Swing State Project - NYC-Mayor

NYC-Mayor: Thompson to Run Again in 2013; NY-Sen-B: Harold Ford, Srsly?

DavidNYC — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:37:00 GMT

Former Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., who lost to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in an unexpectedly close race in November, said on Tuesday that he had decided to run for mayor again in four years.
"I am not running for office this year; it is my intention to run for mayor in 2013," he said in an interview. "While I have been flattered by the large number of people who have reached out to me to suggest that I run statewide this year, the issues I raised in New York City - the need for good-paying jobs and closing the affordability gap - those are issues I still feel strongly about."
"While it's a great state, I grew up in the city and love the city, and feel like I am uniquely qualified to be the mayor," he said.

This is certainly one of the earliest imaginable announcements for any race, well, ever - but it's probably the strongest move Thompson can make. All of the other races he was reportedly considering - against Kirsten Gillibrand for Senate, against Tom DiNapoli for state Comptroller, or against Charlie Rangel for the 15th CD House seat - would have involved primarying an incumbent, and a loss in any of those would likely have been a career-ender. Thompson may yet have to deal with a contested Dem primary for the mayoral race in four years' time, but with this announcement, he's the instant front-runner, and probably gives pause to other would-be contenders.

The person probably happiest about this right now is Gillibrand, who has managed to avoid primary challenges from a whole hell of a lot of people. The unhappiest? I'm guessing Rep. Anthony Weiner. While I'd expect him to try running again in 2013, Thompson now has a lot of cred as the guy who dared to take on Bloombo (and almost won) when no one else was willing. I'm not generally one to care about "waiting one's turn," but I think a lot of people who matter will feel that Thompson has earned a second shot, while Weiner bailed when the chips were down.

But about that Gillibrand streak of luck...

Encouraged by a group of influential New York Democrats, Harold Ford Jr., the former congressman from Tennessee, is weighing a bid to unseat Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand in this fall's Democratic primary, according to three people who have spoken with him.
Mr. Ford, 39, who moved to New York three years ago, has told friends that he will decide whether to run in the next 45 days. The discussions between Mr. Ford and top Democratic donors reflect the dissatisfaction of some prominent party members with Ms. Gillibrand, who has yet to win over key constituencies, especially in New York City.
About a dozen high-profile Democrats have expressed interest in backing a candidacy by Mr. Ford, including the financier Steven Rattner, who, along with his wife, Maureen White, has been among the country's most prolific Democratic fund-raisers.

When this story first "broke," I thought it had to be some kind of joke - sort of like Bob Kerrey's absurd (and mercifully brief) flirtation with the idea for running for NYC mayor in 2005. But somehow, it looks like this crazy Ford idea is quite a bit more real than that. I simply can't imagine how Ford, an extremely conservative Southerner who ran for office in Tenneesse just three years ago, could have much appeal to New York Democrats. While the comparisons to Hillary Clinton are inevitable, I think there are a hell of a lot more differences than similarities.

In any event, if Ford does run, nothing could make me want to support Gillibrand (about whom I've been quite lukewarm) more. I suspect a whole lot of other people and organizations will be similarly motivated. Ultimately, it sounds like Ford is being propelled by wealthy interests similar to those which backed Tom Suozzi in his suicidal run against Eliot Spitzer in the 2006 gubernatorial primary. While Gillibrand's lock on the nomination isn't quite as secure as Spitzer's was, I think these moneybags will see their dollars run into a stiff wall of grassroots and establishment resistance. Democratic primary politics in New York state ain't beanbag.

SSP Daily Digest: 12/30

James L. — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:48:55 GMT

• Dave's Redistricting App: If you use Dave's App, please don't close your browser window/tab when you take a break. Whenever you load a new instance of the app, it causes a big bandwidth hit, especially when you open up New York state. So to help Dave conserve bandwidth, leave your browser open once you've loaded whatever you're working on until you're finished with that project. Thanks! (D)

• AZ-Sen: Ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth says that he may be ready to start "testing the waters" for a primary challenge to John McCain. Hayworth was recently seen in D.C., holding a joint fundraiser with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio that raked in $100,000. Hayworth's share of the proceeds went directly to help alleviate his outstanding legal bills.

• CT-Sen: Well, this is awkward. Before Chris Dodd led the attacks on AIG for its executive compensation fiasco, Dodd was in AIG's offices, collecting checks from their employees.

• MA-Sen: Republican Scott Brown has launched the first ad of his campaign, making a totally cheeseball comparison between himself and JFK.

• NY-Gov: Basil Paterson, David's dad and former SoS, raises the ugly specter of the 2002 gubernatorial primary between Carl McCall and Andrew Cuomo as some kind of "warning" to Cuomo. (D)

• AL-05: As we expected, PSC Commissioner Susan Parker has turned down the opportunity to challenge Parker Griffith in 2010. This leaves Democrats without a top shelf candidate, but there are other options worth considering. One potential candidate, state Rep. Randy Hinshaw, talks with Left in Alabama about the campaign that he'd like to see the Democratic nominee run. Doc's Political Parlor hears that Deborah Bell Paseur is unlikely to run, and that Hinshaw is "as likely as anyone" to go for it. Madison County Commissioner Bob Harrison is also thinking about it.

• CA-19: The Defenders of Wildlife are gearing up to do whatever it takes to prevent Richard Pombo from re-entering Congress (as he is considering), even if it means supporting another conservative Republican for the seat of retiring GOP Rep. George Radanovich. Meanwhile, Taniel notes that ex-Fresno mayor Jim Patterson is a Club For Growth protege -- so this could be a pretty lively primary.

• LA-03: State Rep. Nickie Monica has become the first Republican to file for the seat of Dem Rep. Charlie Melancon.

• TX-10: Foreign policy consultant Dan Grant, who lost a 2008 Democratic primary to local celebrity judge Larry Joe Doherty, has taken his name out of consideration as a last-minute replacement for businessman Jack McDonald, who withdrew his candidacy for the seat of GOP Rep. Mike McCaul last week.

• NC-10: Here's something interesting we missed a while back: Iredell County Commissioner Scott Keadle is challenging Rep. Patrick McHenry in the GOP primary, and he's backed his play with $250K of his own money. It's not really clear what exactly Keadle's beef with McHenry is - he seems to be running a 1994-esque campaign, accusing McHenry (who's only held office since 2005) of turning into a "career politician," and pledging to serve no more than three terms himself. (Hat-tip: Reader IR) (D)

• VA State Sen: Hotline on Call takes a look at a crucial special election between ex-Fairfax Co. School Board member Steve Hunt (R) and Del. Dave Marsden (D). Marsden and Hunt are running to replace Republican AG-elect Ken Cuccinelli. If Democrats somehow win the seat, they'd be able to pad their razor-thin majority in the Senate to 22-18.

• NYC-Mayor: The Swing State Project has gotten its hands on the precinct-by-precinct results for the 2009 New York City mayor's race. You can also check out our entire storehouse of obscure election returns and otherwise-unpublished polling memos at the SSP Document Collection. For some tasty eye candy and analysis, SSP Research Bureau Chief jeffmd has put together some beautiful maps comparing Thompson's performance to Obama's. (D)

• Polltopia: Pick PPP's next state polling target: Alabama, Connecticut, Illinois, Florida or Massachusetts.

SSP Daily Digest: 11/4

Crisitunity — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:35:56 GMT

• CA-Sen: The Carlyfornia Dreaming commenced today, as former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina officially announced her bid for the GOP Senate nomination. In a development that's both DeLightful and DeLovely as the GOP barrels headlong into civil war, though, SC Sen. Jim DeMint endorsed GOP Assemblyman Chuck DeVore in the GOP primary, in his ongoing quest to have a Senate caucus of 30 pure Republicans.

• DE-Sen: Also on the GOP civil war front, the movement/establishment split is even spilling over into Delaware, which most pundits look at as the GOP's closest to a sure thing. Conservative activist Christine O'Donnell, who lost badly to Joe Biden last year, will stay in the GOP field with or without Castle. O'Donnell is sitting on $2K CoH, along with $24K in debts from her previous run.

• IL-Sen: Also on the GOP civil war front, one of Rep. Mark Kirk's minor-league GOP primary opponents -- not Patrick Hughes, but even lower down the food chain: Eric Wallace -- is looking at Doug Hoffman and saying "That could be me!" Wallace is dropping out of the GOP field and planning to run as an independent -- which could conceivably tip the race to Alexi Giannoulias in a close contest. Kirk, sensing trouble brewing on his right flank, is asking for help from an unlikely source (based on his attacks on her inexperience during the 2008 election). He's asking queen teabagger Sarah Palin for her endorsement!

• NH-Sen: Also on the GOP civil war front, wealthy businessman William Binnie made official his run for the GOP nod in New Hampshire's Senate race. Sounds like lots of Granite Staters aren't buying GOP establishment candidate Kelly Ayotte's smoke-and-mirrors campaign.

• OH-Sen: Finally, one item from what passes for the Democratic civil war. DSCC chair Bob Menendez all-but-endorsed Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher in Ohio, by mentioning only him in Ohio when talking about pickup prospects. Fisher faces a primary (for the time being) against underfunded SoS Jennifer Brunner.

• CT-Gov: It looks like Ned Lamont, who beat and then lost to Joe Lieberman in 2006, is going to take a whack at the Connecticut gubernatorial race. Lamont just formed an exploratory committee; he'll face an uphill fight just to get out of the primary, though, against SoS Susan Bysiewicz.

• FL-Gov: So many Kennedys, so little time. Yet another random member of the Kennedy clan is considering a quixotic run for office; this time it's Maria Shriver's brother Anthony Shriver (founder of a disabilities-related nonprofit), considering a race in the Democratic gubernatorial primary (which Alex Sink already seems to have locked down).

• NY-Gov: If there's any doubt that AG Andrew Cuomo is gearing up for a gubernatorial run next year, Cuomo will be holding a big fundraiser in Washington in several weeks, hosted by DC power couple Tony and Heather Podesta.

• CO-04: While state House minority whip Cory Gardner seemed to have impeccable conservative bona fides (running against freshman Dem Rep. Betsy Markey), there's some new information that calls that into question: it turns out in 1998 he was an active volunteer for Democrat Susan Kirkpatrick, who ran against then-Rep. Bob Schaffer in the 4th. (He even gave the seconding nominating speech for her at the Dem convention in the 4th.) In his defense, Gardner claims he was raised a Democrat, but became a Republican convert in college -- but he graduated from college in 1997. Looks like the teabaggers have one more insufficiently pure specimen to add to their hunting list.

• FL-08: The netroots love them some Alan Grayson. Nov. 2's online moneybomb event netted the Florida rabblerouser over $500,000, from over 13,000 contributions averaging $40 each. (The GOP also has an answer site up -- "mycongressmanisnuts.com," a nice third-grade response to "congressmanwithguts.com", as apparently "poopyhead.com" was already taken -- which so far has brought in $4,000.)

• FL-19: Charlie Crist has set a special election date for the election to replace resigning Rep. Robert Wexler (although there doesn't seem to be much drama here in this dark-blue district, as the wheels seem to be greased for state Sen. Ted Deutch). The primary will be Feb. 2, and the general will be April 6.

• KS-04: Republican state Sen. Susan Wagle was considered on the short list for the open seat being left behind by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, but yesterday she confirmed that she won't run for it next year.

• NY-23: The gift that keeps giving. Doug Hoffman is reportedly already sounding interested, via Twitter, in running again in the 23rd. (No clue as to what ballot lines he'd seek to run on.)

• PA-19: Here's a surprise: long-time Republican Rep. Todd Platts may be looking for an exit strategy. He's applying to become the Comptroller General, an appointed position at the top of the government's nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. Platts has been safe so far in his York-based R+12 district, but as a Main Street Republican, he's rather out-of-whack with his red turf and may suddenly not be relishing the thought of having teabaggers using him for target practice in 2010.

• NYC-Mayor: Well, somebody at the White House is feeling defensive over the decision not to get involved in the surprisingly-close mayoral race. When Rep. Anthony Weiner (who'd considered running) asked maybe if Obama should have helped out, an anonymous leaker snarled "Maybe Anthony Weiner should have manned-up and run against Michael Bloomberg."

• NRSC: Having gotten the message from the rabid teabagging hordes, NRSC head John Cornyn is announcing that the NRSC won't be spending money in any Republican primaries next year. The NRSC has endorsed in four primaries so far (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, and Pennsylvania), but it's sounding like they may not endorse in any more, either... Cornyn admits "Endorsements, frankly, are overrated. They can to some extent be a negative." Guess who is coming to play in GOP Senate primaries, though? That's right, the Club for Growth, who are now threatening involvement in Illinois and Connecticut, saying that the best Mark Kirk and newly-converted teabag-carrier Rob Simmons can hope for is to be "left alone."

• NRCC: Pete Sessions Deathwatch, Vol. 2? All over the punditosphere today are proclamations of the NRCC head as one of yesterday's top "losers," as the NRCC's special election losing streak had two more notches added to it. George Stephanopolous makes the case that Sessions actually managed to lose NY-23 twice, once with Scozzafava over the long haul, then over the weekend again with Hoffman.

Election 2009 Results Recap

Crisitunity — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:20:11 GMT

New York: In NY-23, we lost, apparently because the conservatives won, because in their brave new world winning no longer means earning more votes than the other candidates, but rather defeating the candidate that will vote with you most of the time in order to pave the way for the candidate who would theoretically vote with you all the time but has no chance of getting elected in your swing district. I quake in fear of next November, when conservatives will enjoy the mightiest of all glorious historic victories, with the crushing general election losses of Marco Rubio, Chuck DeVore, Rand Paul, Ovide Lamontagne, Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, Peter Schiff, Chuck Purgason, Ken Buck, and Patrick Hughes, thus purifying the soil for decades to come.

Uh, more specifically, in NY-23, Bill Owens (D) defeated Doug Hoffman (C) and Dede Scozzafava (R), 49-45-6, with about a 6,000 vote margin (out of 131,000) separating Owens and Hoffman.

Elsewhere in New York, two powerful incumbents got scares. New York City's I/R mayor Michael Bloomberg beat Democratic comptroller William Thompson by a much narrower-than-expected margin: 51-46. And Democratic Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi is barely leading Republican Ed Mangano, 48-48 (with a 237-vote margin, which may change as absentees are counted). Republicans picked up two open New York City council seats in Queens (including the one vacated by new comptroller John Liu), bringing the Democrats' control of that body down to a perilous 46-5.

New Jersey: Republican former US Attorney Chris Christie defeated Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine in the Republicans' big score of the night, beating Corzine and independent Chris Daggett 49-44-6. The big story here may be the unexpected collapse in Daggett's numbers (he had been polling near 20% several weeks ago); I'd guess that a swath of moderate but fervently anti-Corzine voters realized that they were planning to waste their votes on a spoiler (Daggett) and in the end held their noses and voted for Christie. The other big story: the robo-pollsters (PPP, SurveyUSA) not only getting the result right but coming close on the spread, while some of the more traditional pollsters saw a Corzine victory. Christie's amply-cut jacket didn't have much in the way of coattails, though: Republicans picked up a total of only one seat in the Assembly, with Domenick DiCicco poised to pick up an open seat in Gloucester County in Philly's suburbs, leaving Dems in control of the chamber, 47-33.

Virginia: Here's where the Democrats really stunk it up, although the handwriting on the wall could be clearly seen from months away. In the gubernatorial race, Republican Bob McDonnell defeated Creigh Deeds by a substantial margin, 59-41. Further down the ticket, Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling was re-elected over Jody Wagner, 56-44, and Republican Ken Cuccinelli won the AG's race over Steve Shannon, 58-42. Democrats also took some damage in the House of Delegates, although they seemed to stave off total wipeout: Republicans netted five seats, to move the total from 53 (and 2 GOP-caucusing indies)-45 (with 2 formerly Dem vacancies) to 58 (plus the 2 indies)-39 (with one Dem incumbent-held seat, the 21st, going to recount).

Maine: In what seemed to be the night's biggest heartbreak for many in the netroots, Question 1, a vote to repeal gay marriage, passed by a 53-47 margin. Nevertheless, Mainers defeated an anti-tax initiative (Question 4, 40-60) and expanded medical marijuana access (Question 5, 59-41).

Washington: In the nation's other corner, Referendum 71, a vote to approve legislation creating "marriage in all but name" expanded domestic partnerships, is passing 51-49. (Assuming it passes, this would be, by my reckoning, the first time gay rights have been expanded through statewide vote; since King County has reported disproportionately few of the state's ballots, that margin is likely to grow.) Washington also rejected anti-tax I-1033, 44-56, and King County elected Dow Constantine as County Executive by a comfortable 57-43 over Susan Hutchison (in the first time this has been run as a nonpartisan race -- unfortunately for Hutchison, somewhere in the last few weeks her Republican cover got blown). The Seattle mayor's race will probably be the last race in the country to get resolved: with less than half reporting, anti-establishment progressive Mike McGinn leads establishment progressive Joe Mallahan 50-49.

California: In the night's other House election, Democratic Lt. Gov. John Garamendi defeated Republican attorney David Harmer in CA-10, 53-43 (with the balance going to Green and Peace & Freedom candidates). That's a bit underwhelming in a district where Barack Obama won 65-33, but in a low-turnout special, it's not remarkable.

North Carolina: Charlotte got only its second African-American mayor and its first Democratic mayor in 22 years, as 38-year-old Anthony Foxx beat the polls en route to a 51-49 over Republican Andy Lassiter. Democrats also now have an 8-3 edge on the city council. College town Chapel Hill now has an openly gay mayor: Mark Kleinschmidt, who narrowly defeated conservative Matt Czajkowski, 49-47.

Ohio: Somehow I can't see Cleveland becoming the next Las Vegas (maybe $pringfield, Ohio will), but Ohio voters just opted to legalize casino gambling in Issue 3, 53-47.

Pennsylvania: Republicans picked up a seat on the state Supreme Court; Jane Orie Melvin defeated Democrat Jack Panella 53-47. The GOP now controls the court 4-3, which has bad implications for state legislative redistricting next year.

Michigan: Another Dem screw-up that may bury the prospect of a pro-Democratic gerrymander in Michigan next year is a loss in the one hotly contested state Senate seat anywhere last night. In SD-19, Republican Mike Nofs won 61-34, picking up a seat formerly held by Democratic now-Rep. Mark Schauer. Republicans now control the Senate 22-16 (all seats are up in 2010, meaning Dems now need to flip four for control -- of course, they'd also need to hold the gubernatorial race, which may not happen either). In Detroit, incumbent Dave Bing held on to win the mayor's race, 58-42.

Georgia: We're headed to a runoff in Atlanta, where city councilor Mary Norwood and state Senator Kasim Reed finished 1 and 2, with 46% and 36% respectively. Reed may be able to pull it out, though, if he consolidates African-American votes in the general (the 3rd place finisher, Lisa Borders with 14%, is also African-American). The most interesting legislative race seems to be the previously Dem-held HD-141, where it's unclear whether Dem Darrell Black or GOPer Angela Gheesling-McCommon (each of whom got 23%, although Black has a 16-vote edge) will face off against independent Rusty Kidd (who got 44%) in the runoff.

Got any other races you want to share results from, or want to talk about? Let us know in the comments!

SSP Daily Digest: 11/2

Crisitunity — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:20:54 GMT

• CO-Sen: Former state Sen. Tom Wiens made it official; he's entering the Republican field in the Senate race. With former Lt. Governor Jane Norton wearing the mantle of establishment anointment in this race, Wien's entry may actually help Norton, by taking non-Norton votes away from conservative Weld County DA Ken Buck. Wiens is a wealthy rancher prepared to put up to half a million of his own dollars into the race.

• FL-Sen: If anyone has to sweating the movement conservatives' takedown of the pre-selected moderate establishment candidate in NY-23, it's gotta be Charlie Crist. Here's one more thing for him to worry about: his job approval according to a new St. Petersburg Times poll is only 42/55. They don't have him in as dire straits against Marco Rubio in the GOP primary as a number of other pollsters, though -- Crist leads Rubio 50-28 -- but the ultimate indignity is on the question of whether respondents would choose Crist or Jeb Bush to lead Florida right now, 47% opt for Bush (with 41 for Crist). On the Dem side, Rep. Kendrick Meek leads newly-announced former Miami mayor Maurice Ferre 26-6.

• IL-Sen, IL-07: There a lots of interesting plot lines forming as today is the filing deadline in Illinois. But the big one is: what the hell is up with Patrick Hughes? The real estate developer was considered to be the right-wingers' go-to guy to against alleged moderate Rep. Mark Kirk in the GOP primary, but now rumors are swirling that he doesn't have the signatures to qualify. There also seem to be some major ball-droppings for progressives: there's nobody challenging Rep. Dan Lipinski in the primary in IL-03, and there's nobody, period, to go up against GOP Rep. Peter Roskam in the R+0 IL-06. In the 7th, where it's unclear whether Rep. Danny Davis will be coming back or not (he's filed for his seat, but also for Cook County Board President), he's facing primary competition from only one elected official: state Sen. Rickey Hendon (Cook Co. Deputy Recorder of Deeds Darlena Williams-Burnett is also a big name, but I don't think deputy recorder is an elected position). Hendon says he'll bail out and run for Lt. Governor if Davis sticks around.

Meanwhile, on the Senate front, state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is touting his own internal poll from GQR giving him a 3-point edge on Rep. Mark Kirk in a general election, 46-43. The same poll finds less-known Democrat former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman trailing Kirk 48-39.

• IN-Sen: Research 2000 (on behalf of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, rather than Kos) found last week that Blanche Lincoln was in serious trouble electorally and that her troubles would mount if she opposed health care reform. They also looked at Evan Bayh, and they found that, a) he's not in trouble (62/30 approvals, although no head-to-head test against his erstwhile opponent, state Sen. Marlin Stutzman), and b) a majority wouldn't be moved one way or the other by his health care actions.

• MA-Sen: The start of debates haven't done much to reshape things in the Democratic primary in the special election in the Bay State. AG Martha Coakley holds a 25-point lead over Rep. Michael Capuano, according to an R2K poll commissioned by local blog Blue Mass Group. Coakley is at 42 and Capuano at 16, with Stephen Pagliuca at 15 and Alan Khazei at 5. Only 52% of Coakley's voters are firm about it, though, but that's not much different from any of the other candidates.

• FL-Gov: That aforementioned St. Petersburg Times poll also looked at the governor's race, and they gave Democratic CFO Alex Sink her first lead in a while; she's up a single point on GOP AG Bill McCollum, 38-37. More trouble for McCollum: state Senator Paula Dockery, as threatened, now appears to be jumping into the Republican primary, which had been painstakingly cleared for him.

• MN-Gov: If a candidate falls in the Minnesota gubernatorial Republican field, does it make a sound? State Rep. Paul Kohls dropped out, having not gotten much traction according to recent straw polls. That leaves approximately eleventy-seven zillion Republicans left in the hunt.

• VA-Gov: He's dead, Jim. Four more polls on VA-Gov are out:
YouGov (pdf): McDonnell 53, Deeds 40
Mason-Dixon: McDonnell 53, Deeds 41
PPP (pdf): McDonnell 56, Deeds 42
SurveyUSA: McDonnell 58, Deeds 40

• MI-07: Unseated wingnut Tim Walberg -- who'd like to get his job back from freshman Dem Mark Schauer -- has some company in the GOP primary next year: attorney and Iraq vet Brian Rooney (the brother of Florida Rep. Tom Rooney) is getting in the race. It's not clear whether Rooney is any more moderate than Walberg, though; he's an attorney for the right-wing Thomas More Law Center, the theocons' answer to the ACLU.

• NY-23: A few more odds and ends in the 23rd. One more key Republican endorser working for Doug Hoffman now is Rudy Giuliani (like George Pataki, not the likeliest fellow you'd expect to see make common cause with the Conservative Party -- with neither of them having ruled out 2010 runs, they seem to want to be in good graces with the national GOP, who are all-in for Hoffman now). Rudy's crack team of robots is making calls on his behalf. Another possible useful endorsement: Watertown's mayor Jeff Graham is now backing Hoffman. Former candidate Dede Scozzafava, on the other hand, is now cutting robocalls on Democrat Bill Owens' behalf. Finally, here's an ill omen on the motivation front: sparse turnout was reported for Joe Biden's appearance on behalf of Owens.

• PA-06: One more Republican is getting in the field in the open seat race in the 6th: Howard Cohen, a consultant who is the former Revenue Secretary from the Dick Thornburgh administration decades ago. He'll face a financial gap against pharma exec Steven Welch, and a name rec gap against state Rep. Curt Schroder, though.

• AL-AG: One incumbent who looks badly endangered going into 2010 is Alabama's Republican Attorney General, Troy King. Having buddied up with the state's trial lawyers (thus angering the local business establishment) and also pissed off many local DAs by interfering in their cases, King has lost most establishment support in the upcoming GOP primary against Luther Strange. Two of Strange's biggest backers are both of the state's Senators, Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby.

• ME-Init: Two more polls on Maine's Question 1 (where "yes" is a vote to overturn the state's gay marriage law), both pointing to an excruciatingly close vote. PPP (taken over the weekend) sees it passing 51-47, while Research 2000 (taken last week) gives a tiny edge to "no," 47-48. (R2K also confirms that Olympia Snowe's numbers are way off; the once bulletproof Snowe now has approvals of 50/44.)

• NYC: Three more polls all show Michael Bloomberg with an easy path to a third term, beating Democratic comptroller William Thompson. Bloomberg leads 50-38 according to Quinnipiac, 53-42 according to SurveyUSA, and 53-38 according to Marist (pdf).

• Mayors: There are fresh polls in a few other mayoral races. In St. Petersburg, Florida, one of the most hotly contended races around, Bill Foster leads Kathleen Ford 48-44 according to SurveyUSA. (Foster leads among both blacks and conservatives.) The racially polarized race in Charlotte gives a small edge to the conservative white candidate, Andy Lassiter, who leads 50-46 over Anthony Foxx. And in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, all we know is that someone with a difficult-to-spell last name will be mayor. Matt Czajkowski leads Mark Kleinschmidt 45-44. (Czajkowski seems to be the conservative and Kleinschmidt the liberal.)

• State legislatures: In case there wasn't enough to focus on tomorrow, Josh Goodman points to five legislative special elections tomorrow. The big one is Michigan's 19th Senate district, which was vacated by Democratic Rep. Mark Schauer. Republican former state Rep. Mike Nofs may have an edge for the pickup against Democratic state Rep. Martin Griffin, at least based on fundraising. There are also Dem-held seats up in Alabama's 65th House district, Missouri's 73rd House district, and Washington's 16th House district (the reddest Dem-held seat in Washington), and a GOP-held seat in South Carolina's 48th House district. (UPDATE: TheUnknown285 points us to a whopping seven legislative seats up from grabs in Georgia, too, in his diary.)

• NRCC: Pete Sessions Deathwatch, Vol. 1? This seems odd, given that he's had some pretty good success on the recruiting front, but apparently the behind-closed-doors potshots are hitting NRCC head Sessions just as heavily as they did Tom Cole last cycle. The complaints aren't about recruiting, though, but rather about fundraising, where the NRCC is still lagging the DCCC despite the superficial conventional wisdom that Republicans come into 2010 with momentum, and about not keeping enough of a lid on all those nagging intraparty skirmishes that somehow only the blogosphere ever seems to notice.

• Polling: Mark Blumenthal has a thought-provoking piece on polling the cap-and-trade issue. The key problem: no one knows exactly what it is (reminiscent of polling the public option question, too).

• Voting: States are still trying to figure out what to do about the new federal law intended to make sure that military ballots from overseas get counted. At least a dozen states are now actively considering moving their September primaries up in the calendar to comply (including Minnesota, Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin).

SSP Daily Digest: 10/26

Crisitunity — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:14:36 GMT

• AR-Sen: Another day, another random conservative guy running for the Senate in Arkansas. Today, it's the turn for Stanley Reed, the former president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau and former president of the University of Arkansas board of trustees, who says he's considering the race for the Republican nod. (H/t CongressDaily.)

• FL-Sen: The Police Benevolent Association, friendly with Charlie Crist from his law-and-order days as Attorney General, commissioned a poll via McLaughlin & Associates that paints a slightly rosier picture of Crist's race against Marco Rubio than we've seen from several other pollsters last week. They find Crist up against Rubio 53-29, with a 67% approval.

• IA-Sen: It looks like Christie Vilsack (the former Iowa first lady, and political heavyweight in her own right) won't be challenging Chuck Grassley after all. She'd sounded receptive to the idea in the last few weeks, but today she's telling the Des Moines Register that she won't run. Lawyer and former gubernatorial candidate Roxanne Conlin had sounded close to running last week, so the ball's in Conlin's court now.

• LA-Sen: Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne is the only prominent Republican left who hasn't ruled out a challenge to David Vitter in the Republican primary, and, although he hasn't taken any steps, he's still not shutting the door on it. Last week on a radio show he confirmed that he hasn't ruled it out. While a primary between the two hasn't been polled since March (with Vitter leading 43-32), a recent poll had Dardenne overperforming Vitter against Charlie Melancon in the general.

• MA-Sen: A poll of the Democratic primary, from Western New England College Polling Institute, in the special election in Massachusetts finds that AG Martha Coakley is still in the driver's seat, but that some of her competitors are gaining ground as they get better-known. Coakley is at 37, with Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca at 14 (that's what spending all that money on ads will get you), Rep. Michael Capuano at 13, and City Year founder Alan Khazei at 4. The general election is shaping up to be a non-event, as Coakley beats Republican state Sen. Scott Brown 58-32 and Capuano beats him 49-33.

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold finally has a noteworthy challenger: Terrence Wall, a Madison-area real estate developer who seems to have lots of money, although he's never been elected before and it's not clear what poltical skills he brings to the table. Wall is a frequent GOP donor, although he's also given money to his local Dem, Rep. Tammy Baldwin.

• MI-Gov: Rasmussen took a look at the Michigan governor's race, but without a clear sense of who the nominees will be, they just did a generic ballot test. Generic R leads Generic D by only a point, 37-36 -- suggesting that Lt. Gov. John Cherry, who hasn't polled well in general election matchups, is underperforming Generic D. Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm's approval is 40/60.

• NJ-Gov: Suffolk University takes its first poll of the New Jersey governor's race, and while it would be nice to say this was the new reality, it's probably more likely an outlier: Jon Corzine leads Chris Christie 42-33, with Chris Daggett pulling in 7. Suffolk did an interesting experiment: they listed all 12 minor candidates, and they ate a bit into Daggett's numbers, pulling in a cumulative 3%. Corzine also has surprisingly high favorables, at 45/46, with Christie at 34/46. Monmouth, however, explains what might have happened with this sample (apparently a simple mistake that out-of-state pollsters often make): Suffolk weighted party ID by registration, but because of NJ's semi-open primary system, many unaffiliateds are actually partisan and should be polled as such.

Meanwhile, with most polls still pointing to a tossup, Barack Obama is back for one more rally with Corzine next weekend. Chris Christie can ill-afford one more scandal in the news, but that seems to be happening anyway, as stories about his seemingly politically-motivated hiring of the son of Christie patron and mentor Herbert Stern as an assistant US Attorney, despite Stern Jr.'s mediocre interviews.

• NY-Gov: This is the kind of courtesy call you don't really want -- the kind that says "I'm taking the job you want." According to the NY Post's Fred Dicker (so add salt according to taste), Andrew Cuomo contacted Rudy Giuliani through intermediaries to let him know that he will, in no uncertain terms, be running for Governor.

• CA-11: One more Republican sounds like he's ready to join the strangely crowded field to go up against Rep. Jerry McNerney next year. Former San Jose city councilor Larry Pegram says he'll move into the district to take on McNerney -- but it seems like he may want to do a little research before getting too committed, as he claimed that McNerney is weak because he was just swept in as part of the "Obama wave." (McNerney, of course, was first elected in 2006.)

• FL-19: The special election in the 19th is shaping up to be pretty uneventful: over the weekend, not only did outgoing Rep. Robert Wexler endorse state Sen. ~~Peter~~ Ted Deutch to take over for him, but so too did everyone else representing the Gold Coast: Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Ron Klein, and Alcee Hastings.

• MI-02: A whole lot of Dutch-American conservative Republicans are jostling to take over from Rep. Peter Hoekstra in the solidly-red 2nd, and one of the field's heavy hitters made his entry official: state Sen. Wayne Kuipers. He faces former state Rep. Bill Huizenga, former NFL player Jay Riemersma, and businessman Bill Cooper.

• NY-23 (pdf): There have been rumors of private polls out there given a small lead to third-party Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman in the 23rd, and now his sponsors at the Club for Growth have openly released one. Basswood Research finds Hoffman in the lead with 31, with Democrat Bill Owens at 27 and Republican Dede Scozzafava lagging at 20, with 22 undecided (although with a huge 6% MoE, anything could be happening). That must have something to do with the DCCC's new strategy; their new negative ad is going after Hoffman, rather than Scozzafava. Also, Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty finally got off the fence and decided to throw his lot in with the movement: he endorsed Hoffman.

• NY-24: The New York Times, in a broader piece on GOP targeting of New York House Democrats, has an interesting tidbit we hadn't seen before: the GOP is trying to coax ~~Michael~~ Richard Hanna, the businessman who performed surprisingly well against Rep. Mike Arcuri last year, into a rematch.

• KY-St. Sen.: We're moving one step closer to another vacant seat and special election in Kentucky's Senate (which is controlled 21-17 by Republicans right now). Republican Dan Kelly was nominated for a state circuit court position, and he just needs Gov. Steve Beshear's approval to get the job. Competitors are already lining up for the special, including Republican state Rep. Jimmy Higdon and Democratic former state Rep. Jodie Haydon. (In case you were wondering if Kentucky, which votes for statewide offices in odd-numbered years, is having legislative elections next week, the answer is no; state legislators are still elected in even-numbered years.)

• VA-St. House: One more good piece in the diaries breaking down the individual races in Virginia's House of Delegates into Tossup, Lean, and Likely, thanks to our Johnny Longtorso. One particularly interesting race is the 51st District in exurban Prince William County, where Republican Rich Anderson, challenging Dem incumbent Paul Nichols in a very competitive race, may face criminal charges for giving out Nichols' Social Security number on a mailer to over 15,000 area residents.

• ME-Init: Another poll from Pan Atlantic SMS of Question 1 in Maine on gay marriage. They find 42 yes and 53 no (with "no" being a vote in favor of continuing gay marriage), not much changed from their September poll (43-52) but the most optimistic numbers we've seen yet here.

• Mayors: In New York City, Quinnipiac finds incumbent Michael Bloomberg (the $85 million man) with a sizable edge against Democratic comptroller William Thompson, leading 53-35 with a lead in every borough. (Not much change from 52-36 a month ago.) In what looks to be the first poll of the Atlanta mayoral race, SurveyUSA finds city councilor Mary Norwood with a big lead, although not quite enough to avoid a runoff with the 2nd place finisher. Norwood is at 46%, followed by state Sen. Kasim Reed at 26% and city councilor Lisa Borders at 17%. Norwood leads 6:1 among whites, independents, and Republicans; Reed leads among African-Americans. Also worth a read is a piece from our own diaries about major (and minor) mayoral races from elections09, which gets into the weeds on some tight races not on anybody's national radar screen (with Vancouver, WA and Stamford, CT as particularly interesting examples).

SSP Daily Digest: 10/22

Crisitunity — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:57:48 GMT

• AR-Sen: With Blanche Lincoln already facing the vague possibility of a primary challenge from her right from Arkansas Senate President Bob Johnson, now there are rumors that she might face a primary challenge from what passes for the left in Arkansas, from Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Halter would focus on Lincoln's health-care related foot-dragging, but apparently has a track record of threatening to run for higher office and then not following through, so this, like Johnson's bid, may amount to a big bowl of nothing.

• HI-Sen: Congratulations to Senator Daniel Inouye, who today becomes the third-longest-serving Senator in history and, adding in his House tenure, the fifth-longest-serving Congressperson. The 85-year-old Inouye has been in the Senate for almost 47 years. Inouye passed Ted Kennedy today, and will pass Strom Thurmond in another eight months, but is still chasing Robert Byrd. (Unfortunately, Inouye may be spending his special day being a jerk, by trying to remove Al Franken's anti-rape amendment from the defense appropriations bill.)

• KY-Sen: Feeling the heat from Rand Paul in the GOP Senate primary in Kentucky, establishment choice Trey Grayson played the "you ain't from around these parts, are you?" card, calling himself a "5th generation Kentuckian" and Texas-born Paul an "outsider." (Of course, by implication, doesn't that make Grayson the... "insider?" Not exactly the banner you want to run under in 2010.)

• LA-Sen: David Vitter spent several days as the lone high-profile politician in Louisiana to not join in the condemnation of Keith Bardwell, the justice of the peace who refused to marry an interracial couple. Given the uselessness of his response, he might as well not have bothered -- Vitter's spokesperson still didn't condemn Bardwell, merely rumbling about how "all judges should follow the law as written" and then trying to turn the subject to Mike Stark's Vitter-stalking.

• AL-Gov: This is a good endorsement for Ron Sparks, but it's also interesting because it's so racially fraught: former Birmingham mayor Richard Arrington, the first African-American to be elected that city's mayor in 1979, endorsed Sparks instead of African-American Rep. Artur Davis Jr. in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Arrington puts it: "I think if we are ever to move forward, across racial lines in this state, we have got to begin to trust each other, work with each other, and I think Ron Sparks can be the kind of governor that helps to make that possible."

• FL-Gov: Rasmussen released part III of its Florida extravaganza, finding that Republican AG Bill McCollum leads Democratic CFO Alex Sink 46-35. (This is the same sample that had Marco Rubio overperforming Charlie Crist against Kendrick Meek.)

• IA-Gov: Ex-Governor Terry Branstad's Republican primary rivals aren't going to go away quietly. Bob vander Plaats attacked Branstad on his insufficient conservatism, ranging from sales tax increases during his tenure, choosing a pro-choice running mate in 1994, and even fundraising for Nebraska's Ben Nelson.

• NJ-Gov (pdf): One more poll out today, from Rutgers-Eagleton, finds Jon Corzine with a small lead. Corzine leads Chris Christie and Chris Daggett 39-36-20. This is the first poll to find Daggett breaking the 20% mark; also, with the addition of this poll to the heap, it pushes Corzine into the lead in Pollster.com and Real Clear Politics' regression lines.

• OR-Gov: Two different candidates have suspended their campaigns due to family health problems. One is pretty high-profile: state Sen. Jason Atkinson, who was initially considered to have the inside track toward the GOP nomination in Oregon but who had, in the last few days, been the subject of dropout speculation. (Could this mean that Allen Alley might actually somehow wind up with the nomination?) The other is John Del Arroz, a businessman who had put a fair amount of his own money into a run in the Republican field in CA-11. Best wishes to both of them.

• RI-Gov: While conventional wisdom has seen ex-Republican ex-Senator and likely independent candidate Lincoln Chafee as having a strong shot at capturing the state house by dominating the middle, he's running into big a problem in terms of poor fundraising. He's only sitting on $180K, compared with Democratic state Treasurer Frank Caprio's $1.5 million; that's what happens when you don't have a party infrastructure to help bolster the efforts.

• CT-04: While it's not an explicit endorsement, Betsi Shays, the wife of ex-Rep. Chris Shays, gave $500 to state Sen. Rob Russo last quarter. Russo faces off a more conservative state Senate colleague, Dan Debicella, for the GOP nod to go against freshman Rep. Jim Himes.

• IL-14: Cross out Bill Cross from the list. With Ethan Hastert and state Sen. Randy Hultgren probably consuming most of the race's oxygen, the former Aurora alderman announced that he wouldn't be running in the crowded GOP primary field in the 14th to take on Democratic Rep. Bill Foster after all.

• LA-03: Houma attorney Ravi Sangisetty announced his run for the Democratic nomination for the open seat left behind by Charlie Melancon. He's the first Dem to jump into the race, but certainly not expected to be the only one. He's already sitting on $130K cash.

• PA-11: After a long period of silence, Hazleton mayor Lou Barletta has re-emerged and sources close to him are saying it's "highly likely" he'll try another run at Rep. Paul Kanjorski, who narrowly beat him in 2008. Barletta is encouraged by the lack of presidential coattails and the primary challenge to Kanjorski by Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O'Brien -- although it's possible that, if O'Brien emerges from the primary, he might perform better in the general than the rust-covered Kanjorski.

• NJ-St. Ass.: If you haven't already, check out NJCentrist's diary, filled with lots of local color, on the upcoming elections in New Jersey's state Assembly. Republicans seem poised to pick up a couple seats in south Jersey, which would bring them closer but leave the Dems still in control.

• State Legislatures: Another fascinating graphic from 538.com, this one about the ideological makeups of various state legislatures. Apparently, political scientists have found a DW/Nominate-style common-space method of ranking all state legislators. The reason this is brought up is because of NY-23 candidate Dede Scozzafava, who it turns out is pretty near the center of New York legislative Republicans, not the flaming liberal she's made out to be, although that puts her near the nationwide center of all state legislators, because NY Republicans are still, believe it or not, pretty centrist on the whole. There's plenty else to see on the chart, including how Mississippi and Louisiana Democrats (who control their legislatures) are still to the right of New York and New England Republicans, and how (unsurprisingly, at least to me) California and Washington are the states with the simultaneously most-liberal Democrats and most-conservative Republicans.

• Mayors: In New York, incumbent Michael Bloomberg is holding on to a double-digit lead according to Marist, beating Democratic comptroller William Thompson 52-36 (with Thompson down from 52-43 last month). In Seattle, Joe Mallahan is opening up a lead over Mike McGinn according to SurveyUSA, 43-36, compared with a 38-38 tie three weeks ago. (The Seattle race is nonpartisan and both are very liberal by the rest of the country's standards, but Seattle politics tends to be fought on a downtown interests/neighborhoods divide, and this race is turning into no exception as the previously amorphous Mallahan is consolidating most of the city's business and labor support.)

• Nassau Co. Exec: Candidates slamming each other over ticky-tacky financial mistakes like unpaid liens is commonplace, but it's not commonplace when the unpaid liens add up to almost a million dollars. Republican Nassau County Executive candidate Ed Mangano has a whopping $900K liens against property owned by his family business. (Nassau County is the western part of Long Island's suburbs.)

• Fundraising: CQ has one more slice-and-dice of the third quarter fundraising information, listing the biggest self-funders so far this year. Top of the list is Joan Buchanan, who already lost the Democratic primary in the CA-10 special election, who gave herself $1.1 million. In 2nd place is Republican Brad Goehring, running in CA-11 and self-funder to the tune of $650K; 7 of the list of 10 are Republicans.

SSP Daily Digest: 10/21

Crisitunity — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:25:10 GMT

• ME-Sen: PPP looked at Olympia Snowe's approval ratings in the wake of her bipartisan-curious explorations of the last few weeks. Her overall approvals are 56/31 (not red-hot, but still in the top 5 among Senators PPP has polled recently), but interestingly, she's now doing much better among Dems (70% approval) than GOPers (45% approval), with indies split (51% approval). Still, only 32% of voters think she should switch parties (with no particular difference between Dems and Republicans on that question).

• NH-Sen: A $1,000 check is usually just a drop in the bucket in a Senate warchest. But when you're Kelly Ayotte, and you're trying to offer up as uncontroversial and substance-free an image as possible, the fact that that $1,000 check is from Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum speaks a little more loudly than you might want it to.

• NV-Sen: Research 2000 has new poll data out for Nevada, although it's on behalf of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, not Daily Kos. At any rate, they find numbers pretty consistent with other pollsters, with Harry Reid sporting 35/54 favorables and trailing Sue Lowden 47-42 and ~~Jerry~~ Danny Tarkanian 46-41 (both of whom might as well be "generic Republican" at this point). The poll also finds 54% support for a public option (including 84% of Dems and 55% of indies), and finds that 31% of all voters, including 46% of Democrats, less likely to vote for him if he fails to include a public option in health care reform.

• MN-Gov: One fascinating piece of trivia about Minnesota DFL nominating conventions is that, like the national convention, there are delegates, and then there are superdelegates. Minnesota Progressive is compiling a whip count among the superdelegates in the Governor's race. So far, the leaders are tied at 14 each: state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher and state Sen. Tom Bakk.

• NJ-Gov: Rasmussen takes another look at the New Jersey governor's race; their purported topline result is 41 for Chris Christie, 39 for Jon Corzine, and 11 for Chris Daggett, which is an improvement over last week's 4-point spread for Christie. However, you may recall that last week they released two sets of results, an initial read (which found a tie) and then a re-allocated version that asked Daggett voters (and only Daggett voters) if they were really sure, which gave Christie a 4-point lead and which they flagged as their topline. This week, Rasmussen just toplined the version with Daggett voters re-allocated, without saying a peep about voters' initial preferences. TPM's Eric Kleefeld contacted Rasmussen and got the initial preferences version, which, lo and behold, gives Corzine a 37-36-16 lead. Would it kill Rasmussen to just admit that, sometimes, Democratic candidates actually lead in some races?

Meanwhile, as things further deteriorate for Chris Christie, New Jersey's senior senator, Frank Lautenberg, has called for a federal investigation into Christie's politicization of his U.S. Attorney office (starting with his election-year investigations into Bob Menendez). It's not clear whether that'll go anywhere (especially in the next two weeks), but it certainly helps keep doubts about Christie front and center. And if you're wondering why Christie's campaign is faltering, it may have something to do with his own admission that he doesn't really have that much to do with his own campaign strategy:

"That's what I hire other people to do for me, is to help to make those decisions for me," Christie replied. He added, "I'm out there working 14, 15, 16 hours a day. So the strategy decision is not something I'm generally engaged in."

• NY-Gov: You could knock me over with a feather, but there's actually a poll out today showing that David Paterson is in trouble (with an approval of 30/57). Quinnipiac finds that Paterson loses the general to Rudy Giuliani 54-32, and ties woeful Rick Lazio 38-38. Andrew Cuomo, on the other hand, beats Giuliani 50-40 and Lazio 61-22. The primaries are foregone conclusions, with Cuomo beating Paterson 61-19 and Giuliani beating Lazio 74-9.

• OR-Gov: A lot of Oregonians are scratching their heads wondering where Jason Atkinson, the purported Republican frontrunner in the governor's race, is. Atkinson has raised only $2,000 and hasn't been updating his campaign blog or social media sites. Atkinson's legislative aide also tells the Oregonian's Jeff Mapes that she doesn't know what's happening with his candidacy.

• SC-Gov: Contrary to reports earlier in the week, it looks like impeachment of Mark Sanford can't come up during the one-day special session in the South Carolina legislature (which was called to patch the state's unemployment compensation system -- using those stimulus funds that Sanford fought against). Looks like he'll survive at least until the full legislative session next year.

• VA-Gov: Three items, none of which are any good for Creigh Deeds. The first is the new poll from SurveyUSA, which has usually been the most Bob McDonnell-friendly pollster but has never shown Deeds so far down: 59-40. Even if this is an outlier (and it probably is, as it shows McDonnell pulling in 55% in NoVa and 31% of all black voters), it can't be so much of an outlier that Deeds is anywhere near close. This is bolstered by today's PPP poll, which finds McDonnell leading Deeds 52-40 (up from a 5-pt lead post-thesis-gate). And during last night's debate, Deeds may have shut the door on any last-minute progressive interest in his campaign, when he said he'd consider having Virginia opt out of an opt-out public option. Of course, his camp is backpedaling today, saying that he "wasn't ruling anything out" -- but as any student of politics will tell you, every day you spend explaining what you really had meant to say is another day lost.

• CA-11: Not one but two more penny-ante Republicans got into the race against Democratic sophomore Rep. Jerry McNerney: construction company owner Robert Beadles and the former VP of Autism Speaks, Elizabeth Emken. That brings to a total of 8 the number of GOPers, with former US Marshal Tony Amador the only one with a competitive profile.

• CA-47: Audio has been released of Assemblyman and Congressional candidate Van Tran's brush with the law when he got involved in a friend's DUI traffic stop. Tran has denied that he was interfering with the police, but the audio doesn't exactly leave him sounding cooperative.

• FL-08: Yet another Republican backed off from the prospect of facing off against the suddenly mighty Alan Grayson -- although this is a guy I didn't even know was running: Marvin Hutson. Hutson instead endorsed Todd Long, the radio talk show host who nearly defeated incumbent Ric Keller in the 2008 GOP primary -- who, to my knowledge, doesn't actually seem to be running, at least not yet (and that could change, given the GOP's glaring hole here).

• IL-16: Here's a Democratic recruitment score (well, of the second-tier variety) in a district where Barack Obama won last year but the very conservative Republican incumbent, Don Manzullo, has skated with minor opposition for nearly two decades. George Gaulrapp, the mayor of Freeport (a town of 25,000 at the Rockford-based district's western end), will challenge Manzullo.

• NYC Mayor: Incumbent Michael Bloomberg continues to hold a sizable but not overwhelming lead over Democratic comptroller William Thompson in the New York mayoral race; he leads 53-41. Thompson doesn't seem likely to make up much ground without full-throated backing from Barack Obama, though, and he certainly isn't getting that; Obama gave Thompson no more than a "shout out" at a New York fundraiser last night.

• Mayors: The New York Times has a good profile of the Atlanta mayor's race, where the long string of black mayors may be broken. White city councilor Mary Norwood, from the affluent white Buckhead portion of the city, seems to be the frontrunner to succeed outgoing mayor Shirley Franklin, with the African-American vote split among city councilor Lisa Borders and former state legislator Kasim Reed (although polling indicates Norwood pulling in a fair amount of black support). This seems consistent with changing demographics, where GA-05 (which largely overlaps Atlanta city limits) has seen declining black and increasing white populations while the suburbs become much blacker.

• Census: Democratic Rep. Joe Baca has introduced legislation of his own to counter David Vitter's amendment to require the census to ask citizenship status. Baca's bill would require all residents to be counted in the census, regardless of legal status.

SSP Daily Digest: 10/14

Crisitunity — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:51:12 GMT

• CO-Sen, CO-07: An interesting move in Colorado, where Aurora city councilor Ryan Frazier dropped his Senate bid (which was plausible when other Republicans weren't interested in the race, but relegated to longshot status when his fundraising stalled and ex-Lt. Gov. Jane Norton got into the field). Instead, he'll be getting into the CO-07 race against sophomore Dem Rep. Ed Perlmutter. In some ways, that'll be a harder general election -- at D+4, the 7th is more Democratic than the state as a whole, and Perlmutter got 63% in his 2008 re-election -- but this way he'll at least make it into the general election, which will help raise the 32-year-old Frazier's profile for future efforts.

• CT-Sen: How sadly transparent a play to the party's base is this? Ex-Rep. Rob Simmons, who in the two years prior to his 2006 defeat was the 5th most liberal Republican in the House, is now a teabagger. He says he's attached an actual bag of tea to his pocket copy of the Constitution.

• FL-Sen: In an effort to have no more George LeMieuxs, there's a bipartisan effort afoot in the Florida state legislature to change the law so that Senate vacancies in Florida will be filled by fast special election rather than by appointment. State Sen. Paula Dockery, who may be running for Governor soon, is the Republican co-sponsor.

• IL-Sen: David Hoffman, the former Inspector General of Chicago (and frequent monkeywrench in that city's machine), has released an internal poll showing that state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, while starting with a sizable lead, doesn't have a mortal lock on the Democratic Senate nomination. Hoffman's poll finds Giannoulias at 26%, with former Chicago Urban League head Cheryle Jackson at 12 and Hoffman at 7, leaving 55% undecided. On the GOP side of the aisle, Mark Kirk continues to shuffle to the right as he faces some competition in his own primary: he continues to defend his flip-flop on the cap-and-trade vote that he voted for in the House and would vote against in the Senate, but also says that he'd keep in place the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, saying "Keeping that all out of the workplace makes common sense."

• MA-Sen: In case there was any doubt AG Martha Coakley was running under the mantle of the establishment's candidate, she unleashed a torrent of endorsements yesterday, including about half of the state legislature (78 representatives and 16 senators, including both chambers' leaders), as well as many mayors and labor unions.

• MO-Sen: Joe Biden continues to ramp up his fundraising efforts on behalf of 2010 candidates; he'll be appearing at a Robin Carnahan fundraiser in St. Louis tomorrow. And on Friday, he'll appear in Nevada with Harry Reid to tout the stimulus.

• NV-Sen, Gov: On the off chance that John Ensign decides to spare us all the embarrassment and resign before 2010, Gov. Jim Gibbons says that he wouldn't appoint former AG Brian Sandoval to the job (despite that getting Sandoval out of the way would make his own chances of surviving the gubernatorial primary somewhat better). Gibbons also says he wouldn't appoint himself (since that would just mean likely defeat in the primary in the ensuing 2010 special election).

• OH-Sen: Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher picked up an endorsement from Rep. John Boccieri of the Canton-area 16th District today. Boccieri joins Tim Ryan, Zack Space, and Charlie Wilson in endorsing Fisher in the Dem primary; the remaining six Dems in the state's delegation haven't picked sides yet.

• OR-Gov: Not one but three possible new entrants in the Oregon gubernatorial race, although I can't see any of them getting anywhere. On the Dem side, former Hewlett-Packard executive Steve Shields says he'll announce on Thursday that he's getting into the Democratic primary field. He wasn't at the Carly Fiorina levels of management (which, uh, may actually be a good thing) and doesn't bring a personal fortune to the race, but he has hired some pricey staffers already. On the GOP side, very large, very slow, very white former Portland Trail Blazers center Chris Dudley is interested in the race (after having declined the NRCC to run in OR-05). No one is sure where exactly he fits in ideologically in the GOP; at any rate, here's hoping he's a better campaigner than he was a free throw shooter. And out on the left, Jerry Wilson, the founder of Soloflex, is going to run under the Oregon Progressive Party banner. If the general were likely to be closer, a third-party lefty with his own money would seem threatening, but so far, with John Kitzhaber in, the race isn't shaping up to be close.

• VA-Gov: Al Gore will be appearing on Creigh Deeds' behalf on Friday, although it'll be at a private fundraiser and not a public appearance.

• FL-08: With the surprising decision of former state Sen. Daniel Webster to beg off from facing Rep. Alan Grayson, all of a sudden the floodgates have opened -- and not in the way you'd expect. Prospective candidates are now actively running away from the race, starting with state Rep. Steve Precourt, who was supposed to be Plan D but said he won't run and will go for re-election to his state House seat instead. This was followed by wealthy businessman Jerry Pierce, who had previously gotten into the race and promised to spend $200,000 of his own money, but then mysteriously dropped out yesterday. Another rumored rich guy, Tim Seneff, already begged off last week -- which means that 28-year-old real estate developer and South Florida transplant Armando Gutierrez Jr. may be the last GOPer standing -- and even he sounds like he's having problems launching his campaign. What kind of mysterious powers does Alan Grayson have here? (Well, other than many millions of his own money and a willingness to spend it...)

• FL-19: It's been revealed that Rep. Robert Wexler's new job will not be in the Obama administration, but rather as president of the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation. The special election date won't be set until Wexler's resignation has been made official, though.

• IN-02: It's official: state Rep. "Wacky" Jackie Walorski will be taking on Rep. Joe Donnelly in the 2nd, bringing the full might of the teabaggers' movement down upon him.

• IN-08: Also in Indiana, the Republicans lined up a challenger to Rep. Brad Ellsworth, who's gotten more than 60% of the vote in both his elections in this Republican-leaning seat. Larry Bucshon, a surgeon, is a political novice, but would seem to bring his own money to the race.

• NV-03: In Nevada's 3rd, it looks like former state Sen. Joe Heck won't have the Republican primary field to himself. Real estate investor Rob Lauer is getting in the race and says he'll invest $100K of his own money in the campaign.

• NY-23: Politico has some encouraging dirt on the special election in the 23rd: Republican Dede Scozzafava is dangerously low on cash, and that's largely because the RNC has declined to get involved in the race. Scozzafava has spent only $26K on TV ads and recently had to pull down an ad in the Syracuse market; by contrast, Dem Bill Owens and Conservative Doug Hoffman have spent $303K and $124K on TV, respectively. (Discussion underway in conspiracy's diary.) Adding further fuel to the GOP/Conservative split is that Mike Huckabee will be appearing in Syracuse to address the NY Conservative Party. Huckabee hasn't actually endorsed Hoffman, but the timing can't exactly be a coincidence.

• NY-29: This slipped through the cracks over the weekend; after a cryptic e-mail that led to some hyperventilating about whether Eric Massa wouldn't run for re-election, he announced at a press conference on the 10th that, yes, in fact, he will be back. Massa faces a challenge in 2010 from Corning mayor Tom Reed.

• ME-Init: A poll from PanAtlantic SMS points to the anti-gay marriage Question 1 in Maine going down to defeat (meaning that gay marriage would survive). With gay advocacy groups learning from their California mistakes last year and going on the offensive with ads this time, the poll finds the proposition losing 52-43.

• Legislatures: Democrats lost two legislative seats in special elections last night, a state House seat in Tennessee and a state House seat in Oklahoma. It's a bigger deal in Tennessee, where Dem Ty Cobb widely lost to GOPer Pat Marsh in his effort to succeed his brother (losing 4,931 to 3,663); the GOP now holds a 51-48 numeric edge in the House, although it sounds like the Dems will keep controlling the chamber for now. In Oklahoma, Republican Todd Russ won with 56% en route to picking up a seat left vacant by a Democratic resignation, moving the GOP's edge in the state House to 61-39. Both were rural districts with Democratic registration edges but extremely Republican tilts as of late, where historic Democratic downballot advantages are drying up.

• NYC: After looking kind of vulnerable in the previous SurveyUSA poll, mayor Michael Bloomberg bounced back in yesterday's poll. He leads Democratic city comptroller William Thompson, 55-38.

• King Co. Exec: Also from SurveyUSA, a troubling look at the King County Executive Race, where the stealth Republican candidate Susan Hutchison leads Democratic county councilor Dow Constantine, 47-42. This is the first time county executive has been a nonpartisan race, and you've gotta wonder how many people are unaware of Hutchison's Republican past (for her to be polling this well in such a blue county, it would seem that she picked up a fair number of votes from suburban moderate Dems who voted for state Sen. Fred Jarrett or state Rep. Ross Hunter in the primary and who may be loath to see another Seattlite like Constantine get the job). This race, to be decided in November, may be something of a canary in the coal mine, as it puts to the test the seemingly new Republican strategy of running blonde 50-something women with little partisan track record, having them steer clear of social conservatism and mostly focus on anti-tax platitudes (as seen in NV-Sen and CO-Sen, and NH-Sen as well if you disregard the "blonde" part).

SSP Poll Roundup: 10/8

James L. — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:24:24 GMT

MA-Sen: Lake Research, the hired gun of Martha Coakley, has some pretty unsurprising results for the Democratic Senate primary in Massachusetts. Coakley, the state AG, leads Rep. Michael Capuano by 47-12. Despite having quite a bit of money in the bank, Stephen Pagliuca and Alan Khazei both look like non-factors at this point, at just 4 and 1%, respectively.
MO-Sen: Missouri continues to look like the brightest spot for Democratic pick-up hopes in the Senate next year. Momentum Analysis, another Dem pollster, finds Robin Carnahan ahead of Roy Blunt by 48-45.
WI-Sen: The wonks over at the University of Wisconsin decided to test the improbable match-up of ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson vs. Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold. Thompson leads Feingold by 43-39, but, as Josh Goodman notes, his recent endorsement of health care reform sure doesn't seem like the actions of a guy jonesing for another dip in the partisan electoral hot tub.
NH-Gov: UNH, home of the incredible gyrating sample, decided to test ex-Gov. John H. "Big Papa" Sununu against Democratic Gov. John Lynch. Lynch wins 50-37.
NYC-Mayor: Is something happening here? SurveyUSA's first post-primary poll of the NYC Mayoral election is showing a surprisingly close race: 51-43 for Michael Bloomberg. Sadly, I doubt that Thompson will be aggressive enough in the closing weeks to actually threaten the Royal Bloomsbury.
WA-Init: SUSA has dipped its thermometer into the latest civil rights battle in Washington. R-71, the referendum on expanded domestic partnership (i.e. marriage in all but name), has a slim 45-42 edge. (Note: this is the complete opposite of Maine in terms of ballot wording; here, "yes" is a vote in favor of keeping domestic partnership.)

SSP Daily Digest: 9/29

Crisitunity — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:57:16 GMT

• CA-Sen: Politics Magazine takes a look at how the blowback from the launch of iCarly Fiorina's new website continues from all ends of the political spectrum, including a nice dig from SSP's own Ben Schaffer. As California's right-wingers sputter, there were also rumors circulating at the state's recent Republican convention that radio talk-show host Larry Elder -- the conservatives' preferred candidate, and someone who expressed interest in the race -- got boxed out by the NRSC, who told him not to run.

• IN-Sen: 33-year-old state Sen. Marlin Stutzman launched his long-shot bid against Evan Bayh with some help from Rep. Mark Souder, who introduced Stutzman at his kickoff rally. The race already has some fourth-tier figures in it: businessmen Richard Behney and Don Bates. Grant County Commissioner Mark Bardsley, former state Rep. Dan Dumezich, and self-funding popcorn magnate Will Weaver are also considering the race.

• NH-Sen: Kelly Ayotte is taking this whole not-saying-anything-about-her-positions thing to an illogical extreme, refusing to say for whom she voted for Governor in 2006 and 2008. Primary opponents Ovide Lamontagne and Sean Mahoney were quick to announce that they voted for Jim Coburn and Joe Kenney -- i.e. the guys who ran against Ayotte's ex-boss, Democratic Gov. John Lynch.

• NY-Sen-B: Ed Cox, having secured his role as New York state GOP chair despite a push from Rudy Giuliani to install one of his own lieutenants in the role, is now trying to make nice with Giuliani, encouraging him to run for the Senate seat currently held by Kirsten Gillibrand instead of for Governor. Giuliani hasn't been returning Cox's calls, and insists via spokespersons that it's Governor or nothing.

• AZ-01: Former state Senate majority leader Rusty Bowers has filed to form an exploratory committee to run against freshman Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick in the mostly-rural 1st. He's been out of the legislature since 2001 and has been a lobbyist for the Arizona Rock Products Association since then.

• IL-07: Rep. Danny Davis, who previously seemed poised to bail out of his west Chicago seat and run for Cook County Board President, now seems to be dialing that back. Davis says he has the signatures collected to run for Board President "should [he] choose to do so." He may be having some second thoughts now that he has a key seat on Ways and Means and also because the expected field-clearing for him in the Board race didn't happen. With Illinois's super-early February primary, he has until mid-November to make up his mind. Alderwoman Sharon Dixon says she's running in the primary in the 7th regardless of what Davis does, though; however, some other likely contenders, like state Rep. LaShawn Ford and state Sen. Rickey Hendon are in a holding pattern to see what Davis does.

• IL-14: The field to take on Rep. Bill Foster in the Chicago suburbs just keeps growing, with the addition of GOP state Sen. Randy Hultgren. His best-known opponent in the now five-way primary is lawyer Ethan Hastert.

• MI-11: Natalie Mosher is a fundraising consultant who's the only person with a hat in the ring for the Dems to go up against Rep. Thad McCotter. She's telling supporters via e-mail that she's "very close" to being named to the DCCC's Red to Blue program -- although that seems to be news to the DCCC, who say that R2B decisions won't be made for some time and they are still talking to other possible candidates.

• NV-03: Yesterday we reported that former state Sen. Joe Heck was content to stay in the GOP gubernatorial primary, rather than switching over to the NV-03 slot vacated by John Guedry's withdrawal. However, since then, Heck has signaled more interest, saying he hasn't ruled it out and is discussing it with his family. Heck could turn out to be a step up from the inexperienced Guedry (remember that Rep. Dina Titus was a replacement candidate as well in 2008, who turned out in the end to be a better bet).

• NY-13: Here's a strange rumor: disgraced ex-Rep. Vito Fossella has been making public rounds, leading to speculation that he's considering a comeback (although there's no sense whether he'd try again for the 13th, or elsewhere).

• NY-23: The Watertown Daily Times has some juicy dirt on Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman, who apparently pledged his support to GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava shortly after he was passed over by the party in favor of her... and then shortly thereafter reached out to the Conservatives and got their nod. His defense is that he didn't know just how "liberal" Scozzafava really was, despite that having been a main bone of contention even before her selection.

• NYC: With the primary runoff elections set for tonight, SurveyUSA has a final poll of the two races at issue: Public Advocate and Comptroller. For Public Advocate, city councilor Bill DeBlasio leads ex-PA Mark Green 49-42 (although DeBlasio narrowly won the primary, Green led every poll prior to it). And for Comptroller, ~~Eric~~ John Liu leads David Yassky 48-40 (both are city councilors). (Discussion of tonight's main event is underway in Pan's diary.) Meanwhile, it looks like Barack Obama won't be expending any political capital on the New York mayor's race, unless it becomes clear William Thompson is closing the gap on Michael Bloomberg.

• NY-St. Sen.: The Erie County, NY DA's office is the latest to join a bipartisan chorus calling for an investigation into the shady campaign finance practices of political consultant Steve Pigeon. As you may recall, Pigeon was the mastermind behind billionaire Tom Golisano's attempted coup in the New York State Senate earlier this year. Pigeon is also buddy-buddy with Republican-turned-Dem Sen. Arlen Specter, and gets a $150,000 sinecure (completely above-board, I'm sure) as counsel to now-legendary scumbag Pedro Espada, Jr. (D)

• PA-St. Sen.: One other race to keep an eye on tonight, in addition to the NYC races: a state Senate election in the Philly suburbs. It's a seat vacated by a Republican (who left to take a job with the Chamber of Commerce); Republican state Rep. Bob Mensch is considered to have the edge to hold the seat over Lansdale councilor Anne Scheuring (picked after better-known Dems took a pass), although Dems have spent considerably on the race. The district (the 24th) takes a bite out of the corners of four counties that went convincingly for Obama (Bucks, Montgomery, Lehigh, and Northampton) but it's exurban turf and has a Republican registration advantage -- which is exactly the kind of district that has bedeviled PA Dems at the legislative level but that the Dems need to pick up if they're ever going to take over the state Senate. The GOP currently holds a 29-20 edge, plus this one vacancy.

SSP Daily Digest: 9/24

Crisitunity — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:01:01 GMT

• AZ-Sen (pdf): John McCain is probably safe for re-election in 2010. PPP released the second half of their Arizona sample, and find McCain beating two strong opponents who seem to have no intention of running anyway: Sec. of Homeland Security and ex-Gov. Janet Napolitano (53-40) and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (57-30). He also leads Tucson city councilor Rodney Glassman, who is at least a rumored candidate, 55-25. McCain only has 48/42 approvals, but with kind of a bipartisan spin: an unusually low 65% of Republicans approve, while an unusually high 32% of Democrats approve.

• IL-Sen: Facing some unrest on the right flank, the RNC's Michael Steele has withdrawn sole support from Rep. Mark Kirk in the Illinois Senate GOP primary, according to the Chicago Observer. He's back to a neutral position, which certainly counts as a victory for Patrick Hughes, who's been gaining some momentum at coalescing the party's right-wing. Considering how Kirk acted when Andy McKenna was going to run, is another temper tantrum in the offing? On the Dem side, Alexi Giannoulias got the endorsement of the SEIU, which led his new rival, former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman, to "go there," invoking the specter of Rod Blagojevich, who was elected via SEIU support.

• NH-Sen: This isn't going at all according to plan for Kelly Ayotte (or the NRSC). Yet another random rich GOPer is showing up to scope out the Senate race, the third in a week. Today it's Jim Bender, an investor who used to be the CEO of Logicraft in the 1990s.

• OH-Sen: Everyone forgets about wealthy auto dealer Tom Ganley in the GOP primary in Ohio against establishment pick Rob Portman, probably because he doesn't have a built-in constituency. Looks like he's trying to hook up with the teabaggers as a result, positioning himself as a populist alternative to the free-trading Portman. Ganley is also getting some help from a Republican insider: an endorsement from Bay Buchanan (sister of Pat), pleased by Ganley's anti-immigrant rhetoric.

• WV-Sen: Looks like Robert Byrd's stay in the hospital was a lot shorter than his stint this spring; he was released today.

• GA-Gov: Strategic Vision looks at the primary fields in the Georgia governor's race, and finds not much has changed since last time. For the Dems, ex-Gov. Roy Barnes is at 45%, with Thurbert Baker at 30, David Poythress at 5, and Dubose Porter at 2. (It was 45-29 last month.) For the GOP, Insurance Comm. John Oxendine leads at 38, with Karen Handel at 15, Nathan Deal at 10, and four other guys in single digits. (Oxendine was at 39 last month, although Deal was in 2nd last month at 13, so maybe he took a minor hit from that corruption probe.) No head-to-heads yet, unfortunately.

• MI-Gov: Here's another poll of a potentially exciting gubernatorial race, but primaries only. An Inside Michigan Politics finds a tight GOP primary, with AG Mike Cox in the lead at 27, followed by Rep. Pete Hoekstra at 23 and Oakland Co. Sheriff Mike Bouchard at 15 (with businessman Rick Snyder and state Sen. Tom George each at 2). Lt. Gov. John Cherry is at 40 in the Dem primary with only light opposition from state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith (9) and former state Rep. John Freeman (8). A March poll from the same pollster had Cox at 17 and Hoekstra at 15 (but both losing to Oakland Co. Exec L. Brooks Patterson, who isn't running).

• NJ-Gov: Two very different pictures from partisan pollsters of the New Jersey governor's race out there. First comes one from Democracy Corps, who have the race as close as anyone has had it since early spring: Chris Christie leads Jon Corzine and Chris Daggett 40-39-11, and Christie has net negative favorables for the first time, at 32/34. (Their poll two weeks ago had Christie up 41-38-10.) The other is Strategic Vision, who see Christie up 46-38-8. Still an improvement from their last poll in July: 53-38-5... like most pollsters, they see Corzine essentially unable to move up, but succeeding in dragging Christie's numbers down. One more bucket of mud for Corzine to throw at Christie arrived yesterday: news that Christie owned stock in Cendant Corp. at the same time as he was investigating them through the US Attorney's office.

• NY-Gov, NY-Sen-B (pdf): Marist has a poll out that finds New Yorkers thinking that Barack Obama should butt out of New York governor's race, by a 62-27 margin. Nevertheless, only 25% think David Paterson should run next year (63% say no); they just want him to arrive at that decision on his own. While the poll doesn't contain gubernatorial matchups (not that we need any more of them), it does have some Senate numbers, confirming other local pollsters, finding the not-running Rudy Giuliani beating Kirsten Gillibrand 51-40 and the probably-not-running George Pataki beating Gillibrand 45-41.

Meanwhile, the NYT has a profile of a rather melancholy Paterson, saying "I didn't sign up for this." They also have a quote that could be seen as hopeful that he may still bail out on seeking another term: "if I got to a point where I thought that my candidacy was hurting my party, obviously it would be rather self-absorbed to go forward." (Unless he's made peace with just being self-absorbed.) If you're wondering what's taking him so long to make a decision, though, Josh Goodman has a nice pithy summary of the decisionmaking process, not just for Paterson, but all the race's players:

Paterson thinks he can beat Lazio, but not Giuliani, so he doesn't want to decide whether he's running until Giuliani makes up his mind. Giuliani thinks he can beat Paterson, but not Cuomo, so he doesn't want to decide whether he's running until Cuomo makes up his mind. Cuomo thinks he can beat anyone, but doesn't want the messiness of a primary battle, so he doesn't want to decide whether he's running until Paterson makes up his mind.

• VA-Gov: It looked briefly like ex-Gov. Doug Wilder might endorse Creigh Deeds after all, but today he backed down and said he won't endorse. Wilder also leveled some criticism at Deeds for proposing tax increases to fix northern Virginia's increasingly dire transportation problems. It's a wtf? moment from the mercurial Wilder, whose endorsement would do a lot to move African-American turnout for Deeds, where he hasn't generated much excitement yet.

• MO-04: No surprise here, but state Sen. Bill Stouffer made it official that he'll be taking on 17-term Dem incumbent Ike Skelton in the dark-red 4th. Christian Right former state Rep. Vicky Hartzler is already in the race; Stouffer, however, seems to be working more of a fiscal discipline angle.

• PA-07: While state Rep. Bryan Lentz seems to have the inside track on the Dem nomination (despite no formal announcement), another Democrat is getting in the race: Teresa Touey, a political consultant who has worked for Joe Sestak and Ted Kennedy. One problem for her, though: although she is a native of the 7th, she's been living in Massachusetts since the early 1990s.

• NYC-Mayor: Quinnipiac finds mayoral results in line with just about everybody else: incumbent Michael Bloomberg leads Dem comptroller William Thompson 52-36, with Conservative Party candidate Stephen Christopher pulling in 2.

• Redistricting: Roll Call has a detailed piece on how the parties are ramping up financially for the post-2010 redistricting fights. A new 501(c)(4), euphemistically titled Making America's Promise Secure, with Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott among its founders, will be coordinating the effort (since campaign reform passed since 2002 prevents the RNC from using soft money to spearhead the effort now). The DCCC's counterpart is the National Democratic Redistricting Trust, although a 527, the equally euphemistic Foundation for the Future, looks like it'll do the financial heavy lifting.

SSP Daily Digest: 9/21

Crisitunity — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:58:13 GMT

• MA-Sen: Here's another academic name popping up in connect with Ted Kennedy's vacant senate seat. The Center for American Progress Action Fund thinks that Deval Patrick should appoint Harvard prof and Boston-based surgeon Atul Gawande to the post. Gawande is best-known these days for his seminal article this summer in the New Yorker about health-care costs, but he also was a healthcare advisor to Bill Clinton in the early 90s. (D)

Also in the Bay State, Rep. Mike Capuano got a potentially helpful endorsement, from fellow Rep. Barney Frank. Frank's imprimatur may help Capuano prove his liberal bona fides and win over some voters in the Boston suburbs who may not be familiar with him.

• NH-Sen: Despite Kelly Ayotte's reputed field-clearing abilities, yet another Republican is adding his name to the list of possible candidates in the New Hampshire Senate race. Real estate investor William Binnie is quite literally from the country club wing of the GOP -- he's owner and president of the Wentworth-by-the-Sea Country Club and owner/driver of an auto racing team. Another suggestion he may be running to the left of Ayotte (although her intentionally amorphous political persona gives no clue about her ideology); Binnie is tight with moderate GOP ex-Rep. Andrew Zeliff, and has given money to Democratic candidates in the past.

• TX-Sen: Rumors out of Texas have Kay Bailey Hutchison resigning her seat at year's end (on Dec. 31 or Jan. 1) in order to pursue her gubernatorial bid against Rick Perry. Under Texas law, this would lead to a short-term appointment, and then a special election on May 8.

• IA-Gov: Incumbent Dem Chet Culver continues to sport rather good favorables, clocking in at 50/37, but his re-elect numbers may give him some pause (28% say "definitely vote for," 27% say "consider an alternative," and 21% say "definitely vote for alternative"). Republican ex-Gov. Terry Branstad, who's been receptive to the idea of a bid for a return to office, is still remembered fondly by Iowans, with favorables of 59/22. Sen. Chuck Grassley is the state's best-liked figure, though, with 64% favorables and a 45% "definitely vote for." (H/t Steve Benen.)

• NJ-Gov (pdf): Neighborhood Research is a Republican internal pollster (they worked with primary loser Steve Lonegan), but they were the first pollster to find Jon Corzine moving back within the margin of error. They're back with a new poll, showing Corzine still within striking distance, trailing Chris Christie 37-33 (although that's down from their August finding of 37-35) with Chris Daggett at 6. Meanwhile, Chris Daggett has joined a voter suit challenging ballot ordering in New Jersey, which favors the two major-party candidates.

• PA-Gov: Montgomery County Commissioner and ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel says he's moving ahead with plans to run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. No formal announcement date is set, but the progressive from the Philly suburbs is starting to staff up, and is bolstered by an internal poll he commissioned through Lake Research, showing him leading the nebulous field at 15%, with Allegheny County Exec Dan Onorato and state Auditor Jack Wagner both at 12, Scranton mayor Chris Doherty at 6, and Philly businessman Tom Knox at 5.

• NY-23: With the 23rd now officially vacant, Dem candidate Bill Owens is the first to put up a TV spot. He stresses his military roots and efforts to generated jobs via the redevelopment of the old Plattsburgh AFB.

• TN-01: Get ready for Roe vs. Davis III in the 1st. Ex-Rep. David Davis, who defeated current Rep. Phil Roe in the 2006 GOP primary and then lost the 2008 GOP primary to him (in this R+21 district), has been publicly blasting Roe's record.

• NY-Lt. Gov: On Friday, Sept. 11th, New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals, heard oral arguments regarding David Paterson's appointment of Richard Ravitch as Lt. Governor. According to reports, Paterson's camp seemed to have gotten its most favorable treatment to date. Lawyers on both sides, says the NYT, expect a decision within two weeks, which would mean the end of this week or the beginning of next. One possibility is that the court could rule that Republican leader Dean Skelos simply didn't have standing to sue, which would leave the Ravitch appointment intact. (D)

• NYC-Mayor: Marist finds that Democratic city Comptroller William Thompson, despite a convincing primary win, still trails Independent/Republican incumbent Mike Bloomberg in the general, 50-39 among RVs and 52-43 among LVs. It's still some improvement for Thompson, who trailed 48-35 among RVs in July.

• Ads: Conservative PAC the Family Research Council has published its own target list for the 2010 cycle: Michael Bennet and Chris Dodd, plus the Missouri and Ohio open seats, in the Senate, and John Boccieri, Steve Driehaus, Parker Griffith, Mary Jo Kilroy, Ann Kirkpatrick, Betsy Markey, Walt Minnick, John Murtha, Glenn Nye, Tom Perriello, and Dina Titus in the House.

NYC Primary Predictions & Results Thread

Ben — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:13:21 GMT

10:52PM: Take this however you like: I count at least five NYC City Council incumbents who've lost tonight: Alan Gerson (District 1), Maria Baez (14), Helen Sears (25), Kendall Stewart (45), and Kenneth Mitchell (49). Another, Thomas White (28), is currently losing by three votes with a few precincts outstanding. Four more incumbents won with less than 50%, and the City Council Speaker, Christine Quinn, won with about 53%.

10:38PM (David): Results here. Cyrus Vance wins the DA's race, and Bill Thompson wins the mayoral primary. With most of the vote counted, it looks like the Comptroller's race will go to a run-off between John Liu and David Yassky. The big surprise is probably Bill DeBlasio leading the Public Advocate's race over Mark Green - this one also looks destined for a runoff.

For those of you who live in New York City, or have moved here in anticipation of DavidNYC's eventual primary challenge to someone or other, today is the long-awaited 2009 primary.

Because of the city's geographic complexity, we're voting on everything from district leader to district attorney, from city council to a special assembly race. Because of the city's recent political complexity (largely due to the controversial term limits extension), there are also many more races than usual with a pack of challengers.

Counting just the city races (not county races like D.A. or state races like Assembly), we have 152 candidates today. How many can you vote for?

The major contested races are:

Mayor
Public Advocate
Comptroller
Manhattan District Attorney
Queens Borough President
Special election for NY AD 38
A cornucopia of City Council matchups
Your favorite race that I forgot

This is New York. Nobody knows what's going on. But let's hear your predictions. Be sure to show your work.

Polls close at 9pm. Don't forget to vote in the actual booths as well as in the comments area below.

SSP Daily Digest: 9/14 (Afternoon Edition)

Crisitunity — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:06:28 GMT

• CA-Sen (pdf): According to the Public Policy Institute of California, Barbara Boxer is holding fairly good approval ratings, as she approaches a possibly competitive (and definitely expensive) re-election: 53/32, really no different from her stodgier colleague Dianne Feinstein, 54/32. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who isn't running again, fares much worse: 30/61.

• CO-Sen: As we're staring down the barrel of a competitive Democratic primary in the Senate race, three of the state's five House Dems have gotten behind incumbent appointee Michael Bennet (John Salazar, Jared Polis, and Betsy Markey), along with fellow Sen. Mark Udall. However, Diana DeGette and Ed Perlmutter are staying neutral. Other Bennet backers include current state House speaker Terrance Carroll.

• IL-Sen, IL-Gov: The Cook County Dems made their endorsements in the 2010 primaries, which are less than half a year away. No major surprises: they endorsed state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias for Senate and incumbent Pat Quinn for Governor. That rankled Quinn's rival, Comptroller Dan Hynes, who hit Quinn for seeking machine backing when, back in his reformer days, Quinn had been an advocate for open primaries. Meanwhile, in the Senate primary, upstart Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman is taking the clean politics approach, saying that he'll accept no PAC money for his campaign.

• MA-Sen: The fields are starting to solidify in Massachusetts: Rep. John Tierney, from MA-06 in Boston's northern suburbs, decided against a run. He has less money than his fellow House members and polled in the single digits in the lone poll of the primary. Rep. Richard Neal is the only House member left who initially seemed like a potential candidate (mostly because of his bankroll), but his silence in the last week has been telling. On the GOP side of the aisle, state Senator Scott Brown got in the race over the weekend; with Mitt Romney, Andy Card, Kerry Healey, and Christy Mihos out, Brown is about as good as it's going to get for the Republicans.

• NH-Sen: Here's one more Republican from the Republican wing of the party pondering a run in the New Hampshire Senate primary: businessman and RNC member Sean Mahoney. Mahoney says he's gotten a push from the conservative grassroots to run, as many of them seem uneasy with the Beltway coronation of Kelly Ayotte, whose inability to take a position... any position... is taking on epic proportions. (If Mahoney's name seems vaguely familiar, he lost the 2002 NH-01 GOP primary to Jeb Bradley.)

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Here's the rumor du jour, and it's a doozy: Rudy Giuliani is being pushed by state GOP leaders to run for Senate against Kirsten Gillibrand instead of for Governor; apparently the state GOP is convinced that Andrew Cuomo, not David Paterson, will be the Dems' nominee next year. Nobody has polled Gillibrand/Giuliani before, but that seems like it would be a close race, if the Gillibrand/Pataki numbers are any indication (of course, there's a big stylistic difference between the vanilla George Pataki and the dictatorial Rudy, just that they're both known quantities at this point). Perhaps (between this rumor and Rudy's failed coup against Ed Cox) sensing that the Rudy won't be getting into the Governor's race -- or maybe just because of his own special brand of tone-deafness -- ex-Rep. Rick Lazio made his formal announcement today that he's running for Governor.

• AZ-Gov: In the "blast from the past" file, former Governor Fife Symington is now considering a comeback by running in the GOP primary against appointed Governor Jan Brewer. That's the same Symington who was forced out of office in 1997 after conviction for bank fraud, although his conviction was overturned on appeal and he was subsequently pardoned by Bill Clinton. Strangely, we could see a re-run of the 1990 gubernatorial election, if Symington and Dem AG Terry Goddard face off against each other again.

• NJ-Gov (pdf): One more poll (from Monmouth) showing Chris Christie with a persistent, but shrinking, edge over Jon Corzine in the New Jersey gubernatorial race. Among likely voters, Christie has a 47-39 edge (with 5 for Chris Daggett), much better than August's 50-36 Christie lead but comparable to July's 45-37 lead. Hold onto your hats, though: among registered voters, Corzine actually leads, 41-40 (with 6 for Daggett). In the fine print, Corzine is continuing to solidify his standing among Democrats, up to 77% among Dems (up from 73% in August and 67% in July). The challenge here, apparently, will be getting those Dems in the 'unlikely voter' column to show up.

• OR-Gov: John Kitzhaber doesn't seem like he'll have the Dem primary to himself: former SoS Bill Bradbury looks like he's on track to run. Bradbury has hired a campaign manager, and announces that Kitzhaber's predecessor as Governor, Barbara Roberts, will be on hand for his announcement next week. One other possible challenger in the Dem primary, one that no one had thought of before, is Clackamas County Commission Chair Lynn Peterson. Peterson is 40 and still building her reputation; cynics' knee-jerk reaction might be to think she's angling for the Lt. Governor slot, but Oregon doesn't even have a Lt. Governor. Finally, everyone's still waiting to see what Rep. Peter DeFazio does; he was supposed to have made a decision by Labor Day but says he'll keep on anaylzing his choices.

• AR-02: Politico has an unusual rumor: former US Attorney and former Karl Rove right-hand-man Tim Griffin is considering a run against Democratic Rep. Vic Snyder in the Little Rock-based 2nd (which, in wake of 2008, is, at R+5, the most Dem-friendly district in Arkansas). Considering that Griffin had earlier pondered and declined a run in AR-Sen, the step down doesn't make much sense at all, as he'd most likely have a better shot against the vulnerable Blanche Lincoln, who hasn't polled well lately. The entrenched Snyder may create the appearance of being vulnerable because of his bank account, but that's mostly because he refuses to fundraise during off years.

• IL-10: State Rep. Beth Coulson, running for the GOP primary nod for the open seat in the 10th against several self-funders, got endorsements from two members of the GOP House delegation: fellow suburban moderate Judy Biggert... and, in an apparent nod to the reality of what works in the 10th, from the state delegation's wingnuttiest member, John Shimkus, last seen ducking out early from Obama's health care address to beat the lines at the urinal.

• WI-03: State Sen. Dan Kapanke gives the GOP a rather strong candidate against Rep. Ron Kind (or more ominously, an open seat, in case Kind decides to run for Governor). However, Dems succeeded in taking Kapanke down a peg and dinging him for $38,100 ($100 in statutory damages plus $38K in legal fees) for violating state open records laws.

• NYC: One more poll of the Democratic primaries for the city offices, before tomorrow's election. The mayor's race is actually the least interesting, with Comptroller William Thompson beating city councilor Tony Avella 46-17. Ex-PA Mark Green has pole position in the Public Advocate's race, but the question is whether he can beat the 40% threshold in order to avoid a runoff. Currently, he's at 36%, with city councilor Bill DeBlasio at 20%. The Comptroller's race is almost certainly headed for a runoff, but city councilor John Liu seems to be breaking out from the pack, at 34%; he leads Melinda Katz at 23% and David Yassky at 19%. In case you're wondering what's up with the Manhattan DA race, there is one recent poll of the race, an internal from the Cyrus Vance Jr. camp. It gives Vance a 30-24 edge over Leslie Crocker Synder, with Richard Aborn at 15.

• Census: The Census Bureau is severing its relationship with ACORN, which was working with the Census to promote Census participation. Loosely translated, Director Robert Groves said that the organization was enough of a distraction that it was becoming a net liability instead of asset in terms of getting people to participate in the Census.

NYC Primary Thread

DavidNYC — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:22:00 GMT

New York City has a big primary coming up in a week. Two key city-wide races, and a very important borough-wide race in Manhattan, are all on the ballot, and they're all open seats. There's little chance of a Republican winning any of these races, so the primary is what counts.

The major races & candidates are:

Public Advocate (ombudsman, first-in-line to succeed mayor)
• Bill de Blasio
• Eric Gioia
• Mark Green
• Norman Siegel
Comptroller
• Melinda Katz
• John Liu
• David Weprin
• David Yassky
Manhattan District Attorney
• Richard Aborn
• Leslie Crocker Snyder
• Cyrus Vance

Green (who was Public Advocate in the 1990s) probably has the edge in that race just thanks to his name recognition, though he certainly doesn't have it in the bag - and if he fails to get 40% in the first round, the race will move to a Sept. 29th runoff. The Comptroller and DA races are totally wide open, though there is no runoff in the DA contest since that's a county-level race, rather than a city race.

I still haven't made up my mind about who I'm voting for, so I'm very interested to hear the community's thoughts, especially those living in the city. Who are your favorites?

SSP Daily Digest: 9/4

Crisitunity — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:39:47 GMT

• CO-Sen: The Denver Post does some interesting digging into how former House speaker Andrew Romanoff wound up in the Senate Democratic primary against Michael Bennet after all. Governor Bill Ritter tried to give the Lt. Gov. spot to Romanoff after Barbara O'Brien left the position in January, but the deal collapsed, leaving Romanoff to decide on the primary instead this summer.

• IL-Sen: Chicago's city treasurer, Stephanie Neely, has decided not to run in the Senate primary. However, Chicago's inspector general David Hoffman seems to be taking tangible steps to get into the race, saying he'll make a formal announcement after Labor Day.

• MA-Sen: Rep. Stephen Lynch picked up filing papers for the Senate special election in Massachusetts, indicating he's likely to soon join Martha Coakley. Lynch, who represents a heavily blue-collar Catholic district based in south Boston, would likely be the only anti-abortion Democratic in the race, but he has strong ties with organized labor.

• MD-Gov: While most of the question marks surrounding the Maryland governor's race involve whether or not GOP ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich wants a rematch with current Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley, now some are wondering if O'Malley will face a primary challenge from former Prince George's Co. Executive Wayne Curry. Speculation centers on how O'Malley has nailed down endorsements from Dems all over the state but is missing some key endorsements from PG County.

• NJ-Gov: Wow, what is it with this guy? So it turns out that back in 2002, Chris Christie turned his sail barge the wrong way down a one-way street, struck a motorcyclist (who was taken to the hospital)... and didn't get a ticket. No claims about a tow-truck driver recognizing Christie this time - here, we know he identified himself to the officer on the scene. When he was asked if Christie's title affected the officer's decision not to issue a summons, the police director said "I don't think I want to make that kind of deduction, but I think the facts speak for themselves." Ouch. (D)

• OR-Gov: Lots of movement in the Oregon governor's race now that John Kitzhaber is in. Democratic state Rep. Brian Clem (who had set up an exploratory committee a few months ago) quickly moved to endorse Kitzhaber and not just get out of the way but join Kitz's campaign as a director. Meanwhile, Republican state Senator Jason Atkinson -- who finished third in the GOP primary in 2006 and has "next in line" status -- informally told his hometown paper, the Medford Mail-Tribune, that "he's running," although the formal announcement won't happen for a while. Finally, it sounds like Rep. Peter DeFazio is making a move to... do something. He's still considering the race, but will make a decision "around Labor Day," which is soon.

• SC-Gov: Here's a tea leaf that Jim Rex, who'd be the Dems's strongest candidate, seems likely to get in the gubernatorial race. In the midst of touring the state and raising money, he says he won't run for another term as Superintendent of Education.

• AZ-01: It sounds like the GOP has a candidate lined up in the 1st, to against freshman Dem Ann Kirkpatrick, who's a definite improvement over the sad Sydney Hay from last time. Former state Senate majority leader Russell "Rusty" Bowers (also a former state Rep., and now a sand-and-gravel industry lobbyist) seems like he's set to run.

• IN-08: The NRCC, however, wasn't able to pin down a challenger to Brad Ellsworth in the 8th. Former Vandenburgh County Commissioner and county assessor Cheryl Musgrave decided not to run against Ellsworth, although she is considering a state House run instead against incumbent Dem Gail Riecken.

• PA-03: The GOP had been previously struggling to find anyone at all to go against freshman Dem Kathy Dahlkemper, but now they've landed someone fairly impressive sounding. John Onorato (not to be confused with Dem gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato) is the former Erie County Solicitor (analogous to DA in most states), giving him a large constituency to build on.

• SD-AL: State Rep. Shantel Krebs of Sioux Falls said that she's considering challenging Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in 2010. Krebs would likely need to get past Chris Nelson, the state's two-term Secretary of State, in the GOP primary though; he's also in the "considering" phase. (Remember that South Dakota House districts are teeny constituencies, with only 22,000 residents each.)

• NYC-Mayor: One more SurveyUSA poll of the Dem primary in the Big Apple. William Thompson and Mark Green have pretty clear paths in the Mayor and Public Advocate primaries (Thompson leads Tony Avella 52-14), but check out the Comptroller's race. It's a three-way slugfest between three city councilors: 25% for John Liu, 24% for Melinda Katz, and 21% for David Yassky.

• Ads: The DNC, via Organizing for America, is running cable TV spots for four potentially vulnerable House Dems, thanking them for their pro-stimulus votes: Ben Chandler, Martin Heinrich, Travis Childers, and Zack Space.

• Polling: The Masters of the Crosstabs were all on hand to do a panel on polling at Netroots Nation last month: Charlie Cook, Mark Blumenthal, Nate Silver, and Charles Franklin, moderated by Greg Dworkin (aka DemFromCT). At the link, you'll find a video of their session. (Charlie gives a nice shout-out to SSP at about 7:40, and again at 80:20, where he talks about the "growing sophistication of the blogosphere.") (D)

• Humor: Autotune the News 8 is out, in case you've ever wanted Joe Biden to sing you a slow jam.

SSP Daily Digest: 8/28

Crisitunity — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:24:52 GMT

• KY-Sen: Here's a surprise; Mitch McConnell says he still won't endorse in the GOP Senate primary, despite the presence of only one establishment candidate anymore (SoS Trey Grayson). Is he worried about drawing the wrath of the nationwide army of malfunctioning Paulbots? Anyway, even though he won't endorse, he and 22 other GOP Senators are still planning to host a $500/person fundraiser in DC for Grayson in September.

• LA-Sen: David Vitter dodged rumored challenges from Suzanne Terrell, Tony Perkins, and John Cooksey, but his luck may yet run out. Retired Lt. General Russel Honore, who has a high profile from his role in leading forces tasked with rescuing Katrina victims, says he's leaning toward running in the GOP primary. Honore, a Creole African-American who lives near Baton Rouge, says he's been a Republican since the Reagan era. A tough primary might be just what we need to soften up Vitter before loosing Charlie Melancon on him.

• MA-Sen: The Massachusetts Secretary of State says that Gov. Deval Patrick has two choices as to the timing of the special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat: A Dec. 8 primary and a Jan. 19 general, or a Dec. 15 primary and a Jan. 26 general. (D)

• NV-Sen: If this is meaningful, and not just cloud talk -- that Harry Reid is going on record as saying health care reform must contain a public option, which moves us that much closer since (as best as I can tell) he's the person with primary responsibility for how to merge the (good) HELP and (probably crappy) Finance Committee bills into one -- we may have Danny Tarkanian and Susan Lowden to thank for passage of a public option. Facing suddenly perilous re-election prospects in the polls, Reid may be realizing that he's going to need strong on-the-ground union support to stay in office in 2010, and that he's not getting anything but tepid support from them without a decent reform package.

• AR-Gov: There was a second phase to PPP's Arkansas poll that showed Blanche Lincoln looking weak for re-election, with some details about the 2010 gubernatorial race. If there's one governor in the country who doesn't have much to worry about it, it's Democrat Mike Beebe, who has 63/17 approvals and beats prospective GOP challenger state Rep. Allen Kerr 55-24.

• AZ-Gov: Arizona's Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, still getting her feet wet in the gube office, says that she's "leaning toward" running for a full term in 2010. Despite having a rough time with the state legislator with her proposed tax increases, Brewer says that she "loves being governor, and I love campaigning". (J)

• GA-Gov: Rep. Nathan Deal doesn't seem to be getting much traction in the Georgia Governor's race, but now there are some nasty allegations out that may further dim whatever luster he once had. Apparently he intervened with Georgia state officials, lobbying them to preserve an obscure state program on inspection of rebuilt salvaged vehicles. Deal owns co-owns a salvage company that provides the location for these inspections, a company from which he personally earns up to $150,000 a year. Deal personally lobbied the state Revenue Commissioner against opening the program up to competitors instead of preserving his monopoly.

• SC-Gov: State lawmakers are apparently getting ready to hold a special session of the legislature to impeach and remove Gov. Mark Sanford. Meanwhile, an Insider Advantage poll says 50% of South Carolinians think Sanford should resign. (D)

• IA-05, IA-Gov: Rep. Steve King has ruled out a run for Governor and will run for re-election to the House again. While having been mentioned as a possible candidate earlier in the year, shortly after gay marriage was legalized in Iowa, he hadn't shown much interest lately. Looks like it's Terry Branstad (who's still making up his mind) or bust for the Iowa GOP.

• IL-14: ~~Rotta the Huttlet~~ Ethan Hastert won't have the GOP primary to himself in his attempt to revenge the ~~Hutt~~ Hastert family name. Mark Vargas, a former Dept. of Defense official in Iraq, former Kane County Young Republicans chair, and briefly, an aide in the elder Hastert's district office, said he'll run too.

• MT-AL: Best wishes for a speedy recovery for Rep. Denny Rehberg, who is listed in stable condition after being injured in a boating accident on Flathead Lake at some point between 10 pm and midnight last night.

• NC-08: Republicans finally have a candidate to challenge freshman Democrat Larry Kissell this year, but it's not anyone with a track record of electoral success. Retired Army Col. Lou Huddleston, who won 38% of the vote in an unsuccessful state House campaign last year, announced yesterday that he'll seek the GOP nomination to challenge Kissell just a week after ex-Rep. Robin Hayes and former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory passed on the race. Republicans seem to hope that Huddleston, who is African-American, will chip some support away from Kissell in the district's sizable black community. Good luck with that. (J)

• ND-AL: A Republican has stepped forward to take on entrenched Blue Dog Earl Pomeroy in North Dakota. Paul Schaffner currently is an insurance salesperson and has no electoral experience, but may have some residual name rec from his stints as football player at NDSU and assistant coach at local Jamestown College and Univ. of Mary.

• NYC-Mayor: SurveyUSA has a new poll of the Democratic primaries in New York City, which closely match the Quinnipiac findings earlier this week. For the Dem nod in the mayoral race, Comptroller William Thompson leads city councilor Tony Avella, 48-13. Ex-Public Advocate and former mayoral candidate Mark Green has a big lead at 38% in the Public Advocate primary. City councilor Melinda Katz leads the Comptroller field at 27%.

SSP Daily Digest: 8/26

Crisitunity — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:24:27 GMT

• FL-Sen: Ileana Ros-Lehtinen says she won't endorse in the GOP Senate primary or in the general election, out of deference to Kendrick Meek. Says IRL: "Kendrick was a gentleman and I'm a lady back to him," because he didn't lift a finger to help Annette Taddeo last year, "despite all the nasty bloggers egging him on." Next time, we'll just have to egg harder. (D)

Meanwhile, in the contest purely in Charlie Crist's mind over who to appoint to replace Mel Martinez, Crist will reportedly name someone by week's end from his not-so-short list of eight or so names.

• OR-Sen: John Frohnmayer, the former head of the National Endowment for the Arts under Bush I, was reportedly considering a bid for the Senate against Ron Wyden, but has now decided against it. (You may remember Frohnmayer had tried running as an Indie in the 2006 Smith/Merkley Senate race, but decided against that too.) Interestingly, the story makes it completely unclear whether he was planning to run as a Democrat or an Independent (probably not as a Republican, despite that he's from one of the state's brand-name GOP families, considering that the once-dominant moderates have been routed from the state party), but it sounded like he'd be going after the usually-liberal Wyden from the left, as he'd been reaching out to Democratic activists upset over Wyden's foot-dragging on health care reform. No GOPer has stepped forward to take on Wyden from the right.

• NJ-Gov: One more wheel popped off the suddenly overloaded Chris Christie bus: the woman who allegedly received the undisclosed loan from Christie while working for him has resigned. Michele Brown was the acting first assistant U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, but she quit yesterday, saying she didn't want to be a distraction for the campaign.

• NY-Gov: Politico's Alex Isenstadt offers a rebuttal to the NYT's speculations that Rudy Giuliani is prepping for a gubernatorial run. Close associates say that while he's not saying no, he isn't fundraising either, and that his bids for attention may have more to do with paying down campaign debts from his epic presidential fail.

• SC-Gov: Two Republican state Reps, Nathan Ballentine (known as a Mark Sanford ally) and Gerry Simrill met privately with Sanford to let him know that if he doesn't step down, the GOP-held legislature will impeach him. (Sanford told them he's staying.) Also, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer publicly called for Sanford to resign today (and, by the way, give him his job). Bauer said he'd drop his 2010 gubernatorial bid if he were to become governor, though.

• TX-Gov: It looks like there'll be an alternative to Bush-backer Tom Schieffer and weirdo self-promoter Kinky Friedman in the Democratic primary after all: Hank Gilbert, a cattle rancher who lost the 2006 Agriculture Commissioner race (although he did do the best of any Dem statewide candidate that year), says he'll run. Burnt Orange Report sounds very pleased. Meanwhile, Kay Bailey Hutchison faced down a truckload of pigs brought to one of her rallies by snout-wearing pro-Rick Perry, anti-pork activists. KBH is also looking to sell her mansion in McLean, Virginia, a tea leaf that a) she's serious about bailing out of the Senate and b) she needs money.

• WI-Gov: There's already a Republican internal poll from the Scott Walker camp done by the Tarrance Group, reflecting the new post-Jim Doyle configuration of the Wisconsin governor's race. As one might expect from a Walker poll, he leads all comers, although the Milwaukee Co. Exec barely beats Milwaukee mayor and ex-Rep. Tom Barrett, 44-43. Walker posts bigger numbers over Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, 48-40 and Rep. Ron Kind, 49-39, and an even-bigger number against GOP primary rival ex-Rep. Mark Neumann, 57-21. Barrett leads a Dem primary over Lawton and Kind, 39-25-19 (only Lawton has committed to the race so far, though).

• NYC-Mayor: The mayor's race in New York seems to be in a holding pattern, with I/R incumbent Michael Bloomberg beating Democratic Comptroller William Thompson, 50-35, not much change from last month's 47-37 spread. Thompson leads city councilor Tony Avella 45-10 in the primary. Further down the ballot, it looks like Air America head Mark Green is poised for a comeback as Public Advocate (a job he held 1994-2001), with 38% in a 4-way Dem primary field.

• Ads: The DNC has launched a series of radio ads providing cover for 13 potentially vulnerable Dems, regarding their earlier stimulus and SCHIP votes: Berry, Himes, Donnelly, Kissell, Teague, Rodriguez, Perriello, Ross, Hill, Etheridge, Brad Miller, Pat Murphy, and Inslee. (OK, those last four don't seem vulnerable at all, but whatever.) Also, a coalition of MoveOn, Americans United for Change, the Sierra Club, and the League of Conservation Voters launched TV spots against 5 Republicans over cap-and-trade: McCotter, Rehberg, Blunt, Wolf, and Cantor... and print ads against 2 Dems who also were 'no' votes: Jason Altmire in the Pittsburgh suburbs and Ann Kirkpatrick in rural Arizona.

SSP Daily Digest: 7/29

Crisitunity — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:26:38 GMT

• OH-Sen: Auto dealer Tom Ganley hasn't really attracted anyone's attention yet in the GOP primary, as ex-Rep. Rob Portman has the whole 'inevitability' thing going for him. This ought to get some attention, though: Ganley says he's ready to spend more than $5 million, mostly his own money, to get noticed. Ganley has been sharpening his attacks on Portman as "career politician," not a label you really want to get saddled with these days.

• NJ-Gov (pdf): The polls keep looking worse for Jon Corzine; this time it's PPP's turn. Chris Christie leads 50-36, with Corzine getting the votes of only 64% of Democrats and 26% of Independents. The 14-lead for Christie is up from 10, in PPP's last outing in late June.

• NYC-Mayor: Quinnipiac finds that Democratic NYC Comptroller William Thompson pulls within 10 points of incumbent Mayor Michael Bloomberg, 47-37, but they note that this may have to do with a small tweak in method than any larger trend. In this poll, they identified Bloomberg as "Independent and Republican" instead of just "Independent" as they did last time, when he did much better at 54-32. Thompson has been going on the offensive, though, so his name rec is probably much improved, too. Thompson beats Queens city council member Tony Avella in the primary, 44-11. Both Bloomberg and Thompson has positive job approval rates: 63/29 and 53/10, respectively.

• CA-10: The fields are set for the Sep. 1 special primary election, and now state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier is the first to hit the TV airwaves, running an ad focusing on health care reform.

• RNC: Also on the health care front, the RNC (not the NRCC, interestingly) is running radio spots against 60 different House Democrats, mostly in conservative-leaning districts, accusing them of a "dangerous experiment." There are also TV ads in the cheapo markets of Nevada, North Dakota, and Arkansas. That sounds like a huge package, but the whole thing is only costing them $1 million.

• TN-St. Sen.: Get ready for a special election in the Tennessee Senate in SD 31 in the Memphis suburbs; GOP Sen. Paul Stanley resigned yesterday (leaving the GOP with an 18-14 edge, with 1 vacancy) after he was Unmasked having an affair with his 22-year-old female intern, after the intern's boyfriend tried extorting him over naughty pictures. Naked pictures of state senate groupies? Hmmm... that sounds more like Gene Simmons to me than Paul Stanley. (In case you're wondering, her name is not "Beth," although based on her previous track record, she does certainly seem to like to rock and roll all night and party ev-er-y day) (Actually, I'm wondering if any one of these KISS references is going to have any resonance among SSP's key readership demographics.)

• Initiatives: Michigan Democrats are interested in using the ballot initiative process in 2010 to short-circuit the whole legislative song-and-dance on some key issues that have some populist resonance with the voters. These might include a hike in the minimum wage to $10, temporary moratoria on home foreclosures, and requiring all employers to provide health insurance.