Category: CA-Gov

Morning Digest: Shock Democratic win in New York special is latest data point suggesting no red wave

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

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● NY-19 (special): Democrat Pat Ryan scored a huge special election upset for his party by defeating Republican Marc Molinaro 52-48 in New York’s 19th District, a swing seat in the Hudson Valley that Molinaro appeared poised to flip until polls closed on Tuesday. The win for Ryan, an Army veteran who serves as Ulster County executive and made abortion rights the centerpiece of his campaign, is the latest―and most dramatic― sign that the political landscape has shifted since the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade at the end of June.

Joe Biden carried this constituency 50-48 (the special was fought under the old congressional map), but until results started rolling in, both parties had behaved as though Molinaro was the strong favorite. Molinaro, who leads Dutchess County, defeated then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo by a wide 53-42 in the 19th in 2018 even as Cuomo was prevailing statewide in a 60-36 landslide. That strong local performance motivated national Republicans to try to recruit Molinaro to take on Democratic Rep. Antonio Delgado in 2020, and while he declined that cycle, he eventually bit on a campaign last year.

But that anticipated Delgado-Molinaro bout was averted in the spring when the congressman resigned after Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed him as lieutenant governor―a career switch Republicans argued was motivated by Delgado’s wariness about his re-election prospects. The unexpected special election seemed to be good news indeed for Molinaro, who began with a months-long head start over his eventual Democratic rival at a time when a GOP wave looked imminent.

Ryan, who had lost the 2018 primary to Delgado, quickly closed much of the financial gap he faced by the end of June, but he still looked like the decided underdog. Even a late June internal poll for Ryan taken days after Roe was repealed showed him down 43-40. However, the same survey found that the Democrat could turn things around by hammering home Molinaro’s opposition to abortion rights. Ryan did just that in ad after ad, while Molinaro and the GOP continued to emphasize inflation and crime while ignoring reproductive rights.

Still, Democrats remained pessimistic about Ryan’s chances. While the NRCC and the Congressional Leadership Fund spent a combined $1.8 million here, the DCCC limited its involvement to running some joint buys with their nominee. (We won’t know how much the committee spent until new fundraising reports are out in late September.) The progressive veterans group VoteVets, however, dropped $500,000 to help Ryan with an ad campaign declaring that the candidate, who served in Iraq, "sure didn't fight for our freedom abroad to see it taken away from women here at home.”

But it still didn’t seem to be enough: An early August DCCC poll found Molinaro leading 46-43—that same stubborn 3-point margin—while the Democratic firm Data for Progress released its own poll on Election Day giving him an even larger 53-45 edge. Tuesday’s upset, though, validated Ryan’s tight focus on abortion rights―a strategy fellow Democrats have deployed in other races across the country.

Both Ryan and Molinaro will be on the ballot again in November under the new court-drawn congressional map, but they won’t be facing each other this time. The new congressman is Team Blue’s nominee for the redrawn 18th District in the Lower Hudson Valley, turf that, at 53-45 Biden, is several points to the left of the constituency he just won. Ryan, who will represent just under 30% of the new district, will go up against Republican Assemblyman Colin Schmitt this time.

Molinaro himself will be competing in the new 19th District, a seat in the southeastern part of upstate New York that also would have gone for Biden by a larger spread, in this case 51-47. About 42% of the new 19th’s residents live in the district Molinaro just lost, but importantly, none of his home county of Dutchess is contained in the district. Molinaro’s opponent will be attorney Josh Riley, who claimed Team Blue’s nomination on Tuesday and will have the chance to deal the county executive his second straight defeat of the year in just a few months. 

election recaps

● Election Night: Below is a state-by-state look at where Tuesday’s other major contests stood as of early Wednesday, and you can also find our cheat-sheet here. Note that New York allows absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they’re received through Aug. 30, so some of the margins in the Empire State may change.

● FL-Gov (D): Rep. Charlie Crist defeated state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried 60-35 in the Democratic primary to take on GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis. Crist, who was elected governor in 2006 as a Republican and narrowly lost the 2014 general election to reclaim his prior post following his party switch, will be in for a tough fight against DeSantis, who begins the general election with a massive $132 million war chest.

● FL-01 (R): Rep. Matt Gaetz prevailed 70-24 against Mark Lombardo, a self-funder who ran ads reminding viewers that the incumbent remains under federal investigation for sex trafficking of a minor and other alleged offenses. Gaetz will likely be secure in November no matter what happens next in a Pensacola area constituency that Trump would have taken 65-33.

● FL-04 (R & D): State Senate President Pro Tempore Aaron Bean defeated Navy veteran Erick Aguilar 68-26 in the GOP primary for an open Jacksonville area seat that Trump would have carried 53-46.

On the Democratic side, businesswoman LaShonda Holloway leads former state Sen. Tony Hill 50.2-49.8 with 58,000 votes counted, which the AP, which has not yet called the race, estimates is 99% of the total. Both of Team Blue’s candidates have struggled to bring in cash here, and neither national party has shown an obvious interest in it.  

● FL-07 (R): Army veteran Cory Mills beat state Rep. Anthony Sabatini 34-21 in the GOP primary to succeed Rep. Stephanie Murphy, a Democrat who decided to retire just before the GOP transfigured her suburban Orlando district from a 55-44 Biden seat to one Trump would have carried 52-47.

Mills notably ran commercials where he bragged that his company’s tear gas was used on what the on-screen text labeled as "Hillary Clinton protesters," "left wing protesters," "antifa rioters," "Black Lives Matter protesters," and "radical left protesters." The Republican nominee will face Karen Green, a state Democratic official who hasn’t raised much money so far.  

● FL-10 (D): Gun safety activist Maxwell Alejandro Frost won the 10-way primary to replace Democratic Senate nominee Val Demings by defeating state Sen. Randolph Bracy 35-25; two former House members, Alan Grayson and Corrine Brown, took 15% and 9%, respectively. Biden would have won this Orlando-based seat 65-33.

Frost, who is 25, will almost certainly be the youngest member of Congress come January. His primary win also represents a victory for the crypto-aligned Protect Our Future PAC, which spent about $1 million to aid him.

● FL-11 (R): Rep. Dan Webster held off far-right troll Laura Loomer only 51-44 in one of the biggest surprises of the night.

Loomer, a self-described "proud Islamophobe" who is banned on numerous social media, rideshare, and payment services, characteristically reacted to her near-miss by refusing to concede and spreading conspiracy theories about the primary. Trump would have carried this constituency in the western Orlando suburbs, which includes the gargantuan retirement community of The Villages, 55-44.

● FL-13 (R): 2020 nominee Anna Paulina Luna, who has the backing of Donald Trump and the Club for Growth, earned the GOP nod again by beating attorney Kevin Hayslett 44-34 after an expensive and nasty contest. The Democratic pick to succeed Rep. Charlie Crist is former Department of Defense official Eric Lynn, who is defending a St. Petersburg-based district that the Republicans transformed from a 52-47 Biden seat to one Trump would have taken 53-46.

● FL-14 (R): Public relations firm owner James Judge trounced self-funding businessman Jerry Torres 53-30 just days after a court rejected a lawsuit that tried to keep Torres off the ballot. Judge will be the underdog against Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor in this 59-40 Biden seat in Tampa and St. Petersburg.

● FL-15 (R & D): Former Secretary of State Laurel Lee outpaced state Sen. Kelli Stargel 41-28 in the Republican primary for a new district in the Tampa suburbs that was created because Florida won a new seat in reapportionment. This constituency would have backed Trump 51-48.

The Democratic nominee will be former local TV anchor Alan Cohn, who routed political consultant Gavin Brown 33-22. Cohn lost the 2020 contest for the previous version of the 15th to Republican Scott Franklin 55-45 as Trump was taking that seat by a similar 54-45 margin; Franklin is now seeking the new 18th.

● FL-20 (D): Freshman Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick decisively won her rematch with former Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness, whom she defeated by all of five votes in last year's crowded special election, 66-29. This constituency, which is located in the inland Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach areas, is safely blue at 76-23 Biden.

● FL-23 (D): Broward County Commissioner Jared Moskowitz turned back Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner Ben Sorensen 61-21. Moskowitz should have no trouble succeeding retiring Rep. Ted Deutch in a Fort Lauderdale-based seat that Biden would have carried 56-43.

● FL-27 (D): State Sen. Annette Taddeo, who had the support of the DCCC and other national Democrats, beat Miami Commissioner Ken Russell 68-26 for the nod to take on freshman Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar. The GOP sought to protect the new incumbent by shifting her Miami-area seat to the right: While Biden carried the old 27th 51-48, Trump would have taken the new version 50-49.

● OK-Sen-B (R): Rep. Markwayne Mullin, who had Donald Trump’s endorsement for the runoff, bested former state House Speaker T.W. Shannon in a 65-35 runoff landslide.

Mullin will be the frontrunner against former Democratic Rep. Kendra Horn in the general election to succeed Sen. Jim Inhofe, whose resignation takes effect at the end of this Congress, in one of the reddest states in the nation. (That’s not entirely welcome news to Inhofe, who recently told Read Frontier, “Markwayne and I, we have problems.”) Mullin, who is a member of the Cherokee Nation, would be the first Native American to serve in the Senate since Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Colorado Democrat turned Republican, retired in 2005.

● OK-02 (R): Former state Sen. Josh Brecheen edged out state Rep. Avery Frix 52-48 after a very expensive GOP runoff to succeed Markwayne Mullin in this dark red Eastern Oklahoma seat. A PAC affiliated with the Club for Growth spent over $3.4 million to promote Brecheen, who is a former Club fellow, while Frix had extensive support from his own outside group allies.

● NY-01 (R): Nick LaLota, who serves as chief of staff of the Suffolk County Legislature, beat cryptocurrency trader Michelle Bond 47-28 in the primary to replace Rep. Lee Zeldin, the GOP nominee for governor. The wealthy Bond and her allies (including a PAC that just happens to be funded by her boyfriend, crypto notable Ryan Salame), far outspent LaLota, but he had the support of the county’s Republican and Conservative parties.

LaLota will now go up against Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, who had the Democratic primary to herself. While Trump won the old 1st 51-47, Biden would have carried the new version of this eastern Long Island constituency by a narrow 49.4-49.2.

● NY-02 (R): Freshman Rep. Andrew Garbarino turned in an unexpectedly weak 54-38 victory over an unheralded Army and Navy veteran named Robert Cornicelli. The challenger eagerly embraced the Big Lie, and he used his limited resources to remind voters that Garbarino voted for a Jan. 6 commission. Garbarino also supported the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill as well as legislation protecting same-sex and interracial marriage, which may have further damaged his standing with the base.

Garbarino will now face a rematch against Democrat Jackie Gordon, an Army veteran he defeated 53-46 in 2020 as Trump was taking the old 2nd 51-47. The redrawn version of this seat, which is based in the south shore of Suffolk County, would have gone for Trump by a smaller 50-49 margin.

● NY-03 (D): DNC member Robert Zimmerman, a longtime party fundraiser who would be Long Island’s first gay member of Congress, beat Deputy Suffolk County Executive Jon Kaiman 36-26 in the primary to replace Rep. Tom Suozzi, who left to unsuccessfully run for governor in June. Another 20% went to Nassau County Legislator Josh Lafazan, who had Suozzi’s endorsement and benefited from spending by Protect Our Future PAC.

Zimmerman, who lost a race for Congress all the way back in 1982, will go up against 2020 Republican nominee George Santos. Suozzi last time held off Santos 56-43 as Biden was carrying the old 3rd 55-44; the new version of this seat, which is based in northern Nassau County, would have supported the president by a smaller 53-45 spread.

● NY-04 (D): Former Hempstead Supervisor Laura Gillen defeated Nassau County Legislator Carrié Solages 63-24 in the primary to replace retiring Rep. Kathleen Rice, who supported Gillen. The GOP is fielding Hempstead Town Councilman Anthony D'Esposito for a southern Nassau County district that Biden would have won 57-42.

● NY-10 (D): Daniel Goldman, a self-funder who served as House Democrats' lead counsel during Trump's first impeachment, beat Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou 26-24 in the busy primary for this safely blue seat in Lower Manhattan and northwestern Brooklyn; Rep. Mondaire Jones, who currently represents the 17th District well to the north of the city in the Hudson Valley, took third with 18%.

● NY-11 (D): Former Rep. Max Rose will get his rematch against freshman GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis following his 75-21 primary victory over Army veteran Brittany Debarros. The court-drawn version of this seat, which retains all of Staten Island, would have supported Trump 53-46, while he prevailed 55-44 in the old boundaries; Malliotakis herself unseated Rose 53-47 last cycle.

● NY-12 (D): Rep. Jerry Nadler won the final incumbent vs. incumbent primary of the cycle by convincingly defeating fellow Rep. Carolyn Maloney 55-24 in a revamped safely blue seat that’s home to Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Upper West Side.

● NY-16 (D): Freshman Rep. Jamaal Bowman earned renomination in this loyally blue constituency by turning back Westchester County Legislator Vedat Gashi 57-23.

● NY-17 (D): Incumbent Sean Patrick Maloney, who heads the DCCC, beat state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi 67-33 in this lower Hudson Valley seat. Maloney will go up against Republican Assemblyman Michael Lawler, who won his own primary 76-12, in a constituency Biden would have taken 54-44.

● NY-19 (D): Attorney Josh Riley outpaced businesswoman Jamie Cheney 64-36 in a southeastern upstate New York district. Riley will now go up against Republican Marc Molinaro, who lost Tuesday’s special election for the old 19th, for a redrawn seat that would have favored Biden 51-47.

● NY-22 (R & D): The GOP establishment got some unwelcome news when Navy veteran Brandon Williams defeated businessman Steve Wells 58-42 in the primary to succeed their fellow Republican, retiring Rep. John Katko, for a district located in the Syracuse and Utica areas. The Congressional Leadership Fund evidently believed that Wells was the better bet for this 53-45 Biden seat because the super PAC spent close to $1 million on an unsuccessful effort to get him across the finish line.

On the Democratic side, Navy veteran Francis Conole beat Air Force veteran Sarah Klee Hood 39-36. Conole far outspent the entire field, and he benefited from over $500,000 in aid from Protect Our Future PAC.

● NY-23 (special): Steuben County Republican Party Chair Joe Sempolinski held off Air Force veteran Max Della Pia only 53-47 in a special election to succeed GOP Rep. Tom Reed in a 55-43 Trump seat. Sempolinski isn’t running for a full term anywhere, while Della is competing for a full term in the revamped 23rd.

● NY-23 (R): State GOP chair Nick Langworthy scored a 52-48 upset over developer Carl Paladino, the proto-Trump who served as the 2010 Republican nominee for governor, in the contest to succeed departing GOP Rep. Chris Jacobs. Langworthy will take on Air Force veteran Max Della Pia in a seat in the Buffalo suburbs and southwestern upstate New York that would have gone for Trump 58-40.

Paladino, who used his vast wealth to far outspend Langworthy, has a long and ongoing history of bigoted outbursts. But that didn’t stop Rep. Elise Stefanik, who represents the neighboring 21st District and serves as the number-three Republican in the House, from backing Paladino, a move that one unnamed House Republican griped was “baffling” and “off-putting.” The gamble, though, very much didn’t pay off for Stefanik or Paladino.

● NY-24 (R): Rep. Claudia Tenney beat back attorney Mario Fratto by an underwhelming 54-40, though she should have no trouble in the general for a 57-40 Trump seat in the Finger Lakes region. Tenney had the support of Trump as well as a huge financial lead over Fratto, but she currently represents a mere 6% of this revamped district.

Senate

● MO-Sen: Independent John Wood announced Tuesday he was dropping out of the general election, a move that came after a super PAC affiliated with former GOP Sen. John Danforth spent $3.6 million on his behalf.

Wood sent out an email to his supporters saying he'd decided to run at a time when disgraced Gov. Eric Greitens was a serious contender for the Republican nomination, saying, "That would have been unacceptable, embarrassing, and dangerous for my party, my state, and my Country." Greitens, though, lost the Aug. 2 GOP primary to Attorney General Eric Schmitt, and Wood acknowledged, "It has become evident that there is not a realistic path to victory for me as an independent candidate."

● NH-Sen: State Senate President Chuck Morse has earned the backing of the NRA ahead of the Sept. 13 Republican primary to take on Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan. The organization, as we've written before, has dramatically diminished in recent years and it rarely spends much in primaries, but its stamp of approval can still give Republican office seekers a boost with conservatives.

● NV-Sen: Adam Laxalt is using his coordinated buy with the NRSC to air his very first TV spot since the mid-June primary, and he's far from the only Senate Republican candidate to only return to the airwaves months after winning the nomination. Pennsylvania's Mehmet Oz began running commercials in late July, while North Carolina's Ted Budd and Ohio's J.D. Vance, who also cleared their primaries in May, went up with general election spots this month; all three of these inaugural ads were also joint buys with the NRSC.

This Laxalt spot, reports NBC, has only $95,000 behind it, though that's still more than than the $65,000 he'd spent through Monday on general election digital and radio ads. Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, by contrast, has dropped $6.5 million on advertising, while Democratic outside groups have outspent their GOP counterparts by a smaller $12.1 million to $10.9 million margin here.

Laxalt's commercial comes days after Cortez Masto portrayed the Republican as a spoiled outsider in a spot of her own that emulated the TV show "Succession." Laxalt tries to get his own narrative about his life across by telling the audience, "I was raised by a single mom with no college education. And as a kid, I didn't know who my father was." (His late father was New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici, who was married to another woman when Laxalt was conceived and had little presence in his life.) The candidate's wife also declares, "Everything he had to overcome helped make him a good man."  

Governors

● CA-Gov: UC Berkeley for the Los Angeles Times: Gavin Newsom (D-inc): 55, Brian Dahle (R): 31

● MS-Gov: Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, who is one of the most prominent Democrats in this dark red state, didn't rule anything out when Mississippi Today asked about his interest in challenging Republican Gov. Tate Reeves next year. Presley, who is also up for re-election in 2023, instead talked about his current role, saying, "I am concentrating on trying to get internet to every household in the state, trying to keep utility rates affordable during this time of high inflation."

● NY-Gov: SurveyUSA for WNYT: Kathy Hochul (D-inc): 55, Lee Zeldin (R): 31 (June: 52-28 Hochul)

House

● MI-08: It begins: The independent expenditure arm of the DCCC has released its first TV ad of the November general election, beating their counterparts at the NRCC to the airwaves.

The DCCC's spot attacks former Homeland Security official Paul Junge, the Republican nominee in Michigan's 8th Congressional District, on the number one issue of the midterms: abortion. The commercial, however, avoids the word. Instead, a series of female narrators castigates Junge: "I thought I'd always have the right to make my own health care decisions," the voiceover says. "But if Paul Junge gets his way … I won't." Saying that Junge opposes abortion even in the case of rape or incest, the narration continues, "I couldn't imagine a pregnancy forced on me after something horrible like that. But thanks to Paul Junge, I have to."

Junge is challenging five-term Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee, who saw his district in the Flint and Tri-Cities areas take on some new turf and grow a bit redder in redistricting. It also changed numbers: Biden won Kildee's old 5th by a 51-47 margin, but the redrawn 8th would have backed the president just 50-48. This part of the state has also moved sharply to the right on the presidential level over the last decade—in 2012, Barack Obama won the 5th District by more than 20 points—which is why it's a prime target for Republicans this year.

Democrats know this as well, which is why they're stepping in to aid Kildee. We don't yet know how much the DCCC is spending in this initial foray, but we will soon: Any group that makes an independent expenditure on behalf of a federal candidate must file a report with the FEC detailing its spending within 48 hours—and from Oct. 20 onward, within 24 hours. Those filings are all made available on the FEC's website.

That site will get plenty of clicks, because from here on out, we can expect hundreds of millions of dollars more in independent expenditures on House races, from official party organizations like the DCCC and NRCC, massive super PACs like the Democrats' House Majority PAC and the GOP's Congressional Leadership Fund, and a whole bevy of groups large and small. But with the parties themselves now going up on TV, we can consider this the beginning of the end of the midterms.

● TN-05: Democratic state Sen. Heidi Campbell has publicized an internal from FrederickPolls that gives her a 51-48 lead over her Republican rival, Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles, in a newly-gerrymandered constituency that Democrats are very pessimistic about holding. Democratic incumbent Jim Cooper decided to retire here after the GOP legislature transmuted his seat from a 60-37 Biden district to a 54-43 Trump constituency by cracking the city of Nashville, and no major outside groups on either side have reserved any ad time here.  

Other races

● Los Angeles County, CA Sheriff: UC Berkeley, polling for the Los Angeles Times, finds former Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna leading conservative Sheriff Alex Villanueva 31-27 in the November nonpartisan primary to serve as the top lawman for America's most populous county. This is the first survey we've seen since early June, when Villanueva outpaced Luna 31-26.

Villanueva made history in 2018 when he became the first Democrat to hold this office in 138 years, but while he still identifies as "​​a Democrat of the party of JFK and FDR," he's established a very different image in office. Villanueva instead has become a Fox News regular who, among many other things, has raged against the "woke left." The sheriff's department also has been at the center of numerous scandals, including allegations that deputies have organized themselves into violent gangs.  

Luna, for his part, changed his voter registration from Republican to no party preference in 2018 before becoming a Democrat two years later. The county Democratic Party has endorsed the former Long Beach police chief for the general election after declining to back anyone for the first round, and all five members of the Board of Supervisors are also in his corner; Luna also has the endorsement of Eric Strong, a progressive who took third with 16%. The challenger has faulted the incumbent for having "mismanaged" the department and argued that he'll "modernize" it.

Despite his second-place showing, however, UC Berkeley finds that Luna is a blank slate to most voters. Respondents give Luna a 31-11 favorable rating, but a 59% majority says they don't have an opinion of the challenger. Villanueva, by contrast, is underwater with a 30-39 score, though 31% still weren't sure how they feel about him.

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Morning Digest: Meet the Republican that the other Republicans don’t want to see run for the House

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● MN-01: Despite lots of grumbling from fellow Republicans, former Minnesota GOP chair Jennifer Carnahan on Monday announced a bid for the vacant congressional seat that had been held by her late husband, Jim Hagedorn, until his death last month.

Carnahan has given her party plenty of reasons to wish she'd just go away, but the other day, she added yet one more: According to former state GOP official Michael Brodkorb, a frequent Carnahan critic, the newly minted candidate got into a "physical altercation" with a member of Hagedorn's family at a DC restaurant following a memorial service. But that's just a capper on a long string of ugliness that's surrounded Carnahan for quite some time.

A wide array of figures called on Carnahan to resign as GOP chair last August after Tony Lazzaro, a close friend and party donor, was arrested on sex-trafficking charges. Carnahan denied knowing anything about the allegations against Lazzaro, with whom she once co-hosted a podcast, but the brief against her was much broader. Shortly after Lazzaro's arrest, a group of former staffers came forward to charge that Carnahan had "presided over a toxic workplace culture and unchecked sexual harassment"; a day later, under severe pressure, she resigned—after casting the deciding vote to give herself a $38,000 severance check.

And while widows of deceased office-holders are often greeted sympathetically, Carnahan has to contend with a recording of a phone call released last year in which she was heard saying of her husband, "I don't care. Jim, he's going to die of cancer in two years." Carnahan later said she'd uttered those words "in grief" after drinking at an RNC event.

She also apparently posted messages on Facebook last year complaining of her husband's supposed ingratitude regarding a birthday celebration, according to Politico. "I bought you dinner and wine at Chankaska. There is not a single post about it," she allegedly wrote, "but the post about your birthday is of your employees? It's degrading, condescending and upsetting to me on many levels."

The special election for Hagedorn's seat is set for Aug. 9, with a primary to take place on May 24.

Redistricting

● MO Redistricting: A panel of six appellate judges released a new map for Missouri's state Senate on Monday and says it plans to file the proposal with the secretary of state's office on Tuesday, which would make the map final. The judicial panel was assembled by the state Supreme Court in January and was tasked with crafting new districts after Missouri's bipartisan Senate redistricting commission failed to come up with a map of its own.

Meanwhile, the congressional redraw remains incomplete, as GOP leaders and far-right hardliners in the Senate still haven't reached a compromise: The former want a map that maintains the party's 6-2 advantage in the state's delegation, while the latter are pushing for a 7-1 gerrymander. The chamber just adjourned for a "weeklong spring break" and won't return until Monday, but lawmakers will have little time to act, since the candidate filing deadline is March 29. Two lawsuits have already been filed asking the courts to take over the redistricting process due to the ongoing impasse.

● WY Redistricting: Both chambers in Wyoming's Republican-dominated legislature passed new legislative maps late on Friday night, resolving a split between the two bodies and sending the plans to Republican Gov. Mark Gordon. The final maps add two new members to the House and one to the Senate, as the House had sought. The boundaries differ somewhat, though, from those the House approved last month, and the population differences between the largest and smallest districts are larger than those the courts typically allow, making the map susceptible to a possible legal challenge.

Senate

● AL-Sen: Alabama's Future, a super PAC that Punchbowl News says "has ties" to retiring GOP Sen. Richard Shelby, is running a new commercial against Rep. Mo Brooks ahead of the May Republican primary. The narrator charges the congressman with "voting to cut off funding to destroy ISIS terrorists in the middle of the fight." The spot continues by resurrecting an attack that derailed Brooks in the 2017 special election for Alabama's other Senate seat by reminding viewers that "he even said that voters faced a 'tough choice' between Trump and Hillary."

Meanwhile, former Business Council of Alabama head Katie Boyd Britt, who has Shelby's backing, uses her latest ad to once again talk about her conservative views and implore the audience to "stand with me in choosing faith and freedom."

● CA-Sen: Candidate filing closed Friday in three states—California, Georgia, and Idaho—and throughout this Digest, you'll find our rundowns of all the major candidates in all the key races. We begin with the biggest one of them all, California, which hosts its primary on June 7.

However, the state automatically extends the filing deadline five extra days in contests where the incumbent chooses not to file for re-election, so the field won't be set for several more races until Wednesday. (Five open House districts are affected by this extension: the 3rd, 13th, 15th, 37th, and 42nd.) The secretary of state will publish an official candidate list in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, we're relying on an open-source spreadsheet created and maintained by California political operatives.

The Golden State's top-two primary requires all candidates running for Congress and for state office to compete on a single ballot rather than in separate party primaries. The two contenders with the most votes, regardless of party, will then advance to the Nov. 8 general election—a rule that sometimes results in two candidates from the same party facing off against one another. Note that candidates cannot win outright in June by taking a majority of the vote except in some nonpartisan elections for local office.

At the top of the roster is the race for U.S. Senate, where appointed Democratic incumbent Alex Padilla faces no serious opposition in his bid for a full six-year term. A special election will also be held in June for the final months of now-Vice President Kamala Harris' term, but that contest should be just as uneventful.

● GA-Sen: Six Republicans have filed to take on Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is seeking a full term after winning a crucial special election in January of last year, but almost all of the attention has gone to former University of Georgia football star Herschel Walker. The GOP field also includes state Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, former state Rep. Josh Clark, businessman Kelvin King, and banking executive Latham Saddler.

Walker's intra-party opponents have been hoping that ongoing media reports about his past, including allegations that he threatened to kill his ex-wife in 2005, will give them an opening, but none of them seem to be gaining any traction. Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have remained firmly in Walker's corner, and every poll we've seen has shown him taking well over a majority of the vote in the primary.

As for the general election, because Libertarian Chase Oliver is also running, it's very possible his presence could be enough to force Warnock and his eventual GOP rival into yet another runoff—which would take place in December rather than January after Republican lawmakers changed the timing last year in response to their dual Senate runoff losses.

● WI-Sen: In her opening ad for the August Democratic primary, state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski begins, "Dairy farms disappearing, prices up, COVID still not gone." She then says of the Republican incumbent, "And what's Ron Johnson done? Voted against new jobs and told us to take mouthwash to cure COVID." (Yes, Johnson really said that.) Godlewski continues, "I grew up in Eau Claire where we're more interested in common sense than conspiracies," and calls for "[p]ractical ideas that just help people. Not mouthwash." The campaigns says the spot is part of a seven-figure TV and digital buy.

Governors

● CA-Gov: Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's landslide win in last year's recall election has deterred any strong Republicans from challenging him in this very blue state. Newsom's most prominent foe is state Sen. Brian Dahle, who the San Francisco Chronicle reported last month was still unvaccinated against COVID.

● GA-Gov: With Friday's filing deadline just passed, two new polls of the May 24 Republican primary find Gov. Brian Kemp with wide leads over former Sen. David Perdue, but they disagree whether the incumbent is already taking the majority of the vote needed to avoid a June 21 runoff.

A survey from the GOP firm American Viewpoint on behalf of Secure Democracy USA, an organization the Atlanta Journal-Constitution describes as a "nonpartisan group that aims to improve voter access," has Kemp winning 51-35. But BK Strategies, a different Republican firm which did not mention a client, has the governor only at 48%, though Perdue lags well behind with 33%. Three other Republicans also filed (you can find a complete candidate list here), but none have generated much attention.

We've seen two other polls in recent weeks, and they also diverge on Kemp's precise standing. Fox5 Atlanta's numbers—from yet another Republican pollster, InsiderAdvantage—had the incumbent leading only 44-35. However, a Fox News survey from the Democratic firm Beacon Research and the Republican pollster Shaw & Company finds Kemp in stronger shape with a 50-39 edge. All these polls and Perdue's weak fundraising numbers, though, haven't deterred Donald Trump from going all-in on his quest to deny renomination to Kemp, a one-time ally who wound up on the MAGA shitlist when he refused to participate in the Big Lie despite Trump's interference.

Indeed, Trump has a March 26 rally set for Perdue and other endorsees that's taking place in the small city of Commerce, which is close to the governor's hometown of Athens. Trump last month also starred in a very rare direct-to-camera ad for Perdue that featured him trashing Kemp. The governor, meanwhile, has benefited from spending from the Republican Governors Association, which for the first time is running ads to support an incumbent in a primary.

The eventual winner will go up against 2018 Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams, who has no intra-party opposition in her second campaign. Georgia requires candidates to win a majority of the vote in the Nov. 8 general election in order to avoid a runoff on Dec. 6, so the presence of Libertarian Shane Hazel and independent Al Bartell could be enough to force a second round of voting.

Hazel himself played a small but crucial role in Perdue's 2020 re-election defeat: Perdue outpaced Democrat Jon Ossoff 49.7-48.0 in November while Hazel took a crucial 2.3%, but Ossoff quite famously went on to win the January rematch. GOP leaders soon changed the law to slash the time between the first general election and any potential runoffs from nine weeks to four.

● ID-Gov: Candidate filing also closed in Idaho Friday for the May 17 primary, and the state has a list of contenders here.

Gov. Brad Little faces seven fellow Republicans in this overwhelmingly red state, but the most prominent of the bunch is Trump-endorsed Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin. No one has released any polling this year to indicate if Little is at all vulnerable, but he's enjoyed a massive fundraising edge over McGeachin, who spent the pandemic trying to undermine the governor's efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus. Also in the race are Bonner County Commissioner Steven Bradshaw and financial advisor Ed Humphreys.

● MD-Gov: Two SEIU unions representing 30,000 Marylanders have endorsed former Labor Secretary Tom Perez in his bid for the Democratic nomination for governor: Local 500, which represents education personnel, and 32BJ, which represents property services workers.

● NV-Gov: A new poll of Nevada's GOP primary for governor, conducted by Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling on behalf of the DGA, finds Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo leading with 26% of the vote while former Sen. Dean Heller and North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee are tied at 13 apiece. Attorney Joey Gilbert is just behind at 12%, Las Vegas Councilwoman Michele Fiore takes 8, and businessman Guy Nohra brings up the caboose with just 1%, though a 27% plurality are undecided. The general picture is similar to that found in the only other public poll released this year, a survey from GOP firm OH Predictive Insights that had Lombardo at 28 and everyone else in single digits.

● PA-Gov: Democrat Josh Shapiro's allies at Pennsylvania Works are airing a commercial commending him for standing up to "goliaths" and "bullies" as attorney general.

● RI-Gov: Businesswoman Ashley Kalus, who filed paperwork for a possible bid for governor last month, will reportedly enter the contest "within the next two weeks," according to NBC 10 News. Kalus would be the first notable Republican in the race.

House

● CA-05: Republican Rep. Tom McClintock faces intra-party opposition from Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig and three others in a 55-43 Trump constituency in the upper Central Valley and Sierra foothills. McClintock's existing 4th District makes up just over 40% of the new district, while fewer than 5,000 people are Magsig's constituents.

● CA-06: While Sacramento County Registrar of Voters Courtney Bailey-Kanelos took out paperwork last month for a possible independent bid against Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, she didn't end up filing ahead of Friday's deadline. Bera should have little trouble winning this 58-39 Biden seat based in Sacramento and its northern suburbs.

● CA-08: Democratic Rep. John Garamendi is the favorite for another term even though his existing 3rd District makes up just over 20% of this new seat, which is home to suburbs east of Oakland. However, he does face noteworthy intra-party opposition from Richmond City Councilman Demnlus Johnson. Johnson, who is Black, has argued, "The new congressional district was created to represent people like us. We can finally elect someone who knows our community because they're from our community."

People of color make up close to three-quarters of this new constituency, but Garamendi, who is white, is arguing that he knows this area well from his time "not only as a member of Congress, but also as lieutenant Governor and as insurance commissioner." (Garamendi is of Basque descent but does not identify as Hispanic.) Three other Democrats and one Republican are competing for this seat, which would have backed Biden 76-22.

● CA-09: Democratic Rep. Josh Harder decided to seek re-election in this seat, a Stockton-area constituency that would have backed Biden 55-43, right after fellow Democratic incumbent Jerry McNerney announced his retirement in January. Just over a quarter of the new 9th's denizens live in Harder's existing 10th District, but he doesn't appear to have any serious intra-party opposition. Three Republicans are running here, though the only one who looks noteworthy is San Joaquin County Supervisor Tom Patti.

● CA-21: Democratic Rep. Jim Costa should be the heavy favorite in a Fresno area district that Biden would have taken 59-39, though he struggled in the 2014 general election against a weak GOP foe in a similarly blue constituency. The only Republican who is going up against him this time is businessman Michael Maher, who is also campaigning in the special election for the old 22nd District.

● CA-22: Rep. David Valadao, who was one of 10 Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump last year, is running for re-election in a southern Central Valley seat that Biden would have won 55-42. Valadao faces two fellow Republicans, King County School Board Member Adam Medeiros and former Fresno City Councilman Chris Mathys, but neither of them has attracted any public support yet from Trump. Mathys ran for office a few times in New Mexico including in 2020, when he took last place with 24% in the three-way primary for the 2nd Congressional District.

On the Democratic side, state and national leaders have consolidated behind Assemblyman Rudy Salas, who doesn't face any serious intra-party opponents.

● CA-27: Republican Rep. Mike Garcia is defending a seat based in Santa Clarita and Antelope Valley that would have gone for Biden 55-43, and three Democrats are facing off against him. The most familiar name is former Assemblywoman Christy Smith, who badly lost the spring 2020 special election to Garcia but came just 333 votes shy months later as Biden was winning the old 25th District 54-44; Smith recently earned the endorsement of the state Democratic Party for her third bid.

The two other Democrats are Navy veteran Quaye Quartey and Simi Valley City Councilwoman Ruth Luevanos. Luevanos continued to run after her community was moved to the new 26th District, but she barely had any money available at the end of 2021.

● CA-31: While Democratic Rep. Grace Napolitano, who will be 86 when the new Congress is sworn in, has long been the subject of retirement speculation, she's running for a 13th term. She faces no serious opposition in an eastern San Gabriel Valley seat that Biden would have won 64-33.

● CA-34: Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez beat former prosecutor David Kim just 53-47 in the 2020 all-Democratic general election, and Kim is seeking a rematch. One Republican and an independent are also running, but it's very likely Gomez and Kim will advance to November in a downtown Los Angeles seat that Biden would have carried 81-17.

● CA-40: Freshman Republican Rep. Young Kim is seeking re-election in an eastern Orange County district where she currently represents just 20% of the population, a seat that Biden would have carried by a close 50-48 margin. Four fellow Republicans are challenging her. The most notable is Mission Viejo Councilman Greg Raths, a frequent congressional candidate who most recently challenged Democratic Rep. Katie Porter in 2020 for the old 45th District and lost 53-47. On the other side, state Democratic leaders have consolidated behind physician Asif Mahmood, who took third in the 2018 race for state comptroller.

● CA-41: Well, so much for that: While state Sen. Melissa Melendez took out paperwork last week for a potential intra-party challenge to her fellow Republican, 15-term Rep. Ken Calvert, she doesn't appear to have submitted it before Friday's deadline.

Calvert now faces only minor intra-party opposition in this suburban Riverside seat, though he could have his first serious general election fight since his surprise near-defeat in 2008. While the congressman's existing 42nd District backed Trump 53-45, the new 41st would have supported him only 50-49. For the Democrats, the state party has endorsed former federal prosecutor Will Rollins over engineer Shrina Kurani.

● CA-45: Freshman Republican Rep. Michelle Steel is seeking a second term in a western Orange County that would have supported Biden 52-46 and where only 16% of the population lives within her existing 48th District. State and national Democrats are backing community college trustee Jay Chen, who ran a respectable 2012 campaign in the old 39th against longtime Republican Rep. Ed Royce back when Orange County was considerably redder than it is now.

● CA-47: Rep. Katie Porter, who is one of the best fundraisers in the Democratic caucus, is seeking a third term in a seat located in coastal Orange County and Irvine that Biden would have won 55-43; just over 40% of the new 47th's residents live within Porter's existing 45th District. Her only notable foe appears to be former Orange County GOP chair Scott Baugh, who ran against Republican incumbent Dana Rohrabacher in the 2018 top-two primary for the old 48th and finished a close fourth.

● CA-49: Three notable Republicans are competing to take on Democratic Rep. Mike Levin in a coastal San Diego County seat that would have favored Biden 55-43. One familiar name is 2020 nominee Brian Maryott, who lost to Levin 53-47 even as Biden was carrying the old version of the 49th by that same 55-43 margin and has the state party endorsement for his second bid. The field also includes Orange County Supervisor Lisa Bartlett and Oceanside City Councilman Christopher Rodriguez.

● FL-22: Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner Ben Sorensen is the latest Democrat to say he's considering a bid for Florida's open 22nd Congressional District, though he adds that he's in "no rush" to make a decision.

● GA-02: Veteran Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop hasn't faced any serious general election foe since he almost lost in the 2010 GOP wave, but six Republicans are now taking him on in a southwestern Georgia seat that would have favored Joe Biden 55-44.

Only half of the field reported raising any money before the end of the year. Businessman Wayne Johnson, who is a former Trump official in the Department of Education, led Air Force veteran Chris West in cash-on-hand $135,000 to $104,000 thanks mostly to self-funding, while perennial candidate Vivian Childs had just over $6,000. The other Republicans are Army veteran Jeremy Hunt, teacher Paul Whitehead, and Rich Robertson, who is another Air Force veteran. Bishop, for his part, had $393,000 on hand to defend himself.

● GA-06: The new Republican gerrymander led Democratic incumbent Lucy McBath to seek re-election in the neighboring 7th District, and nine Republicans are competing for an open seat in the northern Atlanta suburbs that would have favored Trump 57-42.

The most familiar candidate may be physician Rich McCormick, who narrowly lost last year's race for the old 7th District to Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux (the old 7th makes up 30% of the new 6th) and once again has the backing of the anti-tax Club for Growth. Another well-connected contender is former state ethics commission chair Jake Evans, whose father, Randy Evans, is Trump's former ambassador to Luxembourg. McCormick ended 2021 with a small $1.15 million to $1 million cash-on-hand edge over Evans, who has also been doing some self-funding.

The field also includes pastor Mallory Staples, who had $476,000 on-hand thanks mostly to self-funding, and former state Rep. Meagan Hanson, who had $279,000 available. It remains to be seen if any of the other five candidates can stand out in this crowded race.

● GA-07: The Democratic primary for this 62-36 Biden seat in Atlanta's northeastern suburbs is a three-way contest between Rep. Lucy McBath, who represents the current 6th District; Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux, who holds the existing 7th; and state Rep. Donna McLeod. Bourdeaux represents 57% of the new seat compared to just 12% for McBath. However, the more progressive McBath may be more in line with primary voters than Bourdeaux, who last year joined a group of nine renegade Democratic moderates who threatened to derail Biden's Build Back Better agenda if they didn't get a vote on Congress' bipartisan infrastructure bill first.

McBath also has the backing of Stacey Abrams, who will be Team Blue's gubernatorial nominee again, while a super PAC called Protect Our Future funded by cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried has pledged to spend $2 million for her. The only poll we've seen this year was a January Data for Progress survey for that group that showed McBath leading Bourdeaux 40-31, with McLeod at 6%.

● GA-09: Freshman Rep. Andrew Clyde faces four opponents in the Republican primary for this safely red northeastern Georgia seat including Ben Souther, a former FBI agent and University of Georgia football player who launched his campaign last month specifically citing the fact that Clyde does not live in the new district. The congressman, for his part, has claimed that his home county of Jackson was moved into the 10th District as the result of "a purposeful decision made by a handful of establishment politicians" to target him for being a "hardcore conservative." Clyde ended 2021 with just $41,000 on hand, though it remains to be seen if any of his foes can put up a serious fight.

● GA-10: Far-right extremist Jody Hice is leaving to run for secretary of state with Donald Trump's blessing, and eight fellow Republicans are facing off to replace him in a safely red constituency based in Atlanta's eastern exurbs and Athens. The most prominent contender is former state Rep. Vernon Jones, a conservative Democrat-turned-Republican who earned Trump's support right after he ended his campaign for governor and started running here last month. Jones, though, never represented any of this area in the legislature or as DeKalb County CEO, and his opponents have sought to portray him as an outsider.

The contest also includes a few other familiar names. There's former Rep. Paul Broun, who gave up the previous version of the 10th in 2014 to unsuccessfully run for the Senate and went on to lose comeback bids for the old 9th in both 2016 and 2020. There's also businessman Mike Collins, the son of the late Rep. Mac Collins, who sought to succeed Broun in 2014 but lost to Hice 54-46. State Rep. Timothy Barr, meanwhile, has the support of Hice and 9th District Rep. Andrew Clyde.

The primary also features former Georgia Revenue Commissioner David Curry, businessman Marc McMain, retired Air Force Col. Alan Sims, and Mitchell Swan, who took a mere 4% in the 2014 primary. Former Trump administration official Patrick Witt was also running until last week, but he switched to challenging Insurance Commissioner John King in the GOP primary and endorsed Jones on his way out.

● GA-13: Rep. David Scott, who has long been one of the most conservative members of the Democratic caucus, took just 53% of the vote in the 2020 primary, and he now faces intra-party opposition from former state Sen. Vincent Fort, South Fulton City Councilor Mark Baker, and consultant Shastity Driscoll. This seat in Atlanta's western and southern suburbs would have backed Biden 80-19.

Fort, who was one of Bernie Sanders' most prominent Georgia supporters during the 2016 presidential primaries, is arguably Scott's top foe, though the former state senator took just 10% of the vote in the 2017 race for mayor of Atlanta. Scott ended 2021 with $1.1 million on-hand, while none of his foes had yet begun fundraising as of the end of last year.

● ID-02: Longtime Republican Rep. Mike Simpson faces a primary rematch against attorney Bryan Smith, whom he beat 62-38 in 2014, while three others are also running in this dark-red eastern Idaho constituency. A group called Idaho Second Amendment Alliance recently began airing an ad accusing Simpson of supporting "[r]ed flag gun confiscation, a federal gun registry, [and] universal background checks," though there's no word on the size of the buy. Simpson, meanwhile, has been running commercials arguing that Smith "got rich targeting veterans who can't pay medical bills."

● MI-04: In a painful blow to state Rep. Steve Carra, Donald Trump just snatched back his rose and instead awarded it to Rep. Bill Huizenga in the multi-way GOP battle for Michigan's revamped 4th Congressional District.

In September, Trump pledged his support for Carra at a time when the legislator was challenging Rep. Fred Upton—who had voted for impeachment—in the Republican primary for what was then the 6th District. But as a result of redistricting, Upton and Huizenga got tossed together in the new 4th, though Upton still hasn't confirmed his re-election plans. Carra, meanwhile, found himself drawn into the 5th but decided to test just how "Complete and Total" Trump's endorsement was by running in the 4th District anyway. The answer: not very.

● NM-02: Las Cruces City Councilor Gabe Vasquez earned the support of 80.4% of delegates to the New Mexico Democratic Party's recently concluded statewide convention, earning him automatic placement on the June 7 primary ballot. A question remains, however, about the fate of the only other Democrat in the race, physician Darshan Patel, who took 19.6%—seemingly just shy of the 20% necessary for securing a ballot spot without having to collect further signatures. Patel contends that his total should be rounded up, but a party spokesperson says they'll leave the matter up to state election officials.

● NY-22: The Working Families Party has endorsed attorney Josh Riley in the multi-way Democratic primary for New York's revamped 22nd District, an open seat that Democrats made considerably bluer in redistricting.

● PA-12: Edgewood Borough Council member Bhavini Patel has abandoned her campaign for the Democratic nomination in Pennsylvania's 12th District, a safely blue seat in the Pittsburgh area that's the successor to the old 18th. Several other Democrats are still running for this district, which is open because longtime Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle is retiring.

Attorneys General

● CA-AG: Democrat Rob Bonta was appointed state attorney general last year after incumbent Xavier Becerra resigned to become Joe Biden's HHS secretary, and he now faces a potentially difficult fight for a full term.

Bonta's most formidable foe may be Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, a former Republican who became an independent in 2018 and, with the support of law enforcement unions, has been campaigning as a tough-on-crime prosecutor. While Schubert's lack of a party affiliation could be an asset in a general election in this blue state, though, she'll need to first put together enough votes to get past the actual Republicans in the top-two primary. Team Red's most notable contender is former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman.

● GA-AG: Republican Attorney General Chris Carr is seeking re-election, and he faces credible opposition from Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan. Libertarian Martin Cowen is also in.

● ID-AG: Five-term Attorney General Lawrence Wasden faces an intra-party challenge from former Rep. Raúl Labrador, who spent his four terms in the House as one of the most prominent tea party shit-talkers before losing his 2018 bid for governor in the GOP primary, as well as conservative activist Art Macomber. Labrador has been trying to take advantage of the incumbent's many battles with a legislature that's dominated by far-right hard-liners by arguing that he'd "be a true partner with conservative lawmakers in the Legislature as they work to draft and write good laws that will stand up against the gamesmanship of activist judges."

Secretaries of State

● GA-SoS: Republican incumbent Brad Raffensperger's refusal to participate in the Big Lie earned him a Trump-backed primary challenge from Rep. Jody Hice, who eagerly went along with Trump's attempt to overturn his defeat. The GOP field also includes former Alpharetta Mayor David Belle Isle, who lost to Raffensperger in 2018, and one other contender. On the Democratic side, state Rep. Bee Nguyen, who would be the first Asian American elected statewide, is the overwhelming favorite to advance, while Libertarian Ted Metz is also running.

Prosecutors

● Suffolk County, MA District Attorney: Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo has earned an endorsement from Sen. Elizabeth Warren in the September Democratic primary against appointed incumbent Kevin Hayden.

Morning Digest: Cuomo impeachment vote might not happen until September at the soonest

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

Leading Off

● NY-Gov: The New York Times, citing an unnamed source, reports that Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie believes "he has the support from most, if not all, of the Democratic majority" to impeach Gov. Andrew Cuomo, though at a Monday news conference, he was hazy about the timeline for proceeding. Heastie told reporters he thinks that lawmakers' impeachment investigation will be "dealt with in weeks, and not months," though it would then be some time before articles of impeachment could be drafted and voted on.

To get a sense of just how vague Heastie's guidance was, North Country Public Radio suggested that articles "could come as early as this month," while the Times said they "might not be considered until early September," and the Albany Times Union went with "mid-September." If and when the Assembly does impeach Cuomo (and for what it's worth, every Republican in the chamber is in favor), a trial could not take place in the Senate any sooner than 30 days later. All told, a vote on whether to convict Cuomo and remove him from office—assuming he doesn't resign first—may therefore not happen until October at the earliest.

Campaign Action

Cuomo has also been trying to convince legislative leaders not to impeach him in exchange for him not running for a fourth term, The City reported, but Heastie shot down the idea at Monday's press event. In the now-likely event of a Cuomo-less Democratic primary next year (or one featuring a deranged and mortally wounded ex-governor), our old friend the Great Mentioner is warming up for a very busy season of would-be candidacies. Politico starts us off with an extremely long and detailed list of potential successors, including a number of names we haven't previously cited, though there's pretty much no word yet as to whether any are interested. Don't worry, though: There will be, soon.

Senate

● CA-Sen: Rep. Ro Khanna, who'd been the lone holdout among California House Democrats in not yet backing Sen. Alex Padilla for re-election, has at last endorsed the incumbent for a full six-year term. Khanna had previously declined to rule out a challenge to Padilla, who was appointed to replace Vice President Kamala Harris in January, but with no major opponents in sight, the senator should be a lock next year.

● MD-Sen: If Republican Gov. Larry Hogan wanted to put to rest any speculation that he might run against Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen next year, he could simply crib from ol' William Tecumseh Sherman, whose famous Statement™ they teach on the first day of politician school. Instead, he's continued to keep the door open just a crack, most recently telling Maryland Matters, "I've said like a million times I haven't really expressed any interest whatsoever in that." Added Hogan, "Van Hollen should not lay awake at night, every night, worrying about me." Precisely what Hogan would like—a complacent opponent! Seriously, though, this is getting silly, but it can end if Hogan wishes it to.

● NY-Sen: When asked by CNN's Dana Bash whether she might challenge Sen. Chuck Schumer in next year's Democratic primary, sophomore Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez didn't rule out the possibility but also did not sound particularly interested in the prospect. The congresswoman insisted that she hasn't seriously considered the race, saying, "I can't operate the way that I operate and do the things that I do in politics while trying to be aspiring to other things or calculating to other things." She also added that she and Schumer "have been working very closely on a lot of legislation and that, to me, is important."

Ocasio-Cortez did not offer any sort of timetable for making a decision, however, and her comments were made in late June as part of a taping for a CNN special, so it's possible her stance has shifted since then.

Governors

● CA-Gov: California Republicans aren't endorsing anyone in next month's gubernatorial recall election … and neither are California Democrats. Well, sort of, for the latter: Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday encouraged supporters to leave the second question on the recall ballot blank rather than choose a replacement candidate, saying his team is "just focusing on 'no' " on the first question, which asks voters whether they want to recall Newsom from office.

That's in keeping with Newsom's strategy all along, which was to discourage any high-profile Democrats from entering the race and unite the party behind him and him alone. Whether that'll work, though, is the number one question facing Democrats, especially since at least one pollster has suggested that the variety of options open to Republican voters on question two has generated enthusiasm on the GOP side that Team Blue lacks.

But that wide-open field has created its own problem for Republicans, who voted not to back any candidate at a state party gathering over the weekend. With several welterweights running, that could lead to a split vote among the various GOP choices and possibly allow a little-known Democrat like Kevin Paffrath to prevail on the second question—an outcome that a recent independent poll suggested could indeed come to pass.

That survey—which was the first to show the recall succeeding, by a 51-40 margin—also found Paffrath with a 27-23 edge on conservative radio host Larry Elder, though Paffrath was the only Democrat named along with six Republicans. Elder has emerged as the top Republican fundraiser in the race after he reported raising $4.5 million since kicking off his campaign last month, though Newsom has amassed 10 times as much, bringing in $46 million through the end of July, and has been spending heavily on ads.

● CO-Gov: Jason Salzman of the Colorado Times Recorder writes that Republican state Sen. John Cooke, who is also the assistant minority leader of the chamber, did a radio interview last Thursday and shared some unflattering thoughts on his own party's outlook in next year's governor's race.

Cooke said he did not think Democratic Gov. Jared Polis could be beaten and even praised the governor as "smart and popular." He did name-check businessman Greg Lopez, the only officially announced candidate so far for the GOP but bemoaned his lack of money and name recognition.

Cooke also mentioned former state Sen. Ellen Roberts as someone who could give his party a chance in the race, but he said she told him she's not interested in running. Roberts thought about a statewide bid in 2016 for Senate but decided against it after receiving backlash from some Republicans for not being sufficiently conservative.

House

● AR-01: State Rep. Brandt Smith kicked off a Republican primary bid against Rep. Rick Crawford, who's represented eastern Arkansas' 1st Congressional District since 2011. Smith claimed Crawford's lack of accessibility and responsiveness to his constituents, rather than any specific policy disagreements, as his reasons for taking on the incumbent, a lower-profile Trumpnik who voted to overturn the results of last year's election.

● MO-04: Former Republican state Sen. Ed Emery died last Friday at age 71, just a few days after collapsing at a campaign event. Emery had launched a bid for Missouri's open 4th Congressional District in June.

Lieutenant Governors

● GA-LG, GA-Gov, GA-Sen: As expected, Republican state Sen. Burt Jones will seek Georgia's lieutenant governorship, rather than run for Senate or governor. Jones is a wealthy businessman who was booted as chair of a key legislative committee by fellow Republicans for leading an effort to overturn last year's election, a demotion he refashioned as a badge of honor in his campaign kickoff.

Another state senator, Butch Miller, is already running for the GOP nod, but Donald Trump dumped on him last month, saying he "will not be supporting or endorsing" Miller "because of his refusal to work with other Republican Senators on voter fraud and irregularities in the State." Two notable Democrats, state Reps. Erick Allen and Derrick Jackson, are in the race, which is open because Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan chose not to seek re-election after disputing Trump's false claims that the election was stolen.

Morning Digest: Texas progressive kicks off primary rematch against conservative House Democrat

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

● TX-28: Immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros announced Thursday that she would seek a rematch against Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, a conservative Democrat who defeated her 52-48 in a very expensive 2020 primary. The current version of the 28th District, which includes Laredo, has been reliably blue turf for some time, but like other heavily Latino seats in South Texas' Rio Grande Valley, it lurched hard toward Trump last year: Joe Biden won 52-47 in a seat that Hillary Clinton had carried 58-38, though Cuellar won his general election 58-39 against an unheralded Republican foe.

Cuellar is a longtime force in local politics who has spent his decades in public life frustrating fellow Democrats, and his nine terms in Congress have been no different. In 2014, for instance, the congressman joined with Republicans on legislation to make it easier to deport child migrants. During the first two years of the Trump administration, FiveThirtyEight found that Cuellar voted with the administration nearly 70% of the time, more than any other Democrat in either chamber.

Cuellar, who is the extremely rare Democrat to have ever been endorsed by the radical anti-tax Club for Growth, is also no stranger to crossing party lines. In 2000, he supported George W. Bush's presidential campaign, and in 2018 he came to the aid of a home state colleague, John Carter, during the Republican's competitive re-election fight in the 31st District.  

Campaign Action

While Cuellar inflamed national Democrats, though, he went over a decade without attracting a serious primary foe until Cisneros decided to challenge him from the left last cycle, but she quickly proved she could raise a serious amount of money for what turned out to be a pricey and nasty race. Cisneros went after Cuellar for his conservative voting record, with one ad declaring, "Not only did Cuellar vote for Trump's wall twice, but he's taken over $100,000 from corporations that build facilities and cages to detain families." EMILY's List also spent $1 million to back her, while many labor groups were in Cisneros' corner as well.

The congressman, meanwhile, ran a race that could have easily passed for a GOP campaign against the woman his team derided as "the Socialist Cisneros." He argued that Cisneros' support for environmental protection policies would destroy local oil industry jobs, and he aired a commercial arguing that she "supports allowing minors to have an abortion without parents' knowledge."

Cuellar and his allies also tried to portray Cisneros, who was born and raised in South Texas and returned home after briefly practicing law in New York, as an outsider; one particularly ugly mailer from a pro-Cuellar group charged that the challenger was "bringing New York flavor to Texas," complete with pictures of "NYC Pizza" and "NYC Bagel."

Cuellar benefited from spending from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and, remarkably, the Koch network, the first Democrat ever to do so. Republican voters also likely pushed him across the finish line in what turned out to be a tight race: Texas does not have party registration, which left GOP voters who didn't participate in Donald Trump's uncompetitive primary free to vote in the Democratic race.

Cisneros kicked off her new campaign Thursday arguing that not only did Cuellar remain too conservative, he'd also done a poor job aiding his constituents during the pandemic: She specifically took him to task for helping obtain coronavirus testing kits for the district last year that turned out to be defective.

Cisneros' entry into the race attracted far more attention than her launch did two years ago, but that's not the only way that the 2022 primary will be different from last cycle's fight. Perhaps most importantly, no one knows what this constituency will look like after the GOP legislature finishes redistricting, much less whether map makers will try to make it more Republican. And even if the new 28th District doesn't change much, Trump's gains last year could leave some Democrats nervous about losing Cuellar as their nominee.

One other factor is that while the 2020 race was a duel between Cuellar and Cisneros, next year's race could be more crowded. One other contender, educator Tannya Benavides, kicked off her own campaign in mid-June: While Benavides brought in just over $10,000 over the next few weeks, her presence on the ballot could make it tougher for anyone to win the majority of the vote they'd need to avoid a primary runoff.

Cuellar, for his part, raised $240,000 during the second quarter of 2021 and ended June with $1.7 million in the bank. That's considerably less than the $3 million he had available at this point in the 2020 cycle, but it does give him a big head start ahead of his rematch with Cisneros.

Redistricting

● Redistricting: Mark your calendars: The U.S. Census Bureau will release the population data essential for redistricting at a press conference on the afternoon of Aug. 12. The deadline was originally set for April 1, but it was delayed because of disruptions from the pandemic.

Senate

● GA-Sen: CNN reports that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is one of the many prominent Republicans who is worried that former football star Herschel Walker will jeopardize Team Red's chances against Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock should he run, and that he's hoping one prominent name will reconsider his plans to stay out of the race. Former Sen. David Perdue took his name out of contention back in February, but CNN writes that ​​McConnell "has suggested to allies" that he'd like for Perdue to switch course.

Perdue met with McConnell last month in D.C., and while we don't know exactly what was discussed, it's a good bet this contest came up. Perdue himself ignored questions at the time inquiring if he'd run again, and CNN says he also attended a party donor dinner on that trip and "indicated he had nothing to say about whether he would launch another Senate campaign."

The story also says that McConnell would like it if another former GOP senator, Kelly Loeffler, ran as well. Loeffler, unlike her ex-colleague, has shown some public interest, but it's not clear if she's willing to take on Walker if he gets in. An unnamed source did tell CNN that Loeffler would "likely" run should Walker, whom Donald Trump has been aggressively trying to recruit, ultimately stay out, though that would hardly solve McConnell's immediate dilemma.

A trio of notable Peach State Republicans are already in, and McConnell reportedly will be meeting with at least some of them. The top fundraiser so far is banking executive Latham Saddler, who raised $1.4 million and ended June with $1.1 million to spend. State Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, meanwhile, brought in just over $700,000 during his opening weeks and had $680,000 in the bank. Businessman Kelvin King, finally, took in $380,000 from donors, self-funded an additional $300,000, and had $570,000 on-hand.

So far, Black has been the only one to attack Walker, though he hasn't yet brought up the allegations that his would-be rival threatened to kill his ex-wife in 2005. Instead, the commissioner released a digital ad this week making fun of a video where Walker, a longtime Texas resident, got out of a car sporting what appeared to be his new Georgia license plate. (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says that plate is suspended.) "For fun, my ride's a tractor," said Black, "And I've had Georgia plates all my life."

Whoever emerges with the GOP nod will be in for an expensive race against Warnock, who remains a strong fundraiser months after his January special election win. The senator brought in $6.9 million during the second quarter, and he had $10.5 million on-hand.

Governors

● AL-Gov: Gov. Kay Ivey raised $525,000 during July ahead of a potential Republican primary challenge from state Auditor Jim Zeigler, and she had $1.7 million on-hand. Zeigler, who says he'll announce if he'll run on Aug. 21, did set up a fundraising committee this week, though he says state law required him to do that because his GoFundMe campaign fundraiser brought in more than $1,000.

● CA-Gov: SurveyUSA's first poll of the Sept. 14 recall election shows two very unexpected outcomes: a majority of voters are ready to oust Gov. Gavin Newsom, but a fellow Democrat leads in the race to replace him.

While almost every other poll has found at least a plurality of voters saying they'll vote against firing Newsom, SurveyUSA has a 51-40 majority in favor of the pro-recall yes side. Recent numbers from UC Berkeley and Core Decision Analytics showed the anti-recall side ahead 50-47 and 49-42, respectively―closer than Democrats might feel comfortable with, but nowhere near as bad as what these newest numbers show.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, SurveyUSA finds Democrat Kevin Paffrath, a financial analyst who is best known for his YouTube videos about personal finance, leading conservative radio host Larry Elder 27-23 in the race to replace Newsom. Both the aforementioned polls found Elder ahead of other Republicans, with Paffrath, who has no establishment support, taking a mere 3% of the vote.

We always caution that you should never let one poll determine your outlook of a race, and that's especially true when that poll has such startling results. We'll almost certainly get more numbers here before too long, though, which will give us a better idea of the state of next month's race.

● HI-Gov: Honolulu City Councilwoman Andria Tupola, a Republican, announced Wednesday that she would not run for governor next year. Tupola was Team Red’s 2018 nominee against Democratic Gov. David Ige, a contest she lost 63-34.

Tupola is the only Republican who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for this office so far, which Republicans have not won since 2006.

● IL-Gov: Kirk Dillard, who heads the board of directors for the Regional Transportation Agency, said on Wednesday that he was considering seeking the GOP nomination to take on Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker next year. Dillard was the runner-up in the 2010 and 2014 Republican primaries for this seat, losing both races by narrow margins.

● NH-Gov: John DiStaso of WMUR writes that some New Hampshire Democrats are urging Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington to run for governor next year. There’s no quote from Warmington about her 2022 plans, though DiStaso also relays that she’s focused on her current job, which is not a no.

Warmington is the lone Democrat on the five-member Executive Council, a body that is key for certain legislation along with approving executive and judicial appointments. Currently, Democrats do not yet have a notable candidate for this seat, though Rep. Chris Pappas and 2020 nominee Dan Feltes have not ruled out bids.

● NY-Gov: Following Tuesday’s bombshell release of the state attorney general's investigation report concluding that Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women, five New York district attorneys have confirmed that they’re investigating sexual harassment allegations against the governor, with two of them saying that they’ve already opened criminal investigations. Cuomo may have more immediate worries, though, as the Associated Press reports that 86 of the 150 members of the state Assembly say they support opening impeachment proceedings.

If a majority of the lower chamber votes to impeach him, Cuomo’s powers would be temporarily transferred to a fellow Democrat, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul; the governor would only regain his powers if he manages to avoid conviction in the Senate. It will likely be a little while, though, before impeachment can start. The Democratic-run Assembly has given Cuomo until Aug. 13 to submit evidence in his defense, and two members of the Judiciary Committee, Tom Abinanti and Phil Steck, tell the AP they expect the chamber’s investigation to end in “weeks or a month.”

The pair said that plenty of their colleagues want Cuomo impeached much faster following the release of Attorney General Tish James’s report. However, they argued that the Assembly needs time to build a strong argument for the Senate, which is also controlled by Democrats and would ultimately decide Cuomo’s fate.

Deputy Senate Majority Leader Mike Gianaris said that should the Assembly vote to impeach, his chamber could begin Cuomo’s trial weeks later. As we’ve written before, members of New York’s highest court, known as the Court of Appeals, would also sit as jurors. Democratic Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins would not participate, however, because she is second in the line of succession after the lieutenant governor. As a result, the jury would consist of seven judges—all of whom are Cuomo appointees—and 62 senators, with a two-thirds majority, or 46 votes, needed to convict the governor and remove him from office.

Cuomo could avoid all this by resigning, but he’s continued to proclaim his innocence and refuse to quit. The governor was similarly defiant in March as more and more allegations surfaced about his behavior and other alleged abuses in office, but while he had enough allies back then to hang on, his situation has very much deteriorated following James’ Tuesday press conference. Several longtime Cuomo backers, including state party chair Jay Jacobs and the state’s influential unions, have turned against him, and the New York Times notes that he has very few prominent defenders left.

Indeed, Cuomo’s most high-profile advocate at this point may be disgraced Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who characteristically compared Cuomo’s situation to the multitude of allegations leveled at his old client. Giuliani’s son, former White House staffer Andrew Giuliani, announced earlier this year that he’d run against Cuomo.

House

● FL-20: State Sen. Bobby Powell said Wednesday that he would support state Rep. Bobby DuBose rather than compete in November's special Democratic primary. The filing deadline is Aug. 10.

● MO-07: GOP Rep. Billy Long kicked off a Senate bid earlier this week, and several Republicans have already been mentioned or expressed interest in replacing the six-term congressman in this 70-28 Trump seat.

State Sen. Mike Moon, former state Sen. Jay Wasson, and physician Sam Alexander all indicated they were considering getting in. State Sen. Lincoln Hough, whom the Missouri Independent mentioned as a possible candidate on Wednesday, also did not rule out a bid. State Rep. Cody Smith and former state Sen. Gary Nodler likewise did not rule out bids, but both sound unlikely to run.

State Sen. Bill White, former state House Speaker Elijah Haahr, Greene County Presiding Commissioner Bob Dixon, and former state Sen. Ron Richard all said they would not enter the contest, while former U.S. Attorney Tim Garrison was mentioned as a possible candidate by St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum.

Mayors

● Cleveland, OH Mayor: EMILY’s List has endorsed Democratic state Sen. Sandra Williams for mayor of Cleveland.

Morning Digest: Trio of Trump-endorsed Senate candidates gets swamped in primary fundraising

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

● AK-Sen, AL-Sen, NC-Sen: While a trio of Republican Senate candidates have Donald Trump's coveted endorsement, Politico's James Arkin notes that each of them was still decisively outraised by an intra-party opponent during the second quarter of 2021.

We'll start in Alaska, where incumbent Lisa Murkowski outpaced former state cabinet official Kelly Tshibaka $1.1 million to $545,000. The senator, who has not yet confirmed if she'll run again, also ended June with a wide $2.3 million to $275,000 cash-on-hand edge. Murkowski famously lost the 2010 nomination only to win in the fall as a write-in candidate, but the Last Frontier voted last year to do away with partisan primaries and instead institute the new top-four system.

The GOP primary in Alabama, meanwhile, pits Trump-endorsed Rep. Mo Brooks against ex-Business Council of Alabama head Katie Boyd Britt, a former chief of staff to retiring Sen. Richard Shelby who has her old boss' backing; a few other candidates are running as well. Britt entered the race in June and quickly hauled in $2.2 million compared to $820,000 for Brooks. And while Brooks, who helped foment the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, enjoyed a big fundraising head start thanks to his April launch and his ability to transfer funds from his House account to his Senate campaign, it's Britt who enjoys a $2.2 million to $1.7 million cash-on-hand lead.

Campaign Action

Britt's strong opening quarter wasn't a huge surprise given her extensive connections in the state's business circles. CNN also reported in late May, just before she launched her campaign, that some unnamed Republicans feared that Brooks would be "an unreliable ally to the business community" and saw Britt as a good alternative.  

Both contenders, though, have far less money than former Ambassador to Slovenia Lynda Blanchard, who has been self-funding most of her campaign. While Blanchard hauled in just $190,000 from donors from April to June, she's sitting on $5.2 million. Another Republican, businesswoman Jessica Taylor, entered the race in July after the new fundraising quarter began. A runoff would take place if no one takes a majority of the vote in the first round of the primary, and the GOP nominee will be the heavy favorite to prevail in the general election.

Trump, for his part, is doing what he can to make sure that Brooks’ underwhelming fundraising doesn't stop him from being that nominee. Earlier this month, he put out a not-Tweet slamming Britt and Shelby, who has been an ardent Trump ally, with the venom he usually only reserves for the likes of Murkowski and other politicians who have crossed him. "I see that the RINO Senator from Alabama, close friend of Old Crow Mitch McConnell, Richard Shelby, is pushing hard to have his 'assistant' fight the great Mo Brooks for his Senate seat," Trump declared, adding, "She is not in any way qualified and is certainly not what our Country needs or not what Alabama wants."

Britt responded, "I don't need anyone else to fight my battles, and as Alabama's next U.S. Senator, I won't be a rubber stamp for anyone." Trump has yet to publicly attack either Blanchard or Taylor.

Finally in North Carolina, another Trump-backed congressman, Ted Budd, got swamped in the money race by former Gov. Pat McCrory. McCrory outpaced Budd $1.2 million to $700,000, though Budd self-funded an additional $250,000. Unlike Brooks, though, Budd's pre-existing war chest left him with a $1.7 million to $955,000 cash-on-hand lead over the former governor. Another Republican candidate, former Rep. Mark Walker, wasn't in such good shape, however: Walker raised a mere $190,000 for the quarter, and he had $925,000 in the bank.

The top fundraiser in this quarter wasn't any of the Republicans, though. Former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley finished just ahead of McCrory by bringing in $1.3 million during her first months in the contest, and she ended it with $835,000 on-hand.

State Sen. Jeff Jackson, who launched his campaign in January, brought in a smaller $720,000 this time, though his $865,000 war chest was slightly larger than Beasley's. Former state Sen. Erica Smith, who lost the 2020 primary, was a distant third for Team Blue with $115,000 raised and $55,000 on-hand, while Beaufort Mayor Rett Newton was even further behind. Primary runoffs only take place in the Tar Heel State if no one takes at least 30% of the vote.

Senate

● OK-Sen: Republican Sen. James Lankford learned over the last few days both that he has a massive cash-on-hand edge over his intra-party rival, pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, and that he wouldn't be getting censured by the state party.

Lahmeyer's longshot campaign earned some attention a few weeks ago when party chair John Bennett announced that he was backing the challenger because of Lankford's refusal to object to certifying Joe Biden's electoral college majority in the hours after the Jan. 6 attack. That declaration came just before the conclusion of the second quarter, which saw the incumbent outraise Lahmeyer $780,000 to $210,000; Lankford also ended June with a $1.6 million to $135,000 cash-on-hand lead.

It remains to be seen if Oklahoma's conservative base will be open to firing Lankford, but so far, a majority of Bennett's colleagues at the state's Republican State Committee aren't. On Saturday, the body voted 122-93 against censuring both Lankford and fellow Sen. Jim Inhofe for recognizing Biden's win.

Governors

● CA-Gov: Candidate filing closed Friday for the Sept. 14 recall election against Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, and the secretary of state's office has a list of contenders available here. As we'll discuss, though, one notable Republican, conservative radio host Larry Elder, is disputing his omission from the document and has indicated he would sue to make the ballot.

Voters will be presented with two separate questions on the September ballot. The first will ask whether Newsom should be recalled, while the second will ask them to pick among the candidates vying to succeed him. The results of the second question will only matter if a majority vote "yes" on the first question; should this happen, the replacement candidate who wins a plurality of the vote will become California's new governor.

Newsom's party affiliation will not be listed on the ballot because his legal team didn't turn in required paperwork on time last year, though the replacement candidates will be identified by party. Polls have generally shown the recall question failing, though no numbers have been released since the election was scheduled early this month.

A total of 41 candidates have qualified for the ballot (there is no primary or general election here) which means that this field, while large, is nonetheless far smaller than the 135-person contest from 2003. And while Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger dominated the race 18 years ago when voters opted to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, there is no clear front runner on the GOP side this time. The notable contenders are:

  • 2018 nominee John Cox
  • Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer
  • Board of Equalization Member Ted Gaines
  • Reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner
  • Assemblyman Kevin Kiley
  • Former Rep. Doug Ose

Jenner’s campaign announced Friday that she had flown to Australia to take part in the filming of the TV show Big Brother VIP, though the candidate insisted she was still running.

One Republican who was not listed, though, was the aforementioned Elder, who is a regular Fox News guest. Election officials told him over the weekend that he hadn't submitted legally-required information about his tax history, though it's not clear yet what he didn't include. Elder shared the secretary of state's letter on Twitter on Sunday and added, "See you in court."

Another key difference from the state's last recall campaign is that, while eight Democrats filed to replace Newsom, none of them appear to be capable of running serious campaigns. That's welcome news for the governor and his allies, who strongly discouraged big-name contenders from getting in so they could avoid a repeat of the 2003 debacle.

In that race, Democrats rallied around Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante as their backup choice in case the recall succeeded with the awkward slogan of "no on recall, yes on Bustamante." That position became even more precarious when Bustamante started to criticize Davis in the evident hope that the recall would succeed and he'd reap the rewards. (He didn't.)

● IL-Gov: Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Monday that he would seek a second term in 2022, and so far, none of his would-be Republican foes have raised the type of money they'll need to have a real chance to take him down in this very blue and very expensive state.

The GOP contender with the largest war chest is state Sen. Darren Bailey, a right-wing extremist who, among other things, was ejected from a House session last year for refusing to wear a face mask. Bailey raised only $165,000 but he still ended June with $490,000 in his campaign fund. Businessman Gary Rabine, who is self-funding much of his bid, hauled in a total of $345,000 and had $285,000 left over. A third candidate, former state Sen. Paul Schimpf, raised just $85,000 and had $115,000 on-hand.

Pritzker, meanwhile, raised only $200,000 but, thanks to a massive personal investment in March, had $32.9 million in the bank. The governor has an estimated net worth of well over $3 billion, and he's more than capable of throwing down far more money if he wants to.

● OR-Gov: New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof told Willamette Week's Rachel Monahan that he was considering seeking the Democratic nomination in next year's open seat race.

Kristof, who has spent much of his career writing about global human rights issues, is originally from the Beaver State, and the Times says he returned two years ago when he became more involved with his family farm. A spokesperson for the paper also said, "Although Nick has not made up his mind about whether to pursue a political candidacy, we agreed he'd go on leave from The Times, in accordance with Times standards, after he brought this possibility to our attention last month."

● VA-Gov: The conservative American Principles Project has released a survey from the Republican firm Spry Strategies that gives Democrat Terry McAuliffe a 46-41 lead over Republican Glenn Youngkin.

House

● IL-17: Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara said Monday that he would not run to succeed his fellow Democrat, retiring Rep. Cheri Bustos.

● SC-07: Republican Rep. Tom Rice faces a cavalcade of primary opponents thanks to his January vote to impeach Donald Trump, but surprisingly, the only one who brought in a large amount of money during the second quarter was a contender we hadn't previously mentioned. Graham Allen, an Army veteran and conservative media figure, hauled in $410,000 and self-funded another $92,000, and he ended June with $465,000 in the bank. Rice himself had a smaller $325,000 haul, though he had $1.6 million on-hand to defend himself.

The incumbent also had a considerably better quarter than two of his other noteworthy foes. Horry County School Board chair Ken Richardson raised a mere $25,000 but, thanks to some self-funding he did earlier in the year, had nearly $100,000 in the bank. Former Myrtle Beach Mayor Mark McBride, though, took in just over $3,000 during his first few weeks as a candidate.

● TX-06: Former Rep. Joe Barton, who left Congress in 2019 after 34 years in office following a sex scandal, threw his support behind state Rep. Jake Ellzey on Monday ahead of July 27's all GOP-runoff. Barton said that both Ellzey and party activist Susan Wright, who is the widow of the late Rep. Ron Wright, would make good members of Congress, but that Ellzey was the best option "on the merits."

Barton's decision is a bit surprising because of his long relationship with Ron Wright, who served as his chief of staff and district director during his long tenure. Local politicos speculated for years that Wright would be Barton's heir apparent whenever he decided to call it a career: That retirement announcement came during the 2018 cycle after Barton apologized when a "graphic nude photo" of him circulated online and the public learned even more unsavory aspects of his personal life.

Wright ended up competing in the GOP primary runoff against none other than Ellzey, a campaign he ultimately won. Barton, for his part, said that while he planned to support his former employee, he was "not sure if anybody would want my endorsement, so I might come out against somebody if that helps them." The incumbent, though, ended up backing his protege the old-fashioned way by holding events for Wright in both Washington and in the district.

Mayors

● St. Petersburg, FL Mayor: Outgoing Mayor Rick Kriseman announced Monday that he was backing former Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch, a fellow Democrat, in the Aug. 24 nonpartisan primary to succeed him.

● Seattle, WA Mayor: The Northwest Progressive Institute, which says it does not take sides in elections, has released a survey of the Aug. 3 top-two primary from the Democratic firm Change Research that shows former City Council President Bruce Harrell ahead with 20%, while City Council President Lorena Gonzalez holds a 12-10 lead over nonprofit head Colleen Echohawk for the second place spot; two other contenders, former state Rep. Jessyn Farrell and architect Andrew Grant Houston, were behind with 6% each.

● Toledo, OH Mayor: Democratic incumbent Wade Kapszukiewicz picked up a well-known opponent just before candidate filing closed on Friday when former Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, a former Democrat and Republican who now identifies as an "independent-Democrat," entered this year's race to face him. Kapszukiewicz, Finkbeiner, and Republican Jan Scotland will face off in the Sept. 14 nonpartisan primary, and the top-two vote-getters will advance to the November general.

Finkbeiner led Toledo from 1994 to 2002 and from 2006 to 2010, and he attracted national attention early in his tenure by suggesting that the city could deal with airport noise by moving deaf people into the affected areas. Finkbeiner would continue to generate plenty of press throughout his two stints as mayor, including in 2009 when he personally broke up a fight in a park between two teenagers and labeled one "fatso" and "tubby."

Finkbeiner launched another campaign to return to office in a 2015 special election, but he finished in third place: Interim Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson beat another former mayor, Mike Bell, 36-17, while Finkbeiner was just behind with 16%. (That election required candidates to win just a plurality of the vote, so Finkbeiner didn't come close to winning.) Two years later, Kapszukiewicz defeated Hicks-Hudson 55-45 in the race for a regular four-year term.

Finkbeiner, who is 82, announced Friday that he would try again by going up against Kapszukiewicz. The challenger argued that he had the experience to deal with crime and blight, while Kapszukiewicz's campaign said in response that Finkbeiner had "laid off nearly 100 police officers and eliminated the gang task force" during his last term.

Other Races

● Queens, NY Borough President: On Friday, former New York City Councilwoman Liz Crowley conceded defeat in the June 22 Democratic primary. Incumbent Donovan Richards fended off Crowley 50.3-49.7 after a nasty race, and he should have no trouble in the November general election in this very blue borough.  

● Nassau County, NY Executive: Democratic incumbent Laura Curran begins the general election with a wide financial lead over her Republican foe, Hempstead Councilman Bruce Blakeman, in this populous Long Island community. Curran, who was elected in a close 2017 race, outraised Blakeman $950,000 to $575,000 from mid-January to mid-July, and she has a $2.1 million to $550,000 cash-on-hand edge going into the November general election.

Morning Digest: Why we won’t know the winner of New York’s mayoral primaries for weeks

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

Leading Off

● New York City, NY Mayor: A final poll from Ipsos ahead of Tuesday's instant-runoff Democratic primary in New York City shows Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams in a strong position to secure his party's nomination, in contrast with other recent polls that have shown one of his top rivals, former city Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, prevailing in the end. But regardless of who's leading, it may not be until mid-July until we know who's actually won—more on that in a bit.

First, the new survey, which gives Adams the lead with 28% when it comes to voters' first-choice preferences, while 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang edges out Garcia 20-15 for second. This is the strongest performance in some time for Yang, the one-time frontrunner, but it's not good enough: Ipsos shows Adams beating him by a wide 56-44 spread in the seventh and final round of ranked-choice tabulations.

We've seen a few other polls in the last few weeks, and while they all agree that Adams is in striking distance to take the nomination, they're not united in designating him as the undisputed frontrunner. The best recent numbers for Adams prior to Ipsos' new data came from a Marist College poll conducted in early June that had him defeating Garcia 56-44 in the last round of tabulations.

Campaign Action

But those contrasted with Public Opinion Strategies' survey for the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, that found Garcia narrowly beating Adams 52-48 after ranked-choice tabulations were complete. The Democratic pollster Change Research, on behalf of a pro-Garcia super PAC, showed something very similar, with Garcia triumphing over Adams in the end by a slim 51-49 margin.

One big challenge for pollsters is that New York City will be the largest jurisdiction in America to ever hold an instant-runoff election, and no one, including the candidates, is quite sure what to expect. Vividly illustrating the terra incognita this new system is uncovering, Yang and Garcia made news over the weekend by campaigning together, an alliance that would never come about in a traditional primary.

The accord however, didn't quite amount to a formal coalition: While Yang implored his voters, "Rank me No. 1 and then rank Kathryn Garcia No. 2," Garcia didn't ask her supporters to make Yang their second choice. (It's not clear why Yang assented to such a one-sided arrangement, but Garcia says his team "absolutely knew what I was gonna say.")

The joint appearances drew a furious response from Adams, who spent his final days accusing his rivals of banding together to stop New York City from electing its second-ever Black mayor. Attorney Maya Wiley, who is also Black, had a very different response, expressing her support for ranked-choice voting and condemning Adams' description of the alliance as a form of "voter suppression."

No matter what, though, we're very unlikely to know for sure who's won the Democratic nomination until mid-July. While votes will be tabulated Tuesday after polls close at 9 PM ET for ballots cast in-person during the early voting period and on Election Day, mail-in votes will not be counted until the week of July 12. The New York City Board of Elections said last month that the delay is a result of a state law that allows absentee votes to be received for up to two weeks after Election Day, and for voters to fix any minor errors.

Ranked-choice tabulations will not occur on election night but will instead start June 29. You'll notice that this date is long before the count of mail ballots will begin, raising the obvious question of why anyone would bother tabulating any instant-runoff scenarios before all votes are counted, since they won't be representative of the full electorate. (If there's a good explanation, we haven't heard it.)

Instant-runoff voting is also being used in other city primaries, including races for comptroller, borough president, and City Council, many of which are open due to term limits. A big exception, though, is the crowded race for Manhattan district attorney: Because the post is a state-level office, the ballot measure New York City voters approved in 2019 to establish ranked-choice voting doesn't apply, so the victor only needs a plurality to prevail.

Key elections in the rest of the state, including the Democratic primary for mayor of Buffalo, are also being conducted with plurality rules, so there's a better chance we'll know the winners of these races somewhat earlier, though delays in processing mail ballots still apply.

Senate

● AK-Sen: Donald Trump has endorsed former Alaska cabinet official Kelly Tshibaka in her quest to dethrone Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, whom Trump has long despised for her insufficient fealty. Tshibaka once wrote approvingly of "conversion therapy" and hasn't answered questions as to whether she still believes in the discredited practice herself. On a now-defunct personal blog, she also warned that the "Twilight" series of vampire books and movies "is evil and we should not read or watch it" because it "leaves us open to the enemy's attacks."

● MO-Sen: Attorney Mark McCloskey, who is seeking the Republican nomination for Senate, pleaded guilty late last week to a misdemeanor assault charge after he and his wife brandished firearms at a group of Black Lives Matter demonstrators. McCloskey paid a $750 fine and surrendered the weapon he pointed at protestors last year, but he said immediately after his sentencing that "I'd do it again" and quickly purchased a new rifle that he proudly showed off on social media.

Meanwhile, it looks like we can rule out Republican Rep. Blaine Leutkemeyer for this race: A spokesperson told The Missourian that the congressman "has no interest in pursuing other offices."

● NC-Sen: File this one under endorsements you don't want—if you're running in a GOP primary: Retiring Sen. Richard Burr, who was one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial, just described former Gov. Pat McCrory as "the only one in the race that can win the general election" in next year's Senate race in North Carolina. It's not clear whether McCrory actually considers Burr's comments to be a formal statement of support, but the surest sign we can look for is whether rival campaigns try to use this against him at some point.

● PA-Sen: Montgomery County Commission Chair Val Arkoosh earned an endorsement on Monday from EMILY's List ahead of next year's Democratic primary for this open seat. Arkoosh is the only woman running a serious campaign for Team Blue's nomination, and that looks unlikely to change now that Reps. Madeleine Dean and Chrissy Houlahan have both taken their names out of contention.

Governors

● AL-Gov: State Auditor Jim Zeigler said Monday that he was forming an exploratory committee for a potential Republican primary campaign against Gov. Kay Ivey, but don't mark him down as a candidate yet. Zeigler took this very action back in 2018, but he ended up staying out of that contest for governor. The auditor said later that year that he'd formed an exploratory committee for a 2020 Senate race, but he never so much as filed FEC paperwork afterwards.

● AZ-Gov: Former Rep. Matt Salmon unveiled an endorsement Monday from extremist Rep. Andy Biggs for next year's Republican primary. It's hardly a surprise that Biggs decided to back his predecessor in Congress: Back in 2016, Salmon issued a retirement announcement that caught almost everyone off guard except Biggs, who immediately entered the House race with Salmon's endorsement.

● CA-Gov: Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is out with a trio of TV ads as part of what Politico says is a $3 million opening reservation ahead of the unscheduled recall vote, and while the first spot touts his accomplishments, the other two take aim at his many far-right enemies.

One commercial begins, "The same Trump Republicans who refuse to accept the presidential election are back, passing voter suppression laws across the country. Now, they've set their sights on California." As footage of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol plays, the narrator declares, "Different tactics, same assault on democracy."

The final ad, which is running in Spanish, makes many of the same arguments while also focusing on a figure closer to home. The narrator reminds viewers that a recall organizer named Orrin Heatlie wrote that his allies "supported tracking immigrants with microchips."

● ID-Gov: Far-right anti-government militant Ammon Bundy, who unsuccessfully tried to file paperwork for a gubernatorial bid last month, has now officially kicked off his campaign for the GOP nomination. (For what it's worth, that filing snafu appears to be have been resolved, since Bundy's campaign is now listed as "Active" on the Idaho secretary of state's website.)

Bundy is best known for leading an armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016, in protest of federal land management policies. While other militants were convicted of charges in relation to the occupation, Bundy himself was acquitted. Yet despite his reputation, Bundy may not be the most extreme candidate in the race, since he's competing with Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin for the title. Both are challenging incumbent Gov. Brad Little, who has yet to declare for re-election.

● MD-Gov: Nonprofit executive Jon Baron announced Monday that he was joining the crowded Democratic primary for this open seat. Baron, who formed an exploratory committee back in March, is a former official in the Clinton-era Department of Defense who went on to serve on boards and commissions during the Bush and Obama administrations, though this is his first run for office.

Baron later worked as vice president of Arnold Ventures, a group supported by a billionaire couple that describes its mission as "invest[ing] in evidence-based solutions that maximize opportunity and minimize injustice." The nonprofit was in the headlines last year after it launched a program where it attempted to reduce crime by flying drones over Baltimore; Baron says he had nothing to do with this controversial initiative, which ended after six months.

● NJ-Gov: Farleigh Dickinson University has put out the first poll of New Jersey's gubernatorial race conducted after the June 8 primary and finds Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy up 48-33 on former Republican Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli. A poll taken by Rutgers shortly before the primary had Murphy ahead 52-26.

● OR-Gov: On Friday, Yamhill County Commissioner Casey Kulla became the first elected official to announce a campaign for the Democratic nomination for this open seat. Kulla, who works as a farmer, won his first campaign in 2018 in his county, which is located southwest of Portland.

● WI-Gov: Despite (or perhaps because of) her caginess, Wisconsin political observers have been quite certain for some time that former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch would challenge Democratic Gov. Tony Evers next year, and new remarks she made over the weekend have them more convinced than ever. At a gathering on Saturday night, Kleefisch referred to a slew of Republican voter suppression bills and said that, with a different governor in office, "I can tell you she will sign them on day one"—with an emphasis on the word "she," according to the Journal Times' Adam Rogan. Still, there's no word on when she might announce.

House

● FL-07: A trio of Florida Republican congressmen have endorsed Army veteran Cory Mills' bid against Democratic incumbent Stephanie Murphy: Neal Dunn, Brian Mast, and Greg Steube.

● GA-06: Republican Jake Evans announced Monday that he was resigning as chair of the Georgia ethics commission ahead of what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says is his anticipated campaign against Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath.

● MO-04: On Thursday, Cass County Commissioner Ryan Johnson became the second Republican to enter the race to succeed incumbent Vicky Hartzler, who is giving up this safely red seat in the west-central part of the state to run for the Senate. Johnson joins former state Sen. Ed Emery in what could be a crowded contest.

Johnson, who is a veteran of the Army and Coast Guard, previously worked for another Missouri Republican congressman, Sam Graves, before he helmed the dark money group Missouri Alliance for Freedom. Johnson won elected office for the first time last year when he narrowly unseated an incumbent in the primary.

● NM-02, Where Are They Now?: President Joe Biden announced Friday that he was nominating former Democratic Rep. Xochitl Torres Small for a position at the Department of Agriculture, a move that ends speculation that she could instead try to retake her old seat from Republican incumbent Yvette Herrell. The current version of the 2nd District in southern New Mexico backed Donald Trump 55-43, but Democrats could shift it to the left now that they're in charge of the redistricting process for the first time in decades.

Attorneys General

● TX-AG: Former state Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman announced Monday that she would take on scandal-plagued incumbent Ken Paxton in next year's Republican primary for attorney general.

Guzman, who was the first Latina to serve on the body, joins a nomination fight that also includes Land Commissioner George P. Bush, who has a terrible relationship with the party's nativist base. She refrained from going after Bush on his attempts to renovate the Alamo, though, and instead argued that she's the only Paxton challenger who has the experience and credibility to hold this post.

Guzman almost certainly lacks the name recognition of both her foes, though she did enter the race with an endorsement from Texans for Lawsuit Reform, which the Texas Tribune describes as "the powerful tort reform group that supported Paxton for attorney general in the 2014 and 2018 general elections." A primary runoff would take place if no one earns a majority of the vote in the first round.

Other Races

● Staten Island, NY Borough President: Former Rep. Vito Fossella's lethargic comeback campaign picked up an endorsement over the weekend from Donald Trump ahead of Tuesday's instant-runoff Republican primary.

Fossella, who retired from Congress in 2009 after the public learned about his second family, faces two intra-party opponents: New York City Councilman Steven Matteo, who has the backing of the borough's Republican Party and a number of police unions, and former borough party chair Leticia Remauro, who has the Conservative Party in her corner. Four Democrats are also competing for an office that has been in GOP hands since the 1989 election.

Morning Digest: Mega MAGA perennial candidate is throwing a scare into New Jersey GOP’s frontrunner

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

● NJ-Gov: It looks like the Democratic Governors Association wants to stir up some GOP anxiety by releasing a poll of New Jersey's June 8 Republican primary for governor that shows the ostensible frontrunner, Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, leading perennial candidate Hirsh Singh just 29-23.

But with Hudson County pastor Phil Rizzo taking 8% and former Franklin Mayor Brian Levine at just 2%, according to the survey from Public Policy Polling, that means 38% of voters are undecided, so there's lots of room left for wiggling. Perhaps most surprisingly, PPP's numbers also suggest that a recent Singh poll that had him up 22-20 weren't completely bonkers.

Ciattarelli seems to agree. As the New Jersey Globe's David Wildstein notes, he just went up with ads criticizing Singh for "attacking our men and women in blue" alongside "the woke mob" and aggressively criticized his rival in the lone debate of the race on Tuesday night. Singh has portrayed himself as the only true Trump acolyte running, which explains why Ciattarelli's ad labels him a "fake MAGA candidate."

Campaign Action

It's all quite a turnaround from where we were just last month: Ciattarelli was acting as though he had the nomination sewn up, seeing as he was firing off a barrage of ads attacking Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. We'll know in less than two weeks how premature his pivot to the general election really was.

Senate

● MO-Sen: The Missouri Independent reports that, according to unnamed "sources familiar with her plans," Republican Rep. Vicky Hartzler will announce a Senate bid early next month.

● OH-Sen: Republican Rep. Bill Johnson, who'd been considering a Senate bid ever since Rob Portman unexpectedly announced his retirement in January, has opted against joining the race. Johnson cited the presence of several well-funded candidates already seeking the GOP nod (including some with personal wealth) as an obstacle, explaining, "I'm not going to deny that coming from a base in Appalachia, where fundraising is a challenge under the best of circumstances, it can be exceptionally slow in a contested primary." Johnson's 6th Congressional District ranks 359th in the nation in median household income.

● WI-Sen: State Sen. Chris Larsen kicked off a bid Wednesday for the Democratic nomination to take on Republican Sen. Ron Johnson (who still hasn't said whether he's seeking re-election). Larsen has represented a seat in the Milwaukee area for a decade and has twice sought the position of Milwaukee County executive, including an extremely tight 2020 race that he lost 50.05-49.52 to fellow Democrat David Crowley.

Larsen is the fourth notable Democrat to enter the race, after state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry, and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson.

Governors

● CA-Gov: The nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California finds the likely recall election of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom failing by a 57-40 margin, virtually unchanged from its 56-40 result in March.

● NV-Gov: Politico's Alex Isenstadt reports that former Sen. Dean Heller is "preparing to run for governor" next year and is meeting with party leaders about a bid at a conference hosted by the Republican Governors Association, according to unnamed sources "familiar with the conversations." Heller's apparent interest in running—and the RGA's interest in him—is particularly notable because of the recent entry of Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, who just gave the GOP a high-profile candidate with experience winning in Nevada's most populous (and bluest) county.

But that's precisely why Lombardo's conservative bona fides might come into question. Two years ago, for instance, he ended the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's collaboration with ICE to detain individuals arrested on local charges until federal officials can apprehend them if they are also suspected of immigration violations.

Heller, however, may not be the antidote. These days, fealty to conservative dogma is entirely subordinate to fealty to Donald Trump when it comes to Republican primary voters, and the ex-senator has not scored well on that front. Most vividly, he earned undying Trumpist ire when he initially voted against repealing the Affordable Care Act in 2017, then sealed his doom when he later voted in favor of doing so. The painful flip-flop played a key role in his 50-45 loss to Democrat Jackie Rosen, which Trump himself claimed came as a consequence of Heller being "extraordinarily hostile" to him.

So who will claim the Trump mantle? The third notable candidate in the race, North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, was a Democrat until last month (albeit a conservative one), a resume that poses its own obvious problems. That could leave an opening for someone else, but the most prominent name still considering the race, Rep. Mark Amodei, has been an imperfect disciple: Just two years ago, after he expressed a vague openness to Trump's first impeachment, the extremist (and extremely well-funded) Club for Growth threatened to back a primary challenger. Amodei wound up voting against impeachment, of course, but as far as the die-hards are concerned, it's very hard to erase the taint of sinning against Trump in the first place.

● VA-Gov: As the June 8 Democratic primary for Virginia’s open gubernatorial race approaches, we have a rundown of candidate spending on TV ads. According to Medium Buying, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe is outspending former Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy on the airwaves $3.28 million to $1.33 million. The pair are dwarfing the rest of the field as the third-biggest spender, state Sen. Jennifer McClellan, has shelled out just $108,000.

On the Republican side, businessman Glenn Youngkin, who already has the nomination locked up, is out with his first general election spot. In the commercial, he plays up his business experience and attempts to paint himself as an outsider. He also takes a veiled swipe at McAuliffe, the Democratic frontrunner, when he proclaims, “What we need isn’t a politician or worse: the same politician”.

House

● FL-10: With Rep. Val Demings running for Senate, fellow Democrats are lining up to succeed her in Florida's 10th Congressional District, located in the Orlando area. Former State Attorney Aramis Ayala, who served one term as the top prosecutor in Orange and Osceola counties, had been considering a Senate bid herself but quickly shifted gears and announced a bid for Demings' seat. State Sen. Randolph Bracy has jumped in as well; he, too, reportedly had his eye on statewide office—in his case, the governorship.

Civil rights attorney and Navy veteran Natalie Jackson also kicked off a campaign this week. She is best known for her work on behalf of a number of families who've lost relatives to police violence, including those of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.

● GA-10: Wealthy businessman Matt Richards is the latest Republican to enter the race for Georgia's deep-red 10th Congressional District. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reported that he's prepared to self-fund at least $1 million in his bid for this open seat.

● ME-02: Republican state Rep. Mike Perkins, who said last month that he was exploring a bid against Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, has now filed paperwork to create a campaign committee with the FEC.

● NM-01: Democrat Melanie Stansbury is out with a positive ad ahead of Tuesday’s special election. The spot touts her background in the district and also attempts to tie herself to the Biden administration. Stansbury is pictured with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (whose confirmation to that position opened this seat) and first lady Jill Biden as the voiceover says “In Congress, she’s ready to get to work with President Biden.”

Stansbury was endorsed by Biden himself earlier this week, and second gentlemen Douglas Emhoff is slated to campaign with her on Thursday.

Attorneys General

● OK-AG: Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter abruptly announced his resignation on Wednesday, a day after The Oklahoman sent him questions about an alleged extramarital affair with a state employee. Hunter, who filed for divorce last week, did not respond to the questions or address any details, but in a statement he said, "Regrettably, certain personal matters that are becoming public will become a distraction for this office."

Hunter, a Republican, was appointed to the office by then-Gov. Mary Fallin in 2017 after the incumbent at the time, Scott Pruitt, was tapped by Donald Trump to run the EPA. He easily won election in his own right the following year, defeating Democrat Mark Myles 64-36, and had been gearing up to run for a second full term next year. Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who had experienced some friction with Hunter, will now be able to name a replacement of his own.

Mayors

● Boston, MA Mayor: There's no doubt that Boston will elect a person of color as mayor for the first time ever now that candidate filing has closed in this year's all-Democratic race, but as Gabby Deutch notes in her deep look at the field for Jewish Insider, this year's contest is very different from those of the past in another key way: None of the six serious contenders, writes Deutch, "are actively seeking the endorsement of the city's police union."

Of this sextet, only City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George has spoken out against the idea of reallocating funds from the police budget to other areas, though she's acknowledged that "tough conversations" are needed on the future of law enforcement. The rest of the field consists of acting Mayor Kim Janey, who was elevated from City Council president to the top job earlier this year; City Councilors Andrea Campbell and Michelle Wu; state Rep. Jon Santiago; and the former head of economic development for the city, John Barros. All have called for changes in how the police conduct their work.  

While a major part of this shift is due to the national movement aimed at reforming law enforcement, two unrelated scandals involving senior Boston police officials have also dominated the headlines in recent months. In April, the public learned that former officer Patrick Rose, who would later go on to head the police union, remained on the force in the mid-1990s even though a contemporary internal report concluded there was enough evidence to charge him with molesting a 12-year-old.

Other documents said that Rose had been placed on administrative duty, but even this limited sanction was withdrawn after the union threatened to file a grievance on his behalf. Rose is currently under indictment for allegedly abusing other children during the subsequent decades.

The second matter is a still-unfolding debacle that began in late January, after then-Mayor Marty Walsh was nominated to become secretary of labor but before he was confirmed. Boston Police Commissioner William Gross announced his resignation shortly after Joe Biden tapped Walsh for his cabinet, prompting Walsh to immediately appoint Gross' close friend and chief of staff, Dennis White, to succeed him.

Just days later, though, Walsh placed White on leave after the Boston Globe began asking about allegations that the new commissioner had abused his wife in 1999. Walsh also commissioned a report into what had happened, but it was still unfinished when Janey took over as acting mayor in March.

That report was released this month, though, and it revealed a previously unknown 1993 confrontation between White and a 19-year-old. The investigator, Tamsin Kaplan, also said that both the police and the Walsh administration had interfered with her probe, with Kaplan writing, "One retired BPD officer told me that they had received at least five phone calls directing them not to talk with me."

Janey quickly announced she would fire White, who went to court in an effort to block her from doing so. Gross also filed an affidavit saying that Walsh had known about the allegations against White when he made the appointment, something that the labor secretary quickly denied. It may be some time before all of this is settled: While a state judge ruled that Janey could fire White, she issued a stay the next day, allowing the commissioner to keep his job while he appeals.

It remains to be seen how this ongoing mess will impact September's officially nonpartisan face-off, which will winnow the field down to two ahead of the November general election. The entire field agrees that White needs to be replaced, though Essaibi George still accepted an endorsement from Gross, who briefly considered running for mayor himself. (A far-less controversial public safety group, the local firefighters union, is also backing her.)

There has been little polling here, though a MassINC survey conducted last month found a 46% plurality undecided. That poll also showed Wu leading Janey 19-18, while fellow Campbell was in third with 6%.

Janey's ascension to the mayor's office in March made her the city's first Black mayor, as well as its first woman leader, and she would again make history if she won the post in her own right this year. Wu, Campbell, and Essaibi George would also each be the first woman elected to the top job.

All of the contenders would also achieve another historic first. Wu, who has the backing of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and many of the young activists who helped propel Ed Markey to victory in his own Senate primary last year, would be the first Asian American person to lead Boston. Campbell or former city administration official John Barros, meanwhile, would be the first Black person elected in a city that still has a reputation for racism targeting African Americans. State Rep. Jon Santiago, meanwhile, would be Boston's first Latino chief executive, while Essaibi George would be its first Arab American leader.

● New York City, NY Mayor: A new poll from Core Decision Analytics on behalf of Fontas Advisors, a lobbying group that is not working for any candidates, shows Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams leading 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang 18-13 in the June 22 Democratic primary, with former city Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia at 13%. That’s a notable shift from March, when this firm had Yang beating Adams 16-10 as Garcia barely registered with just 2% of the vote.

Garcia was endorsed by the New York Times earlier this month, and another survey also shows her gaining ground since then. Yang recently released a Slingshot Strategies poll that found him edging out Adams 19-16, with city Comptroller Scott Stringer and Garcia at 13% and 10%, respectively; in late April, Slingshot showed Yang leading Stringer 24-16, with Garcia at 3%. This May survey has Yang beating Adams by a narrow 51-49 after simulating the instant runoff process.

Meanwhile, another candidate is in bad shape heading into the final weeks. Three senior staffers for nonprofit head Dianne Morales, including her campaign manager, resigned over the last few days over what Politico calls “accusations of mistreatment, inadequate pay and lack of unionization and health care.” Morales responded by saying she “accepted accountability in my role as the head of this campaign that allowed for this harm to occur.”

Prosecutors

● Manhattan, NY District Attorney: The June 22 Democratic primary to succeed Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance is coming up quickly, and voters got another reminder of the power of this office on Tuesday when news broke that the retiring incumbent had convened a grand jury to weigh potential charges for Donald Trump. It remains to be seen what role Vance's eventual successor would have in this matter, but there's no question that whoever wins the primary in this extremely blue borough will be the overwhelming favorite to head what's arguably the most prominent local prosecutor's office in America.

Eight Democrats are competing in a race where it takes just a plurality to win the Democratic nomination. (While New York City voters backed a 2019 referendum to institute instant-runoff voting in primaries for many local offices, the measure does not apply to state-level posts like this one.) Almost all of the contenders have pitched themselves as progressives who will bring much-needed changes to the post, but as the New York Times' Jonah Bromwich explained in March, there are some important differences between them.

"The race can be divided into two camps," wrote Bromwich, "with three candidates who have not worked as prosecutors and five who have." The former group consists of civil rights attorney Tahanie Aboushi, public defender Eliza Orlins, and Assemblyman Dan Quart, who is also the only elected official running. This trio, wrote Bromwich, has argued that the D.A.'s role needs to involve a shift "toward reducing incarceration and cutting back prosecution of low-level crimes."

The five ex-prosecutors in the contest are Alvin Bragg, Liz Crotty, Diana Florence, Lucy Lang, and Tali Farhadian Weinstein. Crotty, a self-described centrist backed by several police unions, has run to the right of the field and cast doubt on reform efforts, saying at one debate, "I am the candidate who from the beginning of my campaign has talked about public safety." The remainder, says Bromwich, have "pitched themselves as occupying a middle ground, focused on less sweeping changes."

(The Appeal's Sam Mellins has also detailed the candidates' views on key issues, including sentencing and sex work, with helpful graphics breaking down where the field stands.)

As Bromwich noted, every contender save Quart would achieve a historic first should they prevail. Six of the candidates would be the first woman to win this office, while Aboushi would additionally be the first Muslim or Arab American to hold the post. Bragg, meanwhile, would be Manhattan's first Black district attorney.

There's still no clear frontrunner, but two of the candidates have significantly more resources than the rest of the field. Farhadian Weinstein, who is married to wealthy hedge fund manager Boaz Weinstein, took in $2.2 million from mid-January to May 17, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that more than half of her haul "came from four dozen donors, many of whom work in the financial sector."

Bragg raised a considerably smaller $710,000 during this time, though he led Farhadian Weinstein, who has been spending heavily, in cash-on-hand for the stretch run, $1.2 million to $805,000. Bragg also has the backing of three of the city's most politically influential unions, and he's benefited from $1 million in outside spending from Color of Change.

Aboushi had the third-largest war chest with $560,000 on-hand, while Quart and Orlins had $555,000 and $525,000 in the bank, respectively. Lang, who has been self-funding much of her race, had $400,000 available , while Crotty was further back with $250,000; Florence brought up the rear with $115,000 on-hand.

Obituaries

● John Warner, a Republican who served as Senator from Virginia from 1979 through 2009, died Tuesday at the age of 94. Warner cultivated a reputation for moderation and bipartisanship during his 30 years in the Senate, and he was long willing to oppose Republicans he disliked. In 1994, rather than back Iran-Contra figure Oliver North’s campaign against Democratic colleague Chuck Robb, Warner recruited another Republican, 1989 gubernatorial nominee Marshall Coleman, to run as an independent, a development that helped Robb win in that disastrous year for Democrats.

Warner served as secretary of the Navy during the Nixon administration from 1972 to 1974, and he attracted global attention in 1976 when he married the famed actress Elizabeth Taylor. Warner ran for an open Senate seat in 1978 but lost the GOP nominating convention to a more conservative opponent, Richard Obenshain. Obenshain, though, died in a plane crash two days later, and party officials selected Warner as their new nominee.

Warner was often overshadowed by his famous spouse during that campaign. The most remembered incident of the contest occurred in the Appalachian community of Big Stone Gap, where Taylor was hospitalized after a chicken bone became lodged in her throat, an experience that made it to “Saturday Night Live.” Warner ultimately ended up very narrowly beating his Democratic opponent, former state Attorney General Andrew Miller, 50.2-49.8, a margin of fewer than 5,000 votes. Warner spent his first few years in office still known mostly as Taylor’s husband, though their marriage ended during his first term in 1982.

Warner himself easily won re-election two years later, and he had no Democratic opposition at all in 1990. In 1996, though, he faced a serious general election challenge from wealthy businessman Mark Warner. The race was defined by the novelty of a contest between the two unrelated Warners: The challenger ordered “Mark, not John” bumper stickers that were sometimes mistaken for a biblical reference, while the incumbent urged voters to “make your mark for John.” The Republican, though, appeared safe, so it was a surprise when he held off Mark Warner just 53-47.

John Warner won his last term in 2002 again without Democratic opposition, and almost no one guessed this would be the last time Team Red would win a Virginia Senate race through today. Warner decided not to run again in 2008 and was easily succeeded by his old opponent Mark Warner, who had been elected governor during the ensuing years.

John Warner went on to back the Democratic incumbent in 2014, an endorsement that may have made the difference in what proved to be an unexpectedly tight race. Warner would go on to support Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden over Donald Trump and back a number of Democratic congressional candidates, though he still endorsed Republican nominee Ed Gillespie’s failed 2017 run for governor.

Morning Digest: Far-right ex-cop wages intraparty bid against pro-impeachment GOP 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

● WA-04: Far-right ex-cop Loren Culp announced Thursday that he would challenge Washington Rep. Dan Newhouse, who is one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump in January. Culp, who was the GOP’s 2020 nominee for governor, made it very clear he’d be making his campaign all about that vote: After accusing the incumbent of having a “spine made of jelly,” Culp, without offering any evidence, accused Newhouse of making “some kind of deal” with Democrats.

Newhouse was already facing intraparty challenges on his right from state Rep. Brad Klippert and businessman Jerrod Sessler in next year’s top-two primary, and more could still join. It’s possible that a crowded field of opponents could split the anti-Newhouse GOP vote in the 4th District and allow the congressman to advance to a general election with a Democrat, but that’s far from assured. This 58-40 Trump seat is red enough that Newhouse went up against a fellow Republican in both 2014 and 2016, and this eastern Washington seat will almost certainly remain very conservative turf after redistricting.

Campaign Action

Culp may also be prominent enough to emerge as Newhouse’s main foe, especially since Klippert did not report raising any money in the time between his January launch and the end of March. (Sessler entered the race in early April.) Culp himself served as mayor of the small community of Republic, which is located in the neighboring 5th District, in 2018 when he made news by announcing he wouldn't enforce a statewide gun safety ballot measure that had just passed 59-41.

Culp's stance drew a very favorable response from far-right rocker Ted Nugent, who posted a typo-ridden "Chief Loren Culp is an Anerican freedom warrior. Godbless the freedom warriors" message to his Facebook page.

Culp soon decided to challenge Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, and he quickly made it clear he would continue to obsessively cultivate the Trump base rather than appeal to a broader group of voters in this blue state. That tactic helped Culp advance through the top-two primary, an occasion he celebrated by reaffirming his opposition to Inslee's measures to stop the pandemic, including mask mandates.

Inslee ended up winning by a wide 57-43, but Culp responded by saying he’d “never concede.” Instead, he filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Kim Wyman, a fellow Republican, that made baseless allegations of “intolerable voting anomalies” for a contest “that was at all times fraudulent.”

The state GOP did not welcome Culp’s refusal to leave the stage, though. Some Republicans also openly shared their complaints about Culp’s campaign spending, including what the Seattle Times’ Jim Brunner described as “large, unexplained payments to a Marysville data firm while spending a relatively meager sum on traditional voter contact.”

Culp also gave himself a total of $48,000 for lost wages and mileage reimbursement, a sum that Brunner said “appears to be the largest-ever for a candidate in Washington state.” Republicans also griped that Culp had spent only about a fifth of his $3.3 million budget on advertising, a far smaller amount than what serious candidates normally expend.

Culp’s attorney ultimately withdrew the suit after being threatened with sanction for making “factually baseless” claims. Culp himself responded to the news by saying that, while the cost of continuing the legal battle would have been prohibitive, “It doesn’t mean that the war’s over … It just means that we’re not going to engage in this particular battle through the courts.”

Newhouse, for his part, responded to Culp’s new campaign by reaffirming that he’ll be running for a fifth term next year. Newhouse brought in $288,000 during the first quarter for his campaign, and he ended March with $528,000 to defend himself.

Senate

● AK-Sen: West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the most conservative Democrat in the chamber, endorsed Republican incumbent Lisa Murkowski. Manchin previously crossed party lines by backing Maine Sen. Susan Collins last cycle; neither Murkowski nor Collins supported Manchin during his 2018 reelection bid.

● FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Democratic Rep. Val Demings on Thursday reiterated her interest in running for Senate or governor, adding, "It's next year, right, and so I'd need to make that decision soon for sure by mid-year. And we're almost there now." Demings did not indicate if she was leaning towards one statewide race over the other.

● IA-Sen, IA-Gov: Democratic state Auditor Rob Sand recently told Iowa Press that he was thinking about running for the Senate, governor, or for reelection in 2022, and that he didn't have a timeline to decide. Sand won this post in 2018 by unseating a Republican incumbent 51-46 even as GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds was prevailing 50-48.

● MO-Sen: The Kansas City Star recently asked former NASCAR driver Carl Edwards if he was interested in seeking the Republican nomination for this open seat, and he did not rule out the idea. Edwards said, "I don't have an active campaign going on," before he talked about his belief "in the founding principles and individual freedom and liberty and sustainability of our way of life." He added, "There might be a day when I'm able to help with that."

Governors

● CA-Gov: Former reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner announced Friday that she would compete as a Republican in this year's likely recall election against Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. In addition to Jenner, the GOP field includes former Rep. Doug Ose, 2018 nominee John Cox, and former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, and it could still expand further.

Jenner, who would be the first transgender person elected statewide anywhere, has not sought office before, though she's not completely new to politics. She was a vocal Donald Trump supporter in 2016, although Politico recently reported that she didn't cast a ballot at all that year; Jenner also did not vote in 2018 when Newsom was elected governor.

Jenner insisted in 2017 that, while Trump has "made some mistakes" on LGBTQ issues, she didn't regret backing him, but she finally acknowledged the following year that she'd been wrong. That public break, however, didn't stop Jenner from hiring multiple high-level Trump campaign personnel for her bid or accepting help from former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale.

● NH-Gov: 2020 Democratic nominee Dan Feltes told the Concord Monitor that he had "no intention right now of putting my name on the ballot in 2022," though he didn't rule out a second bid for governor.

Feltes, who was state Senate majority leader at the time, raised a credible $1.7 million last time for his bid against Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, but the popular incumbent defeated him in a 65-33 landslide. Sununu has yet to announce if he'll run for a fourth two-year term or challenge Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan instead.

House

● FL-20: Palm Beach County Commissioner Mack Bernard said Thursday that he would not compete in the still-unscheduled special election for this safely blue seat.

● KS-03: 2020 Republican nominee Amanda Adkins earned an endorsement Friday from 4th District Rep. Ron Estes for her second campaign against Democratic incumbent Sharice Davids.

● ME-02: The Bangor Daily News takes a look at the potential Republican field to take on Rep. Jared Golden in this 52-45 Trump seat, a northern Maine constituency that is the reddest Democratic-held House district in America. So far, though, the only notable politician who appears to have publicly expressed interest is state Rep. Mike Perkins, who said Thursday he was forming an exploratory committee.

2020 nominee Dale Crafts, meanwhile, said he wasn't ruling out a second try. Crafts, who is a former state representative, was decisively outraised by Golden last time, and major outside groups on both sides dramatically cut their ad buys in the final weeks of the race in what Politico characterized at the time as "a sign of no confidence" in the Republican. Golden ended up prevailing 53-47, which was far closer than what almost any publicly released poll showed.

State Sen. Lisa Keim and former state Rep. Alex Willette said they wouldn't run, but the Bangor Daily News writes that former Rep. Bruce Poliquin, who lost this seat to Golden in 2018, did not respond to questions about his plans. Poliquin spent much of 2019 talking about seeking a rematch against Golden, but he ultimately announced that, while he was "itching to run again," he had to skip that race to care for his elderly parents.

While Democrats control the governorship and both houses of the legislature, redistricting isn't likely to alter Maine's congressional boundaries all that much. The state requires two-thirds of each chamber to pass a new map, and there are more than enough Republicans to block any districts they view as unfavorable. If the legislature deadlocks, the state Supreme Court would take charge of redistricting.

● NV-04: 2020 candidate Sam Peters has announced that he'll once again compete for the Republican nomination to take on Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford. Peters, who is an Air Force veteran and businessman, lost last year's primary 35-28 to former Assemblyman Jim Marchant. Horsford went on to beat Marchant 51-46 as Joe Biden was carrying this northern Las Vegas area seat by a similar 51-47 spread.

● OH-01: Franklin Mayor Brent Centers filed FEC paperwork Thursday for a potential campaign for the Cincinnati-area seat currently held by his fellow Republican, Rep. Steve Chabot. Centers previously said he planned to enter the race in early May.

● TX-06: The progressive firm Data for Progress has released a survey of the May 1 all-party primary that shows Republican party activist Susan Wright, the wife of the late Rep. Ron Wright, in first with 22%.

2018 Democratic nominee Jana Lynne Sanchez leads Republican state Rep. Jake Ellzey by a small 16-13 margin in the contest for the second spot in an all-but-assured runoff, with a few other candidates from each party also in striking distance. Former Trump administration official Brian Harrison and Democrat Shawn Lassiter, who works as an education advocate, are both at 10%, while 2020 Democratic state House nominee Lydia Bean is at 9%.

The only other poll we've seen all month was a Meeting Street Research survey for the conservative blog the Washington Free Beacon from mid-April that showed a very tight four-way race. Those numbers had Sanchez and Wright at 16% and 15%, respectively, with Ellzey at 14% and Harrison taking 12%.

Data for Progress also polled a hypothetical runoff between Wright and Sanchez and found the Republican up 53-43. This seat, which includes part of Arlington and rural areas south of Dallas, supported Trump only 51-48 in 2020 after backing him 54-42 four years before, but Republicans have done better downballot.

● TX-15: 2020 GOP nominee Monica De La Cruz-Hernandez's second campaign picked up an endorsement Friday from Sen. Ted Cruz. De La Cruz-Hernandez, who held Democratic incumbent Vicente Gonzalez to a shockingly close 51-48 win last year, is the only notable Republican currently in the race for this Rio Grande Valley seat, which backed Joe Biden only 50-49 after supporting Hillary Clinton by a wide 57-40.

Mayors

● New York City, NY Mayor: The city Campaign Finance Board on Thursday approved former White House Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan for matching funds.

The board said the previous week that it was "deferring its decision" as it sought "further information" about a super PAC that has received at least $3 million from the candidate's father, but it cleared Donovan for public financing following its review. With this development, all of the notable Democrats competing in the June primary have received matching funds except former Citigroup executive Raymond McGuire, who is not taking part in the program.

Meanwhile, attorney Maya Wiley received an endorsement on Friday from EMILY's List. The field also includes two other pro-choice women, former city Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia and nonprofit executive Dianne Morales.

Prosecutors

● Manhattan, NY District Attorney: Former State Chief Deputy Attorney General Alvin Bragg recently picked up endorsements from two prominent labor groups ahead of the crowded June Democratic primary: the healthcare workers union 1199 SEIU and 32BJ, which represents building and airport employees.

Other Races

● CA-AG: The state legislature on Thursday overwhelmingly voted to confirm Democratic Assemblyman Rob Bonta to replace Xavier Becerra, who resigned last month to become U.S. secretary of health and human services, as California attorney general. Bonta, who has made a name for himself as a criminal justice reformer, is also the first Filipino American to hold this post.

Bonta already faces a challenge from Republican Nathan Hochman, a former federal prosecutor, in his 2022 campaign for a full four-year term. The bigger threat in this very blue state, though, could come from Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, a Republican-turned-independent who is publicly considering a bid.

Politico writes that Schubert, who attracted plenty of attention in 2016 after the Golden State Killer was apprehended, has also "hammered California's unemployment fraud failures and has excoriated [criminal justice] reformers." Schubert, though, would need to get through the top-two primary before she could focus on Bonta, and it's far from guaranteed that she'd be able to advance if Hochman or a different Republican emerges as Team Red's frontrunner.

Morning Digest: Check out our roundup of 1Q 2021 fundraising reports for the House and Senate

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

● 1Q Fundraising: Daily Kos Elections is pleased to unveil our new charts rounding up first-quarter fundraising for the House and Senate. Our data includes the numbers for every incumbent (excluding those who've said they're not seeking re-election) and notable announced or potential candidates.

Early fundraising reports give us our first glimpse at which candidates have the ability to raise the serious sums needed to run for Congress. However, what matters isn't necessarily who's outraising whom but rather which contenders will have the resources to get their message out and which ones won't.

It's not uncommon for candidates to win primaries or general elections despite being dramatically outspent. But what is uncommon is for them to win without having the money to run ads, hire a skilled staff, build a field operation, and pay for all the other things it takes to run a credible race. And of course, it costs much more to air ads in some markets than others, so what might look like a decent fundraising haul in North Dakota can be underwhelming in New Jersey.

Campaign Action

While these opening totals are important, by no means do they tell us everything. Many hopefuls in past cycles have posted underwhelming early numbers only to haul in stronger totals as Election Day draws closer. That's been especially true in the last two election cycles, when we've regularly seen grassroots donors, especially on the Democratic side, flock to newly-minted nominees in competitive races and help them raise sums that not long ago would have been unimaginable.

The 2022 cycle is also particularly unpredictable because of the upcoming round of redistricting. Most House candidates do not yet know exactly where they'll be running, and some will wind up facing off against different opponents once new maps are finally in place. Many other would-be contenders are taking a wait-and-see approach, so it's likely we'll see a flurry of new campaigns launched later this year.

There's a lot to see, so check out our House and Senate charts.

Senate

● AZ-Sen, AZ-Gov: While Grand Canyon State politicos have long expected Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich to run for governor in 2022, David Drucker of the conservative Washington Examiner writes that he's now leaning towards challenging Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly instead. Brnovich himself has yet to say anything publicly about this contest.

Brnovich's reported interest in the Senate race comes months after Gov. Doug Ducey, whom the attorney general has clashed with in the past, announced that he would not run. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has tried to get Ducey to reconsider, but Drucker relays that the governor "continues to wave off the encouragement from fellow Republicans."

There are a number of other Republicans who could challenge Kelly, and Drucker name-drops former Ambassador to Mexico Chris Landau as a possibility. There is no word on Landau's interest in this contest.

● CA-Sen: This week, appointed Sen. Alex Padilla unveiled endorsements from 40 of California's 42 Democratic House members in his bid for a full term. The only two who aren't currently supporting the incumbent are Rep. Ro Khanna, who has not ruled out an intra-party challenge, and Rep. Maxine Waters, whom Politico says "could endorse Padilla shortly."

● MO-Sen: Republican Rep. Jason Smith responded to Sen. Roy Blunt's retirement a month ago by saying he'd be considering in "the coming days" whether to run to succeed him, but like so many politicians before him, Smith has disregarded that timeline. When CNN asked the congressman Monday when he'd be making up his mind, Smith responded, "Not for a while."

● OH-Sen: We'll get right to it: Josh Mandel announced he'd raised $1.3 million for the quarter when he actually brought in just $33,000 for his campaign. Indeed Mandel, a Republican who ostensibly spent eight years as treasurer of Ohio, actually lost money during this time, though thanks to leftover cash from his aborted 2018 Senate bid, he still had $4.2 million on-hand.

So, where did that $1.3 million number come from? Seth Richardson of Cleveland.com writes that Mandel raised that much through a joint fundraising committee that consisted of his campaign, his PAC, and the Delaware County Republican Party. Richardson, though, notes that Mandel can't take in all that money for his campaign: Even his spokesperson says that they'll only get about $700,000, or a little more than half. Adds Richardson, "He did not say why Mandel opted to fundraise using the committee instead of his campaign."

Another Republican, former state party chair Jane Timken, took in $1.1 million from donors and loaned her campaign an additional $1 million. Timken, like many wealthy contenders, did not distinguish between the money she'd raised and the amount she self-funded when she announced her $2.1 million haul earlier this month, but unlike Mandel, she at least can spend all that cash.

Governors

● CA-Gov: Former reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner used Twitter on Sunday to publicly express interest for the first time in competing as a Republican in this year's likely recall election against Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. Jenner added that she would "decide soon."

● MD-Gov: Former U.S. Secretary of Education John King announced Tuesday that he would seek the Democratic nomination for this open seat. King, who would be the state's first Black governor, joins a primary that currently consists of state Comptroller Peter Franchot and former Obama administration official Ashwani Jain, though plenty of others are considering getting in.

King, who is running for office for the first time, became the Obama administration's second and final secretary of education in 2016 after a previous stint as New York's education commissioner. King went on to lead The Education Trust, a nonprofit focused on closing education gaps among students of color.

● ME-Gov: While former Gov. Paul LePage appeared to unequivocally announce last November that he was challenging his successor, Democratic incumbent Janet Mills, the Bangor Daily News writes that many of his fellow Republicans still aren't certain if he'll run. It's not hard to see where the confusion comes from: Last year, LePage's political strategist, Brent Littlefield, said he had no "impending or planned announcement," and Littlefield added Monday that the former governor, "has no announcement to make."

Still, everyone in Maine politics seems to agree that the GOP nomination is LePage's if he wants it. No other notable Republicans have expressed interest, and this week, his allies in the state party leadership waived a rule that would have prevented the Maine GOP from helping candidates before the primary is over.

● NE-Gov: Republican state Sen. John Stinner said this week that running for governor is "not a serious consideration right now," and while that's not quite a no, he still sounds very unlikely to get in. The western Nebraska legislator said he was "just getting too old to play the game" and added that he doubted that a candidate from his section of the state could raise enough money or win enough votes to prevail.

● NY-Gov: Gov. Andrew Cuomo faces a new criminal investigation by state Attorney General Tish James into allegations that he used state resources to help write and publicize his book, "American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic," last year. The matter was referred by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli to James, who by law can only investigate criminal matters when asked to do so by other state or local officials.

Cuomo, who reportedly earned a $4 million advance from Crown Publishing Group, did not dispute that state employees had worked on his book, including editing drafts and printing manuscripts, but claims they did so voluntarily. A Cuomo spokesperson attacked the investigation itself, saying, "Both the comptroller and the attorney general have spoken to people about running for governor, and it is unethical to wield criminal referral authority to further political self-interest‎." Cuomo, James, and DiNapoli are all Democrats.

Meanwhile, several actual and potential GOP candidates for governor recently addressed a meeting of county-level party leaders from across the state, including Rep. Lee Zeldin, the most prominent declared Republican to enter the race so far. Also on the list of speakers, though, was a name we hadn't seen mentioned before, former state housing commissioner Joe Holland, who served under Gov. George Pataki. Holland briefly ran for governor in 2018 before dropping out, then sought the Republican nomination for attorney general but declined to run in the primary after losing to attorney Keith Wofford at the GOP convention.

● TX-Gov: The Dallas Morning News generated plenty of attention over the weekend when it released a UT Tyler poll showing actor Matthew McConaughey leading Republican Gov. Greg Abbott 45-33 in a hypothetical general election, but there's a big reason to be skeptical that the Oscar winner would start out with anything like that advantage if he ran.

The survey did not include the party affiliation for either man, instead simply asking, "Matthew McConaughey has been talked about as a potential candidate for Governor of Texas. If he ran, would you be likely to support him more than Governor Abbott?" That omission makes it tough to draw any conclusions from this survey, especially since the self-described "aggressively centrist" McConaughey has refused to say what party banner, if any, he'd run under.

If McConaughey campaigns as a Democrat, it's likely that many of the respondents who opt for him now (including the 30% of the Republicans in the sample) simply would no longer consider him as a viable option. And should McConaughey instead campaign as an independent, he'd almost certainly face a Democratic opponent who would take many anti-Abbott votes from him. The dynamics of the race would also be dramatically different if McConaughey decided to run in a Republican primary against Abbott.

McConaughey himself has talked about running for governor but hasn't taken any obvious steps towards running, so we may never find out how he'd do under any of these scenarios. However, there's still an important lesson to be drawn here about the importance of including party affiliation (or noting the lack of it) in horserace surveys, even ones looking at very hypothetical races like this one. As we've written before, if a pollster doesn't include this, then they're leaving out important information and failing to accurately mimic the way voters will make their choices when they actually cast their ballots.

House

● CA-21: While former Rep. TJ Cox announced in December that he'd seek a rematch against Republican incumbent David Valadao, the Democrat said Monday that he wouldn't decide on any 2022 plans until he sees the new congressional map.

● FL-20: Democratic state Rep. Bobby DuBose announced Tuesday that he would run in the still-unscheduled special election to succeed the late Rep. Alcee Hastings. DuBose, who serves as his party's co-leader in the lower chamber, is a veteran elected official in the Fort Lauderdale area. The Florida Sun-Sentinel notes that another declared primary candidate, state Sen. Perry Thurston, also represents much of the same area as DuBose, so they could end up competing for the same base of geographic support.

Another Democrat, former Palm Beach County Commissioner Priscilla Taylor, also recently filed with the FEC, though she doesn't appear to have publicly announced yet. Taylor was last on the ballot in 2019 when she took last place with 20% in the three-way race for mayor of West Palm Beach.

● MN-02: Marine veteran Tyler Kistner, who was the 2020 Republican nominee, announced Tuesday that he would seek a rematch against Democratic Rep. Angie Craig. Kistner is the first major Republican to announce a campaign against Craig in a state where neither party has control over redistricting.

Kistner spent much of last cycle looking like the underdog in a suburban Twin Cities seat that had backed Donald Trump 47-45 in 2016 but had moved to the left two years later. Kistner raised a serious amount of money in the final months, though, and the race took an unexpected turn in October when it was briefly postponed following the death of Legal Marijuana Party Now candidate Adam Weeks. Biden ultimately took the 2nd District 52-46, but Craig won by a smaller 48-46 margin, with Weeks posthumously taking 6%.

● OH-15: Rep. Steve Stivers' Monday resignation announcement took the Buckeye State political world by surprise, but the field to succeed him has already started to take shape. Trump carried Ohio's 15th District, which includes the southern Columbus area and the college town of Athens, by a 56-42 margin.

On the GOP side, state Rep. Brian Stewart and state Sen. Bob Peterson each announced Monday that they were running in the upcoming special election. Stewart, who like Stivers is an Iraq War veteran, is a first-term state representative, while Peterson was first elected to the legislature during the 2010 GOP wave.

Both men may have company in the primary before long. State Rep. Jeff LaRe said Monday he was "extremely interested and very serious," while Mehek Cooke, who served as an attorney for the administration of now-former Gov. John Kasich, also said she was thinking about it. The Columbus Dispatch's Laura Bischoff reports that state Sen. Stephanie Kunze and Tim Schaffer are also considering.

For the Democrats, state Sen. Tina Maharath; state Reps. Allison Russo and Adam Miller; Franklin County Auditor Michael Stinziano; and Upper Arlington City Councilmember John Kulewicz each told Bischoff they were thinking about getting in; Stinziano added that he'd decide as soon as he could. Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein also has not ruled out a bid. Cleveland.com additionally mentions former state Sen. Lou Gentile and ex-Rep. Zack Space as possibilities.

It will be some time before the dates for the special can be set, though. Stivers announced Monday that his resignation would be effective May 16, and GOP Gov. Mike DeWine's office says the contest to succeed him can't be scheduled until the seat is officially vacant.

● TX-06: Campaign finance reports are in ahead of the May 1 all-party primary for the period covering Jan. 1 to April 11, and we've collected the numbers for all the candidates in our quarterly House fundraising chart. The seven Democrats who filed a report reported bringing in a total of $915,000, while the six Republicans hauled in a combined $1.6 million.

The top fundraiser on either side was GOP state Rep. Jake Ellzey, who took in $504,000 from donors. Next was former Department of Health and Human Services official Brian Harrison, a fellow Republican who raised $356,000 from donors and self-funded an additional $285,000.

Harrison, who deployed $258,000 during this time, was also the top spender of the race; two Democrats, 2018 nominee Jana Lynne Sanchez and education advocate Shawn Lassiter, each outpaced the rest of the field by spending just over $200,000. The candidate who had the most money left on April 11 was Ellzey, who led Harrison $400,000 to $383,000 in cash-on-hand.

GOP activist Susan Wright, who is the wife of the late Rep. Ron Wright, has taken one of the top two spots in the few polls we've seen, but she doesn't have access to as much money as many of her rivals. Wright raised $286,000 and spent $158,000, and she had $128,000 for the final weeks.

Mayors

● New York City, NY Mayor: The United Federation of Teachers, which was the last major union in city politics to make an endorsement in the June Democratic primary, backed City Comptroller Scott Stringer on Monday. Attorney Maya Wiley previously earned the endorsement of the health care union 1199 SEIU, while Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has the Hotel Trades Council, 32BJ, and DC37 (which represent hotel workers, building and airport employees, and municipal workers, respectively) in his corner.

Meanwhile, Rep. Gregory Meeks, a longtime congressman from Queens, has thrown his support behind former financial executive Raymond McGuire.

Obituaries

● Deaths: Walter Mondale, a Democrat who represented Minnesota in the Senate from 1964 until just after he was elected vice president in 1976, died Monday at the age of 93. Mondale is most remembered for being the first truly influential vice president in modern American history and for his 1984 loss to Ronald Reagan, but, as is our wont at Daily Kos Elections, we'll devote ourselves to taking stock of his downballot political career.

Mondale got his start in politics in 1948 when Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey was campaigning to unseat Republican Sen. Joseph Ball. Mondale served as Humphrey’s organizer in the southern part of the state, and he became close to both the candidate and his campaign manager, Orville Freeman. Humphrey decisively won, and the connections Mondale made during that race would serve him well at a time when Democrats were making gains in what had been a Republican dominated state.

Freeman became governor in the 1950s, and he appointed the 32-year-old Mondale in 1960 to fill the vacant post of state attorney general. Mondale defended the post 58-42 that year, and he was re-elected in 1962 by an even larger margin. During his tenure, Mondale led an amicus brief in support of Clarence Gideon, who had been forced to represent himself when he couldn’t afford a lawyer; in 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the landmark Gideon v. Wainwright decision that established that all defendants had the right to legal counsel.

Mondale was appointed to the Senate in 1964 by Gov. Karl Rolvaag to succeed Humphrey, who had just been elected vice president on Lyndon Johnson’s ticket, and he was up for a full term two years later. This was a tough cycle for Democrats nationwide in large part because of the increasing unpopularity of the Vietnam War, but Mondale prevailed 54-45 even as Rolvaag was losing re-election.

Mondale’s colleague, George McGovern, asked him to be his running mate in 1972 after Ted Kennedy declined, but he also turned the South Dakota senator down. Mondale instead sought re-election and prevailed 57-43 even as Richard Nixon was carrying Minnesota 52-46, which marked the last time the state’s electoral votes wound up in the GOP column.

Mondale considered a presidential run in 1973 only to decide not to. Mondale later wrote, “I had pulled about even with 'None of the Above' in national opinion surveys, and I dropped that bid — to widespread applause.” Mondale, though, would be on the national ticket in 1976 as Jimmy Carter’s running mate.

Mondale’s time in state politics seemed to be over following his ascension to the vice presidency and subsequent 1980 re-election loss, as well as his landslide defeat to Reagan in 1984. In 1990, some Democratic leaders tried to recruit him to challenge Republican Sen. Rudy Boschwitz but he declined, arguing the party needed new voices; Boschwitz would go on to lose to Democrat Paul Wellstone, while Mondale would later serve as Bill Clinton’s ambassador to Japan.

Mondale, though, would compete in one more election. Wellstone died in a plane crash 11 days before the 2002 election, and party leaders chose the former vice president as their replacement candidate. Democrats were in for another tough cycle thanks to George W. Bush’s popularity following the Sept. 11 attacks and the leadup to the invasion of Iraq, and this time, Mondale wasn’t able to run ahead of the tides during his six days as a candidate.

Allies of Republican Norm Coleman, who had been locked in a close race with Wellstone, loudly argued that Team Blue had turned the senator’s funeral into a partisan event, a tactic that likely harmed the new nominee’s prospects. Coleman triumphed 50-47 in what was Mondale’s only defeat in his home state, a defeat that when combined with his 1984 presidential loss also gave Mondale the unwelcome distinction of being the only person in American history to lose an election in all 50 states as a nominee of one of the two major parties, a feat that looks very unlikely to be repeated by anyone for the foreseeable future.

Morning Digest: Eric Greitens, the GOP’s worst nightmare in Missouri, already has a major opponent

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

● MO-Sen: Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced Wednesday that he would seek the Republican nomination for the state's open Senate seat, a decision that came two days after disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens also entered the primary.

An unnamed source close to the attorney general told the Kansas City Star's Bryan Lowry that Greitens' kickoff had no impact on the timing of Schmitt's own launch. Lowry, though, notes that, by getting in early, Schmitt may be trying to establish himself as the main intra-party adversary for Greitens, whom national Republicans reportedly fear could endanger their hold over this seat should he win the nomination.

However, while Schmitt may be hoping that his entrance could deter other Republicans from running, a former Greitens adversary is also making it clear he's thinking about diving in. On Tuesday, wealthy businessman John Brunner posted a photo of himself with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul captioned, "Does Rand Paul need another freedom fighter in the US Senate?" Brunner lost the 2012 primary for Missouri's other Senate seat to the infamous Todd Akin before he campaigned for governor in 2016. Greitens, though, defeated Brunner 35-25 after a truly ugly contest.

Campaign Action

Schmitt, for his part, was first elected statewide that year when he decisively won the race for state treasurer, a contest that coincided with Greitens' victory in the gubernatorial contest. However, while Greitens resigned in 2018 in the face of multiple scandals, including allegations that he'd sexually assaulted a woman he was having an affair with and blackmailed her into silence, Schmitt secured a more powerful post months later following that year's elections. That promotion came about when the state's new governor, Mike Parson, appointed Schmitt attorney general to succeed Josh Hawley, who had just been elected to the Senate

Schmitt before long used his new job to sue the government of China over its response to the pandemic, a move that got him plenty of press but unsurprisingly went nowhere after China refused to be served. (Chuck Hatfield, who served as chief of staff to Democrat Jay Nixon when he held that office, snarked, "You're suing the Chinese Communist party in Cape Girardeau, Missouri? What do they have a field office down there?") Schmitt also continued the state's lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act even after Missouri voters approved a referendum last August to expand Medicaid.

Schmitt had no trouble winning a full term last year, and he quickly became one of the main figures behind a lawsuit by multiple Republican attorneys general to overturn Joe Biden's victory. The U.S. Supreme Court quickly dismissed the attempt, but that hardly stopped Schmitt from using his Wednesday campaign appearance on Fox to brag, "I fought alongside President Trump in defending election integrity." At no point did Schmitt ever refer to Joe Biden as president.

P.S. One of Schmitt's allies in that suit was fellow Republican Derek Schmidt, the attorney general of neighboring Kansas. Schmidt is currently competing in the primary for governor of his state, so both Attorneys General Schmitt and Schmidt will be on the ballot around the same time next year. That could make for a confusing experience for TV viewers in media markets that cover both states, especially Kansas City, though Kansas will be the only one of those two states to host a gubernatorial race in 2022.

Senate

● AL-Sen: Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell said Wednesday that she would remain in the House rather than run for the Senate in this very red state.

● AZ-Sen: Extremist Rep. Andy Biggs recently told the Wall Street Journal that he would decide by the end of the month whether to seek the Republican nomination to take on Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly.

● NC-Sen: State House Speaker Tim Moore has reportedly been considering seeking the Republican nomination for next year's Senate race, but he said this week that he planned on re-election to the legislature. That declaration seems unlikely to silence chatter about Moore's 2022 plans, though, as it came in the midst of a strange story that only led to more questions about whether the speaker would be sticking around state government.

The News & Observer reports that Tom Fetzer, a powerful lobbyist who previously served as mayor of Raleigh and as state GOP chair, sent out a text over the weekend for, in his words, "putting together a fundraiser" to benefit House Majority Leader John Bell. Fetzer tried to entice would-be attendees by writing, "As Tim Moore has stated he is not seeking another term in the House, John is the odds on favorite to be Speaker in 2023."

State law, though, forbids lobbyists from hosting fundraisers or soliciting contributions while the legislature is in session, as it is scheduled to be through July. Bell said that Fetzer wasn't involved with the event, which has since been canceled, and that he hadn't heard that Moore planned to leave the legislature. "It's way too early for me to be talking about that," said Bell about his boss' future.

The paper writes that Moore, for his part, "texted an N&O reporter Tuesday to say he plans to seek a fifth term, which would be a record." However, while Fetzer says he wasn't actually involved in holding that ill-fated fundraiser ("I dictated the text into my phone and just sent," he said), the lobbyist insisted that he'd made no mistake when he said Moore was on his way out. "I do think the speaker has informed people that he does not intend to seek another term," Fetzer said, adding, "I don't know that that's a real surprise."

The story did not mention the Senate race, but N&O reporter Brian Murphy tweeted it out saying, "Lots of news in this story, but one takeaway that will lead to lots of speculation: Is NC House Speaker Moore planning a run for U.S. House or U.S. Senate?" This is the first we've heard of the possibility that Moore, who is in place to play a major role during the upcoming round of redistricting, could run for the House.

● NV-Sen: The National Journal's Madelaine Pisani takes a look at Nevada's surprisingly quiet Senate race, where no major Republicans have publicly expressed interest yet in taking on Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto, and she mentions a few possible contenders for Team Red

Pisani name-drops former Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, and state Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, though she adds that "none have made public indications they are preparing bids." Ex-Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who was the party's 2018 gubernatorial nominee, reportedly has been eyeing this contest, though he's said nothing about his deliberations.

Governors

● CA-Gov: Probolsky Research, a firm that has worked for Republicans in the past but says it has no client in this year's recall campaign, has released a poll that finds likely voters saying they'd vote against ousting Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom by a 53-35 margin.

The recall has not yet been officially scheduled, much less declared, though, which makes it especially tricky to determine who is likely to turn out. Probolsky asks the same question among all voters and also finds a plurality opposed to recalling Newsom, but by a much-smaller 46-40 spread.

Meanwhile, Politico reports that billionaire Tom Steyer, an environmentalist who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2020, recently commissioned a poll of his own testing his prospects in a hypothetical race to succeed Newsom. A spokesperson for Steyer only said to check back in "late April," which is around the time that county clerks have to validate signatures for the recall petition. However, an unnamed source close to Steyer said he'd be "very, very surprised if he is looking at the recall ballot."

● IL-Gov: Chicago Now writes that wealthy businessman Gary Rabine will announce "next Tuesday" that he'll seek the Republican nomination to take on Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

● MI-Gov: Craig Mauger of the Detroit News reports that officials from the Republican Governors Association have met with three possible candidates in next year's race to take on Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer: 2020 Senate nominee John James, conservative radio host Tudor Dixon, and businessman Kevin Rinke. Of this trio, Dixon has said she's looking at the race, while Rinke has very much not ruled it out; James, meanwhile, has been quiet about his intentions.

We'll start with James, who is the best known of the trio. James ran in 2018 against Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow and lost 52-46 while Whitmer was beating Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette 53-44. That showing impressed national Republicans, who recruited James to take on Michigan's other Democratic senator, Gary Peters: After a very expensive contest, Peters won 50-48 as Joe Biden was carrying the state by a slightly-larger 51-48 spread

James has spent the last several weeks attacking Whitmer in media appearances, but he hasn't said if he's thinking about challenging her. Mauger writes that some Republicans would prefer he run for the House after redistricting because they believe it would be easier than a third statewide campaign, and that James' 2022 "decision could still be months away."

Dixon was much more forthright, saying, "Michigan needs to mount a comeback with a new governor, and that might just be me." Mauger says that she recently spoke at a protest against the arrest of a restaurant owner who had defied Whitmer's COVID-19 restrictions and a court-order.

Finally, there's businessman Kevin Rinke, who also argued Tuesday that the state needed a new governor. "Who the candidate will be?" Rinke asked, before answering, "To be determined." Mauger writes that the family has owned car dealerships in the Detroit area, which gives them a recognizable name in this large section of the state.

Mauger also mentions Schuette, former Rep. Mike Bishop, and former state House Speaker Tom Leonard as possible contenders. Leonard, he writes, is "expected" to instead seek a rematch with Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel, who beat him 49-46 in 2018, though Mauger says he is still "viewed as a potential gubernatorial candidate."

● NE-Gov: Republican Sen. Deb Fischer confirmed Wednesday that she was considering running in next year's open seat race for governor, though she said she was "in no hurry" to decide. That could be very unwelcome news for other Republicans looking at this race, as Fischer would be a very prominent contender who could deter others from running.

● NY-Gov: Democrat Charles Lavine, who chairs the New York Assembly's Judiciary Committee, said on Tuesday that he expects the committee's impeachment investigation into Gov. Andrew Cuomo will take "months, rather than weeks." Two women who have accused Cuomo of sexual harassment, Ana Liss and Lindsey Boylan, have said they won't participate in the investigation, citing both its slow pace and criticisms about its independence. A third, Charlotte Bennett, has said she will take part, but her attorney said "questions remain" about the probe.

House

● GA-10: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that businessman Ames Barnett, the former mayor of the small community of Washington (pop. 4,000) is considering seeking the Republican nomination to succeed incumbent Jody Hice and "hopes to make a decision within the next week."

● NJ-02: Hector Tavarez, a former member of the Egg Harbor Township Board of Education, said this week that he'd seek the Democratic nod to take on Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew. Tavarez joins civil rights attorney Tim Alexander in the primary for this South Jersey seat.

The New Jersey Globe notes that Tavarez, who is also a retired police captain, has a more conservative pitch than most Democrats. Tavarez notably said in his kickoff, "Welfare and other social programs were designed to assist American families in need for a short period of time while they got themselves up on their feet. Over the years, these programs have evolved into a way of life, generation after generation."

● NY-23: Several Republicans are showing at least some interest in running to succeed retiring Rep. Tom Reed, though many acknowledged that they'd want to wait and see what the new congressional map looks like. New York, as we've noted before, is likely to lose at least one House seat, and Reed's departure could make it easier for map makers to eliminate this upstate constituency.

Former state Sen. Cathy Young told WIVB reporter Chris Horvatits that she was thinking about it, while Assemblyman Joe Giglio said it was something he "might consider." In a separate interview with the Olean Times Herald, Giglio said he'd be interested if the 23rd District "still existed" after the remap.

State Sen. George Borrello, who was elected to succeed Young in a 2019 special election, also told Horvatits he wasn't ruling it out. Chautauqua County Executive P.J. Wendel also said he was focused on his re-election bid and didn't appear to directly address a congressional bid. Assemblyman Andy Goodell, though, said he wouldn't be running himself.

On the Democratic side, 2020 state Senate candidate Leslie Danks-Burke said she was open to a House race. Meanwhile, Tracy Mitrano, who lost to Reed in 2018 and 2020, said she wouldn't wage a third congressional campaign.

Legislative

● Special Elections: Here's a recap of Tuesday's special election in Virginia:

VA-SD-38: Republican Travis Hackworth defeated Democrat Laurie Buchwald 76-24 to hold this seat for his party. Hackworth's win was similar to Donald Trump's 75-22 victory here in 2016.

This chamber is now at full strength, with Democrats maintaining their narrow 21-19 majority.

Mayors

● New York City, NY Mayor: Core Decision Analytics has released its second poll of the instant-runoff Democratic primary for Fontas Advisors, a lobbying group that is not working for any candidates, and it shows 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang leading Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams 16-10.

The firm has changed one important part of its methodology since its February survey, which had Yang beating Adams 28-17. The earlier poll included a brief description of each candidate while this one just lists their names, which helps explain why the proportion of undecideds skyrocketed from 19% to 50%.

Yang's campaign, meanwhile, has released another poll from Slingshot Strategies that shows him outpacing Adams 25-15, with City Comptroller Scott Stringer at 12%. This survey, which the pollster tells us was in the field March 12-18, is very similar to its January survey finding Yang up 25-17.

The crowded primary field also got a little smaller Wednesday when City Councilman Carlos Menchaca exited the contest.