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Leading Off:
• LA-Sen: A second Republican legislator who had considered a bid for Senate, state Sen. Elbert Guillory, has instead backed down and endorsed Rep. Bill Cassidy. State Rep. Alan Seabaugh did the same last month, though state Rep. Paul Hollis appears to still be weighing his options. It all has to be quite galling to Air Force vet Rob Maness, the only conservative true believer actually in the race. Guys like Seabaugh and Guillory get on Cassidy's case for insufficient piety, but then back down in the name of party unity. I guess for once the NRSC can consider itself a bit lucky on this front.
Meanwhile, the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative group, is now airing an ad attacking Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu that's very similar to their earlier spot that went after Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor. As before, the narrator slams Landrieu for voting for "every one of Obama's liberal activist judges," but there's a new twist at the end. "Landrieu even helped change the rules to pack a key court with new liberal judges," says the voiceover, which probably makes this the first TV ad of the cycle to reference the partial rollback of the filibuster in the Senate.
Senate:
• KY-Sen: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is spending a reported $177,000 to air an ad praising GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell for fighting the EPA on coal regulations.
• MT-Sen: The progressive veterans group VoteVets has endorsed Lt. Gov. John Walsh in the Montana Democratic primary for Senate. Interestingly, Walsh's opponent for the nomination, ex-Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger, is also a veteran, but the establishment has rallied around Walsh, and his military service figures more prominently in his bio. He served in the Montana National Guard for 30 years, retiring last year with the rank of brigadier general.
• NE-Sen: Mitch McConnell may have it in for Nebraska Senate hopeful Ben Sasse, but another top Republican leader in D.C. just got on board. Rep. Paul Ryan has endorsed Sasse, whose chief rival in the GOP primary for this open seat is former state Treasurer Shane Osborne.
• NH-Sen: When you consider the list of "least credible former senators"... well, it's actually a tragicomically long list. But near the top you will doubtless find former New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith, whose antics include departing from then returning to the Republican Party while in office; getting his ass handed to him in a GOP primary as an incumbent; and twice flirting with comeback bids—in Florida. He also considered running for Senate once again back in the Granite State earlier this year, but decided in October that he'd had enough.
So now of course he's changed his mind and says he'll challenge Sen. Jeanne Shaheen after all. First, though, there's the little matter of moving back from Florida, but launching your campaign when you don't even live in the state you're seeking to represent is vintage Bob Smith. There's also the lurking un-candidacy of Scott Brown, who recently stripped the "MA" from his Twitter handle. If Brown runs, I wouldn't be surprised to see Smith return to his snowbird ways and bail yet again. That would be vintage Bob, too.
• VA-Sen: Aww yeah. E.W. Jackson, the incendiary minister who got trounced in last month's race for lieutenant governor, isn't ruling out a bid against Democratic Sen. Mark Warner next year. Jackson actually ran for Senate last cycle, too, taking just 5 percent in the GOP primary. Why not make it three in a row?
Gubernatorial:
• FL-Gov: Democrat Charlie Crist's first-month fundraising haul was a rather decent $1.3 million, but GOP Gov. Rick Scott took in a mammoth $5.8 million in the same timeframe—and that doesn't include any personal money. However, what Florida quaintly likes to call its "law" permits unlimited donations, and Scott collected at least one check for $1 million. (Crist has certainly benefitted from some big contributions himself, though none quite so large.)
Note that Florida now requires campaigns to file fundraising reports monthly (and even more frequently close to an election), so we'll be seeing data on this race often. That's great for transparency—and for news junkies—but I wonder if a steady drumbeat of gargantuan fundraising numbers for Scott might put a damper on Crist's ability to raise money. Oh Bill Nelson, you sly fox. Do you think you can do better?
• IA-Gov: State Rep. Tyler Olson, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, just announced that he's "scaling back" his campaign for the rest of the year because he and his wife are separating. State Sen. Jack Hatch is also running in the Democratic primary; the two men are hoping to unseat GOP Gov. Terry Branstad.
• NV-Gov: Democrats still have no candidate to take on Gov. Brian Sandoval; to date, the only plausible name that's been floated is Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak, but he hasn't announced any plans. So state Sen. Tick Segerblom says that if no one else gets in, he'll take one for the team and run himself. Segerblom did say, though, that he thinks Sisolak will get in.
• OH-Gov: After publicly dragging her feet for no good reason, Cleveland-area Rep. Marcia Fudge finally endorsed Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald for governor at an event over the weekend. As the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Henry Gomez previously explained, Fitz had struggled to win support from a lot of black pols because of his refusal to play old-school ward heeler-style politics. Hopefully, though, Fudge's endorsement will send a signal that beating Republican Gov. John Kasich is more important than personal interests.
• VA-Gov: We'll have detailed calculations of Virginia's recent elections both by congressional and legislative district just as soon as the attorney general recount concludes. (No sense in crunching the numbers twice.) But in the interim, Greg Giroux has put together gubernatorial results by CD, and they show that Terry McAuliffe won just four of 11 districts: the heavily Democratic 3rd, 8th, and 11th, as well as the swingy 2nd, by a 48-47 spread. That's potentially worrisome news from GOP Rep. Scott Rigell, whose seat also went narrowly for Obama and who faces a legitimate challenger in Navy vet Suzanne Patrick.
Two other Republican-held seats also went for Ken Cuccinelli by small margins, the 4th (Randy Forbes) and 10th (Frank Wolf). Democrats would like to contest these seats, too, but so far, no one notable has stepped forward against Forbes, and Wolf has repeatedly proven himself tough to beat. Both would be very competitive with a retirement, though.
Meanwhile, Daily Kos Elections featured writer dreaminonempty takes one last look back at the public polling in the governor's race, which as we all know was about 5 points off the mark on average. His analysis finds that in races where third-party candidates poll more than 5 percent, such wide misses are not uncommon. In fact, they're pretty standard, which backs up the argument made by Republican pollster Kristin Anderson that the presence of Libertarian Robert Sarvis screwed up a lot of firms.
House:
• CA-25: As we thought he would, ex-state Sen. Tony Strickland has turned his sights from California's 26th District to the neighboring 25th, and has now filed paperwork to run in the latter. Of course, Rep. Buck McKeon is still theoretically seeking re-election in CA-25, but a Strickland spokesman clarifies that Strickland is just laying down a marker in case McKeon, a fellow Republican, retires. Last week, Strickland, who had nominally been running against freshman Dem Rep. Julia Brownley in the 26th, instead endorsed state Rep. Jeff Gorell for the race.
• NY-01: Uh, seriously? Attorney George Demos, who faces state Sen. Lee Zeldin in the GOP primary, is already running a TV ad, and it starts off in the most absurd way possible. The opening frame features side-by-side headshots of Rep. Tim Bishop (the man he's hoping to unseat), Barack Obama (okay, he's probably not too popular in the district these days), and... Toronto Mayor Rob Ford? Really? The theme here is that voters are "tired of politicians," but here in America, Rob Ford isn't a politician. He's a crack-smoking assclown who is good for laffs on the Late, Tonight, and Daily Shows. Try again, George.
Grab Bag:
• Calendars: Monday was the first filing deadline of the election cycle: Candidates in Illinois had to submit petitions to get on the ballot for the state's March 18 primary, the second-earliest in the nation. (Texas leads off on March 4.) Now you, too, can keep track of every filing deadline, primary, and runoff date with Daily Kos Elections' extremely bookmark-worthy 2014 calendar. And here's a very cool feature: If you use Google Calendar, you can click here to have all of these dates automatically added to your own personal calendar.
• Illinois: As we mentioned just above, filing has closed in Illinois, and you can find an official candidate list at the State Board of Elections website. But you can also bookmark this new Google doc we've created, which we'll keep updated with candidate filings as each state's deadline passes.