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9:18 AM PT: UT-Sen: Tonight is the first step in the unusual process in Utah's Senate election, where hypothetically Orrin Hatch could get knocked out before even having the chance to face the state's GOP primary voters. Thursday night is the night for precinct-level caucuses, where the 4,000 delegates for the state's nominating convention will be picked. (As you probably remember, GOP incumbent Bob Bennett finished third at the convention in 2010 and didn't make it to the primary.) The Hatch camp has recruited and trained thousands to run as his delegates tonight; he faces state Rep. Chris Herrod and ex-state Sen. Dan Liljenquist for the GOP nod.
9:31 AM PT: ME-Sen: Although it seems like none of Maine's top-tier Democrats will venture into the Senate race (in the face of the pre-emptive Angus King coronation), it's looking like there will at least be a Democrat on the ballot: former SoS Matt Dunlap turned in his signatures on Wednesday. Dunlap was running even before Olympia Snowe's retirement announcement, then looked to drop down to the House when it looked like he was going to get bigfooted out of the Senate race, but then resumed his Senate bid once that bigfooting never happened. On the GOP side, state Sen. majority whip Debra Plowman turned in her signatures too. That means she joins the GOP crowd of SoS Charlie Summers, ex-state Sen. President Rick Bennett, and tea partier Scott D'Amboise, all of whom have now submitted their signatures ahead of Thursday's deadline. We'll keep an eye out for more filings. (Remember that King, as an indie, has a later deadline.)
9:32 AM PT: NY Redistricting: Those hoping for redistricting reform in New York will have to wait....another ten years. In an early-morning session, the state legislature passed a state Constitutional Amendment that would move the proverbial pen to a 10-member commission. Attached to this, though, was a compromise state legislature remap, one that will likely ensure Republican control of the State Senate (and Democratic control of the Assembly) for another decade. There had been hopes for a veto from above, but Governor Andrew Cuomo's even gone ahead and signed the plan already! (Keen observers note, of course, that the same federal court drawing New York's congressional plan was going to involve itself in the state plan starting today.) However, the state legislative plan is still subject to preclearance (Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx are covered under Section 5) as well as a pending state court challenge regarding the expansion of the Senate to 63 members. (jeffmd)
9:34 AM PT: ME-Sen: In fact, now we're getting word that state Treasurer Bruce Poliquin and state AG Bill Schneider have just filed as well. The GOP field is turning into quite the clown car all of a sudden.
9:46 AM PT: IN-Sen: Well, here's two people who won't be able to vote for Richard Lugar in the GOP Senate primary: Richard Lugar, and his wife. The Marion County election board voted 2-1 (along party lines, with the Dems voting 'yes') that Lugar is ineligible because he hasn't lived at his registered home address in over three decades. This is nowhere near as important as the recent decision by the statewide Indiana Election Commission that Lugar was indeed eligible to run for Senate, but it's still bad optics. (I'm wondering if he could salvage this by registering at the rural Indiana farm he owns but never stays at because of its "rustic conditions," which isn't in Marion County and where he'd likely find a more favorable elections board.)
9:51 AM PT: PA-12: Mark Critz's hope of defeating fellow Democratic Rep. Jason Altmire in their redistricting-forced primary seems to hinge on getting labor's support, and he's been running up the score on that front. Thursday he announced the support of the Teamsters. That's one of the biggies, on top of previous support from the SEIU and Steelworkers.
10:04 AM PT: OH-Sen: For close observers it's not exactly a surprise to find out that Sherrod Brown has been the top Democratic target in the Senate of Republican outside-group spending, considering how many different times they've gone to that well. But it's impressive to see it all added up in one place, with Greg Sargent has done: nearly $5 million in ads already, most of which come from three places (the Chamber of Commerce, the 60 Plus Association, and Crossroads). Even though the polling hasn't shown Brown in much danger, this is a good example of the GOP playing smart: Brown is one of the most overperforming Senate Dems (one of the few strong progressives from a swing state), so he's a more valuable scalp for them to try and claim.
10:09 AM PT: IN-SoS: The election law elves have been busy in Indiana; we also have a story concerning the strange saga of Charlie White, the Republican Secretary of State who just got bounced from office for committing (irony alert!) voter fraud. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled that he had been eligible to run for office, even though he was illegally registered at his ex-wife's house at the time. That doesn't undo his felony conviction, so, don't worry, he isn't coming back. But this is still a victory of sorts for the Republicans, because it doesn't retroactively invalidate White's victory in 2010, which would have meant that the second place finisher, Democrat Vop Osili, would have become SoS. Instead, this treats White as having served for several months, so now Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels gets to appoint a replacement (who, one would presume, will be a Republican).
10:21 AM PT: IL-10: Progressive activist Ilya Sheyman is out with a big lead over his more moderate Dem primary opponent, Brad Schneider, according to the newest poll of the race. Sheyman leads Schneider 45-27 (with John Tree at 7 and Vivek Bavda at 4), according to PPP, who polled the race on behalf of the PCCC and MoveOn. We actually have trendlines on this poll; PPP also polled in January and found a smaller Sheyman lead, 23-21; a Schneider internal in February, conversely, gave Schneider a 29-14 lead over Sheyman. Those are some pretty wild gyrations, but the poll's sponsors are attributing it to the latest round of ads, calling attention to Schneider's past financial contributions to Republican candidates.
10:37 AM PT: NV-Sen: Everybody wants to be like those cool kids in Massachusetts. It became a political football in the Virginia race, and now Shelley Berkley, in Nevada, is proposing a deal similar to the one between Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown to restrict third-party spending. It's not sounding like Dean Heller's going to take her up on it yet, though; his camp is saying she has to give back all her out-of-state direct contributions (a totally different issue, but a good example of Republican subject-changing abilities) before they'll talk about a third-party money ceasefire.
10:50 AM PT: NY-Sen: The process of getting a statewide Republican nomination in New York has always been a strange dance of wooing all the individual county party chairs, each of whom has their own weird parochial reasons for doing what they do. And Rep. Bob Turner is starting to find that out first-hand: the Erie Co. GOP's chair, Nicholas Langworthy, has rebuffed Turner and instead will back Wendy Long for the Senate nomination, which is her biggest "get" within the GOP so far (most of her support is coming from within the Conservative Party). Turner has gotten the backing of the Rockland Co. party, as well as in Brooklyn and Manhattan. (This link at the Albany Times-Union has a helpful spreadsheet of all the weighted votes that the four GOP candidates have lined up for the convention. It shows just how far behind the 8-ball Turner's late entry has gotten him; he's way behind both Long and George Maragos in the chase for county chairs.)
10:55 AM PT: PA-Gov: The gubernatorial portion of Quinnipiac's Pennsylvania sample finds Republican Gov. Tom Corbett down to 41/41 approval, from a 47/34 standing back in December. Broad disapproval (53 to 27) over his handling of funding for state universities seems to be pushing him down.
10:58 AM PT: RI-01: Businessman Anthony Gemma has taken a pretty clear step toward a run against the vulnerable-on-paper Rep. David Cicilline in the Democratic primary in the 1st: he's quit as CEO of his company, Mediapeel. He's pushing back any official announcement on his plans until April, though.
11:04 AM PT: VRA: We mentioned yesterday that Texas had managed to bundle its challenge to the constitutionality of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, as part of its already-scheduled case concerning its voter ID requirements. But it's worth looking at today's analysis of it from election law professor Rick Hasen, who explains how the stakes got much higher, and how this whole package could wind up before the Supreme Court before the November election (so the matter is decided in time for Texas to implement the voter ID law). This was a big case even when it was just about voter ID, but now it's a whole lot bigger.
11:11 AM PT: VA redistricting: Looks like we can close the book on one more state's redistricting process: Virginia received DOJ preclearance of its congressional map on Wednesday. This was the final step in the process, as lawsuits against the map by private citizens had already been dismissed. The approval means that Virginia now can proceed with having its congressional primaries on June 12, rather than having to push them back to August as had been feared.
11:17 AM PT: AK redistricting: It's a surprising trip back to the drawing board in Alaska, where, on Wednesday, the state Supreme Court struck down the legislative maps drawn by the Alaska Redistricting Board. The court pointed to a number of state House districts that didn't meet the state's requirements for compactness. (Alaska, of course, has only one U.S. House seat, so this development late in the game at least won't affect its congressional primary.)
11:20 AM PT: CA-52: We've gotten to the bottom of why SurveyUSA did two different polls of the House race in the 52nd (favorables only, no head-to-heads), one right after the other, for the same client. SurveyUSA says "Miscommunication led to us missing some candidates in the 1st one. Since results were determining debate invites, we re-did."
11:23 AM PT: PA-Sen, NC-Gov: In case you missed it yesterday, you might check out our full-length post on the two big polls to drop yesterday from PPP. They found Bob Casey Jr. in good shape in Pennsylvania (leading his GOP opponents by 15 to 20 points), and the potential Dem nominees in poor shape in North Carolina (trailing Republican Pat McCrory by 10 or 11 points).
11:29 AM PT: WA-06: Most of the news since Democratic state Sen. Derek Kilmer's announcement has been other heavy hitters taking themselves out of the running, but here's one guy who's still opening the door a crack. Democratic Kitsap Co. Commissioner Josh Brown says he's still thinking about it, though this is odd hedgey phrasing: "I could be very interested in running."
12:13 PM PT: IL-Gov: You may have seen this story on Wednesday about how the Mitt Romney camp had a chance months ago to keep Rick Santorum from picking up delegates in 10 of the state's 18 congressional districts (because he failed to turn in enough signatures), but didn't follow through on the challenge. If you read the fine print, though, there's an important downballot angle here: Romney's state chair is also the state's Treasurer, Bill Rutherford, who's also thought to be angling for the gubernatorial nomination in 2014. Grumblers within the Romney camp are accusing Rutherford of trying to win favor with the state's conservative base by failing to pursue the challenges, and shirking his Romney-related duties when local Santorum backers protested.
12:20 PM PT: WI-Gov: We've got dates for the recall elections in Wisconsin (targeting both Gov. Scott Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, and four Republican state Senators). The date is May 8, or if primaries are necessary, the primaries will be May 8 and the general will be June 5. (A primary will almost certainly required, not because of GOP meddling as with the state Senate recalls last year, but because a number of legit Dems are all seeking the nod for the gubernatorial recall.) The Government Accountability Board had previously proposed these dates, but on Wednesday they got the judicial approval that they need to confirm. (I'm still not sure I understand why the Dems timed their signature submissions in a way that would require the election to be held over the summer, when college students won't be engaged, but what's done is done.)
12:26 PM PT: LA-Sen: Conventional wisdom is that Mary Landrieu will have a tough race in 2014, given Louisiana's reddish turn as of late. A new statewide poll by Southern Media & Opinion Research (on behalf of conservative businessman Lane Grigsby, a frequent funneler of money into GOP causes in Louisiana) finds her with a 53% approval rating, the same as David Vitter. (Lest you think it's a wonky sample, Barack Obama, as you might expect, is down at 39%.)
12:35 PM PT: NH-01: Ex-Rep. Carol Shea-Porter has a big lead over her not very well-known Democratic opposition in the primary, at least according to a new poll. She leads DNC committeewoman Joanne Dowdell by a, well, rather dominant 87-5 margin. (Third wheel Andrew Hosmer wasn't even asked about in the poll.) We don't know who the pollster is, but this part is interesting: the poll was commissioned by the DCCC. The DCCC has always seemed kind of ambivalent about Shea-Porter since she surprisingly won the 2006 primary against their preferred candidate, and doesn't usually take sides in primaries where there's no incumbent, but now they seem eager to help her lock down the primary and get on with the task of completing her comeback against Rep. Frank Guinta in November.
12:37 PM PT: NM-Sen: I'm not sure if people were actually expecting that he might not endorse Heather Wilson (what, was he going to endorse "short, bald, honest" teabagger Greg Sowards?), so it may not be that newsworthy. But, at any rate, Lt. Gov. John Sanchez, who recently bailed out of the Republican field in the New Mexico Senate race, gave his backing to his former opponent and the frontrunner for the nomination, ex-Rep. Heather Wilson.
12:43 PM PT: UT-02: With Rep. Jim Matheson moving over to UT-04, there's a Dem hole that needed filling here (in this red district that got even redder with redistricting, and where they probably don't have much of a shot with a non-member of the Matheson family). Two different sons of ex-Rep. Wayne Owens passed on the race, but now they've managed to land a former legislator, ex-state Rep. Jay Seegmiller.
1:05 PM PT (David Nir): KS Redistricting: Unsurprisingly, a panel in the Kansas House just passed a new congressional redistricting plan that is completely at odds with one passed by the full Senate last month. (Details are available at the link.) In the Senate, a faction of "moderate" Republicans teamed up with Democrats to thwart the will of their "conservative" brethren; in the House, the conservatives hold sway. Presumably this means the chambers will either have to hash out their differences in some sort of conference committee, or this whole thing will wind up in court.
1:15 PM PT (David Nir): WATN?: Remember Chuck DeVore? He was the ultra-conservative California Assemblyman who ran in the GOP primary for Senate in 2010, getting totally overwhelmed by Carly Fiorina's money and finishing third. Now he's resurfaced in Texas (making this a literal "where are they now?"), writing an article for the National Review about how he made the move because California tries to "tax success" and "subsidize poverty."
1:38 PM PT (David Nir): MD-06: I haven't been quite sure what to make of this story. Financier John Delaney has been attacking his main opponent in the Democratic primary, state Sen. Rob Garagiola, for his prior work as a lobbyist, something that's gotten a bit of traction in the press (especially on the sanctimonious Washington Post editorial page). Delaney's complaints are several-fold, but one of his most recent has been to accuse Garagiola of having performed work on behalf of conservative lobbyist Rick Berman. (No, not the Star Trek guy.) I don't know how well-prepared Garagiola was to handle this line of attack, seeing as a spokesman said his boss "doesn't recall" lobbying for Berman, which is almost never the right response. But it's been hard to figure out what the real story is here, though I suppose we'll see soon enough whether these hits are actually effective: Maryland's primary is on April 3.
1:49 PM PT (David Nir): NY-23: No surprise: Attorney and Ithaca Democratic Party chair Leslie Danks Burke says she'll run for congress against GOP freshman Tom Reed in the redrawn 23rd District. Burke originally planned to make a bid in the old 22nd (retiring Rep. Maurice Hinchey's seat), but stated at the outset that she'd seek office wherever her home was placed, making this move very much expected. She joins Tompkins County legislator Nate Shinagawa, who just announced a day earlier, in the hunt for the Democratic nomination.
2:35 PM PT (David Nir): FL-02: Former state Sen. Nancy Argenziano's challenge to a Florida law that would preclude her from running for Congress as a Democrat was just turned back by a state judge. Argenziano used to be a Republican, then left her party to become an independent. New Florida rules require that you be a member of your chosen party for a full year before the filing deadline (so in this case, June of 2011), but Argenziano didn't become a Democrat until after that point. The real question is whether she'll still pursue her bid: She previously filed with the FEC (listing her party affiliation as independent), and she's a serious loose cannon, so I could see her going ahead with a third-party run. If she does, that would very likely complicated Democratic efforts to retake this seat from GOP freshman Steve Southerland.
2:56 PM PT (David Nir): NY-06: Democratic Assemblyman Rory Lancman, who had been ready to take on GOP Rep. Bob Turner from the moment Turner won last September's special election in the old 9th District, more recently turned his attention to the new 6th CD, which would have set him on a collision course with Rep. Gary Ackerman in the Democratic primary. (Turner's district was dismantled by the new court-drawn map, and he's now running for Senate.) Lancman says he simply doesn't want to run against Ackerman, whom he endorsed and called a "solid progressive." Lancman plans to seek re-election to the Assembly and, I should note, is only 43, while Ackerman is 69, so he may have a shot at this seat at some point in the relatively near future, should Ackerman decided to retire.