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
* In the hopes of adding geographic and racial balance to his gubernatorial ticket, Rep. [tag]Jim Davis[\/tag] (D-Fla.) announced today<\/a> that former Miami state Sen. [tag]Daryl Jones[\/tag] (D-Fla.) will be his running mate this year. If elected, Jones will be modern Florida’s first African-American lieutenant governor. Jones, 51, is a U.S. Air Force Reserves colonel as well as a lawyer and real-estate investor.<\/p>\n * On the opposite end of the continent, [tag]Sarah Palin[\/tag] (R) looks very strong in Alaska’s gubernatorial race after dispatching incumbent Gov. [tag]Frank Murkowski[\/tag] in a GOP primary. The most recent Rasmussen poll<\/a> shows Palin leading former Gov. [tag]Tony Knowles[\/tag] (D), 52% to 38%. These numbers are virtually unchanged from last month’s poll.<\/p>\n * In Alabama, the most recent Birmingham News poll<\/a> shows Alabama Gov. [tag]Bob Riley[\/tag] (R) well on his way to winning a second term, leading Lt. Gov. [tag]Lucy Baxley[\/tag] (D) by 21 points, 55% to 34%. (via Taegan Goddard<\/a>)<\/p>\n * In Iowa’s closely watched gubernatorial race, a new KCCI poll<\/a> shows Iowa Secretary of State [tag]Chet Culver[\/tag] (D) still leading Rep. [tag]Jim Nussle[\/tag] (R), 48% to 43%.<\/p>\n * In Massachusetts, Democrats have not yet chosen their gubernatorial nominee, but no matter who Dems pick, all three candidates lead Lt. Gov. [tag]Kerry Healey[\/tag] (R) in a new State House News poll<\/a>. [tag]Tom Reilly[\/tag] (D) leads Healey 38% to 30%; [tag]Deval Patrick[\/tag] (D) is ahead 43% to 30%; and [tag]Chris Gabrieli[\/tag] (D) enjoys the biggest lead of all at 47% to 26%. In each match-up, independent [tag]Christy Mihos[\/tag] garners about 7% support.<\/p>\n * And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the loss of former Texas Gov. [tag]Ann Richards[\/tag] (D), who died last night at the age of 73, after a six-month battle against esophageal cancer. She was, as many have noted today, a “true Texas hero<\/a>.”<\/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: * In the hopes of adding geographic and racial balance to his gubernatorial ticket, Rep. [tag]Jim Davis[\/tag] (D-Fla.) announced today that former Miami state Sen. [tag]Daryl Jones[\/tag] (D-Fla.) will be his running mate […]<\/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-8464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8464","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=8464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}