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NV-Sen: Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison hasn't said anything about his plans for this suddenly-open seat, but he
recently met with GOP power players American Crossroads and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which does indicate that he's thinking about the Senate race. However, state Attorney General Adam Laxalt quickly
put out a statement saying his "complete focus" is on his current job, "not on the next election." Former Gov. Bob List, who is close to Laxalt, also told Jon Ralston that the attorney general
isn't interested. Rep. Joe Heck previously declined to run against Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, but plenty of Republicans hope hell change his mind in light of Reid's departure. But Ralston tells us that Heck still doesn't have much interest in running, and thinks that Reid's departure would make his job even harder. (Jeff Singer)
• IL-18: Former Republican Rep. Bobby Schilling had been privately considering running to succeed scandal-tarred Rep. Aaron Schock in the upcoming special election, but he announced on Saturday that he will back state Sen. Darin LaHood instead. Schilling only represented about 16 percent of this seat during his two years in the House so it's not clear that his endorsement is worth that much, but every little bit helps.
Currently, LaHood only faces Some Dude Mark Zalcman in the GOP primary, but other Republicans are considering. The potential field includes state Rep. Dan Brady, homebuilder Ed Brady (no relation), community college trustee Kent Gray, and former state Rep. Jil Tracy. Democrats won't have an easy time winning this Romney 61-37 seat, but state Sen. John Sullivan is reportedly mulling a bid. (Jeff Singer)
• MS-01: Filing closed on Friday for the special election to succeed the late Rep. Alan Nunnelee. A whooping 13 candidates will appear on the May 12 non-partisan jungle-primary ballot; in the all-but-certain event that no one takes a majority, the top-two vote-getters will advance to the June 2 runoff. Twelve of these candidates identify as Republicans with only Walter Zinn, a former advisor to two Jackson mayors, running as a Democrat (Libertarian Danny Bedwell did not make the ballot in the end). Below is a look at this outsized field:
• Boyce Adams (R): Businessman, 2011 Public Service Commission nominee, ally of Gov. Phil Bryant
• Sam Adcock (R): Airbus Helicopters executive, former aide to then-Sen. Trent Lott
• Nancy Collins (R): State senator
• Ed Holliday (R): Dentist, tea partier
• Starner Jones (R): Physician, tea partier
• Trent Kelly (R): Multi-county district attorney
• Chip Mills (R): Itawamba County prosecutor
• Greg Pirkle (R): Attorney
• Henry Ross (R): Attorney, former Eupora mayor, 2010 and 2012 candidate
• Daniel Sparks (R): Attorney
• Mike Tagert (R): Transportation commissioner, ally of former Gov. Haley Barbour
• Quentin Whitwell (R): Attorney, former Jackson city councilor
• Walter Zinn (D): Former Jackson mayoral aide, only non-Republican
Romney won this northern Mississippi seat
62-37, so it is expected to remain in GOP hands. But it's far from clear which Republican will emerge from this crowded contest with the gold. (Jeff Singer)
10:36 AM PT: IL-Sen: As expected, Rep. Tammy Duckworth formally kicked off her campaign against GOP Sen. Mark Kirk on Monday, making her the first Democrat to enter the race. (She's posted a welcome video here.) Duckworth comes in to the contest with a reputation as a strong fundraiser who's well-connected to the political establishment, and she also has a singular biography as an Iraq war veteran who lost both legs in service to her country. However, she represents just a small slice of the Chicagoland area and still has to introduce herself to most of the state.
She might also still face a contested primary, though at least one potential rival is sounding less interested. Following Duckworth's announcement, Rep. Cheri Bustos told Roll Call she was "unlikely" to run (that's the paper's phrasing) and offered kind words for her House colleague, though she was careful to say she was not making a formal endorsement. But we still haven't heard from Reps. Bill Foster and Robin Kelly as to whether their calculus has now changed.
10:45 AM PT: LA-Gov: Louisiana Democrats seem to have given up hope on landing a more prominent candidate for this fall's gubernatorial election, since the party just formally endorsed state Rep. John Bel Edwards. The main hope rested with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, but this move, plus the fact that ex-Sen. Mary Landrieu offered praised for Edwards following the endorsement, is a pretty strong sign Mitch won't run.
The Republican field remains hotly divided, as Sen. David Vitter, the nominal frontrunner, dukes it out with Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne and Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle. But even if Edwards makes it to a December November runoff, the GOP will be heavily favored to retain this seat, just as they were last year during Mary Landrieu's Senate runoff.
11:17 AM PT: FL-Sen: According to two "unnamed Republicans familiar with his plans" who spoke to Bloomberg, GOP Sen. Marco Rubio will supposedly announce his presidential campaign on April 13. Assuming Rubio departs, it'll likely set off a fiercely contested Republican primary to succeed him, as several big names are considering the race. Democrats, meanwhile, have largely united around just one candidate so far, Rep. Patrick Murphy, who picked up his third endorsement from a fellow member of Florida's delegation Monday, Rep. Lois Frankel.
11:48 AM PT: Chicago Mayor: The latest Ogden & Fry poll brings no hope for Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, the Cook County commissioner challenging Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in next week's runoff. Rahm still leads 48-34, little changed from his 49-32 advantage last week. Emanuel also picked up an unexpected endorsement from Alderman Bob Fioretti, who finished a weak fourth in the first round. Fioretti had cast himself as a progressive alternative to the incumbent, but it appears that he engaged in the worst sort of stereotypical Chicago politics by trading his support for a promise from Rahm to help retire his campaign debt. Pathetic.
12:02 PM PT: Radio: On Sunday night, David Nir appeared on Kudzu Vine to discuss a whole variety of topics, from the GOP presidential field to Harry Reid's retirement (and many more in between). Click here to listen to a recording.
12:08 PM PT (David Jarman): Demographics: We talked a bit last week about the newest round of population change data from the Census Bureau, but this is one of those cases where a picture is worth a thousand words. So, via Jed Kolko, here's a new county-level map of population change in the last year, expressed as a percentage. As you can see, the big gainers are in retirement areas (especially Florida, but also the coasts of the Carolinas, and Bend, Oregon), oil patches in Texas and North Dakota, and exurban counties in southern metropolitan areas, especially Houston, Nashville, and Charlotte. The fastest dwindling is in the already-lightly-populated agricultural counties of the Great Plains, as well as the Black Belt and Appalachians.
12:33 PM PT: VA Redistricting: Last week's surprise Supreme Court ruling that found that Alabama Republicans likely packed too many black voters into too few legislative districts may wind up having a speedy and direct impact on a related case concerning Virginia's congressional lines. On Monday, the SCOTUS ordered a three-judge panel to reconsider its 2014 decision regarding a very similar claim about Virginia's 3rd Congressional District in light of the high court's new ruling. Unlike in Alabama, the lower court previously sided with plaintiffs, so this is a sign that the Supremes may be indeed be inclined to uphold the Virginia decision. That would force a redraw that would benefit Democrats, as black voters would have to be more evenly distributed in Republican districts.
12:43 PM PT (David Jarman): UK: Handicapping elections in the United States is hard enough even when there are only two major parties, but it's exponentially harder in the United Kingdom, where there's still a first-past-the-post system in parliamentary elections, but where there is a number of credible minor parties and regional parties. Combine that with little district-level polling of key constituencies, the likelihood of a coalition being necessary to govern, and an increasing tendency toward strategic voting, and you've just got a recipe for utter confusion.
Daily Kos Elections isn't going to touch that problem with a 3.05-meter pole, but we're glad to see that Five Thirty Eight will be attempting to grapple with it as the UK heads toward the 2015 election. Their 2010 predictions didn't turn out too well, and 2015 may be even more difficult (with the growing strength of the Scottish National Party, UKIP, and Greens likely to explode the math in a lot of seats, even though the UKIP and Greens are unlikely to finish first in more than a handful of seats) ... but their focus on predictive demography seems a better jumping-off point than the old-school "swingometer" type analysis, which barely even works in a three-dimensional environment, to say nothing of a six-dimensional one.
At any rate, if you're just getting started on wrapping your head around the mysterious UK system, Five Thirty Eight has two good explainers from Monday that'll give you a baseline: one on the basic history of post-WWII politics in the UK (and the ebb and flow of the smaller parties during that period), and one on the ideological differences between the current parties (many of which deal with considerations we simply don't have in America, like regional autonomy and Euroskepticism).
12:45 PM PT: IL-Sen: On the other hand, an aide to Rep. Robin Kelly says she's still "considering" and will decide "soon."
1:05 PM PT: NV-04, 01: State Sen. Ruben Kihuen just became the first Democrat to announce a bid against GOP freshman Cresent Hardy, whose fluky win last year assures him a place on the very top of Team Blue's target list this cycle. Kihuen, you may recall, tried to run in the neighboring 1st District in 2012 but bowed out after it became clear ex-Rep. Dina Titus had the nomination sewn up. Alexis Levinson suggests that Kihuen could still seek a repeat engagement in the much bluer 1st if Titus runs for Senate, as could former Assemblywoman Lucy Flores, who'd also been looking at the 4th.
Interesting, Levinson also hints that ex-Rep. Steven Horsford, the man Hardy beat in 2014, might be reconsidering his decision not to seek a rematch. Levinson's unnamed sources indicated that Horsford could still try for a comeback—and Horsford himself declined to comment! We were pretty surprised when he said no in the first place, given that his loss had far more to do with the bottom dropping out from Nevada Democrats in a terrible midterm year rather than his own failings, so maybe he's having second thoughts. Levinson adds that former Secretary of State Ross Miller could run here, too.
1:17 PM PT: Whoops, let's try that again. Levinson clarifies that she was referring to the open seat Senate race with regard to Horsford and Miller, not NV-04.
1:28 PM PT: MI-01: Democratic state Rep. Henry Yanez doesn't appear to have commented on a possible run for retiring GOP Rep. Candice Miller's seat, but community member MetroGnome spots an interesting tell: Yanez's once-dormant Facebook page has been revived under the heading of "Henry Yanez for Congress." Yanez ran for this seat once before, getting absolutely obliterated in 2010 by a 72-26 margin, but Democrats don't have much of a bench in this decidedly red district, so he'd at least give the party a plausible option. One other Democrat expressing interest is Macomb County Commissioner Fred Miller, who'd have the entertaining chance to pull a "Distinguished Gentleman" routine and plaster the area with "Miller for Congress" signs. It's the name you know!
1:44 PM PT: TN-04: State Sen. Jim Tracy, who blew what theoretically looked like a sure thing in the GOP primary last year against badly wounded Rep. Scott DesJarlais, has now confirmed for the first time that he's weighing a second attempt. However, Grant Starrett, a 27-year-old attorney who worked for Mitt Romney's campaigns says that he, too, is considering a run, and if both men enter, that could easily allow DesJarlais to survive thanks to the dreaded clown-car effect.
2:02 PM PT (David Jarman): KY-Gov: When you make an initial splash as a candidate who's against something, it's hard to reimagine yourself as a candidate who's for something when that thing that you're against is no longer relevant. That's the takeaway from a new piece by National Journal's Karyn Bruggeman about tea-partying businessman Matt Bevin, who got a lot of attention for his GOP primary challenge to Mitch McConnell in 2014's Senate race, but hasn't been able to parlay the name rec from that run into much traction in the GOP gubernatorial primary.
National groups that backed him last year aren't interested this time (largely because they ordinarily don't play in state races), and the main thing he seems to be accomplishing is splitting the tea party lane with Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, which is letting former Louisville city councilor Hal Heiner — the sole occupant of the establishment lane — pull ahead. Like Heiner, Bevin is capable of self-funding, and says he'll put "some" of his money into this run, but he's mum on how much.
2:09 PM PT (David Jarman): NC-Sen: Most Democrats looking for a challenge to two-term Republican Sen. Richard Burr have ex-Sen. Kay Hagan at the top of their wish list, but we haven't gotten a clear sign from Hagan that she's doing moving toward the race. The News & Observer checks in with some of the second-tier options for the Dems, but none of them sound terribly interested (at least for now): former Raleigh mayor Charles Meeker says he's considering another run for office, but not against Burr.
State Sen. Dan Blue has "no immediate plans," and is more focused on trying to win back control of the state Senate. State Sen. Jeff Jackson says hasn't "even considered it." And Rep. Brad Miller, currently working for a New York-based law firm, says he has "no desperate need to return to electoral politics."