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9:38 AM PT (Jeff Singer): MO-Gov: This race is going to be in a holding pattern for a while following the death of Republican Auditor Tom Schweich, but there was an important development that took place before Thursday's tragic events. Republican Eric Greitens has been thinking about a run for a while, and on Tuesday the retired Navy SEAL formed an exploratory committee. While Greitens won't start out with a lot of name recognition among primary voters, it sounds like he's well-connected. Greitens will face former state House Speaker Catherine Hanaway in the primary, though several other Republicans have also been scouting out the race.
9:53 AM PT (Jeff Singer): MO-Sen: I felt a great disturbance in the Force. As if millions of Cat Fud fans cried out in terror, and were suddenly silent. On Friday, Todd Akin announced that he would not challenge Sen. Roy Blunt in the Republican primary, despite flirting with the idea only days before. Akin didn't say what he'll do instead, but after his self-destructive 2012 Senate campaign, Republicans will be happy if they never see or hear from him ever again.
10:01 AM PT (Jeff Singer): FL-Sen: Marco Rubio hasn't yet confirmed that he'll forgo re-election to run for president, but one Republican is already laying the groundwork to replace him. State Chief Financial Office Jeff Atwater has been meeting with the NRSC and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a clear sign that he's serious about running for an open seat. Atwater isn't the most exciting candidate ever and there are plenty of other Republicans who could oppose him, but he's a favorite of establishment types.
10:14 AM PT (Jeff Singer): Chicago Mayor: If you're a mayor locked in a competitive race for re-election, one of the last things you want to hear is that your city's bond ratings have been downgraded. But that's just what Mayor Rahm Emanuel found out on Friday. Rahm is vulnerable in large part due to the perception that the local economy is weak, and this certainly isn't going to help him in the April 7 runoff against Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia.
12:19 PM PT (Jeff Singer): Chicago Mayor: And now that the runoff has begun, one powerful group that remained on the sidelines during the primary is reassessing its strategy. The SEIU Local 1 has had its share of conflict with Rahm over the last four years, but the group has also praised the mayor's stance on the minimum wage. SEIU Local 1 stayed neutral during the primary but they're considering endorsing one of the two remaining contenders. The organization is well-funded and very organized, and its support can make a big difference in April.
12:26 PM PT: NV-Sen: Our first poll this cycle of Nevada's Senate race comes, unfortunately, from Gravis Marketing, a Republican firm whose reputation for sloppy work and inaccurate results precedes it. (Indeed, as Skaje points out, Gravis managed to misspell both Martin O'Malley and Rick Perry—the latter as "Rick Pretty"!) But at this early juncture, I suppose we'll take whatever scraps we can get.
And what do those scraps show? Gravis has newly elected state Attorney General Adam Laxalt, one of the dumbest men ever to hold office, edging Democratic Sen. Harry Reid 48-46, while former Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, who has flaws of his own, is up 46-45. (Gravis didn't test state Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson, who may be the likeliest contender.)
Here's the thing, though: Even Gravis shows Hillary Clinton in a dominant position against all comers. And if Clinton carries Nevada (perhaps comfortably), how will Republicans beat Reid? Are there really Laxalt-Clinton voters out there? Reid's not popular—you could even call him damaged goods, both figuratively and literally—but getting enough voters to split their tickets in a presidential year is a steep challenge.
In fact, it's a problem that Republicans will face nationwide. A recent University of Minnesota report shows that voters have divided their presidential and Senate loyalties just 29 percent of the time over the past century, or 251 times out of 862 elections. Nevada's a bit higher than average, at 36 percent, but several other Senate battlegrounds go splitsville even more rarely, like Wisconsin (17 percent), Florida (21 percent), and Ohio (23 percent). A handful do it more often, including Pennsylvania (41 percent) and New Hampshire (43 percent), but if the Democratic nominee for president carries all of these states, Republicans will be swimming upstream to hold on to their Senate majority.
1:37 PM PT: NY-11: It's official: Local Democrats have tapped Brooklyn City Councilman Vincent Gentile to run against Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan, the GOP nominee, in the May 5 special election to fill ex-Rep. Mike Grimm's vacant seat. We haven't seen any polling of a Gentile-Donovan matchup, but a DCCC poll from January found Donovan up a punishing 48-28 on Assemblyman Michael Cusick. It's hard to imagine Gentile's doing much better.
1:39 PM PT (Jeff Singer): Chicago Mayor: Rahm's allies are trying to project strength going into April. Global Strategy Group, on behalf of the pro-Rahm super PAC Chicago Forward, gives the incumbent a 50-40 lead over Garcia. A few days ago, Rahm outpaced Garcia 45-34, and it seems a bit hard to believe that Rahm has picked up this much support this quickly. It's also worth noting that back in January, Rahm's campaign released a poll from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner showing him hitting 50 percent in the primary, something that obviously didn't happen. Still, if Garcia's team shows a tighter race, they should release those numbers to hep convince outside groups that they have a path from 34 percent to victory.
1:54 PM PT (Jeff Singer): CA-Sen, Gov: On Friday, Fresno Mayor and 2014 Republican controller nominee Ashley Swearengin made it clear that she will not run for the U.S. Senate in 2014. Swearengin is termed-out as mayor next year and we're likely to see her name on the statewide ballot again, perhaps as early as 2018. Swearengin's team has noted that she's more interested in an "executive position," and she could seek the governorship when Jerry Brown is termed-out.
2:45 PM PT: OH-Sen: A little while back, when reports that ex-Gov. Ted Strickland would run for the Senate kicked into high gear, we wondered if he'd be the oldest-ever freshman senator popularly elected to a full term if he were to knock off GOP Sen. Rob Portman. (He'd be 75 upon taking office.) It turns out that indeed he would be, according to a study by the University of Minnesota. Only a dozen people over have ever joined the Senate for the first time past the age of 75: Nine were appointed by their governors and two were elected by their state's legislatures (in the pre-17th Amendment era). The twelfth, West Virginia Republican Hugh Shott, won a special election to fill a vacancy in 1942 but there was only a month left in the term he was elected to.
3:26 PM PT: PA-08: According to PoliticsPA's unnamed (and unquoted) sources, businesswoman Shaughnessy Naughton will launch a second campaign for Congress next week. Last year, Naughton narrowly lost the Democratic primary to Iraq vet Kevin Strouse, who went on to get pounded by GOP Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick in November. However, Fitzpatrick is retiring so Team Blue will have a good shot at picking up his swingy seat in the Philadelphia suburbs—and as you might imagine, Naughton is not the only Democrat with designs on the district. State Rep. Steve Santarsiero has already said he'll run, too.