| President-Primary Romney: Shocker: the party is falling in line behind Romney after Gingrich essentially announced his withdrawal from the race. Monday he received Rudy Giuliani's endorsement; Tuesday Rick Perry. Today the Indiana GOP chairman declared Mitt 'the presumptive nominee.' Now we move into a public performance of reconciliation within the party, the means by which the GOP sheds the infighting of the nomination battle to focus its fire on President Obama in November. Santorum: Part of that reconciliation is reflected in the hire of Santorum campaign manager Mike Biundo, a New Hampshire native, has been hired as Romney's deputy national director of coalitions. While he is probably good at his job, the news has made headlines for its marriage of the Santorum and Romney campaigns. Senate Indiana: $3.5 million in outside spending has been spent in this race so far, with $2.3 million of that going to support Treasurer Richard Mourdock. You can click the link to find the specific groups donating to who, but one of our commenters in Indiana sums up the result: I am getting a mailing a day from either the Lugar or Mourdock side. Yesterday's was anti-Mourdock from the American Action Network. We will see what today brings! More Indiana: Wenzel Strategies for Citizes United (Mourdock supporters)- Mourdock 44 Lugar 39 Minnesota: Senator Al Fraken teared up on the Senate floor today while discussing Sheila Wellstone, the deceased wife of the Senator, in regard to his legislation to limit the eviction of domestic violence victims from their homes. Arkansas: Chad Brownstein, a donor to Senator Mark Pryor's 2002 campaign, listed an internship in the Senator's office online without approval from Pryor for the winner of an auction for a California temple. A major brouhaha emerged after the winning bid was won by the founder of Girls Gone Wild. Browstein apologized, saying there was a miscommunication in listing the internship before approval by the Senator, whose office declared it "a hoax." Governor Wisconsin: A big ad dump from a labor coalition supporting Kathleen Falk for $1 million. The ads will begin running Friday and go all the way through a day before the primary. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett easily has the edge here, so Falk will need the money to make it close. House Blue Dogs: After losing Holden and Altmire on Tuesday, the Blue Dog caucus was down to maybe 10 members slated to remain in its ranks by 2012. The group today released three new endorsements, likely to counter claims of its demise. They are former State Rep. David Crooks (IN-08), former State Rep. Pam Gulleson (ND-AL), and former State Rep. Gary McDowell (MI-01), who did not run with the group's support during his 2010 run. That makes 11 endorsements for the caucus this cycle, many of them in unwinnable seats for Democrats. AZ-08: Both the NRCC and the DCCC are going up in the 8th, according to Hotline on Call. Both made $150k buys that will begin airing April 27th. CA-02: Activist Norman Solomon's campaign released an internal poll conducted by Lake Research Huffman 18 Solomon 10 Adams 8 Lawson 5. California has a runoff under the Top Two primary, so the big race is for second place (both Republicans running captured less than 3% support). CA-30: Both Reps. Brad Sherman and Howard Berman (D) are unloading their warchests on advertising for the upcoming primary between the two members. Berman spent $1 million on a cable TV buy, while Sherman unloaded $420k on a six-week run for a positive spot. NC-11: Rep. Jeff Duncan in South Carolina endorsed real estate investor Mark Meadows in the crowded GOP primary in the 11th today. A candidate has to crack 40% to avoid a runoff between the top two in the primary. Miscellaneous
Wisconsin State Senate: The DLCC is touting a poll conducted by Myers Research. SD-21: John Lehman (D) 51 Van Wanggaard(R) 47 SD-23: Terry Moulton (R) 49 Kristen Dexter (D) 47 SD-29: Jerry Petrowski (R) 51 Donna Seidel (D) 45 |
