Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:<\/p>\n
* Complicating [tag]Tom Kean Jr[\/tag].’s (R) Senate campaign in New Jersey, conservative [tag]John Ginty[\/tag] filed petitions with the state to take on Kean in a Republican primary<\/a>. As the NYT reported, Ginty argues that Kean hasn’t been nearly right-wing enough, displaying moderate or muddled views on issues like abortion and stem cell research. Ginty also accuses Kean of failing to “articulate some understandable program for cutting the size of government” at the federal level, and of not spelling out his views on foreign and defense policy.<\/p>\n * In Nevada, a new Las Vegas Review-Journal poll<\/a> offered encouraging news for Republicans in Nevada’s two big statewide races this week. According to the poll, Rep. Jim Gibbons (R) looks quite strong in Nevada’s gubernatorial race, leading his closest Dem competitor by 13 points. In the Senate race, incumbent Sen. John Ensign (R) leads Jack Carter (D), 60% to 27%.<\/p>\n * The first day of early voting began yesterday in New Orleans’ mayoral race. According to the Times Picayune<\/a>, “preliminary details on voter participation by race show that African-Americans are turning out roughly in proportion to their pre-Katrina presence in New Orleans, or 68 percent,” but that “with four days of early voting left, and the actual election day set for April 22, it’s impossible to use Monday’s voting as a gauge for overall turnout.”<\/p>\n * Hoping to squelch any rumors to the contrary, Iowa State Rep. Ed Fallon (D) said yesterday that he will support the candidate who wins the Dem gubernatorial primary, even if it’s not him<\/a>. Fallon is facing former state economic development director Mike Blouin and Iowa Secretary of State Chet Culver in a June 6 primary.<\/p>\n * And just a reminder, the special election in California’s 50th congressional district is today. [tag]Francine Busby[\/tag] is expected to finish first, but will need a majority to avoid June 7 run-off. Polls close at 8pm locally (11pm eastern) and election results will be available online at the California Secretary of State’s page<\/a> once precincts start reporting. Considering the fact that Republicans outnumber Dems in the conservative district by a three-to-two margin, Busby’s promising prospects<\/a> are encouraging for Dems nationwide. “If Busby wins, that would be the political equivalent of a tectonic shift,” said Amy Walter, senior editor at the Washington-based Cook Political Report. “The next story you would hear is this is the first rumblings in what would be a major earthquake in November.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * Complicating [tag]Tom Kean Jr[\/tag].’s (R) Senate campaign in New Jersey, conservative [tag]John Ginty[\/tag] filed petitions with the state to take on Kean in a Republican primary. As the NYT reported, Ginty argues […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}