Daily Kos

8:46 AM PT: Guns: Following up on their New Hampshire polling which showed GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte's job approval plummeting in the wake of her vote against expanding background checks for gun buyers, PPP checked in on five other senators in four states who also voted against the legislation, known as the Manchin-Toomey amendment. The results were pretty for no one:

State	Senator	Approvals	Prior Approvals	Change	More/Less Likely to Vote	Support for BG Checks
AK	Mark Begich (D)	41-37	49-39 (Feb.)	-6	22-39	60-35
AK	Lisa Murkowski (R)	46-41	54-33 (Feb.)	-16	26-39	60-35
AZ	Jeff Flake (R)	32-51	45-43 (Nov.)٭	-21	19-52	70-26
NV	Dean Heller (R)	44-41	47-42 (Nov.)	-2	25-46	70-24
OH	Rob Portman (R)	26-34	35-25 (Oct.)	-18	19-36	72-21

٭ PPP tested Flake's favorability rating in November, not his job approval rating.

Of course, you could argue that post hoc doesn't necessarily mean ergo propter hoc, but the evidence that "no" votes on Manchin-Toomey have hurt opponents is starting to look awfully consistent. What's more, there's also some indication that "yes" votes may have actually helped supporters. While I wish PPP had also tested John McCain, Sherrod Brown, and Harry Reid (all of whom favored the bill, though Reid voted against it for procedural reasons), they did ask Arizona voters whether they trusted McCain or Flake more on guns; McCain wins on that score by a wide 45-24 margin. And Flake, for his part, has already made himself the most unpopular sitting senator PPP has data on.

But there's something else, too. Ayotte's senior colleague, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, voted for Manchin-Toomey, but she's seen her approvals move up over the same timeframe, from 46-39 in October (PDF) to 53-39 now. And in Quinnipiac's polling, Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, who lent his name to the legislation, also saw a spike in his numbers. There's also the fact that the NRA just started airing radio ads to defend Ayotte, something I doubt they'd do if they felt their once-typical supreme confidence.

Of course, except for Begich, who could lose for any number of reasons in red Alaska, none of these senators are up for re-election any time soon. But that doesn't mean this vote wasn't a mistake, and it doesn't mean there won't be consequences.

9:36 AM PT: MI-Sen: According to unnamed sources, The Hotline says that Rep. Gary Peters will launch a bid for Senate "this week." At this point, Peters is the clear choice for Democrats, and there really aren't any obvious (or even non-obvious) alternatives, so really it's just a matter of timing. Peters's campaign wouldn't confirm, but Congress is currently adjourned for a "district work period," so this week is as plausible as any.

10:23 AM PT: Charlotte Mayor: Confirming some earlier speculation, Barack Obama has indeed nominated Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx as his new transportation secretary, to replace Ray LaHood. Foxx is definitely one of the brighter young Democratic stars in North Carolina politics, but it's unclear what effect this career change (assuming he's confirmed by the Senate) might have on his future. On the one hand, there have been a few politicians who held non-statewide office, were elevated to the cabinet, and then came back home to win a statewide position. On the other, a stint inside the beltway and a close association with Barack Obama may not help Foxx if he wants to seek a promotion somewhere down the line, but of course, he may not be interested in that route.

10:39 AM PT: IA-Sen: A lengthy AP story about Republican Senate recruitment woes nationwide also includes a few specifics about the situation in Iowa, where the GOP search for Plan D continues apace. The NRSC reportedly met with state Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey and state Sen. Joni Ernst last week, and they're also trying to talk to former Reliant Energy CEO Mark Jacobs. In a desperation heave, they even tried to persuade Gov. Terry Branstad to jump in; unsurprisingly, he said no. (Branstad hasn't even committed to running for another term as governor.)

A separate piece in Politico reports that David Young, chief of staff to Sen. Chuck Grassley, is also putting out feelers about a potential bid. Young "declined to comment" on the matter, so count that as a non-denial.

10:49 AM PT: MD-Gov: That's certainly one way to boost your coffers. Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown is reportedly talking to Howard County Executive Ken Ulman about the possibility of Ulman switching gears and serving as Brown's running mate in the Democratic primary, rather than continue with his own gubernatorial ambitions. Ulman is only 38 and is a longer shot to win the nomination, so the move would make sense for him. As for Brown, he'd be able to pool Ulman's $2.1 million cash stockpile with his own $1.6 million warchest, allowing him to gain ground on state Attorney General Doug Gansler's huge $5.2 million bank account.

Brown isn't discussing this scenario publicly, but Ulman rather explicitly held the door open in a recent interview, saying "It's fair to say I'm in a process of evaluating the best way to serve a state I really love."  The Washington Post, though, notes that Ulman, who is term limited in his current job, could also run for the AG post being vacated by Gansler.

11:01 AM PT: P.S. Jeff Flake decided to compound his error by going after PPP in an interview with (blech) the Daily Caller. Tom Jensen predictably obliterates him. Good guys 1, Jeff Flake nuttin'.

11:17 AM PT: The Hill pegs an announcement for Wednesday, according to "two sources close to Peters."

Leading Off:

• PA-Sen: Here's more empirical evidence that the conventional wisdom about who cares more about gun safety regulations is wrong, via Quinnipiac's new Pennsylvania poll. Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, one of the architects of the Manchin-Toomey amendment that would have expanded background checks for gun buyers, just recorded his all-time highest job approval rating, at 48-30, up from 43-32 a month ago.

While his Democratic counterpart, Sen. Joe Manchin, has received more media attention, Toomey has earned plenty of notice for his role as a Republican willing to take on the NRA, and it's redounded to his benefit. By a 54-12 margin, respondents say they're inclined to view Toomey more favorably thanks to the legislation that bears his name, and overall they give him a positive 34-29 rating on how he's "handling gun control."

And as with every other poll (pace Heidi Heitkamp), Quinnipiac finds almost universal support for increased background checks, with 85 percent in favor and just 12 percent opposed. What's more, voters are pissed about the Senate's failure to pass Manchin-Toomey. Thirty-four percent describe themselves as "angry" about the result and 36 percent say they are "dissatisfied." Only 22 percent say they're "satisfied" and just 5 percent "enthusiastic."

Combined with New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte's drop in her job approval score following her vote against Manchin-Toomey, I'm only further convinced that a price is going to be paid over expanded background checks, but not by supporters.

The Loud Family -- "Don't Respond, She Can Tell"

8:07 AM PT: SC-01: I suspected that Mark Sanford's fundraising had dried up—I mean, come on, it wasn't exactly a difficult call to make—but even I didn't imagine things would be this bad. In his pre-special election fundraising report (covering the period of Feb. 28 to April 17), Sanford took in just $375,000. Ordinarily, that might seem pretty good, but as we mentioned in the previous Digest, Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch raised $871,000—more than twice as much. Sanford spent remarkably little (only $23,000), momentarily leaving him with more cash on hand ($284,000 vs. $254,000), but Colbert Busch's subsequent fundraising has been far stronger, so she's certainly made up the gap.

But also, there's a reason why people spend money on political campaigns! Colbert Busch spent over 35 times as much as Sanford during the last month-and-a-half. Sanford may have managed to husband his meager resources, but the fact that a former Republican governor running in a deep red district has been reduced to shoestring levels is really remarkable. Certainly it explains Cardboard Pelosi. It also makes this photo of Sanford holding fistfuls of cash in his best Walter White impersonation even more amusing.

To top it all off, of course, Sanford's getting bupkes in outside help while the House Majority PAC and the DCCC have both dropped six figures on his head in TV advertising. Maybe instead of campaigning, he'd like to go back on that apology tour. Or at least on a trail hike.

8:15 AM PT: (Speaking of which, HMP has started airing that VoteVets ad from last Monday as part of their "previously announced six-figure buy.")

8:26 AM PT: PA-Sen: Here's more empirical evidence that the conventional wisdom about who cares more about guns is wrong, via Quinnipiac's new Pennsylvania poll. Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, one of the architects of the Manchin-Toomey amendment that would have expanded background checks for gun buyers, just recorded his all-time highest job approval rating, at 48-30, up from 43-32 a month ago. While his Democratic counterpart, Sen. Joe Manchin, has received more media attention, Toomey has earned plenty of notice for his role as a Republican willing to take on the NRA, and it's redounded to his benefit. By a 54-12 margin, respondents say they're inclined to view Toomey more favorably thanks to the legislation that bears his name, and overall they give him a positive 34-29 rating on how he's "handling gun control."

And as with every other poll (pace Heidi Heitkamp), Quinnipiac finds almost universal support for increased background checks, with 85 percent in favor and just 12 percent opposed. What's more, voters are pissed about the Senate's failure to pass Manchin-Toomey. Thirty-four percent describe themselves as "angry" about the result and 36 percent say they are "dissatisfied." Only 22 percent say they're "satisfied" and just 5 percent "enthusiastic." This just convinces me further that a price is going to be paid over expanded background checks, but not by supporters.

9:31 AM PT: IL-Gov: It was always a low percentage play, so I'm not surprised to see that GOP Rep. Aaron Schock has decided against a bid for governor. Not only would the conservative Schock have faced daunting odds getting elected statewide in Illinois, but he'd likely have faced a seriously bruising primary against gazillionaire Bruce Rauner first. I'm a little sad that we won't see a Rauner-Schock smackdown now, since the two had already drawn knives for one another, but presumably Rauner won't hesitate to spend his fortune nuking anyone else who might seek the Republican nomination, so we may yet have a little fun.

9:51 AM PT: FL-Gov: Just a day after his spokesman said he was considering a gubernatorial bid, Dem Sen. Bill Nelson is striking a somewhat different tune:

"Look, I have no plans to run for governor. I have no intention of running for governor," said Nelson, who won re-election last November. "I love this job as senator, except that I am very, very frustrated as we have discussed this morning—that we can't get anything done because you can't get people together to build consensus."

That's far from Shermanesque, though. "No plans" and "no intention" is deliberately different from "I am not." For some reason, though, a lot of reporters and analysts tend to confuse the two types of statements. Sure, Nelson's making it sound rather unlikely that he'd run for governor, and I still suspect in the end that he won't. But he is emphatically not shutting the door. It's really not that hard—just look at the very words he uses. Politicians do this kind of thing all the time, and parsing what they say is important, because plans can change.

11:01 AM PT: MI-Sen: Now this is how you shoot down speculation in a hurry. University of Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon, on whether he might seek the GOP nomination for the state's open Senate seat: "That's silly." Unnamed sources for a local Detroit TV station had recently said Brandon was considering a bid, so either those sources were wrong, or Brandon's being cute. I'm going to guess the former, though.

11:30 AM PT: WATN?: After multiple protracted court battles over his residency status in 2011 that ultimately rendered him ineligible to run for state Senate in New Jersey, Olympic legend Carl Lewis is leaving the Garden State for Houston, Texas. Lewis, a Democrat, might have made an interesting opponent for GOP Rep. Jon Runyan in NJ-03 (gold-medal sprinter and long jumper versus NFL offensive tackle), but alas, it looks like it's not to be.

11:37 AM PT: MT-Sen: Denny Rehberg in January:

Rehberg, who's been a six-term congressman for Montana, lieutenant governor and state representative in his 30-plus years in Montana politics, said he decided before getting into the race against Tester in 2011 that he would either retire from Congress in 2012 or run for the U.S. Senate.

"I made the determination before that it would be up or out," he said in an interview with the Gazette State Bureau. "As it turned out, it was out." [...]

"I've enjoyed my 12 years in Congress, but there will be a new chapter for Jan and I," he said. "Who knows where that path will lead, but it will be exciting. It's always a change."

Denny Rehberg now:

"As to what the future holds, ever since Max announced his retirement two days ago my phone has been ringing off the hook. The encouragement I've been getting from Montanans to take a serious look at this race has been overwhelming," Rehberg said. "I owe it to them, and to all the folks who I've served over the years, to keep listening and see how things develop. I'm not ruling anything out at this point."

I guess the prospect of an open Senate seat in Montana is too much for any prominent Republican to ignore, but Rehberg did just take a cushy lobbying job with a DC firm last month, so he'd have to give that up in order to run. For a guy who once said "I think lobbying is an honorable profession," that might be too much to ask.

12:27 PM PT: Ah, well maybe Brandon was being cute. From a different report:

"No," he said. "I'm thinking about beating Michigan State." [...]

"That wasn't the purpose of the day," Brandon said later, after the formal program. "The reality is, I don't know where that stuff comes from. That wasn't the purpose of the day. I thought it was kind of an inappropriate question, I don't know where that stuff comes from. So it gets reported, then it gets re-reported."

So Brandon's objecting to being asked a question about his political intentions at chamber of commerce event with rival athletic director Mark Hollis of MSU. Almost sounds like he's pedantically saying, "I'm not thinking about the Senate right at this exact moment." At least Hollis got in a good jab, saying Brandon has a better chance at the Senate than he does beating Michigan State.

1:03 PM PT: VA-Gov: Republican AG Ken Cuccinelli is out with his first TV ad of the gubernatorial election that looks like it's mostly designed to remind people he has a wife. Tellingly, Cuccinelli's campaign is refusing to provide any details on the size of the buy, where it will run, how long it'll air for, whether it's appearing on cable or broadcast, or really anything at all. So I'm guessing it may well be what Nathan Gonzales would call a "video press release"—a television spot backed by very little money that is mostly designed to garner attention from the media and not actually influence voters.

2:08 PM PT: Or maybe this is why Cuccinelli decided to release his new ad on Friday. The Kooch, you see, has come under a lot of fire lately for accepting all manner of expensive gifts from Jonnie Williams, the CEO of Star Scientific, a tobacco company turned nutritional supplements vendor that's tried to ingratiate itself with a host of top Virginia elected officials. Gov. Bob McDonnell's received the greatest scrutiny, but Cuccinelli has earned a lot of negative attention, too.

So in a recent attempt to get out from under this mess of his own creation, Cuccinelli belatedly tried to make the more-beleaguered McDonnell the fall guy by calling for reforms to Virginia's gift reporting requirements. (The real scandal is that public officials can take accept whatever bribes gifts they're offered; they merely have to make sure to report them publicly.) At the time, though, I asked if he was "absolutely sure there are no other shoes to drop"—after all, it's hard to look like a reformer when you're still mired in the muck.

And indeed, there are. In a classic late Friday news dump, Cuccinelli revised his disclosure statements yet again, with three new gifts from Williams totaling over $5,000, and, for good measure, two gifts from other sources, including a $7,500 charter flight from a mining company. That's all on top of the $13,000 worth of gifts Cuccinelli had previously received from Williams. Quite cleverly, as of Friday afternoon, if you type in just "Ken Cuccinelli" into Google News, you won't find any hits on this story—just the lame TV ad release—so he's done a decent job masking it. But politics doesn't really work that way, and no matter how he tries to hide, Cuccinelli's just given this story some more legs.

2:17 PM PT: HI-01: Democrat Esther Kiaaina, who came in a very distant third in last year's primary in HI-02, says she won't run in the HI-01 primary next year. Somewhat surprisingly for a Hawaii politician, Kiaaina said: "As a matter of principle, I believe that individuals who run for Congressional seats should reside in the district they seek to represent." Several local office-seekers have run for both of the state's congressional seats, regardless of residency, and carpetbagging charges don't seem to be a feature of Hawaii politics. Kiaaina may nevertheless feel this way, but her poor showing and weak fundraising in 2012, despite being the only obvious progressive choice in the race, may also be a factor.

2:23 PM PT: ME-Gov: Rep. Chellie Pingree, one of two top potential Democratic recruits, has announced that she will not run for governor next year. I can't say I'm particularly surprised, though. For one thing, Pingree's been moving up the ladder in the House; for another, attorney Eliot Cutler's third-party bid makes this race maddeningly difficult for any Democrat, since he draws votes almost exclusively from the left. Still, Maine's other representative, Mike Michaud, hasn't made up his mind yet, and he'd be an even more imposing candidate than Pingree—perhaps strong enough, even, to fight off both Cutler and GOP Gov. Paul LePage at the same time.

2:28 PM PT: Better link on Pingree.

2:34 PM PT: NY-Gov: New York GOP chair Ed Cox is 0 for 2: Chatauqua County Executive Greg Edwards has announced that not only will he not run for governor, he isn't even seeking re-election for a third term at his current post. Edwards was one of five Republicans Cox recently talked up as potential gubernatorial material, but now both Edwards and Rep. Chris Gibson have told him no dice. (As for Edwards' county executive seat, Mitt Romney won Chatauqua 53-45, so it's probably not a pickup opportunity.)

2:47 PM PT: MO-??: Would we ever get this lucky?

We asked, "Would you ever consider putting your hat back in the political ring again?"

"It's one of those things that depends on the circumstances really. I don't rule anything out," he said. "I consider it a bright new future and I'm interested to see what the possibilities are."

That, my friends, is none other than Todd Akin speaking—for the first time since his epic, humiliating loss in last year's Senate race. The dude's 65, though, and obviously has earned himself quite a few enemies, so I'm not going to hold my breath waiting. I will, however, light a candle and say a little benediction, because what the world needs so badly is a Todd Akin comeback.

3:10 PM PT: AZ-Gov: Former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas is going to try for an extremely unlikely comeback. Despite getting disbarred last year for abuse of his prosecutorial powers, Thomas has decided to run for governor in 2014. Thomas very nearly won the Republican nomination for attorney general in 2010, losing by less than two-tenths of a percent to eventual victor Tom Horne. But, explains the Arizona Republic, Thomas's reputation as a conservative anti-immigration "icon" got badly derailed:

A disciplinary panel convened by the Arizona Supreme Court found clear and convincing evidence of ethical misconduct that merited disbarment from legal practice.

Among the most serious findings were that he and his former prosecutors pressed unwarranted criminal charges, obtained indictments, filed a federal racketeering lawsuit and initiated investigations against his political enemies and those of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio from 2006 to 2010.

Targets included judges, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and other county officials.

Don't worry, though: Thomas is convinced it's all a conspiracy, which may very well help him in a GOP primary. And you sort of have to hope someone like that can actually secure his party's nod, since he's just an opposition researcher's dream.

Leading Off:

• SC-01: Wow! What a raging jagoff! So I'm sure you recall that the other day, Mark Sanford had the brilliant idea to run a full-page newspaper ad filled with an incredibly lengthy and self-serving series of b.s. explanations for why he trespassed at his ex-wife's home, followed by a whole lot of moaning about negative ads being run by Democrats, and capped off with a comparison of his situation to that of the men who defended the Alamo (who, of course, almost all died). In the middle, though, Sanford made this bizarre offer:

The Democrats' ads will tell you none of this, so if you have further questions, go to www.marksanford.com, call me at the campaign office at 843-764-9188, or even on my cell at 843-367-1010.

"Desperate" and "weird" hardly begin to describe it, but one of the groups whose ads Sanford complained about, the House Majority PAC, decided to take him up on it. In a post-script to a fundraising email, they reprinted Sanford's cell phone number and suggested that their supporters "[g]ive him a call and ask why he spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on luxury travel." A number of them did just that, so guess what Sanford did in response?

He published the phone numbers of the people who called him. These are ordinary citizens—perhaps a little brasher than average—but I'm sure they had no expectation that their numbers would get printed on Mark Sanford's campaign website. I don't want to even link to the document Sanford originally posted, but here's a redacted version, and to be clear, every black box you see obscures a number that Sanford had no problem reproducing in full:

You'll notice that all the numbers are from out-of-state, so I'm guessing Sanford wanted to make some kind of point that no one from South Carolina cared to ring him up—though iPhone users can prune their call logs, so Sanford may have erased any Palmetto State callers. (Anyhow, with the prevalence of cell phones these days, area codes no longer mean much.) Of course, the more important point is that Mark Sanford is an absolute schmuckface for publicizing the personal information of average Americans who had the temerity to take him up on his offer to talk to him. Sadly, though, that's hardly a surprise. I guess the only real question is, did he ever even answer the phone?

9:13 AM PT: MN-02: Well, that was quick. Less than a month after resigning as CEO of CaringBridge in order to run for Congress, Democrat Sona Mehring is dropping her campaign to take on Rep. John Kline and will return to the nonprofit she founded in 1997. Democrats still have another candidate in the race, though, 2012 nominee Mike Obermueller.

9:29 AM PT: NH-Sen: Someone at the University of New Hampshire's Survey Center needs to explain why they sat on their latest poll (PDF) for two weeks. Why do I care? Because UNH was in the field from April 4 to April 9, before GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte cast her now-notorious vote against universal background checks for gun buyers, but they only released their findings after the vote took place, with the headline "Shaheen and Ayotte Remain Popular." Given the huge drop PPP saw for Ayotte's job approvals in the wake of her background check vote, UNH's new/old poll just muddies the waters. And it's a good illustration of why holding back data in this manner is emphatically not a best practice for a public pollster.

10:25 AM PT: LA Mayor: Could things have suddenly turned around so abruptly for City Controller Wendy Greuel? Two weeks ago, SurveyUSA saw her trailing City Councilor Eric Garcetti in the Los Angeles mayoral runoff by 9 points, and last week, the L.A. Times had her back 10. But now SUSA has new numbers showing an enormous 12-point turnaround, putting Greuel up 45-42. How is that possible? The only major change on the ground has been Greuel's decision to go negative, launching a TV ad attacking Garcetti as a self dealer. But news reports said Greuel was "only" spending $350,000 on the spot (with a comparable sum backing a positive ad), which isn't that much in the hyper-expensive L.A. media market.

So this poll could well be an outlier, though SUSA goes to great lengths in its writeup to argue against that possibility. In particular, the firm notes that their toplines on two other races they've asked about, controller and city attorney, have stayed stable, which augurs against what they call a "bad random sample" for the mayoral contest. If this survey is accurate, then this election has seen a truly remarkable reversal of fortune. But I'm going to wait until we see some fresh data from other pollsters before coming to that conclusion.

10:44 AM PT: FL-Gov: I've been skeptical of these "Bill Nelson for governor" rumors ever since they first started popping up a few weeks ago. After all, the guy is 70 years old and just endured a heavy-duty re-election campaign last year, so does he really want to run headlong into Rick Scott's $100 million attack ad vortex at this stage of his career? There's also the fact that a Nelson victory would make a very vulnerable Democratic Senate seat ripe for takeover... and the immediate ramifications may be even worse than you'd expect. In her latest Farm Team installment on Florida Dems, Roll Call's Abby Livingston explains:

If Nelson ran for and won the governor’s mansion in 2014, he would be charged as governor with appointing someone to serve two years as his Senate successor. But there’s some confusion about who would actually make the Senate appointment.

An aide with Florida’s Division of Elections said such a situation would leave a small window of time for Scott to appoint a Republican to the Senate. Democrats say Nelson would appoint his own successor.

Ugh. And even if a hypothetical Gov. Nelson were to name a replacement, that person would have to run in a special election in 2016 for the final two years of Nelson's term and then again in 2018, giving the GOP two bites at this particular apple. While I'll wait until we see some reliable polling on the matter, I don't actually think that Nelson would be a materially better candidate against Scott than ex-Gov. Charlie Crist; if that hunch is correct, then from a party perspective, it would make a lot more sense for Crist to run for governor and Nelson to stay put.

11:01 AM PT: MA-Sen: The League of Conservation Voters is out with yet another poll of the Massachusetts Senate primary from PPP, but it's actually not in direct response to Rep. Stephen Lynch's sketchball claim on Wednesday that he's "only" back six points. That's because PPP went into the field the day before Lynch leaked his vague numbers, though the timing is convenient nevertheless, since this poll is good pushback. PPP has Rep. Ed Markey up 50-36 with under a week to go, little changed from their 49-32 finding in late March. Markey's favorables also remain considerably higher at 66-23, versus 50-32 for Lynch.

11:14 AM PT: Well whaddya know. A spokesman for Nelson just confirmed that the senator is "considering" a run for governor but that he "presently doesn’t have any intention of running." So stick that in your hookah and puff on it.

11:46 AM PT: KY-Sen: Environmental attorney Tom FitzGerald says he's considering a bid against Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell next year, and in the Courier-Journal's phrasing, "he expects to make a decision within the next few weeks." However, FitzGerald also says he's looking to see what Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes does, and she hasn't offered any timetable as yet.

12:06 PM PT: IL-Gov: Former White House chief of staff Bill Daley says he's decide on whether he'll enter Illinois's Democratic gubernatorial primary in the next 60 days. Polls, however, have shown him looking mostly like a third wheel in an expected matchup between state AG Lisa Madigan and incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn, so I'm not sure what sort of path to victory he's envisioning for himself.

12:55 PM PT: HI-01: One of the strangest things about Hawaii's open seat House race in the state's 2nd Congressional District last year was just how little interest it generated among Democratic candidates. After all, it's a safe blue seat that could either elect someone for life or serve as a great stepping-stone to higher office. In the end, only one heavyweight candidate emerged, but thanks to his flaws, former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann wound up on the receiving end of a shocking and convincing upset by Tulsi Gabbard, a young city councilor.

So will the same kind of situation unfold in the 1st District, which Rep. Colleen Hanabusa is expected to vacate to run for Senate? Or, given that the 1st is also solidly Democratic, will we see the high level of interest from ambitious office-seekers that typically accompanies such opportunities? It's too early to say, though the previous time the 2nd district was open back in 2006, the Democratic primary attracted half a dozen legislators and one former lieutenant governor (Mazie Hirono, the eventual winner). 2012 may have just been an oddball year.

In any event, Honolulu City Councilman Stanley Chang is the only declared candidate for now. However, HawaiiNewsNow reports that three other Democrats have also expressed interest: Honolulu City Councilman Ikaika Anderson, state Rep. Mark Takai, and State Sen. Will Espero. The same piece (citing no sources) says that Republican Charles Djou, who briefly held this seat after winning a fluke special election in 2010, is "expected" to run but adds that ex-Gov. Linda Lingle, who got trounced by Hirono in last year's Senate race, is "reportedly [not] interested."

1:26 PM PT: FEC: Saying their hands were tied by the Defense of Marriage Act—or more colorfully, that "sometimes the law's an ass"—the Federal Elections Commission ruled that legally married gay couples cannot donate jointly from an individual bank account, something opposite-sex spouses are permitted to do. Hopefully the Supreme Court will strike down DOMA soon, in which case, the FEC made pretty clear, their ruling would change. (The challenge was brought by Republican state Rep. Dan Winslow of Massachusetts, who is currently running for Senate.)

1:57 PM PT: SC-01: Wow! What a raging jagoff! So I'm sure you recall that the other day, Mark Sanford had the brilliant idea to run a full-page newspaper ad filled with an incredibly lengthy and self-serving series of b.s. explanations for why he trespassed at his ex-wife's home, followed by a whole lot of moaning about negative ads being run by Democrats, and capped off with a comparison of his situation to that of the men who defended the Alamo (who, of course, almost all died). In the middle, though, Sanford made this bizarre offer:

The Democrats' ads will tell you none of this, so if you have further questions, go to www.marksanford.com, call me at the campaign office at 843-764-9188, or even on my cell at 843-367-1010.

"Desperate" and "weird" hardly begin to describe it, but one of the groups whose ads Sanford complained about, the House Majority PAC, decided to take him up on it. In post-script to a fundraising email, they reprinted Sanford's cell phone number and suggested that their supporters "[g]ive him a call and ask why he spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on luxury travel." A number of them did just that, so guess what Sanford did in response?

He published the phone numbers of the people who called him. These are ordinary citizens—perhaps a little brasher than average—but I'm sure they had no expectation that their numbers would get printed on Mark Sanford's campaign website. I don't want to even link to the document Sanford originally posted, but here's a redacted version, and to be clear, every black box you see obscures a number that Sanford had no problem reproducing in full:

You'll notice that all the numbers are from out-of-state, so I'm guessing Sanford wanted to make some kind of point that no one from South Carolina cared to ring him up—though iPhone users can prune their call logs, so Sanford may have erased any Palmetto State callers. Of course, the more important point is that Mark Sanford is an absolute schmuckface for publicizing the personal information of average Americans who had the temerity to take him up on his offer to talk to him. Sadly, though, that's hardly a surprise. I guess the only real question is, did he ever even answer the phone?

2:11 PM PT: P.S. Republican media buying firm Smart Media Group says that the DCCC has purchased another $176,000 worth of airtime for the final week of the campaign on broadcast TV in the Charleston and Savannah media markets. No independent expenditure report has yet been filed, though.

2:31 PM PT: And elsewhere on the money front, Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch pulled in an impressive $871,000 between Feb. 28 and April 17, according to her newly filed fundraising report. In that time period, she also spent $826,000 but still had $254,000 left on hand. Since the end of the reporting period, she's also raised an additional $85,000 in donations of $1,000 or more, according to her so-called "48 hour" reports. In the same span, Sanford's only taken in $41,000.

2:39 PM PT: SC-Gov: A conservative group backing Gov. Nikki Haley called the Movement Fund is getting an early start on 2014 with a $130,000 ad campaign planned for the first week and a half of May. But methinks another South Carolina election fast coming up on May 7 will consume the local political world, so this timing seems foolish at best. (No, you will not be able to drown out Mark Sanford with six figures of boring positive ads.)

2:45 PM PT: AK-Gov: Attorney Bill Walker, who came in second in the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary, announced on Thursday that he plans to try again next year. Walker lost to Gov. Sean Parnell 50-33 in their first face off, but Parnell had only been elevated from the lieutenant governorship a year earlier after Sarah Palin's disappearing act. Now Parnell, who is expected to seek re-election, has a win and a full term under his belt, so Walker will likely have a very tough time making a dent.

2:58 PM PT: VA-St. House: Evandra Thompson, the young Air Force veteran we told you about who's challenging wayward Democratic Delegate Rosalyn Dance in the primary, has just picked up some more establishment support. Four former mayors in Virginia's Tri-Cities region have given their backing to Thompson, including Curtis Harris, who was confidant of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Florence Farley, the first black woman to be elected mayor of a Virginia city.

Meanwhile, Delegate Lionel Spruill, claimed that "100 percent of House Black Caucus members" support Dance and further accused Thompson's chief backer, Delegate Joseph Morrissey, of trying to oust Dance to further his ambitions of one day running for state Senate. For what it's worth, both Morrissey and Dance have denied any interest in seeking a promotion.

3:25 PM PT: TN-Gov: While Republican Gov. Bill Haslam is still a safe bet for re-election, this extremely negative story about his family business seems to be growing legs—and as Chas Sisk at the Tennessean notes, that business played a crucial role in how Haslam sold himself to voters three years ago when he first ran for governor. The stakes are not small. Haslam's brother Jimmy is the CEO of Pilot Flying J, an enormous truck stop chain that was recently raided by the FBI and stands accused of withholding rebates to customers in order to increase its profits. Jimmy Haslam is also owner of the Cleveland Browns, is worth $1.8 billion, and Pilot, reportedly the sixth-largest privately-held company in the country, has annual revenues of $31 billion. So yeah, not small.

Remarkably, Jimmy Haslam isn't taking a defiant stand. If anything, he's almost admitted to the FBI's allegations, saying: "We make mistakes like any company does, but there is absolutely no excuse for that kind of behavior. I don't think I've ever been as embarrassed as I have been since I read the affidavit." Meanwhile, Bill Haslam's always been cagey about his relationship to and ownership stake in Pilot, but that approach is going to grow increasingly untenable as the FBI's investigation proceeds. And while Gov. Haslam's reputation apart from Pilot and Tennessee's Republican-leaning demographics are likely to ensure his political future at home, Sisk suggests that Haslam's hopes of some day joining the national GOP ticket as a vice presidential candidate may already have been badly harmed.

Leading Off:

• NH-Sen: It's quite a while until the 2016 elections, naturally, but it's certainly not unheard-of for politicians to pay for their mistakes many years down the line. Could voting against expanded background checks for gun buyers turn out to be just that sort of high-priced error for Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte? The early verdict, certainly, is not good news for her. Public Policy Polling finds that Ayotte's job approval has cratered by 15 net points since they last checked in on her. In October, she sported a decent 48-35 score; now, she's in negative territory at 44-46.

Of course, there could be many reasons for Ayotte's decline, but her "nay" vote on the Manchin-Toomey amendment to extend background checks to all commercial gun sales is almost definitely the highest-profile action she's taken in the last half a year. And like voters just about everywhere else, New Hampshirites strongly favor increased background checks, by a 75-21 margin. What's more, fully 50 percent say Ayotte's vote make them less likely to vote for her while just 23 percent say they're now more likely to do so.

Ayotte has to hope that ire over this vote fades with time, but it may not—this moment may wind up marking her permanently. And even though the issue won't make the same kind of headlines it has lately for the next three years straight, whoever Ayotte's opponent is in 2016 will be able to bludgeon her badly with her vote against common sense gun safety regulations that enjoy wide support. (In a hypothetical matchup, Gov. Maggie Hassan already holds a 46-44 edge on Ayotte.)

It's conventional wisdom to say that yeah, background checks poll well but the most intense voters are those who oppose them, which is in turn why it supposedly "makes sense" for politicians in red states to vote against them. But I think that view is stale, and I think there's a real anger among many Americans over Congress's failure to act here. A senator's job approvals don't plummet 15 points in the span of a few months unless people are genuinely pissed. And Ayotte doesn't represent a red state. I suppose we'll see in a few years' time, but I think the old calculus has been upended, and I don't think this one is going away.

P.S. Ex-Rep. Gabby Giffords's new group, Americans for Responsible Solutions, is already running radio ads criticizing Ayotte for her vote (and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell as well). The two buys are reportedly for "several hundred thousand dollars."

9:44 AM PT: DC Council: The special election for the Washington, DC city council we mentioned last week took place on Tuesday night, and as PPP forecast, DC Democratic Party chair (and nominal incumbent) Anita Bonds was the victor. Bonds, the status quo machine-type candidate, took 32 percent versus 28 percent for progressive reformer Elissa Silverman.

Silverman, though, suffered from a split in the liberal bloc, likely splitting votes with Matthew Frumin, who finished fourth with 11 percent. In between at third was Patrick Mara, the lone Republican, who took 23 percent. PPP had given Bonds a five-point edge over Silverman, so in a multi-way race with a ton of undecideds, that's not too shabby. Then again, PPP also had Mara tied with Silverman but he finished five points back of her. Still, this was a difficult race to poll, particularly given the extremely low turnout—just 10 percent.

10:18 AM PT: OH-Gov: As expected, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald formally launched his campaign against Gov. John Kasich on Wednesday. He's the first Democrat to do so, and probably the last as well, unless former state AG Richard Cordray makes an unlikely late entry. Fitz isn't particularly well-known as yet (here's a good backgrounder if you'd like to learn more), but he's held Kasich in the mid-40s in two successive Quinnipiac polls. If he can avoid a primary and raise enough money quickly, FitzGerald can take the fight directly to his opponent, something he'll need to do. Kasich, as an incumbent Republican with decent job approvals running in a red-tilting state in a midterm year, has the advantage, but this race is by no means a foregone conclusion.

10:56 AM PT: NH-Sen: It's quite a while until the 2016 elections, naturally, but it's certainly not unheard-of for politicians to pay for their mistakes many years down the line. Could voting against expanded background checks for gun buyers turn out to be just that sort of high-priced error for Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte? The early verdict, certainly, is not good news for her. Public Policy Polling finds that Ayotte's job approval has cratered by 15 net points since they last checked in on her. In October, she sported a decent 48-35 score; now, she's in negative territory at 44-46.

Of course, there could be many reasons for Ayotte's decline, but her "nay" vote on the Manchin-Toomey amendment to extend background checks to all commercial gun sales is almost definitely the highest-profile action she's taken in the last half a year. And like voters just about everywhere else, New Hampshirites strongly favor increased background checks, by a 75-21 margin. What's more, fully 50 percent say Ayotte's vote make them less likely to vote for her while just 23 percent say they're now more likely to do so.

Ayotte has to hope that ire over this vote fades with time, but it may not—this moment may wind up marking her permanently. And even though the issue won't make the same kind of headlines it has lately for the next three years straight, whoever Ayotte's opponent is in 2016 will be able to bludgeon her badly with her vote against common sense gun safety regulations that enjoy wide support.

It's conventional wisdom to say that yeah, background checks poll well but the most intense voters are those who oppose them, which is in turn why it supposedly "makes sense" for politicians in red states to vote against them. But I think that view is stale, and I think there's a real anger among many Americans over Congress's failure to act here. A senator's job approvals don't plummet 15 points in the span of a few months unless people are genuinely pissed. And Ayotte doesn't represent a red state. I suppose we'll see in a few years' time, but I think the old calculus has been upended, and I don't think this one is going away.

11:13 AM PT: TN-Sen: Some recent local press accounts have newly focused attention on a small detail buried deep in a Hollywood Reporter story from early April about the cancellation of "Judge Joe Brown," which was the second highest-rated court show on TV after "Judge Judy." Before becoming a television judge, Joe Brown was actually a real judge in Shelby County, Tennessee (home of Memphis). Brown is apparently working on some new shows now, but he told the Reporter that he's also "considering offers to get involved in politics, which could include a run for the U.S. Senate."

Now, ordinarily, a Democrat potentially running for Senate in dark red Tennessee wouldn't be a very interesting story, but Brown is quite wealthy. His show ran for 15 seasons, and he says (at least in recent years) that he'd earned $5 million a year. (He claimed he was supposed to get $20 million a year, which is why he says contract talks broke down, but his show's ratings were in decline and CBS reportedly wanted to cut his salary.) In any event, he's still got plenty of money, and while it's hard to imagine him winning, Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander would definitely prefer not to face an opponent who could self-fund heavily. I suspect Brown will focus on his new shows instead and that he's not really interested in a Senate bid, but you never know.

11:35 AM PT: P.S. Ex-Rep. Gabby Giffords's new group, Americans for Responsible Solutions, is already running radio ads criticizing Ayotte for her vote (and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell as well). The two buys are reportedly for "several hundred thousand dollars."

12:37 PM PT: NH-Gov: New Hampshire, along with next-door neighbor Vermont, are the last two states in the nation where the gubernatorial term lasts just two years. (Two year terms used to be a thing in a lot of states.) That means that freshman Gov. Maggie Hassan already has to go before voters again in 2014, but the good news is that she holds wide leads against all potential GOP opponents in PPP's new poll:

• 52-38 vs. state Sen. (and ex-Rep.) Jeb Bradley

• 51-35 vs. Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas

• 53-37 vs. Executive Councilor Chris Sununu

• 54-36 vs. ex-Rep. Frank Guinta

• 52-32 vs. 2012 primary runner-up Kevin Smith

Hassan earns a strong 50-31 job approval rating while all of the Republicans have negative favorables. (This is essentially the same unpopular gang Tom Jensen tested against Jeanne Shaheen in the Senate race, swapping in Smith for Scott Brown. Incidentally, the gubernatorial portion of the poll was not paid for by the League of Conservation voters, as the Senate half was.) After Hassan's unexpectedly dominant 12-point win last November, I figured New Hampshire wouldn't rate very high as a potential GOP takeover target. This polling only confirms that belief.

12:53 PM PT: AR-Sen: This story is very thin, but Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the group founded by NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg, is reportedly considering a paid media campaign targeting Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor for his vote recent against expanding background checks for gun buyers. The obvious big problem with this idea, of course, is that going after Pryor would only make it more likely that a Republican even more opposed to gun safety regulation would take his place. On the other hand, perhaps this is exactly what Pryor would like: "City slickers are coming in here and trying to tell our senators how to vote (and forcing us to eat bad salsa)."

If it were up to me, I'd spend Bloomberg's billions attacking the "nay" votes of vulnerable Republicans who could someday be replaced by pro-gun safety Democrats. The problem is that there really aren't any such opportunities in next year, but like most things in politics, you need to play the long game here, and there are definitely worthwhile targets up for re-election in 2016, like Kelly Ayotte (NH) and Ron Johnson (WI).

12:59 PM PT: PA-Gov/Sen: I had wondered what Democratic ex-Rep. Joe Sestak had told donors as he raised $460,000 last quarter, considering he's refused to publicly discuss his intentions. Turns out he didn't tell them anything—and they don't much seem to care, either. The Associated Press caught up with a trio of mostly high-dollar donors, all of whom said they were happy to support Sestak regardless of whether he runs for governor next year or Senate in 2016. At this point, I'm guessing Sestak himself doesn't even know what his plans are, and it might be a while before he figures it out.

1:14 PM PT: NJ-Gov: Little change in the Jersey gubernatorial picture in Quinnipiac's latest. GOP Gov. Chris Christie still leads Democrat Barbara Buono by a huge margin, 58-26. Last month he was up 60-25. This harrowing gap isn't stopping progressive advocacy group OneNJ from dropping another $500,000 on cable ads attacking Christie's economic record, but in the expensive Garden State media market, that's not a huge sum. (OneNJ has spent $1 million in total.)

1:26 PM PT: Dark Money: Here's a potentially interesting development that could shed a lot of light on the dark money world. The New York Times reports that a "loose coalition of Democratic elected officials, shareholder activists and pension funds has flooded the Securities and Exchange Commission with calls to require publicly traded corporations to disclose to shareholders all of their political donations...." Republicans and conservative groups are, predictably, trying to fight this, and there's no telling whether the SEC will actually rule in favor of such a requirement, but a preliminary decision could come by the end of this month.

1:48 PM PT: MA-Sen: Rep. Stephen Lynch is back on the air with a new ad that's entirely about the Boston Marathon bombings and doesn't mention next Tuesday's Democratic Senate primary at all. Lynch's opponent, Rep. Ed Markey, has resumed running an older spot. The two have also begun debating again, meeting in back-to-back appearances earlier this week that turned fairly hostile.

Meanwhile, Lynch has released some sketchy details of an alleged internal poll to local reporter David Bernstein. The pollster is unnamed and the field dates unclear, but the most salient fact is that Lynch still trails by six points and has weaker favorables than Markey with under a week to go. There's also the matter of the sample size—1,374—which suggests "sketchy one-day robopoll." If there were some trendlines to suggest, maybe, that Lynch was somehow surging, perhaps it would be possible to view these numbers as positive for his campaign. But there's nothing like that here, so this just looks like an "I'm not dead yet!" poll, but what is Lynch gonna do? Bite Markey to death?

1:58 PM PT: MN-Gov: Venture capitalist Scott Honour, whom we took note of last month, just became the first notable Republican to launch a campaign this cycle against Gov. Mark Dayton. It sounds like Honour may be able to self-fund a bit, given his background and the fact that he's donated $90,000 to Republican causes over the last two years, including $30,000 to the RNC.

3:16 PM PT: SC-01: So yeah, this happened:

To echo local strategist Tyler Jones, when you're debating a cardboard cutout of Nancy Pelosi on a street corner by yourself, that means you're winning. Obviously. See for yourself: Does anyone remember, like, this really old actor or singer or someone famous like that who once had a conversation with... dammit... was it a couch? Like, on TV? Some Republican thing? This is killing me. I swear, it's on the tip of my tongue, what this is reminding me of. I just know it was full of WIN!

Also, why is Mark Sanford still talking about trespassing?

"I've never said there was one son there," Sanford said.

In a statement earlier this month, Sanford said: "I did, indeed, watch the second half of the Super Bowl at the beach house with our 14-year-old son because as a father, I didn't think he should watch it alone."

And finally, because there hasn't been enough funny Sanford-related news today, his Democratic opponent just unveiled a new group of supporters: Republicans for Elizabeth Colbert Busch. The funny part is that it's being chaired by Leslie Turner, the wife of Teddy Turner, who ran against Sanford in the GOP primary. Teddy wound up endorsing Sanford, but I'll bet he wishes he could take that back now. His wife certainly has the better idea.

3:29 PM PT: AZ-Gov: Democrat Fred DuVal had certainly been acting like a full-fledged candidate for some time, rolling out all sorts of endorsements and just generally moving full steam ahead. But he only officially kicked off his campaign on Wednesday, for whatever that's worth. Meanwhile, this sounds like a bit of cloud talk, but Martha McSally told a gathering of Rhode Island (?) Republicans that she's "being strongly recruited" to run for governor or senator; previously, all we'd ever heard is that she was looking at a rematch against Rep. Ron Barber in AZ-02. She says she'll "make a decision probably within six months."

3:38 PM PT: HI-01: Even though Rep. Colleen Hanabusa has yet to publicly say she's running for Senate, Honolulu City Councilmember Stanley Chang has already declared for her House seat. Chang, a Democrat, had actually filed FEC paperwork some time ago, in anticipation of (or at least, in the hope of) this turn of events coming to pass. He's also already raised over $10,000 on ActBlue.

Leading Off:

• MT-Sen: On Tuesday, Sen. Max Baucus surprised the political world by announcing that he would retire at the end of this term rather than seek re-election. (Baucus's decision was first reported by the Washington Post.) Baucus had just racked up another big fundraising quarter and has over $5 million in his federal campaign account, a considerable sum for a state as small as Montana. And Baucus, who's served in the Senate since 1978, seemed to genuinely enjoy being a senator and never publicly signaled that he wanted out.

But he is 71 years old, and the one recent public poll of this race, from PPP, didn't have him looking very strong. Years and years of amassing votes and public statements as a Democrat in a red state often takes its toll, much like it appeared to for Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota, who also decided to call it quits next year. In particular, Baucus's role in drawing out the Affordable Care Act negotiations a few years ago did serious damage to his image back home—a self-inflicted wound that he foolishly reminded voters of just the other day when he predicted that the implementation of the ACA would be a "train wreck."

So if Baucus's own internal polling matched PPP's numbers, it makes more sense that he'd prefer to depart on his own terms rather than risk a difficult re-election effort. Indeed, it's been a very long time since Baucus had been properly tested on the campaign trail. In both 2002 and 2008, Republicans largely gave up on the idea of challenging the once-popular senator, leading to landslide victories. But the last time Baucus faced a legitimate opponent was in 1996—almost two full decades ago. That's a lot of rust to shake off, and maybe Baucus didn't think he was up to the task.

9:11 AM PT: MT-Sen: He hasn't publicly announced anything yet, but the Washington Post reports that veteran Democratic Sen. Max Baucus will retire at the end of this term rather than seek re-election. Numerous other outlets confirm the Post, though all, so far, are relying on unnamed sources. Assuming these reports pan out, Baucus's decision rates as rather unexpected. He'd just racked up another big fundraising quarter and has over $5 million in his campaign war chest, a considerable sum for such a small state. Baucus, who's served in the Senate since the closing days of 1978, also seemed to genuinely enjoy being a senator and never seemed to signal that he wanted out.

But he is 71 years old and the one recent public poll of this race, from PPP, didn't have him looking very strong. Years and years of amassing votes and public statements as a Democrat in red state often takes its toll, much like it appeared to for Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota, who also decided to call it quits next year. In particular, Baucus's role in drawing out the Affordable Care Act negotiations a few years ago did serious damage to his image back home—a self-inflicted wound that he foolishly reminded voters of just the other day when he predicted that the implementation of the ACA would be a "train wreck."

So if Baucus's own internal polling matched PPP's numbers, it makes more sense that he'd rather depart on his own terms rather than risk a difficult re-election effort. Indeed, it's been a very long time since Baucus had been properly tested on the campaign trail. In both 2002 and 2008, Republicans largely gave up on the idea of challenging the once-popular Baucus, leading to landslide victories. The last time Baucus faced a legitimate opponent was in 1996—almost two full decades ago. That's a lot of rust to shake off, and maybe Baucus didn't think he was up to the task.

Now, of course, Republicans are already crowing about the opportunities than an open seat in a GOP-leaning state will present to them. But Montana may be a rare state where Democrats could be better off without their incumbent running again, if they can recruit ex-Gov. Brian Schweitzer as a replacement. Schweitzer left office earlier this year thanks to term limits, after two very successful terms that saw him earn a great deal of popularity with voters. Not only would Schweitzer bring his own, authentically Montana virtues to the race, but he'd largely be free of Baucus's negatives. He also performed much better than Baucus did against the same opponents in PPP's poll.

A bit surprisingly, Schweitzer's already said in response to these retirement reports that he isn't ruling out a run. Prior to Tuesday, he'd repeatedly insisted that he's "not senile enough to be in the Senate," and it really seemed like he always meant it. But if he wants to change his mind, I'm sure he can use his trademark humor to write his past remarks off to his traditionally bluff style. And you can bet that DC Democrats are indeed eagerly urging him to change his mind, because after Schweitzer, the bench starts to get a lot thinner very quickly.

As for the GOP, they'd only landed two candidates prior to Baucus's decision, neither of them inspiring. One is ex-state Sen. Corey Stapleton, who finished a distant second in a seven-way gubernatorial primary last year. The other is state Rep. Champ Edmunds, a real piece of work. Baucus's departure may spur stronger contenders to get in, though. In PPP's poll, the two toughest (who in fact both held leads over the incumbent) were freshman Rep. Steve Daines and ex-Gov. Marc Racicot. Attorney General Tim Fox could also make a go of it (he didn't rule it out in a vague statement), though as is usually the case following retirement announcements, we'll likely start to hear plenty of names in the coming days.

Republicans will undoubtedly make an extremely aggressive effort to win back this seat no matter whom they nominate, but Democrats have had a great deal of success in Montana over the past decade. The GOP hasn't won a Senate race in the state since 2000, and Democrats have also won the last three gubernatorial elections. Last fall's victories were particularly notable, given that both Sen. Jon Tester and then-AG Steve Bullock rode to wins despite facing the headwinds of a presidential election. That's something Team Blue won't have to contend with next year—but first Democrats have to worry about finding a candidate, and all eyes are on Schweitzer.

9:51 AM PT: HI-Sen: So much for that warning shot from the DSCC. According to an unnamed Honolulu Star-Advertiser source "close to" Rep. Colleen Hanabusa's campaign, she's going ahead with a challenge to Sen. Brian Schatz in next year's Democratic primary. Schatz was appointed late last year by Gov. Neil Abercrombie to fill the seat of the late Sen. Dan Inouye, who had written a letter from his deathbed to Abercrombie asking him to tap Hanabusa.

Since that time, numerous reports have said that Hanabusa was still interested in moving up—either via a primary challenge to Abercrombie or Schatz. Evidently, she's chosen the latter option, though Hanabusa generally hasn't communicated any of her intentions directly to the public, preferring to work through often-nameless intermediaries. In any event, even before Tuesday's news, environmental groups had been rallying around Schatz, whose credentials in that area are strong. Now, following the Star-Advertiser's report, EMILY's List says they're backing Hanabusa, so at least one dividing line is already being drawn.

Given how blue Hawaii is, this seat is all but certain to remain in Democratic hands, so all the action will be in the primary. Note that the election next year is to fill the final two years of Inouye's term, so whoever wins will have to run again in 2016, should they wish to remain in office. Also, Hanabusa's move would open up her 1st Congressional District House seat. Could conservaDem ex-Rep. Ed Case make yet another attempt at a comeback? It wouldn't surprise me, but undoubtedly other names will emerge soon.

10:49 AM PT: IA-Sen: Tuesday was a big day for nameless sources spilling the beans on various Senate-related developments. The latest comes from Iowa, where NBC News reports that Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds will not run for Senate, according to "Republican sources familiar with her decision." With Rep. Tom Latham out and Rep. Steve King looking unlikely (and unwanted by the establishment in any event), a Reynolds demurral would leave the GOP searching for Plan D.

And not that there was ever any doubt, but Democrats remain united as ever around their Plan A. Retiring Sen. Tom Harkin formally endorsed Rep. Bruce Braley to succeed him over the weekend, which really just sends a signal to anyone out there who might still have toyed with the idea of running in the primary that nah, you really shouldn't bother.

11:16 AM PT: SC-01: Mark Sanford is, of course, trying to change the subject with a new ad that attacks Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch over her ties to labor unions. It chiefly features a semi-audible clip of Colbert Busch saying, "The voices of the union are not being heard, and I promise to be that voice for you." But there are two notable differences between this spot and Sanford's first. For one, the commercial he aired last week was partly paid for by the South Carolina Republican Party. This one isn't, indicating that yet another Republican group has backed away from him.

For another, Sanford and the SCGOP publicly shared the size of their earlier buy, even though it was for a not-especially-impressive $100,000. This time, there's no word on the size of the buy, which makes me wonder if this is a relatively small purchase mostly aimed at earning free media. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if Sanford's fundraising is disappearing along with his outside support.

11:46 AM PT: AK-Sen: Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, who so far is the most establishment-y GOP candidate to explore next year's Senate race, now says he'll make a decision "this summer," in the AP's words. That's not exactly the most helpful rubric, since it could technically mean any time between June 21 and Sept. 21, so who knows.

12:09 PM PT: NH-Sen: PPP announced last Thursday that it would poll New Hampshire over the weekend as part of their regular series of public polls, but it looks like the League of Conservation Voters, which often works with PPP, decided to sponsor the survey in the end. PPP's work has always been top-notch, though, whether they've polled for themselves or others, so the results can speak for themselves. The short version is that would-be carpetbagger Scott Brown does not fare well against Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, but here are her head-to-heads against all potential GOP candidates:

• 52-41 vs. ex-Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts

• 53-34 vs. Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas

• 53-39 vs. Executive Councilor Chris Sununu

• 54-39 vs. state Sen. (and ex-Rep.) Jeb Bradley

• 55-37 vs. ex-Rep. Frank Guinta

Brown does indeed perform the best of the bunch, but that's saying very little, since no Republican looks good. That's due in part to Shaheen's strength, since she scores a solid 53-39 job approval rating. But it's also due to every single GOP hopeful sporting negative favorables, including Brown's 37-42 mark. That's better than the rest of the pack as well, since their favorables range from -9 (Sununu) to -16 (Guinta). It's hard for Republicans to feel excited about this crop.

And it's evidently also hard for Granite Staters to feel excited about the possibility of Brown driving his pickup one state to the north in an incredibly unlikely attempt to jump-start his political career. By a 54-32 margin, voters say Brown should not pursue such a bid, though 52 percent of self-identified Republicans like the idea. But even they're not fooled into thinking he's a New Hampshirite: Only 32 percent of Republicans agree with that notion, and just 18 percent of respondents overall do, while 63 percent are quite sure you can't get there from here.

Indeed, the GOP may not be able to get here at all. While they had success in New Hampshire during the 2010 wave, Shaheen doesn't look like a particularly vulnerable target, regardless of whom Republicans might nominate. They'll probably still make an attempt at her (and other, more at-risk Democrats certainly wouldn't mind), but right now, it looks like they'd be chasing fool's gold.

12:28 PM PT (David Jarman): Redistricting: Daily Kos Elections diarist Stephen Wolf has been working the "what if?" angle on redistricting for a number of months, i.e. how much better Dems would be doing in the House if redistricting was done on a nonpartisan commission basis in key states. Well, he's outdone himself with his latest magnum opus, which contains redrawn maps of 34 (!) different states and what they might look like if redrawn without the heavy hand of gerrymandering. He posits that there would be enough swing and Dem-leaning districts created that the Dems would be in a good position to reclaim the House majority. Regardless of whether you agree with that, it's a very valuable piece, partly because of the sheer scope of it, and partly because it's amazing to compare the clean simplicity of his maps versus the terrible convolutions of many states' actual maps... most of which were in the service of locking in Republicans' 2010 gains.

12:29 PM PT: Colbert Busch also has another ad out, a pretty anodyne positive spot that's all about jobs.

12:50 PM PT: A spokesperson for Daines says he's giving "serious and thoughtful consideration" to a Senate bid. Amusingly, Daines' spokesperson worked for, of all people, Rick Berg last cycle. An at-large freshman Republican congressman running for an open Senate seat in red state out west? Let's hope there are more than surface similarities between Daines and Berg.

2:05 PM PT: From the horse's mouth: Reynolds says she will not run for Senate.

2:11 PM PT: AR-Gov: State Sen. Johnny Key says that he'll seek re-election rather than join the GOP primary for governor. With the Republican establishment closing ranks behind ex-Rep. Asa Hutchinson, Key's decision is not too surprising.

2:44 PM PT: AZ-Gov: State Sen. Al Melvin joined the cast of Republicans who've formed exploratory committees for a gubernatorial bid on Tuesday, though in Melvin's case, it's really a formality. Arizona's "resign to run" law prohibits sitting officials from formally announcing for another office until the last year of their term, so creating an "exploratory" committee gives you a loophole. Melvin's exploiting that loophole and plans to make his campaign official in January. He also says he plans to run even if Gov. Jan Brewer exploits a loophole of her own and succeeds in getting around Arizona's term limits law.

But if Brewer's threatened legal challenge doesn't pan out, quite a few other Republicans await the largely unknown Melvin. Two already have their own exploratory committees, SoS Ken Bennett and former Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman, while several more potential names are still out there, including state Treasurer Doug Ducey and Mesa Mayor Scott Smith.

3:13 PM PT: Colorado: Voters in Colorado support the state's new civil unions law 50-38, according to PPP, but a similar 51-43 majority would like to see the state legalize same-sex marriage as well. And it'll happen, too, since as Tom Jensen points out, the under-30 cohort supports marriage equality by a monster 74-17 spread. Tom also has the usual 2016 numbers and some data on gun control, but there's one horserace matchup tucked into this batch of miscellany as well. Republican Secretary of State Scott Gessler, who is up for re-election next year, holds just a 42-38 lead over Democrat Ken Gordon, a longtime former legislator.

3:29 PM PT: CO-06: This doesn't seem like a sustainable strategy to me. Salon's Alex Seitz-Wald takes note of the fact that the NRCC is trying to attack Democrat Andrew Romanoff from the left over immigration, but there are, of course, quite a few problems with this. I'll let Seitz-Wald set the table:

A website the committee set up to attack Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff jabs him for "lik[ing] to waste taxpayer dollars almost as much as he likes the strictest immigration laws in the nation he passed as Speaker of the Colorado House."

Indeed, Romanoff helped pass "several bills that Democrats call the toughest in the nation," as the AP reported at the time. But the NRCC hit runs into trouble once you finish reading that sentence from the AP: "… and Republicans say don't go far enough." Even though the state's Republican governor signed the bill, "Republicans said the legislation still left glaring loopholes, including allowing benefits for minors." And this was 2006, long before Arizona's SB-1070 and its copycat laws in Alabama, South Carolina and elsewhere. Since then, the GOP moved further to the right on immigration while Romanoff moved left, even earning jabs for flip-flopping.

I'm sure it won't be too hard for Romanoff to move as far left on immigration as he needs to—farther than GOP Rep. Mike Coffman can or will, certainly. And what's more, by attacking Romanoff for being insufficiently liberal, that makes it a lot harder for Republicans to also continue criticizing him as a flip-flopper if and when Romanoff's views do continue to evolve, as the kids put it these days. And in any event, as Seitz-Wald points out, Coffman has a pretty nativist track record which he's only haltingly tried to pivot away from. I'm going to guess that his sins on the immigration front are going to figure much more prominently than any of Romanoff's.

The Washington Post's Paul Kane is reporting this:

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is retiring rather than seek re-election in 2014, according to two senior Democratic strategists familiar with his plans.

There's no official confirmation yet, so for now the story is a "sources say" kind of thing, but whether or not it pans out, one thought comes to mind:
Yep: Brian Schweitzer, 2014.

7:12 AM PT: MSNBC is reporting on air that Baucus is retiring and Politico is as well:

7:36 AM PT: The NRSC's spokesman is going to need some better spin than this confusing jumble of words:

Leading Off:

• SC-01: Following last week's utter Mark Sanford lunacy, Public Policy Polling went back into South Carolina's 1st Congressional District and finds that things really do not look good for the former governor in the upcoming May 7 special election. Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch's narrow lead last month has expanded considerably:

Elizabeth Colbert Busch (D): 50 (47)
Mark Sanford (R): 41 (45)
Eugene Platt (G): 3 (--)
Undecided: 5 (8)

What's amazing, though, is that Sanford's approval rating hasn't dropped, though it's certainly not good: He's at 38-56, which is actually an improvement from his 34-58 mark in March. Colbert Busch, though, has also seen her numbers move up, to a remarkably strong 56-31, from 45-31 last time. So what accounts for the change in the toplines?

Well, it seems like Democratic enthusiasm is way up, and Republican enthusiasm is way down. This district voted for Mitt Romney by a 58-40 margin in 2012, and in PPP's first poll, respondents said they had supported Romney by a figure very close to that spread, 56-40. Now that gap is down to a remarkable 50-45, which either means PPP wound up with a too-blue sample or, simply, that Democrats are now pumped for this race and Republicans are less eager to answer their phones when a pollster calls. If anyone could inspire that kind of phenomenon, it's Mark Sanford.