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Leading Off:
• WV-Sen: Local analyst Hoppy Kerchaval reported on Friday that Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, who has been considering a Senate bid ever since Sen. Jay Rockefeller announce his retirement, will indeed run next year. Shortly afterward, the Washington Post confirmed Kerchaval's tweet with a report of their own saying that Tennant will announce Tuesday, though like Kerchaval, they're relying on unnamed sources.
Pretty much ever other notable Democrat in West Virginia has declined to run, so Tennant would constitute a pretty good get, all things considered. However, she brings some negatives with her. For one, she is one of the more liberal politicians in the state, though in fairness, she won re-election last year with 62 percent of the vote. For another, she did not fare well the last time she sought a promotion, finishing third in the special gubernatorial primary in 2011 with just 17 percent. However, Tennant could probably attract national money to her cause, seeing as EMILY's List endorsed her when she ran for governor.
Senate:
• AZ-Sen: Not like it's any surprise, but not like you can book it either, Republican Sen. John McCain said in a Thursday interview that this term will "probably" be his last in office. Given that McCain would turn 80 in 2016, when he's next up for re-election, a retirement certainly seems like a distinct possibility. But senators, of course, often hang on forever, and McCain may be enjoying his newfound relevance after he punked Mitch McConnell with his recent filibuster deal with Democrats. An open seat, though, would be a great pickup opportunity for Team Blue, especially if 2012 nominee Richard Carmona ran again.
• KS-Sen: Physician Milton Wolf is reportedly weighing a challenge to veteran Sen. Pat Roberts in the GOP primary, but it seems like his only claim to fame is that he happens to be a distant cousin of Barack Obama's. (One of the president's great-great-grandfathers on his mother's side is also a great-grandfather of Wolf's.) Wolf has apparently capitalized on that slim connection to make a name for himself in wingnut circles, but it's far from clear he has the money, connections, or chops to take down a sitting senator.
Gubernatorial:
• MI-Gov: First-term GOP Gov. Rick Snyder has remained oddly foot-draggy about his electoral intentions, and now he says he probably won't announce whether he'll seek re-election until "early next year," in the phrasing of the Detroit Free Press.
• NJ-Gov: Rasmussen Reports: Gov. Chris Christie (R): 58, Barbara Buono (D): 32.
House:
• AL-01: We've got FEC filings in the Republican primary, which is where all the action will be in the special election to replace Rep. Jo Bonner in the Mobile-area 1st District. Atop the list is perhaps the most establishment-flavored candidate, ex-state Sen. Bradley Byrne (who lost the 2010 gubernatorial primary in a bit of an upset), who raised $241,000 since the start of July and has $184,000 cash-on-hand. Former RNC staffer Wells Griffith follows at $162,000 raised, then columnist Quin Hillyer at $151,000, state Rep. Chad Fincher at $56,000, and Dean Young (elevated slightly from Some Dude status thanks to his run against Bonner in a 2012 primary) at $34,000.
Byrne and Griffith have already run TV spots, while Fincher had one run on his behalf by outside conservative group GOPAC. Hillyer apparently won't appear on TV in the remaining weeks until the Sep. 24 primary, but at least he has a radio ad (with a $25,000 buy) behind him now, paid for by the good people at Citizens United. The 30-second spot features Hillyer's biggest-name endorser: Rick Santorum. (David Jarman)
• CT-04: State Rep. John Shaban, who sounded rather hesitant about a congressional run back in July, has nevertheless decided to challenge Dem Rep. Jim Himes next year. Shaban is actually the second Republican to enter the race. Former state Sen. Dan Debicella also recently announced a bid, which would be his second attempt at unseating Himes. Debicella lost 53-47 in the GOP wave year of 2010, and since then, Republicans haven't gone after Himes with much conviction.
• IA-01: State Rep. Walt Rogers says he's forming an exploratory committee to look at a bid for Iowa's open 1st District; if he decides to go through with it, he'd be the third Republican in the race, along with businessmen Rod Blum and Steve Rathje.
The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier describes Rogers as a "pro-life conservative" whose chief issues, oddly enough, have been curbing red-light cameras and shepherding legislation for a new state insurance program for low-income individuals that served as an alternative to accepting a straight-up expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare. That program represented a big compromise between Republicans and Democrats, which probably means it's the sort of thing that could hurt Rogers with movement conservatives in a GOP primary.
Other Races:
• CO Recall: The Atlas Project offers a numbers-heavy post-mortem of the two Colorado recall elections last week, but the bottom line remains clear: Democrats were hurt by a falloff in turnout, and by the near-elimination of mail ballots, which have favored Democrats in the past.
• NYC Mayor: Despite the fact that many of his most powerful allies have gone over to Bill de Blasio, who presently sits at 40.33 percent of the vote with 99 percent of precincts reporting, Democratic primary runner-up Bill Thompson insists he won't drop out of the race until all votes are counted. There are reportedly some 80,000 ballots outstanding citywide, which includes both absentees and provisionals. De Blasio would need to win a little more than 37 percent of that batch to remain over the 40 percent mark. However, some of those ballots will get tossed as invalid, so de Blasio actually needs even less than that to avoid a runoff.
Meanwhile, outgoing Mayor Mike Bloomberg says he won't endorse any candidate in the general election, which means he won't endorse Republican nominee Joe Lhota. (Dude called de Blasio's campaign "racist" just a week ago and thinks he'll send the city into some kind "Escape from New York" dystopia.)
That has to be seen as a blow to Lhota, who previously made it pretty clear that he'd seek Bloomberg's endorsement after the primary. However, there's undoubtedly serious Bloomberg fatigue here after the mayor's 12-year reign, so there's probably at least a bit of truth to Lhota's attempt to put a positive spin on this by saying that he didn't want to be "pigeonhole[d]" as "an extension of Bloomberg" (or Rudy Giuliani, the other Republican mayor he served under).
Grab Bag:
• Demographics: Today's cool bit of data visualization comes from the Census Bureau, which has turned the nation's age and gender composition over the last century into an animation. The best part is watching the bulge from the Baby Boom generation pass through the century's midsection, much like watching a snake digest a rat. (David Jarman)