Want the scoop on hot races around the country? Get the digest emailed to you each weekday morning.
Sign up here.
8:28 AM PT: MN-06: It's the end of an error: Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, who made herself the wrong kind of household name in 2008 when she questioned whether Barack Obama had "anti-American views" and called for a media "exposé" to determine whether members of Congress are "pro-America or anti-America," announced in the middle of the night that she would not seek re-election in 2014. Disappointing though it is to Democratic partisans, her decision is not terribly surprising. Unsourced rumor-mongering that cranked up recently pointed to a retirement, and every week seemed to bring a new story about a different investigation into alleged campaign finance misdeeds she engaged in when she ran for president last year.
That disastrously failed bid, along with her incendiary mouth, also seemed to contribute to her electoral woes at home. Despite the 6th District's strong Republican lean, Bachmann barely hung on to win in 2012, with many voters likely tiring of her devotion to fringe politics and her lack of interest in important issues back home. In a goodbye video, Bachmann of course claims that the various probes into her finances were not the reason for her departure, nor was she motivated by fear of losing at the ballot box. Instead, she says that she's abiding by some kind of self-imposed four-term limit.
Obviously this is as believable as me saying I was glad when Katie Simak turned me down for the junior prom, but if you want further proof that Bachmann is full of it, she never once previously expressed an interest in term limits. In fact, as Salon's Alex Seitz-Wald points out, Bachmann spoke out against term limits at a 2011 town hall and hasn't been a part of any efforts to limit congressional terms of service. So naturally, Bachmann is full of it to the last, just like she's always been.
In practical terms, her retirement will spur plenty of local Republicans to think about trying to succeed her. It also will make life very difficult for hotelier Jim Graves, the man who nearly unseated Bachmann last year. For a Democrat to win in a district Mitt Romney carried by a 57-42 margin, you need to run a hell of a campaign—and more importantly, you need a badly damaged opponent. Bachmann's GOP successor will likely be much closer to Generic Republican, though if a bloody primary yields an off-kilter tea partier, Graves could still have an outside shot.
We will, of course, be following all developments in Minnesota's 6th very closely, but for now, we'll sign off with a link to Tim Murphy's collection of Michele Bachmann's greatest hits. She may be departing the scene, but her big mouth will always be with us.
9:24 AM PT: Special Elections: Johnny Longtorso:
Massachusetts Senate, 1st Suffolk: Democrat Linda Dorcena Forry defeated Republican Joseph Ureneck in a landslide, 84-16.
10:09 AM PT: RI-Gov: I doubt it will save him, but perhaps it gives him a fighting chance. Independent Gov. Lincoln Chafee, who has been courted for a few years, will reportedly change his registration to join the Democratic Party, though exactly when he might do so is unclear. (Chafee's office isn't commenting.) A PPP poll earlier this year showed Chafee in very poor shape, whether sticking it out as an indie or taking on the Democratic label.
But if he does go ahead with the switcheroo, Chafee's biggest problem will be winning a Democratic primary. PPP had him taking just 22 percent in a hypothetical matchup, compared to 35 for state Treasurer Gina Raimondo and 19 for Providence Mayor Angel Taveras. Of course, it's early, and those numbers could conceivably change, but Chafee is by far the most unpopular governor in the nation. A turnaround from that sort of nadir is an extreme longshot, no matter what party you belong to.
10:17 AM PT: NC-Sen: North Carolina Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry just became the latest Republican to announce that she won't challenge Dem Sen. Kay Hagan next year. Berry was one of the best performers in PPP's monthly polls of the race, but she benefits from an unusual level of voter familiarity thanks to the fact that her picture adorns every elevator inspection certificate in the state. (She's also earned plenty of mockery as the "Elevator Queen" as well.) So Berry's support may have been a bit artificially, ahem, elevated, if you will. But no matter what, that still leaves the GOP without a real candidate in this race.
10:33 AM PT: IA-Sen: The list of Republicans bowing out of the open seat Iowa Senate race just keeps growing longer. Secretary of State Matt Schultz, who was in DC for recruitment talks with national Republicans earlier this month, is saying no to a bid. Time to move on to Plan Z.
10:36 AM PT: CO-Sen: Rep. Cory Gardner has finally acknowledged the obvious: He's not running against Dem Sen. Mark Udall next year. Gardner was the GOP's dream candidate, but he never demonstrated any actual interest in the race, and by all accounts, he seems eager to keep moving up the ranks in the House, where his party holds the majority. Most notably, his decision leaves Republicans without a single declared candidate in the race.
11:00 AM PT: CA-31: Yowza. Now a second House Democrat is accusing ex-Rep. Joe Baca of falsely claiming she endorsed him. Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell was the only woman on a list of 30 members of Congress that Baca circulated last week, saying they'd all given him their backing. But on Tuesday, Rep. Jim Clyburn said he'd done no such thing, and now Sewell's gone one step further, saying she's "supporting the DCCC’s efforts to elect Pete Aguilar."
That means this story is rapidly changing from a single, clown college screwup to something that looks much more disastrous for Baca. What exactly could have happened here? Did his staffers circulate a petition to save cute puppies on the House floor and then repurpose the signatures? Baca says he has an endorsement sheet confirming each member's support, but Emily Cahn, the reporter who first broke the story, said Tuesday night that Baca hadn't provided her with a copy yet because he "was driving in a car as we spoke over the phone." Has Baca stopped driving yet?
12:35 PM PT: PA-13: According to unnamed "sources close to" Marjorie Margolies, the former one-term congresswoman will finally file paperwork on Thursday for a comeback bid for her old seat. (She's been talking about a possible run since early April, ever since Rep. Allyson Schwartz made it clear she was running for governor.) Margolies does have one big asset, which is the firm support of Bill Clinton, something that has helped other candidates ride to victory in Democratic primaries.
But Margolies is now 70 years old and has been out of politics for two decades, and there are already several serious candidates in the field. Her entry may hurt physician Valerie Arkoosh the most, since she was the only woman running. But can she compete with pols who can claim impressive progressive credentials, like state Sen. Daylin Leach? Perhaps. Rep. Steve Rothman tried to out-liberal fellow Rep. Bill Pascrell in the NJ-09 primary last year, but Clinton's endorsement of Pascrell neutered that line of attack.
However, in her lone term in Congress, Margolies was only the 185th-most liberal Democrat in the House, according to DW-Nominate, a reflection of the fact that PA-13 then had a Cook PVI of R+4. Pascrell was ready; Margolies is rusty. This race could still go any which way.
12:45 PM PT (David Jarman): WA-St. Sen.: The "Majority Coalition Caucus" that runs the Washington State Senate (23 Republicans plus 2 turncoat Democrats, good for a 25-24 majority) has always seemed to be hanging on by a thread since its inception, and now that thread looks even thinner, with the Wednesday death of Republican Sen. Mike Carrell, from SD-28 in Tacoma's suburbs. State law dictates that he'll be temporarily replaced by a Republican appointee, but that there will be a special election in November of this year. SD-28 went 54.4 Obama/43.4 Romney in 2012, so this offers Dems a pickup opportunity that the affable and entrenched Carrell never afforded them, although the GOPer will have the benefit of quasi-incumbency.
A pickup by an actual Democrat, of course, would create a majority of actual Democrats and invalidate the MCC ... but there's one other wrinkle, in that there will also be a November special election in nearby SD-26, currently occupied by replacement Dem Nathan Schlicher, appointed to take over for now-Rep. Derek Kilmer. The 26th broke for Obama by a narrower 49.3/48.1 in 2012 (and is the reddest LD still occupied by a Dem Senator), so the noxious caucus would survive if the parties swapped the two seats. [UPDATE: The filing deadline for this November just passed (May 17), so the SD-28 special won't happen until November of 2014.]
12:57 PM PT: MN-Sen: Businessman Mike McFadden finally made his challenge to Sen. Al Franken official on Wednesday. McFadden, a potential self-funder, is the first Republican in the race.
1:02 PM PT: AR-Sen: Dem Sen. Mark Pryor is reportedly purchasing airtime of his own to push back against a $350,000 ad buy from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which is hammering him for his opposition to expand background checks. Politico says that "so far," Pryor has only bought $30,000 for a one-week run on statewide cable, though, and no copy of his ad is available yet.
1:16 PM PT: VA-Gov: PPP's new Virginia gubernatorial poll is both the same as its last one, and yet different. Democrat Terry McAuliffe still has a 5-point lead over Republican Ken Cuccinelli, 42-37. However, the number of undecideds has spiked: In January, McAuliffe was up 46-41. Neither candidate's favorability ratings have budged much, so it certainly seems like a case of voters not warming up to either man, in what Tom Jensen calls a "lesser of two evils race." The good news for T-Mac, though (aside from his lead), is that he's much less unpopular, with favorables of 29-33, versus 32-44 for Cuccinelli.
Further downballot, the Virginia GOP's instantly notorious lieutenant governor nominee, E.W. Jackson, still hasn't really registered among ordinary folks, though the few voters who know him give him a 9-20 favorability score. Democrats won't pick a candidate until June 11, but for what it's worth Jackson trails Aneesh Chopra 36-29 and Ralph Northam 35-29. PPP also has some numbers on the Democratic primaries for LG and AG, as well as general election matchups for the latter, but again, the numbers of undecideds in every contest is very high.
4:00 PM PT (David Jarman): Demographics: Greg Giroux has extracted a ton of Census data about the Hispanic populations in the nation's new congressional districts: not just the overall percentage, but also the percentage of each nationality (Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, etc.). You can get the gist by skimming his tweets on the subject, but maybe most interesting is that the three Cuban districts in Miami aren't all that Cuban any more (ranging from 37-43% of the overall population, as Central and South Americans increasingly move in).
4:09 PM PT (David Jarman): House: Just as important as which party controls the House is the story of the caucuses-within-the-caucuses (like the Progressives, New Dems, and Blue Dogs, on our side of the aisle). Unquestionably the most powerful group right now is the hard-right Republican Study Committee, which was a fringey element at its inception (created to fight the moderation of then-minority leader Gerald Ford!) but now consists of the majority of the majority party (with 171 members), and is the main exponent of what Greg Sargent has dubbed the GOP's "post-policy nihilism." National Journal's Tim Alberta has a long piece about the history and growth of the group, though it doesn't exactly answer the 'why' behind its suddenly hitting critical mass in the late 00s, or, more generally, how the anti-establishmentarians became the new GOP establishment.
4:38 PM PT: Wow. Baca has now produced the signature sheets in question, and they do indeed contain John Hancocks for both Jim Clyburn and Terri Sewell, right under a header that reads "Yes, I am happy to endorse Congressman Joe Baca." That's a weird little tic Baca's had ever since launching his campaign—calling himself "Congressman," even though voters last year stripped him of that title. What's odder still is that he appears to be using some old stationery, because the sheets are on letterhead that reads "Joe Baca • Member of Congress," beneath a drawing of the Capitol dome.
Still, what happened here such that Sewell and Clyburn both say they aren't endorsing Baca? Did they casually add their names after a few drinks at the National Democratic Club, where Emily Cahn says many of these signatures were obtained? Did they think perhaps they were just doing a favor for a former member of the House without realizing that the DCCC is backing someone else here? That seems a bit likelier. Still, the better way to handle that, you'd think, would be to quietly tell Baca you've retracted your support, rather than let the world see you actually did make an endorsement you claim you haven't made. Who knows? Maybe there's something else going on here entirely. But what a mess.