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Senate:
• CT-Sen (PDF): So it looks like we finally have that "public" poll that Kevin Rennie alluded to last week, the one GOP ex-Rep. Chris Shays was waiting on. It turns out it was an internal poll, conducted by Frank Luntz, and there are so, so many things wrong with it I just don't know where to begin. It starts off with priming people about "wasteful government spending" and "keeping taxes down," it includes pushy language at every turn ("I need you to choose one or the other," if you "absolutely had to choose," etc.), and then finally gets to the horserace questions all the way down at question number 26. Even then it shows Chris Murphy leading Chris Shays 42-40 — and that bogus result is surely Shays' high-water mark. You really need to click the link to see how awful the whole thing is, though. Luntz ought to be embarrassed (though he won't be), but the real question is whether Shays is delusional enough to believe this garbage.
• IN-Sen: The Club for Growth just released a poll (taken by Basswood Research) of the GOP primary, showing Treasurer Richard Mourdock edging Sen. Dick Lugar 34-32, with a very large 34% of voters undecided. I remain convinced that despite a lot of commentary to the contrary, Mourdock has a good chance of knocking off Lugar, especially if the Club steps in in a real way. This poll indicates that they're at least potentially interested in doing so.
• MI-Sen: Shortest campaign ever? Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner John McCulloch entered the GOP Senate primary on July 15. Today, July 26, he dropped out and endorsed ex-Rep. Pete Hoekstra. I'm just glad I won't have to type out "Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner" again this cycle.
• TX-Sen: Another prominent movement conservative endorsement for Ted Cruz, this one from Rand Paul. I'm really wondering what Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst's plan to win this primary is, other than raise a ton of money. Maybe that's enough, but I'm skeptical.
Gubernatorial:
• KY-Gov: So that weird RGA ad we linked yesterday? Turns out the buy was for just $18K. Sayeth Reid Wilson: "Repubs privately think they'll lose."
House
• AR-04: Dave Catanese mentions several more possible Dem names to run in Mike Ross's seat: University of Arkansas Community College Chancellor Chris Thomason, recently-appointed U.S. Attorney Conner Eldridge, and former state Rep. Mike Hathorn. A couple of local operatives Catanese spoke to were very high on Thomason in particular. Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Mark Darr says on Twitter that he will not run for retiring Rep. Mike Ross's House seat. Darr likely would have been a very strong get for the GOP, though they have plenty of other interested candidates.
• CA-37: Dem Rep. Laura Richardson, facing a squeeze-out (previously detailed here), has decided to squeeze into the nascent district of "Carson-Compton-Gardena." Assuming these lines don't change much in the final maps, she'll face off against (at least) Assemblyman Isadore Hall, who already announced plans to run here.
• FL-22: Interesting: Tea Party standard-bearer Allen West says he'll support John Boehner's debt ceiling plan — a plan which most of Boehner's caucus is rebelling against. (And hilariously, even Boehner has since modified his plan.) I don't particularly care about whether this gives Boehner "cover," as the linked blog post suggests, but it does suggest that perhaps West is finally trying to moderate his image just a touch. (Lots of luck with that.)
• IL-13: Attorney Mark Lee, who had been looking at the race, declined to run, leaving physician David Gill as the only announced Democrat. However, at least two others are looking at the race: Champaign County Board member Brendan McGinty and former state Rep. Jay Hoffman. Current IL-15 GOP Rep. Tim Johnson previously announce plans to seek re-election in this district.
• NC-11: Jeff Hunt, a Republican DA for three counties totaling about 150K people in western North Carolina, announced he would challenge Rep. Heath Shuler for this redrawn seat. Hunt's name came up almost immediately after the new maps were released, and he's probably one of the strongest candidates the GOP could field here.
• NV-02: EMILY's List, using campaign committee-style "tiers" for its endorsees, has upgraded Dem Treasurer Kate Marshall, who is running in the September special election, from merely "On the List" to a "full recommendation." This apparently means the group will actively fundraise for her.
• OR-01: In case you missed it, Dem Rep. David Wu announced yesterday that he would resign in the face of sexual misconduct allegations — but only after the debt ceiling crisis is resolved in Washington, D.C. His resignation will trigger a special election in which Democrats will be favored.
Other Races:
• AZ Recall: A possible candidate has emerged to challenge state Sen. Russell Pearce in the recently-scheduled recall election, but don't get too excited. Jerry Lewis, described as "an accountant and charter school executive," is, like Pearce, also a Republican. Given how red this district is (it went 58-41 for McCain), a less-conservative Republican is perhaps the best we can expect here. The election is set for Nov. 8, though a legal challenge is currently pending.
• CA Sup. Ct.: It looks like Berkeley law prof Goodwin Liu is going to land on his feet after all. Though the GOP minority in the Senate shamelessly filibustered his nomination to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Gov. Jerry Brown just nominated him to an unexpected vacancy on the California Supreme Court. Why is this news appearing on Daily Kos Elections? Because judges in California are subject to retention elections, first at the next general election after getting appointed, and then every twelve years thereafter.
• WI Recall: PPP conducted polls of three GOP-held races on behalf of Daily Kos. One shows a narrow Dem lead, the other two show small Republican advantages. Click the link for the full results.
There are also a ton of new ads to tell you about. First up, I really love the visuals in this new joint ad from Fred Clark and Nancy Nusbaum going after their Republican opponents. Really unusual, and really draws you in. Check it out at the link. There are several more new Dem ads as well — one from People for the American Way and three from We Are Wisconsin. PFAW's spot hits Luther Olsen, while two of the WAW ads go after Republican challengers Jonathan Steitz and Kim Simac for failing to pay taxes. The other is a 20-second spot (WAW has a few of these, it seems) hitting the usual themes re Sheila Harsdorf.
Meanwhile, remember how much trouble Republican B.J. Lawson got in last year when his campaign released an ad that featured a Morgan Freeman sound-alike doing the voiceover, and tried to pretend it actually was Freeman? Obviously, right-wing front group "Citizens for a Strong America" doesn't, since they released a new ad attacking Shelly Moore with a very similar-sounding voice artist.
One last bit of recall news: Jim Holperin, the most endangered Dem state senator being recalled, just picked up the endorsement of the NRA. Pretty amusing, considering that the woman he's running against, Kim Simac, wrote a children's book titled "With My Rifle by My Side: A Second Amendment Lesson." Click the link if you don't believe me.
Grab Bag:
• Crossroads: Another day, another batch of ads from Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS. The conservative group says it's spending $1.6 million on the newest spots (you can see a couple of `em at the link), which target Bill Nelson (FL-Sen), Claire McCaskill (MO-Sen), Jon Tester (MT-Sen), Ben Nelson (NE-Sen), and Sherrod Brown (OH-Sen) over spending. It's all part of Crossroads' $20 million . One related note from Ben Smith: Because the group is organized as a non-profit 501(c)4, it has to spend at least half its money on "policy advocacy," rather than electioneering. Hence these sort of feeble ads are a "down payment" of sorts on their future election-oriented ads.
• Louisiana: Daily Kingfish has a good roundup of recent campaign finance filings for Louisiana's state-level races taking place this fall. Gov. Bobby Jindal still has a) no declared Democratic opponent and b) $8.8 million cash-on-hand, so most of the action will be in the downballot races, where Lamar explains who all of the players are and what their fundraising takes portend.
Redistricting Roundup:
• SC Redistricting: Somehow Republicans in the South Carolina legislature quelled their internal rebellion and reached an agreement on a new congressional redistricting plan. Click the link for our initial analysis at Daily Kos Elections, as well as a copy of the map.
• WI Redistricting: Gov. Scott Walker signed into law legislation which allows the state lege to draft new redistricting maps before local municipalities draw up their wards, as had been the state's practice for many decades. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, many observers imagined that this law would be an obstacle to the GOP conducting redistricting before the recall election, but anything that can be undone by a simple majority is simply no match for Walker and the Fitzgerald brothers who run the state House and Senate. Walker still hasn't signed the actual new redistricting maps themselves yet, but I can't imagine him not doing so.
• WV Redistricting: Senate Majority Leader John Unger, a Democrat, says that he thinks his state will need to abandon its tradition of keeping counties intact when drawing congressional districts this time around, following in the footsteps of Arkansas earlier this year. (That would leave Iowa as the only state which leaves all counties whole on its federal map.) Though the state constitution says that CDs "shall be formed of contiguous counties, and be compact." Unger doesn't think this means the legislature can't break up counties. He's principally worried about a court case over population equality, but he's also concerned about violating "compactness" requirements if counties aren't split.