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8:09 AM PT: NJ-03: Wow. After just two terms, GOP Rep. Jon Runyan is retiring. Barack Obama actually carried this district 52-47, so Democrats should have a legitimate chance of picking it up next year, especially since Dems won here the last time the seat was open, in 2008.
8:24 AM PT: FL-13: After striking a defiant stance for a few days, attorney Jessica Ehrlich has decided to defer to fellow Democrat Alex Sink and drop out of the special election to replace the late Rep. Bill Young. Ehrlich performed decently last year against Young in her first bid for office, but she would have gotten crushed in the primary by Sink, whose name recognition and fundraising abilities far outstripped Ehrlich's. There's no word yet on whether Ehrlich might run for another office, such as state legislature, though she did say "I remain committed to helping the families of Pinellas County, this state, and this country."
9:08 AM PT: TX-Sen: Conservative historian David Barton, who had considered a challenge to Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary, has decided against making a bid.
9:30 AM PT: MT-Sen: This is a bit surprising. Former Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger, who served two terms alongside ex-Gov. Brian Schweitzer, announced on Tuesday night that he's running for Montana's open Senate seat. Bohlinger had been considering a bid, but the Democratic establishment coalesced around his successor as LG, John Walsh, who joined the race last month. So it didn't seem like there was much room or reason for Bohlinger, now 77 years old, to run himself, but he's decided to go for it anyway.
Interestingly, Bohlinger was originally elected to the legislature as a Republican and nominally retained that label when he was lieutenant governor, but he made it clear that he's seeking the Democratic nomination for Senate. Hopefully the primary will remain a clean affair, since Republican Rep. Steve Daines is likely to waltz to his party's nomination.
9:45 AM PT: FL-Gov: Not a bad start: One of the hosts of Democrat Charlie Crist's first fundraiser since declaring his candidacy for governor on Monday says the event raised around $500,000. Of course, compared to Republican Gov. Rick Scott's massive personal wealth, that's pennies, but it's still a positive sign for Crist.
9:58 AM PT (Darth Jeff): Nov. 5 Elections: On Tuesday there were numerous high profile races across the nation, ranging from the gubernatorial and legislative contests in Virginia and New Jersey, the GOP primary runoff in AL-01, and big city mayoral races and county executive contests. We have our roundup of the good, the bad, the ugly, and the unresolved results.
10:07 AM PT: WI-Gov: It sounds like state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout plans to announce a second bid for governor in January, meaning that Madison School Board member Mary Burke would have company in the Democratic primary. In recent remarks, Vinehout complained about the establishment rallying around the wealthy Burke and promised to fight back with a grassroots campaign. (How many times have we heard that before?) But Vinehout's track record is unimpressive: She ran in the 2012 gubernatorial recall primary and took just 4 percent of the vote.
10:53 AM PT: VA-AG: Several of Tuesday night's races have gone into overtime, and the biggest among them by far is the Virginia attorney general election between Republican state Sen. Mark Obenshain and Democratic state Sen. Mark Herring. At the moment, Obenshain has an exceptionally narrow lead—probably under 1,000 votes out of over 2 million cast—though it's probably a mistake to rely on statewide reports at this point. (As of this writing, VPAP has the margin at 476 votes and the AP at 286.)
That's because there are niggling little errors throughout the counts, and as counties and cities recanvass their results, these numbers will shift. If you want to follow the nitty gritty as it rolls in, Dave Wasserman is doing an admirable job keeping on top of every development on Twitter. Assuming the winner's margin remains under 1 percent, the trailing candidate would be allowed to request a recount after the state Board of Elections certifies the results on Nov. 25.
If that happens, it would be the second recount in a Virginia AG race in the last decade: In 2005, Democrat Creigh Deeds sought a recount after now-Gov. Bob McDonnell led by just 323 votes after the election was certified. McDonnell ultimately wound up increasing his edge to 360 votes. For now, though, we wait, and given that there are still pockets of votes outstanding, it's possible for either candidate to emerge with the lead.
11:36 AM PT: VA-Gov: There's going to be no shortage of Wednesday morning quarterbacking as to why the polls were so off in the Virginia governor's race, and it's not just the fact that the final polling averages showed Democrat Terry McAuliffe winning by 7 when he only prevailed by less than 2.5 percent. There's also the fact that at least 40 consecutive polls showed McAuliffe with a lead, and the last reputable outfit to find Cuccinelli ahead did so in April.
In our first-cut analysis, we proposed a spin on the "shy Tory" theory—namely, that a key group of respondents were uncomfortable telling pollsters they supported Cuccinelli. But for that to be true, this same cohort would have had to dislike the GOP's lieutenant governor nominee, E.W. Jackson, since the polls for that race were dead-on. Is it possible that a bunch of squishy conservatives were turned off by Jackson yet cool with Cuccinelli but afraid to publicly say so? It could be, but that feels unsatisfying.
What's also frustrating is that McAuliffe's internal pollster, Geoff Garin of Hart Research, now claims that his firm's polling showed a close race all along, with no last-minute "collapse" due to Obamacare or any other spurious reason, and that their final survey had McAuliffe up 3. If so, McAuliffe played things quite brilliantly by keeping his private numbers private and allowing the media to consign Cuccinelli to doom thanks to the public polls.
But campaign strategy aside, this just points to a big gulf between Hart's polling and everyone else's, and once again brings us back to the question of "why"? Writing at HuffPo Pollster, Kristen Soltis theorizes that the inclusion of Libertarian Robert Sarvis in the gubernatorial contest may have made polling the race more difficult. A sizable chunk of Sarvis voters told Quinnipiac, for instance, that they were apt to change their minds, and some disaffected Republican-leaning voters may well have "come home" to Cuccinelli on Tuesday. Garin presumably figured out how to account for this Sarvis effect, so I'd certainly like to hear more from him.
11:53 AM PT: And I guess you can't blame him: A brand-new PPP poll shows Cornyn beating Barton 51-18. But the rest of PPP's numbers indicate some serious softness in Cornyn's standing, as he's losing to Republican Jesus (aka "someone more conservative") 49-33.
He also has a pretty weak edge over uber-conservative Rep. Louie Gohmert, 40-31, and actually loses to Gov. Rick Perry, 46-35. Perry, who isn't seeking re-election as governor, certainly hasn't expressed any interest in a Senate run, but as Tom Jensen suggests, this could be an interesting option for him if he were to give up on his presidential ambitions.
Cornyn would still lead two strong hypothetical Democratic contenders next year, former Houston Mayor Bill White (44-39) and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro (49-35). Gohmert (perhaps the most plausible alternative) would do worse (40-39 and 44-35, respectively), but the most salient fact is that neither White nor Castro takes a higher share against him as compared to Cornyn. So even if the incumbent were knocked off in the GOP primary, it's unlikely Democrats could make a race of it. That said, tea partiers eager to claim another victim should take a long, hard look at Cornyn.
12:35 PM PT: Burke, meanwhile, has scored the endorsement of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, which isn't too surprising given that Vinehout's record on reproductive choice has been criticized by the likes of NARAL in the past.
1:11 PM PT (jeffmd): We're still waiting for more ballots to be counted in Washington's SD-26, where incumbent (appointed) Dem Nathan Schlicher narrowly trails Republican Jan Angel by slightly less than 3 percent, or 770 votes.
Based on ballot return information from the Washington Secretary of State, about 36-37 percent of ballots in the two jurisdictions comprising SD-26 (Kitsap and Pierce Counties) are left to be counted.
Schlicher narrowly trails in both jurisdictions at the moment, by 5 percent in Kitsap and 1 percent in Pierce. Pierce, based on our Pres-by-LD data has tended to be the more Republican of the two parts. We can't read too much into that, though, since it may be that the Pierce ballots counted so far skew Democratic (which would be bad for Schlicher), or the Kitsap ballots counted so far skew Republican (which would be good).
Both counties are expected to report its next set of ballots at 5pm PT tonight, which will provide some clarity to the situation.
1:21 PM PT: NC-06: Veteran Republican Rep. Howard Coble is set to make an announcement about his re-election plans on Thursday afternoon, and given his age (82) and his recent health issues, it would surprise no one if he declined to seek a 15th term. If Coble does call it quits, all the action to replace him will be on the GOP side, as this solidly red district went 58-41 for Mitt Romney last year.
1:28 PM PT: Meanwhile, a new one-day poll from St. Pete Polls finds Sink crushing a trio of GOP opponents by virtually identical margins. She leads former Clearwater Mayor Frank Hibbard and lobbyist David Jolly (the only notable declared Republican so far) both by a 52-31 spread, and she beats former Pinellas County Commissioner Neil Brickfield 51-30. Sink also would have smooshed Ehrlich 70-11 in a Democratic primary.
And in a hypothetical GOP primary, Jolly leads with 19 percent, while Brickfield takes 17 and Hibbard 15. Most voters, though, are still undecided, and the Republican field is far from set. The filing deadline, however, is Nov. 19, so we'll have our answers soon. The special election is March 11, with a primary on Jan. 14.
2:37 PM PT (David Jarman): Runyan's departure is very much a surprise, since he's only 39, and there hadn't been any sign of scandal or even great vulnerability going in to 2014, at least no more than with any other typical swing-district House Republican. He offered the usual platitudes about spending time with his family in his announcement, but the Philadelphia Inquirer also revealed, via anonymous sources, that he "has grown frustrated with life in Congress, and particularly the tea party wing that has held increasing sway in the House GOP."
Runyan's retirement creates one of the few open seats in 2014 that's genuinely swingy, so it's likely to draw top-tier challengers on both sides of the aisle. So who might that be? On the Dem side, there's already one solid contestant, Burlington Co. Freeholder Aimee Belgard, who filed several weeks ago and will be formally announcing later this week. Even in Belgard's challenge gets some credit for helping nudge Runyan out of the race, though, she may not have the Dem field to herself: state Assemblyman Herb Conaway (who also ran and lost in NJ-03 in 2004) says he's "thinking about" the race. (State Asm. Troy Singleton is another name that has been floated for the Dems, but he hasn't said anything yet, and at any rate appears to live in NJ-01.)
The only Republican who has said anything publicly about his interest so far is Randy Brown, the mayor of Evesham Township, who says he's "exploring" the race. Other Republicans whose names have been mentioned by others include state Sen. Dawn Addiego, state Sen. Chris Connors, former Burlington Co. Freeholder Aubrey Fenton, Burlington Co. Freeholder Joseph Donnelly, Toms River Twp. Councilor Maurice Hill Jr., and Berkeley Mayor Carmen Amato Jr.
The Republican who would be the most imposing opponent in a general election, though, is moderate state Sen. Diane Allen, who was prevented by health problems from running here in 2010. However, Allen has already taken here name out of contention this time, which is definitely a boost to Dem odds here.
