Another data point from the latest Quinnipiac poll in Pennsylvania released this morning suggests Rep. Joe Sestak would fare better than incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter in a general election contest against Republican Pat Toomey. Eric Kleefeld has the details.

You might not have thought a Supreme Court nomination would have much to do with a Democratic primary in Pennsylvania. But the Kagan nomination has come at the worst possible time for Arlen Specter and could provide Sestak with the lever to pry him out of the Senate.

Under Obama, the federal government has actually resumed doing its regulatory work. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Blanche Lincoln’s plan to force banks to spin off their derivatives desks has garnered enemies all around in Washington. And it seems all but certain to get defanged or revised in some major way. But Lincoln’s been flogging it like crazy back home in Arkansas as an example of her populist cred. Indeed, it seems pretty likely that that’s the reason she — quite unexpectedly — came forward with such an uncharacteristically left-populist leaning proposal in the first place. But Senate Dems and the White House don’t want to trip her up in her primary on Tuesday. So it seems they’re delaying any changes until after the election is over.

The Daily Show has a pretty clever compendium of Glenn Beck’s obsession with comparing everything to Hitler or the Nazis. Watch.

Jonathan Tasini (D) becomes the latest would-be candidate to give way before the electoral leviathan Kirsten Gillibrand.

Progressives — and particularly retiring Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) keep bucking their Senate leadership on Finance Reform.

We’ve got a piece coming momentarily about some interesting developments in the Nevada Senate race. A series of different developments — not just ChickenGate, but an outbreak of the GOP civil war in the state — is making it seem like Harry Reid may really have a shot at keeping his seat in November. (Republicans have tended to see the Chicken/Barter nonsense as something Dems were pummeling Lowden with. And they were of course. But one of Lowden’s key primary opponents has also taken it up with a gusto — and seemingly to good effect.) To me Reid was looking firmly stuck in Dodd territory. But that could be changing. We’ll show you our report in a minute.

Yet another poll out today of the Pennsylvania Senate primary. And this one — from Suffolk — shows Sestak up by 9.

(Click TPM logo to see full sized graph.)

This one really may come down to whether the Democratic machine in the state can pull Arlen over the finish line.

Late Update: This is one reason why poll trend graphs are so fun (at least for political geeks). What you see in the graph is that the composite of all the polls shows that Specter’s support has been strikingly static. It’s almost an unbroken straight line going back to the Fall. No one’s come or gone. But starting in late February basically all the undecideds began to break in Sestak’s direction.

Find out why Harry Reid’s campaign for reelection seems to be off life support and making a race of it in Nevada.