Tag: Polls

SurveyUSA for KING5 (4/27-28, registered voters, no trendlines):

Jay Inslee (D): 41

Rob McKenna (R): 48

Undecided: 11

Jay Inslee (D): 44

Dave Reichert (R): 46

Undecided: 10

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 40

Rob McKenna (R): 52

Undecided: 7

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 44

Dave Reichert (R): 48

Undecided: 8

^{(MoE: ±4%)}

No doubt most media outlets are going to run this poll with a “OMG! Rob McKenna beats Chris Gregoire!” headline. Pardon my French, but Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break. While Gregoire is legally entitled to run for a third term, that just isn’t done in Washington (no one has attempted it since Dan Evans back in the 1970s), and she isn’t fundraising, but keeping a vague air of mystery about her plans to ward off lame duck-itis in her dealings with the legislature. Even if she wanted to, her approvals would sensibly preclude her from running (37/61 in this poll), as she’s shed considerable support on her left with recent actions (an annual budget heavy on education cuts, and just last week a partial veto of a medical marijuana dispensary bill). Add all that up, and anyone in Washington with two brain cells to rub together knows she isn’t running.

Well, with that said, the other numbers from this poll confirm my suspicions that this is going to be a difficult hold for the Democrats, as both AG Rob McKenna (who’s been running for this job for about eight years) and Rep. Dave Reichert (who just poked his head up about this job in the last week) have leads over likely Dem nominee Rep. Jay Inslee. I suspect the McKenna/Inslee disparity may be largely because of name rec (although SUSA doesn’t provide approvals on anybody other than Gregoire, so I can’t compare). Inslee also has an avenue of attack that he’s only just started using, concerning the one flagrantly partisan thing that the otherwise blandly non-controversial McKenna has done as AG, which is to sign onto the multi-state lawsuit against health care reform. Even taking those factors into account, though, McKenna is the GOP’s best shot in decades at recapturing the governor’s mansion, given that he’s one of the last of a dying breed: a quasi-moderate from the suburbs of King County. (And, no, although Reichert also meets those criteria too, I just don’t see him running for this; the party establishment wouldn’t stand for it.)

In case you’re wondering about methodology, the usually autodialer-only SurveyUSA did include a cellphone user sample as part of the poll. You may recall that they did this several times in their polling of WA-Sen last year to account for problems with reaching landline-free younger voters, a problem which has seemed particularly pronounced in tech-savvy Washington. It didn’t seem to help much in 2010, though, as SurveyUSA, like the other robo-callers, still saw the Murray/Rossi race as a tied game, while local traditional-method pollsters at UW correctly spotted the 5-point margin.

Senate:

• MT-Sen: TPM’s headline says it all: “23rd Richest Member Of Congress: I’m ‘Struggling Like Everyone Else.'” Those words were indeed uttered by Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg, who is worth anywhere from $6,598,014 and $56,244,998. It’s not quite Fred Heineman, but it’s not exactly far off, either.

• NM-Sen (PDF): Republican robo-pollster Magellan has a new survey out for the GOP primary. They find ex-Rep. Heather Wilson at 59, Lt. Gov. John Sanchez at 17, teabagging businessman Greg Sowards at 2, 11 other and 11 undecided. The supposedly RINO Wilson has what seems like preposterously good favorables, 84-12, among members of her own party. The linked PDF has faves for a whole host of other candidates, including some who weren’t tested in the head-to-heads.

• NV-Sen: Joe Trippi’s really becoming the go-to guy for rich vanity candidates whom no one wants to see run, isn’t he? Fresh off the vomit-caked Jeff Greene debacle, Trippi’s been hired by wealthy lawyer Byron Georgiou, who so far as refused entreaties to clear a path for Rep. Shelley Berkley. Georgiou’s also arranged to bring on Dan Hart, a local consultant, and pollster Paul Maslin (as in Fairbank Maslin).

• WA-Sen, WA-Gov: Republican Rep. Dave Reichert suggested back in January that he might be thinking about a gubernatorial run, something he affirmed in a recent interview with a local tv station. What seems to be new is that he says he’s also thinking about a run against Sen. Maria Cantwell. I can’t imagine that working out well for him, and he’s also quoted as saying that the “hardest part” of adjusting to life in DC was “getting used to sitting on the airplane.” If he’s still grumbling about those transcontinental flights all these years later, then it sounds to me like he’d prefer the governor’s mansion to the Senate.

Gubernatorial:

• WV-Gov: Rick Thompson has a new spot specifically noting that “across the country, the rights of workers are under attack” – and promising that he’ll “stand up for workers” in West Virginia.

House:

• NH-01: Joanne Dowdell, who is described as a “Portsmouth businesswoman” and has had some involvement in national Dem politics (she was a DNC committeewoman), says she plans to go up against ex-Rep. Carol Shea-Porter in the Democratic primary. It sounds like her politics, by her own admission, are pretty similar to CSP’s, so I’m not really sure what the point of this is.

• NV-02: Gov. Brian Sandoval has set Sept. 13 as the date for the special election to replace Rep. Dean Heller. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Ross Miller will announce the rules for the special at a press conference later today. Oh, and Sharron Angle’s sent out a fundraising email (decrying the “left wing of the Republican Party”), so she’s obviously hoping Miller’s framework leaves the door open for her.

• NY-13: The New Yorker has just about the most fearsome fact-checking department in the English-speaking world, so if you’re going to call them liars, you’re probably going to get your ass handed to you. That’s exactly what’s happening to Rep. Mike Grimm, who called Evan Ratliff’s piece on his FBI days “fiction,” “a witch hunt,” and “a hatchet job.” Ratliff has responded, and in so doing nailed Grimm on a few mistruths of his own. I don’t know that this whole saga is going to have a huge impact in Grimm’s district (I think the Ryan vote is a much bigger deal), but there are still a lot of documents we haven’t seen. We may never see them, but they still loom out there like a sword of Damocles.

• NY-26: New ads from Jane Corwin and Crazy Jack Davis. Corwin’s touts her record on creating jobs, while Davis goes on a rampage, talking directly to the camera about how both parties give bailouts to Wall Street, but he “can’t be bought.” NWOTSOTB in both cases. Meanwhile, NARAL is endorsing Dem Kathy Hochul, but also no word as yet if money will follow.

Other Races:

• Wisconsin Recall: A local judge agreed with the Government Accountability Board that eight recall elections (so not including one for GOPer Rob Cowles) could get consolidated on July 12. Democrats had asked that the recalls against Dan Kapanke and Randy Hopper be certified right away, since those petitions were turned in first, and they’re the two most-vulnerable Republicans, but the request was denied. Things may still get delayed if there are petition challenges, which are all but certain – indeed, Dems have already discovered the signature of a Democratic state Rep.’s long-dead father on one. (Republicans amusingly accused Democrats of planting the sig.)

The Journal Sentinel also has a look at state Assembly members who may run in these recalls, on both the Republican and Democratic sides. It’s a tempting proposition because it’s a free shot: These folks don’t have to give up their current seats in order to run. Some of these names have already announced, while others are still considering. And finally, WisPolitics has a roundup of fundraising numbers for all the recall targets.

Grab Bag:

• Dark Money: Democrats have finally followed the GOP’s lead and decided to create organizations to counter Karl Rove’s American Crossroads/Crossroads GPS. Former Obama aide Bill Burton and former Rahm Emanuel aide Sean Sweeney will head up “Priorities USA” and “Priorities USA Action,” with a goal of raising $100 million to help President Obama. These groups will be allowed to take in unlimited undisclosed donations. No word yet if they also plan on getting involved downballot.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Colorado: Election lawyers out west looking for work now have at least one redistricting battle they can probably look forward to. Steam is coming out of Republican ears now that they’ve seen the Dems’ new map, and I can’t imagine any sort of compromise taking place now. The map the Democrats are going with is one that they’ve released before, called “City Integrity 4”; you can find a PDF of the bill as formally introduced before the legislature here.

• Missouri: Finally, the Dems do something right in redistricting: Gov. Jay Nixon just vetoed the legislature’s last-minute compromise map, almost right after it landed on his desk. The CW said Nixon would wait until the very end of the legislative session to veto, to make an over-ride that much more difficult (or possibly push it into September), but it looks like Nixon chose instead to look publicly magnanimous. He’s asked the GOP to send him a new map before the session ends, which makes him look gracious. I suspect that he also knows they can’t over-ride, and his veto letter offered no specific complaints about the map, so he’s cleverly made it impossible for the Republicans to satisfy him.

The GOP could try to make Nixon look bad by forcing a second veto, but given how difficult it was to hammer out a deal between the House and Senate, I think they’d have a hard time sending him a map that looked any different from the one he just axed. So it would look like silly gamesmanship if they tried to put forward the exact same plan. (That didn’t exactly work out for Dick Saslaw in Virginia.) As long as the over-ride fails and Nixon sticks to his guns, this map will end up in court, which would count as a big win for Team Blue.

• Mississippi: I have to say, I never imagined this would work – but here we are. A three-judge federal court says they are “inclined” to agree with Democrats and the NAACP that state legislative elections should be held this year under maps that were approved in each chamber but not the other (and hence never signed into law), in order to correct serious one-person, one-vote imbalances. The court could still choose to allow elections under current lines, or draw its own map, but this seems to be the path of least resistance. Note that in VRA cases which go before three-judge trial court panels, appeals are taken directly to the Supreme Court – and the SCOTUS must rule on the case (they can’t kick it by declining certiorari), which is a real legal rarity.

• Nevada: Nevada Democrats have released their congressional map, but we can’t seem to find a copy of it online. If you see it anywhere, please let us know in comments.

• Virginia: Well, it’s a done deal. Gov. Bob McDonnell signed the new legislative maps into law. (You can see them here.) Now we move on to the congressional map. The GOP could (and I guess will) probably try to wait until 2012 to do that, since they’ll have a chance at re-taking the state Senate this fall. My view is that Democrats would be idiots to compromise and should take their chances with the voters this fall so that they can kick the map-making to the courts next year. Even if we get rocked this year, what’s the worst the Republicans can do to us? Draw an 8-3 map? That’s the only “compromise” they’ll accept now anyway, and even that might not pass VRA muster. So there’s no reason not to wait.

Site News:

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Siena (PDF) (4/26-27, likely voters, no trendlines):

Kathy Hochul (D): 31

Jane Corwin (R): 36

Jack Davis (T): 23

Ian Murphy (G): 1

Undecided: 9

^{(MoE: ±4.5%)}

I have to say, I wasn’t expecting numbers like this, not at all, for a whole host of reasons. Republicans looked very unified in tapping Assemblywoman Jane Corwin – she was acceptable to the conservatives and even quite a few teabaggers, despite her establishment pedigree, and she also was personally very rich. Meanwhile, Democrats dithered, waiting weeks to pick a candidate after Corwin was already in the race. Furthermore, the one bona fide teabagger who hoped to run, Iraq war vet David Bellavia, screwed up his paperwork and failed to get on the ballot. And on top of that, Ian Murphy, the writer who achieved his 15 minutes with his fake David Koch prank call to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, decided to hop into the race on the newly-reconstituted Green Party line. And oh, yeah, the 26th is the most Republican district in the state. The GOP seemed poised to avoid the mistakes they’d made in the NY-20 and NY-23 specials. It didn’t seem promising for Dems.

But the one wild card has proven much wilder than I had anticipated: zillionaire nutball Crazy Jack Davis is having a much bigger impact than his shot-to-hell reputation would seem to warrant. Prior to this year, Davis had run for this seat in three successive cycles from 2004 to 2008, losing twice in the general and once in the primary – all three times as a Democrat. But he cut a strange figure for a Dem, sound like the most unhinged of right-wingers on his favorite issue, immigration. He also has a well-deserved reputation as a lunatic who is impossible to work with, abuses people, and can’t hold on to staff. Thus he earned the epithet “Crazy,” and he’s been Crazy Jack Davis for about as long as I’ve known of him.

He looked to cement that reputation a few months ago, when he decided he’d get into the mix for this seat yet again, following Rep. Chris Lee’s resignation. But this time, Davis wanted to score the Republican and Conservative Party lines – well, I told you he was crazy. He was quickly rebuffed by both, but this is where that unusual “T” line comes in next to his name in the blockquote at top. Thanks to his millions (he’s always spent his own money freely), Davis was easily able to get on the ballot as an independent, and cannily chose to name his ballot line the “Tea Party.” This caused an entertaining split among teabaggers in western New York, with the “real” teabaggers insisting that Davis was just trying to bogart their good name (yeah, I know, LOL)… but there was nothing they could do about it.

And thanks to his free-spending ways, it seems like Davis is screwing up what should have been a sure thing for Corwin. At the same time, he’s also hurting Hochul. Looking at the cross-tabs (PDF), Davis gets 24% of the Republican vote, 20% of the Democratic vote, and 27% of the independent vote. Rare to see a candidate with such cross-spectrum appeal! I figured Dems would be disgusted with him, and Republicans would want nothing to do with him given his Democratic past. But evidently that’s not the case, at least for everyone.

It’ll be very interesting to see how the major-party candidates react. Surely the campaign committees are doing their own polling, but even if it doesn’t match Siena’s, these numbers will have to make operatives second-guess themselves a bit. Does Corwin start attacking Davis? Or does she try to pound Hochul? Or both? As I see it, though, the strategy for Hochul is a lot simpler. As Siena notes:

They strongly oppose cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits to help close the deficit (59-38 percent); however, they strongly support increasing personal income tax rates for the wealthiest Americans (62-35 percent)….

Hochul’s most recent ad attacked Corwin on Medicare – Corwin said she’d have voted for the Ryan Republican budget – and I said the other day that she should make this her unrelenting theme for the final weeks of the campaign. The poll numbers bear that out. (I’m sure that Hochul won’t call for tax increases on the rich, despite that being super-popular in a red district, but that wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.)

We’ll also have to see if the DCCC and NRCC decide to get involved here. If Hochul can use Medicare the way ex-Rep. Scott Murphy beat Jim Tedisco over the head with the stimulus in the spring of 2009, this could be a real race – coupled, of course, with the Jack Davis factor. All of a sudden, things just got exciting in western New York.

UPDATE: I meant to include this new bit of news in the post, and was reminded in comments. Davis just said he would caucus with the GOP if he wins. That can only help him with would-be Republican voters and hurt him among Democrats. In other words, good news for us!

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:

• FL-Sen: George LeMieux is unsurprisingly trying to distance himself from the label “Charlie Crist Republican,” but all I can say is… good luck with that. The Miami Herald has a lengthy look at just how close the two men were, and while Crist himself won’t say a word against LeMieux, other former staffers are more than happy to detail just how tight their working relationship was.

• MA-Sen: Hey, Richie Neal: Shut the fuck up. Seriously. What is it with Democratic congressmen from Massachusetts who love to crack out of turn? First Barney Frank, and now this crap. And yeah, you’ll have to click the link if you want to know what I’m worked up about.

• TX-Sen: Over at Burnt Orange Report, Karl-Thomas Musselman, a long-time friend of SSP, has a good piece about Democrats’ flawed strategies in Texas statewide races over the last decade, and how Team Blue should approach things differently going forward.

Gubernatorial:

• IA-Gov: In a way, this might be the roughest “do-over” poll of all. Former Dem Gov. Chet Culver lost by double digits last fall, the worst performance of any incumbent governor, yet even he now beats Terry Branstad 48-46 in a hypothetical PPP rematch.

• PA-Gov: GOP Gov. Tom Corbett’s disapproval rating has soared in the past couple of months. He was at 39-11 in February, and is now at 39-37, according to Quinnipiac. I guess this means not a single new person in the state of PA grew to approve of Corbett in two months!

House:

• AZ-06, AZ-Sen: It’s getting hard to keep track of what Republican Russell Pearce’s plans are. The author of Arizona’s notorious immigration law supposedly was out of the running for the open Senate seat, was heavily talked up for the open 6th CD, then was talked down for it, and is now saying he’s leaving both doors open. He says he wants to stay on through the end of the 2012 legislative session, though, and Arizona has a resign-to-run law, so who knows.

On the other hand, House Speaker Kirk Adams just announced that he will resign from the legislature, which can only mean he’s gearing up for a run in the 6th. (We’ve mentioned his name a couple of times before as a possibility.) It’s going to be a crowded GOP primary, as the field already includes ex-Rep. Matt Salmon (who used to hold this seat, more or less) and former state Senate majority leader Chuck Gray.

• IA-04: These are statewide numbers, but still interesting: Steve King is the least-popular member of Iowa’s congressional delegation, with 27-34 favorables. Christie Vilsack, meanwhile, is at 38-23. Certainly these scores within the new fourth district would look different, but unless there is some wild base of support for King in northwest Iowa, I can’t see how you wouldn’t prefer to have Vilsack’s numbers.

• NC-11: Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell says he’ll challenge Rep. Health Shuler in the Democratic primary next year. Shuler, thanks to his vote against healthcare reform, took just 61% in a primary last year against Aixa Wilson, who did not even file any FEC reports.

• ND-AL: With a Rick Berg run for Senate looking likely, people are starting to look at filling his at-large House seat. On the Republican side, state House Majority Leader Al Carlson said he’s considering a race.  Other possible names, according to the linked piece, are state Sen. Tony Grindberg and Tax Commissioner Cory Fong. I wonder if PSC Commish Brian Kalk might slide down from the Senate race, too.

• NV-02: Oh well, I can’t always be right! Sharron Angle shot down an unsourced rumor in the LVRJ that she’d run as an independent in the special election to replace Dean Heller if she isn’t chosen as the GOP nominee. (She won’t be.)

• NY-13: Now it’s Mike Grimm’s turn to tell his side of the story about his instantly notorious nightclub incident from 1999. Meanwhile, NYC Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio is calling on the NYPD and DoJ to release their records from their investigations of the matter. Not really sure why DeBlas, of all people, is inserting himself into this one, except perhaps to try to take a GOP scalp as he eyes the 2013 mayoral race.

• OR-01: Here’s another interesting bit of sub-text to the whole David Wu saga: Nike. The sneaker company has apparently never forgiven Wu for his vote against a bill that would have expanded trade with China back in 2000, and Nike’s chairman endorsed Republican Rob Cornilles last year. (The company also donated to him via their PAC.) It’ll probably be easier to get rid of Wu in the Democratic primary, though, so Nike may decide to get involved yet again.

Public Policy Polling (4/21-24, West Virginia voters, 1/20-23 in parentheses):

Earl Ray Tomblin (D-inc): 51 (49)

Betty Ireland (R): 29 (32)

Undecided: 20 (19)

Earl Ray Tomblin (D-inc): 56

Bill Maloney (R): 23

Undecided: 21

John Perdue (D): 37 (37)

Betty Ireland (R): 32 (37)

Undecided: 30 (26)

John Perdue (D): 38

Bill Maloney (R): 26

Undecided: 36

Natalie Tennant (D): 39 (43)

Betty Ireland (R): 33 (32)

Undecided: 28 (26)

Natalie Tennant (D): 42

Bill Maloney (R): 29

Undecided: 30

Rick Thompson (D): 38 (31)

Betty Ireland (R): 35 (37)

Undecided: 28 (32)

Rick Thompson (D): 38

Bill Maloney (R): 28

Undecided: 34

(MoE: ±3.4%)

The West Virginia gubernatorial special election (which, remember, is being held on Oct. 4, not on Election Day in November) looks like it’s shaping up without much drama: to replace popular conservaDem Joe Manchin, who moved on to the Senate, it looks like fellow popular conservaDem (and Manchin ally) Earl Roy Tomblin has a strong inside track. Tomblin, whose name rec has improved significantly in the months since PPP’s previous (and only other poll) of the race, is now putting up very big margins against the Republican opposition.

Tomblin’s favorables are 49/24, including a plurality, 39/33, among Republicans, and his ‘not sures’ are down to 27%, from 39% in January. His endorsement this week from the NRA ought to only help solidify his standing among right-of-center voters. The other less-known Democratic options (SoS Natalie Tennant’s at 36/29, Treasurer John Perdue is at 27/27, and House speaker Rick Thompson is at 25/24) put up less convincing numbers, but thanks to high Democratic registration advantages, all also win, usually by comfortable margins. That’s a turnaround from January, where Perdue tied Ireland and Thompson lost; only Tennant finds herself in worse position than before. (Bill Maloney, a mining industry businessman without political experience, wasn’t polled by PPP in their January poll, so the trendlines are only partial.)

Public Policy Polling (4/21-24, West Virginia voters, no trendlines):

Earl Ray Tomblin (D-inc): 32

John Perdue (D): 17

Natalie Tennant (D): 16

Rick Thompson (D): 15

Jeff Kessler (D): 5

Arne Moltis (D): 1

Undecided: 14

(MoE: ±4.0%)

Betty Ireland (R): 31

Bill Maloney (R): 17

Clark Barnes (R): 8

Mitch Carmichael (R): 8

Mark Sorsaia (R): 4

Ralph William Clark (R): 2

Larry Faircloth (R): 2

Cliff Ellis (R): 1

Undecided: 28

(MoE: ±5.9%)

The more important story for now, though, is the primaries, which will take place on May 14 (a Saturday, three weeks away). Unlike with the generals, this is PPP’s first look at the primaries and assumedly will be their last; it’s also our only primary poll outside of candidates’ internals. Again, name rec carries the day: Tomblin has a sizable advantage. In fact, as Tom Jensen points out, despite the clutter in the Democratic field, Tomblin actually has a bigger lead there than does ex-SoS Betty Ireland on the GOP side (although watch out for that giant MoE in the GOP poll!). Maloney has set the pace on advertising on the GOP side, leaving Ireland playing catch-up. Maloney’s latest ad, in fact, plays his ace in the hole: his firm’s connections to the rescue of the Chilean miners earlier this year. (One other ad of note: John Perdue’s newest ad actually features a jingle! That’s such a throwback it’s almost a little charming.)

For more on where the Dem candidates fit on the left-right spectrum, check out this excellent primer. This poses an interesting question for Democratic armchair quarterbacks, in terms of who to pull for (which is probably just a question of rooting, as this race certainly isn’t much of a magnet for netroots dollars). Is it better to hope for the slam-dunk candidacy of Tomblin, or to go with a bit more of a roll-of-the-dice in the general to get someone, like Thompson or Tennant, who’s a bit more to the left?

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (3/21-24, Nevada voters, 1/3-5 in parens):

Shelley Berkley (D): 43 (38)

Dean Heller (R): 47 (51)

Undecided: 10 (11)

Byron Georgiou (D): 28

Dean Heller (R): 52

Undecided: 20

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Rep. Shelley Berkley’s favorables have barely budged, and this poll’s partisan composition is little changed from January’s. So what explains the swift tightening here? It turns out that Dean Heller is actually a Republican elected official, and, well, Democrats don’t really like Republicans – once they know who they are:

The main thing fueling Berkley’s gain is that Democratic voters have soured on Heller since he launched his Senate campaign, significantly cutting into his crossover support. In January Heller posted a pretty decent 22/31 favorability spread with Democrats, allowing him a 46/23 breakdown overall. Now just 16% of Democrats express a positive view of him and 48% have a negative one. That’s caused his net favorability to drop 9 points from +23 to now +14 at 43/29.

Given that Democratic voters don’t like him as much anymore it’s no surprise that they’re also not as inclined to vote for Heller as they were earlier this year. In January Berkley had only a 44 point lead over Heller with Democratic voters at 64-20. Now it’s a 63 point lead at 76-13 and that 19 point shift in her direction within her own party is the main reason she now has the race within the margin of error.

This trend is only going to get worse for Heller, not better, as he’ll soon soar to prominence once Gov. Brian Sandoval taps him to replace John Ensign. Meanwhile, Berkley actually has a lot more upside among members of her own party than Heller has with his. Dems like Berkley by a 59-9 margin while Republicans adore Heller at a 74-10 rate. This translates to Heller winning 86% of Republicans while Berkley takes just 76% of Democrats – but it’s almost a guarantee that Berkley’s numbers with Dems will improve. Harry Reid got 91% of Ds against Sharron Angle last year and even Jack Carter got 81% in 2006. And trust me: Shelley Berkley’s no Jack Carter.

Oh, and speaking of that pending appoinment for Heller, Tom Jensen threw in an extra question about whether Nevadans are happy with the prospect of Sandoval naming a replacement, or whether they’d prefer to vote on the choice. Respondents chose “vote” by a 53-44 margin. At the end of the day, I don’t know how much people really care about this sort of thing, but perhaps Democrats will be able to make some hay out of Heller getting skipped to the head of the class. At the very least, it’ll paint a big target on his back, and I’m not sure I’d necessarily want the supposed advantages of incumbency in a race like this – not when greater prominence seems to be translating into crappier performance at the polls.

Senate:

• ND-Sen: North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Brian Kalk will announce his formal entry into the Senate race to replace Kent Conrad tomorrow. Kalk, a Republican, raised a really lame $32K in Q1.

• NM-Sen, NM-03: Facing an already-crowded primary field and the prospect of giving up a safe House seat, Rep. Ben Ray Lujan said yesterday that he won’t seek the Democratic nod to replace Jeff Bingaman in the Senate.

• OH-Sen: I think we didn’t spot this mid-April poll from GOP pollster Wenzel Strategies until now… but definitely take it with something stronger than mere salt. For one thing, they’ve regularly done polls for WorldNetDaily (I mean, seriously?), and for another, they released a seriously weird-ass poll last cycle that purported to show Rep. Norm Dicks losing to a perennial candidate. (Dicks won by 16.)

But even if you didn’t know all that, you’d have to laugh at their absurd spin: They call Sherrod Brown’s favorables “dangerous” and his re-elects “disastrous”… even though his head-to-head margin is 49-36 over Ken Blackwell, 50-36 against Mary Taylor, and 48-33 paired with Josh Mandel. In a Republican poll! Anyhow, if you want to chase this one all the way down the rabbit hole, Wenzel also had a component testing the anti-union legislation called SB5, which will very likely appear on the ballot this fall (people want it repealed by a 51-38 spread).

Gubernatorial:

• WI-Gov: Another recall poll from another not-especially-prominent pollster. Republican polling firm Etheridge & Associates (based out of Tennessee) found 44% in favor of recalling Walker and 51% opposed. They also put Walker head-to-head with a real candidate (which is what would happen in a recall election) and found him tied with Russ Feingold at 48 apiece.

House:

• ND-AL: This is a very good report from Kristen Daum, who writes the “Flickertales” blog for the Fargo-Moorhead Forum. She nails freshman GOP Rep. Rick Berg on two counts: First, last year Berg ran heavily on the theme that Earl Pomeroy was mostly relying on out-of-state money while he, Berg, was raking it in from North Dakotans. Well, with the Q1 reports in, Daum observes that about 80% of Berg’s campaign cash is now coming from interests outside of ND, including quite a bit from DC. Better still, Berg’s staff claimed he hasn’t held any fundraisers or solicited contributions… but the Sunlight Foundation’s “Party Time” website scrounged up a copy of an invite to high-dollar event held on Berg’s behalf by Eric Cantor and a couple of PACs. Whoops!

• NY-13: I’m not even going to summarize what’s at the link, except to say it’s a truly explosive story about GOP freshman Mike Grimm. Just click and read it.

• WI-01: Businessman Rob Zerban is already running against Rep. Paul Ryan, but The Fix suggests another possible Democratic name: state Sen. Chris Larson.

Grab Bag:

• Americans United: That Americans United for Change ad buy against four Republicans we mentioned yesterday apparent totals $35K. That’s at least in the ballpark of real money, and I’m very glad to see groups like AUFC and House Majority PAC start doing these thousand-papercuts sort of campaigns early.

• Polling & Demographics: Ben Smith has an interesting little exchange between a couple of pollsters with experience in working with the Latino community. One, André Pineda (who has polled for Obama, among others), says he thinks that pollsters who gather Hispanic samples by relying on surnames miss a lot of Hispanics who don’t have such names, typically because their families have lived in the US longer. These voters, says Pineda, lean more to the right than newer immigrants. But Matt Barreto of the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity and Race says that Pineda’s estimates are “way off base.” Barreto says only 5-10% of Hispanics do not have Hispanic surnames, whereas Pineda’s memo suggests that the number is far higher.

• Town Halls: Want to see if your member of Congress is having a town hall during this recess so that you can go and give them what for? MoveOn has a tool that lets you plug in your ZIP code and find town halls near you.

• Voter Suppression: Unsurprisingly, the Florida legislature is moving forward with a big election law bill that’s principally designed to suppress the Democratic vote, as always in the name of preventing VOTER FRAUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111. Changes include shortening the early voting period, adding onerous restrictions on third-party groups which register voters, and preventing voters from changing their addresses at the poll (something which Florida has allowed for forty years). Republicans are also moving forward with bills that would eliminate payroll deductions for union dues, force unions to get each member’s permission before spending money on elections, and make it harder for trial lawyers to bring medical malpractice cases. In short, as one Democratic lawmaker put it, it’s the entire GOP wish list.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Florida: This is sorta interesting. One Florida lawmaker on the legislature’s redistricting committee is telling his fellow legislators not to talk to him about redistricting – at all. The new “Fair Districts” law says that districts can’t be drawn to favor or disfavor incumbents, so mapmakers are concerned that if their colleagues start telling them about how they’d like to see the lines crafted, that could later be used as evidence in court.

• Virginia: And so it goes: A week after saying he wouldn’t change a thing about his party’s map, Dem Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw now says of Gov. Bob McDonnell: “We are talking to him. We are trying to meet all of his concerns.” I can’t see how this is going to end well for Democrats, who now seem to face a choice between a crappy gerrymander in the Senate and a court-drawn map… and I guess would prefer the former, based on Saslaw’s hints. Sigh.

Meanwhile, Republicans are apparently pretty pissed at McDonnell for vetoing their plans, supposedly with almost no warning, but there’s a lot that doesn’t add up here. For one, the article says that the legislature doesn’t have enough votes to over-ride McDonnell’s veto, but that’s simply not true. If House Republicans really wanted their map badly enough, they could have prevailed on their counterparts in the Senate to vote for the package deal, ensuring it was safe from McDonnell’s veto pen.

For the governor’s part, he’s also full of shit. His spokesman said that he would have preferred the House and Senate maps had been sent to the governor in separate bills, but jeez, this is classic “born yesterday” crap. There’s no way the Senate would have given away its one piece of leverage like that. Still, it does sound like the Republican anger at McDonnell is quite real (and not just limited to redistricting), which means a serious derail is not impossible. So maybe there’s still a way for Saslaw to snatch something other than defeat from the jaws of… defeat.

• Utah: The state will apparently make redistricting software available to citizens on its website, but the linked article isn’t very clear where that will happen. Any ideas?

Senate:

• ME-Sen: It’s stuff like this which have me convinced that Olympia Snowe is definitely not out of the woods. Her fellow Maine senator, Susan Collins, said she won’t support Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare-killing budget plan, which seems to put the screws to Snowe. It’s a pretty classic problem: If she sides with Ryan, she damages her standing with normal people, and if she sides with Collins, she’ll enrage the teabaggers. It may not matter in the end, but it doesn’t help – and with Collins speaking out, that makes it a lot harder for Snowe to simply avoid the question.

• NV-Sen: Gov. Brian Sandoval says he’ll tap a replacement for John Ensign by the time Ensign resigns in early May, though apparently some Republicans would prefer he name someone other than Dean Heller. That would let the GOP avoid a potential gong-show in NV-02, but Jon Ralston says that a Heller appointment is already a “done deal.”

• OH-Sen: It sounds like Ken Blackwell wants to decide whether he’ll seek the GOP nomination some time in May, after his new book comes out.

• TX-Sen: Robert Paul, son of Ron and brother of Rand (son of Byford, brother of Al!), says he won’t run for Senate this cycle, but says he could possibly run for office at some point in the future.

Gubernatorial:

• IN-Gov: Rep. Mike Pence, whom everyone seems convinced will run for governor, raised a pretty meh $283K in Q1. And yes, he can transfer that money over for a gubernatorial race, so it’s not unimportant. I can’t really imagine Pence declining this chance to seek the statehouse – he won’t have an open-seat opportunity again for quite some time. However, he is in the top rung of GOP leadership in Congress, so maybe he’s just feeling ambivalent. UPDATE: Can’t believe I forgot this, but staypositive reminds me that Pence is no longer a member of the GOP leadership… which makes his sucky fundraising stand out all the more.

• LA-Gov: Uh, well, this certainly takes the cake for first quarter fundraising. Wealthy businessman John Georges wrote his campaign committee a ten million dollar check (in the form of a loan), to be used for an unspecified statewide office. I’m filing this under “LA-Gov” because he ran as an indie for that job in 2007. No word yet if he’ll run again, or if he’ll do so as a Dem, but if he does, at least his cash would give Bobby Jindal a little heartburn.

• NH-Gov: Dem state Rep. Jim Splaine, writing over at Blue Hampshire, takes a broad look at the playing field for next year’s gubernatorial race. He wants Gov. John Lynch to run again, but if he doesn’t, Splaine offers a ton of other possibilities. One name that stands out is former Portsmouth Mayor Steve Marchand, who ran for NH-Sen in 2008 before stepping aside for Jeanne Shaheen. Marchand’s been talked about as a possible challenger to 1st CD Rep. Frank Guinta, but he’s talked with Splaine about his ambitions, and it sounds like he’s more interesting in a gubernatorial bid.

Also, if you want to keep your finger on the progressive pulse in the Granite State, BH has started running straw polls for next year’s key races. Marchand wasn’t included in their gov test, but Mark Connolly (whom we mentioned here the other day) led the way with 31% of the vote.

House:

• AZ-08, AZ-Sen: The Arizona Republic has a lengthy profile on Gabrielle Giffords and her recovery and rehabilitation, which is worth reading in full. Also, her husband, astronaut Mark Kelley, said that Giffords has been cleared to attend the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour this Friday. Kelly will command this mission, Endeavour’s last.

• NY-13: According to the New York Observer, a new potential Dem name to take on Rep. Mike Grimm has emerged: Robert Diamond, a Navy veteran and investment banker. Diamond has roots on Staten Island, but Brooklyn-based blogger Colin Campbell dug up a donation to the DNC which shows that Diamond lived on the Upper East Side as recently as last year. Not sure how great a fit that is culturally… but in any case, Diamond didn’t return a call to the Observer seeking comment, so who knows how real this is.

• NY-22: Our thoughts go out to upstate Rep. Maurice Hinchey, who was just diagnosed with colon cancer. Fortunately, his doctors say that his cancer is curable and they expect a full recovery. Hinchey is 72.

• NY-26: Dem Kathy Hochul was just endorsed by EMILY’s List. The special election is just a month away, May 24th.

• OR-01: State Rep. Brad Witt has been upgraded from “rumor level” to “considering level.” Blue Oregon mentioned the other day that he was a possible contender to challenge Rep. David Wu in the Dem primary; now, according to Jeff Mapes in the Oregonian, some of his advisors are saying he’s definitely interested. He’d be the second Democrat (well, other than Wu himself) to get into the race – Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian is already running, setting up a battle of the Brads. There are also still several other people in the more nebulous stages of candidacy, so I hope that we don’t (as some have suggested in comments) wind up with David Wu turning into the Dem version of Dan Burton and winning the primary with a bare plurality.

Other Races:

• KY-St. House: It’s not the biggest news in the world, but it’s unusual enough to merit a quick note: Kentucky state Rep. Wade Hurt is switching parties… from Republican to Democrat. Hurt won office last year under unusual circumstances when his Democratic opponent was declared ineligible to run because he filed improper paperwork. (Believe it or not, Dem Jeffrey Donohue needed all of two signatures on his nominating petition, but managed to screw up one of them.) Dems were not permitted to replace Donohue, so Hurt won the ancestrally Democratic 37th district by default. Hurt claimed he wasn’t switching out of self-preservation and says he received no inducements, but the district is 62 D, 29 R by registration, and even in Dixiecrat territory, that still means something. (UPDATE: Johnny L-T reminds me that the district is in Louisville, so not really Dixiecrat territory – which makes these registration numbers all the more dangerous for a Republican.)

• WI Recall, WI-Gov: I’m usually not a big fan of polls from colleges with short track records, but YMMV with this St. Norbert poll testing recall numbers. They find Scott Walker at 48% “keep” and 47% “remove.” They also tested state Senate Republicans and Democrats, with Wisconsinites saying “keep” for the GOP by a 53-35 margin and “keep” for the Dems, 57-33. Mind you, this was a statewide poll, and it also had a super-long field date, April 5 through April 18.

Grab Bag:

• House Majority PAC: Greg Giroux breaks down the independent expenditure reports from the House Majority PAC’s Medicare-related attack on ten House Republicans. Turns out that unlike the DCCC’s “tuppence a bag” efforts, it’s a legit buy, ringing up at $116K. Click the link for the full breakdowns.

• Americans United: Speaking of which, the progressive group Americans United for Change is targeting four GOPers over the Ryan vote: Ryan himself, as well as Sean Duffy and Chip Cravaack (both also on the HMP’s list – see item just above), and, most interestingly, Steve King. TPM calls the buy “significant,” but also notes that it’s for five figures… so we could be taking anywhere from $10K to $99K here. Americans United is also doing robocalls in a bunch of districts.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Colorado: It sounds like attempts to go back to the drawing board and produce a compromise map in Colorado have failed (why am I not surprised?). Democrats say they’ll introduce a new map of their own next week, but I can’t possibly imagine it will be appealing to Republicans (and vice-versa for anything the GOP might do). Unless the GOP decides it’s more scared of what a court might draw, then we’ll stay locked in a stalemate. And I say the GOP because they’re the ones who have the most to lose – Colorado is already pretty close to a Republican gerrymander by accident (the last map was court-drawn, too), which you can see because the new GOP proposals seek to change it only minimally. (Ironically, Republicans originally hated the map, and tried to pull off a mid-decade re-redistricting that got tossed by the courts.) In any event, the writeup at the link is quite detailed and worth a read if you’re interested in drilling down on this one some more.

• Missouri: Things have really fallen apart in Missouri, with the state House Speaker openly lambasting his counterparts in the Senate for a lack of “leadership.” The Senate adjourned on Friday without reaching any kind of agreement with the House, which means lawmakers have all but missed a deadline which would allow them to send a map to Gov. Jay Nixon before the end of the legislative session. Now, even if they do finish a map soon, if Nixon vetoes, any chance at an over-ride won’t take place until the fall.

• Mississippi: Oral arguments were heard in the lawsuit over Mississippi’s redistricting impasse, with Dem AG Jim Hood making the interesting argument that elections should be held this fall using maps that passed by each body of the state lege but weren’t voted on by the other (nor, of course, signed into law). Hood also argued against the judges drawing their own maps, and against the idea of holding elections this fall under the old lines and new ones next year with new maps (as happened in 1991/92). Republicans, predictably, took the opposite view.

• Timelines: Ballotpedia has a good list of timetables for each state to start and complete its redistricting process (though many are pretty flexible and some states have no specific deadlines).

Senate:

• AZ-Sen: I keep saying that there’s no way Jeff Flake waltzes to the GOP nomination, but the Republican party has yet to prove me right. Fortunately, my deliverance may come in the form of rich guy Wil Cardon, who is supposedly giving the race a “very strong look” – and can self-fund.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov, etc.: Like another failed Republican gubernatorial candidate before her, it looks like we won’t have Meg Whitman to kick around anymore. Actually, that’s kind of confusing, because of course we did get to kick Dick Nixon around quite a bit more… but not until he kicked all of us around first. Anyhow, uh, where was I? Oh yeah, the former eBay chief says she “doubts” whether she’ll run for office again. Let’s hope she means it.

• MA-Sen: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead, and Deval Patrick still won’t run for Senate.

• MT-Sen: For once, I’m hoping a Republican schedules more fundraisers – at least, fundraisers like this. Denny Rehberg just did an event in Denver that was co-hosted by BP’s “director of government and public affairs” (i.e., their chief in-house lobbyist)… on the one-year anniversary of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Good optics!

• ND-Sen: This should scare absolutely no one off, from either party: Republican Public Service Commissioner Brian Kalk, the only declared candidate to succeed retiring Sen. Kent Conrad, raised all of $32K in Q1. John Hoeven he ain’t. While we’re on the subject of North Dakota, former Sen. Byron Dorgan, who retired last year, just donated the bulk of his remaining campaign funds – $1 million – to a new charity he founded, the Center for Native American Youth. A worthy cause, I’m sure, but I’ll bet Joe Sestak would have really appreciated that extra mil.

• OH-Sen: It’s weird how the GOP went from utterly dominating last year’s Senate election in Ohio to digging out their barrel-bottom scrapers from the back of the utility shed. Ken Blackwell says he’s talking to the NRSC about a possible run… though I guess it’s not really clear if the NRSC is talking back. A lulzy quote: “You don’t just come out and build the sort of support base that I have overnight.” True – you probably need to spend two years running a crappy campaign to do as terribly as he did in the governor’s race back in 2006.

• TN-Sen: This is a little odd: Sen. Bob Corker said he “came close” to not seeking re-election this cycle. Too bad we don’t have a candidate who could make hay out of Corker’s lack of fire in the belly (a phrase he actually uses with respect to some fantasy presidential run, but seems applicable to his day job, too).

• VA-Sen: It’s starting to feel like the wingnut candidates are doing everything they can to make life easier for George Allen by piling into the clown car that is the GOP primary field. The latest is rich dude Tim Donner, whom we mentioned last month. Almost all of these weirdos claim to be teabaggers in good standing, so this almost assuredly means we’ll see some People’s Front of Judea/Judean People’s Front nonsense, rather than a united effort to stop Allen. Lame.

Gubernatorial:

• KY-Gov: Republican frontrunner David Williams raised just $450K in Q1 and has $670K on hand. (This compares to Gov. Steve Beshear, whose numbers we mentioned previously: $1.3m/$3.3m.)

• NC-Gov: PPP’s monthly home-state poll shows Gov. Bev Perdue inching up against Republican Pat McCrory, trailing 49-38 instead of 50-36. That’s very similar to a new SurveyUSA poll which has McCrory up 51-39.

• SC-Gov: The issues are a little too complex for me to try to summarize here in a digest bullet, but the link will take you to an interesting story exposing some pretty naïve political incompetence on the part of supposed GOP wunderkind Gov. Nikki Haley. One thing I’d like to remind folks of is that despite the Republican bloodbath of 2010, Haley didn’t perform all that impressively. In fact, she had the second-narrowest win out of all 20 victorious GOP gubernatorial candidates, just 4.3%. Only Rick Scott won more narrowly, and he’s Rick Scott. Dem Vincent Sheheen got almost no national attention but should have, given his strong performance in a tough state in an impossible year. If Haley continues to stumble, I think she could prove surprisingly vulnerable in 2014.