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Senate:
• FL-Sen: I believe this is now the second poll we've seen of the Florida GOP Senate primary which shows just how little name rec all the players have. (Suffolk had something similar last month.) Anyhow, Republican-affiliated pollster Sunshine State Communications shows the hapless Mike Haridopolos leading (if you can call it that) with 11%, while George LeMieux has 9, military veteran Mike McCalister at 4, and Adam Hasner gets the goose egg.
• KY-Sen: If you were following the primary results on Tuesday night, you may have caught wind of Alison Lundergan Grimes' 55-45 upset victory over appointed incumbent Secretary of State Elaine Walker. We're slotting her into a KY-Sen item, though, because a Politico piece last week suggested that Grimes, only 32, could conceivably challenge Mitch McConnell in 2014.
Amusingly, columnist Al Cross had told Politico that "McConnell will be making sure Republicans don’t allow them to run in the clear" (referring, among others, to Grimes)… but evidently Mitch's powers are weak indeed. Grimes will likely face off against teabagging businessman Bill Johnson, who appears to have staged an upset of his own, narrowly beating establishment candidate Hilda Legg. Legg had outraised Johnson — who pulled in only $24K — by 6-to-1. Grimes, meanwhile, has raised $380K, and I think you'll like her. She calls herself a "progressive," and on a key issue in her race, voter ID, she says she wants to run against “building up barriers to the ballot box, but [rather] breaking them down.”
• MA-Sen: Scott Brown is, unsurprisingly, trying to squirm away from his statement the other day that he "will vote for" the Ryan budget. Now's he's refusing to repeat those remarks, and this (from a spokesman) is lulzy:
Reed said that Brown’s comments in Newburyport were merely an observation of political gamesmanship in Washington, not a commitment to vote for the measure or for the politically charged measures within it.
Is Brown pulling a Jon Kyl — his original remarks were not intended to be a factual statement? Or perhaps he'd just wants everyone to know he was for it before he was against it.
Gubernatorial:
• KY-Gov: Tuesday's Republican gubernatorial primary went about as well for Democrats as you could hope for: the weakest candidate won, in just about the weakest way possible. State Senate President David Williams, laden by all sorts of baggage, eked out a 48-38 plurality win over underfunded teabagger Phil Moffett, who would at least have had the advantage of being a blank slate. Moffett endorsed Williams, but said his supporters "aren't people that get lead around. If I told them they needed to follow me, they'd tell me to go pound sand."
Meanwhile, Dem Gov. Steve Beshear is tanned, rested, and ready to kick some ass in the general election. He just bought $90,000 worth of ad time in several cable TV markets — unusually, we know the size of the buy, but don't have a copy of the ad! It'll apparently be out on Monday.
• NJ-Gov: Monmouth finds Chris Christie with 46-49 job approvals among registered voters. He was at 49-41 in February.
• OH-Gov: Meanwhile, John Kasich's approvals actually moved up in the latest Q poll: from 30-46 in March to 38-49 today. Of course, since it's Quinnipiac, they don't release their sample composition.
House:
• MO-02: Former state GOP chair Ann Wagner's been telegraphing this one for so long, she's actually using Samuel Morse's original equipment, but anyhow, she officially entered the Republican clown car in a bid to replace Rep. Todd Akin, who is now running for Senate.
• ND-AL: Perennial GOP candidate Duane Sand says that he will indeed drop down from the open Senate race to the open House race. I knew you were worried!
• NV-02: Former GOP Rep. Barbara Vucanovich, who represented the 2nd for seven terms in the 80s and 90s, says she's backing Navy vet Kirk Lippold in the special election.
• NY-03: LOL! Long Island Republican Rep. Peter King emailed supporters to say that "the Nassau County GOP feels that I should run for President." I think he should, too!
Other Races:
• Jacksonville, FL Mayor: Another very interesting result from Tuesday night was the Jacksonville mayoral race, where Democrat and former Bill Clinton aide Alvin Brown has defeated Republican Mike Hogan in one of the most conservative major cities in America. Indeed, the last time a Dem won the job was twenty years ago. After clinging to a narrow 585-vote lead on election night, the FL Dem Party tweeted yesterday that Brown won by 1,536 votes after absentees and provisionals had been counted, which means there won't be a recount. Anyhow, this is really nice win, and also some serious egg on the face of the Florida GOP, who had expected to win "handily" and even sent Marco Rubio in to take a premature victory lap with Hogan. Oops.
• Special elections: Johnny Longtorso:
In New Hampshire's Hillsborough District 4, Jennifer Daler picked up a seat for the Democrats with her 58-42 victory over Peter Kucmas. This has to be a bit of an embarrassment to Republican Speaker William O'Brien, who also represents this district and campaigned for Kucmas.
Johnny had previously noted to me:
The district is one of many in New Hampshire that is prone to wild swings: it elected 3 Republicans and 1 Democrat in 2004, 3 Democrats and 1 Republican in 2006, 3 Republicans and 1 Democrat in 2008, and 4 Republicans in 2010.
James Pindell further says that this seat "is in the 16th most Republican House District out of the 103 districts statewide." And Dean Baker adds that state Republicans are engaged in hot recriminations over how this happened and who to blame for it. A seemingly small race, but perhaps also a big deal.
Redistricting Roundup:
• Indiana: I'm sort of surprised that this didn't get more play before the GOP-held legislature passed its new congressional map, but there's one Republican who feels left out in the cold: freshman Rep. Todd Rokita, whose home is now 500 yards outside of his 4th CD. I don't know why Rokita waited until now to grouse about it, but he claims that state lawmakers are punishing him for his support of non-partisan redistricting during his tenure. One legislator denies this, and I dunno – it's not like getting shifted a quarter mile outside your district constitutes being shafted.
• Minnesota: The Republican-held legislature passed its new congressional and legislative maps on Tuesday, but this kabuki cartography will soon come to an end via Dem Gov. Mark Dayton's veto pen. As an aside, props to Democrats in both the House and Senate, who voted in lockstep against the GOP plans. Rule number zero of redistricting is that you never vote for the other side's gerrymander. Virginia Democrats could learn a thing or two from their counterparts in Minnesota.
• Nebraska: A few minor tweaks were made to the GOP's congressional redistricting plan, but the most important aspect remains: the redder western parts of Sarpy County will get added to the Omaha-based 2nd CD, while the bluer eastern chunk will join the 1st CD.
• Texas: The state Senate approved a new map for itself, though some Democrats are convinced that it violates the Voting Rights Act. Sadly, all but two Dems voted in favor of the final plan.
• Utah: A group called the Utah Citizens Council, which counts among its members former GOP Gov. Olene Smith Walker, has put out four maps of possible federal redistricting scenarios.
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