Morning Digest: A Supreme Court majority is on the line in Montana this fall

Posted on May 30, 2024 by Daily Kos Elections

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

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Leading Off

● MT Supreme Court: Conservatives have a chance to take a majority on Montana's Supreme Court in November thanks to the retirements of two liberal justices. However, a high-profile battle looms as progressives seek to defend a court that has long stood as a defender of democracy and abortion rights.

The race to replace Mike McGrath as chief justice has drawn the most attention to date. Three candidates are running in Tuesday's officially nonpartisan primary, though each party has coalesced around a single choice. (The top two vote-getters will advance to a November faceoff.)

Democrats are united behind former federal Magistrate Judge Jerry Lynch while the Republican establishment is backing Broadwater County Attorney Cory Swanson. The third entrant, criminal defense attorney Doug Marshall, doesn't seem to be running a credible campaign (he's said he might vote for Swanson).

The contest to succeed Dirk Sandefur, an associate justice, is arrayed similarly. The two main candidates are both trial court judges: Judge Katherine Bidegaray, the consensus Democratic pick, serves five counties in the eastern part of the state, while Judge Dan Wilson, the top choice of Republicans, has jurisdiction in Flathead County in Montana's northwestern corner.

A former Republican state lawmaker, Jerry O'Neil, is also running, but he's currently challenging the state's eligibility rules because he's not a member of the bar.

The four top contenders have all banked similar sums, between about $80,000 and $100,000, as of the most recent fundraising reports that run through mid-May. (Marshall and O'Neil have reported raising almost nothing.) Those totals in part reflect Montana's relatively low donation caps, which top out at $790.

But outside spending is sure to dwarf whatever the candidates put in. In 2022, when just a single seat on the court was seriously contested, third parties on both sides combined to spend at least $3 million—a huge sum given the state's small population—and very likely more. (The Montana Free Press said that figure was "almost certainly an undercount" due to errors in campaign finance filings.)

In that race, Justice Ingrid Gustafson won reelection to an eight-year term by defeating conservative James Brown 54-46. That victory preserved the ideological balance on the court, which has generally been described as including three liberals, two conservatives, and two swing justices, including Gustafson.

Those two swing votes have played a crucial role in recent years, often joined with the liberal bloc. Most notably, in a 5-2 decision issued in 2022, the court barred Republican lawmakers from proceeding with a ballot measure that would have let them gerrymander the court itself.

The court has been more united on abortion rights, which are protected under a 1999 precedent known as the Armstrong decision. Two years ago, the justices unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that temporarily blocked a trio of anti-abortion bills passed by GOP lawmakers. And earlier this year, on a 6-1 vote, the court gave the green light to a ballot initiative that would enshrine the right to an abortion into the state constitution.

But a court with four conservatives could feel emboldened to revisit Armstrong, which is a major reason why reproductive rights advocates are pushing forward with their amendment.

The issue is also certain to be a focus in the races for both Supreme Court seats. Both Lynch and Bidegaray have spoken in favor of abortion rights, albeit less explicitly than some liberal judicial candidates in other states have.

At a campaign event last year, Lynch said that Montanans deserved to be "[f]ree from government interference, especially when it comes to reproductive rights." Bidegaray has been less direct, telling ABC News in March that she's running "to protect our democratic principles, which include the separation of powers and the unique rights provided by the 1972 Montana Constitution, including women's rights."

The leading conservatives, however, have sought to avoid the issue altogether. Wilson declined to comment to ABC, while Swanson demurred. "I don't believe it would be appropriate to discuss potential outcomes of future cases," he said.

The Downballot

● It's right there in the name of the show, so yeah, of course we're gonna talk about downballot races on this week's episode of "The Downballot"! Specifically, we drill down into the top contests for attorney general and state supreme court taking place all across the country this year. Democrats and liberals are playing defense in Montana, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, but they have the chance to make gains in many states, including Michigan, Arizona, Ohio, and even Texas.

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also recap Tuesday's runoffs in the Lone Star State, where a GOP congressman barely hung on against an odious "gunfluencer." They also dissect a new Supreme Court ruling out of South Carolina that all but scraps a key weapon Black voters have used to attack gerrymandering. And they preview New Jersey's first primaries in a post-"county line" world.

Subscribe to "The Downballot" wherever you listen to podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode. You'll find a transcript of this week's episode right here by Thursday afternoon. New episodes come out every Thursday morning!

Senate

● AZ-Sen: The Congressional Hispanic Caucus' Bold PAC announced this week that it has reserved $1.1 million in TV, radio, and digital advertising for September to aid Democrat Ruben Gallego. "The statewide investment represents the first Spanish language reservations in the general election in this race and is the largest single independent expenditure in BOLD PAC’s 23 year history," the group said.

● WI-Sen: A Senate Majority PAC affiliate has debuted a TV ad that attacks Republican Eric Hovde as a rich CEO whose bank "makes millions at seniors' expense" and "owns a nursing home being sued for elder abuse and wrongful death," citing a story from last month that the New York Times had first reported.

The commercial then plays a clip from a right-wing talk show appearance earlier in April where Hovde told the host that "almost nobody in a nursing home is in a point to vote" and insinuated without evidence that there was widespread voter fraud at Wisconsin nursing homes in the 2020 election.

Hovde's campaign has also unveiled new ads, with one spot covering generic far-right themes and cultural grievances. His second ad highlights his upbringing and family ancestry in Wisconsin to hit back against Democratic claims that he has mostly lived out-of-state for decades and spent most of his time in California before joining the race.

However, Hovde doesn't actually rebut those claims. After noting he graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1986, he only says he's had a business in the Madison area "for over 20 years" and his family currently lives there.

House

● MI-08, DCCC: The DCCC announced Wednesday that it was adding Michigan state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet to its Red to Blue program for top candidates even though, unlike the other four new inductees, she still has a contested primary to get through.

McDonald Rivet's main opponent in the Aug. 6 Democratic primary for the open and swingy 8th District is businessman Matt Collier, a former Flint mayor and Army veteran who has VoteVets' support. State Board of Education President Pamela Pugh is also running to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee, but she's struggled to raise money.

But while this is the first time that national Democratic leaders have publicly taken sides in the primary for this seat, which is based in the Flint and Tri-Cities areas, there were already indications that they wanted McDonald Rivet as their nominee. In its January article covering her entry into the race, the Detroit News wrote that party strategists viewed the state senator as a top recruit" they'd hoped to land.

Last year, Democratic consultant Adrian Hemond described her to the Daily Beast as the type of "solidly center-left Democrat" who can "play nice" with the district's large Catholic electorate, adding, "In terms of people who have a track record of winning tough elections in this area, Kristen McDonald Rivet is probably top of the list." McDonald Rivet since then has earned endorsements from EMILYs List and powerful labor organizations like the United Auto Workers and the state AFL-CIO.

The DCCC rarely adds candidates to Red to Blue unless they've already won their primary or it's clear that they'll have no trouble doing so, and that's the case for the other four new names on the list. The committee is backing former U.S. Department of Justice official Shomari Figures, who secured the nomination in April for Alabama's revamped 2nd District.

Also in the program are a pair of Democratic nominees who are challenging Republican incumbents in Pennsylvania: retired Army pilot Ashley Ehasz, who is taking on Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in the 1st District, and former TV news anchor Janelle Stelson, who is going up against far-right incumbent Scott Perry in the 10th.

The final new name belongs to Wisconsin Democrat Peter Barca, who is trying to beat GOP Rep. Bryan Steil and reclaim the seat he last held three decades ago. Candidate filing doesn't close in the Badger State until June 3, but there's no indication that any other serious Democrats are interested in campaigning for the 1st District.

The only one of those seats with a contested GOP primary is also Michigan's 8th District, and the Republican nomination contest has already gotten nasty with more than two months to go.

Retired Dow Chemical Company executive Mary Draves on Tuesday began running ads attacking her main intra-party rival, 2022 nominee Paul Junge, about two weeks after he started airing commercials against her. Draves' narrator says that, while Junge publicly says he supports American jobs, he really "invested his inherited trust fund in, you guessed it, China. Not one dollar invested in Michigan jobs." The rest of the spot touts Draves as a loyal Donald Trump ally with a history of creating local jobs.

Junge has been promoting a very different narrative about Draves with advertising portraying her as a phony conservative who served on Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's "climate change council to push her green agenda."

Draves was the subject of an unwelcome headline later in the month when the Detroit News reported both that she'd donated to Democratic Sen. Gary Peters' 2020 reelection committee and that she'd contributed last October to McDonald Rivet's own political action committee.

Draves defended herself by arguing that 99% of the political donations she's made in the last 18 years went to help conservatives and that she shouldn't be admonished for these two outliers. "I made a symbolic contribution to Peters as he was supportive of our work at Dow," she said in a statement, adding, "A friend of mine was hosting an event for Rivet's state Legislature leadership PAC and had asked me to buy a ticket, so I did but did not attend."

Republican leaders may be content if primary voters accept this argument so they can avoid having Junge as their standard bearer again. The 2022 nominee lost to Kildee by an unexpectedly wide 53-43 margin two years after Joe Biden carried the 8th District by a small 50-48 spread, and Democrats would likely once again hammer Junge over his weak ties to the region. Unlike the DCCC, however, national GOP leaders have yet to take sides in their nomination contest.

● MI-13: Former state Sen. Adam Hollier announced Wednesday that he had filed an appeal with Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson days after Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett determined that he'd failed to collect enough valid signatures to appear on the August Democratic primary ballot.

The Detroit News says it's not clear if the state Bureau of Elections will take up this matter before the Board of State Canvassers meets Friday to address the fate of other candidates who have been disqualified from the ballot. Hollier is Rep. Shri Thanedar's most serious intra-party opponent.

● MO-01: AIPAC, the hawkish pro-Israel group, has launched its first TV ad to support St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell ahead of his Aug. 6 Democratic primary against Rep. Cori Bush. The commercial promotes Bell as a criminal justice reformer but does not mention Bush. AdImpact reports AIPAC has reserved at least $344,000 via its United Democracy Project super PAC.

● NY-01: Former CNN anchor John Avlon has publicized endorsements from three members of New York's Democratic House delegation: Rep. Tom Suozzi, who represents a neighboring seat on Long Island, and New York City-based Reps. Dan Goldman and Greg Meeks. Avlon faces Nancy Goroff, who was the 2020 Democratic nominee for a previous version of the 1st District, in the June 25 primary to take on freshman GOP Rep. Nick LaLota.

● NY-16: AIPAC's United Democracy Project has now spent roughly $8 million to support Westchester County Executive George Latimer's primary challenge against Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman, according to AdImpact data relayed by Politico's Emily Ngo. By contrast, Bowman's campaign has spent just $715,000 with just a month until the June 25 primary.

● VA-07: Former National Security Council adviser Eugene Vindman has released an internal from Global Strategy Group that shows him decisively beating Prince William County Supervisor Andrea Bailey 43-10 in the June 18 Democratic primary for the open 7th District; another 32% are undecided, while the balance is split between three other candidates.

This is the first poll we've seen of the contest to succeed Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who is giving up this seat to concentrate on her 2025 run for governor. Vindman massively outraised the rest of the field through the end of March, and almost all of the outside spending on the Democratic side has been to support him.

● WA-06: The Washington Public Employees Association this week endorsed state Sen. Emily Randall over the other leading Democrat, Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz, and its leaders made sure to highlight that it represents Franz's subordinates in the Department of Natural Resources.

The Washington Observer reported earlier this month that DNR staffers successfully urged another group, the Washington State Labor Council, to back Randall by citing "issues of worker safety and low morale" in their workplace. A third labor organization that represents DNR personnel, the Washington Federation of State Employees, also endorsed the state senator last month ahead of the Aug. 6 top-two primary.

Attorneys General

● NC-AG, NC Supreme Court, NC Superintendent: The progressive group Carolina Forward has publicized the downballot portion of a mid-May poll it commissioned from Change Research, which finds narrow leads for Democratic candidates while many voters remain undecided.

In the race to succeed Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Stein as attorney general, Democratic Rep. Jeff Jackson posts a 43-40 edge over Republican colleague Dan Bishop. For the state Supreme Court, appointed Democratic Justice Allison Riggs is ahead 41-40 over Republican Jefferson Griffin, a judge on the state Court of Appeals.

For education superintendent, Democrat Moe Green is up by 42-39 over Republican Michele Morrow, a far-right conspiracy theorist who won her primary in an upset over GOP incumbent Catherine Truitt.

Carolina Forward had previously released the poll's results for the top of the ticket, where Trump led 45-43 in a two-way matchup and 41-38 in a three-way race with independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. taking 11%. Stein held a 44-43 edge over far-right Republican Mark Robinson for governor.

Ballot Measures

● MO Ballot: Republican Gov. Mike Parson on Tuesday set Aug. 6 as the date for a re-do of a 2022 state constitutional amendment that empowered the state legislature to require Kansas City to spend at least 25% of its general revenue on its police. Parson's move comes even though the state Supreme Court explicitly ordered this amendment appear before voters on Nov. 5 rather than on the summer primary ballot.

Statewide voters last cycle approved Amendment 4 by 63-37 even though it only impacts Kansas City, which is the only major city in America that doesn't have control over its own police force. Last month, though, the state's highest court ruled that a new vote was required because election officials had included a misleading fiscal summary that said the amendment "would have no fiscal impact when the fiscal note identified a sizeable one."

Legislatures

● TX State House: Six state House Republicans lost their runoffs Tuesday even as Speaker Dade Phelan won renomination in an upset, and GOP Gov. Greg Abbott was quick to insist that he "now has enough votes" to pass his stalled plan to use taxpayer money to pay for private schools.

Abbott didn't bother to acknowledge that there are general elections in November, and the Texas Tribune's Jasper Scherer noted that Democrats are hoping to flip at least one of the seats the governor is already counting as a pickup for his cause.

That constituency is the 121st District in San Antonio, where Marc LaHood defeated Rep. Steve Allison in the March GOP primary. Democrat Laurel Jordan Swift will face LaHood in a district that, according to VEST data from Dave's Redistricting App, favored Donald Trump by a small 50-48 spread in 2020.

Ultimately, 15 Republican representatives lost renomination this year, though Abbott wasn't happy to see them all go. Attorney General Ken Paxton also used this year's primaries and runoffs to punish members who voted to impeach him for corruption last year, and he was sometimes on the opposite side of Abbott in key races.

One member who escaped Paxton's wrath, though, was Phelan, who narrowly defeated former Orange County Republican Party chair David Covey 50.7-49.3 in a contest where Abbott didn't take sides. (The only other sitting GOP representative to get forced into a runoff but survive was Gary VanDeaver, who beat an Abbott-backed foe.)

The attorney general characteristically responded to the 366-vote loss for Covey, who also sported endorsements from Donald Trump and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, by accusing Phelan of having "blatantly stolen" the election by encouraging Democratic voters to back him. Texas, notes Axios' Asher Price, does not have party registration.

Paxton also called for Republican representatives, who are all but certain to maintain their hefty majority in the gerrymandered chamber, to end Phelan's speakership next year. Rep. Tom Oliverson, who avoided casting a vote in Paxton's impeachment, announced his own bid for speaker in March, and he responded to Phelan's victory on Wednesday by proclaiming, "Campaign For Speaker Begins In Ernest."

Prosecutors & Sheriffs

● Hillsborough County, FL State Attorney: Former State Attorney Andrew Warren this week publicized endorsements from several Tampa-area Democrats including Rep. Kathy Castor, who represents about 40% of Hillsborough County, ahead of the Aug. 20 primary.

Warren is trying to regain his old office from Republican incumbent Suzy Lopez, whom Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed in 2022 after permanently suspending Warren. First, though, Warren needs to win the Democratic primary against attorney Elizabeth Martinez Strauss, who hails from a prominent local legal family.

Strauss has stated that she believes that Warren was unfairly removed for, among other things, refusing to prosecute people who obtain or provide abortions. However, she's also argued that Warren is "a risky candidate" because DeSantis could just suspend him all over again. "Voters should have a choice and they may want a state attorney who can hold the job for more than 24 hours," Strauss told Florida Politics last month.

Poll Pile

NC-Gov: Benenson Strategy Group (R)/GS Strategy Group (D) for the Cook Political Report: Josh Stein (D): 37, Mark Robinson (R): 37 (48-41 Trump in two-way, 44-36 Trump with third-party candidates)

Ad Roundup

NH-Gov: Cinde Warmington (D)
OK-04: Tom Cole (R-inc); Cole - anti-Paul Bondar (R)
SC-04: William Timmons (R-inc)

Campaign Action

Donald Trump says he’d consider Ken Paxton for US attorney general

Posted on May 20, 2024 by Texas Tribune

Trump told a reporter in Texas this weekend that Paxton is “a very talented guy.”

By Jasper Scherer, The Texas Tribune

Former President Donald Trump said he would consider tapping Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for U.S. attorney general if he wins a second term in the White House, calling his longtime ally “a very talented guy” and praising his tenure as Texas’ chief legal officer.

“I would, actually,” Trump said Saturday when asked by a KDFW-TV reporter if he would consider Paxton for the national post. “He’s very, very talented. I mean, we have a lot of people that want that one and will be very good at it. But he’s a very talented guy.”

Paxton has long been a close ally of Trump, famously waging an unsuccessful legal challenge to Trump’s 2020 election loss in four battleground states. He also spoke at the pro-Trump rally that preceded the deadly U.S. Capitol riot in January 2021.

Paxton’s loyalty was rewarded with an endorsement from Trump in the 2022 primary, which helped the attorney general fend off three prominent GOP challengers.

Trump also came to Paxton’s defense when he was impeached last year for allegedly accepting bribes and abusing the power of his office to help a wealthy friend and campaign donor. After Paxton was acquitted in the Texas Senate, Trump claimed credit, citing his “intervention” on his Truth Social platform, where he denounced the proceedings and threatened political retribution for Republicans who backed the impeachment.

“I fought for him when he had the difficulty and we won,” he told KDFW. “He had some people really after him, and I thought it was really unfair.”

Trump’s latest comments, delivered at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Dallas, come after a series of recent polls have shown the presumptive Republican nominee leading President Joe Biden in a handful of key battleground states.

Paxton has also seen his political prospects rise in recent months, after prosecutors agreed in March to drop three felony counts of securities fraud that had loomed over Paxton for nearly his entire tenure as attorney general. The resolution of the nine-year-old case, along with Paxton’s impeachment acquittal in the Senate last fall, has brought him closer than ever to a political career devoid of legal drama.

Still, Paxton’s critics say he is far from vindicated. He remains under federal investigation for the same allegations that formed the basis of his impeachment, and he continues to face a whistleblower lawsuit from former deputies who said they were illegally fired for reporting Paxton to law enforcement. A separate lawsuit from the state bar seeks to penalize Paxton for his 2020 election challenge, which relied on discredited claims of election fraud.

If nominated, Paxton would need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The chamber is narrowly divided along party lines, with Democrats holding a 51-49 majority. One of the most prominent Republican members, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, has been an outspoken critic of Paxton, while Paxton has openly entertained the idea of challenging Cornyn in 2026.

Paxton is not the only Texan Trump has floated for a high-profile spot in his potential administration. In February, he said Gov. Greg Abbott is “absolutely” on his short list of potential vice presidential candidates. Abbott has since downplayed his interest in the job.

Campaign Action

Tracking URL: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/20/donald-trump-ken-paxton-attorney-general/

Ex-Texas House speaker: GOP megadonor told him only Christians should be in leadership

Posted on April 5, 2024 by Texas Tribune

Straus, who is Jewish, publicly confirmed the conversation for the first time Thursday. It had previously been reported by Texas Monthly.

By Jasper Scherer and Robert Downen, The Texas Tribune April 4, 2024

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

Former Texas House Speaker Joe Straus said on Thursday that Midland oil magnate Tim Dunn, one of the state’s most powerful and influential GOP megadonors, once told him that only Christians should hold leadership positions in the lower chamber.

Straus, a Republican who is Jewish, relayed the encounter in an interview with former Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. It appeared to be the first time Straus publicly confirmed the anecdote, which was first reported by Texas Monthly in a 2018 story that cited “Straus insiders.”

The alleged remarks came at a November 2010 meeting, shortly after Dunn’s political network had targeted many of the Democrats and moderate Republicans who had helped Straus ascend to the speakership the year before. With Straus poised to seek a second term as speaker the following January, he said he asked Dunn to meet in the hopes of finding common ground on “fiscal tax issues.”

But Dunn reportedly demanded that Straus replace “a significant number” of his committee chairs with tea party-aligned lawmakers backed by Dunn’s political advocacy group, Empower Texans. After Straus rebuffed the demand, the two began to talk about social policy, at which point Dunn allegedly said he believed only Christians should hold leadership posts.

“It was a pretty unsatisfactory meeting,” Straus said Thursday. “We never met again.”

Dunn did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Straus’ confirmation of the comments comes as Dunn’s political empire continues to face scrutiny for its ties to avowed white supremacists and antisemites. In October, The Texas Tribune reported that Jonathan Stickland, the then-leader of Dunn’s most powerful political action committee, hosted prominent white supremacist and Adolf Hitler admirer Nick Fuentes at his office for nearly seven hours. The Tribune subsequently uncovered close ties between numerous other Fuentes associates and Defend Texas Liberty, the PAC that Stickland led until he was quietly replaced last year.

The reporting prompted Speaker Dade Phelan and 60 other House Republicans to call for the Texas GOP to cut ties with Defend Texas Liberty and Stickland. Dunn has not publicly commented on the matter, though Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Dunn “told me unequivocally that it was a serious blunder” for Stickland to meet with Fuentes. Patrick added that Dunn had assured him his political action committee and its employees would have no “future contact” with Fuentes.

Late last year, the state party’s executive committee narrowly rejected a ban on associating with Holocaust deniers, neo-Nazis and antisemites — which some members said could create a slippery slope and complicate the party’s relationship with donors or candidates. After outcry, the Texas GOP’s executive committee passed a significantly watered-down version of the resolution earlier this year.

At the time of his alleged remarks to Straus, Dunn was a lesser-known political entity, using groups such as Empower Texans to push for libertarian economic policy and help fund the state’s nascent tea party movement. Groups and lawmakers backed by Dunn had been particularly critical of Straus, frequently attacking him as a weak conservative—a claim they’ve made against each of Straus’ successors, including Phelan.

Since then, Dunn’s influence on state politics has steadily grown. He and another West Texas billionaire, Farris Wilks, have poured tens of millions of dollars into far-right candidates and movements who have incrementally pulled the Texas GOP and legislature toward their hardline, anti-LGBTQ+, and anti-immigration stances. Dunn's allies have meanwhile pushed back against claims that he is antisemitic or adheres to Christian nationalism, which argues that America's founding was God-ordained and that its institutions and laws should thus favor their brand of ultraconservative Christianity.

Tim Dunn appears on a PromiseKeepers podcast

Even after the Tribune’s reporting sparked a wave of backlash, Dunn emerged from last month’s primary perhaps stronger than ever, after his political network made good on its vows for vengeance against House Republicans who voted to impeach their key state ally, Attorney General Ken Paxton. Nine GOP incumbents were unseated by hardline conservative challengers and eight others, including Phelan, were forced into runoffs—mostly against primary foes backed by Dunn’s network.

The primary also paved the way for the likely passage of legislation that would allow taxpayer money to fund private and religious schools—a key policy goal for a movement that seeks to infuse more Christianity into public life. The push for school vouchers was spearheaded by Gov. Greg Abbott, who spent more than $6 million of his own campaign money to help unseat six anti-voucher Republicans and push four others into runoffs.

Straus, whose decade-long run as speaker overlapped with Abbott’s first term as governor, criticized Abbott’s spending blitz to take out fellow GOP lawmakers. He also accused Abbott of falsely portraying members as weak on border security even after they voted for the GOP’s entire slate of border legislation last year, pointing to Abbott’s ads attacking state Rep. Steve Allison, Straus’ successor in his San Antonio district.

“It’s too bad the governor took on all these members who are 99% with him,” Straus said.

Abbott has called the results “an unmistakable message from voters” in support of school vouchers. He recently said the House was two votes away from a clear pro-voucher majority and urged supporters to “redouble our efforts” during the runoffs.

Straus argued Abbott’s move to unseat anti-voucher incumbents “showed more frustration than political courage,” citing the governor’s failure to pass a voucher measure during the spring regular session and multiple special sessions.

“Persuasion failed, so he took on retribution,” Straus said. “I think it’s really unfortunate, and I think it just further diminishes the work of the Legislature and our state government.”

Abbott's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Straus, who served in the House from 2005 to 2019, announced he would not seek reelection in the fall of 2017, after concluding a months-long feud with Patrick over a bill that would have regulated which bathrooms transgender Texans could use. Straus opposed the measure, which never made it through the House.

Since Straus’ retirement, the legislature has passed laws barring transgender minors from accessing puberty blockers and hormone therapies and restricting which sports teams transgender student athletes can join.

Straus said the array of recent laws aimed at LGBTQ+ Texans have left the community “borderline persecuted.”

“Where's the humanity in that? And why is it such an obsession?” Straus said. “Time and time again, they try to find some niche thing they think will play well in the primary when, in my view, it's rooted in just plain indecency.”

Straus largely demurred when asked to assess Phelan’s performance as speaker, quipping that he “really didn't appreciate former members pontificating about whether I was good or bad” during his run as speaker. He said Phelan has generally been a good speaker, though when asked if Phelan made the right move to impeach Paxton, Straus said, “history has made that questionable,” citing the primary results.

Still, he argued that it remains to be seen how the House will change next session, even with its apparent shift to the right last month and calls from hardline House members to align more with Patrick and the Senate.

"In my experience, the House has never been easily tamed," Straus said after the LBJ School interview. "And I think that if I were a betting man, I would bet that the House will want to protect its independence, that it'll want to protect its institution."

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Texas AG Ken Paxton skirts the law—again

Posted on March 26, 2024 by Mark Sumner

Mere months after taking office in 2015, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton surrendered to authorities on three felony counts related to securities fraud. But after getting his mugshot taken and posting a $35,000 bond, Paxton spent the next nine or so years making sure that the law was a bludgeon to be used against other people. People who are not rich, white, politically empowered Republican men.

On Tuesday, weeks before that 2015 case was finally set to go to trial, the special prosecutors handling Paxton’s case announced a very special deal. Rather than facing a pair of first-degree felonies, each of which could have brought a minimum sentence of five years, and a third-degree felony that might have added at least two more, Paxton will face … zero years. Also zero months, zero days, and zero charges.

Instead, Paxton will agree to pay back the money he allegedly defrauded, attend a class on “legal ethics,” and do 100 hours of community service. He doesn’t have to pay a fine to the state. He doesn’t even have to plead guilty. Instead, all charges are dropped and Paxton can carry on with the vital work of threatening hospitals and protecting Texas’ right to drown children with razor wire.

Paxton’s get-out-of-felony-free deal comes six months after the state Senate acquitted him in an impeachment trial where he was clearly guilty. Paxton was overwhelmingly impeached in the Texas House in May 2023, on charges that included bribery, obstruction of justice, dereliction of duty, and misappropriation of public resources. In the middle of those charges was a scheme in which a wealthy donor reportedly provided a job to Paxton’s mistress and seven members of Paxton’s staff resigned.

But immediately following his impeachment, Donald Trump pressured Texas state senators to show their loyalty by acquitting Paxton, and in behind-the-scenes negotiations, none were willing to stand up and provide the critical vote that would have impeached the Texas AG.

Paxton was also allowed to skate by the state bar association, which said it couldn’t discipline Paxton for supporting false claims of election fraud. An almost four-year-old FBI investigation that began in relation to charges leveled by some of those who resigned from Paxton’s office has yet to result in any charges.

While benefiting from the immunity of the wealthy and politically connected, Paxton has continued to use the law as a club against those who aren’t so lucky. That includes his infamous war against Kate Cox, who sought to end a nonviable pregnancy that threatened her health and potentially her life. Cox was ultimately forced to leave the state to seek relief after Paxon appealed a district court decision that would have allowed her to obtain a medical abortion.

Paxton has also been on the forefront of claims about an immigrant invasion. That includes issuing a reply to a Supreme Court ruling in January, claiming that it “allows Biden to continue his illegal effort to aid the foreign invasion of America,” and seeking to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which can protect from deportation children who were brought into the country illegally. Paxton not only sued the federal government for cutting through barriers of razor wire, he also refused to consider removing that wire after a woman and two children drowned.

Like a lot of Republicans, Paxton seems to have a very strict view of the law when it is being used against someone else, and an absolute disdain for it when it’s turned his way.

But considering how many things he's gotten away with over so many years, Paxton has a right to feel like Texas law is a joke. And he always seems to get the last laugh.

Campaign Action

Donald Trump says Greg Abbott is ‘absolutely’ on vice president short list

Posted on March 2, 2024 by Texas Tribune

By Matthew Watkins, The Texas Tribune

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

Donald Trump said Thursday during a visit to the Texas-Mexico border that Gov. Greg Abbott is “absolutely” on his short list of potential vice presidential candidates for his 2024 run.

During a joint interview with Abbott on Fox News, the former president was asked by host Sean Hannity whether Abbott was under consideration for the position. Trump responded that Abbott is “a spectacular man” and he was honored when Abbott endorsed him for president last year.

“And he’s done a great job,” Trump said. “Yeah, certainly he would be somebody that I would very much consider.”

“So he’s on the list?” Hannity said.

“Absolutely, he is,” Trump replied, as Abbott looked on.

On Friday, Abbott downplayed his interest in such a role at a press conference.

"Obviously it's very nice of him to say, but I think you all know that my focus is entirely on the state of Texas," he said. "As you know, I'm working right now on the midterm election process. I've already talked about that I've announced that I'm running for reelection two years from now, and so my commitment is to Texas and I'm staying in Texas."

In the Thursday inteview, Hannity asked Trump if there was anyone else on the short list, and Trump named U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina who was recently an opponent in the GOP primary for president. Scott has since endorsed Trump, and Trump called him an “unbelievable” campaign surrogate.

Abbott has not always embraced Trump as much as some other statewide officials like Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who twice chaired Trump’s campaign in Texas.

Trump and his allies have also shown occasional signs of frustration with Abbott over the years. Last May, Trump questioned on his Truth Social platform why Abbott was not speaking out about the Texas House’s impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton, a top Trump ally in Texas.

But Abbott and Trump have previously found ways to shore up their relationship at election time. Trump gave Abbott an early and crucial endorsement in his contested primary for reelection in 2022, and Abbott appeared at a Trump rally in the Houston area weeks before the primary, which the governor easily won.

Abbott has in recent years generated national attention for his aggressive policies related to the border and immigration. He has pushed Texas to use state funds to build border barriers, continuing one of Trump’s signature policies. Abbott has spent billions of state dollars on border enforcement, enlisting the Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety troopers to police the region. He’s also spent millions of dollars busing migrants to cities led by Democrats. And he’s confronted the Biden administration’s border authority by blocking Border Patrol access to a boat ramp in a public park along the Rio Grande.

Trump visited that park with Abbott on Thursday to call attention to President Joe Biden’s handling of immigration. While there, he praised Abbott’s border security efforts.

Trump also praised Abbott’s deployment of concertina wire along the Rio Grande and efforts to arrest migrants who cross the border illegally.

"He really stepped it up," Trump said of the governor. "It's been amazing."

[As Biden and Trump visit the border, many Texas residents feel ignored]

The two men spent much of Thursday together, touring Texas’ border with Mexico in Eagle Pass and discussing Abbott’s border security efforts. During his brief address to reporters afterwards, Trump praised Abbott.

“This is an incredible operation,” Trump said.

At one point, Trump mentioned that multiple Republicans in the U.S. Senate are vying for his support to replace outgoing minority leader Mitch McConnell. Even though Abbott is not a U.S. senator — and the position is not selected by presidential candidates — Trump joked that he might choose Abbott.

“I’d rather be governor of Texas,” Abbott retorted.

“I think you’re doing well,” Trump said. “I want to keep you in Texas.”

[In two Texas border towns, Biden and Trump push for different immigration approaches]

Democrats, meanwhile, have blasted Abbott’s border policies as political opportunism that dehumanizes migrants and wastes state resources that could be better spent on other priorities.

Biden was also at the Texas-Mexico border on Thursday. From Brownsville, he called out Trump — and asked him to push Congress to pass significant immigration legislation.

"Instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, join me, or I'll join you, in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill,” he said. “We can do it together."

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

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How Gov. Greg Abbott lost a yearlong fight to create school vouchers

Posted on January 1, 2024 by Texas Tribune

By Patrick Svitek, Zach Despart, and Brian Lopez, The Texas Tribune

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Sharing the stage at the Brazos Christian School gymnasium in Bryan, Rep. John Raney rose from his seat next to Gov. Greg Abbott during a pro-school voucher rally and lavished praise on the governor’s education agenda.

“Gov. Abbott understands the value of a good education and the importance of giving parents control over their children’s education,” Raney said at the March event, adding that the governor “spent nearly every night” helping his daughter do her homework and that the first lady is a former teacher and principal.

Then, Abbott took to his lectern and reciprocated his admiration for Raney, saying the College Station Republican “represents Brazos County extraordinarily well.”

It seemed like a good sign for Abbott, who was in the midst of barnstorming the state to rally support for school vouchers in Texas. In previous legislative sessions, Raney had signaled in test votes that he was against any measure to use public dollars for students to attend private schools — like the one he was speaking at that night.

But 254 days — and four excruciating special sessions — later, Raney would lead the effort on the House floor to defeat the very proposal that brought the men together that evening. The so-called “Raney amendment” to strike vouchers out of an education omnibus bill in November was the final knell for Abbott’s 18-month crusade for school vouchers.

It also meant that public schools would not receive the $7.6 billion boost that Abbott had made conditional on the approval of vouchers.

The typically cautious governor has poured more political capital into vouchers than anything else in his eight years in office. He campaigned for reelection last year on the proposal, declared it a top legislative priority and played hardball — using teacher raises and public school funding increases as negotiating chips, vetoing bills by the GOP holdouts and threatening primary challenges to get his way.

He picked an ambitious fight, given the House’s historic resistance to school vouchers, but he thought the ground was ripe for a breakthrough.

Yet after a year of negotiations, threats and politicking, Abbott ended 2023 vexed by a bloc of 21 Republican holdouts who prevented a bill from reaching his desk. It wasn’t particularly close for Abbott, despite the fact that he routinely projected false optimism throughout the year.

Raney later said he introduced Abbott at the pro-voucher event because it is customary when the governor visits a lawmaker’s district. But the perceived betrayal by Raney — and other House Republicans who joined with Democrats to kill the education subsidy — has set Abbott on a warpath in the March primary, determined to install more lawmakers who will vote his way.

The Texas Tribune interviewed more than a dozen people, including lawmakers, staffers, lobbyists and others involved in voucher negotiations this year. Almost all of them declined to speak on the record because they were not authorized to discuss the private negotiations or because they feared political consequences.

According to their accounts, Abbott primarily failed because of his refusal to compromise on a universal program, open to every Texas student — instead of a more pared-down program for disadvantaged students. That was a line that the rural GOP holdouts could not be convinced to cross. Abbott also underestimated just how much those opponents considered their voucher opposition as a political article of faith, hardened by years of campaigning on it. And as his negotiating tactics grew more heavy-handed, he ossified some of the intraparty opposition.

"This is an issue, for the people who voted against a voucher, they are going to be against a voucher no matter what you do to it," said Will Holleman, senior director of government relations at Raise Your Hand Texas, a pro-public education advocacy group. These members, Holleman added, have a “muscle memory you’re not going to get away from.”

One House Republican close to the negotiations said Abbott was “a little overly optimistic.”

“A lot of House members — certainly rural Republican House members — would have suggested that he miscalculated,” the member said.

A hopeful spring

Abbott had been something of a fair-weather school voucher proponent before 2022, but as he ran for a third term, he saw the ground shifting. The COVID-19 pandemic had soured parents on public schools, and Republicans nationwide were seizing opportunities to become the party of “parental rights” after decades of Democrats owning education as an issue.

Abbott himself was also eyeing a larger national profile — potentially a 2024 presidential run — and was routinely being compared to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, where school vouchers with universal eligibility became law in March.

In Texas, the Senate, which had passed a voucher bill in 2017, could be relied on to deliver again. But Abbott knew he had his work cut out for him in the House, since a large majority of House Republicans in 2021 opposed vouchers in a symbolic vote. Many of those voucher opponents represented rural districts and were otherwise considered allies whom he had previously endorsed.

Abbott knew he needed to show them that their constituents also wanted vouchers.

“I think he went into this completely eyes wide open, completely aware of the battle,” said Mandy Drogin, a veteran voucher activist who works at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the influential conservative think tank in Austin.

Starting in late January, Abbott and Drogin crisscrossed the state hosting nearly a dozen “Parent Empowerment Nights” at private schools in lawmakers’ backyards, pitching vouchers in the form of education savings accounts for every child in Texas. The state would deposit taxpayer funds in the accounts, and parents could use the money to cover private school costs, including tuition and books.

Drogin was impressed by Abbott’s persistence at the events. At Grace Community School in Tyler, a storm was moving in and they were told they had to end their rally early, Drogin said, but Abbott refused.

“He was not worried about getting home that night,” she said, “and he stayed in that gym and met every single parent to hear their story.”

Abbott invited the anti-voucher Republicans to join him at events in their districts. That put those members in a tough position. Do they attend and be seen as supportive of Abbott’s crusade, or do they snub the governor entirely?

Rep. Hugh Shine, R-Temple, appeared at one of Abbott’s earliest Parent Empowerment Nights, and like Raney, ultimately voted to thwart the governor’s priority.

Back at the Capitol, Abbott met individually with over 50 House Republicans during the regular session and discussed school vouchers. His schedule shows it was a wide range of members, from the pro-voucher faithful to at least 10 of the 21 Republicans who ultimately voted for the voucher-killing amendment, like Raney and Shine.

In those meetings, Abbott made clear how important the issue was to him personally.

Rep. Cody Harris, a Palestine Republican who had run for election as an anti-voucher Republican, told Abbott he remained “extremely skeptical” of vouchers in their meeting, even after introducing Abbott at a Parent Empowerment Night in his district. He would later flip in support of vouchers.

The first major gauge of Abbott’s influence arrived in April as the House considered the budget. It had become a biennial tradition for Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, to propose an amendment that prohibited any funding for voucher programs. It was seen as a symbolic vote because the amendment did not make it into the final budget, but this time, it took on new meaning amid Abbott’s push.

Abbott’s chief of staff, Gardner Pate, and legislative affairs director, Shayne Woodard, spent the days before that vote feeling out House Republicans. Abbott himself paid a rare visit to the House floor two days before. If you’re still undecided on the policy, they told members, vote present.

Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Killeen, chair of the House Public Education Committee, delivered a similar plea on the floor. The amendment to ban vouchers passed 86-52, with 11 members registered as “present not voting,” including Harris.

Abbott’s staff was pleased. It was progress. In 2021, the amendment passed 115-29, with 49 Republicans voting to ban vouchers in the test vote. This time, only 24 Republicans took that same stand.

Anti-voucher advocates had mixed emotions. They won, but the governor’s lobbying blitz and the shifting numbers suggested the amendment would not be the usual nail in the coffin.

A voucher bill never reached the House floor during the regular session, but in its final weeks there was some hope.

In early May, key negotiators were closing in on a bill that had Abbott’s blessing. Buckley, a convert who opposed vouchers in 2021, tried to call a snap committee meeting to advance legislation, but state Rep. Ernest Bailes, a Republican from Shepherd and outspoken voucher opponent, stood up and rallied the House to deny the panel permission to meet.

The procedural attack worked, and it showed perhaps for the first time that the anti-voucher GOP faction was unafraid to fight back against Abbott.

In response, Buckley devised a scaled-back bill, but Abbott threatened to veto it on the eve of a committee hearing. The problem? It limited eligibility to students with disabilities or those who attended an F-rated campus.

It was far short of the governor’s demand for a universal program, a sticking point that would only intensify in the coming months.

The summer slump

By the end of the regular session, Abbott’s voucher push was overshadowed by the House’s impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton. Vouchers fell to the back burner again as Abbott called a first — and then second — special session to address property tax relief.

From Abbott’s perspective, the voucher battle would resume in late fall.

Abbott continued to remind lawmakers he was serious. As he went on a bill-vetoing spree to try to force a property-tax deal out of the two chambers, he also vetoed at least a dozen bills with the reasoning that they could wait until “after education freedom is passed.”

Anti-voucher Rep. Travis Clardy, R-Nacogdoches, was among those who had a bill vetoed, but he only dug in. He told a Republican group back home that he would continue voting against vouchers, and while he was willing to listen to Abbott’s pitch, he did not take kindly to threats.

Pressure was also increasing on House Speaker Dade Phelan, himself a Republican from a rural district, who had kept his distance from Abbott’s voucher push. Going into 2023, he knew the votes probably were not there, and saw little incentive to take the lead on a proposal that fractured his GOP majority.

That is not to say he was uninterested in ending the yearlong standoff. When he had a rare meeting with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in the final days of the regular session, he suggested the Senate add vouchers to a public school funding bill that was still pending in the upper chamber. The Senate obliged, but the bill died in final inter-chamber negotiations.

Phelan tried something new when members were called back for the first special session, appointing a select committee to consider vouchers and other education issues. Its 15 members included some of the most firm opponents of vouchers in either party, leaving the impression that if a proposal could make it through the committee, it could pass the full House.

Asked about the prospects of vouchers in August, Phelan continued to hedge, saying it would come down to “members voting their districts.”

“There’s always hope,” he said, “but no guarantee.”

Vouchers get a vote

During a call with pastors previewing the third special session — when vouchers were set to take the center stage — Abbott shared a glimpse of optimism: "The votes seem to be lining up."

But he also offered a warning for House Republicans: They could choose “the easy way” — getting a bill to his desk — or “the hard way” — facing his wrath in the primaries.

Behind the scenes, Abbott’s office was attempting a reset with the House. Who did they need to negotiate with to get a deal? Phelan’s office pointed them to Buckley and two of the speaker’s lieutenants — Reps. Will Metcalf and Greg Bonnen — plus Rep. Ken King of Canadian.

Metcalf and Bonnen had previously signaled support for vouchers in test votes, but King stood out. About a year earlier, he vowed voucher bills would be “dead on arrival.”

Despite his past rhetoric, King was seen as open to a compromise on vouchers, in exchange for more money for schools. But he eventually voted for the Raney amendment.

Those members relayed their discussions with the governor’s office to another group of House Republicans that included additional holdouts.

Amid the negotiations, Abbott’s office held firm on a few aspects of the proposal. They wanted to cap enrollment in the program based on available funding, not number of students, and they balked at requests to add a sunset, which would have required legislative approval to renew it periodically. Either idea would just mean more high-stakes wrangling with lawmakers in the coming years.

As talks continued, Abbott kept up his statewide tour, telling parents in San Antonio that "too many" House Republicans were claiming they were not hearing from their voters about the issue.

Rep. Glenn Rogers, R-Graford, was firmly opposed throughout the year but nonetheless asked his staff to analyze constituent correspondence during the third and fourth special sessions. Eighty-eight percent were against vouchers, he said.

Abbott, meanwhile, was exuding increasing confidence that a deal was nigh. Three days into the third special session, he declared at a pro-voucher conference in Austin that the House was “on the 1-yard-line.” But when Buckley filed his legislation a week later, Abbott rejected it, saying it was inconsistent with their negotiations. Abbott called Phelan and told him as much in a blunt call.

The negotiators went back to the drawing board and came up with a proposal Abbott could support. It paired vouchers with even more money for public schools.

But there was a problem. Abbott had pledged to consider items like teacher bonuses only after the Legislature approved vouchers. School funding and raises were not included on the special session call so legislators were prohibited from considering them.

Then, as the end of the third special session was nearing, Abbott curiously declared victory, issuing a statement saying he had “reached an agreement” with Phelan on school choice for Texas families. The statement surprised Phelan, who considered the only deal to be to expand the call, according to a source familiar with his thinking. He knew it was the only way for vouchers to have even a fighting chance at that point.

The issue was left dangling as the third session ended.

By the start of the fourth special session, House leadership knew it needed to get a bill to the floor, no matter its chances. It would be a tough vote for some members, but the alternative was endless special sessions — potentially closer to the primary — and the House was already struggling to maintain quorum.

Buckley introduced a voucher bill paired with bonuses for teachers and increased per-student spending on public schools, a $7.6 billion sweetener intended to entice the holdouts. It was sent to the House select committee, which held a hearing and voted it out along party lines, including with anti-voucher Republicans voting for it.

For the first time in recent history, a voucher bill was headed to the House floor.

It was not long after the committee vote that any momentum was dampened. The anti-voucher Republicans had only voted for it in committee because they wanted to get it to the floor, and they knew there would be an amendment to remove the voucher program.

Abbott promised to veto the bill and keep calling special sessions if that happened. But after months of roller coaster negotiations and increasing political threats, the anti-voucher Republicans were ready to call his bluff.

By this point, some involved in the debate questioned whether Abbott still believed he could get a bill to his desk — or if he was just looking for a floor vote that could crystallize battle lines for the primary. The day before the bill was set to reach the floor, Abbott’s top political adviser, Dave Carney, sent out a playful tweet asking if others had noticed that the “quality of new candidates in TX [is] higher then normal?”

To carry the voucher-killing amendment, GOP holdouts settled on Raney, who had already announced he was not seeking reelection. Knowing he had to give his fellow Republicans a case they could make to primary voters, he told them he believed in his heart that “using taxpayer dollars to fund an entitlement program is not conservative.”

The amendment passed 84-63, with 21 Republicans in favor — almost the same bloc of opposition that existed earlier in the year (75 votes was the threshold for passage).

The House went into recess and dozens of members piled into the back hall to debate their next steps. Should they still pass the bill without the voucher program? Billions of dollars in public education funding were still at stake, after all. After a somewhat chaotic debate, they decided not to, realizing that sending Abbott a bill he had already threatened to veto would only inflame the situation further.

About an hour after the House adjourned that day, Abbott gathered in his office with roughly a dozen pro-voucher House Republicans, including members of House leadership. The mood was somber, and a frustrated Abbott wanted to know what the game plan was. Buckley and others in attendance promised to work around the clock to salvage the bill in the coming days.

But what was clear to most everyone in the room was that the 21 holdouts were not moving. It was time to go home and let primary voters weigh in.

Abbott’s dealbreaker

The ending was somewhat surprising to voucher supporters. Some expected the House to pass the bill with vouchers stripped out, sending it to the Senate, which would have added it back in. Then both chambers would have hashed out a final compromise which may have included some version of vouchers.

“What we had been told was that, look, ‘These guys need to show that they're fighting,’” said Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands.

But for the rural Republicans at the frontlines of the voucher battle, Abbott’s insistence on universal eligibility doomed the effort from the start.

“It was just a bridge too far,” said one House Republican close to the negotiations.

Abbott had repeatedly said in public that he wanted to give “every parent” the opportunity to find the best education for their child. Some Republicans thought it was just a bargaining position.

They were wrong. Abbott and other school choice advocates considered the concept of “parental rights” to be absolute — subject to “no imaginary boundary,” as Drogin put it in an interview.

Furthermore, they were confident they could successfully push for it in this political environment. That was crystallized during one committee hearing when Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, asked Scott Jensen, a national pro-voucher lobbyist, if he could support a program whose eligibility was limited to “only poor kids.”

“We used to, in states all across the country, when that was the best we could do for kids in the state,” Jensen replied. “But now we have found there is building public support all across the country for these programs to be broad-based.”

When it came to the politics of vouchers, the holdouts also had a lot to think about. Many of them previously campaigned against vouchers — proudly so in some cases — and it was hard to consider reversing themselves.

Abbott’s campaign commissioned polling in 21 Republican districts and presented it to members, trying to emphasize how popular the policy was back home. Abbott himself constantly cited how nearly 90% of primary voters statewide approved a pro-voucher ballot proposition in 2022.

Holdouts were skeptical of the polling language and found their personal experience with constituents more convincing.

Abbott got at least one House Republican to square his past opposition with the new political landscape. Harris, the Palestine Republican, acknowledged in a statement after the Raney amendment vote that he was first elected in 2018 as “the anti-voucher candidate.” But he ultimately became moved by the stories he heard in the House Public Education Committee of parents desperate for new schooling options for their kids.

“For those who say that you cannot support both public education and school choice, we will have to agree to disagree,” Harris wrote. “I hope you will continue to vote for me, but if you don’t, that’s OK.”

Despite such conversions, voucher opponents never felt a sea change between the regular session and the final vote. But they knew Abbott was pulling out all the stops, so they remained vigilant.

Every Democrat present eventually voted for the Raney amendment, but that was not always guaranteed.

Rumors were spreading that Abbott was courting several Democrats — perhaps as a negotiating tactic to build pressure on GOP holdouts — and the House Democratic Caucus was especially watchful of at least a couple of its members. Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins of San Antonio, the founder of a San Antonio charter school, had publicly urged fellow Democrats to be open to compromise if vouchers were inevitable.

The Democratic caucus chair, Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio, had tapped two colleagues from Austin, Reps. Gina Hinojosa — his former rival for caucus chair — and James Talarico, to help lead their voucher opposition.

The caucus went all-out to consistently message against vouchers, but when it came time for the Raney amendment, they laid low. In a memo the day before the vote, caucus leaders asked members to “allow our Republican colleagues to conduct this debate amongst themselves.”

The rural Republicans were staring down a tough vote, the caucus reasoned, and the best path to defeating vouchers was avoiding the appearance of a Democratic-led fight.

Primary season

While Abbott has held open the possibility he could call a fifth special session to push through vouchers, he has more recently turned his attention to replacing the holdouts. As of Thursday, he had endorsed six primary challengers to House Republicans who voted for the voucher-killing amendment.

Abbott has zeroed in on the voucher issue so much that he is backing primary challengers who have politically opposed him in the past. For example, he has backed Rogers’ opponent, Mike Olcott, who donated nearly $30,000 to multiple Abbott primary challengers in 2022.

“I’ve supported the governor on every single legislative priority … except this one,” Rogers said. “He’s always supported me until this came along, and all of a sudden he’s supporting somebody who is an enemy. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Abbott faces several political headwinds. House Republicans are mindful that the last time he significantly meddled in their primaries in 2018, only one out of the three Abbott-backed challengers prevailed. And this time, he has to contend with sometimes dueling endorsements from Paxton, who cares much more about unseating the Republicans who voted to impeach him.

“I am just gonna say it,” Michelle Smith, Paxton’s longtime political aide, posted recently on social media. “I support school choice, but in this primary season, the only issue for me, is did you vote to illegally impeach [Paxton]?”

Republicans involved in the primaries acknowledge that vouchers may poll well but say the support lacks intensity. A poll released Tuesday by the University of Texas at Austin found Republicans overwhelmingly supported voucher programs but ranked “border security” or “immigration” as the top issues facing Texas by a wide margin.

But Abbott and his allies believe they are in a new political moment — and holdouts are whistling past the graveyard. They have looked to Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who helped unseat several anti-voucher Republicans last year to make way for the state’s new voucher program.

As for Raney, Abbott will not get a chance to unseat the retiring lawmaker. But he has already endorsed the GOP frontrunner to replace Raney, Paul Dyson, saying he is confident Dyson will “expand school choice for all Texas families once and for all.”

Disclosure: Raise Your Hand Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation and University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune. The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

House members urge federal intervention into Greg Abbott’s white nationalist declaration

Posted on November 18, 2022 by Gabe Ortiz

Is Greg Abbott looking to the 2024 presidential race? Quite possibly, and groan, because after trouncing Beto O’Rourke in the 2022 election by nearly one million votes, the right-wing governor is continuing his string of nativist stunts, this week officially declaring supposed powers that he claims allow him to take “unprecedented measures” to defend Texas “against an invasion.”

No one’s being invaded, and Abbott knows that. He’s instead signaling to the white nationalists who like to use this language. But just as importantly, some of the supposed powers that Abbott claims he has, like returning migrants to the border, are strictly the job of the federal government. A number of lawmakers from Texas say it's incumbent on the government to intervene.

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“As members of Congress representing the great state of Texas, we are deeply disturbed with recent comments made by the Governor of Texas suggesting he has invoked invasion authorities under the U.S. Constitution to justify the use of state resources to further militarize our southern border,” lawmakers led by former Trump impeachment manager Sylvia Garcia tell the Biden administration in a letter obtained by The Hill. They not only object to Abbott’s supposed authority, they object to his reckless, flame-throwing rhetoric.

“Legal authority aside, there is simply not an invasion happening at the border,” they continued. “Many of the immigrants arriving at our border are exercising their right to claim asylum and other forms of humanitarian relief. They are not waging war against the United States or Texas.”

It is sad that even has to be said, but Abbott has a history of signaling to violent white supremacists through his rhetoric. He knows damn well that “invasion” wording was used by the racist mass gunman who murdered Texans at a Walmart in 2019, yet he’s continued to echo that rhetoric as recently as this past summer. Greg Abbott knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s further endangering lives—even as racist mass shooters since El Paso have echoed that wording.

“Declaring an invasion under the U.S. Constitution is an incendiary and divisive idea that will certainly lead to unnecessary litigation and will encourage dangerous anti-immigrant sentiments,” lawmakers continued in their letter. “Put simply, this type of reckless stunt will only continue to put Latino communities at risk of greater violence.”

The Hill also reports that Abbott’s actions are again pissing off Mexican officials, who said in a statement that “implementation of migratory laws, border control and the negotiation of international agreements are exclusive authorities of the federal government.” Abbott already faced ire from the Mexican government during his short-lived, massively expensive flop of a stunt forcing commercial vehicles to undergo redundant checks that actually didn’t do much of any checking. Facing international blowback and massive financial losses, Abbott quickly ended the disastrous policy.

Abbott has continued his busing stunt using migrants as human props, expanding his scheme to Pennsylvania. Among those he sent to Philadelphia was a 10-year-old girl who reportedly arrived so sick with fever and dehydration that she had to be immediately hospitalized. But Greg Abbott doesn’t care.

“The Governor of Texas is taking a white nationalist conspiracy theory that has inspired multiple domestic terrorist attacks and making it official state policy by declaring migrants to be a literal invading force,” said Zachary Mueller, Political Director at America’s Voice. “In 2019, a Texas man murdered 23 people in El Paso, Texas, in an act of domestic terrorism, which he believed would stop the ‘Hispanic invasion.’ After three years and another terrorist attack in Buffalo, New York, inspired by ‘invasion’ paranoia, Gov. Abbott is fully embracing this deadly racist lie and giving it a governmental imprimatur.”

Republicans are refusing to stop using racist mass killers' 'invasion' rhetoric

Sick child bused by Greg Abbott needed hospitalization after arriving in Philadelphia, reports say

Morning Digest: Trump makes new Arizona endorsement in bid to install election deniers in key posts

Posted on June 16, 2022 by Daily Kos Elections

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

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Leading Off

● AZ-AG: Donald Trump's Big Lie slate in Arizona expanded on Thursday when he endorsed former prosecutor Abe Hamadeh in the six-way August primary to succeed termed-out Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who is seeking the GOP nod for U.S. Senate. The attorney general, governor, and secretary of state are the three offices involved in certifying election results in the Grand Canyon State, and as we'll discuss, Trump is also supporting candidates for those two other open seats who also deny that Joe Biden won in 2020.

Hamadeh, for his part, also told the Arizona Republic last month that he didn't believe Biden had carried the state. "No, the 2020 election was rotten, rigged, and corrupt," he insisted, continuing, "Never again will we sit by as the media, activist judges, and big tech openly work to rob a sitting president of an election." The candidate added, "As AG I will prosecute the election fraud of 2020 and secure the 2024 election so when Donald Trump runs and wins again in 2024, everyone will know it's legitimate." In a separate appearance with a local tea party group, Hamadeh argued, "I think we need to get tough on crime. Don't be picking on the little guy—but get tough on serious crime and not go after Kyle Rittenhouse."

While Trump has suffered some major losses in recent primaries, his support for Hamadeh could nonetheless give him a lift in a crowded contest that has lacked an obvious frontrunner. Hamadeh's intra-party foes are Tiffany Shedd, who lost a close general election last cycle in the 1st Congressional District against Rep. Tom O'Halleran; Rodney Glassman, a former Democrat who now sports an endorsement from far-right Rep. Paul Gosar; former prosecutor Lacy Cooper; former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Andrew Gould; and manufacturing executive Dawn Grove. The winner will go up against former Arizona Corporation Commission Chair Kris Mayes, who has no opposition in the Democratic primary.

Trump threw his backing behind Hamadeh months after he endorsed like-minded election deniers for governor and secretary of state, and the former prosecutor very much fits right in with the rest of the bunch.

Trump's candidate to replace termed-out GOP Gov. Doug Ducey is Kari Lake, a former local TV anchor turned conservative conspiracy theorist who has called for Arizona to take the legally impossible step of decertifying its 2020 results. And in the race to succeed Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is Team Blue's frontrunner for governor, Trump is all-in for state Rep. Mark Finchem, a QAnon supporter who led the failed effort to overturn Biden's victory and attended the Jan. 6 rally just ahead of the attack on the Capitol. Lake and Finchem, like Hamadeh, face several opponents in their respective primaries.

The Downballot

● No state regularly hosts as many hotly contested elections as Wisconsin, which is why we're talking to state Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler about all of this year's key races on this week's episode of The Downballot. He tells us about everything his organization does to ensure year-round investment in Democratic infrastructure; details the state of play in the battle to defeat Sen. Ron Johnson and re-elect Gov. Tony Evers; and previews a critical race for the state Supreme Court next year that could flip control from conservatives to progressives.

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also recap several recent elections, including Sarah Palin's first-place finish in the special primary for Alaska's lone House seat, the defeat of a pro-impeachment Republican congressman in South Carolina, and a special election where the GOP picked up a Democratic-held House seat in heavily Latino south Texas.

Please subscribe to The Downballot on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You'll find a transcript of this week's episode right here by noon Eastern Time.

Senate

● GA-Sen, GA-Gov: East Carolina University is out with the first general election polls of Georgia's marquee races since the primary three weeks ago, finding Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker tied 46-46 while GOP Gov. Brian Kemp leads Democrat Stacey Abrams 50-45.

The Senate numbers were released hours before the Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger reported that Walker, who has been on the receiving end of a seemingly never-ending string of critical stories about his past, has a 10-year-old son he'd never publicly acknowledged. Walker's team confirmed the accuracy of the report about the candidate, who said in 2020, "I want to apologize to the African American community, because the fatherless home is a major, major problem."

Sollenberger writes that Walker, who was ordered to pay child support in 2014, "sends Christmas and birthday presents, [but] he otherwise has not played an active parental role in raising his second son." Sollenberger also says that this child has never spoken to Christian Walker, the candidate's 22-year-old son who has played an active role in the Senate race.

● NC-Sen: SurveyUSA, working on behalf of WRAL, gives Democrat Cheri Beasley a 44-40 edge over Republican Ted Budd in its first look at North Carolina's crucial Senate race. That's a bit different than what two other pollsters found in the days following last month's primaries: East Carolina University put Budd ahead 49-42, while the Republican posted a smaller 44-42 edge in a Cygnal survey for the conservative Civitas Institute and John Locke Foundation.

● PA-Sen, PA-Gov: Suffolk University's new poll for USA Today shows Democrat John Fetterman leading Republican Mehmet Oz 46-37 in race for U.S. Senate, while Democrat Josh Shapiro posts a smaller 44-40 advantage over QAnon ally Doug Mastriano in the contest for governor. This is the first look we've gotten at a Fetterman-Oz matchup since December of last year, as well as the very first public survey of the gubernatorial race.

Governors

● FL-Gov: Democratic state Sen. Annette Taddeo endorsed Rep. Charlie Crist a week after she ended her own campaign for governor in favor of running for Congress. Taddeo was Crist's running mate when he last ran for governor in 2014 and lost narrowly to Republican Rick Scott.

● LA-Gov: Former U.S. Marshals Service Director Donald Washington, a Republican who previously served as western Louisiana's U.S. attorney, tells LA Politics' Jeremy Alford that he's considering competing in next year's all-party primary for governor. Washington would be the first Black person elected statewide since Reconstruction. Two of those 19th century officeholders, Lt. Govs. Oscar Dunn and P. B. S. Pinchback, were the first African Americans to serve as acting governor of any state, though only Pinchback is usually credited as America's first Black governor.

● NV-Gov: The hard-right Club for Growth has published an early June internal from WPA Intelligence that shows Joe Lombardo, who won the GOP primary Tuesday, edging out Democratic incumbent Steve Sisolak 48-47. That's quite a bit better for Lombardo than the 43-31 deficit the University of Nevada, Reno gave him last month, though as we wrote then, that huge gap was likely due to Sisolak's greater name recognition.

● NY-Gov: New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday endorsed Gov. Kathy Hochul two weeks ahead of the Democratic primary, a contest where Hochul has been the favorite all year.

● OR-Gov: Political consultant Bridget Barton, who took third place with 11% in last month's Republican primary, announced this week she would back independent Betsy Johnson rather than support GOP nominee Christine Drazan. Barton explained her decision by declaring that, while Johnson will "stand up to Democrats," Drazan "tends to run away from conflict." Barton also argued that Johnson has a better chance to prevent Democrat Tina Kotek, whom she called "a woman who is dangerous," from winning the governorship.

● TX-Gov: Quinnipiac's first Texas poll all year shows Republican Gov. Greg Abbott leading Democrat Beto O'Rourke just 48-43, a huge change from his 52-37 advantage in December. The school notes that this shift occurred following last month's school massacre in Uvalde, which is also reflected in the fact that respondents say they trust Abbott over O'Rourke on "gun policy" by a 47-43 margin—an even bigger drop from 60-33 lead on this topic in Quinnipiac's previous survey. These newest horserace numbers are also dramatically different than the 56-37 Abbott landslide that the Democratic firm Blueprint Polling recently found.

House

● FL-01: Former FedEx executive Mark Lombardo said Wednesday that he would challenge far-right Rep. Matt Gaetz, who reportedly remains under federal investigation for sex trafficking of a minor and other alleged offenses, in the August Republican primary, adding that he'd spend $1 million of his own money on the effort. Lombardo, who like many in this military-heavy area is a veteran, argued, "Washington is broken because of people like Matt Gaetz. If you want to change Washington, send a Marine. I'll get the job done."

Lombardo didn't hold back on explaining why he believes Republican voters in this safely red constituency should eject Gaetz. "The people of Northwest Florida need a Congressman who will put them first," the challenger said in a statement that continued, "Matt Gaetz is a professional politician who has dishonored his constituents with unnecessary drama, childish gimmicks, and is reportedly entangled in a federal investigation for sex-trafficking a 17-year-old girl to the Bahamas." He added, "Displaying the highest level of arrogance imaginable, he hired pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's attorneys and used the money from his hard-working America-first donors to pay the bill."

● FL-04: State Rep. Jason Fischer announced Tuesday that he was leaving the Republican primary for the 4th District and returning to the 2023 contest Duval County property appraiser, an office he'd been seeking before the new GOP gerrymander created an open seat in the Jacksonville area. Fischer quickly earned an endorsement for his resurrected campaign for appraiser from Gov. Ron DeSantis; Politico's Matt Dixon suggests that the governor had been instrumental in pressuring Fischer to get out of the House race in order to help another contender, state Sen. Aaron Bean. DeSantis, however, has not yet publicly taken sides in the race for the 4th.

● FL-13: 2020 nominee Anna Paulina Luna has released an internal from Spry Strategies giving her a 36-16 edge over attorney Kevin Hayslett in the August GOP primary for this Democratic-held open seat.

● GA-10: We have less than a week to go before the Republican runoff for this safely red seat in northeastern Georgia and, even by 2022 standards, it's a truly nasty contest.

Businessman Mike Collins recently sent out mailers describing former state Rep. Vernon Jones, the Trump-backed former Democrat who would be the first Black Republican to represent Georgia in the House since Reconstruction, as a "RADICALLY ANTI-WHITE RACIST." Collins has also continued to attack Jones, who never represented any part of the 10th District in previous elective posts he's held, as an interloper and a phony. Jones, for his part, has run commercials depicting his rival, whose late father did previously represent the area, as a little boy whose only rationale for running is, "My daddy was in Congress."

Things escalated even further this week when Collins sent out a tweet that featured a picture of a rape whistle emblazoned with the web address for an anti-Jones site, an item that references an accusation of rape leveled against Jones in 2004 (he was never charged), alongside an image of a gun. "Although some use a rape whistle for protection against sexual assault, a 9mm is the more preferred form of protection," wrote Collins. Jones in response filed a report with police in Morgan County arguing that his rival was encouraging "violence against me." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes, "Authorities say they will not investigate."

Collins outpaced Jones 26-22 in the first round of voting last month, and we've seen no polls since then.

● IL-03: Politico's Shia Kapos reports that VoteVets, which is supporting Chicago Alderman Gil Villegas in the June 28 Democratic primary, is spending $430,000 on a new ad that opens with the sound of gunfire before the narrator accuses state Rep. Delia Ramirez of wanting to "defund the Chicago Police Department immediately."

Kapos explains that this line of attack is based on a 2020 letter Ramirez signed accusing Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot of using the force "to beat, arrest, and terrorize the demonstrators and journalists gathered in Grant Park tonight." That missive concluded, "We are ready to work to defund the Chicago Police Department immediately, and we call on our colleagues of conscience to join us." Ramirez this April said, "I'm not the 'Defund the police' candidate. I actually helped secure $200 million for violence prevention and pension benefits for police and firefighters."

● MO-04: The influential Missouri Farm Bureau has endorsed cattle farmer Kalena Bruce in the August Republican nomination contest, which the Missouri Times says makes this the first time the group has ever taken sides in a primary for an open House seat. The move comes a week after Gov. Mike Parson also threw his backing behind Bruce.

● WY-AL: The Club for Growth announced this week that it was backing attorney Harriet Hageman's bid against Rep. Liz Cheney in the August GOP primary and had launched a $300,000 ad campaign to support the challenger. The commercial reminds viewers that Donald Trump, whose relationship with the Club has soured in recent months, is supporting Hageman, and it features footage of Trump praising her as "a true champion for the people of this state."

Legislatures

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

ME-SD-07: Democratic state Rep. Nicole Grohoski held this Ellsworth-based seat for her party by defeating former GOP state Sen. Brian Langley 64-35 in a closely watched race, a margin that exceeded Joe Biden's 57-40 performance here. Democrats return to a 22-13 majority in the chamber ahead of Grohoski and Langley's rematch in November.

Election Recaps

● SC-Gov: Former Rep. Joe Cunningham defeated state Sen. Mia McLeod 57-31 to win the Democratic nomination to take on Republican incumbent Henry McMaster. The governor will be the favorite in a state where Team Blue last won a statewide race in 2006.

● ME-02: Former Rep. Bruce Poliquin will get his rematch with Democratic incumbent Jared Golden, but Poliquin's 60-40 win in the Republican primary against Liz Caruso, an underfunded member of the Board of Selectman for the tiny community of Caratunk, was surprisingly underwhelming for such a well-known politician.

It's possible that a significant number of Republicans are just tired of Poliquin, who lost re-election to Golden in a tight 2018 contest whose outcome he still refuses to recognize, but Caruso also had some important connections. Most notably, she was the spokesperson for the high-profile 2021 ballot initiative that succeeded in blocking the Central Maine Power hydropower corridor project. Caruso also spent the evening before the primary on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show; Carlson, notes the Bangor Daily News, is a part-time Maine resident and a fellow corridor foe.

● NV-01: The Associated Press has called the Republican primary for Army veteran Mark Robertson, who defeated conservative activist David Brog 30-17. Robertson will now go up against Democratic Rep. Dina Titus in an eastern Las Vegas area where legislative Democrats—much to the frustration of the congresswoman—slashed Biden's margin from 61-36 to 53-45 in order to make the 3rd and 4th Districts bluer.

● NV-04: The AP has also called the GOP primary for Air Force veteran Sam Peters, who beat Assemblywoman Annie Black 48-41 in this constituency in the northern Las Vegas area. Peters lost the 2020 GOP primary to former Assemblyman Jim Marchant, a fellow Big Lie enthusiast who is now the party's nominee for secretary of state, but he'll now get his chance to take on Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford in a redrawn seat that would have supported Biden 53-45.

● SC-04: While sophomore Rep. William Timmons secured renomination in his safely red Greenville-area constituency, his 53-24 GOP primary victory over unheralded far-right foe Mark Burns left him surprisingly close to being forced into a runoff. (Burns took just 2% here when this seat, which barely changed following redistricting, was last open in 2018.) Timmons, unlike many other vulnerable Republican House members, had Trump's endorsement, and he doesn't appear to have taken any votes that would alienate a significant portion of the base.

However, the Greenville News notes that the congressman's opponents argued he was absent from his job. Timmons pushed back by citing his duties as a JAG officer in the South Carolina Air National Guard, but that explanation seems to have left a sizable minority of primary voters cold.

● NV-AG, NV-SoS: Two Big Lie promoters won their respective primaries for two crucial downballot offices in Nevada, attorney general and secretary of state. Attorney Sigal Chattah outpaced Tisha Black, who founded a cannabis industry trade group, 51-40 for the right to take on Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford, while in the race to succeed termed-out GOP Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, former Assemblyman Jim Marchant beat out developer Jesse Haw 38-20. Marchant will go up against former state Athletic Commission member Cisco Aguilar, who had no Democratic opposition.

Chattah has sued to undermine the state's pandemic response measures and has complained that the attorney general has done a poor job investigating (baseless, of course) voter fraud allegations. Team Blue very much wanted her as Ford's opponent, though, as a Democratic group ran radio ads slamming Black over her 2015 donation to now-Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak while calling Chattah a "MAGA conservative." (Unlike similar efforts by Democrats elsewhere seeking to choose their opponents, these ads didn't merely "attack" Chattah in a backhanded way but openly called for her election.)

Marchant has been an even more full-throated Big Lie enthusiast, as the QAnon ally has insisted he would not have certified Joe Biden's 2020 victory. Marchant also said on the campaign trail, "Your vote hasn't counted for decades. You haven't elected anybody," an amusing claim that makes you wonder how he himself was elected to the legislature.

During the race, he attracted notoriety by allying with conspiracist candidates in other states running to become chief election officials. Marchant was last on the ballot in 2020 when he was Team Red's nominee against Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford last cycle in the 4th District, and he characteristically responded to his 51-46 defeat by baselessly claiming he was the "victim of election fraud" and unsuccessfully sued to overturn the results.

Grab Bag

● Where Are They Now?: Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who unexpectedly decided not to seek re-election last year, has joined the Biden administration as a senior adviser and head of the White House Office of Public Engagement. The latter post was previously headed by Cedric Richmond, a former Louisiana congressman who left the White House in April.

Ad Roundup

Dollar amounts reflect the reported size of ad buys and may be larger.

AL-Sen: Katie Britt (R)
AL-Sen: Mo Brooks (R) - anti-Katie Britt (R)
NV-Sen: Catherine Cortez Masto (D-inc) - anti-Adam Laxalt (R)
OH-Sen: Tim Ryan (D) - positive and anti-J.D. Vance (R)
MA-Gov: Massachusetts Republican Party - anti-Maura Healey (D) ($67,000 buy)
MD-Gov: Tom Perez (D)
MD-Gov: Kelly Schulz (R)
FL-04: Aaron Bean (R)
IL-17: Democrats Serve - pro-Jonathan Logemann (D)
MI-03: Peter Meijer (R-inc) ($37,000 buy)
NY-10: Mondaire Jones (D-inc)

Morning Digest: Trump’s forces take down Rep. Tom Rice in South Carolina, but Nancy Mace holds on

Posted on June 15, 2022 by Daily Kos Elections

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Leading Off

● SC-01, SC-07: Two members of South Carolina’s U.S. House delegation went up against Trump-backed Republican primary opponents on Tuesday, but while 1st District Rep. Nancy Mace secured renomination, voters in the neighboring 7th District ejected pro-impeachment Rep. Tom Rice in favor of state Rep. Russell Fry. Mace turned back former state Rep. Katie Arrington, who was Team Red’s unsuccessful 2018 nominee, 53-45, which was just above the majority she needed to avoid a June 28 runoff. Fry also averted a second round in his six-way race by lapping Rice 51-25.

Mace, who was the first woman to graduate from the state’s famed military academy the Citadel, became one of the GOP’s most promising rising stars in 2020 when she unseated Democratic incumbent Joe Cunningham in a very expensive race. Mace, however, broke with Trump in the days after she was forced to barricade in her office during the Jan. 6 attack, saying, “I hold him accountable for the events that transpired.” She never backed impeachment and soon stopped trying to pick fights with Trump, but the GOP master still decided to repay her by endorsing Arrington, who had denied renomination in 2018 to then-Rep. Mark Sanford, in February.

Arrington, who launched her new campaign by blasting the incumbent as a "sellout" who "sold out the Lowcountry" and "sold out President Trump,” released a poll in early March arguing that her all-Trump all the time strategy would carry her to victory. Those Remington Research Group numbers showed Mace’s 50-35 lead transforming into a 51-33 Arrington advantage after respondents were informed she was the “Trump Endorsed America First Candidate,” which led the pollster to conclude that “there is no path to victory” for Mace.

The congresswoman, though, worked to frame the primary as anything other than a fight between her and Trump. Shortly after Arrington’s kickoff, Mace posted a video shot across the street from Trump Tower where, after talking about her longtime Trump loyalty, she says, “If you want to lose this seat once again in a midterm election cycle to Democrats, then my opponent is more than qualified to do just that.” The GOP legislature did what it could to make sure that no one could lose this coastal South Carolina seat to Democrats by passing a map that extended Trump’s 2020 margin from 52-46 to 54-45, but that didn’t stop Mace from convincingly arguing that Arrington would be electoral Kryptonite against the Democrats’ well-funded candidate, pediatrician Annie Andrews.

Rice, by contrast, went far further than Mace by actually voting for impeachment last year, a move so shocking that his own consultant initially assumed the five-term congressman had simply hit the wrong button. That vote instantly ensured that Rice, who had been easily renominated every cycle since he’d first won this safely red Myrtle Beach-area constituency in a competitive 2012 primary, would be in for an extremely difficult campaign, and several Republicans soon began challenging him.

Fry, though, cemented his status as the frontrunner after Trump backed him in February, and he soon earned national attention of his own with a truly strange ad depicting the apostate incumbent attending a touchy-feely "Villains Anonymous" meeting with the likes of the Joker, Lucifer, a pirate, Maleficent, and Delores Umbridge of the "Harry Potter" franchise. Rice and his remaining allies fought back by arguing that the congressman was too influential to fire and that Fry wasn't actually the conservative he presented himself as, but it was far from enough.

Rice himself argued to the end that he’d made the right decision by voting to impeach Trump over Jan. 6, saying, “He sat there and watched the Capitol get sacked and took pleasure in that … That’s what a dictator would do.” That didn’t prove to be a very compelling argument, though, and GOP primary voters responded by decisively nominating Fry in his place.

Election Recaps

● TX-34 (special): Conservative activist Mayra Flores flipped this Rio Grande Valley constituency to the GOP on Tuesday by taking a majority of the vote in the all-party primary to succeed Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela, who resigned earlier this year to take a job at a lobbying firm. (Vela announced his retirement last year but hadn’t previously indicated he’d leave Congress early.) Flores outpaced former Cameron County Commissioner Dan Sanchez, a Democrat who is not running for a full two-year term anywhere, 51-43 after a campaign where Republicans spent over $1 million while Democrats only began airing TV ads in the final week.

Flores was already the GOP nominee for the new version of the 34th District, where Republican mapmakers extended Joe Biden’s margin of victory from just 52-48 to 57-42 in order to strengthen their position in nearby seats. Her opponent will be Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, who decided to run here because that very GOP gerrymander made his own 15th District more conservative: This will almost certainly be the only incumbent vs. incumbent general election of the cycle other than the race for Florida’s 2nd District between Democratic Rep. Al Lawson and Republican colleague Neal Dunn.

While Flores will be in for a difficult fight in November on more Democratic terrain, though, Republicans are hoping that her win Tuesday proves that the GOP can still secure further gains in heavily Latino areas. Flores also will have a geographic advantage, as she’ll spend the next several months representing 75% of the new 34th District; Gonzalez, by contrast, currently serves the remaining quarter.

● Primary Night: Here’s a look at where Nevada’s key races for Senate, governor, and U.S. House stand as of Wednesday morning. Note that, because a large number of ballots remain untabulated, these margins could change before the results are certified:

NV-Sen (R): Former Attorney General Adam Laxalt turned back an unexpectedly well-funded campaign from Army veteran Sam Brown by a 56-34 margin. Laxalt, who was the 2018 nominee for governor, will go up against Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto in what will be one of the most competitive Senate races of the cycle.
NV-Gov (R): Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, who like Laxalt had Trump’s endorsement, defeated attorney Joey Gilbert 38-28 for the right to take on Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak. Former Sen. Dean Heller, who lost re-election to Democrat Jacky Rosen in 2018, took a distant third with 14%; Heller never lost a race in his long career in Nevada politics until Rosen unseated him four years ago.
NV-01 (D): Rep. Dina Titus turned back progressive challenger Amy Vilela in an 82-18 landslide.
NV-01 (R): The Associated Press has not yet called this contest but with 89% of the estimated vote in, Army veteran Mark Robertson holds a 30-17 lead over conservative activist David Brog; former 4th District Rep. Crescent Hardy, who raised almost no money for his latest comeback, lags in fourth with just 12%. Democrats in the legislature, much to Titus’ frustration, made this seat in the eastern Las Vegas area considerably more competitive in order to make the 3rd and 4th Districts bluer, and Biden would have carried the new 1st 53-45.
NV-02 (R): Republican Rep. Mark Amodei secured renomination in this safely red northern Nevada seat by beating Douglas County Commissioner Danny Tarkanian 54-33. Tarkanian, who was a longtime resident of the Las Vegas area well to the south, finally ended his legendary losing streak in 2020 after moving to Douglas County, but he very much returned to form on Tuesday by failing to win a seat in Congress for the fifth time.
NV-03 (R): Attorney April Becker, who was the favored candidate of the GOP establishment, easily defeated self-funder John Kovacs 65-11. Becker will go up against Democratic Rep. Susie Lee in a southern Las Vegas area seat where Democrats extended Biden’s winning margin from just 49.1-48.9 to 52-46.
NV-04 (R): The AP hasn’t called this GOP primary yet but with 68% of the estimated vote in, Air Force veteran Sam Peters leads Assemblywoman Annie Black 48-41. The winner will face Democratic incumbent Steven Horsford, whose constituency in the northern Las Vegas area supported Biden 53-45 under the new map.

Senate

● WA-Sen: NBC reports that the Democratic group Future Majority PAC has booked $860,000 for an ad campaign that will start in early July, which will make this the first major outside spending of the contest. Early this month the Northwest Progressive Institute released a survey from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling giving Democratic incumbent Patty Murray a 51-40 lead over her likely Republican opponent, motivational speaker Tiffany Smiley.

Governors

● IL-Gov: The Republican firm Ogden & Fry's new look at the June 28 GOP primary finds state Sen. Darren Bailey leading Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin 31-17, with venture capitalist Jesse Sullivan at 11%. This is the third poll in a row we've seen showing Bailey defeating Irvin, an outcome that would greatly please Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker and his allies.

● OK-Gov: Amber Integrated (R): Kevin Stitt (R-inc): 47, Joy Hofmeister (D): 29 (March: 44-30 Stitt)

● TX-Gov: The Democratic pollster Blueprint Polling's inaugural survey of Texas shows Republican incumbent Greg Abbott fending off Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke in a 56-37 landslide. This survey, which the firm says was done "with no input or funding from any candidate, committee, or interest group," comes a month after UT Tyler gave Abbott a considerably smaller 46-39 advantage.

House

● CA-40: The Associated Press on Monday night projected that Rep. Young Kim had defeated her fellow Republican, Mission Viejo Councilman Greg Raths, for the second spot in the general election despite a late Democratic effort to boost Raths. Democrat Asif Mahmood took first in last week's top-two primary with 41%, while Kim beat Raths 34-23 after she and her allies launched a significant last-minute spending spree to turn back the perennial candidate. Biden would have carried this eastern Orange County constituency 50-48.

● FL-10, FL-Sen: Former Rep. Alan Grayson, whom longtime readers will know is one of our least favorite Democrats in America, announced Tuesday that he was abandoning his little-noticed Senate campaign in favor of running to succeed his now-former intra-party rival, Rep. Val Demings, in the safely blue 10th District in the Orlando area. He joins an August primary that includes state Sen. Randolph Bracy; gun safety activist Maxwell Alejandro Frost; pastor Terence Gray; and civil rights attorney Natalie Jackson, all of whom, like Demings but unlike Grayson, are Black.

The Orlando Sentinel notes that several Florida Democrats have argued that this area should continue to be represented by an African American. Indeed, Orange County Democratic Chair Wes Hodge notably said in April, "My intent is to try to keep it [a Black] access seat because it is important to our community," though he predicted, "But, you know, someone can show up at noon on the last day of qualifying with 10 grand in their pocket, and boom, they're on the ballot." Grayson himself had just over $240,000 on-hand at the end of March, a paltry sum for a statewide contest but enough to put up a fight in a House race.

● IL-06: Rep. Sean Casten's office announced Monday evening that his 17-year-old daughter, Gwen Casten, had died that morning. Fellow Rep. Marie Newman, who is Sean Casten's opponent in the June 28 Democratic primary, said in response that her campaign "is working to cease all comparative paid communications immediately."

● IL-07: The Justice Democrats have launched a $120,000 ad buy supporting gun safety activist Kina Collins' bid against longtime Rep. Danny Davis in the June 28 Democratic primary, which makes this the first outside spending on Collins' side. (A group called Opportunity for All Action Fund has deployed a similar amount for the incumbent.) The spot, writes Primary School, faults Davis for missing House votes as crime and inflation remain a serious problem, and pledges that the challenger would be a more focused representative. Davis fended off Collins 60-14 two years ago in this safely blue Chicago seat.

● VA-02: The Democratic group Patriot Majority has launched a commercial designed to help far-right activist Jarome Bell win next week's Republican primary to take on Democratic incumbent Elaine Luria, which makes this the latest contest where Democrats have tried to pick their opponents. The narrator tells the audience, "Bell is a Navy veteran who calls himself an 'America First conservative' … He supports Trump's election audit in all 50 states, and Bell wants to outlaw abortion." Unsubtly, the narrator concludes, "If Jarome Bell wins, Donald Trump wins too." There is no word on the size of the buy.

Trump himself has not made an endorsement here, but House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is all-in for one of Bell's intra-party rivals, state Sen. Jen Kiggans. A late May internal for a pro-Kiggans group showed her decisively beating another primary candidate, Air Force veteran Tommy Altman, 43-9, with Bell at 8%.

● DCCC: The DCCC has added 11 more candidates to its Red to Blue program, which is the DCCC's top-tier list of races where it plans to be heavily involved this cycle:

AZ-01: Jevin Hodge
FL-27: Annette Taddeo
NC-01: Don Davis
NC-13: Wiley Nickel
NC-14: Jeff Jackson
NY-01: Bridget Fleming
NY-22: Francis Conole
OR-04: Val Hoyle
OR-05: Jamie McLeod Skinner
OR-06: Andrea Salinas
PA-17: Chris Deluzio

Most of these candidates have already won the nomination or face little intra-party opposition, but the DCCC is taking sides in a few contested primaries. In Arizona’s 1st Hodge, who lost a tight 2020 race for the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, is going up against former Phoenix Suns employee Adam Metzendorf for the right to take on GOP Rep. David Schweikert. (A third Democrat, environmental consultant Ginger Sykes Torres, failed to collect enough signatures to continue her campaign.)

Taddeo, likewise, has to get past Miami Commissioner Ken Russell before she can focus on Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar in Florida's 27th. Finally, Conole faces Air Force veteran Sarah Klee Hood, Syracuse Common Council member Chol Majok, and former Assemblyman Sam Roberts in the primary for New York's open 22nd District.

Ad Roundup

Dollar amounts reflect the reported size of ad buys and may be larger.

AZ-Sen: One Nation - anti-Mark Kelly (D-inc)
GA-Sen: One Nation - anti-Raphael Warnock (D-inc)
NC-Sen: NRSC - anti-Cheri Beasley (D) (part of $1.7 million buy)
WI-Sen: Sarah Godlewski (D)
WI-Sen: One Nation - pro-Ron Johnson (R-inc)
IL-Gov: Darren Bailey (R)
IL-Gov: DGA - anti-Richard Irvin (R)
MI-Gov: Put Michigan First - anti-entire GOP field
NM-Gov: Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-inc) - positive and anti-Mark Ronchetti (R)
NY-Gov, NY-LG: Kathy Hochul (D-inc) and Antonio Delgado (D-inc) joint ad
WI-Gov: Tony Evers (D-inc)
CO-05: Dave Williams (R) - anti-Doug Lamborn (R-inc) ($30,000 buy)
IA-03: Cindy Axne (D-inc) - anti-Zach Nunn (R)
IL-13: Protect Our Future PAC - pro-Nikki Budzinski (D) ($263,000 buy)
IL-17: Jonathan Logemann (D)
MI-11: Andy Levin (D-inc) ($92,000 buy)
NY-24: Claudia Tenney (R-inc)

Morning Digest: Longtime congressman will retire rather than face Trump-backed colleague in primary

Posted on April 6, 2022 by Daily Kos Elections

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

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Leading Off

● MI-04: Michigan Rep. Fred Upton, who was one of 10 Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump last year, announced Tuesday that he would not seek a 19th term this fall. In an email to supporters, Upton said he believed "it is time to pass the torch," though the person who will most likely be claiming that beacon in the new 4th Congressional District is his colleague and would-be primary foe, Trump-backed Rep. Bill Huizenga.

While it's possible that Upton's departure will entice someone else to run against Huizenga in the August GOP primary, they'd need to collect at least 1,000 valid signatures by the April 19 filing deadline. No notable Democrats have entered the race so far for the new version of the 4th, a southwestern Michigan seat Trump would have carried 51-47 in 2020.

Huizenga announced back in December, right after the state's new congressional maps were completed, that he'd be seeking re-election in the new 4th, and he earned an endorsement from Trump last month. Upton, by contrast, spent months keeping the political world guessing as to whether he'd go up against Huizenga in the primary or retire, though until Tuesday, it seemed that he had one more race in him: In February, Upton launched a $400,000 ad campaign in which he told viewers, "If you want a rubber stamp as your congressman, I'm the wrong guy. But if you want someone committed to solving problems, putting policy over politics, then I'm asking for your support."

Upton, though, said at the time that he was still undecided about 2022, and his retirement announcement proves he wasn't just playing coy. On Tuesday, he insisted that redistricting mattered more to him than any backlash from his impeachment vote, saying, "My district was cut like Zorro—three different ways." However, it was Huizenga who, at least on paper, was more disadvantaged by the new map: While about two-thirds of the residents of the new 4th are currently Upton's constituents, Huizenga represents only about a quarter of the seat he's now the frontrunner to claim.

Upton's decision ends a long career in politics that began in the late 1970s when he started working for local Rep. David Stockman, and he remained on his staff when Stockman became Ronald Reagan's first director of the Office of Management and Budget. In 1986, Upton decided to seek elected office himself when he launched a primary challenge to Rep. Mark Siljander, who had succeeded Stockman in the House in 1981, in an earlier version of the 4th District.

Siljander was an ardent social conservative well to the right of even Reagan: Among other things, he'd unsuccessfully tried to torpedo Sandra Day O'Connor's nomination to the Supreme Court in 1981 because he didn't feel she was sufficiently conservative, and he even threatened to vote against the White House's priorities in an attempt to thwart O'Connor. Siljander, though, had taken just 58% of the vote in his 1984 primary, which suggested that a significant number of primary voters were unhappy with him.

Upton argued that, while both he and Siljander were "conservative Republican[s]," the incumbent had ignored his constituents to focus on international issues. Upton, by contrast, insisted that he'd work better with the party's leadership and seek committee assignments that would allow him to direct his energies to domestic concerns. The race took a dark turn late in the campaign when audio leaked of Siljander telling local clergy members to aid him in order to "break the back of Satan," arguing that his loss "would send a shock wave across America that Christians can be defeated in Congress by impugning their integrity and smear tactics."

Upton ended up dispatching the congressman 55-45, a convincing thumping that both sides attributed to Siljander's comments. Upton's team, while denying that the outcome represented a loss for the religious right, predicted, "Fred's tactics will be much more moderate and more reasonable." Upton easily prevailed in the general election and had no trouble winning for decades; Siljander, for his part, was last in the news in late 2020 when Trump pardoned what an angry Upton described as "a series of federal crimes including obstruction of justice, money laundering and lobbying for an international terrorist group with ties to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and the Taliban."

In 2002, Upton easily turned back a primary campaign from state Sen. Dale Shugars 66-32 in what was now numbered the 6th District, but when the burgeoning tea party turned its wrath on establishment figures in 2010, the longtime congressman had become much more vulnerable to intra-party challenges. His opponent that year was former state Rep. Jack Hoogendyk, who had badly failed in his quest to unseat Democratic Sen. Carl Levin two years earlier but argued that Upton was insufficiently conservative. The congressman outspent Hoogendyk by an 18-to-1 margin but prevailed only 57-43, which enticed Hoogendyk to try again in 2012.

However, while the anti-tax Club for Growth ran commercials this time against Upton, who by now was chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the incumbent worked hard to emphasize his opposition to the Obama administration and won by a larger 67-33 margin. That was the last time he faced a serious primary challenge at the ballot box, but in 2014 he went through his first expensive general election campaign when law professor Larry Lessig directed his Mayday PAC, which he called his "super PAC to end super PACs," to target Upton.

Mayday spent over $2 million to aid a previously unheralded Democrat named Paul Clements, and while Upton didn't come close to losing in that red wave year, Democrats hoped his 56-40 showing meant he could be beaten in a better political climate. Clements sought a rematch in 2016, but Upton won by a 59-36 spread.

In 2018, though, the congressman faced a considerably tougher battle against physician Matt Longjohn at a time when the GOP was on the defensive nationwide. Upton got some surprising help during that campaign when Joe Biden delivered a speech in his district that was paid in part by an Upton family foundation; Biden, who was apparently motivated to praise Upton because of the congressman's work on a bill called the 21st Century Cures Act, declared the congressman was "one of the finest guys I've ever worked with" and "the reason we're going to beat cancer." Ultimately, the congressman prevailed 50-46 in what was by far the closest race of his career. Afterwards, Longjohn’s campaign manager said Biden’s involvement was "brutal at the time and stings even more today."

Democrats hoped they could finally take Upton down in 2020, but Upton returned to form and beat state Rep. Jon Hoadley 56-40 as Trump was carrying his district 51-47. Two months later, Upton responded to the Jan. 6 attack by voting for impeachment, a vote that arguably did more than anything else to close out his lengthy time in Congress.

1Q Fundraising

PA-Sen: John Fetterman (D): $3.1 million raised, $4.1 million cash-on-hand
NH-Sen: Kevin Smith (R): $410,000 raised (in nine weeks)
FL-07: Rusty Roberts (R): $173,000 raised (in 10 days)
MI-12: Janice Winfrey (D): $200,000 raised (in six weeks)
OH-13: Emilia Sykes (D): $350,000 raised
RI-02: Joy Fox (D): $175,000 raised (in two months)
SC-01: Nancy Mace (R-inc): $1.2 million raised, $2.3 million cash-on-hand

Senate

● AZ-Sen: Monday was the deadline for candidates to file for Arizona's Aug. 2 primary, and the state has a list of contenders here. We run down all the major contests in their respective sections of the Morning Digest, starting with the Senate race.

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly won a tight 2020 election for the final two years of the late John McCain's term, and he'll be a top GOP target this fall as he seeks re-election. Five Republicans are running to take him on (though Gov. Doug Ducey, to the frustration of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is not one of them), and polls show that a large plurality of primary voters is undecided.

The most prominent contender may be state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, though he attracted heaps of abuse last year from Trump for not doing enough to advance the Big Lie. The only other current elected official is state Corporation Commissioner Justin Olson, but he's struggled to attract attention. The field also includes self-funding businessman Jim Lamon; former Thiel Capital chief operating officer Blake Masters, whose former boss is heavily financing a super PAC to boost him; and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire.

● OH-Sen: Venture capitalist J.D. Vance and former state Treasurer Josh Mandel are each running commercials for the May 3 Republican primary espousing ultra-conservative ideas as they attack the very idea that their beliefs could be racist.

Vance is pushing that message in what the GOP firm Medium Buying says is his first-ever TV ad, though his allies at Protect Ohio Values PAC have already spent over $6 million promoting him. "Are you a racist?" Vance begins as he points right at the camera, "Do you hate Mexicans? The media calls us racist for wanting to build Trump's wall." The Hillbilly Elegy author continues by accusing the media of censorship before proclaiming, "Joe Biden's open border is killing Ohioans with more illegal drugs and more Democrat voters pouring into this country." Mandel, meanwhile, exclaims, "There's nothing racist about stopping critical race theory and loving America."

On the Democratic side, former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau official Morgan Harper has launched what her campaign says is a six-figure opening ad buy. Harper describes her local roots and service in the Obama administration before trying to contrast herself with Rep. Tim Ryan, the frontrunner for the nod, by declaring, "I'm the only Democrat for Senate who's always supported Medicare for All and a $15 living wage, who's always been pro-choice, and supports expanding the Supreme Court to protect women's rights."

● PA-Sen: Allies of Rep. Conor Lamb at a super PAC called Penn Progress just dropped the first negative TV ad of Pennsylvania's Democratic Senate primary, but there's a huge problem with the spot.

The narrator begins by asking, "Who can Democrats trust in the race for Senate?" and contrasts Lamb—"a former prosecutor and Marine"—with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, "a self-described democratic socialist." The ad cites an NPR segment from 2020 for that claim about Fetterman, but at the bottom of the piece are not one but two correction notices that both read, "This story wrongly states that Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is a 'self-described democratic socialist.' He is not." Citing those corrections, attorneys for Fetterman's campaign sent a letter to TV stations demanding they take down the spot, calling it "false and defamatory."

Penn Progress responded by pointing to other news articles that have also called Fetterman a "self-described democratic socialist," but no one seems to have found a quote from Fetterman actually referring to himself this way. That's because, according to his campaign, no such quote exists. In their letter, Fetterman's lawyers say the candidate "has never described himself as a 'democratic socialist'" and link to a 2016 interview in which Fetterman says, "No, I don't label myself a democratic socialist."

Fetterman's team is seeking to have this advertisement bumped from the airwaves because TV and radio stations can be held liable for defamatory content in third-party ads. (Because they're obligated under federal law to run candidate ads so long as they're paid for, broadcasters aren't liable for the content of such spots.) On Tuesday evening, the Fetterman campaign said that one station, WPVI in Philadelphia, had complied with its request.

Aside from the factual blunder, Lamb's supporters may be making a political mistake as well: Attacking a rival as too liberal in a Democratic primary is rarely a winning move. If Penn Progress' ad gets bounced, it may actually be a blessing in disguise for the super PAC.

Separately, a new poll of the GOP primary from Public Opinion Strategies for Honor Pennsylvania finds hedge funder David McCormick (whom the group is backing) leading TV personality Mehmet Oz 22-16. In a previously unreleased POS poll from January, Oz enjoyed a 31-13 advantage, but both sides—and other candidates as well—have unleashed millions in attack ads since then.

● SD-Sen: Candidate filing closed March 29 for South Dakota's June 7 primaries, and we'll be taking a look at the fields for any notable 2022 contests now that the Secretary of State's office has had a week to receive "the official certification(s) from county central committees or state political parties"; you can find a list of contenders here. A runoff would be required on Aug. 16 in the races for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and governor if no candidate wins at least 35% of the vote, but there aren't enough contenders in any of those races to make this a possibility. Note also that the parties hold nominating conventions (typically later in June) instead of primaries for several offices, including attorney general.

Donald Trump used the last days of his time on Twitter to rant in late 2020 that Republican Sen. John Thune "will be primaried in 2022, political career over!!!" but the Senate minority whip's political career seems like it will continue just fine. Only two little-known Republicans, Oglala Sioux tribal administrator Bruce Whalen and rancher Mark Mowry, ended up filing to take him on, despite Thune's long dalliance with retirement, and there's no indication that either poses a threat. Attorney Brian Bengs has the Democratic primary to himself in this very red state.

● Ad Reservations: Last week we got preliminary information about the first fall TV bookings from the Democratic group Senate Majority PAC, and AdImpact now has full details about how much money is going into each reservation:

Arizona: $22.4 million
Georgia: $24.6 million
Nevada: $14.1 million
Pennsylvania: $25.8 million
Wisconsin: $11.7 million

Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada are Democratic-held, while SMP is going on the offensive in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. These are the first general election reservations we've seen from any major outside groups on the Senate side.

Governors

● AL-Gov: Former Ambassador to Slovenia Lindy Blanchard is running more ads ahead of the May 24 Republican primary arguing that Gov. Kay Ivey is insufficiently conservative. One spot focuses entirely on attacking the governor, including a clip of her saying last year, "It's time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks." The other commercial tries to use the Big Lie against Ivey, with the narrator proclaiming, "Lindy believes the election was stolen from Trump. Kay Ivey thinks Biden's victory was legitimate."

Ivey, meanwhile, is running her own ads playing up her own far-right credentials. "The fake news, big tech, and blue state liberals stole the election from President Trump," says the governor, "but here in Alabama, we are making sure that never happens. We have not, and will not, send absentee ballots to everyone and their brother."

● AZ-Gov: Both sides have competitive primaries to succeed termed-out GOP Gov. Doug Ducey in swingy Arizona. Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has long looked like the frontrunner on the Democratic side, and she picked up an endorsement Tuesday from the state branch of the American Federation of Teachers. Her two intra-party foes are former state Rep. Aaron Lieberman and former Homeland Security official Marco López, who is a one-time mayor of Nogales.

Republicans, meanwhile, have six contenders. Trump has thrown his endorsement behind Kari Lake, a former local TV anchor turned conservative conspiracy theorist. The only current elected official, by contrast, is Board of Regents member Karrin Taylor Robson, who is backed by former Govs. Jan Brewer and Fyfe Simington.

Another name to watch is former Rep. Matt Salmon, who narrowly lost the 2002 general election to Democrat Janet Napolitano; his second bid has the support of the Club for Growth as well as Reps. Andy Biggs and David Schweikert. There's also self-funding businessman Steve Gaynor, who narrowly lost the open-seat race for secretary of state to Hobbs in 2018. Businesswoman Paola Tulliani Zen, who founded a biscotti company, also attracted attention earlier this year when politicos learned she'd self-funded $1.2 million, but she hasn't otherwise generated much press. Neither has the sixth GOP candidate, Scott Neely.

● NM-Gov: Former Sandoval County Commissioner Jay Block uses his first spot for the June Republican primary to proclaim that he was "a day-one supporter of President Donald J. Trump," who badly lost New Mexico twice. The ad goes on to tout Block's conservative ideas, including his desire to "finish the border wall" and "block the COVID mandates," though at times the narrator's message almost gets drowned out by the commercial's loud music.

● SD-Gov: Gov. Kristi Noem faces a Republican primary challenge from state Rep. Steve Haugaard, a former state House speaker who, believe it or not, is trying to run to the incumbent's right. Noem, though, has a massive financial edge over the challenger, as well as Trump's endorsement, and there's no indication yet that she's vulnerable. The winner will take on state House Minority Leader Jamie Smith, who faces no opposition in the Democratic primary.

● TX-Gov: YouGov's new poll for the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation shows Republican Gov. Greg Abbott leading Democrat Beto O'Rourke 50-42 among likely voters.

House

● AK-AL: 314 Action Fund, a group that supported independent Al Gross in his 2020 Senate race, has released a survey from the Democratic pollster Change Research that finds him locked in a close special election against former GOP Gov. Sarah Palin in the instant-runoff general election in August.

It's impossible to know which of the 48 candidates competing in the June top-four primary might advance to the general, but we know the final matchup will be different than the one Change polled because one of the candidates it included, Republican state Sen. Lora Reinbold, did not end up running; the survey was also conducted days before either Palin or the final Republican candidate tested, state Sen. Josh Revak, announced they were in.

The firm initially finds Gross leading Palin 33-30 in a hypothetical general election, with Revak and Reinbold at 9% and 8%, respectively. After the instant runoff process is simulated, not much changes, as Gross and Palin tie with 35% apiece, while 30% are undecided. In a separate question pitting the two head-to-head, however, Palin edges out Gross 42-40.

314 Action hasn't made an endorsement yet, but the organization made it clear it wanted Gross to win in its release, saying, "Dr. Al Gross has dedicated his life to improving health outcomes for Alaskans, and if elected to Congress he'll have a platform to craft policy that will do just that."

● AZ-01: Republican Rep. David Schweikert is running for re-election in the revamped 1st District, a seat in eastern Phoenix and its eastern suburbs that's changed quite a bit from the 6th District he currently represents: While Trump would have carried his existing constituency 51-47, it’s Biden who would have taken the new 1st 50-49. (We explain the many changes to Arizona's congressional map here.)

Before he can focus on the general election, though, Schweikert needs to get past self-funder Elijah Norton in the primary. Norton has been attacking the ethics of the incumbent, who in 2020 agreed to pay a $50,000 fine, accept a formal reprimand, and admit to 11 different violations of congressional rules and campaign finance laws in a deal with the bipartisan House Ethics Committee to conclude a two-year investigation. Schweikert, though, has made it clear he'll focus on Norton's turbulent departure from his insurance company. The field also includes Josh Barnett, who badly lost to Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego last cycle in the safely blue 7th District.

Three Democrats are also competing for this competitive seat. The field consists of Jevin Hodge, who lost a tight 2020 race for the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors; former Phoenix Suns employee Adam Metzendorf; and environmental consultant Ginger Sykes Torres, who has the backing of southern Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva.

● AZ-02: Democratic Rep. Tom O'Halleran is defending a seat in northern and eastern rural Arizona that would have backed Trump 53-45, which is a significant shift from Biden's 50-48 win in the 1st District that he currently holds.

Seven Republicans are competing to take him on, and there's no obvious frontrunner at this point. The two elected officials in the running are state Rep. Walt Blackman and John Moore, the mayor of the tiny community of Williams. Also in the running are Navy SEAL veteran Eli Crane; Ron Watkins, the reputed founder of the QAnon conspiracy cult; and three others. Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer had announced he was running last month, but his name was not on the state’s final list of candidates.

● AZ-04: Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton is defending the 4th District in the southern Phoenix suburbs that, at 54-44 Biden, is considerably less safe than the 9th District it replaces. Six Republicans are competing to take him on, including Tanya Wheeless, who served as a staffer to then-Sen. Martha McSally, and Chandler City Councilman Rene Lopez.

● AZ-06: Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick announced her retirement last year before Arizona's Independent Redistricting Commission drew up a new 6th District in the Tucson area that Biden would have carried by a tiny 49.3-49.2 margin—a sizable drop from Biden’s 55-44 win in the old 2nd District.

The Democratic contest pits former state Rep. Daniel Hernández, who as an intern helped save then-Rep. Gabby Giffords after she was shot in 2011, against state Sen. Kirsten Engel; a third candidate, engineer Avery Anderson, hasn't earned much attention so far. The GOP frontrunner is Juan Ciscomani, a former senior advisor to Gov. Doug Ducey, though it remains to be seen if any of his four intra-party rivals can give him a serious fight.

● FL-13: 2020 nominee Anna Paulina Luna, who has Trump's endorsement, has released a Spry Strategies poll that shows her again winning the August Republican primary. The firm gives Luna the lead with 35%, while prosecutor Kevin Hayslett and 2020 candidate Amanda Makki are tied for second with 9% each.

● GA-07: NBC reports that Rep. Lucy McBath is spending $74,000 on her first TV ad for the May 24 Democratic primary, which features her visiting the grave of her son, Jordan Davis, as she describes how he was murdered by a gunman. (The commercial features surveillance footage from the gas station where Davis was killed, with someone responding to the sounds of gunfire, "Oh my God. Somebody's shooting!") McBath tells the audience, "My tragedy turned to purpose. In Congress, I'm fighting to protect voting rights, to lower prescription drug costs, and to prevent gun violence."

McBath's longtime allies at Everytown for Gun Safety are also spending $1 million to help her, which the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says will come in the form of digital and radio ads and a mail campaign. McBath has already benefited from $1 million in advertising from another group, Protect Our Future PAC, while fellow incumbent Carolyn Bourdeaux has not yet received any major outside support.

● MD-01: Former Del. Heather Mizeur says she'll continue her campaign for the Democratic nod to take on Republican Rep. Andy Harris even though Trump would have carried the newest version of this seat by a tough 56-42 margin. Foreign policy strategist Dave Harden, who is the underdog in the July primary, also made it clear he'd remain in the race.

● NH-01: The Associated Press reports that former Trump administration official Matt Mowers, one of the leading GOP candidates for New Hampshire's 1st Congressional District, voted twice in the 2016 primaries, which would be a violation of federal law.

According to the AP, Mowers cast a ballot in New Hampshire's primary in February, when he was working for Chris Christie's presidential campaign. (Christie finished sixth with just 7% of the vote and quit the race the next day.) Mowers then voted in the June primary in his home state of New Jersey, a month after Donald Trump became the GOP's de facto nominee, though there were other races on the ballot that day as well.

Any statute of limitations has long run out, so Mowers—who has a page devoted to "election integrity" on his campaign website—would be able to evade any legal ramifications. Politically, though, it's a different story, as his rivals for the nomination to take on Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas immediately went on the attack. Mowers' campaign has so far declined to respond directly to the story.

● SD-AL: Rep. Dusty Johnson faces a Republican primary challenge from state Rep. Taffy Howard, a Big Lie supporter who launched her bid last year insisting, "I believe there was fraud in the last election that needs to be investigated. Our current congressman is not willing to admit that there was an issue." No Democrat ended up filing to run for the state's only House seat.

● TX-15: EMILY's List has endorsed businesswoman Michelle Vallejo in the May 24 Democratic primary runoff for this open seat. Vallejo will face Army veteran Ruben Ramirez, who led her 28-20 last month in the first round of the nomination contest.

● TX-34 (special): Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has scheduled the special all-party primary to succeed former Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela for June 14, with the filing deadline set for April 13. A runoff date would only be scheduled if no one earns a majority of the vote in the first round.

Attorneys General

● AZ-AG: Republicans have a six-way primary to succeed termed-out Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who is seeking Team Red's nod for U.S. Senate, and this is another nominating contest without an obvious frontrunner. The only Democrat, by contrast, is former Arizona Corporation Commission Chair Kris Mayes.

One familiar GOP contender is Tiffany Shedd, who lost a close general election last cycle in the 1st Congressional District against Rep. Tom O'Halleran. Another 2020 loser is Rodney Glassman, who narrowly failed to unseat the Maricopa County assessor in the primary; Glassman was the 2010 Democratic nominee against Sen. John McCain, but he now sports an endorsement from far-right Rep. Paul Gosar. The field also consists of two former prosecutors, Lacy Cooper and Abe Hamadeh; former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Andrew Gould; and manufacturing executive Dawn Grove.

● TX-AG: YouGov surveys the May 24 Republican primary runoff for the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation and shows incumbent Ken Paxton fending off Land Commissioner George P. Bush 65-23, which is even larger than the 59-30 lead that CWS Research found in its recent poll for a pro-Paxton group. YouGov also has former ACLU attorney Rochelle Garza beating former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski 46-31 for the Democratic nod.

YouGov tests hypothetical general election scenarios as well and finds that, despite his myriad of scandals, Paxton outperforms Bush. The attorney general leads Garza and Jaworski 48-42 and 48-41, respectively, while Jaworski edges out Bush 39-38 and Garza ties him at 39-all.

Secretaries of State

● AZ-SoS: Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is running for governor, and four Republicans and two Democrats are running to replace her as this swing state's chief elections officer.

Donald Trump, unsurprisingly, has taken a strong interest in this contest and endorsed state Rep. Mark Finchem, a QAnon supporter who led the failed effort to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 victory and attended the Jan. 6 rally just ahead of the attack on the Capitol. Team Red's field also includes state Rep. Shawnna Bolick, who championed a bill that would have allowed the state legislature to decertify the state's presidential results at any point before Inauguration Day, and state Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who has sponsored some of the most aggressive new voting restrictions in Arizona. The final Republican contender is advertising executive Beau Lane.

Democrats, meanwhile, have a duel between state House Minority Leader Reginald Bolding and Adrian Fontes, who narrowly lost re-election in 2020 as Maricopa County clerk, the post responsible for election administration in the county.

Prosecutors

● Maricopa County, AZ Prosecutor: Republican incumbent Alistair Adel resigned late last month as the top prosecutor of America's fourth-largest county over serious questions about her ability to manage her office, and one Democrat and three Republicans quickly collected the requisite signatures needed to compete in the special election to succeed her. The partisan primary and general elections will take place on the same days as the state's regularly scheduled statewide contests, and the winner will be up for a full term in 2024.

The only Democrat in the race is 2020 nominee Julie Gunnigle, who lost to Adel by a close 51-49. The GOP field consists of Anni Foster, who is Gov. Doug Ducey's general counsel; City of Goodyear Prosecutor Gina Godbehere; and prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, whom Senate Republicans hired in 2018 as a "female assistant" to question Brett Kavanaugh and accuser Christine Blasey Ford. A fourth Republican, attorney James Austin Woods, does not appear to have filed.