Category: KevinMcCarthy

Abraham Lincoln explained exactly how we should respond to the insurrection of Jan. 6

Posted on by Dartagnan

Since the Jan. 6 attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol we’ve been treated to the spectacle of people like Rep.Kevin McCarthy, Sen. Ted Cruz, and others within the Republican party invoking a spirit of “unity” as they urge Democrats to temper their response to a crisis that Republicans themselves were responsible for causing.

As Sarah Churchwell, writing for the New York Review of Books, observes, these newfound calls for “unity” are from the exact same people who have constantly cast themselves as the “Party of Lincoln” at various times over the past four years.

Republican leaders enjoy flashing their badges as the “Party of Lincoln,” preening themselves on Lincoln’s moral victories and declaring themselves his rightful political heirs. “Our party, the Republican Party, was founded to defeat slavery. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, signed the Emancipation Proclamation,” Senator Ted Cruz declaimed at the Republican National Convention in 2016, as a prelude to endorsing for president a man whom he had once called a “sniveling coward” and “pathological liar,” a man who had insulted Cruz’s wife and accused his father of conspiring to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. Senator Marco Rubio is another who presumes to speak for “the party of Lincoln,” including the time he tweeted, in February 2016, that Donald Trump would “never be the nominee of the party of Lincoln,” as does House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who managed to recall a few familiar words from the Gettysburg Address in honor of Lincoln’s birthday last year.

But, as Churchwell illustrates, the real Abraham Lincoln had some strong opinions about the kind of treachery we witnessed on Jan. 6, one in which white supremacist seditionists perpetrated a mob-style attack on the seat of American government. And his opinions were not couched in any wishful concept of “unity.” His views, in fact, were unsparing and to the point:

Lincoln consistently likened the minoritarian efforts of the South to a mob, as it employed threats, intimidation, blackmail, political chicanery, voter fraud, and violence to coerce the majority into giving way to ever more unreasonable demands. “We must settle this question now, whether in a free government the minority have the right to break up the government whenever they choose,” he told John Hay, his private secretary. For Lincoln, as he said repeatedly, the Civil War was more than a question of the moral wrongs of slavery, as fundamental to the conflict as those were; the principles of democratic self-government and the political character of the nation were also at stake.

As applied to the events of Jan. 6, the Republicans’ vision of “unity” is one in which their party escapes blame for the horrifying spectacle of a treasonous, would-be despot inciting his rabid and deluded minions to violently desecrate our national heritage, all egged on and applauded by complicit state and federal officials within the Republican ranks.

As Churchwell suggests, not only would Lincoln have rejected any invocation of “unity” under such circumstances, he would have been appalled:

The actual party of Lincoln made the opposite decision, believing that the deep principles of preserving the Union far outweighed the superficial comity of false unity. Lincoln had been pressured on all sides to capitulate to Southern demands, including permitting the South to secede, to “let the erring sisters depart in peace!” But part of his reason for refusing to do so was, as the historian James M. McPherson put it in This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War (2007), the fear of setting a “fatal precedent,” one that could be “invoked by disaffected minorities in the future, perhaps by the losing side in another presidential election.” And so they made the apparently paradoxical decision to fight a civil war in an effort to achieve, not unity, but a more perfect union.

In fact what occurred on Jan. 6 was exactly what Lincoln foresaw as the ultimate test for our nation’s survival. As Churchwell points out, contrary to espousing any attempt at “unity” with such insurrectionists, Lincoln’s counsel was to bring the hammer down, hard, on attempts at insurrection by way of the mob.

In particular, Lincoln cautioned against turning a blind eye to mob violence in the futile effort to maintain a tenuous and self-devouring peace. Leaving the perpetrators of such violence “unpunished,” he held, would only embolden the mob and inevitably destroy democratic self-government, as “the lawless in spirit, are encouraged to become lawless in practice” and “absolutely unrestrained.” Without accountability, such a mob would “make a jubilee of the suspension of [the Government’s] operations; and pray for nothing so much, as its total annihilation.”

In reality, it’s not “unity” that Republicans want, but absolution. They want Americans to forget what we just witnessed and what we are now likely to witness over and over again as the delusional, poisonous racism fanned by the GOP over the last thirty years intrudes, unsolicited and unwanted, into Americans’ daily existence.

As Lincoln well understood, there can be no “unity” where our democratic traditions are under attack by an insensate, racist right-wing mob.

McConnell might vote to convict Trump, but only if it includes a giant GOP payday

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Soon-to-be Minority Leader Mitch McConnell got the headline he wanted on Tuesday when he unleashed anonymous sources to tell reporters he believed Donald Trump may have committed impeachable offenses. In other words, he just might vote to convict.

The next day, McConnell got the other headline he wanted when he declined the invitation of soon-to-be Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to reconvene the Senate for an emergency session to take up an impeachment trial. That means any Senate movement on impeachment won't happen until Jan. 19—which importantly buys McConnell at least another week or more to see which way the political winds are blowing before making a final decision on his vote.

McConnell, the perennial craven opportunist, has chosen to leave the nuclear codes at the finger tips of a mad man for another seven days for no other reason than to find the least painful political path to placing Trump in the GOP's rear view mirror. And he has conveniently planted himself right in between the two House Republican leaders who have taken polar opposite positions on impeachment: Reps. Kevin McCarthy of California and Liz Cheney of Wyoming. 

Cheney voted to impeach Trump on Wednesday, stating he had "summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack." McCarthy, who eagerly backed Trump's sedition efforts and voted against certifying the election, offered among the most disingenuous and repulsive of justifications for his traitorous vote against impeachment. "We solve our disputes at the ballot box," he said, despite the fact that he worked diligently to overturn what happened at the ballot box in November. 

But in these two House GOP leaders, McConnell gets to spend a week surveying the upsides and potential wreckage of their approaches. Key to all of it will be money—because McConnell has built his entire career on wielding the power he gains from selling his soul to Corporate America and, more recently, dark money interests. He will almost surely be burning up the phone lines trying to figure out what he has to do to keep from becoming a political pariah to the corporate donor class. If there's a way for McConnell to thread that needle without fully convicting Trump, he will surely take it. But if he concludes that the only way to escape McCarthy's fate is to take a stronger stand, then that's where he will come down.

To date, 10 major companies have paused donations to Republicans who voted to object to certification of the election results. More have suspended their contributions to the Republican Attorneys General Association after it was implicated in organizing the rally-turned-riot. And still more corporations have paused all donations while they reevaluate their donations going forward. 

All of that puts McCarthy in a great deal of jeopardy since his No. 1 charge as GOP Minority Leader is raising money to dole out in order to win back the majority. On MSNBC Wednesday, former GOP strategist and Lincoln Project Co-Founder Steve Schmidt predicted, "Corporate America is never coming back to Kevin McCarthy." Cheney, on the other hand, now has to fight off members of the House sedition caucus, which is already calling for her removal from leadership.

Where that leaves the prospects for conviction of Trump in a Senate trial is somewhere between possible and unlikely. McConnell could go either way and will likely sit back and watch the trial play out at the direction of Schumer and Senate Democrats while he collects data points on the fallout. 

On the bright side, the more we learn about the planning and execution of the violent Capitol siege and the role some Republican lawmakers played, the more horrific the entire picture will get for the party. In the end, the GOP might be such a toxic waste dump that McConnell's hand is forced.

Following the impeachment vote, historian Michael Beschloss was moderately optimistic about Senate conviction, which will require 17 GOP votes in the Senate by the time Democrats take control of the chamber. "I think there's a real chance that this guy could get convicted," Beschloss told MSNBC.

But it will really all come down to the calculation of McConnell. If he votes to convict, enough members of the GOP caucus will likely follow his lead to prevent Trump from ever abusing the power of the American government again.

Republicans in disarray as GOP leadership fractures over Trump’s impeachment, removal

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

From the GOP rank and file to those in leadership roles, Republican lawmakers are placing their bets—about their own political futures, the future of the party, and even how history will reflect on this fraught moment for the country.

And while Democrats' resolve to hold Donald Trump to account for inciting violence has proven uniquely unifying for most of the country, the Republican party is dividing amongst itself between those who think Trump is culpable and even impeachable and those who have hitched their raft irrevocably to Trumptanic. And make no mistake, Trump's support is tanking, even among Republican voters. A Morning Consult poll of GOP voters released Wednesday found that just 42% of them said they would vote for Trump in a 2024 presidential primary. Given what Trump has done, that level of support still seems high, but it's slipped 12 points from a Nov. 21-23 survey when the outlet posed the same question. And it's a far cry from the high-80s/low-90s support Trump has enjoyed among Republican voters throughout his term.

Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the House GOP's No. 3, became the highest ranking Republican Tuesday to firmly plant her flag on the side of impeaching Trump, saying, "There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution."

Last Wednesday, Cheney was attempting to convince her GOP colleagues to vote for certification when she received a phone call from her father informing her that Trump had attacked her in his rally speech. In her statement Tuesday declaring she would vote to impeach Trump, she wrote, “The president could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not.”

Cheney's declaration marked a sharp break with her fellow GOP leaders, Reps. Kevin McCarthy of California and Steve Scalise of Louisiana, both of whom echoed Trump's post-election fraud claims and then voted to reject the election results even after his cultists stormed the Capitol. 

Meanwhile in the upper chamber, soon-to-be Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, signaled his much squishier lean toward potentially convicting Trump through anonymous sources to several different outlets.

Among rank and file GOP members, a smaller anti-Trump cadre has emerged with some members faulting Trump and his GOP enablers for the siege and others even stepping up to back impeachment. 

“To allow the President of the United States to incite this attack without consequence is a direct threat to the future of our democracy. For that reason, I cannot sit by without taking action,” New York Rep. John Katko, the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee and a former federal prosecutor, wrote in a statement. 

The reality is, many of these GOP members stepping forward also fear for their lives now that Trump has turned the party into a raging mob. CNN is reporting that many of Republican lawmakers are getting direct pressure from Trump not to defect on the impeachment vote, which isn't exactly surprising but certainly underscores the urgency of his removal from office. McCarthy has reportedly urged his pro-Trump members not to verbally attack pro-impeachment Republicans because their lives could be on the line.

But at the end of the day, impeachment is happening, with or without House Republicans. And momentum is clearly on the side of Democrats' strong stand against Trump as corporate titans, big tech, public opinion, military leadership, and other entities join the push to draw a line in the sand. 

The McCarthy's of the world have bet wrong. There's simply no way he can erase his fealty to Trump, and he also doesn't have the spine to disavow Trump. And as hard as it is to imagine a Trump loyalist losing his leadership role in the party, it's equally as hard to imagine having a GOP leader who can't fundraise because he's been shunned by corporate donors and polite society alike as a seditionist. That is simply an impossible position for a GOP congressional leader.  

And if there's one way to judge exactly how incomprehensible that posture is, it's by looking at the Republican leader of the Senate caucus. McConnell's lower-profile openness to potentially convicting Trump is both a seismic shift and a window into his vision for safeguarding the future existence of the party. And if McConnell ultimately supports conviction of Trump, some GOP sources are openly wondering if the 67 votes to convict might actually materialize. 

"If Mitch is a yes, he's done," said one Senate GOP source who asked not to be named, according to CNN.

Meanwhile, McCarthy has been running around pushing to censure Trump in an effort to ostensibly hold Trump accountable without actually holding him accountable. Safe to say McCarthy's political fortunes aren't particularly bright at this moment. Perhaps he can form a support group with Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri. 

Republicans helped Trump inspire a violent insurrection. They have done nothing to disavow it

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

In the wake of a deadly attack many of them helped incite, Republicans are only continuing their descent into ignominy. The only way out is for them to take responsibility for their actions and actually admit that they helped their mentally unhinged leader—Donald Trump—sic a mob of his foaming-at-the-mouth cultists on U.S. lawmakers at the Capitol last week. 

Instead, they have dug in their heels and unleashed a Gatling gun round of finger-pointing at Democrats, who are moving swiftly to hold Trump to account through impeachment charges. Democrats, they claim, are being divisive by trying to protect the country from further abuses by a madman.

The Washington Post writes:

Shortly before convening a conference call of House Republicans on Monday, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) sent a missive asserting that “an impeachment at this time would have the opposite effect of bringing our country together when we need to get America back on a path towards unity and civility.” ...

“After the abhorrent violence we saw last week, our country desperately needs to heal and unify,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said. “I have concerns that impeachment proceedings will only divide us further.”

McCarthy's empty rhetoric about "unity and civility" is particularly precious given his role in perpetrating Trump’s lie that the election was stolen. Not only did he sign on to the GOP legal challenge to the election results and vote to oppose congressional certification after the siege, he also used his platform to push Trump's baseless claims into the ecosphere.

.@GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy was laying the groundwork for the attack on the Capitol for months. 11/5/2020: “President Trump won this election, so everyone who’s listening, do not be quiet. We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes... join together and let’s stop this.” pic.twitter.com/9Ys6elhUln

— Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) January 12, 2021

Immediately following the election, McCarthy started pumping Trump's crap to the GOP base. “President Trump won this election, so everyone who’s listening, do not be quiet," McCarthy told Fox News viewers on Nov. 5. "We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes ... join together and let’s stop this.”

Other GOP lawmakers also bear unique responsibility for helping to foment the deadly violence:

  • Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama speaking at the MAGA rally last week: “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass. ... Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America?"
  • First-term Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado called the day Republicans’ “1776 moment.”
  • Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona repeatedly called Joe Biden an "illegitimate usurper" while promoting numerous "Stop the Steal" events. “Be ready to defend the Constitution and the White House,” Gosar counseled in an op-ed titled “Are We Witnessing a Coup d’État?” 

There's much much more, and The New York Times has a nice roundup of it. 

But the GOP, and particularly its leadership, is continuing to prove that there's no end to how morally bankrupt the party is—not even after they helped inspire a violent coup attempt that cost lives. Just like with Trump, there’s no bottom.

GOP seditionists are suddenly worried about divisiveness

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Republican lawmakers who have spent four solid years embracing Donald Trump's hate speech and targeting of Democrats, liberals, people of color, and women are suddenly very concerned about divisiveness.

It's a convenient time for Republicans’ craven conversion as they prepare to be relegated to minority status in Washington and spend the next few years pointing fingers and whining. And naturally they have zero shame about their hypocrisy, mainly using their unity calls as a club to chastise Democrats over their efforts to impeach Trump.

But the most glaring aspect of the calls for unity is who they are coming from. Naturally, it's the worst of the worst offenders—the GOP lawmakers who backed Trump at every turn, echoed his dangerous and deceptive fraud claims, and voted for his objections to certification in what amounted to a fascist effort to disenfranchise the will of the people.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy last week lamented that impeachment would "only divide our country more."

"I've reached out to President-elect Biden today & plan to speak to him about how we must work together to lower the temperature & unite the country to solve America’s challenges," McCarthy tweeted. 

Save it, Kev. The only worthy thing McCarthy has left to offer the country is to resign his position and leave Congress after he poured gasoline on the fire that exploded at the Capitol last week.

Same goes for Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who was among the first Senate Republicans to say he would join GOP House members in opposing certification of the Electoral College votes. The very day of the violent assault, Cruz, who was uniquely responsible for stoking the unhinged fervor that ultimately cost lives, was blaming people who had no role in the incitement.

"Stop stoking division. Stop spreading hatred," Cruz tweeted last Wednesday at Beto O'Rourke after O’Rourke noted that Cruz's "self serving attempt at sedition" had helped inspire the attack and attempted coup.

Hearing these seditionists now make calls for unity after they nearly destroyed the country in a matter of four years is truly special. If there's one saving grace here, it's that calls for the resignations of McCarthy, Cruz, and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri continue to flow. 

Dem. Sen. Whitehouse (Judiciary): “The Senate Ethics Committee must consider the expulsion, or censure and punishment, of Senators Cruz, Hawley... Because of massive potential conflict of interest, Senators Cruz, Hawley, and Johnson need to be off all relevant committees."

— j.d. durkin (@jiveDurkey) January 11, 2021

Tomorrow, I’m introducing my resolution to expel the members of Congress who tried to overturn the election and incited a white supremacist coup attempt that has left people dead. They have violated the 14th Amendment. We can’t have unity without accountability.

— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) January 10, 2021

“We can't have unity without accountability” is exactly right. If people like McCarthy, Cruz, Hawley, and others who helped push Trump supporters into this frenzy escape without consequence, they will simply continue poisoning the well in perpetuity to their own benefit. 

Republican leader puts out racist coronavirus tweet and gets demolished in the process

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

In lieu of doing their jobs to protect the American public, Republican Party officials are working very intensely to misinform the public, while also blaming China for COVID-19. One of the top GOP officials today is Republican House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California. You might remember his grotesque displays of fealty during the impeachment inquiry and trial of Donald Trump. If you know anything about Rep. McCarthy, you know that he will tow whatever party line Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump think up for him. And since the GOP’s brand these days is “Being racist assholes,” McCarthy decided on Monday to help out with the public health effort by tweeting out the government’s CDC.gov url along with this thinly veiled racist statement: “Everything you need to know about the Chinese coronavirus can be found on one, regularly-updated website:”

Fellow Californian and Democratic Rep. Katie Porter was justifiably pissed off at the leading GOP stooge.

Will stop spread of coronavirus: � washing your hands � staying home if you�re sick Won�t stop spread of coronavirus: � racism � xenophobia Delete this tweet, @GOPLeader. https://t.co/hd6VX3RuHo

— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) March 10, 2020

The Trump administration and the Republican Party, having stripped down and rolled back Obama-era development of our CDC, and specifically our infectious disease research and response, is now trying to use the age-old defense that they shouldn’t be in trouble because it’s someone else who “started it.” Unfortunately, they have a racist base who will likely eat up this xenophobic handling of a public health crisis. But the Republican base is a minority in our country, and the majority of people know Rep. McCarthy is a craven prick. And the responses to his lack of leadership were fast and furious.

As one responder to McCarthy’s racism explains: this is just the same playbook we’ve seen out of these incompetent grifters for years now.

Racism is the GOP Trump card. Calling it a hoax didn�t work because people keep dying. Blaming it on Obama never got off the ground. We�re now at stage three: xenophobia.#CPACcoronavirus

— Chris Alexander (@hoos30) March 10, 2020

And here are some simple facts: 

w00f

— Liz Garbus (@lizgarbus) March 10, 2020

Our government is super racist: also they really suck at keeping US safe and prosperous.

— David Rothschild (@DavMicRot) March 10, 2020

Your swastika is showing � �

— ImpeachmentForDummies (@Canadiancentri2) March 10, 2020

Of course, maybe Kevin misspoke?

Kevin, you misspelled #CPACVirus also known as #TrumpVirus. Get your facts straight you racist asshole.

— Comfortably Numb (@YGalanter) March 10, 2020

Of course, here’s a side note reminder:

Vote for @KimMangone and dump treasonous �Steve� McCarthy! pic.twitter.com/RmSoPXT7kR

— Medusa (@MedusaSeesYou) March 10, 2020

And finally, the tragically comic reality of it all.

I live in the US. Is there a website for the American coronavirus? In particular is there info on the Republicans quarantined and potentially spreading it? pic.twitter.com/JSjWXiaVvU

— Rob Jackson (@muh_thoughts) March 10, 2020

And an honest piece of advice for the GOP Leader.

You're a racist, a coward, and a sycophant. Resign.

— Dr. Jack Brown (@DrGJackBrown) March 10, 2020

Morning Digest: New York conservatives gear up to take down GOP establishment-backed House candidate

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

Leading Off

● NY-27: Plenty of Republicans were pissed when party leaders awarded state Sen. Chris Jacobs the party's nomination for the upcoming special election for New York's 27th Congressional District, and now the GOP's usual allies in the state's small but influential Conservative Party are also taking their whacks.

Campaign Action

New York law allows candidates to accept nominations from multiple parties, and it's rare for the Conservatives not to support Republican picks. However, Conservative leaders said in late January that, rather than back the apparently squishy Jacobs, they would not nominate anyone for the upcoming special election, which is expected to be held on April 28.

This seat backed Trump 60-35, so Jacobs is still the favorite even without Conservative help. Because the election will likely take place on the same day as the presidential primary, though, disproportionate turnout on the left could give Democrats a boost.

But if Jacobs manages to win the special, the Conservatives are gearing up to make his life hell soon thereafter. The GOP primary for the regular two-year term will take place just two months later on June 23, and there Jacobs will face attorney Beth Parlato, who has earned enough support from local party officials to receive the state Conservative Party's endorsement.

The Conservatives also promised Parlato their party's line for the November general election, but don't expect to see her on the fall ballot if she loses in June. "I'm confident I will win the primary," she said. "But if by some chance I lose, I would never split the vote."

The Conservative Party isn't the only right-wing group that wants to beat Jacobs once the special is wrapped up. Last month, a spokesperson for the Club for Growth called the senator "too moderate" and added, "We are prepared to spend seven figures opposing Jacobs." The Club, though, hasn't endorsed either Parlato or Erie County Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw, who also decided to challenge Jacobs after losing the GOP nod for the special election.

So, why does Jacobs inspire this much far-right disgust? Jacobs has long had a reputation as a moderate and even identified as pro-choice during his failed 2006 run for lieutenant governor. It doesn't help that his running mate that year was none other than Bill Weld, the former Massachusetts governor who is currently challenging Donald Trump in the presidential primary. Jacobs' enemies also remember that he refused to take sides in 2016 when Trump was running against Hillary Clinton, the same year Jacobs first won his seat in the state Senate.

Once he got to Albany, Jacobs did put together an ardently conservative voting record, which included opposition to expanding access to abortion. Jacobs also has tried to reinvent himself as a proud Trumper, and has insisted that he "ran for re-election to assure that President Trump had an ally in this seat." (We wonder if Jacobs' constituents, who voted for Hillary Clinton 50-45, knew that when they gave him a second term him in 2018.) However, it seems that conservative fanatics simply don't believe his conversion is sincere and want to replace him with a purer strain of wingnut.

Senate

● GA-Sen-B: While 2014 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jason Carter expressed interest in running here back in late August, he took himself out of contention on Thursday by endorsing pastor Raphael Warnock.

● MT-Sen: Politico reports that national Democrats haven't given up trying to convince Gov. Steve Bullock to challenge GOP Sen. Steve Daines despite his consistent denials of interest, but they don't seem to be making any progress. Barack Obama even met with Bullock privately on Thursday, but the governor's team publicly reaffirmed afterwards that he would not run. Montana's filing deadline is March 9, so the field will be set here soon.

A few Democrats are already challenging Daines in this 56-35 Trump state, and one of them ended 2019 with a big fundraising edge over the rest of the June primary field. Nonprofit founder Cora Neumann took in $460,000 during her opening fundraising quarter and had $292,000 to spend, while neither Helena Mayor Wilmot Collins nor Navy veteran John Mues had so much as $40,000 on-hand. Daines, though, had an imposing $5 million war chest at the close of December.

● NC-Sen: Politico reports that VoteVets is spending $2.5 million on a new two-week ad campaign supporting former state Sen. Cal Cunningham in the March 3 Democratic primary. VoteVets' affiliated nonprofit has already spent $3.3 million to help Cunningham win the nod to take on GOP Sen. Thom Tillis.

● TN-Sen: Mason-Dixon is out with a new poll for local media organizations that unsurprisingly finds Republicans in good shape to hold this open Senate seat. Former Ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty, who has Donald Trump's endorsement, leads Army veteran James Mackler 55-33 in a hypothetical general election, while physician Manny Sethi beats the Democrat 46-35.

House

● AZ-01: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy endorsed 2018 candidate Tiffany Shedd on Thursday in the August Republican primary to face Democratic Rep. Tom O'Halleran. Shedd, who took third in the primary last cycle, had more money by far at the end of December than any other Republican running here, but her $91,000 war chest still wasn't good. However, McCarthy seems to have decided that Team Red isn't going to get a better contender for this competitive Northeastern Arizona seat.

O'Halleran does face some primary opposition from the left, but neither of his opponents look very threatening. Former Flagstaff City Councilor Eva Putzova had just $15,000 in the bank at the end of 2019, while former state Sen. Barbara McGuire still hasn't reported raising any cash. O'Halleran, by contrast, had $919,000 on-hand to defend a district that narrowly backed both Mitt Romney and Donald Trump.

● IL-03: Activist Rush Darwish is up with what Politico reports is his second TV spot of the March 17 Democratic primary against conservative Rep. Dan Lipinski.

Darwish says that the district can't just "keep electing the same people and expect a different result," though he doesn't mention Lipinski directly. Darwish describes himself as a "lifelong humanitarian and father who spends time volunteering to raise money for medical procedures on children affected by violence," and says he supports "Medicare for all who want it."

● IN-05: Former Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi announced Thursday, just one day before the filing deadline, that he would compete in the May GOP primary for this open seat.

Brizzi had been out of office since 2011, and the intervening years haven't been good for him. He was reprimanded by the state Supreme Court in 2017 for a conflict of interest between his real estate business and a 2009 criminal case his office prosecuted. That reprimand included a 30-day suspension of his law license for "professional misconduct" after he intervened to reduce the severity of a plea deal given to a client of his real estate partner, who was the client's criminal defense attorney at the time.

Brizzi kicked off his new campaign by acknowledging, "I certainly made some mistakes." He continued, "And I own them. Secondly, there's nobody in the race that's more vetted than me."

● MD-07: Dels. Terri Hill and Talmadge Branch and law professor Michael Higginbotham have each announced that they will not compete in the April Democratic primary for the regular two-year term. All three were on the ballot in Tuesday's special primary and finished far behind former Rep. Kweisi Mfume. The filing deadline for the April primary passed in late January, but candidates had until Thursday to remove their names from the ballot.

Mfume, who represented a previous version of this Baltimore seat from 1987 until he resigned in 1996 to lead the NAACP, won the Democratic nod on Tuesday by beating former state party chair Maya Rockeymoore Cummings by a lopsided 43-17 margin. Rockeymoore Cummings and state Sen. Jill Carter, who was in third place with 16%, have each said that they'll keep running in April, but it's going to be very tough for anyone to beat Mfume after his decisive victory.

● PA-01: Pennsbury school board member Debbie Wachspress recently picked up an endorsement from 2018 Democratic nominee Scott Wallace for her bid to take on GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in this 49-47 Clinton seat. Wachspress also recently earned the backing of Bucks County Prothonotary Judi Reiss, who dropped out last month, as well as 2018 primary candidates Rachel Reddick and Steve Bacher.

Wachspress' local endorsements come a little less than three months after the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that national Democrats, including the DCCC and EMILY's List, were dissatisfied with the field. However, no other serious candidates have entered the race since then, and with the Feb. 18 filing deadline coming up fast, it looks unlikely that any will.

While it remains to be seen how national Democrats feel about Wachspress now, she very much looks like the frontrunner in the April primary. Wachspress ended 2019 with $355,000 on-hand while her intra-party opponents, Bucks County housing department official Christina Finello and businessman Skylar Hurwitz, each had less than $12,000 in the bank.

Whoever wins the nod is going to be in for a difficult race against Fitzpatrick. The incumbent held off Wallace 51-49 during last cycle's Democratic wave, and he ended 2019 with a strong $1.4 million war chest.

● TN-01: State Sen. Rusty Crowe announced Thursday that he would join the August GOP primary for this safely red open seat in East Tennessee.

Crowe has a very long career in state politics going back to 1990, when he was elected to the state Senate as a Democrat: Crowe recently said that he ran with Team Blue back then because he'd missed the deadline to file as a Republican and decided to launch a write-in campaign for the Democratic nod. He explained that it was "difficult" serving in the legislature as a Democrat and that he was unpopular with his party's leadership, though Crowe waited until 1995 to switch to the GOP.

The only other notable Republican who has entered the race to succeed retiring Rep. Phil Roe so far is former Kingsport Mayor John Clark. A number of other local politicians did express interest in getting in after Roe announced his retirement in January, and they still have a while to decide before the early April filing deadline.

● TX-10: For the second quarter in a row, GOP Rep. Michael McCaul has pretended that he raised considerably more money for his re-election campaign than he actually raised.

Last month, before FEC reports were due, McCaul put out a press release saying he raised "nearly" $500,000, but he actually brought in $378,000. The congressman ended 2019 with $984,000 to spend, which is also short of the $1 million he said he had. The Texas Tribune's Abby Livingston writes that McCaul's half a million figure included money from his affiliated PACs, which she explains is not standard operating procedure when announcing fundraising numbers.

Back in October, McCaul also announced that he'd brought in $400,000 during the third quarter of 2019, but his FEC report soon revealed that he'd actually raised $334,000; we're not sure what McCaul was including to get that extra $64,000 back then, but it was not money for his campaign. Inside Elections' Nathan Gonzales recently put out a great Twitter thread about how journalists view candidates' FEC reports, and we'll take particular note of his final point: "If you play games with one report, then it will just invite more scrutiny on future reports."

In past cycles no one would have cared how much McCaul did or did not raise his safely red seat, but his seat isn't safely red anymore. Donald Trump's 53-42 win in 2016 was a noticeable drop from Mitt Romney's 59-39 performance four years before, and Team Red also had a rough ride here in 2018: McCaul fended off Democrat Mike Siegel by a surprisingly close 51-47 margin, and Beto O'Rourke narrowly carried this district 49.6-49.5 against GOP Sen. Ted Cruz.

Siegel is running again in the March 3 primary, but two other Democrats have considerably more money than him. Attorney Shannon Hutcheson held a small $456,000 to $451,000 cash-on-hand edge over medical school professor Pritesh Gandhi, while Siegel had $152,000 to spend. If no one takes a majority of the vote next month a runoff would take place in May.

● TX-28: Immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros is out with a new TV spot ahead of her March 3 Democratic primary with conservative Rep. Henry Cuellar. Cisneros begins, "Today in South Texas, it seems like no one is helping people afford health care. So we sell plates of chicken, we have loterías, we go to Mexico." The candidate then talks about how her aunt died of stomach cancer because she was unable to pay for treatment and continues, "Unlike Congressman Cuellar, I don't take money from health insurance lobbyists or corporate PACs."

We also have a copy of a commercial that Texas Forward, which is allied with EMILY's List, is running to support Cisneros as part of its $1.2 million buy. The narrator argues there's "a damn big" difference between the candidates and takes Cuellar for task for having refusing to sponsor raising the minimum wage and voting "with Republicans to oppose unions, to cut funding for Planned Parenthood." The second half of the ad pledges that Cisneros will stand up for women, workers, and families.

● WI-07: Campaign finance reports are out for this special election covering the period of Oct. 1 to Jan. 29, and Army veteran Jason Church and state Sen. Tom Tiffany are in a similar position ahead of the Feb. 18 special GOP primary.

Church outraised Tiffany $653,000 to $463,000 during this time, though the state senator outspent Church $510,000 to $464,000. Tiffany also had a small $208,000 to $189,000 cash-on-hand advantage for the final weeks of the race. The Club for Growth and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been running commercials on Tiffany's behalf, while With Honor Fund has aired some ads for Church.

On the Democratic side, Wausau School Board president Tricia Zunker took in $145,000 during the fundraising period and had $64,000 to spend, while businessman Lawrence Dale didn't report bringing in anything. The general election for this 58-37 Trump seat is May 12.

Morning Digest: Competitive race to succeed longtime GOP congressman begins to take shape

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

Leading Off

● NY-02: This week, the crowded GOP primary to succeed retiring Republican Rep. Peter King in this competitive Long Island seat began to take shape … sort of.

On Thursday, state party chairman Nick Langworthy endorsed Assemblyman Andrew Garbarino in the June primary, a move that came days after Garbarino picked up endorsements from the party chairs of Nassau and Suffolk Counties. However, while the powers that be are lining up behind Garbarino, he’s not going to avoid a primary.

Campaign Action

Suffolk County Director of Health Education Nancy Hemendinger announced Wednesday that she would run despite failing to get the endorsement of the county party chairs the previous day. Hemendinger has worked in the department for 36 years, and this appears to be her first run for office.

Assemblyman Mike LiPetri also said the following day that he would remain in the race. Another candidate, Suffolk County Board of Elections member Nick LaLota, said Tuesday that he was still deciding whether to keep running after the county chairs backed Garbarino.

Garbarino, whose father is the GOP chair in the large town of Islip, only announced he was running this week. However, he began quietly raising money last quarter, and he ended 2019 with the largest war chest on the GOP side. Garbarino led LaLota in cash-on-hand $218,000 to $145,000, while LiPetri only opened up his fundraising committee on Jan. 1. Another Republican, Islip Councilwoman Trish Bergin Weichbrodt, announced she was running back in November, but she didn’t report raising any money in 2019.

By contrast, there’s only one notable candidate on the Democratic side. Babylon Town Councilor Jackie Gordon began running against King months before he announced his retirement in November, and her fundraising spiked after this became an open seat. Gordon took in $261,000 during the fourth quarter compared to the $76,000 she raised during the preceding three months, and she ended 2019 with $290,000 in the bank. The DCCC recently added Gordon to its Red to Blue list for top candidates, so national Democrats don’t seem to be expecting her to have a serious primary.

King always won re-election with ease during his decades representing this area until his final campaign last cycle, and his departure gives Democrats the chance to finally flip the seat. New York’s 2nd District, which is home to Babylon and most of Islip, swung from 52-47 Obama to 53-44 Trump, but it lurched back to the left in 2018. While Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo's 60-36 statewide win was very similar to Hillary Clinton's 59-37 victory, Cuomo carried King's seat by a 51-47 margin.  

Senate

● MI-Sen: Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is out with his first TV spot, which will run during Saturday's men's basketball game between Michigan State University and the University of Michigan. The commercial touts Peters' time in the Navy Reserve and work helping veterans.

● NC-Sen: A mysterious new PAC called Faith and Power recently launched what CNN reports is a two week $1.56 million TV buy to aid state Sen. Erica Smith in the March 3 Democratic primary, and there's good reason to think that Republicans are behind it. There's no information about who runs or funds the organization, but The Hill's Reid Wilson reports that Faith and Power is banking with a firm that frequently does business with GOP groups, including Donald Trump's campaign. The ads were also purchased by a media buyer that has plenty of conservative clients.

National Democrats are supporting former state Sen. Cal Cunningham over Smith in the contest to take on GOP Sen. Thom Tillis, and Cunningham also has benefited from millions in spending from VoteVets. Cunningham, who ended December with a lopsided $1.7 million to $95,000 cash-on-hand lead over Smith, also recently began airing commercials, and a new survey from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling indicates that the pro-Cunningham media campaign is having an impact. PPP finds Cunningham leading Smith 29-10, which is an improvement from his 22-12 edge last month.

Republicans seem to believe that the underfunded Smith would be easier to beat than Cunningham in November, though, and Faith and Power's new ad campaign could give her a boost next month. The commercial begins with a narrator asking, "Who's the Democrat for US Senate endorsed by progressives and unions? Erica Smith." It continues, "Who's got the courage to vote for 'Medicare for All'? Erica Smith. The number one supporter of the Green New Deal? Erica Smith again."

Whoever wins the nomination will be in for an expensive race against Tillis in this light red state. The incumbent, who does not face a serious primary challenger, ended December with $5.3 million in the bank.

Gubernatorial

● IN-Gov: On Wednesday, businessman Josh Owens dropped out of the Democratic primary to take on GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb and endorsed former state Health Commissioner Woody Myers. The deadline to turn in signatures to make the primary ballot is on Friday, so it's incredibly unlikely that Myers will face any serious intra-party opposition.

House

● CA-16: Rep. Jim Costa has launched his first TV spot against Fresno City Councilwoman Esmeralda Soria, a fellow Democrat who is running to his left in the March 3 top-two primary. The narrator accuses Soria of saying "she's living paycheck to paycheck" when she "gets $96,000 a year from taxpayers and paid perks and benefits."

The narrator goes on to declare that Soria not only gave herself a pay raise but that her "fiancé and business partner received city contracts worth millions." What the ad doesn't mention is that Soria recused herself from the City Council's discussion and votes on matters concerning her significant other, developer Terance Frazier.

While Costa's decision to go negative less than a month before Election Day could be a sign that he's worried that Soria could take enough support to join him in the November general election, she'll still need a lot to go right to advance past the top-two. Costa has been a weak fundraiser in past cycles, but the incumbent outpaced Soria $506,000 to $135,000 during the fourth quarter (Soria self-funded an additional $13,000), and he ended December with a huge $904,000 to $149,000 cash-on-hand lead.

It doesn't help Soria that there's just one Republican, real estate agent Kevin Cookingham, on the top-two ballot, while former Foreign Service diplomat Kim Williams is also running as a Democrat. This seat, which includes Merced and part of Fresno, backed Clinton 58-36, so even though Cookingham has very little money, he will have a good chance to advance to November if he can just consolidate the conservative vote.

● FL-13: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy endorsed attorney Amanda Makki this week in the crowded August GOP primary to take on Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist.

Makki had by far the most money in the bank on the Republican side at the end of December, but she still trailed Crist in cash-on-hand by a lopsided $2.8 million to $470,000. This St. Petersburg seat backed Hillary Clinton by a small 50-46 spread, but national Republicans haven't made defeating Crist, a former Republican governor who is utterly detested by his old party, a priority so far.

● GA-14: Former state Rep. Bill Hembree and Army veteran Andy Gunther each announced this week that they would join the May GOP primary for this safely red open seat. Gunther, who works as inspector for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, appears to be running for the first time. Hembree, by contrast, has a long history in Georgia politics, though not a lot of local voters may be aware of him.

Hembree was first elected to the lower house in 1992 from a seat in Douglas County, which is located just outside of this northwestern Georgia congressional district. Hembree served for the next two decades, apart from a two-year absence following his unsuccessful 1996 run for the state Public Service Commission, but he gave up his spot to run for a state Senate seat in 2012. Hembree lost the GOP runoff for Senate District 30, which contains a very small portion of the 14th Congressional District, and he was defeated in another primary there two years later.

Former state School Superintendent John Barge also filed to run here this week, but he hasn't said anything publicly yet. Barge was elected statewide in 2010, but he quickly came into conflict with GOP Gov. Nathan Deal by opposing the party leadership's charter school amendment. Barge went on to wage a very longshot primary challenge against Deal in 2014 that went absolutely nowhere: Deal secured renomination with 72% while another candidate led Barge 17-11 for second.

Barge defied his party again months later by endorsing a Democrat over Republican Richard Woods in the contest to replace him as school chief. Woods won the general election, though, and Barge decided to challenge him for renomination in the 2018 primary. This campaign also went badly for Barge, and Woods won 60-40.

While Barge seems to have burnt bridges with almost everyone in Peach State GOP politics, one familiar name is reportedly on his side. The Rome New-Tribune writes that former Rep. Jack Kingston, who now works as a Washington lobbyist and serves as a pro-Trump TV talking head, has been talking to people on Barge's behalf.

● IA-01: The conservative Future Leaders Fund, which is supporting GOP state Rep. Ashley Hinson, is out with a mid-January survey from the GOP firm Harper Polling that shows Hinson trailing freshman Democratic Rep. Abby Finkenauer by a small 44-40 margin. This is the first poll we've seen from this 49-45 Trump seat in northeastern Iowa.

● IL-03: Businesswoman Marie Newman is out with her first TV ad ahead of her March 17 Democratic primary rematch against conservative Rep. Dan Lipinski.

The narrator touts Newman's local ties and how she "scrubbed floors to pay for college and went without health insurance when she couldn't afford it." The commercial only mentions the incumbent at the end when the narrator declares, "Now Marie is running for Congress to do what Dan Lipinski won't: raise wages for working people and ensure health care is a right for everyone."

● IL-14: State Sen. Jim Oberweis is out with a survey from McLaughlin & Associates that gives him a clear lead in next month's GOP primary to face freshman Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood. McLaughlin finds Oberweis leading fellow state Sen. Sue Rezin 46-16 in this seat in the western Chicago exurbs, while former Trump administration official Catalina Lauf is at 6%.

McLaughlin has a bad reputation even in GOP circles, but so far, no one has released any other polls here. And while Oberweis has a terrible electoral history, his large financial advantage over his intra-party rivals could help him win the March 17 primary. Oberweis, who has self-funded most of his campaign, ended December with a $1.1 million war chest, while businessman Ted Gradel was well behind with $649,000 in the bank. (Gradel took 2% of the vote in that McLaughlin poll.) Rezin had $329,000 to spend, while Lauf had a mere $32,000 on-hand.

Even if the GOP avoids nominating Oberweis, though, Team Red will be in for a serious fight against Underwood. The incumbent, who flipped this 49-44 Trump seat in an upset last cycle, ended December with $1.7 million in the bank.

● IN-05: On Wednesday, just two days before the filing deadline, state Sen. Victoria Spartz announced that she was joining the crowded May GOP primary for this open seat. Originally hailing from Ukraine, Spartz would be one of a handful of immigrants serving in Congress if she were elected.

Spartz's 20th Senate District is located entirely in the 5th Congressional District, but she's never had to face the voters before. In mid-2017, local party officials chose Spartz to fill a vacancy in the Senate (Indiana does not hold special elections for the legislature) for a term that doesn't expire until the end of this year.

● NC-01: Back in December, farmer Sandy Smith ditched her extremely longshot GOP primary campaign against Sen. Thom Tillis and filed to challenge veteran Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield. Smith, who spent most of the fourth quarter running for the Senate, raised just $90,000 from donors but self-funded another $170,000, and she ended 2019 with $202,000 in the bank. Butterfield, by contrast, had $566,000 to spend.

Redistricting moved this inland northeastern North Carolina seat to the right quite a bit: While it supported Hillary Clinton 68-30 under the lines used in 2016 and 2018, the new constituency backed her by a smaller 55-44 spread. However, this is still blue turf that hasn’t voted for a Republican in any federal or statewide partisan election since likely the 1980s, and it will be very difficult for Smith to defeat Butterfield.

● NY-22: Former Rep. Claudia Tenney got some good news last week when former Broome County District Attorney Steve Cornwell dropped out of the GOP primary to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi, and it looks very unlikely that she will face any serious intra-party opposition now.

George Phillips, who lost the 2016 primary to Tenney, ended December with just $57,000 in the bank, while high school teacher Franklin Sager didn't have so much as one cent to spend. As a result, we've removed this contest from our Primaries to Watch spreadsheet and on to a second tab called "Off the list."

Tenney, though, ended last year at a huge financial disadvantage against Brindisi, who narrowly unseated her in 2018. Brindisi outraised Tenney by a massive $903,000 to $297,000 during her opening quarter, and he enjoyed a $1.85 million to $287,000 cash-on-hand edge. However, Democrats can take absolutely nothing for granted this fall in an upstate New York seat that supported Donald Trump 55-39.

Mayoral

● San Diego, CA Mayor: On Monday, GOP San Diego County Supervisor Dianne Jacob crossed party lines and endorsed Democratic City Councilwoman Barbara Bry over Republican City Councilman Scott Sherman. Democratic Assemblyman Todd Gloria very much looks like the most likely candidate to advance past the March 3 nonpartisan primary, while Sherman and Bry appear to be competing for the second spot in the November general election. Sherman may have the chance to pull ahead of Bry if he can consolidate the city's Republican voters, but Jacob's support for Bry could make his task harder.

Morning Digest: Dems need four seats to flip Michigan’s House. Our new data shows the top targets

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

Leading Off

● Gov-by-LD, Senate-by-LD: Republicans have controlled the Michigan House of Representatives since the 2010 GOP wave despite Democrats winning more votes in three of the last four elections, but Daily Kos Elections' new data for the 2018 elections shows that Democrats have a narrow path to win the four seats they need to flip the chamber this fall.

Democrat Gretchen Whitmer defeated Republican Bill Schuette 53-44 to become governor and carried 56 of the 110 seats in the lower house—exactly the number that her party needs to take a bare majority. You can see these results visualized for the House in the map at the top of this post (with a larger version available here).

Campaign Action

However, because Republicans heavily gerrymandered the map to benefit themselves, the Democrats’ presidential nominee will need to decisively defeat Donald Trump in the Wolverine State to give their party a chance. Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s successful re-election campaign illustrates this hurdle: Even though she beat Republican John James 52-46 statewide, she only took 54 House districts.

The entire state House is up for re-election every two years, and members can serve a maximum of three terms, making Michigan's term limits among the most restrictive in the country. Democrats made big gains in the House last cycle and reduced the GOP majority from 63-47 to 58-52.

Most importantly, four members of the GOP caucus sit in seats that backed Whitmer, making those the four ripest targets for Democrats. At the same time, no Democratic incumbents hold seats won by Schuette. However, three of these GOP-held Whitmer seats also supported Donald Trump when he narrowly carried the state two years before, so sweeping them all be a difficult task.

Team Blue’s best pickup opportunity in the state looks like HD-61 in the Kalamazoo area, which supported Whitmer by a wide 54-43 margin and backed Stabenow by a 53-45 spread. The seat also went for Hillary Clinton 49-45, making it the one GOP-held district in the entire chamber that didn’t back Trump. Republican incumbent Brandt Iden won his third term 51-49 in 2018, but term limits prevent him from running again this year.

Two other Republican seats, both located in Oakland County in the Detroit suburbs, also went for both Whitmer and Stabenow, though Trump carried them both. HD-39 backed Trump 50-46, but it supported Whitmer 53-45 and Stabenow 51-47. Republican Ryan Berman was elected to his first term by a wide 54-42, but that election took place under unusual circumstances: The Democratic candidate, Jennifer Suidan, was charged with embezzlement during the race and was sentenced to five years’ probation after the election.

Nearby is HD-38, which went for Trump 49-46 before supporting Whitmer and Stabenow 52-46 and 51-48. This seat is held by GOP state Rep. Kathy Crawford, who won her third and last term by a narrow 49-48 in 2018.

The fourth and final GOP-held Whitmer seat is HD-45, which is also located in Oakland County, but it supported her just 49.2-48.8, by a margin of 181 votes. Trump took the seat by a wider 51-44 margin, while James defeated Stabenow here 50-49. Republican incumbent Michael Webber won 55-45, but, like Iden and Crawford, he’s termed-out this year.

Democrats have a few potential targets if they fail to take all four of those seats, but they aren’t great. Another five House districts backed Schuette by a margin of less than 2%, but Trump took them all by double digits in 2016. Democrats also will need to play defense in the 10 seats they hold that voted for Trump (though two years later they all went for Whitmer). All of this means that, while Democrats do have a path to the majority, they’ll need essentially everything to go right this fall.

As for the state Senate, it’s only up in midterm years, so the GOP’s 22-16 majority is safe there for almost another three years, barring an unlikely avalanche of special elections. The good news for Democrats, though, is that 2022’s races for the legislature (and Congress) will be held under very different maps than the GOP gerrymanders in force now.

That’s because in 2018, voters approved the creation of an independent redistricting commission to draw the new lines in place of the state legislature. These new maps could give Democrats a better chance to win (or hold) the House as well as the Senate, where the GOP has been in control since it successfully recalled two Democratic legislators in early 1984.

P.S. You can find our master list of statewide election results by congressional and legislative district here, which we'll be updating as we add new states; you can also find all our data from 2018 and past cycles here.

4Q Fundraising

The deadline to file fundraising numbers for federal campaigns is Jan. 31. We'll have our House and Senate fundraising charts available next week.

● NC-Sen: Thom Tillis (R-inc): $1.9 million raised, $5.3 million cash-on-hand

● VA-Sen: Mark Warner (D-inc): $1.5 million raised, $7.4 million cash-on-hand

● AZ-06: Karl Gentles (D): $104,000 raised, $80,000 cash-on-hand

● CA-25: Christy Smith (D): $845,000 raised, $592,000 cash-on-hand

● FL-27: Maria Elvira Salazar (R): $315,000 raised, additional $50,000 self-funded, $717,000 cash-on-hand

● IL-17: Cheri Bustos (D-inc): $531,000 raised, $3 million cash-on-hand

● MN-08: Pete Stauber (R-inc): $347,000 raised, $722,000 cash-on-hand

● NC-02: Deborah Ross (D): $301,000 raised, $262,000 cash-on-hand

● NH-02: Annie Kuster (D-inc): $452,000 raised, $2 million cash-on-hand

● NJ-05: Josh Gottheimer (D-inc): $918,000 raised, $7.12 million cash-on-hand

● TX-22: Pierce Bush (R): $660,000 raised (in three weeks)

Senate

● AL-Sen: The extremist Club for Growth is going back on the air ahead of the March primary with a TV spot they first aired in November against Rep. Bradley Byrne, an establishment-aligned Republican whom they've long hated. The commercial takes aim at Byrne for supporting the Export-Import Bank, which is another favorite Club target.

● GA-Sen-B: Pastor Raphael Warnock announced Thursday that he would run against appointed GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler in November’s all-party primary, giving Democrats their first high-profile candidate in Georgia’s special election for the Senate.

Warnock quickly earned an endorsement from 2018 gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, who was Team Blue’s top choice until she took her name out of the running last year. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote earlier this month that national Democrats, as well as Abrams, wanted Warnock to challenge Loeffler, though the DSCC has not formally taken sides.

Warnock, who would be Georgia’s first black senator, is the senior pastor of the famous Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King Jr. once held the pulpit. Warnock has never run for office before, but he’s been involved in politics as the chair of the New Georgia Project, a group founded by Abrams with the goal of registering people of color to vote. Warnock has also used his position to call for expanding Medicaid and reforming Georgia’s criminal justice system.

Warnock joins businessman Matt Lieberman on the Democratic side, and another local politician says he’s also likely to run for Team Blue. Former U.S. Attorney Ed Tarver said Thursday that Warnock’s entry hadn’t changed his own plans to run, adding that he plans to kick off his campaign in the next few weeks.

GOP Rep. Doug Collins also entered the race against Loeffler this week, but legislative leaders quickly dealt him a setback. On Thursday, state House Speaker David Ralston, despite being a Collins ally, announced that a bill that would do away with the all-party primary in favor of a traditional partisan primary would be unlikely to apply to this year’s special election. The legislation cleared the Governmental Affairs Committee earlier this week but was returned to the committee for revisions. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has threatened to veto any measure that would change the rules of this year’s special Senate race.

As we’ve noted before, both Democrats and Collins would almost certainly benefit from the proposed rule change, but it looks like the status quo will persist this year. However, Collins is arguing that he’d still have the advantage in a November all-party primary, though the data he released isn’t especially persuasive. Collins released a poll this week from McLaughlin & Associates showing Lieberman in front with 42% while Collins leads Loeffler 32-11 for the second spot in a likely January runoff.

McLaughlin is a firm that’s infamous even in GOP circles for its poor track record, but this survey is also rather stale. The poll was conducted in mid-December, when Loeffler had just been appointed to the Senate and had little name recognition. But the wealthy senator has since launched a $2.6 million ad campaign, and she’s reportedly pledged to spend $20 million to get her name out.

Lieberman was also the only Democrat mentioned in the poll, but Warnock’s Thursday announcement means he’s now no longer Team Blue’s only candidate, scrambling the picture further. And if Tarver does go ahead with his planned campaign, he could complicate matters even more by potentially splitting the vote on the left three ways and allowing Loeffler and Collins to advance to an all-GOP runoff.

Collins, meanwhile, hasn’t been on the receiving end of any negative ads yet, but that’s about to change. Politico reports that next week, the Club for Growth will start a five-week TV campaign targeting the congressman for a hefty $3 million.

● IA-Sen: Businessman Eddie Mauro raised just $73,000 from donors during the fourth quarter of 2019, but the Democrat loaned himself an additional $1.5 million and ended December with $1.4 million in the bank. However, during that same quarter, Mauro repaid himself $850,000 that he'd previously loaned to his campaign. It's not clear why Mauro made this move.

The only other Democrat to release fundraising figures so far, real estate executive Theresa Greenfield, previously said she brought in $1.6 million in the final three months of last year and had $2.1 million on hand. Republican Sen. Joni Ernst said she raised $1.7 million and had $4.9 million left.

House

● FL-27: This week, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy endorsed 2018 GOP nominee Maria Elvira Salazar's second bid for this Miami-area seat against freshman Democratic Rep. Donna Shalala. Salazar, who lost to Shalala 52-46 last cycle, doesn't face any serious opposition in the August GOP primary.

● GA-09: State Rep. Kevin Tanner announced Thursday that he would seek the GOP nod to succeed Senate candidate Doug Collins in this safely red seat. Tanner was first elected to the legislature in 2012, and he serves as the chair of the influential Transportation Committee.

● IN-05: Former state Sen. Mike Delph recently told Howey Politics that he would not seek the GOP nod for this open seat.

● NY-15: This week, Assemblyman Michael Blake picked up endorsements in the June Democratic primary from SEIU 32BJ and 1199 SEIU, which represent building workers and healthcare workers, respectively. These groups make up two of the "big four" unions in New York City politics along with the Hotel Trades Council and the United Federation of Teachers. The Hotel Trades Council is supporting New York City Councilman Ritchie Torres, while the UFT does not appear to have taken sides yet in the crowded primary contest to succeed retiring Rep. Jose Serrano in this safely blue seat in The Bronx.

Last month, Blake also received the backing of District Council 37, which represents municipal workers.