A new Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs poll shows Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti in a virtual dead heat in the campaign to be the next mayor of Los Angeles.

Greuel edges Garcetti, 46% to 45%, among likely voters with 9% undecided just 12 days before the May 21 election.

Politico: “When Rand Paul touches down in Iowa
Friday, it will be almost exactly three years to the day after his
landslide 2010 Senate primary victory – an unlikely and decisive triumph
over the Republican establishment that instantly transformed Paul into a
national political phenomenon. Now, as Paul weighs a 2016 presidential
bid, a different kind of challenge confronts him: Can the plain-spoken
former Bowling Green ophthalmologist build a campaign to back up his
popular appeal? For all Paul’s success as a media brand and a mobilizer
of the conservative grassroots, the Kentucky senator has done relatively
little since 2010 to assemble a political machine around his own
personality. For now, the Rand Paul project is a high-wire act that
works largely without a net.”

Meanwhile, Paul tells Bloomberg that he’s “working to help his party find ways to become competitive in
states along the nation’s coasts where it has largely fallen out of
favor.”

Charlie Cook: “Mark Sanford’s victory Tuesday in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District tells us only one thing about the 2014 midterm elections–that Democrats still need to capture 17 seats to win back the House majority they lost in 2010. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Arguably, this fall’s Virginia gubernatorial race will be a better test. Historically a conservative and Republican state, Virginia–along, to a lesser extent, with its southern neighbor, North Carolina–has become more like the Mid-Atlantic states to its north in recent years. Other Southern states, such as Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee, largely retain their Dixie voting patterns. Each of those states has a bedrock Democratic vote made up chiefly of minority voters, along with indigenous white Democratic voters. But North Carolina and, even more so, Virginia have seen an influx of non-Southerners, who vote more like the country as a whole than like the Old South.”

Amy Walter: “With all the talk of the importance of the Latino vote to the future of the Republican party, it’s easy to ignore the fact that there are blue states outside of the Southwest that may be bigger and better targets for the GOP in 2016.”

“Pennsylvania represents the biggest promise — and biggest chunk of electoral votes — for Republicans in 2016. It has a Hispanic population of just under 6 percent and has been trending Republican since 1998. The only question now is whether Republicans can finally find the key to unlock the Keystone state.”

Karl Rove’s American Crossroads group released a new ad attacking former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her handling of the attack at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

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Rick Weiland (D), a former Tom Daschle aide who ran for Congress in 1996 and 2002, told the Argus Leader that he will try to win the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD).

Roll Call: Will former Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD) run too?

Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) “has already smashed the record for the oldest member of the U.S. House of Representatives, but he doesn’t intend to quit now,” the Houston Chronicle reports.

The Republican lawmaker announced he will seek another term. He says it’s his mission to see to it there’s a Republican back in the White House in 2016.

Said Hall: “I want to take on President Obama at every turn until he leaves office and I want to help elect the next Republican president. We need a president that is fair with Texas, fair with energy, and gives us leadership for our children and grandchildren.”