The New York Times reports that Huma Abedin, the wife of New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner (D), “has been a main architect of her husband’s rehabilitative journey, shaping his calculated comeback and drawing on her close ties with one of the country’s most powerful families to lay the groundwork for his return.”

“A surrogate daughter to Bill and Hillary Clinton who has seen firsthand the cleansing power of campaigns, Ms. Abedin has leapt into her husband’s effort, conferring on strategy and helping to hire staff members from her long history with the Clintons: Ms. Abedin worked with Mr. Weiner’s new 30-year-old campaign manager, Danny Kedem, during Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 presidential run.”

Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez (R) called opponent Ed Markey (D) “pond scum” during an interview with a reporter.

Said Gomez: “I don’t think there’s anything more offensive. You know I’ve got four young kids, and they gotta sit there and gotta see an ad with their dad — who served honorably, talk to anybody I served with — whether as a pilot or as a SEAL, anybody I worked with. And for him to be as dirty and low, pond scum, like to put me up next to bin Laden, he’s just gotta be called what he is. It’s that simple.”

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Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe (D) “knows a thing or two about conservatives like his Republican opponent, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli,” Yahoo News reports.

“That’s in part because his older brother, Joseph McAuliffe, spent two decades as a Republican activist who worked for the evangelical leader Pat Robertson’s presidential campaign, helped found a Christian political group in Florida, and was even arrested in the late 1980s while demonstrating at an abortion clinic.”

“The Republicans I’m talking to are saying, ‘What the hell are they doing in Virginia?’ Is this, ‘101 ways to lose an election’?”

— Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele, quoted by the Washington Post, on the Virginia GOP ticket.

Anthony Weiner (D) changed his newly unveiled New York mayoral campaign website after criticism it displayed the cityscape of Pittsburgh, The Hill reports.

A new super PAC is launching a campaign to paint Massachusetts U.S. candidate Gabriel Gomez (R) as a “lightweight version of Mitt Romney,” according to a memo obtained by Politico.

Says the memo: “Our message in these various efforts will focus on the fact that Gabriel Gomez is Mitt Lite … More Right Wing, Less Experienced. He is a Bush-Cheney-Romney Republican who is anti-choice, anti-Social Security, pro-assault weapon and pro-Big Oil.”

A new Emerson College poll in Massachusetts finds Rep. Ed Markey (D) is widening his lead over Gabriel Gomez (R) in the U.S. Senate race to 12 points, 45% to 33%.

A similar poll earlier this month had Markey leading by just six points.

“National Republicans have dispatched staff to Massachusetts to assist with the Senate special election that has become tantalizingly close,” Roll Call reports.

The NRSC “has committed at least four staffers to help nominee Gabriel Gomez in the final weeks of the June 25 contest. The moves come amid fresh polling that showed Gomez running just behind Democratic Rep. Edward J. Markey in this solidly Democratic state.”

“Shame on us.”

— New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), in an interview with the Syracuse Post-Standard, on if New York City elects Anthony Weiner as mayor.

Anthony Weiner told Politicker that he hasn’t spoken with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) since his resignation following the sexting scandal that forced him to resign from Congress nearly two years ago.

“When it came to President Barack Obama, he said he’d have to check with his wife to make sure they hadn’t attended a same event, but couldn’t recall speaking to the nation’s top executive. Mr. Obama said at the time that he would resign if he were in Mr. Weiner’s shoes.”

Anthony Weiner announced his comeback attempt earlier today, but Karen Tumulty notes his challenge is greater than Mark Sanford faced earlier this month.

“Sanford, once it became clear that he had not been hiking the Appalachian Trail, pretty much owned up to where he had really been and the truth about his relationship with Maria Belen Chapur. Weiner continued to deny that the crotch photos sent through his Twitter account were in fact of his own crotch, even as the falsehood became more and more transparent.”

“And where Weiner was forced to resign, Sanford remained in office, surviving an effort to impeach him, paying the largest ethics fine in South Carolina history, and ultimately enjoying the most productive period of his governorship. Indeed, he left office in 2011 on something of a high note, with approval around 55 percent–which, as the Charleston Post and Courier noted at the time, made him more popular than half the nation’s governors.”

The New York Times reports that Anthony Weiner, “once a rising star of New York politics whose career cratered over revelations of his sexually explicit life online, announced an improbable bid on Wednesday for the job he has long coveted: mayor.”

“After a rocky re-emergence into public life over the past few weeks, marked by circuslike scenes of tabloid photographers chasing him onto the subway, Mr. Weiner opted to declare his candidacy from the safe remove of a video.”

A new Quinnipiac poll finds Christine Quinn leading the pack for the Democratic nomination with 25%, followed by Weiner at 15% with Bill de Blasio and William Thompson in a horse race for third place at 10% each.

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Los Angeles Times: “Wendy Greuel called Eric Garcetti early Wednesday morning to concede the mayoral election, a Greuel campaign source told the Times, ending a two-year campaign to determine Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s successor and the new political leader of Los Angeles.”

Garcetti beat Greuel 54% to 46%. He will take office on July 1.

Ken Cuccinelli (R) “is dropping his assertion that the Office of the Attorney General is exempt from state public records laws, indicating in a statement Monday that he had asked staff attorneys to stop including the claim in their responses to requests for records from his office,” the Washington Post reports.

A new Survey USA poll in Los Angeles finds Eric Garcetti leading Wendy Greuel in the race for mayor by five points, 49% to 44%.

Bill and Hillary Clinton “are making clear they are staying out of the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, just as the race is about to be roiled by the candidacy of their close aide Huma Abedin’s husband, Anthony Weiner,” Politico reports.

The Washington Post reports on how Virginia’s hard line conservative slate of candidates picked over the weekend is complicating gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli’s (R) efforts to tack to the middle in his campaign against Terry McAuliffe (D).

Said one GOP strategist: “We’re in a deep shit. The only good news is that the Democrats have Terry McAuliffe. It’s the only thing keeping us glued to a chance of victory.”

New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Barbara Buono (D) has a clever ad to help raise her name recognition in a race where Gov. Chris Christie (R) is way ahead.

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