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Leading Off:
• VA State Senate: Looks like Virginia Democrats might get a major break in their efforts to hang on to Attorney General-elect Mark Herring's state Senate seat, thanks to deep—and familiar—fissures in the state GOP. Republican Delegate Joe May has announced that he'll run as an independent in the 33rd District, after party leaders opted to choose a nominee for the special election via a "mass meeting" rather than a traditional firehouse primary.
That move is reminiscent of the Republican Party's decision to nominate their statewide candidates earlier this year at a convention instead of via primary—a choice which made it easier for the crazies to come out on top. It also drove the more reasonable Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling out of the race for governor, and given Ken Cuccinelli's narrow loss last month, you'd think the GOP might be regretting how they let things play out.
But no, lesson not and never learned. And unlike Bolling, who merely considered an independent bid, May, who lost a primary in June to a more conservative challenger, is actually going through with it. If May splits the right-leaning vote in this light blue suburban district, that would seriously damage Republican chances for a pickup. And with the chamber currently split 20-20, every seat counts.
Democrats, meanwhile, are united behind attorney Jennifer Wexton. Two other Republicans are also running, pundit Ron Meyer and local GOP official John Whitbeck. Meyer sounds like a nobody, but Whitbeck you'll remember as the guy who told an antisemitic joke to warm up the crowd at a Cuccinelli rally in September. Good times.
Senate:
• IL-Sen: GOP Sen. Mark Kirk, who is not up for re-election until 2016, ties state AG Lisa Madigan at 41 apiece, according to PPP's very hypothetical new Illinois poll.
• MA-Sen: This is some serious b.s. from Chuck Schumer:
Q: One of the people you say has shaped your outlook is Elizabeth Warren. And obviously, she's someone who has a lot of support from the grassroots of the Democratic Party—
A: You know I helped persuade her to run. There is a good little story. [Looks to aide] I can tell this. I went to Scott Brown and said, "If you give us the sixtieth vote for the Citizens United rollback, we won't go after you." I spent a lot of time lobbying him, and met some of his friends and had them lobby him. He said yes. Then he said no. So I wanted to recruit the strongest candidate against him, and I thought that was Elizabeth Warren.
So the former chair of the DSCC was willing to trade a Senate seat (in a blue state, that would have been a top Democratic target) for
one vote on
one almost meaningless piece of legislation? Absolutely absurd. I hope Schumer is full of it and is just telling this tale to emphasize Brown's phoniness as he contemplates a Senate bid in New Hampshire. But if not, then we're damn lucky Brown went back on his alleged word, because the prospect of a powerful Democrat like Schumer sabotaging the party's efforts to win back a crucial seat would have been beyond appalling.
And I suspect the latter. Brown didn't deny Schumer's claim but merely said "it's difficult to take anything that Chuck Schumer says seriously." I was always a fan of Schumer's aggressive recruitment—how could you not be after the Democratic successes of 2006 and 2008? But sadly, I think it's all too easy to take this story seriously.
• NJ-Sen: GOP state Sen. Joe Kyrillos, who lost to Sen. Bob Menendez last year by 20 points, says he won't challenge newly elected Sen. Cory Booker next year. According to columnist Herb Jackson, though, three other Republicans are considering bids: Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick, state Sen. Michael Doherty, and Assemblyman Jay Webber. However, there are no quotes from any of these guys on the record.
• VA-Sen: Libertarian Robert Sarvis, who took an unusually high 6.5 percent in last month's gubernatorial election, now says he's considering a bid for Senate next year.
Gubernatorial:
• FL-Gov: Longtime readers know my general aversion to writing about campaign staff turnover, since it's always so hard to know what it means. But this story is just plain weird. Democratic operative Bill Hyers, whose stock soared after he guided Bill de Blasio to victory in this year's race for mayor in New York City, was snapped up by Florida gubernatorial hopeful Charlie Crist less than a month ago. Now Hyers has now reportedly bailed on Crist before even starting full-time. Hyers claims he just wanted to stay in New York and had never left town, but what the hell?
House:
• CA-25: One of my favorite exchanges from the brilliant TV show NewsRadio:
Lisa: If everyone thought you should jump off a bridge, would you?
Dave: If everyone around here thought I should jump off a bridge, they'd probably just get together and push me.
Well, it sure seems like GOP Rep. Buck McKeon is playing the role of beleaguered news director Dave Nelson these days. Just a day after ex-state Sen. Tony Strickland started nudging McKeon toward the precipice, a second prominent local Republican is intimating that he ought to consider leaping before he gets shoved. Like Strickland, state Sen. Steve Knight is saying
he won't run unless McKeon retires, but he's already loaded for bear, with a long list of endorsements in his pocket. Knight says he's just getting prepped in response to Strickland's move, but McKeon should probably make sure his water wings are fully inflated.
• ME-02: Former state Sen. Richard Rosen is dropping out of the Republican primary for Maine's open 2nd Congressional District, leaving three others to view for the nomination: former state Treasurer Bruce Poliquin, former state Senate President Kevin Raye, and Navy veteran Blaine Richardson. Two notable Democrats are also hoping to keep this seat blue, state Sens. Emily Cain and Troy Jackson.
• MI-11: A big bummer for Democrats in Michigan: Law school dean and 2010 Secretary of State nominee Jocelyn Benson will not run for Congress in the 11th District. Benson had been courted by the DCCC to take on unhinged freshman Rep. Kerry Bentivolio, but he's facing a serious primary challenge from attorney David Trott, who would have made a tougher opponent thanks to his wealth and lack of obvious lunacy. (Trott's not without serious flaws, though, as he's a notorious foreclosure kingpin.)
Benson cited a desire to stay on at her current job, where the murder of a law student earlier this fall still looms large. But it wouldn't be surprising if the tough national environment for Democrats right now affected her decision-making. During the government shutdown in October, when Republicans were at a nadir, Democrats experienced a recruitment boom. It only stands to reason that with the tables now turned (however temporarily), recruitment would get harder.
• NY-13: Harlem Pastor Michael Walrond, who indicated last month that he was looking at a bid for Rep. Charlie Rangel's seat, has now decided that he's in. Rangel, of course, has yet to decide if he'll seek another term (though one of his allies, Manhattan Democratic Party chair Keith Wright, said on Tuesday he thinks Rangel will run), but either way, the Democratic primary in this dark blue seat is likely to be busy.
Other Races:
• VA State House: Democrat Jennifer Boysko, who lost to Republican Delegate Tom Rust by just 54 votes, will formally request a recount on Wednesday. Narrow as that margin sounds, though, it's about a quarter of a percent of all votes cast, which is quite large, as far as the likelihood of overturning the results goes. (By contrast, the margin in the attorney general's race is just 0.007 percent). However, some analysts believe there may be a very large number of uncounted undervotes—perhaps as many as 50,000 statewide. These ballots will get reviewed in any recount, meaning we could see larger than usual gyrations as the votes are re-tallied, both in this race and the AG contest.
Grab Bag:
• Illinois: Monday marked the first filing deadline of the 2014 election cycle, giving us our first official list of who's running and who's not. Five Republicans are competing in Illinois' March 18 primary to take on the very vulnerable Gov. Pat Quinn: 2010 nominee and state Sen. Bill Brady; rich guy Bruce Rauner; state Treasurer Dan Rutherford; 2010 candidate and state Sen. Kirk Dillard; and Some Dude Peter Edward Jones.
There's not much primary action for any of the other statewide offices. The only exception is the Republican primary for the open state treasurer position, where House Minority Leader Tom Cross and DuPage County Auditor Bob Grogan are both running. The winner will face Democratic state Sen. Mike Frerichs in November.
All eighteen of Illinois' members of the U.S. House filed to run again. Only Republican Rep. Rodney Davis in IL-13 faces a credible challenge for re-nomination, though his primary opponent, attorney and former Miss America Erika Harold, has stumbled out of the gate with poor fundraising. The remaining incumbents face either token primary opposition or none at all.
A couple of other primaries are looking potentially competitive on the challenger side. In the state's 11th Congressional District, five Republicans are running to take on Democratic Rep. Bill Foster, with state Rep. Darlene Senger looking like the frontrunner at the moment. And in the 13th, four Democrats are running to face Davis (or less likely Harold) in the general. Former state judge Ann Callis appears to be the favorite against physics professor George Gollin, with two little-known candidates also in the mix.
For a full list of candidates in every statewide partisan office and congressional seat, see our Google doc here. Also be sure to check out our 2014 calendar for all future filing deadlines and primary dates. (Darth Jeff)