Senate:
• ME-Sen: Big surprise: Olympia Snowe is lurching rightward, as Politico makes clear in this article on her relationship with Harry Reid, in order to protect herself against a teabagging. (When even Mary Landrieu criticizes you….) Polling makes clear that this is the smarter move for her, since she looks much more vulnerable in the GOP primary than she does in the general election.
• MI-Sen: In the wake of former SoS Terri Lynn Land saying "no" to the race, fellow Republican Rep. Candice Miller also reiterated that she planned to seek re-election. Another GOPer, Rep. Thad McCotter, was the only Michigan member of Congress who wouldn't confirm to the AP that he'd be seeking another term in the House, but in this Roll Call piece, he sounds pretty un-candidate-ish. (He hasn't even met with the NRSC or the state GOP.)
• NV-Sen: Dean Heller was sworn into office as the newest member of the Senate yesterday, while EMILY's List endorsed Rep. Shelley Berkley. While a lot of EMILY endorsements in primaries range from head-scratchers to downright embarrassments (Nikki Tinker, cough cough), this is actually a good move, since wealthy trial lawyer Byron Georgiou doesn't seem interested in clearing the field for Berkley.
• TX-Sen: Anna Tinsley of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a run-down on fundraising among all the various candidates hoping to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Senate.
Gubernatorial:
• WV-Gov: One ad from Earl Ray Tomblin, sorta defending himself against attacks but mostly touting various newspaper endorsements; Rick Thompson tries to cast things as a two-way race between himself and Tomblin, and says he'll work for the people with "calluses on their hands." Thompson also apparently has another ad out hitting Tomblin for allegedly "steering more than $2 million dollars in taxpayer money to his family's greyhound breeding business," but that ad isn't online.
House:
• FL-08: Despite losing by 18 points last year (the fourth-worst performance among Democratic incumbents, and the worst in a district won by Barack Obama), ex-Rep. Alan Grayson says he is thinking about running for office again in the future. (To put Grayson's 2010 showing in context, click this link. The chart shows Obama's margin along the vertical axis and the margins of all the Dem incumbents who lost last year along the horizontal axis. Grayson is in the top-left corner.) One Grayson advisor says that Grayson could potentially run for an as-yet undrawn seat if map-makers place one of Florida's two new districts in the Orlando area.
• NV-02: State GOP chair Mark Amodei, who also briefly sought his party's nod in last year's Senate race, says he'll run in the special election to replace now-Sen. Dean Heller. That makes four Republicans in the race so far (Kirk Lippold, Greg Brower, and of course Sharron Angle are all running), while Dems still seem to have three candidates in the field (Kate Marshall, Jill Derby, and Nancy Price). The tighter their clown car, the better—but we need to trade ours for a unicycle.
• NY-10: He's been dancing around this race for years, but now Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries looks ready to make his move: He's formed an exploratory committee, which would set him on a primary collision course with useless Dem Rep. Ed Towns. Godspeed.
• NY-26: I don't usually link to editorials or op-eds, but this piece, by Buffalo News columnist Douglas Turner, reads like something I might have written, so I'm giving it some love. Turner makes a strong case for national Democrats to get involved in this race (even before yesterday's PPP poll came out), but of DCCC chair Steve Israel, he says: "To prepare for this battle, Israel is hiding under his desk." Really, the time for action was weeks ago (especially since Crazy Jack Davis just dumped in another $500K of his own money), but the D-Trip can still remedy this.
Other Races:
• Wisconsin Sup. Ct.: Of course, Waukesha: Even though Wisconsin's 71 other counties were all expected to finish their recounts yesterday, Waukesha (home of the infamous Kathy Nickolaus) sought (and received) an extension until May 26. At the very least, this ought to shine a spotlight on Waukesha's terribly shoddy election administration practices.
• Special elections: Johnny's report:
Four seats up on Tuesday. First, in Alabama's HD-105, where Republican Spencer Collier resigned to take over as Alabama's director of homeland security, there's no Democrat running, but Republican David Sessions faces off against Constitution Party candidate Bill Atkinson.
In Maine's SD-07, left open by Democrat Larry Bliss, Democratic State Rep. Cynthia Dill and Republican former State Rep. Louis Maietta are vying for the seat. This seat, comprised of Cape Elizabeth, South Portland, and part of Scarborough, is normally Democratic, but Bliss only won by 75 votes in 2010. However, his margin may have been reduced by independent Eliot Cutler's strength in the district, as Cutler is from Cape Elizabeth. Rep. Chellie Pingree won here easily in 2010.
Finally, in Massachusetts, two Democratic seats are up: 10th Middlesex, with Democrat John Lawn, a Watertown District Councilor, and Republican James Dixon, an airline pilot (why are they always Republicans?). In 6th Worcester, there's an unusual situation; incumbent Geraldo Alicea tied with Republican Peter Durant, so this election is a do-over.
Bliss, by the way, is the state senator who resigned his post because he could not find full-time work in the state of Maine and instead moved to California.
Redistricting Roundup:
• Minnesota: Republicans, who control Minnesota's legislature, released their proposed congressional redistricting map yesterday. (Full-size PDF here.) Joe Bodell at the MN Progressive Project calls the map, which features three districts that stretch from the state's eastern border all the way to the western edge, a "non-starter." But since it could be viewed as something of an incumbent-protection plan, perhaps this is the opening gambit in negotiations with Dem Gov. Mark Dayton.
• Wisconsin: I'm not sure I buy this, but the AP is claiming that among the legislation that Wisconsin Republicans want to ram through before possibly losing control of the Senate during recall elections are new redistricting maps. The reason I'm skeptical is because the state's own redistricting timetable calls for the creation of new wards in August—and new wards have to be organized before maps can be drawn up (splitting wards is not allowed, from what I understand). Since the wards are created by municipalities, no amount of pressure from Republican legislators can make that happen any faster. Of course, just watch Scott Walker try.
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