Not a ton of news today, but a few little nuggets of political information greet us on this Tuesday evening.
RACE FOR THE HOUSE: Follow the Money
Tomorrow is the official deadline for campaigns to show their cards vis-a-vis their second quarter fundraising. Some campaigns turned over their hands early, with impressive results. The most impressive report filed today had to come from CA-03, where Democratic physician Dr. Ami Bera raised $288,000 in this, his first quarter of the campaign. Most impressive of all--only about five grand of this was loans or personal contributions. Dan Lungren, you'll recall, badly underperformed in 2008 against Democrat Bill Durston (49-44). Downstate in CA-45, Democrat Steve Pougnet came in at $201,000. Meanwhile, in WA-08 Suzan Del Bene reports $257,000 for the quarter and $572,000 for the first half of the year. Worth noting in her case, however, is that more than half of that was a personal loan. There were a couple of GOP candidates in the mix today: in IL-11, Iraq War vet Adam Kinzinger raised $111,000, while in the open MI-02 former pro football player Jay Riemersma reported $154,000, but with two-thirds of that coming from a personal loan. If you are interested in checking out your favorite candidate, the Federal Election Commission makes it easy for you.
DE-AL: Is Castle On His Way Out The Door? FEC Report Might Have Clues
One incumbent had a pretty instructive FEC report, as well. Longtime Republican Congressman Mike Castle, of Delaware, raised around $125K, with about 85-90% of that money coming from PACs. Everyone was pretty sure he was either moving up (in the form of a Senate run) or out. This makes "up" pretty hard to believe, although it is still possible that a Senate or House run is in the works for Castle.
PA-Sen: Toomey Finally Gets A Little Bit of NRSC Love
It took them only about two months longer than it did in Florida, but the Senate campaign wing of the GOP (the NRSC) has offered its endorsement of the candidacy of former Congressman and Club For Growth BFF Patrick Toomey. It was just last week when a Philadelphia Daily News article pointed out that some local GOP leaders had reservations about Toomey as a Senate nominee, leading one college professor assessing the race to quip, "You go to war with the army you have."
TX-Gov: Perry Calls Out KBH After Monday's Announcement
As reported here yesterday, Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison announced that she was going to run for Governor against incumbent Republican Rick Perry. Today, Perry publicly cast some doubts, saying that he was trying to avoid a primary and that it was "always a possibility" that KBH would choose to stand down.
VA-Gov: McDonnell Announces His Finances, Recent Take A Fraction of Deeds'
Republican nominee Bob McDonnell has a bit of good news/bad news in the finance reports he filed today. The good news--he still has nearly $5 million on hand heading into the general election. The bad news--he raised $1.8 million in the same time that Creigh Deeds raised well over $3 million. Team McDonnell was quick to point out his CoH edge, and also claimed that Deeds' edge was owed to major outlays by AFSCME, SEIU and the Democratic Governors Association. While it is true that those three groups combined for just over a million dollars of the Deeds' funding, it is instructive to point out that even discounting those three expenditures, Deeds still would have led McDonnell by about half a million dollars.
NJ-Gov: Q Poll Gives Christie Double Digit Lead, Unless You Count Indie Candidate
Depending on how you frame the question, Quinnipiac gives Republican challenger Chris Christie a lead of nine or twelve points, according to a poll released today. The "x-factor" is an Independent candidate, Christopher Daggett, who draws 8% of the vote in a three-way trial heat. With Daggett, Christie leads 47-38-8. Without Daggett, Christie crests 50%, leading 53-41.
Meanwhile, in somewhat...interesting...news, it appears as if Governor Corzine has settled on a former reality show star as his nominee for Lieutenant Governor. His name is Randal Pinkett, he is 34 years of age, and he won season four of NBC's The Apprentice.
MA-01: Democratic state Senator Announces Bid...For 2012
Well, this story embodies the maxim that it is never too early to start. Andrea Nuciforo, a former MA state Senator, has announced that he will run for Congress in Massachusett's 1st Congressional District...in 2012. Evidently, Nuciforo is presuming that John Olver, the longtime incumbent here, will retire by 2012, when he will be in his mid-70s. Until then, he has plenty of time to order stationary and fill his rolodex. Only 28 months until Election Day!!