Senate 2010

Rasmussen reports:

West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin and Republican businessman John Raese continue to run a surprisingly close race in the state's special Senate election to replace the late Robert Byrd.

A new Quinnipiac poll shows that New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand is leading her potential GOP opponents by about 20 points. New York Republicans have failed to get a big-name candidate (Giuliani, Pataki) to take on Gillibrand, and her seat is generally considered to be one of the few Democratic seats that Democrats don't have to worry about in 2010.

Sadly, it is too late for any of us to meet Charlotte McCourt. The Nevada grandmother passed away this week at the age of 84 after a long illness. But it is not too late for Charlotte to tell everyone exactly how she feels.

An excerpt from her obituary, placed in the Las Vegas Review Journal Tuesday, reads:

Dino Rossi, the Washington real-estate developer and former state senator who lost the controversial 2004 governor's race to Christine Gregoire by 133 votes, announced today he wants to take on Patty Murray for a spot in the U.S. Senate.

Dick Blumenthal is finally saying what he should have said last week, sending an apology for his exaggerations about his Vietnam service to the Hartford Courant in Connecticut:

It's nothing too earth-shattering. Coats, dressed in a casual checked shirt, calls himself a "conservative" leader who likes tax cuts, babies, and the 2nd Amendment.

"I never thought I'd run for office again, but with the direction President Obama is taking the country, Marsha and I decided we had to stand up."

When Sen. Chris Dodd decided to retire instead of seeking another term as senator, the conventional wisdom held that popular Connecticut Attorney General Dick Blumenthal would turn an at-risk seat into an easy win for his party.

Turns out Blumenthal's bumbling has Democrats nervous, despite a commanding lead over Republican challengers Rob Simmons and Linda McMahon. (He lead Simmons 52-38 in a Rasmussen poll this week.)

Hmm. CQ has reclassified California's Senate race:

To reflect polling showing a tightening general election race and California voters’ particularly sour mood about the direction of their state and the country, CQ Politics is changing its race rating from Likely Democratic to the increasingly competitive Leans Democratic.

The Florida Republican, now leading primary challenger and current governor Charlie Crist by 32 in one poll, released his first TV ad today. He sounded a common theme, saying "Washington is broken." Unlike Obama, he believes it's broken because it can't stop spending money, not because it can't "come together" to spend even greater gobs of it.

Nancy Pelosi is still fighting to pass the health care bill through reconciliation. Nate Silver makes the political case for why the Democrats should follow her lead:

The near-term political case for passing health care, again, is not that the bill is magically going to become popular over the next eight months. Rather, it's that the Democrats are already in such bad shape among independents -- partly, no doubt, because of their bungled handling of what has become an unpopular health care bill -- that they may as well go ahead and give their base something to get excited about. Seriously, the Democrats' approval rating among independents in 19 percent. What more do they have to lose?

Here's the problem with this analysis: "The base" was as excited as it was or is ever going to be about the health care bill in the Massachusetts special election. The stakes were extremely high, and the choice was binary. Defeat Scott Brown and health care passes; elect Scott Brown and it dies. As you may recall, Scott Brown won.

A new Rasmussen poll shows Mark Kirk opening up a 46% to 40% lead over Democrat Alexi Giannoulias:

Among voters not affiliated with either of the major parties, the Republican holds a sizable 59% to 22% lead.

Reports were this morning that former Sen. Dan Coats was definitely in for a run against Sen. Evan Bayh in Indiana after fellow Hoosier Rep. Mike Pence said 'no' to the idea, perhaps with his eye on a 2012 presidential run.

Coats has now released a statement that sounds sanguine, but doesn't have him fully committing until a later date: