Category: AL-02

Morning Digest: Trump targets one of last two pro-impeachment House Republicans

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● WA-04: Donald Trump on Friday endorsed former NASCAR driver Jerrod Sessler's intra-party bid against Washington Rep. Dan Newhouse, who is one of the two remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump following the Jan. 6 riot.

Trump's backing makes Sessler, who waged an unheralded campaign two years ago, Newhouse's only notable foe in what had been a quiet Aug. 6 top-two primary for Washington's conservative 4th District. However, it remains to be seen whether Democrats will once again consolidate behind a single candidate as they did in 2022, a development that could make it tougher for one of the two Republicans to reach the November general election.

Newhouse's own plans are also uncertain. Two months ago, the Seattle Times' Jim Brunner relayed that there had been "rampant speculation in state Republican circles that Newhouse may be the next to announce his retirement." The incumbent doesn't appear to have confirmed his 2024 plans yet, though he tweeted out an endorsement from the National Federation of Independent Business on Monday. The candidate filing deadline isn't until May 10, so it may still be a few weeks before the roster is set here.

Newhouse, who was elected to represent central Washington in 2014, attracted little attention during his first three terms in Congress, but all of that changed early in 2021 when he responded to the Jan. 6 attack riot by voting to impeach Trump.

"A vote against this impeachment is a vote to validate the unacceptable violence we witnessed in our nation's capital," he said in a statement. "It is also a vote to condone President Trump's inaction."

Sessler, who had raced in local NASCAR competitions that could be considered the equivalent of baseball's minor leagues (his name does not come up when searching the auto sports database Racing-Reference.info), was one of several hard-right politicians who reacted by launching campaigns against the congressman. Trump, however, was far more impressed by 2020 gubernatorial nominee Loren Culp, a former cop who refused to recognize his decisive loss to Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee.

Trump's endorsement, though, didn't do much to help Culp augment his weak fundraising numbers hauls. Newhouse's allies at Defending Main Street, which is aligned with the GOP leadership, also spent over $1 million to boost the incumbent while the challenger received no major outside help. Sessler, who self-funded about $400,000 but raised little from donors, attracted comparatively little attention.

The 4th District had favored Trump 57-40 in 2020, but businessman Doug White benefited from being the only Democrat on the ballot in a top-two primary that featured seven Republicans. Newhouse and White took 25% apiece, while Culp and Sessler respectively grabbed 22% and 12%. That victory made Newhouse and California Rep. David Valadao the only two pro-impeachment Republicans to win renomination in a cycle that saw their eight fellow travelers either opt to retire or lose their own primaries.

Newhouse went on to easily beat White 66-31 in the general election (Valadao narrowly won in a more competitive seat), and he resumed his former role as a quiet conservative vote. The congressman even made it clear earlier this month that, despite saying three years ago that Trump "failed to fulfill his oath of office," he'd support his return to the White House. Trump repaid him Friday with a Truth Social missive branding Newhouse "a weak and pathetic RINO named Newhouse, who voted to, for no reason, Impeach me."

Trump, as he almost always does, also extolled his newest endorsee as someone who will "stand for the Rule of Law," though Sessler had a recent run-in with authorities. In September of 2022, a month after Sessler's first congressional campaign came to an end, a code enforcement officer in Benton County named Dale Wilson said that he'd investigated a complaint that someone was living on Sessler's property without the proper permits. Wilson said that Sessler confronted him and threatened to retrieve a gun and "deal with him" if Wilson returned.

County commissioners sent the once and future candidate a letter a few months later telling him that the actions described by Wilson constituted a felony, adding, "If you continue to threaten Benton County employees, the county will involve law enforcement to conduct a full investigation." There do not appear to have been any public developments since then.

Another Washington Republican who voted to impeach Trump, former Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, will also be on the Aug. 6 top-two primary ballot as she campaigns for the open post of state lands commissioner. Herrera Beutler's career representing the 3rd District came to an end two years ago when her Trump-backed foe, Joe Kent, edged her out in the first round, though Kent went on to suffer an upset general election loss to Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.

Herrera Beutler faces one fellow Republican, Sue Kuehl Pederson, who badly lost the 2020 general election for lands commissioner, along with several Democrats. Kent, meanwhile, needs to get past Camas City Councilmember Leslie Lewallen to set up a rematch with Gluesenkamp Perez. Trump has not yet endorsed in either contest.

Election Night

● AL-02: The downballot primary season picks back up on Tuesday in Alabama's revamped 2nd District, which is the only place in America that's hosting a congressional nominating contest this week. Whoever wins the Democratic primary runoff will be favored in November to claim a constituency that, under the new map drawn by a federal court, is now a plurality Black district that would have backed Joe Biden 56-43.

Former Justice Department official Shomari Figures led state House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels 43-22 in the first round of voting on March 5. While Figures' share of the vote was below the majority needed to win the Democratic nod outright, his performance established him as the frontrunner for the runoff.

Subsequent developments have only underscored the perception that Figures is the one to beat. State Rep. Napoleon Bracy, who took third place with 16%, went on to endorse him, and a late March Impact Research poll for an unknown client showed Figures beating Daniels 59-24.

Figures has once again gotten a major assist from Protect Progress, a super PAC with ties to the cryptocurrency industry that spent heavily on him ahead of the primary and has poured in another $900,000 for the runoff. The only pro-Daniels outside spending, by contrast, is about $50,000 from Progress for Alabama, a super PAC that Politico reports is run by Republican operative David Driscoll. Driscoll did not comment when Politico asked him about his interest in the race.

Each Democrat is arguing that the other has weak ties to this district, which now takes in Mobile, Montgomery, and the eastern Black Belt. Figures, who hails from a prominent political family in Mobile, has highlighted the fact that Daniels represents a legislative seat in Huntsville, far off in the northern part of the state.

Daniels, however, has emphasized his roots in the Montgomery area and pointed out that Figures only recently returned to Alabama after spending his career in and around the nation's capital.

The GOP runoff pits former state Sen. Dick Brewbaker and attorney Caroleene Dobson. Brewbaker led Dobson 40-26 on March 5.

● MI State House: Two special elections taking place in the Detroit suburbs on Tuesday would allow Democrats to regain the majority they earned in the state House in 2022 if they prevail in both. The contests are being held to succeed a pair of Democrats who resigned to become mayor of their respective communities, Kevin Coleman of Westland and Lori Stone of Warren.

The election to replace Coleman in the 25th District pits his cousin and fellow Democrat, Westland City Councilman Peter Herzberg, against Republican businessman Josh Powell. Joe Biden, according to data from Dave's Redistricting App, carried this seat 59-40 in 2020.

The race to succeed Stone, meanwhile, is between Democrat Mai Xiong, a member of the Macomb County Commission, and Republican Ronald Singer, a perennial candidate. Xiong, who would be the first Hmong American elected to the state House, should have little trouble Tuesday in a seat that favored the president 64-35

However, November's contest for a full term would likely be more difficult. That's because, under the replacement map that Michigan's independent redistricting commission recently passed pursuant to a court order, the redrawn 13th would have backed Biden just 50-48.

Senate

● KY-Sen & Louisville, KY Mayor: Kentucky's Republican-dominated legislature overrode vetoes by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear of two election-related bills, one that will have an impact statewide and one more local.

The first bill prohibits the governor from appointing anyone to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat. This legislation replaces a 2021 law that required the governor to pick from a three-person list submitted by the party of the person who last held the Senate seat.

The new bill's sponsor, state House Majority Floor Leader Steven Rudy, denied that these new changes have anything to do with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's health. McConnell himself expressed support for the legislation even as he once again reiterated that he'd serve out the remainder of his term, which ends in early 2027.

The legislature, which only requires a simple majority in each chamber to override vetoes, also defied Beshear by approving a new law that, among other things, makes elections for Louisville's local government officially nonpartisan starting next year. All the candidates would face off on one ballot, and the top two vote-getters would advance to the general election.

Kentucky's largest city, which was consolidated with the rest of Jefferson County in 2003, favored Joe Biden 59-39 in 2020, so this switch could make it easier for Republicans to win races now that party affiliation won't be included on the ballot.

State Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer, however, told Louisville Public Media last month he was supporting the legislation "out of respect for" Mayor Craig Greenberg, a Democrat whom he says was involved in discussions about the law. Greenberg, who is up for reelection in 2026, didn't answer when LPM asked him about the bill when it was first introduced earlier this year.

● MD-Sen: Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks has publicized an internal from Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group that shows her trailing Rep. David Trone by a small 43-40 spread ahead of the May 14 Democratic primary. It's the first data that Alsobrooks has shared since launching her campaign, and it's also the first internal poll of the race we've seen since Trone shared a Hickman Analytics internal two months ago that had him up 49-32.

In between, two March polls conducted by Braun Research for separate clients found Trone ahead by larger margins: An early March poll for the Washington Post and the University of Maryland gave the congressman a 34-27 edge, while its subsequent numbers for Goucher College and the Baltimore Banner showed him leading 42-33.

● NJ-Sen: Fairleigh Dickinson University shows Democratic Rep. Andy Kim posting 9-point leads over his two most notable Republican rivals, developer Curtis Bashaw and Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner. Were Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez to run as an independent, Kim would still defeat both Republicans by a 6-point margin:

  • Kim (D): 48, Bashaw (R): 39
  • Kim (D): 47, Glassner (R): 38
  • Kim (D): 44, Bashaw (R): 38, Menendez (I-inc), 6
  • Kim (D): 45, Glassner (R): 39, Menendez (I-inc): 7

Presidential numbers were not included in this release.

Governors

● WV-Gov: The Club for Growth, which supports Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in the May 14 Republican primary, has launched what appears to be the first TV ad from anyone attacking former Del. Moore Capito. Morrisey and his allies until now had focused on tearing down businessman Chris Miller, but this shift in strategy suggests they think Capito has now emerged as a threat as well.

The Club's ad declares that Capito, who is the son and namesake of Sen. Shelly Moore Capito, was "born with a silver spoon in his mouth," though the commercial doesn't reference the senator by name. Instead, it features several animations of Capito accompanied by spoons (maybe the ad maker is a fan of "The Room") as the narrator accuses him of repeatedly voting to raise taxes.

Capito, meanwhile, has launched a spot in which his narrator declares, "Moore Capito wrote the bill blocking puberty blockers for children while Morrisey got rich lobbying for the puberty blocker companies." Miller recently used a similar line of attack against Morrisey, who has run his own transphobic ad campaign.

Capito ends his ad by portraying Morrisey as an outsider, though strangely, he doesn't actually bring up the state the attorney general is originally from. "California's that way," Capito tells the New Jersey-reared attorney general, who ran for Congress in the Garden State back in 2000 only to finish last in a four-way primary.

House

● CA-16: Election officials in California's 16th Congressional District began the process for a machine recount of the March 5 top-two primary on Monday, but there are still big questions over just what will happen next in this wild race.

The Mercury News reports that Jonathan Padilla, who was a 2020 Biden delegate, paid the county a $12,000 deposit to start the recount. However, election administrators in Santa Clara County, which makes up over 80% of this Silicon Valley-based seat, tell KQED's Guy Marzorati that it will cost $16,800 per day for what they estimate will be a five-day undertaking.

Their counterparts in San Mateo, which forms the balance of the 16th District, say it will take another $4,550 per day to recount its ballots, though they told Marzorati they hadn't received a deposit as of Monday morning.

Marzorati writes that if Padilla misses a day's payment, the recount would end and the results certified by the state earlier this month would stand. A second voter, Dan Stegink, had sought a recount as well, but he withdrew his request and did not put down the requisite deposit.

Padilla's own plans have also changed somewhat, as he said he originally intended to seek a manual recount before opting for a machine recount. A manual recount is more likely to catch errors, but it's also far more expensive.

Former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, whom Padilla worked for in 2014, is guaranteed a spot in the November general election, while two other Democrats, Assemblyman Evan Low and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, would both advance if they remain tied for second. Should a recount shift the results even a single vote for either runner-up, however, then Liccardo would face the second-place finisher in a one-on-one matchup.

● FL-15: Far-right social media troll Rogan O'Handley told the conservative site The Floridian over the weekend that he's decided not to challenge freshman Rep. Laurel Lee in the Aug. 20 Republican primary. The candidate filing deadline is April 26.

● IN-03: Winning for Women, a conservative super PAC largely funded by megadonor Ken Griffin, has launched a commercial accusing former Rep. Marlin Stutzman of being weak on border security. The spot does not mention former Judge Wendy Davis, whom Politico says the group supports in the May 7 Republican primary for this safely red seat in northeastern Indiana. According to reports filed with the FEC, WFW has spent $414,000 so far.

The offensive comes at a time when another super PAC, America Leads Action, is spending a similar amount to derail Stutzman's comeback campaign. The former congressman's allies at the far-right House Freedom Caucus have deployed $110,000 to return him to Congress after an eight-year absence, but most of that spending came last year.

● IN-05: State Rep. Chuck Goodrich's new commercial for next month's GOP primary utilizes material from a 2022 Politico article to argue that Rep. Victoria Spartz is an abusive boss. "Manic behavior," says the narrator, continuing, "She yells and curses, calling them morons and idiots." The spot goes on, "Victoria Spartz's behavior is embarrassing. We don't need politicians who lie and disrespect employees and lack the temperament for public service."

● IN-08: Former Rep. John Hostettler is getting some welcome outside support from Protect Freedom PAC, which is airing commercials starring Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. There is no word yet as to how much the PAC is spending to promote Hostettler, who has been on the receiving end of at least $1.75 million in attacks from a trio of super PACs. Hostettler's campaign, according to AdImpact data from Howey Politics, had not run any TV ads for the May 7 GOP primary as of April 5.

Paul uses the ad to tout Hostettler as someone who will resist "the politicians that are destroying America," a crowd that, according to footage shown on-screen, includes Paul's home state colleague, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Paul was elected to the upper chamber four years after Hostettler lost reelection in the 2006 blue wave, but his father, then-Texas Rep. Ron Paul, and Hostettler were part of a small group of House Republicans who opposed the Iraq War. The elder Paul went on to endorse Hostettler's failed 2010 Senate primary campaign.

● NH-02: State Sen. Becky Whitley announced Sunday that she would run to succeed retiring Rep. Annie Kuster, a fellow Democrat. Whitley says she's raised $100,000 for her bid in her first week since forming an exploratory committee earlier this month.

Whitley, who has worked as a disability rights lawyer, joined the legislature in 2020 after winning a safely blue Senate seat, but she first had to get past a familiar name in the primary. To earn the nomination, she scored a 41-33 victory over former Rep. Paul Hodes, who was seeking a comeback a decade after his failed bid for the U.S. Senate.

WMUR wrote earlier this month that Whitley, who is a member of the Judiciary Committee, has since "been on the legislative front lines" in battles to safeguard abortion rights. She joins a September primary that includes former Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern, who has Kuster's endorsement.

But two would-be Democratic candidates, state Reps. Angela Brennan and Rebecca McWilliams, each said this week they'd seek to replace Whitley in the state Senate rather than run for Congress.

Mayors & County Leaders

● Baltimore, MD Mayor: OpinionWorks shows incumbent Brandon Scott edging out former Mayor Sheila Dixon 38-35 in the May 14 Democratic primary, with former federal prosecutor Thiru Vignarajah far back at 10%. The survey was conducted for FOX45 News, the Baltimore Sun, and the University of Baltimore.

The only other independent poll we've seen of Baltimore's mayoral race this year was a Braun Research survey released last week on behalf of Goucher College and The Baltimore Banner, which gave Scott a larger 40-32 edge over Dixon. (Vignarajah was similarly situated at 11%.) It only takes a plurality to secure the Democratic nomination, which is tantamount to election in this dark blue city.

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Morning Digest: With big primary win, Colin Allred kicks off race to unseat Ted Cruz

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● TX-Sen: In one of Super Tuesday's biggest races, Rep. Colin Allred secured the Democratic nomination to take on Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who holds one of just two Senate seats that Democrats have a realistic shot at flipping this cycle. The news is especially welcome for Democrats because it means Allred can start campaigning against Cruz immediately, since he avoided a May 28 runoff by easily securing a majority of the vote with his 59-17 victory over state Sen. Roland Gutierrez.

No Democrat has won statewide in Texas since 1994, but the congressman, who has already proven himself a formidable fundraiser, could finally achieve the breakthrough Lone Star State Democrats have long dreamed of. Allred, who first won office in 2018 by flipping a longtime GOP stronghold in the Dallas area, would also be the state's first Black senator.

Allred's win was far from the only notable result, though, on a Super Tuesday that more than lived up to its name—at least downballot. Below is a state-by-state summary of where things stood as of 8 AM ET in all of the major contests. You can also check out our cheat-sheet that summarizes the outcomes in every key race.

Election results

● Alabama: A runoff will be held on April 16 in contests where no candidate earned a majority of the vote.

● AL-01 (R): Rep. Barry Moore defeated colleague Jerry Carl 51-49, an outcome that makes Carl the first member of Congress to lose renomination in 2024. This race, which is likely to be the only incumbent vs. incumbent primary in the entire cycle, took place because Moore decided to run here after the state's new court-drawn map turned his 2nd District into a Democratic-leaning constituency. This revamped seat in southern Alabama would have favored Donald Trump 75-24 in 2020.

Moore's win was an upset, as Carl represented considerably more of this territory and enjoyed a large fundraising advantage throughout the race. Both incumbents are ardent conservatives who voted against recognizing Joe Biden's 2020 win, though they still represented different factions of the party: Moore is a member of the nihilistic House Freedom Caucus, while Carl is closer to the party leadership.

● AL-02 (D & R): Former Justice Department official Shomari Figures and state House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels will compete in the Democratic runoff for a redrawn seat that now takes in Mobile, Montgomery, and the eastern Black Belt. Figures, who benefited from heavy spending from a super PAC with ties to the cryptocurrency industry, took first with 43%, while Daniels outpaced ​​state Reps. Napoleon Bracy 22-16 for second.

Republicans also have a runoff between former state Sen. Dick Brewbaker, who took 40%, and attorney Caroleene Dobson, who beat out state Sen. Greg Albritton 26-25. The GOP nominee, though, will have a difficult time in the general election for what's now a plurality Black district that would have backed Joe Biden 56-43.

● Arkansas: A runoff will be held on April 2 in contests where no candidate earned a majority of the vote.

● AR-03 (R): Rep. Steve Womack held off a far-right challenge from state Sen. Clint Penzo 54-46 in this dark red northwest Arkansas seat. Penzo's ideological allies did little to help the underfunded legislator overcome his huge cash deficit against Womack, a decision they may not regret following the relatively weak victory for the self-described "institution guy."

● California: All candidates running for Congress and for state office compete on one ballot rather than in separate party primaries; the two contenders with the most votes, regardless of party, advance to the Nov. 5 general election. Candidates cannot win outright in the primary by taking a majority of the vote, except in some officially nonpartisan elections.

Note, though, that it will be a while before all votes are tabulated. Because the state permanently adopted universal mail voting in 2021, vote-counting takes some time thanks to the security measures needed to verify the large number of mail ballots officials receive. 

● CA-Sen: Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff got the general election opponent he wants in this dark blue state, as Republican Steve Garvey defeated Democratic Rep. Katie Porter for the crucial second spot in November. The Associated Press estimates that only 47% of the vote is tabulated, so the candidates' margins will likely shift even though the AP has called both slots: Schiff currently leads with 33% as Garvey, who is a former Major League Baseball player, is outpacing Porter 32-14. Another 7% goes to the third Democratic House member on the ballot, Rep. Barbara Lee.

The lineup will be the same in the November special election to fill the final two months of the late Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein's term. Garvey this time leads with 35% as Schiff outpaces Porter 31-16 for second.

● CA-12: Only 23% of the estimated vote is in, but BART board member Lateefah Simon leads with 43% in the race to succeed her fellow Democrat, Senate candidate Barbara Lee. Another Democrat will almost certainly be on the November ballot for this dark blue Easy Bay seat, though it's less clear which one: Cal State professor Jennifer Tran holds a 17-15 edge over Alameda Vice Mayor Tony Daysog.

● CA-16: Two Democrats will likely be competing in the general election to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo in Silicon Valley, though the AP has not called either spot yet with only 51% of the estimated vote in. Former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo leads with 22%, while Eshoo's choice, Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, holds an 18-16 edge over Assemblyman Evan Low. Republican Peter Ohtaki is just behind with 14%.

● CA-20: Two Republicans, Assemblyman Vince Fong and Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux, lead with 52% of the estimated vote in, but the AP has not called either general election spot. Fong, who has the support of Trump and former Rep. Kevin McCarthy, is far out ahead with 39%, while Boudreaux is outpacing Democrat Marisa Wood 24-22.

Note that the first round of the special election for the remaining months of McCarthy's term will take place March 19. Trump carried this Central Valley seat 61-36.

● CA-22: Democrats are hoping they've avoided being locked out of the general election in this competitive Central Valley seat, though the AP also hasn't called either spot with only 30% of the estimated vote in. GOP incumbent David Valadao is in first with 34%, while 2022 Democratic nominee Rudy Salas leads self-funding Republican Chris Mathys 28-22. The final candidate on the ballot, Democratic state Sen. Melissa Hurtado, is taking 15%.

● CA-25: Democratic Rep. Raul Ruiz appears likely to face yet another little-known Republican rather than a local Democratic elected official in this 57-41 Biden seat, which is almost certainly an outcome he's happy with. 

Ian Weeks leads fellow Republican Ceci Truman 19-17 for second with 46% of the estimated vote in, but it likely doesn't matter which of them advances against Ruiz. Indio City Council member Oscar Ortiz, who launched an intra-party bid against Ruiz in December, is in a distant fourth place with 9%. The incumbent, for his part, is taking 49% in this constituency, which is based in eastern Riverside County and Imperial County.

● CA-26: Agoura Hills City Council member Chris Anstead's intra-party bid against Democratic Rep. Julia Brownley appears to be over, as he's taking a mere 4% of the vote with 52% of the estimated vote in. The incumbent leads with 51%, while Michael Koslow is leading fellow Republican Bruce Boyer 34-11. 

The AP has not yet called the second spot, though neither Republican has reported raising the type of money they'd need to put this Ventura County constituency into play.  Joe Biden carried this seat to the northwest of Los Angeles 59-39, while Brownley went on to win 55-45 during a tough 2022 cycle for California Democrats.

● CA-29: Assemblywoman Luz Rivas unsurprisingly looks well-situated to succeed her fellow Democrat and top ally, retiring Rep. Tony Cárdenas, though the AP hasn't called either general election spot with only 40% of the estimated vote in. Rivas leads with 48%, while Republican Benny Bernal is outpacing perennial Democratic candidate Angelica Duenas 31-21. This eastern San Fernando Valley seat is safely blue at 75-23 Biden.

● CA-30: The AP estimates that 60% of the vote is in, and Democratic Assemblywoman Laura Friedman is in front with 27% as Republican Alex Balekian leads Democratic state Sen. Anthony Portantino 21-14 for second; neither spot has been called as of Wednesday morning. This Los Angeles-based seat, which Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff is leaving behind to run for the Senate, favored Biden 72-26.

● CA-31: With just half of the estimated vote in, former Democratic Rep. Gil Cisneros is taking first place with 21%, while Daniel Martinez leads fellow Republican Pedro Casas 21-19 for second. A pair of Democratic state senators are further behind: Susan Rubio is taking 15%, while another 11% goes to Bob Archuleta, who has the endorsement of retiring Democratic Rep. Grace Napolitano. Biden took this seat in the eastern San Gabriel Valley 64-33.

● CA-34: It looks like there could be a third all-Democratic general election between Rep. Jimmy Gomez and former prosecutor David Kim in this dark blue Los Angeles seat, though the AP hasn't called either spot with only 41% of the estimated vote in. Gomez leads with 51% as Kim is outpacing Republican Calvin Lee 24-18. 

● CA-40: Retired Orange County Fire Capt. Joe Kerr appears poised to take on GOP Rep. Young Kim in this 50-48 Biden seat in eastern Orange County, though the AP has not made a call with 60% of the estimated vote in. Kerr leads his fellow Democrat, Tustin Unified School District Board of Education president Allyson Muñiz Damikolas, 26-16, while Kim is at 58%. 

● CA-45: There's a close contest to determine which Democrat will go up against Republican Rep. Michelle Steel in a western Orange County constituency that Biden carried 52-46. Attorney Derek Tran is edging out Garden Grove City Councilwoman Kim Nguyen-Penaloza 16-14 with 47% of the estimated vote in, while Steel is in front with 57%.

● CA-47: Former Orange County GOP chair Scott Baugh and Democratic state Sen. Dave Min are the leaders in the top-two primary to replace Democratic Senate candidate Katie Porter, but the AP has not made any calls with 60% of the estimated vote in. Baugh is in front with 33%, while Min leads fellow Democrat Joanna Weiss 25-19. Biden took this seat based in coastal Orange County and Irvine 54-43, while Porter fended off Baugh 52-48 two years later.

● CA-49: Businessman Matt Gunderson holds a 26-11 lead over his fellow Republican self-funder, media executive Margarita Wilkinson, but we're still awaiting a call with 59% of the estimated vote in. The winner will be the underdog against Democratic incumbent Mike Levin, who is sitting at 51%, in a coastal San Diego County seat that Biden carried 55-43.

● North Carolina: A runoff will be held on May 14 in contests where no candidate earned at least 30% of the vote, though the second-place finisher must formally request a runoff for one to occur.

● NC-Gov (R & D): Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein will face off in a long-anticipated showdown to replace termed-out Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. 

The far-right Robinson won his primary 65-19 against state Treasurer Dale Folwell, with wealthy businessman Bill Graham securing the balance. Graham declared on election night, "Mark Robinson is an unelectable candidate in the general election in North Carolina, and he puts a conservative future at risk for everyone, from the courthouse to the White House." Stein, for his part, defeated former state Supreme Court Justice Mike Morgan 70-14.

● NC-01 (R): National Republicans got the nominee they want against Democratic Rep. Don Davis, as Army veteran Laurie Buckhout beat scandal-ridden two-time nominee Sandy Smith 53-47. Republican mapmakers transformed this seat in the inland, northeastern corner of the state from a constituency Biden carried 53-46 into one he barely won 50-49.

● NC-06 (R): Lobbyist Addison McDowell will face former Rep. Mark Walker in the runoff to replace Rep. Kathy Manning, who is one of three Democratic House members who is not seeking reelection in a seat that Republicans made all but unwinnable for her party. The Trump-endorsed McDowell took 26%, while Walker beat out 2022 nominee Christian Castelli 24-21 for the second spot in this seat in the central Piedmont region.

● NC-08 (R): Pastor Mark Walker appears to have won the GOP nomination outright over half a decade after his campaign was responsible for one the most ignominious election-fraud scandals in recent memory, though the AP has not yet made a call with 97% of the estimated vote in. Walker is sitting at 30.4%, while former Union County Commissioner Allan Baucom is at 27%. The GOP nominee will be favored to replace attorney general nominee Dan Bishop in this 58-41 Trump seat based in the eastern Charlotte suburbs and rural areas further east.

● NC-10 (R): Firearms manufacturer Pat Harrigan has narrowly secured the nomination to replace his fellow Republican, retiring Rep. Patrick McHenry, in this 57-41 Trump seat centered in Winston-Salem and the western Piedmont region. Harrigan, who was the 2022 nominee against Democrat Jeff Jackson in the old 14th District, beat out state Rep. Grey Mills 41-39 following an expensive contest. 

● NC-13 (R): Attorney Kelly Daughtry has taken one of the two runoff spots in the race to succeed Democratic Rep. Wiley Nickel, who is leaving Congress because Republicans gerrymandered his Raleigh-area seat, but the AP hasn't called the other slot. Daughtry is at 27%, while former federal prosecutor Brad Knott leads businessman Fred Von Canon 19-17 with 85% of the estimated vote in.

● NC-AG (D): Democratic Rep. Jeff Jackson beat Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry 55-33 despite an expensive attempt by the Republican Attorneys General Association to meddle in the primary. Jackson will go up against far-right Rep. Dan Bishop, an election denier who had no opposition in the GOP primary. 

● Texas: A runoff will be held on May 28 in contests where no candidate earned a majority of the vote.

● TX-02 (R): Rep. Dan Crenshaw outpaced underfunded primary foe Jameson Ellis only 59-41 just two years after beating him 74-17. Crenshaw has little to worry about in the general election for a suburban Houston seat that Trump took 61-38, but his diminished showing could inspire a stronger intra-party foe next cycle.

● TX-07 (D): Rep. Lizzie Fletcher scored a 73-27 victory against Pervez Agwan, a renewable energy developer whose campaign was overshadowed by sexual misconduct allegations leveled by former staffers, in this safely blue Houston seat.

● TX-12 (R): State Rep. Craig Goldman and businessman John O'Shea will compete in the runoff to replace their fellow Republican, retiring Rep. Kay Granger, in this conservative constituency in the Fort Worth area. Goldman, who has the backing of Gov. Greg Abbott, took 44%, while O'Shea led a little-known opponent 26-15. O'Shea has the support of Attorney General Ken Paxton, whom Goldman voted to impeach last year.

● TX-18 (D): Longtime Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee turned back a well-funded challenge from former Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards 60-37 in this reliably blue seat. Jackson Lee appeared vulnerable after badly losing December's runoff for mayor of Houston to fellow Democrat John Whitmire, but Edwards largely avoided attacking the incumbent.

● TX-23 (R): Rep. Tony Gonzales has been forced into a runoff against a far-right opponent, gunmaker Brandon Herrera. Gonzales secured 45% of the vote a year after he was censured by the state party, while Herrera outpaced former Medina County GOP Chair Julie Clark 25-14. The winner will be favored in a sprawling West Texas seat that favored Trump 53-46.

● TX-26 (R): Far-right media figure Brandon Gill secured the nomination to replace retiring GOP Rep. Michael Burgess in this conservative seat in the northern Fort Worth suburbs and exurbs. The Trump-backed Gill, who is the son-in-law of MAGA toady Dinesh D'Souza, took 58% despite an expensive campaign to stop him. The now-meaningless runner-up title goes to Scott Armey, a former Denton County judge who lost the 2002 runoff to Burgess and grabbed just 15% this time.

● TX-32 (D): State Rep. Julie Johnson is currently sitting on 50.1% in the primary to replace Senate candidate Colin Allred, but the AP has not made a call with 98% of the estimated vote in. Trauma surgeon Brian Williams, who would be her runoff opponent should she fail to take a majority, is a distant second with 19%. 

● TX-34 (R): Former Rep. Mayra Flores easily beat unheralded opponent Laura Cisneros 81-9 ahead of her long-anticipated rematch against Democratic incumbent Vicente Gonzalez. Gonzalez appears to have meddled in the primary by sending out mailers boosting Greg Kunkle, but Kunkle clocked in at just 4%. Gonzalez beat Flores 53-44 in 2022 in a campaign that took place two years after Biden carried this seat in the eastern Rio Grande Valley 57-42. 

Senate

● AZ-Sen: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema finally confirmed Tuesday that she will not seek reelection in Arizona this year. Sinema's departure almost certainly guarantees that the November general election will be a two-way race between each party's respective frontrunner, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and Republican conspiracy theorist Kari Lake. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who had not taken sides while Sinema was still publicly deliberating, quickly endorsed Gallego, as did the DSCC.

Pollsters disagreed as to which major party Sinema—who during her career has been a member of the Green Party, a Democrat, and an independent—would have hurt more had she sought a second term. However, essentially every survey showed Sinema in a distant third place and with little hope of securing the plurality she would have needed to win.

P.S. Sinema is now the second straight occupant of this seat to quit after just one term, following Republican Jeff Flake's departure ahead of the 2018 elections.

● FL-Sen: Former Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell's allies at EMILYs List have released an internal poll from Public Policy Polling that shows her trailing Republican Sen. Rick Scott by a narrow 44-41 margin. This survey, which is the first we've seen here all year, did not include presidential numbers. The pollster's memo also did not mention self-funding businessman Stanley Campbell, who is taking on Mucarsel-Powell in the August primary.

● OH-Sen: SurveyUSA's new poll of the March 19 GOP primary for the Center for Election Science finds wealthy businessman Bernie Moreno edging out state Sen. Matt Dolan 29-27, with Secretary of State Frank LaRose at 21% and another 23% undecided. The numbers are considerably different from a recent Moreno internal from Fabrizio Lee that showed him with a wide 31-21 advantage over LaRose, while Dolan was in third place with 19%.

The results are also a sharp contrast with data that CES, which promotes approval voting, previously released in December. That earlier poll (also conducted by SurveyUSA) found LaRose beating Dolan 33-18 as Moreno grabbed just 12%. However, Donald Trump endorsed Moreno almost immediately after that poll was publicized, which helps account for the dramatic shift in the race to take on Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.

It's not clear what interest CES has in this race, though, especially since SurveyUSA doesn't appear to have asked respondents about approval voting or any other alternative voting method.

● WI-Sen: WinSenate, which is affiliated with the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC, has deployed at least $2 million for a March 5-25 ad buy targeting wealthy businessman Eric Hovde, who last month became the first notable Republican to enter the race against Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

WinSenate's spot attacks Hovde over his weak ties to the state he's seeking to represent. The ad notes that he is the "CEO of a billion-dollar bank" and owns a $7 million hillside mansion overlooking Laguna Beach in Orange County, California, where a local outlet named him one of the county's "most influential" residents for three years running.

Hovde launched a $700,000 ad buy of his own the very same day that WinSenate's campaign began, and his new spot unsurprisingly tries to establish his Wisconsin bona fides. The minute-long commercial features his wife, Sharon Hovde, speaking to the camera as she notes that her husband grew up in Wisconsin and became a successful businessman.

Last year while he was still considering a campaign, Hovde wouldn't give a straight answer when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Daniel Bice asked him how much time he spends in the state. However, after joining the race last month, Hovde recently claimed to conservative radio host Jay Weber that he spends roughly nine months each year living in Wisconsin.

House

● GA-13: Atlanta City Councilmember Keisha Waites, who last year declined to rule out a primary challenge to Democratic Rep. David Scott, has instead announced that she's resigning her current post and will run for Fulton County Superior Court clerk. Scott currently faces one notable opponent, Army veteran Marcus Flowers, though anyone else interested in running this year only has until Friday's candidate filing deadline to decide.

● LA-06: Republican Rep. Garret Graves says he'll seek reelection in his current district, explaining that he believes Louisiana's new congressional map will get struck down by the courts, according to WBRZ.

That map was enacted by the state after a federal court ordered the creation of a second district where Black voters could elect their preferred candidates. To comply, lawmakers redrew Graves' 6th District, transforming it from a 65% white seat that Donald Trump would have won by a 64-34 margin to one with a 54% Black majority that Joe Biden would have carried 59-39.

Under those new lines, Graves would have virtually no chance of winning another term, but a group of voters recently filed a separate lawsuit challenging the new map as an unlawful racial gerrymander. If they're successful, Louisiana could be sent back to the drawing board, which in turn could restore Graves to a district he'd be able to win.

● MI-10: Former Macomb County Judge Carl Marlinga has released a late January internal poll from Public Policy Polling showing him with a wide lead in the Aug. 6 Democratic primary to take on the Republican who beat him in 2022, first-term Rep. John James. The survey finds Marlinga taking 30% of the vote while none of his opponents break 4%, though 55% are still undecided. That's very similar to polling Marlinga shared last August, when PPP likewise had him up 31-5 on his nearest rival.

● ND-AL: Wade Webb, a judge on the Cass County District Court, has opted against joining the June GOP primary for North Dakota's lone House seat. However, several other notable Republicans are running for this seat, which is open because GOP Rep. Kelly Armstrong is seeking the governorship, and more could get in. The state's filing deadline is April 8.

● NJ-09: Prospect Park Mayor Mohamed Khairullah, who is reportedly planning to launch a challenge to Rep. Bill Pascrell in this year's Democratic primary this week, has confirmed to Politico's Daniel Han that he will run. However, said Han, Khairullah "declined to discuss it further, saying he was waiting until his official announcement."

● PA-12: Facing challenges to her ballot petitions, nonprofit head Laurie McDonald abandoned her campaign against first-term Rep. Summer Lee in the April 23 Democratic primary on Monday and said she would instead seek the Republican nod as a write-in. That effort is likely just as doomed, though, since manufacturing executive James Hayes is already on the GOP primary ballot.

Lee, meanwhile, must still contend with a challenge from businesswoman Bhavini Patel for the Democratic nod. Joe Biden carried the Pittsburgh-based 12th District 59-40, so whoever emerges as the Democratic nominee should be favored in November.

Mayors & County Leaders

● Baltimore, MD Mayor: Former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon has publicized an internal poll from Garin-Hart-Yang that gives her a small 40-37 advantage over incumbent Brandon Scott in the May 14 Democratic primary. This survey, which is the first we've seen here all year, also finds former federal prosecutor Thiru Vignarajah and wealthy businessman Bob Wallace at 10% and 6%, respectively, with 8% undecided. It only takes a simple plurality to secure the Democratic nomination to lead this loyally blue city.

Ad Roundup

Correction: The results for the Texas Senate Democratic primary inadvertently left out Colin Allred’s margin of victory; he won 59-17.

Campaign Action

Morning Digest: Bookmark our new 2024 calendar of primary dates and filing deadlines

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● Primary Calendar: Daily Kos Elections is pleased to unveil our 2024 primary calendar, where you'll find a complete list of major-party filing deadlines, primaries, and runoffs for all 50 states. We also include the dates of each presidential primary, which often take place months before the state's downballot nomination contests. Sometimes, though, the two coincide, which frequently leads to higher-than-normal primary turnout.

One of the things we pay careful attention to at Daily Kos Elections is each state's candidate filing deadline, since it represents the point at which prospective candidates need to decide whether or not they'll actually run for office. The first deadline of the cycle was on Friday in Alabama, where a brand-new congressional map will be used for the first time.

That gives us the opportunity to run down the state of play for the state's key races, something we'll do as each state's filing deadline passes. And several are coming up soon: Arkansas is next on Nov. 14, while Illinois, California, Texas, North Carolina, and Ohio all have deadlines next month.

Filing season doesn't end, though, until July 19 in Louisiana, which traditionally brings up the rear. (Louisiana holds an all-party primary on Nov. 5, which is the date of the general election, rather than separate partisan primaries.) Some precise dates are not yet set such as the filing deadline for Georgia, which likely will be sometime in early March, so we'll update our calendar as soon as they are.

We also include important notes about those deadlines. Nebraska, for example, has a unique law that requires any incumbents, regardless of whether they are seeking reelection or another office, to file by Feb. 15; the deadline for everyone else is March 1. We also list states where party conventions are important for determining ballot access, winnowing the field, or officially picking nominees.

Finally, we provide details about which states require primary runoffs, including what percentage of the vote is needed in each state to trigger a second round of voting. For instance, in Georgia, a runoff is needed if no candidate takes a majority of the vote, while in North Carolina, runoffs are only conducted if no one takes more than 30%—and then only if the runner-up requests one.

The 2024 downballot primary season officially kicks off on March 5 (Super Tuesday), with Alabama, Arkansas, California, North Carolina, and Texas leading the way. Some primary dates could change, though. For instance, while Massachusetts is currently set for Sept. 17―the very last partisan primary in the nation―the state House passed a bill Wednesday to move it to Sept. 3.

The state Senate and Gov. Maura Healey still need to assent, but there's good reason to think they will. As the Boston Globe notes, the legislature has routinely bumped up the date over the last decade since late primaries interfere with federal laws that require mail ballots to be sent to overseas voters 45 days before a general election. (Legislation setting a permanent earlier date has yet to pass.) We'll update our calendar when Massachusetts finalizes its plans, and we'll do the same for any other adjustments to the calendar elsewhere.

There's a lot to explore, so you should check out—and bookmark—our calendar for all the details. You can also find a sortable version here.

Senate

● NJ-Sen: The New Jersey Globe's David Wildstein writes that First Lady Tammy Murphy will announce in the coming week that she'll seek the Senate seat held by her fellow Democrat, indicted incumbent Bob Menendez. Murphy would join Rep. Andy Kim in the June 4 primary; Menendez, who is set to go on trial the month before, hasn't announced his plans yet, though Wildstein writes that "few expect" him to run again.

Wildstein also reports that longtime South Jersey powerbroker George Norcross will likely support Murphy. Norcross' brother, Rep. Donald Norcross, didn't rule out running himself in late September, but we can probably cross his name off the potential candidate list now.

● OH-Sen: The liberal firm Data for Progress tests Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown against four Republican foes:

  • 46-46 vs. Secretary of State Frank LaRose
  • 47-46 vs. state Sen. Matt Dolan
  • 47-44 vs. businessman Bernie Moreno
  • 48-43 vs. Some Dude Joel Mutchler

DPF tells us it has no client for this survey.

● WI-Sen: NRSC chair Steve Daines told Punchbowl News that rich guy Eric Hovde is his top choice to oppose Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin. No major candidates have launched bids here yet, and that may not change for a while: Unnamed sources predicted that Hovde would launch sometime next year.

House

● AL-01: Due to the creation of Alabama's new 2nd Congressional District (see just below), two Republican incumbents will face off for the right to represent the neighboring 1st District, Reps. Barry Moore and Jerry Carl. The revised 1st, which stretches from the Gulf Coast in the west to Dothan in the east, is a deep red, heavily white district, so whoever survives the GOP primary will be assured of another term in the House. The loser will go home.

The two incumbents, who are both white, are both intensely conservative, though Moore may be even more extreme. While both men voted against certifying Joe Biden's victory over Donald Trump in 2020, Moore went even further in inflaming Trump supporters following the Jan. 6 attacks. [I]t was a Black police officer who shot the white female veteran," he tweeted of rioter Ashli Babbit, who was shot attempting to breach a hallway adjacent to the House chamber.

Moore, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, could also earn the backing of the deep-pocketed Club for Growth, which aided him in his initial bid for the prior version of the 2nd District in 2020 while also seeking to thwart Carl that same year. But Carl, who was elected to the old 1st District, does have one notable advantage: He represents 59% of the population of the redrawn 1st versus 41% for Moore, according to calculations by Daily Kos Elections.

Alabama’s primary is March 5, though an April 2 runoff is required should no candidate win a majority of the vote. However, since Carl and Moore were the only two to file, their race will be settled in the first round.

● AL-02: Alabama is poised to send two Black Democrats to Congress for the first time ever, thanks to a brand new court-ordered 2nd District that's designed to bring the state into compliance with the Voting Rights Act. The new open seat has inspired a large field of hopefuls to join the race, including 13 Democrats and eight Republicans, according to AL.com's Mike Cason.

One major name, however, had a last-minute change of heart. State Sen. Kirk Hatcher, who had announced a bid late last month, said on Friday that he would not file for the race after all. His decision means that the Democratic primary will feature no prominent candidates from the city of Montgomery, which anchors one end of the redrawn district. (The new-look 2nd runs east-west across the state to include most of the rural Black Belt, reaching down to take in Mobile along the Gulf Coast in Alabama's southwestern corner.)

That still leaves five Democratic lawmakers seeking the seat, including one who entered just before the filing deadline, state House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels. Like several other contenders, Daniels represents a district a ways away from the one he's now hoping to represent: His Huntsville-based seat is nearly 200 miles from Montgomery. Daniels, however, grew up in Bullock County, one of the Black Belt counties now in the 2nd, which he has said gives him an understanding of rural communities that other candidates lack.

State Rep. Juandalynn Givan, meanwhile, represents Birmingham, which forms the heart of the state's other Black-majority district, the 7th. (There, veteran Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell faces minimal opposition in her bid for reelection; see more below.) Givan says that she, too, has ties to the district, though she seemed less concerned about the issue. "I feel I'm just as qualified to run for this seat as anybody else," Cason reports she said at her campaign kickoff, "whether I live here in Montgomery, or whether I live across the street, or up the street, or back the street, or anywhere else."

Another Birmingham-area legislator, state Sen. Merika Coleman, pointed to her itinerant upbringing as a child of a military veteran. Coleman said that although she was not "indigenous" to her district in the legislature, "most people would never know that because I have fought the good fight" for her constituents, according to AL.com's Roy Johnson.

The other two lawmakers in the mix do actually serve parts of the 2nd District. State Rep. Jeremy Gray, best known for spearheading the repeal of Alabama's ban on yoga in public schools, represents a seat at the far eastern end of the state, though his hometown of Opelika is just outside the 2nd. Finally, state Rep. Napoleon Bracy hails from Prichard, a city just outside of Mobile. That makes him the only elected official from the region in the primary.

But he's not the only notable Mobile-area Democrat in the race: Shomari Figures, who recently stepped down from a position with the Justice Department, joined the contest the day before the filing deadline. Figures is the son of state Sen. Vivian Figures, a prominent Mobile politician who has been in public office for three decades and had considered a bid herself.

The 2nd was created specifically to give African American voters the opportunity to elect their preferred candidate—almost certainly a Black Democrat, like all of the contenders mentioned above. To that end, the district is now home to a 51% Black majority and would have voted for Joe Biden by a 56-43 margin, according to Dave's Redistricting App. Given Alabama's history of racially polarized voting, that will make the Democratic nominee the heavy favorite in next year's general election.

But that hasn't stopped a number of Republicans from hoping they can pull off an unlikely upset. The GOP field includes two politicians, state Sen. Greg Albritton and former state Sen. Dick Brewbaker, both of whom are white. Another late entrant was former NFL defensive end Wallace Gilberry, who was a star for the University of Alabama's Crimson Tide before playing professionally for nine seasons; Gilberry is Black.

● AL-07: State Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton has opted against a primary challenge to Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell in the 7th District, despite saying in September that he was "looking forward" to just such a campaign, according to AL.com's Roy Johnson. When he announced he was considering a bid, Singleton told the Alabama Daily News, "I want the big fish." But when the filing deadline came and went, Singleton's name was nowhere to be found on the menu. Sewell should have no problem winning another term in the majority-Black 7th, which would have voted for Joe Biden 64-35, per Dave's Redistricting App.

● CO-04: State Rep. Richard Holtorf declared Thursday that he was entering the June GOP primary to succeed retiring Rep. Ken Buck in this reliably red eastern Colorado constituency. Holtorf formed an exploratory committee back in September before the incumbent announced that he wouldn't run again, but the state representative isn't done trashing his would-be opponent. "Ken Buck let us down when he failed to push for the Trump agenda," declared Holtorf.

Holtorf, who cosponsored a resolution last year calling for a "full forensic audit of the 2020 and 2021 elections in Colorado," has also made it clear exactly what he thinks of Buck's anger with Republicans who refuse to accept Joe Biden's win. He previously took Buck to task for condemning a letter from local Republicans accusing the federal government of violating the rights of Jan. 6 defendants, as well as Buck's opposition to his party's fervor to impeach Biden. "Why is he on CNN and MSNBC?" Holtorf asked in September, "I don't think the message he is explaining represents the sentiment of the district."

Holtorf, by contrast, made national news in 2021 when he called a Latino colleague "Buckwheat," claiming later that he didn't know of the racist origins of the word. Holtorf again attracted unwanted attention again the next year when he accidentally dropped his gun in the state capitol while rushing to a vote, an episode that one observer called "reckless and scary."

● FL-20: The House Ethics Committee announced Thursday that it was investigating Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, though it did not include any details about what it was looking into. A spokesman for Cherfilus-McCormick, who represents a safely blue seat in South Florida, only said the congresswoman was "committed to compliance and will work to see that the matter is resolved."

● OH-02: Republican Rep. Brad Wenstrup's Thursday evening retirement announcement unexpectedly set off an open-seat race for Ohio's 2nd District, a longtime conservative bastion in the eastern Cincinnati suburbs. Donald Trump took this constituency 72-27, so whoever wins a plurality in the March 19 GOP primary should have no trouble holding it. But because the filing deadline is Dec. 20, Wenstrup's potential successors have only a few weeks to make up their minds.

Wenstrup himself got to Congress after pulling off a major primary upset against the infamous Rep. Jean Schmidt in 2012, when he made his second bid for office. Wenstrup, who worked as an orthopedic surgeon, was awarded a Bronze Star by the Army for his service as a combat surgeon in Iraq in 2005 and 2006. He also had a small, albeit apolitical, fanbase back in southern Ohio: When Cincinnati Enquirer reporter John Kiesewetter asked which local physicians fit the nickname "Dr. McDreamy" from "Grey's Anatomy," some readers submitted Wenstrup's name.

Wenstrup entered the officially nonpartisan 2009 contest for mayor of Cincinnati but lost to Democratic incumbent Mark Malloy, albeit by a respectable 54-46 margin. Though he said he didn't have any plans to enter another race, he would later tell the Enquirer his feelings changed after a religious retreat in early 2011. "One of the themes of the retreat was, 'What are you going to do with the rest of your life?'" he'd recount the next year. "I felt Congress was the place to be. It was the place where I could make a difference, and I wanted to go for it."

The incumbent he decided to challenge in the 2012 primary, though, seemed secure despite a rough tenure in office. Schmidt had struggled to win her initial 2005 special election against Democrat Paul Hackett months, even though George W. Bush had decisively carried the 2nd District—a poor performance she followed up with weak victories in both the 2006 and 2008 general elections. However, the woman nicknamed "Mean Jean" by her many enemies finally had an easy time during the 2010 red wave, suggesting that she had at last turned a corner.

The ultraconservative Schmidt, though, managed to alienate her base when she gave President Barack Obama a kiss on the cheek at the president's State of the Union address in 2012, a gesture that played badly in the tea party era. The House Ethics Committee had also determined that Schmidt had improperly taken $500,000 in legal services from a Turkish group.

On top of that, redistricting left Schmidt with a seat that was about a quarter new to her. A new super PAC called the Campaign for Primary Accountability, which had the stated goal of denying renomination to incumbents from both parties, got involved with a $50,000 radio and phone campaign attacking the congresswoman.

But it was still a major surprise when Wenstrup, who didn't air a single TV ad, racked up a 49-43 win that March—a result that made Schmidt the first member of Congress to lose reelection that cycle. "Jean has always had some tough races, but she's always sort of hung on and won, so I guess I expected that again," fellow Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan told Roll Call after the votes were tallied. "It just wasn't on my radar screen."

Observers realized in retrospect that it hadn't been on Schmidt's radar screen either. The congresswoman had gone on the air only in the final days of the race and even spent the morning of the primary in D.C. rather than campaigning at home. "She just didn't work it or take this seriously," one national GOP source told Politico hours after the dust had settled. (Schmidt eventually resurrected her career by winning a state House seat in 2020.) Wenstrup, unlike the congresswoman he'd just beaten, had no trouble in the general election, and he never struggled to hold the 2nd.

Wenstrup attracted national attention in 2017, when he treated Rep. Steve Scalise immediately after a gunman shot the Louisianan at practice for that year's congressional baseball game. "Happened to have Brad Wenstrup on the field that day, and he was one of the first to come to my side," Scalise would say when he returned to Congress months later. "Who would've thought that God would've put Brad out there on that field with me because the tourniquet he applied―many will tell you―saved my life so that I could actually make it to the hospital in time with all the blood loss."

Wenstrup would later sign on to the lawsuit alleging "unconstitutional irregularities involved in the 2020 presidential election," though he'd ultimately vote to recognize Joe Biden's win in the hours after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. The congressman expressed interest a few weeks later in running to fill the seat held by retiring Sen. Rob Portman, but he ultimately decided to seek what would be his final term in the House.

● WA-06, WA-Gov: Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz announced Friday that she was ending her uphill bid for governor and would instead run for the seat held by Rep. Derek Kilmer, a fellow Democrat who announced his retirement the day before. Franz served on the city council for Bainbridge Island, which is located in the 6th, from 2008 to 2011, though the Seattle Times writes that she's since registered to vote outside the district in Seattle. However, Franz's announcement says she lives in Kilmer's district in Grays Harbor County.

On the GOP side, state Sen. Drew MacEwen told the paper Friday that he was forming an exploratory committee. This seat backed Joe Biden 57-40, though Democrats will want to keep an eye out to make sure two Republicans don't advance past the August top-two primary.

Attorneys General

● NC-AG: Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry unexpectedly announced Friday she would seek the Democratic nomination for attorney general. Deberry will take on Rep. Jeff Jackson, who until now had no serious opposition in the March primary to replace their fellow Democrat, gubernatorial candidate Josh Stein. The winner will likely take on far-right Rep. Dan Bishop, who still has no major opponents in the GOP contest.

Deberry was elected in 2018 to become the top prosecutor for Durham County, which is the bluest in the state, and she won again last year. Deberry, who would be the first Black woman to hold one of the 10 statewide offices that are part of the North Carolina Council of State, has touted herself as a "progressive prosecutor."

Prosecutors and Sheriffs

● Snohomish County, WA Sheriff: Susanna Johnson declared victory Thursday evening over hard-right Sheriff Adam Fortney after more ballots were tabulated from Nov. 7's officially nonpartisan race. Johnson led 51-48, a margin of almost 5,400 votes, with heraldnet.com saying there just 500 ballots left "plus any mail-in ballots still en route." Fortney had the county GOP's support, while Johnson had the support of several Democratic groups.

Fortney was elected to this post in 2019, and he spent the first months of his tenure refusing to enforce Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee's public health rules. He's also rehired deputies accused of wrongdoing, including one fired for an unjustified killing. Johnson, who would be the first woman to hold this post, told Bolts Magazine the return of these deputies inspired her to run, arguing it's led to constituents becoming "terrified of the cops."

Grab Bag

● Where Are They Now?: Former Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby was convicted Thursday evening on two counts of perjury, and each carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Mosby last year took third place in her Democratic primary against the eventual winner, Ivan Bates.

Prosecutors argued that Mosby lied when she submitted paperwork to withdraw $90,000 from Baltimore's Deferred Compensation Plan during the pandemic, as she checked the box saying she'd suffered "adverse financial consequences" when her salary actually rose. Mosby's team insisted that the travel business she founded had been forced to close, but prosecutors made the case that it never had any employees, clients, or income. Mosby still awaits trial for allegedly filing false mortgage applications.

Morning Digest: Check out our election guides and join us for our liveblog starting at 6 PM ET

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Leading Off

● Election Night: Loudoun Calling: The big night is just about here, with exciting races in store on Tuesday from coast to coast!

We have competitive contests for governor in Kentucky and Mississippi, while both parties are locked in an expensive battle over control of the Virginia legislature. Ohio voters will also decide the fate of an amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, while Pennsylvania holds a competitive statewide race for the state Supreme Court. And there are many more important elections in major cities and counties across the country.

We'll be covering all of these races live on Tuesday night, starting when the first polls close at 6 PM ET. Join us at Daily Kos Elections and follow us on X (formerly Twitter) for blow-by-blow updates.

As you settle in for election night, Daily Kos Elections has put together a range of resources for all of the key races that you'll want to bookmark:

We're also pleased to announce that the annual Daily Kos Elections prediction contest is back! Once again, the exceptional Green's Bakery is generously sponsoring fantastic prizes for the top four winners. For more details, including contest rules and our submission form, click here.

We hope you'll join us starting at 6 PM ET at Daily Kos Elections and on X for our coverage of what will be an eventful election night!

Senate

● MD-Sen: Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger on Monday became the first member of Maryland's congressional delegation to endorse fellow Rep. David Trone in the May Democratic primary. The Baltimore Sun writes that Ruppersberger, who represents much of suburban Baltimore County, "is the first major Democratic official in the Baltimore area — or across the state — to endorse Trone." Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski is backing Trone's main intraparty rival, Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks.

Ruppersberger's announcement came days after the Maryland State Education Association, which has long been an important player in state politics, threw its support behind Trone. The 75,000-member MSEA, which is affiliated with the National Education Association, is the largest teachers union in the state.

● MI-Sen: Former Rep. Peter Meijer announced Monday that he'd seek the Republican nomination to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, but both the NRSC and Michigan Republican Party responded to the news by expressing utter contempt for their new candidate.

"Peter Meijer isn't viable in a primary election," declared NRSC Executive Director Jason Thielman, "and there's worry that if Meijer were nominated, the base would not be enthused in the general election." Meijer, who was one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, narrowly lost renomination last year to a Trump-backed foe, John Gibbs; Gibbs, in turn, badly lost the general election for the Grand Rapids-based 3rd District to Democrat Hillary Scholten.

While Republicans almost certainly would have been better off if Meijer, who first won office in 2020 by beating Scholten in a more conservative version of the 3rd, had prevailed against Gibbs, Thielman isn't the only one arguing he'd demoralize Republicans if he were to win the August primary. An unnamed Republican told Politico that internal polls showed Meijer considerably more popular with Democrats than with GOP voters, though no one has released any actual data to that effect.

And the NRSC's attacks don't come in a vacuum: The committee successfully recruited former Rep. Mike Rogers to run last month, and its chair, Steve Daines, praised him when he kicked off his campaign. But Rogers, too, has a history of criticizing Trump, so there may be something deeper to the NRSC's sharp words for Meijer.

In fact, both Politico and CNN report that the committee is also worried that Meijer's presence could make it easier for former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, who has run as an ardent Trump ally, to win the GOP nod. Craig's hard-line views aren't the only reason that his intraparty critics want to stop him. He waged a disastrous bid for governor last cycle that culminated in him getting thrown off the primary ballot, and his new Senate campaign is picking up right where he left off: Craig took just 17 days to part ways with both his campaign manager and deputy manager.

The state GOP, which is led by election denier Kristina Karamo, also made it clear how much it despises Meijer with a tweet that went up immediately after the new candidate's launch. "Peter Meijer voted to impeach President Trump," the party's official account posted. "Remember that." However, the message was deleted just minutes later.

What replaced it was a statement declaring that the party "remains neutral and supportive of all Republican primary candidates." It continued, "Unfortunately, an over-zealous intern posted a negative comment regarding a candidate that does not reflect the position of MIGOP." Could it actually be that an intern of any level of zeal would have unfettered access to the state party's social media properties? As unlikely as that might seem, The Messenger's Matt Holt speculated that the near-bankrupt outfit might indeed be dependent on such labor.

Meijer, for his part, didn't mention Trump at all in a launch statement that argued he was the most electable Republican in the race. But the former one-term congressman, who is an Army veteran and heir to his family's eponymous supermarket chain, may already be trying to revise his anti-MAGA image.

Meijer submitted a court filing days before his announcement opposing a lawsuit arguing that Trump should be barred from the state ballot because the 14th Amendment disqualifies officeholders who have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion." Meijer sees things differently. "I filed an amicus brief today to support Mr. Trump being on the ballot," he said in a statement, "because our democracy relies on the ability of voters, not judges or partisan election officials, to determine their leaders." Rogers, who retired from Congress six years before Meijer's election, also has attacked Trump's critics in recent months.

There's been less drama on the Democratic side, where Rep. Elissa Slotkin holds a wide financial advantage over actor Hill Harper and the rest of the field. Harper, though, got some welcome news Monday when he received an endorsement from Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, who leads the most populous county in the state.

Governors

● KY-Gov: Data for Progress (D): Andy Beshear (D-inc): 50, Daniel Cameron (R): 48

House

● AL-02: Two different Republicans, state Sen. Greg Albritton and former state Sen. Dick Brewbaker, declared Monday that they'd run for this redrawn constituency. The GOP primary also included attorney Caroleene Dobson, who announced Wednesday.

The new 2nd, which would have favored Joe Biden 56-43 in 2020, was drawn to ensure Black voters could elect their preferred candidate, and all three GOP candidates are white. (Rep. Barry Moore, who is also a white Republican, decided last month to oppose fellow incumbent Jerry Carl in the March primary for the conservative 1st rather than try to hold the 2nd.) Brewbaker, though, argued to AL.com in September that if the general election comes down to "straight-up racial polarization ... the Republicans can potentially hang onto the seat."

On the Democratic side, Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed has confirmed he won't run. State Sen. Kirk Hatcher said last week that Reed would be endorsing him, though the mayor hasn't publicly thrown his support behind anyone yet.

● CO-04: House Minority Leader Mike Lynch tells Colorado Public Radio he's interested in running to replace his fellow Republican, retiring Rep. Ken Buck. Lynch texted that he and his wife were mulling "how my background as a West Point graduate, Army veteran, small business owner, and Colorado House Minority Leader could best be used to serve the people of my state and our nation."

CPR also mentions former state Sen. Tom Wiens as a possible candidate, though there's no word if he's considering well over a decade after his last run for office. Wiens took on Buck for the GOP's 2010 U.S. Senate nomination, but he dropped out well before the primary.

● MD-02: A spokesperson for Democratic Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger tells the Baltimore Sun that the 11-term incumbent still hasn't decided if he'll seek reelection with three months to go before the Feb. 9 filing deadline. Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski began raising money in June for a potential campaign, though his team made it clear he'd only run if Ruppersberger retired. Joe Biden carried this seat, which is based in the northern Baltimore suburbs, 59-39.

● MD-03: Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who recently published a book about his experience during the Jan. 6 riot, told Axios late last month he was mulling a bid to replace retiring Rep. John Sarbanes in this safely blue seat. "[A]t this moment it's only an intriguing idea," Dunn tweeted Oct. 28, "And I haven't given much formal thought to it. I'm not against it but it's a hell of a decision that I'm not prepared to make now."

The Baltimore Sun, meanwhile, writes that Del. Terri Hill says she's decided to enter the Democratic primary, but there's no quote from her.

● MN-03: While Rep. Dean Phillips announced his longshot White House bid last month, his fellow Minnesota Democrats still aren't assuming the 3rd District will be an open seat next year. Secretary of State Steve Simon, who has expressed interest in running to replace Phillips, tells Minnesota Public Radio's Dana Ferguson, "I would give it serious consideration if Congressman Phillips were actually leaving Congress, but I'm not sure we really know that at this point, at least, I don't feel like I do."

State Sen. Kelly Morrison and state Rep. Zack Stephenson also haven't shown any obvious sign that they'd run for the 3rd until they're sure Phillips won't. But Ron Harris, a DNC member who launched his campaign here last month, reiterated to Ferguson, "We're going to run no matter what."

Phillips, for his part, took to social media Saturday and wrote of his presidential bid, "I'll be clear - if my campaign is not viable after March 5th, I'll wrap it up and endorse the likely nominee - Biden or otherwise." That self-imposed deadline falls about three months before Minnesota's downballot candidate filing deadline.

● OR-03: Former Multnomah County Commission Chair Deborah Kafoury said over the weekend that she wouldn't enter the primary to succeed her fellow Democrat, retiring Rep. Earl Blumenauer.

Morning Digest: Double-bunked Alabama incumbents vie to prove who’s the most extreme

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● AL-01, AL-02: Rep. Barry Moore announced Monday that he'd take on fellow incumbent Jerry Carl in the March Republican primary for Alabama's revamped 1st District, a declaration that comes almost a month after a federal court approved a new map that makes Moore's old 2nd District all but unwinnable for his party. The 1st remains centered around the Mobile area but lost nearly all of the city itself and now includes the rural Wiregrass region in the state's southeastern corner.

Moore, who unlike Carl belongs to the far-right House Freedom Caucus, used a new interview with the conservative site 1819 News to try to position himself as the ideologically purer choice. After noting that redistricting made Carl's already safely red 1st District even more Republican, Moore argued, "Me being a House Freedom Caucus guy, I realized at that point the district really needs a true, true conservative to represent it."

But Carl, who is much closer to his party's leadership, was not content to let this narrative take hold. "Bring it on," he said in a statement. "I have a proven track record of putting Alabama first every day and delivering conservative results for Alabama's First Congressional District." Carl finished September with a $870,000 to $650,000 advantage in cash on hand. He also represents 59% of the population of the redrawn district to Moore's 41%. (Each incumbent's section of the new 2nd is comparably conservative, with both having given about 75% of the vote to Donald Trump, and the two regions saw similar turnout.)

It's possible, though, that the Club for Growth could come to Moore's aid. The hard-line anti-tax group spent over $700,000 on ads to boost him in his first successful campaign for Congress in 2020, when he came from behind to handily win the GOP primary runoff after Rep. Martha Roby retired. (Moore himself challenged Roby for renomination two years before, but he ended up taking third place in that primary.)

The Club also sought to influence that year's race in the 1st District, which was also open thanks to Rep. Bradley Byrne's unsuccessful Senate bid, and spent $1.4 million in an attempt to thwart Carl. But Carl managed to squeeze past state Sen. Bill Hightower 52-48. The Club didn't commit to anything on Monday, however, merely telling AL.com that its "endorsement process is confidential and we have nothing to announce at this time."

Moore, who previously served in the state House, also used his announcement to remind 1819 News that Monday marked nine years since a jury found him not guilty of perjury in connection with a corruption investigation targeting Mike Hubbard, who had been speaker of the state House. "I became a conservative who was attacked by the swamp itself, but it was the Montgomery swamp at that time," he said of that trial. "That was the thing that changed the trajectory of my life that we felt we were called into this fight."

Both Carl and Moore voted against recognizing Joe Biden's win in the hours after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, but Moore went even further in promoting extremism that weekend. "[I]t was a Black police officer who shot the white female veteran," Moore tweeted of rioter Ashli Babbit, who was fatally shot attempting to breach a hallway adjacent to the House chamber. Moore went on to propose legislation this year to designate the AR-15 the "National Gun of America" and later spoke at a CPAC Hungary event headlined by autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Senate

● NJ-Sen: The New Jersey Globe reports that state First Lady Tammy Murphy plans to file FEC paperwork this week for a potential Democratic primary bid against indicted incumbent Bob Menendez and that her announcement "could come sometime in the next few weeks." The contest already includes Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who launched his bid the day after federal prosecutors indicted Menendez on corruption charges.

House

● AL-02: State Sen. Kirk Hatcher and state Rep. Napoleon Bracy on Monday became the first notable Democrats to announce that they would run for the redrawn 2nd District, which will be open because GOP Rep. Barry Moore is campaigning for the 1st. (See our AL-01, AL-02 item above.) Hatcher also told AL.com that he anticipated that Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed would support him rather than run himself, something that the Alabama Reporter’s Josh Moon also reported would happen earlier Monday.

Hatcher hails from Montgomery, while Bracy represents the Mobile suburb of Prichard. Hatcher argued to Moon, "It’s been 40 or 41 years since the whole of Montgomery has been represented in Congress by someone who lives in Montgomery." He also criticized several prospective candidates who hail from north of the 2nd, declaring, "I know them and I think they’re fine people. But we would not go into Birmingham or to Huntsville. We have people who can represent this area."  

Bracy, whose community is in the new 2nd, didn't emphasize geography in his declaration, though he told AL.com, "This district is made up of so many cities, communities, and neighborhoods just like the one I grew up in—places hurting with high poverty and crime rates, unemployment that just don’t have a lot of opportunities, some of it is because they’ve been overlooked."

● CA-20: Businessman David Giglio, a Republican who took fourth in last year's top-two primary for the neighboring 13th District, announced Monday that he'd wage an intraparty bid against Rep. Kevin McCarthy. The incumbent said he planned to seek reelection to this safely red seat days after his speakership came to an involuntary end, though Politico notes that there's still plenty of talk he could retire or resign.

Giglio last cycle raised $500,000 and self-funded another $340,000 for his quest for the open 13th, though he ended up taking back $130,000 of his loan. But Giglio didn't come close to displacing John Duarte as the main GOP candidate: Duarte took 34% to Democrat Adam Gray's 31%, while Democrat Phil Arballo edged out Giglio 17-15 for the honor of taking third. Duarte went on to narrowly defeat Gray, who along with Arballo is seeking a rematch this cycle.

Giglio, however, is focusing on his new rival's failure rather than his own. "Kevin McCarthy was removed as Speaker by 8 courageous members of his own party for failing to keep his promises and capitulating to Joe Biden and the radical Democrats," Giglio declared in a statement. "Kevin McCarthy must be defeated."

● IL-17: Farmer Scott Crowl, who previously led an affiliate of the labor group AFSCME, declared last week that he would seek the GOP nod to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Eric Sorensen. Crowl entered the contest weeks after retired local judge Joe McGraw launched his own campaign for a north-central Illinois constituency that favored Joe Biden 53-45.

The Pentagraph previously wrote that McGraw has the NRCC's support, while Crowl says he's campaigning "against the establishment." He told the Quad Cities Times, "If the establishment was so good at picking candidates I wouldn’t be running today."

● MO-01, MO-Sen: St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell announced Monday that he would challenge Rep. Cori Bush in the Democratic primary rather than continue his longshot campaign to unseat Republican Sen. Josh Hawley. Missouri's 1st District, which includes St. Louis and its northern suburbs, supported Joe Biden 78-20, so whoever wins the Democratic nod next August should have no trouble in the general election.

Bush won a major upset in 2020 when she defeated 20-year incumbent Lacy Clay in the Democratic primary and swiftly became one of the House's most visible progressives. Now, however, her outspoken views on police funding and Israel are helping to fuel Bell's bid.

The congresswoman has spent her two terms in office as an ardent critic of Israel's government. Following Hamas' deadly invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, Bush released a statement that sparked criticism from both fellow members of Congress and Jewish organizations.

"As part of achieving a just and lasting peace," she said the day of the attack, "we must do our part to stop this violence and trauma by ending U.S. government support for Israeli military occupation and apartheid."

Bell joined Bush's critics in his Monday kickoff. "We can’t give aid and comfort to terrorists, and Hamas is a terrorist organization," he said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Bell also highlighted Bush's calls for defunding the police, arguing the cause was both wrong and helped the Republicans flip the House last year.

Bush's team, meanwhile, responded to Bell's entry with a statement emphasizing her progressive views and questioning her opponent's decision. "It is disheartening that Prosecuting Attorney Bell has decided to abandon his US Senate campaign to become Missouri's first Black Senator after less than five months, and has instead decided to target Missouri's first Black Congresswoman," she said in a statement.

While both candidates hold prominent positions in local politics, both of them will be starting this matchup with little money. Bush finished September with just $20,000 in the bank, a smaller war chest than any House incumbent seeking reelection.

Bell, though, did not inspire many donors during his Senate campaign. The prosecutor, who was overshadowed in the primary by Marine veteran Lucas Kunce, took in just $280,000 during his two quarters in the race. He ended last month with $90,000 banked, funds that he can use for his new bid.

● OR-03: Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer told Willamette Week on Monday that he would not seek reelection to the seat he first won in a 1996 special election, saying, “I’m not certain that two more years in Congress in this climate is the best way to deal with things I care about.” Oregon’s 3rd District, which is based in the eastern Portland area, favored Joe Biden 73-25, and whoever takes a plurality in the May 21 Democratic primary should have no trouble in the general election.

We’ll have more in our next Digest about the race to succeed Blumenauer, who told The Oregonian, “There are literally a dozen people salivating at the prospect of getting in this race,” as well as the congressman’s long career.

● TX-32: State Rep. Rhetta Bowers announced Monday that she was exiting the Democratic primary and would instead seek reelection to the legislature after all. Bowers launched a campaign in mid-September to replace Democratic Senate candidate Colin Allred months after she said she'd run for reelection rather than seek a promotion, but she raised a mere $25,000 during what remained of the quarter.

● House: Politico writes that the Congressional Leadership Fund and Club for Growth will stick with the January agreement they made to persuade far-right members to support Kevin McCarthy even though Mike Johnson now sits in the chair. The terms were as follows: CLF said it "will not spend in any open-seat primaries in safe Republican districts" or fund any other groups that would, while the Club agreed to endorse McCarthy's speakership bid.

Attorneys General

● TX-AG: A judge on Monday scheduled Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton's trial for April 15, which will be close to nine years after he was charged with securities fraud.

Paxton has been reelected twice while under indictment, and while he was suspended from office in May when the state House impeached him in a different matter, the upper chamber acquitted him last month. Special prosecutor Kent Schaffer unsubtly highlighted how Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick received $3 million from a pro-Paxton organization before presiding over his trial, declaring, "Unlike the impeachment, this is going to be a fair trial. This judge is not corrupt. This judge is not on the take."

If Paxton is forced from office this time, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott would nominate a successor; this person would require the support of two-thirds of the Senate in order to be confirmed.

Ballot Measures

● OH Ballot: Public Policy Polling's new survey of next week's election for former Ohio Democratic Party chair David Pepper finds a strong 55-38 majority in favor of Issue 1, which is described to respondents as a state constitutional amendment "which would protect reproductive freedom and an individual right to one's own reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion."

Pepper writes that this summary "approximates the first sentences voters will read on the ballot but doesn't get into all the details that appear later." Those details include ballot summary language written by the GOP-led Ohio Ballot Board that, among other things, substitutes the words "unborn child" in place of "fetus." Pepper argues, "I believe that all the attack ads and disinformation have made this narrower in reality" than what the toplines show even though the numbers demonstrate that "Ohio remains a pro-choice state."

The only other poll we've seen this month was conducted by Baldwin Wallace University and SurveyUSA in mid-October, and it also found a 58-34 majority in favor of Issue 1. The description provided in that poll said that the proposed amendment "would protect the right to reproductive freedom, including "access to contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one's own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion," as well as "allow the state to prohibit abortion after fetal viability, unless 'it is necessary to protect the pregnant patient's life or health.'"

PPP also shows voters backing Issue 2, a statutory measure to legalize recreational marijuana, 59-39, which is comparable to the 57-35 edge BWU and SurveyUSA found. PPP additionally quizzed voters about the proposed 2024 amendment to "create an independent commission, made up of Ohio citizens and not politicians, to draw fair congressional and state legislative district lines," and respondents say they'd support it 57-15.

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Morning Digest: Alabama poised to have two Black Congress members for first time thanks to new map

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● AL Redistricting: A federal court on Thursday chose a new congressional map to impose in Alabama for the 2024 elections, finally creating a second district where Black voters can elect their preferred candidate. You can see the new map here, and click here for an interactive version.

The court had previously found that the map Republicans enacted in 2021 violated the Voting Rights Act, though the map was still used in last year's elections while the GOP appealed. Consequently, a Black Democrat will likely replace a white Republican after 2024, which would give Alabama two Black House members (out of seven total) for the first time in its history, roughly matching the 27% of its population that is Black.

Compared with the previous map, the new map significantly reconfigures the 1st and 2nd districts in southern Alabama to turn the latter district from a majority-white, safely Republican constituency into one that is 49% Black and just 44% white. To do so, the new map gives the 2nd the rest of Montgomery and most of Mobile—two cities that both have large Black populations—while the 2nd sheds the heavily white rural areas along the Florida border and exurbs north of Montgomery. (Changes to the other five districts were relatively limited.)

Consequently, the redesigned 2nd District would have favored Joe Biden 56-43 in 2020, making it a likely Democratic flip in 2024. Current 2nd District Rep. Barry Moore, a Republican who is a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus, is now at significant risk of losing his seat, though Moore recently indicated he could bail on the 2nd District and instead run against fellow GOP Rep. Jerry Carl in the primary for the 1st. However, Moore would likely be starting at a disadvantage there since our calculations indicate Carl currently represents 59% of the new district compared to Moore's 41%.

The new map is the culmination of multiyear litigation that saw the lower court strike down the GOP's 2021 map last year because it packed Black voters into the heavily Democratic 7th District while dispersing them elsewhere to ensure that the other six districts would remain heavily white and safely Republican. The Supreme Court put that ruling on hold for the 2022 elections while Republicans appealed, but it subsequently upheld the lower court's ruling in a landmark decision this past June, preserving a key protection of the Voting Rights Act.

Following the Supreme Court's ruling, the lower court gave the Republican-controlled legislature a second chance to draw a compliant map, instructing them to draw two districts that were either majority-Black or "something quite close to it." But in July, Republicans brazenly defied the courts, enacting a new map with just one majority-Black district and another that was only 39.9% Black—well short of a majority and therefore safely Republican.

Last month, the lower court blocked this new Republican map, and the Supreme Court also rejected the GOP's last-ditch attempt to keep it in place. Republican Secretary of State Wes Allen subsequently dropped the state's appeal to the high court earlier this week. This ensures the new map adopted by the lower court will be used in 2024, though state Republicans could still sue to invalidate the court-imposed map later this decade.

election recaps

● Memphis, TN Mayor: Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young defeated Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner 28-23 Thursday to succeed their fellow Democrat, termed-out Mayor Jim Strickland, in a 17-way contest where it took only a simple plurality to win. Young, who outspent each of his opponents, was long involved in city government but had never before run for office, and he argued he'd be the most prepared mayor in history while also representing change.

The winning candidate, who is the son of two well-known pastors, also focused on turning out younger voters. Young, when questioned why he'd voted in two GOP primaries since 2016, argued this was "strategic crossover voting to ensure that we have good people on both sides of the ledger." "I'm a Democrat," he said at one debate, "but I'm gonna get the job done."

3Q Fundraising

  • AZ-Sen: Ruben Gallego (D): $3 million raised, $5 million cash on hand
  • NV-Sen: Jacky Rosen (D-inc): $2.7 million raised, $8.8 million cash on hand
  • PA-Sen: Bob Casey (D-inc): $3.2 million raised, $7.3 million cash on hand
  • WI-Sen: Tammy Baldwin (D-inc): $3.1 million raised, $7 million cash on hand
  • CA-27: George Whitesides (D): $400,000 raised, additional $300,000 self-funded, $1.7 million cash on hand
  • CA-41: Will Rollins (D): $830,000 raised
  • CO-03: Adam Frisch (D): $3.4 million raised, $4.3 million cash on hand
  • NY-17: Mondaire Jones (D): $1.15 million raised, $840,000 cash on hand
  • WI-03: Rebecca Cooke (D): $400,000 raised

Senate

● CA-Sen: Politico relays that Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter, and Adam Schiff have all made it clear they'd continue to run for the Senate even if their fellow Democrat, appointed incumbent Laphonza Butler, sought a full term.

● NJ-Sen: Rep. Andy Kim's allies at End Citizens United are out with an internal from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling that shows the congressman beating First Lady Tammy Murphy 42-19 in a hypothetical Democratic primary, with indicted Sen. Bob Menendez taking all of 5%. The firm also finds Kim, who remains the only major declared candidate, defeating the incumbent 63-10 in a one-on-one fight. This is the only primary poll we've seen other than a Data for Progress survey that showed Kim beating fellow Rep. Mikie Sherrill 27-20 in a crowded contest, but that survey was largely conducted after Sherrill said she wouldn't run.

Another Democratic House member, Rep. Frank Pallone, sounds unlikely to seek a promotion, though he didn't quite rule it out to Politico. Pallone, who has served in the lower chamber since 1988, instead says he wants to regain the top post on the Energy and Commerce panel under a new Democratic majority. He said of the Senate chatter, "I’m flattered by the suggestions."

The story also adds that Rep. Josh Gottheimer is continuing to prepare his likely 2025 gubernatorial bid and isn't "planning to change course and run for Senate," though he hasn't said this publicly. (See our NJ-11, NJ-Gov item below for more on both Gottheimer and Sherrill's 2025 deliberations.)

● WV-Sen: The Tarrance Group's late-September poll for the Senate Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC tied to Mitch McConnell, shows GOP Gov. Jim Justice leading Sen. Joe Manchin 49-43 in a hypothetical general election scenario where the senator runs as an independent rather than as a Democrat. The memo did not mention Rep. Alex Mooney, who is waging an uphill primary battle against Justice.

Governors

● MS-Gov: The conservative Magnolia Tribune has released a survey from Mason-Dixon that shows GOP Gov. Tate Reeves leading Democrat Brandon Presley 51-43, which is only a little smaller than the 52-41 advantage that Siena College found in late August. Mason-Dixon does not appear to have asked respondents about independent Gwendolyn Gray, whose presence on the ballot could conceivably prevent anyone from taking the majority needed to avert a Nov. 28 runoff; Siena, though, found just 1% opting for "someone else."

House

● AZ-01: Former TV news anchor Marlene Galán-Woods has publicized an endorsement from former Gov. Janet Napolitano, who served from 2003 to 2009, in the Democratic primary to face GOP incumbent David Schweikert.

● MI-08: Saginaw police officer Martin Blank, who served as an Army trauma surgeon in Afghanistan, on Thursday became the first notable Republican to launch a bid against Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee. Joe Biden would have carried this seat, which is based in the Flint and Tri-Cities areas, 50-48, but Kildee won an expensive race 53-43 two years later.

Blank has twice run for the state legislature, but he came nowhere close to securing the nomination either time. He lost his 2020 bid for the state House 50-31 against Timothy Beson, who went on to win the seat. Black campaigned for the upper chamber last year in a four-way primary, but he finished dead last with 18%. (Annette Glenn won that nomination contest with 41% only to lose to Democrat Kristen McDonald Rivet in the fall.)

● MN-03: DNC member Ron Harris tells Punchbowl News he's considering running for the seat currently held by Rep. Dean Phillips, and he didn't rule out challenging the would-be Biden primary foe. Harris sounds more interested in running for an open seat, however, even though Minnesota's June filing deadline means that Phillips wouldn't need to choose between humoring his longshot presidential dreams and seeking reelection. "As Dean considers a run for President, I'm exploring a run for Congress to ensure this district stays in Democratic hands," Harris tweeted Thursday.

Harris, who is currently the DNC's Midwestern Caucus chair, previously served as Minneapolis' chief resilience officer from 2019 until last year. (Minnesota's largest city is located entirely in Rep. Ilhan Omar's 5th District.) Harris would be the first Black person to represent the 3rd, a seat in the western Minneapolis suburbs that favored Biden 60-39.

● NJ-11, NJ-Gov: Politico relays chatter that New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill could retire this cycle to prepare for a potential 2025 bid to succeed her fellow Democrat, termed-out Gov. Phil Murphy, though there's no word from the congresswoman about her thinking. The current version of Sherrill's 11th District, which includes New York City's western suburbs and exurbs, would have backed Joe Biden 58-41, and Democrats would be favored to keep it no matter what.

The congresswoman would be free to seek a fourth term in the House in 2024 and even remain in Congress should she lose a bid for governor, but Sherrill could decide instead that she'd prefer to focus on a statewide campaign. Indeed, Politico previously reported in July that another Democrat who flipped a seat during the 2018 blue wave, Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger, has decided against running for reelection so she can commit all of her time towards her own 2025 gubernatorial bid: Spanberger herself says she'll reveal her plans after the Nov. 7 legislative elections. (New Jersey also holds its state House and Senate contests that day.)

If Sherrill were to run for governor, she'd be in for an expensive primary battle. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop launched his campaign all the way back in April, and he announced Thursday that he'd raised enough money to receive all $7.3 million from the state's matching funds program, which provides $2 in state funds for every dollar raised. Anyone participating in the program can only spend $7.3 million during the primary, though super PACs like the pro-Fulop Coalition for Progress, which had $6.5 million available at the end of June, can deploy as much as they want.

Sherrill also isn't the only Democratic House member who might try to be the next inhabit of Drumthwacket, the governor's delightfully named official residence. An advisor for Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a prominent centrist who represents a neighboring seat to the north, confirmed the congressman's interest back in July to the New Jersey Globe. However, Politico relays that unnamed "Democrats close to Gottheimer" anticipate he'll also seek reelection next year to the 5th District, which favored Biden 56-43.

Plenty of other Democrats have also been talked about as potential candidates to replace Murphy in this blue state, and we'll take a closer look at the many potential contenders after the Nov. 7 elections. On the GOP side, former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli announced he was in days after he lost the 2021 general election to Murphy by a surprisingly narrow 51-48 spread.

● VA-10: Axios' Hans Nichols reports that former National Security Council advisor Eugene Vindman, the whistleblower who attracted national attention in the leadup to Donald Trump's first impeachment, is considering running to succeed his fellow Democrat, retiring Rep. Jennifer Wexton. Vindman didn't deny anything to Nichols when asked at an event for the Democratic group VoteVets, saying instead, "I'm focused on Ukraine funding. I'm focused on war crimes now. That's all I'm focused on."

Nick Minock of the local ABC affiliate 7News, meanwhile, writes that Loudoun County Supervisor Juli Briskman discussed campaigning for the Democratic nod after Wexton announced that she wouldn't run following her diagnosis with Progressive Supra-nuclear Palsy. Briskman, who was photographed flipping off Donald Trump's motorcade while biking in 2017, divulged last week that she was being treated for breast cancer, and she said doctors are optimistic about her prospects. The supervisor, who is up for reelection on Nov. 7, did not respond to 7News' inquiry about her 2024 plans.

Minock also mentions state Sen. Jennifer Boysko, Del. Elizabeth Guzman, and former Attorney General Mark Herring as possible Democratic candidates. Nichols additionally names Jessica Post, who announced last week that she would step down as president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee after this year's races; like the aforementioned trio, Post does not appear to have said anything publicly about participating in this contest. But Del. Danica Roem, who is seeking a promotion to the state Senate, told 7News she wouldn't run herself; Roem previously ruled out a bid for the neighboring 7th District.

On the GOP side, attorney Mike Clancy on Thursday became the first declared candidate for this 58-40 Biden seat. Clancy, whom Minock describes as a "business executive with a global technology company," ran here last year and self-funded the majority of his campaign's $400,000 budget, but he didn't come close to winning the party-run "firehouse primary."

Minock also supplies a few names of possible GOP contenders:

  • 2020 nominee Aliscia Andrews
  • Loudoun County Supervisor Caleb Kershner
  • 2022 candidate Caleb Max
  • state Sen. Jill Vogel

Kershner is up for reelection next month, while Vogel is retiring from the legislature.

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Morning Digest: Kevin McCarthy has two months to decide if he’ll seek reelection to the House

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● CA-20: Kevin McCarthy's colleagues ousted him as speaker of the House on Tuesday, and if you're like us you have just one question: What's next for California's 20th District?

Ok, even the most hardcore among us may have a few other things on our minds right now, but California's early filing deadline means that McCarthy will have only a little more than two months to decide if he wants to seek a 10th term to the chamber where he was just humiliated. The congressman himself did nothing to dispel speculation that he might retire or resign when he responded to a question about whether he’d stay in office by answering, “I’ll look at that.” 

Candidates have until Dec. 8 to turn in paperwork if they want to compete in the Golden State's March 5 top-two primary, and, because hopefuls can pay a fee rather than submit signatures, major contenders can decide whether they'll run on the final day of qualifying. The state automatically extends the deadline to five days in contests where the incumbent chooses not to file for reelection, so the field might only take shape late if McCarthy doesn't end up running.

The current version of the 20th District, which includes parts of the Bakersfield and Fresno areas, supported Donald Trump 61-36, which makes this the most conservative of any of California's 52 congressional districts. The GOP likewise has a large bench of prospective candidates, and, because this area is so red, it's possible that two Republicans could advance to the general election. McCarthy has always easily prevailed in this area going back to his initial election in 2006, and it remains to be seen if any strong opponents would take him on even in his diminished state.

3Q Fundraising

  • OH-Sen: Bernie Moreno (R): $1 million raised, additional $3 million self-funded, $5 million cash on hand
  • CA-49: Margarita Wilkinson (R): $1 million raised (campaign did not respond to inquiry if this includes self-funding)
  • TX-18: Isaiah Martin (D): $307,000 raised (in 25 days)
  • TX-32: Julie Johnson (D): $300,000 raised

Senate

● CA-Sen: Democratic Sen. Laphonza Butler was sworn in Tuesday to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, but she says she's unsure if she wants to enter the top-two primary for a full six-year term. "I have no idea. I genuinely don't know," she told the Los Angeles Times the previous day.

California's filing deadline is Dec. 8, but Inside Elections' Jacob Rubashkin notes that another important date will pass next week. Democratic candidates have until Oct. 13 to say that they want to compete for the party endorsement at the November convention, and no major candidate will want to pass up the opportunity to be listed by name in a special section of the voter guide that each county sends to all voters. As we've written before, this is a bit like having someone else pay for a mailer to every voter in the state, a real boon in an expensive contest like this one.

Meanwhile, Data Viewpoint finished a poll just before Butler's appointment was announced Sunday that did not include her as an option. It found Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Katie Porter both advancing past the top-two primary with 19% each as Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee and Republican Eric Early took 6% apiece.

● FL-Sen: The Messenger's Marc Caputo reports that businessman Stanley Campbell is interested in seeking the Democratic nomination to take on GOP incumbent Rick Scott even though former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel Powell has emerged as the party's frontrunner. Campbell, who is the brother of 2 Live Crew's Luther Campbell, has not said anything publicly, though he quietly filed FEC paperwork last week.

Caputo writes that Campbell served in the Navy and went on to form multiple companies, including an artificial intelligence firm whose work helped lead to the 2005 apprehension of serial killer Dennis Rader. Campbell went on to become one of the few African Americans to own a golf course in 2021 when he purchased Martin Downs Golf Club in southeastern Florida's Treasure Coast region.

● MI-Sen: Former Detroit Police Chief James Craig confirmed Tuesday that he would seek the Republican nomination to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a declaration that comes the year after he was ejected from the 2022 primary ballot for governor of Michigan over fraudulent signatures. "I'm not doing it for ego," said Craig, whose last campaign experience would have humbled almost anyone else.

Protestors disrupted his 2021 kickoff rally for his quest to take on Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and that was just the start of his troubles. Craig's campaign would experience several major shakeups, including the departure of two different campaign managers in less than four months, and it would also draw unfavorable press coverage for heavy spending.

The former chief also lost a high-profile endorsement from Rep. Jack Bergman, a northern Michigan Republican who griped that his former choice ignored his region "in favor of a self proclaimed Detroit-centric approach." Still, polls showed Craig well ahead in the primary as he sought to become the Wolverine State's first Black governor.

Everything changed in May, though, when election authorities disqualified Craig and four other contenders from the ballot after they fell victim to a huge fraudulent signature scandal and failed to turn in enough valid petitions. The former frontrunner decided to forge ahead with a write-in campaign to win the GOP nod, blustering, "I'm going to win." However, Craig instead became an afterthought even before far-right radio commentator Tudor Dixon emerged as the new frontrunner, and he ended up taking all of 2% of the vote.

Craig went on to endorse U.S. Taxpayers Party nominee Donna Brandenburg, who had also been ejected from the Republican primary, saying that Dixon's extreme opposition to abortion rights went too far even for him. (James himself was recorded the previous year responding in the affirmative when asked if he'd stop Democrats "from undoing the law that makes abortion illegal in Michigan.") Whitmer soon won 54-44, with Brandenburg in fourth with just 0.4%.

The former chief launched his new effort weeks after former Rep. Mike Rogers joined the nomination fight, and Craig has already worked to position himself as the Trumpiest candidate. The new contender published a pro-Trump op-ed last month in the far-right Daily Caller, and the GOP's supreme master responded by sharing it on social media.

Rogers, by contrast, has had a bumpier relationship with Trump. While the former congressman briefly served on Trump's 2016 transition team, he told the Washington Post last year that "Trump's time has passed." Rogers, who considered waging his own presidential bid, also said of the Jan. 6 riot, "There is never a time in American democracy when violence accomplishes what you want … It is giving up on our Constitution when you storm the Capitol to try to change an election."

But Rogers, whom multiple outlets say the NRSC recruited to run for the Senate, now seems to have realized that Trump's time very much has not passed for the primary voters who will be determining his fate next year. The former congressman echoed the far-right voices in his party last week in a video proclaiming, "[W]hat we are seeing right now is a politically motivated DOJ waging war against the leading Republican presidential candidate on behalf of President [Joe] Biden." "This is not the mike Rogers i knew," tweeted former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who was one of the 10 House Republicans who voted for impeachment after Jan. 6. "How did you fall so far mike?"

The GOP field also includes state Board of Education member Nikki Snyder, who struggled to raise money during the first half of the year, and it may swell still further. Former Rep. Peter Meijer, who lost renomination last year after voting for impeachment, formed an exploratory committee just before Labor Day. Wealthy businessman Perry Johnson, who got thrown off the 2022 gubernatorial ballot along with James, also said last week he was considering abandoning his doomed presidential bid to run for the Senate; the Detroit News also reported in August that another rich guy, 2018 primary loser Sandy Pensler, is thinking about another try, and the paper wrote Tuesday that he was still mulling it over.

On the Democratic side, Rep. Elissa Slotkin is the frontrunner in a field that includes actor Hill Harper, who launched his campaign in early July. Observers are waiting to learn if Harper or any of the other contenders raised a credible amount of money during the third quarter of the year or if Slotkin ended September as the only Democrat with enough money to run a serious operation.

● UT-Sen: Republican Rep. John Curtis declared that he'd remain in the House rather than run for the Senate in a Deseret News op-ed that was published days after the congressman sounded very likely to seek a promotion. KSL NewsRadio asked him Thursday to rate his likelihood on a scale of one to 10, to which Curtis responded, "It's up there in the nine-plus region."

House

● AL-02: Democratic state Rep. Juandalynn Givan told CBS 42 on Monday that she'd decide within the next two weeks if she'd run for the new 2nd District.

● IL-04: Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez, who the Chicago Sun-Times calls "one of the police union's staunchest City Council supporters," announced Tuesday that he'd challenge Rep. Chuy Garcia in the March Democratic primary for this safely blue constituency. Lopez, who the paper adds has a history of "anemic fundraising," previously entered the 2018 race for a previous version of this seat and this year's contest for mayor of Chicago, but he dropped out well before each primary.

Lopez ended up backing wealthy perennial candidate Willie Wilson for mayor over Garcia, incumbent Lori Lightfoot, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, and several other contenders. Neither Garcia nor Lightfoot ended up advancing past the nonpartisan primary, though, and Lopez supported former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas in the general election against Johnson. Garcia, for his part, endorsed fellow progressive Johnson, who went on to pull off a tight win.

● PA-08: Businessman Rob Bresnahan, a Republican who Politico says is capable of self-funding, has filed FEC paperwork for a bid against Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright.

● WI-03: State Rep. Katrina Shankland declared Tuesday that she was joining the Democratic primary to face GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who made national news in July when he reportedly screamed at teenage Senate pages.

Shankland, who was first elected to the legislature in 2012, won reelection in 2020 56-44 as Joe Biden was taking her seat by a smaller 53-45, and she touted herself as a candidate with "a proven track record of not only winning elections but outperforming the top of the ticket in those elections." Van Orden's southwestern Wisconsin constituency is significantly redder turf, though, as Donald Trump took it 51-47.

Shankland joins a nomination contest that includes businesswoman Rebecca Cooke and former La Crosse County Board chair Tara Johnson. Cooke, who took second in last year's primary, announced Tuesday that she'd raised $400,000 during the opening quarter of her new effort.

Legislatures

● NH State House: State Rep. Maria Perez announced Monday she was leaving the Democratic Party to become an independent, a move that once again changes the math ahead of a series of upcoming special elections for this closely divided chamber.

Republicans currently hold a 198-196 edge in a 400-member body that includes Perez and two other nonaligned members. The final three seats are vacant, but while Joe Biden carried two of them by double digits, the final one favored Donald Trump 53-45: Voters go to the polls Nov. 7 to fill the bluest of these three constituencies, while the other two specials have not yet been scheduled. However, given how much volatility we've seen in the state House this year, it's anyone's guess what the membership rolls will look like by the time all three of these seats are occupied.

Mayors and County Leaders

● Baltimore, MD Mayor: Goucher College's new poll with The Baltimore Banner shows former Mayor Sheila Dixon beating incumbent Brandon Scott 39-27 in the first survey we've seen of the May Democratic primary, with another 23% opting for "some other candidate." That latter group said they preferred Scott over his rival 36-33, though that would be far from enough to make up the deficit. The school also finds Dixon, who resigned in 2010 after she was convicted of stealing gift cards that were supposed to help needy families, with a narrow 47-45 favorable rating, which is far better than the 37-53 score that respondents give Scott.

Prosecutors and Sheriffs

● Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff: Democratic Sheriff Paul Penzone announced Monday that, not only would he not run again in 2024, he would resign in January as the top lawman in America's fourth-largest county. Penzone implied he was quitting because another opportunity had presented itself, saying he wanted to avoid "distractions" during what would have been his final year in office.

State law requires the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to select another Democrat to succeed Penzone even though Republicans enjoy a 4-1 majority on the body. Supervisor Steve Gallardo, who is the only Democrat, tells the Arizona Republic he wants the new sheriff to be an "effective candidate" for next year's race.

Penzone first ran for this post in 2012 against Republican incumbent Joe Arpaio, who had spent decades as one of America's most venal and abusive law enforcement officials, but he lost 51-45. Their rematch four years later went very differently, though, and the department's racial profiling policies against Latinos finally caught up to the sheriff.

That October, just a month before his re-election campaign, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it would charge Arpaio with criminal contempt of court for violating a judge's orders to curtail his department's unconstitutional profiling practices. Penzone ended up winning by a lopsided 56-44 even as Donald Trump, who would pardon Arpaio soon after the election, carried the county 48-45.

Penzone went on to secure reelection by that same 56-44 spread against Jerry Sheridan, a former Arpaio chief deputy who had just beaten his old boss in the primary, but the department still has a long way to go to excise Arpaio's legacy. Raul Piña, who serves on the court-appointed Community Advisory Board, told the Republic on Monday that "institutional racism in the Sheriff's Office" persists. Piña, while acknowledging that Penzone had made much-needed changes, said of the incumbent's legacy, "[T]here will always be an asterisk … because the racial profiling continued, and you can't run away from that."

Democratic elected officials were more complimentary, with Secretary of State Adrian Fontes saying, "Even on the hardest days when there were very serious threats being hurled at me and my staff, I always felt safe knowing Paul and his team were always watching out for us."

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Morning Digest: GOP gerrymanders Ohio’s legislature again, but reform could be on the way

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The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.

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Leading Off

● OH Redistricting: In a dismaying turn of events on Tuesday, both Democratic members of Ohio's bipartisan redistricting commission sided with their five Republican counterparts to approve new legislative gerrymanders that would likely lock in the GOP's three-fifths supermajorities just like the maps they were replacing. Despite winning just 53-45 statewide in 2020, Donald Trump would have carried a 24-9 majority of state Senate districts and a 63-36 majority of state House districts according to Dave's Redistricting App.

New maps were required for 2024 because the state Supreme Court had struck down the GOP's five prior sets of maps in 2022 for violating an Ohio constitutional amendment banning partisan gerrymandering. However, that flawed amendment didn't let the court draw its own maps after striking down illegal districts, so the GOP successfully ran out the clock for 2022 and was able to use a set of the unconstitutional maps last year thanks to a ruling by federal judges appointed by Donald Trump.

The state Supreme Court had held that the proportion of districts favoring each party must reflect the 54-46 advantage that Republicans had in statewide elections over the previous decade, but it's unlikely that the court will reject this sixth set of maps for benefiting Republicans well beyond that range. That's because those 2022 rulings saw Republican Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor side with the court's three Democrats to reject the gerrymanders, but age limits required O'Connor to retire last year, enabling hard-line Republicans to solidify a 4-3 GOP majority in November's elections.

Due to the state court's rightward lurch, new Republican gerrymanders for 2024 were practically guaranteed. State Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio and state House Minority Leader Allison Russo, who are the commission's two Democratic members, defended their "yes" votes by claiming the GOP would have passed even worse gerrymanders if they hadn't compromised, and that they still viewed the end results as unfair.

However, the GOP's draft proposals from last week were not drastically worse for Democrats than the maps Antonio and Russo approved, and it appeared that the compromise maps sacrificed partisan fairness for protecting Democratic incumbents. By providing them with bipartisan support, the Democratic commissioners likely ensured that the maps would remain valid for the rest of this decade, since maps passed on a party-line basis would only be valid for four years. Furthermore, this bogus bipartisanship could undermine the support for passing real redistricting reform in the future.

Ohio found itself in this situation because of two amendments that the Republican-dominated legislature put on the ballot and were subsequently approved by voters last decade. While these amendments purported to ban partisan gerrymandering and marginally improved upon the status quo, we noted at the time that they were fundamentally flawed and appeared designed to thwart efforts to pass truly fair reforms at the ballot box, like those passed by Michigan voters in 2018. The repeated rounds of unconstitutional maps following the 2020 census made these flaws readily apparent.

While Ohio will again be stuck with GOP gerrymanders in 2024, there is a potential way forward for voters. O'Connor, the former chief justice, is leading an effort with other good-government advocates to use a ballot initiative for November 2024 that would establish an independent redistricting commission to draw new legislative and congressional maps beginning with the 2026 elections, an initiative we previously explored in detail here.

Unlike previous flawed reforms, this proposal would strip elected officials of their control over the process, handing it to a citizens' commission, and set clearer standards for partisan fairness. Supporters are in the process of getting GOP officials to sign off on their ballot summary and the validity of their proposal before they can begin gathering voter signatures to get onto the November 2024 ballot.

The Downballot

● The Virginia House flipped to Democrats in 2019 and back to Republicans in 2021. Can Democrats win the three seats they need to regain control of the chamber? Blue Virginia's Lowell Feld joins us to run through the key races in both the Virginia Senate and House and how Democrats can win both chambers this November. We also look to 2024 and discuss some key announcements in competitive Virginia Congressional races.

Host David Beard and guest host Joe Sudbay also cover the huge news out of New Jersey, where Sen. Bob Menendez has been indicted (again) and this time most state and national Democrats are not standing by him. We also discuss the long-awaited entrance of hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick into the Pennsylvania Senate race for Republicans; the Supreme Court rejecting Alabama's long shot attempt to prevent a new Congressional map; and the gerrymandered state legislative maps Ohioans will be using for at least one cycle.

Subscribe to "The Downballot" on Apple Podcasts to make sure you never miss a show—new episodes every Thursday! You'll find a transcript of this week's episode right here by noon Eastern time.

Senate

● CA-Sen: The Public Policy Institute of California's new survey shows Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Katie Porter advancing out of the March top-two primary, which is the same outcome that UC Berkeley found in its most recent poll. PPIC shows Schiff in first with 20% as Porter edges out a third Democratic representative, Barbara Lee, 15-8.

● MI-Sen: Businessman Perry Johnson, who has failed to qualify for either GOP presidential debate despite spending millions of his own money, tells NBC he may run for the Senate after all. Johnson, whose primary bid for governor ended last year after he fell victim to a fraudulent petition signature scandal, insists, "I've only had, what, somewhere between 100 to 150 calls [to be] running for Senate."

● NJ-Sen: Rep. Donald Norcross didn't rule out a Democratic primary challenge to indicted incumbent Bob Menendez on Tuesday, telling the New Jersey Globe, "There are a number of things that are taking place right now in the state of New Jersey that are of great concern to everyone. We'll take it one day at a time." Norcross is the brother of George Norcross, a longtime party power player who has watched his influence diminish in recent years.

The Star-Ledger's Tom Moran also writes that former Rep. Tom Malinowski is considering, though there's no word from him. Malinowski lost a tight 2022 reelection contest against Republican Tom Kean Jr., and the Democrat announced earlier this year that he wouldn't try to regain his old seat.

● UT-Sen: Utah state House Speaker Brad Wilson on Wednesday launched his long-anticipated campaign for the Senate seat held by his fellow Republican, retiring incumbent Mitt Romney, and he entered the primary as the frontrunner. However, he got a reminder that the nomination battle remains unsettled hours before his kickoff when Rep. John Curtis told the Deseret News he was “very seriously” considering joining the race.

Wilson's exploratory committee finished June with $2.1 million in the bank thanks to a combination of fundraising and self-funding, and it remains to be seen if any of his intra-party foes will have the resources to put up a serious fight. However, as we've noted before, Wilson may not be quite right-wing enough to satisfy his party's base who would prefer someone in the mold of the Beehive State's other senator, Mike Lee. Political scientist Damon Cann told the Associated Press, "I think most people are expecting Brad Wilson would govern somewhat more conservatively. I think he would be toward the political center from where Mike Lee’s at but I think he would be more conservative than Mitt Romney has been."

Wilson made sure to emphasize his hardline credentials ahead of his launch: His campaign rolled out endorsements in August from fellow legislators that featured testimonials calling him a "conservative champion" and someone who worked to "advance pro-life legislation." (Altogether, three-quarters of House Republicans and two-thirds of the Senate caucus backed him.) However, while Wilson has indeed helped pass anti-abortion legislation, the AP also noted that he helped stop the legislature from formally rebuking none other than Romney in 2020 for his vote to convict Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial.

Wilson joins a contest that includes two mayors, Riverton's Trent Staggs and Roosevelt's Rod Bird. Staggs launched his campaign in late May but raised little during his first month, while Bird pledged to self-fund $1 million when he entered the race last week. Conservative activist Carolyn Phippen is also talking about running, and Curtis and other Republicans could end up campaigning to represent this dark red state.

House

● AL-02: John Sharp of AL.com takes a look at the many Democrats who could run for the 2nd District now that the U.S. Supreme Court has paved the way for a lower court to adopt a new map that creates a second district where Black voters could elect their preferred candidate. The exact boundaries of the new 2nd are not yet known, though judges next month will consider three different maps that each link Montgomery and Mobile.

The four state legislators who tell Sharp they're thinking about getting in are state Sens. Vivian Figures and Merika Coleman and state Reps. Napoleon Bracy and Juandalynn Givan. Figures, who was the 2008 nominee against then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, hails from Mobile, while Bracy is from the nearby suburb of Prichard. Coleman and Givan both represent Birmingham, which would not be located in the 2nd under any of the trio of maps advanced by the court-appointed expert.

Sharp also mentions two Montgomery-based politicians, state Sen. Kirk Hatcher and Mayor Steven Reed, as possibilities, though neither of them commented for his article. Reed, though, didn't rule out a House bid in July during his reelection campaign, saying instead, "I don't know what I'm going to do. For one, I've got to win first." He did indeed win by a convincing 57-39 the next month.

Most Republicans are treating this seat like an automatic Democratic flip, but former state Sen. Dick Brewbaker argues that he could run and win it for his party. Brewbaker, who unlike all the aforementioned Democrats is white, predicts to Sharp that if the general election comes down to "straight-up racial polarization ... the Republicans can potentially hang onto the seat."

● AL-07: Bobby Singleton, who serves as minority leader in the Alabama state Senate, announced Tuesday that he was forming an exploratory committee for a potential Democratic primary bid against Rep. Terri Sewell in the safely blue 7th District. A federal court will choose a new congressional map next month after blocking two consecutive maps enacted by GOP lawmakers for violating the Voting Rights Act, but there's little question that this will remain a majority-Black and heavily Democratic district covering parts of both the Black Belt and the Birmingham region.

Singleton, who was first elected in 2002 to represent part of the Black Belt in the legislature, argued to AL.com that Sewell hasn't done a good job serving his area. He instead argued that he could effectively represent the entire district, including Birmingham's Jefferson County. The congresswoman, who grew up in Selma in the Black Belt and resides in Birmingham, has not faced any serious primary opposition since she first won an open seat in 2010.

As one of multiple sets of plaintiffs in the litigation against the GOP's 2021 gerrymander, Singleton had tried to redraw the 7th District in a way that plenty of his fellow Democrats were unhappy with. The minority leader proposed a new map that split relatively few counties but didn't contain a single majority-Black seat: Instead African American residents would form a tiny 46.8-46.6 plurality in his 7th, while the other six seats would remain majority white.

Singleton's side would argue that the state was wrong to continue to divide Jefferson County's predominantly Black and white areas, claiming that the best solution was to unite the county in one district. After the courts blocked the GOP's 2023 map earlier this month, Singleton proposed another plan where all of Jefferson County and a small part of neighboring Shelby County would be based in the 6th, which is currently represented by GOP Rep. Gary Palmer, while Sewell's 7th would contain most of the Black Belt by adding all of the Montgomery area.

According to Dave's Redistricting App, Joe Biden would have carried both the 6th and the 7th under Singleton's latest plan. However, because several downballot Republicans over the past decade won or only narrowly lost the 6th, the GOP would have had a good chance to maintain control of six of the seven seats.

A different set of litigants known as the Milligan plaintiffs proposed a new map where Black voters would be a majority in two districts, but Singleton's side continued to promote their boundaries as the best solution. Several fellow Democrats were unconvinced, with state House Minority Leader Chris England reposting a thread from journalist Kareem Crayton declaring, "There are more problems with this case than I can discuss here." Sewell's team also filed a brief excoriating the proposed map.

A court-appointed expert tasked with assisting the judges proposed three maps on Monday for their consideration that largely mirrored the Milligan plaintiffs' proposal. The lower court will likely adopt one of them or something similar early next month.

While Singleton isn't getting the map he wants, he expressed interest Tuesday in taking on Sewell anyway. "I'm not running in the new district," he told Alabama Daily News Tuesday, "I'm running in Congresswoman Sewell's, that's what I want, I want the big fish." In a separate interview that day with AL.com, though, he acknowledged he hadn't actually decided, saying, "If the exploratory committee comes back with something positive, we'll be in it. If not, we wish [Sewell] good luck."

The state's filing deadline is set for Nov. 10 and, because Alabama's legislative seats are only up in midterm years, Singleton would not have to risk his current post if he sought a promotion.

● MT-01: EMILY's List on Wednesday endorsed 2022 Democratic nominee Monica Tranel, who faces no serious intra-party opposition as she seeks a rematch against GOP Rep. Ryan Zinke.

● NH-01: Hollie Noveletsky, who runs a steel fabricator business, has filed FEC paperwork for a potential bid against Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas. Noveletsky would join a GOP nomination contest that includes former Executive Councilor Russell Prescott, who took fourth place in the 2022 primary.

● NJ-07: Former state Sen. Ray Lesniak said this week that he would not enter the Democratic primary to take on GOP Rep. Tom Kean Jr. The New Jersey Globe also reports that physician Tina Shah, who served in the Obama and Biden administrations, has decided not to run despite talking to party leaders about a potential bid; David Wildstein writes that one unnamed "party bigwig said at one point Shah said she was in, only to move back to the maybe list a week later."

● TX-28: Jose Sanz, who previously served as district director for Democratic incumbent Henry Cuellar, announced Wednesday that he'd challenge his old boss as a Republican. Sanz is the first notable Republican to launch a bid against Cuellar, who has long been one of the most conservative members of the Democratic caucus, but it remains to be seen if the GOP will seriously target him. Joe Biden won this constituency, which includes Laredo and the eastern San Antonio suburbs, 53-46 two years before Cuellar turned back a well-funded Republican foe 57-43.

It's also unclear if the congressman will be in for another competitive primary challenge. Attorney Jessica Cisneros hasn't ruled out taking him on again after narrowly losing in 2020 and 2022, and there's still a while to go before the Dec. 11 filing deadline.

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Morning Digest: Ohio cancels in-person voting despite judge denying request to delay Tuesday primary

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The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

● Ohio, Arizona, Florida, Illinois: With the coronavirus pandemic leading to widespread shutdowns, it appears that in-person voting in Tuesday's primary in Ohio will not go forward, though the three other states with elections Tuesday said they would proceed as planned.

On Monday evening, a judge rejected a request supported by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine to postpone the election until June 2, calling the idea a "terrible precedent," but DeWine responded with a defiant statement saying that "it simply isn't possible to hold an election tomorrow that will be considered legitimate by Ohioans." The governor later declared that the director of the state's Department of Health, Amy Acton, would "order the polls closed as a health emergency," which she did shortly before 11 PM ET.

Though the petition to delay the election was unopposed by the state, Franklin County Judge Richard Frye cited a litany of reasons not to postpone the primary. Among other factors, he noted that neither DeWine nor legislative leaders had called an emergency session of the legislature to address the matter. Adding to the confusion, the Republican speaker of the House, Larry Householder, said prior to the governor's last statement on Monday night that he opposed DeWine's efforts and insisted the election would indeed go forward on Tuesday.

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DeWine's decision to ignore Frye's ruling could result in him and other officials, particularly Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, being held in contempt of court. However, as election law expert Ned Foley noted, Frye did not order the primary to proceed but rather denied a request that the election be delayed, meaning that Acton's order might not have defied a judicial command. DeWine also added that LaRose will "seek a remedy through the courts to extend voting options."

At this point, if anyone were to succeed in a last-minute attempt to override DeWine and Acton, election administration would unfold disastrously. Many poll workers were mistakenly told to stay home Tuesday while matters were up in the air on Monday, and at least one told the Columbus Dispatch earlier in the evening that she still doesn't plan to open her polling site on Tuesday—and that was before Acton's order came down.

As of this writing just before midnight on Monday night, it appears that in-person voting will not go forward on Tuesday, assuming officials heed Acton's order and no further legal actions are forthcoming. That may not be a safe assumption, though: In response to DeWine's announcement, Republican state Rep. John Cross declared, "We have a constitutional crisis now in Ohio," and warned, "I will be fighting in the AM to keep our polling locations OPEN in the 83rd district with law enforcement as the Ohio Department of Health can not shut down an election."

As another election law expert, Rick Hasen, pointed out, while Acton may have the authority to close polling sites, that does not necessarily give DeWine the authority to reschedule primary day. It's possible this problem could be retroactively resolved, Hasen says, if the legislature were to pass a law setting a new date for in-person voting. If not, Ohio would find itself in the bizarre situation of trying to decide a primary election based solely on absentee votes.

LaRose, however, doesn't seem interested in waiting on lawmakers. He released his own memo in response to Acton's insisting that the primary had in fact been rescheduled for June 2 and forbidding local election officials "from tabulating and reporting any results until the close of polls" (which would be 7:30 PM ET) on that day.

Meanwhile, officials in Arizona, Florida, and Illinois all reiterated on Monday that they would proceed with in-person voting on Tuesday. However, whether the primaries end on Tuesday is a different question: Voting rights advocates filed a lawsuit in Florida late on Monday asking a federal court to extend the deadline to request an absentee ballot to March 24, and to order that election officials count all such ballots postmarked by that date and received by March 27.

Election Changes

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to alter life in the United States, we’ve added a new section to the Digest specifically devoted to potential or actual changes to election dates and procedures. As these decisions are finalized, we will update both of our 2020 calendars: one for statewide primary dates and the other for key downballot elections.

● AL-Sen, AL-01, AL-02: On Sunday, GOP Secretary of State John Merrill requested an opinion from the state attorney general's office on whether Republican Gov. Kay Ivey could postpone the March 31 primary runoffs due to the coronavirus. Merrill said that Alabama law doesn't explicitly allow anyone to delay an election once it has been scheduled, but that he wanted Attorney General Steve Marshall to issue a legal opinion on whether Ivey had the authority to take this action now that she's declared a state of emergency.

For now, though, the GOP runoffs for the U.S. Senate and the 1st and 2nd Congressional Districts are still set for March 31. Mobile County Commissioner Jerry Carl, who is running in the 1st District, said Monday that he was suspending all of his political advertising due to the ongoing situation.

That same day, the anti-tax Club for Growth also announced that it was endorsing former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville in the Senate runoff and 2018 candidate Barry Moore in the race for the 2nd District. The Club threw its support behind former state Sen. Bill Hightower, who is competing with Carl, during the summer of last year.

● Kentucky: At the recommendation of Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear has issued an executive order postponing Kentucky's primaries both for the presidential race and for downballot office from May 19 to June 23. To effect the change, Beshear and Adams relied on what one report described as a provision of law that had never before been used. Because Kentucky's filing deadline passed in January, it's unaffected by Beshear's order.

● New York: Officials in New York are considering postponing the state's presidential primary, which is set for April 28, and consolidating it with the primaries for downballot office that will be held on June 23. Such a move would also include delaying the special election for the state's vacant 27th Congressional District, which is likewise scheduled for April 28. Douglas Kellner, the co-chair of the state Board of Elections, told the New York Times that a decision might not come for another two weeks.

Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an order Monday moving village-level elections that had been scheduled for Wednesday to April 28. Presumably, if the April primary is delayed until June, these village elections would shift with them. Cuomo also reduced the signature requirement to get on the June ballot to 30% of the amount normally required by law and ordered that all petitioning halt as of Tuesday evening.

● Pennsylvania: As Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf began weighing whether to delay the state's April 28 primary for the presidential race and downballot offices, a judge in Bucks County denied an emergency request from local officials seeking to postpone a hotly contested special election for the state House set to take place on Tuesday—despite the fact that Wolf has asked residents in southeastern Pennsylvania to stay home.

Republican House Speaker Mike Turzai, who is responsible for scheduling all special elections for his chamber, had refused to change the date. Turzai originally set the race for the 18th House District for March 17 rather than consolidate it with the April election, likely because he anticipated that Democratic turnout would be lower in mid-March with no other races on the ballot than it would be for the presidential primary. Two other special elections for the House in red districts are also taking place Tuesday in western Pennsylvania.

As for the presidential primary, Wolf said that it's "too far out for anyone to make a decision." Like in Wisconsin (see our item below), it's not clear whether the governor would have the power to unilaterally change the date, which is set by state law.

● Puerto Rico: As expected, Puerto Rico's Senate passed a bill on Monday moving the commonwealth's presidential primary from March 29 to April 26, though the House apparently will not take it up until next week. According to USA Today, Gov. Wanda Vazquez supports the change.

● South Carolina: Republican Gov. Henry McMaster has issued an executive order postponing all local elections in South Carolina that had been slated to take place before May 1. The measure affects 32 different races across the state, a full list of which can be found here. The order does not impact the state's June 23 primary for state and federal office. Officials have said that the filing period, which runs from noon on March 16 to noon on March 30, remains undisturbed, though they've asked candidates to schedule appointments to file their paperwork in order to minimize crowding.

● Texas: Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said on Monday that he will announce later this week how Texas plans to proceed with its primary runoffs, which are scheduled for May 26. In a large number of primaries, which were held on March 3, no candidate won a majority of the vote, which under Texas law means that a second round of voting between the top two finishers must take place.

● UT-Gov: Businessman Jeff Burningham said on Friday that he would no longer collect signatures to make it onto the June GOP primary ballot because of the dangers of the coronavirus and would instead compete at the April 25 state party convention. Both major parties also announced late last week that these state party gatherings would take place online rather than in-person.

Utah allows statewide candidates to reach the primary by turning in 28,000 valid signatures or by taking enough support at their party convention, though candidates have the option to try both methods. Former state House Speaker Greg Hughes announced in January that he would only go through the GOP convention route, while Salt Lake County Council chair Aimee Winder Newton said last month that she would do the same thing because of the high cost of gathering petitions.

Former party chair Thomas Wright, Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, and former Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman, though, have each turned in signatures; the state has announced that Wright has submitted enough valid petitions to appear on the primary ballot, while Cox and Huntsman's signatures are still being verified.

● Wisconsin: Some Wisconsin politicians are calling for the state to postpone its early April elections, but Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has so far opposed the idea, saying he's not considering a delay "at this time." Should his position change, experts are divided on whether Evers could act unilaterally, or whether the legislature would have to pass new legislation changing the date. Wisconsin is set to conduct its presidential primary on April 7, as well as general elections in an important race for the state Supreme Court and several other judicial posts.

Senate

● AZ-Sen: Two independent polls released on Monday both showed Democrat Mark Kelly leading appointed GOP Sen. Martha McSally by margins comparable to what several other recent polls have found. Monmouth gave Kelly a 50-44 advantage, while Marist's survey for NBC had him ahead by a smaller 48-45.

● CO-Sen: Former Gov. John Hickenlooper announced Monday that the state had verified that he'd turned in enough signatures to appear on the June Democratic primary ballot to take on GOP Sen. Cory Gardner, and that he would no longer compete at the state party convention.

Colorado allows candidates to reach the primary either by turning in enough valid signatures or by winning the support of at least 30% of the delegates at their party's convention, though contenders have the option to try both methods. Former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, who is Hickenlooper's only well-funded intra-party opponent, is trying to make the ballot by taking part in the convention.

● Iowa: Candidate filing closed Friday for Iowa's June 2 primaries, and the state has a list of contenders available here. Iowa has an unusual law that requires party conventions to select nominees in races where no candidate receives over 35% of the vote in the primary.

● IA-Sen: Five Democrats are competing to take on GOP Sen. Joni Ernst, who flipped this seat six years ago. National Democrats, including the DSCC, have consolidated behind real estate executive Theresa Greenfield, who had a large financial advantage over her primary rivals at the end of 2019.

Another contender to watch is self-funder Eddie Mauro, who lost the 2018 primary for the 3rd District to eventual winner Cynthia Axne 58-26. Also in the race are retired Navy Vice Adm. Michael Franken, attorney Kimberly Graham, and real estate agent Cal Woods, though none of them have brought in much money through December.

Iowa took a sharp turn to the right in 2014 and 2016, though Democrats rebounded last cycle. Ernst has done little to distinguish herself from Trump one way or the other, and her fate is likely tied closely to the presidential contest. Daily Kos Elections rates the contest as Likely Republican, but a more competitive presidential race in the state would give Democrats a better chance against Ernst.

Gubernatorial

● VT-Gov: Candidate fundraising reports are in covering the period of July 2019 through mid-March of this year, and GOP Gov. Phil Scott has less cash-on-hand than either of his two main Democratic rivals. Scott took in $52,000 during this period, with almost all of that amount coming in during the final month-and-a-half of the fundraising period, and he had $95,000 to spend.

On the Democratic side, former state education secretary Rebecca Holcombe raised $378,000 and had $129,000 on-hand. Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman took in $156,000 and transferred another $27,000, and he had $104,000 in the bank. Attorney Patrick Winburn self-funded almost all of the $106,000 he brought in, and he had $35,000 left after an opening advertising campaign.

● WV-Gov: The state AFL-CIO has endorsed Kanawha County Commissioner Ben Salango in the May Democratic primary to face GOP Gov. Jim Justice.

House

● IA-01: Democrat Abby Finkenauer flipped this northeast Iowa district last cycle, and national Republicans quickly consolidated behind state Rep. Ashley Hinson to try to get it back. Hinson's only intra-party opponent is businessman Thomas Hansen, who has raised very little money. This seat swung from 56-43 Obama to 49-45 Trump.

● IA-02: Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack is retiring from a southeast Iowa seat that swung from 56-43 Obama to 49-45 Trump, and former state Sen. Rita Hart faces no opposition in the Democratic primary to succeed him.

On the GOP side, state Republican officeholders have consolidated behind state Sen. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who was Team Red's nominee against Loebsack in 2008, 2010, and 2014. Miller-Meeks' main intra-party foe is former Illinois Rep. Bobby Schilling, who was elected to his one term in Congress in a seat located just across the Mississippi River in 2010; Schilling lost re-election two years later to now-DCCC chair Cheri Bustos, and she decisively defeated him in their 2014 rematch. Schilling has struggled to raise money for his first campaign in Iowa, and he hasn't attracted any help from major outside groups so far.

Three other Republicans are also in, but none of them appear to be running credible campaigns.

● IA-03: Democrat Cynthia Axne unseated GOP incumbent David Young 49-47 last cycle, and Young is running to try to reclaim this Des Moines-area district. Young's only primary foe is Army veteran Bill Schafer, who has raised very little money and doesn't appear to be a threat. This seat swung from 51-47 Obama to 49-45 Trump.

● IA-04: GOP Rep. Steve King had been safe for years in a red northwestern Iowa seat that moved from 53-45 Romney all the way to 61-34 Trump, but he now faces both a competitive primary and general election campaign.

King only narrowly beat Democrat J. D. Scholten 50-47 last cycle after voters learned about a week before Election Day that the congressman was rubbing shoulders with international white supremacist candidates and hate groups, and Scholten is running again. Scholten, who has no primary opposition, didn't attract much outside attention until late in the campaign, but he ended December with a credible $540,000 on-hand.

King also picked up four intra-party challengers after he was stripped of his committee assignments early last year for musing to the New York Times, "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?" State Sen. Randy Feenstra ended 2019 with a huge $489,000 to $32,000 cash-on-hand lead over King, while self-funding Army veteran Bret Richards had $100,000 to spend.

Two other Republicans, Woodbury County Supervisor Jeremy Taylor and real estate developer Steven Reeder, didn't have much money, but they could make it more difficult for anyone to take the 35% of the vote needed to win outright.

While King has little money or outside support, he very well could win another term. Voters in this seat have long tolerated his racism, and the congressman could benefit as memories of his January 2019 comments fade. There's also no telling what would happen if this nomination goes to a convention.

● Idaho: Candidate filing closed Friday for Idaho's May 19 primaries, and the state has a list of contenders available here. We're not expecting much action in the Gem State this year, though: GOP Sen. Jim Risch and Republican Reps. Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson don't face any serious primary opponents, and they're very unlikely to have trouble in November in their deep-red constituencies.

● Nevada: Candidate filing closed Friday for Nevada's June 9 primaries, and the Nevada Independent has put together a list of contenders here.

● NV-02: While there was serious talk throughout 2019 that Rep. Mark Amodei could face a serious GOP primary challenger in this reliably red northern Nevada seat, it doesn't appear that the congressman will have much to worry about now that filing has closed. Amodei's only intra-party foe is Joel Beck, who challenged him two years ago and took third place with just 8%.

● NV-03: Six Republicans filed to challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Susie Lee in a seat in the Las Vegas suburbs that both Barack Obama and Donald Trump very narrowly carried, but only two of them look noteworthy.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is backing former professional wrestler Dan Rodimer, a World Wrestling Entertainment alum who was accused of assault three different times from 2010 to 2013; Rodimer pleaded guilty to battery in one of those incidents, while no charges were filed in the other two. The other candidate worth watching is former state Treasurer Dan Schwartz, who has been self-funding almost his entire campaign.

Both men lost primaries last cycle: Rodimer lost a contest for a competitive state Senate seat by a narrow 40-38 margin, while Schwartz took on establishment favorite Adam Laxalt in the race for governor and went down by a brutal 72-9 margin.

● NV-04: Eight Republicans are running against Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford, who is defending a seat in the northern Las Vegas area that moved from 54-44 Obama to 50-45 Clinton. Horsford ended last year with $1 million on-hand, which was far more than any of his Republican rivals.

The candidates with the most money at the end of 2019 were former Assemblyman Jim Marchant, who lost re-election in 2018 after one term, and insurance agency owner Samuel Peters. Both men have been self-funding much of their campaigns, and Marchant held a small $209,000 to $206,000 cash-on-hand edge at the end of 2019. Just behind was businesswoman Lisa Song Sutton, who had $187,000 to spend.

Businesswoman Randi Reed and Charles Navarro, a former district director for former Rep. Cresent Hardy, each were well behind with just under $35,000 on-hand. Also in the contest are Nye County Commissioner Leo Blundo and two other Republicans who each had less than $10,000 to spend.

Mayoral

● Baltimore, MD Mayor: State Sen. Mary Washington announced Monday that she was suspending her campaign for the Democratic nod so she could focus on her work in the legislature as the coronavirus emergency continues. It doesn’t sound like Washington plans to rejoin the April 28 primary since she referred to her campaign in the past tense and added, “We will work to ensure the next Mayor is held to the standards we deserve, and push them relentlessly to do the hard, bold work this city needs.”

Special Elections

● Special Elections: There are three special elections set for Tuesday in Pennsylvania, including an important pickup opportunity for Democrats in the suburbs of Philadelphia. However, a judge rejected a last-minute request to postpone this hotly contested race, even though Gov. Tom Wolf has asked residents in southeastern Pennsylvania to stay home to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, so turnout could be very low and election administration could suffer. See our Pennsylvania item in the "Election Changes" section above for more on these developments.

PA-HD-08: This is a Republican district in the Mercer area that became vacant when former Rep. Tedd Nesbit became a member of the Mercer County Court of Common Pleas. The Democratic candidate is businessman Phil Heasley and the Republican is Grove City College professor Tim Bonner. This is a strongly Republican district that voted for Donald Trump 71-24 and Mitt Romney 67-32

PA-HD-18: Democrats have a big pickup opportunity in the Philadelphia suburbs, where the 18th District district became vacant after former GOP Rep. Gene DiGirolamo was elected Bucks County commissioner last year.

The Democratic candidate for this seat, which is located entirely in the city of Bensalem, is union plumber Howie Hayes while the Republican is funeral director KC Tomlinson. Hayes has the backing of multiple unions, including the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of Teachers. Tomlinson is from a prominent local family and her father, state Sen. Tommy Tomlinson, is well-known in the area. The elder Tomlinson represented this district for two terms immediately before DiGirolamo, and his current Senate district contains all of the 18th House District.

On paper, this seat looks favorable for Team Blue, since it's been solidly Democratic at the presidential level, backing Hillary Clinton 53-44 and Barack Obama 58-41. However, it's been much more amenable to supporting Republicans downballot: DiGirolamo had held this seat since he was first elected in 1994, and thanks to his well-known personal brand in the area, won his last re-election effort 57-43 in 2018 despite the blue wave.

For Democrats, flipping this seat has higher stakes than a typical pickup opportunity. This chamber is a top target for Democrats in the fall and a win here would lower the number of seats Democrats need to flip to take control of the Pennsylvania House from nine to eight.

PA-HD-58: This is a Republican district in the Jeannette area, east of Pittsburgh. This seat became vacant when former Rep. Justin Walsh became a judge in Westmoreland County last year. The Democratic candidate is Army veteran Robert Prah Jr. and the Republican is union carpenter Eric Davanzo. There is also a Libertarian in the running, businessman Ken Bach. This is a solidly Republican district that supported Trump 63-34 and Romney 55-43.

These three seats are the only vacancies in this chamber, which Republicans control 107-93.

Grab Bag

● Where Are They Now?: It just wouldn't be an election cycle in Nevada without wealthy perennial candidate Danny Tarkanian on the GOP primary ballot. Tarkanian moved to Douglas County in northern Nevada following his 2018 defeat in the 3rd Congressional District in suburban Las Vegas, and he filed on Friday to challenge County Commissioner Dave Nelson, a fellow Republican. Tarkanian has unsuccessfully sought various elected offices a total of six times from 2004 through last cycle, and we'll see if his seventh time is a charm.

Morning Digest: ‘The fix is in’: Bitter charges follow GOP’s choice to succeed convicted congressman

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

● NY-27: On Saturday, Republican leaders in the eight counties that make up New York's 27th Congressional District awarded the party's nomination for the upcoming special election to state Sen. Chris Jacobs. The GOP did not release vote totals for the meeting, though The Buffalo News' Robert McCarthy reports that Jacobs prevailed after "what was termed a close call" over fellow state Sen. Robert Ortt. Jacobs also beat out attorney Beth Parlato, Erie County Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw, and White House aide Jeff Freeland to claim the nomination.

Campaign Action

Democrats have not yet picked a candidate in the race to replace former GOP Rep. Chris Collins, who was sentenced to 26 months in prison earlier this month on charges related to insider trading. However, McCarthy says that Team Blue's leaders are expected to choose 2018 nominee Nate McMurray "in coming days." Gov. Andrew Cuomo has not yet scheduled the special, though the state attorney general's office told a court that Cuomo intends to set the date for April 28, which is the same day as New York's presidential primary.

While a competitive presidential primary will likely bring out Democratic voters in disproportionate numbers, it's still going to be tough to beat Jacobs in this suburban Buffalo seat, which backed Donald Trump 60-35. However, Jacobs won't be able to rest even if he wins in April. Parlato, who is also a Fox News contributor, said Saturday that she would run in the late June primary for the full two-year term.

Ortt, Mychajliw, and Freeland also each said that they were considering their options, with Mychajliw sounding particularly pissed with how things went down over the weekend. The comptroller pointed out that state GOP chair Nicholas Langworthy's wife is doing fundraising work for Jacobs, saying, "The process is compromised by the fact that the state chairman's wife is on the payroll of one of the candidates …. A reasonable person could infer the fix is in." Mychajliw also took issue with GOP leaders keeping the location of their meeting a secret even from the candidates until the morning of their deliberations.

The filing deadline for the regular term is April 2, so all of Jacobs' would-be foes will need to decide what they're doing before the special election. However, Jacobs will have the advantage in the June primary as long as he wins in April: No member of Congress has won a special election and then immediately lost their first primary in a traditional election since New York Democrat Alton Waldon in 1986.

And while Jacobs' intra-party critics, including Collins and the extremist Club for Growth, have attacked him for refusing to publicly support Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016, Jacobs will have several months to proclaim his fealty to the White House (and possibly earn a coveted Trump tweet). Jacobs also won't need to worry about money either. His family founded and still owns the food service giant Delaware North, allowing him to self fund $425,000 through the end of September.

P.S. By nominating Jacobs, GOP leaders are opening up a state Senate seat that supported Clinton 50-45. However, Team Red has for some time given up hope of reclaiming power in a chamber that they controlled almost nonstop from just after World War II until the end of 2018 but where Democrats now hold a 40-22 majority. Eight Republicans, including Jacobs, have announced their retirement, while another GOP seat is vacant.

4Q Fundraising

● CA-48: Michelle Steel (R): $520,000 raised, $1.3 million cash-on-hand

● FL-18: Oz Vazquez (D): $185,000 raised

● IN-05: Christina Hale (D): $269,000 raised, $600,000 cash-on-hand

● KS-03: Amanda Adkins (R): $208,000 raised, $383,000 cash-on-hand

● MN-07: Collin Peterson (D-inc): $157,000 raised, $1 million cash-on-hand

● NJ-05: Mike Ghassali (R): $60,000 raised, additional $500,000 self-funded, $728,000 cash-on-hand; Frank Pallotta (R): $52,000 raised, additional $215,000 self-funded, $382,000 cash-on-hand

● NV-03: Dan Schwartz (R): $50,000 raised, additional $250,000 self-funded, $447,000 cash-on-hand

● TX-10: Michael McCaul (R-inc): $500,000 raised, $1 million cash-on-hand

Senate

● GA-Sen-A: Clarkston Mayor Ted Terry announced Sunday that he was dropping out of the Democratic primary to take on GOP Sen. David Perdue and would instead run for a seat on the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners. Terry acknowledged that he was switching races in large part because he wasn't raising enough money for Senate.

● TN-Sen: Former Ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty is out with his first TV spot ahead of the August GOP primary for this open seat. The ad begins with a narrator blasting impeachment before Hagerty appears to tell the audience that he has Donald Trump's endorsement.

House

● AL-02: Former state Attorney General Troy King's first TV spot for the March GOP primary stars the candidate and his mother talking about why liberals don't like him. (Spoiler alert: It's because of guns and abortion.) King concludes by telling the audience that liberals in Alabama have never liked him, to which his mom responds, "That's okay, honey. The liberals in Washington are not going to like you either."

Another GOP candidate, businessman Jeff Coleman, is also up with a commercial starring a family member. The candidate's wife, Tiffany, tells the audience that her first reaction to calls for him to run for office was "absolutely not," but that she came to realize that campaigning "seems like that's where God's calling us." Tiffany adds that this is "terrifying ... but I'm for it."

● CA-16: On Saturday, the California Labor Federation endorsed Fresno City Councilwoman Esmeralda Soria over Rep. Jim Costa, a fellow Democrat, in the March top-two primary.

● IL-03: Conservative Rep. Dan Lipinski is out with a poll from the Democratic firm Expedition Strategies that shows him leading 2018 opponent Marie Newman 50-27 in the March Democratic primary, while activist Rush Darwish takes just 2%. Lipinski beat Newman by a narrow 51-49 last year, and this is the first survey we've seen looking at their second bout.

● MD-04: Candidate filing closed Friday for Maryland's April 28 primary, and the state has a list of contenders here.

Attorney and Marine veteran Sheila Bryant kicked off her Democratic primary bid against Rep. Anthony Brown last year in this safely blue seat, but she doesn't appear to have gotten much traction. Bryant hasn't announced her fundraising for the final three months of 2019 yet, but she had just $18,000 on-hand at the end of September.

● MD-05: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has never had trouble winning renomination in this safely blue seat, and he once again looks like the heavy favorite.

Mckayla Wilkes, who works as an administrative assistant at the Pentagon, has attracted some national attention, but she had a mere $63,000 in the bank at the end of September. That's actually considerably more money than what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had at that point in her ultimately successful primary campaign against incumbent Joe Crowley, but AOC had one big advantage Wilkes doesn't have: While Ocasio-Cortez was Crowley's only primary foe, three other Democrats are running against Hoyer.

● MD-06: Freshman Democratic Rep. David Trone faces a challenge from GOP Del. Neil Parrott, but he shouldn't have much trouble defending this 55-40 Clinton seat.

As we've noted before, this seat has been solidly blue since the current Democratic-drawn map took effect in 2012 save for one election—the 2014 GOP wave. That year, former Democratic Rep. John Delaney survived a challenge from Republican Dan Bongino (who went on to become a looney tunes Fox commentator) by just a single point. Barring a similar wave, the wealthy Trone should have no problem winning a second term.

● MD-07: The filing deadline to run for the regular two-year term representing this safely blue seat passed on Friday, but the special primary to fill the final months of the late Rep. Elijah Cummings' term won't take place until Feb. 4. This means that whoever wins the Democratic nod next week will need to compete for it again on April 28, which is the same day as the special general election. However, it's possible that some of the candidates who end up losing next Tuesday will decide to stop campaigning if they don't think they'll be able to win in April.

One of the many people running here, former Rep. Kweisi Mfume, earned an endorsement over the weekend from the state AFL-CIO.

● NJ-02, NJ-03: Wealthy businessman David Richter announced Monday that he was ending his GOP primary bid against party-switching Rep. Jeff Van Drew in New Jersey's 2nd Congressional District and would instead challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Andy Kim in the neighboring 3rd District. Richter also endorsed Van Drew as he swapped races.  

Richter was the only notable Republican challenging Van Drew, and it looks very unlikely that the incumbent will face any serious opposition in the June primary. While local Republican leaders initially sounded reluctant to support Van Drew, who spent 17 years in the state legislature as a Democrat before he was elected to Congress in 2018, they started to warm up to him after Donald Trump endorsed the defector.

Richter, who began running while Van Drew was still a Democrat, spent another month arguing that he was the true conservative in the race, but both national and local Republicans made it clear that they wouldn't tolerate any opposition to Trump's chosen candidate.

By challenging Kim in the 3rd District, though, Richter is entering a very different race. The primary frontrunner, at least until Monday, was former Burlington County Freeholder Kate Gibbs, who has the support of party leaders in her home county. Gibbs told the New Jersey Globe just ahead of Richter's announcement that she wouldn't be dropping out, saying, "Anyone who thinks they can push me around doesn't know anything about South Jersey women."

However, Gibbs had a mere $138,000 on-hand at the end of December after five weeks in the race, which is an especially underwhelming war chest in a district that's split between the pricey Philadelphia media market and the ultra-expensive New York City market. Richter, by contrast, had a considerably larger $515,000 to spend, though almost all of that was self-funded. Barnegat Township Mayor John Novak and former Hainesport Mayor Tony Porto are also seeking the GOP nod.

One major test for Richter is whether he'll be able to do what he failed to do in his race against Van Drew and win the important support of local party leaders. In New Jersey primaries, a candidate endorsed by the county party appears in a separate column on the ballot along with other party endorsees, a designation known colloquially as the "organization line." Leaders in Ocean County, which is home to 55% of the 3rd District's 2016 Trump voters, have not yet awarded their organization line, and county chair Frank Holman says this won't happen until the March party convention.

Holman told the New Jersey Globe last week that he was open to supporting Richter, but he didn't commit to anything. However, if Richter can claim the Ocean County GOP line, it will give him a geographic edge over Gibbs, whose Burlington County base contains a smaller 45% share of the seat's prior Trump voters.

The 3rd District backed Trump 51-45, but Kim very much has the resources to defend this expensive district. The incumbent is a very strong fundraiser, and he ended 2019 with a $2.2 million war chest.

● TX-28: On Sunday, the state AFL-CIO endorsed immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros over conservative Rep. Henry Cuellar in the March Democratic primary. The AFL-CIO also took sides in several other primaries:

TX-02: Sima Ladjevardian TX-10: Mike Siegel TX-22: Sri Preston Kulkarni TX-31: Donna Imam

● TX-28: Texas Forward, a PAC affiliated with EMILY's List, is spending $34,000 on advertising in Texas' 28th Congressional District, where EMILY has endorsed attorney Jessica Cisneros over Rep. Henry Cuellar in the March Democratic primary. According to paperwork filed with the FEC, the advertisement will both support Cisneros and oppose Cuellar. Texas Forward's filing does not indicate what media this buy will air on, and the group does not appear to have a website or any social media presence.

Legislative

● Special Elections: There are four special elections on tap for Tuesday, headlined by a high-profile race in the Houston suburbs.

TX-HD-28: All eyes will be on Fort Bend County on Tuesday, where we'll get our first look at the upcoming battle for control of the Texas state House. This chamber is the top legislative target for Democrats in 2020, as winning it would give Democrats a significant role in redistricting in the nation's second-largest (and one of the fastest-growing) states.

While the 28th District isn't one of the top pickup opportunities for Democrats in the Texas House—the Texas Democratic Party ranked it 16th out of the 22 seats that it's targeting in November—it's still a compelling target. It fits the now-classic mold of a suburban seat that lurched leftward in the Trump era: Mitt Romney won by a wide 65-34 spread, which was shaved to a 53-43 win for Trump four years later.

Ted Cruz would go on to to carry this district by an even smaller 51-48 clip over Beto O'Rourke in 2018. Democrats can win this chamber without this district, especially since there are nine other GOP-held seats that O'Rourke carried, but a win here Tuesday would whittle the number they need to take the House down to eight.

This special election came about when former Rep. John Zerwas resigned last year to take a position at the University of Texas, following the closest election of his career. Democrat Eliz Markowitz and Republican Gary Gates will face off in what has become a hotly contested special election. Markowitz was the only Democrat in the Nov. 5 all-party primary and led the way with 39% of the vote. Gates took 28% and finished ahead of five other GOP candidates. Overall, however, Republicans led in the first round of voting 61-39.

The runoff has attracted national attention, as Markowitz has been endorsed by 2020 presidential candidates Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, and Elizabeth Warren. Her most visible supporter, though, has been O'Rourke, a former presidential candidate himself who has appeared alongside Markowitz several times and backed her during the first round of voting. Gates has the support of high-level Texas Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott, though Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick only offered a tepid endorsement.

Both sides have made serious investments in this race. In addition to strong fundraising, Markowitz has received significant financial support from outside groups such as the DLCC and Forward Majority, who have been running TV ads on her behalf. O'Rourke has continued to lend vigorous support to Markowitz, and he's been joined by another former presidential candidate, Julián Castro, on the campaign trail.

Gates has run a comparatively low key race but has dumped hundreds of thousands of his own money into the campaign, in part to defend himself against negative ads launched by Forward Majority that have hammered him over an incident when his 13 children were removed from his home over allegations of child abuse.

The increased attention and piles of money that have flowed into this race appear to have had an impact: Early voting for the runoff outpaced the clip in the primary 16,332-14,270, even though the time period and voting locations were more limited for the second round.

The current makeup of the Texas state House stands at 82-64 in favor of Republicans with this seat and two others vacant (both of which we preview below).

TX-HD-100: This is a Democratic district in Dallas, which became vacant when former Rep. Eric Johnson won election as mayor of Dallas last year. This district is safely Democratic, having supported Hillary Clinton 77-19 and Barack Obama 78-21, and, unsurprisingly, the two candidates on the ballot are Democrats.

Community advocate Lorraine Birabil and businessman James Armstrong will face each other after emerging as the leading vote-getters in the all-party primary, with 33 and 21% respectively. Armstrong earned the right to advance by edging out third-place finisher Daniel Clayton by just five votes.

TX-HD-148: This is a Democratic district in Houston, which became vacant when former Rep. Jessica Farrar resigned last year after 25 years in office. Democrat Anna Eastman and Republican Luis LaRotta will face each other after leading the way in a very crowded 15-candidate all-party primary. Democratic candidates collectively outpaced Republicans 69-27 in the first round, with an independent taking 4%.

As the first round of voting indicates, this is a solidly Democratic district that backed Clinton 64-35 and Obama 57-41.

GA-HD-171: This is a Republican district in south Georgia, centered around the Bainbridge area. This seat became vacant after former Rep. Jay Powell died last year. Three candidates are competing for this seat; farmer Tommy Akridge and businessman Joe Campbell are the Republicans, and retired educator Jewell Howard is the lone Democrat. Howard ran for this seat once before in 2012, falling to Powell 59-41.

This is a strongly Republican district that backed Donald Trump 62-37 in 2016. If no candidates take a majority of the vote in this election, a runoff between the top two vote-getters will be held on Feb. 25. The current makeup of the Georgia State House is 104-74 in favor of Republicans with two seats vacant, including this one.

Mayoral

● Baltimore, MD Mayor: Jack Young was elevated from City Council president to mayor last May after Catherine Pugh resigned in disgrace, and he's seeking a full four-year term in the April Democratic primary. It only takes a plurality of the vote to win the Democratic nod, and the winner should have no trouble in the November general election in this very blue city.

The only poll we've seen of this crowded contest in months was a late December Gonzales Research survey for FOX45 News that showed former state prosecutor Thiru Vignarajah and City Council President Brandon Scott tied 18-18 for first place, while former Mayor Sheila Dixon and Young were just behind with 16% and 15%, respectively. Former police spokesman T.J. Smith took 11% to state Sen. Mary Washington's 8% while another candidate, former U.S. Treasury official Mary Miller, entered the contest after this survey concluded.

Grab Bag

● Deaths: Former Rep. Pete Stark, a California Democrat who represented part of the Bay Area from 1973 until 2013, died Friday at the age of 88. Stark made a name for himself for his work writing healthcare legislation, including the COBRA program and the Affordable Care Act. Stark also made history in 2007 when he became the first member of Congress to publicly identify as an atheist.

Before he ran for office, Stark founded a bank that the Washington Post writes was “reportedly the first in the country to offer free checking.” Stark, who had previously served in the Air Force, also expressed his vehement opposition to the Vietnam War by putting peace signs on both on the bank’s checks and on the building’s headquarters.

In 1972, after selling his bank for millions, Stark challenged 14-term Rep. George Miller (not to be confused with another former California Democratic congressman with the same name) in the primary. Stark, who was 41 at the time, contrasted himself with the 81-year-old incumbent and portrayed himself as the anti-war candidate. Stark won by a lopsided 56-21 margin, and he went on to prevail in the general election 53-47.

While Stark was an influential member of Congress during his 40 years in office, he also became infamous for his temper and insults. Among many other things, Stark said that Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan, who was a black doctor, was “as close to being a disgrace to his race as anyone I've ever seen,” called a GOP congresswoman a “whore for the insurance industry,” and said in 2007 that House Republicans wanted to send young people to Iraq “to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.” In 2010, Stark’s behavior likely cost him the chance to chair the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

Stark never faced a close re-election during all of this time in his seat, but that changed in 2012. California’s independent redistricting committee gave Stark a seat, now numbered the 15th District, that included a little less than half of the constituency that he’d represented over the prior decade and included more Republicans and independents. That may not have been a problem if Stark had been able to keep competing in party primaries, but the state’s new top-two system further complicated his re-election prospects.

Most Democrats were content to wait for Stark to retire, but Eric Swalwell, a little-known member of the Dublin City Council and an Alameda County prosecutor, decided to take his chances and challenge the 81-year-old incumbent. Stark quickly drew negative headlines on the campaign trail when he accused Swalwell of taking bribes without providing a shred of evidence and labeled him a “fucking crook.” The two each advanced to the general election, and in a contest where more and more stories about Stark’s behavior kept surfacing, Swalwell won 52-48.

● Where Are They Now?: Former Rep. Zack Space, a Democrat who represented part of eastern Ohio from 2007 to 2011 and lost a close 2018 race for state auditor, is running for a seat on the Franklin County Probate Court. Space, like all of the Democratic candidates for this office, doesn't have any primary opposition, so he'll be competing on the November general election ballot. Space didn't represent any of Franklin County in Congress, but The Plain Dealer reports that he now works in Columbus.