News that will make you sweat:
Restaurant owner Tamyra d’Ippolito (D) has enough signatures to make the ballot in the race to replace Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), she told Hotline OnCall in a brief interview.
Reached at her home, d’Ippolito said she was on her way out the door to drop off more signatures at the county clerk’s office. D’Ippolito’s backers have until noon to submit 4,500 signatures, including 500 from each of the state’s 9 districts, to the appropriate county clerks.
“To my knowledge, yes we do. There’s people putting in signatures as we speak,” d’Ippolito said when asked if she has the signatures necessary to qualify for the ballot. “The answer is yes.” […]
GOPers, sensing an opportunity, have mobilized in some places to help d’Ippolito make the ballot. In a posting on her campaign website, d’Ippolito says she needs more signatures in the 8th CD, specifically in Terre Haute and Evansville.
Smart play by the GOP here — if they manage to get d’Ippolito on the ballot, they may move this race all the way over to Safe R. That is, unless the Democrats can manage to run a Charlie Wilson-style write-in campaign to get a more viable contender through the primary. In any event, it’s sounding increasingly likely that Brad Ellsworth is the guy that Democrats want on the ballot:
Meanwhile, Dems are increasingly looking to Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D) as the candidate they want on the ballot to replace Bayh. House strategists are quietly beginning to prepare for his Senate bid, which means they will have to find another candidate to run in the competitive 8th district.
UPDATE: The Indiana Democratic Party says that d’Ippolito is off her nut:
In an interview with TPMDC, Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker strongly denied that cafe owner Tamyra d’Ippolito has obtained the necessary ballot-petition signatures to appear on the ballot in the Dem primary for Senate — disputing d’Ippolito’s earlier claim to have to have obtained the 500 required in each of the state’s nine House districts.
“I am monitoring the situation with our boards of voter registration and our county clerks’ offices. Those are the places where petitions have to be submitted for certification,” said Parker. “They have to be certified in the counties and then brought to the Secretary of State’s office by Friday. As of this moment, other than Evan Bayh, there’s one candidate, who is a Democratic candidate [d’Ippolito], who has 22 signatures statewide.”
LATER UPDATE: Reid says that d’Ippolito has missed the ballot:
An official in Marion Co. (IN) tells Hotline OnCall d’Ippolito turned in just 3 signatures in the 7th CD, the district with the highest percentage of Dem voters. The noon deadline has passed, meaning d’Ippolito failed to meet the requirements to get on the ballot. She would have been required to submit 4,500 signatures, including at least 500 from each of the state’s 9 districts.