Morning Digest: We’re looking back on Harry Reid’s long and storied career on the campaign trail

Posted on January 12, 2022 by Daily Kos Elections

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

Leading Off

● Deaths: Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who died Dec. 28 at the age of 82, is lying in state at the Capitol today. As his former colleagues honor his singular career, we've put together an obituary taking a look back at his long electoral history—a path that dealt Reid several setbacks on his way to the pinnacle of American politics.

Reid won elected office for the first time in 1968 when he took a seat in the Nevada state Assembly at the age of 28, and he made the jump to statewide office two years later when he was elected lieutenant governor. Reid’s career stalled, though, after he lost an extremely close 1974 Senate race to former Republican Gov. Paul Laxalt, and he hit his nadir the next year after he failed to win the mayor’s office in Las Vegas.

Of course, that was far from the end for Reid, who had several more competitive Senate races ahead of him beginning with his 1986 triumph in the open seat contest to succeed Laxalt. Reid went on to pull off an extremely tight 1998 win against his future GOP colleague, then-Rep. John Ensign, in a race that took over a month to resolve.

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The majority leader later looked like an all-but-inevitable loser ahead of his 2010 bid for a fifth term, but Reid, in the words of longtime Nevada political chronicler Jon Ralston, displayed a “Terminator-like single-mindedness, relentlessness and discipline turned preparation” that helped him upset former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle. We detail all those campaigns and more in our obituary.

Redistricting

● CT Redistricting: Stanford Law School professor Nathan Persily, the special master appointed by the Connecticut Supreme Court to assist it in drawing a new congressional map, has asked the state's deadlocked redistricting commission to try to reach a compromise once more. The panel failed to settle on a final map last month, despite receiving a three-week extension from the court, prompting the justices to take over the process and tap Persily to help them. Commissioners have until Wednesday at 12 PM ET to submit a new map "or at least report progress," per the CT Mirror, while Persily himself must furnish a map to the court by Jan. 18.

● NY Redistricting: As expected, New York lawmakers have rejected dueling sets of maps put forth by the state's bipartisan redistricting commission after the panel failed to agree on a single group of plans for Congress and the legislature. Because of that failure, legislators were under no obligation to consider the maps that the commission forwarded to them, one batch of which was produced by Republicans and the other by Democrats.

Commissioners have until Feb. 28 to take one more shot at reaching a deal, but such a deal looks unlikely. Even if they were to strike a compromise, though, legislative Democrats would still be able to override the commission thanks to their two-thirds supermajorities.

4Q Fundraising

NC-Sen: Cheri Beasley (D): $2.1 million raised, $2.8 million cash-on-hand
UT-Sen: Evan McMullin (I): $1 million raised
WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc): $1.5 million raised, $7 million cash-on-hand
GA-Gov: Brian Kemp (R-inc): $7 million raised (between July 1 and Jan. 9), $12 million cash-on-hand
KS-Gov: Laura Kelly (D-inc): $2 million raised (in 2021), $1.9 million cash-on-hand; Derek Schmidt (R): $1.6 million raised (in 2021), $1.3 million cash-on-hand
MN-Gov: Tim Walz (D-inc): $3.6 million raised (in 2021), $3.6 million cash-on-hand; Paul Gazelka (R): $545,000 raised (since August)
NV-Gov: Joe Lombardo (R): $3.1 million raised (since late June)
SC-Gov: Henry McMaster (R-inc): $909,000 raised, $3 million cash-on-hand; Joe Cunningham (D): $343,000 raised, $422,000 cash-on-hand
IA-02: Ashley Hinson (R-inc): $809,000 raised, $1.6 million cash-on-hand
KY-06: Andy Barr (R-inc): $538,000, $1.9 million cash-on-hand
NE-01: Patty Pansing Brooks (D): $210,000 raised (in six weeks)
NY-24: Francis Conole (D): $202,000 raised, $280,000 cash-on-hand

Senate

● AZ-Sen: Ugh. Rich guy Jim Lamon is dropping a reported $1 million on a TV buy to air the first—but undoubtedly not the last—ad we've seen featuring a candidate bleat, "Let's go, Brandon!" If for some reason you have no idea what this is all about, consider yourself blessed. Meanwhile, the super PAC run by zillionaire Peter Thiel that's supporting another rich guy, Blake Masters, is spending another $1.1 million, per Politico, to run a new spot tying Masters to Donald Trump.

● NH-Sen: Londonderry Town Manager Kevin Smith resigned his post this week, saying that "it is my intent to formally announce my candidacy for the United States Senate in the not too distant future." Smith sought the GOP nod for governor in 2012 but lost badly in the primary.

● PA-Sen: George Bochetto, a longtime Republican attorney in Philadelphia who also served as state boxing commissioner from 1995 to 2002, has joined the packed May primary and says he'll self-fund $1 million.

Bochetto recently attracted attention when he aided Donald Trump's defense team in his second impeachment trial. In August, he persuaded a judge to stop Philadelphia's city government from removing a prominent Christopher Columbus statue. Bochetto is also the leader in a lawsuit alleging that Mayor Jim Kenney's executive order replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day discriminates against Italian Americans.

Bochetto in the past has talked about running for mayor of his heavily Democratic city plenty of times and even waged a brief campaign in 1999, but he ended up dropping out before the primary; the eventual nominee, Sam Katz, ended up losing the general election 51-49 to Democrat John Street, which is likely to remain Team Red's high-water mark for decades to come.

Governors

● MA-Gov: Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, who'd been mentioned as a possible Democratic candidate for governor, instead announced a bid for lieutenant governor on Tuesday. Candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run in separate primaries but run together on a single ticket in the general election.

● MI-Gov: The Glengariff Group's first survey of this year's contest, conducted on behalf of WDIV and the Detroit News, finds Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer well ahead of four potential Republican foes:

49-39 vs. former Detroit Police Chief James Craig
50-33 vs. chiropractor Garrett Soldano

50-33 vs. businessman Kevin Rinke

50-31 vs. conservative radio host Tudor Dixon

Polling from reliable firms has been rare here so far. A Strategic National survey for Craig from all the way back in September found him trailing Whitmer 47-46 (Craig and Strategic National have since parted ways). An independent poll from EPIC-MRA for the Detroit Free Press released the previous month had Whitmer ahead of Craig by the same 44-45 spread, while no other matchups were tested.

● NY-Gov: Rep. Jerry Nadler, who as House Judiciary Committee chair is one of the most senior House Democrats from New York, has endorsed Gov. Kathy Hochul's bid for a full term. Two upstate representatives, Brian Higgins and Joe Morelle, previously backed Hochul.

● RI-Gov: Cranston Mayor Kenneth Hopkins said Tuesday that he's "forming an exploratory committee [to] possibly run for governor." Hopkins, who was first elected to his post in 2020, would be the most prominent Republican to enter the race to date should he decide to get in.

● WI-Gov: Former Gov. Tommy Thompson, who is resigning as interim president of the University of Wisconsin System in March, declined to rule out running for a fifth term as governor at the age of 80 in a new interview on Tuesday. "I'm not saying it's in the cards. But I'm physically and mentally capable of doing anything," insisted Thompson, who served as governor from 1987 to 2001 before stepping down to serve as George W. Bush's HHS secretary.

At a GOP debate in 2007 during his short-lived presidential campaign, Thompson had to apologize repeatedly after saying he thought employers should be allowed to fire gay workers, alternately blaming his response on needing to go to the bathroom and on a malfunctioning hearing aid. In 2012, Thompson ran for Senate but lost to Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin 51-46 after narrowly winning a bruising GOP primary with just 34% of the vote.

House

● CO-07: State Sen. Britney Pettersen became the first Democrat to kick off a bid for Colorado's open 7th Congressional District on Tuesday, a day after Rep. Ed Perlmutter announced his retirement. Pettersen sought this seat once before in 2017 when Perlmutter ran for governor, but after the congressman abandoned his bid and later decided to seek re-election, she dropped out of the primary (as did every other notable Democrat).

Pettersen is unlikely to be the last contender to emerge, though. The Denver Post mentions two other Democrats as possible candidates, state Rep. Chris Kennedy and Jefferson County Commissioner Andy Kerr, who also ran in 2017. Kerr did not respond to a request for comment from Colorado Politics.

● MN-03: Businessman Mark Blaxill, a former treasurer for the state GOP, announced a bid for Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District against Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips on Tuesday morning. He joins Navy veteran Tom Weiler in the Republican primary. Redistricting has yet to take place but will likely be handled by the courts due to a deadlock between the Republican-run state Senate and the Democratic-held state House.

● NJ-11: Lobbyist Rosemary Becchi, who was the GOP's nominee against Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill in 2020, has closed her campaign committee with the FEC, a likely signal that she does not intend to seek a rematch. While Becchi could of course form a new committee, the New Jersey Globe notes she still owes $6,000 to a fundraising consultant, who previously filed a claim over the unpaid debt. Democrats also made the 11th District considerably bluer in redistricting.

Morning Digest: Georgia Republicans gird themselves for brutal 2022 primary battles

Posted on February 8, 2021 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

● GA-Sen, GA-Gov: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Greg Bluestein takes a look at the developing Republican primary contests for U.S. Senate and for governor, which already are shaping up to be ugly affairs. Before we get to the potential candidate fields, though, we'll set the scene with this quip from conservative commentator Martha Zoller: "The Republican Party in Georgia right now is like a Jenga game where someone has pulled out the wrong block," said the 2012 House candidate, explaining, "It's unstable and a mess."

Team Red is hoping to defeat Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who will be up for a full six-year term next year, but there's no obvious frontrunner to take him on right now. Bluestein writes that former Sen. David Perdue, who lost to now-Sen. Jon Ossoff last month as Warnock was also unseating appointed incumbent Kelly Loeffler, has "essentially frozen" the nomination contest as he deliberates whether to launch a comeback bid.

Bluestein relays that Perdue is "viewed as unlikely to run," but that his advisers haven't dismissed the idea. Indeed, just after the story went live, one of those Perdue advisers confidently tweeted, "He'd clear the field or crush anyone who was dumb enough to run against him in a primary."

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The AJC adds that Loeffler, who lost to Warnock 51-49, is also considering another try. That doesn't sit right with former Rep. Doug Collins, who lost the 2020 all-party primary to Loeffler and is considering another Senate bid, too. "Kelly can either be the person whose boredom costs Republicans the Senate twice or become a 'Jeopardy' answer that no one will remember the question to," said Collins' former spokesperson. Collins has also expressed interest in challenging Gov. Brian Kemp for renomination, but unnamed sources recently said he was leaning towards the Senate race.

Loeffler herself hasn't said if she's interested in trying to reclaim her former seat, but her allies are very interested in relitigating last year's intra-party fight. "Doug getting in the race muddied all that up," argued party operative and Loeffler ally Eric Tanenblatt. "It created a primary in a general election and caused a split in the party."

Bluestein also reports that a few other Republicans are considering entering the Senate race: state Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, and former Ambassador to Luxembourg Randy Evans. None of this trio appears to have publicly expressed interest in this contest yet.

We'll turn now to the gubernatorial race. Both parties have long anticipated a rematch between 2018 Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams, who has not announced her plans but is universally expected to run again, and Kemp, but the governor has more immediate worries.

Donald Trump torched his old ally last year for not seeking to overturn Joe Biden's victory in Georgia's presidential contest, and Bluestein writes that Kemp's camp is preparing for a tough renomination fight. The AJC adds that one of the possible opponents that Kemp's side is keeping an eye on is Burt Jones, a wealthy state senator and co-captain of the University of Georgia's football team when they won the 2003 Sugar Bowl.

Jones does not appear to have talked publicly about taking on Kemp, and he seems far angrier at the state's number-two. Last month, the aforementioned Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan stripped Jones and two other state senators of their committee chairmanships as punishment for trying to undermine the presidential results. Jones said shortly afterwards that Duncan's actions were "a cowardly way and kind of petty politics," and added, "What comes around goes around in this building."

Finally, Bluestein writes that state GOP leaders are "increasingly concerned" that the notorious Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene could run for statewide office, which echoes a fear that national GOP operatives expressed to the New York Times last month. Greene herself has not said anything yet about a run for Senate, governor, or a different office, though that silence doesn't seem to be calming Republicans who fear she'd bring the Jenga tower crashing down on the party's ticket.

Senate

● MO-Sen: In a Thursday appearance on the far-right Newsmax TV, former Gov. Eric Greitens did not rule out a GOP primary bid against Sen. Roy Blunt.

When the disgraced ex-governor was directly asked if he had "any interest in running for Senate someday" (the relevant portion begins at the 3:08 mark), Greitens did not answer the question, but he did take the time to trash his would-be opponent. Greitens castigated Blunt for "criticizing President Trump, criticizing his administration, embracing Joe Biden," and argued that the incumbent didn't reflect Missouri Republicans.

That same day, former Democratic state Sen. Scott Sifton filed paperwork with the FEC for a potential campaign for this seat, though he did not say anything publicly about his plans. Two years ago, Sifton told the media that he was preparing for a bid for governor, but he ultimately deferred to the eventual nominee, state Auditor Nicole Galloway.

● OH-Sen: Team Red may be getting its first declared Senate candidate before long, as Jane Timken announced Friday that she was stepping down as chair of the state Republican Party and would reveal her future plans "in the coming weeks." Timken was elected to another term leading the party weeks before Sen. Rob Portman surprised everyone by announcing his retirement, and she soon expressed interest in running to succeed him.

● PA-Sen, PA-Gov: What does Donald Trump's legal team for his second impeachment trial have to do with next year's races for Senate or governor of Pennsylvania? Everything―if you ask Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Gale, a Republican who seems to think one hiring decision is just about hurting him.

Gale told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Bruce Castor, a former Montgomery County commissioner who'd previously served as district attorney, had been brought on to defend Trump at the behest of "the Pennsylvania GOP swamp." Gale argued, "Political insiders are in panic-mode that I will run for Governor or U.S. Senate in 2022," and accused party leaders of "resurrecting" Castor to "offset my growing popularity." Castor himself was mentioned as a potential candidate for either statewide office after he signed on to help Trump, but he doesn't appear to have said anything about the idea yet.

Governors

● FL-Gov: Democratic state Sen. Annette Taddeo recently told Politico that she was considering a bid against Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Taddeo, who is originally from Colombia, argued the party needed candidates who could appeal to Hispanic voters who swung hard towards Trump last year.

Taddeo herself was on the statewide ballot in 2014 as Democratic nominee Charlie Crist's running mate, but their ticket lost to Republican Gov. Rick Scott 48-47 during that year's GOP wave. Taddeo went on to lose a close primary for the 26th Congressional District, but she flipped a GOP-held state Senate seat in a closely-watched 2017 special election in the Miami area and was re-elected the following year.

A number of other Democrats are eyeing this race including now-Rep. Crist, who'd been elected to a single term as governor in 2006 when he was still a Republican. Crist also told Politico, "I am seriously considering at this point running for governor in 2022," a statement that came days after the congressman said he was merely "opening my brain to the idea a little bit more."

● NY-Gov: Republican Rep. Tom Reed trashed Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday, but the congressman refused to answer if he was considering a bid against the incumbent. New York hasn't elected a Republican to statewide office since George Pataki won his final term as governor in 2002, and Reed, who served as an honorary state chair of Donald Trump's 2020 campaign, would have a very difficult time breaking that streak.

House

● GA-07: 2020 Republican nominee Rich McCormick recently sent out a fundraising email saying that he was considering a rematch against freshman Democratic Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux next year. McCormick told his would-be donors that he expected GOP mapmakers to create "a Republican-favored district," adding, "We are following the process closely and should be in a good position to take back the seat and help take back the Congressional House Majority in 2022."

● NY-22: On Friday, Judge Scott DelConte ordered county and state election authorities to certify Republican Claudia Tenney, who leads Democrat Anthony Brindisi by 109 votes, as the winner in the November contest. The legal battle is not over, though, as Brindisi's team said earlier in the day that they would be appealing DelConte's decision to reject several hundred ballots that they're seeking to have tabulated.