The Downballot: Effective political ads + speaking to Black voters, with Terrance Green (transcript)

Black voters are the most stalwart constituency in the Democratic Party, but candidates cannot take them for granted. Media consultant Terrance Green joins us on this week's edition of The Downballot to discuss his career in politics communicating with voters, including leading the largest-ever paid media operation to turn out the Black vote on behalf of the Biden-Harris campaign. Immediately after that historic victory, he found himself targeting white voters on behalf of a Black Senate hopeful, Raphael Warnock, in Georgia's epic runoffs. Terrance also tells us how he's helped African American candidates turn back racist attacks and what he thinks the impact of having so many high-profile Black Senate contenders this year will be.  

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard, meanwhile, recap this week's races, including a special election in a conservative Minnesota House district that saw the Republican badly underperform Donald Trump; a surprisingly close call for one of the most vocal progressives on Capitol Hill, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar; and the Democratic primary for Vermont's open House seat, which means that, at long last, the state will almost certainly end its status as the only one never to send a woman to Congress come next year.

Please subscribe to The Downballot on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

David Beard:

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

David Nir:

And I'm David Nir, political director of Daily Kos. The Downballot is a weekly podcast dedicated to the many elections that take place below the presidency, from Senate to city council. You can subscribe to The Downballot wherever you listen to podcasts, and please leave us a five-star rating and review.

David Beard:

We had another exciting primary night this week. So what are we going to be covering on today's show?

David Nir:

We had a special election in Minnesota where Republicans dramatically underperformed the top of the ticket. We also saw the final conclusion to last week's primaries in Washington state, where yet another pro-impeachment Republican has lost. We have some primaries in Minnesota and Wisconsin and Vermont that we want to catch up on. And then we are going to be talking with political consultant Terrance Green, who among other things was responsible for running the Biden-Harris campaign's paid media outreach to black voters in 2020. Plenty to talk about on this week's show, so let's get rolling.

David Beard:

We had a number of primary elections this past Tuesday. But most importantly, we actually had a special election in Minnesota for the 1st district. So what happened there, Nir?

David Nir:

So this was a special election for the vacancy in Minnesota's 1st congressional district that was held by Republican Jim Hagedorn, who died earlier this year. And Republican Brad Finstad defeated Democrat Jeff Ettinger by a 51-47 margin. And you might ask, why do we think it's so important to talk about a race where a Republican held a Republican seat? The answer is that this is rather conservative turf in southern Minnesota. It includes the city of Rochester and also a lot of rural areas as well. Donald Trump won this district by a 54 to 44 margin in 2020. So he won it by 10 points. Finstad only carried it by four points, which means he ran six points behind Donald Trump. And simply put, that kind of underperformance is not the sort of thing that you would expect to see if the GOP supposedly is facing a favorable political environment for them, if they are on the verge of benefiting from typical midterm patterns, which invariably almost always harm the party that is in control of the White House.

David Nir:

That really isn't what should have happened. Finstad should have won by at least Donald Trump's margin, if not by a bigger margin. Now, this is a district that has been home to very close House races for the last three election cycles. So even though this district has moved sharply away from Democrats at the presidential level, it still often is likelier to vote for Democrats further down ticket. However, this is not the only recent data point we have that is confounding our expectations of what the 2022 election will look like. At the end of June, just four days after the Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling, Nebraska held a special election in the similarly conservative 1st district, and the results were almost exactly the same. The Republican there ran six points behind Donald Trump. And then of course, last week, we saw the incredible 18-point victory in Kansas to defeat an amendment that would've stripped the right to an abortion from the state constitution.

David Nir:

So now we have three data points suggesting that maybe there really has been quite a shift in the political environment since the Supreme Court's ruling in the Dobbs case, overturning the right to an abortion. I don't want to draw too many conclusions as a result of such a small sample size, but we are about to have a whole bunch more data come in. In fact, there are three more special elections coming up in just the next two weeks. Next week, we have Alaska's at-large special election. And two weeks from now, we have two special elections in New York in the 19th district and the 23rd district. The 19th district is really going to be one to watch here. This is a seat that the Democrats hold, it's quite a divided swing seat. But the Democrat who's running in this race, Pat Ryan, has really made abortion a central issue in this race. He's run ads on it. He's really called it a referendum on abortion rights. And I think we're going to get a really good window into just how the Dobbs decision is affecting the electorate in a couple of weeks.

David Nir:

I don't want to revise my predictions for November yet. I am still relatively bearish on Democrats' chances for holding the House, but it's going to be really important to pay attention to what happens over the next two weeks. And if the results continue to indicate that abortion is a massive motivating issue for democratic voters, then democratic candidates have to lead and they have to lean into this one, because it could really change the trajectory of the midterm elections.

David Beard:

And special elections are important data points because there have been so many issues with polling over the past years, particularly favoring Democrats and leading to these bad surprises in 2016 and 2020, and in Florida year after year after year. And so special elections are like polls, except they're real live experiments basically in these individual districts of exactly how the elections will happen in November. And so they are better data points. Because they're so rare, you then struggle with the fact that like, “Oh, is there a weird situation here or an unusual candidate there?” But taken as a whole and the more data points, as you said, we can get here, the more representative it is of what we might expect to happen in November.

David Beard:

The other point I wanted to make was that last year in Virginia is another example of an actual election we can look to. And that election didn't go very well for Democrats and sort of was more along the lines of what you'd expect for a good Republican year, but that potentially has changed with these special elections. And again, we'll get to more data points, we'll see if that continues to happen. And the one that I think I would look at most closely is New York 19, as you mentioned. If Democrats have any potential shot to hang onto the House in November, given these special election results, they should be able to win and hold this seat. And so if that happens, that would really make me think twice about what sort of chances do Democrats have in November in the House.

David Beard:

Another really important result that we wanted to highlight is actually from last week's primary races in Washington, where votes continued to come in and resulted in a really significant change in one of the congressional races. In Washington's 3rd district, as we mentioned last week, Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler was in a tough race. She was one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump last year. She was facing off both against a Democrat, a Republican endorsed by Trump, and a number of other candidates who were also in the ballot.

David Beard:

The Democrat Marie Perez leads the vote with 31% and Herrera Beutler led the Trumpist candidate, Joe Kent, by a small but noticeable margin right after election night. But the votes that were counted later ended up being much more favorable to Kent than Herrera Beutler. And he ended up edging her out, 22.8% to 22.3% for the second general election spot. Of course, Washington state has a top-two primary. So Perez and Kent will be the two candidates advancing to November. That means that only likely two of the Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump will advance to the general election. Dan Newhouse in Washington's 4th district: He did survive as we talked about last week. And David Valadao in California. Liz Cheney still has her primary coming up, but she's a big, big underdog in that race. So it's most likely that only Newhouse and Valadao will make it to the general election.

David Beard:

The other notable thing about this race is that Herrera Beutler lost despite significant Democratic support. Democrats got 42% in the 2020 congressional primary, but only got 34% of the vote in this year's congressional primary. Republicans got 64% of the vote, which is much higher than they would've normally gotten. That leads to the fact that a number of Democrats crossed over and voted for Herrera Beutler in hopes that she would advance to the general instead of the Trumpist candidate. So the fact that she nearly lost… without those Democrats, she would've lost to Kent by a much, much larger margin.

David Beard:

I'll also point that potentially this race could be on the fringes of competitiveness. Obviously, Perez should pick up a lot of those Democrats who voted for her and Beutler. Is that enough to put it on the board? Still to be seen, but certainly at least worth keeping an eye on.

David Nir:

It also just goes to show that for all the handwringing about Democratic meddling in GOP primaries, this is truly what Republicans want. As you said, without Democratic help, Herrera Beutler would've gotten completely destroyed. So how is it that Democrats can or even should be responsible for the outcome of GOP primaries? These trends, these patterns are just far, far too strong, even when you have tens of thousands of Democrats switching sides.

David Nir:

Tuesday night, of course, we also saw a bunch of primaries. The most surprising results almost certainly happened in Minnesota's 5th district. This is a dark blue seat based in Minneapolis. And here, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar fended off former Minneapolis city council member Don Samuels by just a 50 to 48 margin. Omar's win was the weakest primary showing by a Democratic incumbent in the House since the Democratic Party merged with the Farmer-Labor Party in 1944 to create the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, best known as the DFL in Minnesota.

David Nir:

Omar reportedly did not run any television ads at all in this race, apparently due to a belief that her base constituted younger voters who would not be receptive to such a message. It seems like that was a huge mistake, and she got very, very lucky to win renomination. Samuels himself was a flawed candidate who wasn't necessarily the right fit for this sort of district, but winning just 50% in party primary, especially when you have the official DFL endorsement is a terribly weak showing and it suggests that a stronger candidate could unseat Omar in a future election cycle. Though I would certainly expect her to campaign differently in a future year, given how close a call this was.

David Beard:

And I think you can compare it to the other Squad members who have faced primaries and dispatched them very easily. The fact that Omar struggled so much in this race really points to a poorly run campaign. Hopefully, she learns from that, runs a stronger campaign in the future if she's facing the primary challenger so that this sort of near miss doesn't come out anywhere like that.

David Beard:

Another competitive race on Tuesday night was in the Wisconsin governor's race for the Republicans where a self-funding businessman, Tim Michels, defeated former Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, 47% to 42%. Michels will be taking on incumbent Democratic Governor Tony Evers. Michels had Trump's endorsement, which of course goes a long way in these Republican primaries. He was also on the ballot previously, way back in 2004, when he lost the Senate race to Democrat Russ Feingold, 55% to 44%.

David Beard:

Michels jumped into this race very late in April, but of course he had a ton of money to spend to reintroduce himself to voters after not being on the ballot for almost two decades. And he decisively outspent Kleefisch after investing $12 million of his own money into his comeback. Kleefisch, of course, was Scott Walker's running mate in each of his campaigns and had his backing for the top job and seemed to be the clear front runner, but the amount of money that was spent and, of course, Donald Trump's endorsement of Michels went a long way into turning the race around and ended up causing Kleefisch's loss.

David Nir:

This of course is going to be one of the very, very top gubernatorial races in November. Evers only defeated Scott Walker by a very small margin in 2018. It really was one of the biggest Democratic upsets of the night in that big wave year. Democrats are also desperately trying to hold on to their current set of seats in the legislature. They want to avoid giving Republicans a supermajority. That's super important because even if Evers wins a second term, if Republicans can win two-thirds majorities in both chambers of the legislature, they will be able to override any of his vetoes.

David Nir:

And given Wisconsin's undoubted importance to the 2024 presidential election, just as it's been so important in all of these past presidential elections in our lifetimes, for Democrats to hang on to power in the Badger State is incredibly important.

David Beard:

And lastly, we wanted to highlight Vermont who will be likely sending a woman to Congress for the first time and will be the 50th and final state to do so. State Senate President Pro Tem Becca Balint beat Lieutenant Governor Molly Gray, 61% to 37% in the primary to replace Peter Welch, who is of course running for Senate to replace Pat Leahy, so the winner will likely become Vermont's only House member. She had endorsements from Bernie Sanders as well as the LGBTQ Victory Fund. She would also be the Green Mountain State's first gay representative.

David Nir:

Well, that does it for our weekly hits. Coming up, we are going to be talking with political consultant, Terrance Green, who among many other things was responsible for the Biden-Harris campaign's media outreach to Black voters in the 2020 election. He also worked on the famous Georgia Senate runoff for Raphael Warnock, following the 2020 elections. We have a lot to talk about with him. So please stay with us after the break.

David Nir:

Joining us today is Terrance Green, who is managing partner at the political consulting group 4C Partners. Among many campaigns, he notably led the largest ever paid media operation to turn out the black vote by a presidential campaign in history on behalf of the Biden and Harris ticket in 2020. Terrence, thank you so much for joining us today.

Terrance Green:

Hey, thanks for having me on, appreciate it.

David Nir:

So we always like to start with hearing a little bit about our guest backstory. So we would love to have you tell us about how you got involved in politics, and how you became a leading democratic political consultant.

Terrance Green:

My journey here is probably similar to some other folks. A lot of people were just looking for a job that paid consistently. Sometime in late 1999 or in 2000, I was on the road as a trainer for bartenders at TGI Fridays. I gave up an illustrious career, serving food to the masses, to join politics where I now serve messages to the masses. But I was on the road, I received a call from a gentleman, whose name is Adam Ferrari, at a firm called GMMB. And they wanted someone to just help them out for a three-month period, in what was the fall of 2000, in the heat of Bush V. Gore? I didn't know much about politics or about political media. I didn't know this existed at all, but I knew that there was a job that was going to pay me, I don't know, I think a hundred bucks a day, and I jumped at it, because it wouldn't have to come home and smell like French fries. That three month gig turned into 13 years, and a lot of amazing things that happened along the way. So shout out to Fridays and I'm glad not to be there now.

David Nir:

So you mentioned that was a 13 year gig, but if we add that to 1999, that puts us in the early 2000's, early 2010s rather. So what happened next?

Terrance Green:

Well, after that... Look, my time at GMMB was really amazing. I was able to work on numerous presidential campaigns. I was able to use my degree. I went to American University, and I studied film and politics, and that's what I do today and that's what I've done for the last 20-plus years, which is pretty amazing. I have a lot of friends who went to school who do something way different than what they studied. And that's great, college is the time to learn about yourself, and what you might want to do.

Terrance Green:

But I was able to find and start training for what I was doing without knowing I was getting ready for that moment. So after my time at GMMB I was able to be a part of John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004, Barack Obama's campaign in 2008, and the reelection in 2012. And to have a real front seat in all these things and I was able to go to the White House and film the president, that's pretty amazing, able to go on the road with the President of the United States and film him and making history. Able to meet then-candidate Barack Obama in a hot sweaty office in downtown D.C. to get him to say his radio disclaimer, ‘I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message,’ way before the caucuses in Iowa and when people were still trying to figure out who was going to win at that point. Probably Hillary was the odds-on favorite.

Terrance Green:

So being a part of those pieces of history was a pretty amazing thing for a kid from Long Island, New York, who he grew up trying to figure out his own path in the world, and finding it later on doing these amazing things that I'm still, sometimes, you can't quite digest it. But being there for the moment Barack Obama was nominated for the Democratic ticket in Denver, something I'll never forget as a person, as an individual, or professional, just seeing the history happen, the looks in people's eyes, the energy. And the state of things that we're in right now, it's kind of hard to believe that actually happened not too long ago. But my time at GMMB and the people there, who are really groundbreakers and trailblazers in this field of political advertising, taught me everything that I know about what I do.

Terrance Green:

In 2012 after the Obama campaign ended, I started thinking about what my future looked like and wanted to forge my own path as my own person. And that's when I decided to leave the firm in 2013 and start my own company called Truxton Creative. And that led to opportunities down the line, which put me together with the 4C team. So now as a few consultants in this world , we have multiple brands, Truxton Creative is around, 4C is something I'm also an owner and partner of. And these are vehicles of our own making that allow us to do the same work, but to do it our own way, and to write the next chapter of how this type of work happens and who does it. And it's exciting to be a part of that.

David Nir:

One thing we love to do here on The Downballot is get into the nitty gritty of campaign operations and sort of pull back the curtain because everyone listening to this program has of course seen political ads on TV or heard them on radio, but how does one actually get made? Can you walk us through the steps from beginning to end, from conception, to actually getting the ad placed on the air? What is that whole process? What needs to happen before viewers at home can actually see an ad?

Terrance Green:

That's a great question and sometimes for us, we do this on autopilot. We do it so much that sometimes you don't think about the process, per se, you just are doing it. But I'll say the genesis of ads, look, no candidate runs a campaign so they can run political ads. Political ads are a means to an end, to get people to know who you are, and to help win an election. It's one of the tools that you use, same as direct mail, online video, yard signs. The thing with political ads is that a lot of people see them, and people love video, and people want to see and hear from candidates.

Terrance Green:

So this is a very niche and unique platform to do that with. Making an ad depends on your priorities, it depends on do we need to get people to know the candidate? Do we need to speak about an issue specifically? Do we need to attack somebody? So we have to make that determination before we start. But assuming that we've already made that determination and we have our direction and marching orders, it might involve getting a camera on a candidate. So I'll say, "Hey, you know what? I've got to have John Smith film a 30 second ad about this issue," abortion rights, gun control, you name it. And that may take a couple of days, or we may have a few weeks to organize that type of a filming. And we'll get that captured. That will be a high end camera, type that you might use for a movie, that will involve lights, that will involve an audio team, and sometimes a makeup artist, and a location which may be a candidate's house or something that we source a different way.

Terrance Green:

So those things need to happen. The candidates need to look and sound right, that is priority number one. The next piece will be post-production. We take these ads to video editors and skilled folks, sometimes at larger creative shops where they've got several editors, sometimes they're individual editors that we will use. And they're using the latest materials, the same stuff that people put together the TV shows with, and online videos and everything that you see, they're using the same materials and the same tools to put together these political ads that are 30 seconds of joy that we deliver into everyone's TVs and timelines from there.

Terrance Green:

Then we move to getting the ad distributed. The ad will go out very quickly, usually within a few minutes if it's for digital, or it could be within 18 hours or so if it's going to be for television. And the workflow for that has changed immensely over the years, used to be a lot more analog, but now it's almost instantaneous. And we're able to get our ads on broadcast television, cable, you name it, and get the message out.

Terrance Green:

Yeah, for independent expenditure [IE] ads, the process is a little different. There's a higher legal threshold you've got to meet. So there usually are a lot of lawyers involved as you're writing the script for it. There are certain things you can say or not say; you got to be able to substantiate whatever the claims are. Usually with third party sources like news clips, research documents, the statements of those candidates themselves, whatever words they use out of their own mouths, can be used against them in campaign ads or the court of law.

Terrance Green:

So those are the types of things that we will use to substantiate those types of ads. And we also have to be credible if you're out there swinging wildly and saying crazy things about folks, and you are an independent expenditure [IE], you could do more harm to the cause than good.

Terrance Green:

The first rule of independent expenditures is do no harm. So you don't want to undercut the candidate that you're supporting, if it's, say, that a Democrat running for House seat or a Senate seat, by making a third party ad that gets everyone in trouble, because you said something that wasn't true or it was too inflammatory. So there's certainly a code that must be followed when it comes to independent expenditures. And you want to be as helpful as possible with the cause overall. We make a ton of those types of ads, as we've seen in the recent years, those types of ads are in some ways the majority of the ads that are out there. And there's a reason why, the money allows people to do more of these types of expenditures.

Terrance Green:

So there's two different tracks of the types of ads that you can do. Depends if you're working on a candidate directly or independent expenditure. And there's two different approaches that we typically take to get those done.

David Nir:

I find that difference so interesting between candidate ads and third party ads, and if you're wondering why these standards are so different, it's because TV and radio stations are obligated by law, to run any ads from candidates that they receive. And so these stations said in response, "Well, if we're obligated to run these ads, then we shouldn't be able to be held liable for any defamatory content as a publisher of these ads." And the courts have agreed, whereas stations are not obligated to run ads from third party groups like Super PACs, so they can be held liable for any defamatory content and therefore, stations are more likely to take ads down from third party groups, something they'll never really do in fact, they really can't do with, candidate ads. So it's a huge gulf, and every so often you will see a third party group ad get taken down for making false statements. And like you said, it totally violates the do no harm principle, because then you have a whole new cycle about some false ad from some third-party group and no candidate ever wants stuff to deal with that.

Terrance Green:

Yep, a candidate ad, you can lie in your candidate ads, because it's the First Amendment, and it's covered by free speech and candidates have... We've seen many candidates from the president on down, say whatever they want in their campaign ads, and sometimes it's not true. And not to say that Democrats won't do it either because we can bend the truth with the candidate ads. On the independent expenditure ads, the Super PAC ads, there are lawyers involved on both sides, and people are looking with a fine-toothed comb, for you to mess up, and they want to get that ad taken down. And when an ad gets taken down, it becomes a news story, and it becomes a news story and it hurts.

The collateral damage is that it would hurt also the candidate that you're trying to support. So, we don't want to be a part of that. Someone's going to give you the stink eye and bad mouth you later. So, you don't want to be a part of those types of stories if you can avoid it.

David Beard:

As we mentioned at the beginning, you were working on the Biden campaign. You led their paid media effort targeting African American voters in that election. So, what were the biggest challenges that you faced during that election in terms of both persuading African American voters and focusing on them out?

Terrance Green:

Yeah, I mean, look, the Biden team called up to run a program that was evolving in real time to get Black voters engaged. I will give them so much credit for realizing that they had to have a separate program and also fund it. Those are two different things. Having a program is one thing because every presidential campaign has a program to get Black voters, but to really fund it the way that they did was something that I was really happy about and proud to be a part of. And alluding to my prior experience, I've been around several presidential campaigns, which even for the work that we do, not everyone has been a part of those types of campaigns. They're large, they're unwieldy, they are a whole different animal from Senate campaigns and from House campaigns. There's different things that happen in these races at scale that are tough to deal with.

Terrance Green:

But if you've been around it, you can at least not get overwhelmed with the prospect of running multiple ad tracks in multiple states. So, the challenges with running the ad campaign in 2020 were numerous. We were in the middle of a pandemic. We had a contentious primary where we had Biden come out of a crowded field, but didn't have the internal operation built up as maybe some other candidates would've in the past as they were coming out of a primary win. We were also dealing with a country in the state of great unrest with the killing of George Floyd. We saw riots and civil disobedience and demonstrations in a way we hadn't seen in a really long time in this country. So, in the midst of all that, and we had a President, who didn't seem to care much about doing much to solve the problems that we were facing.

Terrance Green:

There were a lot of things that we had to overcome in terms of putting a program together and then talking to Black voters and meeting them where they were. We had to meet that moment in time and it was an unprecedented moment. There was a lot of uncertainty, but there was a great desire to get President Trump out of the office. He was still the best turnout tool that you could ever ask for. Black voters, generally speaking, are done with the drama, they're done with the disrespect, and the chaos that defined the Trump years. We wanted something new. But we had to also realize that people weren't going to go vote just because they loved Joe Biden. Voting for Black folks has a different approach to it historically, we wanted to choose someone who is the best choice for us, who will be someone who can help move us forward or which candidate would hurt us the least.

Terrance Green:

That's also sort of the inverse question that had to be answered in some ways, as you're trying to frame the arguments. The messaging that we were going at this with was understanding that the choice for Black voters wasn't going to be Biden versus Trump. We're already done with Trump. It was Biden versus sitting this one out. Biden versus staying home. We had to make sure that people didn't see staying home or sitting out as a viable option for them. What's happening right now in the country, what was happening in 2020 was way too important for people to set it out. So, the very first ads in messaging that we had even before we had all of the research and polling was really about empowering Black voters and letting them know that they were going to be the ones that decided this election, and giving them that power, reminding them of the power that has been used in the past to make change in this country and calling on voters to do that once again.

David Beard:

And then right after the 2020 election happened, obviously we found ourselves in the situation of having these double-barreled Georgia runoffs would potentially control of the Senate. And we have seen over the past year and a half, how incredibly consequential those races ended up being with all of the legislation. Most recently, of course, the Inflation Reduction Act, as it's now called, that just passed the Senate. You moved very quickly to do work in these races. You did paid media on behalf of Raphael Warnock, but through Senate Majority PAC. So, through that IE campaign that we mentioned previously, and this was for general audiences, not just African American voters. What was the strategic plan in that race? How did it come about? What was the turnaround time when we only had 60 days to go from zero to sixty here?

Terrance Green:

That was such very trying time in life. I was very personally exhausted from the prior 150 days of running the Biden effort for Black voters. And the very next day had to find some more energy and some more gas in the tank to be a part of this next race. Because Biden's win wouldn't mean as much if we couldn't flip those two seats in Georgia. So, we were obviously up for the task and got into it. One thing that we like to say over here, and one thing that makes us stand out from some of the other folks who do this work is that on one day, this firm, this team is called on to get Black voters for Biden. And the very next day we're getting white voters for Warnock. That involves a lot of cultural competency, being nimble, and also being able to understand whatever assignment that is given to you.

Terrance Green:

The key for the Georgia runoff working with Senate Majority PAC was to understand the playing field. There was a lot of spending already going on. A lot of money being spent already in the state of Georgia and a lot more to come. We weren't planning on being the biggest fish in the pond when it came to advertising in the Atlanta media market and in some of the other major markets. But we wanted to understand which audience that we could impact on the margins. It was going to be a close race no matter what. We understood that from the jump. So, what we saw in the research, and this program relied heavily on a lot of research and ad testing, that we wanted to make sure that the current Senator, Kelly Loeffler, could be disqualified because of her actions as Senator, with a particular set of white voters who are not in the Atlanta media market.

Terrance Green:

So, we were working in all the other corners of the state from your Savannahs, your Macons, those little tiny markets on the Tennessee border and the Florida border, that's where we were playing. We wanted to get that half a percent, that 1%, which might end up making the difference. Let the other folks do the work with turning out folks in Atlanta Metro and having the battle there. So, the ads that we ran, we ran maybe a half a dozen but we made, I would say at least 15 or 20 that didn't see the light of day. Were tested with this particular set of voters, they were white voters, they were seemingly had a profile that they could be... I wouldn't say they were going to vote for Warnock, but they could be turned away from Loeffler. If these folks didn't turn out, that would be a win for us.

Terrance Green:

If they turned out to vote for Warnock, even better. But we wanted to make sure they didn't vote for Kelly Loeffler. Her stock scandal was the number one thing that popped the people's heads that happened earlier on that year, with her insider trading scandal was top of mind for a lot of voters. So, we used that against her and we also tried to see if we pivot to also pin the tail on the donkey with some other issues that were going on economically, with the pandemic, you name it. So, we did a lot of different variations to see which ones really stuck with voters. Most of our arguments centered around how small businesses were suffering while Kelly Loeffler was making a profit. In the end, everything that happened in that race mattered. Every group that spent money and was active because we won by the hair of our chins. And we were able to make a big difference and be a part of that. So, around January 5th or so, we were able to take a nap finally from the 2020 elections. Unfortunately the very next day, the world kind of went to hell.

David Beard:

That was such a jarring time to have this extraordinary success on January 5th and to feel on top of the world. And then all of a sudden, the very next day, we're still talking about that day.

Terrance Green:

We had no time to celebrate. That was the one thing with the 2020, there was no time to celebrate anything. Biden didn't really win on election night. So, there was no popping of champagne until a week later, but even that was muted. We flipped the Senate two seats in Georgia, history made, and the very next day chaos in the Capital. So, in some ways we haven't had time to really celebrate what we did here because the work was extraordinary. But with so many people, we just had one little piece of the story, but I'm still waiting for that celebration, maybe one day.

David Nir:

Well, I sort of feel as Beard alluded, every time a bill passes the Senate by a 50/50 margin with Harris breaking ties, I kind of feel like that's a moment to pop the bubbly.

Terrance Green:

Look, that feels good every time they call her into the chamber to break the tie because that doesn't happen without Warnock and Ossoff being in the Senate. And those were two wins that people didn't think were possible. But when you think about the prior cycles and the work that was done in Georgia to mobilize, especially the Black vote, even what Biden was able to do to enhance that, and we had some part of that story too in terms of keeping folks engaged, to keep voting and to make change. And we saw that, we won Georgia. Who would've thought: Democrats haven't won Georgia since the nineties. And we were able to do that three times in 60 days. I wouldn't have put a bet in Vegas on that likely, but we're not here to play the odds in that way. We still have to work just as hard and try to achieve that result that we're hired to do.

David Beard:

Turning to 2022 and the midterms of course, Joe Biden's approval is down across the board and Black voters are no exception. What is the general feeling, the sense you are getting from African American voters in terms of their feelings about Joe Biden and about voting in the midterms?

Terrance Green:

That's a great question. This is a real time thing that we are trying to figure out right now in a lot of different places. So, we're consulting on a bunch of different races in different corners of the country, from House races to statewides. And there have been a lot of focus groups that have already happened in other research tools. So, what I can share from that is sort of an amalgamation of those sentiments. Some of that research has involved focus groups with African Americans who can hear from people's own mouths what's going on? How do you feel about things? Generally speaking, Black folks are still with Joe Biden. They're not excited about Joe Biden necessarily, but they're generally with him. They're not with him with the intensity level that you'd need to really be successful in a midterm. So, that's something that we have to keep a really close eye on.

Terrance Green:

There's certainly a lot of discontent that not enough has been done as we were explaining earlier, the Herculean effort that it took in 2020 to get folks to the polls in the midst of the pandemic in all this uncertainty and unrest. I think people wanted more of a return on that investment and they're not feeling that. The prices of things are too high. We wanted some change with policing to get more justice and also safer communities, more action, tangible action on guns, better jobs, better wages, things like that. And those are things that people aren't really seeing or feeling in a tangible way. So, there's certainly some hesitancy about voting and if I come out, what's going to change? You said last time we were going to get somewhere and we are not there yet. We're also realizing though that the Supreme Court has really put a spotlight on our rights and our rights are under attack, and we're seeing how we can position ourselves when it comes to abortion rights, when it comes to some of the other rights that are seemingly also in the cross hairs of this conservative court, and putting Democrats on the right side of protecting those rights.

Who you can marry, what you can do with your body, your right to vote, all these things, having the chance to codify that. We've already moved to put some of those votes there. I think that it'll be important for Democrats to tell people what they've done when it comes to rights when it comes to economic issues, and also what they want to protect. Fear is always a healthy additive to this argument, too. If we tell people what the other guy's going to do is really bad, that will be very helpful as well.

Terrance Green:

When we're talking about getting black folks out, I think we have to also understand that we just can't take black folks for granted. Candidates have to pursue those votes, and invest in black votes. Those are still democratic votes to lose for now, but they must be earned. When you're thinking about your media plans. When you're thinking about your community investments, you've got to put the time in to make sure that African American voters are engaged early and often. Then they will come out to support. If you wait till too late, then those are voters that may choose to sit home and not come out.

David Nir:

Democrats have nominated or will soon nominate four African American Senate candidates in some of the most competitive Senate races this year, including of course, Rafael Warnock, as we've mentioned, Cheri Beasley in North Carolina, Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin and Val Demings in Florida. How does having an African American nominee in these races, in these states affect those races, both among the African American voters and their turnout and their enthusiasm for that and the general electorate?

Terrance Green:

I'm personally excited about all four of these candidates. To reelect Senator Warnock would be obviously a big deal in Georgia, but Barnes, Beasley and Demings are also extremely strong and exciting candidates. I think that the Black candidates in these statewide races have unique opportunity to shed the labeling of typical liberal that happens I think with some other types of candidates.

Terrance Green:

They can carve their own path about what type of Senator that they would be. I'll take one case in point of a candidate who's done that successfully. One of our clients is Antonio Delgado. He's now the Lieutenant governor of New York, but he got his start in 2018 running in a House district in upstate New York, which is 90% white.

Terrance Green:

Nobody thought he could win. A lot of people said that he should not even run. I will leave those names out of this podcast, but they're names that you know. We ignored their terrible advice and went to run a campaign the way that we wanted to run it. Delgado had an opportunity to tell people exactly who he was. He was from that area. He was grounded in the region. He was from upstate Schenectady, New York, which is a little bit out of the district. You don't say you're from Schenectady, unless you're from Schenectady. It's the kind of place that lets people know that you didn't grow up with a silver spoon in your mouth and you probably had to work pretty hard to get wherever you are in life today.

Terrance Green:

A lot of these candidates successful in their own rights, but they're from these states and they can make their own story as to why they understand the people from their respective states and would be a good representative for those states. Delgado ended up winning a competitive seven-way primary, and then went on to beat the incumbent by five points. He got reelected by double digits in the following race in 2020. He did that because he outworked everyone. He is super smart, he's disciplined. That built a lot of good will with a lot of people that didn't look like him.

Terrance Green:

Part of the reason is that his positions, well, he voted very much as a progressive. He was able to talk about it in very reasonable way as to why this is the way that he thought about things in one to approach policy and was able to get a receptive audience from a lot of these voters. Again, most of them white, a lot of them independent, and a whole bunch of them had voted for Donald Trump just a few short months before the 2018 election.

Terrance Green:

There is an opportunity to build that goodwill and look like a very reasonable candidate while not conceding your principles as a liberal, as a Democrat. Each state's going to be a little bit different. Each race is a little bit different, but if you can avoid being painted as a liberal or typical Democratic, liberal socialist, Marxist, and all those things, those labels don't stick as well to black candidates as we've seen recently, and I think that each of these candidates has a chance to run their own race and be their own person and connect with voters in a different way. I'm looking forward to seeing how they do.

Terrance Green:

Full disclosure on this. We are working with some Super PACs in support of Val Demings and Cheri Beasley in this cycle. We will be hopefully a part of the story of their success in their individual states.

David Nir:

Now, I'm glad you mentioned Delgado. We followed his 2018 campaign very closely. In my opinion, the ads that Republicans ran against him in that election were the most racist of any they ran that cycle. That is really saying something. In particular, they focused on his early career as a rapper. We thought that made him look incredibly awesome, but obviously it was designed to inspire fear in racist, white voters. How is that something that you combated, because he obviously did go on to some impressive wins in this district.

Terrance Green:

With the Republicans and race, when it comes to these types of ads, I would say that it's like a moth to a flame. We knew exactly what they were going to go for. There were probably some other things that Antonio's bio would've yielded a little bit more potency with the attack ads, but they couldn't help themselves to go ahead and run things that darkened his features, made him look like a tough gangster rapper.

Terrance Green:

Don't forget this man's a Rhodes Scholar. This man was an NCAA basketball player, went to an Ivy League school. He is the best of what folks have to offer. He's from upstate New York and he wasn't afraid to say that. The thing that we wanted to do was to disarm all of that racism in a subtle, yet head on way. We wanted to show that Antonio was a smart dude and that people liked him, people from that area. Most of the folks up there are white. We're going to make sure that we go and campaign with white voters.

Terrance Green:

The ad campaign that we ran in the primary, which also extended to the general election was called doors. We wanted to bring the campaign experience of door knocking to the doorstep of everyone who was watching these ads. We had simply Antonio walking up driveways and going through the various towns of upstate New York, talking to people about the stuff that mattered to them, healthcare jobs, the environment, women's health, all the things that were on the minds of voters and having a very reasonable and sensible smart guy to do that was something that helped turn the tide.

Terrance Green:

Now, when we looked at the outcome of that election and the types of voters that we were able to get, his numbers with white voters, particularly white women voters, were through the roof. They're the types of numbers that you don't normally see. The reason is that we disarmed voters from the normal way of thinking and were able to show Antonio as a human being who wanted to do something good for the community that he's from.

Terrance Green:

The more people saw those other ads play against that the less inclined they were to absorb that negative messaging, because he looked like someone who didn't deserve this type of nastiness. He's just a nice guy. It ended up having a negative effect on John Faso's election chances. Going back to the earlier comment about, do no harm from the IE's, at the end of the day, those racist nasty attack ads on Delgado did more harm than good for the Republican side.

Terrance Green:

It put more people in our camp because they didn't think they were fair. We were able to scoop them up with a positive message.

David Nir:

Well, I love hearing that there was a price for Republicans to pay for their racist ads. This is a fantastic conversation. We have been talking with Terrance Green, political media consultant and managing partner at 4C partners. Terrance, where can people find you online?

Terrance Green:

For those in the Twitter verse, I am @twgreen27. You can follow me for political news as well as sports updates. I'm a big baseball and football fan. Happy to have you join and I'll follow back. Promise.

David Nir:

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Terrance Green:

Thank you both.

David Nir:

That's all from us this week. Thanks to Terrance screen for joining us. The Downballot comes out every Thursday, everywhere you listen to podcasts, you can reach us by email at The Downballot, DailyKos.com. If you haven't already please like and subscribe to The Downballot and leave us a five-star rating review. Thanks to our producer, Cara Zelaya, and editor Tim Einenkel we'll be back next week with a new episode.

Morning Digest: Trump-backed rich guy wins close primary to take on Wisconsin’s Democratic governor

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

Leading Off

 WI-Gov: Self-funding businessman Tim Michels, who had Donald Trump’s endorsement, defeated former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch 47-42 in the Republican primary to take on Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. Michels was last on the ballot all the way back in 2004 when he lost the Senate race to Democrat Russ Feingold 55-44 as John Kerry was only narrowly carrying Wisconsin 50-49. Team Red, though, is counting on a much better performance from him this time against Evers in what will be one of the biggest races of 2022.

Kleefisch, who was Scott Walker’s running mate in each of his campaigns and had his backing for the top job, looked like the clear frontrunner until April when Michels jumped in seemingly out of nowhere. The construction executive, however, immediately used his wealth to reintroduce himself to voters, and he wound up decisively outspending his opponent after investing at least $12 million into his comeback.

Michels went on to earn Trump’s endorsement in June; the GOP's leader reportedly was infuriated about a 2019 picture of Kleefisch's daughter going to her high school prom with the son of Brian Hagedorn, a conservative state Supreme Court justice who sided against Trump’s attempts to steal the 2020 election. Kleefisch and her allies began airing negative ads a month before Election Day, but Michels spent weeks insisting he wouldn’t do the same.

As recently as last Monday, the businessman proclaimed, “I've never had a negative ad run by my campaign in this race,” explaining, “And the reason is we've never had a single piece of business by talking bad about the competition.” However, while Michels continued, “And the reason is, it's just bad policy, and if you get a reputation of doing that in my industry … people immediately disrespect you,” he decided to risk that disrespect on Thursday by indeed going negative. That belated response, as well as the Club for Growth’s earlier anti-Kleefisch ad campaign, may have made the difference in Tuesday’s close primary.

Election Recaps

Primary Night: Below is a state-by-state look at where Tuesday’s other major contests stood as of 8 AM ET Wednesday, and you can also find our cheat-sheet here.

 CT-Sen (R): Former Ambassador to Chile Leora Levy beat former state House Minority Leader Themis Klarides 51-40 for the right to face Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Biden won Connecticut 59-39, and there was little indication that the senator was vulnerable even before the Trump-endorsed Levy took the GOP nomination.

Klarides spent years as a GOP rising star in a state where the party desperately needed one, and she had been widely expected to challenge Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont. In January, though, Klarides kicked off a Senate bid instead after wealthy businessman Bob Stefanowski announced that he would seek a rematch with Lamont, who beat him 49-46. However, while Klarides likely believed she’d avoid a tough primary by choosing to go after the entrenched Blumenthal, Levy proved her very wrong.

 MN-01 (special): The Associated Press has not yet called the special election to succeed the late Republican Rep. Jim Hagedorn, but Republican Brad Finstad leads Democrat Jeff Ettinger 51-47 with 118,000 votes in; the AP estimates that this is represents 99% of the total vote. Trump carried this southern Minnesota constituency 54-44 in 2020, while Hagedorn won his second and final term that year 49-46

 MN-01 (R): Finstad easily turned back state Rep. Jeremy Munson 76-24 in the Republican primary for a full two-year term, while Ettinger secured the Democratic nod 92-6 against a little-known foe. Trump would have carried the new version of the 1st, which largely resembles the constituency Hagedorn represented, by a similar 53-44 spread.

Finstad beat Munson just 38-37 in the May special primary, and while Munson filed to run for a full term days later, it initially looked like he was just raising money to pay back a $200,000 campaign loan. Munson announced in July that he would indeed try once more to beat Finstad, but that effort badly collapsed on Tuesday.

 MN-04 (D): Longtime Rep. Betty McCollum pulled off a landslide 83-15 win against party operative Amane Badhasso in the primary for this safely blue St. Paul-based seat.

 MN-05 (D): In arguably the biggest surprise of the evening, Rep. Ilhan Omar fended off former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels just 50-48 to win renomination in this heavily Democratic constituency in the Minneapolis area. We’ll take a closer look at this near upset in our next Digest.

MN-AG (R): Attorney Jim Schultz, who earned the state party’s endorsement in May, beat 2018 nominee Doug Wardlow 53-35. Schultz will now take on Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison, who defeated Wardlow 49-45 four years ago.

Hennepin County, MN Attorney: Former Hennepin County Chief Public Defender Mary Moriarty took first place in the seven-way nonpartisan primary with 36%, while retired judge Martha Holton Dimick edged out state House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler 18-16 for the second spot in the November general election.

Both Moriarty and Dimick are Democrats, but they’ve been running very different campaigns. Moriarty, who has the backing of Rep. Ilhan Omar, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and the state Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, has pitched herself as a reformer, saying there needs to be “accountability both for people who violate the law and police.”

Dimick, who has both Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association in her corner, has in turn argued, “We have to send messages that we will prosecute violent criminals … With that effort to defund the police, people sent the wrong message.” Dimick would be the state's first Black county attorney.

 VT-Sen (R): First-time candidate Gerald Malloy scored a 43-39 win against former U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan, who generated some attention when she launched her campaign; Nolan also had the support of Gov. Phil Scott, who is one of the few prominent Republicans in this very blue state. The result makes little difference for the general election, though, because Democratic Rep. Peter Welch should have no trouble winning the contest to succeed retiring Sen. Pat Leahy in a state Biden took 66-31.

VT-AL (D): State Senate President Pro Tem Becca Balint beat Lt. Gov. Molly Gray 61-37 in the primary to replace Welch as Vermont’s only House member. Balint, who had endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders and the LGBTQ Victory Fund, is now set to end Vermont’s status as the only state in America that has not elected a woman to Congress; Balint would also be the Green Mountain State’s first gay representative.

WI-03 (D): State Sen. Brad Pfaff defeated businesswoman Rebecca Cooke 39-31 in the primary to succeed retiring Rep. Ron Kind, who is Pfaff’s former boss and top supporter. Pfaff will now go up against 2020 Republican nominee Derrick Van Orden, who lost to Kind 51-49 in the closest race of the congressman’s career. Trump carried both the old and new versions of this southwestern Wisconsin constituency 51-47.

 WI-AG (R): Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney holds a 37.5-36.9 edge over former state Rep. Adam Jarchow in a contest that the Associated Press has not yet called; 595,000 ballots have been tabulated, and the AP estimates they represent 99% of the total vote. The winner will go up against Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, who won his post in a tight 2018 contest.

WI State Assembly (R): Speaker Robin Vos won renomination 51-49 against Adam Steen, who was very much a longshot until Trump endorsed him last week. No Democrats are running for this seat in the Racine area.

Trump made his move after Vos said that the GOP’s master had recently called him and urged him to retroactively decertify Joe Biden's victory in the state—a move the speaker said was legally impossible. Trump retaliated by trashing Vos for using an old photo of the two of them together in his campaign literature as he endorsed the previously little-known Steen.  

Senate

GA-Sen, GA-Gov, GA-LG: Charlie Bailey, who is Team Blue's nominee for lieutenant governor, has released an internal from Research Affiliates that shows his party doing well in competitive contests. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock edges out Republican Herschel Walker 49-46, while GOP Gov. Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams are deadlocked 47-47. Bailey also posts a 43-43 tie in his own race against Republican Burt Jones, who was the rare member of Donald Trump's Big Lie slate to win a statewide primary this year.

OK-Sen-B: The Republican pollster Battleground Connect last week found Rep. Markwayne Mullin leading former state House Speaker T.W. Shannon 46-38 ahead of the Aug. 23 Republican primary runoff. This survey, which did not mention a client, is the first poll we've seen of the second round of voting. Mullin outpaced Shannon 44-18 in late June and picked up Trump's endorsement soon after, so it would be a surprise if the runoff is close.

Battleground Connect did depart from the consensus in July when it released a trio of polls in the GOP primary for Arizona's U.S. Senate seat that showed wealthy businessman Jim Lamon narrowly leading the Trump-endorsed Blake Masters at a time when every other firm had Masters well ahead. (Its final poll in late July put Lamon up 30-28.) But that iconoclasm didn't work out well for Battleground Connect or Lamon, and Masters prevailed 40-28 last week.

UT-Sen: Republican incumbent Mike Lee's team has dusted off a WPA Intelligence Poll from July 12-14 that shows him beating independent Evan McMullin 49-35, with 10% going to unnamed other candidates. A survey taken around that same time by Dan Jones & Associates showed Lee up by a considerably smaller 41-36.

Governors

OK-Gov: Oklahoma's Children Our Future, a group that very much does not like Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, has publicized an internal from the Democratic firm Change Research that shows him leading Democratic Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister only 42-34. Libertarian Natalie Bruno takes 6% while independent Ervin Yen, who is a former Republican state senator, grabs another 4%.

The memo, which begins, "As scandal after scandal plagues the Kevin Stitt administration," says that the governor posted a 58-32 advantage in an unreleased January poll. The last survey we saw was in early June when the GOP firm Amber Integrated gave Stitt a 47-29 edge over Hofmeister, who left the Republican Party in October.

House

CA-13, OR-04, OR-06: Politico’s Ally Mutnick has obtained a trio of polls sponsored by the NRCC and the seat’s respective Republican nominee that show Team Red in competitive races in constituencies Biden decisively carried:

CA-13: Moore Information (R): Adam Gray (D): 47, John Duarte (R): 43

OR-04: Moore Information (R): Val Hoyle (D): 46, Alek Skarlatos (R): 41

OR-06: Cygnal (R): Mike Erickson (R): 47, Andrea Salinas (D): 40

These are the first numbers we’ve seen from any of these contests.

NY-24: Rep. Claudia Tenney has unveiled an internal from Public Opinion Strategies that has her taking 52% in the Aug. 23 GOP primary while her two opponents, attorney Mario Fratto and perennial candidate George Phillips, grab just 6% each. Trump would have won 57-40 in this constituency, which is based in the Finger Lakes region.

The Trump-endorsed Tenney currently represents less than 6% of this revamped district, but neither of her foes have generated much attention. Fratto did finish June with $230,000 on-hand thanks mostly to self-funding, but Tenney was still well ahead with $1 million banked. Phillips, writes The Citizen, "has not been actively campaigning for the seat and did not file a fundraising report."

WA-03: On Tuesday evening Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who was one of the 10 House Republican who voted to impeach Donald Trump last year, conceded last week’s top-two primary one day after she dropped into third place. With 218,000 ballots tabulated Democrat Marie Perez leads with 31% while Trump's candidate, Army veteran Joe Kent, edged out Herrera Beutler 22.8-22.3 for the second general election spot. Trump would have carried this southwestern Washington seat 51-46.

WY-AL: Sen. Cynthia Lummis endorsed attorney Harriet Hageman over the weekend for the Aug. 16 GOP primary almost a year after Donald Trump declared that the senator was already supporting Hageman's bid against Rep. Liz Cheney. Lummis' spokesperson said back in September, "While Senator Lummis is not making an endorsement at this time, she believes President Trump has made an inspired choice in backing Harriet Hageman."

secretaries of state

 WA-SoS: The AP has called a special general election between appointed Democratic incumbent Steve Hobbs and Pierce County Auditor Julie Anderson, who does not identify with either party. Hobbs, who is the first Democrat to hold this office since the 1964 election, took first in last week’s top-two primary with 40%, while Anderson edged out Republican state Sen. Keith Wagoner 13-12 for second. The winner will be up for a full four-year term in 2024.

Ad Roundup

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

Morning Digest: Trump-backed rich guy wins close primary to take on Wisconsin’s Democratic governor

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

Leading Off

 WI-Gov: Self-funding businessman Tim Michels, who had Donald Trump’s endorsement, defeated former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch 47-42 in the Republican primary to take on Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. Michels was last on the ballot all the way back in 2004 when he lost the Senate race to Democrat Russ Feingold 55-44 as John Kerry was only narrowly carrying Wisconsin 50-49. Team Red, though, is counting on a much better performance from him this time against Evers in what will be one of the biggest races of 2022.

Kleefisch, who was Scott Walker’s running mate in each of his campaigns and had his backing for the top job, looked like the clear frontrunner until April when Michels jumped in seemingly out of nowhere. The construction executive, however, immediately used his wealth to reintroduce himself to voters, and he wound up decisively outspending his opponent after investing at least $12 million into his comeback.

Michels went on to earn Trump’s endorsement in June; the GOP's leader reportedly was infuriated about a 2019 picture of Kleefisch's daughter going to her high school prom with the son of Brian Hagedorn, a conservative state Supreme Court justice who sided against Trump’s attempts to steal the 2020 election. Kleefisch and her allies began airing negative ads a month before Election Day, but Michels spent weeks insisting he wouldn’t do the same.

As recently as last Monday, the businessman proclaimed, “I've never had a negative ad run by my campaign in this race,” explaining, “And the reason is we've never had a single piece of business by talking bad about the competition.” However, while Michels continued, “And the reason is, it's just bad policy, and if you get a reputation of doing that in my industry … people immediately disrespect you,” he decided to risk that disrespect on Thursday by indeed going negative. That belated response, as well as the Club for Growth’s earlier anti-Kleefisch ad campaign, may have made the difference in Tuesday’s close primary.

Election Recaps

Primary Night: Below is a state-by-state look at where Tuesday’s other major contests stood as of 8 AM ET Wednesday, and you can also find our cheat-sheet here.

 CT-Sen (R): Former Ambassador to Chile Leora Levy beat former state House Minority Leader Themis Klarides 51-40 for the right to face Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Biden won Connecticut 59-39, and there was little indication that the senator was vulnerable even before the Trump-endorsed Levy took the GOP nomination.

Klarides spent years as a GOP rising star in a state where the party desperately needed one, and she had been widely expected to challenge Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont. In January, though, Klarides kicked off a Senate bid instead after wealthy businessman Bob Stefanowski announced that he would seek a rematch with Lamont, who beat him 49-46. However, while Klarides likely believed she’d avoid a tough primary by choosing to go after the entrenched Blumenthal, Levy proved her very wrong.

 MN-01 (special): The Associated Press has not yet called the special election to succeed the late Republican Rep. Jim Hagedorn, but Republican Brad Finstad leads Democrat Jeff Ettinger 51-47 with 118,000 votes in; the AP estimates that this is represents 99% of the total vote. Trump carried this southern Minnesota constituency 54-44 in 2020, while Hagedorn won his second and final term that year 49-46

 MN-01 (R): Finstad easily turned back state Rep. Jeremy Munson 76-24 in the Republican primary for a full two-year term, while Ettinger secured the Democratic nod 92-6 against a little-known foe. Trump would have carried the new version of the 1st, which largely resembles the constituency Hagedorn represented, by a similar 53-44 spread.

Finstad beat Munson just 38-37 in the May special primary, and while Munson filed to run for a full term days later, it initially looked like he was just raising money to pay back a $200,000 campaign loan. Munson announced in July that he would indeed try once more to beat Finstad, but that effort badly collapsed on Tuesday.

 MN-04 (D): Longtime Rep. Betty McCollum pulled off a landslide 83-15 win against party operative Amane Badhasso in the primary for this safely blue St. Paul-based seat.

 MN-05 (D): In arguably the biggest surprise of the evening, Rep. Ilhan Omar fended off former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels just 50-48 to win renomination in this heavily Democratic constituency in the Minneapolis area. We’ll take a closer look at this near upset in our next Digest.

MN-AG (R): Attorney Jim Schultz, who earned the state party’s endorsement in May, beat 2018 nominee Doug Wardlow 53-35. Schultz will now take on Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison, who defeated Wardlow 49-45 four years ago.

Hennepin County, MN Attorney: Former Hennepin County Chief Public Defender Mary Moriarty took first place in the seven-way nonpartisan primary with 36%, while retired judge Martha Holton Dimick edged out state House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler 18-16 for the second spot in the November general election.

Both Moriarty and Dimick are Democrats, but they’ve been running very different campaigns. Moriarty, who has the backing of Rep. Ilhan Omar, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and the state Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, has pitched herself as a reformer, saying there needs to be “accountability both for people who violate the law and police.”

Dimick, who has both Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association in her corner, has in turn argued, “We have to send messages that we will prosecute violent criminals … With that effort to defund the police, people sent the wrong message.” Dimick would be the state's first Black county attorney.

 VT-Sen (R): First-time candidate Gerald Malloy scored a 43-39 win against former U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan, who generated some attention when she launched her campaign; Nolan also had the support of Gov. Phil Scott, who is one of the few prominent Republicans in this very blue state. The result makes little difference for the general election, though, because Democratic Rep. Peter Welch should have no trouble winning the contest to succeed retiring Sen. Pat Leahy in a state Biden took 66-31.

VT-AL (D): State Senate President Pro Tem Becca Balint beat Lt. Gov. Molly Gray 61-37 in the primary to replace Welch as Vermont’s only House member. Balint, who had endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders and the LGBTQ Victory Fund, is now set to end Vermont’s status as the only state in America that has not elected a woman to Congress; Balint would also be the Green Mountain State’s first gay representative.

WI-03 (D): State Sen. Brad Pfaff defeated businesswoman Rebecca Cooke 39-31 in the primary to succeed retiring Rep. Ron Kind, who is Pfaff’s former boss and top supporter. Pfaff will now go up against 2020 Republican nominee Derrick Van Orden, who lost to Kind 51-49 in the closest race of the congressman’s career. Trump carried both the old and new versions of this southwestern Wisconsin constituency 51-47.

 WI-AG (R): Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney holds a 37.5-36.9 edge over former state Rep. Adam Jarchow in a contest that the Associated Press has not yet called; 595,000 ballots have been tabulated, and the AP estimates they represent 99% of the total vote. The winner will go up against Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, who won his post in a tight 2018 contest.

WI State Assembly (R): Speaker Robin Vos won renomination 51-49 against Adam Steen, who was very much a longshot until Trump endorsed him last week. No Democrats are running for this seat in the Racine area.

Trump made his move after Vos said that the GOP’s master had recently called him and urged him to retroactively decertify Joe Biden's victory in the state—a move the speaker said was legally impossible. Trump retaliated by trashing Vos for using an old photo of the two of them together in his campaign literature as he endorsed the previously little-known Steen.  

Senate

GA-Sen, GA-Gov, GA-LG: Charlie Bailey, who is Team Blue's nominee for lieutenant governor, has released an internal from Research Affiliates that shows his party doing well in competitive contests. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock edges out Republican Herschel Walker 49-46, while GOP Gov. Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams are deadlocked 47-47. Bailey also posts a 43-43 tie in his own race against Republican Burt Jones, who was the rare member of Donald Trump's Big Lie slate to win a statewide primary this year.

OK-Sen-B: The Republican pollster Battleground Connect last week found Rep. Markwayne Mullin leading former state House Speaker T.W. Shannon 46-38 ahead of the Aug. 23 Republican primary runoff. This survey, which did not mention a client, is the first poll we've seen of the second round of voting. Mullin outpaced Shannon 44-18 in late June and picked up Trump's endorsement soon after, so it would be a surprise if the runoff is close.

Battleground Connect did depart from the consensus in July when it released a trio of polls in the GOP primary for Arizona's U.S. Senate seat that showed wealthy businessman Jim Lamon narrowly leading the Trump-endorsed Blake Masters at a time when every other firm had Masters well ahead. (Its final poll in late July put Lamon up 30-28.) But that iconoclasm didn't work out well for Battleground Connect or Lamon, and Masters prevailed 40-28 last week.

UT-Sen: Republican incumbent Mike Lee's team has dusted off a WPA Intelligence Poll from July 12-14 that shows him beating independent Evan McMullin 49-35, with 10% going to unnamed other candidates. A survey taken around that same time by Dan Jones & Associates showed Lee up by a considerably smaller 41-36.

Governors

OK-Gov: Oklahoma's Children Our Future, a group that very much does not like Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, has publicized an internal from the Democratic firm Change Research that shows him leading Democratic Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister only 42-34. Libertarian Natalie Bruno takes 6% while independent Ervin Yen, who is a former Republican state senator, grabs another 4%.

The memo, which begins, "As scandal after scandal plagues the Kevin Stitt administration," says that the governor posted a 58-32 advantage in an unreleased January poll. The last survey we saw was in early June when the GOP firm Amber Integrated gave Stitt a 47-29 edge over Hofmeister, who left the Republican Party in October.

House

CA-13, OR-04, OR-06: Politico’s Ally Mutnick has obtained a trio of polls sponsored by the NRCC and the seat’s respective Republican nominee that show Team Red in competitive races in constituencies Biden decisively carried:

CA-13: Moore Information (R): Adam Gray (D): 47, John Duarte (R): 43

OR-04: Moore Information (R): Val Hoyle (D): 46, Alek Skarlatos (R): 41

OR-06: Cygnal (R): Mike Erickson (R): 47, Andrea Salinas (D): 40

These are the first numbers we’ve seen from any of these contests.

NY-24: Rep. Claudia Tenney has unveiled an internal from Public Opinion Strategies that has her taking 52% in the Aug. 23 GOP primary while her two opponents, attorney Mario Fratto and perennial candidate George Phillips, grab just 6% each. Trump would have won 57-40 in this constituency, which is based in the Finger Lakes region.

The Trump-endorsed Tenney currently represents less than 6% of this revamped district, but neither of her foes have generated much attention. Fratto did finish June with $230,000 on-hand thanks mostly to self-funding, but Tenney was still well ahead with $1 million banked. Phillips, writes The Citizen, "has not been actively campaigning for the seat and did not file a fundraising report."

WA-03: On Tuesday evening Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who was one of the 10 House Republican who voted to impeach Donald Trump last year, conceded last week’s top-two primary one day after she dropped into third place. With 218,000 ballots tabulated Democrat Marie Perez leads with 31% while Trump's candidate, Army veteran Joe Kent, edged out Herrera Beutler 22.8-22.3 for the second general election spot. Trump would have carried this southwestern Washington seat 51-46.

WY-AL: Sen. Cynthia Lummis endorsed attorney Harriet Hageman over the weekend for the Aug. 16 GOP primary almost a year after Donald Trump declared that the senator was already supporting Hageman's bid against Rep. Liz Cheney. Lummis' spokesperson said back in September, "While Senator Lummis is not making an endorsement at this time, she believes President Trump has made an inspired choice in backing Harriet Hageman."

secretaries of state

 WA-SoS: The AP has called a special general election between appointed Democratic incumbent Steve Hobbs and Pierce County Auditor Julie Anderson, who does not identify with either party. Hobbs, who is the first Democrat to hold this office since the 1964 election, took first in last week’s top-two primary with 40%, while Anderson edged out Republican state Sen. Keith Wagoner 13-12 for second. The winner will be up for a full four-year term in 2024.

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Morning Digest: Court puts Georgia utility board races on hold, finding they harm Black voters

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GA Public Service Commission: On Friday, a federal district court ruled that Georgia's system of electing all five members of the Public Service Commission in statewide elections violates the Voting Rights Act by diluting the power of Black voters. The court further blocked officials from holding elections for two seats that were supposed to be on the ballot this fall.

Republican state Attorney General Chris Carr has yet to indicate whether he will appeal, but if the ruling stands, the elections will be postponed until the state's GOP-controlled legislature enacts a new district-based system next year so that Black voters have a chance to elect their chosen candidates in at least some seats.

Although members of the commission, which regulates public utilities, must seek one of the body's five districts (and live there), all voters statewide get to vote for every seat. The plaintiffs pointed out that only one Black candidate, Democrat David Burgess in 2000, has ever won an election for the commission in its 143 year history. All five current commissioners are Republicans, none of whom was the favored candidate of Black voters (the commission's sole Black member, Fitz Johnson, was appointed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2021 and wasn't set to face the voters until this November).

While adopting district-based elections could empower Black voters if a map is fairly drawn, a switch could backfire if Republican legislators are still allowed to gerrymander the lines. GOP lawmakers enacted new commission districts earlier this year that packed Black voters into just one of the five districts while every other seat was at least 58% white and no more than 36% Black.

Republicans consequently would have carried four districts in every recent statewide election, even those they've lost. In fact, Donald Trump would have won a majority of the districts in 2020 by at least 15 points despite losing narrowly overall. It's not clear why Republicans aggressively gerrymandered the new map since district-level elections were not in the offing until the court's ruling, but it's possible GOP leaders anticipated they'd lose this suit.

Senate

CT-Sen: Donald Trump on Thursday evening endorsed his former ambassador to Chile, Leora Levy, days ahead of the GOP primary to take on Democratic incumbent Richard Blumenthal. Trump initially made his proclamation by calling Levy's phone while she was attending a party gathering along with her two intra-party rivals, former state House Minority Leader Themis Klarides and Peter Lumaj. (Levy broadcast his voice through the P.A.) He later put out a statement calling Klarides, who has long been a GOP rising star, "Weak on Crime, Weak on our Military and Vets, and will not be protecting our under siege Second Amendment."

PA-Sen: Democrat John Fetterman has announced that he will hold a rally in Erie on Aug. 12, which will be his first since his May stroke.

Governors

FL-Gov: Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried recently aired a spot faulting Rep. Charlie Crist for appointing an "anti-choice extremist" to the state Supreme Court when he was Florida's Republican governor, and Crist has launched a response ad ahead of their Aug. 23 Democratic primary. “The truth: I vetoed anti-abortion legislation to protect your right to choose,” the congressman tells the audience, adding, “Nikki knows I fought for your right to choose.”

In a separate commercial, Crist’s narrator declares that Fried was “close pals with accused sex trafficker [Rep.] Matt Gaetz.” Politico writes that Fried became friends with Gaetz when he was in the state House and she lobbied for the state’s medical marijuana industry, but she says the two are no longer in contact.

KY-Gov: Secretary of State Michael Adams announced Friday that he would run for re-election next year rather than seek the Republican nomination for governor or attorney general.

MI-Gov: NBC reports that the anti-abortion group Right to Life Michigan has reserved $7.8 million in ad time to defeat Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Voters in November will also likely decide on a constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to an abortion.

MS-Gov: State House Speaker Philip Gunn has publicly acknowledged that he's considering waging a 2023 primary bid against Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, saying he is in "constant evaluation" about what to do. Magnolia State politicos have been talking about a potential Gunn campaign for over a year, but Mississippi Today writes, "In recent weeks, though, those rumors have cooled off."

House

FL-04: St. Pete Polls' new survey for Florida Politics gives state Sen. Aaron Bean a hefty 59-16 lead over Erick Aguilar, a Navy veteran who made news last month for getting ejected from the GOP fundraising platform WinRed, in the Aug. 23 primary.

MN-05: Minnesota Public Radio reports that a newly established group called Make A Difference MN 05 has launched a $350,000 TV buy to aid former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels in his Tuesday primary battle against Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar.

prosecutors

Shelby County, TN District Attorney: Democrats scored a pickup on Thursday in Tennessee's most populous county when former Shelby County Commissioner Steve Mulroy won an eight-year term by unseating Republican incumbent Amy Weirich 56-44.

Shelby County, which is home to Memphis and several of its suburbs, has long been a Democratic bastion in what's become a very red state. However, Weirich, who was appointed by then-Gov. Bill Haslam in 2011, easily won 65-35 in 2014 the last time she was on the ballot. The district attorney, though, made international headlines over the last year by prosecuting a woman with a felony conviction named Pamela Moses for attempting to vote.

As Daniel Nichanian writes in Bolts, Moses, who was also waging a longshot 2019 bid for mayor of Memphis, did not know that the state had permanently banned her from casting a ballot, and her probation officer had mistakenly signed a certificate of restoration to vote. (Moses, who is Black, resides in a state where one in five Black adults cannot vote because of a felony conviction.)

The district attorney's office last year successfully convicted Moses after arguing that she had known she wasn't eligible to vote; Judge Mark Ward sentenced her to six years in prison, declaring, "You tricked the probation department into giving you documents saying you were off probation." However, that wasn't the end of the story.

The Guardian reported earlier this year that the state had learned that Moses had been given wrong instructions about her voting rights days after her certificate was signed. The judge ordered a new trial after this information came to light, but Weirich ultimately decided to dismiss the charges; the district attorney argued that the blame lay with the Tennessee Department of Correction and that her office wasn't at fault. Moses, who still cannot vote, told Bolts afterwards that she believed she'd been prosecuted because of her race and political activism and added, "I think that the goal was to scare people, but it could boomerang."

Mulroy was determined that it would, arguing, "Overcharging and overreach is a theme with this prosecutor and has been for many years." He also faulted Weirich for advocating for a 2014 law that would make it a misdemeanor assault to use drugs while pregnant, saying that it showed how she'd behave once the state banned abortion. (The legislation was not renewed in 2016.)

However, while Shelby County supported Joe Biden 64-30, it was far from certain that enough Democratic voters would show up during the statewide primary to oust their Republican district attorney. In 2014, when Weirich was turning in a landslide victory, approximately 52% of the county's electorate cast a ballot in the GOP primary when Republicans had a competitive Senate primary.

This year, though, neither party had a high-profile statewide primary contest to draw out voters. Ultimately, 63% of Shelby County's voters participated in the Democratic primary for governor, and the bluer electorate helped Mulroy prevail. Ward, the judge who sentenced Moses, also narrowly went down in defeat as well.

Election Result Recaps

AZ-Gov: The Associated Press has called Tuesday's Republican primary for Kari Lake, a former local TV anchor turned far-right conspiracy theorist. The Trump-backed Lake leads Board of Regents member Karrin Taylor Robson, who had the support of termed-out Gov. Doug Ducey, 47-43. Lake, whom Ducey said weeks ago was "misleading voters with no evidence," will go up against Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.

 AZ-04: The AP has also projected that self-funding restaurant owner Kelly Cooper has defeated former Arizona Bankers Association president Tanya Wheeless, who had the backing of the Congressional Leadership Fund, for the right to take on Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton. Wheeless benefited from $1.5 million in outside support, but she trails Cooper 28-25​. Biden would have carried the new 4th District 54-44, while he took Stanton’s existing 9th 61-37.

TN-05: Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles won Thursday's Republican primary for this newly-gerrymandered seat by defeating former state House Speaker Beth Harwell 37-26. Ogles, who is a former state director for the Koch network's Americans for Prosperity, benefited from spending from groups affiliated with the Club for Growth; the mayor celebrated his win by declaring, "Liberals, we're coming for you."

Ogles will face Democratic state Sen. Heidi Campbell in the fall in a seat the GOP did everything it could to flip. Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper decided to retire here after the GOP legislature transmuted his seat from a 60-37 Biden district to a 54-43 Trump constituency by cracking the city of Nashville.

 WA-04: The AP has called a general election matchup between incumbent Dan Newhouse and Democrat Doug White, which makes Newhouse the first House Republican to beat a Trump-endorsed intra-party foe after supporting impeachment. (California Rep. David Valadao made it through his own June top-two primary, but Trump did not take sides in that one.) Newhouse is in first with 26%, while White leads 2020 Republican gubernatorial nominee Loren Culp 25-21 for second. Trump would have taken this eastern Washington seat 57-40.

WA-08: Both 2020 nominee Jesse Jensen and King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn conceded Tuesday's top-two primary to their fellow Republican, 2020 attorney general nominee Matt Larkin, shortly before the AP called the race. Democratic Rep. Kim Schrier was at 48% of the vote on Sunday evening while Larkin led Dunn 17-15; Jensen was in fourth with 13%. Biden would have carried this suburban Seattle constituency 52-45.

AZ-SoS: The Associated Press has called the Democratic primary for former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, who leads House Minority Leader Reginald Bolding 53-47. Fontes will go up against Republican 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.

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Morning Digest: Two South Carolina Republicans who crossed Trump will learn their futures tonight

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Primary Night: The Tark Knight Rises: We have more primary action Tuesday as voters in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota, and South Carolina select their party's nominees. Additionally, there will be an all-party primary in Texas' 34th District to replace Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela, who resigned early to take a job at a lobbying firm. As always, we've put together our preview of what to watch.

Several House incumbents face serious primary challenges, but only northern Nevada Republican Mark Amodei is going up against an opponent as … determined as the one and only Danny Tarkanian. Tarkanian, who is the son of the late UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, unsuccessfully ran for office six times while still living in the Las Vegas area (not including abortive runs for the Senate and state board of regents), but he finally broke his legendary losing streak in 2020 by winning the job of county commissioner in his new rural home of Douglas County.

Tarkanian is hoping to avenge his many defeats by running to Amodei's right in the 2nd District, but the congressman is using every chance he has to portray his opponent as an interloper. Notability in one ad, Amodei unsubtly donned a jersey from his local alma mater―and UNLV's rival―the University of Nevada, Reno to make his case that primary voters should "stick with the home team." Back in Vegas, Democratic Rep. Dina Titus faces a primary challenge on the left from activist Amy Vilela in the 1st District, a seat that legislative Democrats made considerably more competitive in order to shore up incumbents elsewhere, while the GOP has a crowded race to take on the winner.

And over in South Carolina, Trump and his allies are targeting GOP Reps. Nancy Mace and Tom Rice in their respective primaries, with the pro-impeachment Rice looking to be the more vulnerable of the pair. If no one wins a majority of the vote in the Palmetto State, runoffs would take place two weeks later on June 28. You can find more on all these races, as well as the other big elections on Tuesday's ballot, in our preview.

Our live coverage will begin at 7 PM ET at Daily Kos Elections when polls close in South Carolina. You can also follow us on Twitter for blow-by-blow updates, and you'll want to bookmark our primary calendar, which includes the dates for primaries in all 50 states.

Senate

AL-Sen: Donald Trump on Saturday backed Katie Britt, the former Business Council of Alabama head he'd derided less than a year ago as "not in any way qualified" to serve in the Senate, ahead of next week's Republican runoff against Rep. Mo Brooks. Trump, though, characteristically used much of his statement to trash the congressman, whom he'd unceremoniously unendorsed in March, saying, "Mo has been wanting it back ever since-but I cannot give it to him!"

Trump made his new endorsement the day after the GOP firm JMC Analytics and Polling, surveying on behalf of unnamed "private subscribers," showed Britt ahead 51-39. Britt outpaced Brooks 45-29 last month in the first round of voting.

AZ-Sen: While former Thiel Capital chief operating officer Blake Masters' allies have largely focused on targeting Attorney General Mark Brnovich ahead of their crowded August Republican primary, the Club for Growth has launched a new $665,000 buy attacking a different Masters rival, wealthy businessman Jim Lamon. "His company sued for stiffing contractors out of $1 million pay," the narrator says of Lamon, "Penalized six times for delinquent taxes." He continues, "But not everyone got stiffed: A group linked to Lamon gave Pelosi and the Democrats over $75,000."

CO-Sen: Democratic Colorado's spending ahead of the June 28 Democratic primary has increased to $1.3 million, which is considerably more than the $780,000 the Colorado Sun initially reported that the super PAC was spending in an unsubtle attempt to help underfunded far-right state Rep. Ron Hanks pass wealthy businessman Joe O'Dea.

FL-Sen: Democratic Rep. Val Demings’ campaign says it's spending eight-figures on an opening TV buy designed to insulate the former Orlando police chief from GOP attempts to caricature the congresswoman as soft on crime. After several voices extol her record reducing violent crime Demings tells the audience, "In the Senate I'll protect Florida from bad ideas, like defunding the police. That's just crazy."

OK-Sen-B, OK-Gov: The GOP pollster Amber Integrated's newest look at the June 28 special Republican Senate primary shows Rep. Markwayne Mullin in the lead with 39%, which is below the majority he'd need to avoid an August runoff, with former state House Speaker T.W. Shannon enjoying a 19-6 edge over former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for second. The survey also shows Gov. Kevin Stitt winning renomination with 61% despite the expensive efforts of dark money groups to bring him crashing down, while an unheralded challenger Mark Sherwood lags in second with 8%.

WA-Sen: Democratic Sen. Patty Murray has launched an early ad campaign hoping to define her only serious Republican opponent, motivational speaker Tiffany Smiley, as an ardent Trumpist before the challenger can adequately respond.

The audience sees a photo of Smiley eagerly posing with Trump in the Oval Office as audio plays of her saying, "I met with President Trump, and I was so impressed." The narrator, following footage of the Jan. 6 rioters, jumps in and highlights how Smiley "still has serious questions about the 2020 elections." Smiley is later heard saying, "I am 100% pro-life."

Governors

MI-Gov: Wealthy businessman Perry Johnson got some more bad news Monday when a federal judge refused to halt the printing of the August Republican primary ballots that lack Johnson's name.

House

AZ-01: After airing some positive commercials ahead of the August Republican primary, self-funder Elijah Norton is now going up with a spot highlighting the ethics problems that dogged GOP incumbent David Schweikert during his ultimately successful 2020 re-election campaign. "How could anyone vote for David Schweikert?" asks one woman, before another castmate tells the audience that the congressman "was reprimanded unanimously by Congress."

More people incredulously ask, "$250,000 in illegal contributions? A fake loan of $100,000?," before the first woman informs the audience, "Schweikert even voted against building the border wall." The second half of the commercial extols Norton as "a true conservative outsider who will secure our border."

GA-06: School Freedom Fund, a Club for Growth ally bankrolled by conservative megadonor Jeff Yass, is spending at least $470,000 on an ad buy for next week's GOP runoff arguing that former state ethics commission chair Jake Evans is "woke." The narrator explains, "In the Race & Social Justice Law Review, Evans claimed our justice system is, quote, 'laden with racial disparities.' And Evans called for, quote, 'reallocating public funding away from criminal justice.'" The spot concludes, "Don't want to defund the police? Defeat Jake Evans."

The Club's man, physician Rich McCormick, also picked up an endorsement this week from former state Rep. Meagan Hanson, who took fourth place with 8% in the first round of voting on May 24. McCormick back then outpaced Evans, who is Trump's endorsed candidate, 43-23 in a newly gerrymandered suburban Atlanta seat.

IL-15: The United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters Union, which often airs ads for Democratic candidates in general elections, is getting involved in the June 28 Republican primary with a spot that portrays far-right Rep. Mary Miller as a perennial tax delinquent. The narrator declares, "It was so bad that Miller had her business license revoked," before the commercial concludes with an animation of a prison door slamming in front of her. The union, which has spent $520,000 so far in this race, does not mention Miller's intra-party foe, fellow Rep. Rodney Davis.

MN-05: Rep. Ilhan Omar has publicized an internal from Change Research that shows her turning back former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels 60-21 in the August Democratic primary.

MS-03: Republican Rep. Michael Guest is finally going negative against Navy veteran Michael Cassidy a week after the challenger outpaced him in a 47.5-46.9 shocker in the first round of the primary. Guest's narrator declares that Cassidy "just came to Mississippi from Maryland and only registered to vote here last year" and that he was "grounded and put under an investigation" when he was a Navy Reserve pilot. She concludes, "Mississippi doesn't need a carpetbagger. We need a conservative. A conservative like Michael Guest." Guest and Cassidy will compete again in their June 28 runoff.

NY-12: EMILY's List has endorsed Rep. Carolyn Maloney in her August Democratic primary battle against fellow veteran incumbent Jerry Nadler.

NY-17: The Working Families Party announced Monday both that it was withdrawing its support for Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney and backing state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi's primary bid against him in the new 17th District. The WFP supported Biaggi during her successful 2018 effort to deny renomination to turncoat Democratic state Sen. Jeff Klein, a move she says "gave my campaign legitimacy."

Attorneys General

SD-AG: Republican Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges for striking and killing a man with his car in September of 2020 but avoided jail time, on Friday finally confirmed reports that he would not seek re-election this year. Ravnsborg made his announcement two months after the Republican-run state House voted to impeach him, and the Senate will hold its trial later in June.

In South Dakota nominees for attorney general and several other statewide offices are chosen at party conventions rather than in primaries, and the GOP's gathering is set for June 23-25. Ravnsborg was already facing serious intra-party opposition from predecessor Marty Jackley, who left office due to term limits in 2018 and unsuccessfully ran for governor that year. In addition, Dave Natvig, a top Ravnsborg deputy described by Goss as a "long-time political ally" of the incumbent, also kicked off a campaign last month, a move that foreshadowed Ravnsborg's departure.

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Morning Digest: Why Montana is the only state in the union without new legislative maps

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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MT Redistricting: For the first time in 40 years, Montana enjoyed the right to draw a congressional map following the 2020 census, thanks to population growth that bumped up its representation in the House from one seat to two. But while that task was completed all the way back in November, the state still lacks new maps for its legislature—and won't have any until next year. In fact, Montana is the only state in the nation that hasn't finished legislative redistricting. So what gives?

Fortunately, law professor Quinn Yeargain has the answer. In 1972, Montana adopted a new constitution that gave power over redistricting to an evenly divided bipartisan commission, which is obligated to submit legislative maps to lawmakers "at the first regular session after its appointment or after the census figures are available." The problem, however, is that the constitution also mandates the legislature meet for just 90 days at a time in odd-numbered years, starting in early January and ending in late April.

Practically speaking, therefore, there's no way the redistricting commission could finish its work that quickly, and in 2021, that would have been literally impossible, since the Census Bureau didn't release the detailed data needed to draw new lines until August. Even in the previous decade, when the census wasn't hampered by a pandemic and presidential interference, Montana didn't receive the necessary data until mid-March.

Making matters even more absurd, as Yeargain points out, when lawmakers receive maps from the commission, they can only make "recommendations" for changes—recommendations the commissioners are free to ignore. The entire process, therefore, will be put off until the legislature's next session in 2023, simply to allow legislators to play an entirely advisory role that may have no impact whatsoever.

The practical consequences of this delay, however, are considerable. As shown in this map of Montana's state House, many districts are severely under- or over-populated, with 56 of 100 outside the 10% deviation between the smallest and largest districts that courts typically allow; the situation in the Senate is similar.

Under the longstanding constitutional doctrine of "one person, one vote," these imbalances make Montana ripe for a lawsuit demanding the state draw new districts immediately after each census, like every other state does. No one has brought such a case this time, though, and with the state's primary next week, it's now too late. But in the coming decade, such a challenge could very well succeed.

Senate

OH-Sen: The first post-primary poll of Ohio's open Senate race finds Republican nominee J.D. Vance with a small 42-39 lead on Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, though 17% of voters have yet to make up their minds, according to Suffolk University. While Vance's 3-point margin might seem alluring, we always caution never to judge a race based on a single poll. That's all the more so when there's a sizable pile of undecideds, since they're more likely to lean Republican given Ohio's overall red tilt.

Governors

GA-Gov: Democrat Stacey Abrams has launched her first TV ad since winning last month's primary, and the spot blasts Republican Gov. Brian Kemp for having "made it easier for criminals to carry guns in public," vowing to criminalize abortion, and providing "tax cuts for himself and his ultra-wealthy friends." Notably, this ad is from Abrams' One Georgia leadership committee, which can raise and spend unlimited contributions from donors now that the primaries are over thanks to a law that Kemp himself signed in 2021 in an attempt to gain his own fundraising advantage.

FL-Gov: We're not quite sure what to make of this, but the Florida Education Association, which is the state's largest teachers union, says it's "backing" Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist's bid for governor but stresses that it's not giving Crist its "formal endorsement." We're accustomed to this sort of parsing from politicians, but we can't recall ever seeing a labor union—especially not one with 150,000 members—engage in this kind of hair-splitting.

IL-Gov: Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, who is Illinois' wealthiest resident, has given an additional $5 million to Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin's campaign for the June 28 GOP primary, bringing his investment up to a staggering $50 million thanks to Illinois' lack of contribution limits. Due in large part to the wealth of just three billionaires, candidates and outside groups in Illinois' upcoming primaries have spent an eye-popping $30 million on ads in May alone as Democrats have gotten involved in the GOP primary to try to stop Irvin and boost a more conservative opponent while Irvin's camp has spent heavily in response.

Irvin has expended $11.1 million while the Democratic Governors Association has dropped $6.5 million on a mix of ads attacking Irvin and boosting state Sen. Darren Bailey, who is running to Irvin's right and has spent $4.1 million with an additional $2.7 million in outside support from a PAC funded by right-wing billionaire Dick Uihlein. The final billionaire is Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker himself, who is extensively self-funding his campaign and has spent $4 million on ads mainly opposing Irvin. Lastly, venture capitalist Jesse Sullivan has spent $1.5 million on GOP primary ads.

MI-Gov, MI-AG, MI-SoS: The general election portion of local pollster Target Insyght's recent survey for MIRS News finds statewide Democrats demolishing their GOP opponents by margins that simply look too good to be true. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer leads her five prospective Republican challengers by anywhere from 58-19 to 57-23, while Democratic state Attorney General Dana Nessel posts a similar 54-23 edge over Big Lie proponent Matthew DePerno and Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson likewise prevails 56-23 over election conspiracy theorist Kristina Karamo.

Every other poll released this cycle has so far found Whitmer at or below 50% with considerably more support for her Republican challengers than Target Insyght has, and even during the blue wave of 2018, she only earned 53% of the vote. Though voters in recent years have been more apt to split their tickets in state races despite historically high levels of polarization in federal elections, Whitmer and her fellow Democrats in swingy Michigan are still likely to face strong headwinds this November thanks to Joe Biden's weak approval ratings and traditional midterm patterns that favor the out-party. We're therefore extremely skeptical of these numbers unless confirmed elsewhere.

Meanwhile, in the August GOP primary, the state Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday that self-funding businessman Perry Johnson cannot appear on the ballot after he and several other GOP candidates were disqualified from running last week due to fraudulent voter petition signatures. Johnson didn't indicate whether he would appeal further to the state Supreme Court, but the state is set to finalize its primary ballot on Friday. The courts have yet to rule on a similar appeal by former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, but given the similar arguments in Craig's lawsuit, his prospects look poor.

MN-Gov, MN-02, MN-01: Candidate filing closed on Tuesday, and the state has a list of who is running here for the August primary. For governor, far-right state Sen. Scott Jensen managed to avoid a competitive primary after winning the state GOP convention's endorsement last month. While it's commonplace for candidates to agree to drop out before the primary after they lose at the convention, former state Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka and dermatologist Neil Shah didn't appear to have confirmed they would until they declined to file. Lastly, Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek, who had said he was unable to attend the convention due to injuries from a car crash, also dropped out by not filing.

On the Democratic side, Gov. Tim Walz faces only token opposition in his quest for a second term. Walz also got potential good news when former radio host Cory Hepola, who had announced he was running as a Forward Party candidate earlier this year on a platform that appeared more likely to take votes from Democrats than Republicans, also didn't file.

Unfortunately for Democrats, candidates from each of two pro-marijuana third parties qualified to run for governor and in the 1st and 2nd Congressional Districts. However, the presence on the ballot of the Legal Marijuana Now Party and Grassroots - Legalize Cannabis Party has if anything had the opposite effect of their stated purpose by likely drawing votes disproportionately from the left, potentially depriving Democrats of enough support to cost them control of the state Senate in 2020 and let the narrow Republican majority block Democrats' legalization effort earlier this year.

Republicans themselves may have had a role in the pro-weed parties' success. Adam Weeks, who was Legal Marijuana Now' 2020 nominee in the 2nd District but died two months before Election Day, had told a friend in a voicemail recording that surfaced after his death that he'd been recruited by the GOP to run and "pull away votes" from Democratic Rep. Angie Craig to help GOP challenger Tyler Kistner. Although Craig won that contest by a 48-46 margin, that was a notable underperformance of Joe Biden's 52-46 victory in the district thanks in part to Weeks posthumously taking 6%.

Craig faces a rematch with Kistner this fall along with candidates from both cannabis parties, and Kistner himself released a mid-May poll from GOP firm Cygnal this week that showed him trailing Craig by a modest 43-38 margin, with Legal Marijuana Now Party candidate Paula Overby taking 4%.

In the 1st District, former Hormel CEO Jeff Ettinger faces little-known opponents in the regular Democratic primary after winning the nomination last month for the August special election to replace the late GOP Rep. Jim Hagedorn. However, on the GOP side, former Department of Agriculture official Brad Finstad will face a rematch with far-right state Rep. Jeremy Munson after the more establishment-aligned Finstad beat him just 38-37 in last month's special primary; former Freeborn County GOP chair Matt Benda also filed to run in the regular GOP primary after taking only 7% in last month's contest.

House

FL-13: Rep. Charlie Crist has endorsed former Defense Department official Eric Lynn in the race to succeed him in Florida's 13th Congressional District. Lynn is the only notable Democrat still running after Republicans gerrymandered the district to make it considerably redder, such that Donald Trump would have carried it 53-46, compared to Joe Biden's 52-47 margin under the previous lines.

Meanwhile, nonprofit founder Audrey Henson just dropped out of the GOP primary to run for the state House instead, though several other Republicans are still in the mix. The remaining field includes attorneys Amanda Makki and Kevin Hayslett as well as businesswoman Anna Paulina Luna, who was the GOP's unsuccessful nominee in 2020.

IL-06: Rep. Marie Newman copies Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock's legendary ads featuring a pet beagle in a new spot attacking her opponent in next month's Democratic primary—right down to the starring breed of pooch. Walking a beagle of her own, Newman says that "unfortunately, you're going to hear a lot of sh*t about me from my opponent, Sean Casten" as her dog squats to do its business (the offending word is bleeped out). It's not clear what Newman might be referring to, however, as Casten has not aired any negative ads.

Calling herself a "lifelong progressive Democrat," Newman then castigates Casten for voting "for anti-choice Republicans like George Bush." (Casten cast his first vote in a presidential election for George H.W. Bush in 1992, when he was 20.) She also touts her rejection of "corporate money" while accusing Casten, a fellow member of Congress, of having "taken a million dollars from corporate PACs."

MI-03: A new Public Policy Polling survey for Democrat Hillary Scholten finds her narrowly edging past Republican Rep. Peter Meijer 39-37 while leading conservative commentator John Gibbs, who has Donald Trump's endorsement, by a larger 44-35 margin. This is the first public poll of the race for Michigan's 3rd District, one of a handful of seats Democrats are hoping to flip in November.

MN-03: In Minnesota's 3rd District, Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips and Navy veteran Tom Weiler, his Republican challenger, are the only candidates running here after businessman Mark Blaxill declined to continue on to the primary after losing to Weiler at the GOP convention.

MN-04: Longtime Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum faces a primary challenge from the left by Saint Paul Department of Human Rights & Equal Economic Opportunity official Amane Badhasso, who has raised a competitive amount of money so far. A few other minor candidates are running in the Democratic and GOP primaries for this solidly blue seat.

MN-05: Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who is one of the most outspoken left-wing members of Congress, is running for a third term and faces a primary challenge from her right by former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels. Several other obscure candidates are running for both parties in this heavily Democratic district.

NY-10: Former federal prosecutor Daniel Goldman, who served as House Democrats' lead counsel during Donald Trump's first impeachment, has joined the crowded primary for New York's open 10th District, a safely blue district in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. Goldman briefly ran for state attorney general last year but dropped out after incumbent Tish James abandoned her bid for governor and decided to run for re-election instead.

NY-12: The Working Families Party, a labor-backed party that has often played an important role in New York politics over the last two decades, has endorsed Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler in his member-vs.-member primary against fellow Rep. Carolyn Maloney. The WFP's backing serves as a progressive seal of approval and could also yield key on-the-ground support for Nadler if unions decide to deploy their membership on his behalf.

Ad Roundup

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Morning Digest: After blocking liberal bills, conservative Dem lawmakers lose New Mexico primaries

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

NM State Senate: Conservative Democrats in the New Mexico State Senate have blocked some important pieces of legislation, but progressives scored several key wins in Tuesday's primaries. Five incumbents lost to progressive challengers: Richard Martinez, Gabe Ramos, and Clemente Sanchez, who lost renomination to opponents who each took more than 60% of the vote; Senate Finance Committee chair John Arthur Smith, who lost 55-45; and finally Senate President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen, the highest-ranking Democratic senator in the chamber, who lost 49-44.

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Republicans may make a play for some of these seats in the fall. Smith's SD-35 in the southwestern corner of the state backed Donald Trump 50-41, while Sanchez and Ramos' districts were very closely divided in the 2016 presidential contest. The other two constituencies, though, were overwhelmingly Democratic, and it would be a huge surprise if Team Blue's 26-16 majority is threatened.

Despite the partisan makeup of the chamber, though, conservatives have stopped progressive legislation supported by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the state House, where the party also holds a sizable majority. Conservative Democrats have been blamed for weakening legislation to increase the minimum wage and of blocking efforts to legalize marijuana.  

Perhaps worst of all, though, is the conservatives' actions on abortion rights. Last year, the House passed a bill to repeal a 1969 law that made it a felony to perform an abortion in most cases. However, all five of the aforementioned Senate Democrats, as well as three others, joined with the GOP minority to kill the legislation. The current anti-abortion law is unenforceable thanks to Roe v. Wade, but there's the terrifying possibility that a U.S. Supreme Court decision could make provisions like this one more than just a legal relic.

However, Tuesday's results, as well as a successful showing in November, could give progressives the chance to finally shape the agenda in New Mexico.

Election Changes

Please bookmark our litigation tracker for a complete compilation of the latest developments in every lawsuit regarding changes to election and voting procedures.

California: Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has issued an order allowing county election officials to reduce the number of in-person voting sites for the November general election, but in exchange, they must provide at least three days of early voting. Democratic Secretary of State Alex Padilla also said that there would be at least one in-person polling place for every 10,000 residents.

Meanwhile, a committee in California's Democratic-run state Senate has approved a bill requiring counties to send ballots to all voters for the November election. Newsom previously issued an order instituting the same mandate, but that order has been challenged by two Republican lawsuits that claim Newsom usurped the legislature's powers. If lawmakers pass legislation similar to Newsom's order, that could help insulate the state's vote-by-mail plans from further legal attack.

Michigan: A new federal lawsuit brought by the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA on behalf of a pair of civic organizations and three voters is seeking to have the state of Michigan pay for return postage on absentee ballots and accept all ballots postmarked by Election Day and received within 14 days, both for the state's Aug. 4 primary and the November general election.

Currently, ballots must be received by election officials no later than Election Day in order to count. Plaintiffs argue that their unusually long proposed receipt deadline is justified because state law does not require election results to be certified until 14 days after Election Day.

Ohio: Ohio's Republican-led state House is preparing to advance a bill that would eliminate three days of early voting right before Election Day and end the state's practice of sending absentee ballot applications to all active voters. Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose and an organization representing election officials both expressed their opposition to the measure, saying it would lead to longer lines at polling places.

The bill's sponsor, Republican state Rep. Cindy Abrams, claims that cutting early voting would "clarify existing law" and that no longer mailing ballot applications would "save the state money." According to cleveland.com, Ohio spent $1.1 million to send out applications in 2016, the previous presidential election year. The state's most recent annual budget was $78.8 billion.

The legislation's claimed goal is to establish a set of emergency procedures that would allow for an all-mail election during the pendency of a public health crisis like the current pandemic. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine would have to issue a recommendation that the election be conducted by mail at least 60 days before Election Day, and the legislature would have to approve any such recommendation.

However, the state would not send ballots or even ballot applications to voters. Instead, the secretary of state would send postcards to voters explaining how they can request absentee ballots—similar to the heavily criticized procedures the state deployed for its canceled-then-rescheduled primaries earlier this year.

Pennsylvania: On Tuesday, a state court judge ruled that officials in Bucks County could count mail ballots cast in Pennsylvania's June 2 primary so long as they were postmarked by June 1 and are received by June 9. Bucks was not included in a Monday order by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf that granted a similar extension to six other counties.

However, one of those counties, Delaware, sought and received further relief in the courts. Officials there had said they would be unable to send out 400 to 500 mail ballots in time for voters to return them and therefore planned not to send them at all. However, after a different state judge ruled that any such ballots could be counted as long as they are received by June 12—regardless of when they are postmarked—Delaware officials decided to send them out. The ruling is potentially subject to challenge since it allows voters to cast ballots after Election Day.

Vermont: Vermont's Democratic-run state Senate has passed a bill that would remove Republican Gov. Phil Scott's power to block Democratic Secretary of State Jim Condos from ordering that the November general election be conducted by mail, a plan Condos has long sought to implement. The state House, which is also controlled by Democrats, reportedly will also approve the measure. Scott has said he does not oppose the effort to remove him from the decision-making process.

Senate

CO-Sen: Former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff is out with his first TV spot ahead of the June 30 Democratic primary. Romanoff talks about his work improving mental healthcare and declares, "But it shouldn't take a crisis to teach us our healthcare system is broken." Romanoff concludes by saying that "when you're fighting for your life, you shouldn't worry about how to pay for it."

GA-Sen-A: The GOP firm Cygnal is out with a survey of Tuesday's Democratic primary to face Republican Sen. David Perdue that shows investigative filmmaker Jon Ossoff very close to the majority of the vote he needs to avoid an August runoff. Cygnal, which conducted a general election poll for the Georgia House GOP Caucus about a month ago, tells us this poll was done for "an interested party," and the firm said it was not involved in this primary.

Cygnal finds Ossoff taking 49% of the vote, while former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson leads 2018 lieutenant governor nominee Sarah Riggs Amico 16-8 for second. The only other poll we've seen of this contest was a March University of Georgia survey that had Ossoff at 31%, while Tomlinson edged Amico 16-15. Cygnal also showed Ossoff beating Tomlinson 58-24 in a hypothetical runoff.

MN-Sen: Candidate filing closed Tuesday for Minnesota's Aug. 11 primaries, and the state has a list of contenders available here.

Appointed Democratic Sen. Tina Smith won the 2018 special election 53-42, and she's now seeking her first full term. Donald Trump and the rest of the party establishment have consolidated behind former Rep. Jason Lewis, who lost his re-election last cycle 53-47 to Democrat Angie Craig and faces minimal intra-party opposition in August.

Lewis, a former conservative radio host who has a long record of racist and misogynist tirades, hasn't attracted much outside help so far, though. Smith ended March with a wide $4.6 million to $714,000 cash-on-hand lead, and no major outside groups on either side have booked airtime here. Trump came surprisingly close to winning Minnesota in 2016, but he'll almost certainly need to flip the state this time for Lewis to have a shot. Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Likely Democratic.  

MT-Sen: The Democratic group Majority Forward's new ad declares that GOP Sen. Steve Daines "voted for a $500 billion dollar slush fund to bail out big corporations, even Wall Street, on top of trillions in special tax breaks Daines voted to give them already." The narrator continues, "But Daines voted against paid leave for Montanans and refused to support relief for our hospitals and nurses."

NC-Sen, NC-Gov: The GOP firm Harper Polling is out with another survey for the conservative Civitas Institute, and it gives GOP Sen. Thom Tillis a small 38-36 edge against Democrat Cal Cunningham. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper also leads Republican Dan Forest 49-37, while the sample favors Donald Trump 47-44. Back in mid-April, Harper showed Tillis and Cooper ahead 38-34 and 50-33, respectively, while Trump held a 49-42 advantage.

House

HI-02: Democratic state Sen. Kai Kahele, who launched his campaign early last year as a challenge to Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, now finds himself on a glide path to Congress after Tuesday's candidate filing deadline passed with no serious alternatives entering the race for Hawaii's safely blue 2nd Congressional District.

Gabbard's endless string of apostasies—from cozying up to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad to bashing Barack Obama for refusing to use the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism"—had made her a favorite of Fox News and anathema to progressives. However, she remained popular at home, making her a daunting target for any would-be rivals.

But Kahele, a combat pilot with the Air National Guard who's flown missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, was undeterred. He kicked off a bid in January of 2019, just after Gabbard embarked on a vanity run for president. That created an opening for Kahele, who was able to meet voters across the district while Gabbard was spending time in New Hampshire diners, underscoring a common complaint that Gabbard was more interested in boosting her national profile than in addressing problems at home.

Under Hawaii law, Gabbard was able to both pursue the presidency and seek re-election at the same time, though she long kept the political world guessing as to what she'd ultimately do. Finally, in October, she announced she wouldn't run for a fifth term, though it wasn't until after Tuesday's filing deadline that Kahele could be sure she wouldn't have a last-minute change of heart. (Gabbard of course eventually bailed on her presidential ambitions, too.)

Most surprisingly, in the long stretch from Gabbard's retirement announcement until now, not a single notable Hawaii Democrat joined Kahele in running for what had become an open seat, and few even considered it. Kahele's early start may have played a role, since he'd been able to amass a sizable war chest by the time Gabbard called it quits. He'd also earned support from several key figures in the state's political establishment, a movement that crescendoed in the spring when Hawaii's entire congressional delegation—minus Gabbard, of course—endorsed him.

While several other candidates did enter the race, none have even filed a single fundraising report with the FEC, making Kahele the prohibitive favorite to win the Aug. 8 primary. Assuming he does, he'll also be a lock for the November general election, given that Hillary Clinton carried the 2nd District by a 61-30 margin.

Victory in the fall would make Kahele just the second Native Hawaiian to represent the state in Congress after the late Sen. Dan Akaka. He'd also be he first from Hawaii's more rural Neighbor Islands, the term for every island apart from Oahu, which is home to the capital of Honolulu—and to every U.S. senator and representative the state has ever had.

IA-04: While state Sen. Randy Feenstra is no less extreme than the notorious figure he beat in Tuesday's primary, he does a much better job of saying the quiet parts quietly than soon-to-be-former Rep. Steve King. As such, that makes him what passes for a bog-standard Republican these days: build the wall, ban sanctuary cities, ban abortion, ban gay marriage, and swear undying fealty to Donald Trump—Feenstra's on board with the whole program.

And that in turn makes him a sure fit for Iowa's conservative 4th Congressional District, a heavily Republican area that's only grown more so in the Trump era. King's ability to generate funds for Democrats just by opening his mouth, plus a perception at home that he'd grown more interested in buffing his reputation with international members of the far-right than the concerns of his district, nearly cost him his career against Democrat J.D. Scholten in 2018, when he survived by just a 50-47 margin. That backdrop gave Scholten an opening once again, however slight.

But as the GOP's new nominee, Feenstra, won't trail the top of the ticket, where Trump is sure to dominate. Daily Kos is Elections is therefore changing our rating on this race from Likely Republican to Safe Republican.

MN-01: Republican Jim Hagedorn defeated Army veteran Dan Feehan 50.1-49.7 in a 2018 open seat contest, and Feehan is back for a rematch. Feehan, who faces no primary opposition, ended March with a wide $1.1 million to $787,000 million advantage, and outside groups on both sides have booked TV time in this area.

Despite his tiny win last cycle, though, Hagedorn has the edge this time. This southern Minnesota seat swung from 50-48 Obama to 53-38 Trump, so Feehan will likely need to win over a significant number of Trump voters to win this time. Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Lean Republican.

MN-02: Democrat Angie Craig unseated Republican Rep. Jason Lewis 53-47 in 2018 to flip a suburban Twin Cities seat that both Barack Obama and Donald Trump narrowly carried, and Republicans don't seem to have a strong candidate to try to take it back. The only Republican in the running is Marine veteran Tyler Kistner, who ended March with a wide $2 million to $100,000 cash-on-hand deficit in a contest we rate as Likely Democratic.

MN-03: Democrat Dean Phillips unseated GOP incumbent Erik Paulsen 56-44 after an expensive race, but the new incumbent doesn't appear to be in any danger this time.

The only notable Republican in the race is healthcare executive Kendall Qualls, who trailed Phillips $346,000 to $242,000 in cash-on-hand at the end of March. While Phillips didn't have a large war chest for an incumbent, the district's shift to the left will make it hard for Qualls to gain traction: This suburban Twin Cities seat moved from 50-49 Obama to 51-41 Clinton, and Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Safe Democratic.

MN-05: Rep. Ilhan Omar, who has been one of the most high-profile members of the freshman Democratic class, faces four opponents in the primary for this safely blue Minneapolis seat. Omar's most high-profile foe is attorney Antone Melton-Meaux, who has argued that Omar "appears to be more focused on her own celebrity than on serving the district." Omar ended March with a wide $1.3 million to $200,000 cash-on-hand lead over Melton-Meaux.

MN-07: Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson has held this rural western Minnesota seat for 30 years even as it has become more and more Republican, and he faces his greatest test this fall. The GOP establishment, including Donald Trump, has consolidated behind former Lt. Gov. Michelle Fischbach in this 62-31 Trump seat. A few other Republicans are running including self-funding physician Noel Collis and 2016/2018 nominee Dave Hughes, but it's unlikely they'll be able to stop Fischbach.

Peterson, who chairs the important House Agriculture Committee, ended March with a wide $1.1 million to $312,000 cash-on-hand lead over Fischbach. However, this seat gave Trump the highest vote share of any House district that Democrats currently hold, and with Trump almost certain to easily carry this seat again, it's likely that Republicans will invest plenty of money in their campaign to unseat the longtime incumbent. Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as a Tossup.

MN-08: Republican Pete Stauber flipped this seat 51-45 last cycle, and the new incumbent looks secure this time. The Democrats are fielding diabetes research advocate Quinn Nystrom, who is a former member of the Baxter City Council. Stauber ended March with a wide $849,000 to $103,000 cash-on-hand lead in a northeast Minnesota seat that swung from 52-46 Obama to 54-39 Trump, and Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Safe Republican.

NJ-05: Glen Rock Councilwoman Arati Kreibich, who is challenging Rep. Josh Gottheimer in the July 7 Democratic primary, is out with a survey from Data for Progress that shows her losing 64-17. Kreibich argues that she makes gains when voters learn about her, though she still trails when respondents are exposed to positive and negative messaging about both contenders.  

NY-16: Veteran Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel, on his first visit back to his district in months, was caught on camera Tuesday pleading with Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. for the chance to speak at a press conference, telling Diaz twice, "If I didn't have a primary, I wouldn't care."

While Engel was referring to his lack of a speaking slot at the event, which was convened after a night of looting along the Fordham Road retail corridor, the gaffe was quickly refracted as a commentary on Engel's feelings about his race and his constituents. Engel tried to explain away the remarks, saying, "In the context of running for re-election, I thought it was important for people to know where I stand, that's why I asked to speak," but his leading opponent, educator Jamaal Bowman, immediately seized on the blunder to call the 16-term incumbent out of touch and said he raised $150,000 in the 24 hours following the incident.

Last month, Engel was the subject of an unflattering profile in the Atlantic highlighting the fact that he had holed up in his DC-area home for the duration of the pandemic, not even returning to New York when the state's first coronavirus epicenter was identified in the city of New Rochelle, which is in his district. (Many other members of New York's delegation, including several fellow committee chairs, had managed to split time between Washington and their home turf.)

Bowman's campaign had in part centered around Engel's alleged absenteeism even before the pandemic, immediately making Tuesday's hot mic comments part of a pre-existing narrative about the race. But Bowman only has three more weeks to make his case ahead of the June 23 primary for the safely blue 16th District, and Engel had a roughly five-to-one cash advantage as of the end of March. However, the financial picture—and the race itself—might now look very different going forward.

P.S. Oddly, the event Engel was attending wasn't even in his district: It was held at an intersection on the border of the 13th and 15th Districts. 13th District Rep. Adriano Espaillat was in attendance, as were a long list of other local politicians. It's understandable, then, why Diaz told Engel, "I cannot have all the electeds talk because we will never get out of here" and snapped back, "Don't do that to me—everybody has a primary" when Engel tried to plead his case.

NY-17: In his second TV spot for the June 23 Democratic primary, attorney Mondaire Jones tells the audience, "I'm grateful to the grocery store workers and delivery people who help us get through this crisis. Don't they deserve affordable healthcare? Doesn't everyone?" Jones talks about growing up on food stamps and declares, "No one should lose their healthcare because they've lost their job." Jones concludes by saying he's the one Democrat in the contest who backs Medicare for All.

NY-27: On Tuesday, Donald Trump implored his Twitter followers to vote for state Sen. Chris Jacobs on June 23. Trump had already endorsed Jacobs in February for the special general election to succeed disgraced Rep. Chris Collins, though the political calendar looked different at the time. Back then, the special was set for late April while the regular primary was in June, but the coronavirus pandemic led Gov. Andrew Cuomo to consolidate the two contests.

Jacobs' primary opponents have insisted that Trump's earlier endorsement only applied to the special, but that's a tougher argument to make now. Trump himself didn't refer to either the special or the primary, though, he simply tweeted, "Chris has my Complete and Total Endorsement! Vote for Chris on June 23!"

TX-10: 2018 Democratic nominee Mike Siegel picked up an endorsement this week from freshman Rep. Veronica Escobar. Siegel faces physician Pritesh Gandhi in the July 14 Democratic primary runoff to take on veteran GOP Rep. Michael McCaul.

Election Result Recaps

Baltimore, MD Mayor: With 80,000 votes counted, former Mayor Sheila Dixon leads City Council President Brandon Scott 30-25 in the Democratic primary for mayor. It's not clear how many votes remain to be counted, though the head of the city's board of elections says that it will resume tabulating mail-in ballots on Thursday. Whoever emerges with the Democratic nomination should have no trouble winning the general election in this very blue city.

Ferguson, MO Mayor: Ferguson elected its first-ever black mayor, as well as its first woman leader, on Tuesday when City Councilwoman Ella Jones defeated colleague Heather Robinett 54-46. Voters in this St. Louis suburb also made history by electing a black majority to the local school board.

Ferguson attracted global attention in 2014 after a white police officer shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, sparking focus for Black Lives Matter. One big fact stood out amidst the city's botched handling of the protests that followed Brown's death: While Ferguson is two-thirds black and heavily Democratic, this municipality of 21,000 was led by a white Republican mayor, James Knowles. Five of Ferguson's six city councilmembers were also white, as were six of the seven local school board members. In large part because local elections didn't take place the same day as state or federal ones, very low turnout produced a majority-white electorate.

However, reformers made gains the next year when Jones and another black candidate won seats on the City Council in a contest that attracted much higher turnout than normal. Another African American joined the body the next year, which gave it a black majority for the first time. In 2017, though, Jones challenged Knowles for re-election and lost 56-44. But Knowles, who has been in office since 2011, was termed-out this year, and Jones won a three-year term to succeed him.

IA-Sen: Businesswoman Theresa Greenfield won the Democratic nomination to face GOP Sen. Joni Ernst by defeating retired Navy Vice Adm. Michael Franken 48-25. Greenfield had the support of national Democratic groups like Senate Majority PAC, which spent close to $7 million on her behalf, and EMILY's List.

Greenfield will be in for a difficult race against Ernst in a state that moved hard to the right in 2014 and 2016, but as SMP's big primary investment demonstrates, this is a contest that outside groups are taking very seriously. The DSCC and SMP have booked $20.4 million to unseat Ernst, while the senator's allies at the NRSC and the Senate Leadership Fund have reserved a total of $15.2 million to defend her. The only survey we've seen here all year, an early May poll from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, had Ernst ahead just 43-42. Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Lean Republican.

IA-02: State Sen. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who was the party's nominee here in 2008, 2010, and 2014, won the GOP nod for this competitive seat once again by beating former Illinois Rep. Bobby Schilling 48-37. Miller-Meeks will take on former state Sen. Rita Hart, who had no Democratic primary opposition, in the contest to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack.

This southeastern Iowa seat swung from 56-43 Obama to 49-45 Trump, and it will be one of the House GOP's top targets. However, this terrain has been more difficult for Team Red downballot. Loebsack turned back Miller-Meeks 52-47 during the 2014 GOP wave, and 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Fred Hubbell, who had Hart on his ticket as his nominee for lieutenant governor, carried the district 51-47 as he was narrowly losing statewide. Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Lean Democratic.

IN-01: In a surprise, North Township Trustee Frank Mrvan defeated Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott 34-29 in the Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Pete Visclosky in this safely blue seat. Mrvan will take on Republican Mark Leyva, who has run here during 10 of the last 12 election cycles and never come close to winning.

McDermott, a self-described moderate who considered challenging Visclosky before the incumbent retired, looked like the frontrunner for this northwest Indiana seat. The mayor deployed the most cash, and he also received a $525,000 boost from third-party groups—mostly from VoteVets and an organization called Democratic Progress, whose treasurer works for a super PAC that backs independent candidates. Another candidate, state Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon, also benefited from outside support.

Mrvan, meanwhile, raised very little money, though some allied PACs dropped about $110,000 to help him. However, Mrvan had the support of Visclosky and the local branch of the United Steelworkers of America, which is a prominent force in a district with a large steel industry. Mrvan may have benefited from some family name recognition: His father and namesake is local state Sen. Frank Mrvan, who was first elected in 1978 and has served in the legislature almost continuously since then.

IN-05: State Sen. Victoria Spartz won a truly ugly GOP primary to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Susan Brooks in this open seat by defeating businesswoman Beth Henderson 41-18. Spartz will take on former state Rep. Christina Hale, who beat 2018 nominee Dee Thornton 39-28 in a race that didn't attract much outside attention.

Spartz used her personal resources to decisively outspend all of her opponents, while her allies at the anti-tax Club for Growth ran ads attacking Henderson and another candidate, former Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi. Henderson, who was backed by Sen. Mike Braun, in turn launched a xenophobic and misogynist ad against the Ukrainian-born Spartz.

This suburban Indianapolis seat was safely red turf until the Trump era, but Democrats are hoping to score a pickup here this fall. This district moved from 58-41 Romney to 53-41 Trump, and former Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly narrowly prevailed here 48.4-47.9 in 2018 even though he lost 51-45 statewide. So far, no major outside groups on either side have booked TV time in the Indianapolis media market, which covers the entire district, though there's still plenty of time for that to change. Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Lean Republican.

MD-07: Democratic Rep. Kweisi Mfume, who recently returned to the House after a 24-year absence, beat former state party chair Maya Rockeymoore Cummings 78-9 in the primary for this safely blue Baltimore seat. Mfume defeated Rockeymoore Cummings 43-17 back in February in the special primary to succeed her late husband, Rep. Elijah Cummings.

MT-Gov: Rep. Greg Gianforte won the GOP primary by defeating Attorney General Tim Fox 53-27, while Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney beat businesswoman Whitney Williams 55-45 to secure the Democratic nod. Gianforte and Cooney will face off in the fall in the contest to succeed termed-out Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock, who is Team Blue's nominee for the Senate.

Republicans last won the governorship in Montana in 2000, but that losing streak may finally come to an end in 2020 thanks to the state's increasingly red trend. Gianforte, who threw down $1.5 million of his own money for the primary, also may be able to decisively outspend Cooney. Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Lean Republican.

However, while Gianforte is the favorite in the fall, he's hardly invincible. The now-congressman was the party's nominee back in 2016, and Democrats ran a barrage of ads portraying the former New Jersey resident as a greedy outsider eager to deny the public access to waterways for fishing and swimming that were located near his "riverfront mansion"—so much so that he in fact went to court. Gianforte ultimately lost to Bullock 50-46 even though Trump carried Montana by a dominant 56-35 margin.

Undeterred by his loss, Gianforte ran in a special election for Montana's lone House seat when Rep. Ryan Zinke temporarily got beamed up to Trump's cabinet. Gianforte made international news the night before Election Day by body-slamming reporter Ben Jacobs after he asked Gianforte a question about Obamacare. Gianforte filed a statement with the police afterwards in which he claimed that Jacobs had provoked the attack—an utter lie, and a particularly shameful one since several witnesses were present and the incident was also captured on audiotape.

Gianforte ended up winning 50-44, but since most voters had already cast their ballots ahead of Election Day, it's not clear how much damage this story did or didn't do to the Republican's political fortunes. A few months after the election, Gianforte pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault. The congressman paid a $385 fine and was sentenced to 40 hours of community service as well as another 20 hours of training for anger management. However, Gianforte was never charged with lying to the police. He and Jacobs also reached a settlement in which Gianforte accepted responsibility for his actions and agreed to donate $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists, heading off a lawsuit by Jacobs.

Gianforte faced an expensive re-election contest last cycle against Democrat Kathleen Williams, who ran ads going after the incumbent for his attack on Jacobs. However, one high-profile Republican was very much not bothered by Gianforte's transgressions. Donald Trump ventured to Montana in October and told a rally, "Greg is smart and, by the way, never wrestle him." In case that was too subtle, Trump pantomimed throwing someone to the ground and added, "Any guy that can do a body slam—he's my guy." Gianforte went on to beat Williams by a modest 51-46 margin.

MT-AL: State Auditor Matt Rosendale, who was the GOP's nominee for Senate last cycle, defeated Secretary of State Corey Stapleton 48-33 in the primary for this open seat. Rosendale, who had Donald Trump's endorsement, will take on 2018 Democratic nominee Kathleen Williams, who defeated state Rep. Tom Winter by a lopsided 89-11 margin.

Williams held GOP Rep. Greg Gianforte, who gave up this seat to run for governor, to a 51-46 win last cycle. However, while Rosendale's 50-47 loss against Democratic Sen. Jon Tester shows he can be defeated in this red state, he'll probably be harder for Williams to attack than the notorious Gianforte was. Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Likely Republican.

NM-02: 2018 GOP nominee Yvette Herrell beat businesswoman Claire Chase 45-32, which earned Herrell a rematch against freshman Democratic Rep. Xochitl Torres Small. This was a truly ugly primary, with both candidates calling one another enemies of Trump; Herrell was even accused of spreading rumors about Chase's first marriage.  

This southern New Mexico seat backed Donald Trump 50-40, but Herrell lost it to Torres Small 51-49 two years later. Team Blue was eager to face Herrell again following that defeat, and the Democratic group Patriot Majority even ran ads during the final weeks of the primary designed to help Herrell against Chase. A GOP establishment-flavored group called Defending Main Street tried to counter with anti-Herrell ads, but it was too little, too late.

Still, while Democrats have the opponent they want, Herrell could still win in a seat this red. Torres Small is a very strong fundraiser, though, and she proved in 2018 that she's able to secure crossover votes. Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as a Tossup.

NM-03: Attorney Teresa Leger Fernandez won the Democratic primary to succeed Senate nominee Ben Ray Luján in this reliably blue seat by beating former CIA agent Valerie Plame 42-25.

This was a very expensive contest and Plame, who was at the center of a national firestorm that lasted for years during the presidency of George W. Bush after her name was publicly leaked, decisively outspent Leger Fernandez. However, several outside groups, including EMILY's List, spent heavily on ads touting Leger Fernandez's local roots in northern New Mexico.

P.S. Tuesday's primary results mean that all of New Mexico's House seats will almost certainly be represented next year by women of color, which would be a first in American history for a state with more than two districts. Leger Fernandez is Latina, while 1st District Rep. Deb Haaland, who holds a safely blue seat, is a member of the Laguna Pueblo Native American people. Over in the 2nd District, Democratic Rep. Xochitl Torres Small is the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, while GOP nominee Yvette Herrell is a member of the Cherokee Nation.

PA-01: In a surprise, GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick held off underfunded businessman Andrew Meehan, who was challenging the "anti-Trump, Trump hating RINO" congressman for renomination, just 57-43. On the Democratic side, Christina Finello, who has worked as a Bucks County housing department official, beat businessman Skylar Hurwitz 77-23.

While much of the party base seems quite angry at Fitzpatrick, who has always portrayed himself as a moderate, it remains to be seen if Democrats can exploit his problems. Finello, who became the party's frontrunner after the two most prominent contenders dropped out, raised a total of just around $210,000 through mid-May, and we'll need to see if she can do better now that she's the nominee. Fitzpatrick, meanwhile, is a very strong fundraiser who will have all the money he needs to defend himself.  

This seat, which is centered around Bucks County north of Philadelphia, narrowly backed both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but Fitzpatrick won an expensive contest 51-49 during the 2018 Democratic wave. With the cash battle so lopsided, at least for now, Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Likely Republican.

PA-07: Businesswoman Lisa Scheller defeated 2018 primary runner-up Dean Browning, who is also a former member of the Lehigh County Commission, 52-48 in the GOP primary to face freshman Democratic Rep. Susan Wild. Scheller, who has self-funded much of her campaign, decisively outspent Browning, and she also had the backing of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Scheller picked up an endorsement in the final days of the contest from Donald Trump, a tweet that may have made all the difference in this close race.

This Lehigh Valley district shifted from 53-46 Obama to just 49-48 Clinton, but Wild decisively won an open seat race last cycle after national Republicans abandoned their nominee. Scheller may prove to be a better contender, but Wild has over $1.5 million to defend herself in a race we rate as Lean Democratic.

PA-08: Former Trump administration official Jim Bognet beat former police officer Teddy Daniels 28-25 in the GOP primary to take on Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright; Army veteran Earl Granville, who had House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's endorsement, finished just behind with 24%.

This seat in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area swung from 55-43 Obama to 53-44 Trump, but Cartwright turned back a self-funding opponent last cycle by a convincing 55-45 margin. However, the incumbent could be in considerably more danger with Trump at the top of the ballot. Bognet, for his part, has made sure to emulate the GOP leader by running racist ad after racist ad declaring that he'll punish China for having "sent us the Wuhan flu."

Bognet raised only about $300,000 from when he entered the race in January through mid-May, though he may attract considerably more attention now that he's the GOP nominee. Democrats are already preparing for an expensive race in any case: House Majority PAC has reserved $1.8 million in fall TV time in the Wilkes-Barre media market, which contains most of this seat, though Republicans have yet to book time. Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Lean Democratic.

PA-10: With 38,000 votes counted, state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale leads attorney Tom Brier 63-37 in the Democratic primary to take on GOP Rep. Scott Perry. The Associated Press has not yet called the race, and The Patriot-News reported Wednesday that there are still 40,000 ballots to be counted in Dauphin and Cumberland Counties, while most votes are in for DePasquale's York County base. (This district includes 80% of Cumberland County and all of Dauphin County.)

Brier is leading 66-35 in Dauphin County, while he has a bare majority in Cumberland County, so he'll likely pick up ground as more votes come in. Gov. Tom Wolf's recent executive order requires any mail ballots in Dauphin County that are received by June 9 to be counted as long as they were postmarked by Election Day, so we may not have a resolution here until next week.

Special Elections: Here's a recap of Tuesday's two Massachusetts special elections, including a Democratic flip:

MA-HD-3rd Bristol: Democrat Carol Doherty defeated Republican Kelly Dooner 57-43 to flip this seat for Team Blue. Though this district backed Hillary Clinton 52-42 and Barack Obama 58-40, former GOP state Rep. Shaunna O'Connell routinely won re-election, making Doherty's win a significant downballot shift for this district.

This victory continues Democrats' streak of flips in the Bay State; two weeks ago, Democrats flipped two state Senate districts that were similarly blue at the federal level.

MA-HD-37th Middlesex: Democrat Danilo Sena easily beat Republican Catherine Clark 74-26 to hold this seat for his party. Sena's win was large even for this strongly Democratic district, running well ahead of Clinton's 62-31 win and Obama's 57-41 win here.

The composition of this chamber is 127-31 (with one independent member) with one other seat vacant.