With pressure mounting on Gov. David Paterson (D) to resign, a poll out Tuesday shows a majority of New York voters want him to stay on.
The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion survey, which was conducted before and after the latest scandal broke, shows 66 percent of registered voters want Paterson to serve out the rest of his term, 28 percent would prefer he resigns and 6 percent are unsure. Moreover, his job approval rating hasn't changed much since the scandal broke – 23 percent said Paterson is doing either an excellent or good job in office, down one point from before he withdrew from the campaign.
This doesn't mean voters have confidence in Paterson -- 62 percent expect he won't be an effective leader during the remainder of his term.
Meanwhile, former Rep. Rick Lazio, who's expected to be the GOP gubernatorial nominee, demanded Paterson resign.
Calling the latest report on Paterson by the New York Times "very sad," Lazio said in a statement: "If these allegations are true, then Governor Paterson must resign and resign now. This is another example of just how dysfunctional Albany is and how desperately we need serious change."
It looks like Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.) had good reason to leave his day job.
A day after Deal announced he would be resigning from Congress to focus on running for governor, an InsiderAdvantage poll shows him in third place in the primary.
State Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine is at 27 percent, former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel is at 13 percent, and Deal is at 9 percent. Deal is expected to compete for the nomination, but so far he's not showing much movement.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown (D) is expected to mark the official launch of his gubernatorial campaign with a web announcement at 11 a.m. Pacific Tuesday.
The 71-year-old Brown, who served two terms as governor starting in 1975, has no public events set for his first day in the race. He's not expected to face a serious opponent in the Democratic primary.
Web announcements are becoming the norm for a candidate rollout. On Monday, Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter (D) announced his primary challenge to Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) via an online video. Halter waited until Tuesday to begin a round of press interviews.
New York Gov. David Paterson (D) will serve out his full term and won't resign before it expires.
The embattled governor announced last week he would not seek reelection, saying that "being honest about politics." Paterson also hinted that two recent reports in the New York Times had caused him to back out of the race.
In an interview with the New York Observer, Paterson said he did not know why the issue of his resignation arose:
[Observer editor Kyle] Pope...asked if the resignation question is off the table.
Mr. Paterson said it is off the table, and he doesn't know why it was even on the table. After a moment of silence, Mr. Paterson said, "And clearly neither do you."
Later, he said the resignation question was rather "remote" from the serious issues facing the state, such as the budget.
"I think there's a hysteria that I've been the victim of over the past couple months," he said.
Paterson also said that he is not seeking reelection because he did not think it possible to run a campaign and govern at the same time.
The governor told the Observer that Republicans could no longer attack him for making politically-motivated decisions now that he has stepped out of the race.
Yet another congressman running for governor is finding his day job to be a liability.
With Reps. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.) and Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) both calling it quits to focus on running for governor, Rep. Gresham Barrett (R-S.C.) is also dealing with the perils of his job title.
The conservative group Americans for Job Security is launching an ad campaign hitting Barrett for voting for the bailout and for accepting stimulus funds for his district.
A damaging New York Timesstory about a top aide to Gov. David Paterson (D-N.Y.) has forced the embattled governor to request Attorney General Andrew Cuomo launch an investigation into his administration. The results could provide the popular Democratic AG with even more ammunition for his expected primary challenge against Paterson.
The Times reported that David Johnson, a top aide to Paterson, "violently assaulted" his former common-law girlfriend in October last year. The woman sought a protective order against Johnson, but dropped her case after being visited by a member of the governor's personal security detail and receiving a phone call from the governor.
It's the second Times piece in as many weeks that focuses on problems in the Paterson administration.
Paterson's spokesman said the governor's call "actually took place the day before the scheduled court hearing and maintained that the woman had initiated it. He declined to answer further questions about his role in the matter," the Times reported.
The story said Paterson's role in the case is "unclear" but it insinuates he made an "effort to make a potential political embarrassment go away."
Cuomo has not formally announced he's challenging Paterson but he leads in the polls and has banked a sizeable campaign warchest.
Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.) has reportedly called on Paterson to abandon his campaign as a result of the Times piece.
Embattled Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons (R) said in a deposition earlier this month that he has been celibate for 15 years.
Gibbons has been accused of groping and assaulting a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas in an incident that occured right before his 2006 win in the state's governor's race. A lawyer for the woman asked Gibbons some very personal questions in a deposition.
Gibbons told her that he had a "strained" marriage with his wife Dawn, and that he hadn't been intimate with her or any other woman since 1995.
"I'm living proof that you can survive without sex for that long," Gibbons said, according to the local CBS affiliate.
Gibbons is up for reelection this year, but he is not expected to survive the GOP primary with Judge Brian Sandoval.
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