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Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., announced Tuesday that she will support legislation aimed at repairing the now-broken promise that the president -- and many senators -- made to Americans when the Affordable Care Act was passed: That if they liked their health insurance, they could keep it.

Feinstein will co-sponsor legislation that Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., announced last week. The bill would extend the so-called "grandfather" clause and require insurance companies to keep offering insurance plans they sold before the health care exchanges opened on Oct. 1.

Support from Feinstein, who represents a solidly blue state, illustrates that a growing number of Democrats are worried about what effect the health care law's turbulent rollout could have on the party. Earlier Tuesday, former President Bill Clinton said President Barack Obama should consider changes to the law to allow Americans who are losing their insurance plans to keep them if they desire to.

"I've had some 30,000-plus letters and emails of some very sad stories unable to keep their policy. Depending on it, because of what the president said. And I think the right thing to do is to extend it, enable them to keep their policy," Feinstein told reporters at the Capitol Tuesday evening.

She added: "I think a lot of it is that people were assured that they could keep their policy and it's like, ugh. Very, very upset people, in large numbers. We've had 30,000 calls, about 87 percent negative."

There's no guarantee the bill will ever see a vote on the Senate floor, but Landrieu said the administration hasn't definitively rejected or accepted her bill yet. She also said that Senate leaders were "listening" to her proposal. (At this point, the bill is unlikely to see a vote on the floor of Majority Leader Harry Reid's Senate.)

The administration has been working on a fix that doesn't require Congress to make a change to the law. But pressure is building, and the House is set to vote Friday on a bill aimed at letting Americans keep their policies.

Landrieu said that her bill also has other supporters, many of whom are up for reelection; she named Sens. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., Mark Begich, D-Alaska, and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.

"My leaders are listening very intently to voices like Bill Clinton and mine and Sen. Feinstein -- there's a lot of listening going on because that was a promise clearly made and it should be kept."

This story was originally published on Tue Nov 12, 2013 8:11 PM EST

First Lady Michelle Obama is advocating for a new goal: getting more kids to pursue higher education.

During remarks Tuesday at the Bell Multicultural High School in Washington, D.C..  Mrs. Obama decried America’s decline in worldwide college graduation rates and told students that she had to overcome “negativity” to achieve her own educational goals.

"I want you to know that my story can be your story,” said Obama – a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School.

"Get this - some of my teachers straight up told me that I was setting my sights too high,” she added, addressing students from a variety of economic backgrounds in the nation’s capital. “They told me I was never going to get into a school like Princeton. And I still hear that doubt ringing in my head."  

But that propelled her, she continued: "I used that negativity to fuel me. To keep me going. And at the end, I got into Princeton."  

This foray takes on weightier policy than her first-term projects like child obesity, and it dovetails with President Obama's "North Star" goal of propelling the United States to #1 worldwide in college graduates by 2020.

"This country has slipped all the way to twelfth,” in the world, she said. “We've slipped. And that's unacceptable.” 

President Barack Obama should consider changes to his health care law to honor his pledge to allow consumers to keep their health care plans if they so desire, former President Bill Clinton said in an interview released Tuesday.

Clinton told the website OZY that the implementation of the Affordable Care Act has been, on balance, a good thing. "The big lesson is that we're better off with this law than without it," Clinton said.   But he also lent some credence to GOP attacks on the law.

"I personally believe, even if it takes a change in the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got," Clinton said.

Lucas Jackson / Reuters file photo

Former President Bill Clinton laughs after doing an impression of artist Bono during the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in New York September 25, 2013.

The former president was referencing the pledge Obama made repeatedly during his sales job of the health care law that if individuals liked their current health care plan, they could keep it.  In an interview with NBC News last week the president apologized for cancellations many individual policy holders are receiving and said his administration is looking at ways to change that part of the law.

"The president has tasked his team with looking at a range of options, as he said, to make sure that nobody is put in a position where their plans have been canceled and they can't afford a better plan, even though they'd like to have a better plan," White House press secretary Jay Carney said in response to Clinton. Carney also noted Clinton's praise for the underlying law.

Republicans have seized upon instances in which consumers have had their health plans canceled since the opening of the new insurance exchanges on Oct. 1, which effectively forces those consumers into new plans, either with their current insurers or the government exchanges.  Those impacted are Americans who purchase their own insurance, accounting for about five percent of Americans.  Those who receive their insurance through their employers are not impacted by that part of the law. 

"These comments signify a growing recognition that Americans were misled when they were promised that they could keep their coverage under President Obama's health care law," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement. "That's why all Democrats concerned about the president's broken promise should join Republicans in voting to pass the Keep Your Health Plan Act when it comes before the House later this week.  President Clinton understood that governing in a divided Washington requires a focus on common ground, and I hope President Obama will follow the former president's lead."

Moreover, the price tag for consumers forced to buy new plans has varied. For consumers eligible for subsidies under the law, the total cost of the new insurance plan might actually be lower, and they get broader coverage. For some consumers, though, the cost to them will be higher.

This Friday, the House is set to vote to approve legislation that would allow consumers to keep their health care plans if they so wished, even though those plans are regarded as substandard under current law.

This story was originally published on Tue Nov 12, 2013 11:08 AM EST

Stu Rothenberg, one of the smartest political analysts in this business, takes aim at this reporter’s analysis that black voters were a major reason Terry McAuliffe (D) won the Virginia governor’s race.

Rothenberg writes:

“NBC’s Domenico Montanaro and The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart credited African-American turnout for Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s victory, as did Jamelle Bouie of The Daily Beast. Wrong as well, I’m afraid. … The 2013 Virginia electorate was older, wealthier, more married and, surprisingly, more male than the Virginia electorate during the presidential race just a year earlier. In other words, it was a measurably more Republican-looking electorate than the one that turned out in the commonwealth for President Barack Obama’s re-election, even with the impressive black turnout.”

Rothenberg adds:

“The party’s candidate for governor did not need to improve his showing among young voters, African-Americans, Hispanics or unmarried women. He just needed to get white guys and their wives.”

Those are some good points. The 2013 electorate was more Republican-leaning than 2012:

- Older (18% was 65 and older in '13 vs. 14% in '12),
- Whiter (72% vs. 70%),
- Richer (40% made more than $100,000 a year vs. 34%),
- More male (49% vs. 47%),
- More married (67% vs. 62%), and
- Even more white evangelical (27% vs. 23%)

And, as it turns out, Ken Cuccinelli (R) won slightly lower margins with those groups than 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney did:

- 65+: 51%-45% for Cuccinelli vs. 54%-46% for Romney,
- White: 61%-37% vs. 56%-36%,
- $100,000+: McAuliffe won them 49%-43% vs. 51%-47% for Romney,
- Men: 51%-47% vs. 48%-45%,
- Married: 50%-43% vs. 55%-44%, and
- White evangelical: 81%-15% vs. 83%-17%.

So Cuccinelli was unable to replicate even Romney’s margins, and that’s part of the reason Cuccinelli came close but ultimately lost. (McAuliffe won by 2.51 percentage points versus 3.87 for President Obama.)

But black voters were also an important factor to why McAuliffe won. They turned out as the same percentage of the electorate -- 20% -- as they did for Obama (the first black president) in 2012, up 4 points from the previous gubernatorial race in 2009.

And they voted for McAuliffe at similarly wide margins as they did for Obama, 90%-8% in 2013 versus 93%-6% for Obama. So that’s one-in-five Virginia voters voting almost entirely in one direction. That’s nothing to sneeze at.

Imagine if blacks didn’t turn out the way they did for McAuliffe, especially considering that Hispanics and Asians -- growing groups in the commonwealth -- didn’t turn out at 2012 rates.

The point of the First Read analysis was not to say black voters were the only reason McAuliffe won, but merely one important factor. We, in fact, pointed out that Cuccinelli’s inability to win or compete in the DC suburban areas, for example, was another important factor. Presumably, most of the voters in places like Fairfax and Prince William counties were white, especially given that Asians and Hispanics, who make up about one-in-three people there, turned out in such low numbers.

And First Read also noted that a majority -- 50% -- of voters in Virginia thought Cuccinelli was “too conservative.”

Could Cuccinelli conceivably have won by winning every white guy and his wife? Sure.

And could it mean that Republicans can do well in the midterms by winning just “white guys and their wives” since minorities and young voters traditionally turn out at lower rates in those elections? Maybe.

But, as Virginia’s and the nation’s demography continue to change, is that really a winning national strategy for Republicans? It wasn’t for Romney.

The fact that black voters showed up the way they did was an important factor in McAuliffe’s win that shouldn't be dismissed.

This story was originally published on Tue Nov 12, 2013 11:06 AM EST

New NBC poll confirms an early reality check on 2016: 1) GOP remains divided… 2) Dem Party is pretty unified around Hillary Clinton… And 3) Democrats continue to benefit from the same demographic trends that helped Obama in ’08 and ’12… What’s more, the media (see the New Republic piece) appear more eager for a Dem challenger to Hillary than Democrats are (see our NBC poll)… Pro-Hillary Super PAC holds finance meeting in New York… WSJ: Fewer than 50,000 have enrolled in the federal health-care exchange… And Herring now leads Obenshain by a mere 117 votes in the VA AG race.

Lisa Lake / Getty Images

Hillary Clinton at the Pennsylvania Conference For Women in Philadelphia on Nov. 1, 2013.

*** A reality check on 2016: Yes, it’s early. And yes, 2008 taught us that the early front-runners (Clinton and Giuliani) don’t always end up as the presidential nominees. But our new NBC News poll looking ahead to the 2016 presidential election reconfirms three current political realities. One, the Republican Party is divided. According to the poll, 32% of Republican and Republican-leaning respondents say they would vote for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in a GOP presidential primary, while 31% prefer another Republican candidate (never mind the other third who are undecided, so together 68% of GOPers are not on board with Christie). Two, the Democratic Party is pretty unified. By comparison in the poll, 66% of Democratic or Democratic-leaning respondents say they’d back Hillary Clinton in a presidential primary, versus just 14% who say they’d vote for another Democratic candidate (and 34% total who claim not to be for Hillary yet). And three, Democrats continue to benefit from demographic trends that will be difficult for the GOP to overcome in 2016 -- and beyond. In a hypothetical matchup between Clinton and Christie, the poll finds the former Democratic secretary of state getting the support of 44% of all adults, while the Republican governor gets 34%. You might not think you need a poll to tell you these things, but a poll certainly helps to reinforce them.

*** Christie vs. a generic Republican: As mentioned above, our poll shows Republicans split over Christie: 32% would back him in a GOP primary, versus 31% who would support another Republican candidate. And it’s instructive to study the crosstabs to see where Christie over-performs and under-performs here. He over-performs among women (35%), minorities (46%), seniors (48%), and people in the Northeast (57%) -- you know, the folks who don’t dominate Republican primaries! But he under-performs among men (28%); Republicans ages 18-29, a la the Rand Paul crowd (15%); upper-income Republicans (26%); and residents in the Midwest (30%), South (27%), and West (22%) – or the Republicans who DO DOMINATE Republican primaries. This geographical divide is especially striking -- 57% support in the Northeast, but just 27% in the South and 22% in the West.

*** Clinton vs. a generic Democrat: It’s equally instructive to see where Clinton over-performs against another Democrat. She gets 70% among females, 70% among whites, 71% among seniors, 72% among the lowest-income Democrats, and 73% in the Northeast and 70% in the Midwest. Where she underperforms is among men (62%), college grads (62%), and 60% among upper-income Democrats – these are the remnants of Obama’s white coalition in the ’08 Democratic race. But a reality check here: She’s still getting SIXTY PERCENT among these folks, which suggests there isn’t really a substantial opening for another Democratic candidate (whether it’s Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, or anyone else). Remember, in 2005, there was some real Clinton fatigue among Democrats that provided the opening for Obama. That’s not the evidence right now.

*** Demography continues to be destiny: As for our hypothetical general-election matchup between Clinton and Christie, Hillary is benefitting from the same demographic trends that helped President Obama win election in 2008 and re-election in 2012. She leads Christie among African Americans (83%-4%), respondents ages 18 to 29 (45%-31%), and Latinos (44%-33%). Clinton also holds the advantage with residents from the Northeast (52%-35%), West (43%-30%), the South (43%-35%) and Midwest (41%-37%). And she has a narrow edge among independents (39%-35%). Christie, meanwhile, leads among whites (41%-37%), seniors (44%-41%), and respondents with the highest incomes (46%-34%). Just what Republicans want to hear: They are the part of old rich white people? (By the way, see today’s new L.A. Times poll of Californians, which should be a wakeup call to GOP officials nationally.) Folks, these numbers are pretty similar to the splits we saw between Obama and Romney in 2012. And the downside of being the ELECTABILITY candidate for Republicans? You better be leading (or close to it) against Clinton, and you better be performing better among particular demographic groups than Romney did. Right now, Christie isn’t doing either.

*** Press appears to be more eager for a Dem challenger to Hillary than Democrats are: The political story that went viral yesterday was the New Republic piece on Elizabeth Warren and whether she might challenge Hillary Clinton in 2016 -- despite Hillary’s numbers we mentioned above. From the article: “In addition to being strongly identified with the party’s populist wing, any candidate who challenged Clinton would need several key assets. The candidate would almost certainly have to be a woman, given Democrats’ desire to make history again. She would have to amass huge piles of money with relatively little effort. Above all, she would have to awaken in Democratic voters an almost evangelical passion. As it happens, there is precisely such a person. Her name is Elizabeth Warren.” But here is the potential danger for Clinton: The political press corps appears to be MORE EAGER to search for a challenger for Clinton than Democrats are -- just see our poll.

*** About that pro-Hillary Super PAC: There’s one more piece of 2016 news worth mentioning today. “On Tuesday, [former Obama top aide Mitch] Stewart and a dozen or so other political operatives and 170 donors will gather in New York to plot how to help Mrs. Clinton win in 2016. The meeting is the first national finance council strategy meeting of Ready for Hillary, a ‘super PAC’ devoted to building a network to support Mrs. Clinton’s potential presidential ambitions,” the New York Times writes. Folks, it will be interesting to look through the Ready for Hillary FEC report when it comes out. Which consultants are making money?

*** Paper: Fewer than 50,000 have enrolled in the federal exchange: Turning from 2016 to the troubled Obamacare rollout, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that fewer than 50,000 people “had successfully navigated the troubled federal health-care website and enrolled in private insurance plans as of last week, two people familiar with the matter said, citing internal government data. The figure is a fraction of the Obama administration's target of 500,000 enrollees for October.” But three caveats worth noting: 1) the 50,000 figure doesn’t include those who signed up via the better-running state websites, 2) it doesn’t include those who received insurance via expanded Medicaid, and 3) the administration always assumed most people would purchase their insurance in December, given that the insurance doesn’t take effect until Jan. 1. And the fact that the federal exchange is behind schedule shouldn’t surprise anyone. The website, after all, hasn’t been working. As one health insurer told the Journal: "Given the problems we have witnessed and experienced, that [40,000 to 50,000] number is actually higher than I expected."

*** Herring now leads Obenshain in the VA AG race by 117 votes: And lastly, in the final undecided race from Election Day 2013, it appears that Democrat Mark Herring has taken the lead over Republican Mark Obenshain in Virginia’s thisclose race for attorney general. The Washington Post: “Herring had started the day trailing his Republican opponent … by a mere 17 votes out of 2.2 million cast. But as jurisdictions across the state continued to scrub their vote counts, the State Board of Elections showed Herring with a 117-vote lead late Monday.” More from the Post: “Local jurisdictions have until Tuesday at 6 p.m. to report their results to the State Board of Elections. The state then is scheduled to certify the results on Nov. 25. If the margin is less than 1 percent, either candidate can request a recount. If the margin is less than 0.5 percent, the state will pay for the recount.” And it certainly looks like we’re headed for a recount.

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*** Tuesday’s “The Daily Rundown” line-up: We will have our latest NBC News poll numbers on a Christie-Clinton matchup and the National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru and Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus will join Chuck to talk 2016. Plus, a deep dive into the procurement problem facing this administration with CEO of the Department of Better Technology Clay Johnson, former Presidential Innovation Fellow and lead programmer for Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign. We will also have the latest on the devastating Typhoon that hit the Philippines on Friday and the unique relationship between the United States and the Philippines. NBC News correspondents Ian Williams and Mike Taibbi will be with us this morning.

*** Tuesday’s “Jansing & Co.” line-up: Guests include Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), the Grio’s Joy Reid, TPM’s Josh Marshall, The Nation’s Dave Zirin, Omar Kelly of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Third Way’s Matt Bennett, and GOP strategist Rick Tyler.

*** Tuesday’s “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts” line-up: MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts interviews DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).  Republican strategist Hogan Gidley & MSNBC Contributor Jimmy Williams discuss Sen. Rand Paul’s speech at The Citadel in SC.  Today’s Agenda Setters include Lee Fang from The Nation, Taegan Goddard of Political Wire and Sabrina Siddiqui of The Huffington Post.  Thomas talks to Diane Rowland of The Kaiser Family Foundation about the states that have refused to expand Medicaid.  And Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America talks to Thomas about the armed protest outside her group’s membership meeting this weekend,

*** Tuesday’s “NOW with Alex Wagner” line-up: Alex Wagner’s guests include National Review’s Robert Costa, NBC’s Kasie Hunt, former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, and the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart.

*** Tuesday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell interviews NBC’s Chuck Todd, Ian Williams and Dr. Nancy Snyderman, USAID Administrator Nancy Lindborg, Autism Speaks Founders Bob and Suzanne Wright, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza and Anne Gearan and the New Republic’s Noam Scheiber.

*** Tuesday’s “News Nation with Tamron Hall” line-up: MSNBC’s Tamron Hall interviews Sirius XM’s Michael Smerconish, USA Today’s Raul Reyes, Food Safety News’ Bill Marler, and Actor Morris Chestnut and Director Malcolm D Lee on their new movie “The Best Man Holiday.”

The AP: “President Barack Obama is nominating a top Treasury Department official to run the independent agency that regulates the futures and options market. The White House says Obama will announce the nomination of Timothy Massad to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday. For the past three years, Massad has overseen the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the bank rescue plan known as TARP.”

Washington Post: "Roughly 40,000 Americans have signed up for private insurance through the flawed federal online insurance marketplace since it opened six weeks ago, according to two people with access to the figures. That amount is a tiny fraction of the total projected enrollment for the 36 states where the federal government is running the online health-care exchange, indicating the slow start to the president’s initiative."

Wall Street Journal: "The administration had estimated that nearly 500,000 people would enroll in October, according to internal memos cited last week by Rep. Dave Camp (R., Mich.). An estimated seven million people nationwide were expected to gain private coverage by the end of March, when the open-enrollment period is set to end."

New York Times: "The chief digital architect for the federal health insurance marketplace has told congressional investigators that he was not aware of tests that indicated potential security flaws in the system, which opened to the public on Oct. 1."

New York Times: "Some major health insurers are so worried about the Obama administration’s ability to fix its troubled health care website that they are pushing the government to create a shortcut that would allow them to enroll people entitled to subsidies directly rather than through the federal system. The idea is only one of several being discussed in a frantic effort to find a way around the technological problems that teams of experts are urgently trying to resolve."

Los Angeles Times: "Interior Secretary Sally Jewell says she will recommend that President Obama act alone if necessary to create new national monuments and sidestep a gridlocked Congress that has failed to address dozens of public lands bills. Jewell said the logjam on Capitol Hill has created a conservation backlog, and she warned that the Obama administration would not 'hold its breath forever' waiting for lawmakers to act."

“President Barack Obama’s hopes for a nuclear deal with Iran now depend in part on his ability to keep a lid on both hard-liners on Capitol Hill and anxious allies abroad, including Israel, the Persian Gulf states and even France,” the AP notes.

New York Times: "Secretary of State John Kerry came up a few disputed words short of closing a landmark nuclear deal with Iran on Sunday in Geneva. Now he is defending the diplomacy that led to that near miss against a rising chorus of critics at home and abroad."

Reuters: "Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif rejected U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's pinning of blame on Iran for the lack of a deal on its nuclear program last week, saying splits between Western powers prevented a breakthrough. Responding to remarks by Kerry in Abu Dhabi on Monday, Zarif said that singling out Iran only served to undermine confidence in the Geneva negotiations, which will resume on November 20."

Politico: "It’s just mid-November, but it’s quickly becoming a reality: Washington could be mostly done making laws for the year. If it isn’t evident by looking at the thin congressional calendar, top sources in both chambers are downright grim that the final eight weeks in 2013 will produce any legislative breakthroughs, like a broad budget agreement or an immigration deal."

Roll Call: “President Barack Obama’s ‘if you like it, you can keep it’ promise has House Democrats facing a dilemma as they look ahead to a vote on Republican legislation to preserve existing health plans. ‘There will be defections,’ a House Democratic leadership aide predicted. The bill, sponsored by House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., would give insurance companies the option of continuing all existing health plans for a year. It’s considerably weaker than a proposal by Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., that would require insurance companies to continue offering existing plans, but the political power of the legislation may be no less potent: Are you in favor of keeping the president’s promise or not?”

The Hill looks at how immigration reform has died a quiet death in the House.

KOTV: “Perry Inhofe, the son of U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe, died in a plane crash in Owasso on Sunday, November 10, 2013. Sources close to the family confirmed the news Monday afternoon.”

Charlie Cook writes that "all the speculation about ‘will Hillary run’ among Democrats and the curiosity on the Republican side about Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio of Florida, and, most recently, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is rather extraordinary a year before even the midterm elections."

New York Times: "In the 2008 presidential primary campaign, Mitch Stewart devoted himself to defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton, overcoming the advantages of a well-funded Democratic front-runner through grass-roots organizing, and propelling Barack Obama to victory. On Tuesday, Mr. Stewart and a dozen or so other political operatives and 170 donors will gather in New York to plot how to help Mrs. Clinton win in 2016. The meeting is the first national finance council strategy meeting of Ready for Hillary, a “super PAC” devoted to building a network to support Mrs. Clinton’s potential presidential ambitions."

National Journal: “History says President Obama's sagging approval ratings -- which this month have neared the lows of his entire presidency -- aren't going to improve before he leaves the White House in 2017. And that's a troubling trajectory for Democrats feeling the pressure of reelection next year.”

CALIFORNIA: Los Angeles Times: "Deep inside a new USC/Los Angeles Times poll are details that could make the California Republican Party, and by extension its cohorts elsewhere in the country, fear anew the march of time and demographics. California right now is an extreme example of the nation, to be sure: more ethnically mixed and younger than most states, and riven for 20 years by a hobbling GOP civil war that now is surfacing dramatically elsewhere in the country. But if California is on the leading edge, as opposed to an outlier, the poll serves as confirmation that long-term problems loom for Republicans."

COLORADO: National Journal: “Colorado is back as a national bellwether. Earlier this year, a Democratic-led push to enact stricter gun-control measures cost two state senators their jobs and tarnished once-popular Gov. John Hickenlooper's bipartisan sheen. Last week, voters overwhelmingly rejected a sweeping measure to raise the state's income tax. And now, Hickenlooper is in a fight with some of his core supporters over a ban on a process of natural-gas drilling known as ‘fracking.’ … Taken together, the moves are a course correction for a state that seemed to be drifting inexorably to the left. And they've caught the attention of the Democrats up for reelection in 2014, Hickenlooper and Sen. Mark Udall, both of whom have begun plotting their own paths back toward the political center.”

FLORIDA: MSNBC’s Michael LaRosa reports that Florida Sen. Bill Nelson (D) is seriously considering a run for governor that could shake up the race as Democrats have embraced for Republican Gov. Charlie Crist.

MICHIGAN: The Detroit News: “Former U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter claims the longtime aide at the center of a nominating petition scandal that ruined his congressional career accepted a bribe to engage in a ‘deliberate sabotage’ of his 2012 re-election campaign. McCotter leveled the allegations against former aide Don Yowchuang in a complaint filed last month in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit contesting Yowchuang’s personal bankruptcy. The court papers claim Yowchuang’s copy-and-paste petition fraud was ‘motivated by the promise of financial gain.’”

MONTANA: The Missoulian: "Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Bohlinger rapped Montana’s two sitting U.S. senators and “D.C. insiders” on Monday for their early support of fellow Democrat Lt. Gov. John Walsh, saying they should let Montana voters do the choosing. Bohlinger’s criticism stems in part from a fundraiser that U.S. Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester – both Montana Democrats – are hosting Wednesday in Washington, D.C., for Walsh.

NEBRASKA: “In a display of the unpredictability of the race, conservative groups are falling on opposite sides of the Republican Senate primary in Nebraska,” Roll Call writes. “FreedomWorks, a tea-party-affiliated group that has backed candidates like Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced Monday that it has endorsed former state Treasurer Shane Osborn.”

SOUTH CAROLINA: The State: "U.S. Army veteran and Orangeburg attorney Bill Connor announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate Monday at a Myrtle Beach Tea Party meeting. Connor joins Spartanburg state Sen. Lee Bright, Easley businessman Richard Cash and Charleston PR executive Nancy Mace as the fourth candidate challenging U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham in the June GOP primary. The only one of Graham’s challengers to run a statewide race, Connor ran for lieutenant governor in 2010 and lost in a runoff."

SOUTH DAKOTA: AP: "Former Sen. Larry Pressler said Monday he is considering running again for the U.S. Senate, this time as an independent. Pressler, 71, served three Senate terms as a Republican after first winning the seat in 1978. He lost a 1996 re-election bid to Democrat Tim Johnson, who is not seeking re-election next year after also serving three terms. Pressler, who lives most of the time in Washington, D.C., but maintains a home in Sioux Falls, said there is less than a 50-50 chance he will run for the Senate next year. But he said if he does run, he wants to do it as an independent because that would give him the best chance to find compromise in Congress."

VIRGINIA: Washington Post: "Democratic state Sen. Mark R. Herring took the lead in the extraordinarily tight Virginia attorney general race Monday evening, after he picked up more than 100 previously uncounted votes in Richmond. Herring had started the day trailing his Republican opponent, state Sen. Mark D. Obenshain (Harrisonburg), by a mere 17 votes out of 2.2 million cast. But as jurisdictions across the state continued to scrub their vote counts, the State Board of Elections showed Herring with a 117-vote lead late Monday.

Politico: "A year after the 2012 election in which the Obama campaign dominated on data and Republicans wondered how they could catch up, both parties saw 2013 as not only a testing ground for new digital strategies but also a test of how much ground the GOP has made up. Democratic Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe’s campaign, building on the foundations of Obama’s 2012 data operation, was able to adapt many of Obama’s data strategies to a state-level race."

Charlie Cook writes that "all the speculation about ‘will Hillary run’ among Democrats and the curiosity on the Republican side about Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio of Florida, and, most recently, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is rather extraordinary a year before even the midterm elections."

New York Times: "In the 2008 presidential primary campaign, Mitch Stewart devoted himself to defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton, overcoming the advantages of a well-funded Democratic front-runner through grass-roots organizing, and propelling Barack Obama to victory. On Tuesday, Mr. Stewart and a dozen or so other political operatives and 170 donors will gather in New York to plot how to help Mrs. Clinton win in 2016. The meeting is the first national finance council strategy meeting of Ready for Hillary, a “super PAC” devoted to building a network to support Mrs. Clinton’s potential presidential ambitions."

National Journal: “History says President Obama's sagging approval ratings -- which this month have neared the lows of his entire presidency -- aren't going to improve before he leaves the White House in 2017. And that's a troubling trajectory for Democrats feeling the pressure of reelection next year.”

CALIFORNIA: Los Angeles Times: "Deep inside a new USC/Los Angeles Times poll are details that could make the California Republican Party, and by extension its cohorts elsewhere in the country, fear anew the march of time and demographics. California right now is an extreme example of the nation, to be sure: more ethnically mixed and younger than most states, and riven for 20 years by a hobbling GOP civil war that now is surfacing dramatically elsewhere in the country. But if California is on the leading edge, as opposed to an outlier, the poll serves as confirmation that long-term problems loom for Republicans."

COLORADO: National Journal: “Colorado is back as a national bellwether. Earlier this year, a Democratic-led push to enact stricter gun-control measures cost two state senators their jobs and tarnished once-popular Gov. John Hickenlooper's bipartisan sheen. Last week, voters overwhelmingly rejected a sweeping measure to raise the state's income tax. And now, Hickenlooper is in a fight with some of his core supporters over a ban on a process of natural-gas drilling known as ‘fracking.’ … Taken together, the moves are a course correction for a state that seemed to be drifting inexorably to the left. And they've caught the attention of the Democrats up for reelection in 2014, Hickenlooper and Sen. Mark Udall, both of whom have begun plotting their own paths back toward the political center.”

FLORIDA: MSNBC’s Michael LaRosa reports that Florida Sen. Bill Nelson (D) is seriously considering a run for governor that could shake up the race as Democrats have embraced for Republican Gov. Charlie Crist.

MICHIGAN: The Detroit News: “Former U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter claims the longtime aide at the center of a nominating petition scandal that ruined his congressional career accepted a bribe to engage in a ‘deliberate sabotage’ of his 2012 re-election campaign. McCotter leveled the allegations against former aide Don Yowchuang in a complaint filed last month in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit contesting Yowchuang’s personal bankruptcy. The court papers claim Yowchuang’s copy-and-paste petition fraud was ‘motivated by the promise of financial gain.’”

MONTANA: The Missoulian: "Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Bohlinger rapped Montana’s two sitting U.S. senators and “D.C. insiders” on Monday for their early support of fellow Democrat Lt. Gov. John Walsh, saying they should let Montana voters do the choosing. Bohlinger’s criticism stems in part from a fundraiser that U.S. Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester – both Montana Democrats – are hosting Wednesday in Washington, D.C., for Walsh.

NEBRASKA: “In a display of the unpredictability of the race, conservative groups are falling on opposite sides of the Republican Senate primary in Nebraska,” Roll Call writes. “FreedomWorks, a tea-party-affiliated group that has backed candidates like Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced Monday that it has endorsed former state Treasurer Shane Osborn.”

SOUTH CAROLINA: The State: "U.S. Army veteran and Orangeburg attorney Bill Connor announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate Monday at a Myrtle Beach Tea Party meeting. Connor joins Spartanburg state Sen. Lee Bright, Easley businessman Richard Cash and Charleston PR executive Nancy Mace as the fourth candidate challenging U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham in the June GOP primary. The only one of Graham’s challengers to run a statewide race, Connor ran for lieutenant governor in 2010 and lost in a runoff."

SOUTH DAKOTA: AP: "Former Sen. Larry Pressler said Monday he is considering running again for the U.S. Senate, this time as an independent. Pressler, 71, served three Senate terms as a Republican after first winning the seat in 1978. He lost a 1996 re-election bid to Democrat Tim Johnson, who is not seeking re-election next year after also serving three terms. Pressler, who lives most of the time in Washington, D.C., but maintains a home in Sioux Falls, said there is less than a 50-50 chance he will run for the Senate next year. But he said if he does run, he wants to do it as an independent because that would give him the best chance to find compromise in Congress."

VIRGINIA: Washington Post: "Democratic state Sen. Mark R. Herring took the lead in the extraordinarily tight Virginia attorney general race Monday evening, after he picked up more than 100 previously uncounted votes in Richmond. Herring had started the day trailing his Republican opponent, state Sen. Mark D. Obenshain (Harrisonburg), by a mere 17 votes out of 2.2 million cast. But as jurisdictions across the state continued to scrub their vote counts, the State Board of Elections showed Herring with a 117-vote lead late Monday.

Politico: "A year after the 2012 election in which the Obama campaign dominated on data and Republicans wondered how they could catch up, both parties saw 2013 as not only a testing ground for new digital strategies but also a test of how much ground the GOP has made up. Democratic Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe’s campaign, building on the foundations of Obama’s 2012 data operation, was able to adapt many of Obama’s data strategies to a state-level race."

Mel Evans / AP

Gov. Chris Christie at the state house in Trenton, N.J., Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013.

If New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie runs for president in 2016, he would face the dual challenges of uniting a fractured Republican Party and besting a formidable Hillary Clinton in a general election, according to a new NBC News poll.

Following his resounding re-election victory last week, 32 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning respondents say they would vote for Christie in a GOP presidential primary, while 31 percent prefer another Republican candidate.

“Naming just Christie divides the faithful equally into Christie, Not Christie and Don’t Know,” said G. Evans Witt, CEO of Princeton Survey Research, which conducted the poll. “A third of the vote is not a bad showing in a party primary with [potentially] 10 candidates, but the first primary is more than two years away.”

Read the full poll results here (.pdf)

There’s also a striking geographical divide: A majority of Northeast Republicans (57 percent to 22 percent) say they would support Christie in a GOP primary.

But pluralities of Republicans in other parts of the country prefer another GOP candidate – in the Midwest (by 35 percent to 30 percent), the South (29 percent to 27 percent) and the West (40 percent to 22 percent).

On Monday, The New York Times highlighted this Republican split over Christie, especially after establishment Republicans have cheered his possible 2016 candidacy.

“We’re so frustrated with all this Christie talk we can’t see straight,” Scott Hofstra, a Tea Party Republican from Kentucky told the Times. “He’s no more conservative than Harry Reid,” referring to the Democratic Senate majority leader.

Appearing on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Christie declined to label himself a moderate or conservative. “I don't get into these labels. That's the Washington, D.C., game,” he said.

Instead, Christie added, “Look at my record. We're spending less today in 2014 fiscal year than we did in 2008 in real dollars; we've cut business taxes by $2.3 billion; 143,000 new private sector jobs.”

Christie vs. Clinton
Christie's challenges extend beyond his own party: The poll finds Clinton getting the support of 44 percent of all adults in a hypothetical match up against the New Jersey governor, who gets 34 percent. The rest of respondents either preferred another candidate, said they would not vote, or were undecided.

And while Election Day 2016 is still more than 1,000 days away, the survey shows Clinton benefiting from the same demographic trends that helped propel President Barack Obama to win the election in 2008 and re-election in 2012.

Clinton leads Christie among African Americans (83 percent to 4 percent), respondents ages 18 to 29 (45 percent to 31 percent) and Latinos (44 percent to 33 percent).

Clinton also holds the advantage with residents from the Northeast (52 percent to 35 percent), West (43 percent to 30 percent), the South (43 percent to 35 percent) and Midwest (41 percent to 37 percent). And she has a narrow edge among independents (39 percent to 35 percent).

Christie, meanwhile, leads among whites (41 percent to 37 percent), seniors (44 percent to 41 percent) and respondents with an annual income of $75,000 or more (46 percent to 34 percent).

Democrats unite around Clinton
Within her own party, Clinton enjoys strong support for the nomination. Sixty-six percent of Democratic or Democratic-leaning respondents say they’d back Clinton in a presidential primary, versus just 14 percent who say they’d vote for another Democratic candidate.

Lisa Lake / Getty Images

Hillary Clinton at the Pennsylvania Conference For Women in Philadelphia on Nov. 1, 2013.

This comes after Clinton served as President Obama’s secretary of state for four years, as well as her unsuccessful presidential bid in 2008, when Obama upset her for the Democratic nod.

While Clinton still could receive a Democratic challenge – the New Republic magazine recently wrote about Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., possibly running in 2016 – other prominent Democrats would likely avoid the race if Clinton decides to throw her hat into the ring.

"Clinton is the best-known Democrat in the country who might run in 2016, with the possible exception of Vice President Biden," Witt added. "No one else is close in sheer name recognition."

The NBC poll was conducted Nov. 7-10 of 1,003 adults (which has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.6 percentage points), 428 Democrats or those who lean Democratic (plus-minus 5.5 percentage points) and 394 Republicans or those who lean Republican (plus-minus 5.8 percentage points). 

Related:

• Christie tells GOP: To win Latino and black votes, 'you need to show up'
• Christie storms to victory in N.J. governor's race
• Hillary hints at 'glass ceiling' she could crack in 2016

This story was originally published on Tue Nov 12, 2013 3:10 AM EST