Can Republicans actually pick up a seat in Congress this year? When Rep. Marty Meehan resigned to take over as chancellor of the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, he set up an open-seat race that has at least a few Washington Republicans taking note. Check out my piece on it here.

One correction: I write that a Democrat, Deval Patrick, sits in the state's governor's mansion. A reader points out that Massachusetts is one of the rare states that actually has no governor's mansion. Oops.