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8:27 AM PT (Jeff Singer): VT-Gov: To no one's surprise, ex-state Sen. and 2010 Democratic candidate Matt Dunne has announced that he'll run for this open seat again. Dunne has already raised $200,000 for his campaign, while he only brought in $349,000 during his entire 2010 effort. Dunne, who also serves as a Google executive, will face state House Speaker Shap Smith in the primary, while state Transportation Secretary Sue Minter is still considering.

8:37 AM PT (Jeff Singer): VT-Gov: For her part, Minter says she'll decide a little after Labor Day.

On the GOP side, retired Wall Street executive Bruce Lisman recently kicked off his campaign as well. Lt. Gov. Phil Scott hasn't entered the race yet, but the GOP establishment is making it clear that they want him to go for it. Scott already has the backing of Jim Douglas, who served as governor from 2003 until he retired in 2011. Scott says he also expects to privately decide around Labor Day, and make an announcement soon afterword.

8:44 AM PT (Jeff Singer): NJ-02: There wasn't any real speculation that Republican Rep. Frank LoBiondo would retire this cycle, and LoBiondo just confirmed that he'll seek another term. Obama won his South Jersey seat 54-45 but LoBiondo has proven to be very popular locally, and at 69 years young he could stick around a bit longer. Team Blue is trying to recruit state Sen. Jeff Van Drew, but he's said no to every single cycle since 2006. Maybe this time will be different, but Van Drew is unlikely to commit to a bid before this November's state Assembly races are over.

9:19 AM PT (Jeff Singer): VA-Gov: In a surprise, Democratic state Attorney General Mark Herring has announced that he will seek re-election in 2017 rather than run for governor. Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam announced that he would run to succeed termed-out Gov. Terry McAuliffe all the way back in February, and a Northam-Herring primary battle would have divided Old Dominion Democrats. Obviously it's still very early, but no other Democrats have made any noises about challenging Northam two years from now.

Things are a lot less clear on the GOP side, but there are several Republicans who could go for it. State Sen. Mark Obenshain, who narrowly lost the 2013 attorney general contest to Herring, looks like he's gearing up for a bid for the governor's mansion, but there's more than enough time for others to jump start their campaigns.

11:30 AM PT (David Nir): MO-03: Had we been covering House races in 2004, we surely would have labeled Jeff Smith a Some Dude. Smith was a 29-year-old poli sci professor at Washington University with zero electoral experience who decided to run what looked like a hopeless campaign for Dick Gephardt's open seat in the St. Louis suburbs. The Democratic nomination was all but assured of going to Russ Carnahan, a state representative who was the son of the late Gov. Mel Carnahan, the former patron of one of Missouri's most prominent political families.

Yet despite the odds, Smith harnessed an unusual level of grassroots enthusiasm and very nearly prevailed: In a 10-candidate primary that featured several elected officials, Smith came in second, less than two points behind Carnahan, who won with just 23 percent of the vote. A hit documentary about his campaign, Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?, soon followed, and Smith parlayed his success into a victorious campaign for state Senate in 2006. He was the rare Some Dude who actually made good.

Until he didn't. In 2009, as Smith was preparing to seek re-election for a second term in the legislature, he was arrested for lying to federal investigators about a postcard attacking Carnahan's attendance record in the state House that his campaign had authorized a third party to send out, in violation of the rules against coordinating with outsider groups. Smith pleaded guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice and received a felony sentence: a year and a day in federal prison.

Following his release, Jeff moved to New York City, where we became friends, and returned to teaching, this time at the New School. But unlike most of his fellow prisoners, Jeff had the skills, background, and resources to rejoin the working world. That's why his new book about his time behind bars, Mr. Smith Goes to Prison, has a special focus on prison reform. His colleagues, as Jeff refers them, had tremendous entrepreneurial spirit but little chance of putting it to work for themselves once outside. And the system doesn't just fail prisoners but society at large, too, which pays the price for recidivism.

You can read an excerpt of Jeff's book at Politico, which will give you a great feel for what he's written. It's hilarious, insightful, and disturbing all at once. For a one-time Some Dude candidate, Smith's political life took several unexpected turns, several positive and one intensely negative. Whether you're an elections junkie or considering a run for office one day yourself, it's a life worth reading about.

11:45 AM PT (David Jarman): ,WA St. Legislature: Washington's Democrats are trying to win back the state Senate in 2016 (currently at 25 R-24 D, with one Dem who caucuses with the GOP), so there's little room for error. On Tuesday, there was a resignation that seems, at first glance, to be potentially problematic (it's in SD-19, a 54 percent Obama district and one of the few rural seats still held by a Dem); Brian Hatfield quit to take a rural development position in the Governor's office. However, there was a cloud over Hatfield's head; in 2013, his teenaged son molested another child and Hatfield allegedly didn't report the matter in a timely manner. 2016 would have been his first time up for re-election since then, so the Dems might be better off with a replacement.

Under Washington law, a legislative vacancy is promptly filled by an appointee from the same party ... so this way, instead of either an open seat in 2016 or a wounded Hatfield running again, an appointed Dem incumbent (presumably one of the two Democratic state Reps. in HD-19, both of whom have been there more than a decade) will run, minimizing the risk in the Senate seat. Unfortunately, though, that just punts the problem down to the House, where a Dem appointed to that vacancy will also face election in 2016, as a totally new face to voters. There's not much room for error left in the House, either (there will be either a 50 D-48 R edge or 51 D-47 R going into 2016, depending on what happens with Carol Gregory's special election in Nov. 2015).

Two other pieces of smaller personnel news: crazy state Sen. Pam Roach has announced she's running for the Pierce Co. Council in 2016. That doesn't mean the Senate will necessarily be rid of her, though; her Senate seat isn't up in 2016, so she can stay there if she loses the Council bid ... and even if she wins, under Washington law she could keep both jobs! (Turncoat Dem Tim Sheldon, for instance, is both a state Sen. and a county councilor; practically speaking, though, Pierce Co. Council is more of a full-time job than in Sheldon's small rural county.)

Finally, state Rep. Ross Hunter announced he is also resigning his seat to take an executive branch position. Suburban HD-48 is a 62 percent Obama seat, so his appointed replacement's 2016 election shouldn't pose a risk for the Dems. He was considered a 'rising star' in the 2000s, though, often getting Great Mentioned for old WA-08.

12:53 PM PT (David Nir): NH-Sen: The Senate Majority PAC has released a second ad hitting GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte, reportedly backed by a $300,000 buy. The mostly animated spot accuses Ayotte of "support[ing] tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas," an attack that's been a Democratic staple for years. (It's a reference to Republican votes against something called the Bring Jobs Home Act.) The narrator adds that Ayotte voted to protect $40 billion in tax breaks for "big oil." That's a theme SMP also struck in their first ad, which ran for $250,000.

1:15 PM PT (Jeff Singer): CO-Sen: It's weird: A few weeks ago, the Colorado GOP couldn't find any legit candidates who sounded at all interested in taking on Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet. But now that Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler, the NRSC's top choice, is openly considering, more Republicans have suddenly made noises about jumping in. The latest is freshman state Sen. Tim Neville, whom the Denver Post's John Frank describes as "one of the most conservative members in the state Senate." Neville himself hasn't said anything about his plans, but an invitation to a recent Neville said he was considering.

Neville narrowly unseated a Democratic incumbent last year in a seat Obama won 50-47 so he has experience winning a tough race. However, it's not going to be easy for him to pull the same trick off against a formidable incumbent like Bennet in a presidential year. Besides Brauchler, a few other Republicans are considering including businessman and Romney nephew Doug Robinson and businessman and 2012 CO-05 candidate Robert Blaha; Rep. Scott Tipton also hasn't ruled out a bid.

1:27 PM PT (Jeff Singer): IN-03: Back in May, wealthy agro-business owner Kip Tom expressed interest in running for this open and safely red Fort Wayne-area seat, and GOP sources tell Nathan Gonzales that he's going for it. If Tom gets in, he'll face state Sens. Jim Banks and Liz Brown as well as ex-Wisconsin state Sen. Pam Galloway in the GOP primary. And if Tom wins, he's almost certainly going to be no worse than tied for the honor of having the shortest name in Congress.

1:32 PM PT (David Nir): NM-SoS: Now that New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna Duran has been indicted on charges that she illegally converted campaign money to personal use and withdrew hundreds of thousands of dollars at eight different casinos, we have to ask what might happen next. If Duran, a Republican, doesn't resign, she could be impeached by the state House, a move that Democrats are already discussing. However, Republicans control the chamber, so proceedings might never get off the ground. Alternately, if Duran is convicted of a felony, she'd be immediately removed from office under state law.

If Duran does go (whether willingly or unwillingly), GOP Gov. Susana Martinez would get the chance to appoint a replacement, but her pick would require confirmation from the Senate, which is run by Democrats. In this scenario, there would likely also be a special election next year. That would be good news for Democrats: Duran won re-election by just a 52-48 margin last year despite the red wave, and a special election would coincide with the presidential race.

1:38 PM PT (David Jarman): WA-Gov: Republican Rep. Dave Reichert almost always gets a Great Mention as a potential gubernatorial or Senate candidate every two years, and then does nothing about it, but this seems a little different: Nathan Gonzales reports that Reichert is now "seriously" considering the Washington gubernatorial race in 2016. The race against Dem incumbent Jay Inslee has only managed to attract small-fry so far (Port of Seattle Commissioner Bill Bryant is the only GOPer running yet), and ex-Attorney General Rob McKenna hasn't taken any steps toward a rematch of his 2012 race with Inslee.

While Gonzales says there are "multiple" sources, the only one going on the record about this new seriousness is Reichert's ex-chief of staff, Mike Shields. PPP's May 2015 poll of an Inslee/Reichert matchup gave Inslee a 48-37 lead over Reichert, so even though Reichert is about the best the GOP's bench has to offer, it'd still be an uphill fight for him. If he goes through with it, the 65-year-old Reichert's motivation would probably be more of an up-or-out roll-of-the-dice. On the plus side, a run would open up the long-coveted WA-08, though at 50 percent Obama in '12 post-redistricting, it's not as inviting a target as it was back in the 2000s.

1:54 PM PT (Jeff Singer): ND-Gov: On Tuesday, GOP Lt. Gov. Drew Wrigley admitted to having an affair, but so far the news doesn't look like it will derail his possible gubernatorial bid. No major figures in either party have called for Wrigley's resignation or said much other than that they're disappointed with him but see it as a private matter. Wrigley himself says that the story isn't going to impact whether or not he runs to succeed retiring Gov. Jack Dalrymple. However, it's worth noting that Wrigley and Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem are reportedly deciding which one of them will run, so it's possible this news could turn Stenehjem into the more appealing candidate.

On the Democratic side, it sounds like we won't need to wait much longer for Sen. Heidi Heitkamp to make her decision. On Wednesday, Heitkamp went on her brother Joel's radio show and said she expects to announce whether she'll run for governor in five to seven days. Heitkamp is probably the only Democrat who has a shot at winning in this conservative state (though Joel has expressed interest in running if she doesn't), but if she becomes governor, she won't be able to appoint her successor to the Senate. Instead, a 2017 special election would be held, and Team Red would be heavily favored to flip her seat.

2:08 PM PT (David Nir): PA-Sen: Many of the ad campaigns you see this earlier in the election cycle tend to be small affairs—often just "video press releases," as Nathan Gonzales memorably dubbed them. But this year, we've seen quite a bit of early spending on key Senate races, and here are two more groups that are backing up words with deeds: The National Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Defense Fund are putting a reported $1 million into a television and digital ad buy targeting GOP Sen. Pat Toomey, who faces a competitive contest for re-election in 2016.

The NRDC's spot accuses Toomey of voting "repeatedly to let polluters keep releasing unlimited carbon pollution into the air" and taking "more than $1 million from the polluters"; the EDF's ad is similar. Both are nominally focused on asking voters to demand that Toomey vote to support President Obama's Clean Power Plan (which Republicans are of course trying to roll back), but environmental groups are of course most interested in having voters boot Toomey from office.

2:52 PM PT (Jeff Singer): IN-03: Tom has confirmed he's running.