Category: herschelwalker

Morning Digest: Our new Minnesota data shows a divergent election for Biden and Senate Democrats

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

Leading Off

● Pres-by-LD: Daily Kos Elections is pleased to present new data from Minnesota breaking down the 2020 presidential results for every district in the state House and Senate—which, unusually, are held by opposite parties.

Democrats went into last year's election hoping to net the two seats they'd need to retake the upper chamber after four years in the minority, but despite winning more Senate votes statewide, Team Blue only flipped a single seat. More painfully still, Joe Biden carried 37 of the Senate's 67 seats, a comfortable majority similar in proportion to his share of the statewide vote, which he won 53-45.

Compounding the Democrats' poor showing, two of the party's sitting senators, Tom Bakk and David Tomassoni, announced weeks after the election that they would become independents, which earned the duo committee chairmanships from the GOP majority. This state of affairs has given Republicans and their new allies a 36-31 edge in the chamber.

Altogether, six Republicans sit in Biden seats. The bluest of this bunch is SD-26 in the Rochester area in the southern part of the state, where GOP state Sen. Carla Nelson hung on by a 51-49 maring even as Biden was carrying her constituency 54-44. By contrast, Kent Eken is the one Democratic member of the Senate who represents Trump turf: Eken won SD-04 in the northwest part of the state 55-45 while Trump took it 50-48. Tomassoni, for his part, holds a Trump seat, while Bakk's district went for Biden.

Campaign Action

It's also possible that, but for the presence of a third-party candidate on the ballot in the 27th District in the southern part of the state, Democrats would have won back the Senate. Veteran Democratic Sen. Dan Sparks lost to Republican Gene Dornink 49-44, but Tyler Becvar of the Legal Marijuana Now Party captured 7% of the vote, greater than the margin between the two leaders.

While the cannabis legalization movement is generally associated with the political left, many candidates who ostensibly ran under a pro-weed banner in Minnesota last year received Republican help or espoused right-wing views—including Becvar. But Sparks' seat would have been a very difficult hold regardless: Trump won it 55-43, so it's very possible some of those votes for Becvar would have gone to Dornink instead.

Democrats were able to maintain their majority in the Minnesota House, but their edge slipped from 75-59 to 70-64. Biden took 72 districts to Trump's 62, and though crossover voting benefited Republicans overall, the GOP's advantage wasn't as large as it was in the Senate on a proportional basis: Six House Republicans won Biden seats, while four Democrats took Trump districts.

The Democrat with the reddest turf is Paul Marquart, who earned his 10th term 53-47 even as Trump was romping to a 58-39 victory in his HD-04B. (In Minnesota, two state House districts are nested within one Senate district, and Marquart represents half of Eken's aforementioned 4th Senate District.) Marquart's Republican counterpart is Keith Franke, who had lost re-election in 2018 but reclaimed HD-54A by a 51-48 margin despite Biden's 54-43 victory in his suburban Twin Cities constituency.

Minnesota is one of just two states where the same party doesn't hold both houses of the legislature; the other is Alaska, where Republicans have nominal majorities in each chamber but the House is run by a coalition of Democrats, Republicans, and independents.

This state of affairs makes it extremely unlikely that the Minnesota legislature and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz will agree on new congressional and legislative maps. This deadlock would mean that the courts would take over redistricting, which is exactly what happened a decade ago—and each of the last several decades.

Once new maps are implemented, each party will immediately have another chance to try to win both chambers. The entire House is on the ballot every two years, while the Senate is up in years ending in 0, 2, and 6, meaning that senators who won election in 2020 are currently serving two-year terms but will run for four-year terms next year. (This system, known as "2-4-4," is used in eight states.)

P.S. You can find all of our district-level data at this bookmarkable permalink.

Senate

● GA-Sen: Rep. Buddy Carter appears to have gotten his hands on a cellphone number that his fellow Republicans have had a hard time getting ahold of: The southwest Georgia congressman says he's had "a number of conversations" with former NFL star Herschel Walker, who's been encouraged by Donald Trump to run for Senate but hasn't been in communication with top GOP operatives about his intentions.

Carter, however, says that Walker, who lives in Texas, told him that he'll make some sort of decision "around the first of the summer." (Since "summer" isn't a month, we'll mark that down as June 20, the summer solstice.) Like all Peach State Republicans, Carter is eagerly awaiting a final announcement from Walker, who's largely frozen the Senate field. Carter himself says he's already prepped a campaign team for his own Senate bid but that he's "waiting on Herschel" before entering the race.

● PA-Sen: Republican Reps. Guy Reschenthaler and Mike Kelly have published a joint op-ed endorsing Army veteran Sean Parnell in his bid for the Senate, making them the first members of Congress from Pennsylvania to take sides in next year's GOP primary.

Governors

● IL-Gov: Republican state Sen. Jason Barickman says he's considering a bid against Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker next year and says a decision will come "later this summer" after the conclusion of the current legislative session. Barickman also suggested that the outcome of redistricting, which Democrats will control in Illinois, could affect his thinking.

● MI-Gov: A new poll from Target Insyght for MIRS News finds Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer up 48-42 on outgoing Detroit police Chief James Craig, who is considering seeking the Republican nomination. The same survey (which is our first of the race) also finds Whitmer beating Army veteran John James by a wider 49-39 margin. James was the GOP's Senate nominee in both 2018 and 2020, though he hasn't yet publicly expressed any interest in a possible gubernatorial bid.

● NY-Gov: Rep. Elise Stefanik easily won election as House GOP conference chair on Friday to replace the ousted Liz Cheney, defeating Texas Rep. Chip Roy 134-46 in a secret ballot. If Stefanik sticks to her word, we can cross her off the list of potential Republican gubernatorial candidates for next year since she said she wouldn't run for governor if she won the race for chair.

● VA-Gov: Former Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman, who'd been threatening to run for governor as an independent, says he's less likely to do so now that the GOP has tapped finance executive Glenn Youngkin as its nominee. "If Amanda Chase or Pete Snyder won," he told CBS's Aaron Navarro, "I would have more heavily considered it." Riggleman has until the June 8 filing deadline for independents to decide.

House

● FL-13: Democratic state Rep. Michele Rayner, who'd reportedly been considering a bid for Florida's open 13th District, now confirms that she is in fact looking at the race. Another Democrat, term-limited St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman, has also made it clear that he's weighing a campaign; his earlier comments had us slotting him into the "hasn't ruled it out" category, which we regard as a notch below on the level-of-interest scale.

● GA-10: State Rep. Timothy Barr has entered the race for Georgia's open 10th Congressional District, making him the second notable Republican to join after former Rep. Paul Broun.

Mayors

● Atlanta, GA Mayor: Two more members of the Atlanta City Council, Andre Dickens and Antonio Brown, have announced that they're running in the November nonpartisan primary to succeed retiring incumbent Keisha Lance Bottoms.

Dickens is the co-founder of City Living Home Furnishings, which the Atlanta Journal-Constitution describes as "a multi-million dollar retail business with two locations." Dickens sold the business two years before he was elected to the City Council in 2013 by unseating an incumbent.

Brown, for his part, has been a prominent progressive critic of Bottoms since he was elected in a 2019 special election, an accomplishment that made him the body's first Black LGBTQ member. Brown, though, has been under federal indictment since July on fraud charges, allegations he denies.

Two other contenders, City Council President Felicia Moore and attorney Sharon Gay, have been running since before Bottoms announced her departure earlier this month, and a big name is publicly expressing interest for the first time. Former Mayor Kasim Reed recently told Channel 2's Dave Huddleston that he is thinking about running for his old job again, though political insiders have been chattering about a potential comeback for a while.

Reed had no trouble winning re-election the last time he was on the ballot in 2013, but a corruption investigation that resulted in indictments for six members of his staff generated plenty of bad headlines during the end of his tenure. (Term limits prohibited Reed from seeking a third consecutive term in 2017, but he's free to run again now that he's not the incumbent.) Huddleston asked Reed whether he was under investigation, to which the former mayor replied, "The Justice Department under [former Attorney General] Bill Barr has looked into every aspect of my life for more than three years and took no action."

Finally, former Rep. Kwanza Hall confirmed his interest on Thursday and said he would "make my decision soon." Hall, who was a city councilman at the time, took seventh place in the last mayoral contest, but he went on to win a 2020 all-Democratic runoff for the final month of the late Rep. John Lewis' term in the 116th Congress.

● New York City, NY Mayor: The Democratic firm Change Research's new survey of the June 22 Democratic primary finds Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams leading 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang 19-16, with city Comptroller Scott Stringer at 9%. After the poll simulates the instant runoff process, Adams is left with a 53-47 edge over Yang. Change tells us that, while this was conducted as part of a larger survey for a client, the pollster paid for the horserace portion itself.

● St. Petersburg, FL Mayor: St. Pete Polls' new survey of the August nonpartisan primary for Florida Politics finds City Councilwoman Darden Rice and former Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch deadlocked 16-16, with former state Rep. Wengay Newton at 12%. All three leading contenders are Democrats, though Newton worked with Republicans on some issues in the legislature and backed former GOP Mayor Rick Baker's unsuccessful 2017 comeback campaign.

St. Pete Polls also finds Welch outpacing Rice 31-24 in a hypothetical November general.

Prosecutors

● Manhattan, NY District Attorney: Former State Chief Deputy Attorney General Alvin Bragg has earned the backing of the United Federation of Teachers, which is one of the major unions in New York City politics, in the eight-way June 22 Democratic primary. Bragg already had the support of two other influential labor groups: the healthcare workers union 1199 SEIU and 32BJ, which represents building and airport employees.

Redistricting

● Redistricting: Our friends at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project are hosting a new contest that will be of interest to many Digest readers:

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project at the Electoral Innovation Lab is proud to announce the launch of its Great American Map Off, a contest challenging the public to draw redistricting plans for seven crucial states—Wisconsin, Colorado, Ohio, Illinois, Florida, North Carolina, and New York—in anticipation of the 2021 redistricting cycle. Maps will be judged in the contest's four unique categories: partisan fairness, stealth gerrymander, competitiveness, and communities of interest. Participants can enter any or all categories, which are fully detailed within the contest rules on the group's website. The site also includes links for mapping tools and resources, including Representable, Dave's Redistricting, and All About Redistricting. The competition will formally open on May 15, 2021. All competitors should submit their prospective maps by the deadline of 11:59 PM ET on June 15, 2021. Prizes will be awarded.

Full details here. Let us know if you submit!

Morning Digest: D.A. leading reform charge in Philadelphia faces primary challenge from skeptic

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

Leading Off

● Philadelphia, PA District Attorney: Larry Krasner's 2017 victory in the race for Philadelphia district attorney gave criminal justice reformers an early high-profile win, but he faces a competitive May 18 Democratic primary fight to hold onto his office. Krasner's opponent is former prosecutor Carlos Vega, who has argued that the incumbent has been running "an experiment that is costing the lives of our children." The eventual nominee should have no trouble in the November general election in this heavily blue city.

Politico's Holly Otterbein writes that Vega, who was one of the 31 prosecutors whom Krasner fired shortly into his tenure, has avoided "campaigning as a tough-on-crime politician." Vega instead has argued he can deliver "real progressive reform" and insisted that "we don't have to choose between safety and reform." Vega has also blamed the city's spike in homicides on the district attorney's policies.

Krasner has responded by pointing out that murders have increased nationwide for reasons far beyond his control, saying, "What has happened, and essentially every criminologist agrees on this, is that the pandemic, closing of society and closing of so many different aspects of what protects and surrounds especially young men have disappeared." Krasner has further defended himself by arguing, as Otterbein writes, that he's "delivered on his campaign promises by lowering the jail population, exonerating the innocent and reducing the amount of time people are on probation and parole."

Campaign Action

The incumbent, in turn, is framing his contest as a choice between criminal justice reform and "past that echoes with names like [Frank] Rizzo," the city's racist late mayor. Krasner is also trying to turn the local Fraternal Order of Police's support for Vega into a liability by pointing out that the national organization backed Donald Trump last year. Vela, who was the first Latino homicide prosecutor in Pennsylvania, has pushed back, saying it was "really rich" for Krasner to compare him to Trump "when this is coming from a person who's white, elite, from an Ivy League school."

Krasner outraised his opponent by hauling in $420,000 during the first three months of 2021, but Vega still brought in a credible $340,000. Krasner also has to deal with a well-funded group called Protect Our Police PAC, which has mostly been financed by pro-Trump megadonor Timothy Mellon. The PAC, though, generated plenty of negative attention in early April when it sent out a fundraising email falsely blaming George Floyd for his own death.

Vela quickly disavowed the group, which blamed the message on a marketing firm, and said he didn't want its backing. Protect Our Police, in turn, responded by saying that it wasn't endorsing Vela but was "laser-focused" on unseating Krasner.

One major question looming over the race is whether billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who has in the past donated heavily to groups supporting Krasner and likeminded candidates, will help him again. Otterbein also notes that there have been no public polls here, and insiders disagree on how vulnerable Krasner is next month.

1Q Fundraising

● NV-Sen: Catherine Cortez Masto (D-inc): $2.3 million raised, $4.7 million cash-on-hand

Senate

● AK-Sen: The prominent GOP super PAC Senate Leadership Fund has backed Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who already faces an intra-party challenge from former state cabinet official Kelly Tshibaka. Murkowski, who has not yet announced if she'll seek re-election, had suggested she might run as an independent back in January, but SLF's endorsement indicates that party leaders doubt she'll abandon the party label.

As we've noted before, Alaska will not hold a conventional party primary next year thanks to a new ballot measure Alaska voters passed in November that radically reforms how elections are conducted in the state. Under Measure 2, all candidates from all parties will now run together on a single primary ballot, with the top four vote-getters advancing to a November general election. Voters would then choose a winner from that quartet by means of an instant runoff.

● AZ-Sen: The far-right anti-tax Club for Growth has released a survey from its usual pollster WPA Intelligence showing its ally, extremist Rep. Andy Biggs, edging out Gov. Doug Ducey 46-45 in a hypothetical Republican primary.

Biggs said a few weeks ago that he'd decide by the end of March if he'd challenge Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, but the month concluded without any public comment from the congressman about his plans. Ducey, by contrast, took his name out of consideration in January, though Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly has been trying to get him to reconsider.

● GA-Sen: While Donald Trump generated plenty of chatter about former NFL running back Herschel Walker's interest in this race last month when he not-tweeted "Run Herschel, run!", the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Walker himself has remained "silent" about a possible campaign against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. The paper says that Walker, who remains a Texas resident, also "hasn't returned the calls of even some senior Republican officials trying to ascertain his next move."

Meanwhile another Republican, banking executive Latham Saddler, filed paperwork with the FEC on Friday for a potential campaign.

● NC-Sen: On Thursday, a consultant for far-right Rep. Ted Budd named Michael Luethy told the News & Observer that his boss would make his decision whether to run for the state's open Senate seat "sooner than later." Luethy also said of the Budd's deliberations, "It's fair to say he's leading towards it."

That same day, the conservative Carolina Journal published a piece by Dallas Woodhouse, the infamous former executive director of the state GOP, who wrote that multiple unnamed sources believed that Budd "will enter the U.S. Senate race in the coming weeks." Luethy, though, insisted that, while Budd is putting together a "formidable team," the congressman had not yet made a final decision.

The only notable Republican in the running right now is Budd's former colleague, ex-Rep. Mark Walker, though others are eyeing this contest. The potential candidate who continues to generate the most attention is former Trump campaign adviser Lara Trump, while former Gov. Pat McCrory has been flirting with a bid for years.  One Republican who will not be running, though, is state party chair Michael Whatley, who took his name out of contention on Thursday.

● NV-Sen: On Thursday, former Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval unambiguously ruled out running against Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto. "I have no interest in running and I will not be a candidate" said Sandoval, who now serves as president of the University of Nevada, Reno.

Governors

● MD-Gov: Former Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker announced Thursday that he would seek the Democratic nomination to succeed termed-out Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. Baker's decision came as a surprise, as his name had not been mentioned much before he kicked off his second campaign for this office.

Baker, who would be Maryland's first Black governor, competed in the 2018 primary to take on Hogan, and he attracted the support of almost the entire state party establishment. However, Baker lost by a surprisingly wide 40-29 margin to former NAACP president Ben Jealous, whom Hogan went on to defeat in the general election.

The Washington Post's Arelis Hernandez took a close look at what went wrong for Baker right after the primary and pointed to a number of factors that led to his downfall. These included his refusal to heed advice that he campaign more visibly, Jealous' aggressive courting of unions and stronger fundraising, and the fact that Baker didn't jump on developments coming out of the Trump White House in the way that Jealous did. On Friday, fellow Post writer Rachel Chason noted that Baker was also held back by "political enemies he made in Prince George's, including labor unions and opponents of his controversial efforts to improve county public schools."

In an interview Thursday with Maryland Matters, Baker acknowledged that his underwhelming fundraising had played a big role in his defeat last time. Baker argued, though, that he was limited at the time by his responsibilities as county executive and local ethics rules restricting how much officeholders could take from developers, which will not be factors for him now.

Baker joins a primary field that already includes state Comptroller Peter Franchot, who has been running for over a year, and former Obama administration official Ashwani Jain, while more could be in before long. Maryland Matters' Bruce DePuyt writes that former Attorney General Doug Gansler, who badly lost the 2014 primary for governor, is "expected to announce that he's running later this month." DePuyt also relays that Baltimore County Executive John Olszewski "is expected" to decide next month after the county council acts on his proposed budget.

Several other Democrats could also join the field, but it looks like Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks will not be one of them. Alsobrooks, who was elected in 2018 to succeed Baker as leader of the state's second-largest county, said last month that "in this moment I'm running for re-election."

While Alsobrooks' statement didn't quite close the door on a campaign for higher office, Baker said Thursday that he'd only made his decision after talking with her the day before. Baker said he'd spoken to her about the gubernatorial race and added that "[w]e're genuinely friends" and "our supporters are the same."

● NV-Gov: Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo acknowledged to the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Thursday that he was thinking about seeking the Republican nomination to face Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak. Rep. Mark Amodei also recently reaffirmed his interest, while former Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchinson has reportedly been considering as well. The paper writes of this group, "The consensus among local Republican political operatives is that the trio is working to reach an agreement on a single candidate to support by the beginning of summer.

● NY-Gov: Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik's team on Thursday put out their first statement directly addressing the possibility that she could run for governor, which came hours after her colleague, Lee Zeldin, kicked off his own bid. "Congresswoman Stefanik continues to receive encouragement from all corners of the state as she would immediately be the strongest Republican candidate in both a primary and general gubernatorial election," said senior advisor Alex DeGrasse, who added that she "is not ruling anything out - nor will she make her decision based on others' timetables."

House

● FL-01, NY-23: The House Ethics Committee on Friday announced that it had opened investigations into two Republicans embroiled in separate scandals, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and New York Rep. Tom Reed.

The committee says it is "aware of public allegations" that Gaetz "may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct." Gaetz, who is under federal investigation for sex trafficking, has rejected calls for his resignation.

The Ethics Committee, meanwhile, is probing allegations that Reed "may have engaged in sexual misconduct." Last month, a woman named Nicolette Davis accused Reed of sexually harassing her at a Minneapolis restaurant in 2017. While Reed initially denied Davis' account as "not accurate," he published a statement two days later apologizing to her and announcing that he would not be on the ballot for anything next year.

● FL-20: The Sun Sentinel writes that, while Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness hasn't yet launched a campaign to succeed the late Rep. Alcee Hastings, Holness has "been informally running for months" for this safely blue South Florida seat. The paper also name-drops Palm Beach County Commissioner Mack Bernard as another possible Democratic contender for the unscheduled special election.

● NY-01: Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, who took third in last year's Democratic primary, filed paperwork with the FEC on Friday for a potential bid to succeed Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin, who is running for governor. Fleming did not immediately announce a bid, though she responded to a tweet the previous day urging her to run by writing, "Stay tuned."

Morning Digest: Boston just elevated its first woman and first person of color to the city’s top job

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

Leading Off

● Boston, MA Mayor: Boston City Council President Kim Janey made history on Monday when she ascended to the position of acting mayor following incumbent Marty Walsh's resignation that evening to become U.S. secretary of labor. Janey, who is Black, is the first person of color to lead one of America's oldest cities, as well as the first woman to serve as mayor.

Janey's elevation also comes at a time when she and other women and people of color have been making rapid electoral gains in a city that has long had a reputation for racism. Janey herself, at the age of 11, was riding a bus that was attacked by a mob when she was being driven to school in a heavily white neighborhood, an incident that took place in 1976, at the height of the city's infamous busing crisis.

It took another 33 years before Ayanna Pressley's victory made her the first-ever woman of color elected to the City Council in 2009. Change began to accelerate three years ago, though, when Pressley attracted national attention after defeating longtime Rep. Michael Capuano in the Democratic primary, an accomplishment that positioned her to become the first woman of color to ever represent Massachusetts in Congress a few months later.

Campaign Action

That same evening, another Black woman, Rachael Rollins, won the Democratic primary in the open-seat race for district attorney in Suffolk County, which includes all of Boston, and likewise prevailed that fall. Janey herself became the first African American woman to lead the City Council in 2020, a 13-member body that now includes a total of eight women and seven members of color.

Janey has not yet said if she'll seek a full four-year term as mayor this year, though the Boston Globe's James Pindell writes that "it would be surprising if she decided not to." We'll know the answer before too long, as the deadline to turn in the necessary 3,000 signatures to appear on the ballot is May 18.

All the candidates will face off in September in an officially nonpartisan race known locally as the "preliminary election." The two contenders with the most votes will then advance to a November face-off. There's little question that the eventual winner will identify as a Democrat in this very blue city; what's up for grabs is who that Democrat will be.

Boston hasn't ousted an incumbent mayor since 1949, when John Hynes defeated the legendary and controversial incumbent James Michael Curley. Only one acting mayor has sought a full term in the seven decades since, after another City Council president, Thomas Menino, assumed the top job in July of 1991 following Mayor Raymond Flynn's resignation to become Bill Clinton's ambassador to the Vatican. Menino took first place just two months later in the preliminary election amidst a crowded field, then decisively won the general election that year and left office in 2014 as the city's longest-serving mayor.

No matter what Janey decides, however, we're once again sure to see a busy race. Two of Janey's fellow city councilors, Andrea Campbell and Michelle Wu, had each announced last year that they'd challenge Walsh, back when most politicos assumed he'd be seeking a third term. The dynamics dramatically changed in January, though, when Joe Biden nominated Walsh to lead the Department of Labor.

Following that development, three other notable candidates declared bids prior to Walsh's departure: City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George, state Rep. Jon Santiago, and John Barros, the city's former economic development chief. In a sign of just how much politics have changed in Boston, all of these contenders are people of color. There's still a while to go before filing closes, though, and others could still join the contest.

Senate

● GA-Sen: Banking executive Latham Saddler confirmed this week that he is considering seeking the Republican nomination to take on Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. Saddler is a Navy SEAL veteran who went on to serve as a Trump White House fellow, and he does not appear to have run for office before.

Meanwhile, Politico has obtained a survey from the GOP firm OnMessage that tests several other prospective candidates in a hypothetical primary. Reporter Alex Isenstadt says that, while OnMessage advises the NRSC, it is not working for any of the possible contenders.

In a four-way match-up, OnMessage gives former Rep. Doug Collins a 35-27 lead over former NFL running back Herschel Walker. Former Sen. Kelly Loeffler takes third with 22%, while QAnon ally and freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is at 7%. In a two-way contest, Collins bests Loeffler 55-36.

Both Collins and Loeffler, who faced off last year in an all-party special election primary, are talking about running again. Donald Trump has publicly urged Walker to get in, but while he's reportedly thinking about it, many observers are skeptical the Texas resident will return to Georgia for a campaign. Greene has not shown any obvious interest in a statewide bid, but that hasn't stopped establishment Republicans from fretting about the idea.

● MO-Sen: Former Gov. Eric Greitens on Monday became the first notable Missouri Republican to announce a bid to succeed retiring Sen. Roy Blunt, a deeply unwelcome development for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's hopes of reclaiming a majority next year.

As Politico reported earlier this month, a number of Republicans fear that Greitens, who left office in disgrace three years ago, could endanger Team Red's hold over Blunt's seat if he wins the primary. Some intra-party critics even compared Greitens to Todd Akin, whose "legitimate rape" debacle sunk the GOP's prospects in the Show Me State's 2012 Senate race.

It's easy to see why Greitens could be so toxic even in a state that's galloped away from Democrats over the last decade. Greitens' political career began with promise when he was first elected to the governorship in 2016, but it swiftly began to unravel early in 2018 in the face of allegations that he'd sexually assaulted a woman he was having an affair with and blackmailed her into silence.

Prosecutors soon wound up indicting Greitens not once but twice: First on allegations of first-degree felony invasion of privacy related to the assault scandal, and soon after on unrelated charges of computer tampering involving his charity for veterans (Greitens is a former Navy SEAL). The Republican-led state legislature, which had little love for the governor after spending a year feuding with him, also took steps toward removing him from office.

Greitens finally resigned at the end of May, a move that St. Louis prosecutor Kimberly Gardner claimed came in exchange for her decision to drop the tampering charges. A short while later, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker also abandoned the assault and blackmail case, saying that while she believed Greitens' accuser, she did not think she could prove the charges.

With that abrupt fall from grace, Greitens became the shortest-tenured governor in Missouri history. His time in politics appeared to be at an end, and he spent most of the following two years avoiding the media. However, he re-emerged in February of last year after getting some mostly welcome news from the Missouri Ethics Commission. The commission announced that it was fining Greitens $178,000 after ruling that his 2016 campaign had not disclosed its coordination with a federal PAC and a nonprofit. However, it also said there was "no evidence of any wrongdoing" by Greitens himself and forgave most of the fine.

Greitens immediately laundered those findings (which concerned only his campaign, not the assault allegations) to make a broad-based claim he'd just received a "total exoneration" (he hadn't). He also didn't rule out a 2020 primary bid for his old job as governor against his replacement, Gov. Mike Parson, though he ultimately backed off. However, he started talking up a challenge to Blunt earlier this month, arguing that the incumbent had shown insufficient fealty to Donald Trump. Just days later, Blunt ended up announcing his retirement, and Greitens kicked off his bid to succeed his would-be rival this week.

National Republicans, though, didn't wait for Greitens to announce before discussing ways to keep him from winning the primary. Politico's Alex Isenstadt recently reported that the Senate Leadership Fund, a major super PAC close to Mitch McConnell, "has been engaged in talks about how to keep the former governor from endangering [the GOP's] hold on what should be a safe seat," though no one has settled on any precise strategies yet—at least not publicly.

Isenstadt added that Republican operatives are aware that a crowded field could make it easier for Greitens to win the nomination, though unnamed "top Republicans" acknowledged that they haven't come up with a plan to stop him at this early point in the cycle.

But Greitens' potential Senate colleague, fellow Republican Josh Hawley, is already kicking the former governor in the shins. While the two are both ardent fans of Trump's favorite election conspiracy theories, they utterly despise one another. Hawley said Tuesday of his 2018 call for Greitens' resignation, "I wouldn't change any of that" and acknowledged he'd spoken to Trump about the race, ostensibly in the hope of dissuading him from backing Greitens. Hawley hedged, though, adding, "I'll support the Republican nominee" for this seat.

Governors

● PA-Gov: Republican Rep. Dan Meuser acknowledged Monday that he was thinking about entering next year's open seat race for governor

Meuser, who represents a safely red seat located in the formerly coal-heavy region between Wilkes-Barre and Harrisburg, said, "I plan on taking the next few months to have discussions with my fellow Pennsylvanians about ways I believe we can move our state forward towards a more prosperous future." Last month, PennLive also listed Meuser as one of the Republicans "widely believed to be looking at" running for Senate, but he didn't mention that contest this week.

House

● TX-34: Former Texas Secretary of State Carlos Cascos told the Texas Tribune Monday that he wasn't ruling out seeking the Republican nomination to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Filemón Vela.

Cascos previously served as county judge, a post that is similar to a county executive in other states, in Cameron County, which is home to more than half of the residents in the current 34th District. In 2015, Cascos resigned to accept an appointment as secretary of state, a stint that lasted for two years. Cascos tried to regain his old job as county judge from Democratic incumbent Eddie Treviño in 2018 but lost the general election 60-40.

Mayors

● Cleveland, OH Mayor: Former City Councilman Zack Reed announced this week that he would mount a second bid this year for the post currently held by Mayor Frank Jackson, a fellow Democrat. Jackson has not yet said if he'll seek a fifth four-year term, though Cleveland.com's Seth Richardson says the incumbent "has not raised money or indicated he would do so." The filing deadline is in mid-June.

Reed challenged Jackson in 2017, arguing the mayor had not done enough to deal with the high crime rate and was too focused on improving downtown at the expense of the city's neighborhoods. Jackson went on to beat Reed 60-40, a solid showing that was still a significantly smaller margin than what he scored during his two previous re-election campaigns. Reed went on to work for Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose for two years as minority affairs coordinator, a job that Cleveland.com described as "help[ing] LaRose build bridges with minority voters and minority business groups across the state."

Reed joins nonprofit executive Justin Bibb in the mayoral contest to lead this very blue city, though other contenders will likely join no matter what Jackson does. Richardson writes that the list of other politicians "expected" to run include former Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who served as mayor from 1977 to 1979; City Council President Kevin Kelley; and City Councilman Basheer Jones. The nonpartisan primary will take place in September, and the two candidates with the most votes will face off in the November general election.

Morning Digest: Ann Kirkpatrick, who served in the House three different times, announces retirement

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

Leading Off

● AZ-02: Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick announced Friday that she would not seek re-election in Arizona's 2nd Congressional District, a once swingy Tucson-area seat that has trended hard to the left over the last few years but could look quite different next year.

Kirkpatrick is the first House member from either party to announce her retirement this cycle; Texas Democrat Eddie Bernice Johnson said in 2019 that she was running for "one last term" in 2020 but hasn’t confirmed those plans since her most recent victory in November. For now, Kirkpatrick is the first name on the 2022 Daily Kos Elections open seat tracker, a bookmark-worthy resource that we'll be updating throughout the cycle as new seats open up.

Kirkpatrick's departure will set off an open-seat race for the new district that emerges from her southern Arizona district turf, which, in its current form, started the decade as competitive but is now decidedly blue.

Campaign Action

The 2nd District, which includes about 60% of Tucson's Pima County and all of conservative Cochise County to the east, backed Mitt Romney 50-48 in 2012 and hosted incredibly tight House races that year and in 2014. Things started to change in 2016, however, when Hillary Clinton carried the seat 50-44, but Republican Rep. Martha McSally, who had narrowly prevailed two years before, was nonetheless decisively re-elected that year. Kirkpatrick, though, convincingly flipped the 2nd in 2018 when McSally left to run for the Senate, and she had little trouble holding it in 2020 as Joe Biden was romping to a 55-44 victory here.

Redistricting is an especially unpredictable affair in Arizona, though, and no one knows what the map will look like next year, since the Grand Canyon State’s congressional and legislative maps are drawn by an independent commission. However, Republicans have done everything they can to sabotage the commission and have stacked the board that appoints its members with GOP partisans.

There’s even a danger the commission could vanish altogether: In 2016, the Supreme Court upheld the body's constitutionality by just a 5-4 margin, and since then, the court has moved to the right. If the commission is struck down, Arizona’s Republican-controlled state government would control the mapmaking process, and they’d be inclined to try to make the 2nd District red again.

But while the district's future shape is unknown, it didn't take long for Politico's Ally Mutnick to put together a list of potential Kirkpatrick successors. On the Democratic side, an unnamed source says that state Rep. Randy Friese is "likely" to run. Friese was a trauma surgeon who operated on then-Rep. Gabby Giffords and others after a gunman sought to assassinate the congresswoman in 2011. Friese got into politics soon after and narrowly unseated a GOP incumbent to win a Tucson-area state House seat in 2014, convincingly winning re-election ever since. Mutnick also mentions Pima County Supervisor Matt Heinz, who has unsuccessfully run here in the past, and state Reps. Andrés Cano and Daniel Hernández as possibilities.

For the Republicans, Mutnick says that state Sen. T.J. Shope "has been in contact with House Republicans about a 2022 bid." Shope's 8th Legislative District, as she notes, doesn't overlap at all with the 2nd Congressional District, though that could change under the new map. Mutnick also name-drops Corporation Commissioner Lea Márquez Peterson, who was the GOP’s 2018 nominee here and lost 55-45 to Kirkpatrick.

Kirkpatrick's departure ends a long career that, in a rarity, included three non-consecutive stints in Congress, including in two different congressional districts under the current map. Kirkpatrick, who grew up on the White Mountain Apache Nation reservation, got an early start in politics, campaigning for her uncle's successful bids for the state legislature, and she later sought a state House seat herself in 2004. Though Kirkpatrick is white, she ran in a northern Arizona seat that had long been represented by Native Americans and prevailed despite initial skepticism about her prospects, bolstered in part by her ability to speak Apache.

She soon sought a promotion in 2007 when Rep. Rick Renzi, a Republican who would be indicted for public corruption months later, announced that he would retire from the sprawling 1st Congressional District in the northern part of the state. The 1st had supported George W. Bush 54-46 in 2004, but Republicans struggled to recruit a strong candidate in what was rapidly turning into an ugly election for the party nationwide.

The eventual GOP nominee, Arizona Mining Association president Sydney Hay, had a hard-right record that made her unappealing to many swing voters. National Republicans abandoned Hayes to her fate in September and Kirkpatrick won 56-39 even as home state Sen. John McCain was carrying the 1st by a 54-44 margin.

The new congresswoman was in for a far more difficult campaign two years later, though, in the face of a political climate that was the reverse of the one she’d enjoyed two years earlier. Dentist Paul Gosar, a tea partier who had not yet become the nationally infamous figure he is now, thwarted a Hayes comeback in the 2010 primary and focused his general election campaign on healthcare and immigration. This time, outside groups on both sides spent heavily throughout the race, but Gosar unseated the incumbent 50-44.

Kirkpatrick's time away from Congress would be brief, though. Arizona’s redistricting commission drew up a new 1st District that, at 51-48 McCain, was considerably less conservative than the version Kirkpatrick had just lost. Gosar opted to run in the safely red 4th District while Kirkpatrick campaigned in the open 1st against former Republican state Sen. Jonathan Paton. The campaign proved to be very competitive, but Kirkpatrick, who again benefited from her long ties to American Indian communities in a seat that was more than 20% Native American, won 49-45 as Romney was taking the district 50-48.

Kirkpatrick would have to defend herself again in 2014 in the midst of what turned out to be another GOP wave year, but things worked out very differently for her than they had in 2010. National Republicans anticipated that state House Speaker Andy Tobin would be a formidable candidate, but it was Kirkpatrick who ran the stronger race. In part, she was once more buoyed by her ties to Native communities, enjoying a turnout boost thanks to a simultaneous race for president of the Navajo Nation (she even recorded radio ads in the Navajo language). Kirkpatrick ended up prevailing 53-47, making her one of just five Democrats left in a Romney seat after the dust settled.

Kirkpatrick's win under difficult conditions for her party made her a sought-out Senate candidate, and Democrats were delighted when she launched a campaign to unseat McCain in 2016. However, while Team Blue hoped that McCain could lose to a far-right primary foe, the race became less appealing after he won renomination against state Sen. Kelli Ward. Prominent outside organizations on both sides largely directed their resources towards other contests, and McCain beat Kirkpatrick 54-41 even though Donald Trumps’ 48-45 win was the weakest for a GOP presidential candidate in two decades.

At that point, Kirkpatrick's congressional career seemed to be over, especially since fellow Democrat Tom O'Halleran had held on to the 1st District, but she soon began talking about challenging Republican Rep. Martha McSally in the neighboring 2nd District. Kirkpatrick, who’d said in 2017 that she was moving to Tucson for family reasons, received public encouragement from former Rep. Ron Barber, who had lost to McSally in 2014, and launched a bid that July. She didn't get the chance to take on McSally, though, as the congresswoman decided to mount an ultimately unsuccessful campaign for the Senate the next year.

Heading into 2018, both parties initially saw the 2nd as a major battleground, though in a break from the past, Kirkpatrick had to first get through a crowded primary. Her main opponent was the party's 2016 nominee, former state Rep. Matt Heinz, who tried to portray Kirkpatrick as an outsider and drew unfavorable headlines when he compared her to a meth addict.

Kirkpatrick won that ugly race 42-30, but she had an easier time in the general election. National Republicans had touted their eventual nominee, Lea Márquez Peterson, but she ended up winning her own primary with an unimpressive 34% of the vote against weak opposition. GOP groups initially aired ads against Kirkpatrick but triaged the race in mid-October as the political climate worsened for them, and Kirkpatrick won her new seat 55-45.

In 2020, for once, Kirkpatrick did not face any serious opposition either from her own party or the GOP. The congresswoman spent six weeks on a leave of absence from Congress that winter as she underwent treatment for alcoholism, but she made it clear she would continue to run for re-election. Kirkpatrick won what would be her final term by the same 55-45 margin she’d earned two years earlier.

Senate

● GA-Sen: While acknowledging skepticism among the political class that Donald Trump favorite Herschel Walker might actually run for Senate in Georgia, the Washington Examiner's David Drucker reports that the former NFL running back "appears interested" and has been "making calls into the state." That preposition is the key word there, though: While Walker was raised in the Peach State and was a star on the University of Georgia's football team, he's resided in Texas for many years.

Trump's fulsome support for Walker—he not-tweeted "Run Herschel, run!" in a Wednesday press release—is also causing another issue. One unnamed Republican operative says that other candidates are avoiding the race "because they heard about the Trump-Herschel combo," and Drucker even suggests that Trump's obsession with Walker played a role in former Sen. David Perdue's decision not to wage a comeback bid.

A Walker candidacy still remains highly speculative, however, particularly since the one thing no one has managed to acquire so far is any sort of statement about his interest directly from him.

Governors

● NY-Gov: In a flurry of coordinated announcements, almost every Democrat in New York's congressional delegation called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign on Friday morning, with the state's two senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, joining in later that evening. Cuomo has steadfastly insisted he will not leave office, even though the Democratic-run Assembly has begun an impeachment investigation into allegations of misconduct.

With Cuomo's political future in grave peril, more of his fellow Democrats are hinting that they might run for governor themselves, though it's not clear whether anyone actually wants to challenge Cuomo in a primary—he has yet to abandon his re-election bid—or if folks are just hoping for an open-seat race. Either way, CNBC's Brian Schwartz reports that state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli and Rep. Tom Suozzi have both been discussing bids with supporters and, through spokespeople, have not denied doing so. DiNapoli has unambiguously said that Cuomo should step down, while Suozzi stopped just short, saying Cuomo should resign "[i]f he cannot effectively govern."

On the GOP side, former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino said in a new interview that he's thinking about a second bid for governor, though he added that it "likely would be several months" until he announces a decision. Astorino was the Republican nominee against Cuomo in 2014 and lost 54-40. He also tried to unseat Democratic state Sen. Pete Harckham last year but fell short by a 52-48 margin.

● VA-Gov: The GOP nomination for Virginia's gubernatorial election this year will be decided by just a few thousand party delegates, but two wealthy businessmen are nonetheless taking the blunderbuss approach to winning support. According to the Republican media tracking firm Medium Buying, private equity mogul Glenn Youngkin has spent just shy of $1 million to air TV and radio ads while "angel investor" Pete Snyder has forked out over three quarters of a mil. And what kind of ads are they running? The usual racist and xenophobic crap.

House

● OH-11: SEIU 1199, which represents 30,000 healthcare and public sector workers in Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia, has endorsed former state Sen. Nina Turner in the Democratic primary for the special election in Ohio's 11th Congressional District.

● SC-01, SC-07: Former Fox talking head Eric Bolling, a vocal Trump supporter who left the network in 2017 after his show was cancelled when sexual misconduct allegations were levied against him, is reportedly weighing a bid for Congress in South Carolina, though exactly where is unclear. Politico's Alex Isenstadt says that Bolling could run in the GOP primary in the 7th District against Rep. Tom Rice, who voted to impeach Trump in January, or in the 1st District against Rep. Nancy Mace, who opposed impeachment but offered a few remarks critical of Trump following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Bolling himself wouldn't confirm or deny the report, saying only, "South Carolina is conservative, and South Carolinians deserve conservative representation in D.C." Bolling only moved to South Carolina in 2018 and lives in Charleston, which might put him in Mace's district, or it might not—and definitely not in Rice's. Angry MAGA primary voters, however, are liable to care far more about loyalty to Trump than geographic ties.

● TX-06: Republican Brian Harrison, a former Trump HHS official, is the first candidate to go on the airwaves in the May special election for Texas' 6th Congressional District. The spot is devoted to scurrilous lies about Planned Parenthood. There's no word on the size of the buy.

Prosecutors

● Manhattan, NY District Attorney: Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance announced Friday that he would not seek a fourth term this year, a decision that New York’s political world has been expecting for some time. Vance had raised very little money over the last year, and eight different Democrats have been running for months to succeed him in this extremely blue borough.

Vance’s replacement will take over as head of one of the most prominent prosecutor's offices in America—one that’s frequently made headlines, both positive and negative. One such occasion (on the plus side of the ledger) came last month, when, after a lengthy legal battle that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Vance finally received Donald Trump's tax returns as part of his long-running investigation into Trump's financial dealings.

Vance’s 12-year tenure, while relatively long by many standards, turned out to be quite short compared to his predecessors’. When Vance won the race to succeed Robert Morgenthau in 2009, he was replacing a venerated prosecutor who took over the office all the way back in 1975 after beating appointed Republican incumbent Richard Kuh. The last person elected before Morgenthau was fellow Democrat Frank Hogan, who served from 1942 until he resigned in 1973, just months before his death.

Hogan's predecessor was the last Republican to win this post, Tom Dewey, who was elected to a single term in 1937. Dewey went on to become governor of New York and serve as the GOP's presidential nominee in both 1944 and 1948 (you may recall a certain newspaper headline about that).

The Democratic primary for this office will be held June 22, and the winner should have little trouble in November. Note, though, that while New York City voters backed a 2019 referendum to institute instant-runoff voting in primaries for many local offices, the measure does not apply to state-level posts like this one. Instead, it will just take a simple plurality to win the nod.

The field currently consists of:

  • Civil rights attorney Tahanie Aboushi
  • Former State Chief Deputy Attorney General Alvin Bragg
  • Attorney and former prosecutor Liz Crotty
  • Former prosecutor Diana Florence
  • Former prosecutor Lucy Lang
  • Public defender Eliza Orlins
  • Assemblyman Dan Quart
  • Former prosecutor Tali Farhadian Weinstein

There is no clear frontrunner at this point. Most of the contenders have pitched themselves as progressives who will bring much needed changes to the post. The exception is Crotty, who calls herself a centrist and is the one candidate who has not refused to take donations from police unions.

Grab Bag

● Demographics: The Texas Democratic Party released an an in-house analysis at the end of February looking at why Democrats fell short in the state in 2020, inspiring Daily Kos Elections contributing editor David Beard to take a deep dive into the report’s findings and what its implications might be for Democrats going forward.

The first part includes a summary of the report, a look at why field work isn't necessarily the answer to every problem in politics, and why the task of persuading voters is so difficult to talk about and analyze. The second part looks specifically at the shifts in the Rio Grande Valley and examines three potential explanations: a focus on unpopular social issues, a lack of investment and voter contact, and the fact of Donald Trump’s status as an incumbent seeking re-election.

You can sign up for Beard’s free weekly newsletter, The Roaring 2020s, for more analysis on this and other topics.

Morning Digest: What if the GOP held a convention but no one remembered to rent the parking lot?

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

Leading Off

● VA-Gov: On Tuesday, the Virginia Republican Central Committee held another contentious meeting during which its members voted to nominate their 2021 candidates for statewide office at a May 8 convention in the parking lot of Liberty University … but they seem to have failed to tell their would-be hosts. The evangelical school put out a statement the following day saying it had yet to agree to hold the event at all and that GOP leaders had not even informed it about the date of the gathering.

The institution instead said that it had notified GOP leaders that it would "consider" hosting the event, "provided that full rental cost for the use was paid." That could be a real concern, since the state party had all of $1,514 in the bank at the end of 2020. (Democrats, who will pick their nominees in a traditional June primary―an event that will be paid for by the state and open to any eligible voter―were flush.) It's too late for Republicans to reverse themselves, though, because Tuesday was the deadline for parties to notify Virginia election authorities that they'd like to hold a primary.

Old Dominion Republicans were already dealing with serious agita even before Liberty raised a stink on Wednesday, since many prominent officials were very unhappy that a small group of delegates would choose the party's nominees for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general.

Campaign Action

Earlier this week, in fact, the GOP's last three governors―Bob McDonnell, Jim Gilmore, and George Allen―unsuccessfully tried to persuade party leaders to instead hold a "firehouse primary." Under such an arrangement, the party would have set up a single polling place in each county—vastly fewer than the number of voting locations in a regular primary, but more than the single statewide site that the GOP settled on. A firehouse primary also would have allowed all voters to participate.

Instead, officials announced that party-approved delegates would gather on May 8 in the parking lot of Liberty University, the school that was led by Jerry Falwell Jr. until he resigned in disgrace in August. Because of the pandemic, the delegates will fill out a ranked-choice ballot from their cars―if Liberty actually lets them camp out there, that is.

Even before Liberty's statement, GOP leaders admitted that they hadn't figured out all the logistics for this year's convention yet, with the Virginia Mercury's Ned Oliver writing, "There were also questions about whether spreading convention delegates out through multiple parking garages and surface lots across a college campus would meet the party's definition of an assembled convention."

Other Republicans also worried that the event will exclude anyone who can't make it to Lynchburg, a city that has lovely views of the Blue Ridge Mountains but is far from most of Virginia's major population centers. Another Mercury reporter, Graham Moomaw, tweeted that one official asked if delegates from Tangier Island, a small and heavily Republican community in the Chesapeake Bay that isn't connected to the rest of the state by land, were "supposed to float to Lynchburg for this big convention."

Roanoke Times reporter Amy Friedenberger responded, "The James River will get them there. Might have to leave a week or so early." However, if party leaders can't reach a deal with Liberty, they may not need to put on their swim trunks after all.

Senate

● AL-Sen: Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell told The 19th News this week that she'd decide "very soon" whether she would run for Alabama's open U.S. Senate seat.

● IA-Sen: Apparently, Chuck Grassley is just going to mess with us for as long as he feels like. The seven-term Republican said on Wednesday that he'd make a decision about whether to seek re-election "sometime in September, October or November," even though earlier this month he said an announcement was "several weeks off," which followed a January statement that he'd make up his mind in "several months," which in turn superseded remarks from last year in which a reporter said he'd decide "eight months to a year before the 2022 election."

● GA-Sen: With David Perdue now safely out of the way, a variety of Republicans are popping their heads up to express interest in challenging Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock next year. In addition to the two big names already on the list, former Sen. Kelly Loeffler and former Rep. Doug Collins, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Greg Bluestein catalogs a whole host of alternatives:

  • Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan: A close Loeffler ally and former minor-league pitcher for the Florida Marlins, Duncan said he might run for Senate, seek re-election to his current job, or simply retire from politics altogether
  • Attorney General Chris Carr: Bluestein calls him a "mainstream conservative" and says he "hasn't ruled it out"
  • Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black: No word on his interest, but he's a longtime Collins supporter so likely wouldn't run if Collins does
  • Attorney Randy Evans: A former ambassador to Luxembourg under Trump who is reportedly considering
  • Businessman Kelvin King: Hasn't commented but is "one of Trump's most prominent Black supporters in Georgia"
  • Justice Harold Melton: Stepping down as chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court on July 1, but Bluestein says "he's not likely to run" and a backer says "he's had no serious conversations" about the race
  • Former NFL star Herschel Walker: A favorite of pundits, there's no indication that the one-time University of Georgia standout has any desire to run for office—and he lives in Texas

● PA-Sen: A spokesperson for former Ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands confirmed to The Hill this week that Sands is indeed considering seeking the Republican nomination for this open Senate seat. Sands, whom Politico described as "a former socialite, B-list movie star and chiropractor," was a major Trump donor who managed to draw the wrong type of attention both during and after her time as ambassador.

In 2019, Sands banned a NATO expert named Stanley Sloan from an event celebrating the alliance's 70th anniversary for what Sloan characterized as his "critical evaluation of Trump's impact on transatlantic relations." This month, the Office of Special Counsel also concluded that Sands had broken federal law for using her official Twitter account to solicit donations for Trump's 2020 campaign, spread racist conspiracy theories about Kamala Harris' eligibility to serve as vice president, and attack Joe Biden.

Governors

● FL-Gov: The Orlando Sentinel reports that state Sen. Randolph Bracy is considering seeking the Democratic nomination to take on Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022. Bracy, who would be the Sunshine State's first Black governor, has used his time in the legislature to champion criminal justice reforms that have mostly failed to advance in the GOP-dominated body. Bracy was also in the news in early 2017 when he expressed interest in a primary challenge against then-Sen. Bill Nelson, though he didn't end up going for it.

● MA-Gov: Democrats have speculated for years that Attorney General Maura Healey could run for governor in 2022 whether or not Republican Gov. Charlie Baker seeks re-election, and the talk only intensified this week after Healey made a pair of high-profile visits to vaccination sites. Healey, unsurprisingly, has denied that these stops were, in the words of the conservative Boston Herald, a "precursor to a potential gubernatorial bid," but she doesn't appear to have publicly addressed if she's thinking about running for the state's top job.

Healey, like Baker, is eligible to seek a third term next year, and there's little question she'd win re-election. If she instead ran for governor, though, Healey would almost certainly start the primary as the most-high profile contender in the race: Healey won re-election in 2018 by a 70-30 margin, and she has nearly $3 million on-hand in her state account. Healey would be both the first woman elected to lead Massachusetts (Republican Jane Swift ascended to this office in 2001 but never sought election in her own right), as well as the Bay State's first LGBTQ governor.

● MD-Gov: Nonprofit head Wes Moore, an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, told Maryland Matters this week that he was considering seeking the Democratic nomination to succeed termed-out Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. Moore, who would be the state's first Black governor, did not give a timeline for when he'd decide, though Maryland Matters' Josh Kurtz writes that he's told it would likely be in "mid-to late spring."

Moore is also a nonfiction author whose work includes Five Days, a well-received 2020 book about the 2015 "uprising that overtook Baltimore after the police killing of Freddie Gray." Moore himself has not run for office before, though Kurtz notes that his wife served as a top aide to then-Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown.

A number of other Democrats are considering entering the race including Brown, who lost the 2014 contest to Hogan but was elected to the U.S. House two years later. For now, though, the only two announced candidates are Comptroller Peter Franchot, who recently received an endorsement from the Laborers' International Union of North America, and former Obama administration official Ashwani Jain.

● NY-Gov: This week, Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin confirmed that he was considering a bid for governor.

House

● CT-02: Republican state Rep. Mike France announced Tuesday that he would take on Democratic Rep. Joe Courtney. France is Courtney's most prominent opponent since 2006, when the Democrat first won his seat by ousting Republican Rep. Rob Simmons by 83 votes, but he'll still have a very tough time prevailing in an area that almost always favors Democrats: While this eastern Connecticut seat backed Hillary Clinton only 49-46, it returned to form last year and supported Joe Biden 54-44.

France, whom the CT Post's Emilie Munson notes was one of only eight lawmakers to vote no on a 2017 law to ban gay conversion "therapy," also doesn't seem at all interested in moderating himself. He opposed a 2019 bill that would have removed the state's religious exemption to mandatory immunizations for public school students―legislation that, unfortunately and ironically, failed to advance after the coronavirus pandemic overshadowed everything else.

France used the crisis to try to further undermine public health by challenging Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont's emergency powers in court, arguing the state wasn't facing a "major disaster." A judge dismissed France's lawsuit a few months later.

● IL-16: Former Trump administration official Catalina Lauf announced Tuesday that she would challenge Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who infuriated conservatives nationwide by voting to impeach Donald Trump, for the Republican nomination. This seat, which is based in north-central Illinois, supported Trump 57-41 last year, but no one knows what this turf will look like after redistricting.

Lauf campaigned against Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood last year in the neighboring 14th District, but Lauf's bid came to an end after she took a close third place in the crowded primary. The self-proclaimed "anti-AOC" remained popular with national Republicans, though, and Lauf appeared in a convention video months later with her sister and proclaimed, "We come from Spanish descent and we're millennial women and that's not what the media wants."

● TX-06: Republican activist Susan Wright announced Wednesday that she would compete in the May 1 all-party primary to succeed her late husband, Rep. Ron Wright. Susan Wright served as a district director for two state representatives, and she also holds a post on the State Republican Executive Committee.

Wright is the first notable Republican to enter the race ahead of the March 3 filing deadline, but she's likely to have company. State Rep. Jake Ellzey, who lost the 2018 open seat runoff to Ron Wright, filed paperwork with the FEC this week.

Katrina Pierson, who was a prominent spokesperson for Trump in 2016 and 2020 and has spent the last few months spreading conspiracy theories about Joe Biden's win, also said over the weekend that she was thinking about running. Before she entered Trump's orbit, Pierson ran in the 2014 primary against incumbent Pete Sessions in the 32nd District, another seat in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and lost 64-36. (Sessions now represents a third seat, the 17th District.)

The Dallas Morning News' Gromer Jeffers also mentions state Rep. Tony Tinderholt as a possible Republican candidate as well as Dan Rodimer, who was Team Red's 2020 nominee for Nevada's 3rd District. This is the very first we've heard of Rodimer, whose active Twitter account continues to list his location as Las Vegas, campaigning in another state.

On the Democratic side, 2020 nominee Stephen Daniel said Tuesday that he would not run. Jeffers, meanwhile, mentions former Homeland Security official Patrick Moses, who works as a minister, as a potential candidate.

● WA-03: Three Republicans recently announced campaigns against Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who is one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump in January, though it remains to be seen if any of them are capable of running a serious campaign. The field consists of Navy veteran Wadi Yakhour, who worked on the Trump campaign; evangelical author Heidi St. John; and Army veteran Joe Kent.

Legislatures

● Special Elections: Here's a recap of Tuesday's special runoff election in Texas.

TX-HD-68: Republican David Spiller defeated fellow party member Craig Carter 63-37 to win this North Texas seat. Spiller's victory puts this chamber at full strength for the current legislative session, with Republicans in control 83-67.

Other Races

● SD-AG: A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the South Dakota legislature have advanced articles of impeachment against Republican Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg after he was charged with three misdemeanors following a deadly car crash in which he struck and killed a man walking on the side of a highway last September.

Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has also called on Ravnsborg to resign and amped up the pressure on Tuesday by releasing two videos of interviews law enforcement officials conducted with him. In one, an investigator questioned Ravnsborg's claim that he was unaware he'd hit a person—he said he thought he'd run into a deer—by noting that the state Highway Patrol had found the victim's glasses inside Ravnsborg's vehicle. "His face was in your windshield, Jason. Think about that," said one detective.

A spokesperson for Ravnsborg has said the attorney general will not resign. A simple majority in the state House would be necessary to impeach him, and two-thirds of the state Senate would have to vote to convict him in order to remove him from office. In the event of a vacancy, Noem would name a replacement.

Grab Bag

● Where Are They Now?: On Tuesday, federal Judge Marcia Cooke ordered former Rep. David Rivera, a Florida Republican who has been accused of being part of a mind-boggling number of scandals, to pay a $456,000 fine to the FEC for illegally funneling $76,000 to prop up a straw candidate named Justin Lamar Sternad in the 2012 Democratic primary. Sternad and Rivera consultant Ana Alliegro were previously convicted for their role in the scheme, but the Miami Herald notes that this is the first time the ex-congressman has been penalized for this matter.

Cooke wrote, "Perhaps by virtue of the Court barring Rivera from engaging in similar unlawful conduct in the future, 'that will do the trick' in convincing Rivera — a former U.S. Congressman — to stop violating the law." Rivera is currently under FBI investigation as part of an unrelated scandal involving Venezuela's socialist government.