Senate races

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said she accepted a position as Senate Democrats' next campaign chief "because it's the right thing to do."

Murray, the next chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), said she's begun working to canvass the 23 Democratic senators up for reelection in 2012 ahead of what's expected to be a challenging cycle for the party.

"I am working my way through, talking to every one of our senators who are up," Murray said on MSNBC. "I feel confident that moving forward I will have a very good class of senators that I can represent."

Murray was elected as the leader of the DSCC after no other senator stepped forward to helm the committee. The party lost six seats in the 2010 elections, and, of the nearly two dozen Democrats up in 2012, many are from competitive states. 

One of the biggest challenges she'll face will be to stave off a wave of retirements by Democrats, leaving a series of seats open to new candidates and risking Republican takeovers. Some incumbents, like Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), who's gotten off to a slow fundraising start, are thought to be at risk of retirement in 2012.

The Washington state Democrat, who fended off her own reelection challenge this fall, said she stepped forward because she thought it was her responsibility to do so.

"I have never taken on a challenge because it's easy," she said. "I've accepted this challenge because it's the right thing to do."

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) offered some praise Wednesday for Missouri Senate hopeful Sarah Steelman, who's courting grassroots conservatives ahead of a likely GOP Senate primary in that state.

"I was really impressed," DeMint told The Ballot Box of his meeting with Steelman, who recently jumped into the race against Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). "She seems to be right down the line of where we are. She gets the need to roll back government spending and debt, so I was impressed." 

Steelman, the former Missouri state treasurer, is staring down the prospect of a primary challenge from former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.) and is working to position herself to Talent's right. 

Given his high name ID, Talent would likely be the immediate front-runner in a GOP primary. A recent poll showed Talent far ahead of Steelman in a primary contest.  

Of the former senator's potential entry into the race, DeMint said, "I haven't heard anything about him running."  

The South Carolina Republican said it's too early for an endorsement in the race just yet, but "we're going to follow [Steelman] and see how her campaign goes." 

Republican Senate hopefuls are already lining up to court DeMint, working to secure the now-coveted endorsement of his Senate Conservatives Fund, which spent close to $6 million backing GOP Senate challengers this past cycle. 

DeMint made high-profile endorsements in a number of Senate primaries during the 2010 cycle, backing Marco Rubio (Fla.), Rand Paul (Ky.), Ken Buck (Colo.) and Sharron Angle (Nev.).  

DeMint said he plans on meeting with a number of candidates in the coming months, but he reiterated his commitment not to endorse against any incumbent Republican senators in 2012. That precludes DeMint from supporting Tea Party-backed challengers to centrist Republicans like Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Dick Lugar (Ind.).     

"I will certainly endorse against incumbent Democrats, but no incumbent Republicans," said DeMint. "But we are looking at a lot of races where we'll get involved in primaries when we see a solid conservative." 

Tea Party-backed Republican Joe Miller could know his fate by the end of the week. 

A state judge in Alaska heard arguments Wednesday in Miller's legal challenge to the legitimacy of thousands of write-in ballots counted for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). 

The judge said he will make a decision in the case by Friday. 

Murkowski was declared the winner last month and her attorneys, along with lawyers for the state, have argued the lawsuit should be expedited citing concerns that a drawn out legal battle could result in the state being without full representation in Congress come January. 

Murkowsi currently holds a lead of more than 10,000 votes, but if a judge rules in Miller's favor, some 8,000 write-in votes could be thrown out and the race might head to a recount. 

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) isn't entertaining questions about a possible primary challenge from Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).

"I don't even talk about that," he told The Ballot Box during an exchange with reporters outside the Senate chamber. Hatch then turned to answer a question about ethanol tax credits, but felt compelled to indicate he wasn't afraid of losing next cycle.

"I intend to run, and I intend to win, and that's as [much] as I'll say," Hatch added.

After Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) lost his party's nomination to Mike Lee in 2010, attention shifted to Hatch. Some observers believe the 76-year-old Hatch could also be vulnerable to a challenge.

Chaffetz recently formed a new leadership PAC to help him raise campaign cash, which he certainly will need if he's going to make a Senate bid. The congressman had $178,536 in the bank as of Nov. 22, according to his post-election Federal Election Commission report.

Hatch had about $2.32 million in the bank and was some $75,000 in debt at the end of September, according to his last available FEC report.

Sen.-elect Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is holding a Washington, D.C., event to help retire his debt after defeating longtime Sen. Russ Feingold (D) last month.

Johnson — who spent $14.4 million to defeat the three-term senator — will hold a "Debt Retirement Lunch" Thursday at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, according to Gannett. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) will also appear at the event.

Donors are encouraged to contribute between $500 and $5,000. Johnson loaned himself nearly $8.7 million over the course of the campaign.

Christine O'Donnell on Tuesday compared the "tragedy" of extending unemployment benefits to Pearl Harbor and the death of Elizabeth Edwards. 

Some Republicans are convinced the tax deal struck Tuesday will resurface as a campaign issue in 2012, but not Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R). Read more...

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who's in the crosshairs of national Republicans ahead of 2012, said Tuesday that President Obama's compromise with Republicans on the extension of Bush-era tax cuts is "the right thing to do."

Nelson told reporters that he supports the bipartisan compromise, saying it will stimulate the economy and help bring down unemployment. 

The Florida Democrat's approval ratings are below 50 percent, putting him high on the list of GOP Senate targets in 2012 and he's been taking flak from both sides on the tax cut issue. 

The left has been pressuring Nelson to reject an extension of tax cuts for the wealthy. MoveOn.org led a protest in front of the Democrat's Florida office last week. 

His potential Republican opponents in 2012 are also applying the pressure. Rep. Connie Mack IV (R-Fla.) a rumored contender for the Senate seat, penned a recent column in the Orlando Sentinel calling on Nelson to admit that his previous Senate votes in opposition to the cuts were wrong. 

"Admitting he was wrong to oppose the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 would be a first step for U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson to signal he 'got the message' in the recent citizen revolt," Mack wrote. 

Nelson also said Tuesday he intends to lobby skeptical Senate Democratic colleagues to support the compromise. 

According to Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, Nelson's approval stands at just 37 percent positive. But he has traditionally polled better than most with Republicans and independent voters, which could make him a tougher target in 2012. 

Florida state Senate President Mike Haridopolos (R) has all but officially jumped in the race and along with Mack, Sen. George LeMieux (R-Fla.) is also mulling a bid. 

The widely-respected Cook Political Report released its first rankings of the 2012 election cycle on Tuesday.

For the Senate, Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), Jim Webb (D-Va.), Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) are listed as toss-ups. Webb, Nelson and Ensign are also flagged as potential retirements. There has been speculation Webb won't run for a second term. Nelson is expected to face a very difficult campaign and Ensign is fighting fallout from the revelation he had an affair with a former staffer's wife.

On the House side, Reps. John Barrow (D-Ga.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Betty Sutton (D-Ohio) are the veterans listed as toss-ups. All four survived tough reelection climates in 2010 and will likely face a similar situation in 2012.

Of the incoming freshman class, six Republicans are listed as toss-ups: Allen West (Fla.), Robert Dold (Ill.), Bobby Schilling (Ill.), Ann Marie Buerkle (N.Y.), Lou Barletta (Pa.), and Blake Farenthold (Texas).

West won in a controversial campaign; Dold won a Dem-leaning seat; Schilling likely benefited from a strong GOP slate at the top of the ticket in Illinois; Buerkle's and Farenthold's races were so close they weren't called until a few weeks after the election; and Barletta won his seat on his third try. 

-- This post was updated at 4:36 p.m.

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman said voting for the tax deal is a political winner for Democrats.

"Everybody's going to make their own political judgments, but to me there's so much good in here for working families — middle-class families — that voting for this package is very easy to defend," he told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday.

Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, is up for reelection in 2012. He said Democrats didn't have the votes to sunset the tax cuts for wealthy Americans.

"What’s the alternative? To have gridlock, which means that everybody's taxes go up on Jan. 1, including middle-class, lower-income people?" he said. "In a bipartisan agreement, you never get everything you want."

Lieberman noted that as part of the deal that extends the Bush-era tax rates for all income brackets, Democrats got a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits, a payroll tax cut and extensions of the childcare tax credit and the college tuition tax credit.

"I think the benefits are very strong in this package," he said. "I think the alternative was for the economy to go deeper into recession."

More than half the Senate Democrats will vote for the deal, Lieberman predicted.

Senate Democrats heard about the deal from Vice President Joe Biden during their weekly lunch at the Capitol on Tuesday.

"There was emotion" during the meeting, said Lieberman.

"There were a couple who were asking, shall I say, vigorous questions about it, but I thought the vice president handled it well," he said. 

Lieberman also praised President Obama's handling of the negotiations, telling MSNBC on Tuesday the president "negotiated a good agreement."

—This post was updated at 3:36 p.m.