Tag: George Allen

Senate:

• FL-Sen: Do you remember Craig Miller? I barely do. He’s the wealthy former steakhouse exec who was the Republican Plan C in the FL-24 primary last year… and in an amusing bit of synchronicity, came in third, behind now-Rep. Sandy Adams and the batshit nuts Karen Diebel. Hoping to fail upward, Miller is now looking at the Senate race and plans to decide “within the next few weeks.” I have no idea what he thinks he niche might be, and it’s not clear to me that he has the money to overwhelm the field.

• IN-Sen, IN-Gov: Former Rep. Tim Roemer says he’s stepping down as ambassador to India. Could this presage a return to Hoosier politics? I’m skeptical, as Dems already have legit candidates lining up for both marquee statewide races. (And for what it’s worth, an unnamed source told The Hill last month that Roemer wasn’t likely to run for Senate.)

• MA-Sen: This is just weird. Despite repeatedly saying he isn’t interested in running for Senate, Deval Patrick somehow keeps finding himself talking about the subject. This time, he said that he had talked with the President about other jobs, but wouldn’t say whether Obama had asked him to run against Scott Brown. Patrick again said he doesn’t want to run, and added: “I would say no to the president of the United States.”

• ND-Sen: When the Club for Growth takes aim at an otherwise top-tier Republican candidate, you know you have premium-grade cat fud ready to be served. Le Club’s target now is freshman Rep. Rick Berg, who went from a seemingly distant possibility to not-running-but-virtual-frontrunner status almost instantly a week ago. They’re accusing Berg of being insufficiently pro-dystopia, i.e., not supporting enough cuts to federal government spending. I really hope they can find a dog… er… cat for this fight.

• NV-Sen: Sometimes PPP deliberately polls for the lulz, and sometimes, the lulz find them. In this case, it’s the latter: Tom Jensen’s band of merry robodialers found Dean Heller beating Sharron Angle in a hypothetical GOP primary by a score of… LOL… 84-8. (“El Exigente, what more could you want?” “Their names.”) Meanwhile, on the Dem side, where there does appear to be an actual primary, Rep. Shelley Berkeley leads wealthy attorney Byron Georgiou by a 65-8 margin. Good times.

• PA-Sen: Apparently, there’s two things Quinnipiac won’t do: a) release sample compositions and b) test incumbents against hypothetical opponents whose names don’t start with “Generic.” Anyhow, Sen. Bob Casey has inched up to a 46-34 lead against “the Republican candidate.” He was 45-35 two months ago.

• UT-Sen: Speaking of the Club for Growth, they just put out their 2010 scorecard, and Orrin Hatch’s numbers really demonstrate the Club’s power. Despite a lifetime score of 74% (30th among Senators in office last year), Hatch managed to rack up a 97% rating last year, tying him with several other Republicans for third place. What a difference a sword of Damocles makes.

• VA-Sen: Hmm. Ultra-wingnut Del. Bob Marshall’s 2008 campaign manager just got hired by George Allen… and the dude didn’t even tell his old boss first. Marshall’s been looking at a possible Senate run, and I think he’s the best hope (albeit not a great hope) we have of knocking off Allen in the GOP primary, but it’s not clear what impact this will have on his plans. One positive tea-leaf: In response to the news, Marshall said, “You can tell who the candidates are not by where the consultants go, but where the volunteers go.”

Gubernatorial:

• PA-Gov: Uhh… did Gov. Tom Corbett just say that state universities sitting atop the Marcellus Shale should plug their budget gap by allowing exploitation of the natural gas reserves beneath them? Why yes he did. If you aren’t familiar with the deeply fraught issue of hydraulic fracturing (also known as “hydrofracking” or just “fracking”), this NYT piece is a good place to start. Fracking is a devastatingly poisonous method of extracting gas, and Pennsylvania is at the epicenter of the fracking debate. Indeed, the EPA is investigating a fracking spill that took place there just last week. UPDATE: Hah, sheez. Corbett literally lifted this idea from an episode of Saved by the Bell! NOT kidding! Click the link!

• WV-Gov: Former Republican SoS Betty Ireland is finally out with her first TV ad, which I think has a weird soundtrack, odd staccato pacing, and (at least in the version her campaign posted to YouTube) crappy audio quality. I think she could definitely lose.

House:

• AZ-06: Yesterday we noted that state House Speaker Kirk Adams was resigning his post. Later that day, he formally announced he was, as expected, running in the GOP primary in the open 6th CD. Retiring Sen. Jon Kyl immediately endorsed Adams, while Rep. Trent Franks endorsed Matt Salmon, who is also running for this post

• NV-02: Roll Call’s Kyle Trygstad does a nice job digging up some facts about a 1954 special election to replace Nevada Sen. Pat McCarran, who passed away in September of that year. (If you’ve ever flown to Vegas, that’s the guy the airport is named after.) There was some legal wrangling as to whether a special election was actually required, but once the state Supreme Court ruled yes, the parties selected their nominees by committee, not primary. That could possibly serve as precedent as SoS Ross Miller decides whether state law requires that parties choose their candidates, but Nevada’s current statutes were revised only a decade ago, so the McCarran case may not be applicable.

• NY-23: A few weeks ago, the NRCC mocked a batch of miniscule radio ad buys by the DCCC and said: “At what point does a campaign committee blush when launching a ‘paid advertising campaign?'” Apparently, that point must lie somewhere below $4,550, which is the amount the NRCC is spending on a tiny TV buy in Rep. Bill Owens’ district. (It’s some lame Pelosi-related attack.)

I’d also like to give some props to Steve Peoples of Roll Call for basically ignoring the contents of the ad and focusing on exactly what the NRCC is trying to accomplish here. I don’t know if he wrote the headline, but it can’t be what Republicans were hoping for: “NRCC Takes Turn With Small Ad Buy Targeting Earned Media.” And in referring a radio ad against Rep. Mike Ross that we noted the other day, Peoples used the kind of language you might find on SSP, saying that the NRCC “convinced a local paper to write a story about the radio buy but refused at the time to disclose the size of the investment.” (It turned out to be $2,550.) If you’re going to write up a story like this, this is how it should be written.

Other Races:

• IN-SoS: The GOP-held state legislature has backed off a bit on attempting to rewrite the law in order to get around the Charlie White mess. (If this is the first you’re hearing of the whole saga, I would suggest checking out our IN-SoS tag.) The proposed new law would give the governor the power to appoint replacement officers only on a prospective basis, so it won’t affect the White situation. However, the legislation will still prevent the GOP from losing their major-party status (which was keyed to the SoS race) if the worst happens.

• NJ-St. Sen.: The legal wrangling over Democrat Carl Lewis’s ballot eligibility has heated up quickly. Lewis has filed suits in both state and federal court, and a federal court judge has already ordered LG/SoS/Chris Christie goon Kim Guadagno to explain her decision booting Lewis from the ballot earlier this week. Lewis is still busy campaigning, and if he’s ultimately declared eligible, I think all this rigmarole might wind up helping him, given that it’s free media.

Redistricting:

• Colorado: I’m guessing that Republicans are wishing state Sen. Greg Brophy hadn’t cracked out of turn and admitted that proposed GOP maps had been deliberately “skewed to the right.” That certainly won’t help them when the entire matter winds up in court, which Republican state Rep. Don Coram acknowledged was inevitable anyway. In a bit worthy of Stephen Colbert, Lynn Bartels of the Denver Post writes: “Brophy said Republicans got nervous when they heard Democrats were pushing so-called competitive seats, which he said favor Democrats….” Ah, indeed, the facts do have a well-known liberal bias.

Connecticut: According to the Greenwich Time, Dem state House Speaker Christopher Donovan has his eye on Rep. Chris Murphy’s open 5th CD, and would very much like to have the blue stronghold of Bridgeport drawn into it. That would remove it from Rep. Jim Himes’s district, but if you look at a map, it’s rather hard to envision this happening without doing a lot of reshuffling. Of course, anything is possible, but given how minor CT’s population deviations are, a serious reconfiguration of the map would seem to be uncalled for.

• Indiana: The Hoosier State is poised to become the fourth to finalize a redistricting map. The Republican-held state legislature has given its approval to a new plan, which now goes to GOP Gov. Mitch Daniels for his signature.

• Massachusetts: A seemingly clever bit of politics by Scott Brown, but there’s a “but.” Brown sent a letter to the state legislature’s redistricting committee, advocating for a majority-minority congressional seat to be drawn in the Suffolk County region, and also to press for more maj-min districts in the state lege. Who knows whether the idiots in the legislature will listen to him, but Brown of course is simultaneously pushing for new district lines which will ultimately favor Republicans (by packing minorities) and, more importantly, he gets to look like he’s protecting minority interests, all at no cost to himself.

Here’s the “but”: Brown doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about. Rep. Mike Capuano, who would be most affected by Brown’s proposal, fired back, saying his 8th CD already is majority-minority. It’s about 54.5% “white” according to the Census, but that includes Hispanics who also identify as white, so the non-Hispanic white %age is almost certainly below 50%. (Some 19% of 8th CD residents identify as Hispanic, of any race.) Oops.

• Nevada: I’m not going to get into this one in too much detail (my brain can only hold so much redistricting-related information), but Nevada Republicans are now bitterly split over new maps that GOPers in the state Senate drew for the state Assembly. Why didn’t the Assembly draw its own maps? They did, but the morons who drew them were advised not to release them because lawyers thought they didn’t comply with the VRA. Meanwhile, Dems in both chambers worked together to release a joint set of plans. However, they still haven’t released their congressional map. Anyhow, you can find more details under the “Related Documents” sections at both links.

• Oklahoma: Unsurprisingly, the map that the state House unanimously approved appears ready to sail through the state Senate, too. Shira Toeplitz suggested in her writeup (which is a few days old) that the new plan could be signed into law this week, but it hasn’t actually been voted on by the full Senate as of this writing.

• Texas: The cat fud is ready to fly in Texas redistricting, where ruthless Republican leaders are prepared to run roughshod over their own incumbents in the aims of preserving and maximizing their advantage to the greatest extent possible. In other words, they’re staying true to the spirit of Tom DeLay. In the abstract sense, it’s a ruthlessness I admire, and I wish Dems would adopt it. In any case, I wouldn’t be surprised if the final maps pass in spite of a lot of GOP defections – though maybe a few horse heads in a few beds will solve that problem.

• Virginia: I’m glad to see that Republicans in the state Senate are as happy to act like sheep as Democrats in the state House. The Democrats’ new map passed yesterday by a 32-5 margin. Reading the linked article really makes me feel like this whole thing has been a grand kabuki, with Gov. Bob McDonnell playing everyone – even members of his own party – like puppets. McDonnell simply had to show he could extract a price from Democrats, and so he has. However, I note that the congressional map is now completely untethered from the legislative maps. If Democrats agree to an 8-3 map now, well, fuck them. Once McDonnell signs the lege plans into law, there’s no going back, and there’s no reason at all not to force the courts to draw a federal map.

Senate:

• HI-Sen: Sen. Dan Inouye says in a new interview that he “will not take sides in the primary,” and Politico ads that his “top aides insist” he won’t be lending quiet, behind-the-scenes support to any candidates either. I hope that’s true, since I was concerned Ed Case might have mended things with Inouye to the point that the latter might get behind the former. But without some special help, I think Case will have a hard time. Also, SMS Research took the most useless poll imaginable, pitting Case against former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann in a primary… and absolutely no one else. Whatevs.

• ME-Sen: Olympia Snowe said she raised over $877K in Q1 and has over $2 million on hand.

• OH-Sen: Sherrod Brown said he raised $1.3 million in Q1 and has $2.5 million on hand.

• VA-Sen: George Allen said he raised $1.5 million in Q1 and has $1.25 million on hand.

Gubernatorial:

• KY-Gov: TX Gov. Rick Perry, current chair of the RGA, says his organization won’t decide how heavily it’ll get involved in Kentucky’s gubernatorial race until after the May 17th primary. He also declined to endorse frontrunner (and establishment choice) David Williams, saying he’s “got a really good feeling about all the men and women who are running.”

House:

• CO-04: Republican Rep. Corey Gardner apparently raised over $300K in Q1.

• CT-04: Dem Rep. Jim Himes estimates he took in over $300K in Q1.

• IN-06, IN-05: Luke Messer, a former official with the state GOP who nearly beat Rep. Dan Burton in a primary last year, now finds himself living just outside Burton’s 5th CD, according to new maps proposed by Republicans in charge of the state lege. Messer is now in the 6th, which is likely to be vacated by Mike Pence, who everyone thinks will run for governor. Messer says he’s buddies with Pence and will consider running to replace him if Pence makes the leap for the statehouse, but he wouldn’t rule out a rematch against Burton (though he says he wouldn’t move in order to do so).

• MN-08: This is pretty wild: Former Rep. Rick Nolan (D) says he’s thinking about staging a comeback. It’s wild because Nolan left office in 1981 and is now 68 years old. It’s also rather strange because Nolan represented what was then the 6th CD, which is accurately represented in the map Joe Bodell presents. (His reader update is incorrect.) At the time, Nolan’s district covered the southwestern and central portions of the state; today’s 8th is in the northeastern corner (though they share one county in common, Mille Lacs). And to cap it all off, Nolan was touting himself at a Dem meeting in Bemidji, which is in the 7th CD. Actually, no – the real capper is that Nolan was a practitioner of the ’60s & ’70s fad of “Transcendental Meditation” (whose practitioners claimed they could levitate) and earned a mention in Time Magazine for it.

• MO-03: Not going gently… or padding the warchest for a different race, or perhaps something else down the line? Russ Carnahan raised $333K in Q1, his best first quarter ever, and has $286K on hand. Dave Catanese notes that Lacy Clay raised just $17K (though he has $222K in the bank). Would Carnahan really go up against Clay in a primary? What do you think?

• MS-02: Greenville Mayor Heather McTeer Hudson said she plans to challenge veteran Rep. Bennie Thompson in the Democratic primary next year. She also announced she’s hiring pollster Celinda Lake. Hudson had previously said she wouldn’t seek re-election to her current post. Thompson, meanwhile, ended last year with $1.7 million on hand and has warded off primary challengers before (most recently in 2006, in the form of Chuck Espy, son of former Rep. Mike Espy).

• SD-AL: Though it seems all but certain that ex-Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin won’t seek a rematch this cycle (among other things, she just accepted a teaching position at South Dakota State University, where she once worked), she did say she’s open to the possibility of seeking office again at some point in the future. She didn’t specify what post, so you can mentally flag this item as something other than just SD-AL if you like. Speaking of SD-AL, Rep. Kristi Noem (the woman who beat Sandlin) announced she took in $396K in Q1.

Other Races:

• LA-AG: Former Rep. Joe Cao says he plans to challenge Dem-cum-Republican AG Buddy Caldwell this fall. Cao specifically cited Caldwell’s party switch (which only happened in February) and questioned his Republican bona fides – sort of an unusual move in a state where party switching has been very common. We’ll see if he Cao actually has the chops to make a race of it. (Side note: A proud moment in SSP in-the-weeds history: Live-blogging the LA-AG runoff in 2007, when control of the state House was also at stake.)

• MS-AG: A rare bright spot for Mississippi Dems: Attorney General Jim Hood leads Republican Steve Simpson by 49-32 margin in PPP’s latest poll.

• Special Elections: From Johnny L-T:

Two of the three elections last night were landslides; in South Carolina’s SD-16, Republican Greg Gregory trounced Democrat Keith Brann and Libertarian Stan Smith by a 77-18-5 margin, while in Minnesota’s SD-66, DFLer Mary Jo McGuire beat Republican Greg Copeland 80-20. In Connecticut’s HD-128, Democrat Dan Fox won with 39%, while Republican Charles Pia (not Antonacci, my mistake) came in second with 24%. Independents John Mallozzi and Monique Thomas both made strong showings, pulling in 23% and 13%, respectively, and Green Rolf Maurer brought up the rear with about 1%. Note that Mallozzi failed to win the Democratic nomination, so he petitioned his way onto the ballot.

Remainders:

• Pay-to-Play: MaryNYC, the First Lady of the Swing State Project (aka my wife), has an interesting backgrounder on the SEC’s new regulations which attempt to curtail Wall Street from engaging in “pay-to-play” with elected officials. What’s interesting about the rules is that they make it very difficult for employees of financial firms to donate to state and local officeholders who have a stake in municipal investment decisions, but generally speaking doesn’t affect donations to federal officeholders. So, in a hypothetical example, New Mexico state Auditor Hector Balderas, who is weighing a run for Senate, might find Wall Street’s doors shut, while Rep. Martin Heinrich, who is already in the race, would face no such problems.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Indiana: We’ll have a lengthier redistricting-only digest later today, but I wanted to bring you this information ASAP. A source involved in Indiana politics informs me that these are the Obama percentages for each CD in the new map proposed by Republicans in the state lege:

IN-01: 63.2

IN-02: 49.4

IN-03: 42.9

IN-04: 44.4

IN-05: 46.5

IN-06: 43.5

IN-07: 66.3

IN-08: 48.0

IN-09: 46.1

Senate:

• AZ-Sen: So what the heck happened with Trent Franks? The Arizona Guardian is reporting that the Republican Congressman had been promising people jobs on his pending Senate campaign, and that his people had even gone so far as to ensure proper media risers were available at the hotel where Franks was supposed to make his big announcement. Yet it all vanished in a heartbeat when Franks unexpectedly pulled the plug. Says the Guardian: “The good thing is, there’s still another year-and-a-half to get the full story before the 2012 elections.” Also, in case you haven’t seen it yet, Dave Catanese penned a piece explaining the backstory on how he got burned by Franks’ consultant. It just adds to all the weirdness.

• FL-Sen: Tucked inside that Quinnipiac poll which showed tough numbers for Obama was this nugget:

Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who like Obama is on the 2012 ballot, is in better shape, with a 47-26 percent approval rating, a 43-39 percent lead over an unidentified Republican and voters saying 43-35 percent that he deserves another term in the Senate.

• MI-Sen (PDF): A week or so ago, Republican-affiliated pollster Market Research Group offered some better-than-everyone-else approval ratings for Gov. Rick Snyder. Apparently, they also polled the Senate race at the same time, pitting Dem Debbie Stabenow against Some Dude Randy Hekman. Amusingly, the polling memo says the Senator has a “slim” 11-point lead over Hekman, 45-34. But the real problem is the sample, which is 26 R, 26 D, 43 I – in other words, nothing like reality.

MRG also polled a hypothetical state Supreme Court matchup between incumbent Supreme Court Justice Brian Zahra and former Gov. Jennifer Granholm, which had Zahra up 38-33. (Moving from the statehouse to the high court is not unheard of in Michigan.) Speaking of Granholm, she was supposedly under consideration to head up the Consumer Financial Protection Board but says she withdrew her name (and likes Elizabeth Warren for the job). It sounds like Granholm is keeping pretty busy, and the article notes she’s teaching at UC Berkeley, so perhaps she’s enjoying the weather out in Cali a bit more than back home. But Granholm is a former state AG and was even supposedly a possible Supreme Court pick, so perhaps a judicial run is plausible.

• PA-Sen: Sam Rohrer, the teabaggy ex-state Rep. who got pounded by Tom Corbett in the PA-Gov GOP primary last year, says he’s “50-50” on running against Bob Casey this cycle. Rohrer has the perfect pedigree: He runs the Pennsylvania chapter of the malevolent David Koch front group Americans for Prosperity.

• VA-Sen: Passed along without comment:

NBC 4’s reporter-anchor Craig Melvin is a tall African-American. Which apparently led to this exchange with former Sen. George Allen, according to Melvin’s Twitter account Tuesday night:

“For the 2nd time in 5 months, fmr. gov. and sen candidate George Allen asks me,”what position did you play?” I did not a play a sport.”

Actually, I changed my mind. If you still don’t think George Allen is a racist fuck, read this coda from ThinkProgress writer Lee Feng. And no, Allen didn’t apologize – he offered a classic bullshit “I’m sorry if I offended you” response. That’s bullshit.

Anyhow, Roanoke College released a poll of the race, showing Allen leading Tim Kaine by 45-32 – a rather different picture than what we saw from PPP. However, the WaPo ran an above-the-item update warning readers to be “cautious” about this survey because “[r]esults were adjusted only for gender, and the resulting sample is not representative of Virginia’s racial composition, its age structure or regional population densities.” It also looks like the horserace question was asked after about a bajillion issue-related questions (PDF), some of them kind of weird.

Finally, in Some Dude news… some other Some Dude (an African-American minister named Earl Jackson) decided to get into the GOP primary, a race with a lot of Some Dudes already in it.

Gubernatorial:

• GA-Gov: PPP did a re-do poll in Georgia, too, and found Dem ex-Gov. Roy Barnes would edge actual Gov. Nathan Deal by a single point today, 46-45. Tom says that this isn’t a case of voter disgust with Deal (he has pretty meh ratings, not downright radioactive ones like Scott Walker), but rather a clear sign of last year’s enthusiasm gap that will forever haunt us. There’s also a smorgasbord of other Peach State odds-and-ends at the link.

• KY-Gov: Gov. Steve Beshear (D) is out with his first radio ads of the campaign, touting his small-town roots, a week after his likely Republican opponent, David Williams, also went up on radio. Unlike Beshear, Williams faces a primary on May 17th, so he’s also going up on cable TV with a new ad you can watch here. NWOTSOTB for any of these.

• MS-Gov: Turns out PPP did in fact test the Republican gubernatorial primary in Mississippi. Click through if you really, really care. (Hint: You won’t.)

• UT-Gov: State Rep. Stephen Sandstrom, a teabagger fave to challenge immigration apostate Gary Herbert for the governor’s mansion, says on Facebook that he has “no plans or intentions to run.” (Yes, it would be more awesome if his name were Stephen Sandstorm.)

• WV-Gov: In case you weren’t sure where all the players in the Democratic primary field stand on the ideology spectrum (something we’ll be rectifying with a more in-depth post shortly), this is a helpful guidepost: Acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin was endorsed by the WV Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber also endorsed the only two legit Republicans running, Betty Ireland and Bill Maloney.

House:

• CA-26, CA-06: Assemblyman Anthony Portantino is getting some high-profile fundraising help: Steve Israel is coming out to Pacific Palisades this weekend for a breakfast event. The same piece also notes that Assemblyman Jared Huffman raised $120K for a federal account in Q1; Huffman is interested in 73-year-old Rep. Lynn Woolsey’s seat, if she retires. Woolsey apparently will decide whether to seek another term by June.

• FL-25: Idiot.

• IL-08: I’m not exactly broken up by this news: Ex-Rep. Melissa Bean, whose race was the closest in the nation last year (she lost by 290 votes to a real piece of work), says she won’t run again. She’s now CEO of something called the Executives Club of Chicago, which doesn’t really give off a man-of-the-people vibe, now does it?

• MI-09: If there’s one guy repeatedly written off as a redistricting victim who I’d really love to see find a way to survive, it’s Rep. Gary Peters. Despite what must have been an exhausting last several years raising money, the Michigan Dem wasted no time getting right back into the game, pulling in over $400K in Q1. He has half a mil on hand.

• NM-01: This Roll Call piece (also linked below in a redistricting item) mentions a few Dem names we hadn’t discussed here before: state Rep. Al Park, Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver, and Bernalillo County Commissioner Michelle Lujan Grisham, who lost the 2008 primary for this seat.

• NY-13: Ex-Rep. Mike McMahon will join the “government relations” (i.e., lobbying) group at a mid-sized NYC law firm. He’s apparently being brought on as “counsel” status, rather than as a partner, so this could just be a way-station to allow him to pay the bills as he weighs a re-match… but of course, he risks getting hit with the lobbyist taint.

• PA-17: Activist Sheila Dow-Ford confirms the rumors that she’s considering another run against Rep. Tim Holden, against whom she took 35% in the Democratic primary last year. Holden could get a bluer district when all is said and done, so a challenge from the left is a real possibility – but as Dow-Ford herself notes, others are interested, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some bigger-name candidates got in if the seat became markedly more Dem.

• UT-02: Huh – I can’t exactly accuse the Salt Lake Tribune of burying the lede, since they put this in the second graf, but Rep. Jim Matheson says he’s waiting to see what the new district lines look like before deciding whether to run again, or instead if he’ll seek statewide office. A statewide run doesn’t seem like a particularly appealing escape hatch, but both Gov. Gary Herbert (see item above) and Sen. Orrin Hatch could wind up damaged by teabaggers, so you never know. A couple of other statewide offices Matheson could see (Treasurer, Auditor) are up as well.

Also, Some Dude Chuck Williams, an Air Force vet who lost a couple of GOP primaries for Congress… in California… says he plans to challenge Matheson for his House seat, and that he’ll run regardless of where the lines get drawn.

• VA-11: Via FEC Kenobi, Some Dude Christopher Perkins just filed as a Republican to challenge Gerry Connolly. That’s a pretty un-Google-able name, so I can’t tell you much about him… though I do know his home is worth $743,130!

• WV-01: Freshman Rep. David McKinley (R), who won a close race last year, says he’s raised over half a mil in the first quarter. Note, though, that he still has $670K in campaign debt from last cycle.

Other Races:

• Allegheny Co. Exec.: PoliticsPA, via Municipoll, has a race out on the Allegheny, PA County Executive’s race. I’m gonna admit straight off the bat that I don’t know the players here, but click through for details.

• IN-SoS: So a judge allowed a Dem challenge to SoS Charlie White’s eligibility to serve in office to proceed, but really, you just need to read Bob Bobson’s summary of where things stand – and where things will head now. (Bob’s been doing an awesome job of staying on top of this oftentimes-complicated story, so pay attention to him.)

• Champaign, IL Mayor: Here’s a nice little election result that we otherwise missed: The avowedly teabagging mayor of Champaign, Illinois was narrowly defeated by a political newcomer on Tuesday night, the first time, in fact, that he’d ever been opposed in 12 years in office. I’m a little surprised that the university town of Champaign would have elected such a wingnut in the first place, but this is still good news.

• Specials: Johnny Longtorso:

Democrat Kevin Johnson won a 5-point victory over Republican Sonny Sanders in South Carolina’s HD-64.

[On whether this seat was supposedly a Dem stronghold:]

I took another look at it; it’s almost all of a county that Obama got around 56% in along with one or two precincts of an adjacent county, and it’s about 50/50 white/black, so black turnout may have been low. So he just did a few points worse than Obama’s numbers in 2008.

• Wisconsin Recall: Dems filed over 22,000 signatures to recall state Sen. Randy Hopper yesterday. Republicans claim they are close to filing petitions for Sen. Robert Wirch, one of the more endangered Dems on the list.

Remainders:

• WATN?: Ethan Hastert, son of ex-Speaker Denny the Hutt and victim of a genuinely impressive teabagger-fueled anybody-but-Ethan movement to deny him the GOP nomination in IL-14 last year, has managed to win elective office this year. He earned a council seat in the village of Elburn, IL, which has a population that is actually a few thousand smaller than my census tract. Don’t call it a comeback!

Redistricting Roundup:

• Arkansas: Total impasse: The state House rejected the state Senate’s congressional redistricting plan, complementing the Senate’s recent rejection of the House plan. Some procedural maneuvers may be used to try to get things moving forward again, which lawmakers are probably eager to do, since the legislative session was scheduled to end over a week ago.

• California: Look, it’s basically impossible to find a law firm that knows anything about redistricting which has never had any prior political involvement. So I don’t understand why it’s coming as a surprise that Gibson Dunn, the firm hired by the redistricting commission, has a political fund and has used it to make donations. Oh wait, I think I do – it’s because most (but by no means all) of those donations were made to Democrats, so the GOP is continuing its plan to do everything it can to “discredit” the entire process. It’s especially silly, because the firm specifically tasked one Dem attorney and one Republican attorney to lead the effort… but then again, the GOP is especially silly.

• Louisiana: Nathan Gonzales has a good piece untangling the wreck that is Louisiana redistricting, and offering some insight into the behind-the-scenes process. I strongly encourage you to click through the link for the full flavor. (As an inducement, there’s a bowl full of cat food inside.) Apparently, a compromise plan is in the works, but Nathan says that if an agreement isn’t reached by next week, the lege will have to wait until next year to finish its work. (They can’t call a special session?) Anyhow, like I say, read the whole thing.

• New Mexico: Though legislators won’t hold a special session on redistricting until the fall, apparently a plan is brewing among Democrats to excise GOP-leaning Torrance County from the 1st CD. The problem, though, is that while Dems control the lege, Gov. Susana Martinez is, of course, a Republican – a very similar situation to the last round of map-drawing in 2001, which eventually ended up in court.

• Texas: You can play with various Texas map proposals at the link.

• Virginia: Two Virginia items. First, the House of Delegates approved the Republican gerrymander for that body, though most Democrats were actually stupid enough to vote in favor of the plan. (Hasn’t anyone ever heard of a symbolic protest vote to at least signal to your supporters that you know you’re getting the shaft, even if it’s for the greater good?) Second, a (the?) congressional plan was released, and it’s potentially not as bad as it could be. Have a look-see.

Virginia and Rhode Island don’t have a lot in common, except for the fact that PPP just put out Republican primary numbers for both states this week. So we figured we’d bundle `em up into one post.

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (2/24-27, VA Republican primary voters, no trendlines):

George Allen (R): 67

Bob Marshall (R): 7

David McCormick (R):3

Jamie Radtke (R): 4

Corey Stewart (R): 3

Undecided: 18

(MoE: ±4.9)

This is disappointing news for anyone – such as myself – hoping to see George Allen get teabagged. In a one-on-one matchup against Republican Jesus (aka “someone more conservative”), Allen wins by 52-25 – impressive numbers, and far better than anyone else PPP has asked this question of. The important thing to remember, though, is that in 2010, the most important factor in whether an establishment candidate could be successfully teabagged to death was the involvement of the Tea Party Express. Though they’re a bunch of grifters who keep the lion’s share of what they raise for themselves, they’re also capable of changing elections. The Club for Growth can do this, too (and did so, in the NY-23 special), though they seem to be playing ball with the GOP bigs more often these days.

If Allen doesn’t cheese off TPX, or if they simply decide he’s too strong, then he may well just cruise to the nomination. I have a hard time seeing Bob Marshall gaining much traction (i.e., raising much money) without some outside help. (Anyhow, the most interesting news out of Virginia is just how well Obama is doing there: 48-42 over Mitt Romney and bigger margins against everyone else.)

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (2/16-22, RI Republican primary voters, no trendlines):

Don Carcieri (R): 44

Scott Avedisian (R): 12

Buddy Cianci (R): 12

John Loughlin (R): 12

John Robitaille (R): 12

Allan Fung (R): 6

Catherine Taylor (R): 2

Giovanni Cicione (R): 0

John Robitaille (R): 31

John Loughlin (R): 24

Scott Avedisian (R): 21

Allan Fung (R): 14

Giovanni Cicione (R): 3

Catherine Taylor (R): 2

Undecided: 6

(MoE: ±6.2)

As Tom notes, Carcieri, the immediate past governor, actually performs the worst of all Republicans against Whitehouse. However, no one’s actually confirmed a run, so who knows who the GOP nominee will be. (For what it’s worth, Romney, the former governor of next-door Massachusetts, unsurprisingly cleans up in the presidential race.)

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (2/24-27, Virginia voters, 11/10-13/2010 in parens):

Tim Kaine (D): 47 (50)

George Allen (R): 47 (44)

Undecided: 6 (6)

Tim Kaine (D): 49

Bob Marshall (R): 35

Undecided: 16

Tim Kaine (D): 49

Jamie Radtke (R): 33

Undecided: 17

Tom Perriello (D): 41 (42)

George Allen (R): 48 (47)

Undecided: 11 (12)

Tom Perriello (D): 39

Bob Marshall (R): 35

Undecided: 26

Tom Perriello (D): 40

Jamie Radtke (R): 32

Undecided: 28

Rick Boucher (D): 42

George Allen (R): 47

Undecided: 11

Rick Boucher (D): 40

Bob Marshall (R): 32

Undecided: 28

Rick Boucher (D): 40

Jamie Radtke (R): 29

Undecided: 31

(MoE: ±3.5%)

What I like about these numbers – and it’s something Tom acknowledges as well – is that George Allen does no better again Tom Perriello (who is unknown to 57% of the state) than he does against Tim Kaine. And who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky and Allen will get teabagged to death by the likes of loonocrat Bob Marshall. Tom also teases that his presidential results show good things for Barack Obama, so yeah – I like these numbers.

• AZ-Sen: A GOP polling firm, Summit Consulting, is out with a poll that gives Maricopa Co. Sheriff Joe Arpaio the lead in the nascent Republican field to replace the retiring Jon Kyl. Arpaio is at 21, with Rep. Jeff Flake and ex-Rep J.D. Hayworth both at 17, ex-Rep. John Shadegg at 12, and Rep. Ben Quayle at 6. An Arpaio-free version found Flake at 22, Hayworth at 20, and Shadegg (who has made clear that he’s not running) at 17. Although this poll wasn’t announced as being on anyone’s behalf, there’s an important caveat: Summit is raising money for Arpaio’s re-election campaign as Sheriff. This seems a consistent pattern for Arpaio over the years: float his name for higher office, rake in contributions, apply those toward his next Sheriff campaign, rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, although previous reports had had him unlikely to run for Senate, Rep. Trent Franks from current AZ-02 is now on the record as “exploring that option.”

• ME-Sen: Here’s an amusing tidbit about Andrew Ian Dodge, now running a tea party challenge of sorts to Olympia Snowe: he’s the subject of some suspicion in certain right-wing circles on account of his British background (which may explain why he cheekily showed up with his birth certificate at his campaign launch). Prime evidence for this strange line of attack is a comment he posted to a blog several years ago where he copped to being a Lord of the Manor in Gorleston, Suffolk. (Politico’s Dave Catanese titled his article on this “Snowe challenger is a British Lord…” which isn’t quite right. “Lord of the Manor” isn’t part of the peerage system (which just plain old “Lord” would be), but just a weird holdover from the feudal system of property rights, an indicator that someone in his family owned property there long ago). (One other thing I noted, though, thanks to the magic of Wikipedia: Gorleston is actually in Norfolk, not Suffolk. WHAT ELSE IS ANDREW IAN DODGE LYING ABOUT!!!!11!!!?!)

• NE-Sen: We’ve mentioned state Sen. Deb Fischer before as a potential dark-horse candidate on the Republican side in Nebraska, and now she seems to be stepping things up, at least to the extent of contacting Roll Call and letting them know that she’s interested. She represents the empty north-central part of the state, and could stand out as an interesting third-wheel in a Jon Bruning/Don Stenberg rumble by being the only rural and female candidate.

• NM-Sen: PPP finally released the GOP primary portion of last week’s New Mexico Senate poll, and… common theme in a lot of their polls… find the most electable candidate for the general losing the GOP primary because of various apostasies. Libertarian-flavored ex-Gov. Gary Johnson trails ex-Rep. Heather Wilson in a hypothetical 3-way, 35-27, with Rep. Steve Pearce at 17, Matt Chandler and Dianna Duran both at 6, and John Sanchez at 4. (Not that it matters, since Johnson has confirmed he’s sticking with his long-shot presidential bid. In fact, unless Jeff Bingaman unexpectedly retires, I’d be surprised if any of these GOPers bothers to get in.)

• NV-Sen: Rep. Dean Heller is out with an internal poll that has him way ahead of John Ensign in the GOP primary, and, accordingly, he seems to be accelerating his plans to run. The poll gives Heller a 53-38 lead in a head-to-head, and also sees him winning a 5-car pileup: it’s Heller 39, Ensign 23, Danny Tarkanian 17, Sharron Angle 14, and John Chachas 3. Faced with the possibility of a much harder race against Heller than Ensign, possible Dem candidate Rep. Shelley Berkley is saying that it wouldn’t dissuade her if Heller were the nominee, but she’s continuing to “seriously look at” the race but is also in “no rush” to decide. You know who is in a rush, though? The DSCC. Jon Ralston says they’re already talking to Democratic SoS Ross Miller too, in case they need a Plan B.

• TX-Sen: Hmm, here’s an interesting place for a Senate scoop to come from: the student newspaper at Claremont McKenna College in California. CMC alum Rep. David Dreier is the linchpin in this game of telephone: he told them that a fellow alum is indeed running for the Senate, and by process of elimination, that would point to former Dallas mayor Tom Leppert, considered a likely candidate on the GOP side. Leppert, however, wouldn’t confirm to the student paper that he was running.

• UT-Sen: Another Dan Jones poll in Utah takes a look at the Senate race, and this one isn’t as weird as the last one (which included Jon Huntsman, who seems, to my eyes, to be running for Vice-President instead): it’s a straightforward poll of Orrin Hatch vs. Jason Chaffetz (although it’s still a poll of all Utah residents). At any rate, Hatch leads Chaffetz 44-34; among self-identified Republicans, Hatch actually does better, 51-35 (although trailing among “very conservative” voters). Of course, there are various ways this primary might still not happen; Chaffetz could break 60% at the state GOP convention, or Hatch could (a la Bob Bennett) finish third at the convention behind Chaffetz and a teabagger to be named later. Asked for comment, Chaffetz only said he’s a “definite maybe” about the race, and may choose to stay in the House.

• VA-Sen: We might have an answer pretty soon on whether Tim Kaine plans to run for the Senate, now that Jim Webb is out. He reportedly will consult with Barack Obama on the matter in the next couple days (gee, I wonder what Obama will suggest?), and Kaine also has announced plans to speak at the state’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner this weekend, which seems like a place to make a ‘yes’ announcement (as it would be kind of a buzzkill to go there and tell everyone ‘no’). There are also rumors… poorly sourced ones at that, so don’t get your hopes too high… out there of a GOP-sponsored poll showing not just Kaine but also Tom Perriello leading George Allen, so keep your ears to the ground for more on that.

• MT-Gov: Add one more state Senator to the mix in the Montana gubernatorial race, this time on the Dem side. Larry Jent says he’d like to run statewide, and it’ll probably be for governor. (He’d join other current or former state Sens. Dave Wanzenried on the Dem side, and Corey Stapleton and Ken Miller for the GOP.)

• LA-03, LA-07: Two Louisiana papers have had articles in the last few days on Louisiana redistricting and its likeliest casualty, new Rep. Jeff Landry, who was elected with tea party rather than establishment backing and, accordingly, doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on when the establishment draws the maps in the coming months. It’s looking likelier that a map more favorable to the more senior (and tighter with leadership) Rep. Charles Boustany will be the result. The state’s redistricting special session of the legislature will be held Mar. 20.

• NY-15: While there’s still plenty of time left for him to reverse course and announce his retirement (hint, hint), Charles Rangel yesterday announced that he’s filing for re-election in 2012 to a 22nd term.

• NY-26: While they’ve been downplaying their chances for success in the R+6 26th, local Dems are hard at work looking for a candidate. It’s hard to tell who’s on the short list right now, though: one list featured Erie Co. Comptroller Mark Poloncarz, Erie Co. Clerk Kathy Hochul, and Amherst town board member Mark Manna (the only one who actually lives in the district), but doesn’t seem to feature oft-mentioned Kathy Konst. Another insider mentions two possible Dems Republican candidates from the private sector: Dan Humiston and Chris Jacobs. There’s one familiar face you can scratch off the Dem list, though: 2008 candidate Jon Powers says he’s not looking to be considered.

• WA-02: Snohomish Co. Councilor and narrow 2010 loser John Koster is “weighing” another run against Rick Larsen, although he’s waiting to see what the 2nd looks like after redistricting. The 2nd (currently D+3) needs to lose population, but it could become swingier if the losses come around Everett, or become bluer if the losses come in eastern Snohomish County.

• Chicago mayor: One more new poll to report in Chicago, another one from We Ask America (on behalf of the Chicago Retail Merchants Association). It has the highest Rahm Emanuel number yet, at 58. Gery Chico is 2nd at 24, Miguel del Valle at 10, and Carol Moseley Braun at 6. The poll was in the field on Sunday, the same day that Moseley Braun, apparently by way of referring to The Producers, compared Emanuel to Hitler, so the impact of her latest gaffe may not even have impacted on this sample. (Given the current trajectory of her poll numbers, she may actually receive a negative number of votes at the actual election on Feb. 22.)

• Special elections: There are not one but two special elections for vacant state Senate seats in California tonight, although neither one should offer much drama thanks to their strong partisan leans. The one you’re probably already aware of is SD-28 in the LA’s South Bay suburbs (overlapping much of CA-36), where Democratic ex-Assemblyman Ted Lieu is likely to fill the seat left by the death of Jenny Oropeza. He faces seven other candidates, so he might not break 50%, requiring a runoff then. The other race is in SD-17, centered on Lancaster in the high desert north of LA, where Republican Sharon Runner is expected to beat the only other candidate, Democrat Darren Parker. (Runner is trying to take over the seat from her husband George Runner, who vacated to join the state Board of Equalization.)

• Nebraska: Believe it or not, there are multiple interesting things afoot in Nebraska. Most significantly, the proposal to switch Nebraska to a winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes (instead of allotting some by CD, which allowed Barack Obama to sneak away with 1 Omaha-area EV) is entering committee; it’s expected to be easily approved by the ostensibly nonpartisan but Republican-controlled unicameral legislature. There are also competing bills in the legislature on changing the size of said legislature, one to reduce it from 49 to 45, the other to expand it to 50 (neither one is expected to go anywhere, though). Also, Nebraska just picked its nine members for its redistricting commission; there will be five Republicans and four Dems on the (again, ostensibly nonpartisan) body.

• WATN?: Ex-Rep. Mike Arcuri, who lost in NY-24 in November, is now working in the private sector at a major law firm in Syracuse. It may be a tea leaf that he might be interested in another run that he’s staying in the area instead of heading for the more lucrative world of K St., or it might be nothing. At any rate, he’s doing better for himself than Republican 2006 CA-47 loser Tan Nguyen, who just got sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison for obstruction of justice related to charges of voter fraud, for sending out flyers intended to suppress the district’s Latino vote.

• Polltopia: If you think that polling was way screwier than usual over the 2010 cycle, or that it was better than ever, you’re both wrong. It was pretty much the same as always, according to Mark Blumenthal. According to a study by National Council on Public Polls, the average candidate error in 2010 was 2.1%, very comparable to other midterm elections. (The accuracy seems to improve in presidential years, perhaps thanks to more frequent polling.) Interestingly, though, even though the error rate didn’t change much, there were many more polls (25% this cycle, compared with 11% in 2006) conducted in the last week before the election with results that fell outside the margin of error (cough Rasmussen cough). They found that live interview polls (2.4%) did slightly better than autodialed polls (2.6%), but, surprisingly, polls conducted over the internet (mostly just YouGov) did the best with a 1.7% error rate.

I guess we can’t consider this a surprise:

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) announced he will not seek re-election in 2012.

The first-term Senator issued a statement saying he will return to the private sector, removing the possibility of a high-profile rematch with former Republican Sen. George Allen.

“It has been a great and continuing privilege to serve in the United States Senate,” Webb said. “I am very proud of my talented and dedicated staff, which has worked tirelessly to resolve the issues on which I based my candidacy, and to protect the interests of all Virginians in this national forum.”

So who might run in Webb’s place for Team Blue? Perhaps it’s time for a comeback from Tom Perriello, who fought valiantly in 2010 despite occupying a tough district?

• CT-Sen: Ex-Rep. Rob Simmons has previously sounded unlikely to run (and rather sulky about it), but now he’s saying he’s “considering” the race and will make a decision by March. He’s also seeking to replace state GOP party chair Chris Healy, who he thinks favored Linda McMahon during the nomination process. Simmons also had some kind words for state Sen. Scott Frantz as an option in case he himself doesn’t run.

• FL-Sen: Already having the backing of the man he replaced as state Senate president (John Thrasher), now Mike Haridopolos got the endorsement of the Republican leader of the other chamber, state House speaker Dean Cannon. (Not that those kinds of endorsements move a lot of actual votes, but this could be harmful in the behind-the-scenes game to former state House majority leader Adam Hasner if he runs, as he’d probably have expected Cannon’s help.)

• MA-Sen, MA-06: Rep. John Tierney didn’t sound much like a candidate in the Senate race when asked about it at an appearance with area high schoolers, saying he’s focused on his current job and plans to run again. That, on top of Barney Frank’s announcement yesterday that he’s running again (and the months-ago announcement from John Olver that he’s running again) point to an increasing likelihood that two of the state’s 10 Dem Congresspeople will have to face off in a primary (unless either Mike Capuano or Stephen Lynch roll the dice on a Senate bid). One other total wild card here that came into sharper relief today: John Kerry seems to be amping up his lobbying to become Secretary of State. While there’s no indication that Hillary Clinton is in any hurry to leave, that does raise the specter of another special election if there’s a changing of the guard at SoS after the 2012 election. That possibility, and the chance at an open seat run instead of going up against Scott Brown’s millions, might induce Capuano and Lynch to keep their House jobs for now.

• NE-Sen: PPP gives AG Jon Bruning a substantial lead in the GOP Senate primary, for the right to take on Ben Nelson. He leads state Treasurer Don Stenberg 47-19, with throw-ins Pat Flynn and Deb Fischer at 7 and 6 apiece. Bruning’s faves among Republicans are 57/12.

• VA-Sen: Jamie Radtke, the principal tea party opponent to George Allen in the GOP Senate primary so far, has shown she can compete, at least on the financial front. She raised $100K in the fourth quarter; Allen didn’t report anything since his candidacy didn’t launch until the new year.

• WA-Gov, WA-AG: Democratic Rep. Jay Inslee is launching some rhetorical salvos in Republican AG Rob McKenna’s direction over health care reform in what’s very likely the beginnings of the 2012 gubernatorial general election; McKenna is one of the few blue-state AGs who signed on to the multi-state suit against HCR implementation, a possible foot-shooting move that seems more oriented toward fending off primary opposition from the right than enhancing his electability in November. By the way, if you’re wondering about who’s planning to replace McKenna in the AG slot, there’s word that ambitious King County Councilor Bob Ferguson is about to announce his candidacy next week. His likeliest GOP opponent is fellow King County Councilor (and progeny of WA-08’s Jennifer Dunn) Reagan Dunn.

• WV-Gov: It looks like we finally have some consensus on when that pesky special election for Governor is going to be. The state House and Senate ironed out a compromise that will hold the primary on May 14 and the general election on Oct. 4. Acting Gov. (and candidate) Earl Ray Tomblin has agreed to sign off on the deal, even though it contains a different primary date than he wanted.

• IA-03: Here’s some more evidence that 77-year-old Leonard Boswell is seriously gearing up for a 2012 battle to stay in the House, despite possibly facing two major opponents (first Christine Vilsack in a Dem primary, then Tom Latham in a redistricting-forced general). He named his former campaign manager Julie Stauch as his new chief of staff. (His fundraising may say otherwise, though; see below.)

• LA-03, LA-AG: Jeff Landry, who’s been in the House all of one month, is the likeliest Rep. to get squeezed in a 6-district map of Louisiana, by virtue of his lack of seniority and depopulation in his district (and the need to keep next-door LA-02 a VRA district). So, it seems sensible that he’s already contemplating some alternate plans. Rumors are flying now that the reason that AG Buddy Caldwell is planning switch over to the Republican party is because Landry is looking at challenging Caldwell in this year’s AG race (although Caldwell’s switch would just move that challenge to the primary, if it goes through). David Rivera might not even have the shortest stay among this year’s freshman class, if Landry wins the AG race and leaves the House after one year.

• Fundraising: This Politico piece on fundraising among House members has some interesting red flags from Q4 that may portend retirement. On the GOP side, CA-41’s Jerry Lewis raised $1,700, while MD-06’s Roscoe Bartlett raised all of $0. For the Dems, NY-05’s Gary Ackerman raised $924, NY-28’s Louise Slaughter raised $320, and MI-05’s Dale Kildee raised the strangely specific sum of $1.42. They also point to how fundraising may have dried up for several likely casualties of redistricting, including MI-09’s Gary Peters (down to $88K CoH), IA-03’s Leonard Boswell ($66K CoH), PA-12’s Mark Critz (net negative-$36K), and LA-03’s Jeff Landry (net negative-$24K).

• Redistricting: As expected, the battle over Florida’s Fair Districts initiative is moving into the courts, starting with a new suit filed by the amendments’ backers (including the League of Women Voters and NAACP) demanding that Rick Scott re-engage the process of seeking VRA preclearance for the chances to Florida’s system. (Scott has apparently been dragging his feet on preclearance in hopes that the initiative’s requirements won’t be in place by the time of 2012 redistricting, which could let the GOP legislature gerrymander to their hearts’ content.) Meanwhile, the GOP legislature in Georgia is already consolidating their power to take advantage of their control of the trifecta there: they removed primary responsibility for map-drawing from the nonpartisan Carl Vinson Institute at UGA, and instead are creating a new Legislative and Congressional Reapportionment Office more directly under their control.

• Census: If you tried to open the ftp version of the new Census data yesterday and found yourself looking at incomprehensible txt files (that, if you scroll through them quickly enough, look like you’re able to see through The Matrix), fear not. They’re available via American FactFinder now, and even through interactive widget form.

• FEC: I’m not sure how many max-out donors we have among our readership, but the FEC has raised contribution limits for this cycle, meaning you can give a little more to your favorite candidate or committee before hitting the ceiling. You can now give up to $2,500 per candidate and $30,800 per committee.

• Trivia: I had absolutely no idea this number was so low: there have been only four open seat Senate races in Texas since the 1920s. (Not only do Senators there tend to have long tenures, but vacancies tend to manifest themselves in special elections.) The races were in 1948, 1952, 1984, and 2002.

• CT-Sen: The Chris Murphy/Susan Bysiewicz primary still could turn into a chaotic battle royale, based on this week’s indications. Rep. Joe Courtney is “leaning toward” the run (although that’s not Courtney’s own words, just another insider’s interpretation), and says he’ll have a decision soon. Ted Kennedy Jr. also doesn’t have anything official to say, but he does seem to be stepping up his appearances around the state, including one in Bridgeport next week. One Dem we can probably rule out, though, is former state Treasurer and former Hartford deputy mayor Frank Borges, who disputed reports that he was looking into the race. Here’s also one other Republican who might make the race who seems to have access to big fundraising pools, although it seems like he’d be starting in a big name rec hole against, say, Linda McMahon: state Sen. L. Scott Frantz, who represents wealthy Greenwich in the state’s southwestern tip.

• MI-Sen: After sounding pretty thoroughly disinterested in his few public comments about the possibility of a Michigan Senate race, ex-Rep. and 2010 gubernatorial primary loser Peter Hoekstra is now publicly expressing some interest. He says that he’s “considering it” and will make a decision in a few months. There’s also a poll out of the GOP primary from GOP pollster Strategic National (no word on whose behalf the poll was taken) showing Hoekstra well in the lead, which may be prompting him to get more interested: he’s at 33, with Terry Lynn Land at 15 and Saul Anuzis at all of 1, with 50% still undecided.

• ND-Sen: Rep. Rick Berg has been mentioned often as a potential GOP candidate for the open seat being vacated by Kent Conrad, and chatter seems to indicate the local party seems to have him at the top of the list in terms of someone to unite behind to avoid a divisive primary. Moving from the House to the Senate after only one term is still a pretty unusual move (although it may be less momentous in an at-large state). (In fact, here’s a trivia question for you all, for which I don’t know the answer: who was the last person to successfully jump to the Senate after only one term in the House? I can’t even think of a one-termer getting his party’s nomination since 1994, when Dem Sam Coppersmith ran and lost an open seat race in Arizona to Jon Kyl.) There’s one other name bubbling up to add to the list of the ten-or-more Republicans already listed as possible candidates: Fargo-area state Sen. Tony Grindberg.

• NE-Sen: You might remember that the mysterious GOP dark money group American Future Fund ran some radio ads in North Dakota last month and Kent Conrad was announcing his retirement within a few weeks after that? Not that there’s likely a causal relationship there, but maybe they’re feeling like lightning might strike twice, and now they’re running a similar ad against Ben Nelson in Nebraska.

• TX-Sen: San Antonio mayor Julian Castro had already given some vague statements of not intending to run for the Democratic nomination for the open Senate seat, but put a finer point on that today by announcing that he’s kicking off his campaign for a second term as mayor. One Republican who has expressed some interest in the race but doesn’t seem likely to run is Rep. Mike McCaul from TX-10; the likelier scenario, at least according to one expert, is that McCaul plans to run for state Attorney General in 2014, which will probably be vacated by current occupant Greg Abbott moving up to the Lt. Governor slot, presuming that David Dewhurst either becomes Senator or doesn’t run again in ’14.

• UT-Sen: You thought that Hasselbeck vs. Cromartie Twitter fight was exciting? That’s got nothing on a good social media smackdown between rival right-wing astroturfers Club for Growth and Tea Party Express. In the wake of TPX head Sal Russo’s comments yesterday praising Orrin Hatch, CfG just dissed TPX, saying they seem “to like Hatch’s record in support of TARP, earmarks…” Roll Call has more on the Club’s plans to go aggressively after Hatch. Russo also seems like he’s getting undercut by his fellow TPX leader, Amy Kremer, who says that Hatch isn’t off the hook yet and will be under their microscope for the cycle.

• VA-Sen: Jamie Radtke, the only person in the race so far offering a challenge from the right to presumed GOP frontrunner George Allen, let everyone know yesterday where she’d stand, putting in an appearance at the initial unveiling of the Senate Tea Party caucus (and its four members… or five if you count Pat Toomey, who was willing to speak to them but not join). Other interesting reading regarding Virginia is this profile of Jim Webb which doesn’t offer many surprises but is a good overview of his ambivalence about the Senate race is pretty much in keeping with everything else about him. And buried in another boilerplate article is a pretty sharp smack at Allen from a fellow GOPer and the last person to successfully pivot from getting bounced out of the Senate to winning a later race (in 1988), Slade Gorton. Gorton says Allen, to win, will first need to apologize to voters, saying “I don’t see anything from him about how he screwed up, even though he did.”

• LA-Gov: See you later, Al Ater. After some semi-encouraging statements about a possible candidacy, the Democratic former Secretary of State now says he won’t run for Governor this year. That still leaves the Dems without any sort of candidate to go against Bobby Jindal, with the clock definitely starting to tick louder.

• WV-Gov: Don’t get too comfortable with the idea of a primary to pick the gubernatorial candidates in West Virginia (tentatively set for June 20); the legislature still has to enact that and there are some grumblings that it might not happen because of the expense involved, which would mean party conventions instead. That could give a boost to one of the less-known Democratic candidates who have stronger relations to organized labor, like House speaker Rick Thompson or treasurer John Perdue. The article also mentions a few other Republicans whose names are emerging in the race, most notably Putnam Co. Prosecutor Mark Sorasia (who’ll be participating in an upcoming candidate forum), also mentioning former state Sen. Steve Harrison and state Del. Troy Andes.

• CT-05: The dance cards in the 5th district are definitely filling up. On the Democratic side, Audrey Blondin is saying that she’ll run; she’s a former Selectwoman from Litchfield, a member of the state party committee, and briefly ran for SoS in 2005. Also considering the Democratic primary is J. Paul Vance, the former leader of the Waterbury board of aldermen and a narrow loser to Michael Jarjura in the 2009 Dem mayoral primary. On the Republican side, Mike Clark is in; he’s Farmington town council chair but he’s best known for leading the FBI team that took down corrupt Gov. John Rowland, and was on Tom Foley’s LG short-list. Several other possible names on the Republican field that are mentioned include state Sen. Kevin Witkos, Torrington mayor Ryan Bingham, and one possible heavyweight in the field (and the guy who actually was Foley’s running mate), Danbury mayor Mark Boughton.

• FL-25: Freshman Rep. David Rivera seems to be in a world of trouble, with an entirely new angle on his corruption arising courtesy of an AP investigation: he paid himself nearly $60K in “unexplained” campaign reimbursements during his eight years in the state legislature. Between that and the already mounting investigation by Florida authorities and the FEC into potential payoffs from a dog track, there’s apparently growing discontent with him behind the scenes in Republican leadership, who may be feeling pressure to make an example out of him as part of their “drain the swamp” promises (although Ethics Committee rules prevent them from using that vehicle, since they can’t take up matters that are already under criminal investigation). Rumors persist that both parties are already sounding out candidates for a potential special election. He isn’t getting much public support from John Boehner, whose only on-the-record comments are that he’s taking a wait-and-see attitude on how things unfold.

• WI-01: Is this just a bit of monkeying around with Paul Ryan now that he’s temporarily a celebrity, or are Dems seriously thinking about making a target out of him now that he’s more notorious? (He’s in what’s currently an R+2 district, certainly within reach in a Dem-friendly year with a good candidate, and leads veteran House Republicans in terms of ideological out-of-whackness with his district lean… though that may have changed with the newest crop of teabaggers) At any rate, mailers are being sent out to voters in his district, having a bit of sport with his Medicare-voucherization proposals.

• Chicago mayor: We Ask America is out with another poll of the Chicago mayoral race (taken during the brief period when it looked like Rahm Emanuel might have been off the ballot). It looks like, as speculated, the whole debacle may have actually increased sympathy for Emanuel (with 72% of respondents saying his name should stay on the ballot), as this is the first poll to show him over the magic 50% mark that would help him avoid a runoff. He’s at 52, with Gerry Chico at 14, Carol Mosely Braun at 11, and Miguel del Valle at 4. It also provides support for the theory that Chico, not Mosely Braun, would have been the chief beneficiary if Emanuel had gotten kicked off, as Chico led a Rahm-free option at 33, with Mosely Braun at 17 and del Valle at 7 (with 38 undecided).

• Nassau Co. Exec: This may pretty much spell doom for any future political efforts by Republican Nassau Co. Exec Ed Mangano, who was elected in a narrow upset over Tom Suozzi in 2009. Mangano has, since then, closely stuck to the teabagger/underpants gnome playbook of governance (step 1: cut taxes; step 2: ???; step 3: profit!), and lo and behold, found his county government insolvent. The state government has been forced to step in and seize control of the finance in the county on Long Island, one of the nation’s wealthiest.

• Redistricting: I can’t see this going anywhere legislatively even if Dems still held the majority (and I’m not sure it would pass constitutional muster anyway), but Heath Shuler and Jim Cooper are introducing legislation in the House that would switch every state away from partisan redistricting to requiring use of a five-person bipartisan commission. (They’re picking up the flag from fellow Blue Dog John Tanner, for whom this was a personal hobby horse for many years until he recently left the House, but they may also have some personal stake in wanting this to succeed, seeing as how they suddenly find themselves in states where the Republicans now control the trifecta.) Also, the public rumblings of worry from prominent Republicans about how the GOP isn’t financially or mentally prepared for this round of redistricting (something that seems dramatically out of character for them) seem to keep coming, this time from Ed Gillespie.

• Voting: Montana seems to be taking a cue from its nearby neighbors Oregon and Washington, and moving toward a vote-by-mail system. The measure cleared the House and will soon move to the state Senate. Despite the fact that the GOP controls that chamber and this was a Democratic bill, there was enough Republican support to move it forward. (Studies have shown that vote-by-mail tends to noticeably increase participation by traditionally-Democratic constituencies that ordinarily aren’t very likely voters.)

• 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.