McFarland Scores A Big One With Backing Of New York County (Manhattan) GOP

The Republican Party in New York County, which most of us know more readily as Manhattan, has endorsed KT McFarland for governor, according to McFarland's campaign Web site. That's the largest endorsement yet for the former Reagan Defense Department spokeswoman, who also announced Monday the backing of the Montgomery County GOP. With those endorsements, McFarland is nearly three-fifths of the way to the 25% of delegates she needs to put her on the primary ballot. The Urban Elephants blog is keeping a running tab of the endorsement announcements and the weight each endorsement will carry at the party convention. The UE site puts John Spencer's weighted total at 40%.

KEAN JUMPS AHEAD OF MENENDEZ IN LATEST RASUMUSSEN POLL

John Kean Jr., the son of New Jersey's former governor, has jumped ahead of Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez in their race for the seat Mendendez inherited from John Corzine when he became governor. The Rasmussen Reports poll has Kean at 43% and Menendez at 36%. You might want to take the results with at least one little pebble of salt however, as the previous polls we reported on had the race very close. In addition, the Rasmussen polls tend to run a little lopsided toward Republicans. As an example of what I mean, Rasmussen does a daily poll on President Bush's job approval and in the past week the numbers have run from 39% to 42%, several points above all of the recent polls done elsewhere.

MORE ON THE HIGH COST OF CAMPAIGNING

Yesterday we did a short blurb on the high cost of running for Congress. Today there are more numbers out to back up that point. Congressional Quarterly's Web site, QCPolitics.com, reviewed the recently filed first-quarter campaign financial reports and found that one-fifth of incumbent House members have raised at least $1 million so far, with the real campaigning yet to begin. And, as we know, most of those seats - created through gerrymandering - are pretty safe. Challengers are doing pretty well too, according to the CQ report. Thirty-six challengers reported having at least $200,000 to work with as of March 31, with 28 of those challengers being Democrats.