Congressional Elections

Republican presidential contender John McCain will be able to sufficiently distance himself from the unpopular president of his own party in the upcoming general election, according to a top adviser to the Arizona senator.

Even though election day isn't until Tuesday, North Carolina's primary has already drawn record turnout. While the Democratic presidential nomination contest will be the marquee event, the primary will also set the fields for the state's Senate and gubernatorial races, as well as several key House races.

The stakes are high in the hotly contested House special election that will be held May 13 in Mississippi's vacant 1st District -- and both parties' national House campaign units have ratcheted up their already expensive independent advertising campaigns backing the contenders: Democrat Travis Childers, the Prentiss County chancery clerk, and Republican Greg Davis, mayor of Southaven.

Hillary Rodham Clinton amended her disclosure reports over the weekend to account for $5 million she loaned her presidential campaign in January. Though it was widely known the New York senator used the funds to help rally support for her White House bid during the early primaries, an accounting oversight left the information missing from reports filed at the Federal Election Commission.

The nation's high-level concerns about national security issues have prompted the major parties to step up their recruitment of military veterans to run for Congress. This trend was highlighted on Monday when four Georgia Democrats with military backgrounds -- three of whom who have served in the Iraq war -- announced their candidacies for longshot bids against Republican House incumbents.

For the first time this election cycle, congressional Republicans have invoked Barack Obama's name to dissuade voters from supporting a Democratic candidate.

Brent Seaborn, late of the Giuliani campaign and now back at his consulting gig, sends over some up-ballot numbers his firm, TargetPoint, took for  a third-party effort out in the Colorado Senate race.

House Democrats will file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday charging that the National Republican Congressional Committee and the conservative organization Freedom’s Watch are illegally coordinating campaign activities.

On his dreamiest Election Night, Sen. Charles Schumer has visions of picking off long-shot red states like Mississippi, Alaska and North Carolina, riding what he calls a “tectonic” shift that would endow his Senate Democrats with the elusive 60th vote.