Wil Cardon's likely reaction to today's poll.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Wil Cardon's trailing fellow Republican Jeff Flake by 22 points in the latest poll of the primary race for the seat being opened by Senator Jon Kyl, and believe it or not, that's good news for Cardon.

After getting four percent of support in a poll in November, to 7 percent in February, Cardon now has 20 percent of support from people who answered the phone call from Public Policy Polling last week.

Flake's still up big, though, leading Cardon 42-20.

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Tempe Mayor-elect Mark Mitchell

Mark Mitchell's going to be the new Tempe mayor.

According to the unofficial results, Mitchell beat Michael Monti by 139 votes, and the City of Tempe put out an announcement declaring Mitchell as the winner.

Election officials still haven't finished counting write-in votes or the three votes cast by people who didn't bring ID to the polls, but neither of those is enough to change the outcome or force a recount.

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In what's sort of a running joke since then-congressional candidate Ben Quayle released his goober-ish campaign ad saying "Barack Obama is the worst president in history," Quayle has an update on his stance.

Quayle actually had to defend the video ad after people got a little pissy about it, but he thought it was a slogan so nice, he said it twice.

Since Quayle has a primary election coming up against fellow Republican David Schweikert, Quayle's back to talking about how awful he thinks the president is, this time on the subject of same-sex marriage.

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slashfilm.com

Slimer, the real leader in the Tempe mayoral race.

The relentless attacks on Mark Mitchell seem to have worked out in Michael Monti's favor in the race for Tempe mayor, as Monti was up by one point after people hit the ballot box yesterday.

There still are some votes left to count -- provisional ballots and people who brought their early-voting ballots with them to the polls -- but Monti's lead was 222 votes, according to the latest tally sent out by the city at 8:26 p.m. Tuesday.

Since Mitchell got more votes than Monti in the March primary, one would expect that the slime was a factor in this round of voting.

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Our colleague Monica Alonzo reported late last week that Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu's dropping his congressional bid, which might not exactly come as a surprise.

What may come as a surprise is his explanation why he's dropping out of the race, which happens to exclude anything about the abuse-of-power allegations from his Mexican ex-boyfriend, the allegations stemming from his time atop a Massachusetts school for troubled teens, his dismal poll numbers and fundraising dip, as well as everything else on the laundry list.

Instead, Babeu's announcement was that he just has to be sheriff again.

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Mark Mitchell

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery -- who's publicly endorsed Tempe mayoral candidate Michael Monti -- transferred the case involving allegations against Monti's opponent, Tempe Councilman Mark Mitchell, to Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk.

The case, as we wrote about yesterday, involves a woman claims Mitchell engaged in some sexual activities with her when she was a kid, and Mitchell was 13 or 14 years old.

The woman contends these incidents occurred in 1983, and she just recently brought this up to the cops.

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Mark Mitchell

This week, folks not too fond of Tempe mayoral candidate Mark Mitchell have been pushing a report from the Phoenix Police Department, in which a woman claims Mitchell engaged in some sexual activities with her when she was a kid, and Mitchell was 13 or 14 years old.

As we mentioned yesterday, the woman contends these incidents occurred in 1983, and just recently brought this up to the cops.

According to the police report, the woman "expressed that this has been eating at her for years and it has gotten worse lately due to the public exposure of Mitchell at this time as he is a current Tempe City Councilman who is a mayoral candidate for the City of Tempe."

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Mark Mitchell

There are people out there who really, really don't want Mark Mitchell to be the next mayor of Tempe.

Recently, his opponent, Michael Monti, pulled out a police report involving an incident Mitchell was involved in with the cops in 1993 on Mill Avenue, when Mitchell was 24 years old.

Mitchell said Monti was "really hitting the bottom of the barrel" on that one, but another police report released Tuesday afternoon by Mitchell opponents claiming sexual conduct with a minor goes well beyond releasing information about Mitchell acting a little dumb on Mill Avenue.

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vernonparker.com

George H.W. Bush would like you to vote for this gentleman, Vernon Parker.

Congressional candidate Vernon Parker, who once kind of ran for governor for a bit, now has the stamp of approval from his ex-boss, former President George H.W. Bush.

Parker's among the approximate truckload of candidates running for Congress in the newly formed Ninth Congressional District, which just had another addition -- Scottsdale Councilwoman Lisa Borowsky.

Endorsements don't come from much higher up than a former president, even if he was only around for one term.

Parker, a former aide to Bush, seems pretty excited about his new endorsement.

"President Bush epitomizes all that I aspire to be as an American, a public servant, and as this new district's first Member of Congress," Parker says in a statement. "President Bush is a statesman whose legacy will loom large."

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Mike Stauffer

If about two-thirds of the signatures Mike Stauffer hands over to the county elections office tomorrow are legit, he'll be on the ballot for Maricopa County Sheriff come November.

Stauffer, a Scottsdale police lieutenant, is running as an Independent, which -- as the Feathered Bastard previously pointed out -- requires 19,410 nominating signatures to get on the ballot, far more than is required of the major parties' candidates.

The Stauffer campaign announced today that it's turning in more than 29,500 signatures tomorrow, well above the threshold, which the campaign claimed to have passed in mid-March.

Assuming Mickey Mouse, Winston Churchill, and other non-voters account for less than one-third of the signatures, Stauffer will earn a place on the general-election ballot between Democrat Paul Penzone and Republican Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

That may not be a nail-biting issue, since when the Stauffer campaign announced that it had passed 20,000, Stauffer campaign manager West Kenyon told the Bird that all the signatures they had collected at that point had been verified as qualified Maricopa County voters.

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