Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) will make sure she gets at least one vote Tuesday when she casts her ballot in Little Rock, the Tea Party vote may splinter in Nevada and Illinois Senate candidate Mark Kirk continues to lose friends and alienate people.

Will the unity rally get canceled?

Twelve states vote Tuesday, but attention will be focused on Arkansas, where the Senate runoff between Lincoln and Lt. Gov. Bill Halter (D) will be settled.

To avoid any confusion, Lincoln will vote "in person" at her polling place in Little Rock with a traditional ballot, according to a spokeswoman for her campaign.

Her vote may be one of the few she gets from a female Arkansan, reports the Christian Science Monitor. Arkansas Democrat Nancy Baker tells the paper: Lincoln "has forgotten the Democratic party. We refer to her as the plantation princess. She's gone completely to the right."

Lincoln's centrist credentials may help her in a general election against Rep. John Boozman (R-Ark.). But she's first going to have to defeat Halter, champion of the fired-up progressive wing of her party. And that victory may sap the energy of the Arkansas Democratic Party.

And then there were two

Sources tell the Ballot Box that Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle is all but assured of capturing an Election Day victory Tuesday. But in order for her to secure the nomination, she'll need to run up big margins in rural Nevada, home to much of her Tea Party base. If she can do that, it will offset the vote totals that former state Sen. Sue Lowden (R) and Las Vegas businessman Danny Tarkanian (R) will rack up in Clark County.

But late Monday the Tea Party Nation, a national umbrella group for the movement, sent an e-mail to supporters saying that Angle was "not the only conservative" in the race.

The group said Tarkanian "is every bit a conservative and constitutional patriot." If Tarkanian can siphon Tea Party votes from Angle, it may give Lowden a path to victory.

Enviros give Kirk the red light

The Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters are expected to announce Tuesday they've decided to endorse Democrat Alexi Giannoulias in the Illinois Senate race.

Environmental groups passing over a Republican to endorse a Democrat isn't typically big news, but this is significant because both groups have in the past endorsed Kirk. The issue this time: cap-and-trade.

Kirk voted for the House cap-and-trade bill last June, but has since moved away from supporting the legislation. "We can no longer depend on how he is going to vote," Tony Massaro, a spokesman for the League of Conservation Voters, told the Chicago Sun-Times.

For Reps. Mark Critz and Charles Djou, the Washington axiom of a “permanent campaign” has never been more apt.

Las Vegas businessman Danny Tarkanian (R) argues he has the best chance of defeating Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) in November.

Tarkanian made the electability pitch in a last-minute fundraising appeal to supporters, released in the wake of a poll that shows him with a lead over Reid in a potential general election clash.

Tarkanian tops Reid 43-37 percent, in a match-up polled in the latest Mason-Dixon/Las Vegas Review-Journal survey.

Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle (R) leads Reid by three points, inside the poll's margin of error, and Reid leads former state Sen. Sue Lowden (R) by one point.


The fundraising appeal, which cites Tarkanian's performance in the poll, asks voters to help pay for a telephone town hall Monday night, and "to contribute what you can afford to retiring Reid."

Just a month earlier, Lowden had a commanding lead in the primary race, but her claims that residents could barter for cheaper healthcare and the media storm it created precipitated her drop in the polls.

Tarkanian isn't the only GOP Senate candidate trying to close the gap with an electability argument ahead of Tuesday's vote.

In a recent TV ad, California GOP Senate candidate Tom Campbell 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.

Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) said Monday he is considering skipping any endorsement in the Connecticut and Florida Senate races, even after he was visited recently by Florida Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.).

Lieberman told The Hill he was visited by Meek "a few weeks ago" and that the two had "a good conversation" but that he is still mulling whether to get involved in the Florida and Connecticut races. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a friend of Lieberman's, is waging an independent bid for the Florida seat against Meek and GOP candidate Marco Rubio.

In Connecticut, where state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) is running against Republican candidate Linda McMahon, Lieberman said he is so torn between the two candidates that he may stay out of the race altogether.

"I haven't made up my mind. I'm still watching it," Lieberman said of the Blumenthal-McMahon contest. "I'll probably wait until the primaries are over and see if there's any other third-party candidate that I'd consider. And frankly, I might decide to just sit it out. I'm always skeptical about the impact of endorsements. I might just decide to quietly go in and vote. That in itself would be a refreshing change."

 Cross-posted from the Briefing Room 

Lt. Gov. Bill Halter (D) is continuing to pull in significant amounts of campaign cash from national progressive groups. He sent an e-mail to supporters of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee on Monday to thank them for helping him raise $250,000 ahead of Tuesday's vote.

"Thousands of PCCC members gave $250,000 in small-dollar donations, which went to fund our grassroots field operation and TV ads," Halter wrote in the e-mail. "You also helped make over 200,000 phone calls to voters in the final days, allowing us take the lead in the polls."

Halter is up against Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) in the runoff for the Democratic Senate nod.

A spokesman for PCCC said the group "has had senior staffers on the ground for the past couple months, leading Halter's field operation."

The photo below captures the moment Halter wrote the note onboard his campaign bus, according to the PCCC spokesman.

Oshkosh businessman Ron Johnson, the expected Republican challenger to Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), has been gaining notoriety among conservatives.

He was profiled recently in a column by George Will, who noted that Johnson's philosophical foundation is built on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Will also wrote that Johnson is "what the Tea Party looks like."

Other than his conservative views, Johnson's attractiveness as a candidate is that he carries very little baggage, having never run for or held public office.

But a new story out today might undercut that idea somewhat.

From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

_{[T]here is one issue that Johnson feels passionately about - passionate enough to insert himself into the debate.}

_{Prodded by a Catholic official, the Oshkosh businessman earlier this year jumped into the controversy over legislation aimed at making it easier for victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue their abusers.}

_{Johnson, a Lutheran, sided with Catholic Church leaders in opposing the so-called Child Victims Act before a state Senate committee in January. The bill failed to win approval.}

_{Here was the heart of his testimony:}

_{"I believe it is a valid question to ask whether the employer of a perpetrator should also be severely damaged, or possibly destroyed, in our legitimate desire for justice."}

_{Johnson had little to say about the victims of sexual abuse in his testimony. His was largely a financial concern.}

_{He followed that up with this suggestion.}

_{"This bill could actually have the perverse effect of leading to additional victims of sexual abuse," he argued, "if individuals, recognizing that their organizations are at risk, become less likely to report suspected abuse."}

_{That argument doesn't sit well with victims of pedophile priests.}

_{Peter Isely, the Midwest director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the Catholic Church has been more likely to cover things up if it is not faced with court action.}

_{"He's just wrong," said Isely, who was not aware that Johnson had testified.}

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) went where few of his congressional colleagues were willing to go last week — a town hall event with his constituents.

During an event in the wealthy Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale on Thursday, McCain faced hostile questions about amnesty for illegal immigrants, waterboarding terrorism suspects and why he hasn't debated primary opponent J.D. Hayworth, according to the Arizona Republic.

"You won't have any debates; you're afraid of J.D. Hayworth," said Scottsdale resident Richard Martin, who kept interrupting McCain. "The people in Arizona deserve debates."


McCain's experience is an interesting one, as The New York Times reported Sunday that Democrats avoided town halls during the Memorial Day recess.

"[M]any Democrats heeded the advice of party leaders and tried to avoid unscripted question-and-answer sessions," the Times reported. "The recommendations were clear: hold events in controlled settings — a bank or credit union, for example — or tour local businesses or participate in community service projects."

Back in Arizona, while McCain has shown a willingness to come face to face with his constituents, that hasn’t extended to his primary opponent. The Hayworth camp has dubbed the last three months the "century of shame" because McCain has avoided a debate for 100 days.

"It's been 100 days of ducking and dodging and making excuses not to face me in a debate," Hayworth said in a statement. "I've proposed a series of debates here in Arizona and have even offered to travel to Sen. McCain's beloved Washington, D.C., if he will square off with me."

The new front-runner in Nevada's GOP Senate primary faces questions about where she taught school, former Rep. Tom Campbell's (R) electability argument takes a hit in California and Democrats are set for "Palin’s primaries" on Tuesday.

Getting schooled in Nevada

Republican Sue Lowden was expected to cruise to her party's Senate nomination in Nevada, but 24 hours before the polls open, a Mason-Dixon survey for the Las Vegas Review-Journal shows the former state senator nine points behind. Instead, it's former State Assemblywoman Sharron Angle who's poised to clinch the nod. The Mason-Dixon poll did, however, have 13 percent of respondents as undecided.

With that in mind, the Lowden camp has been trying to poke holes in Angle's bio. It recently tried to discredit her claim she was a teacher at a one-room Christian school in Winnemucca, Nev.

Angle said she taught there from 1983-84, but the Lowden camp has called those "The Missing Winnemucca Years." Meanwhile, the Las Vegas Review-Journal interviewed Glenda Haley, who remembered working with Angle.

Not buying it

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina leads Campbell by 15 points and also has the better chance of beating Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), according to the final Field Poll before Tuesday's vote.

Fiorina has the support of 37 percent of GOP primary voters, with 22 percent backing Campbell. State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore came in third with 19 percent support. Notably, there were 20 percent who remain undecided.

Moreover, 42 percent of GOP respondents said Fiorina was the best bet for defeating Boxer in November, which undercuts Campbell's main argument.

He'd recently been pointing to his performance against Boxer in a USC-Los Angeles Times poll as the best reason for him to be the GOP nominee.

Palin for Congress

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is dubbing Tuesday's primaries in Virginia's 2nd, 5th and 11th districts "Palin’s primaries." It's their way of saying these are races where establishment Republicans are embroiled in contests with upstart, grassroots challengers. They've put up a website for anyone interested.

But The Daily Caller's Alex Pappas makes the point that despite some recent losses for Palin-backed candidates, she could get "her groove back" if her "mama grizzlies" win Tuesday. She's backed Fiorina in California and Republican Nikki Haley to win her party's gubernatorial nod in South Carolina, among others. Haley has a large lead in the latest Public Policy Polling survey.

Democrats believe that Tennessee House candidate Stephen Fincher will be the next highly touted GOP candidate to fall in a primary.