Category: JohnMcGuire

The Downballot: Freedom Caucus chair loses in a squeaker (transcript)

Posted on by The Downballot

The entire GOP from Trump on down was gunning for the head of the House Freedom Caucus on Tuesday night—and they succeeded, but only barely. We're recapping the latest primaries on this week's episode of "The Downballot," starting with Virginia Rep. Bob Good's near-escape from political doom. We've also got a compelling Democratic primary in NoVa, where a retiring congresswoman's blessing proved critical, and a brewing rumble in a swing district that will test a first-time Democratic candidate with immense fundraising prowess but limited experience on the campaign trail.

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This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

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

Nir: And I'm David Nir, political director of Daily Kos. "The Downballot" is a weekly podcast dedicated to the many elections that take place below the presidency, from Senate to city council. You can subscribe to "The Downballot" wherever you listen to podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode.

Beard: We've got a bit of an abbreviated episode this week, thanks to the Juneteenth holiday, but there was an election on Tuesday night, so we definitely wanted to hit some of the highlights from those primaries.

Nir: Absolutely. The main action was in Virginia, where we had a fascinating result in a race where Donald Trump had marked the chair of the Freedom Caucus for extinction, and it didn't go exactly as planned. We also had a Democratic primary in northern Virginia where an outgoing congresswoman's endorsement seemed to play a critical role in a swing district that Democrats are seeking to hold. We're going to also preview the general election a little bit.

And finally, an interesting race out in Oklahoma where a veteran member of the GOP establishment hung on by a wide margin despite fears that a self-funder could actually knock him out of office. There is a bunch to get through, so let's get rolling.

Beard: Well, we had another big primary night and we actually saw the first House incumbent lose to a challenger this cycle, though I don't think anyone thought it would play out quite the way that it did.

Nir: Yeah. And that includes us. So, there was no AP call on Wednesday afternoon at the time that we were recording this episode. But in Virginia's conservative 5th district, state Senator John McGuire currently leads House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good by about 300 votes, and he's almost certainly the winner here. Everything except an unknown number of provisional votes has been tallied. There could conceivably be a recount, but right now the margin is just a hair outside the threshold where the state would pay for one.

So, Good, if things stand as they are, would have to pay for one himself. And when a margin is 300 votes, it's exceedingly unlikely for a recount to change the outcome. But talk about exceedingly unlikely — for quite some time, Good had truly looked like a dead man walking. Just about every corner of the GOP had it out for him. Trump hated him because he'd endorsed Ron DeSantis.

Kevin McCarthy hated him because he'd voted to oust McCarthy as speaker. And a lot of his colleagues, his House GOP colleagues, hated him, too, because the Freedom Caucus is such a constant pain in the ass and it's the chief reason why Hakeem Jeffries is actually in charge of the House whenever there's actual legislation that actually needs to get passed.

And on top of that, McGuire and his allies outspent Good's side by almost two to one, and we're talking a lot of money. Team McGuire spent more than $9 million. And on top of that, McGuire released a poll in early May that had him up 14 points and Good's response was literally straight out of the loser-speak playbook. This is what his campaign said, and I quote, "The only poll that matters is the final count on election day." I mean, whatever you hear a campaign say that, Beard, that's just a total admission. You know that even their own polls show them losing.

Beard: Now, the interesting thing about that is that there was a report that McGuire was at an event where Good was, and McGuire was touting his poll lead of 14 points in his own poll. And then Good claimed that he had a poll showing himself up 25 points. So, very much like a one-upmanship, but then someone on Twitter went and looked through all of his campaign finance disclosures, and nowhere was there anything related to a survey or a poll or research or anything that looked like it could have been possibly a poll paid for by the Good Campaign. So, it seems entirely likely that Good never bothered to poll, pretended to claim that he had a poll with a 25-point lead, and saw that McGuire had a poll with him down 14, but then, in the end, he nearly won anyway after all of that.

Nir: I mean, talk about flying blind. Jacob Rubashkin from Inside Elections tweeted about that funny dispute between the two candidates, each claiming to have polls showing them up and said they were both wrong by double digits, which is super, super funny because here we are, a 300-vote margin, which truly no one seemed to see coming. And again, I say we're in that bucket, too. I was certain that Good was going to get completely stomped on.

Now, I'm sure it's cold comfort to Bob Good that he lost in a squeaker instead of a blowout. But if you step back a moment, it's really quite fascinating that even with Donald Trump and the entire GOP gunning for this guy, they just couldn't blow him out of the water. And you know what, I think Good could have won if he hadn't spent so much time supporting candidates who were challenging his other colleagues in the House.

It's really amazing. Good endorsed challengers — and we're talking scum of the earth, ultra far-right challengers — to Don Bacon, Carol Miller, Tony Gonzalez and William Timmons. These are all four sitting members of the House GOP Caucus and Good was like, "Yeah, hate you, hate you, hate you, hate you." Well, no wonder his colleagues hated him right back. And there might have even been more, those are just the ones that we counted.

And we even know that he schlepped over to West Virginia to campaign in person with Congressman Alex Mooney in his bid for Senate, even though Mooney was totally doomed in his primary against Jim Justice. And this was not Bob Good-doomed. This was for real doomed. So, Good clearly only has himself to blame. If he'd actually spent time in his district and he hadn't been such a colossal dick, he probably could have found 300 more votes.

Beard: Yeah, yeah. Though I think ultimately the problem with Bob Good is that also his popularity is in part because he's such a colossal dick, and he's made literally everyone in the Republican Party hate him. So, he gets to claim to be anti-establishment even though he is an incumbent congressman. So, it's one of those, you can't have one without the other situation. So, who knows what the ideal form of Bob Good is, just in reality, both of these people are pretty awful. This is not a situation where one of the Republicans was like a Lisa Murkowski-esque reasonable person. These are pretty awful people and we're just replacing one bad Republican congressman with another.

Nir: That is so funny, Beard, because maybe there are people who voted for Bob Good and said, "Oh, I like the fact that he doesn't spend time in the district, that he's going across the country stumping for these other jackasses."

Beard: Probably; it wouldn't surprise me.

Nir: Well, ultimately what I think matters a lot more is that for once in a really high-profile race, Trump's endorsement did not prove to be the Word of God. I hope local reporters really dig into this race to help us understand what happened because half of all GOP primary voters just said nuts to Trump, and we've really seldom seen that. This question is really difficult to answer. There are a thousand stories you could probably tell about why Good performed above expectations. And unfortunately, because he lost narrowly instead of winning narrowly, there will probably be less interest in trying to uncover what happened here.

Though I want to be really clear, Beard, like you were saying, unfortunately, because Good lost, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm very happy that he's gone. Only for the sake of election analysis do I wish we could learn more about this one. But it's really possible that there are lessons here to learn about how Trump can be almost successfully defied. And I think there are lessons I would like to know more about, but also the Republican Party could probably stand to learn them, too.

Beard: Yeah, and I think, if I had to guess, my number one point would be that the main issue that Trump had with Good, though there were a few others, is that Good endorsed DeSantis back during the presidential primary. While you can understand why that would make Trump very upset, I think any Republican primary voter is not going to be as upset by that as opposed to the other issues where people have upset Trump because they split with him on an issue or they criticize Trump or something like that, where you get that riled up of like, "Oh, I have to defend Trump and be with Trump," that all these Republican primary voters have for whatever reason.

Good, I think, was never really criticizing Trump. He had just endorsed DeSantis. He thought DeSantis was great; who knows why. But I think that is something that was probably seen as more forgivable by Republican primary voters than the other instances in which we've seen Trump go after people. Also, incumbency, like you said, there's a lot here going on. And it would be interesting, and hopefully, people dig more into it.

Nir: Well, there were a bunch of other interesting races in Virginia on Tuesday night. So, we are going to head up I-81 to Northern Virginia and talk about the Democratic primary in the open 10th district.

Beard: Yes, this is a district where Jennifer Wexton is retiring. There were a bunch of candidates, but state Senator Suhas Subramanyam defeated state Delegate Dan Helmer, 30-27, so a pretty narrow margin. Nobody got anywhere close to a majority, but there are no runoffs in Virginia. So, Subramanyam will be the Democratic nominee. He'll be a pretty heavy favorite against Republican Mike Clancy in the fall. This is a district that Joe Biden won by about 20 points in 2020. Obviously, Northern Virginia has really exploded both in votes and in Democratic margins, so he should be pretty set to go to Congress in 2025.

This really proved to be a compelling contest, primarily because Helmer had raised by far the most money and had some $5 million in outside help, but Subramanyam had something that I think was more important, which was the endorsement of Representative Wexton. Now, Wexton, as you may have heard, flipped the seat in 2018. It had been a long-time GOP stronghold, but as I mentioned, this area has been zooming left. It's a very affluent, well-educated suburban area.

Now, Wexton had been set for a long career, but tragically she had announced she was suffering from a serious neurodegenerative disease last year and said that she would be retiring. And about a month before the primary, she gave Subramanyam her blessing, which clearly certainly helped him towards the top.

Nir: Yeah. Helmer also got hit with a really ugly story in the final stretch of the race when several women who run a local Democratic organization accused him of engaging in inappropriate behavior with an unnamed member. Helmer denied the allegations and his rivals mostly didn't press them, but obviously, that's not the way you want to finish out a race.

Beard: Yeah. And it's impossible to know, but you could certainly imagine this having an effect on particularly voters who voted either at the very end of the period or on Election Day itself.

Nir: What I think is most interesting is Wexton's role in all of this because, yes, Subramanyam won with a 30% plurality, but it's quite interesting that in a race packed with a lot of pretty prominent local candidates, he managed to rise to the top of the pack despite getting outspent. And it shows that at least to some degree in Democratic primaries, the wishes of the party establishment still hold some pretty strong influence.

There's nothing on the Democratic side like a Trump endorsement. Even an endorsement from an Obama or a Biden or a Hillary Clinton is nowhere near as big. But Wexton as a local figure who was quite well-liked, I think, still really had an impact on this race in all likelihood. Obviously, we can't prove that for certain. And it just shows you, I think the different way that Democratic primaries tend to play out compared to the chaos we often see on the GOP side.

Beard: And compared to some races where we see the democratic establishment really line up for one candidate and then there might be a more left-wing challenger or something like that, outside of Wexton, a lot of the Democratic establishment was pretty dispersed because as you mentioned, there were a lot of candidates. Helmer, of course, came in second, but also Eileen Filler-Corn, who had been speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, Jennifer Boysko is also a state senator. So, there were other prominent names here who also got money that was raised. They also got outside spending. So, this was a race where there were a lot of different things flying in a lot of different directions, and I think in that case I suspect that a lot of voters saw Wexton's endorsement as a north star to direct them.

Nir: So, there's one more Virginia race that we want to discuss, and that's in the 7th District, which is just to the south of the 10th. That is a swingy open seat. And there, we had primaries on both sides that are worth mentioning. On the Democratic side, things played out exactly as expected. Former National Security Council advisor Eugene Vindman crushed the rest of the field. He beat his nearest opponent, former state delegate Elizabeth Guzman, by a lopsided 49 to 15 margin. Vindman, you might recall, came to prominence during Trump's first impeachment in 2019, thanks in key part to his identical twin brother, Alexander, who provided critical testimony about Trump's efforts to ask Ukraine to interfere in US elections on his behalf, that led the House of Representatives to impeach him.

That background instantly turned on the money printing machines. Grassroots, progressive donors love that profile and they donated just bonkers sums. Vindman has already raised $5 million, which is a wild amount for a primary, and he'll definitely raise a lot more. Several local elected officials also sought to run here. In a way, it was a little bit like the field in the 10th district except for this juggernaut presence of Vindman and his profile and his money. And as a result, you had this crabs in the bucket problem. There were so many of these reasonably prominent candidates, each with their own basis of support, that no single one of them was able to consolidate their status as the main non-Vindman option.

Beard: Yeah, I think the main difference here is while you saw a lot of groups play in VA-10, that was as a result of the early lack of a front-runner, which I think made a lot of groups feel like they could make a difference if they went in for their favorite candidate. While, here, because Vindman got in early and was able to raise a bunch of money early, you were looking at taking on this Goliath financially, and you don't want to be the one group to go in and spend $500,000 against somebody who's raised $5 million. So, there's a coordination problem. As you mentioned, also a crab bucket problem, where there were multiple candidates who were all competing there, and so they were often firing at each other to try to be the anti-Vindman candidate as opposed to firing at Vindman. So, as a result, a lot of outside groups didn't play here. Vindman was really able to dominate financially and really get a very comfortable victory.

Nir: It's so interesting you say that, Beard, because in a somewhat similar race that we discussed a while back, the primary for Maryland's open 3rd district, we had a somewhat parallel setup where former Capital Police officer Harry Dunn raised money like Vindman from a similar set of grassroots progressives, but, there, AIPAC decided, "Well, we have a candidate we really like in state Senator Sarah Elfreth." And they did go in big and spent millions to boost her. So, I guess it's also a combination of no one feeling particularly motivated to jump in and decide to elevate an alternative to Vindman. Though, I think the Dunn example shows that someone could have, it just would've taken a lot of effort and a lot of money.

Beard: Yeah, I think another key difference is obviously this is a very competitive general election campaign. So, in that way, Vindman's ability to raise massive amounts of money is very appealing to establishment groups that are looking to spend in the general election and may think, "Oh, we don't have to invest as much in the 7th district because Vindman will raise a ton of money, way outraise his opponent, and we can just check that off from a financial perspective." Whereas, in Maryland's 3rd District that you mentioned, or even in Virginia's 10th district, those are Democratic districts by in large where the primary decides the winner. So, whether or not the winner has a bunch of money after primary day doesn't matter as much. So I think that was a factor as well. There's just a lot of pressure to go with this great fundraising candidate in a competitive seat like this.

Nir: Well, we can definitely say that the general election is going to be a lot tougher than the primary. Biden carried this district by just seven points, and Republicans are really eager to take it back after losing it in 2018. It's open now because Democrat Abigail Spanberger opted to retire so that she could focus on her campaign for Governor. Virginia, of course, elects governors in odd-numbered years. So, that race is happening in 2025. Republicans nominated former Green Beret Derrick Anderson, who's a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan. He had the backing of the GOP establishment, including Speaker Mike Johnson. And he's raised good money, though nothing like Vindman, but I think we can be pretty certain that Republicans are going to spend heavily to try to reclaim this seat.

Beard: Yeah, I expect this to be one of the most competitive seats in November. And I think [Vindman] does have a huge positive, of course, in that he can raise a ton of money. That will not be a problem. He will definitely outspend the Republican candidate. The question, of course, is how good is he as a candidate outside of that, because he hasn't run for elective office before. This wasn't a campaign where he was building a lot of grassroots support at local parties or things that you think of that a typical state legislator or county commissioner would do to build up a campaign from that baseline and out for a congressional campaign. This was: raise a ton of money from across the country, spend it all, and get yourself the nomination that way. So, in the fall, he is going to have to do a lot more conventional general election campaigning.

Nir: Yeah. And the issue is going to be how well he holds up when he's facing a very aggressive campaign from Republicans who simply aren't going to hold back. Vindman got a lot of criticism from local Democrats for his apparently weak ties to the district and for allegedly not having been involved in local politics previously. The GOP attacks are going to be just a completely different level. They're going to be nasty, they're going to be hostile, there're going to be millions of dollars spent on him. There are going to be probably borderline false in a lot of cases. And he is going to have to deal with that. And there's some question about how well he's going to handle that pressure.

Just the other day, his campaign threatened the British newspaper The Independent with litigation for reporting about complaints from another Democratic candidate that Vindman has referred to himself as a colonel even though he retired from the Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Obviously, that's a fairly small thing, but this is a problem you can run into with inexperienced candidates. And the campaign's response was maybe thin-skinned. The Independent ultimately did publish this story. Of course, it wasn't deterred by these threats. And the story wasn't flattering to Vindman, so he's got to show that he's able to throw a punch and take a punch much better than this.

Beard: Yeah, and the issue here, as you said, is very narrow. He was a colonel at one point. He wasn't a colonel long enough, apparently, to retire as a colonel because that's a distinction within the Army. So, what worries me about it is, A, the best response would've been like, "Hey, we reviewed these relatively obscure complex regulations and we realized he should refer to himself as a retired lieutenant colonel, and we'll be doing that going forward." And I think nothing would've come of it because it's a very understandable thing to do. He was a colonel; it was just a length of time issue as he moved into retirement.

But the fact that they then threatened litigation, that they're insisting that he still is referred to as a retired colonel when by reading the article, it certainly seems like he should be referred to as a retired lieutenant colonel, it seems to me like a campaign that is not responsive to new facts. It is somebody who's being stubborn and insisting on something when the right thing to do, if you're like a campaign manager or somebody on the stuff to be like, "Hey, just be like, this was a confusing issue. We understand now that this is the right reference, and that's what we'll be using going forward." And instead threatening litigation is a little concerning to me.

Nir: Yeah, the good news is we still have quite a few months before election day, most voters haven't tuned in. The Vindman campaign has a chance to get things sorted, to get things right, and to hopefully prepare their candidate for what is definitely going to be a bruising race in a seat. Democrats really need to hold in order to have a good shot at taking back the House.

Beard: Now, we've got one race that we want to cover outside of Virginia, and that is over in Oklahoma.

Nir: So, we are heading out to Oklahoma's deep red 4th congressional district where longtime Republican representative Tom Cole was challenged by a self-funder named Paul Bondar. Bondar spent something like $5 million on the race, and he managed to totally freak out Cole and his allies, who responded by together spending almost $7 million to save him.

But in the end, it wasn't even close. It wasn't even distant. Cole won by a 65-26 margin. We're talking almost 40 points. And the reason we even mentioned this race, this total blowout, is because obviously someone had polling that spooked him. You do not spend $7 million simply as an insurance policy to hedge against some kind of black swan event.

Now, maybe the polling was accurate. At the time, it was conducted earlier in the race, but the spending for Cole never let up through the end of the race. So, his allies were still protecting him pretty much until the last minute. And I mentioned all this because it shows just how hard it can be to poll a race, especially so in a primary. Polling should rarely be taken as dispositive... I'm not going to praise someone like Tom Cole, but just to be clear, I'm not saying that his team and his allies did anything wrong in response to whatever numbers they saw. Just that it's hard to get numbers that are right. The savvy elections analyst is always the humble one.

Beard: And particularly in Republican primaries, we've seen them be very volatile. We've seen challengers who spend very, very little money get a significant percentage of the vote. I believe it was Iowa's 1st district where we talked about that Republican primary, where Mariannette Miller-Meeks was expected to have an easy sail to victory in her primary. She ended up winning only 56-44 against a super underfunded opponent.

And so if I'm a Republican congressman, particularly one like Tom Cole, who is pretty associated with the establishment — he is not a Freedom Caucus type — I would be scared of any and all challengers, particularly one spending $5 million. Obviously, in this case, Bondar was not the guy. He got embarrassed by spending that $5 million and getting 26% of the vote, but you never know. And so while I would say if you had a poll that showed you 40 points up, you would probably feel pretty good. Even if you had a poll showing you 15 or 20 points up, it is probably worth it to spend that $7 million and make sure you're going back to Congress.

Nir: Yeah, that is absolutely true. And Bondar was, in a lot of ways, a clown of a candidate. He had just moved to Oklahoma. It's not even clear if he really truly had moved to Oklahoma. He voted earlier this year in the Texas primaries in March. He says he is going to run again in 2026. I don't know, 65% ordinarily for a member of Congress in a primary is not an amazing number. But as you said, Cole being such a GOP establishment figure — once upon a time he was even head of the NRCC — that's actually not a terrible showing. So, I actually wonder if he is going to be vulnerable in the future. We'll just have to see.

Beard: Bondar, I certainly think we'll hear from again. Will we hear from him in Oklahoma's 4th district? Who knows? He could pop up anywhere in the country, and it would not shock me.

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

Morning Digest: Freedom Caucus chief loses—just barely—after Trump sought his ouster

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

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Daily Kos will be off Wednesday in observance of Juneteenth, so there will be no Morning Digest on Thursday. It will return on Friday.

Leading Off

● VA-05: State Sen. John McGuire defeated House Freedom Caucus chair Bob Good by the narrowest of margins in Tuesday's Republican primary for Virginia's conservative 5th District, a shockingly close loss—but cold comfort—for an incumbent whose congressional career had looked doomed for quite some time.

The AP had not called the race when we put the Digest to bed, though McGuire declared victory on election night. Good, meanwhile, insisted that he would work to "ensure all the votes are properly counted in the coming days." An unknown number of provisional ballots remain to be tallied, and a recount is possible. However, with McGuire ahead by about 300 votes, a change in the lead would be very unlikely.

McGuire's ultra-tight victory came after Good spent his second and final term infuriating just about every power player in the party, including Donald Trump, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and most of his colleagues. 

The congressman's underdog status seemed cemented when, in early May, McGuire released an internal poll that showed him ahead 45-31. Good's team offered the feeblest of responses: "The only poll that matters is the final count on Election Day," his campaign said in a statement, all but admitting they had no better numbers to counter with.

Trump himself tried to deliver the final blow a short time later by endorsing McGuire. He specifically sought revenge for Good's decision to support Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the presidential primary, a move that had put the Virginian crossways with Trump and his legions of adherents.

Allies of McCarthy also worked to punish Good for joining Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz's successful effort to terminate McCarthy's speakership. Other major donors were eager to simply extricate a troublesome rebel from the House. AdImpact says that, all told, a hefty $9 million was spent on ads that either sought to boost McGuire or tear down Good.

But Good's camp, which included the hardline Club for Growth and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's Protect Freedom PAC, never gave up. Collectively, they spent more than $5 million on the airwaves to try to keep him in office.

The final stretch of the race devolved into warring assertions about internal polling, with both sides claiming to be well ahead. But while Good never produced any data of his own, McGuire's arguments were still based on his original poll, by now six weeks old.

As Inside Elections' Jacob Rubashkin wryly pointed out, both candidates were "wrong by double digits." But even if his final margin of victory was far skinnier than he anticipated, McGuire got to enjoy the last laugh.

Good's loss, as close as it was, makes him only the second member of Congress from either party to lose renomination anywhere in the country this cycle. But while Alabama Rep. Jerry Carl lost to fellow incumbent Barry Moore in March following a round of court-ordered redistricting, Good is the first representative to lose to a challenger.

Good, who spent the last several months backing unsuccessful primary campaigns against several of his colleagues, will at least feel a pang of recognition at his fate, since he earned his ticket to Capitol Hill four years ago by defeating a Republican congressman. Good decided to take on freshman Rep. Denver Riggleman after the incumbent infuriated hardliners by officiating a same-sex wedding between two of his former campaign volunteers.

The GOP nomination in 2020 was decided not in a primary but at a convention, which just so happened to take place at Good’s own church. Good, an elected official in Campbell County, also benefited from his post as an athletics official at Liberty University, which has long been one of the Christian right's most prominent institutions and is located in the district.

Riggleman fought back with endorsements from Trump and Jerry Falwell Jr. (who would resign in disgrace as Liberty's president two months later), but it wasn't enough. The conclave of some 2,500 delegates favored Good 58-42, though he had a tougher time that fall, managing a surprisingly small 52-47 win over Democrat Cameron Webb in an expensive contest.

(McGuire, who was a member of the state House at the time, lost a convention for the GOP nomination in the old 7th District the following month to fellow Del. Nick Freitas, who in turn lost to Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger.)

Good had no trouble winning renomination at the Republican convention in 2022 and handily prevailed in the general election. But he faced a very different battle this time around. A law passed in 2021 required that all absentee voters have the chance to take part in nomination contests, a policy that made it difficult for political parties in Virginia to hold conventions rather than primaries. That shift may have made all the difference.

But while many of Good's colleagues will be overjoyed to see McGuire replace him in the 5th District, which favored Trump 53-45 in 2020, Riggleman may not be entirely enjoying the schadenfreude.

"McGuire might be more dangerous than Bob Good," Riggleman tweeted in March as he shared a picture of the challenger at the Jan. 6 Trump rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol. "McGuire coming at Bob from the RIGHT— a panting sycophant who will do anything to win," Riggleman continued. "A box of hammers with a love of power." The former congressman went on to write last month, "Bob Good could be worst member—McGuire might be worse!"

Election Recaps

● GA-03 (R): Brian Jack, a former aide to Donald Trump, outpaced former state Sen. Mike Dugan 63-37 in the Republican runoff to replace retiring GOP Rep. Drew Ferguson. Jack, who benefited from his old boss' endorsement and spending from a group backed by the cryptocurrency industry, should have no trouble in the general election for this dark red constituency in Atlanta's southwestern exurbs.

● OK-04 (R): Rep. Tom Cole easily fended off businessman Paul Bondar 65-26 in an unexpectedly expensive primary for this safely red seat in southern Oklahoma. 

Bondar poured over $5 million of his own money into ads attacking Cole, who chairs the powerful appropriations chairman, as an insider who "voted with Democrats for billions in new deficit spending." But the incumbent and his allies spent millions on their own messaging reminding viewers both that Cole had Donald Trump's support and that Bondar had only recently moved to Oklahoma from Texas.

● VA-Sen (R): Navy veteran Hung Cao beat Scott Parkinson, a former official at the Club for Growth, 62-11 in the Republican primary to take on Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine. Two years ago, Cao held Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton to a modest 53-47 victory in the 10th District, but he'll face a far tougher battle against Kaine in a race that neither national party is treating as competitive.

● VA-02 (D): Navy veteran Missy Cotter Smasal defeated attorney Jake Denton 70-30 for the right to take on freshman GOP Rep. Jen Kiggans in a swing district based in Virginia Beach. Smasal, who lost a competitive race for the state Senate in 2019, had the support of the DCCC and all six members of Virginia's Democratic House delegation for her campaign against Kiggans.

● VA-07 (D & R): Former National Security Council adviser Eugene Vindman and Green Beret veteran Derrick Anderson respectively won the Democratic and Republican primaries for Virginia's competitive 7th District based in the southern exurbs of Washington, D.C. The two will face off this fall to succeed Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who decided not to seek reelection so she could focus on her 2025 bid for governor, in a constituency that Joe Biden carried 53-46.

Vindman decisively outpaced his nearest opponent, former Del. Elizabeth Guzman, by a 49-15 margin in a field that also included three sitting local elected officials. The frontrunner, who was a key figure in Donald Trump's first impeachment in 2019, has proven to be one of the strongest House fundraisers in the nation.

Anderson, for his part, defeated former Navy SEAL Cameron Hamilton 46-37 in an expensive race. Anderson had the backing of House Speaker Mike Johnson and his allies, while Rand Paul's network spent big for Hamilton.

● VA-10 (D & R): State Sen. Suhas Subramanyam edged out Del. Dan Helmer 30-27 in the 12-way Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Jennifer Wexton in Northern Virginia 10th District, which favored Joe Biden 58-40 four years ago. Subramanyam's election would make him both Virginia's first Indian American and Hindu member of Congress.

Citing worsening symptoms of a serious neurodegenerative disease, Wexton unexpectedly announced her retirement last year while serving her third term. But the endorsement she gave to Subramanyam was likely a key reason he prevailed over Helmer, who outraised the rest of the field and benefited from over $5 million in outside spending.

Helmer also drew ugly headlines during the final week of the campaign after four current and former officials in the Loudoun County Democratic Committee put out a statement accusing him of engaging in "inappropriate behavior" with an unnamed committee member in 2018. Helmer denied the allegations.

Subramanyam will face attorney Mike Clancy, who defeated 2020 GOP nominee Aliscia Andrews 64-21. However, while Republicans have talked about putting this once competitive seat back in play, it remains to be seen whether they'll devote the hefty resources needed to accomplish this herculean effort.

House

● AK-AL, FL-08, UT-02: Donald Trump on Monday evening endorsed three candidates in contested House primaries: Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom for Alaska's at-large seat; former state Senate President Mike Haridopolos in Florida's 8th District; and Rep. Celeste Maloy in Utah's 2nd District.

Dahlstrom faces GOP businessman Nick Begich and Democratic incumbent Mary Peltola in the Aug. 20 top-four primary, and none of them should have trouble securing a spot in the instant-runoff general election. (The fourth spot is all but certain to be claimed by one of the nine minor candidates who are also running.) Begich, however, has promised to drop out if Dahlstrom outpaces him this summer, a move that would delight party leaders who view him as a weak candidate and want to avoid infighting.

Trump is one of them, and he wrote Monday that Begich, who is the rare Republican member of Alaska's most prominent Democratic family, "has Democrat tendencies." Trump continued that "most importantly, he refused to get out of this Race last time, which caused the Republicans to lose this important seat to Mary Peltola."

Haridopolos, meanwhile, already appeared to be on a glide path to replace GOP Rep. Bill Posey, who timed his April retirement announcement so that Haridopolos could avoid serious opposition. The former state Senate leader only faces a pair of unheralded primary foes in this conservative seat in the Cape Canaveral area, and he'll be even harder to beat with Trump's blessing.

Maloy, finally, is fighting for renomination next week against Colby Jenkins, an Army Reserve colonel who has far-right Sen. Mike Lee's endorsement, in a safely red constituency based in southwestern Utah. Maloy, though, has the backing of all three of her colleagues in the state's all-GOP delegation. She also used this week to unveil an ad starring Gov. Spencer Cox, who is one of the party's few remaining Trump critics who still holds a prominent office.

Trump's new endorsements came hours before NOTUS' Reese Gorman published a story detailing the far-right Freedom Caucus' frustration with Trump's picks in contested primaries this cycle, including his drive to oust chair Bob Good in Virginia this week. The acrimony is only likely to intensify because the Freedom Caucus is backing both Begich and Jenkins.

Unsurprisingly, the House GOP leadership is not at all sympathetic. "The real story here is that these guys throw a temper tantrum every time Trump endorses against their preferred candidate," an unnamed senior aide told Gorman, "where most of the time their preferred candidate is a total shitbag."

● AZ-01: Businessman Andrei Cherny this week picked up an endorsement from Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, whose city is home to just over 60% of the 1st District's residents, for the July 30 Democratic primary to face GOP Rep. David Schweikert.

● CO-03: The Colorado Sun reports that both parties have become heavily involved in next week's GOP primary for Colorado's open 3rd District as Republicans try to counter the Democrats' attempts to pick their preferred opponent. The candidate at the center of all this is former state Rep. Ron Hanks, a far-right election denier whom both sides agree would be a weak GOP nominee for this 53-45 Trump district.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, the main super PAC aligned with House GOP leadership, is spending at least $325,000 on new TV and radio ads attacking Hanks. The TV spot claims Hanks is insufficiently pro-Trump, arguing that Democrats are supporting him to "elect another liberal to Congress" after the Democratic super PAC Rocky Mountain Values has spent $400,000 this month on ads to aid Hanks or attack a rival. (Democrats previously ran ads last cycle to elevate Hanks in his unsuccessful 2022 Senate primary bid.)

Meanwhile, 2022 Democratic nominee Adam Frisch has put at least $100,000 behind a new TV commercial to deter Republicans from nominating a more formidable candidate, attorney Jeff Hurd. Frisch's spot lambastes Hurd for refusing to clarify his positions on abortion, immigration, and whether he supports Trump. The ad continues, "All we really do know about Jeff Hurd is he's financed by out-of-state corporate money."

Hurd is also taking fire from a Republican rival, financial adviser Russ Andrews, who has spent at least $70,000 on ads opposing him. No copy of Andrews' commercial is available yet, but The Sun's description notes it goes after Hurd for inadequate fealty to Trump and being an "Ivy League Lawyer."

Republican chances of holding this district appeared to improve significantly earlier this cycle when far-right Republican incumbent Lauren Boebert switched to run in the redder 4th District after only beating Frisch by a razor-thin margin in the 3rd last cycle. However, Frisch had already taken advantage of his now-former opponent's national notoriety by raising millions of dollars, funding he's now deploying to ensure that Republicans select another deeply flawed nominee.

● FL-01: The House Ethics Committee announced Tuesday that it was continuing to review allegations that Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz had engaged in a wide variety of wrongdoing, including "sexual misconduct and illicit drug use," accepting "improper gifts," awarding "special privileges and favors" to associates, and obstructing investigations into his alleged misdeeds.

The Committee, however, said it was no longer probing a variety of other accusations, including claims that Gaetz had shared "inappropriate" videos on the floor of the House, put campaign funds to personal use, and accepted a bribe.

The panel released its statement one day after Gaetz tweeted that the Committee was "now opening new frivolous investigations" into the congressman despite supposedly having "closed four probes into me."

The Committee disputed that characterization, saying that its current investigation is the same one that had already been underway. It also said it experienced "difficulty in obtaining relevant information from Representative Gaetz and others."

The Committee initially deferred its inquiry after the Justice Department began its own investigation into Gaetz in 2021 regarding the alleged sex trafficking of a minor and other accusations, but that probe ended last year without charges. The Ethics Committee says that it later "reauthorized its investigation after DOJ withdrew its deferral request."

● IL-17: Politico has obtained a recent 1892 Polling internal conducted for the NRCC and former state Circuit Judge Joe McGraw, which finds McGraw trailing 44-35 against freshman Democratic Rep. Eric Sorensen with 20% undecided. The sample also shows Biden leading Trump just 39-38 in a district Biden carried 53-45 in 2020.

This is the first publicly available survey of the race for Illinois' 17th District, which includes the communities of Rockford and Peoria, since McGraw won the Republican nomination in March.

● NY-16: Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman's allies at Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party are spending $900,000 on a TV ad to support the incumbent in next week's primary against Westchester County Executive George Latimer, who has been the beneficiary of most of the outside spending.

First reported by Politico, the commercial takes "Republican megadonors" to task for contributing millions for ads to "smear" Bowman and elevate Latimer, citing news stories to portray the challenger as opposed to key parts of Joe Biden's agenda. The move comes after the hawkish pro-Israel group AIPAC has spent weeks running spots arguing that Bowman is the one who has undermined Biden, and its newest spot once again criticizes the incumbent for having "voted against President Biden's debt limit deal."

However, data from AdImpact underscores the lopsided advantage that Latimer's side enjoys in blasting out its preferred narrative. AIPAC has deployed $14 million on Latimer's behalf, and the pro-crypto group Fairshake has dropped another $2 million. By contrast, Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party have spent only $1.5 million to aid Bowman.

● UT-03: Sen. Mike Lee endorsed state Sen. Mike Kennedy on Monday ahead of next week's five-way Republican primary to replace Rep. John Curtis, who is giving up the 3rd District to campaign to succeed Mitt Romney in Utah's other Senate seat. Kennedy, who briefly attracted national prominence in 2018 by taking on Romney, is a hardliner who has successfully pushed laws like a ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

But while Kennedy won an April party convention dominated by far-right delegates, he's been decisively outspent by a pair of self-funding businessmen who are each hoping to replace Curtis. One of those contenders is Case Lawrence, a former CEO of the trampoline park chain Sky Zone who threw down almost $2.5 million of his own money through June 5. The other is Roosevelt Mayor Rod Bird, who self-funded about $1 million.

The race also includes state Auditor John Dougall, who will be listed on the ballot with his nickname "Frugal." Dougall, who is the only statewide elected official in the contest, has paid for billboards identifying him as "MAINSTREAM NOT MAGA," which is an unusual pitch for today's GOP. The Salt Lake Tribune's Robert Gehrke writes that the auditor is the one contender "to publicly criticize and disavow Trump."

Rounding out the field is attorney Stewart Peay, who has Romney's endorsement. (Peay's wife, Misha, is a niece of Romney's wife, Ann.) Peay, who has dodged questions about whether he backs his party's master, has argued he'd emulate one of his MAGA's prominent GOP critics, Gov. Spencer Cox. "I believe in the civility we’ve seen from Cox, the pragmatism you see from John Curtis, and the bipartisanship you see from Mitt Romney," he told the Deseret News.

There has been no outside spending in this contest, nor have we seen any polls. Whoever wins a plurality in next week's GOP primary should have no trouble in the fall for a safely red constituency based in the Provo area, southeastern Salt Lake City, and rural southeastern Utah.

● House: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced its first fall TV ad reservations of the 2024 election cycle on Tuesday, with bookings totaling $16.4 million across 15 different media markets. The committee also said it had reserved $12 million for digital advertising in 21 different states that "represent the majority of the House battlefield."

We've added these new television reservations to our continually updated tracker, which also shows which districts the committee likely plans to target. (As yet, we've seen no surprises.) While the DCCC's initial foray is considerably smaller than the $146 million in TV reservations its allies at the House Majority PAC announced in April, this list will grow as new bookings are announced. (In 2022, the D-Trip spent almost $100 million on 45 different races.)

The committee's move also means that three of the four largest outside groups involved in House races have announced their first round of reservations this year. Early last month, the pro-GOP Congressional Leadership Fund said it had booked $141 million in airtime. The National Republican Congressional Committee, however, has yet to make an appearance.

Poll Pile

  • NC-Gov: Spry Strategies (R): Mark Robinson (R): 43, Josh Stein (D): 39 (48-44 Trump in two-way, 45-37 Trump with third-party candidates)
  • AZ-06: Public Opinion Strategies for Juan Ciscomani: Juan Ciscomani (R-inc): 50, Kirsten Engel (D): 39 (49-45 Trump)

Ad Roundup

Campaign Action

Morning Digest: Trump endorses rival to Freedom Caucus chief who schlepped to his trial

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

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Leading Off

● VA-05: Donald Trump delivered his long-awaited endorsement on Tuesday to state Sen. John McGuire's campaign to unseat Rep. Bob Good, who chairs the nihilistic Freedom Caucus, in the June 18 Republican primary for Virginia's conservative 5th District.

Trump used a post on Truth Social, which included an obligatory and unfunny pun on the incumbent's name, to make it plain he's out to punish Good for supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the presidential primary.

"Bob Good is BAD FOR VIRGINIA, AND BAD FOR THE USA," Trump wrote. "He turned his back on our incredible movement, and was constantly attacking and fighting me until recently, when he gave a warm and 'loving' Endorsement – But really, it was too late. The damage had been done."

Good's recent trek to New York City to attend Trump's hush money trial doesn't seem to have its intended effect of placating the GOP's overlord, though his hopes for a third term already looked to be in dire shape even before Trump publicly took sides. (Awkwardly, McGuire showed up for the trial on the same day.) A McGuire internal poll conducted at the beginning of the month showed him toppling the incumbent 45-31, and Good has yet to release contrary numbers.

While the congressman's decision a year ago to back DeSantis' already shaky White House bid played a key role in putting him in this unenviable position―and in getting him ejected from a "Trump store" (these apparently exist)―Trump isn't the only powerful Republican he's pissed off. 

Good was one of eight House Republicans who voted to end Kevin McCarthy's speakership in October, and McCarthy's well-funded political network is making central Virginia a key stop on its revenge tour. MAGA world and McCarthy's loyalists often don't align behind the same candidates―Trump days ago endorsed the Floridian who led the charge against McCarthy, Rep. Matt Gaetz―but Good managed to give both factions a reason to want him gone.

Antipathy for the sophomore lawmaker runs deeper still: Good, who has endorsed several far-right primary challenges to his own colleagues, has also alienated major donors who are tired of the Freedom Caucus' antics. 

All of this helps explain why, according to data from the FEC, super PACs have spent more than $3 million attacking Good and promoting McGuire. There's likely even more in store as American Patriots PAC, which is funded by megadonors Ken Griffin and Paul Singer, so far has only used two-thirds of the $3 million in ad time that Bloomberg reported that it reserved early this month.

Good, though, still has some well-heeled allies who are opening their wallets to help him, to the tune of more than $2 million so far. Most of that has come from two groups: Conservative Outsider PAC, which is an affiliate of the Club for Growth, and Protect Freedom PAC, a super PAC aligned with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

Paul himself has been starring in the latter's ads, urging Virginians to renominate "a true defender of liberty." But as Kentucky's junior senator learned the hard way in 2016, the man who just backed McGuire has far more pull with GOP primary voters than Paul does.

Election Recaps

● TX-12 (R): State Rep. Craig Goldman defeated businessman John O'Shea 63-37 in Tuesday's runoff to succeed retiring Rep. Kay Granger. Goldman had the backing of Granger, Gov. Greg Abbott, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, as well as a huge financial advantage over O'Shea. Attorney General Ken Paxton supported his ally O'Shea over Goldman, who voted to impeach Paxton for corruption a year ago, but it wasn't enough.

Donald Trump carried Texas' 12th District, which is based in western Fort Worth and its suburbs, 58-40 in 2020, so Goldman is now on a glide path to Congress. The Republican nominee would be the second Jewish person to represent Texas in Congress after Martin Frost, a Democrat who lost to Republican colleague Pete Sessions in 2004 after the GOP rearranged his Dallas-area seat as part of the infamous "DeLaymander."

● TX-23 (R): Rep. Tony Gonzales scraped by far-right challenger Brandon Herrera 50.7-49.3 to secure renomination in the 23rd District. Gonzales will be favored in the fall against Democratic businessman Santos Limon in a sprawling west Texas seat that Trump took 53-46 four years ago.

While Herrera prevented Gonzales from winning outright in March by holding him to a 45-25 edge, the incumbent and his allies used their massive financial advantage to push their preferred narrative about Herrera, whom Gonzales dubbed "a known neo-Nazi." Gonzales' side also highlighted Herrera's mockery of the Holocaust, veteran suicide, and even Barron Trump, and pointed out that he only relocated to Texas from North Carolina a few years ago.

The Freedom Caucus, including chair Bob Good of Virginia, still held out hope that it could rid itself of Gonzales, whom the Texas GOP censured a year ago. Texas Rep. Chip Roy, who represents the neighboring 21st District, also backed Herrera on Tuesday morning, but as tight as the race was, his belated endorsement wasn't enough to change the outcome.

● TX-28 (R): Navy veteran Jay Furman defeated businessman Lazaro Garza 65-35 in the GOP runoff to take on Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, who was indicted on corruption charges earlier this month.

Neither Republican has raised much money, but the GOP is hoping that Cuellar's legal problems will give them an opening in the 28th District, which includes Laredo and the eastern San Antonio suburbs. Joe Biden carried this constituency 53-46 in 2020, but the area has been trending to the right.

● TX State House (R): State House Speaker Dade Phelan held off former Orange County Republican Party chair David Covey after an exceptionally expensive GOP primary runoff. With all votes counted, Phelan survived by a margin of 50.7 to 49.3—a difference of just 366 votes.

The victory represented an upset win for Phelan, who trailed Covey 46-43 in the first round of voting for his dark red East Texas seat, which is numbered the 21st District. It's unusual for a top legislative leader to be the underdog for renomination, but Phelan had a vast array of far-right forces arrayed against him.

Covey had the support of Paxton and Donald Trump, who were looking to punish Phelan for supporting Paxton's impeachment last year, as well as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who leads the state Senate. Gov. Greg Abbott, however, remained conspicuously neutral even as he targeted other lawmakers who successfully blocked his plan to use taxpayer money to pay for private schools. (We'll have more on those races in the next Digest, though Phelan was one of just two House GOP incumbents to prevail Thursday; six others lost.)

The speaker fought back by raising money with the help of prominent Republicans from yesteryear like former Gov. Rick Perry, former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Karl Rove, who was one of the most powerful GOP operatives in the country during George W. Bush's administration. The Texas Tribune labeled this effort the "last stand for the Republican Party’s business-minded establishment," and it proved just enough to secure a rare major win over the party's current leadership.

Senate

● MI-Sen, MI-08, MI-10: The Michigan Bureau of Elections on Friday recommended that the Board of State Canvassers disqualify nine congressional candidates from the Aug. 6 primary ballot. The bipartisan Board is scheduled to decide the fates of these candidates, most of whom face trouble for failing to file a sufficient number of signatures, on May 31.

The Bureau, though, gave the thumbs up to the three main Republicans running for the state's open Senate seat: former Reps. Mike Rogers and Justin Amash and wealthy businessman Sandy Pensler. Both the DSCC and the state Democratic Party earlier this month asked the Canvassers Board to look into "potential fraud in the nominating petitions," but officials determined that all three filed enough signatures to make the ballot.

Rogers remains the favorite to advance to the general election, but allies of the leading Democratic candidate, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, insist he still needs to watch his back in the primary. A new Public Policy Polling survey for the Voter Protection Project shows Rogers leading Pensler 30-12, with Amash at 11%. The group's release argues that Pensler can close the gap as more voters learn about him.

However, not all Senate hopefuls were quite so lucky. The Bureau concluded that Democrat Nasser Beydoun, a former leader of the American Arab Chamber of Commerce who is waging a longshot bid for Senate, should be disqualified because he listed a post office box on his petition sheets when state law requires a street address.

Beydoun responded, "We're going to fight it because it's suppressing the vote on a technicality." His involuntary departure would leave Slotkin and actor Hill Harper as the only Democrats on the August ballot.

Further down the ballot, the most prominent name on the Bureau's list of candidates it recommended for disqualification belongs to Wayne State University Board of Governors member Anil Kumar, a self-funder who ended March with a massive cash on hand advantage in the Democratic primary for the right to take on GOP Rep. John James in the 10th District.

The Bureau determined that Kumar and another Democrat, social justice activist Rhonda Powell, both fell short of signature requirements, but Kumar says he plans to contest the finding.

Bureau staff made the same determination about state Board of Education member Nikki Snyder, a Republican who is trying to flip the competitive 8th District. Snyder was also booted from the ballot over signature issues in 2020 during a prior bid for the House. This time, Snyder's team alleges that they fell victim to fraud from a consultant.

● NJ-Sen: The New Jersey Globe reports that indicted Sen. Bob Menendez is collecting signatures for a potential bid as an independent, an option Menendez said he was keeping open in March when he announced he wouldn't campaign in the June 4 Democratic primary.

Menendez, whose corruption trial is still underway, has until the day of next month's primary to submit 800 valid signatures. Any independent who makes the ballot has until Aug. 16 to withdraw their name.

● VA-Sen: Navy veteran Hung Cao picked up Donald Trump's endorsement on Monday for the June 18 GOP primary to take on Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine. Cao faces four intra-party opponents, including former Club for Growth official Scott Parkinson, ahead of what would be a difficult general election to unseat Kaine.

Governors

● ND-Gov, ND-AL: The media outlet North Dakota News Cooperative has commissioned a survey from the GOP firm WPA Intelligence that shows Rep. Kelly Armstrong far ahead in the June 11 GOP primary for governor, but two Republicans are locked in a more competitive race to fill his House seat.

WPA finds Armstrong outpacing Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller 57-19 in the contest to replace retiring Gov. Doug Burgum, who supports Miller. An early May internal from the Democratic firm DFM Research for the labor group North Dakota United showed Armstrong ahead by an almost identical 56-18 spread, while an Armstrong internal from around that same time gave him an even larger advantage. No one has released any other polls of this contest.

But WPA's House portion has Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak leading former state Rep. Rick Becker by a much tighter 32-25 margin, with 28% undecided. Former Miss America Cara Mund and former State Department official Alex Balazs are well behind, though, with 10% and 5%, respectively.

DFM previously placed Becker ahead of Fedorchak 29-26, with Mund at 14%. No one has released any other polls of the contest to represent this dark red seat in the House. Fedorchak sports endorsements from Burgum and other prominent local Republicans like Sen. John Hoeven, while the far-right Freedom Caucus is pulling for Becker.

● WA-Gov: A new Elway Research survey for KCTS-TV finds Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson and former GOP Rep. Dave Reichert both poised to advance out of the Aug. 6 top-two primary, a matchup that almost everyone in Washington politics has expected for some time. 

Ferguson leads with 22% while Reichert outpaces Democratic state Sen. Mark Mullet 20-6 for second. Another 5% opt for a different Republican, far-right Marine veteran Semi Bird, while 47% of respondents are uncommitted. This release did not include general election numbers.

House

● CO-05: The Colorado Sun reports that a Republican super PAC is spending almost $400,000 on an ad campaign to stop state GOP chair Dave Williams in the June 28 primary for Colorado's 5th District. 

The spot, from America Leads Action, argues that, unlike Donald Trump, Williams doesn't "believe in Made in America." The ad goes on to accuse the candidate's business interests of putting China "ahead of you." It does not mention that Trump is supporting Williams in the contest to replace retiring Rep. Doug Lamborn.

ALA, which is funded by North Carolina businessman Jay Faison and Walmart heir Rob Walton, has devoted itself to stopping hardline candidates who could pose a headache for the House GOP leadership. The party Williams leads has been causing exactly the sort of trouble ALA wants to stamp out, recently endorsing former state Rep. Janak Joshi's longshot bid for the competitive 8th District rather than coalescing around the national party favorite, state Rep. Gabe Evans.  

ALA's foray comes after Americans for Prosperity deployed more than $350,000 to promote conservative radio host Jeff Crank, who has the support of Lamborn and Speaker Mike Johnson. There has been no other outside spending here so far.

But AFP, which unsuccessfully tried to help Nikki Haley win the GOP presidential nomination, may do its candidate more harm than good. Trump wrote in March that he was backing Williams because his "opponent is Endorsed, and works closely with, Americans for Chinese Prosperity, a Charles Koch Disaster."

● NH-02: Wealthy investor Bill Hamlen still won't "confirm on the record" whether he's seeking the GOP nod for New Hampshire's open 2nd District, reports the NH Journal's Evan Lips, even though he's appeared at campaign events and filed paperwork with the FEC last month.

But even Hamlen's efforts at campaigning have been odd, to say the least: Lips notes that his most recent appearance was at a Republican town committee event in the wrong congressional district. (New Hampshire has only two.) "Hamlen's entire candidacy has inspired a lot of head scratching inside state GOP circles," says Lips, who notes that Hamlen voted in the state's Democratic primary for president earlier this year.

The one notable Republican who so far is actually willing to say he's seeking the seat that Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster is leaving behind is businessman Vikram Mansharamani, who took a distant fourth place in last cycle's U.S. Senate primary. 

There are, however, several assorted randos who have put their names forward. These include a former Colorado Libertarian Party chair who took third in the 2022 primary for the 2nd District and a convicted Jan. 6 rioter who also tried to run against Kuster two years ago but struggled on account of being in jail.

● NJ-10: Recordings made public in connection with a new lawsuit feature Linden Mayor Derek Armstead making antisemitic comments about Hasidic Jews, claiming that his community was at risk of "being taken over by guys with big hats and curls."

The audio, which was obtained by NJ.com's Ted Sherman, was recorded by Paul Oliveira, a former Linden school official who filed a lawsuit last week alleging that Armstead and other city leaders had sought to "deliberately exclude Jews" from obtaining employment with the local school district.

Armstead, who is seeking the Democratic nomination in the upcoming special election for New Jersey's vacant 10th Congressional District, also called Newark "a hellhole over there from top to bottom" and warned that Linden was headed for the same fate if it did not exercise "full and complete control of who gets hired." (Newark makes up a quarter of the 10th District.)

Armstead called Oliveira's accusations "a whole bunch of hogwash" and said of the recordings, "I'm glad he has me on tape. … Nobody respects someone who comes into a room and starts tape-recording people."

● VA-07, VA-10: Protect Progress, a super PAC supported by the cryptocurrency industry, is spending heavily to air ads boosting two Democrats seeking open House seats in Virginia.

The group is putting almost $900,000 behind a spot in the 10th District that praises Del. Dan Helmer for supporting gun safety laws and reproductive rights. It also mentions his recent endorsement from the Washington Post. The PAC is spending a similar sum to elevate former National Security Council adviser Eugene Vindman in the 7th District, but no copy of the ad appears to be available online.

Poll Pile

  • MI-Sen: Mitchell Research for MIRS: Elissa Slotkin (D): 40, Mike Rogers (R): 36 (49-47 Trump in two-way, 46-45 Trump with third-party candidates) (March: 37-37 Senate tie)

  • NV-Sen: The Tyson Group (R) for Breaking Battlegrounds: Jacky Rosen (D-inc): 47, Sam Brown (R): 33 (47-44 Trump in two-way, 40-37 Trump with third-party candidates)

Ad Roundup

Morning Digest: A Georgia justice could be the first to lose in over a century

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

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Leading Off

● GA Supreme Court: If former Democratic Rep. John Barrow wins his bid for the Georgia Supreme Court later this month, he'll accomplish something no one in the state has managed in over 100 years: unseating an incumbent justice.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, such an event hasn't happened since Richard Russell Sr. beat Chief Justice William Fish back in 1922. (Russell was the father and namesake of the segregationist Sen. Richard Russell, who, as Robert Caro detailed in "Master of the Senate," was a key mentor to Lyndon Johnson.)

Not many justices, though, have ever even been in danger of losing, since it's rare for sitting Georgia judges to face any opponents at all. The AJC noted last month that conservative Justice Andrew Pinson was the only one of four Supreme Court justices and six Court of Appeals judges up this year who drew a challenger, while just five of 122 trial court judges across the state have any sort of opposition.

And most justices haven't even needed to win an election to earn a spot on the high court in the first place. Instead, the vast majority have been appointed to fill vacancies, making open-seat races as uncommon as contested elections.

Sometimes elections don't even happen at all, as Barrow found out the hard way not long ago. That's because justices can time their departure to make sure their successor doesn't even need to appear on the ballot for several years.

Barrow had launched a campaign in 2019 to succeed retiring Justice Robert Benham, who was the last Democratic appointee on the Supreme Court. That election was scheduled to take place the following year, but it was called off after Benham decided to resign rather than serve out his term, thanks to a Georgia law that allows newly appointed judges to spend at least six months on the bench before they have to face the voters.

But Barrow now has the chance to score a historic victory against Pinson on May 21, which is the same day that the Peach State will holds its primaries for other offices. No other candidates are running in this officially nonpartisan race, so this contest will be settled without a November runoff.

While Barrow was one of the more conservative Democrats during his time in the House, which ended following his loss Republican Rick Allen during the 2014 GOP wave, he's focused his comeback bid on his opposition to the state's six-week abortion ban.

"It’s the most important decision the Supreme Court of Georgia is going to make in the next 20 years," he told local Democrats of the ongoing legal challenges to the law. "Politicians shouldn’t be making your personal health care decisions."

Pinson, for his part, has argued he can't talk about issues like abortion that could come before the court. He notably declined to attend a recent debate by arguing his appearance could breach state judicial codes, an argument his opponent was not impressed with.

"The only thing worse than his record is that he’s too chicken to come here and stick up for himself," Barrow said at the event, which proceeded despite Pinson's absence.

A win for Barrow wouldn't change the ideological majority of the nine-person court, as Pinson and almost every other member were appointed by Republican governors. (The one exception is Justice John Ellington, who won a six-year term at the ballot box in 2018 with support from figures in both parties.) Should Barrow prevail, though, it would be another strong sign that Georgia's shift to the left during the last few years isn't over.

Senate

● MD-Sen: Rep. David Trone has removed a put-down charging that the Senate "is not a place for training wheels" from a new negative ad attacking his opponent in the May 14 Democratic primary, Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, per a new report from Axios' Stephen Neukam.

Neukam notes that the edit came after more than 650 Black women signed a letter charging that the remark, which was uttered by Prince George's County Council member Edward Burroughs, was "not only disparaging and dismissive but also echoes tones of misogyny and racism." Trone, who is white, used the phrase himself in an NBC interview that aired earlier this week.

Trone's campaign claims the change to his commercial was made because his editors "chose to make a number of additional edits" after coming across other clips they found "compelling," according to Neukam.

● MI-Sen: Wealthy businessman Sandy Pensler is returning to the airwaves and reportedly plans to continue advertising on TV through the Aug. 6 Republican primary. The Detroit News relays an AdImpact analysis finding that Pensler has spent at least $655,000 so far and reserved nearly $1 million more over the next three weeks.

Pensler's latest ad targets Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, by trying to associate her with Squad member and fellow Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib. However, a senior adviser said Pensler also plans to "spend a serious amount" on commercials introducing himself and attacking former Rep. Mike Rogers, who is the favorite of national and state Republicans.

Pensler has raised almost nothing from donors but self-funded at least $3 million so far this cycle, much as he's used his personal wealth to fund prior campaigns for office. His latest financial disclosure forms indicated a net worth of anywhere from $80 million to $116 million, so there may be many more campaign ads to come.

House

● CA-16: Former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo has publicized an early April internal from Lake Research Partners that shows him leading Assemblyman Evan Low 36-26 in the all-Democratic general election.

Inside Elections' Jacob Rubashkin notes that another question from this poll surfaced weeks ago when it looked as though there would be a three-way contest. That configuration saw Liccardo with a smaller 26-21 advantage over Low as another Democrat, Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, took 20%.

A former Liccardo staffer named Jonathan Padilla, unexpectedly requested a recount shortly after that survey was concluded, and it ultimately resulted in Simitian failing to advance.

● IN-03: The hardline Club for Growth is airing a commercial targeting former Judge Wendy Davis ahead of Tuesday's GOP primary that she argues violates a new Indiana law by "dub[bing] together words and unrelated statements … to form a sentence that fits their absurd claims."

The audience hears Davis ostensibly saying, "In our government, we lack diversity of ethnicity, diversity of different religions. We don't have enough inclusion that I believe the constitution, still a living and breathing and living document, requires." Davis' campaign quickly responded by declaring that what appears to be a single statement was "spliced" together from an hour-long event, and that she was trying to get the spot taken off the air.

Davis also cited a bill GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb signed in March that requires a continuous disclaimer to be on screen during ads that are altered in a way that "conveys a materially inaccurate depiction of the individual’s speech, appearance, or conduct as recorded in the unaltered recording."

Davis is one of eight Republicans competing in the expensive primary to succeed Rep. Jim Banks, who is unopposed for the GOP's Senate nod, in the 3rd District, a longtime conservative stronghold in the Fort Wayne area. Her main intra-party rivals appear to be former Rep. Marlin Stutzman, who is Banks' immediate predecessor; wealthy businessman Tim Smith; and state Sen. Andy Zay.

The Club has spent about $510,000 on messaging against Davis and Smith. While the group has not endorsed anyone, it was close to Stutzman during his previous stint in Congress—though not close enough to rescue his ailing Senate campaign ahead of his landslide 2016 primary loss to fellow Rep. Todd Young.

However, the Club has been far outspent by two super PACs that do not want to see Stutzman back in the lower chamber. One of them, America Leads Action, is working to defeat hardline candidates who could pose a headache for the House leadership and has deployed $1.6 million to thwart his comeback.

Stutzman demonstrated during the 2010s he was exactly the type of Republican congressman that ALA doesn't want more of. Among other things, he infamously said during the 2013 government shutdown, "We're not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is."

A different group, Winning for Women, has spent another $1.1 million to promote Davis, who is the only woman in the race, and attack Stutzman.

The former congressman, though, has benefited from close to $700,000 in support from an array of groups tied to the House Freedom Caucus and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. Zay, meanwhile, has mostly gone ignored, except for $100,000 that a super PAC called Honest Hoosiers has expended on his behalf.

● MI-08: VoteVets has endorsed businessman Matt Collier, a former Flint mayor who served in the Army, in the Aug. 6 Democratic primary for this competitive open seat.

● MI-13: Freshman Rep. Shri Thanedar's campaign announced Tuesday it was challenging the signatures of former state Sen. Adam Hollier, who is his main opponent in the August Democratic primary, because it believes he failed to turn in the requisite 1,000 valid signatures. Among other things, Thanedar's team alleges that 85 of Hollier's signatures were forged.

The Detroit Free Press columnist Nancy Kaffer writes, "[I]t's hard to look at the signatures on nine of 10 petition pages provided to the Free Press by Thanedar and not conclude that they'd been written by the same person; that they're forgeries, and not very good ones, at that."

Kaffer also says that she noticed that one of those signatures ostensibly belonged to a Free Press colleague, Tresa Baldas, who responded, "That's not my signature." All of these questionable pages came from a single circulator named Londell Thomas, who did not respond to the paper's inquiry. Thanedar's team is asking election officials to throw out all petition pages from Thomas even if individual signatures aren't suspect on the basis that Thomas is a "Fradulent canvasser."

Hollier's team responded to questions about why Baldas' name was there by telling Kaffer, "Some issues have been brought to our attention related to a small number of the nomination signatures that were collected on behalf of our campaign." The campaign went on to express confidence that a "significant number of the challenges filed against our signatures are erroneous."

It's up to the elections commission in Wayne County, which makes up the entire 13th District, to decide on the validity of the challenged signatures, though its decision can be appealed to the Wayne County Circuit Court. Kaffer says the whole process may not be settled until early next month.

Forged signatures have ended the campaigns of several Michigan politicians. Republican Rep. Thad McCotter famously was thrown off the ballot in 2012 after his campaign handed in fraudulent signatures.

A decade later, five GOP candidates for governor, including nominal frontrunner James Craig, were similarly disqualified after they fell victim to a massive fraud scandal. McCotter remarked to Local 4 in response, "In the immortal words of Bill Clinton, ‘I feel your pain.'"

● NC-13: Wealthy attorney Kelly Daughtry announced on Thursday that she was dropping out of the May 14 Republican primary runoff and endorsing her opponent, former federal prosecutor Brad Knott.

Before quitting the race, Daughtry had spent millions of her own money on her campaign, just as she did in her unsuccessful 2022 bid for the previous version of this seat. She took first place in the March primary with a 27-19 lead over Knott, but that was short of the 30% needed to avoid a runoff.

Daughtry released an internal poll giving her a 51-32 edge in early April, but Donald Trump endorsed Knott just days later, and Daughtry said upon her departure that Trump's involvement had foreclosed her path to victory.

Daughtry's exit virtually assures that Knott will win this seat and succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Wiley Nickel thanks to the GOP's new gerrymander. That new map transformed Nickel's swingy seat in Raleigh and its southern suburbs into a solidly red district comprised of exurbs and rural areas outside of Raleigh.

Although Knott is a first-time candidate, he has extensive connections to state Republicans. His brother, Tucker Knott, is chief of staff for Sen. Ted Budd, who endorsed the candidate after the first round of voting, and the Knott family also funded a super PAC that spent heavily on his behalf.

Daughtry is the second North Carolina Republican to bail on a House runoff this year. In March, former Rep. Mark Walker abandoned his bid for the open 6th District after Trump promised him a job on his presidential campaign, putting his Trump-endorsed opponent, lobbyist Addison McDowell, on a glide path to victory in another newly gerrymandered district.

● NJ-08: A super PAC called America's Promise is spending $100,000 on a TV ad opposing Rep. Rob Menendez in the June 11 Democratic primary by linking him to his father, Sen. Bob Menendez, who will go on trial for corruption charges starting May 13. The younger Menendez has not been implicated in any of his father's alleged crimes, but the ad attacks him for defending his father, refusing to return campaign donations from the senator's PAC, and accepting contributions from corporate interests.

● NV-03: Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo has endorsed wealthy music composer Marty O'Donnell for the GOP nomination to take on Democratic Rep. Susie Lee. As the Nevada Independent noted when O'Donnell joined the race two months ago, the first-time candidate is using some of the same consultants who helped Lombardo get elected governor in 2022.

O'Donnell faces a GOP field that includes former state Treasurer Dan Schwartz, former state Sen. Elizabeth Hegelian, and conservative columnist Drew Johnson, but Schwartz has a weak electoral history while the other two Republicans have struggled to raise money. Establishment Republicans began looking for a viable candidate after Assemblywoman Heidi Kasama dropped out in January to seek reelection, so Lombardo's endorsement is a sign that O'Donnell may now be their man.

● VA-05: Bloomberg reports that American Patriots PAC has booked a hefty $3 million to help state Sen. John McGuire deny renomination to Rep. Bob Good, the Freedom Caucus chair who was one of the eight House Republicans who voted to end Kevin McCarthy's speakership last year. Good also infuriated Donald Trump's network last year by endorsing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' White House bid, but Trump himself has not yet taken sides.

The reservation from American Patriots PAC, which is funded by Republican megadonors Ken Griffin and Paul Singer, represents by far the largest planned expenditure in what's already an expensive June 18 primary for Virginia's 5th Congressional District. This constituency, which stretches from the Charlottesville area to western Southside Virginia, backed Trump 53-45, so the GOP nominee will be favored in November.

A new super PAC called Virginians for Freedom has already deployed almost $500,000 to make sure that McGuire is that nominee. The group has received funding from the American Prosperity Alliance, which is run by McCarthy allies looking to punish the Republicans who deposed him.

On top of that, the Republican Main Street Partnership, an organization devoted to stopping Republicans who like to cause grief for party leaders, previously told the New York Times it planned to spend $500,000 to end Good's career, though the FEC doesn't yet record any independent expenditures from the PAC.

While Main Street Partnership for decades had a reputation for supporting moderate Republicans, it's shown a willingness in recent years to back election deniers like McGuire, who attended the Jan. 6 Donald Trump rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol.

But Good, who himself is an ardent Big Lie believer, still has some well-heeled allies. Protect Freedom PAC, which is affiliated with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, has spent close to $500,000 on messaging promoting the incumbent as "the true constitutional conservative." Yet even though Good runs the Freedom Caucus, its political arm has laid out less than $100,000 to protect its chief. The organization has a history of spending large sums in races it cares about, though, and there's still time to pour in more resources.

Perhaps the biggest question still looming over the race, however, is whether the GOP's supreme leader will eventually get involved and punish Good for his disloyalty. Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita previewed trouble to come back in January when he told Cardinal News, "Bob Good won’t be electable when we get done with him."

Over the ensuing months, Trump has targeted two other disloyal House members, Florida Rep. Laurel Lee and Washington Rep. Dan Newhouse, but he hasn't gone after Good—yet. Many of Good's GOP colleagues, however, would be quite happy if Trump eventually took out his wrath on this apostate.

Six sitting House members, including Virginia Rep. Jen Kiggans and House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers of Alabama, hosted a fundraiser for McGuire in March. Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, meanwhile, made his hatred of Good known to a national audience last month when he went on CNN and took the Freedom Caucus chair to task for endorsing gun maker Brandon Herrera, who is Gonzales' opponent in the May 28 GOP runoff.

"Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi," the Texan declared, adding, "These people used to walk around with white hoods at night; now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime." (Herrera, who has made jokes about Nazis and the Holocaust, tweeted Sunday, "This should be obvious, but I am not, nor have I never been a neo-Nazi.")

Good, meanwhile, made news last month when he endorsed former West Virginia Del. Derrick Evans, who served 90 days in prison for his participation in the Jan. 6 riot, in his May 14 GOP primary challenge to Rep. Carol Miller. That move came after House Speaker Mike Johnson told CNN he was "vehemently opposed to member-on-member action in primaries," an admonition his caucus seems to have completely ignored.

Ballot Measures

● SD Ballot: Abortion rights advocates in South Dakota announced Wednesday they'd submitted about 55,000 signatures to put a constitutional amendment before voters that would end the state's near-total ban on abortion, which is about 20,000 more than the minimum. Election officials have until Aug. 13 to verify that organizers submitted at least 35,017 valid signatures to place this amendment on the Nov. 5 ballot, where it would need a simple majority to pass.

The proposal would specifically bar the state from imposing regulations on abortion access during the first trimester of pregnancy. It also establishes that during the second trimester, "the State may regulate the pregnant woman's abortion decision and its effectuation only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman." For the final trimester, the state would be permitted to retain the status quo.

Several pro-choice groups have taken issue with what they've argued is a weak amendment. The state branch of the American Civil Liberties Union put out a statement claiming the proposal "does not have the strongest legal standard by which a court must evaluate restrictions on abortion, and thereby runs the risk of establishing a right to abortion in name only." The regional Planned Parenthood affiliate has likewise declined to endorse the campaign.

Judges

● LA Redistricting: Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has signed a bipartisan bill that revamps Louisiana's Supreme Court districts to create a second majority-Black district, the first redraw since earlier litigation prompted lawmakers to pass the current map in 1997. Louisiana is roughly one-third Black, but only one of the current seven districts, the New Orleans-based 7th, enables Black voters to elect their preferred candidate.

The new map creates a 2nd District that unites Baton Rouge with parishes along the Mississippi border and parts of central Louisiana. It replaces a majority-white and solidly Republican seat with a 55% Black district that would have favored Joe Biden 60-39 in 2020, according to VEST data from Dave's Redistricting App. Republican Justice Scott Crichton, who is white, isn't seeking reelection, and a Black Democrat will likely win this fall's contest to succeed him.

Landry and his fellow Republicans supported the new map to bring costly litigation to an end, an approach similar to the one they took when they redrew the state's congressional map earlier this year. However, a federal court overturned that map earlier this week for relying excessively on race. The new Supreme Court map could likewise be vulnerable to a lawsuit given the similarities of some districts, though an alternative map with a pair of more compact majority-Black districts is possible.

Mayors & County Leaders

● Baltimore, MD Mayor: Former federal prosecutor Thiru Vignarajah announced Wednesday that he was dropping out of the May 14 Democratic primary and endorsing former Mayor Sheila Dixon.

Vignarajah, whose name will remain on the ballot, took a distant third place in a pair of independent surveys conducted in April, but his departure could help Dixon consolidate support against incumbent Brandon Scott. It only takes a simple plurality to win the Democratic nomination, which is tantamount to election in this loyally blue city, and a large number of lesser-known candidates remain in the race.

Other Races

● Miami-Dade, FL Elections Supervisor: Donald Trump on Tuesday night endorsed Republican state Rep. Alina Garcia, who is campaigning to be the top elections administrator for Florida's most populous county. But when asked about Trump's many election lies the follow day, Garcia declined to push back.

"In reference to the 2020 elections, I can only speak to how the elections were conducted in Florida and in Miami-Dade County, which were fair, transparent and the results reported timely," she told the Miami Herald's Douglas Hanks. Garcia previously told the paper that, while she believed most elections were "fair," many "don’t always feel that they’re fair, and perception is very important."

Garcia, who already had Sen. Marco Rubio's backing, faces attorney Megan Pearl in the Aug. 20 GOP primary, while attorney J.C. Planas has the Democratic side to himself. The field may not be set, though, because the deadline to run for county office in Florida doesn't pass until June 14. (Last Friday was the deadline to run for Congress and most other offices.)

The job this trio is seeking is currently held by an appointed incumbent, Christina White, a Democrat who unexpectedly announced last year that she would not run for a full term.

In 2018, Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment that requires every county to elect rather than appoint certain officers, including election supervisors, and 2024 is the first time that Miami-Dade County voters will pick their elections chief. (The post was previously filled by the county mayor.)

Last week, Trump also took sides in the primary for sheriff by backing Rosie Cordero-Stutz, an official with the Miami-Dade Police Department. Hanks earlier this week reported that Trump decided to support Cordero-Stutz after an April 7 meeting at his Doral compound during a golf tournament.

Trump also reportedly also told another local politician in attendance that she could call on him if she wanted his endorsement. But Doral City Council member Maureen Porras demurred, and not just because she's a Democrat.

"I said, ‘Well, thank you very much, but I’m not up for election,'" she recounted to Hanks. Porras is up again in 2026.

● VA-LG: Democratic state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi announced Thursday that she would seek the post held by Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, a Republican whom local political observers anticipate will run for governor next year rather than seek reelection.

Hashmi, who immigrated from India as a child, won her current office in 2019 by unseating Republican state Sen. Glen Sturtevant 54-46 in a closely watched race in the Richmond area. That victory, which helped Democrats retake the state Senate, made Hashmi the first Muslim to serve in the upper chamber, as well as the first Muslim woman in the entire legislature.

Following the most recent round of redistricting, Hashmi's district was made safer, and she easily earned reelection last year as Sturtevant returned in a different seat. Because the entire 40-member state Senate won't be up against until 2027, Hashmi won't need to give up her current job in order to run next year.

Hashmi joins a primary that includes Prince William County School Board Chairman Babur Lateef, fellow state Sen. Aaron Rouse, and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney. The lieutenant governor serves as the tiebreaker in the state Senate, where Hashmi and Rouse are part of a narrow 21-19 Democratic majority.

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Leading Off

● NJ-Sen: Former financier Tammy Murphy, who had reportedly been preparing a Senate bid, kicked off her campaign on Wednesday, and she's already earned some important establishment support. But Murphy, the wife of Gov. Phil Murphy, was also greeted by a new poll that shows her trailing her chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Rep. Andy Kim.

That survey, conducted by Public Policy Polling for the Kim campaign, finds the congressman beating Murphy 40-21 among primary voters, with indicted Sen. Bob Menendez scraping together just 5%. While Menendez has recently sounded as though he wants to run again, his share of the vote is one of the lowest we've ever seen for an incumbent—apart from a similar PPP poll taken last month that also had him at 5%.

Menendez also sports an atrocious favorability rating, with just 10% of respondents saying they have a positive view of the senator, compared to 68% who see him negatively. Murphy and Kim, by contrast, are both well-liked though not universally known, with scores of 50-9 and 45-5, respectively. If Menendez does seek reelection after all, he could plumb new depths at the ballot box, especially since his trial on federal corruption charges is set for May 6—just a month before the primary.

Whatever Menendez decides, the battle for his seat is likely to come down to Murphy and Kim. In a new interview with the New Jersey Globe, Murphy suggested that she doesn't have many ideological differences with Kim ("I suspect that Andy and I stand for a lot of the same policies"), but the two cut very different profiles politically.

Kim, who is the son of Korean immigrants and went on to work at the State Department, first won office in 2018 with the support of Joe Biden and Barack Obama but has portrayed himself as an outsider in this race—and is largely getting treated like one. Murphy, a former banker at Goldman Sachs, is a consummate insider.

And insiders have almost always had the advantage when seeking office in the Garden State, due in large part to its unique approach to ballot design. In 19 of the state's 21 counties, leaders of both parties can award special placement on the ballot to their preferred candidates, known as the "county line." These candidates appear together in a single column of the ballot, often the first one, that has a name on every line (you can see an example in column 1 of this sample ballot). Other hopefuls are relegated to more distant columns amid a sea of blank space.

Research has shown that the county line can confer a major benefit—often an enormous one: One forthcoming study finds that candidates with the line run on average 38 points ahead of those without it. Immediately after launching her bid, Murphy secured the county line in populous Hudson County, which also happens to be Menendez's home base. (Menendez slammed Hudson leaders in response. "At the end of the day, I don't need the party line to win in Hudson," he insisted, while also warning, "I know where all the skeletons in closets are.")

She also won the backing of the party chair in Somerset County, which doesn't guarantee she'll get the line there but is a strong signal that it'll go to her. Other counties are likely to follow suit. (Politico reported last month that "the state party establishment" was "miffed" by Kim's decision to jump into the race prior to the state's legislative elections, which concluded last week.) Kim, though, could potentially earn the line in the South Jersey counties that make up his district, even though he's said he thinks the practice should be abolished.

But the county line might not play as potent a role in this contest as it so often does in others. In many races further down the ballot, candidates tend to be little-known. In those less salient elections, voters have less incentive to go hunting across and down their ballot to find alternatives who lack official party blessing. In this high-profile showdown for the Senate, though, both Kim and Murphy will head into the primary with wide name recognition, and their supporters will know to look for those names wherever they might appear.

The Downballot

● We talk about North Carolina non-stop on "The Downballot," so it's only natural that our guest on this week's episode is Anderson Clayton, the new chair of the state Democratic Party. Clayton made headlines when she became the youngest state party chair anywhere in the country at the age of 25, and the story of how she got there is an inspiring one. But what she's doing—and plans to do—is even more compelling. Her focus is on rebuilding the party infrastructure from the county level up, with the aim of reconnecting with rural Black voters who've too often been sidelined and making young voters feel like they have a political home. Plus: her long-term plan to win back the state Supreme Court.

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard, meanwhile, turn to the avalanche of political developments that have followed last week's off-year elections, with big new candidate announcements in New Jersey's Senate race and Virginia's 2025 contest for governor. They also finally get to discuss the unusual Democratic primary unfolding in the nation's newest Black-majority House seat in Alabama. And then there are all the retirements to recap! So, so many retirements.

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

Governors

● NJ-Gov, NJ-05: Politico reports that Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer has launched a "six-figure" digital ad buy that could serve as a prelude to a 2025 campaign for governor, which he's previously said he's considering. Gottheimer has no notable GOP challenger for 2024 in his 56-43 Biden district, but he did have an enormous $15.8 million in his campaign account at the end of September. It's unclear how much of that he could transfer to a state campaign, but spending it on what is nominally his House race is one way he could use those funds to increase his name recognition ahead of 2025.

● VA-Gov: Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who launched her campaign for governor earlier this week, just secured an endorsement from the last Democrat who held the post, Ralph Northam.

House

● AK-AL: Following Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom's Tuesday announcement that she will challenge Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola next year, national Republican groups have already signaled that they view her favorably. The NRCC's press secretary called Dahlstrom "a top-tier recruit," while the president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is the House GOP's main allied super PAC, called her candidacy a "recruiting coup" and a "[g]ame changer in Alaska."

Dahlstrom is competing to be the GOP's standard-bearer with businessman Nick Begich, who unsuccessfully ran for this seat last year. All candidates regardless of party will run on the same primary ballot, and the top four finishers will advance to a general election using ranked-choice voting.

● IL-07: The Chicago Tribune reported on Tuesday that the city's Board of Ethics found "probable cause" that city Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin committed ethics violations by firing two aides who had accused her of abusing her powers. The Tribune writes that the board may not make a final decision for months, which could result in a fine, though the matter threatens to derail her challenge to longtime Rep. Danny Davis just four months before the March 19 Democratic primary in this dark blue district.

The allegations against Conyears-Ervin surfaced earlier this year when the city released a 2020 letter where two of her former top aides—Ashley Evans and Tiffany Harper—accused the treasurer of misusing government money and personnel. The pair claimed Conyears-Ervin hired an unqualified employee "for personal services;" used official resources for electoral matters, including sending money to religious organizations that supported her; and threatened to retaliate against any subordinates who wouldn't help her. Evans and Harper later received a total of $100,000 in a 2021 settlement after arguing they were fired in just such an act of illegal retaliation.

While that settlement was public knowledge, then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who was a Conyears-Ervin ally, spent years trying to keep this letter from becoming public. However, new Mayor Brandon Johnson, a fellow Democrat who defeated Lightfoot and other challengers in elections earlier this year, released the letter earlier this month.

● ME-02: Mortgage broker Rob Cross, who announced a campaign in April but reported raising just $20,000 in the third quarter of the year, has dropped out of the GOP primary to take on Democratic Rep. Jared Golden. National Republicans won't be displeased, though: Just before the end of the quarter, they landed state Rep. Austin Thierault, who is reportedly their preferred choice.

● NJ-03: State Senate Majority Whip Troy Singleton, a Democrat, has announced he won't run here to succeed Democratic Senate candidate Andy Kim next year.

● NY-18: In a recent Digest, we incorrectly described a poll commissioned by the Congressional Leadership Fund, the top Republican super PAC involved in House races. That survey, conducted by the Republican pollster Cyngal, did not test Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan against Republican challenger Alison Esposito. Rather, it pitted Ryan against an unnamed Republican candidate. Such matchups do not reflect what voters will see when they cast their ballots and are therefore of limited analytical value.

For that reason, Daily Kos Elections seldom reports such polls, since they do not meet our standard for inclusion. We regret the error.

● VA-05: Del. John McGuire, a Republican who just won a solidly red seat in the state Senate last week, has announced that he'll wage a primary challenge against far-right Rep. Bob Good in the 5th District. Although Good is a hard-liner and was one of the eight Republicans who voted to remove Kevin McCarthy from the speakership last month, McGuire appears to be challenging him from the right. In announcing his campaign, McGuire attacked Good for having insufficient fealty to Trump; the incumbent endorsed Ron DeSantis for president earlier this year.

● VA-07: Semafor reported Wednesday that former National Security Council adviser Eugene Vindman, who is a retired Army colonel, will join the Democratic primary to succeed Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger and has already set up a fundraising page, though he had yet to officially declare he was running.

Vindman gained national attention in 2019 when he and his identical twin brother, former National Security Council official Alexander Vindman, helped blow the whistle on Donald Trump's attempt to extort Ukraine's government into undermining Joe Biden's presidential campaign. Alexander Vindman testified before Congress about Trump's abuse of power, which helped lead to his first impeachment by the House that year.

Eugene Vindman and his brother were both born in Ukraine in 1975 when it was under Soviet control, but they immigrated to the United States as young children and later served as career military officers. While the Washington Post described Vindman as a "newcomer to Virginia politics," his role in Trump's impeachment, along with growing hostility from congressional Republicans to providing funding for Ukraine's resistance against Russia's invasion, could give him the prominence needed to run a strong race.

● VA-10: Del. Dan Helmer became the latest Democrat to announce he's running in the crowded primary to succeed retiring Rep. Jennifer Wexton next year. Helmer served as the campaign chair for the state House's Democratic caucus this year, which saw his party regain a majority last week.

Helmer ran for the previous version of the 10th District in 2018 but took a distant fourth place in the primary behind Wexton, who went on to oust Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock that fall. However, his political career bounced back the next year when he flipped a GOP-held state House seat, and Helmer won a third term by 59-41 last week.

Meanwhile, Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall, a Democrat, has announced she won't run for Congress next year following her reelection victory last week. Several other Democrats had previously announced they were running, including former state House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, state Sen. Jennifer Boysko, Del. David Reid, and former state Education Secretary Atif Qarni.

Ballot Measures

● NE Ballot: Abortion rights supporters have launched a ballot initiative effort to put a constitutional amendment before voters next year that would protect abortion rights in a state where Republicans this year enacted a ban on the procedure after 12 weeks of pregnancy. To get onto the ballot, supporters will need to gather signatures from 10% of registered voters, which is roughly 125,000 at present. However, the exact requirement won't be known until the July 5, 2024 filing deadline because it's based on the registration numbers at the time.

Importantly, supporters will also need to gather signatures from 5% of registered voters in at least two-fifths of the state's 93 counties. This requirement significantly hinders progressives—but not conservatives—because the “bluest” two-fifths of counties include ones that Donald Trump won by landslide margins of up to 78-19. However, abortion rights advocates were able to overcome a similar requirement this year in Ohio, where voters approved an abortion rights amendment by 57-43 earlier this month.

Legislatures

● MI State House: Michigan Democrats, who just won control of the state House last year for the first time in more than a decade, have now lost their majority—and it will likely be some time before they get it back.

That's because two incumbents are about to depart after winning mayoral races in their hometowns in last week's local elections. As a result, the chamber will be tied at 54 seats for each party, and the prospect of quick special elections to fill the two vacancies appears to have faded, according to a new report from Bridge Michigan's Jonathan Oosting.

While Democrats would have liked to hold primaries in January and then general elections on Feb. 27, when the state will conduct its presidential primary, state House Speaker Joe Tate said this week that such a timetable would not be "feasible." It's not clear what the schedule will ultimately look like, though Tate says he's discussing a "spring timeframe" with Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, whose responsibility it is to call the elections.

Whenever those specials do finally happen, both Democratic seats should remain blue. According to Dave's Redistricting App, Joe Biden carried Kevin Coleman's 25th District 59-40 and won Lori Stone's 13th District 64-35. One thing that won't happen in the interim, said Tate, is any sort of power-sharing agreement, pointing out that the chamber's rules for addressing ties only apply when there's a 55-55 split and all seats are filled.

● NJ State Assembly: The New Jersey Globe reports that Democrat Anna Katz has ousted GOP Assemblyman Brandon Umbra in the 8th Legislative District following the counting of provisional ballots and mail ballots that were postmarked by Election Day but didn't arrive until days later. With Katz's victory, Assembly Democrats have flipped six seats and expanded their majority to 52-28.

● VA State House: The race for Virginia's 82nd District in the state House may go to a recount after final tallies cut Republican Rep. Kim Taylor's lead over Democrat Kimberly Pope Adams to 74 votes. Including write-ins, the difference between the two candidates stands at 0.27%, which is below the 0.5% threshold that would allow Adams to request a recount paid for by the state. Adams, however, has not yet decided whether to ask for one, and despite the seemingly small margin, a recount would be unlikely to change the outcome.

In the 41st District, meanwhile, the spread between Republican Chris Obenshain and Democrat Lily Franklin tightened considerably, but the final margin of 0.74% left the race just outside of state-paid recount territory. That prompted Franklin to concede, though the result was much closer than most analysts had expected, particularly given Obenshain's name recognition as the cousin of state Sen. Mark Obenshain.

If the result in the 82nd District holds, Democrats would have a 51-49 majority in the House to go along with their 21-19 advantage in the state Senate when the legislature reconvenes in January.

Prosecutors and Sheriffs

● Loudoun County, VA Commonwealth's Attorney: Final results of last week's elections confirm that Democrat Buta Biberaj, the top prosecutor in Virginia's third-largest county, has lost her bid for a second term to Republican Bob Anderson, who reclaimed the post he last held two decades ago. Anderson's 300-vote margin, equal to 0.2% of the vote, would have allowed Biberaj to seek a recount, but she said on Wednesday that she would not.

Biberaj had been attacked by conservatives for her reformist approach to certain criminal prosecutions, as many progressive prosecutors have. However, she had also come under fire for her day-to-day management of her office and had clashed with Loudoun County's Board of Supervisors, which is controlled by Democrats. Those conflicts helped spur a primary challenge from defense attorney Elizabeth Lancaster, who earned an endorsement from the Washington Post (an influential outlet in the area) and held the incumbent to a 55-45 win.

Biberaj was also likely hampered by the timing of her election and the lack of party labels on the ballot. Loudoun, which is home to more than 400,000 people in the highly educated Washington, D.C., suburbs, has been a key driver of Virginia's transformation from a red state to a blue one. Just two decades ago, it twice voted for George W. Bush by double digits. By 2020, however, it was supporting Joe Biden by a 62-37 margin. In off years, though, it's usually been much more favorable to Republicans.