Republican Dino Rossi, who narrowly lost two governor's races in Washington, announced today that he will challenge three-term incumbent Senator Patty Murray.

In a five-minute video posted to his web site, www.dinorossi.com, Rossi reaches out to voters upset with the direction the country is headed, citing rising unemployment, plummeting housing values, "wasteful" stimulus plans and "massive new debt as far as the eye can see."

In language straight out of Ronald Reagan's playbook, Rossi says "America's best days" lie ahead if we "unleash the power of the people" and restore government to its "proper, more limited role."

He says he decided to run because he couldn't look his children in the eye if he did nothing "while this fundamental redefinition of America continues unchecked."

"I believe the policies of being passed in Washington D.C. have put us on the edge of a fiscal cliff. If we enact much more of this stuff, whether it's cap and trade, energy taxes or a value-added tax, then all the work and sacrifice our parents and grandparents did to make this country great for us will have been squandered."

Rossi still has a Republican primary to get through. He has to be considered the favorite, but Sarah Palin has endorsed tea party candidate Clint Didier. Assuming he wins the nomination, Murray will need to run a strong campaign, because several recent polls have shown Rossi competitive with Murray.

Rossi's biggest problem, aside from being a two-time loser facing a veteran campaigner, is likely to be money. Murray's re-election campaign had nearly $6 million on hand at the end of the first quarter. Rossi will need to spend some money before the primary and may struggle to raise campaign funds with such a late start. The National Republican Senatorial Committee may help, but it will need to spread resources across several open-seat races, as well as other pickup opportunities stronger than Washington.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee clearly considers Rossi a serious challenger, because its executive director released a memo today raising "substantive questions on [Rossi's] ethical conduct." Swing State Project just moved this race into the "lean Democrat" column, and that rating sounds right to me. Murray can't take her re-election for granted, but she is favored to beat Rossi. If Didier wins the primary, we can move this seat back into the safe Democratic column.

Yesterday morning, Marc Ambinder Tweeted, "Senior Dem Politico in DC thinks Sestak will beat Specter. WH puts odds at 50-50." Now we know why.

In the latest Muhlenberg College/Morning Call poll of the PA-SEN Democratic primary, retired Admiral Rep. Joe Sestak is tied with incumbent Arlen Specter. Both candidates are polling at 43% with N = 410 LVs, a 5% MOE, live interviewers, and a time frame of May 3-6. In Muhlenberg's previous poll, conducted May 2-5, Specter led 45-40. Prior to that, it was 49-40 for Specter. While a tie is certainly within the MOE, you can't deny that these polls show a trend and that it's not good news for Specter. RCP shows an average of Specter up 3.4, but since they only include the latest poll from each firm, their numbers don't reflect the last week's trend. Also in the latest poll, Specter's favorable rating remains slightly higher than Sestak's, but his unfavorables are much higher - 54-34 Specter and 48-13 Sestak.

It's been a rough few weeks for Specter. He mused aloud that maybe he should have stayed a Republican, and Sestak has taken the opportunity to hit him hard for the party switch with a tough new ad:

Hey Arlen, still think it's a good idea to smear our vets for their service? That may work for Repubs, but you keep forgetting - you're a Democrat now, and we don't stand for that kind of anti-American bull.

Elsewhere in new polling, Dems continue to cruise toward victory in AZ-GOV against all candidates, including the pro-profiling incumbent Jan Brewer, and two separate polls show Sen. Patty Murray finally finding her footing against Repub Dino Rossi in WA-SEN.

Yesterday morning, Marc Ambinder Tweeted, "Senior Dem Politico in DC thinks Sestak will beat Specter. WH puts odds at 50-50." Now we know why.

In the latest Muhlenberg College/Morning Call poll of the PA-SEN Democratic primary, retired Admiral Rep. Joe Sestak is tied with incumbent Arlen Specter. Both candidates are polling at 43% with N = 410 LVs, a 5% MOE, live interviewers, and a time frame of May 3-6. In Muhlenberg's previous poll, conducted May 2-5, Specter led 45-40. Prior to that, it was 49-40 for Specter. While a tie is certainly within the MOE, you can't deny that these polls show a trend and that it's not good news for Specter. RCP shows an average of Specter up 3.4, but since they only include the latest poll from each firm, their numbers don't reflect the last week's trend. Also in the latest poll, Specter's favorable rating remains slightly higher than Sestak's, but his unfavorables are much higher - 54-34 Specter and 48-13 Sestak.

It's been a rough few weeks for Specter. He mused aloud that maybe he should have stayed a Republican, and Sestak has taken the opportunity to hit him hard for the party switch with a tough new ad:

Hey Arlen, still think it's a good idea to smear our vets for their service? That may work for Repubs, but you keep forgetting - you're a Democrat now, and we don't stand for that kind of anti-American bull.

Elsewhere in new polling, Dems continue to cruise toward victory in AZ-GOV against all candidates, including the pro-profiling incumbent Jan Brewer, and two separate polls show Sen. Patty Murray finally finding her footing against Repub Dino Rossi in WA-SEN.

Former Governor George Pataki has decided not to run for Senate against Kirsten Gillibrand this year, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.

Instead, he said in an interview Tuesday that he would create a new national organization aimed at building support to repeal the recently enacted health-care overhaul.

Mr. Pataki's decision to bypass the Senate race marks another major coup for Ms. Gillibrand, who has been enormously successful in knocking out competition on both sides of the aisle despite appearing to be vulnerable politically.

I agree with Phillip Anderson of The Albany Project blog; it sounds like Pataki wants to run for president. He must be delusional if he thinks he has a chance in a GOP primary with his relatively moderate record as governor.

A year ago, Gillibrand seemed less than secure for the 2010 election, but various potential high-profile challengers have declined to take on this race. (New York's other U.S. Senate race has always been in the safe D category with Chuck Schumer.) Taniel of the Campaign Diaries blog noted yesterday that with Gillibrand no longer threatened, the last Senate seats that could still become competitive are Washington and Wisconsin. I think three-term incumbent Patty Murray would prevail even if the GOP's best candidate, Dino Rossi, got in the race. Ditto for Senator Russ Feingold against the GOP's dream recruit, former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson.

UPDATE: Unintentional comedy alert as new Republican enters race against Gillibrand. He is David Malpass, who was chief economist for Bear Stearns from 2001 until the company collapsed in 2008.

I doubt that many, if any Republicans would consider the Nevada Senate race to be competitive. This is not entirely unjustified. Even after the latest Rasmussen poll on the campaign is added in, Pollster.com's five poll moving average of the race will be:

Ensign (R): 51%
Carter (D): 40%

11% is a big gap to overcome on an incumbent in a short period of time, especially when the candidate trailing in the polls also faces a significant monetary gap. However, I am sure that a lot of Republicans will still crow about their chances for pickups in Washington, Michigan, and Minnesota because, you know, Mark Kennedy is such a good candidate). Let's compare the five poll moving averages in those races to the five-poll average in Nevada, shall we?

Minnesota
Klobuchar (Dfl): 52%
Kennedy (R): 37%

(Did you know that Mark Kennedy is a great candidate?) This isn't one poll out of Minnesota--this is an average of the last five polls. I'd stick a fork in this one, except that everyone knows that the race is a lot closer than this, and that all five of those polls are biased. This campaign has to be close, because Mark Kennedy is such a great candidate. We all know these things because that is what we have been told repeatedly for the last year. Mark Kennedy is a great candidate who massively under-performed Bush in both 2000 (by 13%) and 2004 (by 6%). It is too bad for a great candidate like Kennedy that not only is Nevada a far closer race than Minnesota, but Nevada is also clearly trending closer while the biased polls in Minnesota show the already huge gap widening. This is just not an end befitting such a great candidate like Kennedy.

Washington
Cantwell (D): 52%
McGavick (R): 39%

We were "treated" today to both Rasmussen and Political Wire telling us how this race was getting close. Of course, this is the average polling in the campaign even after the new Rasmussen poll was factored in. This is also one of the races that Strategic Vision likes to poll a lot. Amazing, Strategic Vision always shows the race closer than any other polling firm. Strategic Vision seems to have a habit of almost only polling Democratic held Senate seats and consistently showing them to be more favorable to Republicans than any other polling firm does. Kind of makes you wonder if partisan Republican Strategic Vision only exists in order to create buzz around the idea of Republican pickups using juiced numbers. In reality, the numbers also show Nevada to be closer than this campaign as well.

Michigan
Stabenow (D): 52%
Bouchard (R): 41%

This is another one of Strategic Vision's favorite races to poll. In fact, they have polled this race ten times in the last ten months. However, even with a Strategic Vision poll in the five-poll average, there is exactly the same margin, 11%, separating Stabenow and Bouchard as there is separating Ensign and Carter. Only here, there are fewer undecideds, and a much larger cash on hand gap (Nevada cash, Michigan cash). Nevada is closer than this race too.

What is Nevada not closer than? Well, New Jersey, obviously, which is yet another one of Strategic Vision's favorite states to poll, as they have conducted nine New Jersey polls in the last seven months alone). The only other one is Maryland:

Maryland
Cardin (D): 48%
Steele (R): 42%

So, Maryland is closer than Nevada, thanks almost entirely to the seemingly outlying Survey USA poll that showed Steele ahead 48%-47%. Maryland is actually most similar to another Democratic target tht rarely gets any press:

Arizona
Kyl (R): 48%
Pederson (D): 41%

Of course, we hear a lot more about Steele's great chances in Maryland than we hear about Pederson's chances in Arizona, which are usually scoffed at by the national punditry. It is just like how we hear a lot more about the Senate races in Minnesota, Washington, and Michigan than we hear about the Senate race in Nevada, even though Nevada is actually a closer race than Minnesota, Washington or Michigan. Admittedly, that could be because Mark Kennedy is such a great candidate, and the press can't help but talk about how close that race is.

New Jersey is the only serious Republican threat right now. Maryland is an outside threat, just like Arizona is an outside threat for us. By way of contrast, we have now mounted serious challenges in Montana, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. That gives us a net advantage of plus six in serious Senate challenges, exactly the number we need to retake the Senate. It still isn't very likely, but we are slowly creeping closer to having a real chance. When I update the Senate forecast later in the day, the new rankings will reflect that reality.