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In less than a week's time, Democrats in South Dakota went from debating which of their top-tier candidates would run for retiring Sen. Tim Johnson's seat to wondering whether they'll be competitive at all.

Fewer than two months since the Republican National Committee unveiled a series of five recommendations to address inaccurate poll numbers collected during the 2012 election cycle, the RNC is inviting the party's pollsters to their headquarters on Capitol Hill next week.

If you're between the ages of 18 and 24, chances are you registered to vote when you visited the Department of Motor Vehicles. If you're over the age of 65, you probably registered to vote at some other government office.

Those are the findings of a new Census Bureau survey that asked Americans how they registered to vote. As it turns out, younger voters are much more likely to register when they get a driver's license, at their school or university campus, or online.

Contrary to popular belief, which suggests same-day voter registration overwhelmingly helps younger voters -- particularly college students -- sign up to cast a ballot, it turns out that a higher percentage of seniors register on Election Day than younger voters. More than seven percent of voters over the age of 65 said they had registered on Election Day, compared with 5.3 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 24.



Midwesterners are the most likely to have registered to cast a ballot on Election Day. Three of the eight states that allow same-day registration -- Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin -- are in the Midwest, where almost 14 percent of voters said they took advantage of those late registration laws. Less than 5 percent of voters in the Northeast, South or West registered on Election Day.

The Census data show that registering at the DMV is by far the most common way we sign up to vote; nearly a quarter of all voters said they had registered while getting a license, a function of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. That law, commonly known as the Motor Voter Act, requires states to make voter registration forms available at the DMV.

The data also show that white voters are two and a half times more likely to register at a county or government office than Asian or Hispanic Americans, while those minority groups tend to register most by mailing in a form.

Seventeen states and the District of Columbia allow voters to register entirely online, though that practice is still catching on slowly, according to the Census data. About 5 percent of those between 18 and 44 years old have registered online, and those who have lived in their present home for less than two years are more than three times as likely to have signed up to vote on a computer than those who have lived in a home for longer than three years (Not surprising, given that online registration is still relatively new). Westerners are twice as likely to have registered online as residents of any other region; Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, new Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington are among the 17 states that allow voters to register online, and Hawaii will soon implement online registration.

Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga., will not run for retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss's seat in 2014, he announced in a press release this afternoon.

My, how things have changed. Tonight’s special election between Mark Sanford and Elizabeth Colbert Busch is a pure toss-up, and it’s not just the campaign’s competitiveness that’s unexpected. It’s that despite the district's heavy Republican lean, Democrats somehow have more to lose.

The Ohio tea party's fracturing of the state GOP could be a serious worry, we noted last Friday, if the harsh rhetoric is followed by real action. Today, a report in the Columbus Dispatch shows just how bad things have gotten in the Buckeye State.

Iowa Rep. Steve King won't be running for Senate, he announced in a tweet Friday night. The conservative firebrand had frozen the GOP field, as his entry into the race would have made him the favorite for the nomination.

This week the Sunday shows are focusing on Syria and the continuing investigation on the Boston Marathon Bombing. The specter of immigration reform will also have a role in the programming.

Ask an Ohio Democrat about Gov. John Kasich and you'll likely hear him described as a partisan bully who caters to the extreme wing of his party with legislation that punishes the middle class. Ask a member of the Tea Party and you'll probably hear a different story. Kasich, say some conservative activists, has joined the ranks of a GOP establishment that has given up on its principles and embraced a cowardly centrism.

The first post-primary poll in next month's Massachusetts Senate special election was released Thursday, but while the survey carried the name of a prominent Boston university, it wasn't conducted by the school or its faculty. The automated poll was conducted by a newly-reinstated student group on campus.

The Colorado state Senate on Thursday passed legislation requiring the state to conduct its elections entirely by absentee ballot. The party-line vote, and Gov. John Hickenlooper's likely signature, means Colorado will become the third state, alongside Washington and Oregon, to hold elections entirely by mail.

If former Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin runs in South Dakota's open-seat Senate race, she'll no doubt have to fend off attacks about her time at a Washington lobbying firm. Following her 2010 reelection defeat, the Democrat joined Olsson Frank Weeda Terman Matz PC, before returning to South Dakota in May 2012 to work for Raven Industries. The National Republican Senatorial Committee isn't holding its attacks until she joins the race, noting her past work on K St. as part of a new Web video.

The Tea Party Leadership Fund wants Sarah Palin to run for Senate in Alaska. And if it raises a little money for itself in the meantime? Well, that would be just fine.

Georgia state Rep. Scott Holcomb says he is considering running for his state's open Senate seat in 2014, even as the Peach State's Democratic Party brass tries to narrow down the field to a single candidate.

North Carolina voters can begin gearing up for a special election, as news leaked Wednesday that President Obama will nominate Democratic Rep. Melvin Watt to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency.