Derek Willis notes there are a number of ways to identify House members vulnerable in their re-election bids, “but one of the best is to look at who has received the most money from their colleagues in the run-up to the March 31 closing date.”

“By that standard, Timothy H. Bishop and Sean Patrick Maloney, Democrats of New York; Ron Barber, Democrat of Arizona; and Rodney Davis, Republican of Illinois, lead the pack, which is dominated by freshman Democrats.”

“I will guarantee you that you will see the most vicious education
campaign ads that you’ve ever seen in your life next year, because I am
going to be the next Scott Walker in this country, because I am
challenging the status quo.”

— Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), quoted by the Bangor Daily News, committing to running for re-election.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “continues to seize on the bungled taping of his Louisville campaign headquarters,” Politico
writes.

“The Senate Minority Leader will go on the air Thursday with a
new commercial that links last week’s brouhaha to the Democratic
president’s desire to oust him.”

Though he spent much of the last few years fighting low approval rates, a new Quinnipiac poll in Ohio finds 52% of voters now approve of Gov. John Kasich (R) and he holds solid leads two potential
Democratic challengers.

Kasich tops up Ed Fitzgerald, 46% to 37%, and beats Richard Cordray (D), 45% to 38%.

Despite a very bad day for former Gov. Mark Sanford (R) yesterday — including the NRCC pulling the plug on financial support of his special election campaign — John Avlon says he may still pull off a victory.

“What we have here is a competitive congressional race in a district that hasn’t elected a Democrat to Congress since the early years of the Reagan era. That itself is invigorating, and Colbert Busch has already proved herself a capable, engaging candidate with a will to win. But even without the NRCC, counting Sanford out is a sucker’s bet. Win or lose, he’ll be due in court to answer the charges May 7–either as the incoming congressman or on the heels of his first electoral defeat.”

The Cook Political Report calls the race a Toss Up.

GOP operative Andy Parrish, a former chief of staff to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), “is expected to tell an Iowa Senate ­ethics panel that her 2012 presidential campaign made improper payments to its state chairman,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

“Parrish’s willingness to go public against his former employer and political mentor is likely to send shock waves through Minnesota GOP circles, where both he and his attorney are well-known figures.”

Jason Zengerle: “Indeed, while Jenny has never come out and publicly opposed Mark’s congressional candidacy — choosing to remain officially neutral — she’s waged a brutally effective passive-aggressive campaign against it. Whether it was revealing to me that Mark had shamelessly asked her to manage his election bid; or telling the Washington Post that, until the night Mark’s fiancée showed up onstage at his victory party in April, one of her sons had never met the woman; or just generally making it known that she is furious that he’s running, Jenny has done a masterful job of keeping her ex-husband’s past (and not-so-past) transgressions in the news. She has seeded the ground with political land mines, stood back, and waited for Mark to step on one.”

In addition to a trespassing complaint, Jenny Sanford has accused former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) of shirking their divorce agreement on at least three other occasions, the Washington Post reports.

“She filed a complaint against him in March 2012 for violating the terms of having their sons on the Sanford family’s Coosaw plantation. The terms state that ‘no airplanes will be flown at the children.’ She has also accused him of failing to properly insure the property and of missing a child support payment.”