Postpourri

TX-Gov: Perry* (R) 41% Strayhorn (I) 20% Bell (D) 18% Friedman (I) 16% (Karl-Thomas Musselman thinks Bell and Strayhorn will be showing most of the movement this summer, McBlogger has a great analogy for the race: The three little pigs vs. the big bad wolf.)

PA-Sen: Casey (D) 56% Santorum* (R) 33% -- poor Rick Santorum. This is the worst poll I've ever seen for an incumbent senator running for re-election. Could be because he doesn't live in Pennsylvania anymore. Chris Bowers see a Pennsylvania landslide looming for Democrats, and I don't blame him.

CA-Gov: (Democratic primary) Angelides 37% Westly 34% (LA Times poll, via Politics1), or Angelides 44% Westly 32% (Survey USA poll)

Rothenberg, in article Evidence Grows of Incumbent Vulnerability in House Races (emphasis mine):

“It’s all about the environment, not the challenger,” he [Democratic pollster Anzalone of Anzalone Liszt Research] says. “Every Congressional poll that we have done for months has been good for Democrats and bad for Republican incumbents. Now, merely because of the environment, Democratic candidates can be at 10 percent in name ID and still be sitting in the mid-30s in [ballot tests]. That’s a huge difference from past years.”

And that’s why Republicans in 2006 are starting to look like the Democrats in 1994.

Cook, in article Getting Pulled Under (emphasis mine):

The mood among House Republicans has grown increasingly somber. They've seen more and more poll results showing GOP incumbents' leads narrowing or disappearing. Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, are optimistic and hopeful, though they're also cautious, because they recall that in early October 2000 all signs seemed to point toward their retaking the House.

By virtually any measure, the Republican Party's national poll numbers are at least as bad as Democrats' were before their 1994 debacle. For a time, the GOP's national problems did not seem to be spilling over onto individual Republican candidates. But since the first of the year, we have begun to see evidence that most House Republicans are running 5 to 10 points behind where they would be in the absence of a national undertow. And Republicans aren't being pulled down just in those few races where Democrats are fielding first-tier challengers. The pattern now extends to contests where the Democratic candidates are mediocre at best. One GOP strategist cautioned, however, that many GOP incumbents may have become complacent because they've won in recent years by margins that were bigger than they should have been, given their districts' political makeup. And strategists in both parties suspect that some of the GOP incumbents most likely to end up losing are those who have not had difficult races in many years, if ever, and may be resistant to doing what it takes to wage a strong campaign.

Markos Moulitsas (kos) is back posting regularly again at Daily Kos. While I've very much enjoyed the front pagers there who've been holding the reins while kos was on a book tour (especially Georgia10 and Bill in Portland Maine), I'm glad he's back. The sheer amount of election-junkie stuff has markedly increased since his return, and that makes me very happy.

CA-50: John McCain, one of the Republican Party's few remaining positive-press-makers, canceled a fundraiser for U.S. House candidate Brian Bilbray. I smell an upset coming...

National Popular Vote makes some headway in its drive to make the electoral college obsolete as the California Assembly passes a bill to join the "interstate compact in which states would agree to cast their electoral votes not for the winner in their jurisdictions but for the winner nationwide". This would be a good thing. But I wonder if it will just barely come up short of succeeding. I hope I'm wrong.

A former Kansas Republican Party Chairman switched parties to run for Lt. Governor as a Democrat. (AP via Political Wire)

This whole John Solomon vendetta against Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has me a little upset. If I have time this weekend, which is unlikely because my brother's getting married Sunday, I'll write more about that.