Friday Afternoon Election Notebook

A couple notes on the 2011 elections…

** Rep. David Norquist (D-Cleveland) has decided against a run for re-election. Until this point he was the only candidate to qualify for the HD 28 seat. Democrats have a number of very difficult open seats to defend already; this one would probably be toward the bottom of that list.

Haley Barbour did win 59 percent of the vote here in 2007, but the BVAP in the upper 40s is probably too high for a Republican running for the House (and anything involving Bolivar, Sunflower, and Washington counties doesn’t generally equate to Republican territory). Look for a busy five days in this district. It does appear that at least one Republican, Tommy Taylor, is in right now.

** Brad Mayo, a Republican candidate to fill the open HD 12 seat, has a fundraiser lined up for June 16 with an impressive host committee that includes Rep. Noal Akins, the man who currently holds this seat. Currently, Mayo is the only person in this race. Check out the invite here.

** Haley Barbour has set November 8 as the special election date to fill the remainder of the Senate seat held by the late Sen. Jack Gordon. This will coincide with the general election. The winner of the non-partisan special election will fill the remainder of the term (November through January), while the regular election winner will serve the next term starting in January 2012.

** BIPEC ratings for the 2011 legislative session were released earlier this week. You can check out the House grades here and the Senate grades here.

You may remember we talked about the three-year averages a couple months back. Most of the trends from the previous three years remained in place this year.