North Carolina Democrat Cal Cunningham is focused on the general election ahead of next week’s Senate primary runoff, which recent history has shown is not a winning strategy.
Cunningham, the Democratic establishment's pick, is currently on a "Beat Burr" tour, where he's talking up his prospects of unseating Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.).
"Democrats must nominate the strongest challenger possible," he wrote to supporters in an e-mail Thursday. "We're going to take on Senator Burr in all 100 counties across North Carolina."
Cunningham faces Secretary of State Elaine Marshall (D) in the June 22 runoff.
Other candidates have tried closing with the electablity argument in recent primaries but without success.
Las Vegas businessman Danny Tarkanian (R) argued in the days leading up to the Nevada GOP Senate primary that he had the best chance of defeating Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.).
And in his final TV ads, California GOP Senate candidate Tom Campbell (R) cited a poll that showed him leading Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) by seven points as a reason for Republicans to vote for him in the primary.
Florida Senate candidate Jeff Greene (D) has taken the unusual step of attacking primary rival Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.) in the D.C. media market.
Greene, a self-funding upstart, may be trying to prejudice the Democrats' Washington leadership against Meek.
"Tell Congress to investigate Kendrick Meek's corruption," the announcer says.
Meek has the backing of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and is expected to be the party's nominee in the three-way Senate race against Republican Marco Rubio and Gov. Charlie Crist, who's running as an independent.
The ad is running on cable networks CNN, MSNBC and Fox but won't be seen in Florida, according to a Greene spokesman. The purpose is to put pressure on the House Ethics Committee to launch an investigation into Meek's dealings with campaign contributor Dennis Stackhouse.
A Florida-based strategists noted the ad is only a $16,000 buy and will rarely been seen by Washington-area viewers.
The firm Trippi & Associates is producing Greene's TV ads.
Meek's campaign dismissed the move.
"It's no surprise that a California Republican would try to mislead DC voters about a Democratic primary in Florida using the ill-gotten gains he made destroying the middle class," Meek spokesman Adam Sharon said in a statement.
Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R) will address the Tea Party Nation’s convention in Las Vegas next month.
"We are thrilled to feature Sharron Angle," Judson Phillips, who founded the group, said in an e-mail to supporters. "Her dedication to upholding the Constitution while serving in the Nevada State Assembly is something we need more politicians doing." He encouraged supporters to donate to her campaign.
Angle's win in the June 8 GOP primary came with the help of the Tea Party Express and other groups.
TPN, which organized a similar convention in February in Nashville, is a national umbrella group for the movement.
The "unity convention" is happening July 15-17 at the Palazzo Las Vegas. Angle is the only candidate headlining the event. Other speakers include conservative radio host Laura Ingraham and former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs.
On Thursday, Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.) will finally get his chance to come face to face with BP CEO Tony Hayward.
"I get five minutes," Melancon, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told MSNBC Wednesday night. "I haven't exactly figured out what I want to ask him."
The Democratic Senate candidate reiterated that he thought Hayward "should go," but said he didn't plan to tell him to resign at the hearing, which is being conducted by the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
Melancon, who's challenging Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), has tried to position himself as both a critic of BP and a proponent of lifting President Barack Obama's deepwater oil-drilling moratorium.
But he's walking a fine line. On Tuesday, for instance, he missed the chance to question oil executives from ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell Oil and BP at an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing.
The South Carolina State Election Commission will not investigate Democrat Alvin Greene’s controversial victory in last week’s Senate primary.
"The state election commission sees no reason to initiate an investigation into our voting system," Chris Whitmire, a spokesman for the commission, told The Ballot Box. "We have full confidence in the reliability and accuracy of the state's voting system, and we have nothing to indicate there was any voting system failure on June 8th. The system has performed accurately and consistently."
Greene won the June 8 primary with 58 percent of the vote, defeating Vic Rawl, a Charleston County councilman, by more than 30,000 votes.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) has called Greene a "plant" and repeatedly called for an investigation into his win.
Despite making several TV appearances to talk about Greene's victory, Clyburn hasn't contacted the commission, according to Whitmire.
"We've had no contact from the candidates in the U.S. Senate race and no contact from Congressman Clyburn," he said.
The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has asked state Attorney General Henry McMaster to investigate whether Greene "accepted an inducement" to run. The group also complained to the Federal Election Commission, noting Greene hasn't filed the proper paperwork.
On Tuesday, Rawl said he also planned to file a "protest" against Greene's win.
Rawl will meet with the state Democratic Party's executive committee Thursday where he's expected to call for a new election based on supposed irregularities in the voting machines.
If the state party calls for a new election, the SEC would seek legal advice to help determine the manner in which any new primary would be conducted, Whitmire said. It's unclear when the vote would take place.
Regardless of the outcome of the meeting, South Carolina has another round of voting coming up on June 22, when the Republican gubernatorial primary and several others will go to a runoff.
Some senators can be hesitant about donating to the campaigns of challengers to the chamber's leaders.
Not so with GOP Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.). He's among a handful of senior Republicans who plan to donate to the campaign of Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle — the Republican challenger to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Kyl told The Hill he has no trepidation about going after Reid. He endorsed and campaigned for Angle's opponent Sue Lowden in Nevada's Republican Senate primary.
Asked if he plans to donate to Angle's campaign, Kyl pointed to former Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Charles Schumer's (N.Y.) financial support of former Arizona Democratic Party Chairman Jim Pederson during Kyl's re-election in 2006.
"I will support every Republican nominee financially in this coming election for the Senate," Kyl said. "I just ran for re-election in 2006, and my good friends on the Democratic side of the aisle had no trepidations about pouring a lot of money into my opponent's campaign."
Kyl said he got the last laugh, recalling a post-election conversation with Schumer.
"After the campaign, I was able to go to Sen. Schumer and say 'Why did you waste so much money?'"
In 2008, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) was a Democratic target and several Democratic senators and senatorial candidates contributed to his Democratic challenger, Bruce Lunsford.
Those donors included: Reid, Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Russ Feingold (Wis.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Robert Menendez (N.J.), Jack Reed (R.I.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Robert Casey (Pa.), Mark Warner (Va.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), John Kerry (Mass.), Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), and Sherrod Brown (Ohio).
The Tea Party Express is backing attorney Joe Miller in his primary challenge to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
The group also said it's committing significant financial resources to the race.
"The total expenditures by the Tea Party Express in Alaska are expected to reach well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars," the group said in a statement. The Tea Party Express called Miller's campaign "its top priority between now and the August 24th Alaska primary," and said it plans to "launch a wave of TV and radio ads supporting Miller and opposing Murkowski in the coming weeks."
The political undercurrent there is the bad blood between former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a favorite of the Tea Party Express, and the Murkowskis. Palin defeated former Gov. Frank Murkowski in a 2006 primary and has been highly critical of his daughter, Sen. Lisa Murkowski. There was speculation Palin might challenge Murkowski, but she endorsed Miller in early June.
The Tea Party Express has made its presence known in several primaries this cycle. It spent more than half a million dollars backing Republican Sharron Angle in Nevada in her successful bid for the GOP nomination. The group also backed Republican Rand Paul in his race for the Kentucky Senate nomination over the party's favored candidate. And the group was influential in defeating Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) in the Utah nominating process.
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