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
* Rep. [tag]William Jefferson[\/tag] (D-La.) denied bribery charges yesterday, but acknowledged that he expects to be indicted. As for how this might affect his political career, Jefferson vowed to stay in office<\/a> and run for another term in November.<\/p>\n * In Colorado’s 5th congressional district, [tag]Jay Fawcett[\/tag] (D), an Air Force lieutenant colonel, released a poll<\/a> yesterday showing that “63% of the voters in Colorado’s historically Republican 5th District would be open to voting for a Democrat in November’s election.” The district will replace Rep. [tag]Joel Hefley[\/tag] (R) this year, who is retiring. Seven Republicans are vying for the GOP nomination, though Hefley has endorsed former aide [tag]Jeff Crank[\/tag].<\/p>\n * In North Carolina’s 11th congressional district, former NFL quarterback [tag]Heath Shuler[\/tag] (D) released an internal poll showing him taking the lead<\/a> over Rep. [tag]Charles Taylor[\/tag] (R), 45% to 43%. In all, 42% of district residents said they want Taylor to have another term, while 48% want someone new. “While challenger Heath Shuler has nearly doubled his favorable rating, Taylor’s personal popularity, job rating and re-elect measure all continue to worsen,” the pollsters wrote in a memo.<\/p>\n * Voters in Massachusetts haven’t elected a Dem governor in nearly two decades, but according to a new Rasmussen poll<\/a>, they’re in a good position this year. The poll shows both of the top three Dem candidates — state Attorney General Thomas Reilly, lawyer Deval Patrick, and wealthy investor Chris Gabrielli — leading Republican Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey by about 10 points. Businessman Christy Mihos, running an Independent campaign, has about 16% support.<\/p>\n * Ending the speculation about who might run as Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s (R) running mate, a press conference is scheduled for Thursday in which former state Rep. Michael Fedele (R) will be introduced<\/a> as the Republicans’ nominee for lieutenant governor.<\/p>\n * It’s Primary Day in Kentucky, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. The Louisville Courier-Journal has broken down<\/a> Kentucky’s races by district; Pennsylvania has Senate and gubernatorial primaries<\/a> where the outcome is already clear; but Oregon has a couple of interesting gubernatorial primaries<\/a>, including a Dem challenge against incumbent Gov. [tag]Ted Kulongoski[\/tag] (D),<\/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: * Rep. [tag]William Jefferson[\/tag] (D-La.) denied bribery charges yesterday, but acknowledged that he expects to be indicted. As for how this might affect his political career, Jefferson vowed to stay in office and […]<\/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-7424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7424","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=7424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}