To receive the Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest via email each weekday, sign up here.
Senate:
• CT-Sen: I'm telling you, if it winds up being Shays vs. McMahon, I'm going to enjoy this primary. Just a day after Roll Call reported that Chris Shays was preparing to seek the GOP senate nomination, Greenwich Time says Linda McMahon is staffing up for a second run and has hired a campaign manager. (The dude in question initially said he was in fact working for McMahon, but clearly he cracked out of turn, because he later said he was just a "consultant" who had "talked to" McMahon.) Anyhow, this ought to be fun!
• HI-Sen: A lengthy and very interesting piece by Adrienne LaFrance in Honolulu Civil Beat eviscerates a really misleading op-ed in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser which suggested Dem Sen. Dan Akaka was in failing health and that he ought to resign before his term is up next year. Akaka says he has no intention of stepping down early, and LaFrance's direct observations of the senator indicate he is active and hale.
• MA-Sen: The Hill says that Elizabeth Warren "is looking to make a decision after Labor Day on whether to challenge Sen. Scott Brown" and also notes that she put up a post yesterday on Blue Mass Group on the occasion of her return to Massachusetts from Washington, DC.
Gubernatorial:
• CO-Gov: PPP has some Colorado miscellany. The highlight: Newly-elected Dem Gov. John Hickenlooper is quite popular — his 54-24 approvals are third-best among governors PPP has tested.
• KY-Gov: Well, this sure is odd. Two campaign managers for two Republican off-year gubernatorial elections leaving on the same day? The CM for David Williams in Kentucky is also quitting (after only being on the job since May), and in the campaign's statement on the change, they make no mention of a new hire taking his place. There are also a lot of rumors flying about that other Williams staffers have been laid off due to financial pressures. Anyhow, this comes on the heels of Bill Maloney's campaign manager bailing in the WV-Gov race (see bullet below).
• MO-Gov: GOP Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder finally released his first public statement in response to allegations that surfaced Tuesday from a former stripper who says Kinder took an unhealthy level of interest in her and mistreated her:
Like most people I am not proud of every place I have been but this woman's bizarre story is not true. The Democrats have tried to use these tactics against me in the past and they have failed. Jay Nixon may want to make up false stories about the past, but I, like most Missourians, remain focused on the issues that are important to Missourians like jobs and education. Under Jay Nixon’s leadership, Missouri ranked third-worst in terms of jobs losses in 2010 and nearly 50,000 fewer Missourians are employed now than when Jay Nixon took office. Today, Missouri’s unemployment is 8.8%, we are being out-performed by all but three of the states that border Missouri and more than 269,000 Missourians cannot find work. Our schools are failing, our families are hurting and I will remain focused on talking about the issues that will move Missouri forward.
Has this kind of pivot ever worked in the history of campaign politics? I mean, I guess there's nothing else for Kinder to say, but really, does he think this will get the media to drop the story?
• WV-Gov: Republican nominee Bill Maloney's campaign manager is leaving just two months before election day — but you know how I feel about these sort of tea leaves. The CM says a family member is ill, and that may well be the reason. What I haven't seen in any media reports, though, is an indication that there's a new chief ready to step in in his place. Of course, if there truly is a family crisis, then it's just not possible to pre-plan some kind of orderly transition, so I wouldn't read much into this.
• WA-Gov: According to Sean Sullivan at the Hotline, Dem Jay Inslee raised over $600K for his gubernatorial bid in July, which looks like he's taken in about $1.1 mil so far. (This includes a $200K direct infusion from the state Democratic Party.) Republican Rob McKenna pulled in $340K in July (about $1 million to date) and has $660K in the bank. Not clear yet how much Inslee has in his warchest.
House:
• AR-02: Well, this is just gross. GOP freshman Tim Griffin handed out what he termed a "watch list" to town hall attendees that featured a dossier on six activists from Florida who had attended some town halls held by their own congressman, Daniel Webster. The whole thing is very ugly and is designed to "insinuates that these Florida constituents are professional political operatives." In something out of the McCarthy era, the pamphlet exhorts the media to ask one of the Floridians:
"Are you or have you ever been, a leader, or a member, or a supporter of OrganizeNow.org, OrganizeFlorida.org, or Moveon.org (sic) or any other Progressive Left group?"
• CA-31, CA-35: A couple of tidbits in Aaron Blake's take on the musical chairs prompted by California's new maps are new to us. First is that Dem Rep. Joe Baca, who represents the old 43rd but now lives in the new 31st, may instead run in the open (and heavily Hispanic) 35th. That could give GOPer David Dreier (old: 26, lives in: 32) an opening to run in the 31st instead. Dreier could also run in the new 26th, if fellow Republican Elton Gallegly decides to run elsewhere (or finally follow through on retiring). Aaron also speculates that Baca's son, former Assemblyman Joe Baca, Jr., could run in whichever seat pops decides to pass on.
• NV-02: Dem Kate Marshall's newest ad does exactly what I've been hoping for, and that is focus exclusively on her Mark Amodei's praise for the Ryan plan. It's not the greatest ad ever, in my opinion, but it sticks to exactly one clear message, where the dividing lines between the parties could not be sharper. Check it out:
•
NY-09: A great post from Colin Campbell, who obtained additional cross-tabs from Siena's recent poll. (And props to Siena for generating the extra numbers.) Colin wanted to see how Jewish voters (who constituted 29% of the sample) broke down at a more granular level, to better gauge what proportion might be gettable for Republican Bob Turner, especially if Israel does wind up being a big issue here. Under what are probably the most optimistic projections, it looks like Turner could conceivably reach about half, so we're talking maybe 14-15% of the electorate overall. Democrat David Weprin led by only six, so that's considerable.
Meanwhile, Turner is out with his first ad, and oof it's a nasty piece of work. No word on the size of the buy, though I'd be it's small — but the ad's vile nature ought to get Turner the buzz he's undoubtedly hoping for. Have a look yourself. (They've disabled embedding, so you'll have to click through.)
• OR-01: Paraphrasing what appears to be a truly botched AP piece, state Rep. Katie Eyre Brewer says she won't seek the GOP nomination in the special election to replace David Wu. Meanwhile, EMILY's List just gave their endorsement to state Sen. Suzanne Bonamici in the Democratic primary.
• WA-03: Well, that's one way to get your name out there: Vancouver, WA Mayor Tim Leavitt posted a cryptic three-word tweet that said nothing more than "Leavitt for Congress?" (with that question mark). It apparently caught the local political world off-guard, since Leavitt, a Democrat, hadn't ever publicly said he was interested in running. But as Andrea Damewood of the Vancouver Columbian notes, he's been publicly feuding with GOP frosh Jaime Herrera Beutler over local transit issues.
• WI-02: Dem state Sen. Jon Erpenbach, whose name had come up previously, says he "probably will" run for Rep. Tammy Baldwin's House seat, assuming she announces for the Senate after the final round of recalls are complete on Tuesday. Erpenbach expects Baldwin to pull the trigger soon and is currently in DC "putting together a campaign team" of his own, according to Dave Catanese.
Grab Bag:
• Oregon: 2010 Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Dudley on whether he'll run for office again: "I don't know. It's a tough, tough deal on the family. Look, I'm going to be involved. But whether we actually run or not — it's hard to know." Local GOPers want him to run for OR-05 or the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners, but he's already turned down the former.
• WI-St. Sen.: Not like there was much doubt, but GOP state Sen. Dale Schultz affirmed he would not switch parties, saying: "I’m a life-long Republican, proud of our roots, and I plan to stay a Republican."
Redistricting Roundup:
• MI Redistricting: Ian Kullgren of Michigan State University's The State News says that that "[t]he Michigan Legislative Black Caucus already is planning to form a court challenge" to the state's new redistricting maps, both federal and legislative, which Gov. Rick Snyder recently signed into law.
• WI Redistricting: Sort of like Boris Yeltsin resigning on New Year's Eve 1999, Scott Walker signed his state's new redistricting plans into law on Tuesday — i.e., recall day — which is why we're only getting around to mentioning it now.