Ending weeks of speculation, Washington, DC Mayor Vincent Gray (D) announced that he would run for a second term, the Washington Post reports.

“Gray’s decision to run for reelection reshapes the District’s political landscape for the April 2014 Democratic primary. Three council members — Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4), Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) — had announced their plans as far back as March.”

Herb Jackson: “It could be election fatigue, or maybe everyone is waiting for Governor Christie to anoint someone. But no New Jersey Republican has jumped into the race for U.S. Senate next year, despite all the talk in October about how Democrat Cory Booker will be vulnerable because he “only” won by 11 percentage points, instead of the 20 points some polls showed.”

Firedoglake obtained documents under New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act which detail New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) career as a registered lobbyist.

Jonathan Chait: “So what are we fighting about? How smoothly the law operates, and how many customers it manages to enroll by the end of Obama’s term, are open questions. Likewise up for debate is whether Obama’s approval ratings will recover. But these are not fundamentally questions about the life or death of Obamacare. They’re about how much political pain Democrats in Congress must endure. We’re not fighting over health care policy. We’re fighting about the midterm elections.”

Politico: “Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton’s political marriage is about to be put to
the test. For five years their unlikely alliance has gone, by and large,
smoothly. He has benefited from a widely admired secretary of state
whose presence in his administration helped unite the party after their
2008 combat. She has burnished her foreign policy CV and taken a break
from the political grind as she mulls a second run at the White
House. But Obama’s own recent difficulties, combined with the swirl of
attention around Clinton and her intentions in 2016, is threatening to
alter those dynamics — in ways that aren’t helpful to either of them.”

Nate Cohn: “Scott Walker, the battle-hardened governor of Wisconsin, is the candidate that the factional candidates should fear. Not only does he seem poised to run — he released a book last week — but he possesses the tools and positions necessary to unite the traditional Republican coalition and marginalize its discontents.”

“Walker has the irreproachable conservative credentials necessary to appease the Tea Party, and he speaks the language of the religious right. But he has the tone, temperament, and record of a capable and responsible establishment figure. That, combined with Walker’s record as a reformist union-buster, will appeal to the party’s donor base and appease the influential business wing. Walker’s experience as an effective but conservative blue state governor makes him a credible presidential candidate, not just a vessel for the conservative message. Equally important, his history of having faced down organized labor and beaten back a liberal recall effort is much more consistent with the sentiment of the modern Republican Party than Jeb Bush’s compassionate conservatism. Altogether, Walker has the assets to build the broad establishment support necessary for the fundraising, media attention, and organization to win the nomination. He could be a voter or a donor’s first choice, not just a compromise candidate.”

National Journal: “The
Democratic Party is hoping 2014 will be a Year of the Woman–again. As
party operatives prepare for the 2014 midterm elections, Democratic
women are being cast in starring roles, on the ballot and at the ballot
box, as the party tries to take back politically important governor’s
mansions and keep its fragile majority in the Senate.”

Politico:
“In 2012, Democrats snagged Senate seats from Republicans in states
where the GOP should have prevailed with relative ease. In 2014,
Republicans want to show they can play that game, too. The GOP could
conceivably capture the Senate by winning in seven states currently
represented by Democrats but that Mitt Romney carried. But running the
table in those states is a very tall task, party strategists freely
acknowledge, so they’re working to expand the map of competitive races
to states like Iowa, Michigan, Colorado and several others.”