Backed by a larger caucus, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will stay on in the post for another two years. She will make the announcement at this hour. Nobody will challenge her for the Democratic leadership position.

It appears that former governor and Independent Angus King is the prohibitive favorite to win the open Maine Senate Seat. The big unanswered question doesn’t seem to be if King will win; it’s which party will he caucus with come January? King has remained adamant that he is a free agent open to potentially caucusing with either party.

David Dayen return from slumming in Yurp to bring us links on stories about Eric Schneiderman, David Viter, Federal Reserve, HAMP, Matt Taibbi, bin Laden, oil speculators, Spain, underwear bombs, labor participation rate, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Angus King and much more.

Things appear to be looking up for Senate Democrats. While this year will be inherently very tough for Senate Democrats — they have 23 seats to defend compared to the Republicans who have only 10 seats up this year — the Democrats recently received several pieces of good news. Earlier this year there seemed to be a very good chance Republicans could take over the chamber, but recently that has begun to seem a more remote possibility.

Some bad news out of Maine: Chellie Pingree, the progressive member of Congress who considered running for Senate after Olympia Snowe retired, backed out of the race today. The presence of independent former Governor Angus King in the race was enough to get her to drop her plans. That leaves progressive-leaning Dems without a candidate in a state they might have won.