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8:17 AM PT: NC-04/NC-13: In some very disappointing news, Democratic Rep. Brad Miller, a strong progressive and a great friend to the netroots, has announced that he'll retire rather than continue his primary battle with fellow Dem Rep. David Price. Click the link for our full post at Daily Kos Elections.
8:39 AM PT: NC-Gov: Well, that's two North Carolina Dems announcing their retirements in one day: Gov. Bev Perdue says she, too, will not seek re-election. Click the link for our full post at Daily Kos Elections, including one last look at Perdue's perpetually abysmal poll numbers. Here's an idea, though: Brad Miller for governor?
9:33 AM PT (David Jarman): MO-02, MO-AG: I'll give GOPer Ed Martin credit for one thing: he knows how to cast a wide net. Martin, you may remember, beat expectations in losing to Russ Carnahan in old MO-03 in 2010, then almost immediately started running for the GOP Senate '12 nomination. With Rep. Todd Akin's entry into the GOP field, though, Martin dropped down to running in MO-02, left open by Akin, but then found himself getting bigfooted again, this time by the more establishment-flavored ex-RNC vice-chair Ann Wagner, who's been dominating Martin on the fundraising front. After briefly exploring getting into the gubernatorial race post-Kinder-blowup (but then getting bigfooted yet again, this time by rich guy Dave Spence), it looks like today he's finally found a niche that he can keep. He's now running for Attorney General, and he actually got some establishment endorsements behind him this time. He'll take on Democratic incumbent Chris Koster.
9:45 AM PT (David Jarman): AZ-04: One of the strangest choices we've seen all cycle was the decision by Republican freshman Paul Gosar, post-redistricting, to walk away from the Republican-leaning district that he represents and that he lives in, to run in a more safely-Republican district to its south. (Not that we're complaining... that instantly elevated Democratic ex-Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick's chances of taking back AZ-01.) After all, only a minority of his constituents are in the new 4th, and there's already a strong GOPer running there, in the form of Pinal Co. Sheriff Paul Babeu (of "complete the dang fence" fame, and something of a rock star in right-wing nativist circles). With a poll out today, it's clear what Gosar has gotten himself into. A new Babeu internal (taken by POS) shows Babeu significantly ahead of Gosar, 31-23, with 19 for state Sen. Ron Gould. (Gosar's brief tenure has been most distinguished by constant staff turnover, suggesting he's either not getting good advice or just incapable of heeding it.)
9:55 AM PT (David Jarman): ID redistricting: Considering that Republicans control all the levels of power in Idaho, it seems like a total waste of time and effort for them to devolve into a frenzy of Jan Brewer-style power-playing over their legislative map (and note that it's just their legislative map, too... in a state where they're in absolutely no danger of losing control of the legislature). But that's exactly what they've been doing, with the state's GOP party chair and House Speaker first trying to sack two members of their redistricting commission for being insufficiently compliant, and then suing the state's Republican SoS for not doing the firing for them. Well, that all appears to have petered out, with the Idaho Supreme Court stepping in yesterday, siding with the SoS and thus the commissioners, who apparently get to keep their jobs (and who now have to redraw the map according to Supreme Court specifications, seeing as how the old map split too many counties).
10:39 AM PT: IA-03: Thanks to reader JL, here's a link to the House Majority PAC ad attacking Republican Rep. Tom Latham, who faces an incumbent-vs.-incumbent matchup against Dem Rep. Leonard Boswell. For some odd reason, HMP has placed the spot in that YouTube limbo which comes with the warning banner: "This video is unlisted. Only those with the link can see it." Why do this? Don't you want maximum exposure for your content? And in the case of HMP, they certainly post lots of other stuff to their account, so why make this one hard to find? In any event, I actually find this spot somewhat amusing:
10:43 AM PT: TN Redistricting: Add Tennessee to the list of states which have completed their congressional redistricting process: Republican Gov. Bill Haslam signed the new maps into law on Thursday, Jan. 26.
10:50 AM PT: ME Init: Excellent news: Activists in Maine announced on Thursday that they intend to put a referendum allowing same-sex marriage on the ballot this November. Organizers collected 100,000 signatures, almost double the number necessary. You'll recall, of course, that the state legislature passed a law approving gay marriage in May of 2009, but it was overturned at the ballot box that fall. If this effort is successful, Maine would be the first state to establish marriage equality by a popular vote.
10:58 AM PT: MI Redistricting: Michigan's new maps have finally succeeded in gaining preclearance (the process was delayed because the state insisted on taking the matter to court), though there's still an NAACP-led lawsuit pending against the state House plan.
11:12 AM PT: NC-Gov: With Gov. Bev Perdue announcing that she wouldn't seek re-election on Tuesday, the hunt is on for a Democratic replacement. State AG Roy Cooper immediately said no, and ex-Gov. Jim Hunt, now 74 years old, has apparently also communicated that he has no desire to return to office. Meanwhile, state Rep. Dan Blue isn't ruling out a bid, and the Great Mentioner is of course talking about a whole bunch of potential names (The Fix discusses some of them):
• State Treasurer Janet Cowell
• Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx
• Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton
• 2002 & 2004 Senate nominee Erskine Bowles
• State Rep. Bill Faison (who has long pretended to not be running for the job)
• Ex-Rep. Bob Etheridge (who was twice elected statewide as schools chief in 1988 & 1992, though is currently pursuing a comeback bid in NC-02
• Rep. Brad Miller (who also just declared that he was abandoning his own House re-election plans today)
Here's another thought: How about former state Sen. Cal Cunningham, who lost in the 2010 Democratic Senate primary to SoS Elaine Marshall?
11:13 AM PT: Actually, according to this tweet, an Etheridge aide is suggesting he might run, so he's above Great Mentioner status.
11:16 AM PT: NY Redistricting: Drudge siren! New York state's proposed new legislative maps are out! Get 'em while they're hot!
11:28 AM PT: Here are the New York state Senate maps:
Upstate (click for larger)
NYC (click for larger)
Long Island (click for larger)
11:52 AM PT: Some quick first-cut thoughts from Jeff on the Republican-drawn state Senate map (party affiliations and current district numbers in parens):
• The map rearranges Timothy Kennedy (D-58) and Mark Grisanti (R-60) so there's a complete Dem vote sink
• They concede a Syracuse-Utica seat to David Valesky (D-49)
• Rochester is now cracked three ways to help James Alesi (R-55) and Joe Robach (R-56) (who had a 65% Obama district)
• As is expected, "upstate" Dem centers—Ithaca, Ulster, the North Country—get cracked at least three ways each
• Neil Breslin (D-46) loses rural Albany Co for the brand-new 63rd seat; he takes parts of Troy in Rensselaer to relieve pressure on Roy McDonald (R-43)
• They concede a seat to David Carlucci (D-38) by adding Ossining
• They want Suzi Oppenheimer's (D-37) open Westchester seat—bad
• Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-35) gets appreciably safer, due to adjustments to Oppenheimer's SD-37.
• Adriano Espaillat (D-31) gets a much more Hispanic district, with the Bronx portions removed.
• They sliced Queens to hell and back to get Frank Padavan's seat back, won last cycle by Tony Avella (D-11)
• They're gunning for Joseph Addabbo (D-15), too, with that ugly Middle Village-Rockaways district
• Toby Ann Stavisky (D-16) gets a (barely) Asian-majority Flushing-based district, probably with the tentacle through Jackson Heights to keep the Asian percentage up
• 17th is the rumored "Orthodox" seat; Marty Golden (R-22) stays remarkably consistent in Brooklyn
• Long Island remains cracked—they're clearly going for 9-0 here; Lee Zeldin (R-03) doesn't really change, while Jack Martins (R-07) gets the more Republican parts of adjacent towns
12:02 PM PT: It also looks like they've screwed Democratic NYC Councilman Lew Fidler, who is running in the special to replace ex-Sen. Carl Kruger in the 27th, putting him into the same seat as John Sampson (D-19). Also, that "Orthodox" 17th SD looks tailor-made for Dem Assemblyman Dov Hikind, an absolutely grotesque figure.
Bottom line on the state Senate map is that it looks like it would give the GOP a minimum of 33 seats and possibly as many as 37. The new 63rd is an almost definite pickup, and they could net up to two seats in Queens, one in Brooklyn, and one in Westchester.
12:07 PM PT: Oh, just a point of clarification: The new 63rd seat (the chamber currently only has 62) is numbered SD-46.
12:20 PM PT (David Jarman): WA-07: You might remember Andrew Hughes, who was running in the Democratic field in WA-01 before redistricting (and before the entries of Darcy Burner and Suzan DelBene, which prompted his exit), and was boosted from Some Dude status by virtue of leading the field in fundraising, thanks to connections in downtown Seattle's legal community. Now it turns out he has an ambitious four-year plan for succeeding Jim McDermott, which involves running and losing in the primary this year to gain name rec, then using that to leap to the head of the field in 2014 when the 70-something McDermott retires. I can think of two things wrong with that: one, there's no indication that the hale 'n' hearty McDermott is retiring any time soon, and two, when he does, Hughes would have to face any number of long-time, better-positioned local elected officials who've been eyeing that lifetime sinecure for ages. (Hughes hasn't announced anything yet, but has reportedly been shopping the idea around.) (h/t ratcityreprobate)
12:23 PM PT: IN-Sen: We don't see a lot of polling out of Indiana, in large part because the state attorney general still insists that robocalls are against the law there. But a super PAC supporting GOP Sen. Dick Lugar ponied up for a live interviewer survey by Republican pollster Public Opinion Strategies—taken in December—which purports to show Lugar up over Dem Rep. Joe Donnelly in the general election by a wide 58-32 margin. The poll also has Donnelly tied with Lugar's Tea Party primary challenger, state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, at 42 apiece, so obviously the point of releasing this poll is to demonstrate the electability gap between Lugar and Mourdock. But it's also very notable that the sponsors, Indiana Values PAC, didn't provide any head-to-heads for the primary matchup. Could Lugar be in serious trouble there? We can only hope.
12:29 PM PT: OH-09: Zuh, whut? Here's some Barney Frank news, and no, it's not about his impending nuptials. Rather, the retiring veteran congressman from Massachusetts is wading into the incumbent-vs.-incumbent fight in the Democratic primary in Ohio's redrawn 9th CD and is backing Dennis Kucinich over Marcy Kaptur. Can't really say I saw that one coming—not that I think it'll move any votes, though.
12:39 PM PT: I can't believe I skipped over this graf in that IN-Sen story, because it's really pretty stunning:
“We say, look, if Sen. Lugar is the (Republican) candidate, he wins walking away” against Donnelly, said Andy Klingenstein, treasurer of the political action committee and a Lugar aide in the early 1980s. “If, on the other hand, Mourdock squeaks by in the primary, it’s messy. It’s going to be a battle. We’re not saying he definitely won’t win, but it’s messy.”
That's a shocking admission coming from a group that exists purely to support Lugar. If you're going to make the electability argument, go strong! But hedging like this? That's a pretty stark thing to say, and you'd only cop to a serious problem like this if you were actually worried you'd lose and you wanted to scare donors and supporters into higher gear. So I'm gonna read this one as a sign that Lugar's camp is definitely concerned about losing to Mourdock.
1:09 PM PT: CT-05: Democratic state House Speaker Chris Donovan continues on his roll when it comes to union endorsements. The latest comes from the Connecticut arm of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents more than 28,000 members throughout the state.
1:16 PM PT: UT Redistricting: Listen. This isn't very hard: When you're drawing new maps during redistricting, you need to double-check the census blocks provided by the Census Bureau. They often contain flaws and don't accurately describe municipal boundaries. Republicans in Wisconsin have caused a ton of agony because they tried to draft maps based on census blocks that literally cannot be complied with, and now, it turns out, Republicans in Utah did the same thing and have to make a bunch of fixes. This is terribly shoddy work, not least because this kind of problem is well-known and very predictable.
1:31 PM PT: VA Redistricting: On Wednesday, GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell signed Virginia's new Republican-drawn congressional map into law. The redistricting process derailed last year because Republicans (who controlled the state House) and Democrats (who at the time were in charge of the Senate) couldn't reach an agreement on a new plan—not least because Republicans hoped to take back the Senate. They were successful in that endeavor last November, and once the legislature reconvened in January, the new map (which was the same as the map the GOP had proposed in 2011) zipped through both chambers.
But there's a problem. Virginia's constitution contains a very particular provision regarding when new lines are supposed to be drawn. It says: "The General Assembly shall reapportion the Commonwealth into electoral districts in accordance with this section in the year 2011 and every ten years thereafter." When it became clear last year that redistricting had ground to a halt, a group of plaintiffs filed suit, arguing that a court had to draw a new congressional map because the legislature had forfeited its opportunity to do so by waiting until 2012. The state filed a motion to dismiss the case, but that motion was just rejected by the judge hearing the challenge, who opined that the constitution "speaks in mandatory, not directory, terms." That is to say, performing redistricting in the appointed year is obligatory, not optional. However, the court continued:
[W]hether the General Assembly’s failure to reapportion Virginia’s congressional districts in accordance with this constitutional mandate is a bar to its exercising this authority in 2012 is not decided at this time.
And that's the crux of the matter: Whether delaying past 2011 means that the legislature no longer has the power to conduct congressional redistricting. The court ultimately may or may not decide in the plaintiffs' favor, but the fact that they survived a motion to dismiss is a positive sign. And if the final ruling does take redistricting out of the legislature's hands and results in a court-drawn map, that could prove to be a real boon for Democrats.
1:37 PM PT: NC-Gov: According to local TV news station NBC17, Democratic Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton just announced that he plans to run for governor. In an October PPP poll, Dalton trailed Republican Pat McCrory by a 46-32 margin, so one obvious question to ask is whether Dalton's move would clear the field, or whether we might face a contested primary. Tom Jensen, incidentally, thinks Erksine Bowles is our best hope.
2:00 PM PT: NY Redistricting: Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who for years has pretty much pledged to veto any maps that were not "independently" produced (whatever that may mean), is already threatening to veto the new legislative plans introduced on Thursday. Says a spokesman:
“At first glance, these lines are simply unacceptable and would be vetoed by the Governor. We need a better process and product.”
2:58 PM PT: OR-01: I think Sean Sullivan is exactly right when he says: "A review of the closing TV spots from the two candidates running in Oregon's 1st District special election tells you about all you need to know about the race's likely outcome." Republican Rob Cornilles went negative to lead off his final ad, while Democrat Suzanne Bonamici stays positive. You can watch the ad at the link or below:
And
here's further confirmation: Bonamici's campaign says that of the ballots returned so far in this all-mail election, registered Democrats have cast 48%, Republicans 34%, and unaffiliated voters 18%. With any luck, Tuesday night will be a boring affair.
3:10 PM PT: PA-12: Keegan Gibson at PoliticsPA reports that Republican power-brokers (led by Gov. Tom Corbett's political team) are trying to convince businessman Tim Burns to drop down from the crowded Senate contest to the 12th District congressional primary. Corbett already endorsed another businessman, Steve Welch, for PA-Sen, so that half of the cajoling makes sense. But PA-12 already features attorney Keith Rothfus, who has twice refused to make way for establishment candidates, both this cycle and last. So Burns, who lost in the old 12th twice in 2010 (in the special to replace Jack Murtha and in the general), would still have to get past Rothfus in order to face either Rep. Mark Critz (the guy who beat him two times) or Rep. Jason Altmire in November.
4:37 PM PT: NC-Gov: Alright, it's already time for an update on the fast-moving North Carolina gubernatorial picture, where Democrats are looking for a replacement for Gov. Bev Perdue, who just announced she would not seek re-election.
• Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton: In — "I am the only candidate who has run and won statewide and I look forward to waging an aggressive campaign,"
• State Rep. Bill Faison: Likely in —"You should probably expect the announcement will be in that direction"
• Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx: Considering — "I will spend the coming weeks talking with my family and friends about how I could best serve our city and state"
• 7th CD Rep. Mike McIntyre: Considering — "I am always open to considering broader opportunities to serve, including the possibility of governor"
• 11th CD Rep. Heath Shuler: Reportedly considering — "Strongly considering and leaning towards running for governor"
• State Rep. Dan Blue: Not ruling it out — "Didn't rule out a campaign, although he said he wasn't positioning himself for one"
• 13th CD Rep. Brad Miller: Not ruling it out — "I haven't given it a first thought … There are other qualified candidates out there"
• Ex-state Treasurer Richard Moore: Not ruling it out — "Said he hasn't decided whether to enter the race, but he said he's not sure he's the right person to run this year"
• State AG Roy Cooper: Out — "I am honored to serve as attorney general and plan to file for re-election"
• State Treasurer Janet Cowell: Out — "I intend to seek re-election as state treasurer"
• Ex-Gov. Jim Hunt: Out — "A secretary said he wanted everyone to know that he has no plans to run again"
• SoS Elaine Marshall: Out — "I have important business to finish at the Secretary of State's office and I hope I can count on your support in my campaign"
Plus a few names being circulated by the Great Mentioner who haven't commented publicly yet:
• 2002 & 2004 Senate nominee Erskine Bowles (though some unconfirmed reports say he's out)
• Ex-Rep. Bob Etheridge
• Ex-state Sen. Cal Cunningham
4:48 PM PT: 4Q fundraising numbers:
MO-Sen: Sen. Claire McCaskill (D): $1.4 mil raised, $5 mil cash-on-hand
MT-Sen: Sen. Jon Tester (D): $1.2 mil raised, $3.8 mil cash-on-hand
NE-Sen: Jon Bruning (R): $400K raised, $1.7 mil cash-on-hand
NY-23: Matt Doheny (R): $306K raised, $316K cash-on-hand