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8:31 AM PT (David Jarman): NH-Sen: This sounds like something that was supposed to come out on April Fool's Day but got stuck in the pipeline. Scott Brown, the former half-term Republican Senator from Massachusetts, is floating his name for the Senate race... in New Hampshire. It's not entirely clear whether he brought up the idea himself, or if someone else prompted the question after he stated at a New Hampshire appearance on Thursday that he was "likely not done with politics," but in either case, he said he's "not going to rule out anything right now."
My assumption based on his most recent moves -- such as filling in for Bill O'Reilly on Fox News earlier this week -- was that he wasn't going to run for anything in 2014, including the most obvious choice of MA-Gov (the one slot where Bay Staters have shown some willingness to vote Republican). But he may well really want to find a way back into the Senate, whatever the method; with that in mind, New Hampshire does have a 2014 race for a Dem-held Seat, swing-state New Hampshire is more receptive to moderate Republicanism than Massachusetts, and most of New Hampshire shares a media market with Boston, so name rec shouldn't be a problem. (In fact, a large part of the people who work in Boston and would actually like to vote for Brown probably already live in New Hampshire.) However, that would put him on a collision course with Jeanne Shaheen, who's no pushover; she's one of the Granite State's most popular politicians, and handicappers have viewed her race as being in the Likely-to-Safe D range (though Brown's entry would scramble that a bit).
9:43 AM PT (David Jarman): So the next logical question is "If the stars align in such a bizarre way as would elect Scott Brown, would that make him the first ever Senator to represent two different states? No, not by a long shot... several Senators have already done that (perhaps most famously, Daniel Webster, who represented those exact same two states of MA and NH [though he repped New Hampshire as a Representative]), and one Senator, James Shields, over the period from 1849 to 1879, represented three different states (Illinois, Minnesota, and Missouri) as Senator.
10:00 AM PT (David Jarman): Charlotte mayor: When I saw "Foxx" and "North Carolina" in one place, my first instinct was that Virginia Foxx was retiring! Unfortunately, we aren't so lucky... instead, Anthony Foxx, the up-and-coming mayor of Charlotte, announced that he won't be running for re-election this year. Foxx, who is African-American and 41 years old, was first elected in 2009. He's gotten mostly good notices as mayor, so it's not a question of being endangered; the recent scuttlebutt has been that he's top of the list to become Transportation Secretary in Barack Obama's second term, so it's possible an announcement on that is shortly forthcoming.
Possible Dem candidates here include Jennifer Roberts, the Mecklenburg County Commissioner who acquitted herself well in the open seat NC-09 race last year, city councilor and mayor-pro-tem Patrick Cannon, city councilor David Howard, and state Senator Dan Clodfelter. On the Republican side, ex-city councilor and 2009 loser John Lassiter may try again, or it might go to city councilor Edwin Peacock.
11:15 AM PT (David Jarman): MA-Sen: This may be too little too late for Stephen Lynch, who staked out the right flank in the Democratic primary for the Massachusetts Senate special election, and is now finding out that there just aren't enough votes there for a path to victory. He's now toying with flip-flopping on his support for the Keystone XL pipeline, which is one of the key differences he has with Ed Markey and also one of the main reasons why major environmental groups are backing Markey instead. Maybe most significantly, environmental issues are what's driven billionaire Tom Steyer to spend over $200K on defeating Lynch (in odd venues that get around the 'people's pledge,' like mobile billboards).
At this point he's only opened the door to dropping support for the pipeline and hasn't formally reversed course, but even if he did, the special primary is coming up soon (April 30), and Lynch's die is already cast as the less-eco-friendly candidate. It also might diminish enthusiasm for him from the hard-hat unions, many of which support the pipeline construction from a jobs-and-infrastructure angle. It's really a no-win situation for Lynch... but then, it's been one ever since he inexplicably got in the race in the first place.
11:28 AM PT (David Jarman): MI-Sen: Debbie Dingell is taking "concrete steps" toward a Senate run to replace the retiring Carl Levin, according to Politico. While Dingell -- the wife of Rep. John Dingell, who hasn't held political office but is a Dem insider in her own right and a former General Motors exec -- says that she's still "genuinely undecided," she is doing her due diligence. That means putting together a consulting team, including a couple big names, Anita Dunn and J.B. Poersch, and meeting with labor and with EMILY's List (the latter of whom would probably be key to her winning a primary against Rep. Gary Peters). (Also, check out the picture of her at the link... she also seems to be working on her Carl Levin-style look, at least in terms of her eyeglasses and facial expression.)
11:34 AM PT (David Jarman): IL-Gov: Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn doesn't seem to grok that his approvals have him down in dead-candidate-walking territory, such that he might actually be at risk of losing to a Republican in this blue state, not that it matters since he'd probably be a speed-bump for AG Lisa Madigan in a Dem primary. His actions indicate that he's still fully intending to run for re-election, though; he's going full-speed-ahead on the fundraising front. After ending 2012 with only about $1 million in campaign funds, he raised $550K in Q1, with much of that coming from organized labor.
11:39 AM PT (David Jarman): NJ-Sen: Don't start coronating Cory Booker for the open New Jersey Senate seat yet, but Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone just popped up again to remind us that he's "very interested" in the race. We haven't heard much from Pallone since his name first got floated in the wake of Frank Lautenberg's retirement, but this is probably his strongest statement of interest yet, saying he's "pursuing that and working on it on a daily basis." Booker's star power will be difficult to overcome, but it seems like he's gauging whether there's enough space on Booker's left to carve out a viable path.
11:46 AM PT (David Jarman): IA-Sen: With each passing week, it seems like Republican Rep. Steve King's feet get a little colder regarding the open Iowa Senate seat, which would at least potentially be winnable for a skilled moderate Republican but would be a kamikaze mission for a nutter like him. He made that pretty explicit with recent comments on Iowa Public TV, saying it would be a "slightly uphill battle," with Iowa having "turned a little to the left." He also said that "I need to get a decision made pretty quickly" out of respect for other potential GOP candidates Kim Reynolds and Bill Northey. Cumulatively, those quotes don't make him sound very candidate-ish.
12:13 PM PT (David Jarman): House: Maybe it was this week's Quinnipiac poll (which has a generic ballot of D+8) that got suddenly got everyone to realize that generic House polling is showing the Dems hovering around the point where, if the numbers hold up, they might retake control of the House in 2014. (Rasmussen has been putting up those kinds of numbers routinely for months now, though I certainly won't fault you for not wanting to hang your hat entirely on Rasmussen's predictions.)
Think Progress's Ian Millhiser spreadsheeted that together with 2012's results to predict that D+8 was good for a 5-seat Democratic majority, while other pundits looked instead at Alan Abramowitz's model, which would require an ungodly D+13 on the generic ballot to flip the House. The New Republic's Nate Cohn came out with a characteristically judicious piece on Friday, skeptical of whether the outlier-ish Qpac poll of RVs is that reliable, but also supposing that it would take significantly less than D+8 to flip the House. That's based on the role of open seats but also more generally on the lack of uniform swing (as seen in the general trend that seats on the cusp mostly tend to fall in the same direction amidst a wave year).
As a final dash of cold water, there's also the wee matter of whether the Dems can sustain a D+8 for the next year and a half. Kyle Kondik points out that at this point in 2009, the generic ballot was running at D+4! (And we know how that movie turned out.)
12:33 PM PT (David Jarman): CA-20: Nothing says pure excitement more so than "Leon Panetta." But with Panetta seemingly retired for good after having held every single possible job in the Beltway at various points, now it's time for... another Panetta. His son James, a Monterey County assistant DA and a former Naval Intelligence officer, is floating his name for the House seat held long ago by his dad, once Sam Farr (who took over in 1993 after Panetta left to head OMB) retires. One slight catch: Farr hasn't expressed any interest in retiring (though he is 71, so it'll happen in the foreseeable future).