State by State

Colorado

Four years after he announced his retirement, former Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R) broke out his checkbook to help his former colleagues.

Campbell sent $2,000 checks dated March 5 to each Senate Republican who’s up this year for reelection, except for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). That’s 16 checks in all.

{mosads}He’d already given $4,000 to McConnell last year, part of a smattering of about $13,000 in contributions in 2007 that also covered Rep. Doug Lamborn (R) and Colorado House candidate Mike Coffman, along with presidential contenders Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R).

Campbell has yet to offer a contribution to former Rep. Bob Schaffer, the Republican who faces a tough fight against Rep. Mark Udall (D) to replace retiring Sen. Wayne Allard (R). Schaffer comes from the conservative wing of the party that Campbell has criticized since leaving office.

He is also friendly with Udall.

Campbell told Denver’s Rocky Mountain News in March that he was staying neutral in the race because “Bob is a friend of mine and so is Mark.”

Campbell gave out only $1,000 during the 2006 campaign cycle — a single check to the unsuccessful reelection campaign of then-House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.).

Campbell is now a registered lobbyist with the Washington office of Holland & Knight, where he represents clients such as the American Chemistry Council and the Seneca Nation of Indians.

Campbell still has slightly more than $240,000 in his campaign account.

— Mike Soraghan

Florida

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) found himself in the middle of a nasty fight over Cuba this week when Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R) called him a “radical left-wing extremist” who had a history of “appeasing our nation’s enemies.”

Diaz-Balart was quoted in Monday’s Miami Herald, which has written several stories about the stir in South Florida over Rangel’s fundraiser for Joe Garcia, the Democrat trying to oust Diaz-Balart from Congress.

 Diaz-Balart, whose district is home to many Cuban-Americans, is a passionate supporter of the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba, which Rangel has sought to unwind.

Garcia told The Hill he also supports the embargo, and that he and Rangel do not see eye to eye on Cuba policy. He said the New York fundraiser netted him about $20,000.

Describing Rangel as an apologist or an appeaser of American enemies is “beyond the pale” given the fact that Rangel fought against communists in the Korean War, Garcia said. The challenger also suggested it is unwise to personally attack Rangel, who wields enormous clout as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Democrats this year are mounting their first serious threat to unseat Diaz-Balart and two other longtime GOP Cuban-American House Republicans. Garcia has more than $300,000 in cash on hand — about half of what Diaz-Balart has banked.

— Ian Swanson

Pennsylvania

Rep. John Peterson (R) appears to have the Midas touch, at least when it comes to his successor.

Centre County GOP Chairman Glenn Thompson on Tuesday won a nine-man race for the Republican nomination to succeed Peterson two weeks after Peterson endorsed him.

Thompson was a late winner as election results rolled in, taking 19 percent and edging out real estate developer Matt Shaner and businessman Derek Walker, who both spent much more on the race than Thompson but took 18 percent apiece.

Thompson will face Clearfield County Commissioner Mark McCracken, who won a three-person race in the Democratic primary with 41 percent. The district leans Republican, though, and McCracken will face an uphill battle.

In other Democratic primaries in the Keystone State, businesswoman Kathy Dahlkemper won a four-person Democratic race with 45 percent and will face Rep. Phil English (R) in November. Businessman Steve O’Donnell won a tight race with Democrat Beth Hafer, 45-41, and will oppose Rep. Tim Murphy (R).

Several top GOP candidates in Pennsylvania were unopposed in the primary. Retired Marine Col. Tom Manion will face freshman Rep. Patrick Murphy (D), Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta will face Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D), and former Rep. Melissa Hart will face freshman Rep. Jason Altmire (D) in a rematch of the 2006 race that Altmire won.

— Aaron Blake

Mississippi

Voters in the 1st district will have to endure a fourth congressional election in just over two months after Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers (D) fell just shy of 50 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s special election, sending the race to a runoff.

Childers won 49.4 percent of the vote, nearly pulling off a big upset, while Southaven Mayor Greg Davis (R) took 46.3 percent.

A six-candidate field diluted the vote just enough to cause a runoff. It included two third-party candidates and two major-party candidates who lost to Childers and Davis earlier this month.

Former Tupelo Mayor Glenn McCullough (R) and state Rep. Steve Holland (D) lost general election primary runoffs three weeks ago and could not remove themselves from the ballot, but they did not actively campaign. Each took about 1 percent of the vote, as did the two third-party candidates.

The winner of the May 13 runoff will serve the remainder of the term in appointed Sen. Roger Wicker’s (R-Miss.) former House seat.

Davis and Childers will also face each other again in November for a full term.

— A.B.

Oregon

State House Speaker Jeff Merkley (D) is taking out a $250,000 loan for his Senate campaign, he said in an e-mail to supporters Wednesday.

“For Mary and me there is no cause more important than changing the direction of our country,” Merkley said. “That’s why today we are taking a $250,000 loan against a house I purchased more than 20 years ago and lending the funds to the campaign to help me communicate my vision for changing this country.”

Merkley is locked in a tough primary with former Justice Department attorney Steve Novick for the Democratic nomination to face Sen. Gordon Smith (R).

— A.B.