pro tem Tommie Williams… Williams is from the south (unlike Nathan Deal, Cagle, and the House speaker, all from the north) and has a stake in keeping the underpopulated southern part of the state’s interests represented at the table.

One of the big question marks for redistricting is Florida, where the initiative that passed, limiting gerrymandering, still has to run the gauntlet in the courts; the GOP in the state House are joining the suit against the initiative that was filed jointly by Mario Diaz-Balart and Corrine Brown (not surprising that they’d support it, since the GOP controls the trifecta and the legislature would get to resume gerrymandering if it’s struck down). Finally, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette takes a look at Pennsylvania redistricting prospects, concluding (rightly, in my estimation) that the axe is likely to fall in the southwest corner of the state because of its stagnant population, and suggesting that the likeliest removal from the House will be the loser of a Jason Altmire/Mark Critz mashup.

• CA-Sen: Does Meg Whitman seriously not have anything better to do with her money? Rumors are bubbling up that she’s actually considering a return to politics… which, if it’s going to be in 2012, would mean a run against Dianne Feinstein (which, of course, would mean a run against the state’s most popular politician in a presidential year, instead of an open seat run in a down year for Dems).

• MT-Sen: Republican businessman (and one-time LG candidate) Steve Daines did some serious fundraising in the last few months since announcing his candidacy, hauling in $225K since his announcement, with the majority of that money coming from in-state. The main target he’s probably trying to scare with that money isn’t Jon Tester (who has about $500K CoH), but Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg, who’s usually the GOPer most associated with this race but has sounded noncommittal so far; I’m sure Daines would like to see Rehberg stay out of the Senate primary. Rehberg has $594K. One other Montana Senate item, although it hopefully won’t be an issue any time soon: the Montana legislature is considering whether, in the event of a Senate vacancy, to switch over from gubernatorial appointment to a fast special election instead.

• OH-Sen: Quinnipiac has a poll today of the Ohio Senate race, but, like their Pennsylvania poll last month, the lack of an obvious Republican opponent means the matchup is just against Generic R. Sherrod Brown does pretty well against G.R., especially considering that actual named candidates tend not to do as well as generics at least at this stage in the game; Brown leads 45-33, and has an approval of 45/25. This is definitely a race where we shouldn’t start celebrating short of the end zone, though, considering that PPP recently found Brown in much more of a pickle, and even Qpac points out he’s far from the 50% mark and in “decent but not overwhelming” shape. The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s writeup of the poll spends a lot of ink talking up Rep. Steve LaTourette as a possible GOP candidate; while he’d bring some geographic strengths to the race that other GOPers might not, there hasn’t been any indication so far that he’s interested.

• RI-Sen, RI-Gov: Sheldon Whitehouse looks like he’s dodged at least one credible candidate in 2012; John Robitaille, who came close in the 2010 gubernatorial race (although that was only because of the center-left vote split between Lincoln Chafee and Frank Caprio) and has expressed interest in running for something else, now seems focused on a retry in the 2014 gubernatorial race. Partly, he admits, that’s because running statewide as a Republican in Rhode Island in a presidential year would be a kamikaze mission.

• WV-Gov: SoS Natalie Tennant has gotten endless mentions as a likely gubernatorial candidate, but with the clock ticking to the now-only-nine-months-away special election, she’s made her candidacy official as of yesterday.

• FL-25: OK, here’s a trivia question for you all (which I genuinely don’t know the answer to)… which House freshman holds the record for the shortest partial term, before having to resign in shame? (I’m wondering if Eric Massa actually holds the record, but I’d bet there’s some historical example of someone accomplishing it in less than one year.) The reason I ask is that things seem to be moving into a new phase in the investigation into David Rivera, and whether piles of money paid from a dog track that he helped, to his mother’s marketing company, found their way into his pockets. The Miami-Dade County’s state’s attorney, Katherine Fernandez Rundle, just turned the case over to the Florida Dept. of Law Enforcement. Although that sounds ominous, some observers are seeing the move as a downgrade, though, as the FDLE may not devote the same level of resources to it; Rundle has been viewed as a possible Dem challenger in this district, and may be punting the case to avoid it becoming a liability for her later.

• MI-15: Rep. John Dingell (84 years old) says he’ll be back for an unprecedented 30th term in the House, running again in 2012. One important detail, though: whatever district he’s running in, it won’t be the 15th next time, as Michigan is about to lose a seat. Dingell has survived multiple bad redistrictings over the decades, including beating fellow Democratic Rep. Lynn Rivers in a 2002 primary mashup. (Thanks to Greg Giroux, we know now that Dingell will pass Robert Byrd in all-time legislative service in June of 2013.)

• Mayors: Two mayoral races are in the news today, although both aren’t up for grabs until 2012. Two-term incumbent Buddy Dyer (who used to be the Democratic leader in the Florida state Senate) says he’s going to run for another term as mayor of Orlando. He also mentioned some vague gubernatorial aspirations. Also, Portland, Oregon will elect a new mayor in ’12; all the action will be in the Democratic primary, where it’s not certain that Sam Adams (damaged by a sex scandal several years ago) will run for a second term. One interesting possibility mentioned: former Senate candidate Steve Novick, who gained a lot of netroots attention during his ’08 Dem primary run, is seriously considering a run.

• Votes: As you’re probably already aware, the Dems held the defections down to three on yesterday’s HCR repeal vote. It was the three likeliest suspects, given the combination of their dark-red districts and previous statements on the matter: OK-02’s Dan Boren, NC-07’s Mike McIntyre, and AR-04’s Mike Ross. UT-02’s Jim Matheson has the reddest district of any “no” vote, but he’s a member of leadership and may be sanguine about getting a better district out of redistricting next year (or just figuring that the worst is past).

• Redistricting: Arizona legislative Republicans sort of succeeded with their quest to get three members of the state redistricting panel kicked off (on the grounds that they were serving in other political offices); however, it was a partial success because only two of the three challenged members got kicked off by the state supreme court and the one they were really targeting the most didn’t get kicked off. Also, if you’re in Virginia and you’re a college student, the state is having a redistricting contest. No word on whether you absolutely have to be part of a team or can do it individually, but the winners get a cash prize and get to present the design for new congressional and legislative maps to the Governor’s entirely-nonbinding advisory panel. (Actually, it looks like it’s too late to start a team if your college doesn’t already have one, but your college probably already has a team which you might be able to join. See here for the details.)

• FL-Sen: With everyone fixated on the three retirements in the Senate in the last week (although the Fix makes the good point this morning that by this point in the 2010 cycle, there had already been four retirements), Bill Nelson seems compelled to point out that he won’t be one of them. In front of as many reporters as possible (at an AP gathering), he confirmed today that he’s running again.

• MO-Sen, MO-06: Wow, this is out of nowhere (although I’m not sure whether this is going to have any legs beyond today), but potentially very interesting: Republican Rep. Sam Graves is suddenly expressing some interest in the Senate race, calling it a “great opportunity.” He’s been in the House since 2000 and is chair of the Small Business Committee, so giving that up would be a big move. He may be seeing the diminished likelihood of a Jim Talent run and sensing there’s room for another establishmentarian-type candidate to go against the more tea-flavored Sarah Steelman. (This would open up MO-06 in the state’s rural northwest, which was Dem-held before Graves but has shifted to the right, currently R+7; Dems tried to make it competitive in 2008 and didn’t get any traction.)

• ND-Sen: Ready for a whole lot of names of people who might run for Senate? In fact, let me just blockquote the Bismarck Tribune, rather than transcribing it laboriously:

The list of Republicans whose names are being thrown out include Gov. Jack Dalrymple, Lt. Gov. Drew Wrigley, Rep. Rick Berg, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem, Tax Commissioner Cory Fong, Public Service Commissioners [Brian] Kalk and Kevin Cramer, Sen. John Hoeven’s state director Shane Goettle, GOP state treasurer Bob Harms, and Great Plains Software developer Doug Burgum.

As for Democrats, names circulating include both [ex-state Sen. and radio host]Joel and [ex-AG] Heidi Heitkamp, former state Sen. Tracy Potter, USDA Rural Development Director Jasper Schneider, state Sen. Mac Schneider, U.S Attorney Tim Purdon, Conrad’s state director Scott Stofferahn and former Byron Dorgan staffer Pam Gulleson, former agriculture commissioner Sara Vogel, former state Rep. Chris Griffin, State Sen. Tim Mathern of Fargo, Senate Minority Leader Ryan Taylor and even Earl Pomeroy.

The Bismarck Tribune article also gets a number of these people on record, although their comments are all various degrees of noncommittal. Kent Conrad tipped his hand a bit yesterday, giving nods in the Grand Forks Herald to both Heitkamps, as well as to Schneider. One other Dem who got mentioned a lot yesterday, Roger Johnson (the president of the National Farmers Union) has already said he’s not interested. And in what’s not a surprise, the Tea Partiers aren’t happy with anyone of ’em (although some had some words of praise for Berg), but are still promising to “battle for control.”

• VT-Sen: It looks like Republican state Auditor Tom Salmon’s Facebook attacks on Bernie Sanders weren’t just the work of a bored guy at work but, as many speculated, part of a coordinated plan to move toward a run against Sanders; he’s now publicly saying that he he’s interested in the race. Color me puzzled: why would Salmon (who was a Democrat until a year and a half ago) go after an entrenched institution like Sanders in 2012 when he could run for Gov. against Peter Shumlin, who’s just getting situated and won by only a narrow margin in 2010?

• KY-Gov: This one gets filed straight to the Department of Foregone Conclusions, but it was made official today: Republican state Sen. president David Williams and Ag Comm. Richie Farmer filed their candidacy papers today, to go up against incumbent Dem Steve Beshear in November.

• WV-Gov: We’re getting some pushback/clarification from Shelley Moore Capito’s team regarding claims from gubernatorial candidate Betty Ireland that she wasn’t going to run for Governor; a spokesperson says the only thing that’s off the table is a run in the special election for Governor (which we know now will be held this November). She’s still open to a bid for either Governor or Senate in 2012. Dave Catanese also wonders whether Capito’s timeline is a little longer, i.e. a 2014 run against Jay Rockefeller (or for his open seat, if he retires, seeing as how he’ll be 77 then). It’s also looking like the candidates for November’s special election will be picked by primary rather than by the parties; acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, who was the main impediment to a 2011 election until yesterday’s supreme court ruling, says he’s working with SoS (and likely Dem primary opponent) Natalie Tennant to set special primaries in motion.

• NY-13: Ex-Rep. Mike McMahon seems to be laying groundwork for a rematch against Mike Grimm, who defeated him narrowly in 2010. He reached out to members of the Staten Island Democratic Association at a meeting last night.

• OR-01: Rep. David Wu has always struck people as a little odd (many of you probably remember his Klingons speech), but it seems like something has intensified lately, and it’s starting to come out in the open. It’s been revealed that in the last few months, he’s lost a number of his key staffers amidst complaints about his public behavior, including his chief of staff (who left to join a Rep. with less seniority) and his communications director (who left without having another job lined up, which is even more highly unusual, especially in this economic climate). This chief fundraiser and chief pollster also say they don’t plan to work with him any longer. This is a D+8 district with a robust Dem bench, which is good because this may be a difficult story for Wu to shake, especially given general rumblings of discontent with him that have been building over time.

• Mayors: Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter looks like he’s in good shape for his 2011 re-election, according to a new poll from Municipoll. Nutter’s at 47-39 against Generic D primary opponent, wins a three-way primary against Bill Green and Anthony Williams 46-21-18, and wins a three-way against Sam Katz and Williams 44-22-21. Interestingly (though consistent with the original coalition that elected him), Nutter has stronger support among whites (64% favorable) than he does among African-Americans, at 45%. (Nutter is black.) Nutter also just secured the support of the Laborers union. Even further down the weeds in Philly, Republican state Rep. (and, briefly, former speaker) Dennis O’Brien will run for a vacant city council seat in NE Philly. That’s good news, because it might free up his state House seat and make any Dem attempt to retake the state House in 2012 easier, seeing as how his seat is one of the most Dem-leaning seats held by a Republican.

• Minnesota: Two stories developing in Minnesota; one, the legal battle over 2012 redistricting has already begun, with Minnesota its first flashpoint. With the GOP controlling the legislature (but not the governorship), Dems have filed a suit seeking an injunction requiring legislators to submit proposed redistricting plans directly to the court (where they’ll probably wind up anyway, regardless of how this suit goes). Also, Minnesota GOP legislators are seeking to emulate their next-door neighbors in Wisconsin in making it more difficult to vote, seeking to push a voter ID bill.

• Redistricting: You may remember some Republican laments from a few days ago about the apparent failure of their MAPS program to raise the money needed to coordinate redistricting at a national level; those fears seem to be spreading, including to ex-Rep. Tom Reynolds, who’s spearheading the process for the GOP this year. Part of the problem seems to be that they spent so much money winning control of state legislatures in November that nothing was reserved for coordinating the subsequent redistricting. Nathan Gonzales also previews how state legislators from both parties are currently hunkering down in Washington learning (since many weren’t in office in 2000) the redistricting process from the ground up; in particular, they’re learning the new technologies (like GIS programs like Maptitude), which obviously have come a long way since the last round of redistricting.

• Census: Hats off to the Census Bureau, who, just in time to go with their upcoming onslaught of 2010 data, have launched a new and improved version of American FactFinder (the main research tool on their site), a significant improvement over the rather clumsy and unintuitive existing version. I wouldn’t go so far as to call the new version intuitive either, but it makes multi-variable searches and customized maps much easier.

• FL-Sen: State sen. President Mike Haridopolos already has a key endorser in his column for the likely-to-be-hotly-contested GOP Senate primary: former state party chair John Thrasher. Of course, Thrasher (the former state Sen. president, and who also just got appointed Rules Comm. chair by Haridopolos) and Haridopolos are tight from the state Senate, so it may not be a big surprise. Meanwhile, it seems like the Republican field may have its own Jeff Greene-type candidate, i.e. some guy with a lot of money and a senatorial itch to scratch but no credible reason to run for office: Nicholas Loeb. Loeb, who’s 35, is the great-grandson of one of the original Lehman Brothers and the son of a Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to Denmark, once ran briefly for a Florida state Senate seat but dropped out amidst a divorce from his wife. Loeb may currently be best-known as boyfriend to TV star Sofia Vergara.

• IN-Sen: Richard Lugar is saying he’s preparing (in the form of ramped-up fundraising operations) for what, at this point, is the inevitable: a challenge from the right. Nevertheless, despite his imminent teabagging, he’s doubling-down on his reasonableness, this time with statements in favor of restoring the ban on assault weapons. And here’s an ironic blast from the past that really puts the increase in partisanship by Senate Republicans over the years into perspective: in 1977, as a freshman, Richard Lugar was deemed by CQ as having the highest party unity score of any Republican. At this point, only five GOPers are less loyal.

• MA-Sen: Democrats seem to have their first “real” candidate announcing his presence in the Senate race, although I haven’t heard his name before and have to wonder whether he’ll turn into a credible presence here. Bob Massie was the 1994 candidate for Lt. Governor, but he’s better known for his entrepreneurial work, which includes investing in a fair amount of socially conscious stuff. He also has quite the interesting resume: Episcopal priest with a Harvard Business Ph.D who also happens to be one of the longest-surviving HIV patients ever.

• MO-Sen: There’s one potentially interesting story for the Missouri Senate race that comes out of Friday’s RNC chair election (won by Wisconsin’s Reince Priebus): one of the losers was Ann Wagner, who had initially expressed some interest in running for Senate but then threw her hat in the RNC ring. Her loss frees her up to think about the Senate again, although there’s no comment from her camp on that beyond “Stay tuned.”

• ND-Sen: PSC Commissioner Brian Kalk’s early start on seeking the GOP nomination in North Dakota seems to have just had the effect of painting a big target on his back. State House majority leader Al Carlson (whom I haven’t seen mentioned as a candidate before, and may be kneecapping Kalk on someone else’s behalf) says Kalk’s attempts to scare everybody else off won’t work. Gary Emineth, the former state GOP chair, also seems unimpressed, even floating his own name for the race.

• PA-Sen: On Friday we mentioned that Mark Schweiker’s decision to become a lobbyist betrayed a pretty clear intent not to run for Senate, and over the weekend Schweiker confirmed that he’s not looking at the race. The Republican ex-Gov says the race “was never in the cards.”

• TX-Sen: Two more heavyweights definitely seem moving toward the GOP gubernatorial battle. Dallas mayor Tom Leppert confirmed what everyone has expected for the last week: that he won’t run for a second term (while he didn’t specifically say he’d run for Sen., this certainly points that way). Leppert, who seems to occupy the most moderate position in the field, would have a good shot at following the Rick Snyder/Bill Haslam path against a field chock full o’ nuts if there weren’t the little matter of Texas having runoffs, which would force him into a one-on-one with a fire-breather. Speaking of which, Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams has now confirmed that he’ll run, and he’s resigning from his state post in order to campaign full-time for Senate. The other, less tea-flavored Williams — Roger Williams, the former SoS who’s also a big-name car dealer and the self-proclaimed big business candidate in the race — has already nailed down a name-brand endorser (although not one likely to help him much with today’s flavor of conservatives, especially given how useful his endorsement of Kay Bailey Hutchison was in the 2010 gubernatorial primary): George H.W. Bush.

Meanwhile, here’s a strange possibility: septuagenarian goldbug Ron Paul may actually be interested in making the race (and thus joining his son in the Senate). At least he’s polling visitors to RonPaul.com on whether he should run. (Um, maybe someone should familiarize him with the concept of self-selection bias?) And finally, here’s a list of the recently-declared no-thankses: state Senator Florence Shapiro on the GOP side, and state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte and Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia on the Dem side.

• WY-Sen: Back when we did our Teabagger Cattle Call last month, we easily stipulated that John Barrasso, one of the most conservative members of the Senate, was the least likely incumbent up in 2012 to get teabagged. Nevertheless, buried in this article on Sal Russo’s plans for the Tea Party Express, is an astonishing line that, if true, is indicative of just how mindless the orgy of uncritical own-eating has become on the GOP’s far-right:

Democrats still control the Senate and White House, he noted in an interview from Wyoming, where he was visiting potential Senate candidates for 2012.

(H/t to Brian Valco for the catch.)

• ME-Gov: Paul LePage seems to fancy himself a Chris Christie-type in the making, figuring he might survive his blue-leaning state by endearing himself to independents through a lot of everyman-style blustering and sacred cow-punching. He seems to have gotten off to a complete fail of a start, though, with Friday’s comments telling the NAACP to “kiss my ass” in response to questions about why he wasn’t attending any Martin Luther King Day celebrations. Rather than trying to own that, though, LePage seems to have already backed down, slinking unannounced into Waterville’s MLK Day breakfast after all.

• MS-Gov: If you’ve ever wanted to see teabagging in its purest, most undistilled form, look no further than the just-announced candidacy of state revenue department “employee” James Broadwater for the GOP gubernatorial primary. His two main action items: eliminating all taxes other than sales tax, and using the state National Guard to enforce immigration laws.

• NY-Gov: Siena has a new poll of New York state out that shows the state’s famously cantankerous residents’ views about nearly everything improving, whether it be the President, the legislature, or race relations. The most eye-popping numbers are those of new Gov. Andrew Cuomo, still in the honeymoon period but for now with a deity-like 70/17 approval.

• MO-05: With the likelihood that the 5th will have to take on more Republican voters in the face of Missouri losing one of its nine House seats (since Kansas City is surrounded by red exurbs and rural counties in each direction, there’s really no other way to play it), it’s sounding like Emanuel Cleaver might face a stronger challenge than he’s used to in 2012. Republican former state Sen. Bill Kenney is scoping out the race, assuming that the currently D+10 district will become somewhat less solidly-Dem than before. (Recall that Cleaver’s 2010 victory, against little-known Jacob Turk, was a pretty unconvincing 53-42, although that was against a backdrop of statewide destruction for the Dems.)

• NC-08: Here’s a pretty clear sign that Robin Hayes (the Republican holder of this seat until 2008, and a rumored rematch in the early part of the 2010 cycle) won’t be running in a potentially-friendlier (thanks to GOP-controlled redistricting) 8th in 2012. He’s taking over as head of the North Carolina state GOP organization.

• KY-AG: In his bid for re-election, Democratic AG Jack Conway seems to have dodged his most compelling remaining Republican opponent. Former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph Lambert decided not to run against Conway after not being able to secure a leave of absence from the state’s senior judge program (which lets him sit in as a temp judge when needed). With Trey Grayson already backing up his moving van to leave the state, that leaves Hopkins County state attorney Todd P’Pool as the only logical GOP candidate left.

• TX-LG: With David Dewhurst about to move on from his long stint as the state’s #2, a couple other statewide Republicans are already jostling for that position: Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and Comptroller Susan Combs. (Note that the LG election is in 2014, though, so if Dewhurst wins the 2012 Senate race there will be an appointee already filling that slot who’d have an incumbency advantage… and if Dewhurst loses, he may decide to keep on being LG on to infinity.)

• Mayors: Columbus mayor Michael Coleman, up for re-election in November, already knows who his Republican opponent will be (as apparently the nominee gets picked by the county’s central committee, rather than by primary). He’ll face Earl Smith, a familiar face to voters from his former job as the police department’s spokesman.

• CT-Sen: Rep. Chris Murphy has been studiously avoiding saying he’s running for Senate, but seems to be dancing up to the edge of it more. He tells the Hartford Courant that he’s “interested” and that his decision will be “independent” of whether or not Joe Lieberman decides to run for another term. Murphy’s also claiming the backing of 2010 Lt. Gov. candidate Mary Glassman. Murphy may have a large hurdle to clear even before getting to take on Lieberman, though; here’s another reminder that Rep. Joe Courtney is still scoping out the Senate race too. Dem insiders and labor leaders are conflicted, with the differences between the two more stylistic than ideological, and are, at this point, mostly just hoping to avoid a divisive primary.

• FL-Sen: The Republicans have their first big-name candidate to go up against Bill Nelson, although several more seem likely to get in: state Senate president Mike Haridopolos hasn’t formally announced, but unveiled his operation yesterday, kicking off his fundraising efforts and launching his website. For what it’s worth (not worth much, since Nelson is a thoroughly-known statewide figure at this point) Nelson and Haridopolos share the same geographical turf on the Space Coast.

• HI-Sen: An interview with Mufi Hannemann, now decamped to the private sector, raises the question of the 2012 Senate race. Hannemann says that octogenarian Dan Akaka has indicated to him that he’ll run again, and he would never run against Akaka, but would “look at it” if there were an opening instead.

• MA-Sen: We’ve already seen the mayors of some of Massachusetts’s cities cited as potential candidates (especially Newton’s Setti Warren), but here’s another one to keep in mind: Salem mayor Kim Driscoll, who has been asking around about the race. Two other mayors get cited in the piece as additional down-in-the-weeds possibilities for the Dems: New Bedford’s Scott Lang and Fitchburg’s Lisa Wong.

• PA-Sen: The magic 8-ball is telling us that Mark Schweiker’s odds of running for Senate are pretty hazy at this point. The ex-Gov. just took on a “senior advisor” role (read: lobbyist) at a major law firm, which isn’t usually the action of a likely candidate for something.

• TX-Sen: The big question today seems to be who all will pile into the overstuffed clown car that will be the GOP field to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison (who announced her retirement yesterday). Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has already said he’s in (which may have surprised some people who thought he was more interested in becoming Governor instead… although those who know Texas politics know that being Governor is actually a step down from being Lt. Governor). Lots of sources today have long lists of all the potential candidates, with the one from the Texas Tribune probably the most thorough, with the other “high” probability GOPers besides Dewhurst being Elizabeth Ames Jones (the mama grizzly), Michael Williams (the teabaggers’ fave), Roger Williams (the business candidate), and the state’s former solicitor general, Ted Cruz. One other interesting bit of news is that right-wing kingmaker Jim DeMint, who has been squarely behind Michael Williams so far, is branching out his support, also expressing an interest in Cruz (probably at the best of social conservatives, who seem particularly fond of Cruz).

As for the Dems, most of the news has been prominent potential candidates saying “I’m not touching this one.” That includes former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk and former Houston mayor Bill White, both of whom have already lost statewide. While John Sharp is expected to run (though he hasn’t said anything official since KBH’s announcement), some Dems are already casting an eager eye toward San Antonio mayor Julian Castro, an up-and-comer who they think may be ready for prime time, calling the charismatic 30-something the Dems’ “Marco Rubio.” Other fallback options might include recently defeated ex-Rep. Chet Edwards, or two state Sens., Kirk Watson and Leticia van de Putte, who both were briefly speculation-subjects for last year’s gubernatorial race.

• MT-Gov: Here’s one more Republican candidate for the open seat gubernatorial race, where the field is dominated by ex-Rep. Rick Hill but two state Senators are also in the mix. Jim O’Hara is an elected official, although it barely gets him out of Some Dude territory: he’s a Chouteau County Commissioner (population approximately 5,000).

• WA-Gov: Chris Gregoire’s popularity in Washington seems to be keeping on dwindling; a recent Elway poll put her at just 38/61, worse than her position before the 2010 election. While nobody’s really expecting her to run for a technically-possible third term, it’s likely she won’t announce her plans until after the legislative session is done in order to avoid being a lame duck and have some clout instead.

• MA-06: Rep. John Tierney’s wife, Patrice, was sentenced to 30 days in jail for aiding and abetting filing of false tax returns (on behalf of her fugitive brother). This is worth a mention here only because it could weigh on Tierney in terms of retirement or drawing a legitimate challenger for 2012, although this mini-scandal has been in the news for months and didn’t seem to have caused of an impression in 2010 (although Tierney’s kooky opponent probably wasn’t in a position to capitalize).

• WA-St. House: There’s legislation afoot in Washington that could dramatically change the way the state House is set up. Currently, each of the state’s 49 legislative districts elect one senator and two representatives (meaning each Washingtonian has three state legislators to keep track of, instead of two). The proposed changes would move Washington toward the more conventional system of 98 individually-districted House districts, which would give each Rep. half as many constituents and in theory make them more accessible. There’s no indication, though, of whether this has the backing to go anywhere or if it’s just one Rep.’s personal hobby horse.

• Mayors: One of the higher-profile mayoral races up for grabs this November will be in Las Vegas, although it’s doubtful any of the contenders will have the high profile of termed-out, outgoing mayor Oscar Goodman. (Any reporter writing about Goodman is required by law to refer to him as “colorful” in the first paragraph.) It seems pretty wide open, but three candidates who are already jockeying for position include Clark Co. Commissioner Larry Brown, city councilor Steve Ross, and Chamber of Commerce president Katherine Duncan.

• Redistricting: Here’s a nice promise from Pennsylvania Republican state Senate president Dominic Pileggi regarding transparency in the redistricting process this year. He says that he’s planning a website that will offer “voter data, past district maps… and proposed maps when time allows.” Easy access to that kind of data ought to get a whole lot of SSPers salivating, but bear in mind that, for now, simply remains a promise. (Also, bear in mind that Pennsylvania has an odd system, where state legislative boundaries are drawn by a bipartisan commission but congressional boundaries are drawn directly by the legislature, subject to the governor’s veto. The GOP, rather inconveniently for us, just took over the trifecta for the first time since, oh, the last redistricting.)

• MA-Sen: Vicki Kennedy has pretty much ruled out a Senate run, if her comments to the Boston Globe are any indication. She says “the Senate is not my future;” poignantly, she recounts having received Ted’s encouragement to run before his death but responding “You’re Senator Kennedy, and that’s it.” Another Kennedy made some news yesterday, though, in fact generating his own little boomlet of Senatorial speculation: Joe III (son of the ex-Rep. and grandson of RFK) gave a mightily well-received speech in front of state legislators decrying the noxious turn in the nation’s political discourse. The 30-year-old is currently a prosecutor in Barnstable County and has turned down previous attempts to get him to run for office. Finally, some of the more cogent members of the local tea party seem to have made peace with the fact, despite their discomfort with his voting record, that Scott Brown isn’t going to be successfully challenged in the GOP primary in 2012, and are dissuading others from that line of thought. The article mentions recent House race losers Jeff Perry and Jim Ogonowski as possible names, but in the context of even them not likely to be able to gain any traction against Brown in a primary.

• PA-Sen: PPP released Republican primary numbers as part of their Pennsylvania package today, and as with many of their recent primary polls, it’s quite the collection of people who aren’t going to run. They try doing it both with-Santorum and without-Santorum. (Yes, yes, I know that sounds gross.) The Santorum-covered version, thanks to his high name rec (81% of GOPers have an opinion about him, while Schweiker comes in second at 33%), finds him way in the lead, at 45, with Rep. Jim Gerlach at 9, ex-Gov. Mark Schweiker and Rep. Charlie Dent both at 8, Rep. Tim Murphy at 7, state Sen. Jake Corman at 3, and state Sen. Kim Ward and actual announced candidate Marc Scaringi both at 1. The Santorum-free version gives the edge to Schweiker at 18, Gerlach at 14, Murphy at 13, Dent at 10, Corman at 9, Ward at 2, and Scaringi at 1.

• TX-Sen: This story may be better filed under “Dallas mayor” since it points to a somewhat unexpected vacancy that’s going to need to be filled in November. The mayoral candidacy of city council member Ron Natinsky, a key ally of Republican mayor Tom Leppert, makes it pretty clear that Leppert isn’t going to run for a second term as mayor. Leppert has often been cited a potential wild card in the GOP Senate primary against Kay Bailey Hutchison, and this may mean he’s moving toward that race.

• MS-Gov: Hattiesburg mayor Johnny DuPree made it official today, filing his papers for a gubernatorial run. He’ll face off against businessman Bill Luckett in the Democratic primary, and if he wins there, most likely against Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant in the general.

• IL-14: A new profile of ex-Rep. Bill Foster has him sounding pretty uncandidate-ish in the future. He says he’d like to explore business opportunities in green energy and would consider an executive branch position if asked, but there’s nary a suggestion of a rematch.

• PA-Auditor: Allegheny Co. Exec (and 2010 gubernatorial loser) Dan Onorato says he won’t run for a third term as county executive; this is widely assumed to mean that he’ll be pursuing a bid for state Auditor in 2012. (I’m wondering if Jack Wagner, whom you also remember from the gubernatorial race, can run for a 3rd term as Auditor, and, if so, if he’s ruled it out? Anybody know about that?) At any rate, Onorato seems to be looking at lower statewide office as a better stepping-stone for his ambitions; he’s young enough that he’s probably thinking down the road to a 2016 challenge to Pat Toomey or even the 2018 open seat gubernatorial race (which, if history is any guide, will go to a Democrat).

• Special elections: As expected, last night’s special elections in Virginia went to the Republicans with totals over 60% (letting them hold both of the red districts up for grabs). Gregory Habeeb is taking over for Robert Hurt in SD-19, while William Stanley takes over for Morgan Griffith in HD-8. Also, in Mississippi, Nancy Adams Collins won in SD-11 to succeed Alan Nunnelee; I can’t find any confirmation that she, in fact, was the Republican in the race, but I have dim memories (correct me if I’m wrong) from the myriad MS-01 special elections that special elections in Mississippi don’t include party labels on the ballot.

• 2010: You’re probably all familiar with the gender gap, but Michael McDonald shows in pretty dramatic fashion just how significant the “age gap” has become, with a 16-point gap in 2010 between the parties between the 18-29 set and the 65+ set, the largest that’s ever been. The unfortunate flipside, which does a lot to explain the 2010 results, is that young voter falloff in midterm elections (25% in 2006, 51% in 2008) is much greater than among older voters (63% in 2006, 71% in 2008), boosting Republican odds thanks to their increased strength among seniors.

• Demographics: I suppose we don’t need any hints about where people are moving since we just got reapportionment data, but here’s some more in-depth data from the Census Bureau, based on what states people are moving into and out of. Long-distance moves hit a record low in 2009, thanks in large part to the sluggish economy disproportionately hitting young adults. Housing bubble/service-sector cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Orlando had drops in migration, while more knowledge-sector places like Austin, Raleigh, and Portland were gainers among young adults.

• Redistricting: I’m hesitant to heap praise on one particular Dave’s Redistricting App map diary here, because, really, they’re all fantastic and an important part of the site and the community; I learn something new from most of them and they’re all time-consuming works of art, so thanks to everyone who posts them. But silver spring’s Illinois diary is worthy of some extra attention, in the hopes that the powers-that-be (in this state that’s probably the Dems’ single best shot to run up the redistricting score) might see this diary and take its basic ideas into account. It’s a map that takes the almost-unthinkable and makes it plausible: a map that’s 15-3 in favor of Democrats based on 2008 presidential data, and even creates a second Hispanic VRA district for good measure.

• CT-Sen: Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy is sounding very likely to challenge Joe Lieberman in 2012, at least if this WSJ piece primarily on Lieberman’s re-election chances is any indication. It quotes Murphy as “definitely considering” the race and says his decision may be only weeks away, given the nature of permanent campaigning these days. Meanwhile, Paulist economist Peter Schiff (whose rather quixotic bid wound up with him deep in third place in the GOP primary in 2010) is saying he’d like to run for office again, but 2012 won’t be the year, citing the likelihood of a Linda McMahon run and his inability to compete against her money. Finally, Lieberman himself has his mind on his money and his money on his mind, too… he’s hungry enough for money that he’s reaching out to his new friends from the No Labels movement and asking them to consider donating to politicians they don’t necessarily agree with. Interesting argument (especially considering that the No Labels people are probably the likeliest people out there to agree with Lieberman).

• MA-Sen: Long-time Boston mayor Tom Menino has occasionally gotten some coverage as a possible opponent to Scott Brown in the 2012 Senate race, but he’s taking his name out of consideration, saying he’ll never run for anything but even more terms as mayor. Menino also offered some warnings to potential Dem candidates about the race, saying “There’s nobody that can beat him.” (Recall that Menino caught some flak for not really deploying the Boston Dem machine full-force on Martha Coakley’s behalf during the special election, so it’s unclear whether he’s truly fearful of Brown or just engaging in a little concern trolling on Brown’s behalf.)

• MI-Sen: Here’s another indicator (after last month’s PPP poll that had her mired in the 40s) that Debbie Stabenow could have a tough race in 2012, given the right GOP opponent. A Glengariff Group poll for the Detroit News doesn’t include any head-to-heads, but gives her 37/39 approvals, and a 23% definite re-elect (vs. 43% someone new). Of course, the GOP will need to cough up someone more imposing than Tim Leuliette, the only publicly interested candidate so far.

• MN-Sen: I hadn’t heard Rep. John Kline (the GOP Rep. in MN-02, who labors in right-wing anonymity thanks to a lot of cover from noisy neighbor Michele Bachmann) get associated with the 2012 Senate race before, and after today, he probably won’t again. He told a talk radio interview over the weekend that his “plate was full.”

• MT-Sen: There’s been an uptick in speculation that Denny Rehberg may not run for Senate after all, given that he just landed a slot as not just one of the Appropriations cardinals (regarded by Beltway insiders as the uppermost tier in the House pantheon) but the subcommittee chair in charge of HHS, letting him carry the banner on any HCR repeal efforts. However, he’s still being coy about his 2012 plans (and in fact getting a little meta about the endless Beltway media parsing of political career planning), saying a decision is “down the road… which is similar to around the corner.”

• NE-Sen: This has been pretty clearly telegraphed for a while now, but Republican state treasurer Don Stenberg is saying he’s “quite likely” to get into the Senate race. That, of course, would set up a high-profile primary with another statewide GOPer already a formal candidate, AG Jon Bruning. Meanwhile, GOP state party chair Mark Fahnelson removed an image from his personal blog of Ben Nelson inside a red bullseye. In good Republican fashion, he reaffirmed that he himself, in fact, was the victim in all this.

• NV-Sen: Hoping for Sue Lowden to be the 2012 Senate nominee for the GOP? Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, because she’s saying she won’t consider running if Dean Heller is going to run (she would do it only if both John Ensign and Heller didn’t run). Rather candidly, she admitted that she had no shot of beating Heller in a GOP primary. Meanwhile, Sharron Angle has decided that, having had a shot at the big time, another run for the state Senate would just be chicken feed at this point. She says that she won’t seek the seat being vacated by resigning former GOP floor leader Bill Raggio (to whom she lost in a 2008 primary), although without saying anything more about another NV-Sen run or a NV-02 run if Heller runs for Senate.

• TX-Sen: Here’s another poll showing a Senator who may have a rough go of it in 2012, although in Kay Bailey Hutchison’s case, the real hurdle is likely to be the GOP primary. A Blum & Weprin poll for various Texas newspapers found Hutchison with a 46% approval among all registered voters, and only 56% among Republicans. Hutchison, of course, has not given any indication whether she’s running for another term or not.

• LA-Gov: That gubernatorial election is only 10 months away, and Louisiana Democrats still seem to standing around scratching their heads wondering who their nominee will be. With GOP incumbent Bobby “Kenneth the Page” Jindal sitting on a $7.2 million war chest and, while not super-humanly popular anymore, still in positive territory, willing victims do not seem forthcoming. Dems seem most interested in somebody who can self-finance, which would probably be oft-rumored Shaw Group CEO Jim Bernhard, although other more remote possibilities include losing Lt. Gov. candidate Caroline Fayard, PSC Commissioner Foster Campbell (who finished 3rd in the 2007 primary), retired Gen. Russell Honore (who was briefly the subject of speculation for a GOP primary challenge to David Vitter last year), and even a return engagement from ex-Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

• AZ-08: Best wishes to Gabby Giffords for what will no doubt be a long, slow recovery after this weekend’s shooting. Physicians say that she is rapidly improving and may be removed from her breathing apparatus in several days if progress continues.

• ND-AL: This has implications for North Dakota’s House seat, but also potentially for the Senate seat in 2012, if Kent Conrad (last seen ramping up to start advertising already) does a sudden turnaround and opts for retirement. Ex-Rep. Earl Pomeroy (who’s 58) is joining DC law firm Alston & Bird and says “I don’t see myself running for office again.”

• NM-02: Similarly, Harry Teague has announced that he won’t run again for his old seat or anything else, saying he has no plans to seek another office. The 61-year-old (and independently wealthy) Teague plans to return to his family oilfield business.

• Mayors: Another day, another poll showing Rahm Emanuel way in the lead (albeit not out of runoff territory yet). This one’s from Anzalone-Liszt on behalf of the Teamsters, and while it shows Carol Mosely Braun gaining ground (thanks to dropouts from Danny Davis and James Meeks), she’s still far behind. It’s Emanuel 42, Mosely Braun 26, Gerry Chico 10, and Miguel Del Valle 7. (November’s Teamster poll was Emanuel 36, Mosely Braun 13, Chico 10.) Meanwhile, Chico can now boast an endorsement from Rep. Luis Gutierrez, which seems like a bit of a thumbed-nose at Emanuel (who used to be Gutierrez’s neighbor in the House). And on the other side of the country, San Francisco has a newly-minted interim mayor: city administrator Ed Lee, who will fill in for the next 10 months as Gavin Newsom becomes Lt. Governor. The main thing that clinched it for Lee (who will be the city’s first Asian-American mayor) was his promise not to run for the job in the November election. One of Newsom’s last acts was to appoint a new DA in San Francisco, too (to replace the state’s new AG, Kamala Harris): he promoted police chief George Gascon to that job.

• WATN?: Where are they now? On the prison bus, that’s where. At least that’s the case with former Republican House majority leader Tom DeLay, just sentenced this morning to three years on conspiracy charges associated with laundering corporate money into campaign donations.

• NE-Sen: After a few months in exploratory committee purgatory (and after screwing up many of the documents associated with said committee), Republican AG Jon Bruning has made it official. He’s now upgraded to Candidate, against Ben Nelson in the 2012 Senate race.

• TX-Sen: Local insiders seem to think that Kay Bailey Hutchison is increasingly moving toward another run for Senate in 2012 (after having postponed her resignation a number of times amidst the gubernatorial race, and then having dropped the subject altogether). That speculation seems based mostly on her sheer silence on the issue, though.

• IA-Gov: On his way out the door, outgoing Gov. Chet Culver talked up state Sen. majority leader Mike Gronstal as a possible 2014 gubernatorial candidate for the Dems. Culver said Gronstal won’t suffer for his reluctance to put gay marriage up for a statewide vote, which seems to be one of the state’s big flashpoints right now.

• WA-Gov, WA-08: This is very unexpected, considering that GOP AG Rob McKenna has had the 2012 gubernatorial nomination staked out for about six years now, but Rep. Dave Reichert is publicly expressing some (or at least not ruling out) interest in a gubernatorial run (a race he’d been encouraged to run in 2004 back when he was King Co. Sheriff, although he ran for House instead). I’m sure local GOPers would prefer he run for Senate, where no viable GOP nominee seems to be on the horizon, rather than creating a fractious gubernatorial primary that might hobble their best shot in decades at winning the governorship. Actually, I’m sure they’d prefer he continue to hold down WA-08 rather than open up the 8th while embarking on a fool’s errand against Maria Cantwell, and with redistricting likely to give him a safer district in Seattle’s southeastern exurbs while opening up a solid-blue WA-10 on the true Eastside, that’s probably what he’ll keep on doing.

• CO-03: New Gov. John Hickenlooper just appointed recently-defeated Rep. John Salazar as the state’s agriculture commissioner. Salazar has already said he was open to a rematch with Scott Tipton; the question is whether this makes a rematch less likely or if it’s designed to keep him in the public spotlight. (Speaking of Hickenlooper, if you haven’t read the NYT Magazine section’s long profile of him, it’s worth a read.)

• FL-25: Add one more mysterious bit of financial information to the mounting pile of sleaze that’s engulfing David Rivera in his first week on the job: he sold a condominium to his mother’s marketing company (the same company that’s under criminal investigation for its relationship to the Flagler Dog Track) in November, shortly before he paid off $137K in undisclosed loans… also to that same marketing company.

• IA-03: Buried in an article on the Iowa redistricting conundrum, which will see the state compacted to four House districts, is an important piece of unexpected news: septuagenarian Democratic Rep. Leonard Boswell, who’s been a prime candidate for retirement for a number of cycles now, tells Roll Call that he will be running again in 2012, regardless of what district he gets stuck into. Tom Latham, Bruce Braley, and Dave Loebsack all plan to “plow ahead” as well; only Steve King didn’t comment, although his district, by virtue of geography (having the state’s western half pretty much to itself) seems least likely to get messed with. A collision between Des Moines-based Boswell and Ames-based GOPer Latham seems likeliest to me, but with a commission making the decisions, almost any configuration seems possible.

• NC-07: Rep. Mike McIntyre — already in the news today as one of only two Dems who voted against HCR to also say that he’d go ahead and support Republican repeal efforts — is now about to draw a Democratic primary challenger from the left, although one who seems kind of on the Some Dude end of the spectrum. Business counselor Del Pietro says he’ll take on McIntyre.

• California: This piece is mostly about House redistricting in the Golden State, but has some thoughts about potential retirements too, given the possibility that redistricting via commission may result in less incumbent protection and various House members getting stuck together (and also given the advanced age of many of California’s long-timers). Jerry Lewis and Pete Stark are listed as most noteworthy possibilities, along with Elton Gallegly (who’s waffled about retirement before), Lois Capps, Gary Miller, and Howard Berman… and Bob Filner is mentioned as a possible San Diego mayor candidate in 2012.

• House: This Roll Call piece is mostly a grab-bag of vague quotes and speculation (of course, what article in the Beltway press isn’t), but it does do some useful handicapping on which sought-after House members are likely or unlikely to make the jump to running for Senate in 2012. New York’s Peter King says “I really don’t expect it,” Pennsylvania’s Charlie Dent says he hasn’t “been actively pursuing it,” and Ohio’s Jim Jordan is “leaning against it.” Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan didn’t comment, but has repeatedly said he isn’t looking for higher office anytime soon (and here’s some further confirmation on that from today), while Florida’s Connie Mack IV seems to be moving definitely moving in a Senate direction and Montana’s Denny Rehberg remains studiously vague.

• DCCC: DCCC head Steve Israel announced his team of lieutenants for the 2012 cycle, which includes the two other likeliest chairs who got passed over, Joseph Crowley (in charge of fundraising) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (incumbent retention and redistricting). Also on board are Allyson Schwartz (recruitment), Keith Ellison (community partnerships), and Puerto Rico’s Pedro Pierluisi (constituency mobilization).

• Mayors: State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams (last seen barely hitting the double-digits in the Democratic gubernatorial primary) has a new gig in mind: he’s publicly expressing his interest in running for Philadelphia mayor, one of the many mayoral races up in November. The only other person to have actively looked into challenging fairly-popular incumbent Michael Nutter is wealthy businessman Tom Knox, who also made a brief appearance in last year’s governor’s race Dem primary.

• Twitter: We made it over the 4,000 mark on Twitter; thanks to all our new followers. We’re still taking new applications, though, so we encourage any other fans of microscopic bits of political wisdom to sign on, too.

• 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).