Senate:
• CT-Sen: Ex-Rep. Rob Simmons has finally made it clear he won't make another Senate run by throwing his support to ex-Rep. Chris Shays for the GOP nomination. Apparently, the two had an "understanding" that only one of them would run. Shays, of course, will very likely have to vanquish Linda McMahon and her millions before earning the right to get whipped by the likes of Chris Murphy in the general election.
• FL-Sen: In Mason-Dixon's newest poll of the Florida Senate race, Republicans are still struggling to gain traction against Bill Nelson. Click the link for the full set of numbers at Daily Kos Elections.
• WI-Sen: Hello, Neumann! According to the Hotline's sources, ex-Rep. Mark Neumann is set to join the GOP primary field — not really a surprise, since he expressed interest in the race even before Herb Kohl announced his retirement. This ought to be a fun race that pits the conservative Neumann against the "moderate" Tommy Thompson, but I wouldn't be surprised if others get in. (Note also that Neumann is personally wealthy and spent $6 million in his failed bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination last year.)
P.S. The size of that Club for Growth ad buy targeting Tommy Thompson: $50K.
Gubernatorial:
• LA-Gov: It seems like Rob Marionneaux is trying to psych himself up for a run at Bobby Jindal, putting a couple of numbers out there from his promised poll and seeing how they play. In an initial head-to-head (courtesy Anzalone-Liszt), though, he gets predictably killed, 59-30. There are some more favorable numbers after some message-testing (of course), but Marionneaux has little time or money to make those penetrate.
• WV-Gov: An excerpt from a press release from acting Dem Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin:
According to the first campaign finance reports of the 2011 Special General Election, Tomblin has raised $1,254,433.79. Bill Maloney collected just $392,985.24. In addition, Tomblin has $991,712.47 cash on hand, while Maloney has $576,703.15.The vast majority of Maloney’s money, as in the primary, came from his own pockets. He loaned himself $750,000. A third of that came on the eve of the filing deadline.
House:
• IL-08: David Axelrod, President Obama's top campaign strategist, is keynoting a fundraiser for Tammy Duckworth next month in Chicago. As commenter jj32 says, this is about as close to an Obama endorsement as you can get, and suggests to me that Duckworth will have all the resources she needs (and more) in her primary battle against Raja Krishnamoorthi.
• IL-08, IL-14: The Club for Growth is rarely shamed out of anything, but Rep. Joe Walsh's recently-exposed legal travails might prove too much even for them. The Club said last month that they were backing Joe Walsh for re-election in the 14th CD — even though Walsh hadn't yet said (and still hasn't said) he'd run there, and even though the district is already home to another Republican freshman, Randy Hultgren. Now that Walsh's six figures' worth of unpaid child support dues have made headlines for weeks, CfG honcho Chris Chocola is suggesting his group might walk away from that endorsement.
• NV-02: Wow. Check out this new NRCC spot just hammering Kate Marshall on her fiscal stewardship of the state. Using several clips of her speaking, they manage to make her sound about as awful as possible. I actually think it's a devastatingly effective ad. Have a look:
And speaking of the special election, Greg Giroux crunches some numbers for the district for four different recent statewide races. It's really a matter of isolating the chunk of Clark County that's tucked into NV-02, since the district covers the entire rest of the state outside of Clark (and the 1st and 3rd Districts are Clark-only).Grab Bag:
• Ohio: PPP has a bunch of Ohio miscellany, the most interesting of which is the generic House ballot. Dems lead 42-37, but that's down from 43-34 in May.
• Iowa: Another batch of miscellany from PPP: First we had the Buckeye State, now we have the Hawkeye state. The generic ballot here also has Dems leading, 44-40. It appears that PPP did not ask this question in Iowa when they were last in the state (back in April), but based on other Iowa numbers (like Republican Gov. Terry Branstad's improving approvals), it seems like Democrats are losing ground here, too.
Redistricting Roundup:
• AZ Redistricting: Arizona's first-term Republican attorney general Tom Horne is trying to make his bones with the conservative movement by challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. There's not much upside as far as redistricting in Horne's own state goes, seeing as AZ uses an independent commission. (And anyway, there's no way the case would get resolved before new maps go into effect.) But of course if the suit is successful, it could have far-reaching effects throughout the country.