“I want him to sink or swim on his own. For the sake of my children,
I’m trying my best not to get in the way, but he makes things difficult
for me when he does things like trespassing.”

— Jenny Sanford, quoted by the Charleston Post and Courier, on the impact of former Gov. Mark Sanford (R) being caught trespassing at her home.

A new Marist Poll in New York City finds Christine Quinn (D) leading the Democratic primary for mayor with 26%, followed by Anthony Weiner (D) at 15%, John Liu (D) at 12%, Bill de Blasio (D) at 11% and Bill Thompson (D) at 11%.

Another 22% of likely voters are still undecided.

First Read says there are two ways to read this poll: “The first, as most news outlets have played it, is that former Rep.
Anthony Weiner (D-NY) would immediately start out in second place if he
runs, trailing presumed front-runner Christine Quinn, 26% to 15%. But
there’s a second way to read it: Weiner, with nearly perfect name ID, is
getting just 15%.”

Court documents say former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) “trespassed at his ex-wife’s home and he has been ordered to appear in court two days after his special congressional election,” the AP reports.

“Jenny Sanford confronted her ex-husband leaving her South Carolina home on Feb. 3. Her attorney filed a complaint the next day and she confirms the documents are authentic.”

Anthony Weiner “has not declared his candidacy, hired a staff or even held a news conference. But already, New York City’s mayoral contenders are strategizing about what they have to do to prevent the former Queens congressman from making it to City Hall,” the New York Times reports.

“There is no consensus about how Mr. Weiner would perform in the race, but he would almost certainly face intense scrutiny from the press — and attacks from his political opponents — over the sexually explicit online communications that prompted his resignation from Congress in 2011.”

“In his first television appearance since a social media-induced scandal
torpedoed his political career two years ago, a contrite Anthony Weiner
began to describe what life may be like under a theoretical Weiner
Administration,” the New York Observer reports.

“As he seeks to extend the discussion about a possible candidacy for mayor — and shift attention away from the online sex-messaging scandal that cost him his Congressional seat — Anthony D. Weiner released a 21-page policy booklet on Sunday that he described as a blueprint for keeping New York City ‘the capital of the middle class,'” the New York Times reports.

Beth Reinhard:
“It’s not easy to be the new Ken Cuccinelli. The new Cuccinelli, the
Republican frontrunner in the Virginia governor’s race, is more likely
these days to be calling for job growth and education reform than he is
to be railing against abortion and gay marriage. But the old Cuccinelli,
the state attorney general who crusaded for conservative values, keeps
cropping up, offering a steady stream of fodder for opponents determined
to frame him as a right-wing ideologue.”

Terry McAuliffe (D) raised roughly $5.1 million for his Virginia gubernatorial bid in the first three months of the year, including a $100,000 check from a longtime friend — President Bill Clinton, the Washington Post reports.

A new SurveyUSA poll in Los Angeles finds Eric Garcetti with nearly a double-digit lead over Wendy Greuel in the race for mayor, 49% to 40%. That’s a 2-percentage-point increase from two weeks ago.

Former South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford told Roll Call she has no plans to endorse in the South Carolina special election that includes her ex-husband, former Gov. Mark Sanford (R).

Said Sanford: “I don’t have any thoughts on the race that I am currently interested in sharing with the public and I have no plans to endorse. I remain completely focused on the four wonderful men in my life and happily so.”

Robin Kelly (D) “claimed victory tonight in a low-turnout contest to decide the successor to former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. in a 2nd Congressional District with a history of scandal-plagued representation,” the Chicago Tribune reports.

Reuters reports that with nearly three quarters of precincts reporting, Kelly had 91.9% of the vote.

Chicago Tribune: “Voters across the Chicago area will go to the polls for local elections today, picking winners in a range of races from a replacement for U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson to a high-profile suburban mayoral contest featuring a former Bears’ star.”

Hedge fund executive Thomas Steyer is bombarding Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) “with theatrical attacks from the skies and from the streets. He has poured $400,000 into the Massachusetts race so far, bankrolling planes with banners, trucks with video screens, and canvassers who plan to knock on 300,000 doors statewide,” the Boston Globe reports.

Steyer has seized on Lynch’s primary campaign against Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) “as a test case of his ability to elevate the issue of climate change in the political discourse.”

“Last month, he burst onto the scene with a sharply worded threat to Lynch, warning him that if he did not change his mind and oppose the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline ‘by high noon on Friday,’ he would launch an aggressive campaign to defeat him in the April 30 primary.”

“She completely surprised me. I was having dinner with my boys. A couple of candidates who had endorsed us in the race, they said time to go in. I go in, I round the corner, there she is to give me a hug and surprise me. It was a nice event, and it was not at all what I expected. But it was awfully, awfully nice surprise.”

— Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R), in an interview with CNN, recounting how he was surprised by his fiancee, Maria Belen Chapur, at his primary victory party.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) has filed a petition with
the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals asking the full
15-judge court to reconsider a decision by a three-judge panel last
month that overturned the state’s sodomy law, the Washington Blade reports.

The panel ruled last month that a section of Virginia’s
“Crimes Against Nature” statute that outlaws sodomy between consenting
adults, gay or straight, is unconstitutional.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee “is seeking to tie former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) to other House Republicans, pushing them to say whether or not they back the House nominee’s campaign to return to Congress after his fall from grace,” The Hill reports.

“Sanford’s nomination puts the GOP in a bind — the party might need to help him win the race, but it needs to avoid being tainted by his past scandal. Many Republicans have privately groused that his nomination hurts the party’s image at a time they’re trying to rebrand.”

Many Republicans “privately concede” former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R), who easily won a runoff last night, could hand a safe Republican House seat to Elizabeth Colbert Busch (D), Politico reports.

“Fellow GOP pols don’t like him. Neither do female voters.His campaign is largely an exercise in seeking forgiveness for his transgressions four years ago — a defensive crouch that makes it tricky to take the fight to Colbert Busch, the sister of late-night comedian Stephen Colbert.”

Charleston Post and Courier:
“The political race many had anticipated would unfold in the 1st
Congressional District — the national comedian’s sister versus the
once-disgraced governor angling for a comeback — is finally here.”

It’s worth noting that Public Policy Polling, which nailed the runoff result, found Colbert Busch leading Sanford by two points.

“Well, you know, at the end of the day, Stephen Colbert’s a very popular, you know, well-regarded comedian, but at the end of the day he’s not on the ticket.”

— Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R), interviewed on Morning Joe, saying the only thing voters know about his opponent, Elizabeth Colbert Busch (D), is that she is the sister of the late-night comedian.