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Leading Off:
• MD-06: A nice little nuclear bomb just went off in the Democratic primary in Maryland's 6th Congressional District. State Sen. Rob Garagiola uncovered the fact that his chief rival for the nomination, commercial lender John Delaney, gave the maximum allowable contribution of $2400 to Republican Andy Harris last year as he sought to unseat Dem Rep. Frank Kratovil in MD-01. This was a particularly ugly thing for Delaney to do, given that Kratovil was a freshman locked in an incredibly difficult race in a very tough district in a exceptionally brutal year for Democrats—and Harris was a loud-and-proud Tea Partier, not some faux-moderate incumbent. Even worse, Delaney tried to hide the donation. See below, from Harris's FEC report (PDF):
Notice that the name is listed as "J Delaney," to make it more difficult to find. And naming his employer as "CS" is another attempt to blur: The company Delaney owns is called
CapitalSource, and nowhere on their website do they refer to themselves as just "CS." Really shady. Delaney put out
a press release in response touting all the fundraising he's done for Democrats over the years, but frankly, that just makes him look worse, because clearly he should have known better. And of course, Delaney's offered no explanation or apology.
Incidentally, Delaney's out with his first TV ad, a biographical spot that tried to emphasize the fact that his father was a union electrician. Roll Call's Abby Livingston says the buy is for $91K, but given Delaney's personal wealth, I'm sure he'll be spending plenty more on the airwaves in the months to come. You can watch the spot at the link.
Senate:
• MA-Sen: Pretty remarkable, but in case you hadn't seen it yet, Scott Brown joined almost every other Republican senator in co-sponsoring the so-called "Blunt amendment," which would allow employers to deny healthcare coverage to their employees if such coverage is "contrary" to the employer's "religious beliefs or moral convictions"—in other words, deny any imaginable treatment for any reason whatsoever. I think the national GOP simply hasn't realized just how extreme a position they've locked themselves into here, and Brown apparently is dumb enough to pay the price.
• NM-Sen: I really enjoyed Rasmussen's long quiet period while it lasted, but now it looks like they're finally determined to once again start setting their own narratives in downballot elections, all other polling be damned. On Wednesday, Rasmussen released its third Senate poll in a week (after publishing virtually none since the start of the cycle), and as with the Ohio and Florida surveys before it, this latest New Mexico poll is also more bullish for Republicans than every other poll we've seen of the race. They show Dem Rep. Martin Heinrich up just 45-43 over Republican ex-Rep. Heather Wilson, and Wilson tied at 44 with Auditor Hector Balderas. By contrast, PPP's December numbers also had a Balderas-Wilson tie, but they had Heinrich on top 47-40. Again I ask, who ya gonna believe?
• OH-Sen: Looks like Quinnipiac is stepping up the pace of its Ohio polling. After a three-month break around the end of last year, they've now polled the Buckeye State in two successive months. Dem Sen. Sherrod Brown still maintains his lead over Republican Treasurer Josh Mandel, 48-35. That's a touch tighter than January's 47-32 mark, but as long as Brown stays within spitting distance of 50%, I suspect he'll be hard for Mandel to overtake. (Also worth noting: Barack Obama maintains his two-point lead over Mitt Romney, but Santorum closes from 48-37 to 47-41.)
Gubernatorial:
• CO-Gov: Two Republican statewide officeholders in Colorado, Treasurer Walker Stapleton and Secretary of State Scott Gessler, are both refusing to rule out runs for governor in 2014, when Dem Gov. John Hickenlooper will be up for re-election. (All three men were first elected to their current posts last cycle.) Of course, it's very early to be thinking about all this, but this amusing tidbit about Gessler from Lynn Bartels' story popped out at me:
Democrats say they are thrilled with the idea of a Gessler candidacy, considering he has made headlines since taking office in 2011, from wanting to moonlight at his old law firm to boost his state salary to fighting with county clerks in his own party.
•
VT-Gov: This is interesting: Vermont's AG has sued the Republican Governors Association and 2010 GOP gubernatorial nominee Brian Dubie, alleging that the two illegally coordinated last cycle when Dubie narrowly lost the race for governor to Peter Shumlin. The state says Dubie improperly shared polling data with the RGA, and that the RGA in turn ran ads against Shumlin that constituted in-kind contributions to Dubie. Who knows if the case will go anywhere, but it's a relatively rare instance of a law enforcement agency trying to put some teeth into anti-coordination rules.
House:
• AZ-08: Another Republican endorsement for Democrat Ron Barber in the special election to fill Gabby Giffords' seat: Former Tucson mayor Bob Walkup just gave his backing to Barber, following on the heels of Tucson Councilman Steve Kozachik doing the same thing.
• FL-18: Perfect: Local Tea Party leader Everett Wilkinson says he's thinking about challenging Allen West, not because he disagrees with West on the issues, but because he feels the new 18th District ought to be represented by a local. (West lives about an hour south of FL-18.) While I'm sure Wilkinson isn't capable of anything more than a token showing, what makes his potential entry interesting is that he's an independent, so if he makes the ballot, he'd almost certainly siphon votes away from West in the general.
• IA-03: Republican Rep. Tom Latham, fighting a member-vs.-member battle for re-election against Dem Rep. Leonard Boswell, is out with his first TV spot of the race, complaining about third-party spending in the race. Personally, I find ads whining about attacks others have made against you to be, well, pretty whiny. But I will note that PolitiFact's b.s. "Lie of the Year" crap puts in an appearance here. Still, when you're busy defending yourself, as Latham largely is here, that means you ain't on offense. You can watch the ad at the link or below:
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IL-02: What an incredibly weird quote from Dem Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.:
Jackson said in his own Q&A with reporters that he's moving past the ethics investigation and looks to Newt Gingrich's presidential race for inspiration that anything is possible.
“To those who say the upside is gone, I look at Newt Gingrich and I am motivated and inspired what I could become," Jackson said. "When I think about those who have tripped and stumbled and bounced back—we measure champions not by how quickly they get knocked down, but how quickly they get up. This too shall pass. This cloud shall pass.”
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MA-09: Former state Sen. Robert O'Leary, who ran against Bill Keating in the Democratic primary in the old 10th last cycle, says he won't try again this year. Keating narrowly edged O'Leary for the nomination in 2010, then went on to hold the seat (left open by Dem Rep. Bill Delahunt's retirement) by a slim margin in the general. Redistricting left Keating with a substantially redrawn seat, and the new turf would have been favorable to O'Leary, but he says he opted against a rematch because "the amount of money you need to run for Congress" is "out of control." Keating may yet face a primary challenge from Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter, who formed an exploratory committee last month.
• MD-06: There's no breaking news in Abby Livingston's detailed profile of GOP Rep. Roscoe Bartlett's attempt to hold on to his now-much-bluer seat this year, though there are a number of good tidbits that make the piece worth reading in full. Here are a couple I liked best:
A few years ago, a website chronicling "100 Things Younger Than Roscoe Bartlett" surfaced. Included among the items that came to be after the octogenarian Maryland Republican's birth are penicillin, Scotch tape, talkie movies, Fidel Castro and the "American Gothic" painting.
Also on the list: the car radio and Model A Ford.
But in the year 2012, the 85-year-old lawmaker drives a Toyota Prius and often gets his morning news on a staffer's iPad, not the radio, as he rides to work.
And this one:
Bartlett insists he is "not unattractive" to Democrats.
He cites his distaste for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the USA PATRIOT Act, military tribunals, the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, imprisonments, the No Child Left Behind Act and the 2008 bank bailouts. He describes himself as "the greenest Republican on Capitol Hill" and is quick to tout his Humane Society Legislative Fund endorsement.
But Bartlett is no liberal. He advocates the elimination of corporate tax rates, he is staunchly anti-abortion, and he is against same-sex marriage. When speaking of his date to the State of the Union, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), he said, "She's a very nice socialist."
•
MI-14: The big union endorsements for Rep. Gary Peters keep on rolling in: This time it's the United Auto Workers, who have good reason to be feeling pretty chuffed these days, given Detroit's impressive resurgence. (Speaking of which,
PPP polled that Clinton Eastwood Super Bowl ad and found Michigan voters had a widely favorable view of it, by a 56-13 margin.)
• NC-09: One more candidate has jumped into the GOP fray for retiring Rep. Sue Myrick's open seat, Charlotte City Councilman Andy Dulin. But as the Charlotte Observer reports, several more Republicans are still thinking about getting in, including another Charlotte city councilman, Edwin Peacock, as well as former state Sen. Robert Pittenger and state Rep. Ric Killian.
• NY-09: Hah! Assemblyman David Weprin, last seen losing in a stunning upset to Republican Bob Turner in last year's special election to replace Anthony Weiner, claims he hasn't ruled out another congressional bid. Pretty funny stuff!
• NY-22: Another shrimp on the barbie: Longtime Maurice Hinchey staffer Dan Lamb says he plans to run to fill his boss's seat, seeing as Hinchey is, of course, retiring. By my count, that's four Democrats who've said they're in the race, plus another two who are considering.
• NY-13: Awesome. Politicker's Colin Campbell nails freshman GOP Rep. Mike Grimm on a pretty dazzling bit of hypocrisy. Grimm's been busy touting a $3 million increase in funding for a Staten Island hospital, but what's amazing is that the extra money came from the Affordable Care Act—aka the Obama healthcare reform bill, which Grimm of course voted to repeal last year. Reminds me very much of all those Republican politicians who voted against the stimulus but were all too happy to hand out oversize checks at press conferences announcing stimulus grants for local projects. It also brings to mind a major blunder Grimm made almost the moment he took office, when in spit of his desire to repeal the healthcare bill, he said he'd nevertheless accept federally-provided health insurance, and offered this priceless "explanation":
"What am I, not supposed to have health care? It’s practicality. I’m not going to become a burden for the state because I don’t have health care and, God forbid, I get into an accident and I can’t afford the operation. … That can happen to anyone."
•
PA-12: I'm actually curious: In recent years, have we ever seen anyone who's released an internal poll showing them
trailing their opponent come back to win? I ask because Mark Critz just released one of those rare beasts, a survey from Global Strategy Group that has him down by a 47-37 margin to fellow Dem Rep. Jason Altmire. Critz says the race is "essentially tied" among voters "familiar with both candidates," and of course he has the lead after on an informed ballot. But one interesting thing his
polling memo notes is that "the profile of Altmire that was read to voters was the same profile Altmire used in his own poll and released to the press." (By the way, my colleague David Jarman reminds me that at least one answer to my own question is ID-01 GOP Rep.
Raul Labrador.)
• TX-16: The Campaign for Primary Accountability may be the strangest and most confused political group I've encountered in quite some time. Just last week, we saw CPA, a super PAC, touting a poll on behalf of freshman Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who is waging a battle in the Republican primary in IL-16 against veteran Rep. Don Manzullo. But they aren't only about electing Republicans. What they're really about is... well, I'm just not sure. This, however, is how Leo Linbeck, one of the group's founders and its biggest contributor (with over $775K in donations) describes things:
"I guess my major interest is in seeing if we can fix what seems to me to be our broken electoral system," Linbeck said. "In the primaries, the deck is stacked against the challenger. Very few people vote."
Although the Campaign for Primary Accountability's largest donors have supported Republican causes, including term limits and controlling earmarks, Linbeck insisted that it has no partisan agenda. The super PAC is focusing on long-term incumbents who, their polling indicates, have lost touch with their districts, he said. The races they choose are primaries where there is no significant opposition from the other party. The race also must have a viable challenger.
"We're supporting a Tea Partier (in Illinois) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (a liberal Ohio Democrat) in Cleveland," Linbeck said. "We want voters to have a choice and be more focused on their district."
And they apparently really mean it.
According to Dave Catanese, CPA's target list includes a bunch of Republicans (Spencer Bachus, Tim Johnson, Tim Murphy, Jean Schmidt, and the aforementioned Manzullo) as well as a host of Democrats (Bob Brady, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Eddie Bernice Johnson, and Marcy Kaptur, Kucinich's opponent).
So why is all this coming up now, and why am I filing this under TX-16? Well, CPA is also apparently planning to get behind former El Paso City Councilman Beto O'Rourke, who is running in the Democratic primary against Rep. Silvestre Reyes. O'Rourke has a reputation as a progressive reformer, lending further credence to the notion that CPA is indeed ideologically agnostic, but as the El Paso Times point out, O'Rourke's father-in-law donated $19K to the group. Of course, everyone involved is saying there's been no coordination.
On other detail the paper mentions is a poll they commissioned from the Reuel Group last September that we hadn't seen before; it had Reyes leading O'Rourke by a rather close 39-32 margin. If those numbers are accurate, then combined with O'Rourke's strong fundraising (he outraised Reyes last quarter) and this new super PAC's involvement, Reyes looks like he has a serious race on his hands.
Other Races:
• Special Elections: Two updates from Johnny Longtorso:
Oklahoma SD-46: Democrat Al McAffrey defeated Republican Jason Reese by a 67-33 margin, becoming the first openly gay member of the Oklahoma Senate. (This was ex-state Sen. Andrew Rice's seat.)
Oklahoma HD-01: Not all the votes are in as of this writing, but it was an easy win for Democrat Curtis McDaniel. He beat Republican Joe Silk by about a 61-28 margin (there were two independents I was not aware of, one of whom is the daughter of the late Rep. Rusty Farley), returning this seat to Democratic hands. Unfortunately, his victory doesn't put much of a dent in the Republican majority in the Oklahoma House.
But there's a good reason to feel optimistic about the win in HD-01. Not only was it a pickup for Democrats, according to the DLCC, this was just a 27% Obama district—and what's more, the seat is within OK-02, the seat being left open by Dem Rep. Dan Boren this year. While HD-01 only makes up a small part of the 2nd Congressional District, it's still a positive sign that Team Blue can still win tough but ancestrally Democratic turf.
What's more, there was also another big pickup in Maine SD-20 on Tuesday, where Democrat Chris Johnson beat Republican Dana Dow 54-46 in a major upset victory. Though Obama won about 54% of the vote here, this is sweet vindication for Johnson, who got killed running for this seat in 2010, 56-32. This win tightens the gap in the Senate, taking the chamber from 20 R, 14 D to 19-15 (with one independent).
Grab Bag:
• Pennsylvania: The Keystone State's congressional filing deadline was on Tuesday, and you can see a complete list of filers at the link. There were no last-minute surprises, and as before, it looks like the two best Democratic pickup opportunities in the House remain the 6th (where physician Manan Trivedi is seeking a rematch with Rep. Jim Gerlach) and the 8th (where attorney Kathy Boockvar is running against Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick).
• Utah: Hahah! Looks like the Utah state Senate is going to do its best to pretend that the 17th Amendment never happened.
• WATN?: Hey, get a load of the sack of crap that just emerged from his horse barn down by the river: Why, it's none other than disgraced Dem ex-Rep. Tim Mahoney, who amusingly offers his opinion that Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder will defeat Tea Party exemplar Allen West in the GOP primary in the new FL-18. That's the seat Mahoney more-or-less represented for a single term, until it came to light that he was registered to vote at, yes, a horse barn because his primary residence was actually outside the district... and then it was revealed that he paid a former mistress/staffer six figures in hush money... oh, and then he admitted to having "multiple" affairs. Hard to believe he lost, huh?
Redistricting Roundup:
• TX Redistricting: A settlement has been reached on Texas's state Senate map, and the main plaintiff in that part of the case, Dem state Sen. Wendy Davis, certainly sounds pleased. But the Senate lines were always the simplest part of the puzzle by far, seeing as the dispute was by-and-large limited to just Davis's district. Any agreement on the state House and congressional plans still seems quite distant. On account of that, any hope of an April primary now appears to have vanished, so Michael Li explains what other options are available.
• Redistricting: We've just posted Google Maps overlays for the new congressional plans in Kentucky, Rhode Island, and Virginia, and we've updated the map for Washington, where the legislature made some small last-minute tweaks. We've also added these four states to our patented redistribution chart (check out the tabs along the bottom). As a reminder, our complete suite of our redistricting resources is also linked on the sidebar. (David Nir & jeffmd)