TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

OPEN PRIMARIES

• Senate votes down open primaries (Associated Press, Chicago Tribune)
  
• Primary election changes defeated (By Dan Carden | Daily Herald)
  
• Illinois’ primary voters must continue to declare their party (By Kevin McDermott, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Springfield Bureau)
  
• Senate rejects open primaries (Galesburg.com)
  
• Under the tarnish, still golden (From The Economist print edition) California open primaries
  

STATE INDEPENDENT POLITICS

Q Poll: Dodd Would Lose To Simmons (By DANIELA ALTIMARI | The Hartford Courant) In a Dodd-Simmons matchup, Democrats back Dodd by only 58 percent to 27 percent while Simmons leads 87 percent to 6 percent among Republicans and 56 percent to 25 percent among independent voters.

NYC 2009

• Grocery Workers to Back Bloomberg, Slighting Democratic Rival (By MICHAEL BARBARO, NY Times)
  
• Pols, Press Party with Sharpton and His Corrupt Network (By Wayne Barrett, Village Voice/Runnin Scared [Wayne Barrett's blog])
  
• Staten Island GOP Poised To Back '$150 Million Gorilla' (Elizabeth Benjamin, Daily News/Daily Politics) GOP dinner Thurs. nite at Grand Hyatt
  
• Bloomberg A 'Sharpton Fan' (Elizabeth Benjamin, Daily News/Daily Politics)
  
• New York, NY - Mayor Bloomberg A ‘Sharpton Fan' (Jewkey! NOTE: Jewkey! is a highly popular, rapidly-growing orthodox site that meets the demanding media needs of the Orthodox Jewish communities across the world.] Mentions Fulani
  
• Tonight: Rivera Endorses Thompson, Bloomberg Dines With NY Republicans and Romney (By AZI PAYBARAH, NY Politicker)
  
• Bloomberg to Dine With Manhattan G.O.P. (By AZI PAYBARAH, NY Politicker)
  
• The Death of the New York City Democrat (By JASON HOROWITZ, NY Politicker)
  

NY-20

• The NY-20 Absentee Ballots: A Potential Tie? (By Eric Kleefeld, TPMDC) If we hazard a few guesses -- that Murphy got nearly all the Democrats, Tedisco got a large but slightly smaller share of Republicans, and Murphy took the unaffiliated voters by the kind of strong margins that Democrats have been pulling off recently here -- we can come to a rough estimate.
  
• In N.Y. 20, Final Tally Waits But The Spin is In (By Emily Cadei, CQ Politics) But Republican voters do not necessarily translate into Tedisco voters. Republicans enjoy a 70,000 voter-registration advantage in the district, yet the race as it stands now is a virtual tie. And independent voters, which have swung Democrat in recent years, make up a quarter of registered voters and no doubt a significant portion of absentee voters, as well.