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8:24 AM PT: NJ-09, NJ-05: According to a report at NJ.com, Rep. Steve Rothman is telling associates that he plans to challenge Rep. Bill Pascrell in the Democratic primary in the new 9th District, rather than run against Republican Scott Garrett in the 5th. For Rothman, purely in terms of his own personal calculus, this move is the better bet. He currently represents 54% of the constituents of the 9th while Pascrell represents 43%. The revised 5th, meanwhile, is almost entirely Garrett's district: He represents 79% of the residents there while Rothman represents only 21%. Rothman's home in Fair Lawn was moved into the 5th, but his true base of Englewood (where he served as mayor in the 1980s) is in the 9th—something I'm sure the GOP was aware of when they sprung this trap. What's more, the 9th is a solidly blue district: A win there for Rothman in 2012 probably assures him of the seat for the next decade. The 5th, meanwhile, would be exceptionally tough sledding for any Dem, and even if Rothman were victorious over Garrett (not a likely outcome), Republicans would be gunning for him every two years.
You really have to wonder what redistricting tiebreaker John Farmer was thinking when he chose this GOP-authored plan—and when he said "It is in every way an improvement over the previous map." It's so clearly a mashup between Rothman and Garrett in name only, and Republicans knew it. If NJ.com's report is accurate, it will set off an epic battle between two Democrats who are no pushovers, perhaps making this second only to the Berman-Sherman fight in California. It'll also allow Scott Garrett to skate, and it will create a delegation consisting of six Democrats and six Republicans in a state that voted 57-42 for Barack Obama. This map is an "improvement" only for the GOP.
8:29 AM PT: You know, I want to catch myself about something I said above. I framed this as a challenge by Rothman against Pascrell. But I think that's actually an unfair characterization, and a lazy one I'm sure the tradmed will drop. (And my bad for even getting in that mode of thought.) As I noted, Rothman actually represents more of the new 9th than Pascrell does! The only reason why anyone would think it's "Pascrell's district" is because his current home is there while Rothman's is not. But aside from that meaningless detail (Rothman used to live there and undoubtedly will again), if this is anyone's district, it's really Rothman's. This is a bit like the situation in NC-04, which the press has consistently described as David Price's district, even though he and Brad Miller each currently represent about a third of the district's constituents, thus casting Miller as the "challenger." That's just as inaccurate.
9:03 AM PT: Illinois: After a whole bunch of date shuffling by several states with early primaries, Illinois wound up with the first congressional filing deadline in the nation—today. (Ohio is next up, on Friday.) You can find a continually updated list of all candidate filings here. Benawu also has a diary analyzing the filings so far.
9:46 AM PT: OH-16: Looks like we missed this about ten days ago, buried as it is in the 18th paragraph: Dem ex-Rep. John Boccieri will not be making a comeback for Congress this cycle. He'd been holding the door open as recently as last month, but now he's saying no—which makes sense, given that Dem Rep. Betty Sutton has since decided to seek re-election in the 16th, running against the guy who beat Boccieri last year, GOP freshman Jim Renacci. There was also a possibility that Boccieri might run against Republican Bob Gibbs, seeing as ex-Rep. Zack Space (who lost to Gibbs in 2010) recently took a job with a consulting firm instead of opting for a comeback bid of his own, but alas, that's not to be either.
10:40 AM PT: NE-Sen: It's not a huge surprise but still big news: Dem Sen. Ben Nelson will reportedly announce his retirement later today. Click the link for our full post at Daily Kos Elections.
11:09 AM PT: NE-Sen: Democrat Scott Kleeb, who ran for Senate in 2008 (losing 58-40 to Mike Johanns), has already said he has no interest in running. Meanwhile, PPP reminds us of some Nebraska polling they did back in October, where they found ex-Sen. Bob Kerrey with a 39-34 favorability rating. Kerrey didn't completely rule out a bid when asked about the possibility recently, but he sounded very skeptical about the idea. He hasn't run for office in Nebraska since 1994. Crazy idea of the day, courtesy David Jarman: Could former GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel switch parties and seek the Democratic line?
11:36 AM PT (David Jarman): NE-Sen: This shouldn't be considered an endorsement of Democratic ex-Sen. Bob Kerrey (if anything, it points to a flaw in DW/Nominate scores, in that they only measure how you vote and not the things you say as a talking head), but check out the ideological disparity between Ben Nelson and his predecessor/potential successor. DW/N scores, which are designed to eliminate apples-to-oranges comparison by being generalizable from cycle to cycle, range from approximately 1 to -1, with -1 being most liberal:
111th Congress: Nelson -.021
110th: Nelson -.036
109th: Nelson -.051
108th: Nelson -.066
107th: Nelson -.081
106th: Kerrey -.268
105th: Kerrey -.272
104th: Kerrey -.276
103rd: Kerrey -.280
102nd: Kerrey -.284
101st: Kerrey -.288
11:46 AM PT: NE-Sen: Assuming Democrats won't nominate nobody (is that proper English? I think it is), here's some chatter about who could possibly seek the Senate nod for Team Blue. Robynn Tysver in the Omaha World-Herald mentions state Sen. Steve Lathrop and former Lt. Gov. Kim Robak, while a piece from a couple of weeks ago by Don Walton in the Lincoln Journal Star suggested Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler and activist Jane Kleeb, wife of Scott.
In addition to the three main Republicans running—Attorney General Jon Bruning, state Treasurer Don Stenberg and state Sen. Deb Fischer—Walton also suggests 1st CD Rep. Jeff Fortenberry could step in with Nelson out. Gov. Dave Heineman and banker Sid Dinsdale have also been considering the race, though the latter looks much more likely than the former.
1:14 PM PT: CT Redistricting: Siding with the GOP, Connecticut's Supreme Court has decided to appoint a special master to draw a congressional map for the state. I don't think this is a major win for Republicans, but under the same circumstances back in 1971, the court chose none other than Robert Bork, who was then a professor at Yale Law, as its special master. Hopefully we'll get someone a little less insanely conservative this time! In any event, the special master's report will be due on Jan. 27, at which point the parties will be able to file objections, if any.
1:33 PM PT: Nelson makes it official:
1:38 PM PT: NJ-09: Rep. Steve Rothman just put out a statement officially announcing his plans to seek re-election in the redrawn 9th CD, which sets up an incumbent-vs.-incumbent battle in the Democratic primary with Rep. Bill Pascrell. Rothman also released a huge list of endorsements from state legislators, mayors, county executives, and local Democratic chairs. One notable name: state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, who was Jon Corzine's Lt. Gov. running-mate in 2009. Rothman's press release points out that in addition to representing 54% of the population of the revised 9th, he also currently represents 61% of the registered Democrats in the new district. And, trying to fight back against the notion that he's "challenging" Pascrell, he leads off by saying he's running "in the same Ninth Congressional District where he was born and raised and has represented as a Member of Congress since 1997."
2:12 PM PT: PA Redistricting: Late last week (on Thursday, Dec. 22), GOP Gov. Tom Corbett signed Pennsylvania's new congressional redistricting plan into law.
2:33 PM PT: CA-21: Major bummer: State Sen. Michael Rubio, who announced plans to run for the incumbent-less 21st CD back in August, is backing out of the race. (He recently had a new baby who born with Down's syndrome.) This is a very swing district (Obama 52%), and the GOP has what looks to be a strong candidate in the form of Assemblyman David Valadao. Fortunately, Democrats do have a possible Plan B: Former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez is still considering the race and hopefully will get in.
3:01 PM PT: PA-Sen: Former coal company owner Tom Smith, showing an exquisite sense of timing, just released an internal poll of the GOP primary—sure to get as few eyeballs as possible during the week between Christmas and New Year's. In any event, the survey, from McLaughlin & Associates, unsurprisingly shows Smith leading:
Smith, 22 percent; former State Rep. Sam Rohrer, 15 percent; businessman and 2010 congressional candidate Tim Burns, 11 percent; entrepreneur and 2010 congressional candidate Steve Welch, 10 percent; and attorney Marc Scaringi, 4 percent. 38 percent were undecided.
3:30 PM PT: VT-Gov: It's an odd detail you may not be aware of: Vermont's constitution requires candidates for governor and lieutenant governor to secure a majority—not merely a plurality—of the vote in order to win election. If they don't, then the race gets thrown to the legislature to decide. This actually happened last year, when Democrat Peter Shumlin got only 49.5% in the governor's race and Republican Phil Scott scored 49.4% in the LG contest. In both cases, their opponents conceded, so the legislature's approval was a mere formality, but obviously it could conceivably lead to mischief. And that's why legislators are proposing an amendment that would move Vermont to a normal first-past-the-post system, and which would also extend terms for state elected officials from two years to four. The procedure for actually changing the constitution is slow and difficult, though, so these changes may not come to pass any time soon.
4:40 PM PT: Virginia: Earlier this month, PPP included an interesting new demographic question with its Virginia poll: They asked whether respondents consider themselves "to be a Southerner." Sixty-six percent said yes while 34% said no. As you'd imagine, the latter group feels much more warmly about Democrats than the former, and growth in that population is what's made the state competitive. I mention all this because Tom Jensen was kind enough to provide us with the raw responses to this query, which we've mapped according to area code. The results are what you'd expect—the further north you go, the less likely people are to identify as Southerners—but are compelling nonetheless:
4:43 PM PT: NE-Sen: Two more possible Democratic names: state Sens. Heath Mello and Bill Avery.
5:42 PM PT: WI-Sen: This is interesting: Former Gov. Tommy Thompson is trying to shore up his weak conservative credentials by going after ex-Rep. Mark Neumann for attacks he made against now-Gov. Scott Walker last year, when Neumann was in the midst of a primary battle for the gubernatorial nomination against Walker. Ironically enough, one of Neumann's tweets from that campaign (highlighted in a Thompson email) questioned Walker's right-wing cred, declaring Neumann to be the "only fiscal conservative" in the race. But, you know, it's an email about a tweet… not exactly a lot of muscle behind this one.