Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren avoided a primary challenge on Saturday, winning the endorsement of the state Democratic Party by reaping an overwhelming percentage of the vote and delivering a feisty retort to her rival, GOP Sen. Scott Brown.

Immigration lawyer Marisa DeFranco had hoped to earn a spot on the ballot by getting at least 15 percent of the vote. But Patrick and her supporters lobbied intensively, persuading delegates that they needed to avoid a distraction in taking on Brown. The delegates ended up giving Warren nearly 96 percent of the vote; party officials said no candidate in the last 30 years had ever achieved the 86-percent figure that was needed to clear the field.

"Elizabeth Warren made history today because of the strength of her impressive grassroots organization and her record as a tireless advocate for middle-class families throughout Massachusetts," Massachusetts Democratic Party Chair John Walsh said in a statement. "Never before have Massachusetts Democrats rallied around a candidate with such passion and determination. We think that Elizabeth is the candidate who can beat Scott Brown and we know that she will be a senator who will make Massachusetts families proud."

After the vote, Warren delivered a speech in which she assured the crowd she is prepared to deal with the controversy over whether she unfairly claimed Native American ancestry, a gaffe that has led some to question whether the first-time candidate is prepared to unseat a well-funded incumbent.

"If that's all you've got, Scott Brown, I'm ready," she declared to cheers. "And let me be clear: I am not backing down. I didn't get in this race to fold up the first time I got punched."

A Boston Globe poll, published Saturday and conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, shows Brown leading Warren, 39 percent to 37 percent, with a quarter of voters saying they are undecided or prefer another candidate. Brown's lead is not statistically significant; the poll's margin of error is plus-or-minus 3.8 percentage points. The poll was conducted mostly before Warren admitted she told past academic employers she was a Native American.

Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., remains in a statistical dead heat with his almost-certain, embattled Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren, according to a new Boston Globe poll conducted mostly before Warren admitted she told past academic employers she was a Native American.

The poll, appearing in the Globe's Saturday editions and conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, shows Brown leading Warren, 39 percent to 37 percent, with a quarter of voters saying they are undecided or prefer another candidate. Brown's lead is not statistically significant; the poll's margin of error is plus-or-minus 3.8 percentage points.

Brown wins more than four-in-five Republicans, while Warren captures fewer than two-thirds of registered Democrats. Independents, who outnumber Democrats and Republicans (though not the two parties combined) tilt heavily to Brown, 48 percent to 25 percent.

Overall, just 55 percent of likely voters say they have definitely decided for whom they will vote, while 14 percent are leaning toward a candidate and 32 percent say they are still trying to decide.

In the previous Boston Globe poll, conducted in late March, Brown led Warren by an identical, two-point margin, 37 percent to 35 percent.

But while Warren remains neck-and-neck with Brown, the campaign -- along with the ongoing scandal surrounding whether Warren improperly claimed Native American heritage to advance her academic career -- has taken its toll on the Democrat and former consumer advocate. In the March poll, the percentage of likely voters who had a favorable opinion of Warren (47 percent) outnumbered the percentage with an unfavorable opinion (23 percent) more than two-to-one. That gap has narrowed over the past two months: Now, 48 percent have a favorable opinion of Warren, and 32 percent have an unfavorable opinion.

-- Two pivotal downballot elections are taking place in the next two weeks that will shed substantial light on the political state of play this year. Next Tuesday, Wisconsin voters will decide whether to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who implemented controversial budget reforms that also curtailed the influence of unions. On June 12, Democrats will be attempting to hold the Arizona House seat of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in a special election where entitlements have been a leading issue.

Special elections and recalls don't always predict the outcome of future elections. But given that President Obama needs to make his Republican opponent look extreme (like Ron Barber campaign's strategy against Jesse Kelly) and portray him as insensitive to the needs of the working-class (like Tom Barrett's message against Walker), there's a lot at stake.

-- Timing is everything. The Romney campaign's secretive decision to hold a press conference to attack Obama on Solyndra was the mark of a shrewd Romney advance team. The problem: Not many people heard the speech, thanks to cable news wall-to-wall coverage of both the unveiling of the Bushes' White House portraits and the John Edwards verdict. Sure, the Romney campaign couldn't have predicted that the jury would steal the media's attention, and may not have known the precise timing of the White House event. But while Romney was speaking in front of Solyndra, all three cable networks were broadcasting live from the White House where George W. Bush and his wife were having a blast with the Obamas in an East Room ceremony. The event, a rare moment of bipartisan camaraderie, was first announced on May 18. Making matters worse, the Edwards news broke shortly thereafter, making only political junkies aware of the campaign hijinks.

-- Elizabeth Warren faced yet another week of negative headlines surrounding her claim to Native American heritage. It prompted her to do damage control with supporters and she acknowledged publicly that she is worried about the oversize role the issue is playing in the race. That's the core of her problem. Polling shows the flap itself isn't an issue that moves many voters. But every day she spends talking about it is a day she is not talking about jobs of Sen. Scott Brown's record. And in a race where likeability will play an major role, headline after headline forcing the drafting of a new press release or quote on a distracting subject is the last thing Warren needs.

-- Good cases can be made as to why both David Dewhurst and Ted Cruz have the advantage going into their July 31 Senate runoff. Cruz advocates point out he had the late momentum among Election Day voters - a momentum that he has two full months to build upon, while rallying national conservative groups and money to his cause. Many also argue that the diminished turnout in the runoff will mean a more conservative electorate, also to Cruz's advantage.

There are also powerful precedents pointing to Dewhurst's advantage, even discounting the historic (and possibly irrelevant) poor track record of Hispanic candidates in statewide Texas GOP primaries. Dewhurst's 44.6 percent finish in the primary gives him a significant head start, and he seems a more likely second choice than Cruz for the 17 percent who originally cast ballots for Tom Leppert or Craig James. Moreover, the money advantage will almost certainly remain with Dewhurst and his allies. And while tea party candidates have had their share of victories, most have been against Washington incumbents and/or moderate or damaged candidates in smaller states, none of which is exactly analogous to Dewhurst's situation.

-- How not to handle a "birther" question as a GOP Senate candidate in a not-so-red-state: The way Pete Hoekstra did it this week, causing an uproar with his suggestion of creating a government office to verify the citizenship of presidential candidates and then escalating the drama by rambling about it further on CNN. How to handle it like a pro: The way Dean Heller did -- Heller introduced Donald Trump at a Romney fundraiser earlier this week, attracting criticism from Democrats for praising the businessman. But Heller simply said that he doesn't agree with Trump's statements that Obama wasn't born in Hawaii.

True, Heller doesn't have a conservative primary challenger to contend with, like Hoekstra does, but wading into the birther issue still feels like another unforced error by his campaign.

The May jobs report will be a feature topic of conversation on this week
Sunday shows, as Democratic and Republican governors as well as strategists at the presidential level debate how to interpret them.

Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich and Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick will be talking jobs and the economy on Meet the Press while Moody's Mark Zandi and Virginia Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell will be tackling the same topics on CNN's State of the Union.

On Face the Nation, Obama senior adviser David Axelrod and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus will talk about what this week's jobs report means for the 2012 race while Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and former Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell join a panel dedicated to discussing the 2012 election. Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter and Mitt Romney's senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom will talk about how the campaigns are responding to the week's news. Former White House auto czar Steve Rattner and Romney adviser Ed Gillespie are on Fox News Sunday also to discuss the impact of the jobs report.

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., will be on State of the Union to talk about the Senate's agenda and bipartisanship.

Check out the full listings after the jump.

Stumping for Democrat Tom Barrett in Milwaukee on Friday morning, former President Bill Clinton framed the Wisconsin recall election as an urgent occasion to move beyond political divisiveness and toward increased cooperation.

"Cooperation works; constant conflict is a dead bang loser and you need to get rid of it," Clinton said at a rally at Pere Marquette Park, in Wisconsin's largest city.

The most recent polling shows Barrett trailing Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Sensing the need to boost turnout in the final days of the campaign, Democrats turned to the popular former president on Friday. Clinton twice carried the state in the 1990s.

Speaking before Clinton, Barrett, sporting a Milwaukee Brewers jacket, blasted Walker as a divisive figure who has championed the rich at the expense of everyone else.

"We have a governor who has done a wonderful job making the wealthiest people the happiest people," Barrett said. "My concern is for the middle class of this state and the people who want to join the middle class."

Praising Barrett as the best steward on education, the budget, and job creation, Clinton repeatedly implored voters to turn out for the mayor, saying they need to vote for him if they "believe in an economy of shared prosperity when times are good and shared sacrifice when they are not."

Clinton is the highest-profile Democrat to campaign on the ground with Barrett. President Obama has kept the recall fight at arm's length, and hasn't made a stretch-run appearance for the Democratic nominee.

The recall election, sparked by Walker's controversial 2011 budget control measure which curbed collective bargaining for public employees, will reach its conclusion on Tuesday. Millions of dollars have been spent on the race, mostly by Walker and his GOP allies.

The former president acknowledged that while he hasn't always been a fan of recalls, the stakes are higher than ever in Wisconsin.

"Ordinarily, I am against recall elections," he said, citing his opposition to a 2003 recall effort in California. "But sometimes it is the only way to avoid a disastrous course."

Walker spent the morning in Appleton, where he visited a manufacturing company. This afternoon, he will campaign with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in Sussex.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the last time monthly unemployment rose. It was June, 2011.

The unemployment rate rose a tenth of a percent to 8.2 percent in May, reversing a nearly yearlong downward trend, a bad sign for President Obama whose reelection rests on the state of the economy.

The economy picked up only 69,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department reported on Friday, well below even the lowest expectations. Economists polled by Bloomberg expected jobs growth of 150,000 and the unemployment rate to remain at 8.1 percent, a three-year low.

The last time monthly unemployment rose was June, 2011.  Job growth in March and April was also revised downward. Over the last two years, the Labor Department has revised monthly jobs growth up 34 times and down 12 times.

The poor jobs report comes a day after a trio of lackluster economic data.

Welcome back to Hotline Sort. The latest economic numbers are very weak, Barrett sticks to the John Doe attack in the final Wisconsin recall debate, Bill Clinton says Democrats should not be criticizing Romney's Bain work, Steve Rothman makes a big closing pitch in New Jersey and Jerry Brown is not worried about a pay cut. Here's today's rundown:

11) The United States economy gained a net 69,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate ticked upward to 8.2 percent, the Labor Department said Friday. The New York Times called it "a dismal showing that reflected mounting fears of a global slowdown."

It's very bad news for the Obama re-election campaign, which has been touting the president's job creation numbers lately, to contrast its record with Mitt Romney's Massachusetts record.

10) California Gov. Jerry Brown is not worried about a nearly $9,000 cut in his salary. "I derive a lot of psychic income," he told the Sacramento Bee.

9) A federal judge left most of Florida's 2011 voter ID that Republicans favor intact, but banned a rule forcing third-party voter registration groups to turn in completed forms within 48 hours or risk fines, the New York Times reports.

8) The DCCC is out with a tough new attack ad in the Arizona special election for the seat of former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. It features a Tucson resident accusing Republican Jesse Kelly for wanting to take away his Medicare. The battle over entitlements has been a central theme in the campaign.

7) Rep. Steve Rothman is pulling out all the stops during the stretch run of his member-versus-member race against Rep. Bill Pascrell in the 9th District Democratic primary, launching an expensive negative TV ad against Pascrell in the NYC market.

6) Even though Maine Treasurer Bruce Poliquin is out with a mailer showing him with Gov. Paul LePage, LePage says he is not endorsing ahead of the June 12 Senate primary.

Jon Stewart rants against Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed 32 oz. soda ban while Colbert critiques President Obama's "secret hit list."

Today's Must See Moment -- Fast forward to 1:52 to hear why it's New York mayors' fault that New York City residents are fat.

"I don't know about you, but I love Celtics playoff basketball."

The statement, hardly controversial in Massachusetts, kicks off Sen. Scott Brown's new radio ad. While it references the hometown NBA team, current playing in the Eastern Conference Finals, the commercial doesn't mention anything about politics.

"When I was younger, we had Bird, McHale, Parish running up and down the court - the Big Three," says Brown in the ad. "Today Doc Rivers is leading a new cast of exciting players."

He continues for a full minute about the current team and concludes, "Go Celtics."

But running a campaign ad that doesn't broach politics, policy, or his life story in any way is not out of the ordinary for Brown. He has previously run a radio ad on Fenway and a separate one on the Red Sox. He's also released radio ads - both a bit more political -- on St. Patricks Day and Memorial Day (a la the presidential campaigns).

What's the point of Brown running these radio ads? The answer may lie in something Reid Wilson pointed out last week: it's all about favorability in the Massachusetts Senate race.

From Reid's piece:

If the race does hinge on popularity, Brown could do worse than having voters associate him with the Sox, Celtics, and holidays.

Connecticut state House Speaker Chris Donovan's finance director, Robert Braddock Jr., was arrested Wednesday night on federal charges of conspiring to launder campaign contributions, according to a report in the Hartford Courant.

Donovan is running for the Democratic nomination in Connecticut's 5th Congressional District, where Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy is running for Senate. The Courant has details of the case against Braddock:

National Journal's political Insiders varied on how detrimental the Iranian threat would be to President Obama's re-election prospects.

Among Democrats, about two thirds said it was not a detriment at all, three out of ten said it would be somewhat of a detriment, and only a handful believed it was a major detriment. Among Republicans, roughly half assessed it would be somewhat of a detriment, while a third said it was not harmful and a small 14 percent said it was a major detriment.

Paul Kane wrote a must-read story in today's Washington Post on the just-completed Texas primaries, concluding that Hispanic voters aren't taking advantage of their numbers to elect their own to Congress. It's something we noted in last week's magazine, and offers a warning sign for the president's re-election team too, which is reliant on high levels of Hispanic turnout in the November general election to win states like Florida, Nevada, and Colorado.

Tuesday's election results in Texas illustrated why the increase in Hispanic population isn't translating -- at least not yet -- into increased representation. Latino growth fueled the state's overall population growth, allowing the Lone Star State to gain four House seats during reapportionment - the most in the country. Two-thirds of that growth came from the Hispanic population. But while 38 percent of voters are Hispanic, it's likely that only six of the state's 36 House representatives (14 percent) will be Latino in 2013. That would be a lower rate of representation for Hispanics than in the state's current delegation, despite expectations that 2012 would be a watershed year for Hispanic candidates.

In the primary, Hispanic candidates suffered a trifecta of stinging defeats, thanks to low levels of Latino participation in the Democratic primaries. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the influential former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was upset by Beto O'Rourke, an upstart, white former El Paso city councilor. Reyes' loss makes it more likely that the number of Hispanics in the state's delegation will remain at six, counteracting the gain from the newly created TX-34 Gulf Coast seat, where attorney Filemon Vela is the favorite after a strong showing in the initial primary.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, running in the newly-drawn majority-Hispanic 35th District around Austin and San Antonio, handily defeated Bexar County tax collector Sylvia Romo. She lacked the resources of the incumbent, but hoped to mount a more competitive campaign by appealing to voters along ethnic lines - in a district where 60 percent of the voting population is Hispanic. Instead, she lost in a landslide, 73 to 21 percent.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's campaign released a poll on Thursday showing the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall to be a dead heat. The release is the latest effort from Barrett and his allies to rebuke public polling showing Walker with a small lead.

The latest Barrett internal survey, which was conducted by the Democratic firm Garin-Hart-Yang, shows Walker leading Barrett 50 percent to 48 percent. It's the fifth survey released by Democrats in the last week with Barrett within the margin of error of the governor.

These polls stand in contrast to a Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday that had Walker leading Barrett 52 percent to 45 percent.

The Marquette poll was conducted before Memorial Day weekend. The latest Barrett internal survey was conducted after the holiday.

With less than a week before the recall election, Democrats are fighting a growing sense that Walker has a slight advantage heading into the final weekend of the campaign.

The Barrett internal surveyed 821 likely voters on Tuesday and Wednesday. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percent.

Republicans are cautiously optimistic Mitt Romney, propelled by disappointment in President Obama's handling of the economy, won't hemorrhage support among Hispanics, according to the National Journal Political Insiders poll. But Democratic insiders are nearly all of a like mind: The GOP's presidential nominee is going to struggle with Latino voters on Election Day, a deficit they think could hand Obama a second term in the White House.

The insiders were asked whether Romney could match level of support Republican congressional candidates received from Hispanic voters in the 2010 mid-term election, when Republicans won 38 percent of their vote. The percentage was actually a marked improvement from the share John McCain received in the community during his 2008 run for president, when the then-Republican presidential hopeful drew only 31 percent of the Latino vote.

Former President Bill Clinton will appear at a rally for Tom Barrett in Wisconsin on Friday, a Democratic source confirms to Hotline On Call.

Washington Post liberal blogger Greg Sargent reports Wisconsin Democrats lobbied Clinton to come to the state for weeks, and as recently as this week, he remained undecided about whether to make the trip.

Clinton's appearance will give Barrett's underdog recall campaign for governor a much-needed boost headed into the final weekend of campaigning against Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who has a small lead over the Democrat, according to the most recent polling.

A new poll in the Washington State governor's race, conducted by the Seattle-based public affairs firm Strategies 360 and released on Thursday, shows Republican state Attorney General Rob McKenna leading former Democratic Rep. Jay Inslee by a statistically-insignificant margin of 4 points.

McKenna leads Inslee, 43 percent to 39 percent, according to the poll, which has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.4 percentage points. Three percent of likely voters prefer another candidate, and 15 percent are undecided. The race is little changed from a previous poll from the firm, conducted last September, that showed McKenna leading Inslee by 7 points.

Strategies 360 employs both Democrats and Republicans. The head of Strategies 360 ran Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell's 2000 campaign.

Democrats favor Inslee in the poll, 79 percent to 7 percent, while McKenna leads among Republicans, 85 percent to 6 percent. Among independents, McKenna leads, 43 percent to 21 percent, though 35 percent of independents said they favored another candidate or were undecided.

Inslee leads McKenna in King County, which includes Seattle and its suburbs, and also in the areas around the Puget Sound that Inslee represented in Congress. But McKenna sports big leads in the rest of Western Washington, in addition to the traditional Republican territories east of the Cascades.

If you're both a sports fan and a politics junkie, you've probably noticed the many similarities between the two domains. Here's another: The team that is constantly chiding the referees is typically also losing the game.

In Wisconsin, the Democratic side has been actively working the refs. During the last two weeks, Democrats have spent time casting doubt on a nonpartisan survey and rebuking a media outlet's endorsement of Gov. Scott Walker. This says a lot about the scoreboard in the recall campaign.

On Wednesday, Tom Barrett's campaign raised doubts about the latest Marquette Law School poll that showed Walker leading by seven points, in light of Democratic surveys released last week each showing a pure tossup.

The Marquette poll is an outlier, argued Team Barrett. "The MU poll predicts the electorate to resemble 2010, which is reflected by its undersampling of younger voters, and an oversampling of some of the reddest counties in the state," said Barrett spokesman Phil Walzak.

Ironically, the Barrett campaign pointed to a Democratic poll which surveyed even fewer young voters as a more accurate indicator.

The Sunday before last, following the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's endorsement of Walker, the state Democratic Party issued a scathing 371-word press release that not only excoriated Walker, but also took a shot at the paper.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine's Senate campaign has reserved $2.5 million worth of fall TV ad time, his campaign announced on Thursday, bringing the total Democratic fall ad buy commitment to nearly $10 million already.

"We continue to be encouraged by the strong grassroots enthusiasm for Governor Kaine. It is this generous support and a smart management of resources that has allowed us to make an early investment for the fall," said Kaine spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has already reserved in $7.4 million for fall ads in the commonwealth. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has reserved $5.5 million worth of ad time. Reservations made this far in advance are subject to change.

Kaine's campaign also announced on Thursday that he raised over $1.2 million in the pre-primary period of the second quarter. The Virginia primary is on June 12. Overall, Kaine's fundraising has so far outpaced that of his likely Republican opponent, former Sen. George Allen.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert highlighted Mitt Romney's latest head scratching controversies. Stewart found the absurdity in Donald Trump's birther stance and Romney's decision to campaign with him. And Colbert made sure that everyone knows that Romney wants to not only be the president of America, but also of Amercia.

Today's Must See Moment -- Fast forward to 4:11 to hear a rendition of Amercia's national anthem.

Welcome back to Hotline Sort. Warren admits listing herself as a Native-American at Harvard and UPenn, Crossroads hits Claire McCaskill on health care, Michael Bloomberg plans to crack down on large sugary drinks, and guess which Senate races fall into Mitch McConnell's top tier of GOP pickup opportunities. Here's today's rundown:

10) If you haven't yet seen this impassioned rant from Illinois state Rep. Mike Bost, you really should.

9) Monday's Fox & Friends included a controversial four-minute segment that resembled a negative ad against President Obama. In a statement, Fox News Vice President of Programming Bill Shine said, "The package that aired on Fox & Friends was created by an associate producer and was not authorized at the senior executive level of the network. This has been addressed with the show's producers." Co-host Steve Doocy said the video took weeks to produce and the segment ran twice during the show, which seems to indicate more people at the network might have been aware of it. Fox News removed the video from their website but it is still available to watch on YouTube here

The liberal media watchdog Media Matters estimates the four-minute spot on the cable news show would be the equivalent of a $96,000 paid advertisement.

8) In an effort to combat obesity, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration plans a ban on large sugary drinks at restaurants, movie theaters and street carts, the New York Times reports.

7) Over the next few days, National Journal is taking a look at California's upcoming House primaries, and how the combination of redistricting reform and the new all-party primary has upended the usual calculus in the Golden State. There's no better example than California's 26th District, which got newly Democratic-leaning but may not even have a Democrat in the general election, if independent Linda Parks can finish in the primary's top two behind the lone Republican in the race. Parks has obvious appeal at a time when voters profess disgust with both parties. The question is whether she can actually turn out independent voters for the primary, and whether she can overcome a serious financial disadvantage -- Parks is running her campaign out of her house right now.

6) Expect to hear more from Mitt Romney's team about this Wall Street Journal story on the Obama administration awarding $1 billion to companies to make batteries for electric cars. The most important line in the story: "Halfway to a six-year goal of producing one million electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, auto makers are barely at 50,000 cars."

5) Romney, meanwhile, was endorsed by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday. Foreign policy is back in the news this week, and the NYT is out with a front page story today about the tough spot the situation in Syria has put the administration in.

4) Keep an eye on outside money in two key Republican Senate primaries, as underdogs Ted Cruz and Dan Liljenquist try to pull off upsets in the Texas and Utah Senate races. Joe Ricketts, whose super PAC helped propel Deb Fischer to victory in Nebraska, is considering getting involved in Utah and Texas.

Liljenquist, in particular, could use an infusion of outside money, given his cash disparity with Sen. Orrin Hatch.