Though she has laid the ground work for her 2014 re-election bid, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) “stopped short of committing to a run to keep the governor’s mansion next year,” the Florence Morning News reports.

“With a husband currently deployed in Afghanistan and two small children, she said if it’s bad for the Haley family, she won’t seek re-election.”

Said Haley: “If we look and it’s too much on the family, I could absolutely see (not running again).”

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) said that “he’s sorry if anyone was offended by his crude sexual remark a day earlier about a Democratic leader in the state Senate,” the Kennebec Journal reports.

“The Republican governor, in impromptu comments to reporters outside his office, also said he is considering abandoning his re-election bid in 2014 and running instead for Congress.”

“Ben Quayle, who lost re-election to Congress last year, is joining a law firm with Republican ties and doesn’t plan to run again in 2014,” the Arizona Republic reports.

“Quayle, the son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, could have taken up a midterm battle against freshman U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) in her metro Phoenix district. But he said he is focusing on work instead, while still staying involved in policy matters on the side. Several other Republicans have already started campaigning for Sinema’s seat.”

“I’m confident I’m going to win. But as a famous general once said in World War II, I shall return.”

— Gabriel Gomez (R), quoted by The Hill, hinting at another bid if he loses tomorrow’s special election in Massachusetts.

Even though not a single poll has shown Gabriel Gomez (R) ahead in the Massachusetts special U.S. Senate election, his aides — many of whom worked for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign — “are still predicting a shocker, saying low-turnout special elections are notoriously unpredictable,” Politico reports.

“West Virginia was last in the nation in voter turnout in November, the only state where less than half of eligible voters voted,” the Charleston Gazette reports.

“Young West Virginians in particular lagged behind. Less than 23 percent of 18- to 24-year olds voted in West Virginia, the worst voting record of any age group in any state in the country.”

“Two-time-almost-but-not-quite presidential candidate Donald Trump will make his very first trip to Iowa in August to speak to religious conservative activists sizing up a lineup of possible 2016 candidates,” the Des Moines Register reports.

“Trump accepted an invitation to the Family Leader’s second-annual leadership summit, an event the organizer says he hopes will help Iowa conservatives coalesce early on in the next presidential nominating cycle.”

Jill Lawrence: “He was a middle-class, suburban Washington kid who chose to build a political career in one of the grittiest, most troubled cities in America, with all the challenges and risks that entailed. He spent eight years on the Baltimore City Council and seven as mayor before moving to Annapolis to begin two terms as governor in January 2007. O’Malley has been closely identified with statistics-based governing in both of his executive positions: CitiStat to improve management and services in Baltimore; StateStat to do the same across Maryland; even BayStat to revive the Chesapeake Bay. Fusing passion with dispassion, he has deployed numbers to fight crime and pollution, to win approval for gambling casinos and gun restrictions, to pass tuition breaks for illegal immigrant students, and even to repeal the death penalty.”

“At the same time, over the past few years, he has steadily ascended in national politics–as a key supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton and later Barack Obama in 2008, as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association in 2011 and 2012, and as a prominent media spokesman for Obama and Democrats during the 2012 presidential campaign. He continues in a DGA leadership role as finance chairman, an ideal job for someone who might need to raise a lot of money for a presidential campaign in a year or two.”