Tag: Tim James

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (5/17-19, likely voters, no trendlines):

Democratic Primary:

Artur Davis (D): 41

Ron Sparks (D): 33

Other: 8

Undecided: 11

^{(MoE: ±5%)}

Republican Primary:

Bradley Byrne (R): 29

Roy Moore (R): 23

Tim James (R): 17

Robert Bentley (R): 9

Bill Johnson (R): 3

Other: 2

Undecided: 17

^{(MoE: ±5%)}

In my role as Daily Kos contributing editor, I asked Markos to poll this race because of a string of stories (as well as rumors of polls) claiming that Rep. Artur Davis was suffering in his primary against Ag. Comm’r Ron Sparks due to his vote against healthcare reform. Of course, since this is our first poll here, it’s hard to tell if there’s any truth to this narrative without trendlines. On the one hand, perhaps not – Davis does, after all, have an eight-point lead. On the other hand, that doesn’t seem so imposing, given that Davis has outspent Sparks by a large margin. In any event, the numbers are not too far off from a recent Davis internal, which had him up 46-33. Sparks hasn’t released any of his own polls.

As for the GOP race, crazy Ten Commandments judge Roy Moore could make this interesting. If no candidate gets 50% on June 1st, there will be a run-off on July 13th. As you’ll see below, Dems perform best against Moore, who is currently vying for the top spot with ex-state Sen. Bradley Byrne. Tim James, son of former governor Fob and notorious for his recent “This is Alabama – we speak English” is also in contention. The internal polling has been all over the map here, with James claiming the lead in one of his own surveys.

General Election:

Artur Davis (D): 31

Bradley Byrne (R): 48

Other: 7

Undecided: 14

Artur Davis (D): 38

Roy Moore (R): 43

Other: 9

Undecided: 10

Artur Davis (D): 37

Tim James (R): 45

Other: 8

Undecided: 10

Ron Sparks (D): 34

Bradley Byrne (R): 45

Other: 9

Undecided: 12

Ron Sparks (D): 40

Roy Moore (R): 41

Other: 12

Undecided: 7

Ron Sparks (D): 38

Tim James (R): 44

Other: 19

Undecided: 8

^{(MoE: ±4%)}

The numbers look pretty bad for Dems – but it’s Alabama in a very difficult year, so you can’t say any of this is unexpected. I do think there is something disturbing about these results, though. Sparks and Davis have almost identical statewide favorables – 42-38 and 44-40 respectively. Why, then, does Davis perform consistently worse across the board against all Republicans? Though Davis is African American, he and Sparks do equally well among blacks in head-to-heads with Republicans. But Sparks does consistently better among whites. In any event, Dems should still be rooting for a Roy Moore primary win.

R2K also looked at the sleepy Senate race:

Democratic Primary:

William Barnes (D): 39

Simone De Moore(D): 11

Other: 3

Undecided: 47

^{(MoE: ±5%)}

Republican Primary:

Richard Shelby (R-inc): 64

Clint Moser (R): 14

Undecided: 23

^{(MoE: ±5%)}

General Election:

William Barnes (D): 33

Richard Shelby (R-inc): 57

Other: 3

Undecided: 7

Simone De Moore(D): 27

Richard Shelby (R-inc): 62

Other: 3

Undecided: 8

^{(MoE: ±4%)}

Since we were already in the field, we were curious to know if Sen. Richard Shelby’s teabagging opponent was getting any traction. Answer: no. In fact, Shelby’s the only candidate among these four to have even filed an FEC report – and the 76-year-old Shelby has an amazing $17 million on hand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• FL-Sen: It’s come down to brass tacks for Charlie Crist. With fast-approaching April 30 the drop-dead date for switching over to an independent bid for the Senate, he’s set a Thursday deadline for making up his mind on the matter. So, we’ll know soon one way or the other.

• MO-Sen, IL-Sen: Robin Carnahan found an excuse to avoid Barack Obama last time he was in Missouri, but, apparently realizing that she needs to rev up her base, she’s appearing with him this week when he visits an ethanol plant in Macon. Obama is also extending some of his cred to the currently very-wobbly Alexi Giannoulias, appearing with him downstate in Quincy on the same road swing.

• NC-Sen: There are two different polls today of the Democratic primary in the North Carolina Senate race, both promising a very close race (with the election one week from today, although a runoff may be in the offing). SurveyUSA’s first look at the field finds SoS Elaine Marshall leading ex-state Sen. Cal Cunningham 23-19, with attorney Kenneth Lewis at 10, miscellaneous others adding up to 15, and 34% undecided. (Marshall has a 33-13 edge among liberals, while Cunningham has narrow leads among moderates and conservatives. And despite Cunningham’s relative youth, he’s in 3rd place among the 18-34 set; Kenneth Lewis actually leads among young voters, but barely makes a dent among older voters.) SurveyUSA also finds Richard Burr cruising in the GOP primary, at 59% with none of his opponents topping 6%. PPP (pdf) has similar numbers; Marshall leads Cunningham 26-23, with Lewis at 7, miscellaneous others at 10, and 34% undecided. (It’s a narrower spread from last month, where PPP saw Marshall leading Cunningham 23-17.)

• NY-Sen: Finally, someone put their head in the chopping block to go up against Chuck Schumer and his $21 million warchest. Republican political consultant and Fox commentator Jay Townsend will try to… well, you can’t even hope to contain Schumer, let alone beat him.

• UT-Sen: There’s yet another poll of the delegates to next month’s Republican convention in Utah, this time by Mason-Dixon on behalf of the Salt Lake Tribune. This one’s pretty bad for Bob Bennett too, suggesting he isn’t likely to even make it to the final round of convention balloting. He’s in third place among delegates’ expressed first choices. Mike Lee is at 37, Tim Bridgewater is at 20, and Bob Bennett is at 16, followed by Cherilyn Eagar at 11. (Inflammatory ex-Rep. Merrill Cook seems to have burned all of his bridges and then bagged and sold all the charcoal, as he’s polling at 1%.) Based on second choices, Lee would win the final round against Bridgewater 44-30, suggesting that Lee can’t nail it down at the convention and that he and Bridgewater would advance to the primary. (Lee wins a Lee/Bennett head-to-head 51-18.) Perhaps the most telling statistic, though, of what a thin slice of the hard right this sample is: of the delegates, 68% say they’re “supporters” of the Tea Party movement. Other Senator Orrin Hatch should be glad he’s not running this year, as he’s sufficiently impure that he’d be getting the same treatment: 71% say they’d be inclined to nominate someone other than Hatch.

• AL-Gov: Ah, nothing beats good old fashioned southern hospitality. Tim James (son of ex-Gov. Fob James), running for Alabama Governor, says he’ll save money by stopping offering the driver’s license test in other languages (because, apparently, complying with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is for suckers). James’s tagline? “This is Alabama. We speak English.”

• GA-Gov: Wealthy teabagger Ray Boyd — who just recently showed up on the scene in the GOP gubernatorial field — balked at signing a Republican “loyalty oath” that’s apparently a mandatory part of running for office as a Republican in Georgia. So, Boyd took his $2 million ball, went home, and is now planning to run as an independent. A few percentage of right-wingers peeled off by Boyd may make all the difference for Democratic ex-Gov. Roy Barnes in a close election, so consider this good news.

• ME-Gov: Former state House speaker John Richardson abruptly dropped out of the Democratic field in the Maine governor’s race. Richardson (already getting little traction, if another candidate’s internal is to be believed) hit ‘eject’ after finding he wouldn’t qualify for Clean Election Act public funding, after the state ethics committee found his campaign fudged documents about qualifying contributions. That brings a little more clarity to the almost-opaque Democratic field, reducing it to state Sen. President Libby Mitchell, ex-AG Steve Rowe, ex-Dept. of Conservation head Pat McGowan, and businesswoman Rosa Scarcelli.

• MN-Gov: This seems like a strange time for Ramsey Co. DA Susan Gaertner to drop out of the gubernatorial race, as she was one of the candidates who was ignoring the DFL nominating convention and planning to forge ahead in the primary regardless. Maybe she was counting on a R.T. Rybak endorsement and thus being the only female candidate in the primary? At any rate, Gaertner cited money woes as the main reason for her dropout; she stopped short of endorsing Margaret Anderson Kelliher but cited the historic nature of electing a female governor and said she didn’t want to be a spoiler for Kelliher.

• UT-Gov: Salt Lake County mayor Peter Corroon sounds like he’s looking to take a page from Brian Schweitzer and Kathleen Sebelius, two popular Dems who overcame their states’ reddish hue with a Republican as a running mate. Corroon didn’t name anyone specific, but said he has some GOPers on his Lt. Gov. short list.

• AL-05: I don’t know if this’ll help Rep. Parker Griffith much with the local rank-and-file (for instance, the Madison Co. Republican Committee, which refused to endorse him), but all of the state’s four other Republican House members endorsed him. Said the former Democrat and Deaniac: “They have seen first-hand how hard I’ve fought Nancy Pelosi’s liberal agenda that will ruin our country if we don’t stop it.”

• FL-25: Buried deep in a Roll Call article about the current state of play in the open seat in the 25th are some numbers from a month-old internal poll by Benenson taken for the DCCC. The poll may explain what got 2008 Democratic candidate Joe Garcia off the fence and back into the fight in the 25th: the poll had Garcia leading state Rep. David Rivera (looking like the likeliest GOP nominee) 38-35. As far as the GOP field goes, it doesn’t seem like rumored candidate state Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla is planning to show up; so far, Rivera’s main GOP opposition seems to be attorney Marili Cancio, who says she declined an invitation to the NRCC’s “Young Guns” program.

• HI-01: The DCCC is slapping down an $81K independent expenditure in the 1st. It’s a media buy, not on behalf of either Dem but against GOPer Charles Djou.

• KS-02: Too bad we don’t have much of a candidate on tap in the 2nd to exploit the carnage if the GOP primary goes nuclear. One-term Rep. Lynn Jenkins (who, believe it or not, hails from the “moderate” wing of the party despite a litany of right-wing-sounding gaffes) is getting a challenge from the teabag corps, in the form of state Sen. Dennis Pyle. Pyle has been threatening a bid for many months, but made it official today.

• MO-04: And here’s yet more cat fud, across the state line in Missouri’s 4th. While they haven’t done anything publicly, the NRCC is apparently starting to choose sides in the primary, favoring state Sen. Bill Stouffer over social conservative ex-state Rep. Vicki Hartzler. The NRCC arranged a sitdown between the two candidates, but Hartzler apparently blew it off after finding out the point of the NRCC’s meeting was to encourage her to drop out.

• WA-03: State Rep. Deb Wallace was the first Democrat to jump into the field after Rep. Brian Baird’s retirement; she got out fairly quickly once Denny Heck got in, realizing that she’d have to share the moderate side of the ledger with him and that she wouldn’t be able to compete with Heck’s financial resources. Wallace finally endorsed in the race today, opting for (no surprise here) Heck over the more liberal state Sen. Craig Pridemore (who just picked up the Sierra Club’s endorsement last week). Heck also has Baird’s endorsement, as well as that of Gov. Chris Gregoire.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: Lots of pollsters that I’ve never heard of seem to be coming out of the woodwork to poll California lately, and here’s yet another one of them: some firm called ccAdvertising. They polled the Republican primaries, finding, on the Senate side, that Tom Campbell leads at 24, with Carly Fiorina at 12 and Chuck DeVore at 8. On the gubernatorial side, Meg Whitman leads Steve Poizner 40-15.

• CO-Sen: Tonight is the first step in the Colorado caucus process, with precinct-level gatherings. The results are non-binding, really more of a straw poll than anything, but are monitored as a sign of candidates’ strength. (Of course, in 2004, neither Ken Salazar nor Pete Coors won the caucuses yet went on to win their primaries.) The bigger hurdle is in May, when candidates must clear 30% at the state assembly to make the primary ballot (although those that don’t can still get on by collecting signatures). With the Governor’s race pretty much locked down, there’s still action aplenty on both the Dem and GOP sides in the Senate. Michael Bennet comes into tonight’s caucuses with a boost: he just got the endorsement from the state’s AFSCME, which may help fight the perception that rival Andrew Romanoff is labor’s one horse in the race.

• CT-Sen: Paulist economist Peter Schiff is finally dipping into the spoils from his moneybombs, running ads on Connecticut radio introducing himself to Republican primary voters and touting his having predicted the financial crisis of 2008.

• ID-Sen: Democrats are already way ahead of where they were in their last race against Mike Crapo in 2004: they’re actually fielding a candidate. Two, in fact, have filed, although they’re little known: Tom Sullivan and William Bryk.

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk is up with his first TV spot for the general election campaign, calling himself an “independent-minded Republican.” Having beaten back various teabagger challengers in the primary, he’s now free to label himself as such.

• MD-Sen: File this under news of the weird: Bob Ehrlich is confirming he’s interested in running for office this year, but one idea he’s floating is running for Senate against Barbara Mikulski instead of for Governor against Martin O’Malley. That’s a very strange choice, as Mikulski is more popular than O’Malley and generally considered unassailable, but maybe Ehrlich thinks he can goad the 73-year-old Mikulski into retirement.

• NC-Sen: Two polls of the Democratic primary in the Senate race show fairly different pictures, with the main difference being how well Cal Cunningham is keeping pace with Elaine Marshall. PPP’s most recent poll of the primary shows Cunningham gaining four points from last month, trailing Marshall 20-16, with 11 for Kenneth Lewis (up from 5). On the GOP side, Richard Burr is at 58%, with his minor rivals all in the low single digits. Marshall, on the other hand, released her own internal yesterday, from Lake Research. The poll’s a little stale (in the field mid-February), so if the PPP poll reflects late movement to Cunningham, Marshall’s poll wouldn’t capture it. At any rate, her internal has her up 31-5 over Cunningham, with Lewis at 4.

• NJ-Sen: A weird-ass ruling from a New Jersey appellate court says the Tea Party may proceed with collecting recall petitions to recall Bob Menendez. The court, however, stayed its own decision in order to allow Menendez to appeal, presumably to a federal court which will disabuse the state judges of the notion that one can recall federal officials. (Adam B. points to the crux of the case here and here).

• AL-Gov, AR-Gov: Financial filings for gubernatorial candidates in Alabama and Arkansas are both available. In Alabama, Tim James ($2.6 mil) leads the GOPers, while Artur Davis ($2.1 mil) has the most cash among the Dems. In Arkansas, Mike Beebe is sitting on $1.2 million (having raised $313K in February); his opponent, Jim Keet, hasn’t been in long enough to report.

• ME-Gov: It looks like there won’t be a Green Party candidate on the ballot this year; Lynne Williams suspended her campaign after failing to gather the 2,000 required signatures. That’s good news for Dems, as this could turn out to be a close race (although with this little information and the fields this cluttered, who the hell knows?) and Greens often poll well in Maine, getting 9% of the vote in the convoluted 2006 gubernatorial election.

• PA-Gov (pdf): There was a gubernatorial portion to that poll from Republican pollster Susquehanna released yesterday, too. As with every poll of this race, undecideds are still very heavy, but Republican AG Tom Corbett leads Democratic state Auditor Jack Wagner 37-26, and leads Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato 39-24. Wagner has been dominating in terms of getting the endorsements of county-level party apparatuses, and he picked up one more yesterday, getting the nod from Cambria County (i.e. Johnstown) Democrats.

• WY-Gov: To almost no one’s surprise, Republican state House speaker Colin Simpson pulled the trigger, officially entering the gubernatorial race. (If his name sounds familiar, he’s the son of popular ex-Sen. Alan Simpson.) He faces three other high-profile GOPers, while Democrats, sorting out what to do after Dave Freudenthal’s late decision not to seek a third term, are still lining up a candidate.

• AK-AL: Rep. Don Young is refusing to get with the program, as far as the GOP’s new self-imposed ban on earmarks goes. Considering that Young seems most valued by his constituents for his ability to bring home the bacon (which may have saved his bacon twice, in both the primary and general in 2008), that may actually be the politically savvy thing for him to do.

• HI-01: The first debate was held in the special election in the 1st, and it may be most interesting in that ex-Rep. Ed Case was trying to stake out positions that sound pretty, well, Democratic. Case spoke out in favor of both health care reform and the stimulus package. Moderate Republican Charles Djou tried to differentiate himself by railing against both.

• IA-03: I don’t know if this is just one ex-wrestling coach sticking up for another, or if there’s an establishment movement afoot to coronate Jim Gibbons in the 3rd, but ex-Speaker Dennis Hastert is showing up to host a Des Moines fundraiser for Gibbons tomorrow. They’ll be joined by ex-Rep. Greg Ganske.

• PA-07: I love the smell of cat fud in the morning. While former local Fox affiliate news anchor Dawn Stensland didn’t file to run in the Republican primary as has been rumored, now she’s not ruling out an independent, teabagger-powered run instead. While she hasn’t begun gathering signatures, she is looking to move into the 7th. Even if she only garners a few percent, that could still tip the balance in what promises to be a very close race between Democrat Bryan Lentz and GOPer Pat Meehan.

• House: The Hill has an interesting survey of eight different primaries where the one participant’s vote on TARP could weigh heavily on the results (as it seemed to do in the Texas gubernatorial primary). Most are on the GOP side, but one Dem race to watch is PA-11, where Paul Kanjorski, the chair of the House subcommittee on Capital Markets, was one of TARP’s architects.

• NRCC: The NRCC is threatening to go on the air against Dems who change from “no” to “yes” votes on HCR, targeting them with the dread “flip-flop” label that served them so well in 2004. They have 42 Dems in mind to target, although there’s still the little wee matter of the NRCC finding the money to pay for the ads.

• NY-St. Sen.: Tonight’s the special election in SD-13 in Queens, where Hiram Monserrate is trying to win back the seat he just got kicked out of after his assault conviction. Monserrate, now an indie, is running against Democratic Assemblyman Jose Peralta. Peralta had a dominant lead in the one poll of the race made public.

• Ads: With the Demon Sheep and Boxer Blimp ads having established Carly Fiorina’s campaign as the new gold standard in bizarre advertising, Huffington Post has a nice wrapup of some of the other craziest political ads of the last few years, ranging from the well-known (Mike Gravel skipping rocks, Big John Cornyn) to the “huh?” (Nancy Worley on strangling cats).

• TV: Obsessive-compulsive political junkies and opposition researchers alike are dancing a jig right now, as C-Span has announced that it’s releasing its entire archives onto the Web. All 160,000 hours worth. (If you don’t have a calculator handy, that’s 18 years.)

• Redistricting: Eager not to get behind the redistricting 8-ball in 2012 like they were ten years ago, the DLCC has launched a $20 million push aimed at keeping control of state legislatures in key states. They point to “swing” chambers in 17 states that have the capacity to affect almost half of all House seats. Dem-held chambers they’re focusing on are the Alabama State Senate, Colorado State Senate, Indiana House, Nevada State Senate, New Hampshire State Senate, New York State Senate, Ohio House, Pennsylvania House, Wisconsin Assembly and the Wisconsin State Senate, while GOP-held chambers are the Michigan State Senate, Missouri House, Oklahoma State Senate, Tennessee House, and the Texas House.

Here’s my predictions on how my homestate’s races will go:

Governor: Incumbent GOP Governor Bob Riley is term-limited, thus setting up a free-for-all on both sides. On the GOP side, State Representative Robert Bentley, former State Community College System Chancellor Bradley Byrne, State Treasurer Kay Ivey, Real Estate Developer Tim James, former State Economic Development Director Bill Johnson, former State Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, and Financial Analyst James Potts are in the running. On the Democratic side, Congressman Artur Davis, State Commissioner of Agriculture & Industries Ron Sparks, and Inventor Sam Franklin Thomas are in the running. The Primary will be a tossup between James, Byrne, and Moore. Methinks Davis wins the Primary. This race will be a Tossup until the end. TOSSUP.

Lieutenant Governor: Incumbent Democratic Lieutenant Governor Jim Folsom Jr. is running for re-election. On the GOP side, State Finance Department Official Young Boozer, State Senator Hank Erwin, Teacher Gene Ponder, and Homebuilder Dean Young are in the running. The Democrats have unified behind Folsom Jr. The GOP Primary will be a tossup between Boozer and Erwin. Whoever wins will get crushed by Folsom Jr. DEM HOLD.

Attorney General: Scandal-mired Incumbent GOP Attorney General Troy King is running for re-election. On the GOP side, King and Attorney Luther Strange are in the running. On the Democratic side, Attorneys James Anderson and Michel Nicrosi and former State Democratic Party Chairman Giles Perkins are in the running. I expect King to defeat Strange 54-46 and Perkins to defeat Nicrosi 63-37. In the end, King narrowly wins 51-49. GOP HOLD.

Secretary of State: Incumbent GOP Secretary of State Beth Chapman is running for re-election. The GOP has unified behind Chapman. There are no announced Democratic Candidates, but potential candidates are Secretary of State’s Office Administrator Ed Packard and former Secretary of State Nancy Worely. Chapman will defeat whoever the Democrats nominate, if anybody. GOP HOLD.

State Auditor: Incumbent GOP State Auditor Samantha Shaw is running for re-election. The GOP has unified behind Shaw. The Democrats have unified behind Accountant Miranda Joseph. Shaw crushes Joseph in the neighborhood of 67-33. GOP HOLD.

State Treasurer: Incumbent GOP State Treasurer Kay Ivey is running for Governor. The GOP has unified behind former State Treasurer and former State PSC Commissioner George Wallace Jr. On the Democratic side, former State Conservation Commissioner Charles Grimsley and Attorney Jeremy Shearer are in the running. Grimsley will win 73-27 over Shearer. Wallace Jr. will defeat Grimsley 58-42. GOP HOLD.

State Commissioner of Agriculture & Industries: Incumbent Democratic State Commissioner of Agriculture & Industries Ron Sparks is running for Governor. The Democrats have unified behind Deputy State Agriculture Glen Zorn. On the GOP side, Walker County Economic Development Chair Dorman Grace, former State Conservation Commissioner John McMillan, and Businessman Dale Peterson are in the running. I expect McMillan to win 59-32-9 over Grace and Peterson. Zorn will narrowly defeat McMillan 53-47. DEM HOLD.

US Senate: Incumbent GOP US Senator Richard Shelby is running for re-election. The GOP has unified behind Shelby. The Democrats have unified behind Attorney William Barnes. Shelby devours Barnes 77-23. GOP HOLD.

AL-01: Incumbent GOP Congressman Jo Bonner is running for re-election. On the GOP side, Bonner, Real Estate Developer Peter Gounares, and Business Consultant Clint Moser are in the running. The Constitution Party has unified behind Artificial Reef Contractor David Walter. Bonner defeats Gounares and Moser 79-14-7, and destroys Walter 96-4. GOP HOLD.

AL-02: Incumbent Democratic Congressman Bobby Bright is running for re-election. On the GOP side, Montgomery City Councilwoman Martha Roby and Businessman Rick Barber are in the running. The Democrats have, reluctantly, unified behind Bright. I expect Roby to beat Barber 54-46. Roby will defeat Bright 53-47. GOP PICKUP.

AL-03: Incumbent GOP Congressman Mike Rogers is running for re-election. The Gop has unified behind Rogers the Democrats have unified behind Attorney Josh Segall, and the Independents have unified behind Real Estate Broker Mark Layfield. Rogers will defeat Segall and Layfield 52-46-2. GOP HOLD.

AL-04: Incumbent GOP Congressman Robert Aderholt is running for re-election. The GOP has unified behind Aderholt. The Democrats have nobody. GOP HOLD.

AL-05: Incumbent GOP Congressman Parker Griffifth is running for re-election. On the GOP side, Griffifth, Madison County Commissioner Morris Brooks, and Businessman Les Phillip are in the running. On the Democratic side, Attorney Mitchell Howie, former Congressional Aide Steve Raby, and former State Board of Education Member Taze Shepard. I think Brooks defeats Griffifth and Phillip 51-45-4. Shepard will defeat Howie and Raby 56-35-9. Brooks will defeat Shepard 52-48. GOP HOLD.

AL-06: Incumbent GOP Congressman Spencer Bachus is running for re-election. On the GOP side, Bachus, Pastor Stan Cooke, and TV Show Producer Paul Lambert are in the running. The Democrats have nobody. Bachus will defeat Lambert and Cooke 76-19-5. GOP HOLD.

AL-07: Incumbent Democratic Congressman Artur Davis is running for Governor. On the Democratic side, Attorney Martha Bozeman, State Representative Earl Hilliard Jr., Frank Lankster, former Radio Journalist Patricia Evans Mokolo, Attorney Terri Sewell, Jefferson County Commissioner Sheila Smoot, and Mortgage Broker Eddison Walters are in the running. The GOP is unified behind Tea Party Activist Michele Waller. I expect a Runoff between Hilliard Jr. and Smoot, with Hilliard Jr. winning 51-49. Hilliard Jr. handily defeats Waller 74-26. DEM HOLD

• AZ-Sen: As the Arizona GOP Senate primary heats up, ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth has pulled in a prominent backer, one of the state’s unfortunately most popular politicians: Maricopa Co. Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arpaio – a hero of the anti-immigrant set who’d been the subject of calls to get into the gubernatorial race this year – wrote a fundraising letter for Hayworth that’s being sent around nationally.

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio got two more endorsements today from the GOP’s right flank: from Indiana’s Rep. Mike Pence, #3 in the House GOP and a favorite of the social values set, and on the economic-conservative side of the party, bathtub-drowning fan Grover Norquist.

• NH-Sen (pdf): A couple different polls are out today in the New Hampshire Senate race, although both from pollsters in the “take with salt” category. UNH looks at the general election, finding a lead for Kelly Ayotte over Paul Hodes that’s about in line with most other pollsters: 41-33. Hodes leads the lesser GOPers in the race, though; he beats Jim Bender 36-27, William Binnie 34-30, and Ovide Lamontagne 38-29. What about that thorny GOP primary, though? Republican internal pollster Magellan has some answers, although it’s not clear if this poll was on the behalf of any particular candidate. They see Ayotte at 37%, but contrary to that recent R2K poll, they have Binnie in second place at 23% and Lamontagne back at 12. (Binnie seems to be the most moderate in the field, and gained a lot of attention, at least in the Boston media market parts of the state, for running ads on behalf of Scott Brown in Massachusetts.) In case anyone was wondering about the GOP gubernatorial primary, that’s in there too, although nobody has any idea who these candidates are: Jack Kimball beats Karen Testerman 18-5.

• AL-Gov: There’s one other interesting poll from a Republican pollster of a Republican primary (this time in Alabama); it’s from Baselice, and they’re explicit about not working on behalf of any of these candidates. Former higher ed system chancellor Bradley Byrne has a narrow lead, and he has a lot of company. Byrne is at 20, followed closely by wingnut judge Roy Moore at 17. Real estate developer (and gubernatorial spawn) Tim James is at 8, state Rep. Robert Bentley is at 4, state treasurer Kay Ivey is at 3, and former Economic Development Dir. Bill Johnson is at 2.

• AL-05: Democrats now have two candidates lined up to go against Parker Griffith (or whatever other GOPer teabags him out of a job): the new one is attorney (and former Air Force JAG) Mitchell Howie. Howie is young and doesn’t have electoral experience, but is the grandson of a well-loved local physician. Prominent attorney Taze Shepard made his candidacy official today as well (via press release).

• AL-07: EMILY’s List weighed in with an endorsement in the Democratic primary in the 7th. Interestingly, they showed their hand even though there are two women well-positioned in the field – and they went with attorney Terri Sewell, who’s something of the moneyed-interests candidate in the race with ties to outgoing Rep. Artur Davis, rather than the more progressive option of Jefferson Co. Commissioner Shelia Smoot.

• AR-02: Add one more Dem to the field in the 2nd, to replace retiring Rep. Vic Snyder. Assistant Attorney General John Adams launched a bid today, although it’s unclear whether he’ll pose much of an obstacle to state House speaker Robbie Wills.

• AZ-03: One of the widely-expected candidates to run in the open seat vacated by Rep. John Shadegg has decided not to get involved, after all. Shadegg’s former chief of staff Sean Noble said he won’t run. The field is already top-heavy with Republicans, including former state Sens. Pamela Gorman and Jim Waring (both of whom resigned to run, per state law), former state Rep. Sam Crump, Paradise Valley mayor Vernon Parker, and former Paradise Valley mayor Ed Winkler.

• CO-03: Hat-tip to Daily Kos’s Steve Singiser, who, while rummaging through the used-polls bin, found a stale Republican internal poll of the race in the 3rd that hadn’t caught anyone’s notice before. It points to a close race in the Republican-leaning, mostly-rural district; Democratic Rep. Pete Salazar leads GOP state Rep. Scott Tipton (who lost the 2006 race to Salazar) 46-44.

• NH-01, 02 (pdf): Both of the New Hampshire House races are looking like tossups, according to the same UNH poll mentioned above. In the 1st, they find Rep. Carol Shea-Porter in bad shape against any of her GOP challengers; she loses 43-33 to Frank Guinta, 36-33 to Bob Bestani, 36-33 to Rich Ashooh, and 39-32 to Sean Mahoney. (Of course, UNH repeatedly showed her in a tight spot in 2008 until the closing weeks of the campaign – although without Obama coattails this year, she may not get that late boost.) And in the 2nd, Dems only win one potential matchup: Katrina Swett beats Jennifer Horn 30-26. Swett loses to Charlie Bass 37-30, while Ann McLane Kuster loses to both Bass (39-28) and Horn (28-25). (One other caveat: these are small samples, with 6.2% MoEs.)

• NJ-02: Add Rep. Frank LoBiondo to the long list of establishment Republicans getting a good teabagging this year. Schoolteacher and tea partier Michael Conte will challenge LoBiondo in the GOP primary. Conte seems most put out about LoBiondo’s cap-and-trade vote, and supports opening up the Jersey Shore to offshore oil drilling. (Somehow, I can’t see that part being popular.)

• TX-14: The epidemic of own-eating on the teabagging right has reached French Revolution proportions, to the extent that now Ron Paul, pretty much the spiritual forefather of the movement, is facing not one but three teabagging primary challengers. Weirdly, one of their knocks against Paul is that he’s “too extreme,” and also that he’s against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan… all pretty suggestive that there’s nothing “new” about the Tea Party movement, just that it’s a catchall for conservative Republicans who are feeling extra-agitated about things.

• TX-32: The DCCC has been stepping up its attacks on Rep. Pete Sessions, maybe in part to keep the NRCC head pinned down a bit, but also because they may sense this is one of the few places where they have a legitimate shot at playing offense. Between the district’s rapidly changing demographics, Sessions’ ties to Ponzi schemer “Sir” Alan Stanford, a serious primary challenge from a teabagger, and good fundraising from Dem challenger Grier Raggio, there may be some substance to that.

• IL-LG: With Dan Hynes having taken his name out of consideration for the now-vacant LG slot for the Dems in Illinois, Lynn Sweet runs down the top contenders. First on the docket is state Rep. Art Turner, who finished second to Scott Lee Cohen in the primary and now has state House speaker Michael Madigan’s stamp of approval. Other possibilities include state Sen. Rickey Hendon, state Sen. Terry Link, or state Rep. Mike Boland (all of whom fared worse in the primary), or if they want to go with a woman, either state Rep. Julie Hamos (who narrowly lost the IL-10 primary, and is now campaigning for the LG slot) or VA Deputy Sec. Tammy Duckworth.

• CfG: A couple more endorsements, as the Club for Growth picked the zaniest of the bunch in a few competitive primaries in dark-red seats that are open. They endorsed former state GOP chair Robin Smith in TN-03, and businessman Mike Pompeo in KS-04.

• NRCC: Here’s a good catch from the Boston Phoenix: the NRCC is really putting the “guns” in “Young Guns,” as a whopping total of 4 of the 64 members of its offense program are women – with only one, Martha Roby (in AL-02) looking like she’s in position to possibly make it through both the primary and general.

• NY-St. Ass.: There are not one, but four, special elections for open seats in New York’s Assembly tonight, all resulting from legislators getting elected to something better-paying in November. The Democrats are defending seats in Queens (although there the Republican lineholder is a lifelong Democrat), Suffolk County, and Westchester County, while the Republicans are defending a Nassau County seat.

• Polltopia: More back-and-forth in the discussion over the polls that SurveyUSA performed for Firedoglake, that we may have accidentally triggered (pointing out the dramatically low young-voter composition of the polls). SurveyUSA’s Jay Leve responded “vehemently” (Mark Blumenthal’s words) to last week’s critique from poli sci professor Alan Abramowitz, while Blumenthal offers some interesting graphs showing the disparity between the SurveyUSA numbers and actual Catalist records. PPP’s Tom Jensen offered some qualified support for SurveyUSA, though, by pointing out that even if you “weighted up” the youth numbers to the levels seen in Catalist (the Dems’ voter database), it wouldn’t tend to impact the topline numbers by a significant amount.