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AZ-Sen: George W. Bush, whom sources tell us is an uncle of Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, will headline a fundraising dinner for GOP Sen. Jeff Flake next month. Flake had an unimpressive $580,000 in the bank at the end of 2016, and he may face a tough primary after spending the last cycle criticizing Trump. Democrats are also hoping to target this seat.

IL-Gov: There's no shortage of Democrats thinking about challenging vulnerable Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, and venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker is the latest to take steps to do so. Pritzker, a billionaire who says he would self-fund any campaign, recently formed an exploratory committee. Rauner himself is incredibly rich and has already seeded his re-election campaign with $50 million of his own money, so a 2018 gubernatorial matchup with Pritzker could see a flood of spending.

Pritzker is the younger brother of former U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, who has previously been mentioned as a potential candidate, but never said anything about the race publicly herself. However, J.B. Pritzker's interest probably makes his sister's candidacy even less likely. Several other Democrats are already running, including Chicago Alderman Ameya Pawar, Madison County Regional Superintendent of Schools Bob Daiber, and wealthy businessman Chris Kennedy, whose father was the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

NJ-Gov: Quinnipiac's newest poll of the Garden State's 2017 governor's race gives Republicans some dire news. The pollster finds Democrat Phil Murphy wiping the floor with Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno by a 47-25 margin, with term-limited GOP Gov. Chris Christie's abysmal 17 percent approval rating almost certainly doing his lieutenant governor no favors. The situation appears little different from their January poll, where Murphy led 45-29.

The survey also contained matchups for the upcoming June 6 primary, but revealed that most candidates are still largely unknown. On the Democratic side, Murphy leads with 23 percent, followed by Assemblyman John Wisniewski at 6, and state Sen. Ray Lesniak and Clinton-era U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Jim Johnson at 4 each. Murphy, a wealthy former Goldman Sachs executive and ex-ambassador to Germany, has sown up much of the party establishment's support and has far more money available than his rivals, but he could be vulnerable if one (but probably only one) of his opponents catches fire. Among Republicans, Guadagno leads former 1980s Saturday Night Live cast member Joe Piscopo 28-18, while no other primary candidate earns more than 3 percent. Piscopo has been flirting with a bid for months but isn't running yet; the filing deadline is April 3.

Staten Island, NY Borough President: If you're anything like us, when you saw this header you immediately thought, "Which disgraced ex-Staten Island Republican House member is this about?" The answer is Mike Grimm, who was released from prison last April after serving most of his eight-month sentence for tax evasion. In response to a mysterious poll testing Grimm in a hypothetical GOP primary with Borough President James Oddo, Grimm only told the Staten Island Advance that he has "no comment other than, look a lot of people have asked me to run" this year.

An unnamed source reports that Grimm has met with Guy Molinari, who is a former congressman, borough president, and a Grimm mentor. Grimm reportedly is considering but not ready to run and "needs to be convinced." Molinari himself didn't deny meeting with Grimm, but insists he has no idea what he'll do.

Grimm had a short but eventful career in Congress. When reporter Michael Scotto asked the congressman about his alleged campaign finance violations in early 2014 just after the State of the Union, Grimm told Scotto that, "you ever do that to me again I'll throw you off this fucking balcony," and further told him, "I'll break you in half. Like a boy." Grimm probably didn't know the camera was still recording the entire confrontation, but that incident didn't stop him from decisively winning a third term that fall 55-42 while under indictment, even though national Republicans had abandoned him.

Grimm benefited from the GOP wave and from a Democratic opponent who came from outside of Staten Island and also made some embarrassing mistakes. But Grimm also argued that the federal government was persecuting him, a line that resonated in a place that's full of voters who, rightly or wrongly, view themselves as neglected by their city, local, and national governments.

P.S.: As for Staten Island's other disgraced ex-GOP House member, Vito Fossella currently hosts a pro-Trump TV show for the conservative site Newsmax. Fossella retired from the House in 2008 after his arrest for drunk driving led to revelations that he had a second family.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, and Stephen Wolf.

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Morning Digest: Progressives hope to give conservative House Democrat Dan Lipinski a tough primary - Daily Kos