Republican-turned-Independent Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who waged an unsuccessful bid for Senate last year, wrote a check to one of Rep. Allen West's (R-Fla.) Democratic challengers during the first quarter.
The Palm Beach Post flagged the $1,000 donation to businessman and first-time candidate Patrick Murphy on Friday. The paper noted that Murphy's political consultant was a Crist adviser during his Senate bid.
Murphy is one of two Democratic candidates already in the race against West, the Tea Party star who sits atop the target list of national Democrats in 2012.
West raised an impressive $433,500 during the first three months of the year, the second largest first-quarter haul among House GOP freshmen.
Murphy raised more than $300,000 during the first quarter of the year, and former West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel (D) raised $254,000. Both Democrats just jumped into the race last month.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) appears unlikely to take part in the first debate of the 2012 GOP primary season, set for May 5 in South Carolina.
Bachmann, who's in South Carolina Monday for a tax day rally with Gov. Nikki Haley (R), told CNN that participation in the May 5 debate would be "premature."
Fox News Channel, which is co-sponsoring the debate with the South Carolina GOP, outlined criteria last week that would force candidates to make a decision by the end of the month about whether to get in the race if they want to participate in the debate.
In order to take part on May 5, candidates must register a presidential exploratory committee or have announced a formal campaign for president by April 29.
Bachmann is expected to form a presidential exploratory committee by
June, but only former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Minnesota
Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer and talk radio
host Herman Cain have formed official exploratory committees so far.
Last week, a spokesman for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) said the potential 2012 candidate is "highly unlikely" to participate in the event. "It is highly unlikely that we will meet the criteria to participate," Gingrich spokesman Rick Tyler said in an email. "Specifically, the April 29 requirement does not fit within our time line."
Former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) and Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) have both formed "testing the waters" accounts, which allow them to raise money for potential 2012 bids, but neither have formed official presidential exploratory committees.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) is touting the likely candidacy of retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez in the 2012 Texas Senate race.
The former top commander of U.S. troops in Iraq is poised to enter the race for retiring Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's (R-Texas) seat — a major recruiting win for national Democrats, who have labeled the contest one of six potential Senate pickup oppportunities next year.
“Gen. Sanchez has spent his entire life serving our country, and there's no question he would be a strong candidate if he decides to continue to serve his country in the U.S. Senate," said DSCC communications director Matt Canter. "He has a tremendous life story, growing up poor, rising to the rank of general in the Army and bravely leading more than a hundred thousand troops in both Gulf wars. He would bring a new perspective to the Senate, as well as a proven commitment to our nation’s security and the men and women who fight to protect it. He’s exactly the kind of independent leader who can win in Texas.”
In an interview with McClatchy, Sanchez described himself as "progressive" when it comes to social policy, but a "fiscal conservative."
"I would describe myself as — during my military career — as supporting the president and the Constitution," he said in the interview. "After the military, I decided that socially, I'm a progressive, a fiscal conservative and a strong supporter, obviously, of national defense."
Sanchez commanded U.S. forces in Iraq at the time of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and relinquished his command shortly after, but he wasn't implicated in any wrongdoing by Army investigators.
Given the shifting demographics of the state, Democrats are convinced a strong Hispanic candidate can put the traditionally Republican state in play next year. They're also banking on a crowded Republican primary turning ugly.
Last week, DSCC Chairwoman Patty Murray (Wash.) told reporters that the committee was close to rolling out a top-tier Democratic recruit in Texas, listing the state as one of the committe's "6 in '12 campaign," targeting GOP-held Senate seats in 2012.
Nebraska Republican Jon Bruning announced he collected close to $1.5 million for his Senate run in the first quarter of 2011, which is almost $500,000 more than Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.).
But Nelson's camp was quick to point out that $600,000 of that was money left over from Bruning's 2008 Senate bid.
Nelson announced this week that he raised slightly more than $1 million in the first three months of the year and, after spending $134,472, ended the quarter with $2,323,392.
“We are confident that this level of support is the first step in securing victory in the fall of 2012," Paul Johnson, Nelson's campaign manager, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Bruning finished the first quarter with $1,220,311 in the bank, according to his campaign.
"I'm humbled by the support Nebraskans continue to provide my campaign," Bruning said in a statement. "The financial investment by so many across the state provides continued momentum necessary to achieve that goal."
State Treasurer Don Stenberg, who is Bruning's main competition for the GOP nod, has not yet released his fundraising numbers.
Two Republicans with their attention squarely on the 2012 election voted against the budget resolution championed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg (R), who's running for Senate next year, cited the changes to Medicare as the reason he voted against the resolution Friday.
"This budget — the first one we have even considered in two years — has a lot of good things in it that I fully support," Rehberg, who is challenging Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), said in a statement.
"But there are still too many unanswered questions with regard to Medicare reform, and I simply won't support any plan until I know for a fact that Montana's seniors will be protected."
The campaign chief for House Democrats vowed Friday that his party would take back the lower chamber over Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget proposal.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chairman Steve Israel (N.Y.) said his party would flip the script on Republicans, who attacked Democrats for going after Medicare in the 2010 healthcare reform law.
"All we have to do is tell the truth about them. And the truth is in today's vote to terminate the Medicare guaranteed benefit. All we have to do is tell the truth and we'll win the House back," he said on ABC's "Top Line" webcast.
The comment indicates the budget proposal will serve as a defining issue on the campaign trail in 2012.
The House passed Ryan's budget on Friday 235-193, with only four Republicans voting against the plan, but the plan is unlikely to advance past the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Democrats, who are hungry to win back the House after losing their majority in 2010, have railed against the Ryan budget for making major changes to Medicare and Medicaid, calling it an effort to privatize the popular programs.
Republicans have said that their plan is not a privatization effort and is necessary to keep the programs solvent. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) called Israel's claim "shameless."
"Israel may be very confident of his goal to make Nancy Pelosi the Speaker again, but the nightmare of her job-destroying reign in Washington is still haunting middle-class families who are determined to never see her in power again," NRCC spokesman Paul Lindsey said.
President Obama's approval rating has hit it all-time low of 41 percent, according to the Gallup daily tracking poll.
A three-day average of the poll shows that 50 percent disapprove of the job he is doing as president, two points shy of his all-time low.
Obama's approval was previously at its low point in August and October 2010, leading up to the 2010 midterm elections when the Democratic Party and he took a self-described shellacking.
The numbers come as Obama delivered his plan for deficit reduction and saw his spending compromise pass through Congress, although Gallup said that the budget deal did not have a tangible effect on his approval rating.
Obama's low ratings could be due to the still-struggling economic recovery and rising gas prices, which Gallup says have traditionally driven down presidents' approval.
Obama has begun to make his case for reelection to supporters, kicking off his campaign's fundraising effort on Thursday in his hometown of Chicago.
But the president has a lot of work to do with Independents. Obama only received 35 percent approval from the key voting bloc, nine points off his average for the group in 2011.
Seventy-four percent of Democrats approved of Obama's job performance, four points off the 2011 average.
Gallup polled 1,540 adults from April 12 to 14, and the survey has a margin of error of three percentage points.
Real estate mogul Donald Trump, whose "birther" message has dominated media coverage of his rumored presidential bid in recent weeks, has seized the lead in the race for the GOP presidential nomination, according to a new poll out Friday.
A survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling shows Trump to be the top choice of Republican voters, leading former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee by 9 percentage points.
Trump leads the GOP pack with 26 percent to Huckabee's 17 percent. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney sits in third place with 15 percent, followed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 11 percent, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at 8 percent and Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) at 5 percent.
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