Swing State Project

Today is the flipside of yesterday’s California release: states with stagnant populations and a bunch of old white people. We’ll start with Connecticut, which is certainly characterized by stability: it easily retained five seats, not being particularly near either the cusp of gaining or losing, and even its five districts are pretty close to in balance with each other. Its target is 714,819, up from 681K in 2000.

Ohio is one of only a couple states to lose two seats, taking it from 18 down to 16. Its new target is 721,032, up from about 631K in 2000. The state as a whole didn’t lose population (gaining 183,364), but seven of its districts did (the 1st, 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 17th). The Columbus area was the only part of the state that seemed to experience robust growth; in fact, despite the state losing two seats, the 12th (a swing district held by GOPer Pat Tiberi) will actually need to shed population… much of the state’s growth is accounted for in the growth in the 12th.

The numbers today don’t really change the overall redistricting equation: one of the northeastern Ohio Democrats is clearly going to have to go, and while the Akron-area 13th (held by Betty Sutton) actually gained some population unlike its neighbors, it may be the one that gets dissected simply by virtue of being in the very middle (with the 9th pressuring it from the west, the 10th and 11th from the north, and the 17th from the east). As for which GOPer gets cut, I’d expected it to be one of Bill Johnson (in the 6th) or Bob Gibbs (in the 18th), but the 18th, despite its mostly rural, Appalachian flavor, seemed to hang in there better than expected, population-wise. Now I’m wondering if Bob Latta’s 5th in the rural northwest, which is going to be pressured by the 9th to its north and the 4th to its east, may be a more natural target. Or here’s another possibility (made likelier by the possibility that the local GOP might like rid themselves of a liability in the form of Jean Schmidt): the 2nd might be targeted, despite its decent numbers, as both the 1st to its west and the 6th to its east need to gain a ton of people (and extending the 1st east into red, suburban Clermont County would make GOPer Steve Chabot’s life easier).

Pennsylvania’s target is 705,688 based on the drop from 19 to 18 seats, up from about 646K in 2000. The 2nd, 3rd, 12th, and 14th all lost population. I’d really recommend looking at the Census Bureau’s interactive map of Pennsylvania, as it shows exactly what’s going on: the eastern half of the state gained a bit, while nearly every county in the state’s western half outright lost population. In fact, there were enough gains in the east that four districts wind up needing to shed population: the 6th and 15th in the Philadelphia suburbs/exurbs, and the more rural, Pennsylvania Dutch-flavored 16th and 19th. These are all Republican-held districts, but these are all districts that moved sharply in the Dem direction from 2004 to 2008, while on the other hand, the shrinking western districts are Democratic areas but ones where the overall trend has been away from the Dems. (Interestingly, two cities that over recent decades came to symbolize dead northeastern industrial centers, Allentown and Reading, are actually rebounding, gaining around 10,000 people each and helping to grow the 15th and 16th respectively. Much of the growth in those two cities, though, as well as the small growth experienced in Philadelphia, is Hispanic.)

With the GOP in control of the redistricting process in Pennsylvania and the population losses heavily concentrated in the Pittsburgh area, it looks like the axe is going to fall heavily on fairly-new Dem Mark Critz in the odd-shaped 12th, which was designed to be a friendly district for John Murtha cobbling together Cambria County with the Dem-friendly parts of Pittsburgh’s collar counties but is barely holding onto its Dem roots these days. Mike Doyle’s 14th (in Pittsburgh proper), despite being the biggest population loser, is probably going to stay intact, as Republicans will need to concede at least one blue vote sink in the southwest (and probably get bluer, as it’ll need to expand into the dead steel towns of the Mon Valley to its south, currently the bluest part of the 12th).

If Critz wants to stick around, he’s likely to find himself either fighting Jason Altmire in a primary in the 4th or Tim Murphy in a general in the 18th (although Critz has enough of a Johnstown-area base that he might be able to pull out an upset in whatever district Johnstown winds up in, unless the GOP decides that the 9th, in the central part of the state, is red enough to safely absorb Johnstown).

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (3/3-6, “usual” Maine Republican primary voters, no trendlines):

Olympia Snowe (R-inc): 43

Scott D’Amboise (R): 18

Andrew Ian Dodge (R): 10

Undecided: 28

Olympia Snowe (R-inc): 33

Republican Jesus (R): 58

Undecided: 9

(MoE: ±4.7%)

I agree with Tom: These numbers are not good for Snowe, not at all. D’Amboise and Dodge are truly at Some Dude levels, with only 5% and 2% (two percent!) favorables respectively, and yet the incumbent manages to score only 43% of primary voters. Moreover, as Tom reminds us, “Lisa Murkowski’s approval with Republicans in January of 2010 was 77/13 and Mike Castle’s in March of 2009 at an identical point in the cycle was 69/24.” As I’ve been saying all along, if the Tea Party Express or the Club for Growth throws down here, Snowe is in a heap of trouble. (By the way, “Republican Jesus” is the technical term for what PPP calls “a more conservative challenger.”)

This is all very poignant for Snowe, because, look:

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (3/3-6, Maine voters, no trendlines):

Emily Cain (D): 20

Olympia Snowe (R-inc): 64

Undecided: 16

Rosa Scarcelli (D): 18

Olympia Snowe (R-inc): 66

Undecided: 17

Emily Cain (D): 33

Scott D’Amboise (R): 33

Undecided: 34

Rosa Scarcelli (D): 29

Scott D’Amboise (R): 36

Undecided: 35

Emily Cain (D): 32

Andrew Ian Dodge (R): 30

Undecided: 37

Rosa Scarcelli (D): 29

Andrew Ian Dodge (R): 33

Undecided: 38

(MoE: ±2.8%)

Those are some massive numbers for an incumbent in a swing state. And note the crossover appeal – Emily Cain, for instance, does 13 points better against the nobodies (fellow nobodies?) than she does against Snowe. Yet Snowe might not even get the chance to have this fight. But like Yoda said, there is another….

Emily Cain (D): 17

Scott D’Amboise (R): 21

Olympia Snowe (I): 54

Undecided: 7

Rosa Scarcelli (D): 15

Scott D’Amboise (R): 20

Olympia Snowe (I): 56

Undecided: 9

Emily Cain (D): 15

Andrew Ian Dodge (R): 19

Olympia Snowe (I): 56

Undecided: 10

Rosa Scarcelli (D): 13

Andrew Ian Dodge (R): 19

Olympia Snowe (I): 57

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±2.8%)

In this hypothetical scenario where Snowe runs as an independent, she also posts huge numbers, peeling from both sides. I’ll turn it over to Tom once more to provide the closing words:

If Snowe continues on as a Republican this is a race that an ambitious Democrat who doesn’t have a ton to lose should really look at. Obviously if Snowe emerges as the Republican nominee you’re going to lose and you’re going to lose by a lot. If Snowe ends up running as an independent you’re probably going to lose and you’re probably going to lose by a lot. But if Snowe stays the course and gets taken out you might become Chris Coons – a guy who was willing to throw his name in the hat when it looked impossible and ended up coasting to an easy general election victory.

For Snowe there’s a hard route to reelection and an easy one – it’ll be interesting to see if she sticks with the hard one.

• AZ-Sen: Fuck this guy.

• FL-Sen: Remember George LeMieux? I do, but only barely. Anyhow, some reporter he spoke with says now that an announcement for a Senate run “is imminent, and could come within a few weeks.” The article says basically the same thing about former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, but we’ll see when we see.

• NJ-Sen: According to a new Rutgers-Eagleton poll, Bob Menendez’s approvals are 34-28 – better than I would have thought! Chris Christie’s numbers keep getting worse (yay!), while Obama is at +21.

• IN-Sen: Like their counterparts in the Wisconsin state Senate, Democrats in Indiana’s House are holed up in Illinois, boycotting their chamber over anti-union legislation. This has had the effect of delaying work on redistricting, which in turn seems to be delaying Rep. Joe Donnelly’s decision about whether to run for re-election or seek higher office; Donnelly obviously would prefer to look at the new map before choosing.

On the other side of the aisle, Dick Lugar engaged in a brutally embarrassing flip-flop that suggests to me he might be reconsidering his approach to the teabaggers and adopting a more Orrin Hatch-style form of supplication. After first saying he’d vote against the House GOP’s budget bill (which contains huge spending cuts), he then changed his mind an hour later and said he’d vote for it… and blamed his earlier answer on supposedly not being able to hear the question he’d been asked. The fact that he flip-flopped right after a weekly Republican lunch meeting had nothing to do with his arm being put in a vice behind closed doors.

• MA-Sen: This is an odd set of tweets from the Boston Globe’s Glen Johnson. He asked Newton Mayor Setti Warren if Obama had asked him to run for Senate (Obama happens to be in the area for a fundraiser – see DCCC item below), and Warren was silent in response. Warren apparently later called Johnson and said that yes, the president had spoken with him about the race, but no, hadn’t asked him to run. Weird.

In other news, ex-Rep. Joe Kennedy said once again that he has no interest in running against Scott Brown next year, saying he feels “ill” at the thought. Bear in mind that Kennedy still has a pretty hunormous $2.1 million in his campaign account, left over from his representin’ days, so he’s gotta do something with it at some point.

• NM-Sen: Heather Wilson had a bunch of relatively big backers at her campaign launch: ex-Sen. Pete Domenici, Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry, former U.S. Reps. Bill Redmond and Manuel Lujan, and one-time GOP gubernatorial hopefuls Allen Weh, Pete Domenici, Jr., and Janice Arnold-Jones. I’d be shocked out of my socks if Wilson has the Republican primary field to herself, though; reporter Gwyneth Doland says now that Rep. Steve Pearce, who had sounded pretty reticent before, “isn’t ruling out a run” himself, but those are her words, not his.

• NV-Sen: This is the best news I’ve heard all day: A former Sharron Angle consultant “talked up the possibility” of another Senate run to Ben Smith, touting her UNPRECEDENTED TEA-FLAVORED POWER. Hmm, that’s probably the label on some Japanese soft drink, but that’s still pretty much the gist of what this guy said. Sadly, though, Jon Ralston is here to drink my weird made-up Japanese soft drink – drink it up – because he thinks both Angle and Lt. Gov. Krolicki (also considering a Senate bid) will instead run in NV-02, which would be open if Rep. Dean Heller decides to move up.

On the Dem side, Greg Giroux – who I think must be wired, Matrix-like, into all the key election databases – spots a filing from Byron Georgiou, an attorney who was one of Harry Reid’s picks to serve on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. It can be a little tricky to tell with attorneys, but it sounds like Georgiou may be pretty wealthy, given that Wikipedia describes his career as generally involving major plaintiff-side litigation. (By the way, Dem Ross Miller told Ralston he would wait to see what Rep. Shelley Berkley does before making plans of his own.)

Also, UMN has another one of their typically fascinating posts up, this time about the Nevada Senate race. It turns out that in the state’s 100-plus year history, there have only been five open seat races, and only once (in 1942!) was the seat held by the same party. The same piece also points out that only one Nevada senator, Richard Bryan (D), has ever left office on his own terms – those who didn’t lose in the general were driven from office by reasons of scandal (like Ensign), health, or failure to win renomination.

• PA-Sen: Remember Sam Rohrer? I definitely didn’t. But the former state Rep., who got killed in the gubernatorial primary against now-Gov. Tom Corbett last year, said he hasn’t ruled out a challenge to Sen. Bob Casey. His party may need him, since pretty much no serious Republican seems interested in running.

• VT-Sen, VT-Gov: Thom Lauzon, the Republican mayor of Barre (pop. 9,000), says he’s considering running for either governor or Senate, but neither sounds likely, especially the latter, since he says he’s tight with state Auditor Tom (not Tim) Salmon, who has said he’s leaning toward a run.

• WV-Sen: Gonna be a long two years if we have to put up with this on a regular basis.

• FL-22: I can’t really tell if this guy rises above Some Dude level, but Gulf War vet Patrick Daniel (D) says he’s challenging Allen West, and that he’s been “preparing to run for office for at least five years” (in the words of his interviewer, Kenneth Quinnell).

• MN-08: A wide net sure is right. A source tells Joe Bodell of the MN Progressive Project that one possible Democratic candidate to take on Rep. Chip Cravaaaaaack is state Rep. Ryan Winkler. The only problem is that Winkler represents a district in suburban Minneapolis, while the 8th CD covers Minnesota’s northeastern reaches. So what gives? Winkler is a native of Bemidji, some 200 miles north of the Twin Cities, and he told Bodell that he’s thought about moving home, “but nothing is in the works.” I’ll also point out that Bemidji is actually in the 7th district (right near the border with the 8th).

• NY-26: Jack Davis was always just about the worst imaginable fit for the Democratic Party since Lyndon LaRouche, so it’s no surprise that he’s trying to court teabaggers in pursuit of his doomed fourth run for Congress (this time as an independent). The best part is that the mainstream (lol) teabaggers are rejecting him, but a splinter group (yes, another Judean People’s Front/People’s Front of Judea split) supposedly is in Davis’s camp. Davis is also trying to claim that Republican Jane Corwin has a “nanny issue,” but whatevs. Those don’t seem to gain a lot of traction these days, even if true.

• OR-01: SurveyUSA released a poll asking folks their opinions of David Wu. They ask respondents how they voted last year (52-38 for Wu, close to the actual 54-42 margin), and they also have a do-over question pitting Wu against 2010 challenger Rob Cornilles. Cornilles fares little better in this question, getting just 41%, but Wu drops dramatically, down to 33%. Meanwhile, Kari Chisholm at Blue Oregon has a massive list of everyone and his dog and the dog’s stuffed chewtoy who could potentially try to primary Wu, who has been busy conducting an apology tour of sorts.

• Los Angeles Mayor: It’s never too early to think about the 2013 elections, and that is exactly what over a dozen ambitious residents of America’s 2nd largest city are doing. The Los Angeles Times handicaps the vast field of candidates contemplating bids to replace Antonio Villaraigosa as the next mayor of Los Angeles. The prospects range from the old (longtime LA pol and County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky) to the young (state senator Alex Padilla, who was 2 years old when Yaroslavsky first landed a seat on the LA City Council). And just to show that there are still potential Bloombergs among us, the field contains two wealthy self-funders (developer Rick Caruso and investment banker-turned-deputy mayor Austin Beutner). (Steve Singiser)

• NYC Mayor: Gag me with a spoon – when asked by Fareed Zakaria on CNN, Eliot Spitzer refused to rule out a run for NYC mayor. And I say this as someone who worked to get Spitzer elected – twice!

• WI Recall: Greg Sargent has an update on Dems’ signature collection efforts in the recall drive, and Team Blue is saying things are going very well in the early going – beating expectations, in fact. But there also seems to be some movement in terms of a deal with Gov. Scott Walker, which could deflate the sails of the recall movement very abruptly.

• DCCC: Obama alert! The POTUS was in Boston yesterday for a fundraiser for the DCCC. (That’s why he had the chance to chat with Setti Warren – see MA-Sen item above.) The D-Trip says the event raised a million bucks.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Arkansas: Reid Wilson has a tantalizing tweet, but nothing more: ” Arkansas legislators contemplating new heavily black, safe Dem seat.”

• Colorado: Republicans in the state House (where they’re in the majority) are trying to push a new law which would have the effect of moving Democratic Pueblo out of the 3rd CD (which gives Dems a fighting chance there) and into the deep red vote sink that is the 5th district. This is probably being done with an eye to protect freshman Rep. Scott Tipton, but it’s also possible that “moderate” state Sen. Ellen Roberts, a co-sponsor of the bill, is trying to craft a district more to her liking for an eventual run someday. Either way, it doesn’t matter – Dems control the state Senate and the governor’s mansion, so this bill is going nowhere.

Mississippi: Well, that sure was fast. A state Senate panel (controlled by the GOP) rejected a new map for the state House, which the Dem-controlled House had passed last week. If the two sides remain deadlocked, it’s possible that the state would have to conduct legislative elections both this year (under the old map) and next year (under a new map), something that actually happened in 1991/92. This would of course give the GOP another chance to win the state House before a Dem map can be implemented (and you’ve gotta think their odds of doing so are pretty good).

Meanwhile, there’s also some Redistricting™-brand cat fud on display in the Senate. Republicans released a map for their own body (available, along with demographic info, here), but Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant (who also holds the position of President of the Senate) pushed a plan of his own through the Elections Committee instead. (If you have a link to that map, please let us know in comments.) That puts him in a battle with members of his own party in terms of which map should get adopted.

• Pennsylvania: As Nice & Smooth put it, sometimes I map slow, sometimes I map quick – and PA Republicans are definitely in the former category. After state Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi said he hoped to have a new congressional map complete in the fall, a wise-ass aide noted that technically, fall doesn’t end until Dec. 21st, so we might not see a new plan until the Winter Solstice. The staffer also said that technically, he has kissed a girl, because he once played spin-the-bottle with his second cousin.

• Redistricting: The Brennan Center has a very helpful guide to understanding the intricacies of redistricting, which you should all bookmark.

The crown jewel of the 2010 Census is out: California. The nation’s largest state is, well, even larger than before, at 37,253,956, up from 33,871,648. Divide that out among 53 districts (it was the first time in ages that California didn’t gain a House seat, despite gaining more than 3 million residents… it gained at a rate close to the country as a whole), and you have a target of 702,905, which is up from about 639K in 2000.

It may not come as a surprise, but much of the state’s growth is Hispanic. Since 2000, the state’s Hispanic population grew 27.8%, while the state’s non-Hispanic population was almost stagnant, growing only 1.5%. (The Asian population grew 31.5%, but that’s a fairly small subset of the overall population.) In 2000, California was 46.7% non-Hispanic white and 32.4% Hispanic, but in 2010, it had drawn much closer: 40.1% non-Hispanic white and 37.6% Hispanic.

Looking at the table, you’ll notice that a large number of districts have moved from white pluralities to Hispanic pluralities over the last ten years: the Democratic-controlled 17th, 23rd, and 27th, and the Republican-controlled 21st, 44th, and 45th. (The latter two were also the state’s two fastest growing districts, both in Riverside County to the east of Los Angeles.) Two more GOP-held seats in the greater Los Angeles area are also dancing close to the edge of a Hispanic plurality: the 25th, and the Orange County-based 40th. Of course, that doesn’t presage an immediate change in voting patterns; given lower Hispanic voter participation rates and the fact that much of the Hispanic population is under 18, changes will be slow to happen. Case in point: the 20th, where incumbent Jim Costa had a close call in 2010 despite it being a 70% Hispanic district! (One other bit of trivia: Pete Stark’s 13th moved from a white plurality to an Asian plurality, the only Asian-plurality district outside of Hawaii.)

One other thing you’ll notice: despite the fact that California didn’t lose a seat, there is going to be substantial reconfiguration of districts, with boundaries moving from west to east. The Bay Area gained little population, and will need to give most of a seat to the Central Valley; likewise, Los Angeles County proper gained little, and will need to give most of a seat to the Inland Empire (San Bernardino and Riverside Counties). Although the Central Valley and Inland Empire tend to be Republican areas in general, most of the growth in those places has been Hispanic, to the extent that “new” seats are probably going to wind up being Hispanic VRA seats carved out of the general overlay of red; on the other hand, the Bay Area and LA proper are already Dem strongholds and have nothing but Dems to lose, so the overall effect is likely to be a wash. Of course, given that this is the first year that California switches to an ostensibly impartial commission, which has no compunction to preserve the incumbent protection intent of the 2000 map and may actually place a premium on compactness, we could see all manner of scrambling that goes well beyond what I’m describing.

While we aren’t going into as much detail as we did with Texas, we’re adding a few details to California that most states haven’t received: each district’s representative (as it’s well nigh impossible to keep track of which district number is what when there are 53 of them), and the district’s racial composition in both 2010 and 2000. The four categories expressed as overall percentages, left to right, are non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic African-American, non-Hispanic Asian, and Hispanic.

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (3/3-6, Missouri voters, Dec. 2010 in parens):

Claire McCaskill (D-inc): 45 (45)

Sarah Steelman (R): 42 (44)

Undecided: 14 (12)

Claire McCaskill (D-inc): 45

Todd Akin (R): 44

Undecided: 11

Claire McCaskill (D-inc): 46

Ed Martin (R): 40

Undecided: 14

Claire McCaskill (D-inc): 45

Ann Wagner (R): 36

Undecided: 19

(MoE: ±4%)

Tom Jensen takes the words right out of my mouth:

Less noteworthy than the difference between McCaskill’s single point lead against Akin and her nine point advantage against Wagner is that McCaskill’s support shows no variation from 45-46% across the four match ups. The Republicans get varying levels of support pretty much directly in line with their name recognition: 44% know Akin, 44% know Steelman, 34% know Martin, and only 26% know Wagner. The GOP field is largely anonymous at this point.

McCaskill’s leads, even as small as they are, shouldn’t be particularly reassuring for her. There are at least twice as many undecided Republicans as Democrats in each match up, suggesting that once the GOP candidates become better known they will probably catch up to her pretty quickly.

One thing to note, though, is that the gathering field for the GOP represents something of a B-team, especially with Akin unlikely to get in. And while the group as a whole, as Tom notes, is mostly unknown, they all have negative favorables among those who do know them, except for Steelman, who doesn’t fare much better with a flat even 22-22. I think a Steelman-Martin primary could be extremely toxic, and something McCaskill has to be rooting for.

If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that PPP has a 38D, 37R, 25I sample. That’s a lot less Dem than the 40D-34R that the 2008 exit polls had it as, but a little better than the than the 39R-37D 2006 exit polls.

An absolutely mammoth-sized digest for your enjoyment today. You can return the favor by following us on Twitter or liking us on Facebook!

• FL-Sen: Remember that beyond-pathetic non-book that Mike Haridopolos “wrote” for Brevard Community College – a work so bad that the school was too embarrassed to ever even publish it? (Sample observation: politicians should carry cell phones. Political GOLD.) Actually, I lied – it’s now available to anyone with a Kindle and enough ingrown stupidity to spent $9.99 on it. But none of this, believe it or not, is even the reason for this bullet. Rather, the Miami Herald points out that in 2006 and 2009, Haridopolos directed a total of $3.1 million in the state budget toward none other than Brevard Community College. Payback for that payback sure is turning out to be a bitch, huh?

• HI-Sen: KHON2 has a rundown of the federal bank accounts of potential contenders for Dan Akaka’s now-open Senate seat. Here’s one odd thing: Charles Djou still has a quarter million bucks left over. What on earth did he do that for?

• MA-Sen: Mutual fund executive Robert Pozen says he isn’t running for Senate – “unless the Democratic Party asks me to.” Considering he served as an advisor to Mitt Romney and worked on a George W. Bush Social Security panel which recommended privatization, I’m gonna guess that he’ll be waiting by the phone for quite a while.

• MI-Sen: In response to a Facebook page trying to draft him, a spokesman for uber-teabagger Justin Amash says that he “is not contemplating a Senate run.” This also confirms a pet theory of mine, which is that if you want to grab a candidate’s attention and get him or her on the record as to whether they’ll seek a higher office, all you need to do is create a Facebook page, sign up a few people (Amash’s has just 130 “likes”), and spread the word a bit (either to the media or the candidate directly) – and bam, you’ll get an answer.

• NJ-Sen: Several states to the east, another teabagger favorite – one with a lot less to lose – is steeping a different bag of darjeeling. Anna Little, who lost to Rep. Frank Pallone last year after upsetting a wealthy establishment-type candidate in the GOP primary, says she’s considering a run against Bob Menendez. She’s previously said she wants to take on Pallone in a rematch, so who knows what she’ll wind up doing.

• NM-Sen: Alright, it’s not quite the horse’s mouth, but politically speaking, it’s just as good: A spokesperson for Republican Lt. Gov. John Sanchez says his boss is “seriously considering” running for Senate. He’d provide a conservative alternative to Heather Wilson (who made her entry official today), and he’s also personally wealthy and has self-funded in the past.

• NV-Sen: This would make life a hell of a lot more interesting: Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, who contemplated a Senate run last cycle, says he’s considering a bid to succeed John Ensign. The fact that Krolicki is openly declaring this suggests to me he’s not afraid of going head-to-head with Rep. Dean Heller in the GOP primary – and that perhaps the idea of Heller being some kind of Republican steamroller is a bit overblown.

• OH-Sen: We’ve mentioned this guy before, but the WaPo has a longish profile of 33-year-old Republican state Treasurer Josh Mandel, who won election just last year and hasn’t ruled out a Senate run. The piece claims that Mandel has cross-party appeal, but it also quotes a teabagger leader who says Mandel is “just great on the issues and has been right from the start.” Both of these things cannot be simultaneously true.

Somewhat related, Greg Giroux helpfully provides a breakdown of last year’s gubernatorial and senate results from Ohio by congressional district.

• RI-Sen, RI-01: Scott MacKay at WNRI (a local NPR station) has a helpful backgrounder on Brendan Doherty, the state police chief who abruptly announced his resignation the other day and is thought to be contemplating a run for federal office this cycle. MacKay makes the argument that Rep. David Cicilline may present a more tempting target than Sheldon Whitehouse, largely due to the fallout from Providence’s financial troubles (the city where Cicilline was mayor until getting elected to the House).

• TX-Sen: I don’t think it’ll move any votes, but it’s a signal: Sen. Mike Lee of Utah – who may represent the purest, most highly distilled strain of teabagger – just endorsed Ted Cruz for Senate. But note the item just below – Lee won’t endorse his fellow Utahn Orrin Hatch for re-election.

• UT-Sen: While we’re on the theme of Utah and teabaggers, I actually think Orrin Hatch is being pretty smart here, Lee’s non-endorsement non-withstanding. I mean, his attempts to prove fealty to the insane-o-philes are brutally embarrassing, but they may just save his hide – which is all he cares about. His latest effort involves trying to hire prominent teabaggers as organizers for his campaign (for $2,500 a month). The Salt Lake Tribune talked to two people Hatch had reached out to – one took the job, the other liked the offer to bribery. I would have expected Republicans to appreciate the virtues of selling out a little more, but then again, the true believers usually get left out in the cold. (An aside: The article also mentions another possible challenger to Hatch, state Sen. Dan Liljenquist.)

• VA-Sen: PPP has some numbers out for the Democratic “primary” in Virginia – and I put that word in quotation marks because really, if Tim Kaine runs, no one else will, and if he doesn’t, it’s a totally different ballgame. Anyhow, Kaine is the wide favorite of Virginia Dems, to absolutely no one’s surprise. In related news, Mike Signer, a Democrat who got crushed in the primary for the party’s Lt. Gov. nomination in 2009, says he won’t run for Senate, either (or state Senate, but there’s talk he might run for AG in 2013).

• MO-Gov: Dave Catanese has some bits and pieces from a poll by Republican pollster Public Opinion Strategies, the most interesting one of which is Gov. Jay Nixon’s saintly 61-26 job approval rating. I’ve gotta believe the poll included head-to-heads with super-likely opponent Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder (R), but they don’t seem to have been made available.

• WV-Gov: The Democratic Executive Committee of Charleston (the state’s capital and largest city) hosted a gubernatorial straw poll over the weekend, and state Treasurer John Perdue came in first with 25% of the vote in a tight field. House Speaker Rick Thompson got 24, Acting Senate President Jeff Kessler 22, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant 21, and Acting Governor Earl Ray Tomblin just 6.

• CA-36: Yet another Republican has joined the field in the special election to replace Jane Harman: Hermosa Beach City Councilman (and attorney, and Air Force vet) Kit Bobko is now the third GOPer in the race. Is this all part of some super-genious plan? Anyway, at least one Republican is getting out of the way: former Rep. Steve Kuykendall (who beat Janice Hahn to serve a single term in 1998, when the seat was last open, only to lose when Jane Harman – the previous occupant – victoriously returned in 2000) says he won’t run because he’s convinced the district will be “gone” after redistricting.

• CA-41: Not long ago, we speculated that the mopey Jerry Lewis might be contemplating retirement, seeing how he got passed over for key leadership spots and had just a few rusty nickels in his campaign account. Well, thanks to the Sunlight Foundation’s cool new “Political Party Time” website, we know that Lewis is hosting a high-dollar DC fundraiser next week, so perhaps he’s gearing up again. Still, he ain’t comin’ off our watch list just yet.

• Iowa: It really sounds like former Iowa first lady Christie Vilsack is gearing up to run for the House. As the Des Moines Register notes, she quit her job at a non-profit last week, and has been meeting with political operatives and party regulars. As pretty much everyone has noted, though, where the heck will she run? Iowa’s losing a seat (going from five to four), and has three incumbent Democrats. This isn’t a game of musical chairs so much as it is Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.

• MO-03, MO-LG: Missouri’s Lt. Gov. spot is expected to be open (see the MO-Gov item above w/r/t Peter Kinder), but even if it isn’t, Dems still need a candidate. One possibility is 3rd CD Rep. Russ Carnahan, who may get drawn into oblivion. Other possibilities include former State Sen. Wes Shoemyer (who lost his senate seat last year) and State Rep. Sara Lampe.

• NJ-02: Andrew McCrosson, treasurer to Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R) for fifteen years, just plead guilty to embezzling over $450,000 from his boss’s campaign accounts, going back at least half a decade. Reminds of a very similar thing which happened to ex-Rep. Chris Shays.

• NY-26: Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he’ll announce the date of the special election here “later this week.” That means we’ll have an election around two-and-a-half months from now. Some cat fud just got stuffed back into the tin, though (but it was expected): Conservative Party chair Mike Long just announced he’s backing Republican nominee Jane Corwin. That more-or-less means his party’s meeting to announce a formal endorsement next week is a foregone conclusion.

As a result, teabagging Iraq vet David Bellavia now says he’s not sure if he’ll make an independent bid, citing the daunting task of collecting 3,500 signatures in the twelve days after Cuomo announces. But wait! Crazy Jack Davis says he’ll spend $3 million of his own money pursuing an independent bid. Hopefully he’ll run wildly to the right, but regrettably, his three runs on the Democratic ticket might mean he’ll claw more votes from our side than theirs.

• IL Redistricting: Gov. Pat Quinn just signed a new law requiring that racial or language minority communities not get split up when drawing state legislative lines. This measure was pushed in part by leaders in Chicago’s Chinatown, who didn’t want their neighborhood chopped up between districts once again.

• Special Elections: Johnny-Longtorso-on-the-spot:

Another light week; there are technically four specials tonight, but two are unopposed: Tennessee’s HD-98, a Democratic hold, and Virginia’s HD-91, a Republican hold. The two contested elections are Tennessee’s SD-18, freshman Rep. Diane Black’s district, a safe Republican seat; and Arkansas’ HD-24, where the Republican candidate died before the 2010 election, but was elected posthumously, so the seat ended up vacant. The latter might be interesting, given the Democrats’ recent troubles – it was held by a Dem who was term-limited prior to the deceased Republican winning it last year.

That Arkansas special has gotten exceedingly vile: A member of the Garland County Republican Committee has been sending around emails attacking Dem Jerry Rephan as “a pro-abortion Jewish lawyer” and emphasizing the need to support Republican Bruce Cozart because he’s a “Christian.”

• Wisconsin Recall: In a really interesting article, Craig Gilbert of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel observes that recall efforts are now underway against 16 state senators – 8 Dems and 8 Republicans – something that appears to be unprecedented in scope, pretty much anywhere. The largest number of state legislator recalled at the same time for the same reason? Two, on three separate occasions in three different states. One other detail: The number of signatures required varies from 11,817 in Dem-held SD-06 to 20,973 in GOP-controlled SD-28. But the whole piece is worth a read.

• WATN?: Several entries in the “Where Are They Now?” Dept. today. Democratic ex-Rep. Brad Ellsworth (IN-08) will become president of Vectren Corp.’s Indiana gas utility division in May. Democratic ex-Rep. Paul Hodes (NH-02) says he’s starting a new firm to help New Hampshire companies “that need a better understanding of Washington.” Hodes is being very careful not to call himself a lobbyist, since he’s barred from that activity for a year; his comments (and his new choice of career) suggest he’s not planning a return to politics. And finally, Republican ex-Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (FL-05), who announced her retirement last year on the day of the filing deadline, says her health has improved (that was, she says, her reason for stepping down in the first place) and that she wants to run for office again. She’s not sure exactly what office, though, and she won’t decide until the middle of this year.