Hillary Clinton laid down a placeholder for a 2016 presidential bid Sunday during the feel-good nostalgia festival that was the Harkin Steak Fry, the Des Moines Register reports.

“She teased her White House ambitions by referring to ‘that other thing’ — and elicited a reaction of delight from the audience of about 10,000 on a sunny hillside in rural Indianola.”

Said Clinton: “Well. It is true. I am thinking about it. But for today, that is not why I’m here. I’m here for the steak.”

Huffington Post: Hillary Clinton all but announces her presidential campaign

“Although every statewide elected official in Kansas is a Republican and President Obama lost the state by more than 20 points in the last election,” Gov. Sam Brownback’s (R) “proudly conservative policies have turned out to be so divisive and his tax cuts have generated such a drop in state revenue that they have caused even many Republicans to revolt,” the New York Times reports.

“Projections put state budget shortfalls in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually, raising questions of whether the state can adequately fund education in particular.”

“This has boosted the hopes of the Democratic candidate, Paul Davis, the State House minority leader, who has shot up in the polls even though he has offered few specifics about how he would run the state. Many disaffected Republicans might give Mr. Davis their vote because, if nothing else, he is not Mr. Brownback.”

A new Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico finds Gov. Susana Martinez (R) leading challenger Dave King (D) by a wide margin, 54% to 36%.

A new Politico poll finds the two parties “were closely matched on the 2014 ballot, with 42% of likely voters planning to vote Democratic and 41% picking Republicans.”

“That’s a slight shift in the Democratic direction since July, when a Politico poll showed Republicans with a 2-point edge. But the movement can largely be explained by a shift in the polling sample: Since the poll tests only states and congressional districts that are the most competitive in the country, that list now includes more Democratic-leaning seats.”

“Hello Iowa — I’m ba-ack!”

— Hillary Clinton, quoted by The Hill.

Just as some prominent election prognosticators seem ready to give Republicans the Senate, two forecasting models show the battle is essentially a toss up.

The Upshot now gives Republicans a 52% chance of winning control of the upper chamber, while Election Lab gives the GOP a 50% chance. The Votemaster also has the race as a toss up.

For comparison, FiveThirtyEight gives Republicans a 58% chance of taking the Senate.

A new Chicago Tribune poll in Illinois finds Gov. Pat Quinn (D) leading challenger Bruce Rauner (R) in the race for governor by double-digits, 48% to 37%.

Nearly every other recent poll has shown Rauner leading this race.

Hillary Clinton “has said publicly that she will decide early next year whether she will undertake a second campaign for the presidency. But inside the Clinton operation, the groundwork is already quietly being laid for a candidacy,” the New York Times reports.

“Mrs. Clinton is getting in better physical shape, a necessity for any potential candidate who faces the rigors of the campaign trail. Friends said she has more energy and has also been practicing yoga.”

Comedian Bill Maher named Rep. John Kline (R-MN) “as the viewer-nominated GOP lawmaker the funnyman wants to oust from Congress in his ‘Flip a District’ challenge,” The Hill reports. “But Maher will have a tough time trying to defeat Kline, who’s not a top Democratic target and is expected to cruise to a seventh term.”

The Fix: “As it happens, Kline faces a rematch this year with the same guy he beat by eight points in 2012, former state Rep. Mike Obermueller (D). Except Obermueller this time is dealing with a much less favorable environment. And the Cook Political Report, which has rated 29 Republican seats as being potentially in play in the 2014 election, doesn’t even include Kline among the least-vulnerable on that list.”

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s (D) “incipient presidential campaign already has 11 staffers on the ground in Iowa, working to elect Democrats and build valuable connections for 2016.”

“Several sources have told the Daily Beast that the Maryland governor, a War of 1812 aficionado, has placed staffers through the Iowa Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign, the umbrella organization that runs field efforts for all the Democratic candidates.”

Nate Cohn: “A few months ago, the Democratic path to a Senate majority looked long and arduous… But today the Democratic path to victory looks as clear as it has at any point this year. That path remains narrow, to be sure. The Democrats will probably still need to sweep those five fairly close races. Yet with just two months to go, the Democrats appear to have an advantage in four of them. And the Democrats have other opportunities that might give them more breathing room.”

“If Colorado and Michigan are penciled into the Democratic column, the Democrats would then need three more states to get to a majority. The Democrats have a fairly broad set of options for those states, but the likeliest possibility is that the election comes down to three states: Alaska, Iowa and North Carolina.”

The HuffPost Pollster average shows Republicans have taken the lead in the generic congressional ballot for the first time this year.