The big headline in politics today might be the failure of a certain Senator to keep his zipper in the upright and locked position. But that’s not ALL the news in the political world today, so let’s polish off the rest of the day in electoral politics.
NATIONAL: Lots of House Race Updates and Prospective New Candidates
Courtesy of great sources like Swing State Project and DC’s Political Report, there are over a half-dozen new candidates or prospective candidate for competitive House races in 2010. The Democratic field in AL-07 to replace outgoing Congressman Artur Davis got a little bit bigger with the entrance of Jefferson County Councilwoman Sheila Smoot. She joins a raft of Democrats, including Earl Hilliard Jr, son of the longtime Congressman from the 7th. In CA-03, there is a rapidly expanding Democratic field to take on Dan Lungren, who underperformed in this reddish district last year, getting under 50% of the vote. New to the race is Bill Slaton, a Sacramento-area utilities director. Meanwhile, down the interstate in CA-11, we see the first signs of a serious challenger for sophomore Democrat Jerry McNerney. Warren Rupf, the Republican sheriff of Contra Costa County, is rumored to be interested. There had been speculation that he would jump into the open race in the neighboring 10th district. That district, though, is much less hospitable to Republicans than the 11th district, which includes some inland precincts that are a little more red. Across the country in FL-08, Republican state Rep. Steve Precourt sounds like a guy whose mind has made up, though he apparently would step aside for former FL Speaker Dan Webster (who is still flirting with the idea of running for governor, at last check). It looks like freshman Democrat Walt Minnick has drawn a serious challenger in ID-01, as GOP state Rep. Ken Roberts (the state House majority leader) is looking like he’s in. Democrats have their eye on a challenger for Lee Terry in NE-02, but it is unclear yet if their entreaties towards state Senator Tom White will pay off. This is a winnable district, carried narrowly by Barack Obama in 2008 and the home of two excellent challenges in ’06 and ’08 by Democrat Jim Esch. Even though he is not an NRCC target according to yesterday’s report in SSP, freshman Democrat John Boccieri seems to have a potentially legit opponent in OH-16. Former county commissioner Matt Miller, who narrowly lost GOP primaries here in both 2006 and 2008, is talking to folks around the district. He has not yet announced, however. Finally, something unusual in the great Northwest—despite the fact that it has been over a decade since Democrat Adam Smith has had to sweat in WA-09, a trio of GOP contenders now appear likely to make the bid. In addition to 2008 nominee James Postma (who Smith dispatched with ease), county commissioner Dick Muri and state Rep. Tom Campbell both appear interested as well.
AR-SEN: New GOP Challenger Presents Dilemma For "Base Voters"
Let’s assume that the Arkansas Republican Party would kill for a prominent candidate with a normal backstory at this point. After already getting a little bad press courtesy of their first major candidate (Kim Hendren, who dismissively referred to Sen. Charles Schumer as "That Jew"), their new candidate in the field will both thrill and appall the GOP base. Boat manufacturer Tom Cox announced yesterday that he will make the race. On the plus side (from the perspective of the Republican base, mind you), he is not only a teabagger, he is the HEAD of the Arkansas teabaggers. On the minus side? A small matter of a federal raid on his business in 2008, whereupon over a dozen employees were discovered to be illegal immigrants. Alas, that crucial Teabagger-Minuteman nexus is just not to be in this candidate...
KY-SEN: Grayson Off To Inauspicious Start
While Hotline on Call reports that GOP secretary of State Trey Grayson looks likely to be in the Senate 2010 race with OR without a Bunning retirement, KYPolitics tells us that he is not off to the smoothest start. Among the early headaches—a poorly attended fundraiser (double digits, and not even HIGH double digits) and the fact that potential candidate David Williams declined to run, but when pressed for a favored candidate, Grayson’s name did NOT come up. Instead, former U.S. Ambassador Cathy Bailey was Williams’ challenger of choice.
MO-SEN: A Competitive Primary After All?
This is somewhat strange. A day after it appeared that Missouri state Treasurer Sarah Steelman was walking away from a Senate bid, thus clearing the field for Roy Blunt, Steelman felt the need to clarify in a very interesting, and somewhat defiant, manner. Don't count her out of the GOP Senate primary just yet, apparently.
NV-GOV: Gibbons About To Land Top-Flight GOP Challenger?
The Reno Gazette-Journal reports that Reno Mayor Bob Cashell is going to decide within the next couple of weeks whether or not to challenge Governor Jim Gibbons in a Republican primary. Gibbons has had a brutal tenure as Nevada’s governor, and his poll numbers are junk. But Cashell could have one liability in the GOP primary—he was among the dozens of high-profile Republican endorsers of Democrat Harry Reid’s 2010 re-election campaign.
NV-SEN: Ensign Resignation Unlikely, Predicts Nate Silver
No, he did not whip out the TI-83 and make some incredible mathematical projections to arrive at this conclusion, but Nate Silver looks at the politics of the situation and concludes that despite his past sanctimony on matters marital (calling for Larry Craig’s and Bill Clinton’s resignation, for example), it is unlikely that John Ensign will fall on his sword in the wake of his revelation earlier today that he had an extended affair with the wife of one of his staffers. Definitely worth a read.
NY-03: Boy, Obama Really WAS Trying to Run The Tables for Dems in New York!
If you don’t think Barack Obama keeps an eye on political considerations when he makes appointments, consider this story: the New York Daily News reports that, a few months back, Barack Obama attempted to lure pugnacious Long Island Republican Congressman Peter King out of his House seat (and, presumably, out of any consideration for the U.S. Senate in 2010). His fruit of temptation? The ambassadorship to Ireland. King, perhaps surprisingly, given his close ties to Ireland and Northern Ireland, rebuffed the offer, according to the report.
VA-GOV: New (Internal) Poll, Plus Some Rothenberg Lessons Learned
The Democratic Governors Association decided to take the temperature on the VA-Governors race this week, and their first poll of the general election finds Creigh Deeds leading GOP nominee Bob McDonnell by four points (42-38). A big caveat, as always, with internal polls—it ain’t like the DGA doesn’t have a rooting interest. That said, and to their credit, this poll falls in line pretty well with the Rasmussen poll released last week. It is also worth noting that the Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll out of the Commonwealth should be on your screens at some point during this week, so stay tuned. We also are checking out Hawaii, given some movement in the governors race there in the past few weeks.
Back in Virginia, here is a fairly decent post-mortem from Stuart Rothenberg, with some intriguing lessons from the Democratic primary there (especially on money).