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Romney Polling: The New Republic breaks down internal polling from the Romney campaign and finds inflated results (and therefore expectations) on the campaign’s end from New Hampshire, Iowa, and Colorado. An unexpected number of youth, African American and Hispanic voters comprised the electorate.

Senate

South Dakota: Senator Tim Johnson sounds like he is tentatively in for a re-election fight.

Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., said he will make a “formal announcement later next year” about his re-election in a carefully worded statement from his office released Thursday morning.

“As in past campaigns, I will make my formal announcement later next year,” he said. “But I feel great, still have work to do, and I fully intend to put together a winning campaign in the weeks and months ahead.”

New Hampshire/Massachusetts: David Weigel concocts a scheme to install Senator Kelly Ayotte (D) as CIA Director, opening up her seat for the Democratic Governor to appoint a fellow Democrat and providing some cover for the administration to risk another Massachusetts special election and appoint Senator John Kerry as Secretary of State. Who wants to outdo this one?

More New Hampshire: Add outgoing Rep. Frank Guinta (R) to the list of pols looking to move up in 2014.

“My name comes up for Senate, House and governor,” Guinta told Roll Call Thursday in a phone interview. “Obviously, it’s nice to be thought of in that way. Quite frankly, at this point, it’s something that I will focus on sometime next year.”

But two well-placed New Hampshire GOP sources noted that Guinta, the former mayor of Manchester, expressed a particular interest in the Senate race.

He says he will take time “to assess” his options in 2013.

New Mexico: I missed this one back on Nov. 14th, a little over two weeks ago. Gary Johnson did a post-election town hall after getting almost 1% of the vote as the LP candidate for President this year. One questioner asked him, At about 1:03:30, “Would you run for Senate in 2014 as a Libertarian or a Republican?” His response:

 ”If that were something that transpired, that would be something to look at and the whole idea behind everything is a message- the message does not change at all. The message does not change, it’s just being able to govern. I wish we had the money to make a run on the Libertarian side, and it wouldn’t be a compromise of words or beliefs doing this as a Republican as Ron Paul did. But at this point, [I'm] just trying to keep all options avaiable. The notion, at this point, is winning, governing.“

Is it a little bit awkward to have Johnson return to the fold so soon? Perhaps. But Johnson’s numbers in polling back in 2012 in the general election were very solid with independents, and going up against a Udall is a pretty tough endeavor. I personally feel this is definitely worth pushing on, if only to expand the map and take advantage of some donors who would only give to a libertarian-leaning candidate anyhow….

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