Tag: WV-Sen

CO-Sen: Ken Buck raised $417K in Q2 and had $664K cash-on-hand – more than rival Jane Norton does, despite the fact that she outraised him.

KY-Sen: Rand Paul campaign chair David Adams is leaving – or being asked to leave. You never know with these things. Anyhow, Adams supposedly prefers state to federal politics (especially funny in the context of this campaign) and is going to manage some unspecified gubernatorial candidate. As CNN notes, though, Adams had actually been Paul’s campaign manager, but was recently demoted after Rand’s disastrous set of post-primary interviews.

NV-Sen: In an interview with Ralph Reed, Sharron Angle informs the world that “God has been in this” – her campaign – “from the beginning.” I think Harry Reid would agree, since it’s a damn near miracle that we landed an opponent so awful!

WA-Sen: Dino Rossi says he raised $1.4 million since launching his campaign six weeks ago, but no word on his cash-on-hand. That’s not too shabby, and it might look impressive compared to Patty Murray’s $1.6 million haul for the entire quarter. But that first batch of cash is always the easiest to raise – the proverbial low-hanging fruit. Can he sustain that momentum?

WI-Sen: King of the Loons Jim DeMint has endorsed Ron Johnson – a rare instance, as Dave Catanese points out, where the establishment choice has also been DeMinted.

WV-Sen: Gov. Joe Manchin says he’ll name a temporary replacement for Robert Byrd by 5pm on Friday. Manchin also released the text of proposed legislation to change WV’s succession laws. The new law would allow a special election this November, with primaries (if necessary) to be held on August 31st.

AZ-Gov: It’s pretty amazing how much becoming the standard-bearer for xenophobia has dramatically altered Jan Brewer’s entire candidacy. She was an accidental governor, elevated to the post by Janet Napolitano’s appointment to the Department of Homeland Security. She also looked like electoral roadkill, losing ugly fights with an even further-right state legislature and drawing several high-profile opponents. But along came SB 1070, Arizona’s infamous new immigration law. Brewer’s full-throated support for the legislation, and her hysterical ranting about undocumented immigrants, have made her the conservative belle du jour. Just a few days ago, one of her major challengers, state Treasurer Dean Martin, bailed on the race. And now, the other big name running against her – wealthy NRA board member Buz Mills – is also dropping out. So at this point, it’s pretty much game on between Brewer and Dem AG Terry Goddard.

GA-Gov: Magellan Strategies (7/8, likely Republican primary voters, no trendlines):

Karen Handel: 32

Nathan Deal: 18

John Oxendine: 18

Eric Johnson: 12

Ray McBerry: 3

Jeff Chapman: 3

Otis Putnam: 0

Undecided: 14

(MoE: ±2.8%)

MI-07: Former Rep. Joe Schwarz, who held this seat for one term, has endorsed Brian Rooney in the GOP primary, over the man who primaried him out in 2006, Club for Growth cabana boy Tim Walberg. It’s not clear how much a Schwarz endorsement helps in a Republican race, though, considering he also backed now-Rep. Mark Schauer (D) in 2008. And this bit of support is entirely conditional – not only does Schwarz say he’ll definitely support Schauer if Walberg wins the primary, but he might even do so if Rooney wins, saying he’ll re-evaluate things later.

MN-06: Both Michele Bachmann’s chief-of-staff and (of more relevance to her campaign) her finance director have parted ways with the polarizing congresswoman. It’s often tricky to tell whether a departure is a sign of turmoil, an indicator that a campaign is getting an upgrade, or really just nothing doing. But in this case, the fact that no replacements are being announced suggests that this isn’t part of an orderly transition. What’s more, why would Bachmann’s fundraiser leave right after announcing such an enormous quarterly haul? It’s especially telling that the fundraiser, Zandra Wolcott, wouldn’t say if she left or was pushed.

NM-01: A healthy quarter for Martin Heinrich: $376K raised, $1.3 million cash-on-hand.

PA-07: Fabrizio, McLaughlin and Associates for Pat Meehan (6/16-17, likely voters, no trendlines):

Bryan Lentz (D): 26

Pat Meehan (R): 47

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Meehan favorables: 33-12. Lentz favorables: 12-7. A Lentz spokesperson attacked the poll as “skewed” but offered no specific critiques.

SD-AL: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin is out with her first ad of the campaign season, a bio spot which touts her vote against a “trillion-dollar health care plan.”

TN-08: The hip-hop wars are raging again! But it’s no longer Tupac vs. Biggie – this time it’s Republican Rob Kirkland versus radio station owner George Flinn on the mean streets of Memphis, TN. You may recall the odd situation here where Rob has been spending a fortune on allegedly “independent” expenditures on behalf of his brother Ron, who is the actual candidate in this race. Anyhow, Rob’s latest broadside is against Flinn’s ownership of a local hip-hop station, which (according to a Kirkland tv ad) “promotes gang violence, drug abuse, and insults women.” Another mailer attacks Flinn for “filthy gangster rap into our district.” Hey, guess what? Tipper Gore called, she wants her 1992-era harangue back.

DSCC: Seriously, who in hell allowed this to happen? Pretty much every Democratic senate candidate under the sun participated in a trial lawyers fundraiser… in Vancouver, CANADA. WTF? Could the optics be any worse? A fundraiser in a foreign country? And I don’t want to get all GOP-talking-point on you, but the fact that it’s the trial lawyers doesn’t really help. I’m filing this one under “DSCC” because you can’t possibly pull off an event of this magnitude without the DS knowing – and someone there should have had the brains to stop it. Or at least change the fucking venue to, you know, the United States of America. Maybe? Jeez.

Iowa: Jonathan Martin has an interesting piece at Politico about Christie Vilsack, who says she is “really interested” in running for office, perhaps as soon as 2012. It sounds like the House is her most likely target, but it’s hard to say where she might run. She and her family have ties all over the state, and Iowa is likely to lose a congressional district after the census. Though Martin doesn’t mention it, it’s not inconceivable that Sen. Tom Harkin will retire in 2014 (when he’ll be 75), which would create a big opening.

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway is pulling in some big fundraising numbers now that Dems are seeing an opening here. He raised $1.4 million last quarter (although $400K of that was a loan from himself). That tops Rand Paul’s $1.1 million raised, although Paul will point out that all of his haul came from donors. No word on either side’s CoH.

• LA-Sen: It seems like the scandal that’s emerged surrounding David Vitter’s employment of violent aide Brent Furer was what pulled ex-state supreme court justice Chet Traylor into a last-minute credible challenge to Vitter in the GOP primary. Traylor says “if Vitter was in good shape, I wouldn’t be running,” and his camp says they’ll be focusing on Vitter’s “personal foibles” rather than ideological differences. In fact, Traylor’s campaign manager (whom the Monroe local newspaper identifies as “sweet potato kingpin” Lev Dawson) says “I don’t think there’s a difference politically.” Traylor also tells ABC News that many local GOP establishment figures urged his last-minute entry out of fears that Vitter may be too badly damaged politically to survive the general against Charlie Melancon. Meanwhile, we’ve all known that Vitter is quite willing to experiment with interesting new, um, practices, but as he seeks to move even further right in view of Traylor’s challenge, he’s now going birther-curious.

• NC-Sen: If there’s a reason Richard Burr is able to hold on to the “cursed” seat this year, it’s going to be his bank account. The GOP freshman Senator raised $1.9 million last quarter, and is sitting on $6.3 million CoH. While Elaine Marshall seems to have gotten a good fundraising boost after the Democratic runoff, she’s likely to have only a fraction of that.

• SC-Sen: Be afraid. Be verrrrrrrrry afraid. (Alvin Greene is about to give his first formal speech as candidate, addressing a local NAACP chapter on Saturday.)

• WA-Sen: Here’s the good news for Patty Murray: she had a $1.6 million quarter, which is a lot of money in the “other” Washington. She’s sitting on $6.8 million CoH. The bad news is that conservative group American Action Network is spending $750K on a statewide buy for TV ads attacking Murray. The ad, continuing in Demon Sheep/Boxer Blimp impresario Fred Davis’s avant-garde performance-art tradition, features various Joe and Jane Sixpacks lying in the dirt getting walked all over by an unseen figure in white tennis shoes.

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin’s giving a little more clarity to his timeline in West Virginia. He says he expects to fill Robert Byrd’s seat with a temporary appointment by “this Sunday,” possibly as early as Friday if the special legislative session about the special election is done by then. He’ll announce after that (probably by Monday) whether he intends to run in the special.

• CO-Gov: This is a surprisingly amateurish thing to get taken down over: the Denver Post has observed that a series of articles on water rights “written” by Republican ex-Rep. Scott McInnis as part of a 2005-06 fellowship were simply plagiarized from articles written twenty years earlier by Gregory Hobbs, who’s now a Colorado Supreme Court justice. The foundation McInnis was working for would like the salary returned to them that they paid him. It’s unclear how much damage this will do to McInnis, or how this stacks up compared with allegations of dishonesty leveled at Mark Kirk and Richard Blumenthal… but locked in a dead heat with John Hickenlooper, McInnis doesn’t have any margin of error to shed a few points over character issues. (For what it’s worth, RCP seems to think he’s finished. Too bad the only GOP alternative, Dan Maes, is completely broke and in campaign-finance hot water.)

• IL-Gov: The DGA is out with a new ad running on Chicago area TV stations, trying to introduce the area’s many residents to downstate state Sen. Bill Brady and disabuse them of any notion that he’s the sort of GOP moderate that’s typically occupied the state house over the last few decades. The ad points out his extreme positions on reproductive health and minimum wage.

• TN-Gov: Republican Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam is still the man with the money, although everybody’s moved into the seven digits. Haslam has $2 million CoH, compared with Ron Ramsey’s $1.35 million and Zach Wamp’s $1.29 million. On the Dem side, Mike McWherter has $1.5 million CoH, having raised $315K last quarter.

• AR-01: Radio broadcaster Rick Crawford, the GOP nominee, has a small cash edge in the 1st, as Democrat Chad Causey’s pretty depleted after having to go through a runoff. Crawford raised $131K post-primary and has $221K CoH. Causey raised $416K over the quarter, but spent $420K on the primary. No word on Causey’s CoH (although I assume it’s something higher than -$4K).

• CO-04: With Corey Gardner having released his financial numbers, it’s clear Betsy Markey has the money edge for now. His $377K raised last quarter is still pretty impressive, but it’s less than Markey raised, and Gardner’s $763K CoH is about half of Markey’s $1.5 million.

• FL-25: Joe Garcia reports raising $700K last quarter, including $230K in online contributions (thanks, netroots!). He still lags behind likely GOP nominee David Rivera, though.

• NH-02: Of the candidates in the 2nd, Ann McLane Kuster (another netroots project) was the big raiser. She pulled in $316K, for $745K CoH. Fellow Dem Katrina Swett raised $188K, but has more CoH at $1.15 million. GOPer Charlie Bass leads in the polls but not at the bank: he raised $170K, for $360K CoH.

• NJ-03: Freshman Democratic Rep. John Adler is out with an internal poll that has him sprinting for the end zone while Jon Runyan limps along behind: the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll gives Adler a 51-34 lead over Runyan, with 12 to independent teabagger Peter DeStefano (I’d imagine that lead would tighten as the DeStefano share shrinks). Runyan raised $501K last quarter (a bit more than Adler’s $415K), but $301K was from donors and the other $200K was from himself. Runyan seemed to burn a lot on his surviving his primary, though; he’s sitting on $472K CoH compared with Adler’s more than $2 million.

• NV-03: Rep. Dina Titus is in good shape financially (less so, poll-wise). The freshman Dem raised $426K and has $1.2 million CoH.

• PA-04, PA-17: Keystone State Blue Dogs Jason Altmire and Tim Holden posted good numbers. Altmire raised more than $300K in May and June and is sitting on $1.4 million CoH. Holden raised $213K in that period and is sitting on $885K CoH, which isn’t huge but far more than David Argall (who had $70K before the primary he barely survived) is likely to have.

• TN-09: Here’s a big score for Steve Cohen, facing a primary from former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton that’s, as is usually the case in the 9th, all about the race card. Cohen just got an endorsement from prominent African-American politician Barack Obama, as well as financial backing from several key House CBC members (John Lewis, Alcee Hastings, William Clay) apparently unenthused with the specter of the potentially-embarrassing Herenton joining their ranks.

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Sen: Andrew Romanoff (D) 42%, Jane Norton (R) 44%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 40%, Jane Norton (R) 47%

• CO-Sen: Andrew Romanoff (D) 42%, Ken Buck (R) 47%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 39%, Ken Buck (R) 48%

• MD-Sen: Barbara Mikulski (D-inc) 58%, Eric Wargotz (R) 33%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 43%, Sharron Angle (R) 46%

If you’re Scott Rasmussen, what do you like to do on your day off? Well, you might like to go on a cruise. A cruise for fans of conservative magazine National Review, as their all-expenses-paid guest.

• CO-Sen: Isn’t this the second time this has happened in about a month? Tom Tancredo says something ridiculous, Republican candidate with an eye on the general repudiates the statement, then walks back the repudiation once he realizes that the teabaggers’ widdle feewings might get hurt. This time it was Ken Buck (on whose behalf Tancredo called Barack Obama the “greatest threat to the United States today” last week); he might have been helped along in his flip-flopping after Jane Norton, who’s losing the primary because Buck outflanked her on the right, started going on about how she agreed with Tancredo,.

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio’s having a good day so far: he rolled out a ridiculously big fundraising number for the second quarter: $4.5 million raised. No mention of his CoH, though. (All eyes turn to Charlie Crist, though, for his first report after switching to an indie bid, to see whether that shrank or expanded his pool of donors.) Rubio’s second bit of good news is an endorsement from Crist’s former right-hand-man, temporary Sen. George LeMieux. (Since LeMieux reportedly has designs on Bill Nelson’s seat, and he seems to prefer running as a Republican and not on the Crist For Florida line, what else is he going to do, though?)

• NH-Sen: I know, I know, straw poll, terrible gauge of broad public support, take with salt, bla bla bla. Still, here’s a barometer of where the hardcore Live Free or Die crowd currently stands: Ovide Lamontagne dominated the straw poll at the Taxpayer Reunion Picnic, an annual gathering of those who were teabagging long before it was cool. He won 109 to 74 over Jim Bender, a rich guy who’s going the crazy viral ad route. Establishment candidate Kelly Ayotte and moderate outsider Bill Binnie were at 23 and 10.

• WA-Sen: Clint Didier, apparently aware of the stink lines of rank hypocrisy radiating off him, said that he’s swearing off farm subsidies in the future. (Seeing as how it made him look like the worst possible caricature of the teabaggers’ mantra of “I hate the gub’ment! Except when it’s giving me money for doing nothing!”) Apparently that was enough absolution for Rep. Ron Paul‘s satisfaction, as he threw his backing behind Didier this weekend.

• WV-Sen: Rep. Shelly Capito Moore is at least honest about being scared about running for Senate (almost certainly against highly popular Gov. Joe Manchin), although she isn’t couching it in terms of being afraid of Manchin per se, instead saying “I’m afraid to lose momentum that I think I provide for the state.” At any rate, she says she’ll make her (seeming unlikely) decision whether to run in the next few days, probably coinciding with the clarification on the election’s when and how, to be decided in a July 15 legislative special session.

• AZ-Gov: Ain’t that a kick in the head? State Treasurer Dean Martin, who was regarded as something of a frontrunner when he jumped into the GOP primary earlier this year, is suspending his campaign, ostensibly because he didn’t want to be a distraction to Gov. Jan Brewer as she fights lawsuits over SB 1070. In reality, Martin never really caught fire, first when rich self-funder Owen Buz Mills grabbed the not-Brewer mantle and then, mostly, when Brewer suddenly became belle of the right-wing ball when she signed SB 1070.

• FL-Gov: Bill McCollum apparently didn’t want to be touting his fundraising numbers, but they’re out anyway, thanks to a court filing pertaining to Rick Scott’s challenge to the state public financing system. At any rate, McCollum’s sitting on a paltry $800K in cash, a mere blip compared to what Scott can pull out of his own wallet. Of course, Scott could still pull defeat out of the jaws of victory, by antagonizing pretty much the entire RPOF by trying to hang ex-state party chair Jim Greer around McCollum’s neck… and by staking his pro-life credentials on a family who are loudly preferring that he shut up about them.

• GA-Gov: InsiderAdvantage, which offered its poll of the GOP primary last week, has a matching Dem poll today. The question for Dems isn’t whether Roy Barnes gets the most votes but whether he avoids a runoff, and they seem to err on the side of “no runoff:” Barnes is at 59, with Thurbert Baker at 15, and Dubose Porter and David Poythress both at 2, behind someone by the name of Bill Bolton (at 3). Meanwhile, on the GOP side, it seemed like something of an oversight that this endorsement hadn’t happened before, but Sarah Palin finally added Karen Handel to the ever-growing list of Mama Grizzlies. UPDATE: Thurbert Baker just got a top-tier endorsement, from Bill Clinton. It may be too late for that to matter much, though, because at this point Baker needs to not only win all the undecideds but peel away a significant number of Barnes voters. (H/t TheUnknown285.)

• MI-Gov: Motor City endorsements aplenty in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Michigan: Andy Dillon got the backing of former Detroit mayor Dennis Archer, who many observers thought would have made the strongest candidate had he run. Virg Bernero got endorsements from Detroit’s two House members, John Conyers and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick.

• MN-Gov: Republican nominee Tom Emmer seems to have dug a large hole for himself with his proposal to start including tips toward restaurant servers’ minimum wage requirement (which has the effect of slashing their hourly base pay); he’s planning on doing a “listening tour” with servers as atonement. Also adding to Emmer’s worries is blowback from his Sarah Palin endorsement, which helped him upset Marty Seifert at the GOP convention but is now already being used as a cudgel in general election advertising (courtesy of Matt Entenza). Meanwhile, Entenza’s Democratic rival Margaret Anderson Kelliher is running her first TV spot; the total buy is for only about $50K, though.

• NE-Gov: Democrats in Nebraska seem to be actively considering just punting the ball, rather than trying to find a replacement candidate for nominee Mark Lakers. On the plus side, that would free up local Democratic money for other ventures (like the race in NE-02), in what was destined to be a thorough loss even with Lakers in the race. On the other hand, Tom White’s challenge to Lee Terry would probably benefit from having, well, something at the top of the ballot.

• PA-Gov: If Tom Corbett is trying to position himself as a moderate for the general election, well, this isn’t the way. He’s publicly using the Sharron Angle line of argumentation that unemployment benefits cause more unemployment, because, naturally, people would rather live on their meager checks than go out and get one of those many abundant jobs that are out there. The ads write themselves… presuming the Democrats ever get around to actually writing them.

• TN-Gov: A mysterious 527 (is there any other kind?) has emerged to pour money into the Tennessee GOP primary. There’s no word on who’s the power behind the throne for Tennesseans for a Better Tomorrow, but they’ll be advertising on behalf of Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, who’s back in third in the polls and needs a surrogate to do the dirty work of negative advertising against Bill Haslam.

• AZ-03: Jon Hulburd’s fundraising (and self-funding ability) is the main thing keeping this red-district open seat race at least somewhat on the map for the Dems; he’s announcing $250K raised last quarter. (No word on CoH.)

• CO-04: Freshman Rep. Betsy Markey had a strong quarter, raising $530K and sitting on $1.5 million CoH. In this Republican-leaning district, she’ll need every penny of it to get through this year.

• KS-04: Democratic State Rep. Raj Goyle, whose fundraising skills have put this dark-red open seat onto the map, is out with an introductory TV spot. Seems a little earlier for that, doesn’t it? We’d guess that he’s concerned about the primary (remember that there was a SurveyUSA poll a few weeks back that showed him not that far ahead of Some Dude with, well, a more ‘Merican sounding name) and not wanting to go the route of historical footnote Vic Rawl.

• MO-08: Tommy Sowers, if nothing else, is showing a lot of hustle in his long-shot bid against GOP Rep. Jo Ann Emerson in this dark-red rural district. He says he’s passed the $1 million mark for funds raised over the total cycle (nothing specific on 2Q or CoH, though).

• NJ-03: Democratic freshman Rep. John Adler seems to be putting some fundraising distance between himself and Jon Runyan. Adler raised $415K in 2Q to break the $2 million mark for CoH, while Runyan has about $500K in cash.

• NY-01: Randy Altschuler’s got a whole lotta cash: he’s reporting $1.8 million CoH. A lot of that is coming right of the Altschuler family piggy bank, though. He raised a decent $257K last quarter, but loaned himself another $500K on top of that.

• OH-16: Yikes! GOP nominee Jim Renacci must have some deep-pocketed connections from the high-stakes world of Arena Football, because he’s reporting $725K raised last quarter. (No word on CoH.)

• PA-04: This is kind of a small haul to be touting (touting may not be the right word, actually, when even your own campaign adviser calls it “not half bad”), but maybe it’s a good amount when you weren’t even supposed to have won the primary in the first place. Keith Rothfus, who blasted establishment fave Mary Beth Buchanan in the GOP primary, says he has $200K CoH (up from $157K in his pre-primary report … no word on what he actually raised).

• VA-05: Finally, here’s the delicious cherry on top of the shit sundae of fundraising reports: Tom Perriello announces that he raised $660K last quarter, giving him $1.7 million CoH. No word yet from Robert Hurt, but with $121K on hand in his May 19 pre-primary report, I can imagine it’s not in Perriello’s ballpark. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has an interesting compare-and-contrast enterprise in how Perriello and fellow vulnerable freshman Dem Glenn Nye are approaching their re-elections (Perriello emphasizing his base, Nye emphasizing his independence); clearly, based on these numbers, playing to the base can pay off, at least at the bank.

• CA-LG (pdf): We’re still sweeping up from that last installment of the Field Poll. In the Lt. Governor’s race, there’s surprisingly good news for Dems, with Gavin Newsom looking solid against appointed GOPer Abel Maldonado, leading 43-34. The Attorney General results aren’t that surprising: Republican Los Angeles Co. DA Steve Cooley has a narrow edge over SF DA Kamala Harris, 37-34.

• Illinois: It looks like we’ll never have another Scott Lee Cohen scenario again (or for that matter, probably not even another Jason Plummer scenario). Pat Quinn signed into law new legislation requiring, from now on, that Governor and Lt. Governor tickets are joined together before the primary, not after.

• Rasmussen:

• IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth (D) 30%, Dan Coats (R) 51%

• MD-Gov: Martin O’Malley (D-inc) 46%, Bob Ehrlich (R) 47%

AK-Sen: It’s not every day you see an incumbent agreeing to debate a primary challenger, but Sen. Lisa Murkowski has done just that. She’ll meet Joe Miller for three debates in the middle of August, just before the primary on the 24th.

CT-Sen: This Politico story reminds me of that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where, amidst the Black Plague, the peasant exhorts everyone to “Bring out yer dead!” and dump them on his cart. One not-quite victim protests, “But I’m not dead yet!” So, too, the Rob Simmons campaign. A whole bunch of people – including Rob Simmons himself – plan on voting for Simmons in the August 10th primary. But it’s pretty clear that hope indeed seems to be the plan here, since Simmons still isn’t campaigning and seems to just be praying for an unlikely win. At least it’s a better system of governance than strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords.

FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is pulling the trigger on a special legislative session in which he’ll ask lawmakers to add a constitutional amendment to the November ballot which would allow voters to ban offshore drilling. The Miami Herald notes that Crist didn’t lay any groundwork for this special session with state House leaders, meaning he could potentially get negged here. But even that could redound to Crist’s benefit, as he’d be able to campaign against the legislature’s failure to give the people a voice on this pressing issue.

KY-Sen: It’s like John Galt forgot the fact that his motors still had to be delivered along public roads: Rand Paul is taking heat from local officials on account of his distaste for using federal money for drug treatment programs. Note that we aren’t talking about the “war on drugs” here, but money used to treat addicts – which Paul says should come from local sources. But the people who actually have to deal with the problem say that Paul doesn’t understand how important federal dollars are for these programs. Not really surprising, given Rand Paul Math:

When tax money flows to the nation’s capitol, half stays there, half is wasted and half of it goes to political cronyism, Paul said.

LA-Sen: David Vitter got a somewhat-prominent primary challenger at the very last minute: retired LA Supreme Court Judge Chet Traylor. There’s also at least one other Some Dude in the race. If for some reason Vitter can’t get 50% in the primary – which is not until August 28th – then he’d have to deal with a runoff on October 2nd, barely a month before the general. Also interestingly, Republican state Rep. Ernest Wooton qualified for the race, too – as an independent. This might be a rare bit of good news for Charlie Melancon. (H/t Darth Jeff.)

NV-Sen: At the state GOP convention, Sharron Angle expressed her support for the party’s platform – a wonderfully nutty document, as Jon Ralston points out, that touts its opposition to a “one-world government.” Angle was later seen leaving the convention on a black helicopter. Meanwhile, President Obama just did a fundraiser for Harry Reid late last week, which apparently raised $800K.

SC-Sen: Alvin Greene won’t face any charges regarding the $10,440 filing fee he paid to run for senate, or over whether he misrepresented his finances when he asked for a public defender after being charged with a crime (showing an obscene photo) last fall. It turns out that Greene really did pull together the scratch himself, mostly from his Army exit pay and a hefty tax refund. It’s not how I would have spent my last ten thousand bucks, but to each his own.

SD-Sen: With zero opponents on the ballot – not even a Some Dude independent – John Thune is shuttering his campaign team. While it’s always painful to see a Republican senate seat go completely uncontested like this, I wonder if this might not be for the best in terms of Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s re-election chances. At the very least, it means that Thune won’t be out there stumping on the campaign trail – and won’t provide an attractive top-of-the-ticket draw in November. While it’s probably unprovable, I know a lot of folks here feel that Dick Lugar’s lack of an opponent probably helped us win three house races in Indiana in 2006, a sentiment I tend to share.

WI-Sen: Cute: Zillionaire teabagger Ron Johnson had previously criticized President Obama for pushing BP to set up a fund to pay out claims for damage their oil spill has caused. It turns out that Johnson owns at least $116,000 worth of BP stock. Johnson laughably tried to point out that Wisconsin’s public employee pension fund also invests in BP – and that Russ Feingold is a member of that fund (he was a state legislator before being elected to Congress). Srsly?

WV-Sen: It looks like that statement is no longer operative. On Friday, Gov. Joe Manchin told Politico’s Ben Smith that he would “declare his intentions about a Senate run Monday.” The next day, though, he informed Politico’s Jonathan Martin that he’s going to hold off until two things happen: first, he wants the state legislature (called back for a special session) to clarify the law on special election to replace Sen. Robert Byrd. Second, he wants to name an interim office-holder. Manchin also said that the special session will be held this Thursday at noon. (And in an odd aside, Manchin – who seems all but certain to run for Byrd’s seat – just became head of the National Governors Association.)

AL-Gov: This is probably too late to help much, but term-limited Gov. Bob Riley is endorsing former college chancellor Bradley Byrne in tomorrow’s runoff against state Rep. Robert Bentley. Still, Bentley seems to be in the better position. Despite being something of a dark horse in the first round, Bentley has apparently done a good job of consolidating conservatives, and internal polling has generally showed him in the lead.

AL-02: It’s not like we can love Bobby Bright – but we probably can credit him with running a good campaign. Republican Martha Roby is trying to paint herself as a champion against illegal immigration, but as Politico points out, in past battles on the subject, Bright took a harder line than Roby did. As Alex Isenstadt says, “It’s the newest iteration of a recurring challenge for Roby’s campaign: How do you run to the right of a Democrat who’s been squarely on the conservative end of his party since even before he was elected?” Roby still has a runoff fight tomorrow with Rick “The Barber” Barber.

CA-11: David Harmer, running against Dem Rep. Jerry McNerney, pulled in more than $400K last quarter.

FL-25: Marili Cancio, running against establishment favorite David Rivera in the GOP primary, accused him of “repeat domestic violence” on her Facebook page. There have been some rumors circulating about a potential story here (you can Google for more).

LA-02: State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, who lost a runoff to then-Rep. Bill Jefferson in 2006, will not seek to challenge Rep. Joe Cao. This leaves state Reps. Cedric Richmond and Juan LaFonta as Cao’s most likely opponents. I’m actually a bit surprised that more big names didn’t get into the race, given how tempting a target Cao seems to be.

MI-13: The Detroit Free Press takes a look at the field challenging Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick in the Dem primary – and points out that Kilpatrick, who only took in 39% in the 2008 primary – doesn’t even have a website. The Freep thinks her two toughest challengers are state Sen. Hansen Clarke and businessman John Broad, while three other Some Dudes round out the field. No one has raised very much, and even Kilpatrick has only $300K on hand. But she may yet benefit from a split field for the second cycle in a row, much like Jean Schmidt.

NM-02: Handsome Harry Teague raised some $320K in Q2 and has $1.2 mil in the bank.

NY-14: Reshma Saujani is claiming that Carolyn Maloney agreed to a debate – but Maloney’s camp says no such thing ever happened. Given Maloney’s consistent stance of refusing to credit Saujani in any way, I have a very hard time believing anything Saujani’s team says about this. And meanwhile, the Washington Post has a pretty puffy profile of Saujani, which if nothing else confirms that she truly is the candidate of the banksters.

NY-18: Self-funding venture capitalist Paul Wasserman has dropped his bid to take on Rep. Nita Lowey in this suburban New York district. Westchester County Republicans are now instead backing 2008 nominee Jim Russell, who has a decidedly less-gaudy campaign warchest ($5,000).

Fundraising: A couple of memos – which were probably designed to be leaked – are now circulating which detail Democratic fears that they will be outspent by conservative interest groups this fall. What I don’t get is why every cycle, people always act like one side outspending the other is some kind of big surprise. New 527s come and go all the time, and it’s not like big Dem or GOP donors all of a sudden forget every January that, hey, there’s an election on! Maybe we should look into this newfangled 527 thing? This stuff is cyclical, and the fact that we’re getting our asses kicked in 2010 is not really news. But if memos like these spook a few rich Dems into opening their wallets, then okay.

Polltopia: Or more like poll dystopia. Media Matters has a distressing piece on McClatchy’s decision to stop polling altogether as part of a budget cutback. (They had previously done about a dozen polls a year with Ipsos.) The piece also details how many, many other news organizations, particularly local newspapers, have also pared down or eliminated their polling in recent years. I know there are far worse problems in the world, but as far as Swingnuts are concerned, this is very, very sad and unfortunate.

There’s been a lot of movement in the last 24 hours in West Virginia. To start with, yesterday afternoon, Democratic AG Darrell McGraw announced that Gov. Joe Manchin has the authority to call for a special election to be held this year.

“Since a general election is already scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010, it is suggested that a special primary election be held at a time which maximizes the opportunity for all potential candidates to prepare for both the special election and the general election, and for all voters, including those in the Armed Services, to participate and have their voices heard,” McGraw wrote, according to the Charleston Daily Mail.

There’s been some confusion as to what exact format the election would take, and for now, it sounds like no one is quite sure. McGraw’s statement makes it sound like there should be a primary election held when convenient prior to Nov. 2, but that’s not made entirely clear. The Fix’s Aaron Blake says that the Manchin camp would like to have only one election, though, and have a special open primary that coincides with the general election where all candidates run in one pool (shades of HI-01). The superficial rationale, of course, would be saving money on not running two elections. But it could also help Manchin out a lot, if he’s the only Dem candidate and the Republican vote is split.

And Manchin is sounding like his candidacy is near-definite; he told Ben Smith today that he’ll announce his intentions formally on Monday but said that his candidacy is “highly likely” (which is also how he phrased it on MSNBC this morning). He also said that the only questions left at this point are “procedural,” like ensuring a smooth transition for the person who takes over as Governor. Manchin’s counsel says that there’s no clear sense from the law of when or how to hold the election, but that will be resolved in the legislative special session that Manchin will soon call.

Manchin, talking about gubernatorial succession, seems to be acting like his election to the Senate is already a done deal; is he being overconfident? Yesterday Nate Silver foresaw a close race, although that was based on West Virginia’s demographics and reddening trend without any poll data.

Since then, Rasmussen leaped into the breach, offering a snap poll as they often do. Rasmussen’s numbers — and I rarely get the chance to say this — should give Democrats a good deal of confidence. Manchin defeats his strongest possible GOP rival, Rep. Shelly Moore Capito, by a 53-39 margin, while he beats former SoS Betty Ireland 65-26. Most impressively, he has a 77/23 approval rating, which has to make him the most popular Governor in the nation.

Even before Manchin started signaling his clear intent to run today, and before Rasmussen dropped its abandon-all-hope-ye-GOPers poll, there were questions yesterday about who the Republican candidate would be, and whether there was a Plan B if Capito didn’t run. (There’s also legal uncertainty as to whether Capito could run in both the special and in her already-scheduled election to hold WV-02 at the same time, which would weigh heavily on her decision whether or not to run. And Capito’s calculations would have to factor in whether she might have a better shot at Manchin again in the regularly-scheduled 2012 election, when she’d have a longer time to ramp up a campaign and when Obama’s top-of-ticket presence might be an anchor on Manchin… and also the possibility of whether Jay Rockefeller might retire in 2014, giving her a good shot at an open seat.)

In the absence of Capito or Ireland, other names that have gotten floated include businessman John Raese, who spent a large amount of his own money en route to losing badly to Robert Byrd in 2006, former state Sen. Steve Harrison, state Sen. Mike Hall, and Bob Adams, the director of something called the League of American Voters and a losing candidate for state Treasurer in 2004.

UPDATE: Someone has slipped Reid Wilson the short list for seatwarmers that Joe Manchin is considering for appointment to the Senate for the next half a year. Some of the names are familiar, but there are a few surprises. The list is: Anne Barth (former Byrd state director, and ’08 loser in WV-02 to Capito), Gaston Caperton (the former Gov. and current College Board Pres. who previously said he wasn’t interested), Nick Casey (former state party chair, now up for a federal judgeship), Carte Goodwin (Manchin’s former general counsel), Larry Puccio (current state party chair and former Manchin CoS), and Bob Wise (9-term ex-Rep. and one-term ex-Gov., who didn’t seek re-election after a sex scandal). Bear in mind that whoever the replacement is, that person will be the vote to get unemployment benefits extended, so there’s no doubt a sense of urgency behind picking someone.

• CO-Sen: Both Democratic candidates are hitting the TV airwaves, with Michael Bennet trying once again to introduce himself to his constituents with a feel-good bio spot, and Andrew Romanoff’s first ad playing up the anti-corruption, anti-Washington angle he’s been working. Over on the Republican side, where Ken Buck seems to be putting some distance between himself and Jane Norton, Buck got some useful backing from the Dick Army: he snagged a FreedomWorks endorsement. Norton’s 2005 support for TABOR-limiting Referendum C seems to have been a dealbreaker for the teabaggers.

• KY-Sen: PPP, fresh off its Rand Paul/Jack Conway poll yesterday, also has some approval numbers out for Mitch McConnell. It’s more evidence that the most dangerous job in America is party leader in the Senate. McConnell’s numbers are dwindling, and his backing of Trey Grayson over Paul in the GOP primary seems to have accelerated that: he’s down to 34/48, after having had favorables in the 40s in their previous polls, with almost all of his decline coming from Republicans. 49% of all respondents would like to see him lose his leadership role, with only 38% saying continue.

• NH-Sen: Big money for Kelly Ayotte this quarter: she raised $720K last quarter, her biggest quarter so far. No word on her CoH.

• NV-Sen: With their empty coffers suddenly replenished, the Karl Rove-led 527 American Crossroads decided to keep their anti-Harry Reid attack ad on the air in Nevada for the fourth straight week. They’ve spent nearly half a million airing the same ad.

• NY-Sen-B: Although the terrible disarray in the state GOP can’t be helping matters, New York’s unique ballot access laws just seem to encourage self-destructive behavior by the local Republicans. With Republican/Conservative/Independence Party splits threatening to result in multiple viable right-of-center candidates in races ranging from NY-01 to NY-23, now cat fud is about to start flying in the Senate race. David Malpass, seeming a long shot in the Republican field, has said that he’s going to seek the ballot line on the as-yet-to-be-named teabagger’s ballot line that gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino is trying to create, most likely to be called the Taxpayer’s line. Malpass, as you’ll recall, is lagging in GOP primary polls against Joe DioGuardi, who already has the Conservative line but is trying to petition onto the GOP ballot, and Bruce Blakeman, who’s assured a spot on the GOP ballot. This may even spill over into the who-cares other Senate race, where Gary Berntsen wants in on the Taxpayer’s line (and where rival Jay Townsend already has the Conservative line).

• WA-Sen: The Washington Farm Bureau, which endorsed Dino Rossi in his two failed gubernatorial bids, has decided not to endorse anybody in the Senate race. Goldy wonders whether this is a matter of lots of Clint Didier supporters at the Farm Bureau… Didier, after all, is a farmer… or if the Farm Bureau secretly likes Patty Murray’s skill at appropriations.

• WV-Sen: Gov. Joe Manchin held a press conference today to announce his plans on the vacant Senate seat, and it seems like the institutional pressure on him to fill the seat soon (preferably with himself) seems to be working. Manchin stopped short of calling on the state legislature to have a special session to move up the election to Nov. 2010, but he did tell his AG to start laying the legal groundwork for such a move. Manchin again said that he wouldn’t appoint himself to the seat on a temporary basis, but confirmed that he would be “highly” interested in running for the seat whenever the special election occurs. (He didn’t give any inkling on who he might appoint.) At any rate, it seems like Manchin feels confident that, despite the national downdraft for Dems this year, his own personal popularity, combined with the shortened election schedule working to his advantage, would facilitate his election in November; if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be going along so readily with the moved-up election.

• CO-Gov: Democratic nominee John Hickenlooper had better hope the contributions keep coming in: he’s sitting on only $66K CoH right now (although he raised $500K in June alone), but he just reserved $1.2 million in ad time. The plan is to lock the ad space in now, when it’s still cheap to reserve far in advance. On the Republican side of the aisle, insurgent candidate Dan Maes is in some trouble: he’s being hit with the largest fine ever handed down to a Colorado candidate for campaign finance donations. It was for a series of small-ball failures rather than one huge blunder, ranging from improper reimbursements to himself for mileage, to failure to list occupations for many donors.

• OK-Gov: As I remarked yesterday, it’s a remarkable transformation for Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who in a few months went from DOA in her own primary, to competing with Sarah Palin in terms of traversing the country handing out GOP primary endorsements like so much poisoned candy. (What’s something Arizona-specific that we can call her clutch of endorsees? Mama Rattlesnakes?) Brewer waded into another gubernatorial race, giving her backing to Rep. Mary Fallin in Oklahoma.

• PA-Gov: Democratic nominee Dan Onorato seems to be kicking his fundraising operations into higher gear after having won the primary; he pulled in $1 million in contributions in the last month. He’s sitting on $2.5 million CoH.

• TX-Gov: The plot (to get the Green Party on the ballot in Texas) keeps thickening. New e-mails have surfaced among Green leaders revealing the name of Anthony Holm, a GOP consultant linked to big-time GOP donor Bob Perry (the man behind the Swift Boat Vets), saying that he wanted to pay for 40% of the costs of petitions to get the Greens on the ballot. Holm denies any involvement.

• MN-06: It looks like the 6th, held by lightning rod Michele Bachmann, is going to be the nation’s most expensive House race this year. Democratic challenger Tarryl Clark posted big numbers this morning, raising $910K this quarter, claiming $2 million raised so far this cycle. (No mention of her CoH.) Then later this morning, Bachmann topped that, raising $1.7 million last quarter, giving her $4.1 million CoH, which would be plenty even for a Senate race.

• TN-06: State Sen. Diane Black has a GOP primary lead in an internal poll taken for her by OnMessage. She’s at 41, leading former Rutherford County GOP chair Lou Ann Zelenik at 22 and state Sen. Jim Tracy at 20. Black (or whoever else wins) should have an easy time picking up this R+13 Dem-held open seat, vacated by retiring Rep. Bart Gordon.

• TN-08: Here’s one more GOP primary internal poll out of Tennessee, from the Stephen Fincher camp. His poll, conducted by the Tarrance Group, gives Fincher the lead at 32, followed by Ron Kirkland at 23 and George Flinn at 21. Attacks on Fincher by the other two seem to have taken their toll, as Fincher’s previous internal poll from early April gave him a 40-17-7 lead. As with the poll in the 6th, there’s no word on general election matchups.

• WI-07: Republican Sean Duffy, bolstered by David Obey’s retirement (and a Sarah Palin endorsement), had a big quarter, raising $470K. He’s at $670K CoH.

• Legislatures: If you read one thing today, this should be it: Stateline.org’s Louis Jacobson handicaps all the state legislative chambers that promise to be competitive this year. As you might expect, the news isn’t very good for Democrats, considering not just the nature of the year but how many chambers they currently hold. He projects one currently Democratic-controlled chamber as Lean R (the Indiana House), and has 11 nominally Dem-held chambers as Tossups (both Alabama chambers, Iowa House, Montana House, both New Hampshire chambers, New York Senate, Ohio House, Pennsylvania House, and both Wisconsin chambers). The only nominally GOP-held chamber that’s a Tossup is the Alaska Senate, which is in fact controlled by a coalition of sane Republicans and Democrats.

• NRCC: The NRCC seems to like slapping lots of different names on different groups so that they look busy, and now they’ve even come up with a program for primary victors who are running in safe Republican seats: “Vanguard!” There’s no word on what exactly they plan to do for these shoo-ins, or if it’s just an impressive-sounding title so that the likes of Jeff Duncan and Todd Rokita don’t feel left out.

• Fundraising: The Fix has a couple other fundraising tidbits that we haven’t seen before: Craig Miller in FL-24 raised $270K for 2Q with $332K CoH. And Charlie Bass in NH-02 raised $170K and has $360K CoH.

• AZ-Sen: J.D. Hayworth may have sunk his own ship, not so much with his history of shilling for free-grant-money scams but with his flip response (“Buyer beware!”) when the accusations first came to light. Sensing some traction on the issue, Team McCain is out with a second ad on the topic, this time outright calling Hayworth a “huckster.”

• MO-Sen: Roy Blunt is out with his first TV ad in his Senate campaign; it’s a feel-good intro spot that seems mostly oriented toward the primary audience. It’s the story of a humble high school teacher and university president, with no mention of how he just happened to be the House minority whip (or even a Republican). Blunt is very likely to prevail against teabagging state Sen. Chuck Purgason in the primary (who just got the coveted endorsement of Samuel Wurzelbacher), but would naturally prefer a convincing margin.

• NV-Sen: You know the best way to make sure that people don’t go back and look at all the ridiculous things that you said earlier? Don’t jump up and down saying “OMG! Don’t look at those ridiculous things I said earlier!” Well, that’s what Sharron Angle is doing, having scrubbed her website of all the ridiculous things she said back in the GOP primary as part of having “softened” (her words) her image, but having found Harry Reid’s campaign preserving her old website as part of his website (ah, the wonders of the cache…). They’ve now issued a cease-and-desist letter, ordering Reid to stop publishing the ridiculous things she said earlier. Meanwhile, Angle (last seen comparing herself to Abraham Lincoln) is facing a new problem: the possibility that the NRA (unenthused about the much-less-gun-friendly Dick Durbin or Chuck Schumer as majority leader) might actually endorse Harry Reid.

• OH-Sen: Jennifer Brunner reflects back on her Senate primary campaign, with no regrets about her running a shoestring-budget, ground-game-oriented campaign, and also with a few of the same complaints (of behind-the-scenes fundraising blackballing, for which she still offers no proof).

• SC-Sen: Linda Ketner seems like a savvy businesswoman, and the possibility of an independent Senate bid to save SC Dems from Alvin Greene probably didn’t strike her as a good investment. The former SC-01 candidate made it official over the weekend that she wouldn’t run, telling her petition-gathering supporters to stand down.

• WV-Sen: Following the West Virginia story is a bit like watching a game of ping-pong, because today the story has rapidly bounced back to the likelihood of there being a special election this year to replace Robert Byrd after all. SoS Natalie Tennant, who interpreted the law to say that there won’t be an election until 2012, is now saying that’s, practically speaking, too long and that the legislature should take that up in a special session this year. Of course, the decision to call a special session is up to Gov. Joe Manchin, the likely eventual occupant of that seat, and it’s a question of what timing he thinks is best for him, perception-wise.

Interestingly, there’s increasing pressure from both labor (AFL-CIO, UMW) and business (Chamber of Commerce) for Manchin to get it over with and appoint himself to the seat right away rather than using a seat-warmer, suggesting that the perception wouldn’t be that bad (compared with many other states, where governors appointing themselves to the Senate has frequently backfired catastrophically). Everybody in West Virginia seems to know how their bread is buttered, and that’s facilitated by getting Manchin in there as quick as possible so he can start accruing seniority. The state GOP is moving toward a lawsuit to compel a special election this year, but that may not be necessary if all the state’s establishment is already on board with the idea.

• GA-Gov: Insider Advantage is out with new polls of the Republican Georgia gubernatorial primary, and it offers quite a surprise: ex-SoS Karen Handel has shot into a tie with Insurance Comm. John Oxendine, who has had a significant lead for most of this cycle. Handel and Oxendine are both at 18, with ex-Rep. Nathan Deal at 12, and state Sen. Eric Johnson (who’s hitting the TV airwaves to attempt a late move) at 8. There may be two factors at work here: one, the increasing public perception that Oxendine is an ethically-challenged sleaze (the Handel camp has taken to calling him “the Rod Blagojevich of Georgia politics), and two, an endorsement for Handel from unusual quarters — Arizona’s Jan Brewer (a fellow former SoS), suddenly promoted from dead-woman-walking to right-wing heroine after her signing of that state’s immigrant-bashing law — that Ed Kilgore thinks have some of the same galvanizing effect as Sarah Palin’s embrace of Nikki Haley in South Carolina.

• NE-Gov: There’s a lot of backstory behind the strange Mark Lakers dropout that we didn’t know about until after he bailed out. It turns out that in May, there was a brouhaha after a number of people were listed as Lakers contributors on his campaign finance reports, some of whom weren’t even Lakers supporters at all. This led to calls in June from several prominent Democrats (including a former state party chair) for Lakers to get out of the race, and with his fundraising subsequently stymied (leaving him with $3,293 cash on hand on June 23), he seemed to have no choice but to bail. A replacement can be picked at the state Democratic convention, July 23 to 25.

• TX-Gov: The Supreme Court of Texas (can I just abbreviate that as SCOTex?) has given the Greens a lifeline, and by extension, the Republicans. (Not really a coincidence, seeing as the Texas Supreme Court is a partisan-elected, Republican-controlled body.) They blocked a lower court’s order that the Greens be kept off the ballot, letting them meet the certification deadline, although it left open the possibility that they will remove the Greens from the ballot later. The controversy, you’ll recall, is over whether the Greens’ petition drive was funded by out-of-state corporate money, an illegal in-kind contribution.

• FL-24: Craig Miller, the rich guy running against two underfunded elected officials in the GOP primary, has the lead according to his own internal poll (conducted by McLaughlin & Assocs.). Miller is at 17, with state Rep. Sandy Adams at 11, and Winter Park city councilor Karen Diebel (who had been considered a good get when she got into the race) registering all of 3. The winner faces off against Democratic freshman Rep. Suzanne Kosmas in the Orlando ‘burbs.

• KY-06: Attorney Andy Barr, who’s running against Democratic Rep. Ben Chandler in the 6th, is enduring some bad PR over his membership in a Lexington-area country club that, until last year, had never had a black member. His response? It’s “not an issue,” as he’s “a member of a lot of organizations.” (As an aside, that first member will be familiar to NBA history fans: Sam Bowie, the consensus pick as the worst draft disaster in human history.)

• NY-01: It’s usually not good news when your entire advisory infrastructure up and quits all at once, but that’s what happened in the campaign of Chris Cox, the Richard Nixon grandson and, more importantly, (state party chair) Ed Cox son who’s running a carpetbaggery campaign to represent the Hamptons. Much of the former McCain operation (John Weaver, Mark Salter, etc.) was working for Cox, but left en masse last week. Cox still gathering petitions to get on the GOP ballot (due in five days), so it’ll be interesting to see if that even happens now.

• OH-17: Trafican’t! (A few other wags have already used that joke today, so don’t credit me for it.) Ex-Rep. (and ex-con) Jim Traficant’s comeback bid in the 17th came to an ignominious end today, after it was revealed that he didn’t have enough signatures to petition onto the ballot as an independent, as over 1,000 of the 3,138 signatures he turned in were invalid. Beam him up, Scotty. (I’m not the first to make that joke either, sorry.)

• TN-08: It’s remarkable that the rural, dirt-poor, cheap-media-markets 8th is turning into one of the highest-dollar House races in the whole country. State Sen. Roy Herron, the likely Democratic nominee, had another big quarter, pulling in $350K over the last three months, which gives him $1.2 million CoH banked while the GOPers hammer each other.

• WI-07: The Democratic primary field was once again cleared for state Sen. Julie Lassa in the open seat race in the 7th to replace retiring Rep. David Obey. Joe Reasbeck (on the Some Dude end of the spectrum and not likely to give Lassa much trouble anyway) dropped out, citing family concerns. She’ll likely face Ashland Co. DA Sean Duffy, who does still face a contested primary.

• Redistricting: Redistricting in Florida in 2012 is dependent on what happens with the two Fair Districts initiatives (Amendments 5 and 6) on the ballot in November this year, which would limit the Republican-held legislature’s ability to gerrymander to their liking. (Unless Amendment 7, backed by a coalition of Republicans and minority Democrats, also passes, which would largely neuter 5 and 6.) The Orlando Sentinel looks at some of the difficulty the GOP may have with drawing favorable maps amidst burgeoning population growth in central Florida even if they can gerrymander at will, though; Hispanic populations there have been growing and Democrats have moved into a registration advantage in many areas.

• CO-Sen: Republican candidate Ken Buck has a couple pieces of good news today: one, he’s the recipient of $172K in independent expenditures from mysterious conservative group Americans for Job Security. And two, Jim DeMint‘s coming to town on July 8 to stump on Buck’s behalf

• NE-Sen: Ironically, on the same day that he was the deciding vote in the Senate’s failure to extend unemployment benefits, Ben Nelson announced that he won’t be making an appearance in the unemployment lines himself in 2012. He confirmed that he plans to run for re-election.

• SC-Sen: The profile of Lindsey Graham in the New York Times magazine is well worth a read. While it serves to make me like him a little more, I’ve gotta wonder if he’s even going to bother running (or at least running as a Republican) when he’s up again in 2014, considering it’s just going to tick off the teabaggers even more. He derides the Tea Partiers, saying they’ll be gone in a few years, “chortling” that Ronald Reagan would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today… and also has a good laugh at the rumors about his sexual orientation, instead of, y’know, punching the interviewer in the nose or something unequivocally manly like that.

• WI-Sen, WI-Gov: PPP rolls out a last batch of numbers from their Wisconsin sample, looking at the Republican primaries in the Senate and gubernatorial races and seeing them as foregone conclusions. On the governor’s side, Milwaukee Co. Executive (and legendary 60’s crooner) Scott Walker leads ex-Rep. Mark Neumann 58-19, while in the Senate race, Ron Johnson leads Dave Westlake 49-11.

• WV-Sen: OK, so the rumor today is that things are still on for a 2012 special election to replace Robert Byrd, not a 2010 one as suggested yesterday. Gov. Joe Manchin and Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin are sending signals that they won’t call for a legislative special session to shift the election date to this year, despite the decision by SoS Natalie Tennant to have it in 2012.

• AL-Gov: Here’s one more politican trapped in the semantic quicksand that seems to be developing around the issue of stateside service during Vietnam. Alabama GOP runoff contestant Robert Bentley has drawn some heat for the words “Hospital commander” and “Vietnam War” appearing on-screen in one of his TV ads. Bentley was ranking medical doctor at Pope AFB (in North Carolina) during the Vietnam era, although he didn’t serve physically in Vietnam.

• FL-Gov: Now the supposed hero of 9/11 has RINO cooties, too? Rick Scott’s camp sent out press releases yesterday attacking opponent Bill McCollum for having supported “pro-abortion, pro-homosexual” Giuliani for President, back in those heady days of, say, 2007, when it was assumed that Giuliani was going to steamroller everyone else in the Florida primary.

• MD-Gov: Republican ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich picked a running mate for his 2010 campaign, and, no, he’s not giving Michael Steele his old job back. He picked Mary Kane, who was the SoS under Ehrlich (an appointed position in Maryland). She’s from Montgomery County, suggesting he sees the route to 50%+1 through this increasingly-blue suburb.

• OR-Gov (pdf): Republican pollster Magellan is quickly becoming one of the most prolific purveyors of public polls, this time with a look at the gubernatorial race in Oregon. They join the consensus that this is a deadlocked race right now; they find Republican Chris Dudley leading Democrat John Kitzhaber by a paper-thin 41-40 margin. Dudley has 41-27 support among independents. They also offer an interesting breakdown by CD; it’s OR-04 that’s keeping Dudley in this, giving him a 44-38 edge, while predictably, Kitzhaber dominates in OR-01 and OR-03, Dudley sweeps OR-02, and they fight to a tie in OR-05.

• WY-Gov: OMG! Stop the presses! Veteran character actor and widely trusted commercial pitchman for products for old people (and Wyoming resident) Wilford Brimley has made an endorsement in the GOP gubernatorial primary. He’s backing state Auditor Rita Meyer. No word on whether he was won over by her pro-oatmeal stances.

• NJ-07: There’s an internal poll out from a Democrat? Not only that, but it’s from one who’s been totally off the radar, as national Dems seem to have ceded the 7th to freshman GOPer Leonard Lance. While the “informed ballot” numbers are the ones getting promoted (we at SSP think informed ballot questions are good… for us to poop on), there are legitimate toplines in there too, with Lance leading Ed Potosnak by a not-so-imposing 43-30. Lance also has a weak 31/46 re-elect number in the Garin Hart Yang poll.

• NM-02: Construction liens seem to be the common cold of political scandals, but Democratic freshman Harry Teague is in an uphill battle to retain his GOP-leaning seat and probably wouldn’t like any bad PR. He personally, and the four oil and gas industry companies he controls, are facing a civil lawsuit over failure to repay loans to purchase equipment.

• Ohio: PPP has some odds and ends left over from their Ohio sample. Two items are on the bad news side of the ledger, although only barely: a generic House ballot test for Ohio (where there are at least five competitive Democratic holds) has Republicans leading Democrats 44-43, and GOP ex-Sen. Mike DeWine is leading appointed Democratic AG Richard Cordray 44-41 in the Attorney General’s race. (Screw that; what about SoS race numbers?) The good news is that Sherrod Brown’s favorables have rebounded quite a bit since PPP’s last poll; he’s now at 38/38.

• NRCC: More expectations management from the NRCC? After previous pronouncements that John Boehner was looking to pick up 436 100 seats, now he’s sending out a fundraising e-mail that touts a 39-seat pickup as their target.

• RGA: Haley Barbour’s rolling around in a trough full of money today: the Republican Governors Association hauled in $19 million in the last fundraising quarter. Also suggesting that GOP fundraising is kicking into higher gear, American Crossroads, the Karl Rove venture that earned a whopping $200 in May, had a much better June: they raised $8.5 million.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: There’s no shortage of pollsters looking at California, and now Canadian firm Ipsos (on behalf of Reuters) piles on. They find, like most pollsters, single-digits leads for the Democrats in both major races: Jerry Brown leads Meg Whitman 45-39 in the gubernatorial racer, while Barbara Boxer leads Carly Fiorina 45-41. They also find the proposed ballot initiative legalizing marijuana failing but by a close margin, 48-50.

• CO-Sen: The endorsement that seemed to blow everyone away yesterday was Bill Clinton’s unexpected backing of Andrew Romanoff, who’s mounting a primary challenge to appointed incumbent Michael Bennet in the Senate primary. It may not be that surprising, though, given Clinton’s willingness to go to bat for lost causes who backed Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008, which Romanoff did. It sounds like Clinton’s intervention will be limited to fundraising e-mails, though, rather than stumping with Romanoff.

• FL-Sen: The criminal case against former state GOP party chair Jim Greer is interesting enough on its own. But it could get even more interesting if Charlie Crist gets called to testify as a witness, which could happen, as his name is on a list of potential witnesses that’s being circulated.

• IL-Sen: Mark Kirk, having offered some weak excuses (“I wasn’t thinking”) at his public appearance yesterday to apologize for his resume embellishments, tried to get back on the offensive against Alexi Giannoulias, rolling out two ads. That includes one that tries to get back to the whole “mob banker” meme. Giannoulias, however, isn’t letting the resume flummery issue die; he rolled out his own attack ad today keeping Kirk’s misrememberments front and center.

• KY-Sen: Charming: Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo, who narrowly lost the Democratic primary to AG Jack Conway, isn’t going to endorse anyone in the Senate race. Also, he said he isn’t planning to run for Governor next year. (Steve Beshear is running for re-election, but dropped Mongiardo from the ticket in favor of Louisville mayor Jerry Abramson, perhaps assuming that Mongo would already be Senator by 2011.)

• NC-Sen (pdf): SurveyUSA (6/23-24, likely voters):

Elaine Marshall (D): 40

Richard Burr (R-inc): 50

Mike Beitler (L): 6

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±4%)

We haven’t been intentionally ignoring this poll from last weekend, just kept dropping the ball on getting it onto the front page. At any rate, this is one of those weird instances where Rasmussen sees a better race for the Dems than does SurveyUSA, although that may have to do with Rasmussen’s odd tendency to see huge post-primary bounces.

• NV-Sen: Last night’s title heavyweight bout was between Sharron Angle and Jon Ralston on Ralston’s public affairs TV show. Angle tried to emphasize her softer side, walking back earlier vague threats about armed insurrection, but still voiced support for Social Security phaseout and, maybe even more fatal for Nevada, support for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site.

• WV-Sen: Don’t get too comfortable in assuming that the West Virginia election to replace Robert Byrd won’t be held until 2012. There are vague rumblings that, despite the SoS’s decision, there might be a legislative special session this year to move the election date to November 2010. Bear in mind, though, that Dems thoroughly control the legislature so they’d be doing it only if they thought there was an advantage to doing it now instead of ’12. As Aaron Blake points out, Joe Manchin is not only the heir apparent to the Senate seat but also the Governor, who has the power to move the special session agenda, so the whole thing is really up to him. (Manchin might figure his heavy popularity is more of an advantage in a shortened election season, instead of a multi-year ramp-up to 2012.) At any rate, Manchin seems content to take his time, wanting to wait until after Byrd’s funeral next week to make any moves.

• MN-Gov: Mark Dayton is flying in the face of conventional wisdom (conventional wisdom that ignores the success of recent pro-tax ballot measures in Oregon and freakin’ Arizona) by making tax increases for the wealthy a cornerstone of his gubernatorial campaign. Dayton also just landed endorsements from 2006 gubernatorial candidates Mike Hatch, and ex-Rep. Bill Luther.

• ID-01: Raul Labrador, the gift that just keeps on giving. Labrador, who just had to walk back criticisms of John Boehner, is now facing reports that he recently tore into John McCain at a pre-primary appearance and voiced his support for J.D. Hayworth. On a related note, the NRCC just promoted 16 more Young Guns to the top tier of their fundraising pyramid, but despite having won the primary here, Labrador‘s name is still nowhere to be seen on the list.

• KS-04: Here’s some trouble for Wink Hartman, the businessman competing with Mike Pompeo for the GOP nomination in this Todd Tiahrt-held open seat. Pompeo’s camp is making hay out of reports that Hartman, whom they’ve accused of carpetbagging in from Florida, is still taking a valuable homestead exemption on his expensive house in Florida, which would require that to be his primary residence.

• LA-02: State Rep. Cedric Richmond seems to have a big advantage in his quest to win the Democratic nomination in the 2nd; he’s released an internal poll taken by Zata|3 (which you might remember polling the Arkansas primaries on behalf of Arkansas Business Journal), giving him a 53-13 lead over fellow state Rep. Juan LaFonta. No general election numbers for the battle against Republican Rep. Joe Cao were released.

• VA-05: Rep. Tom Perriello is out with what might get my vote for the best candidate TV ad of the cycle so far. (Well, the best ad not featuring Dale Peterson, I suppose.) It’s attention-grabbing and light-hearted enough to break through the clutter, while still staying on-message on the issue of jobs.

• WA-02: Talk about an utter polling fail. John Koster, the Republican challenger to Rep. Rick Larsen, is touting a poll with a lead over Larsen but isn’t giving the name of the pollster or even the specific numbers (saying he’s “in the neighborhood of 53 to 47 percent” – wow… no undecideds?). Larsen’s camp is saying the poll is crap, and they have a little more than the usual platitudes to back that up: Larsen was actually one of the persons polled, and he helpfully jotted down all 12 questions the poll asked. One of them identified Larsen as… a Republican.

• DCCC: Here’s some good news; now that they’re down to the final day of the quarter, the DCCC is actively twisting some arms to get recalcitrant House Dems to cough up their DCCC dues. So far, through the end of last month, House Dems have given $19.5 million over the cycle to the DCCC… but deadbeats still abound.

• FL-Sen: As much as Charlie Crist seems to have benefited from his switch to an independent bid, he still has to deal with blowback from a lot of ticked-off Republicans. A group of GOPers, led by state Rep. Tom Grady, has filed a class action lawsuit against Crist to get back their contributions which they thought would be used to support a Republican. Meanwhile, with Crist running around looking gubernatorial amidst the oil spill crisis, and the media having lost interest with the Republican primary settled, Marco Rubio now finds himself in an unusual position (which may be reflected in recent polls): the guy who isn’t getting any attention.

• IL-Sen: Well, it took Mark Kirk a couple months to do what Richard Blumenthal took a few days to do, but he finally got around to apologizing today in a press conference for his various “careless” embellishments of his military and teaching records.

• KS-Sen: SurveyUSA (6/24-27, likely voters, 5/21-23 in parens):

Jerry Moran (R): 53 (52)

Todd Tiahrt (R): 33 (29)

Other: 5 (4)

Undecided: 9 (15)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

SurveyUSA also looks at the Democratic Senate primary (where little-known college professor Lisa Johnston is the surprise leader, at 24, followed by somewhat higher-profile candidates like former newspaper editor Charles Schollenberger at 16 and state Sen. David Haley at 11), and at the Republican gubernatorial primary (where I didn’t even know there was a contest anymore, but where Sam Brownback leads Joan Heffington 76-17).

• KY-Sen: With the primary resolved and with Rand Paul having gone into media-related hiding, his fundraising seems to have dwindled accordingly. He held another online moneybomb yesterday, which used to be his bread and butter, but the bomb was more of a dud this time: he banked only $90K by yesterday evening. That’s was off from the $400K generated by his largest one last August.

• NJ-Sen: A couple items of good news for Frank Lautenberg: first, he’s announced that, after having been treated for lymphoma, his cancer is now in remission. And today, he got Robert Byrd‘s gavel for the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle, in contrast to Rand Paul, is at least temporarily breaking her media silence tonight… and she’s doing it not exactly the friendliest environment either, going on local reporter Jon Ralston’s TV show. (Ralston is one of the best left of the dying breed of state-level political reporters; his Twitter feed is highly recommended.) Meanwhile, Nevada Dems are hitting Angle for her decidedly extreme position on abortion (legal under absolutely no circumstances), while the once-thought-ominous Karl Rove 527 American Crossroads is out with a new ad attacking Harry Reid over unemployment.

• WV-Sen: There’s quite a long list of potential temporary appointees developing in West Virginia, but ex-Gov. (and current College Board president) Gaston Caperton won’t be one of them; he took his name out of the running. In addion to former state party chair Nick Casey and current chair Larry Puccio, other names, all of whom are well-connected with Gov. Joe Manchin, bubbling up today include former Manchin counsel Carte Goodwin, businessman Perry Petropolis, former state Supreme Court justice Richard Neely, and first lady Gayle Manchin.

• AL-Gov: Robert Bentley is touting an internal poll from Dresner Wicker & Associates giving him a substantial lead over Bradley Byrne in the GOP runoff; Bentley leads 46-27, and has 59/9 favorables. Bentley has also pledged no negative ads from his camp, which may be a relief to many Alabamians (and which may have been the secret to Bentley’s surprise success in the primary, as he dodged the heavy crossfire between Byrne and Tim James).

• CA-Gov: There’s a clear difference in strategy in California’s governor’s race, with Jerry Brown (who needs to draw Meg Whitman out into the open) agreeing to ten debates and Whitman (who needs to hide behind her ads) agreeing to one. New ads run by Brown surrogates seem to be taking increasing aim at Whitman’s tendency to hide behind her large piles of money, too.

• RI-Gov, RI-01, RI-02: The Rhode Island Democratic party issued its endorsements yesterday, and the results weren’t good for the party’s former state chair (or his brother). Bill Lynch lost the RI-01 endorsement to Providence mayor David Cicilline, while AG Patrick Lynch lost the RI-Gov endorsement to state Treasurer Frank Caprio. In the 2nd, incumbent Jim Langevin got the endorsement over primary challenger state Rep. Betsy Dennigan.

• TX-Gov: The situation with the Texas Greens ballot line isn’t quite going away yet. A lower court decided last week to block them from the ballot because their petition drive was illegally funded with an in-kind corporate contribution (with roots tracing back to Rick Perry’s former chief of staff). The decision, however, was just appealed to the Texas Supreme Court (which, of course, is Republican-controlled and not averse to the occasionally nakedly political decision).

• ID-01: Here, maybe, is another instance of the Chamber of Commerce realizing that conservative Democrats do a better job of addressing big business’s needs for a functioning physical and educational infrastructure than do the group of anarchists who seem to have seized control of the GOP? The US Chamber of Commerce just gave freshman Dem Walt Minnick their endorsement.

• LA-02: Rep. Joe Cao has had to back down on a fundraising letter that strongly implies that the local Catholic diocese and Archbishop Gregory Aymond backed his candidacy. Cao apologized for taking Aymond’s praise for him out of context.

• MI-03: Well, at least we now know who to cheer against in the GOP primary to replace retiring Rep. Vern Ehlers. The Club for Growth announced yesterday that they’re backing state Rep. Justin Amash, meaning that Amash must have impressed the far-right group with his level of disdain for public spending. (JL)

• PA-07: Philly’s just a short Amtrak ride from Washington DC, and Joe Biden will be there July 19 to host a combined fundraiser for the DCCC and for the Dem candidate in the 7th, state Rep. Bryan Lentz.

• TX-17: Here’s an article that’s an interesting reminder of how all politics is, in the end, local, and how it can turn on stuff that’s a million miles away from inside-the-Beltway concerns. Politico looks at the race in the 17th, which is very much a Waco/Baylor (Chet Edwards) vs. College Station/Texas A&M (Bill Flores) contest, with the recent (now irrelevant, though) proposal to break apart the Big 12 a key flashpoint.

• WV-01: Old man yells at cloud? Initially, the idea of a legendary West Virginia Democratic politician setting up a PAC with the pure intent of stopping Democratic nominee Mike Oliverio from winning in November sounds like a game-changing impediment. From the backstory, though, it sounds like former SoS Ken Hechler may not have that much oomph behind his vendetta, which seems mostly motivated by Oliverio’s 2004 failed primary challenge to him in the SoS primary, where Oliverio’s entire argument seemed predicated on the fact that Hechler was 89. (If you do the math, that makes him 95 now. I guess the secret to longevity is to become a Democrat in West Virginia!)

• CA-Init: Don’t count on California making the switch to the Washington-style top-two primary just yet, despite the passage of Proposition 14 earlier this month. The major and minor parties are weighing legal challenges to it, and they’re watching with interest the latest round of litigation on the matter in Washington. (The US Supreme Court has already upheld a state’s authority to switch to a top-two primary, but there’s a new suit pending on new grounds.)