These former Trump voters are determined to stop him. Here’s how

President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and their surrogates need to focus their time and resources on consolidating the Democratic base and touting the president’s accomplishments in office. Yet anti-Trump Republicans also have work to do when it comes to building support for Biden.

A group of anti-Trump Republicans are launching their second “Republican Voters Against Trump” campaign against the former president, planning to spend $50 million and use homemade testimonial videos from voters who supported Trump in one of both of his previous campaigns—but cannot vote for him in 2024.

Donald Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday, despite his two impeachments and four criminal indictments. His true Achilles’ heel will be the significant number of Republican voters who refuse to support him. 

Sarah Longwell, president and founder of the Republican Accountability PAC, issued this statement about the campaign:

“Former Republicans and Republican-leaning voters hold the key to 2024, and reaching them with credible, relatable messengers is essential to re-creating the anti-Trump coalition that made the difference in 2020.

“It establishes a permission structure that says that—whatever their complaints about Joe Biden—Donald Trump is too dangerous and too unhinged to ever be president again. Who better to make this case than the voters who used to support him?”

The campaign released this 67-second video accompanying the launch.

A significant number of Republicans might be open to such a campaign. They include supporters of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, whose strongest performance came in cities, college towns, and suburbs, and particularly among college-educated voters, according to CNN.

Haley won Vermont (50%) and Washington, D.C. (63%), and received more than 30% of the vote in New Hampshire, Virginia, South Carolina, Utah, Colorado, and Massachusetts. Haley also got 570,000 votes in three key swing states: Nevada, North Carolina, and Michigan, Reuters reported.

Remember how close the 2020 election actually was? Although Biden received 7 million more votes, just a small shift in votes could have given Trump the Electoral College victory.

According to a Council on Foreign Relations report, if Trump had picked up 42,921 votes in Arizona (10,457), Georgia (11,779), and Wisconsin (20,682), plus the one electoral vote in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which he lost to Biden by 22,091 votes, he would have won the Electoral College outright. If he’d lost Nebraska’s 2nd, the House would have then decided the election. Republicans held the majority of state delegations in the newly inaugurated Congress, and they undoubtedly would have chosen Trump.

However, Haley dropped out of the race last week, leaving no opposition for Trump. Yet in Tuesday’s primaries, she still received nearly 78,000 votes in Georgia—far more than the number of votes Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” in order to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory in the state. Haley also got 21% of the vote in Washington state.

It’s not yet known how much of Tuesday’s Haley support came from early votes cast before she quit the race, but in Georgia, The New York Times estimates that “less than 5%” of Election Day votes were cast for her. Protest votes for sure—but the reality is that over 13% of Peach State voters chose Haley—when they had her as a choice and when they didn’t. 

Haley declined to endorse Trump when she dropped out of the race, saying instead that “it is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond who did not support him.” She added that “politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away.”

And while Trump invited Haley supporters to join his right-wing MAGA movement, he also bashed many of her supporters as “Radical Left Democrats.”

Biden seized on the opportunity and commended Haley for being “willing to speak the truth about Donald Trump.”

“Donald Trump made it clear he doesn’t want Nikki Haley’s supporters. I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign,” Biden said in a statement. “I know there is a lot we won’t agree on. But on the fundamental issues of preserving American democracy, on standing up for the rule of law, on treating each other with decency and dignity and respect, on preserving NATO and standing up to America’s adversaries, I hope and believe we can find common ground.”

Polls indicate that Biden could gain support among Haley voters. An Emerson College poll released after Haley quit the race found that 63% of her supporters back Biden and just 27% support Trump, with 10% undecided, The Hill reported.

A Washington Post/Quinnipiac University poll saw slightly different results.

Recent polling from Quinnipiac University found that about half of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters who supported Haley would vote for Trump, while 37 percent would vote for Biden. Twelve percent said they would abstain, vote for someone else or hadn’t yet decided what to do.

It’s clear that there’s room for Republican Voters Against Trump to break through. Longwell said her PAC has already raised $20 million and hopes to raise another $30 million before the November election, Forbes reported. Major donors include several anti-Trump billionaires—Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and a major Democratic donor; Seth Klarman, who runs the Boston-based Baupost hedge fund, and John Pritzker, a member of the family that founded the Hyatt hotel brand.

The RVAT campaign plans to deploy ads on television, streaming, radio, billboards, and digital media in critical swing states, focusing on Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Longwell is a longtime Republican strategist and former national board chair of the Log Cabin Republicans, the conservative LGBTQ+ organization. She was among the early Never Trumpers, refusing to endorse him in 2016. In 2018, she became a co-founder of the anti-Trump conservative news and opinion website The Bulwark.

In an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Longwell said Republican Voters Against Trump is building on experiences from the 2020 presidential race. In the 2022 midterms, the group also campaigned against MAGA extremists like gubernatorial candidates Kari Lake in Arizona and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania.  

In 2020, Longwell said the group first ran traditional attack ads that really beat up on Trump and went viral. But the ads actually turned off and failed to persuade the center-right Republican voters they were trying to reach.

They had more success running personal testimonials from former Trump supporters. Longwell said such testimonials created a “permission structure” which showed there was a community of people who identified themselves as Republicans but were also anti-Trump.

Longwell acknowledged that about 70% of the GOP has gone “full MAGA”—they believe the 2020 election was stolen, but the remaining 30% are persuadable. “Some of those people are going to go home to Trump … They are sort of always Republicans,” Longwell said on “Morning Joe.” 

“There is another group in that 30% that I think has already been voting for Joe Biden,” she added.

Then Longwell described a third group of right-leaning independents, or soft GOP voters, who are “double doubters.”

“They have a tough time voting for Democrats, but also don’t think Donald Trump is a Republican, not like the kind of Republicans of (Ronald) Reagan or John McCain or of Mitt Romney that they like, ...

”We think about this less like building a pro-Joe Biden coalition — because a lot of these people they don’t love Joe Biden — but what you can do is build an anti-Trump coalition.”  She added that the  goal is to get as many of them as possible to come around and vote for Biden.

Watch Longwell’s full MSNBC interview below.

The RVAT testimonials do not promote Biden’s record in office, and the issue of abortion rights isn’t raised. Instead, the videos focus entirely on attacking Trump.

There are a lot more ways to criticize Trump this time around than during the 2020 campaign: the Jan. 6 insurrection, the threat he poses to democracy as a wannabe dictator, his softness on Vladimir Putin and willingness to abandon Ukraine, his four criminal indictments, and his mental fitness to be president, just to name a few. That has led some of the Republican voters to say that Joe Biden is the first Democrat they’ve ever supported.

Here are two of the testimonials posted on X, formerly known as Twitter:

Ethan from Wisconsin voted for Donald Trump in 2020 but will support Joe Biden in 2024 because he believes Donald Trump is not fit to be president: “January 6 was the end of Donald Trump for me.” pic.twitter.com/O1WlStOec5

— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) March 13, 2024

Eric from Louisiana is a former Trump voter who will never vote for him again: “Biden versus Trump 2.0. I don’t think that’s most people’s dream race, but it is the easiest choice I’ve ever had, and I was a long-time Republican who never considered voting Democrat.” pic.twitter.com/g5h9eYCpfj

— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) March 13, 2024

Longwell, writing for The Bulwark, said what she’d like to see next is former Trump appointees step up and come out in force against him—beyond essays in elite news outlets like The Atlantic or in an occasional interview on CNN. These include Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, White House chief of staff John Kelly,  Attorney General William Barr, national security adviser John Bolton, and even Vice President Mike Pence. 

What we have here is a parade of high-level, serious people (whatever you think about their politics) who served the guy and all came to the same conclusion, independently: He’s nuts."

If we want to stop a Trump restoration and the promised MAGA dictatorship, it’s going to require building a coalition of people who understand the stakes. And there are no messengers better equipped to convey the peril of a Trump presidency than those who lived it firsthand, on the inside.

Longwell said that, based on focus groups she’s conducted of Republican voters, “the reason they seem unbothered by Trump’s autocratic tendencies is that a lot of them don’t know about them” (although some are “perfectly fine with it”). 

The people who served Trump directly need to go on the record, as loudly and frequently as possible, about exactly why he should never get near the White House again. … They could call this project Trump Officials Against Trump.”

[…]

We need former Trump officials—people of conscience, who have not acquiesced to the authoritarianism of it all—to stand as one and to speak plainly to the American people. Again and again, until every voter has heard their voices. … It’s time to go to work. Your country needs you.

In  the 1980 and 1984 campaigns, we heard a lot about so-called “Reagan Democrats.” It’s hard not to wonder: How many “Biden Republicans” might be out there in 2024? 

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The House GOP’s margin for error is on track to shrink to just one vote

Hah oh man! House Speaker Mike Johnson’s epic struggles to count votes and keep his caucus in line are about to get a whole lot rougher.

One of Johnson’s least-favorite members, Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, just announced that he’s resigning next week. How least-favorite? Johnson says that Buck—who had already said back in November that he wouldn’t seek reelection—didn’t even inform him ahead of time, reports Politico’s Olivia Beavers.

But intra-party hostilities aside, what matters most is how Buck’s departure affects Johnson’s math. In short, it’s not good.

At the moment, there are 219 Republicans in the House and 213 Democrats. This means that on any given vote, the GOP can afford a maximum of two defections. If three Republicans switch sides to join with Democrats on a particular roll call, then whatever is up for a vote dies, because a 216-216 tie is the same as a loss.

When Buck leaves, that margin will slip to 218-213. But on April 30, Democrats are the heavy favorites to regain one seat in the special election for upstate New York’s vacant 26th District, a solidly blue seat in the Buffalo area. That would take the House to 218-214, and then things get really interesting.

That’s because it would take just two Republicans to tank any vote as long as Democrats stick together, which they have with remarkable consistency. Once again, a 216-all tie sinks any GOP bill, resolution, impeachment—what have you.

In other words, Johnson’s magic number would shrink to exactly one vote. That is to say, if more than one Republican representative has some kind of grievance with the speaker, or the legislation being proposed, or just woke up grumpy that morning, then boom, dead, done. To the extent Johnson has any agenda he might hope to advance, it would take only two dissenters to derail it.

Now, there’s a possible wrinkle: The vacant seat that once belonged to the hapless pol Johnson succeeded as speaker—Kevin McCarthy—will also see a special election next week. However, if no one wins a majority of the vote, then there would be a runoff in late May. And there’s very good reason to think that’s exactly what will happen, because, following last week’s regularly scheduled primary, the first-place candidate (funny enough, a McCarthy protégé) is sitting on just 38% of the vote.

Of course, Johnson will still pray that McCarthy’s seat gets filled as quickly as possible, however poor the odds. Because the only thing worse is the math he’ll face if it doesn’t.

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The Downballot: Far-right Republicans dominate Tuesday’s primaries (transcript)

We're recapping all of Tuesday's primary night action on this week's episode of "The Downballot""! Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard go coast-to-coast, setting the table in Texas' Senate race and picking apart the bloodbath in the state House. Then it's on to North Carolina, where GOP extremists dominated at all levels of the ballot—and where one notorious election fraudster is now on his way to Congress. We wrap with California, whose troublesome top-two primary system made its quirks felt in a whole bunch of races, from Senate on down.

Subscribe to "The Downballot" on Apple Podcasts to make sure you never miss a show.New episodes every Thursday morning!

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

David Beard: Hello and welcome. I'm David Beard, contributing editor for Daily Kos Elections.

David Nir: And I'm David Nir, political director of Daily Kos. "The Downballot" is a weekly podcast dedicated to the many elections that take place below the presidency, from Senate to city council. Please subscribe to "The Downballot" on Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star rating and review.

Beard: Primary season is upon us, and Tuesday was a big night.

Nir: It sure was. Super Tuesday's primaries, so many races, the two biggest states, California and Texas. We have a ton of elections to recap, so we are just going to dive right in.

Nir: Well, we had five states that conducted downballot primaries on Super Tuesday, and it is now game on in one of the biggest races in one of the biggest states. The Texas Senate race to hopefully unseat Ted Cruz is getting underway right away because Democratic Congressman Colin Allred kicked ass in his primary on Tuesday night.

Beard: Yeah, I don't think there was any question that he was going to come in first place, but the big question, obviously, in Texas was whether or not he would win over 50%, and if he didn't, he would be forced into a runoff obviously, and that would be additional months of primary campaign and all of that, but he got 59% of the primary vote, so he doesn't have to worry about a runoff and he can focus entirely on Ted Cruz between now and Election Day.

Nir: It really shows the power of TV advertising even in this day and age, especially in a primary. Allred far outspent his rivals on TV. He may have even been the only one who actually had enough money to run a serious TV ad campaign, but he totally crushed it. His nearest opponent got only 17% of the vote. And the other thing it demonstrated is just how strong a fundraiser Allred has been to date, but now I think his fundraising is going to get turbocharged because, as we saw with Beto O'Rourke in 2018, progressives love to hate Ted Cruz, with good reason.

He's one of the biggest scumbags that this country has ever sent to the United States Senate, and I am sure that Allred's fundraising has already been turbocharged just since Tuesday night. I think he's going to put together a really big first quarter and hopefully put this race on the map. And he'll really need to because given how much defense Democrats are playing and how expensive and big Texas is, Allred is going to need O'Rourke-level fundraising, or something in that realm, to convince Democrats, "Yeah, we actually have a shot here." And I think it's plausible.

Beard: Yeah, back in 2018, I don't remember if any national money ever came in towards the end, but really, from the beginning, the idea was O'Rourke needed to raise this amount of money to be able to go and do the campaign himself, without relying on the DSCC or any other groups to come in with multimillion-dollar ad buys, because Texas is so big that the investment is so great for a national group to really go into Texas. So O'Rourke did that. He raised the money to make this a competitive race, as we saw in 2018. He only lost by about 3 points. Allred, I think, has the ability to raise similar sums of money. Like you said, obviously, Cruz is an amazing figure to raise money against because he's so odious.

The other observation I wanted to make is I think, beyond the money, which obviously not discounting that at all, Allred was able to consolidate a ton of establishment support, and I think that's something that still matters, particularly in Democratic primaries. Obviously, we'll talk about some messy Republican primaries later on in the show, and really, it seems like sometimes the only thing that matters in Republican primaries is Trump. But in Democratic sides, he consolidated a lot of labor support, other groups, and was able to, I think, signal to Democratic voters that this was sort of the establishment Democratic candidate in a positive way. And I think a lot of Democratic primary voters still want that. They want somebody they can all get behind.

Nir: Yeah, you might even say that Democratic primary politics are still normal. They still function the way that you imagine that they should, the way that the poli-sci 101 textbook might claim that they do, and that's a healthy sign for democracy because voters can't spend all their time focusing on elections like we do. We're obviously crazy people. And you need to take clues in primaries from sources that you trust and that still works on the Democratic side.

Now, of course, you might argue on the Republican side, while Trump is the ultimate source they trust, but it's a total mess, though, when you have these GOP primaries with half a dozen candidates and all of them are claiming that they're Trump's guy, whether or not Trump has actually endorsed someone. So yeah, I think that we have a better signaling apparatus in Democratic primaries that has all but broken down on the GOP side, and that's a good thing for us.

Beard: Yeah, absolutely. And I think we see that pretty consistently over on the Democratic side.

Nir: So we're going to bounce down to some House races. In Texas's 18th Congressional District, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee bounced back from a very bad defeat in the race for mayor of Houston last year. She had a very stiff challenge from former City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards, who, in fact, was at one point a Jackson Lee intern, but the incumbent defeated Edwards 60 to 37, so she will earn another term. This is a safely blue seat. Edwards, though, I think acquitted herself well, and I would not be surprised to see her run again, especially if and when Jackson Lee does eventually decide to retire.

Beard: Yeah, I think this shows nothing more so than the power of incumbency. Obviously, Jackson Lee was not in a great spot, you would think, coming off a really bad mayoral loss and then filing just before the filing deadline because that was how the timing worked out. And Jackson Lee had obviously spent a lot of money on this mayoral race, didn't necessarily have the funds that she would've normally had for something like this, but she had been a congresswoman there for a long time, and that counts for a lot, obviously—a pretty comfortable win. But I do think that Edwards' showing is not embarrassing by any means, 37%, and I think she, as you said, put herself in a reasonable position for a future run in the area.

Now, incumbency doesn't always count for that much, as we're seeing on the Republican side over on the other side of the state, in Texas 23, which is part of El Paso and Southwest Texas, Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican, was forced into a runoff. He only got 45% against a number of challengers. The second-place candidate is YouTuber, Brandon Herrera, who's basically known for being a huge gun-rights activist and social media person. So apparently, the Republicans out in Southwest Texas are very interested in that, and I'm not happy with Tony Gonzales for some of the votes he's taken recently.

Nir: Yeah, Gonzales has expressed openness to gun-safety regulations. The Uvalde school massacre happened in his district, so of course, the idea of trying to protect children from being murdered—and I can't believe that I have to say that—is disgusting to Republicans, and therefore, they're punishing Gonzales. I have to say, I really have no idea how this runoff will play out. You think he's at 45%, that's pretty close to 50%, but the runoff is quite a while from now, it's at the end of May, and turnout is going to be much, much lower. And you'd think in an election like that that an insurgent outsider might actually have the chance to screw over an incumbent.

Then there's the question of who is going to come to play, if anyone, in this race. Will Establishment Republicans Group show up for Tony Gonzales? Republicans gerrymandered this district. It used to be very competitive, a real tossup seat. Now it leans quite Republican, but maybe it would be at risk of flipping if they go with Herrera instead of Gonzales. So maybe the Congressional Leadership Fund is going to get nervous here. It's going to be interesting, but really, I have to say, it sickens me, the reason that Gonzales is facing this runoff in the first place, not that I feel bad for him. I just feel disgusted by the Republican Party.

Beard: Yeah, absolutely. Now, there's about 30% of the electorate who didn't vote for Gonzales or Herrera, and obviously, Gonzales only needs about 5 out of that 30% to get to the 50% mark. Of course, turnout will also be different in the runoff election, but the problem is that all of those voters went and voted for a candidate who wasn't the incumbent. So it may be harder than you think to get that 5% because a lot of these people, they all know who Tony Gonzales is, he's their representative. They went and they voted against him. So he’s got to convince some of them, "Hey, maybe you voted for one of these lesser candidates, but I'm better than Herrera." So it's something that's doable, and I'm sure he'll have plenty of money, but by no means do I think he's safe.

Nir: Speaking of incumbents getting thwacked, it was an absolute bloodbath in the Texas state House on Tuesday night. And I feel we need to lay a little bit of groundwork here, but basically, you had three major Republican figures—Donald Trump, Gov. Greg Abbott, and Attorney General Ken Paxton—going after different sets of incumbents in the state House for different reasons. Now, for Paxton, he's been embarked on this revenge tour because the state House Republicans impeached him last year, though he was ultimately acquitted by the state Senate for corruption. So he was targeting all of the incumbent Republicans in the state House who wanted to take him down.

Abbott's motivation, quite different. He basically wants to allow taxpayer money to be used to pay for private schools. They like to dress this up by calling it a voucher, but that's exactly what this is. And his voucher plan has run into serious obstacles in the state legislature. So he went after anti-voucher Republicans. And then there's Donald Trump. I actually think that Trump maybe played perhaps the smallest role of the three. You never know what Trump's motivations are, except pure rage and loyalty. But in any event, those three guys went after a whole bunch of different Republicans, including the state House speaker, and a whole lot of them lost, and a whole bunch more are getting forced into runoffs.

Beard: Yeah, so Speaker Dade Phelan, he's been forced into a runoff. He's got a very well-funded challenger, David Covey. He's actually trailing in this first round, 46 to 43, so he's got a lot to make up as the incumbent here to get to 50% in that runoff. So he's in a very difficult position. There's six Texas House Republicans who were opposed by Abbott, where Abbott endorsed their opponents, who lost outright, and another four were forced into runoff. So, like we said, being an incumbent that's forced into a runoff, that can be a difficult position.

Not that you can't win, particularly if you're close to 50, but it's really tough. There were also some other races where there were some strange alliances, where Abbott sided with some of the incumbents who had voted to impeach Paxton. So Paxton had endorsed some of the challengers. So it gets a little messy in there, but there was some clear evidence that Abbott and Paxton's advocacy for these more extreme Republicans was working and was bringing in a more hard-right turn to the Texas House.

Nir: Yeah, several other Paxton targets also lost, though the Texas Tribune, interestingly, they looked at the subset of races where Abbott and Paxton were on opposite sides, and Abbott got the better of Paxton, for sure. I think that Abbott's side won about half of them. There were, I think, around eight, and Paxton won one and the rest are going to runoffs. But no matter what, Beard, like you were saying, a crazier, more disturbing brand of Republican is going to be taking office in January of next year.

And it's really remarkable to think about. This is a state that Donald Trump won by 6 points, and the Republicans in leadership there are as bug-nuts crazy as the Republicans in Idaho. And you really got to wonder if at some point they're going to pay a price. Democrats have been hoping and praying and dreaming and fantasizing that that day will come, basically, every two years. And I don't necessarily know that 2024 is going to be different, but, man, either the dam is going to burst or Republicans will have essentially managed to do away with democracy before it happens.

Beard: So the state House is currently 86 Republicans to 64 Democrats, so Democrats need to pick up 11 seats to force a tie in the state House. I haven't looked, and I don't know if anybody's been able to look. Obviously, there's a lot of runoffs still to happen. How many of these incumbent losses are in seats that could potentially be competitive? I know at least a couple are in Trump +1, Trump +2 districts.

So it's very possible that this turns into some districts that were held by incumbent Republicans ended up being very competitive races that Democrats could potentially pick off. Whether that gets them anywhere close to the 75 number, who knows. But one of the problems Republicans may have is if Democrats do pick up seats, this whole idea to have this more conservative Texas House, if you defeat some Republicans but then half of them turn into Democrats, you maybe have not actually made that much progress into getting your majority of crazy Republicans if Democrats are able to succeed.

Nir: Well, I really hope you're right. There's one other piece of this Ken Paxton jihad that we need to mention before we move on to the other states on the docket. Voters also voted out three Republican judges on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Texas actually has two state Supreme Courts. It's one of only two states that do. The other is Oklahoma. Civil cases get appealed to the state Supreme Court, but criminal cases get appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. And this court had previously crossed Paxton.

It had said that the attorney general's office didn't have the power to unilaterally prosecute voter fraud, that he had to have the assent of local prosecutors, and these three judges who lost primaries had all ruled against Paxton in that case. But I almost wonder if there's another angle here, which is that Paxton is finally going on trial next month for a securities fraud indictment. He was indicted in 2015. It's absolutely astonishing. It has taken nine years for this case to come to trial. It's absolutely ridiculous. I could easily believe that Paxton is trying to line the bench and the state House with allies so that if he is convicted, that he has powerful people willing to do his bidding to get him off the hook.

Beard: Absolutely. I don't think you're going to find much better examples in the country of why judges should not be elected and should certainly not be elected in partisan primaries like this. Obviously, Ken Paxton has these criminal cases against him, and the idea that he can go and advocate and make a big difference in the election of the judges who will hear the appeals of his criminal case and get three of them defeated, even if it's about the voter fraud case, is what he claims, but the idea that Ken Paxton has affected who is on this court who is going to rule on his case is wild and is so inappropriate that it's really unbelievable.

Nir: Well, Beard, we could bang our heads against the wall ranting about Texas Republicans for many, many hours, but I think we need to change gears and bang our heads against the wall about North Carolina Republicans.

Beard: Yes, my favorite pastime. So North Carolina was another state that had its primaries. It has a governor's race, of course, this year, probably the most important governor's race in the nation, but we had a pretty good idea of who the nominees were going to be on the Democratic side, Attorney General Josh Stein, and on the Republican side, Lieutenant Gov. Mark Robinson. They had been the favorites since they declared, and they easily advanced, both comfortably over 50% against opposition.

Robinson, of course, is a crazy person, for lack of a better term. He's embraced countless conspiracy theories. He's denied Joe Biden's victory, of course. He's got a list of shockingly offensive statements targeting Jews, Muslims, women, the LGBTQ community, the civil rights movement. It's just like a whole load of craziness for years and years, and the Republican primary voters in North Carolina just eat it up. And meanwhile, Josh Stein is just your pretty conventional attorney general Democrat who wants to run a competent government.

Nir: We talk about Looney Tunes Republicans all the time, and some are nuttier than others, and sometimes you just get this one perfect quote that really encapsulates just what a freakazoid these guys are. Robinson posted on Facebook a number of years ago, and this post is still up by the way, he said, "I don't believe the moon landing was faked, and I don't believe 9/11 was an inside job, but if I found both were true, I wouldn't be surprised." He is like moon-landing-truther curious, and he is now the GOP's nominee in one of the biggest swing states in the nation.

Beard: And I do think, obviously, he's the lieutenant governor, he won an election, but from North Carolina, I know a lot of these Council of State races, we call all of these statewide offices below the governor “Council of State,” like lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, et cetera. They don't get a lot of attention, particularly. They're elected in a presidential year, so you've got the presidential race, you've got the governor's race, which gets a ton of attention, maybe federal races, but these Council of State races, they don't get a ton of attention.

So the fact that he won in 2020, it's not the same degree of attention that he's going to receive as a major-party nominee for governor. So I think he's going to be in for a rude awakening for how this campaign is going to go. Obviously, I'm very hopeful that Stein just kicks his butt the way we saw [Josh] Shapiro kick [Doug] Mastriano's butt in Pennsylvania in 2022—just a good candidate going up against a crazy person, and just wiping the floor with them. That would be incredible. I think North Carolina's not as movable in terms of big swings as Pennsylvania might be, so I don't expect that much of a blowout, but hopefully, Stein can get a good victory here.

Nir: I want to pick up on something you mentioned. It's instructive that you mentioned Shapiro because Stein, like Shapiro, is Jewish and he would be North Carolina's first Jewish governor. Robinson would be the state's first Black governor. Robinson is a total antisemite. He has approvingly quoted Adolf Hitler, and at this time of rising antisemitism, I really am scared to see where his mouth takes him in this election.

But I am also hopeful that if he does once again step in it on this front, that he really pays a price because it's one thing to spout off this antisemitic bullshit just into the ether, but it's quite another when you are going up against a high-profile Jewish opponent. And really, North Carolina Republicans are going to finally find out whether there is a price to pay for extremism. They always behave as though North Carolina is a dark-red, R+20 state, and we know it's not, and this is going to be the true test.

Beard: And talking about those Council of State races, the governor's race is not the only place where Republicans have nominated crazy folks. So Republicans actually have the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, which is one of the Council of State offices. Catherine Truitt is the incumbent Republican, but she lost her primary in a 52-48 upset to homeschooler Michele Morrow, who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6th, has attacked public schools—the thing that she would be in charge of, as, quote, “indoctrination centers.”

So clearly decided, "Hey, we don't need a public school teacher," which Truitt is a former public school teacher, "to be in charge of the public schools, even if she's a Republican. We need someone further to the right, somebody who hates public schools, to be in charge of them." And then pro-MAGA attorney Luke Farley won the GOP primary for the Labor Commissioner's office against the state rep. who was the party-establishment choice. So as we've seen with Republican primary voters, they love to go with the far-right crazies.

Nir: Yeah, the GOP slate, from top to bottom in North Carolina this year, is going to be completely freaking wild. And we also have to mention the attorney general's race. This is a super important post. This is the job that Josh Stein currently holds. Republicans nominated far-right extremist Dan Bishop, congressman. He didn't have any opposition to the primary. He was the author of the notorious H.B. 2. This is the infamous, quote-unquote, “bathroom bill” that led to the GOP losing the governor's race, unquestionably, in 2016. Roy Cooper ousting Pat McCrory. And he's going to go up against Democratic Congressman Jeff Jackson, who was gerrymandered out of his seat last year by Republicans. Jackson won his primary, and this is a good story, I'm sure he didn't enjoy dealing with this, but Republicans tried to rat-fuck that primary. They spent more than a million dollars to promote his main opponent, thinking that she would be easier to defeat in the general election.

Well, Jackson prevailed 55 to 33, and it really just goes to show you, well, a couple of things. First off, it's awesome that the GOP wasted a million bucks on this, but second, I just think that Democrats have a much better understanding of what it is that makes GOP primary voters tick than the reverse. And when Republicans try to meddle in Democratic primaries, it's really hard to think of examples when it works. And just simply trying to push the supposedly, quote-unquote, “more progressive” option was not really going to be the answer—kind of like what we were saying earlier, Beard, about how establishment signals still matter so much in Democratic primaries—and it was very clear that Jackson was the guy. And yeah, I just think that Democrats are always going to have greater success elevating MAGA nuts in GOP primaries than the other way around.

Beard: And I don't want to come off too insulting to Republican primary voters, but literally, usually, what Democrats do is just say, "Crazy person is too conservative for a location." And it just perks everyone up in the Republican Party. They're like, "You think he's too conservative? That's right up my alley. He is too conservative, you think? I'm going to vote for that guy!" It's not hard.

Nir: It's funny that you mention that because Democrats at least go through the motion of those fake attacks: "too close to Trump, loves the Second Amendment too much." But when Republicans try to pull this same kind of stunt, it's almost like they're running positive ads in favor of these candidates. I don't know why that maybe fig leaf of fake attacks by Democrats just feels a little bit more upright to me, as opposed to Republicans pretending to be all in for these lefty Dems.

Beard: Yeah, the reality is you can't just run an ad saying, "Democratic candidate is too progressive for this area," and have a bunch of Democrats be like, "Oh, let's go vote for that person." That's not how Democratic primary voters think. Sometimes they may vote for the more progressive candidate, but it's usually going to be about issues and it's going to be like, "Do we think this person is a good candidate who can win?" There just tends to be a lot more that goes into it.

Nir: That's really, really funny. That's such a good point because imagine if you had a Republican ad saying, "So-and-so is too liberal for North Carolina." Your median Democratic primary voter might sit back and think, "Oh wow, wait, hold on. What if they're too liberal? I should vote for the other candidate because we got to beat the Republicans."

Beard: Yeah, absolutely.

Nir: So we're going to switch gears a little bit to talk about one of the worst of the worst Republicans, but not just because he's a far-right loony, but because he tried to steal an election, or at least his top consultant did. Mark Harris, you'll recall from 2018, had his election results thrown out after one of his consultants orchestrated a massive scheme to interfere with absentee ballots in that race. Well, somehow he won his primary on Tuesday night, just barely. In North Carolina, you only need to clear 30% to avoid a runoff, and Mark Harris won 30.4% in the open 8th Congressional District. This is the seat that Dan Bishop has left open to run for attorney general.

A bunch of conservative billionaires actually spent seven figures to try to stop Harris. It's not exactly clear why they didn't like him, except for the fact that maybe they just think that election thieves shouldn't be in Congress. No, no, no, no, no, I'm not giving—

Beard: Too much credit.

Nir: —GOP billionaires way too much credit. But here's the thing now, because of Republican gerrymandering, this is a very solidly Republican seat and Harris's Democratic opponent, I was just looking up after the primary, hasn't reported raising any money. So this guy is almost certainly going to wind up in Congress now after he couldn't get to Congress because state officials threw out his election entirely and held a new election. I'm just absolutely gobsmacked.

Beard: Yeah, I guess there's nothing Republican voters like more than a candidate who screams about having the election stolen from them when they were the ones actually trying to steal an election. It fits a little too well almost. But I do think it really goes to show that the 30% margin for a runoff is pretty strange. North Carolina went to this a few years ago. It used to be 40%. A long time ago, it was 50%, but when I was growing up, it was 40%, and that at least had some logic to it.

There are other countries that use a runoff system that use 40% under sort of the idea that if a candidate surpasses 40%, they've at least got a healthy percentage of the voters behind them, so you don't need to necessarily go to a runoff. But 30% is so low. I'm like, "Why bother? Why have it at all? Because he got 30.4% of the vote, and that's sending him onto Congress.” So that threshold is very odd to me, but I guess he's going to be a congressman. I don't know.

Nir: Yeah, I think, though that threshold suggests to me that in a one-on-one race, he could be in a heap of trouble, especially against a well-funded opponent. The wild thing though, Beard, is that there are two other Republican primaries for open congressional seats that are going to runoffs where no candidate managed to get 30% of the vote. That's really strange. And also, the GOP race for lieutenant governor, same thing. No candidate even got 20% of the vote in that race. So I'd be like, "Are Republicans just going to keep lowering the primary runoff threshold? At 15%?" You know what? You could either get rid of it, or have instant-runoff voting. This is getting silly.

Beard: Yeah, there are plenty of states that just don't have a runoff, and that's not a perfect system either, obviously. Sometimes someone can win in a primary election with a very low percentage of the vote, but this system is just weird. So that's enough talking about North Carolina. We do have a few other states to talk about. So we're going to go to Alabama, where, obviously, the interesting races were as a result of the redistricting where Alabama 2 is now a second seat that is likely to send a Democrat to Congress. So that's now open because the Republican who represented it moved to the redistricted Alabama 1, resulting in an incumbent-on-incumbent matchup that was Rep. Barry Moore and Rep. Jerry Carl. So they faced each other in the Republican primary on Tuesday night, and Moore, from the old Alabama 2, actually narrowly defeated Carl, 51.5% to 48.5%. Moore, of course, is the more crazier Freedom Caucus guy.

So I guess it's no surprise that he ended up winning, even though he represented a smaller percentage of the new district than Carl did. And you can really see it on the map. The counties around Mobile where Carl was the representative went really heavily for Carl, while the counties on the eastern side went really heavily for Moore. And given the proportions, you would calculate it out to think that, "Oh, if this portion went heavy for Carl and this portion went heavy for Moore, Carl should actually be ahead in the end." But Moore was able to goose up his margins in his area and cut into Carl's margins just enough that he was able to pull it out. And I think him being the more conservative Freedom Caucus member is probably a big reason why he was able to pull it out when you would've probably thought Carl was the favorite.

And then just north of Alabama 1, of course, is the new Alabama 2, which, like I mentioned, is going to be sending, hopefully, a Democrat to Congress. There, we're going to runoff. There were a bunch of Democratic candidates. The leading candidate is Shomari Figures. He got 43.5% of the vote. And then in second place is state Rep. Anthony Daniels. He got 22.4% of the vote. So he's got a lot to make up if he's going to be able to catch Figures in the runoff and try to win this primary. He's going to really need to consolidate the voters who didn't vote for Figures in the first round.

Nir: The last state on the list on today's episode of "The Downballot" is the biggest one of them all, California. Before we get into it, Beard, we have to emphasize, it is so important to emphasize, California takes a long time to count its votes. If you see hot takes, even medium takes, even lukewarm takes, about what California's vote means over the next two weeks, it is too early. It will take at least that long for almost all the votes to get tallied. And you're going to see some ridiculous crap out there trying to add up the total D vote versus the total R vote in key districts or key races. But there's a very good chance that if you see Republicans leading in a particular race, things might balance out over the next couple of weeks. Now, they may not. There have been elections in the past where Republicans retain their edge or even increase their edge, generally speaking, after California's top-two primary.

But more often than not, Democrats have tended to perform better in large part because more liberal voters tend to wait until later to turn in their ballots. It's a strange phenomenon. Seems that young people are more in the habit of waiting to the last minute, and young people tend to lean further to the left. So I would not be at all surprised if we see a very different picture a couple of weeks from now. And also to that point, most races haven't been called yet. The races that we're looking at for the most part remain uncalled, either both slots in the top-two primary or the second slot. Though we do have one very big call in the very biggest race.

Beard: And California Senate, which was a race that had been sort of set up as this titanic struggle between a number of well-known Democrats for this open Senate seat in California, sort of petered out in the end. Rep. Adam Schiff had a big money advantage. He basically had the lead for the first slot in the top-two runoff for the entire time. He has placed first with the votes counted so far, with 33% of the vote. The question was, of course, "Was there going to be a second Democrat in this runoff, which would lead to a lot of Democrat-on-Democrat ads and money being spent?" But that didn't end up happening.

Republican Steve Garvey, who Adam Schiff spent a lot of time and money trying to drag into the runoff along with him, did so. Garvey is just behind Schiff in the current vote count. He's got 32% of the vote, so he's going to advance. He's almost certainly going to lose in November. It's California in a D-vs.-R statewide race. Schiff is probably going to wipe the floor with Garvey. And the other Democratic representatives who ran fell quite a ways behind. Katie Porter currently has 14%. Barbara Lee currently has 7%. Obviously, those figures may change as more vote comes in, but clearly, Schiff and Garvey are way far ahead and are going to be the ones to advance.

Nir: There are a few layers to this race. To me, I find it sad and disappointing that Porter and Lee are ending their congressional careers this way, especially Lee who is quite a bit older. This is almost certainly going to be the last race she'll ever run. Porter potentially could come back in some way, shape, or form. And it was very hard from the very beginning of this race to understand what their path to one of the top two slots ever was. Schiff just had incredible profile. And leading Trump's impeachment was an extraordinary thing to have on his résumé, and he was always going to have that plus more money. And those are really, really difficult things to overcome. And in the end, things played out, I think, pretty much exactly as we thought from early on in the race. But there may be a silver lining here.

There were a lot of people understandably upset with Adam Schiff for trying to ensure that Garvey would be his opponent. I wasn't one of them. We've said how much we despise the top-two system. Schiff was just playing by the rules that exist. But had there been, let's say, a race between Schiff and Porter, that would've been an expensive battle, unpredictable, and a ton of resources would've gone to that race. Instead now, look, Schiff will still raise a lot of money, but no one has to worry about the outcome here. Schiff is definitely going to beat Garvey. So some amount of money, some amount of attention and resources that would have gone to California, now hopefully can be spread around to other races elsewhere in the country.

Beard: Yeah, I guarantee you the DSCC and the DCCC are on the phone with Adam Schiff being like, "Hey, buddy, some of that money that you have that you're not going to need anymore, let's spread it across to some Democrats who really need it in some very competitive races."

Nir: Beard, I'm curious for your take on something. Some folks have said that turnout could be higher among Democratic voters in an all-D Senate race, which could potentially affect races further down the ballot, particularly House races. There are obviously several targeted GOP-held House seats that Democrats are hoping to flip. I'm a bit skeptical of that because this wouldn't have been the first time that we saw a D-on-D race. In fact, there was one in 2018 for the last time that Dianne Feinstein ran when she ran against Kevin de León. Maybe we might mention him again at the end of the show. And Democrats, of course, flipped a ton of seats in 2018. So I'm a little skeptical of that take, but maybe that was a wave year. Maybe it's a little different in 2024. I don't know. What do you think?

Beard: I'm pretty skeptical about anything downballot affecting turnout in a presidential year. I think the presidential race dominates so much, and so many people go out and vote. Turnout is much higher in a presidential year than in any other year, including in states that are not competitive. This is not just a swing-state phenomenon where turnout is high in Michigan and North Carolina and Arizona, or something. Millions and millions of people who only vote in presidential years in New York and California and Nebraska go out and vote because it's voting for president. It's the one that everybody knows.

So I would be pretty surprised if two Democratic campaigns in the Senate race would do a lot of turnout, particularly because they would be primarily focused on persuasion. I would think a Democrat-on-Democratic campaign is not going to try to out-turnout voters because it's going to be hard to know who your voters are, because it's not a traditional D-vs.-R race. So you have to focus more on persuasion because you have no guarantee like, "Oh, this group of people are our supporters. We just have to get them to vote." How do you know that if you have this theoretical Porter-Schiff race? Who are the Porter voters you need to turn out? You're not going to know, so you're going to have to focus on persuasion. So I don't really buy that argument.

Nir: Fair.

Beard: Now, we have a couple of congressional races that we're going to talk about. Things have not been called in these races, so of course, more vote is going to come in and things may change, but we just want to highlight them because they are the ones that matter in terms of top-two, and Democrats, in particular, are not getting locked out of the top-two runoff. Now, California's 22nd District is a district that we've talked about before, where there was concerns here. The Democrats’ favored candidate—former Assemblyman Rudy Salas ran in 2022—narrowly lost to the GOP incumbent Rep. David Valadao. So he was running for a rematch, but there was another Democratic elected official in the race. So there was some concern that he may get locked out by Valadao and Valadao's primary opponent who's a further right-wing guy. But at least in the initial vote, it looks like Salas is going to be okay.

Valadao is leading the current vote, with about 34%, Salas has 28%, the third-place candidate—that far-right Republican—has 22%. So barring something pretty unexpected in terms of the late vote, I think Salas should be good to advance and face Valadao in what should be a very, very competitive race. The other race that I want to flag at the congressional level is one that nobody really had any sort of eye on, and that was an open seat—California's 31st District. And this race had two main Republicans and a ton of Democrats. It had six Democrats. But it's a safely Democratic seat. The seat is not competitive by any means, but because of this top-two system, and because of the number of Democrats running in this open seat, which you often see, we've talked about North Carolina lieutenant governor's race and how nobody got 20% because there were so many Republican candidates running in the primary.

So just like here, there are so many Democrats running in the primary that there is a real risk that Democrats could have—and even could still be—locked out of this safely Democratic seat. Gil Cisneros, who is a former representative who lost and is back to reclaim a different seat than the one that he once had, he's leading narrowly. He's got, as of recording, 21.35% of the vote. So he's just over 21%. But the next two slots are the two Republicans who ran, and they have 21% of the vote and 19% of the vote. So Cisneros is only about 2.5% above the third-place candidate, who does not advance to the runoff. So you could imagine just a slightly different situation here where one of the other Democrats did a little bit better and Cisneros did a little bit worse, and he's down here, 18.5% instead of 21% and there are two Republicans advancing in a safe Democratic district.

Now, again, there are lots and lots of votes to count. The hope, obviously, is that there are more Democratic than Republican votes out there, and Cisneros will comfortably pad his lead a little bit. But this just goes to show how risky the top-two system is when a safely Democratic seat could conceivably had two Republicans advance to the top-two runoff.

Nir: This is just a coincidence, but the very first time that a top-two lockout reared its head, and it was super unexpected, was in 2012, which was the first year that California used this new top-two system, and Democrats wound up not advancing to the November general election for a very winnable congressional district. And ironically, that district was also numbered California's 31st.

Beard: Oh, wow.

Nir: Yeah. Now, those two districts have nothing in common. They do not overlap at all geographically. They just happen to share the same district number. California tends to pretty dramatically renumber its districts every 10 years, following redistricting. That was a really painful race. I certainly hope we don't have a repeat of that now, but the leading Democrat who wound up getting locked out of that race, he won two years later, and that's Pete Aguilar. And that's actually not a bad pedigree, because now he's one of the top Democrats in the House. So I'm not saying that Gil Cisneros, if he'll get locked out in 2024, he'll come back in 2026 and then he'll jump to the top ranks of leadership. We obviously don't want any kind of disaster like that. It really is just a coincidence that these two districts share a number. But my point is we have been dealing with this problem for a freaking long time, and it sucks, and it has to end.

Beard: Yeah. Just imagine Pete Aguilar with another two years of experience in Congress. That's what we lost. But yeah, we'll obviously continue to track these California races, and once we've got a fuller vote, we can have a better analysis of the primary results.

Nir: There are a ton more races we could have talked about. We have to wrap up this segment now. Like we've said, it'll still be a while before we know the final answers in a lot of these California races. So follow us at Daily Kos Elections, sign up for our newsletter, dailykos.com/morningdigest. We will be covering every single race call as it happens, and I'm sure we'll be talking about the late-called races in coming episodes. And then in a couple of weeks, we have two more states with big primaries. Illinois and Ohio are on the docket, so we're going to be discussing plenty more primaries in the weeks ahead.

Beard: That's all from us this week. "The Downballot" comes out every Thursday everywhere you listen to podcasts. You can reach out to us by emailing thedownballot@dailykos.com. If you haven't already, please subscribe to "The Downballot" on Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star rating and review. Thanks to our editor, Drew Roderick, and we'll be back next week with a new episode.

The year’s first downballot primaries start Tuesday. Here’s our guide to all the key races

With both parties' presidential nomination contests all but decided, the nation's downballot primary season starts with a bang Tuesday. Five states—including the two largest—pick their candidates for state and federal offices in elections that will help shape the state of play in key races at all levels.

Below, you'll find our guide to all of the top races to watch on Super Tuesday, arranged chronologically by each state’s poll closing times. When it’s available, we'll tell you about any reliable polling that exists for each race, but if we don't mention any numbers, it means no recent surveys have been made public. You can also check out our most recent episode of "The Downballot" podcast for an even deeper dive on many of these primaries.

Two states on the docket will also be using brand-new congressional maps, though for very different reasons. In Alabama, a federal court drew up new boundaries after ruling that the Voting Rights Act required the creation of a second seat where Black voters could elect their preferred candidate. In North Carolina, though, the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court gave GOP legislators the green light to draw up an aggressive new gerrymander, a task they eagerly took on.

You can find interactive maps from Dave's Redistricting App for Alabama and North Carolina's new boundaries, as well as the maps that first came into use in 2022 for Arkansas, California, and Texas.

You can find Daily Kos Elections' 2020 presidential results for each congressional district here, as well as our geographic descriptions for each seat. You’ll also want to bookmark our primary calendar, which includes the dates for primaries in all 50 states.

We'll be liveblogging all of these races at Daily Kos Elections on Tuesday night, starting when the first polls close at 7:30 PM ET. Join us for our complete coverage!

North Carolina

Polls close at 7:30 PM ET. Candidates must take at least 30% of the vote to avert a May 14 runoff, though the second-place finisher must officially request a runoff for one to occur.

• NC-Gov (R & D) (50-49 Trump): Tar Heel State politicos have long anticipated that the race to succeed termed-out Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper will pit Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson against Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, and every primary poll shows just such a matchup coming to pass.

While Robinson's intraparty critics have warned that his past screeds—which run the gamut from antisemitic and Islamophobic to misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic—as well as his ardent opposition to reproductive rights could cost them the general election, primary voters appear unconvinced. The Donald Trump-endorsed lieutenant governor holds a wide lead against both wealthy businessman Bill Graham, who has spent millions on ads attacking Robinson's past statements, and state Treasurer Dale Folwell.

Stein, who has Cooper's support, also enjoys a big advantage over former state Supreme Court Justice Mike Morgan and three other Democrats.

• NC-01 (R) (50-49 Biden): Republican legislators targeted freshman Democratic Rep. Don Davis by transforming his seat in the inland, northeastern corner of the state from a constituency Biden carried 53-46 into one he barely won. Now Army veteran Laurie Buckhout and two-time nominee Sandy Smith are competing for the Republican nomination and take on Davis. Both Smith and especially Buckhout have self-funded a significant portion of their campaigns, and both are campaigning as ardent Trump allies.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, a well-funded super PAC that's close to House GOP leadership, has spent about $200,000 to stop Smith from advancing for the second cycle in a row. Two years ago, CLF failed to stop Smith, who was accused of physical abuse by her daughter and two ex-husbands, from winning the nomination, but it's hoping its latest intervention will be more successful. 

Smith, who has run ads declaring that Trump won the 2020 election and denied her own 52-48 loss to Davis, has also sought to portray Buckhout as an interloper from Virginia and attacked her for getting a 2017 DUI conviction removed from the record. Buckhout, for her part, has largely avoided going after Smith.

• NC-06 (R) (58-41 Trump): Six Republicans are competing to replace Rep. Kathy Manning, who is one of three Democratic House members who is not seeking reelection in a seat that Republicans made all but unwinnable for her party.

Lobbyist Addison McDowell arguably became the front-runner hours before he even announced his candidacy, after Trump endorsed his bid for this district in the central Piedmont region. But the first-time candidate faces several opponents who have been on the ballot in North Carolina before, though they and their allies largely focused on attacking one another rather than McDowell.

One familiar name to national observers is Bo Hines, a former college football player who narrowly lost the 2022 general election to Democrat Wiley Nickel 52-48 in the old 13th. Another is former Rep. Mark Walker, who represented previous versions of the 6th from 2015 to 2021. Also in the running are Christian Castelli, a self-funder who badly lost to Manning last cycle under the previous map; former High Point Mayor Jay Wagner; and Mary Ann Contogiannis, who took third against Castelli in the last primary. 

The Club for Growth, a well-funded anti-tax group that's had an on-again, off-again feud with Trump, is supporting Hines and has spent about $1 million attacking Walker. A super PAC backed by hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin called Conservatives for American Excellence, though, has spent a comparable amount to leverage the Club's anti-Trump apostasies against Hines.

• NC-08 (R) (58-41 Trump): Far-right Rep. Dan Bishop is leaving Congress to run for attorney general, and six fellow Republicans are on the ballot to replace him in a seat based in the eastern Charlotte suburbs and rural areas further east. The two contenders who have the most money by far are a pair of self-funders, state Rep. John Bradford and former Union County Commissioner Allan Baucom, but it's a third hopeful who has attracted the most outside attention.

That candidate is pastor Mark Harris, whose 2018 House campaign for the old 9th District was responsible for one the most ignominious election-fraud scandals in recent memory. Election authorities threw out the result and ordered a do-over election, which Bishop ultimately won, but Harris still insists he was the rightful winner. Despite his baggage, Harris enjoys the backing of the party's front-runner for governor, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.

However, a super PAC called America Leads Action, which is funded by a pair of prominent conservative donors, is working to end Harris' political career once and for all, spending more than $1.8 million on negative ads. There's been no accompanying pro-Harris spending.

• NC-10 (R) (57-41 Trump): Five Republicans are facing off to succeed GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry, who startled the political world when he announced his retirement in December, in a seat that includes Winston-Salem and the western Piedmont region. Only two contenders, though, have brought in a serious amount of money, and they're both self-funders: state Rep. Grey Mills and firearms manufacturer Pat Harrigan, who was the 2022 GOP nominee against Democrat Jeff Jackson in the old 14th District.

Harrigan has Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson's backing, and he's benefited from close to $600,000 in support from two groups, the Koch network's Americans for Prosperity and the Elect Principled Veterans Fund. But another conservative group, GOPAC, has spent over $1.5 million attacking Harrigan on immigration and praising Mills.

• NC-13 (R) (58-41 Trump): Republicans have a 14-way primary to replace another Democrat who is leaving Congress because of GOP gerrymandering, Rep. Wiley Nickel, in a seat based in the Raleigh exurbs and nearby rural areas. There's a good chance this packed contest will go to a runoff, and four contenders appear to have a shot to advance

Three of those candidates have unsuccessfully run for office in recent years. Both businessman DeVan Barbour and attorney Kelly Daughtry competed in the 2022 primary for the previous version of the 13th District (the eventual nominee, Bo Hines, is now seeking the 6th District), while businessman Fred Von Canon was the party's nominee for the state House in 2020 and 2022. The final big name is a first-time candidate, former federal prosecutor Brad Knott. A fifth candidate worth watching though, is Josh McConkey, who won more than $750,000 from the state lottery during the campaign.

Daughtry and Von Canon have each self-funded much of their campaigns, while Knott's family has financed a super PAC called American Foundations Committee to aid him and attack those two rivals. Daughtry's backers at Conservative Voters Alliance have also aired ads to boost her and undermine Knott and Von Canon, while no major independent expenditures have been made either for or against Barbour or McConkey.

Barbour attracted unwanted attention a few weeks before Election Day when a woman accused the married candidate of repeatedly propositioning her for sex in 2021, an allegation he denied. Knott also drew unfavorable headlines during the final week of the race after acknowledging he spent close to a decade voting from his parents' address despite owning a home three miles away.

• NC-AG (D) (50-49 Trump): Democratic Rep. Jeff Jackson launched his bid to replace Attorney General Josh Stein right after Republicans gerrymandered his seat in the House, and he goes into Tuesday with a huge fundraising advantage over his two main foes, Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry and attorney Tim Dunn. A mid-February Change Research poll for the progressive site Carolina Forward shows Jackson outpacing Deberry 38-14.

However, Republicans appeared to make a late push to boost Deberry, whom they likely believe would be an easier candidate to beat. A new group with GOP ties called And Justice For All PAC has been running ads to promote Deberry, an effort Jackson claimed was "on track" to spend $1 million. The winner will face far-right Rep. Dan Bishop, an election denier who has no opposition in the GOP primary. 

Other North Carolina races to watch:

Alabama

Polls close at 8 PM ET / 7 PM local time. A runoff will take place on April 16 in contests where no one earns a majority of the vote.

• AL-01 (R) (75-24 Trump): Republican Rep. Barry Moore decided to run for this southern Alabama seat after the state's new court-drawn map turned his 2nd District into a Democratic-leaning constituency. Moore, however, faces a difficult primary battle against fellow Rep. Jerry Carl. No other candidates are on the ballot, so this contest should be settled without a runoff.

Carl, who serves the existing 1st District, began the race as the front-runner, in part because he currently represents 59% of the new 1st, while Moore's seat forms the balance. Carl also started off with more money than his colleague and has maintained that advantage, though outside groups have spent comparable amounts for both congressmen.

Both incumbents are ardent conservatives who voted against recognizing Joe Biden's 2020 win, and they're each trying to argue that the other has strayed from MAGA orthodoxy. However, there's a key difference between them: Moore is a member of the nihilistic House Freedom Caucus, while Carl is closer to the party leadership. A poll conducted in the final week of the race by Auburn University at Montgomery found Carl ahead 43-35.

• AL-02 (D) (56-43 Biden): Eleven Democrats are running to replace Republican Rep. Barry Moore in a revamped seat that now takes in Mobile, Montgomery, and the eastern Black Belt, so it's very likely this primary will go to a runoff.

The only candidate who has benefited from significant outside spending is former Justice Department official Shomari Figures, who is the son of a longtime Mobile elected official, state Sen. Vivian Figures. The younger Figures has received more than $1.3 million in support from a super PAC with ties to the cryptocurrency industry, while no major groups have spent anything to attack him.

The field also includes five state legislators, though only two of them―state Reps. Napoleon Bracy and Jeremy Gray―actually represent any part of the new 2nd District. But a third lawmaker, state House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, has emphasized that he grew up in the Black Belt (even though he now represents Huntsville, at the far end of the state), and he's brought in more money than anyone else in the race.

Also in the running are two legislators from the Birmingham area, state Sen. Merika Coleman and state Rep. Juandalynn Givan.

Texas

The first polls close at 8 PM ET / 7 PM local time in the portion of Texas located in the Central time zone, which includes about 97% of the state's population. Polls close in the rest of the state (a much smaller region in the El Paso area that's in the Mountain time zone) one hour later. A runoff will take place on May 28 in contests in which no one takes a majority of the vote.

• TX-Sen (D) (52-46 Trump): Republican Sen. Ted Cruz holds one of just two Senate seats that Democrats have a realistic shot at flipping this cycle, and nine candidates are hoping to take him on. Rep. Colin Allred, who won his own competitive 2018 race for a seat in the Dallas area, has been the party's front-runner from the start, and he's enjoyed a huge fundraising lead over the rest of the field.

Allred's main opponent is state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who became a prominent gun-safety activist after the 2022 Uvalde school shooting, which took place in his district. Every poll has shown Allred well ahead, but a pair of February polls disagree on whether the congressman is primed to avoid a runoff. The contest also includes state Rep. Carl Sherman and former Nueces County District Attorney Mark Gonzalez.

• TX-12 (R) (58-40 Trump): Longtime Rep. Kay Granger is retiring from her seat in western Fort Worth and its adjacent suburbs, and five fellow Republicans are campaigning to take her place. The front-runner appears to be state Rep. Craig Goldman, who has the support of Gov. Greg Abbott and has decisively outspent the rest of the field. 

Goldman's main rival is businessman John O'Shea, who began running well before Granger announced her departure in November. O'Shea has the backing of Attorney General Ken Paxton, whom Goldman voted to impeach last year, but he's not getting any major super PAC support.

Conservatives for American Excellence, though, has spent around $600,000 on ads boosting Goldman and attacking O'Shea. Also worth watching is businesswoman Shellie Gardner, a self-funder who is also the self-proclaimed "Queen of Christmas Lights."

• TX-18 (D) (74-25 Biden): Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee announced she would seek a 16th term just two days after she was blown out by state Sen. John Whitmire, a fellow Democrat, in December's runoff to serve as mayor of Houston. Now, however, she faces a tough battle to keep her job. Former Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards, who once was a Jackson Lee intern, spent months campaigning for this seat while the incumbent was running for mayor, and she decided to remain in the race even after the congressman sought to run again.

Edwards, who, at 42, is over three decades younger than her opponent, has pitched herself as an agent of change and largely avoided attacking Jackson Lee. The incumbent's critics, though, are hoping that Jackson Lee was weakened by last year's bruising campaign against Whitmire, which included the release of audio where a person who sounded like Jackson Lee berated her employees. (Jackson Lee neither confirmed nor denied the voice was hers but issued a statement saying she had "fallen short of my own standards.")

The only poll we've seen was a University of Houston survey from mid-February that showed Jackson Lee edging out her better-funded rival by a narrow 43-39 margin. Another 3% went to restauranter Rob Slater, who has raised little money but could keep either Jackson Lee or Edwards from taking the majority they'd need to avert a runoff. 

• TX-23 (R) (53-46 Trump): Four hard-liners are trying to deny renomination to GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales, who was censured by the state party last year, in a sprawling West Texas seat. The incumbent infuriated the far right by, among other things, voting to confirm Joe Biden's victory in the hours after the Jan. 6 attacks and later supporting gun-safety legislation after the Uvalde school shooting, which happened in his district. None of these apostasies, though, have prevented Gonzales from far outraising all of his rivals.

The challenger who has attracted the most attention (and money) is gunmaker Brandon Herrera, who has over 3 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, where he's known as "The AK Guy." Another name to watch is former Medina County GOP Chair Julie Clark, who has self-funded around $900,000 but raised little from donors.

• TX-26 (R) (59-40 Trump): Republicans have an 11-way primary underway to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Michael Burgess in the northern Fort Worth suburbs and exurbs, but Donald Trump and his allies know exactly who they want to win.

Far-right media figure Brandon Gill, who is the son-in-law of MAGA toady Dinesh D'Souza, sports endorsements from Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, and the Club for Growth. Gill, who has self-funded much of his campaign, has outspent his rivals and has benefited from more than $750,000 in outside support from the Club and an outfit funded by D'Souza called Right Texas.

Several major GOP donors, though, are taking action to stop Gill. America Leads Action and Conservatives for American Excellence have spent a combined $2 million to sink him, an effort that includes ads blasting Gill as a "Wall Street banker" whose "bank did business with communist China."

But it's hard to say who might stop Gill because none of the other 10 candidates have attracted anything like this attention. Gill's main rival is arguably Southlake Mayor John Huffman, the sole sitting elected official in the race. But other notables include former Denton County Judge Scott Armey, who lost a previous version of this seat to Burgess in a nasty 2002 runoff; Luisa Del Rosal, who previously served as chief of staff to 23rd District Rep. Tony Gonzales; and former State District Judge Doug Robison.

• TX-32 (D) (66-33 Biden): Rep. Colin Allred's decision to run for the Senate has opened up his diverse constituency in northern Dallas, prompting 10 fellow Democrats to campaign to succeed him. A pair of contenders, though, have stood out as the front-runners since the early days of the race and appear poised to advance to a likely runoff.

Those two candidates are state Rep. Julie Johnson, who was the first Texas legislator with a same-sex spouse, and Brian Williams, a trauma surgeon who attracted national attention in 2016 after he treated Dallas police officers wounded by a sniper. Both have far outraised their eight rivals, while Johnson has further benefited from around $1 million in support from a crypto-aligned super PAC called Protect Progress.

Also in the running are businessman Raja Chaudhry; Alex Cornwallis, who was the party's 2022 nominee for a seat on the state Board of Education; former Dallas City Council member Kevin Felder; and civil rights attorney Justin Moore.

Other Texas races to watch:

Arkansas 

Polls close at 8:30 PM ET / 7:30 local time. A runoff will take place on April 2 in contests where no one earns a majority of the vote.

• AR-03 (R) (60-37 Trump): Republican Rep. Steve Womack, a self-described "institution guy" who voted to recognize Joe Biden's 2020 win, faces a far-right primary challenge from state Sen. Clint Penzo. But while Penzo has pledged to join the Freedom Caucus if elected to this northwest Arkansas seat, like-minded donors and super PACs have done little to help the underfunded legislator get his message out. No other candidates are on the GOP primary ballot.

California

Polls close at 11 PM ET / 8 PM local time. All candidates running for Congress and for state office compete on one ballot rather than in separate party primaries; the two contenders with the most votes, regardless of party, will then advance to the Nov. 5 general election. Candidates cannot win outright in March by taking a majority of the vote, except in some officially nonpartisan elections.

• CA-Sen (63-34 Biden): Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff has massively outspent his 26 rivals in the race for the Senate seat that Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein held for 31 years until her death last fall (appointed Sen. Laphonza Butler is not running), and he appears to be on track to continue to the second round. Schiff and his super-PAC allies, though, are also working to make sure he gets to face a Republican in this dark blue state rather than contend with an unpredictable general election against fellow Democratic Rep. Katie Porter.

Schiff's side has aired ads designed to help the leading Republican, former Major League Baseball player Steve Garvey, consolidate right-leaning votes by ostensibly attacking him as a Trump supporter who is "too conservative." A few recent polls show Schiff getting the matchup he wants, though the available data is limited.

While Porter, who has her own national fundraising base, has deployed more money than most of the field, Schiff's side has still vastly outspent her on TV. Porter is trying to avoid defeat by running digital ads designed to help another Republican, Eric Early, peel off conservative votes from Garvey, though her efforts have been on a much smaller scale than Schiff’s. A third House Democrat, Barbara Lee, is also running, but she's struggled to raise money and has not performed well in polls.

All of these candidates are also competing in a simultaneous special election for the remainder of Feinstein's term. Only seven contenders are on Tuesday's primary ballot, though, so it's possible we'll see a different winner in this contest than in the election for a full six-year term.

• CA-12 (89-9 Biden): BART board member Lateefah Simon has the support of the departing incumbent, Senate candidate Barbara Lee, and other prominent Democrats, and there's little question she'll advance to the general election to represent Oakland and Berkley. There's less clarity as to whom Simon's opponent might be, though the only other Democrat who has raised a notable amount of money is Cal State professor Jennifer Tran. The field also includes five other Democrats and two Republicans.

• CA-16 (75-22 Biden): Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo is retiring from a seat based in Silicon Valley, and the race to replace her has become the most expensive House contest in the state.

Eshoo is supporting Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, who is one of several current or former Democratic elected officials in the running. But two others, former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo and Assemblyman Evan Low, are also waging well-funded campaigns. And while Palo Alto City Councilmember Julie Lythcott-Haims has considerably fewer resources, she may stand out as the only woman waging a serious campaign.

But the best-financed Democrat is Marine veteran Peter Dixon, a businessman who co-founded the bipartisan super PAC With Honor. Dixon has taken advantage of his huge donor base and ability to self-fund, and he's received over $1.3 million in outside support from a group connected to With Honor. The field also includes former Saratoga City Councilmember Rishi Kumar, who lost the all-Democratic 2022 general election to Eshoo 58-42, as well as three other Democrats and two Republicans.

• CA-20 (61-36 Trump): Former Rep. Kevin McCarthy resigned from this Central Valley seat in December after losing his speakership, and 11 candidates are on the ballot to replace him for a full two-year term. There's also a special election for the remaining months of McCarthy's term, but the first round of voting for that race won't take place until two weeks later on March 19.

McCarthy and Donald Trump are backing Assemblyman Vince Fong, a former McCarthy district director. Fong, however, decided to run for Congress only after filing for reelection to the legislature, and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber is arguing that he's violating state law by seeking both posts at once. A state judge allowed Fong to proceed in December, but Weber has appealed that decision.

The other two major Republicans are Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux and casino owner Kyle Kirkland, though they each have considerably less money or institutional support than Fong.

Two Democrats, security guard Andy Morales and teacher Marisa Wood, are also running, and at least McCarthy's network seems to believe the latter's presence could be beneficial to Fong. A group called Central Valley Values, which is partially funded by the former speaker's leadership PAC, has spent over $640,000 on messaging to help Fong. That messaging has also included anti-Boudreaux ads and what appears to be an attempt to make sure Wood is Fong's general election foe.

• CA-22 (55-42 Biden): Republican Rep. David Valadao faces a rematch against the Democrat he beat in a tight 2022 battle, former Democratic Assemblyman Rudy Salas, but the presence of two more candidates is causing problems for both candidates and their national party allies.

Salas' backers fear that state Sen. Melissa Hurtado, a Democrat who represents most of this Central Valley seat but has raised little money, will split the Democratic vote and allow two Republicans to advance to the general election. Republicans, though, are likewise wary of far-right contender Chris Mathys, a wealthy perennial candidate who almost beat Valadao in the 2022 primary. As a result, national Democrats are waging an expensive campaign to boost Salas even as their GOP counterparts have deployed their own seven-figure effort to derail Mathys.

• CA-30 (72-26 Biden): Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff's decision to run for the Senate has set off a packed and unpredictable 15-way race to succeed him in a seat that includes part of Los Angeles as well as the cities of Burbank and Glendale.

The Democratic field features two state lawmakers, state Sen. Anthony Portantino and Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, while Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education member Nick Melvoin is also waging a well-funded effort. Another notable name belongs to former Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer, who ran an abortive campaign for Los Angeles mayor in 2022 but has the support of that race’s eventual winner, Mayor Karen Bass.

The field also includes Ben Savage, the "Boy Meets World" actor who has been self-financing most of his campaign. West Hollywood Mayor Sepi Shyne and former State Department official Jirair Ratevosian are also campaigning as Democrats, though they haven't brought in anywhere near as much money as their rivals. Ratevosian may also benefit from being a member of the area's large Armenian American community, though local leaders tell Politico they don't have a deep relationship with him. Another five Democrats, as well as two Republicans and an unaffiliated candidate, round out the field.

• CA-31 (64-33 Biden): Rep. Grace Napolitano is retiring from this seat in the eastern San Gabriel Valley, and five fellow Democrats appear to be waging serious bids to replace her.

The most familiar name is former Rep. Gil Cisneros, who was elected to his only term in office in the 2018 blue wave in a competitive district that includes almost none of the voters he now wants to represent. But while Cisneros, who lost reelection in 2020 to Republican Young Kim, may have begun with little name recognition, the onetime $266 million lottery winner's wealth has allowed him to far outspend his rivals. 

Napolitano herself is supporting state Sen. Bob Archuleta, who would be 79 on taking office and would set the record for the oldest freshman representative in American history. That's not the only concern his critics have leveled at him, though: Archuleta, who has long characterized himself as a moderate, is currently being sued by a former staffer for alleged sexual harassment and retaliation, allegations he's denied.

The field also includes two other candidates who are often identified as centrists: state Rep. Susan Rubio, who represents over 70% of this district, and self-funding attorney Greg Hafif, who touts himself as a "moderate Democrat." Rounding out the big names is Mary Ann Lutz, a local community college trustee and former Napolitano staffer. 

Two Republicans, attorney Daniel Martinez and perennial candidate Benito Bernal, are also on the ballot, and their presence could play a role in what happens next. Cisneros has been sending out mailers ostensibly attacking Martinez as "too close to Trump," a tactic Politico says is aimed at making sure Rubio can't advance. Rubio is trying to counter with text messages to elevate Bernal. The rest of the roster consists of one Democrat and a pair of unaffiliated candidates.

• CA-40 (50-48 Biden): Democrats are hoping that they can put up a strong fight against Republican Rep. Young Kim in this eastern Orange County seat, and two hopefuls are vying to take her on.

Retired Orange County Fire Capt. Joe Kerr, a self-described "centrist" who twice unsuccessfully ran for local office, has brought in considerably more money than Allyson Muñiz Damikolas, the president of the Tustin Unified School District Board of Education. Kerr also enjoys the backing of several California House members, including Senate rivals Adam Schiff and Katie Porter. Damikolas, for her part, was in the news in 2022 when conservatives unsuccessfully tried to recall her for allegedly promoting what they called "critical race theory."

• CA-45 (52-46 Biden): Republican Rep. Michelle Steel will likely be a top Democratic target this fall, and four Democrats are campaigning to face her in western Orange County. 

The two contenders who have generated the most attention are attorney Derek Tran and Garden Grove City Councilwoman Kim Nguyen-Penaloza. Tran has raised significantly more money, but Nguyen-Penaloza, who lost a tight 2022 race for the county Board of Supervisors, has the state Democratic Party in her corner. Attorney Cheyenne Hunt, who has a large social media presence, may also have the resources to advance.

• CA-47 (54-43 Biden): Democratic Rep. Katie Porter's Senate bid has opened up a competitive seat based in coastal Orange County and Irvine. Former Orange County GOP Chair Scott Baugh, who lost to Porter 52-48 in 2022, is running again, and he appears on track to easily move forward to the general election. But the battle between the two leading Democrats, state Sen. Dave Min and attorney Joanna Weiss, is more uncertain.

Min, who has the backing of Porter and the state party, remained the front-runner for most of the race even after he was arrested for drunk driving in May. However, the hawkish pro-Israel group AIPAC has deployed a huge $4.5 million to stop Min, with many of its ads focused on his DUI. EMILY's List, likewise, has dropped over $800,000 to help Weiss, which alone is more than twice as much as all the pro-Min spending combined.

The only recent poll we've seen was a mid-February internal for Baugh that showed him leading with 22%, while Min outpaced Weiss 22-16. The survey also found a second Republican, businessman Max Ukropina, at 9%, while none of the other six candidates on the ballot attracted much support.

• CA-49 (55-43 Biden): Democratic Rep. Mike Levin will be hard for Republicans to beat, but two self-funding Republicans are betting he's not invincible. Those contenders are businessman Matt Gunderson, who came close to winning a Democratic-leaning seat in the state Senate in 2022, and media executive Margarita Wilkinson.

Two more Republicans, businesswoman Sheryl Adams and Marine veteran Kate Monroe, are also campaigning for a constituency located in coastal southern Orange and northern San Diego counties.

Other California races to watch:

Campaign Action

The Downballot: Our big fat Super Tuesday primary preview (transcript)

The first downballot primaries of 2024 are here! We're previewing some of Tuesday's biggest races on this week's episode of "The Downballot" with Daily Kos Elections editor Jeff Singer. Singer highlights major elections in four states, including the battle for second place in California's Senate contest; whether Democrats will avoid a lockout in a critical California House district; if the worst Republican election fraudster in recent years will successfully stage a comeback in North Carolina; and how Alabama's new map will affect not one but two House races.

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also shake their heads in dismay at New York Democrats, who just unilaterally disarmed in the face of extreme GOP gerrymandering nationwide by passing a new congressional map that barely makes any changes to the status quo. The Davids emphasize that as long as Republicans keep blocking Democratic efforts to ban gerrymandering, Democrats have no choice but to fight fire with fire. Yet in New York, they grabbed the fire extinguisher.

Subscribe to "The Downballot" on Apple Podcasts to make sure you never miss a show. New episodes every Thursday morning!

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Beard: Hello and welcome. I'm David Beard, contributing editor for Daily Kos Elections.

Nir: And I'm David Nir, political director of Daily Kos. “The Downballot” is a weekly podcast dedicated to the many elections that take place below the presidency from Senate to city council. Please subscribe to “The Downballot” on Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star rating and review.

Beard: What are we covering on this week's episode, Nir?

Nir: Well, we have some major redistricting developments out of New York and they are not positive. We are going to tell you how New York Democrats have abandoned the cause and declared surrender in the fight for fair maps nationwide. But coming up after our Weekly Hits, our deep dive this week is an interview with Jeff Singer, Daily Kos Elections editor, who will be previewing the first downballot primaries of the 2024 election cycle. There are a lot of races to discuss. It is, as always, an interesting episode. So let's get rolling.

Nir: Well, this one just sucks. It looks like New York Democrats are on the verge of declaring an unconditional surrender and passing a new congressional map that is not only a vicious disappointment but further puts our democracy at stake. On Wednesday, the Democratic-run legislature, both chambers, passed a new congressional map, sending it to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul for her signature. She's likely to sign it, and she could do so at any moment. So it's possible that by the time you're listening to “The Downballot” this week, this new map will already be law. But before we dive into the specifics of the new map, it's very important that we repeat upfront that “The Downballot” and Daily Kos Elections strongly support a national ban on gerrymandering. This is something we have said many times in the past, and it's a stance we have taken for many, many years.

We as an organization, Daily Kos, have advocated on behalf of legislation that Democrats have introduced in Congress repeatedly that would outlaw partisan gerrymandering. And no one doubts that Congress can do this, at least for congressional redistricting. The power to do so is right there in the Constitution, in the section known as the Elections Clause. The Elections Clause says, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” But hold on, here's the important part: “[B]ut the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations,” and those regulations include how maps are drawn to elect members of Congress. But every last single Republican in Congress has voted against this bill, which is now called the Freedom to Vote Act. And thanks to the filibuster in the Senate, it remains dead, but it's not just congressional Republicans.

In 2019, the Supreme Court infamously said that federal courts were incapable of adjudicating disputes over partisan gerrymandering. And it was an astonishing statement to make because in the same ruling the Supreme Court said, state courts are able to adjudicate these claims. Are they really saying, is Justice John Roberts saying that state court judges, he's not the equal of state Supreme Court justices? Really, I don't believe that for a second. And there's no doubt that, had Mitch McConnell not engaged in unprecedented obstruction and blocked Merrick Garland's appointment for the better part of a year, that there would have been five votes to say that "Yes, the federal courts can police gerrymandering." So here we are, Democrats have done everything they can to make gerrymandering illegal, and Republicans have done everything they can to keep it legal. And Republicans love gerrymandering because they know—they know—that the only way they can cling to power is by ensuring that they can still win elections even if they fail to win the most votes.

Beard: And the modern situation that we found ourselves in really goes back to 2010 and the GOP wave that took place just before the decennial round of redistricting. Because of the number of state legislatures and states that Republicans happened to take over in 2010, they were able to gerrymander a ton of maps. And we are still feeling those impacts because when you're able to gerrymander the maps for an entire decade, you're very, very likely to keep that power for the entire decade and set yourself up to again gerrymander the maps for the following decade. So it becomes this vicious cycle where the minority party cannot win an election in order to either create a fairer map or implement some sort of independent redistricting system because they're always losing elections. And then you get to the new map-drawing, which is still done by the majority party.

And so there are states that have had these gerrymander maps in place for decades, and the minority party has not had a recourse. And as a result, the overall congressional playing field is badly tilted towards the GOP. There's a lot of different ways of looking at that, but a really easy one is just to look at the median seat, or the middle-most seat, in the House based on the most recent presidential vote in each district. So if Democrats were to win every seat bluer than the median seat, they'd win a majority of 218 seats, and vice versa for Republicans. So there's 217 seats on one side and 217 seats on the other side. And this is the 218 seat. Of course, no election ever works out exactly like that, but it's a good way to look at it. But right now, winning that median seat is much easier for the GOP than it is for Democrats.

The median seat right now is Virginia's 2nd District, which is held by Republican Jen Kiggans. Joe Biden won it by 1.9 points back in 2020, but he won nationally by 4.5 points. And of course, the difference there is important. So this median seat is 2.6 points to the right of the nation as a whole. If Joe Biden's win hadn't been 4.5 points, it had been smaller than he would've lost this district even while getting more votes. Now that might not sound like a huge difference, but when everything is balanced on a nice edge—and as we've seen in recent elections, they've been close more often than they haven't been—it could really make all the difference in who controls the House of Representatives.

Nir: And like you said, Beard, there are multiple ways of looking at the overall congressional playing field, but there is no doubt that it is heavily slanted toward Republicans. It gives them an advantage that they simply wouldn't have if gerrymandering were illegal. And that leaves Democrats with two choices, either accept the status quo and let Republicans continue to tilt the playing field as far to the right as they can, or fight fire with fire and try to tilt the playing field back toward fairness by using the tools at your disposal. Well, this is such a disappointing week because New York Democrats have chosen door No. 1.

They voted down a map proposed by the state's bipartisan redistricting commission. We talked about that map on last week's show. That map only made minimal changes to the previous court-drawn map, but then the new map that Democrats just passed this week only made minimal changes to the commission map. So we are essentially right back where we started. Right now, New York's delegation stands at 16 Democrats and 10 Republicans. And under this map, Democrats now really only have a good shot at flipping three more seats. The 4th District on Long Island, the 17th in the Lower Hudson Valley, and the 22nd in Syracuse.

Beard: And two of those three seats didn't really see any changes in the maps. They were already good targets for Democrats. Of those three seats, the 22nd did get better for Democrats, though that was the one thing that the bipartisan commission had already done. So the legislative-passed maps just kept that change that improved the 22nd for Democrats, and otherwise, those seats didn't change. The other sort of significant partisan—and “significant,” I put in quotes—the other change was the 3rd District, which obviously just had a special election. Tom Suozzi now represents it for the Democrats. They made it a tiny bit bluer.

I made a joke on Twitter that was literally like, "Hey, the biggest thing that the legislature did by doing their own map is create dozens of new Democratic voters for Tom Suozzi." And anybody who's seen “Arrested Development,” you've seen that meme of “There are dozens of us! Dozens!” So that's on Twitter if anybody wants to go find my Twitter on that. But it was really such a small change. It was weird to do all this for really only that change and then to keep the change for the 22nd.

Nir: And the change in the 22nd is not all that dramatic. It becomes a few points bluer, but also Republican Brandon Williams, first-termer, he was almost certainly the most vulnerable Republican anyway, even without any changes to his district. So this doesn't add anything to the picture. And in fact, Democrats left a ton of opportunities on the table. There's the 19th District in the Upper Hudson Valley. It's a longer shot. Democrats could have improved that, but they didn't. They could have put the 11th district on Staten Island in play. They could have made one more seat on Long Island, either the 1st or the 2nd District more competitive, and they could have improved their chances of flipping or holding several other seats.

There is a whole lot that they could have done. Now, I understand that Democrats rightfully were concerned about the possibility of a new map getting struck down as a partisan gerrymander because the state's top court, the Court of Appeals, has recognized those claims in the past, but there are obviously ways to be really smart about it. You don't have to go hyper-aggressive. You don't have to draw an extreme map, like Texas Republicans or North Carolina Republicans, but you could have done a lot more than Democrats actually did and still avoided running afoul of the law.

Beard: And the best way to know that Democrats didn't go anywhere near where they could have is that Republicans have said that they're fine with the map and they have no plans to sue. New York Times reporter Nicholas Fandos reported that John Faso, the former GOP congressman who was key to the lawsuit against the maps in 2022, he said, "There are small changes here or there, but none of them are materially significant from a political standpoint." And that's really the sum of things. None of these changes are materially significant. So why would the Republicans oppose it?

Nir: And not only that, several Republicans in the legislature voted for these maps, including the party's minority leader in the Assembly. I'm gobsmacked. So this all raises the question, Beard, and I really want to hear your thoughts on this because I'm banging my head against the wall: Why are New York Democrats so feckless? Ultimately, what this map does is it protects incumbents, and those incumbents hold a lot of sway in New York politics, and they definitely are going to prioritize winning reelection over a map that helps Democrats more broadly. But what's really disappointing is that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, of course, he's from New York, from Brooklyn, and he put out a statement on Wednesday praising the map, and I would just expect him to want to win back the majority more and to really push for a more aggressive map.

Beard: Yeah, I think there was a lot of different priorities and folks pointing in different directions here. And the New York Democrats never had a coherent game plan because from the moment that the lawsuit was initiated to say, "Oh, the 2022 maps shouldn't be used, the commission and then the legislature should go through their process for a new map in 2024," what was always the risk for Democrats is if they passed a more aggressive map from that process was that Republicans would sue again and be like, "Hey, this map has the same problems that we sued about back in 2022, and it should also not be used."

But then, they went through most of that process, they got the 2022 maps overturned, they got a favorable ruling from the new court that was more favorable to Democrats, and then they got to the point where they could pass that more aggressive map, and they just looked at the idea of going through another lawsuit and they were like, "Oh, no. We can't pass any map that Republicans might not like and might lead to another lawsuit,” which really is inexplicable to me because there wasn't really a bad case.

It's not like the Republicans would get to draw the map if the lawsuit worked. The map just wouldn't be in effect. So they seemed so scared of doing something aggressive, getting any sort of blowback, going through the court process again, and losing that they just surrendered preemptively and were like, "Okay, well, we'll draw a map that does so little that no one could claim that it was a gerrymander, and then it'll go through." But that defeats the entire purpose, which makes the entire process—the entire game plan—nonsensical and leaves a bunch of people disappointed in what they've done.

Nir: Yeah, I mean, the worst-case scenario, let's say Democrats had passed an aggressive map, and Republicans sued, and the Court of Appeals said, "Oh no, this map is an illegal partisan gerrymander." Well, given how late we are into the year, it's very likely that they would've reused the 2022 map. That was the worst-case scenario. It's not like Republicans would've gotten to gerrymander it instead. So what we have now is a map that is really not very different from the 2022 map. So basically you're risking nothing and you're gaining basically almost nothing, except you are gaining the hostility and anger and disgust of people like us, because, Beard, we've talked about it on the show many times, but the progressive movement and the labor movement in New York went to great lengths to prevent Kathy Hochul from being saddled with the dumbest choice of her political career.

And that was nominating a conservative Hector LaSalle, to a vacancy of another conservative on the state's top court. And it was unprecedented. These two movements united and convinced the state Senate to tell Kathy Hochul to get lost. And as a result, Hochul nominated someone far better as the chief judge of the court, Rowan Wilson, who authored the majority opinion that sent the redistricting commission back to the drawing board and opened the door for a new map. We went to all this trouble, all this trouble, and this is how they repay us.

Beard: Yeah. And to compare the situation to, of course, my home state of North Carolina, one of our favorite states to talk about, the Republican legislature and the Republican Supreme Court in North Carolina did not give a shit about what anyone thought when they were passing these maps. They were like, "Oh, do you think this is wrong? Do you think that we're the bad guys here? We don't care. We are in it for political power, so we're going to pass a bunch of maps that are good for Republicans. We're going to have faith in the Republican Supreme Court in North Carolina to say, 'Hey, you can do whatever you want,' and then we're going to go from there." And of course, had by some miracle the Republican Supreme Court struck down the maps, then the Republicans would've just had another go at it. So I don't understand what the New York Democrats were so afraid of and why they don't feel like they can be as aggressive as so many Republican parties are in other states.

Nir: Again, we do not like gerrymandering, but we hate unilateral disarmament even more. A cornerstone of democracy is that the party that wins the most votes should win the most seats. But if you allow Republicans to gerrymander in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and many other states, while Democrats sit by passively, that only undermines our democracy and Hakeem Jeffries and also Kathy Hochul, if she signs this map, they're going to be on the hook for this map. And if Democrats fail to win back the House this November, and if New York is once again the reason why, they're going to face a lot of questions they would much rather not face. And if Donald Trump wins the White House and the GOP flips the Senate and holds the House, then God help us.

Beard: Yeah, I think there's a reasonable argument to be made that the part of the federal government that Democrats are most likely to hold in 2025 is the House. And so anything that decreases the chance of Democrats holding the House, increases the chance of a disaster scenario like you just mentioned. So, obviously, in most scenarios, this is not determinative, but there are a few certainly where it is, and that sucks that we have put ourselves in this situation and we can only hope that that does not come back to bite us in reality.

Nir: I think that's enough of that. We should wrap up our Weekly Hits because we finally, finally get to move on to the true elections phase of the 2024 cycle. Coming up after the break, we are doing our first downballot primary preview with Daily Kos Elections Editor Jeff Singer. There are many races on the docket. We are going to be hitting the top highlights. It is going to be a fantastic and very informative discussion, so please stick with us.

Nir: Well, “The Downballot” primary election season is finally here, and that means we have the one and only Jeff Singer, Daily Kos Elections editor, joining us on the show this week to preview some of the most interesting races that will be on the docket on Tuesday. Jeff, thank you once again for coming back on the show.

Jeff Singer: Thank you, Nir. It's great to be back for, wow, what will be a very big night.

Nir: It is a huge, huge night because the two largest states in the country both decided that they had to have their downballot primaries the same night as Super Tuesday. But we are going to start with the biggest of them all—that is California—and the biggest race of them all, California's battle for the Senate. And we have a very good idea who one of the two winners is going to be, but the second place slot still might be up for grabs.

Singer: Yeah. So there is a humongous number of candidates, but only three of them look like they'll have a chance to make it past the top-two primary. That's where every candidate runs on the same ballot, no party primaries. And the two candidates with the most votes advanced in November, so you could have two Democrats. You're almost certainly not going to have two Republicans. There might be one Republican, one Democrat. So one person we're very sure is going to make it is a Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff from Southern California. He became one of the most famous Democrats in Congress during the Trump era for his battles with the administration and for being one of the impeachment managers in Trump's first impeachment. He has this massive, national donor base. He's raised a tremendous amount of money. He has some super PACs on his side, and he's looking pretty good for first place, quite secure.

Second place, that's the question. It's looking like it's going to be between Democratic Congresswoman Katie Porter. She flipped a competitive seat in Orange County, in 2018. She also has a big, national, progressive base, but she hasn't raised money in the same league of Schiff, so she's getting her name out, but she's been pretty swamped. And a Republican, Steve Garvey. He was a major-league player for the Los Angeles Dodgers, the San Diego Padres, decades ago. He's been out of the spotlight for a while, but he's back. And by virtue of being the most prominent Republican, he has a good chance to advance, and Schiff and his allies are okay with that. They're more than okay with that. California is a very blue state, and Adam Schiff versus Steve Garvey in November, unless something extremely weird happens—easy win for Schiff. Adam Schiff versus Katie Porter in November, much more unpredictable.

So Schiff and his allies, they've been running ads saying, "Steve Garvey is too conservative for California," which as we've seen over more than the last decade, is the messaging Democrats like when they have a Republican they want to get nominated or they want to advance in something like this. Porter, she's trying to counter that by boosting a different Republican, Eric Early. He ran for attorney general last cycle, kind of a perennial candidate. She's hoping he'll take enough Republican votes from Garvey so that she and Schiff get to slug it out in November. But like I said, Porter just does not have nearly as much money as Schiff does. So her messaging isn't going as far. She just does not have as much to get this particular message out. So we'll see. It's hard to poll in a race like this. There hasn't been that much polling. Downballot polling really has not been doing well the last few years in terms of quantity or really quality in some cases. So we're kind of flying blind, but Schiff making to first place, that's probably going to happen. Porter versus Garvey for second. We'll see.

Nir: Of course, that's an open seat because a Democratic Sen. Laphonza Butler decided not to run for election after getting appointed to fill the vacancy that resulted after Dianne Feinstein died. We've got a lot of races to cover though, so we will move on to the middle part of the state, California's Central Valley, where there is a crowded race to replace former Speaker and former member of Congress Kevin McCarthy, in the 20th District.

Singer: So this is a conservative district. A Republican's almost certainly going to succeed McCarthy, but which one? McCarthy wants his protégé, Assemblyman Vince Fong, to be the guy. Fong just got Trump's endorsement. He looks pretty well-situated, but there are a few twists here. Fong, in a bit of an awkward situation in December, filed to seek reelection. Then he filed to run for Congress. California ostensibly says you can't do both at the same time. And election officials tried to get him knocked off the congressional ballot, but a lower court judge said, "No, he can do it. It's fine." The state's still suing. They're hoping that if he advances, they can do something about it, but he's going to be on the ballot next week. Nothing you can do about that.

So Fong, because he has Trump and McCarthy's endorsement, he's probably in a good place, but you really never know, especially after this weird legal battle. There are a few other big Republicans to watch. A casino owner, Kyle Kirkland, the Tulare County sheriff, Mike Boudreaux, and there are two Democrats also on the ballot. It's possible one of them could advance to the general election with a Republican, and that would make this race pretty boring, but possible two Republicans could be slugging it out still and more interesting.

Nir: But because McCarthy resigned, we also have a special election going on for this seat.

Singer: Yeah, but it'll be two weeks after the March 5th primary, so voters will be mailing in their ballots again. The stakes are much lower, it's only for the remaining months of McCarthy's term but still worth watching.

Nir: Now, nearby, also in the Central Valley, California's 22nd District, this is a totally different district because this is held by Republicans but has been competitive for many, many years. And it's a seat that Democrats are looking to flip in November.

Singer: Yeah. So Joe Biden got about 55% of the vote here, so prime Democratic target. But the Republican Congressman David Valadao, he's run ahead of the ticket many times. He's hard to beat. He did lose in the 2018 blue wave. So, showed he's not invincible. He got his seat back two years later, even as Biden was doing well in the last version of the district. For a long time, it's looked like it's going to be a straight-up rematch between him and his 2022 Democratic opponent, former Assemblyman Rudy Salas. Valadao beat him, about 52 to 48%. So, close fight, everyone's been anticipating a rematch. But there are two other candidates on the top-two primary ballot who are complicating things a bit.

On the Republican side, we have a perennial candidate who is just once again throwing down a lot of money, Chris Mathys, and he's been going after Valadao once again for impeaching Trump after the Jan. 6th riot. Valadao now is one of just two House Republicans left who voted to impeach Trump. And that message did pretty well two years ago. In that top-two primary, Mathys got pretty close to knocking out Valadao, which Democrats would've loved, but Democrats can't really savor that idea happening now because they have another issue. There's a fourth candidate, Democratic state Sen. Melissa Hurtado. She's raised very little money, but she has a lot of name recognition. She represents most of this congressional district in the state Senate, and Democrats are afraid she and Salas are going to split the Democratic vote just enough so that both Republicans advance.

But Republicans, they have their own fears. They're afraid that Mathys will do much better than they want. Maybe they're afraid he'll get to a general election with Valadao and cause problems. Maybe they're afraid he'll get to a general election with Salas and be a potential loser. So Republican outside groups, they spent close to $900,000 already. Democratic outside groups, they've spent a million. So you have this sort of multifront war happening in this district, and no one really sure what's going to happen.

Nir: So basically, Democrats want to make sure that they have a Democrat, Rudy Salas, in the November general election because these big outside groups have taken his side. And Republicans want to make sure they don't have a crazy MAGA nut instead of Valadao, who has a more moderate profile in the general election. Is that about right?

Singer: Yeah. It doesn't hurt that Mathys, his connections to this area aren't great. He used to be a Fresno city councilman, but Fresno is not in this district. And then he went to New Mexico and ran for office unsuccessfully twice there. Then came back in time for the 2022 elections, to go after Valadao. So, not a great candidate. And he has almost no fundraising power, it's all just self-funding, so not someone you want as your nominee in a competitive district.

Beard: Now we're going to move all the way across the country, to my home state. I know I talk about it all the time, but it does have a primary on March 5th. So there's a good reason in this case. North Carolina. They've got a number of races, and we're going to start at the top of the downballot ticket because we're ignoring that presidential primary. We're going to start with the governor's race. It's an open seat, of course. Incumbent Democrat Roy Cooper, eight great years, but we're moving on, so we've got an open seat and a lot of candidates. So walk us through it, Jeff.

Singer: Yeah. So pretty much from the beginning, everyone's been expecting this to be a race pitting the Republican Lieutenant Gov. Mark Robinson against the Democrat, Attorney General Josh Stein. And it looks almost certainly like that's going to happen. Republicans have fretted for a long time that Robinson is going to be just a toxic nominee because he just has a long history of bigoted writings against, well, pretty much everyone. Again, antisemitic writings, Islamophobic writings, anti-trans writings, and just the statements he said about abortion. And just weird things he's written about, well, Beyoncé, about the moon landing. He's testing whether, even in the Trump era, some Republicans are just too toxic.

But while Republicans have been fretting he's unelectable or that he's going to cause problems, voters just do not seem to be listening. Trump has backed him, and every poll has shown Robinson just outpacing both of his opponents—so, wealthy businessman and the state treasurer. Their names are barely even important at this point because Robinson is just destroying them both. And Stein also, he's fending off a former Supreme Court justice from the state Supreme Court, Mike Morgan. But the polls also show that's going to be a very lopsided race. You never really know these days. Polling is tough, but either the two of them are going to be going head-to-head November, or we're in for a big, big investigation on just what went wrong with the polls.

Beard: Yeah, and longtime listeners will remember when we covered Mike Morgan getting into the race last fall and that we were pretty confused by the reasoning and the ability for him to raise money and make this competitive, and I think it's pretty much played out how we expected—that he was not going to be able to keep up with Stein's money and his name recognition from being attorney general.

Singer: Yeah, it's just not been a very competitive primary. Sometimes the hype just doesn't work, and sometimes, if you go in as the underdog, you go out as the underdog.

Beard: Yeah, that's why they call it an underdog. If the underdogs won more often, then they wouldn't be underdogs.

Nir: Well, we are definitely going to see a competitive general election, no matter what happens in the primaries.

Singer: Yeah, exactly. This is going to be one of the most competitive general elections for governor anywhere, one of the most competitive general elections for anything anywhere probably.

Beard: Yeah. Given how close past statewide elections, particularly for governor, have been in recent years, we could easily see this one going down to the wire in November.

Now, we've also got a couple of congressional primaries we want to talk about on the Republican side. Of course, as we've discussed, North Carolina Republicans gerrymandered this map all to hell. So there's some open seats that have been created that Republicans will be able to waltz their way into. Now, I want to talk about one of those open-seat Republican seats and the return of a name that you would really not expect who might now eventually, for the first time, become a Republican congressman after years and years.

Singer: Yeah. So remember Mark Harris? The guy who was at the center of pretty much the biggest election-fraud scandal in a very long time where he seemed to win a congressional seat, but election authority said, "No, ballots were cast improperly. You did not win. We are invalidating the results of this election." And Harris at the time said, "Okay, yeah, this was the right call. I'm not going to run again in the general election." And Dan Bishop, the Republican, he ran, he claimed the seat. Well, Bishop now is running for attorney general of North Carolina, and who wants to replace him? Mark Harris. Despite what he said years ago, Harris is not at all contrite about what happened in 2018. He says, "I won this election, I should have been in Congress, and I want to fix that. I want to go to Congress now." But not everyone agrees with that.

A major Republican outside group that's funded by some big GOP donors, we're not really sure what their interest is in this race, but they've been spending well over a million dollars to knock Mark Harris down. And there's some other Republicans on the ballot, state Rep. John Bradford and former Union County Commissioner Allen Baucom. So one of them, or both of them, may get past Harris, so we'll see. But he might still have his own devoted fan base of people who think he was wronged or just recognize his name.

Now, North Carolina, they do have runoffs. So Harris can't necessarily just win with a plurality, but it's a bit complicated. Unlike a lot of Southern states, you don't need to win a majority to win outright. You need to win over 30% of the vote. So, not the highest bar to clear, but this is a fairly crowded race, so could be hard for anyone to do that. And there's one other twist to it. If you are the runner-up and your opponent got less than 30% of the vote, you have to explicitly ask election authorities, "Hey, I want a runoff." If you do nothing, nothing happens. So, a bit of a twist there.

Nir: For folks who weren't following elections back in 2018, or maybe you just don't recall it right off the top of your head, the Harris election-fraud scandal was so, so extreme. A consultant of his orchestrated this conspiracy basically to intercept absentee ballots and gather them up en masse and fill out blank ballots potentially and essentially just interfere with the whole process. And that election was so close in 2018, and there were so many potentially tainted absentee ballots that election officials said, "We just can't accept these results, and we have to call a special election instead." I mean, for all of the times when Republicans like to scream about voter fraud, voter fraud—this wasn't voter fraud, this was election fraud. They outright tried to literally steal this race, and we're pretty fortunate that someone actually noticed and that this got derailed. So it's just mind-blowing to me that Mark Harris, of all people, would dare to show his face in politics again.

Beard: It really was like a story out of a political thriller. By following it, it felt like you were following a fictional novel that you would read and be like, "Oh, this is really interesting. But this would never happen in this day and age in actual elections." And it did. So, truly, truly one of the craziest stories in recent years. And that's saying something.

Nir: So we're going to continue our tour in the South and talk about a couple of races in Alabama. Of course, as “Downballot” listeners know, Alabama has a new congressional map, thanks to litigation brought under the Voting Rights Act that required the state to implement a second congressional district where Black voters could elect their preferred candidate. That's the new second district, Alabama's 2nd District. But as a result of the creation of this new district, it's had a ripple effect on other seats. In particular, that has set up a Republican-on-Republican battle between two incumbents in the first district. So Singer, why don't you handicap this brand-new district, Alabama's 2nd, because like I said, we talked about it so much, and it's so exciting that Black voters will finally get the representation that the law demands and that Democrats are going to get to flip a seat.

Singer: Yeah. So this is going to cost a Republican congressman his seat, and we're going to find out on Tuesday which one, because Barry Moore, he represents Alabama's 2nd District. That district has gone from being a safely Republican majority-white district to a plurality-Black Democratic district where Biden won 56% of the vote. Moore thought about running for reelection in the 2nd but decided, "No, I'm going to go to the 1st." It's dark red, but there's a little bit of a problem. There's already a Republican congressman there, Jerry Carl, and he's not moving over. So we have what will probably be the only incumbent-versus-incumbent primary in the entire country this year for Congress: Jerry Carl versus Barry Moore. And Carl looks like he has the advantage mostly because of geography. Carl represents 59% of this district. Carl's from the Mobile area. And Moore represents the other 41%. So more people know who Carl is than Moore, no pun intended. But things are always a little bit more complicated than that. There's a lot of outside spending here. Moore is a member of the Freedom Caucus, about as far right as you can get. They and their allies, the Club for Growth, they want Moore coming back. Carl, he's also very right wing. Like Moore, he voted against recognizing Joe Biden's win after Jan. 6th. But Carl's a leadership guy. He isn't going to be making problems for them. And Carl's also getting some super-PAC allies. The battle lines aren't quite as clear cut as who's funding that, but both of them have a lot of money. Carl has more personally, so he's probably getting his message out more.

But this is a hard one to handicap. I'd give the edge to Carl, but anything could happen. And I'll just add Alabama does have runoffs, but these are the only two candidates on the ballot. So unless something really weird happens, this one's being settled on Tuesday.

Nir: So now in the 2nd District, the primary there unfolded kind of in an unexpected way. The new district runs from Montgomery to Mobile, covering much of the Black Belt in between. But very unexpectedly, no major candidates from Montgomery, which is kind of the heart of the district, or one of two polls of the district, wound up running. So you have this large geographic area with no candidate with obvious ties to it. So it kind of feels like a bit of a free-for-all.

Singer: Yeah, definitely. And there are five state legislators on the ballot, but only two of them actually represent portions of this district. Some of the others do have connections, but hail from areas like Birmingham or Huntsville. So they're unfamiliar to voters. There's also another major candidate who doesn't hold elected office, but he's a pretty prominent guy, Shomari Figures. He's a former U.S. Department of Justice official, and his mother is a very longtime elected official in Mobile. So he has some name recognition, he has some money, and also crypto PACs, they like him. There's one that's spent quite a bit for him and there really hasn't been any outside spending otherwise.

So unlike Alabama's 1st District, this one's almost certainly going to a runoff. I think it would be a surprise if Figures doesn't get one of the two runoff spots. The other one's more up for grabs, and it'll probably be one of the Democratic legislators. But which one? Hard to say. I'll just add this for even though this district does have Montgomery also, it also has Mobile. And because Biden won 56% here, this will be almost certainly the first time since the 1960s that a Democrat has represented Mobile in the House. And back then, Democrats were a very, very, very different and much worse party. So this will be almost certainly the first time a Black Democrat has represented Mobile in the House ever. So whether they come from that city or not, we will find out, but a little bit of history will be made.

Nir: That's totally awesome. I think it's fair to say that it'll be the first time that Mobile has ever been represented by a liberal.

Singer: Yeah. At least in the House. You've had a few, you've had some people, like Doug Jones representing in the Senate, who maybe you could consider more liberal. But this will be the first time it's had a liberal congressman in a very, very long time, if not ever.

Beard: Now we've got one more state to cover, and it's the state of Texas also having their primary on March 5th. And we're going to start there with the Senate race, Ted Cruz, of course, up for reelection. So he'll be the Republican nominee. But we do have a bit of a question on the Democratic side, particularly if the leading candidate will avoid a runoff or not. So tell us about that race, Jeff.

Singer: Yeah, so Texas is another state where you do need to win a majority to win out and avoid a runoff. And Texas is one of the very few Senate targets that Democrats conceivably have, although it's still going to be tough. No Democrat has won statewide since 1984, and it's a very expensive state to compete in. But national Democrats have a candidate they're excited about. Congressman Colin Allred. He flipped a Dallas seat in the 2018 blue wave that's been Republican for a very long time. He's a former football player, turned civil rights lawyer. He'd be the first Black senator from Texas. Very interesting guy. But not quite sure whether he'll be able to concentrate on Ted Cruz after Tuesday, or if he'll have to get through a runoff because he has several opponents. His main one is state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who went from being a pretty moderate Democrat to being an ardent gun-safety supporter after the Uvalde massacre happened in his district. Doesn't have the resources of Allred, but he's the most prominent Latino candidate in a state with a large Latino Democratic electorate. So we'll see. We'll see if this gets settled Tuesday or if it goes to late May or not.

Beard: And then one other race that we want to cover in Texas is still on the Democratic side, that's Texas 18, where you've got a primary challenge to a longtime incumbent. But it's a little more complicated than that, right?

Singer: Yeah. So Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, she's represented the Houston area since the 1994 elections—longtime institution. But she decided to seek a different office last year when she ran for mayor of Houston. That campaign did not go well. She lost to another Democrat, state Sen. John Whitmire, really badly in the December runoff. And Jackson Lee kept everyone guessing if she was going to run for reelection if she lost the race, and she decided to.

But not everyone wanted to get out of the way. Former Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards. She is a former Jackson Lee intern, and she hasn't really had anything bad to say about her former boss, but she started running for the seat back when Jackson Lee was still running for mayor, and Edwards didn't drop out. She said, “No, I'm going to stay in. I believe it's time for a change.” Edwards is about three decades younger than the congresswoman. She's mostly made this more of a generational pitch, not really about ideology or anything else. And Jackson Lee, she's been at a big cash disadvantage because she spent so much running for mayor and just started running for reelection, really, pretty late in the contest. But she's got some money and universal name recognition. But we're going to have to see if her mayoral campaign really did her damage.

Heard some various estimates on how well she did when running for mayor here, but pretty much everyone agrees if she won it, it was by maybe only a few points. So a large amount of the electorate voted against her in December. See what they'll do in March. And I should add, there has been a poll here, unlike most of these races, we've talked about. The University of Houston, in mid-February, released numbers saying Jackson Lee got 43%, Amanda Edwards, 38%, and a third candidate, restaurant owne, Rob Slater, he got only a few points. Not going to win, but he could keep either Jackson Lee or Edwards from getting the majority they need to avert a runoff, so this could go into late May. But very safely blue district. So whichever of them wins the primary or the runoff, they're going to win the seat.

Nir: Well, in total, we have something like 30 different races that we are keeping an eye on Tuesday night. We'll be live-blogging them all at Daily Kos Elections. And Jeff Singer, I know you're going to have a big preview not only of the races that we just discussed here on “The Downballot” but also on all these other contests. There's also a bunch of other states that are going to be having primaries, including Arkansas, which actually has downballot primaries.

Jeff, thank you once again for coming on the show to share your knowledge with our listeners.

Singer: Yeah, it was great to be back. And if you're thinking of staying up really, really late while California counts its ballots, please don't. Be patient. It takes a while.

Nir: Very sage advice from Jeff Singer.

Beard: That's all from us this week. Thanks to Jeff Singer for joining us. “The Downballot” comes out every Thursday everywhere you're listening to podcast. You can reach out to us by emailing TheDownballot@dailykos.com. If you haven't already, please subscribe to “The Downballot” on Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star rating and review. Thanks to our editor, Drew Roderick, and we'll be back next week with a new episode.

Why Justin Amash could give the GOP a headache in Michigan’s Senate race

Former Rep. Justin Amash entered the Republican primary for Michigan's open Senate race on Thursday, but he's unlikely to have much appeal with GOP voters after quitting the party due to his hostility toward Donald Trump. However, by further fracturing the non-MAGA vote, his presence in the race could open the door for a more Trumpist candidate to jump in—and leave Republicans saddled with a nominee who could cost them a shot at flipping this seat.

During the 10 years Amash represented western Michigan's 3rd Congressional District, he often found himself at odds with Republican leadership and frequently dissented by invoking beliefs he described as "libertarian." His differences with his party reached new heights, however, when he came out in support of Trump's first impeachment in 2019, making him the only Republican to do so.

Amash soon after quit the far-right House Freedom Caucus, which he had co-founded, then left the GOP to become an independent. The following year, he joined the Libertarian Party, making him the first member of Congress to ever serve under the party's banner. But with his path to reelection seemingly foreclosed in a race that already featured candidates from both major parties, Amash opted against seeking a sixth term in 2020.

Now, though, Amash apparently sees a road back to office, but even setting his many apostasies aside, he still faces a further obstacle: former Rep. Peter Meijer, the man who succeeded him in Congress. Meijer also knows what it's like to be ostracized by the Republican Party. While never the maverick Amash was, Meijer backed Trump's second impeachment in 2021 and paid the price when he lost the GOP primary to a Trump-endorsed challenger, John Gibbs, the next year. (Gibbs was defeated in the general election by Democrat Hillary Scholten.)

For that same reason, Meijer also probably is not what pro-Trump voters are looking for; in a recent poll conducted by a GOP firm, he trailed former Rep. Mike Rogers 23-7. But the problem he and Amash pose to one another is not so much their standing with Republican voters but rather that they share the same geographic base in the Grand Rapids area. Rogers, by contrast, represented turf in the central and eastern parts of the state, though he's been out of office for nearly a decade.

It's therefore Rogers who's probably happiest to see Amash jump into the race, though the National Republican Senatorial Committee may be pleased as well. The executive director of the Senate GOP's official campaign arm slammed Meijer on the record when he launched his campaign last year, saying that "the base would not be enthused" if he were the nominee, so the committee may be hoping that Amash will hold Meijer back. Indeed, an NRSC spokesperson greeted Amash's announcement by snarking, "And here we thought Peter Meijer was the biggest Trump hater in this race."

But it's just as possible that the GOP's woes have increased. Politico's Ally Mutnick reported in November that NRSC operatives were worried Meijer could "split the moderate vote with another centrist candidate, such as former Rep. Mike Rogers," and allow an extremist to capture the Republican nomination. The far-right contender that party leaders were likely worried about, former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, has since dropped out, but a more formidable option could still emerge to take his place.

Amash can't be considered either a moderate or a centrist, but he'd draw from the same broader pool of primary voters who aren't aligned with Trump. And Rogers, who said in 2022 that "Trump’s time has passed" as he mulled his own presidential bid, is unlikely to scratch MAGA's itch.

Rogers, who did not end up seeking the White House, did an about-face and endorsed Trump earlier this year, but his belief that "Biden was lawfully elected to the presidency" may be too much for Big Lie believers to accommodate. Another candidate, wealthy businessman Sandy Pensler, could have his own issues with the base, as he told the Detroit News in December that he opposed passing federal laws that would roll back abortion rights, including any policies that would overturn the state's 2022 reproductive rights amendment.

But the time for a new candidate to enter the race is running short. Michigan's filing deadline is on April 23, and campaigns need to devote time and resources to make sure they have a place on the ballot.

Morning Digest: How Trumpists could win a top elections post in a key swing state

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

Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast

Leading Off

From Daily Kos Elections' Jeff Singer:

The Downballot

The first downballot primaries of 2024 are here! We're previewing some of Tuesday's biggest races on this week's episode of "The Downballot" with Daily Kos Elections editor Jeff Singer. Singer highlights major elections in four states, including the battle for second place in California's Senate contest; whether Democrats will avoid a lockout in a critical California House district; if the worst Republican election fraudster in recent years will successfully stage a comeback in North Carolina; and how Alabama's new map will affect not one but two House races.

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also shake their heads in dismay at New York Democrats, who just unilaterally disarmed in the face of extreme GOP gerrymandering nationwide by passing a new congressional map that barely makes any changes to the status quo. The Davids emphasize that as long as Republicans keep blocking Democratic efforts to ban gerrymandering, Democrats have no choice but to fight fire with fire. Yet in New York, they grabbed the fire extinguisher.

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

Senate

KY-Sen: Sen. Mitch McConnell announced on Wednesday that he would relinquish his role as the GOP's Senate leader in November, ending his tenure as the chamber's longest-serving party leader.

The 82-year-old McConnell has faced questions about his health following two televised incidents in 2023 in which he froze while speaking publicly, but he indicated he intends to remain in the Senate until his term ends in 2027. Were McConnell to leave early, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear would be required to name another Republican in his seat after state lawmakers passed a law requiring same-party appointments in the event of vacancies in 2021.

First elected in 1984, McConnell has led Republicans in the upper chamber since early 2007, including six years as majority leader between 2015 and 2021. McConnell's tenure as leader coincided with a historic escalation in Republican obstruction tactics and norm-breaking.

But despite blockading Senate Democrats' agenda and enabling Donald Trump at nearly every step, McConnell earned the ire of diehard Trump supporters by blaming him for the Jan. 6 attack, though he ultimately voted not to convict Trump following his second impeachment. Nonetheless, McConnell won his final term as leader last year by a 37-10 margin among Senate Republicans.

MI-Sen: Great Lakes Conservative Fund, a super PAC that's supporting former Rep. Mike Rogers with a $2 million ad buy ahead of the Aug. 6 Republican primary, has released a poll from TargetPoint showing Rogers with a 32-12 lead against former Rep. Peter Meijer.

House

CO-08: Weld County Commissioner Scott James announced Tuesday that he was dropping out of the June GOP primary to face freshman Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo. James' departure leaves state Rep. Gabe Evans, who has the support of House Speaker Mike Johnson, as the Republican frontrunner. Thanks to self-funding, though, health insurance consultant Joe Andujo finished 2023 with a $203,000 to $186,000 cash on hand advantage over Evans.

Joe Biden would have carried Colorado's 8th District, which is based in the northern Denver suburbs and Greeley area, 51-46 in 2020, but Republicans are hoping that Caraveo's tight 48.4-47.7 win after the district was established following reapportionment foreshadows another close contest. Caraveo, though, ended last year with a hefty $1.4 million on hand to defend herself.

LA-03: The newsletter LaPolitics suggests that Rep. Garret Graves could try to extend his political career by challenging Rep. Clay Higgins, a fellow Republican, in the November all-party primary for Louisiana's 3rd District, though the item notes that such a notion is still "[s]peculation." The latest version of this constituency, which is based in the southwestern part of the state, would have supported Donald Trump 70-28.

Following court-ordered redistricting, Graves' 6th District became unwinnable for him, but the congressman has insisted he won't retire. However, he's all but ruled out running against Rep. Julia Letlow, another Republican, in the 5th District, and according to calculations from Daily Kos Elections, he currently represents just 10% of Higgins' revised 3rd.

MN-02: Marine veteran Tyler Kistner, who had already sounded unlikely to wage a third campaign against Democratic Rep. Angie Craig, has confirmed that he won't run again. Former federal prosecutor Joe Teirab and attorney Tayler Rahm are both still seeking the GOP nod, though Teirab ended 2023 with a notable $269,000 to $76,000 cash on hand advantage.

Craig finished the year with $2.2 million available to defend a suburban Twin Cities seat that favored Joe Biden 53-45 in 2020.

MT-02: Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale announced Wednesday that he would seek reelection to Montana's safely red 2nd District, a move that came two weeks after he dropped out of the June primary to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.

Eight Republicans had launched bids to replace Rosendale when it looked like he'd campaign for the Senate, and while several of them insisted earlier this month that they were willing to run against him, it remains to be seen how many of them will continue now that they know they'll have to take on an incumbent. It only takes a simple plurality to win the nomination, so a crowded field would likely benefit Rosendale.

House GOP leaders may, however, be hoping that someone puts up a strong fight against Rosendale, a Freedom Caucus member who was one of the eight House Republicans who voted to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Donald Trump, though, might still have his back: Trump wrote on Feb. 10 that, while he was backing wealthy businessman Tim Sheehy for Senate, "I always respect Matt Rosendale, and was very happy to Endorse him in the past and will Endorse him again in the future, should he decide to change course and run for his congressional seat."

The congressman used his Wednesday announcement to say that he was also supporting Sheehy, whom Rosendale attacked as a puppet of "the uniparty" and "a candidate who profited off Biden’s Green New Deal" during what turned out to be a seven-day Senate campaign.

NY Redistricting: Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a new congressional map into law on Wednesday, hours after Democratic lawmakers approved it. We recently detailed the likely partisan impacts of the new map, which closely resembles a proposal from the state's redistricting commission that Democratic legislators rejected earlier in the week.

While many observers had expected (or hoped) that Democrats would draw an aggressive gerrymander, their new map made only modest changes to the commission's map—so modest that state GOP chair Ed Cox said his party had "no need" to sue because the "lines are not materially different from" the court-drawn map used in 2022.

That sentiment was shared by former Rep. John Faso, who helped lead the successful legal challenge to the map that Democrats passed two years ago. The map even received votes from more than a dozen Republican lawmakers, including Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay.

Democrats also sent a bill to Hochul that would limit where redistricting lawsuits could be filed to just one of four blue counties—Albany, Erie, New York (Manhattan), or Westchester—to prevent Republicans from shopping for a favorable Republican judge, as they were accused of doing in their previous lawsuit. However, given the response from Republicans so far, that legislation may not ultimately matter for the new map.

NY-01: Former state Sen. Jim Gaughran has endorsed former CNN anchor John Avlon in the June Democratic primary for New York's 1st Congressional District, one day after Gaughran ended his own campaign. Two other notable Democrats are running to take on first-term GOP Rep. Nick LaLotta: Nancy Goroff, who was the party's nominee in 2020, and former congressional staffer Kyle Hill.

NY-03: Air Force veteran Kellen Curry tells Politico that he's considering running for the Republican nomination to take on Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi. Curry spent months challenging then-Rep. George Santos and raised $432,000 from donors before party leaders tapped another Republican, Nassau County Legislator Mazi Pilip, for the Feb. 13 special election.

The GOP field already includes two other Republicans who originally campaigned against Santos, Air Force veteran Greg Hach and Security Traders Association president Jim Toes. Hach informs Politico that he's going to self-fund $1 million. There is no indication that Toes, who only raised $100,000 during his first effort, has similar abilities.

The November election will take place under slightly different lines than the recent special. New York's Democratic governor and legislature just approved a new congressional map that makes modest changes to the 3rd District, increasing Joe Biden's margin of victory from 54-45 to 55-44.

OH-09: J.R. Majewski announced Wednesday that he'd remain in the March 19 Republican primary, a move that came less than a day after the toxic 2022 nominee told Politico he was considering ending his second campaign to take on Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur. Majewski even titled his mid-week press release "J.R. Majewski (Almost) Suspends Campaign for Congress" while still expressing defiance toward the GOP establishment.

TX-32: The crypto-aligned PAC Protect Progress has spent close to $1 million to promote state Rep. Julie Johnson ahead of next week's Democratic primary, according to data from OpenSecrets. Johnson, who was the first Texas legislator with a same-sex spouse, has also benefited from $266,000 in support from Equality PAC, which is affiliated with the Congressional LGBTQ Equality Caucus.

The only other candidate who's getting notable outside backing is trauma surgeon Brian Williams, an Air Force veteran who has received $210,000 in aid from the Principled Veterans Fund. Johnson and Williams have significantly outraised the other eight Democrats competing to succeed Senate candidate Colin Allred in this safely blue Dallas seat.

TX-34: The Texas Tribune's Matthew Choi writes that Democratic incumbent Vicente Gonzalez appears to be meddling in next week's GOP primary by sending out mailers labeling former Rep. Mayra Flores "the weakest Republican and the easiest to defeat this November" and calling little-known foe Greg Kunkle a supporter of the "MAGA AGENDA." However, neither the congressman nor any outside groups seem to be doing much else to boost Kunkle, who hasn't reported raising any money.

Two other Republicans are also on the ballot, though neither of them appears to be a serious threat to Flores. Gonzalez, for his part, insists to Choi that he genuinely believes that Flores, whom he beat 53-44 last cycle, would be his weakest possible foe.

Ballot Measures

AK Ballot: Alaska election officials said this week that the campaign to repeal the state's top-four primary system has collected enough signatures to appear on the ballot this year, though it's not yet clear when. The Alaska Beacon says that the timing of the vote will depend on whether the legislature adjourns before or after April 22. If lawmakers end their session before that date, the measure would appear on the Aug. 20 primary ballot, while a later adjournment would move the vote to Nov. 5.

Mayors & County Leaders

Bridgeport, CT Mayor: Mayor Joe Ganim won reelection Tuesday 59-38 against former city official John Gomes, a fellow Democrat who ran under the banner of the state Independent Party, in their fourth and final contest over the last six months. You can find the backstory to Bridgeport's prolonged election season here.

Ad Roundup

Campaign Action

Morning Digest: How Trumpists could win a top elections post in a key swing state

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

Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast

Leading Off

From Daily Kos Elections' Jeff Singer:

The Downballot

The first downballot primaries of 2024 are here! We're previewing some of Tuesday's biggest races on this week's episode of "The Downballot" with Daily Kos Elections editor Jeff Singer. Singer highlights major elections in four states, including the battle for second place in California's Senate contest; whether Democrats will avoid a lockout in a critical California House district; if the worst Republican election fraudster in recent years will successfully stage a comeback in North Carolina; and how Alabama's new map will affect not one but two House races.

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also shake their heads in dismay at New York Democrats, who just unilaterally disarmed in the face of extreme GOP gerrymandering nationwide by passing a new congressional map that barely makes any changes to the status quo. The Davids emphasize that as long as Republicans keep blocking Democratic efforts to ban gerrymandering, Democrats have no choice but to fight fire with fire. Yet in New York, they grabbed the fire extinguisher.

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

Senate

KY-Sen: Sen. Mitch McConnell announced on Wednesday that he would relinquish his role as the GOP's Senate leader in November, ending his tenure as the chamber's longest-serving party leader.

The 82-year-old McConnell has faced questions about his health following two televised incidents in 2023 in which he froze while speaking publicly, but he indicated he intends to remain in the Senate until his term ends in 2027. Were McConnell to leave early, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear would be required to name another Republican in his seat after state lawmakers passed a law requiring same-party appointments in the event of vacancies in 2021.

First elected in 1984, McConnell has led Republicans in the upper chamber since early 2007, including six years as majority leader between 2015 and 2021. McConnell's tenure as leader coincided with a historic escalation in Republican obstruction tactics and norm-breaking.

But despite blockading Senate Democrats' agenda and enabling Donald Trump at nearly every step, McConnell earned the ire of diehard Trump supporters by blaming him for the Jan. 6 attack, though he ultimately voted not to convict Trump following his second impeachment. Nonetheless, McConnell won his final term as leader last year by a 37-10 margin among Senate Republicans.

MI-Sen: Great Lakes Conservative Fund, a super PAC that's supporting former Rep. Mike Rogers with a $2 million ad buy ahead of the Aug. 6 Republican primary, has released a poll from TargetPoint showing Rogers with a 32-12 lead against former Rep. Peter Meijer.

House

CO-08: Weld County Commissioner Scott James announced Tuesday that he was dropping out of the June GOP primary to face freshman Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo. James' departure leaves state Rep. Gabe Evans, who has the support of House Speaker Mike Johnson, as the Republican frontrunner. Thanks to self-funding, though, health insurance consultant Joe Andujo finished 2023 with a $203,000 to $186,000 cash on hand advantage over Evans.

Joe Biden would have carried Colorado's 8th District, which is based in the northern Denver suburbs and Greeley area, 51-46 in 2020, but Republicans are hoping that Caraveo's tight 48.4-47.7 win after the district was established following reapportionment foreshadows another close contest. Caraveo, though, ended last year with a hefty $1.4 million on hand to defend herself.

LA-03: The newsletter LaPolitics suggests that Rep. Garret Graves could try to extend his political career by challenging Rep. Clay Higgins, a fellow Republican, in the November all-party primary for Louisiana's 3rd District, though the item notes that such a notion is still "[s]peculation." The latest version of this constituency, which is based in the southwestern part of the state, would have supported Donald Trump 70-28.

Following court-ordered redistricting, Graves' 6th District became unwinnable for him, but the congressman has insisted he won't retire. However, he's all but ruled out running against Rep. Julia Letlow, another Republican, in the 5th District, and according to calculations from Daily Kos Elections, he currently represents just 10% of Higgins' revised 3rd.

MN-02: Marine veteran Tyler Kistner, who had already sounded unlikely to wage a third campaign against Democratic Rep. Angie Craig, has confirmed that he won't run again. Former federal prosecutor Joe Teirab and attorney Tayler Rahm are both still seeking the GOP nod, though Teirab ended 2023 with a notable $269,000 to $76,000 cash on hand advantage.

Craig finished the year with $2.2 million available to defend a suburban Twin Cities seat that favored Joe Biden 53-45 in 2020.

MT-02: Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale announced Wednesday that he would seek reelection to Montana's safely red 2nd District, a move that came two weeks after he dropped out of the June primary to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.

Eight Republicans had launched bids to replace Rosendale when it looked like he'd campaign for the Senate, and while several of them insisted earlier this month that they were willing to run against him, it remains to be seen how many of them will continue now that they know they'll have to take on an incumbent. It only takes a simple plurality to win the nomination, so a crowded field would likely benefit Rosendale.

House GOP leaders may, however, be hoping that someone puts up a strong fight against Rosendale, a Freedom Caucus member who was one of the eight House Republicans who voted to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Donald Trump, though, might still have his back: Trump wrote on Feb. 10 that, while he was backing wealthy businessman Tim Sheehy for Senate, "I always respect Matt Rosendale, and was very happy to Endorse him in the past and will Endorse him again in the future, should he decide to change course and run for his congressional seat."

The congressman used his Wednesday announcement to say that he was also supporting Sheehy, whom Rosendale attacked as a puppet of "the uniparty" and "a candidate who profited off Biden’s Green New Deal" during what turned out to be a seven-day Senate campaign.

NY Redistricting: Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a new congressional map into law on Wednesday, hours after Democratic lawmakers approved it. We recently detailed the likely partisan impacts of the new map, which closely resembles a proposal from the state's redistricting commission that Democratic legislators rejected earlier in the week.

While many observers had expected (or hoped) that Democrats would draw an aggressive gerrymander, their new map made only modest changes to the commission's map—so modest that state GOP chair Ed Cox said his party had "no need" to sue because the "lines are not materially different from" the court-drawn map used in 2022.

That sentiment was shared by former Rep. John Faso, who helped lead the successful legal challenge to the map that Democrats passed two years ago. The map even received votes from more than a dozen Republican lawmakers, including Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay.

Democrats also sent a bill to Hochul that would limit where redistricting lawsuits could be filed to just one of four blue counties—Albany, Erie, New York (Manhattan), or Westchester—to prevent Republicans from shopping for a favorable Republican judge, as they were accused of doing in their previous lawsuit. However, given the response from Republicans so far, that legislation may not ultimately matter for the new map.

NY-01: Former state Sen. Jim Gaughran has endorsed former CNN anchor John Avlon in the June Democratic primary for New York's 1st Congressional District, one day after Gaughran ended his own campaign. Two other notable Democrats are running to take on first-term GOP Rep. Nick LaLotta: Nancy Goroff, who was the party's nominee in 2020, and former congressional staffer Kyle Hill.

NY-03: Air Force veteran Kellen Curry tells Politico that he's considering running for the Republican nomination to take on Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi. Curry spent months challenging then-Rep. George Santos and raised $432,000 from donors before party leaders tapped another Republican, Nassau County Legislator Mazi Pilip, for the Feb. 13 special election.

The GOP field already includes two other Republicans who originally campaigned against Santos, Air Force veteran Greg Hach and Security Traders Association president Jim Toes. Hach informs Politico that he's going to self-fund $1 million. There is no indication that Toes, who only raised $100,000 during his first effort, has similar abilities.

The November election will take place under slightly different lines than the recent special. New York's Democratic governor and legislature just approved a new congressional map that makes modest changes to the 3rd District, increasing Joe Biden's margin of victory from 54-45 to 55-44.

OH-09: J.R. Majewski announced Wednesday that he'd remain in the March 19 Republican primary, a move that came less than a day after the toxic 2022 nominee told Politico he was considering ending his second campaign to take on Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur. Majewski even titled his mid-week press release "J.R. Majewski (Almost) Suspends Campaign for Congress" while still expressing defiance toward the GOP establishment.

TX-32: The crypto-aligned PAC Protect Progress has spent close to $1 million to promote state Rep. Julie Johnson ahead of next week's Democratic primary, according to data from OpenSecrets. Johnson, who was the first Texas legislator with a same-sex spouse, has also benefited from $266,000 in support from Equality PAC, which is affiliated with the Congressional LGBTQ Equality Caucus.

The only other candidate who's getting notable outside backing is trauma surgeon Brian Williams, an Air Force veteran who has received $210,000 in aid from the Principled Veterans Fund. Johnson and Williams have significantly outraised the other eight Democrats competing to succeed Senate candidate Colin Allred in this safely blue Dallas seat.

TX-34: The Texas Tribune's Matthew Choi writes that Democratic incumbent Vicente Gonzalez appears to be meddling in next week's GOP primary by sending out mailers labeling former Rep. Mayra Flores "the weakest Republican and the easiest to defeat this November" and calling little-known foe Greg Kunkle a supporter of the "MAGA AGENDA." However, neither the congressman nor any outside groups seem to be doing much else to boost Kunkle, who hasn't reported raising any money.

Two other Republicans are also on the ballot, though neither of them appears to be a serious threat to Flores. Gonzalez, for his part, insists to Choi that he genuinely believes that Flores, whom he beat 53-44 last cycle, would be his weakest possible foe.

Ballot Measures

AK Ballot: Alaska election officials said this week that the campaign to repeal the state's top-four primary system has collected enough signatures to appear on the ballot this year, though it's not yet clear when. The Alaska Beacon says that the timing of the vote will depend on whether the legislature adjourns before or after April 22. If lawmakers end their session before that date, the measure would appear on the Aug. 20 primary ballot, while a later adjournment would move the vote to Nov. 5.

Mayors & County Leaders

Bridgeport, CT Mayor: Mayor Joe Ganim won reelection Tuesday 59-38 against former city official John Gomes, a fellow Democrat who ran under the banner of the state Independent Party, in their fourth and final contest over the last six months. You can find the backstory to Bridgeport's prolonged election season here.

Ad Roundup

Campaign Action

The House GOP’s terrible math just got even worse

House Republicans have conclusively proven that they suck at math—and now the math has just gotten even worse for them.

On Wednesday, Democrat Tom Suozzi will be sworn in as the newest addition to the Democratic caucus, following his triumph in the special election to replace the extremely disgraced George Santos. Because Suozzi’s victory flipped New York’s 3rd District from red to blue, Democrats will now have 213 members in the House, while Republican ranks will remain frozen at 219.

That in turn means that House Speaker Mike Johnson’s comically slender margin for error will shrink even further, from a precarious three votes to a pitiful two. On any given roll call, should a trio of Republicans side with Democrats, that would spell instant death for the bill in question, since a 216-216 tie is the same as a loss.

We recently saw a preview of this very dynamic in action, when a tiny handful of renegades sank the GOP’s first attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Now dissidents can cut off Johnson’s plans with just three defections.

This logic, of course, applies to any faction of Republicans who are unhappy with Johnson, whether they’re relative pragmatists, like those who opposed impeaching Mayorkas, or far-right lunatics, like the junta that deposed Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy.

And with critical deadlines coming up to fund government operations and avoid a shutdown, any three Republicans with any grievance at all could make Johnson’s already hellish life even more so.

This state of affairs, by the way, will likely persist until mid-June, when special elections to fill three remaining vacancies will finally conclude. (One seat was held by a Democrat and two, including McCarthy’s, were held by Republicans, though none are likely to change hands.) But even then, the improvement for Johnson will be minimal at best, since he’d simply be back to the pre-Suozzi status quo of being able to manage no more than three defectors.

What makes this all the more remarkable is that when Nancy Pelosi had a comparably small majority in the prior Congress, she continually made magic happen—and never lost a single roll call vote. Her successor, Hakeem Jeffries, has likewise presided over an era of extraordinary Democratic unity.

As voters cast their ballots this fall to determine control of the House, this stark contrast—between extremist meshugas and grown-up governance—will do nothing to help Republicans argue that they should remain in charge.

Campaign Action

Morning Digest: Congressman turned unsuccessful fast-food proprietor seeks comeback

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

Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast

Leading Off

The NRCC was recently bashing Democratic candidates who lost elections in previous years as "week old crusty lasagna," so surely that gustatory slur should apply to Republicans too, right? Ex-Rep. Denny Rehberg, once a touted recruit, was last on the ballot in 2012, when Sen. Jon Tester sent him packing. Since then, he's operated a bunch of fast-food restaurants, all of which have since shuttered. (What was that about past-their-prime vittles?) Oh, and he also became a lobbyist. Read more at Daily Kos Elections about Rehberg's quest to win eastern Montana's maybe-open House seat.

He may have co-founded No Labels, but now he wants to adopt at least one label: Former CNN anchor John "Fipp" Avlon just launched a campaign for Congress on Long Island under the banner of the Democratic Party. His problem is that he's not the only person with that idea, since he's joining a crowded primary that already has a frontrunner—and he'll have to explain to voters why a longtime Manhattanite who never voted in Suffolk County prior to 2020 is the right fit for the district. Jeff Singer handicaps the evolving Democratic primary to take on first-term Republican Nick LaLota.

The Downballot

The economy seems to be going great, but lots of voters still say they aren't feeling it. So how should Democrats deal with this conundrum? On this week's episode of "The Downballot," communications consultant Anat Shenker-Osorio tells us that the first step is to reframe the debate, focusing not on "the economy"—an institution many feel is unjust—but rather on voters' economic well-being. Shenker-Osorio advises Democrats to run on a populist message that emphasizes specifics, like delivering tangible kitchen-table economic benefits and protecting personal liberties, including the right to an abortion.

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also investigate the new candidacy of rich guy Eric Hovde, the latest in a long line of GOP Senate candidates who have weak ties to the states they want to represent. Then it's on to redistricting news in two states: Wisconsin, which will have fair legislative maps for the first time in ages, and New York, where Democrats are poised to nuke a new congressional map that no one seems to like.

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

Senate

CA-Sen: Analyst Rob Pyers highlights that Fairshake, a super PAC funded by cryptocurrency firms, has deployed an additional $3.2 million against Democratic Rep. Katie Porter. This brings the group's total investment to $6.8 million with less than two weeks to go before the March 5 top-two primary.

MD-Sen: Former Gov. Larry Hogan has publicized an internal poll from Ragnar Research conducted about a week before the Republican unexpectedly entered the race, and it shows him far ahead of both of the major Democrats. The numbers, which were first shared with Punchbowl News, show Hogan outpacing Rep. David Trone and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks 49-33 and 52-29, respectively. The memo did not include numbers pitting Joe Biden against Donald Trump in this blue state.

MI-Sen: The Michigan-based pollster EPIC-MRA finds Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin narrowly edging out former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers 39-38 in a hypothetical general election as respondents favor Donald Trump 45-41 over Joe Biden. There is no word if the firm had a client for this survey, though The Detroit Free Press, which often employs EPIC-MRA and first reported these numbers, says that this poll was not conducted on its behalf.

House

AL-01: The Club for Growth has launched a $580,000 TV buy to help Rep. Barry Moore fend off fellow incumbent Jerry Carl in the March 5 Republican primary, an ad campaign that comes more than three months after Moore insisted he wouldn't "accept support" from the well-funded group. But Moore, as we explained at the time, may have issued this public disavowal to stay on the good side of Donald Trump, whose on-again, off-again feud with the Club was very much "on" last year.

Politico reported earlier this month that Club head David McIntosh and Trump have again made peace, though Moore doesn't appear to have said anything new about the Club. However, independent expenditure organizations like the Club's School Freedom Fund affiliate don't need a candidate's permission to get involved and in fact cannot legally seek it.

The Club, of course, is behaving like there never was any feud: Its opening commercial promotes Moore as an ardent Trump ally, complete with a clip of him proclaiming, "Go Trump!" Carl goes unmentioned in the script, though his image appears alongside Mitch McConnell's as the narrator attacks "weak-kneed RINOs." The buy comes shortly after another pro-Moore organization, the House Freedom Caucus, launched what AdImpact reported was a $759,000 buy targeting Carl.

CA-16: Primary School flags that a super PAC called Next Generation Veteran Fund has now spent close to $1.1 million to promote businessman Peter Dixon, who is one of the many Democrats competing in the March 5 top-two primary to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo in Silicon Valley. The organization, which says it is "exclusively supporting former U.S. Marine Peter Dixon," is connected to the With Honor Fund, a group co-founded by Dixon that backs military veterans in both parties.

Dixon is one of several well-funded Democrats on the ballot, but he's the only one who hasn't previously held elected office. His opponents include former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, Assemblyman Evan Low, and Eshoo's endorsed candidate, Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian. Palo Alto City Councilmember Julie Lythcott-Haims is also competing, though she finished 2023 with considerably less money than the rest of the pack. (Updated fundraising reports covering Jan. 1 through Feb. 14 are due Thursday evening.)

Dixon's backers at Next Generation Veteran Fund, according to OpenSecrets, have also spent considerably more than any other outside group. Liccardo and Low have each received just over $300,000 in aid from allied super PACs, while about $250,000 has been spent to boost Simitian. None of these PACs have spent in any other contests this year.

Joe Biden carried the 16th District 75-22, so there's a good chance that two Democrats will advance to the Nov. 5 general election. Indeed, the Palo Alto Daily Post writes that one of the two Republican candidates, self-described "small business owner" Karl Ryan, appears to have done no campaigning and has an AI-generated website that "includes made-up quotes from made-up people, and a single photo of Ryan with what appears to be his family."

CO-04: Colorado Politics' Ernest Luning writes that most of the 11 Republicans campaigning to replace retiring GOP Rep. Ken Buck say they'll try to reach the June 25 primary ballot both by collecting signatures and by competing at the party convention. (We explain Colorado's complex ballot access process here.)

The only candidate who appears to have said he'll only take part in the convention, which usually occurs in early April, is former state Sen. Ted Harvey. Logan County Commissioner Jerry Sonnenberg, meanwhile, said at a debate that he's currently only going the convention route but held open the possibility of also gathering signatures.

MN-03: Former state judge Tad Jude announced this week that he'd seek the GOP nod to replace Democratic Rep. Dean Philips, who is continuing on with his quixotic bid for president. But Jude, who has a political career stretching back five decades, may be tilting at windmills himself: While Republicans were the dominant party in this highly educated suburban Twin Cities seat before Donald Trump entered the White House, Joe Biden carried the 3rd District 60-39 in 2020.

Jude was elected to the legislature as a 20-year-old Democrat in 1972, and he still carried that party label in 1992 when he narrowly failed to unseat Rep. Gerry Sikorski in the primary for the 6th District. (Sikorski went on to badly lose reelection to Republican Rod Grams.) Jude soon switched parties and claimed the 1994 GOP nod to replace Grams, who left to wage a successful Senate campaign, but he lost a tight general election to Democrat Bill Luther.

After decisively losing a rematch against Luther two years later, Jude eventually returned to elected office by winning a packed 2010 race for a local judgeship. He left the bench ahead of the 2022 elections to campaign for attorney general, and he responded to his defeat at the GOP convention by switching to the race for Hennepin County prosecutor. That effort, though, also ended after Jude took fourth place in the nonpartisan primary.

MO-03: The Missouri Scout's Dave Drebes reports that state Rep. Justin Hicks has filed FEC paperwork for a potential campaign to replace his fellow Republican, retiring Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer.

The site also has a candidate tracker for the August GOP primary, and it identifies three names we hadn't heard before as "considering": Cole County Prosecutor Locke Thompson, former state House Speaker Rob Vescovo, and state Rep. Tricia Byrnes. The Scout also lists in the "OUT" column state Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer (whom Drebes has said is the congressman's cousin "of some indeterminate distance") and state Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden. The filing deadline is March 26.

NY-26: Republican leaders nominated West Seneca Supervisor Gary Dickson on Wednesday as their candidate for a difficult April 30 special election to succeed former Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins. Dickson, who was chosen a day before the deadline to pick nominees, will take on Democratic state Sen. Tim Kennedy in a Buffalo area constituency that Joe Biden carried 61-37 in 2020. (Democrats tapped Kennedy in mid-January.)

However, the two men may not have the ballot to themselves. Former Grand Island Town Supervisor Nate McMurray, who was the Democrats' nominee three straight times in the now-defunct 27th District, is trying to collect enough signatures to appear on the ballot as an independent. McMurray previously announced that he would campaign for a full term in the June Democratic primary.

PA-10: EMILYs List on Wednesday endorsed former local TV anchor Janelle Stelson ahead of the six-way April 23 Democratic primary to take on far-right Rep. Scott Perry. Only one other Democrat, however, finished 2023 with a six-figure bank account. Marine veteran Mike O'Brien led Stelson $186,000 to $140,000 in cash on hand, while former local public radio executive Blake Lynch was far back with $22,000.

Perry, for his part, had $547,000 available to defend himself. This seat, which is based in the Harrisburg and York areas, favored Donald Trump 51-47 in 2020.

TN-07: Music video producer Robby Starbuck tells The Tennessee Journal's Andy Sher that he's interested in running to replace retiring Republican Rep. Mark Green in the 7th District, though whether he can even appear on the August GOP primary ballot may not be up to him.

Starbuck campaigned for the neighboring 5th District in 2022 three years after relocating from California to Tennessee, but party leaders ruled that he was not a "bona fide" Republican because he hadn't yet voted in enough primaries in his new home state.

Starbuck unsuccessfully went to court to challenge the GOP for keeping his name off the ballot, but that move may have ended his hopes for future cycles: The state Republican Party passed new by-laws last month stating that any person who's sued the party cannot appear on a primary ballot for the ensuing decade.

Party chair Scott Golden informs Sher that GOP leaders could grant Starbuck the waiver they denied him two years ago, which would allow him to compete in the primary for the 7th District. Still, Golden added that he believed the would-be candidate's primary voting record still prevented him from meeting the regular definition of a "bona fide" Republican.

Sher also reports that state Sen. Kerry Roberts is reportedly interested in seeking the GOP nod if her colleague, Bill Powers, stays out of the race. The candidate filing deadline is April 4.

WA-05: Spokane County Treasurer Michael Baumgartner, a Republican who previously said he was considering competing for this conservative open seat, tells the Washington State Standard he is "receiving overwhelming support to run and could likely make an announcement early next week." He even listed his campaign's likely co-chairs, including Dino Rossi, who was the unsuccessful GOP nominee for competitive races for governor, the Senate, and the 8th Congressional District over the past two decades.

Mayors & County Leaders

Maricopa County, AZ Board of Supervisors: Far-right Rep. Debbie Lesko confirmed Tuesday that she would run for the seat on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors held by incumbent Clint Hickman, a fellow Republican who is retiring following years of harassment from Big Lie spreaders. We took a detailed look at the elections for the five-member body that leads Arizona's largest county in our story previewing a possible Lesko bid earlier this week.

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