Washington Commish Larry Maggi announced his bid for Congress. He’s the strongest Dem challenger yet to Murphy, but his best shot is if Murphy loses the GOP primary.

Early Returns posted an internal poll from the Altmire campaign that showed him leading Rep. Mark Critz by 16 points. Altmire would recieve 50% and Critz would get 34% of the vote. That support comes from Altmire’s current congressional district as well as Westmoreland County which is mostly represented by Rep. Critz for the moment.

Bucks County’s Kathryn Boockvar, candidate for the 8th District seat held by Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, has achieved top-recruit status by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Democrat Missa Eaton has jumped into the race against freshman Rep. Mike Kelly. The assistant professor of psychology at Penn State Shenango has been considering a bid for a few weeks, and made it official Thursday morning.

John Feehery, who worked for top Republican House leadership for fifteen years, wrote an op-ed in The Hill in which he stated that he believes that Club for Growth’s actions could lead to the loss of seats in the U.S. House and Senate. Some of their latest ads have targeted Congressman Tim Murphy, the Republican from the 18th congressional district.

Score one for the techies. Rep. Tim Holden, one of 30 co-sponsors of the Stop Online Piracy Act, has withdrawn his co-sponsorship in the face of public outcry.