Want the scoop on hot races around the country? Get the digest emailed to you each weekday morning.
Sign up here.
Leading Off:
• CA-21: I don't know whether to be happy or start pounding my head on the desk, but either way, get ready for the return of Cruz Bustamante. The man who's probably best remembered for being the principal, and decidedly lackluster, Democratic opposition to Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 2003 gubernatorial recall election is now interested in a bid for the House, in the swingy Fresno-area 21st, essentially open with Democratic Rep. Jim Costa's decision to run one district to the north under the new map. (Bustamante may see a role model in John Garamendi, who also bounced around California downballot statewide offices, tanked in the gubernatorial arena, and then found some job security at the House level.)
While Bustamante has his weaknesses, he does bring one thing to the table that none of the Dems in the CA-21 currently have, though: widespread name rec. This race has, since state Sen. Michael Rubio declined, been a recruiting sore spot for the Dems; the best they have in the race, at this point, are businessman John Hernandez and Fresno city councilor Blong Xiong. (David Jarman)
Senate:
• AZ-Sen: As promised, David Jarman has our full writeup of PPP's new Arizona Senate poll at the link. In the meantime, though, Marist also snuck in another survey of the same race, so you'll find those numbers packaged in the same post. (Both polls, unfortunately, show considerable leads for GOP Rep. Jeff Flake.)
• FL-Sen: Heh, I liked this. Republican ex-Sen. George LeMieux, hoping to claw his way back to that oh-so-great deliberative body, is calling Rep. Connie Mack, the frontrunner for the GOP Senate nomination "the Charlie Sheen of Florida politics." That's LeMieux responding to this lengthy Miami Herald profile of Mack's various financial and pugilistic mis-steps, which include a history of both tax liens and drunken bar brawls.
• ME-Sen: You may remember Andrew Ian Dodge, the rather oddball tea party activist from Maine who spent a lot of time early in the cycle talking up some mysterious killer-app Republican primary opponent with outsider cred and self-funding capabilities who would take out Olympia Snowe... and then it turned out he was just talking about himself. After a while running against Snowe and not getting any traction, he's now taking an interesting left turn: he's pulling out and going independent instead.
That would be very important... if there were any indication that a) the general election Snowe and a Democrat to be named were going to be close, and b) Dodge had a base of diehard supporters who'd follow him over, but neither of those seems to be the case. At any rate, more conventional teabagger Scott D'Amboise (Dodge is very much on the libertarian end of things) is still in the GOP primary and will now take on Snowe mano-a-mano, though he doesn't seem to have the money to make an impact either. (David Jarman)
• MI-Sen: It's been Poll-a-palooza here at Daily Kos Elections lately, and there's one more to add to the pile: Marist is out with its first poll of the Michigan Senate race, and while we don't have trendlines, it looks like Republican ex-Rep. Pete Hoekstra has really done a number on himself. He trails Sen. Debbie Stabenow by a whopping 53-32 margin. Click the link for Steve Singiser's full analysis.
• TX-Sen: A new University of Texas poll for the Texas Tribune continues to show an interesting race in the GOP Senate primary, with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst at 38 and former state Solicitor General Ted Cruz still within striking distance at 27. Though that's a good bit narrower than PPP's January take (which had Dewhurst up 36-18), they also aren't showing much tightening, unlike PPP: UT had the race at 22-10 in October, while PPP showed it as 41-12 in September. Obviously if you're Cruz, you'd rather be down nine points instead of 18, but the PPP trendlines are more encouraging for him than UT's.
• VA-Sen: The House of Ras has it a dead-even tie between Republican George Allen and Democrat Tim Kaine, 46-46.
Gubernatorial:
• TX-Gov: Confirming earlier reports, Republican Gov. Rick Perry says he's leaning toward seeking re-election in 2014, for an unprecedented fourth term. But a new University of Texas poll shows that by a 39-51 margin, voters say they are "unlikely" to re-elect the incumbent.
• WA-Gov: PPP has new numbers on the Washington gubernatorial race, and they paint a very different picture from the two polls we saw just last week, from Elway and SurveyUSA. Those both had Republican AG Rob McKenna up around 10; PPP has the contest tied. Click the link for our full analysis at Daily Kos Elections.
• WV-Gov: I didn't know there was a "there" to go to, but, well, Bill Maloney goes there:
"I lost my campaign by 7,500 votes—and 6,000 of those were in Logan County," Maloney said. "There's something wrong with that."
Now, Maloney, who is seeking a rematch against the guy who beat him last year, Dem Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, was speaking in front of a gathering of local Republicans, for whom this kind of wild, baseless accusation is red meat. (Tomblin is
from Logan County, so of course he'd clean up there.) But if he plans to continue with his unsupported allegations of voter fraud, then I think Maloney risks looking like a sore loser, particularly since there were no reports of any voting problems on election night.
House:
• IL-02: With the Illinois primary fast approaching on March 20, local pollster We Ask America appears to be stepping up the pace. In addition to their new IL-16 survey (see item below), they're out with a new poll of the IL-02 Democratic primary. They find incumbent Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. leading ex-Rep. Debbie Halvorson by a 54-32 margin. These numbers aren't that far off from a January Halvorson (yes, Halvorson) internal, which had her trailing 48-35. Evidently Halvorson published that poll because she thought she had room to grow, but if We Ask America is right, that may no longer be the case.
• IL-08: Considering he's the guy who recruited her to run for Congress in 2006 back when he was chair of the DCCC, it's hardly a surprise that Rahm Emanuel, now mayor of Chicago, is endorsing Tammy Duckworth in her second House bid.
• IL-16: The Illinois primary is only a little more than a month away, giving us one of our first big redistricting-related member-on-member battles: GOP frosh Adam Kinzinger vs. veteran Don Manzullo. I wouldn't have expected this—seeing as how a plurality of the constituents in the new 16th are Manzullo's (314K, to Kinzinger's 219K) and Manzullo is generally seen as more conservative than Kinzinger—but Kinzinger is out with a substantial lead according to a new poll from We Ask America: 47-34. My guess: the fresh-faced 30something Kinzinger is just a more appealing and active campaigner; Manzullo, 68, hasn't had to work hard in an election since 1992. (WAA is a Republican-affiliated pollster, but had some definite success with the Illinois House races last cycle.) (David Jarman)
• LA-04: At various points this cycle, Louisiana Democrats have singled out sophomore GOP Rep. John Fleming as a man they hope to put up a tough challenge against this year. It sounds like they may have found a candidate of interest in Brian Crawford, the former chief of the Shreveport Fire Department. Bayou Buzz reports that local Dems are recruiting Crawford heavily, and Crawford himself sounds open to a run, saying that he is "presently evaluating the level and quality of representation we currently and have experienced in Louisiana’s 4th Congressional District.”
This will be a tough district for Team Blue (Obama won only 40% of the vote here), but Fleming has revealed himself to be quite the goofball, incapable of understanding what The Onion is, so this could be an amusing race. For more background on Crawford, see here and here (PDF). (James L)
• MD-06: More endorsements for state Sen. Rob Garagiola, from veteran Dem Reps. Dutch Ruppersberger and Elijah Cummings, as well as from the Maryland AFL-CIO. Garagiola faces businessman John Delaney in the Democratic primary... though I'll point out that we still haven't heard any kind of explanation as to why Delaney maxed out to Republican Andy Harris in 2010, during his ultimately successful bid to unseat Dem Rep. Frank Kratovil in MD-01. That question is going to be hanging over this race as long as there is a race.
• NC-09: As expected, former state Sen. Robert Pittenger says he's going to run for Rep. Sue Myrick's open seat, making him the 10th Republican to do so, according to Jim Bradley at WSOC-TV.
• NJ-05: It's official: After being courted by the DCCC, football legend Harry Carson says he will not challenge GOP Rep. Scott Garrett in the redrawn 5th District. A new name has popped up as a possible candidate, though: TV news personality and former legislative aide Jim McQueeny, who hosts a program called "Power and Politics" on the local News 12 channel. (He also used to be Frank Lautenberg's chief-of-staff and is currently the chair of a "public and governmental relations" firm, Winning Strategies.) PolitickerNJ's sources say that McQueeny will make a decision on the race within "a week or two." (James L)
• PA-12: Challenging your opponent's petitions for validity is pretty routine stuff; it's easy to do, there's no real risk to it, and, who knows, you might get lucky and pick him off unexpectedly. The flip side is, it rarely leads to anything, especially at the Congressional level, where there are actual campaign professionals in charge. But this one seems more serious than usual: Mark Critz's campaign is alleging that 941 of Jason Altmire's 1,651 signatures are invalid (1,000 are needed), as they're people from outside the new district, not registered Democrats, or simply forged. That, in itself, isn't probative, but people are smelling smoke here, partly because it's a very large number, and because the usually-well-oiled Altmire camp put out a rather tentative and not-too-confident-sounding press release on the matter.
Grab Bag:
• Special Elections: A quick update from Johnny on Tuesday's night's lone special:
New Hampshire House, Hillsborough-10: Dem Peter Sullivan bested Republican Muni Savyon, winning with 122 votes to Savyon's 27.
One hundred twenty-two votes! Just shows you what an oversized joke New Hampshire's state House is.
Redistricting Roundup:
• MN Redistricting: Our complete package of redistricting resources is available for Minnesota in record time: Our Google Maps overlay, our redistribution analysis, and complete Obama-McCain numbers for each new congressional district. (As an added bonus, you'll also find 2008 Senate results at that link as well.) And finally, below is a chart comparing the presidential numbers for the new districts vs. the old districts:
District |
Incumbent |
Party |
New
Obama |
New
McCain |
Old
Obama |
Old
McCain |
MN-01 |
Walz |
(D) |
51 |
47 |
51 |
47 |
MN-02 |
Kline |
(R) |
50 |
48 |
48 |
50 |
MN-03 |
Paulson |
(R) |
51 |
47 |
52 |
46 |
MN-04 |
McCollum |
(D) |
63 |
36 |
64 |
34 |
MN-05 |
Ellison |
(D) |
73 |
25 |
74 |
24 |
MN-06 |
Bachmann |
(R) |
43 |
55 |
45 |
53 |
MN-07 |
Peterson |
(D) |
47 |
50 |
47 |
50 |
MN-08 |
Cravaack |
(R) |
53 |
45 |
53 |
45 |
•
NY Redistricting: Things are moving fast on the litigation front in New York, where the three-judge panel that's now been convened to hear the state's principal redistricting lawsuit just ordered
a magistrate judge to begin work on drafting a new congressional map. At least, that's how I'm reading this somewhat ambiguous line contained in a bare-bones, plain-text order the court placed on its docket on Tuesday:
REFERRAL ORDER: It is hereby ORDERED, that the creation of a redistricting plan and all issues relating thereto are REFERRED to the Hon. Roanne L. Mann, U.S. Magistrate Judge, for the preparation of a Report and Recommendation to this 3-Judge Court.
I'm a little surprised at the speed at which things are moving forward, since I would have expected more substantive briefing on the issue of
whether the court should even draw maps in the first place. (Plaintiffs have made this request because, they say, the legislature has dragged its feet and, thanks to a different federal judge's ruling, the primary for federal races has been moved up to June 26, from Sept. 11.) But evidently the judges feel that time's a-wasting—and it certainly is.
However, even if the panel plows ahead with plans to come up with its own congressional map, lawmakers could still enact a last-minute plan of its own. But given how glacially things move in Albany, I wouldn't be surprised if the courts manage to lap the legislature. And if we do wind up with a judicially-drawn map this year, that could seriously upset the calculus of any potential redistricting deal between Democrats and Republicans. That's not necessarily a good thing—Democrats could wind up with a lousy congressional plan from the court, while the Dem-held Assembly and GOP-controlled Senate could each draw their own maps, as they're accustomed to doing. But with so many unknowns, it's tricky to game things out, and I'd say that almost anything is still possible at this point.