Last week, we solicited your nominations for a wild card contender, to take take on the winner of Congressional Catfight: Harris vs. Pelosi (polls closing soon; to vote, click here). You submitted lots of excellent nominations, by email and by comment, and we winnowed the field to five contenders.

Here’s the poll:

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You may already know which one of these folks you’d like to vote for. But if you’re undecided and in need of more information, excerpts from nomination squibs appear after the jump.

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This was going to be the final round of Congressional Catfight, until we acceded to your pleas and agreed to throw a wild card into the mix. But it’s still a very important battle — an essential stop on the road to victory. MORE »

Some of you have complained that we overlooked some worthy candidates when selecting our eight competitors for Congressional Catfight. Of course, given that there were only eight slots in the tournament — and hundreds of crazy, bitchy people in the House — omissions were inevitable.

Here are the eight original Catfight competitors. Top row, left to right: Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO); Katherine Harris (R-FL); Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX); Virginia Foxx (R-NC). Bottom row, left to right: Cynthia McKinney (D-GA); Nancy Pelosi (D-CA); Barney Frank (D-MA); David Dreier (R-CA).

But we do feel badly about not being more inclusive. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to allow you to nominate representatives that you feel were unfairly omitted from the competition. Then we’ll have a poll, and the nominee with the most votes will face the winner of Katherine Harris versus Nancy Pelosi.

You can make a nomination by adding a comment to this post or by emailing us (subject line: “Catfight Wild Card”). Please include the nominee’s name and a brief explanation of why she belongs in the competition. Please note that the contest is limited to current members of the House of Representatives — no past House members, no Senators, no staffers or spouses, etc.

We’ll take a handful of your best nominees and have a reader poll in which you’ll vote on who should take on the winner of Congressional Catfight: Harris vs. Pelosi. We look forward to your submissions. Thanks!

(For those of you who haven’t been following the competition closely, the tournament history appears after the jump.)

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After some voting irregularities in our Congressional Catfight between Katherine Harris and Barney Frank, we decided to hold a rematch. We put two polls before you, indicating that the competitor with the highest combined vote total for both polls would move into the final round. MORE »

As we head into Wednesday night, our Congressional Catfight rematch between Katherine Harris and Barney Frank is proceeding forward smoothly. Hopefully tomorrow’s results will not be marred by irregularities. MORE »

This is really, really weird — highly irregular, one might say. We honestly have no clue as to how this happened. MORE »

Actually, no. But considering how close our latest race was, confusion over the winner would be understandable. We couldn’t write the headline for the post until after closing the polls — which we had to attempt multiple times, since the first few times we tried, our fighters were tied. MORE »

The Congressional Catfight races get closer and closer. Since the polls opened earlier this afternoon, the margin has never widened beyond 52-48, with Katherine Harris and Barney Frank trading the lead back and forth. At several points over the past few hours, the vote has been exactly tied. Right now, Frank leads Harris by 18 votes, out of almost 2000 cast. MORE »

Although their political views couldn’t be more divergent, Rep. Katherine Harris (left) and Rep. Barney Frank (right) share some similarities on a personal level.

Both are over-the-top, larger-than-life figures — two of the most colorful characters in the House. Both have mannish, drag-queen-esque tendencies. And both have a weakness for cute young boys.

And today they’re both fighting for the same thing: a berth in the finals of Congressional Catfight. Here’s the poll:

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This is a huge race, and the winner will move into the final round, to take on Nancy “Crazy-Eyes” Pelosi. So please vote, early and often (and tell all your friends, too).

After the jump, for true Catfight devotees, the full tournament bracket, plus links to our prior coverage of both competitors.

Update: In response to the question raised in the comments: No, Harris is not packing heat for purposes of this competition. This is a traditional, old-fashioned catfight. It’s okay to scratch your opponent’s eyes out with your fingernails, but outside weapons are not allowed. So Katy can’t bring a gun into the fight, just as Barney must leave the ten-inch dildo at home.

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The latest Congressional Catfight, between Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, was thisclose. It really could not have been closer: the winner had 50.1 percent of the votes, and the loser had 49.9 percent of the votes. MORE »

Earlier today, we opened the polls in Congressional Catfight: Jackson-Lee vs. Pelosi. As we head into the evening, the race is super-close: Pelosi narrowly leads Jackson-Lee, 52 percent to 48 percent. MORE »