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Senate:
• HI-Sen, HI-01: Good news for progressives: Rep. Colleen Hanabusa will seek re-election to the House, rather than run for Senate. That means we're less likely to see a situation where the left-leaning vote gets split in the Democratic Senate primary, handing a plurality win to conservaDem Ed Case.
• HI-Sen, HI-01: Republican ex-LG Duke Aiona previously said he wouldn't run for the open seat in HI-02; now he's confirming that he won't run for Congress at all next year, so that takes HI-01 and HI-Sen off the table as well.
• MA-Sen: Busted! A top aide to Scott Brown was just exposed as the man behind a mock Twitter account ("@CrazyKhazei") devoted to attacking the Democratic Senate candidates lined up to take on Brown (including, of course, Alan Khazei). Eric Ferhnstrom posted a tweet (since deleted) clearly intended for the @CrazyKhazei account to his personal stream. Oops! Click the link for Laura Clawson's full post at Daily Kos.
• MA-Sen: Local city officials from some random town issuing endorsements in a statewide Senate race usually isn't something I'd remark on, except in this case, the town in question is not quite so random. A handful of electeds from Newton, MA have thrown their backing to Alan Khazei, rather than their own mayor, Setti Warren.
• MA-Sen: Elizabeth Warren, though still in the "exploratory" phase, just received the endorsement of the 23,000-strong Massachusetts Nurses Association, the first labor union to back her.
• TX-Sen: Not sure what his angle would be in the GOP primary, but Rep. Mike McCaul is reportedly looking at a Senate bid, and when asked directly if he was, didn't rule it out. I'll remind folks, though, that McCaul thought about a statewide race last cycle as well (for Attorney General), but abandoned the idea early on.
• UT-Sen: State Sen. Dan Liljenquist, the great teabagger hope to knock off Sen. Orrin Hatch now that Rep. Jason Chaffetz has declined, confirms he's considering the race and will decide "later this fall." Liljenquist has always claimed Chaffetz's plans would have no effect on his own, but I have to imagine the pressure is on.
Gubernatorial:
• LA-Gov: Despite having little in the way of an opponent, GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal is back on the air with a new ad (watch it here). Term-limited Dem state Sen. Rob Marionneaux, pretty much our last and only hope, says he's waiting on the results of a poll before making a decision. I'm not sure how competitive he can be, though, with barely two months left before election day and with Jindal sitting on close to $9 million in cash.
• MS-Gov: Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny Dupree won last night's Democratic gubernatorial runoff against businessman Bill Luckett by a 55-45 margin. Dupree became the first African American in modern history to win a major party nomination for governor in Mississippi. The Democratic race was almost entirely free of negative attacks, and Luckett immediately endorsed Dupree, who will go on to face Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant in the fall.
• WV-Gov: Dem Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin is up with his first ad of the general election, touting his record on job creation and cutting taxes. You can watch the ad at the link.
House:
• FL-22, FL-25: DFA is launching a 60-second ad accusing Republicans of “killing the American Dream and failing to create jobs.” According to Politico, it will air nationally on the Sunday talk shows and in the districts of Republican freshmen David Rivera and Allen West. You can watch the ad here.
• NY-25: Excellent news! Dem ex-Rep. Dan Maffei will seek a rematch against GOP frosh Ann Marie Buerkle. Click the link for the full post at Daily Kos Elections.
• NV-02: The NRCC just dumped another $115K on TV ads in the Nevada special election, which surely has to mean they don’t think they have it locked up, right? Still nothing from the DCCC.
• NY-09: Amazingly, Republican Bob Turner said he doesn't think volunteers sickened at Ground Zero should be covered by the new James Zadroga healthcare law. Click the link for full details on this outrage at Daily Kos Elections.
• NY-13: According to the New York Observer's Azi Paybarah, the DCCC is talking to Mark Murphy, an aide to NYC Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, about a run in the 13th CD. There's some more background here on Murphy, who comes from a well-connected family: His father is former Rep. John Murphy, who represented Staten Island for almost two decades before losing re-election in 1980 thanks to getting indicted in the Abscam scandal.
• OH-09: Sounds to me just like attention-grabbing b.s. he learned from his mentor, Sarah Palin: Joe Wurzelbacher (aka "Joe the Plumber") says he's considering a run against veteran Dem Rep. Marcy Kaptur. Thing is, he said the same thing just before last cycle, too. So I wouldn't be surprised if this is merely a way for him to get his name back out there to help land a few more speaking gigs.
Grab Bag:
• IA-Pres, WI-Pres: New swing states, same story. Despite being unpopular in both Iowa and Wisconsin, Barack Obama has double-digit leads on the entire GOP field, except for Mitt Romney in WI (whom he leads 47-42).
• NH GOP: This is a pretty crazy story, if true. Jack Kimball, installed as chair of the New Hampshire GOP on the strength of a teabagger-led insurgency earlier this year, is claiming that the Republican Governors Association offered his state party organization $100,000 if Kimball would step down. Kimball says that state House Speaker William O'Brien made the offer on behalf of the RGA — and O'Brien is refusing to comment. National Republicans have been unhappy with Kimball, who has presided over weak fundraising and seen two GOP-held state House seats flip to the Democrats in special elections during his short tenure.
• Zuh???: I have no idea what this means, or even what to file it under, but this is just pretty astonishing. Can anyone explain this? It's nuts.
Redistricting Roundup:
• OH Redistricting: Odd: The latest rumor du jour has Republicans Steve Austria and Mike Turner getting sandwiched together as Ohio goes through the painful process of losing two seats in Congress. Austria, a sophomore, represents the current 7th CD while Turner, first elected in 2002, serves in the 3rd.