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2Q Fundraising:
• CT-Sen: Chris Murphy (D), $925K raised, $1.6 million cash-on-hand
• CT-05: Chris Donovan (D), $230K raised, $220K cash-on-hand
• NH-02: Annie Kuster (D), $365K raised; Charlie Bass (R), $303K raised (nice going, Annie)
• NM-01: Eric Griego (D), $119K
• WA-??: Denny Heck (D), $230K raised (in five weeks), $260K cash-on-hand (includes $40K transfer from 2010 account)
• WA-01: Laura Ruderman (D), $102K raised (in four weeks); Roger Goodman, $56K raised
• WI-01: Paul Ryan (R), $900K raised, $3.8 million cash-on-hand
Senate:
• AZ-Sen: Former AZ Dem state party chair Don Bivens has formed an exploratory committee for Jon Kyl's open seat. Bivens says he thinks Rep. Gabby Giffords will not run for Senate, and he says he'll make a decision on whether to actually run by Labor Day.
• FL-Sen: Former steakhouse CEO Craig Miller is about to (try to) fail upwards. Last month, Miller — who came in third in a three-way primary for the FL-24 GOP nomination last year — said he was "leaning toward" a Senate run. Now Dave Catanese has gotten his hands on a Miller schedule which shows him formally declaring tomorrow.
• MA-Sen: Joshua Miller of Roll Call takes note of the Massachusetts- and DSCC-heavy schedule Elizabeth Warren has been keeping lately. While we noted a meeting between the possible Dem Senate candidate and Chuck Schumer in mid-June, Warren's also had appointments with Patty Murray, John Kerry, David Axelrod, and a trio of Bay State reps. Recall that at the end of May, Murray promised Democrats would recruit a "good, strong candidate within weeks." I don't know if Warren is the answer to our prayers, but that was six weeks ago.
• MO-Sen: Looks like Sarah Steelman is about to get turned into a wound-faking Vietnam veteran who pals around with domestic terrorists: her primary opponent, GOP Rep. Todd Akin, has hired Chris LaCivita, the bottom-feeding pondscum who was a key architect of the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" smear machine.
• NJ-Sen: New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, with plenty of free time thanks to the NFL lockout, is busy helping Mitt Romney raise money — someone we previously noted he'd been spending time with. But in addition to humping for the GOP frontrunner, Johnson says he's "open to looking at" a run for office of his own. (You'll have to scroll all the way to the end of the article.) That almost assuredly means for Senate, since Chris Christie's ass is firmly planted in the governor's mansion for the time being.
• NM-Sen: I love watching them squirm. Ex-Rep. Heather Wilson, who has been desperately trying to avoid the "moderate" label that served her well when she was in office, is refusing to say whether she'd vote in favor of the Ryan budget plan. The real question still is whether Lt. Gov. John Sanchez, who is trying to claim the mantle of "true conservative" in the GOP primary, will ever have the stones to say he actually supports Ryan's Curse himself. He's been dancing around it, but if he can't bring himself to pull the trigger, then Wilson might just skate.
• OH-Sen: Josh Mandel, whose nominal day job is state Treasurer but who spends most of his time pretending he's not running for Senate, sat down for his first formal TV interview since getting elected last fall. The host asked Mandel about his pledge to "definitely" serve out his full term. Mandel, of course, had no answer, but tried to blame the other guy, saying: "I've developed this great concern about where Sherrod Brown will take this country."
• WA-Sen: Jim Brunner at the Seattle Times offers a run-down on the current state of the possible GOP field to take on Sen. Maria Cantwell. Former TV newscaster and 2009 King County Exec loser Susan Hutchison sounds unlikely but says: "At this point, I am not making a decision." Rep. Dave Reichert is also still "mulling" a run (says Brunner), but the GOP state chair thinks he'll seek re-election instead. And finally, Port of Seattle Commissioner Bill Bryant, who previously weighed a gubernatorial run before AG Rob McKenna got in, says he'll "look at the landscape." First he has to deal with re-election to his current post this fall, though.
• WI-Sen: Businessman Tim Sullivan, a possible Senate candidate, has just retired as head of mining equipment maker Bucyrus International (it was bought by Caterpillar). In a TV news interview, Sullivan suggested he might run as an independent, which would be interesting because he is definitely rich. Sullivan previously said he wouldn't make a decision until after the Caterpillar deal closed, so perhaps he'll make a decision soon.
Gubernatorial:
• MT-Gov: I feel like we've been quaffing a lot of tea in the Montana gubernatorial race lately. Here's what we found at the bottom of our latest cuppa: Dem state Sen. Dave Wanzenried is terminating his gubernatorial campaign after half a year of disappointing fundraising. (He had just $19K on hand as of June 30.) While that's certainly a good enough reason to bail, it could also be that he expects AG Steve Bullock to jump into the race — and in fact, he encouraged Bullock to do so. In the meantime, the only Democrat in the race is state Sen. Larry Jent, whose campaign appears to be almost penniless.
But wait, here's another tea leaf, and this one might mean more: Former prosecutor and assistant AG Pam Bucy says she's going to join the Democratic field for attorney general, the second person to do so. Both she and former state Sen. Jesse Laslovich are waiting on Bullock's decision, but they probably have an inkling that the seat will be open.
• NH-Gov: Ex-state Sen. Maggie Hassan, who also, served as the Democrats' Majority Leader, says she's considering a run for governor if John Lynch decides not to seek a fifth two-year term.
House:
• IN-02: Thirty-three-year-old Army vet and military consultant Brendan Mullen (previously mentioned here) says he will run as a Democrat for the seat being left open by Rep. Joe Donnelly, who is making a Senate bid.
• IN-06: John Hatter, an Army vet and college administrator, says he'll join the crowd of Republicans seeking Rep. Mike Pence's open House seat. Meanwhile, the Indianapolis Star's Mary Beth Schneider does a name game on potential Democrats: a sociology prof Jim Crone, attorney Lane Siekman, and three-time candidate Barry Welsh are running or considering.
• MO-02: Ed Martin has an internal of the GOP primary from a firm called American Viewpoint. It shows him leading Ann Wagner 38-16 with 45 percent undecided, and an MoE of ±5.7%.
• NC-08: Another Joshua Miller special: This time, the Roll Call scribe walks us through a list of possible GOP opponents for Rep. Larry Kissell, whose district (at least for now) just got made much tougher. Among the names: state Rep. Justin Burr (no relation to Sen. Richard Burr) is taking "a serious look"; state Rep. Jerry Dockham is "probably going to be a yes"; businessman and former Iredell County Commissioner Scott Keadle is "poised to join" (Miller's words); and businessman Pat Molamphy is… in the mix, I suppose. Meanwhile, Kissell (a notoriously weak fundraiser) confirmed he'll seek a third term.
• NC-13: This sure seems like it's going to be a crowded GOP primary: former Winston-Salem city councilman Vernon Robinson says he's in the race, as is Forsyth County Republican Party Chairman Nathan Tabor. A lot of bigger names are still considering.
• OH-02: The House Ethics Committee announced that it's investigating GOP Rep. Jean Schmidt for improperly accepting thousands of dollars worth of free legal services from an organization called the Turkish Coalition of America, a group which lobbies American politicians to encourage them to deny the Armenian genocide. There's an interesting backstory to all this (after all, why is Schmidt mixed up with free Turkish legal aid?), which you can find at the link.
Other Races:
• WI Recall: Several new ads are airing on behalf of Democrats in the Wisconsin recalls as the broadcast wars heat up. The first is a spot by the labor group We Are Wisconsin, attacking Alberta Darling for her support of education cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy. An ad from EMILY's List goes after Sheila Harsdorf on the exact same themes. Meanwhile, Fred Clark hits Luther Olsen for supporting a plan that would make seniors pay more for Medicare.
• Special Elections: Johnny Longtorso:
Up Tuesday is Arkansas' HD-54, a majority-black seat in the West Memphis area. This seat was vacated by Fred Smith after he was convicted of theft. Firefighter Hudson Hallum is the Democratic nominee, while Republicans nominated businessman John Geelan. A third candidate is in the race, D'James Rogers, who lost a primary to Smith last year. Going by his website, I wouldn't consider Rogers a particularly strong candidate, but as the only black candidate in a 70% black district, he could see quite a bit of support, especially since there seems to be an assumption among some in the district that he would become a Democrat once elected.
I doubt this will lead to a split in the vote that leads to a Republican win; the last time a Republican even ran here was in 2004, garnering just 32% of the vote. Geelan himself won the Republican primary by an 80-21 margin — that's total votes, not percentages. Hallum got eleven times Geelan's total in his primary runoff. Normally I don't put too much stock in primary votes translating to a general election, but, well, that's pretty lopsided.
Grab Bag:
• ActBlue: What ever happened to the Republican version of ActBlue? Click the link to find out! (It's quite entertaining.)
• Crossroads GPS: As part of a $7 million, two-week ad buy attacking President Obama in a number of swing states, Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS is also running spots against Jon Tester (MT-Sen), Ben Nelson (NE-Sen), Claire McCaskill (MO-Sen), Sherrod Brown (OH-Sen), and Bill Nelson (FL-Sen). Links to all the ads are available at the linked article.
Redistricting Roundup:
• Wisconsin: Republicans formally unveiled their redistricting plans late on Friday, and if they look familiar, it's because they are: The congressional map is basically unchanged from one leaked several weeks ago. But click through for our full analysis.
