| President
Maine: Washington County voted Saturday and gave Ron Paul the majority of its votes, but not enough to overtake Mitt Romney's lead in last week's Maine caucuses. Paul won 163 votes; Romney had 80 votes, Rick Santorum received 57 votes, and Newt Gingrich 4. In a recount announced on Friday, Romney was ahead in the state by 239 votes.
Gingrich: Newt Gingrich is hoping to resurrect his presidential campaign by winning Georgia's primary on Super Tuesday. Gingrich criticized both Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum for pulling out of a presidential debate scheduled in the Peach State on March 1. Gingrich is confident that his strategy, where he seems to be focusing more on Southern states, will propel him back to the front of the pack.
Romney: Restore Our Future, the Super PAC supporting Mitt Romney, announced it has bought almost $6 million in new ad time. The group is spending almost $2 million this week on ads in eight states and on national cable. In Michigan, the super PAC has bought an additional $876,000 for commercials beginning next Tuesday on top of the $640,000 it said it is spending this week in the state. Romney and his allies are outspending Rick Santorum and his backers by about a 3 to 1 margin in Michigan.
Santorum: With Mitt Romney in Salt Lake City to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 2002 Winter Olympics, Rick Santorum said Romney's leadership of those games amounted to pork barrel spending and hypocrisy. At the time, Romney's Olympics got more federal dollars ($1.3 billion) than any previous U.S. Olympics. Romney's campaign continues to paint Santorum as a heavy supporter of earmarks during his days in the U.S. Senate.
Senate
Minnesota: Afghanistan veteran and former Vets for Freedom executive director Pete Hegseth is expected to announce a Minnesota U.S. Senate bid against Democrat Amy Klobuchar.
Missouri: Republican state Auditor Tom Schweich is considering getting into the race for the Republican nomination to take on Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. The Republican field of Rep. Todd Akin, former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman, and St. Louis businessman John Brunner, has left many Republicans unimpressed and hoping for a late entry into the race.
House
AZ-4: Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu is being accused of threatening to deport a former boyfriend when he wouldn't agree to keep their relationship secret. Babeu's campaign has so far denied the allegations made in the Phoenix New Times article, beyond that he is in fact gay. Rep. Paul Gosar is now looking much likelier to win the Republican primary here.
AZ-8: Jesse Kelly leads the Republican race for the special election to replace Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. A Wenzel Strategies survey, paid for by Citizens United Political Victory Fund, puts Kelly at 43 percent to State Sen. Frank Antenori's 18 percent and sports commentator Dave Sitton's 10 percent. Twenty percent are undecided. The primary is April 17, with former Giffords aide Ron Barber the likely Democratic nominee.
IL-2: Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has joined President Obama and other top Democrats in endorsing Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. for reelection. Jackson faces former Rep. Debbie Halvorson in a primary next month. Halvorson has made the House Ethics Committee's ongoing investigation of Jackson a central issue in the campaign.
NC-6: Guilford County Commissioner Billy Yow (R) filed for Congress against 14 term North Carolina Rep. Howard Coble. Coble, who is 80 years old and has suffered some health issues in recent months, announced he was running for reelection in January.
Redistricting
Kansas: House Speaker Mike O'Neal is pushing a new congressional redistricting plan that would split the Kansas City area between two districts and put part of it in with the vast, rural 1st District. The Kansas Senate has approved a bipartisan congressional redistricting plan, but the House and Gov. Sam Brownback seem to be at odds with the Senate over lines they believe are not favorable enough to the Republican Party.
Minnesota: A state judicial panel is expected to release new legislative and congressional district maps on Tuesday.
Ohio: The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Friday that it won't consider a lawsuit challenging new state House and Senate districts before this year's elections because Democrats behind the claim unreasonably delayed its filing. The court says it will allow the suit to continue with respect to the 2014 to 2020 elections that will be affected by the new maps.
Redistricting Roundup: Friday's redistricting roundup from Ballotpedia.
Wyoming: The Wyoming House passed a legislative redistricting bill, which was expected to encounter serious opposition in the Senate. A major problem from the Senate's perspective was that the House plan put Sen. Curt Meier of LaGrange into the same Senate district as Wayne Johnson of Cheyenne. The legislatures job was to realign the state's 60 House districts, nestled in 30 Senate districts, to conform to 2010 census figures. Wyoming's population grew 14 percent from 2000 to 2010 to total 563,000. |
