Morning Digest: With big primary win, Colin Allred kicks off race to unseat Ted Cruz

Posted on March 6, 2024 by Daily Kos Elections

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

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Leading Off

● TX-Sen: In one of Super Tuesday's biggest races, Rep. Colin Allred secured the Democratic nomination to take on Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who holds one of just two Senate seats that Democrats have a realistic shot at flipping this cycle. The news is especially welcome for Democrats because it means Allred can start campaigning against Cruz immediately, since he avoided a May 28 runoff by easily securing a majority of the vote with his 59-17 victory over state Sen. Roland Gutierrez.

No Democrat has won statewide in Texas since 1994, but the congressman, who has already proven himself a formidable fundraiser, could finally achieve the breakthrough Lone Star State Democrats have long dreamed of. Allred, who first won office in 2018 by flipping a longtime GOP stronghold in the Dallas area, would also be the state's first Black senator.

Allred's win was far from the only notable result, though, on a Super Tuesday that more than lived up to its name—at least downballot. Below is a state-by-state summary of where things stood as of 8 AM ET in all of the major contests. You can also check out our cheat-sheet that summarizes the outcomes in every key race.

Election results

● Alabama: A runoff will be held on April 16 in contests where no candidate earned a majority of the vote.

● AL-01 (R): Rep. Barry Moore defeated colleague Jerry Carl 51-49, an outcome that makes Carl the first member of Congress to lose renomination in 2024. This race, which is likely to be the only incumbent vs. incumbent primary in the entire cycle, took place because Moore decided to run here after the state's new court-drawn map turned his 2nd District into a Democratic-leaning constituency. This revamped seat in southern Alabama would have favored Donald Trump 75-24 in 2020.

Moore's win was an upset, as Carl represented considerably more of this territory and enjoyed a large fundraising advantage throughout the race. Both incumbents are ardent conservatives who voted against recognizing Joe Biden's 2020 win, though they still represented different factions of the party: Moore is a member of the nihilistic House Freedom Caucus, while Carl is closer to the party leadership.

● AL-02 (D & R): Former Justice Department official Shomari Figures and state House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels will compete in the Democratic runoff for a redrawn seat that now takes in Mobile, Montgomery, and the eastern Black Belt. Figures, who benefited from heavy spending from a super PAC with ties to the cryptocurrency industry, took first with 43%, while Daniels outpaced state Reps. Napoleon Bracy 22-16 for second.

Republicans also have a runoff between former state Sen. Dick Brewbaker, who took 40%, and attorney Caroleene Dobson, who beat out state Sen. Greg Albritton 26-25. The GOP nominee, though, will have a difficult time in the general election for what's now a plurality Black district that would have backed Joe Biden 56-43.

● Arkansas: A runoff will be held on April 2 in contests where no candidate earned a majority of the vote.

● AR-03 (R): Rep. Steve Womack held off a far-right challenge from state Sen. Clint Penzo 54-46 in this dark red northwest Arkansas seat. Penzo's ideological allies did little to help the underfunded legislator overcome his huge cash deficit against Womack, a decision they may not regret following the relatively weak victory for the self-described "institution guy."

● California: All candidates running for Congress and for state office compete on one ballot rather than in separate party primaries; the two contenders with the most votes, regardless of party, advance to the Nov. 5 general election. Candidates cannot win outright in the primary by taking a majority of the vote, except in some officially nonpartisan elections.

Note, though, that it will be a while before all votes are tabulated. Because the state permanently adopted universal mail voting in 2021, vote-counting takes some time thanks to the security measures needed to verify the large number of mail ballots officials receive.

● CA-Sen: Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff got the general election opponent he wants in this dark blue state, as Republican Steve Garvey defeated Democratic Rep. Katie Porter for the crucial second spot in November. The Associated Press estimates that only 47% of the vote is tabulated, so the candidates' margins will likely shift even though the AP has called both slots: Schiff currently leads with 33% as Garvey, who is a former Major League Baseball player, is outpacing Porter 32-14. Another 7% goes to the third Democratic House member on the ballot, Rep. Barbara Lee.

The lineup will be the same in the November special election to fill the final two months of the late Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein's term. Garvey this time leads with 35% as Schiff outpaces Porter 31-16 for second.

● CA-12: Only 23% of the estimated vote is in, but BART board member Lateefah Simon leads with 43% in the race to succeed her fellow Democrat, Senate candidate Barbara Lee. Another Democrat will almost certainly be on the November ballot for this dark blue Easy Bay seat, though it's less clear which one: Cal State professor Jennifer Tran holds a 17-15 edge over Alameda Vice Mayor Tony Daysog.

● CA-16: Two Democrats will likely be competing in the general election to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo in Silicon Valley, though the AP has not called either spot yet with only 51% of the estimated vote in. Former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo leads with 22%, while Eshoo's choice, Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, holds an 18-16 edge over Assemblyman Evan Low. Republican Peter Ohtaki is just behind with 14%.

● CA-20: Two Republicans, Assemblyman Vince Fong and Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux, lead with 52% of the estimated vote in, but the AP has not called either general election spot. Fong, who has the support of Trump and former Rep. Kevin McCarthy, is far out ahead with 39%, while Boudreaux is outpacing Democrat Marisa Wood 24-22.

Note that the first round of the special election for the remaining months of McCarthy's term will take place March 19. Trump carried this Central Valley seat 61-36.

● CA-22: Democrats are hoping they've avoided being locked out of the general election in this competitive Central Valley seat, though the AP also hasn't called either spot with only 30% of the estimated vote in. GOP incumbent David Valadao is in first with 34%, while 2022 Democratic nominee Rudy Salas leads self-funding Republican Chris Mathys 28-22. The final candidate on the ballot, Democratic state Sen. Melissa Hurtado, is taking 15%.

● CA-25: Democratic Rep. Raul Ruiz appears likely to face yet another little-known Republican rather than a local Democratic elected official in this 57-41 Biden seat, which is almost certainly an outcome he's happy with.

Ian Weeks leads fellow Republican Ceci Truman 19-17 for second with 46% of the estimated vote in, but it likely doesn't matter which of them advances against Ruiz. Indio City Council member Oscar Ortiz, who launched an intra-party bid against Ruiz in December, is in a distant fourth place with 9%. The incumbent, for his part, is taking 49% in this constituency, which is based in eastern Riverside County and Imperial County.

● CA-26: Agoura Hills City Council member Chris Anstead's intra-party bid against Democratic Rep. Julia Brownley appears to be over, as he's taking a mere 4% of the vote with 52% of the estimated vote in. The incumbent leads with 51%, while Michael Koslow is leading fellow Republican Bruce Boyer 34-11.

The AP has not yet called the second spot, though neither Republican has reported raising the type of money they'd need to put this Ventura County constituency into play. Joe Biden carried this seat to the northwest of Los Angeles 59-39, while Brownley went on to win 55-45 during a tough 2022 cycle for California Democrats.

● CA-29: Assemblywoman Luz Rivas unsurprisingly looks well-situated to succeed her fellow Democrat and top ally, retiring Rep. Tony Cárdenas, though the AP hasn't called either general election spot with only 40% of the estimated vote in. Rivas leads with 48%, while Republican Benny Bernal is outpacing perennial Democratic candidate Angelica Duenas 31-21. This eastern San Fernando Valley seat is safely blue at 75-23 Biden.

● CA-30: The AP estimates that 60% of the vote is in, and Democratic Assemblywoman Laura Friedman is in front with 27% as Republican Alex Balekian leads Democratic state Sen. Anthony Portantino 21-14 for second; neither spot has been called as of Wednesday morning. This Los Angeles-based seat, which Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff is leaving behind to run for the Senate, favored Biden 72-26.

● CA-31: With just half of the estimated vote in, former Democratic Rep. Gil Cisneros is taking first place with 21%, while Daniel Martinez leads fellow Republican Pedro Casas 21-19 for second. A pair of Democratic state senators are further behind: Susan Rubio is taking 15%, while another 11% goes to Bob Archuleta, who has the endorsement of retiring Democratic Rep. Grace Napolitano. Biden took this seat in the eastern San Gabriel Valley 64-33.

● CA-34: It looks like there could be a third all-Democratic general election between Rep. Jimmy Gomez and former prosecutor David Kim in this dark blue Los Angeles seat, though the AP hasn't called either spot with only 41% of the estimated vote in. Gomez leads with 51% as Kim is outpacing Republican Calvin Lee 24-18.

● CA-40: Retired Orange County Fire Capt. Joe Kerr appears poised to take on GOP Rep. Young Kim in this 50-48 Biden seat in eastern Orange County, though the AP has not made a call with 60% of the estimated vote in. Kerr leads his fellow Democrat, Tustin Unified School District Board of Education president Allyson Muñiz Damikolas, 26-16, while Kim is at 58%.

● CA-45: There's a close contest to determine which Democrat will go up against Republican Rep. Michelle Steel in a western Orange County constituency that Biden carried 52-46. Attorney Derek Tran is edging out Garden Grove City Councilwoman Kim Nguyen-Penaloza 16-14 with 47% of the estimated vote in, while Steel is in front with 57%.

● CA-47: Former Orange County GOP chair Scott Baugh and Democratic state Sen. Dave Min are the leaders in the top-two primary to replace Democratic Senate candidate Katie Porter, but the AP has not made any calls with 60% of the estimated vote in. Baugh is in front with 33%, while Min leads fellow Democrat Joanna Weiss 25-19. Biden took this seat based in coastal Orange County and Irvine 54-43, while Porter fended off Baugh 52-48 two years later.

● CA-49: Businessman Matt Gunderson holds a 26-11 lead over his fellow Republican self-funder, media executive Margarita Wilkinson, but we're still awaiting a call with 59% of the estimated vote in. The winner will be the underdog against Democratic incumbent Mike Levin, who is sitting at 51%, in a coastal San Diego County seat that Biden carried 55-43.

● North Carolina: A runoff will be held on May 14 in contests where no candidate earned at least 30% of the vote, though the second-place finisher must formally request a runoff for one to occur.

● NC-Gov (R & D): Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein will face off in a long-anticipated showdown to replace termed-out Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

The far-right Robinson won his primary 65-19 against state Treasurer Dale Folwell, with wealthy businessman Bill Graham securing the balance. Graham declared on election night, "Mark Robinson is an unelectable candidate in the general election in North Carolina, and he puts a conservative future at risk for everyone, from the courthouse to the White House." Stein, for his part, defeated former state Supreme Court Justice Mike Morgan 70-14.

● NC-01 (R): National Republicans got the nominee they want against Democratic Rep. Don Davis, as Army veteran Laurie Buckhout beat scandal-ridden two-time nominee Sandy Smith 53-47. Republican mapmakers transformed this seat in the inland, northeastern corner of the state from a constituency Biden carried 53-46 into one he barely won 50-49.

● NC-06 (R): Lobbyist Addison McDowell will face former Rep. Mark Walker in the runoff to replace Rep. Kathy Manning, who is one of three Democratic House members who is not seeking reelection in a seat that Republicans made all but unwinnable for her party. The Trump-endorsed McDowell took 26%, while Walker beat out 2022 nominee Christian Castelli 24-21 for the second spot in this seat in the central Piedmont region.

● NC-08 (R): Pastor Mark Walker appears to have won the GOP nomination outright over half a decade after his campaign was responsible for one the most ignominious election-fraud scandals in recent memory, though the AP has not yet made a call with 97% of the estimated vote in. Walker is sitting at 30.4%, while former Union County Commissioner Allan Baucom is at 27%. The GOP nominee will be favored to replace attorney general nominee Dan Bishop in this 58-41 Trump seat based in the eastern Charlotte suburbs and rural areas further east.

● NC-10 (R): Firearms manufacturer Pat Harrigan has narrowly secured the nomination to replace his fellow Republican, retiring Rep. Patrick McHenry, in this 57-41 Trump seat centered in Winston-Salem and the western Piedmont region. Harrigan, who was the 2022 nominee against Democrat Jeff Jackson in the old 14th District, beat out state Rep. Grey Mills 41-39 following an expensive contest.

● NC-13 (R): Attorney Kelly Daughtry has taken one of the two runoff spots in the race to succeed Democratic Rep. Wiley Nickel, who is leaving Congress because Republicans gerrymandered his Raleigh-area seat, but the AP hasn't called the other slot. Daughtry is at 27%, while former federal prosecutor Brad Knott leads businessman Fred Von Canon 19-17 with 85% of the estimated vote in.

● NC-AG (D): Democratic Rep. Jeff Jackson beat Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry 55-33 despite an expensive attempt by the Republican Attorneys General Association to meddle in the primary. Jackson will go up against far-right Rep. Dan Bishop, an election denier who had no opposition in the GOP primary.

● Texas: A runoff will be held on May 28 in contests where no candidate earned a majority of the vote.

● TX-02 (R): Rep. Dan Crenshaw outpaced underfunded primary foe Jameson Ellis only 59-41 just two years after beating him 74-17. Crenshaw has little to worry about in the general election for a suburban Houston seat that Trump took 61-38, but his diminished showing could inspire a stronger intra-party foe next cycle.

● TX-07 (D): Rep. Lizzie Fletcher scored a 73-27 victory against Pervez Agwan, a renewable energy developer whose campaign was overshadowed by sexual misconduct allegations leveled by former staffers, in this safely blue Houston seat.

● TX-12 (R): State Rep. Craig Goldman and businessman John O'Shea will compete in the runoff to replace their fellow Republican, retiring Rep. Kay Granger, in this conservative constituency in the Fort Worth area. Goldman, who has the backing of Gov. Greg Abbott, took 44%, while O'Shea led a little-known opponent 26-15. O'Shea has the support of Attorney General Ken Paxton, whom Goldman voted to impeach last year.

● TX-18 (D): Longtime Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee turned back a well-funded challenge from former Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards 60-37 in this reliably blue seat. Jackson Lee appeared vulnerable after badly losing December's runoff for mayor of Houston to fellow Democrat John Whitmire, but Edwards largely avoided attacking the incumbent.

● TX-23 (R): Rep. Tony Gonzales has been forced into a runoff against a far-right opponent, gunmaker Brandon Herrera. Gonzales secured 45% of the vote a year after he was censured by the state party, while Herrera outpaced former Medina County GOP Chair Julie Clark 25-14. The winner will be favored in a sprawling West Texas seat that favored Trump 53-46.

● TX-26 (R): Far-right media figure Brandon Gill secured the nomination to replace retiring GOP Rep. Michael Burgess in this conservative seat in the northern Fort Worth suburbs and exurbs. The Trump-backed Gill, who is the son-in-law of MAGA toady Dinesh D'Souza, took 58% despite an expensive campaign to stop him. The now-meaningless runner-up title goes to Scott Armey, a former Denton County judge who lost the 2002 runoff to Burgess and grabbed just 15% this time.

● TX-32 (D): State Rep. Julie Johnson is currently sitting on 50.1% in the primary to replace Senate candidate Colin Allred, but the AP has not made a call with 98% of the estimated vote in. Trauma surgeon Brian Williams, who would be her runoff opponent should she fail to take a majority, is a distant second with 19%.

● TX-34 (R): Former Rep. Mayra Flores easily beat unheralded opponent Laura Cisneros 81-9 ahead of her long-anticipated rematch against Democratic incumbent Vicente Gonzalez. Gonzalez appears to have meddled in the primary by sending out mailers boosting Greg Kunkle, but Kunkle clocked in at just 4%. Gonzalez beat Flores 53-44 in 2022 in a campaign that took place two years after Biden carried this seat in the eastern Rio Grande Valley 57-42.

Senate

● AZ-Sen: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema finally confirmed Tuesday that she will not seek reelection in Arizona this year. Sinema's departure almost certainly guarantees that the November general election will be a two-way race between each party's respective frontrunner, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and Republican conspiracy theorist Kari Lake. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who had not taken sides while Sinema was still publicly deliberating, quickly endorsed Gallego, as did the DSCC.

Pollsters disagreed as to which major party Sinema—who during her career has been a member of the Green Party, a Democrat, and an independent—would have hurt more had she sought a second term. However, essentially every survey showed Sinema in a distant third place and with little hope of securing the plurality she would have needed to win.

P.S. Sinema is now the second straight occupant of this seat to quit after just one term, following Republican Jeff Flake's departure ahead of the 2018 elections.

● FL-Sen: Former Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell's allies at EMILYs List have released an internal poll from Public Policy Polling that shows her trailing Republican Sen. Rick Scott by a narrow 44-41 margin. This survey, which is the first we've seen here all year, did not include presidential numbers. The pollster's memo also did not mention self-funding businessman Stanley Campbell, who is taking on Mucarsel-Powell in the August primary.

● OH-Sen: SurveyUSA's new poll of the March 19 GOP primary for the Center for Election Science finds wealthy businessman Bernie Moreno edging out state Sen. Matt Dolan 29-27, with Secretary of State Frank LaRose at 21% and another 23% undecided. The numbers are considerably different from a recent Moreno internal from Fabrizio Lee that showed him with a wide 31-21 advantage over LaRose, while Dolan was in third place with 19%.

The results are also a sharp contrast with data that CES, which promotes approval voting, previously released in December. That earlier poll (also conducted by SurveyUSA) found LaRose beating Dolan 33-18 as Moreno grabbed just 12%. However, Donald Trump endorsed Moreno almost immediately after that poll was publicized, which helps account for the dramatic shift in the race to take on Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.

It's not clear what interest CES has in this race, though, especially since SurveyUSA doesn't appear to have asked respondents about approval voting or any other alternative voting method.

● WI-Sen: WinSenate, which is affiliated with the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC, has deployed at least $2 million for a March 5-25 ad buy targeting wealthy businessman Eric Hovde, who last month became the first notable Republican to enter the race against Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

WinSenate's spot attacks Hovde over his weak ties to the state he's seeking to represent. The ad notes that he is the "CEO of a billion-dollar bank" and owns a $7 million hillside mansion overlooking Laguna Beach in Orange County, California, where a local outlet named him one of the county's "most influential" residents for three years running.

Hovde launched a $700,000 ad buy of his own the very same day that WinSenate's campaign began, and his new spot unsurprisingly tries to establish his Wisconsin bona fides. The minute-long commercial features his wife, Sharon Hovde, speaking to the camera as she notes that her husband grew up in Wisconsin and became a successful businessman.

Last year while he was still considering a campaign, Hovde wouldn't give a straight answer when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Daniel Bice asked him how much time he spends in the state. However, after joining the race last month, Hovde recently claimed to conservative radio host Jay Weber that he spends roughly nine months each year living in Wisconsin.

House

● GA-13: Atlanta City Councilmember Keisha Waites, who last year declined to rule out a primary challenge to Democratic Rep. David Scott, has instead announced that she's resigning her current post and will run for Fulton County Superior Court clerk. Scott currently faces one notable opponent, Army veteran Marcus Flowers, though anyone else interested in running this year only has until Friday's candidate filing deadline to decide.

● LA-06: Republican Rep. Garret Graves says he'll seek reelection in his current district, explaining that he believes Louisiana's new congressional map will get struck down by the courts, according to WBRZ.

That map was enacted by the state after a federal court ordered the creation of a second district where Black voters could elect their preferred candidates. To comply, lawmakers redrew Graves' 6th District, transforming it from a 65% white seat that Donald Trump would have won by a 64-34 margin to one with a 54% Black majority that Joe Biden would have carried 59-39.

Under those new lines, Graves would have virtually no chance of winning another term, but a group of voters recently filed a separate lawsuit challenging the new map as an unlawful racial gerrymander. If they're successful, Louisiana could be sent back to the drawing board, which in turn could restore Graves to a district he'd be able to win.

● MI-10: Former Macomb County Judge Carl Marlinga has released a late January internal poll from Public Policy Polling showing him with a wide lead in the Aug. 6 Democratic primary to take on the Republican who beat him in 2022, first-term Rep. John James. The survey finds Marlinga taking 30% of the vote while none of his opponents break 4%, though 55% are still undecided. That's very similar to polling Marlinga shared last August, when PPP likewise had him up 31-5 on his nearest rival.

● ND-AL: Wade Webb, a judge on the Cass County District Court, has opted against joining the June GOP primary for North Dakota's lone House seat. However, several other notable Republicans are running for this seat, which is open because GOP Rep. Kelly Armstrong is seeking the governorship, and more could get in. The state's filing deadline is April 8.

● NJ-09: Prospect Park Mayor Mohamed Khairullah, who is reportedly planning to launch a challenge to Rep. Bill Pascrell in this year's Democratic primary this week, has confirmed to Politico's Daniel Han that he will run. However, said Han, Khairullah "declined to discuss it further, saying he was waiting until his official announcement."

● PA-12: Facing challenges to her ballot petitions, nonprofit head Laurie McDonald abandoned her campaign against first-term Rep. Summer Lee in the April 23 Democratic primary on Monday and said she would instead seek the Republican nod as a write-in. That effort is likely just as doomed, though, since manufacturing executive James Hayes is already on the GOP primary ballot.

Lee, meanwhile, must still contend with a challenge from businesswoman Bhavini Patel for the Democratic nod. Joe Biden carried the Pittsburgh-based 12th District 59-40, so whoever emerges as the Democratic nominee should be favored in November.

Mayors & County Leaders

● Baltimore, MD Mayor: Former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon has publicized an internal poll from Garin-Hart-Yang that gives her a small 40-37 advantage over incumbent Brandon Scott in the May 14 Democratic primary. This survey, which is the first we've seen here all year, also finds former federal prosecutor Thiru Vignarajah and wealthy businessman Bob Wallace at 10% and 6%, respectively, with 8% undecided. It only takes a simple plurality to secure the Democratic nomination to lead this loyally blue city.

Ad Roundup

MD-06: April McClain Delaney (D)

Correction: The results for the Texas Senate Democratic primary inadvertently left out Colin Allred’s margin of victory; he won 59-17.

Campaign Action

Morning Digest: Democrats spend big to pick preferred GOP opponent in Montana primary

Posted on January 29, 2024 by Daily Kos Elections

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

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Leading Off

● MT-Sen: Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale has now all but announced that he'll seek a rematch with the man who beat him in 2018, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester—news that brought smiles to Democrats and angst to the NRSC and its allies.

The GOP establishment is all-in for wealthy businessman Tim Sheehy, but Democrats have already spent millions on messaging designed either to knock Sheehy out in the June 4 primary or damage him for the general election.

But Sheehy might be his own worst enemy. News of a 2019 plane crash involving the death of a pilot and the injury of a teenager on the ground resurfaced Friday after Politico reported that someone identified as "Timothy Sheehy" listed "plane crasher" as his occupation when making political donations. And there's reason to think this wasn't the work of a troll with money to burn.

Read Jeff Singer's piece for much more on the unfolding race between two flawed Republicans—including why Rosendale's alliance with Florida's most infamous congressman helps explain why Democrats would still rather face him again.

4Q Fundraising

NE-02: Don Bacon (R-inc): $780,000 raised, $1.5 million cash on hand; Tony Vargas (D): $552,000 raised
PA-10: Janelle Stelson (D): $282,000 raised
NC-AG: Jeff Jackson (D): $2 million raised (in two months)

Senate

● WV-Sen: Disgraced coal baron Don Blankenship decided to add "perennial candidate" to his résumé on Friday when he filed to run as a Democrat for West Virginia's open Senate seat.

The state Democratic Party quickly made it clear it wanted nothing to do with Blankenship, who spent a year in prison in connection to the 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners at one of his properties. "Blankenship, or as he’ll forever be known, federal prisoner 12393-088, lost a previous race for U.S. Senate when he ran as a Republican," said chairman Mike Pushkin. "He followed that up with a failed race for president running on the Constitution Party ticket," Pushkin noted.

House

● CO-05: Former Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams said on Friday that he would not enter the GOP primary to succeed retiring Rep. Doug Lamborn but would instead endorse conservative radio host Jeff Crank.

● IN-08: State Sen. Mark Messmer on Thursday became the first elected official to announce a bid to replace retiring Rep. Larry Bucshon, a fellow Republican. Messmer previously served as the chamber's majority floor leader, but he set his sights higher in 2022 when he challenged Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray for the top job. Bray prevailed, though, and the Indiana Capital says that Messmer lost his leadership positions afterward.

● MD-02: Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger on Friday became the first Democratic congressman to announce his retirement in the new year. His decision marks the close of a long career that saw Ruppersberger rise high in Old Line State politics―though not quite as high as he had envisioned.

Going Dutch. Ruppersberger was elected Baltimore County executive in 1994, and he seemed primed to run for governor in 2002. However, his troubles at home, including an embarrassing loss at the ballot box for a measure he'd supported, kept him out of the contest.
"Ruppersberger facing uphill battle." The termed-out executive still got his chance to run for higher office that same year after Democrats in the legislature redrew the congressional map, but he had to go through an unexpectedly bruising primary just two months before a general election showdown with former Republican Rep. Helen Bentley—one he was no longer expected to win.
Not going way down in the hole. It would take more than a decade before Ruppersberger finally put his gubernatorial ambitions to rest. However, he quickly became so secure in Congress that even the most famous politician on "The Wire" wouldn't challenge him.

Check out Jeff Singer's piece for more on Ruppersberger's career―and how one local Democrat has spent months laying the groundwork to succeed him.

● NC-06: Journalist Bryan Anderson reported Thursday that Speaker Mike Johnson has yanked back his endorsement of former Rep. Mark Walker, though Walker claims the reversal actually happened several months ago.

The former congressman tells The News & Observer that Johnson backed him before becoming speaker in October but then notified him the following month that he would now be neutral in the March 5 Republican primary. Walker also showed the paper a text that reporter Danielle Battaglia says "seemingly confirms" he was Johnson's initial pick.

However, Johnson, at least, did in fact support Walker at some point. Not so, however, with another member of Congress whose endorsement Walker has claimed. Walker has posted on social media that he had the backing of Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, but the senator's staff now tells N&O that no such endorsement ever happened. "I don’t know what’s going on," said Mullin's chief of staff.

● NJ-07: Summit Councilman Greg Vartan announced Thursday that he was dropping out of the Democratic primary to take on Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. Vartan's departure leaves former Working Families Party state director Sue Altman and former State Department official Jason Blazakis as the only notable candidates competing in the June 4 nomination contest.

● NY-16: The House Ethics Committee announced Thursday that it was ending its probe into Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman for pulling a fire alarm at the Capitol in September. The body said that it would not sanction the congressman even though it found his explanations about the incident "less than credible and otherwise misleading," adding that he "failed to take appropriate steps to mitigate the risk of unnecessary harm."

Bowman, who has insisted he believed the alarm would open a locked door as he was "rushing to a vote," pleaded guilty in October for "willfully or knowingly" instigating a false alarm. The case was dismissed Thursday after it was determined that Bowman had paid his $1,000 fine and apologized to the Capitol Police. The congressman faces serious opposition in the June 25 primary from Westchester County Executive George Latimer, though the challenger did not mention the fire alarm incident in his December launch video.

Ballot Measures

● OH Ballot: Republican Attorney General Dave Yost has, for the second time, rejected the proposed ballot summary for an initiative that would enshrine extensive voting access protections and policies in Ohio's constitution, which we've previously detailed.

Yost claims that the measure's proposed title, which supporters have called the "Ohio Voters Bill of Rights," is misleading, even though the amendment would, among other things, establish voting as a "fundamental right" and prohibit "any means whatsoever" that have the intent or effect of denying or unreasonably burdening the right to vote.

Proponents can revise and resubmit their summary, but this rejection further delays the start of gathering voter signatures, which must be submitted by an initial July 3 deadline to qualify for November's ballot.

Legislatures

● NC Redistricting: U.S. District Judge James Dever, a George W. Bush appointee, has rejected a request to block a pair of state Senate districts in northeastern North Carolina that Black plaintiffs alleged violate the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against Black voters.

Plaintiffs quickly indicated they would appeal Dever's ruling to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals while the case continues at the district court level. Republicans passed new gerrymanders last year and claimed the VRA no longer applied in North Carolina despite extensive evidence that voting patterns remain polarized along racial lines, particularly in rural regions such as those challenged in this case.

Grab Bag

● Where Are They Now?: The Justice Department determined that former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed at least 13 different women who worked in state government between 2013 and 2021, findings that were made public as part of a settlement with the governor's office. Investigators concluded that Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace amid the threat of impeachment in 2021, had created "a sexually hostile work environment" and engaged in "a pattern or practice of retaliation" after employees complained.

The agreement requires Cuomo's successor, Gov. Kathy Hochul, to institute a number of reforms to prevent future civil rights violations. They include expanding her office's human resources department and implementing policies that require complaints against the governor and "high-level" aides to be reported and investigated externally. In response to the settlement, an attorney for Cuomo issued a statement denying her client had committed sexual harassment.

Cuomo has reportedly been considering bids for Senate and for New York City mayor.

Ad Roundup

NE-02: Nebraska for Us - anti-Don Bacon (R-inc) (part of $282,000 buy)

Campaign Action

Morning Digest: Democrats and Republicans unite to elect an independent as speaker … in Pennsylvania

Posted on January 4, 2023 by Daily Kos Elections

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

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Leading Off

● PA State House: In a pair of true surprises, moderate Democrat Mark Rozzi was elected speaker of the Pennsylvania state House Tuesday just before he announced that he’d lead the chamber as an independent.

Rozzi, who will be the first non-aligned speaker in the history of the body, defeated Republican state Rep. Carl Metzgar 115-85 after Democratic leader Joanna McClinton threw her support behind him rather than submit her own name. Following that endorsement, the entire Democratic caucus supported Rozzi, while 16 Republicans crossed over to back him. Rozzi’s win comes after two months of uncertainty about which party would lead the chamber, though few observers guessed that the answer would be neither.

Democrats, including Rozzi, won 102 of the 203 seats in the House on Nov. 8, which appeared to set them up for their first majority since the 2010 GOP wave. However, Democrats could only claim 99 members because state Rep. Tony DeLuca was re-elected a month after he died, while fellow Pittsburgh-area Democrats Summer Lee and Austin Davis resigned weeks later to prepare to assume their new roles as congresswoman and lieutenant governor, respectively. Republicans therefore began Tuesday with a 101 to 99 advantage, but no one knew if that would be enough for the party to elect a speaker.

Indeed, a deadlock appeared certain after one Republican joined the Democratic caucus in voting to adjourn during the middle of the day―a tied vote that failed because the remaining 100 Republicans were opposed. Unexpectedly, though, multiple Republicans and Democrats soon nominated Rozzi, whose name hadn’t previously been seriously mentioned. Rozzi prevailed with the support of all of the Democrats and a minority of Republicans, including Bryan Cutler, who had been speaker going into November’s elections.

So, what happens next? First, there will almost certainly be a vacant GOP-held seat before long, as state Rep. Lynda Schlegel Culver is the favorite to win the Jan. 31 special election for a dark red state Senate district. Culver’s 108th House District supported Donald Trump 65-33 in 2020, but her absence could deny her party a crucial vote in the closely divided lower chamber until a special election could take place. PennLive.com says such a race likely wouldn’t take place before May 16, which is the same date as Pennsylvania's regular statewide primary.

As for the three vacant Democratic constituencies, both parties agree that a Feb. 7 special will go forward in DeLuca’s HD-32, which went for Joe Biden 62-36. In Pennsylvania special elections, the parties, rather than voters, choose nominees: Democrats have selected local party official Joe McAndrew, while Republicans are fielding pastor Clay Walker.

There’s no agreement, however, about when the contests for Lee’s and Davis’ constituencies will take place. That’s because legislative special elections are scheduled by the leader of the chamber with the vacant seat, but there was no speaker between late November, when the last session ended, and Tuesday. That duty, as a result, fell to the majority leader, and both McClinton and Cutler claimed that title in December, issuing dueling writs of election: McClinton set these two specials to also take place on Feb. 7, while Cutler picked May 16.

Cutler filed a lawsuit to block McClinton’s schedule, but the Pennsylvania Department of State is going forward with February specials right now. There’s no question that Democrats will hold Lee’s HD-34, which Biden took 80-19, but the president pulled off a smaller 58-41 win in Davis’ HD-35.

Democrats in the former district have picked Swissvale Borough Council President Abigail Salisbury, who will go up against kickboxing instructor Robert Pagane. The Democratic nominee to succeed Davis is Matt Gergely, who serves as finance director for the community of McKeesport. Local Republicans are running Don Nevills, who lost to Davis 66-34 in November; Nevills himself has said in his social media posts that the special will be Feb. 7.

P.S. Rozzi’s win makes this the second time in the 21st century that Pennsylvania Democrats successfully maneuvered to stop Republicans from taking the speakership. In 2006, Democrats likewise won a 102-101 majority, but one of their members, Thomas Caltagirone, soon announced he’d cross party lines to keep Republican John Perzel on as speaker instead of electing Democrat Bill DeWeese. DeWeese, who was speaker in 1994 when Democrats last controlled the chamber, ended up nominating Republican Dennis O'Brien rather than put his name forward; O’Brien ultimately won 105-97.

Democrats secured a workable majority the following year, and Keith McCall became the party’s first, and to date only, speaker since DeWeese. In a strange twist, DeWeese and Perzel went on to become cellmates after being convicted in separate corruption cases. Incidentally, one House Democrat heavily involved in the plan to make O'Brien speaker was Josh Shapiro, now the governor-elect of Pennsylvania.

Senate

● AZ-Sen: Doug Ducey, whose tenure as governor ended on Monday, said before Christmas he was "not running for the United States Senate" and that "it's not something I'm considering." And just like two years ago, Ducey's fellow Republicans are not taking this seemingly unequivocal statement as final: Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who is another Republican on Donald Trump's shit list, instead told The Hill, "I hope that he'll get in."

Former state Board of Regents member Karrin Taylor Robson, who narrowly lost last year's primary to succeed Ducey, may be more interested in campaigning for the Senate seat held by Democrat-turned-independent Kyrsten Sinema. Vox's Christian Paz writes that Taylor Robson "told me she is not ruling out running for statewide office again," though it's not clear if the former regent said anything about the Senate in particular.

On the Democratic side, Rep. Ruben Gallego released late-December numbers from Public Policy Polling showing a tight race whether or not Sinema runs. The survey found Republican Kari Lake, who continues to deny her loss to now-Gov. Katie Hobbs, edging out Gallego 41-40, with Sinema grabbing 13%. When the incumbent is left out, however, it's Gallego who leads Lake 48-47. The congressman has made it clear he's likely to run, while NBC reported last month that Lake is trying to recruit Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb rather than campaign herself.

The poll was conducted days before The Daily Beast's Sam Brodey reported that Sinema's office had a 37-page guide for staffers that includes tasks that "appear to go right up to the line of what Senate ethics rules allow, if not over." Among other things, Brodey writes that Sinema requires her subordinates perform personal tasks for her, including arranging massages and buying groceries on their own dime, which she later reimburses them for.

The Senate's ethics handbook, though, specifies that "staff are compensated for the purpose of assisting Senators in their official legislative and representational duties, and not for the purpose of performing personal or other non-official activities for themselves or on behalf of others." Sinema's spokesperson told Brodey that "the alleged information—sourced from anonymous quotes and a purported document I can't verify—is not in line with official guidance from Sen. Sinema's office and does not represent official policies of Sen. Sinema's office."

● IN-Sen, IN-Gov: Bellwether Research released mid-December numbers before Christmas for the 2024 GOP primaries for the Senate and governor: The firm previously worked for former Gov. Mitch Daniels, who is a prospective Senate candidate, but a Daniels consultant tells Politico's Adam Wren that this survey was done without his knowledge.

The firm tested out hypothetical Senate scenarios with and without Daniels, who just completed his tenure as president of Purdue University. We'll start with the former matchup:

former Purdue University President Mitch Daniels: 32

Rep. Jim Banks: 10

former Rep. Trey Hollingsworth: 9

Rep. Victoria Spartz: 7

Attorney General Todd Rokita: 7

Someone Else: 6

In the Daniels-free scenario, Rokita leads Banks 16-14 as Spartz and Hollingsworth grab 12% and 11%, respectively.

Spartz herself quickly publicized her own numbers from Response:AI that put Daniels in front with 35% as she and Banks deadlocked 14-14 for second. That survey placed Hollingsworth at 6% while two people who were not tested by Bellwether, 2022 House nominee Jennifer-Ruth Green and disgraced former Attorney General Curtis Hill, took 4% and 2%. Wren recently named Hill, whom we hadn't heard mentioned for Senate, as a possible candidate, though there's been no sign yet that he's thinking about campaigning.

None of the other Republicans tested in either poll are currently running for the Senate either, and Daniels' ultimate decision may deter some of them from getting in. Indeed, an unnamed person close to Spartz told Politico that she may decide not to go up against the former governor: The congresswoman, writes Wren, "declined to comment on that question, but told POLITICO she is seeking a meeting with Daniels before making her decision."

A Banks ally, though, insists his man "won't make his decision based on what others do and I think the poll numbers released by Daniels and Spartz will only embolden him to run."

Bellwether also posted numbers for the GOP race to succeed termed-out Gov. Eric Holcomb:

Sen. Mike Braun: 25

Attorney General Todd Rokita: 9

Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch: 7

former Rep. Trey Hollingsworth: 6

Businessman Eric Doden: 3

Someone Else: 9

Braun, Crouch, and Doden are currently running.

Governors

● KY-Gov: State Rep. Savannah Maddox announced days before Christmas that she was dropping out of the packed May Republican primary to face Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.

An unnamed GOP source soon told the Lexington Herald Leader they believed Maddox's departure means that Papa John's founder John Schnatter "could get in the race, since he's got the resources and with Savannah not in the race it could open up a lane." Schnatter, who resigned as board chairman in 2018 after news broke that he'd used racist language, has not taken any obvious steps toward running ahead of Friday's filing deadline.

Self-funder Kelly Craft, meanwhile, is not waiting until the field fully takes shape to go up with the first TV campaign ad of the contest, which the paper says ran for $114,000 from Dec. 27 to Jan. 3. Craft uses the message to tout her roots growing up on a farm in Barren County in the south-central party of the state, and she goes on to tout how she went on to become ambassador to the United Nations. The ad shows photos of Craft with Donald Trump, who is supporting Attorney General Daniel Cameron for the GOP nod.

● MS-Gov: The Daily Journal reported before Christmas that Secretary of State Michael Watson is indeed considering taking on Gov. Tate Reeves in this August's Republican primary. Watson and other potential contenders have until the Feb. 1 filing deadline to make up their minds, but there's one name we can already cross off. While former state Rep. Robert Foster, who took third in 2019, reportedly was thinking about another campaign over the summer, he announced last week that he'd instead run for a seat on the DeSoto County Board of Supervisors.

● NC-Gov, NC-??: The conservative Washington Examiner relayed in mid-December that former Rep. Mark Walker is considering seeking the Republican nomination for governor or to return to the House after his party crafts a new gerrymander. Walker last cycle campaigned for the Senate even though Donald Trump tried to persuade him to drop down and run for the lower chamber, but he earned just 9% of the primary vote for his stubbornness.

House

● MD-05: Veteran Rep. Steny Hoyer told CNN Sunday that he hadn't ruled out seeking re-election in 2024 even though he's no longer part of the Democratic leadership. "I may. I may," the incumbent said about waging another run.

● MD-08: Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said last week that he'd "been diagnosed with Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma, which is a serious but curable form of cancer." Raskin added that he was "about to embark on a course of chemo-immunotherapy on an outpatient basis," and that "[p]rognosis for most people in my situation is excellent after four months of treatment." The congressman also said he planned to keep working during this time, and he was present Tuesday for the opening of the 118th Congress.

● NY-03: At this point in the George Santos saga, his entirely fictional life story is almost beside the point: When he's called on any of his lies, he just lies some more—it's pathological. But that same reckless behavior is also why the new Republican congressman-to-be is in serious legal jeopardy, at the local, state, federal, and, amazingly, international levels. And because of that, he's exceedingly unlikely to serve out a full term. So what happens if he resigns?

In short, there would be a special election, but in a break with past practice, we'd immediately know when it would take place—and it would happen quickly. Governors in New York previously had wide latitude over when to call elections to fill vacant posts, both for Congress and state legislature, and disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo notoriously abused this power, frequently delaying specials when it suited him.

But in 2021, as state law expert Quinn Yeargain explains, lawmakers finally passed legislation to correct this problem, which Cuomo signed shortly before resigning. Now, Gov. Kathy Hochul would be required to call a special election within 10 days of Santos' seat becoming vacant, and that election would have to take place 70 to 80 days afterward. This law has already come into play multiple times, including for two congressional special elections that took place last year.

One thing hasn't changed, though: There still would be no primaries. Instead, as per usual, nominations for Democrats and Republicans alike would be decided by small groups of party insiders. The actual election would, however, be hotly contested. While Joe Biden would have carried New York's 3rd District, which is based on the North Shore of Long Island, by a 54-45 margin, according to our calculations, Republican Lee Zeldin almost certainly won it in last year's race for governor. Santos dispatched Democrat Robert Zimmerman 52-44 after Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi left the seat open to pursue his own unsuccessful gubernatorial bid.

● NY-17: Former Rep. Mondaire Jones told NY1 before Christmas that he was not ruling out seeking the Democratic nomination to take on the new Republican incumbent, Mike Lawler. Jones unsuccessfully decided to run in New York City last year in order to avoid a primary against DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney, who himself went on to lose to Lawler, but he made it clear a future campaign would take place in the area he'd represented. "I've also learned my lesson, and that is home for me is in the Hudson Valley," Jones said.

● VA-04: Jennifer McClellan beat her fellow state senator, conservative Joe Morrissey, in an 85-14 landslide to win the Democratic nomination in the Dec. 19 firehouse primary to succeed the late Rep. Donald McEachin. McClellan should have no trouble defeating Republican nominee Leon Benjamin, who badly lost to McEachin in 2020 and 2022, in the Feb. 21 special election for this 67-32 Biden seat; McClellan's win would make her the first Black woman to represent Virginia in Congress.

● WA-03: Democrats will still have election conspiracy theorist Joe Kent to kick around this cycle, as the 2022 GOP nominee declared before Christmas, "I'm running again in 2024."

● DCCC: House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries announced ahead of Christmas that the new DCCC chair would be Rep. Suzan DelBene, who represents a Washington seat that Joe Biden carried 64-33. Jeffries' decision came weeks after House Democrats voted 166-38 to give the caucus' leader the opportunity to select the head of the DCCC rather than have the chair be elected by the full body. The new rule still requires members approve the choice, and they ratified DelBene two days after she was picked.

Attorneys General and Secretaries of State

● AZ-AG: Democrat Kris Mayes' narrow win over election denier Abe Hamadeh was affirmed after a recount concluded last week, and Mayes was sworn in as attorney general on Monday. The Democrat's margin dropped from 511 to 280 votes; most of this difference came from dark red Pinal County, which said it had initially failed to count over 500 ballots because of "human error." Hamadeh characteristically refused to accept his defeat and announced Tuesday he was "filing a 'Motion for New Trial.'"

Judges

● NY Court of Appeals: Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul nominated Hector LaSalle, an appeals court judge, to fill the vacant post of chief judge on New York's highest court just before the holidays, but her decision was immediately met with fierce resistance by state senators in her own party, 14 of whom have already publicly come out against the choice.

LaSalle, who was named to the Appellate Division by disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2014, has compiled what City & State described as one of the "most conservative" records of any appellate judge in the state. Progressives have raised serious alarms over his hostility toward criminal defendants, labor unions, and especially reproductive rights: A group of law professors have pointed to a 2017 decision LaSalle signed on to that helped shield a network of so-called "crisis pregnancy centers" (which try to dissuade women from getting abortions) from an investigation by the state attorney general.

At stake is more than LaSalle's promotion, though: The seven-member top court, known as the Court of Appeals, has for several years been in the grips of a reactionary four-judge majority that has ruled against victims of police misconduct, workers seeking compensation for injuries on the job, and tenants who'd been overcharged by their landlords. Most notoriously, this quartet—all appointed by Cuomo—struck down new congressional and legislative maps passed by Democratic lawmakers last year on extremely questionable grounds and ordered that a Republican judge in upstate New York redraw them.

Leading this coalition was Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, who unexpectedly announced her resignation last year. That vacancy has given Hochul the chance to reshape the court, but instead she's tapped someone who appears poised to continue DiFiore's legacy. But while judicial confirmations in New York are normally sleepy affairs, a large number of senators—who'd be responsible for voting on LaSalle's nomination—immediately denounced the choice.

That chorus of opposition hit a crucial threshold shortly before the New Year when state Sen. Mike Gianaris, a member of leadership, became the 11th Democrat to say he would vote against LaSalle. With 42 Democrats in the 63-member upper chamber but only 28 still open to Hochul's pick, the governor would now have to rely on the support of Republicans to confirm LaSalle. None, however, have yet come out in favor.

There's no definite timeline for confirmation hearings or a vote on LaSalle's nomination, but if Hochul were to withdraw his name, she'd be able to choose from a list of six other candidates vetted by the state's Commission on Judicial Nomination. A coalition of progressive groups previously endorsed three individuals on that list while calling three others, including LaSalle, "unacceptable" (a seventh option was unrated). If instead LaSalle were voted down by the Senate, the entire process would start over again, with the commission once again reviewing potential candidates.

● WI Supreme Court: Judge Everett Mitchell, a progressive candidate for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court this spring, was accused by his then-wife of sexual assault during their 2010 divorce proceeding, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Dan Bice reported on Tuesday. Mitchell was never charged with any wrongdoing and has denied the allegations, while his ex-wife, Merrin Guice Gill said her former spouse "should be evaluated on the work he has done and the work he is doing as a judge" rather than on her past accusations.

However, Guice Gill "declined to say whether she stood by the abuse allegations," telling Bice, "I'm not going to respond to that." During her divorce, Bice writes that she told the court that Mitchell had "undressed her and had sex with her without consent shortly after she took a sleeping pill" in 2007 and also provided documents showing she had informed both her therapist and a police officer about the alleged incident shortly afterwards. The accusations came up when she contacted police about a possible custody dispute involving the couple's daughter, but she declined to press charges, saying that she "was only concerned with her daughter's whereabouts."

Mitchell is one of two liberals seeking a spot on the Supreme Court, along with Judge Janet Protasiewicz. Two conservatives are also running, former Justice Dan Kelly and Judge Jennifer Dorow. All candidates will appear together on an officially nonpartisan primary ballot on Feb. 21, with the top two vote-getters advancing to an April 4 general election. The seat in question is being vacated by conservative Justice Pat Roggensack; should progressives win, they'd take control of the court from the current 4-3 conservative majority.

Legislatures

● AK State House: A judge ruled ahead of Christmas that far-right state Rep. David Eastman's membership in the Oath Keepers does not preclude him from serving in elected office even though the state constitution prevents anyone from holding office who "advocates, or who aids or belongs to any party or association which advocates the overthrow by force or violence of the United States."

Goriune Dudukgian, the attorney representing an Eastman constituent who sued to block him from holding office, said Tuesday his camp would not appeal. No one has formed a majority coalition in the Alaska State House in the almost two months since the election.

● NY State Senate: Democrats learned ahead of Christmas that they'd maintained a two-thirds supermajority in the upper chamber after a judge ruled that incumbent John Mannion had fended off Republican Rebecca Shiroff by 10 votes in his Syracuse-based seat. Shiroff conceded the contest, and Mannion's term began New Year's Day.

● OH State House: While Democrats are deep in the minority in the Ohio state House, the caucus joined with enough GOP members on Tuesday to elect Republican Jason Stephens as speaker over Derek Merrin, who began the day as the heavy favorite to lead the chamber. Cleveland.com's Jeremy Pelzer writes, "Stephens, while conservative, is not considered to be as far to the right as Merrin."

The GOP enjoys a 67-32 majority, so a Merrin speakership appeared likely after he won November's caucus vote against Stephens. Pelzer writes that in the ensuing weeks there were "rumblings since then about some sort of challenge to Merrin," but that "the insurgency to lift him to the speaker's chair only picked up speed starting a few days ago."

Indeed, Minority Leader Allison Russo says Democrats decided just two hours before the vote to cast their lot in with Stephens. Another 22 Republicans joined them, however, which left Merrin with only 43 votes. Russo, whose caucus supplied most of the support for the new speaker, declared that there was "no grand deal," but "there were lots of discussions about things and areas of agreement on issues." She also relays that Merrin spoke to her about getting Democratic support, which very much did not end up happening.

This is the second time in the last few years that the Democratic minority has played a key role in helping a Republican win the gavel over the candidate favored by most of the GOP caucus, though Merrin himself was on the other side of that vote. In 2019, he was one of the 26 Republicans who joined that same number of Democrats in supporting Larry Householder over Speaker Ryan Smith. Unlike four years ago, though, Smith got the backing of 11 Democrats as well as 34 GOP members.

Stephens, for his part, was appointed to the chamber later that year to succeed none other than Smith, who resigned to become president of the University of Rio Grande and Rio Grande Community College. The victorious Householder, though, was removed as speaker in 2020 after being arrested on federal corruption charges; Householder's colleagues expelled him the following year, though Merrin voted to keep him in office.

● WI State Senate: Former state Sen. Randy Hopper ended his brief comeback campaign days after Christmas and endorsed state Rep. Dan Knodl in the Feb. 21 Republican special election primary.

Mayors and County Leaders

● Chicago, IL Mayor: The Chicago Electoral Board in late December removed two minor contenders, police officer Frederick Collins and freelance consultant Johnny Logalbo, from the Feb. 28 nonpartisan primary ballot after determining that they didn't have enough valid signatures to advance. However, challenges were dropped against activist Ja'Mal Green, Alderman Roderick Sawyer, and wealthy perennial candidate Willie Wilson, so they will be competing in what is now a nine-person race.

Prosecutors and Sheriffs

● Philadelphia, PA District Attorney: Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Court ruled Friday that state House Republicans failed to demonstrate any of the legally required standards for "misbehavior in office" when they voted to impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner in November. The order, though, did not say if Krasner's trial before the state Senate, which is scheduled for Jan. 18, must be called off.

Obituaries

● Lincoln Almond: Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Almond, a Republican who served from 1995 to 2003, died Tuesday at the age of 86. Almond, who made his name as the state's U.S. attorney, badly lost the 1978 general election to Democratic incumbent Joseph Garrahy, but he prevailed 16 years later by defeating state Sen. Myrth York in a close contest. You can find much more at WPRI's obituary.

Grab Bag

● Where Are They Now?: Former Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III was chosen before Christmas to serve as the State Department's special envoy for economic affairs for Northern Ireland. Kennedy, who is the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, was elected to the House in 2012 and left to unsuccessfully challenge Sen. Ed Markey in the 2020 Democratic primary.

Michigan Republican sends horrid anti-trans solicitation after fundraising shortfall

Posted on April 25, 2022 by Daily Kos Elections

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

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Leading Off

● MI-07: Republican state Sen. Tom Barrett, who is challenging Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin in Michigan's new and competitive 7th Congressional District, recently sent out a fundraising appeal by text message falsely telling recipients that "your child's gender reassignment surgery has been booked," complete with a phony time for the appointment. Barrett, a far-right politician who has worn a "naturally immunized" wrist band and refused to say if he's vaccinated, deployed this tactic after David Drucker of the conservative Washington Examiner reported that he'd badly missed his own team's fundraising goals.

We know about Barrett's underperformance because a Democratic operative provided Drucker with a vivid recording of one of his top aides. "We announced just before Thanksgiving, you know, really, you know, we chained him to a desk and had him on the phones," said the staffer in February, "and he raised, you know, 310 grand. He's raising more money now—our goal is a million by the end of March." However, the senator hauled in only $456,000 during the first three months of 2022, which left him with $396,000 on hand. Slotkin, by contrast, took in $1.32 million during the first quarter and had a gigantic $5.5 million on hand.

One thing Barrett doesn't need to worry about, though, is the Aug. 2 primary. Candidate filing closed Tuesday, and the only other Republican to turn in paperwork was insurance agency owner Jacob Hagg, who hasn't reported raising any cash at all. This constituency in the Lansing area would have supported Joe Biden by a 50-49 margin, a small improvement for Slotkin from Trump's 50-49 edge in the old 8th District. But even an underfunded extremist like Barrett has an opening in a district this close.

Now that filing has passed in the Wolverine State, we'll be taking a look at Michigan's other big competitive races, starting with our MI-Gov item below. It's possible that some candidates who submitted signatures won't appear on the ballot, though, because election authorities in Michigan have disqualified contenders in past years for not meeting the state's requirements. In 2018, for instance, seven House hopefuls—including a few notable names—were thrown off the ballot after the secretary of state ruled that they'd failed to turn in the requisite number of acceptable petitions.

Redistricting

● FL Redistricting: Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his state's new congressional map—which he himself proposed—on Friday, following party-line votes that advanced the map in both chambers of the Republican-run legislature. (We previously detailed the map's impacts in this post.) The same day, several advocacy groups and Florida voters filed a lawsuit in state court alleging that the map violates the state constitution's prohibitions on partisan gerrymandering and diluting minority representation.

● NY Redistricting: A five-judge panel on New York's Appellate Division, the state's intermediate appellate court, upheld a recent lower court ruling that the new congressional map drawn by Democrats violates the state constitution as an illegal partisan gerrymander and gave lawmakers until April 30 to craft a replacement. However, Democrats have already said they'll appeal to the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, with oral arguments scheduled for Tuesday.

In its ruling, the Appellate Division also overturned the trial court's finding that the legislature lacked the power to draw new maps for the state Senate and Assembly, allowing those maps to be used. It's not yet clear whether Republicans plan to pursue their own appeal regarding this issue.

Senate

● AR-Sen: We have yet to see any polls indicating whether former NFL player Jake Bequette poses a serious threat to Sen. John Boozman in the May 24 Republican primary, but the incumbent did recently air an ad taking a swipe at his foe. Most of Boozman's spot, which praises him as a "workhorse, not a show pony" is positive, though it employs a photo of Bequette as the narrator hits those last words.

Bequette's allies at Arkansas Patriots Fund, meanwhile, have been going directly at Boozman with a commercial faulting him for having "voted to confirm six in 10 Biden cabinet picks" in the first 40 days of the administration. The ad goes on to accuse the senator of backing "amnesty for illegals, tax dollars for abortions, bailouts for Wall Street, even allowed the feds to confiscate your firearm records." The super PAC received $1 million from conservative megadonor Dick Uihlein last year, which Politico's Alex Isenstadt says makes up most of its budget.

● AZ-Sen: The NRSC is commencing what they call a "seven figure" ad buy that starts off with a spot attacking Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly over immigration. This appears to be the first ad of the cycle going directly after a candidate from any of the "big four" party groups (which in addition to the NRSC includes the Senate Leadership Fund super PAC on the GOP side and the DSCC and Senate Majority PAC for Democrats).

● CO-Sen: Wealthy construction company owner Joe O'Dea has announced he's spending $250,000 over three weeks to air an ad that touts his business record and portrays him as a conservative outsider. O'Dea faces state Rep. Ron Hanks in the June Republican primary.

● NC-Sen: Former Gov. Pat McCrory has debuted a new commercial ahead of the May 17 GOP primary where he calls Rep. Ted Budd weak on Vladimir Putin before claiming that Budd is backed by billionaire philanthropist George Soros. Soros is a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor whom the far-right both here and abroad has frequently used as a target of and a stand-in for age-old conspiracy theories about wealthy Jews using their power to exert a nefarious influence over the world.

However, McCrory's accusation that Soros, who is well known for openly funding progressive causes, would secretly support Budd, who has compiled a hard-right voting record in his three terms in office, relies on very dubious facts. The Charlotte Observer reports that a Soros-affiliated investment firm once owned a 7.6% stake in a company led by Budd's father that filed for bankruptcy in 2000, and there's no indication the congressman even had any role in the company's day-to-day operations, which is a very far cry from Soros actually supporting his contemporary political activities.

Budd himself has launched a new ad that features footage of a rally where Trump effusively endorses Budd and McCrory goes unmentioned. While the two Republican front runners dominate the airwaves, the pro-Budd Club for Growth is notably training its focus on former GOP Rep. Mark Walker with an ad that criticizes him for frequently missing votes, including one involving Trump's impeachment. The polls have shown Walker in a distant third place, but the Club likely views his hard-right support base as overlapping with potential Budd supporters.

● OH-Sen: Undeterred by Trump's recent endorsement of venture capitalist J.D. Vance in the May 3 Republican primary, the Club for Growth is once again running an ad that uses Vance's lengthy past history of anti-Trump statements against him. The ad campaign reportedly angered Trump so greatly that he had an aide text Club president David McIntosh, "Go f*^% yourself" (which presumably wasn't censored). A spokesperson for the Club, which is supporting former state Treasurer Josh Mandel, tersely responded to the news about Trump's message by saying, "We are increasing our ad buy."

Meanwhile, former state GOP chair Jane Timken has been struggling to gain traction in the polls, and she has reportedly been off of broadcast TV in much of the state for weeks and is only continuing to run limited cable ads on Fox News.

Governors

● AL-Gov: Republican Gov. Kay Ivey has commissioned a poll from the Tarrance Group that shows her holding a dominant 57-14 lead over former Ambassador to Slovenia Lindy Blanchard ahead of the May 24 Republican primary, with businessman Tim James taking just 12%. There have only been a few polls here from reliable firms, but every one of them this year has found Ivey far ahead of her rivals and in good shape to surpass the simple-majority threshold needed to avoid a June runoff.

● GA-Gov: A group called Take Back Georgia with ties to pro-Trump state Sen. Brandon Beach has unveiled a $2 million ad buy for a spot that goes all-in on 2020 election denial to highlight Trump's endorsement of former Sen. David Perdue ahead of the May 24 GOP primary against Gov. Brian Kemp. Perdue has only been running a modestly sized ad buy recently after struggling to keep up in fundraising with Kemp, whose allies at the RGA have also spent millions airing their first-ever ads backing an incumbent against a primary challenger.

It's unclear whether Trump himself, whose super PAC recently reported it had over $120 million on hand, will increase its support for Perdue beyond the meager $500,000 it allocated a few weeks ago toward backing his endorsee. However, with the polls showing Kemp in striking distance of the outright majority needed to avoid a June runoff, time is quickly running short for Perdue.

● IL-Gov: Far-right billionaire Dick Uihlein has given another $2.5 million to the June primary campaign of Republican state Sen. Darren Bailey, bringing his total contributions to $3.5 million in addition to another $1 million that Uihlein gave to a third-party group opposing Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin. In yet another election that has turned into a battle of rival billionaires thanks to Illinois being one of just a few states without any limits on direct contributions to candidates, Uihlein's involvement so far still trails far behind the $20 million that fellow billionaire Ken Griffin, a hedge fund manager who is Illinois' wealthiest resident, has given to Irvin's campaign.

● MI-Gov: A total of 10 Republicans are competing to take on Democratic incumbent Gretchen Whitmer, which would make this the largest gubernatorial primary field in state history. The few polls that have been released show former Detroit Police Chief James Craig as Team Red's frontrunner, but he's had to deal with several major campaign shakeups: Craig, most notably, parted ways with his first campaign manager in December, and his second left last month.

The August primary also includes two wealthy businessmen, Kevin Rinke and Perry Johnson. Conservative radio host Tudor Dixon doesn't have the same resources as her intra-party foes, but she sports endorsements from Reps. Bill Huizenga and Lisa McClain. Also in the running are chiropractor Garrett Soldano, Michigan State Police Captain Mike Brown, and five others.

● OR-Gov: The May 17 primary is rapidly approaching, and the Portland Monthly's Julia Silverman has collected several TV spots from the candidates. On the Democratic side, former state House Speaker Tina Kotek talks about the progressive policies she helped pass, while state Treasurer Tobias Read's narrator argues that "Oregon has lost its way. It's time for a new approach." Silverman notes that this messaging is "all in keeping with Read's efforts to portray himself as a change agent, though he has been in state government about as long as Kotek."

For the Republicans, former state House Minority Leader Christine Drazan declares that she's "led the fight against [Democratic Gov.] Kate Brown's radical agenda." Sandy Mayor Stan Pulliam, meanwhile, goes all-in with courting right-wing outrage with spots where he calls for getting "critical race theory out of our schools" and "not allow[ing] transgender athletes to compete in girls' sports." Former state Rep. Bob Tiernan uses his messaging to attack Brown and Kotek, saying that their approach is "bull****." (A different Republican, consultant Bridget Barton, also tried to stand out with some censored potty mouth.) Finally, 2016 nominee Bud Pierce alludes to the Big Lie with the mention of "broken elections."

House

● AK-AL: The Alaska Republican Party has endorsed businessman Nick Begich III ahead of the top-four special election primary this June, where Begich has emerged as one of the leading Republicans in the crowded all-party contest alongside former Gov. Sarah Palin.

● MI-03: Rep. Peter Meijer, who was one of the 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump, faces primary opposition from conservative commentator John Gibbs, who is Trump's endorsed candidate. (We recently took a closer look at this primary.) Little-known attorney Gabi Manolache is also running, though "MAGA bride" Audra Johnson did not end up filing. The winner will take on 2020 nominee Hillary Scholten, who faces no intra-party opposition for her second bid, in a Grand Rapids-based seat that redistricting transformed from a 51-47 Trump seat to one Joe Biden would have carried 53-45.

● MI-04: Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga, who represents the existing 2nd District, has no primary opposition following fellow Rep. Fred Upton's retirement announcement earlier this month. This seat in southwestern Michigan would have favored Trump 51-47, and the one Democrat to file, Joseph Alfonso, has not reported raising any money.

● MI-08: Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee is defending a seat in the Flint and Saginaw areas that would have favored Joe Biden only 50-48, a small but potentially important shift from Biden's 51-47 showing in Kildee's existing 5th District. The Republican frontrunner is former Trump administration official Paul Junge, who lost to Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin 51-47 in the old 8th District in 2020. (The old and new 8th Districts do not overlap.) Former Grosse Pointe Shores Councilman Matthew Seely and businesswoman Candice Miller (not to be confused with the former congresswoman with the same name) are also in, but neither opened fundraising committees until recently.

● MI-10: Five Democrats are competing to take on John James, who was Team Red's Senate nominee in 2018 and 2020, in an open seat in Detroit's northeastern suburbs that would have gone for Trump 50-49. James, who only has a little-known primary foe, had $1.25 million stockpiled at the end of March, which was considerably more than the Democrats had combined.

Warren Council member Angela Rogensues finished the quarter with $160,000 on hand, while attorney Huwaida Arraf and former Macomb County Judge Carl Marlinga were similarly situated with $145,000 and $135,000 to spend, respectively. Sterling Heights City Council member Henry Yanez, though, was far back with only $22,000 in the bank, while former Macomb County Health Department head Rhonda Powell had less than $5,000.

● MI-11: The Democratic primary is a duel between Reps. Haley Stevens and Andy Levin for a constituency in the Detroit northern suburbs that Biden would have won 59-39. Stevens' existing 11th District makes up 45% of the new seat, while Levin represents only 25%. (Several Democrats grumbled to Politico recently that Levin should have instead run for the new 10th, where he already serves most of the residents.)

Stevens has the support of retiring Rep. Brenda Lawrence, who represents the balance of this district, and EMILY's List, while the SEIU is in Levin's corner. The two have largely voted the same way in Congress, though while Levin has emphasized his support for Medicare for all and the Green New Deal, Stevens has portrayed herself as more pragmatic. Stevens ended March with a $2.79 million to $1.47 million cash-on-hand edge over her fellow incumbent.

● MI-12: Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who is one of the most prominent progressives in the House, faces three Democratic primary opponents in this safely blue Detroit-based seat. Tlaib, whose existing 13th District makes up 53% of the new 12th, ended March with a $1.62 million to $221,000 cash-on-hand lead over her nearest foe, Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey; Winfrey, for her part, has faulted Tlaib for casting a vote from the left against the Biden administration's infrastructure bill. Also in the race are former state Rep. Shanelle Jackson and Lathrup Village Mayor Kelly Garrett, neither of whom reported raising any money during the last quarter.

● MI-13: A total of 11 Democrats have filed to run to succeed retiring Rep. Brenda Lawrence, who is Michigan's only Black member of Congress, in this safely blue seat, which includes part of Detroit and its southern suburbs. Lawrence, who supports Michigan Civil Rights Commissioner Portia Roberson, has argued that it's vital to keep a "qualified, committed" African American representing the state, something that several other Black candidates have also emphasized.

However, the candidate who ended March with the most money by far is self-funding state Rep. Shri Thanedar, who is originally from India. (Thanedar, who lived in Ann Arbor when he unsuccessfully ran for governor, moved to Detroit ahead of his victorious bid for a state House seat in the city two years later.) Thanedar had over $5 million on hand, which was more than ten times as much as the $453,000 that his nearest foe, state Sen. Adam Hollier, had available.

Other candidates to watch include hedge fund manager John Conyers III, who is the son and namesake of the late longtime congressman; Detroit School Board member Sherry Gay-Dagnogo; Teach for America official Michael Griffie; former Detroit General Counsel Sharon McPhail; and Detroit city official Adrian Tonon, who is one of the few other non-Black contenders in the primary.

● MN-01: In what appears to be the first TV ad from anyone ahead of the special May 24 Republican primary, former Freeborn County party chair Matt Benda plays up his farming background and pledges to "protect our children from indoctrination in the classroom [and] ensure election integrity."

● NC-11: Axios reports that Results for North Carolina, a super PAC close to Sen. Thom Tillis, is spending $310,000 on an ad campaign against Rep. Madison Cawthorn, which makes this the first major outside spending of the May 17 Republican primary. The commercial focuses on reports that the incumbent "lied about being accepted to the Naval Academy" and declares he's "been caught lying about conservatives." The narrator, who brands the congressman "an attention-seeking embarrassment," does not mention Tillis' endorsed candidate, state Sen. Chuck Edwards.

● TN-05: Tennessee has finalized its list of candidates for the Aug. 4 primary ballot now that each party has had the chance to eject contenders who did not meet their "bona fide" standards, an option the GOP utilized in the 5th District in order to bounce three notable candidates. The 5th will also likely be home to the only seriously contested House race, and we'll be taking a look at the field now that we know who's on the ballot.

There are nine Republicans remaining in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper in the 5th, which GOP mapmakers transmuted from a 60-37 Biden district to a 54-43 Trump constituency by cracking the city of Nashville. The only three who appear to be serious contenders are former state House Speaker Beth Harwell, who took a disappointing fourth place in the 2018 primary for governor; Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles; and retired Brig. Gen. Kurt Winstead, who has the largest war chest by far, though it's possible another candidate will catch fire. On the Democratic side, state Sen. Heidi Campbell has the field to herself.

Ad Roundup

It's that time of the election cycle again when campaign ads have grown too numerous for us to detail every one, so we're bringing back a feature from past cycles where we'll round up any remaining ads that we don't have space to cover in greater depth. Today's list only has a few entries, but the roundup will be sure to grow longer as the year progresses:

AL-Sen: Mike Durant (R)
PA-Gov: Bill McSwain (R) - anti-Doug Mastriano (R)
WI-Gov: Rebecca Kleefisch (R) - anti-Tony Evers (D-inc)

Morning Digest: Jeff Merkley slams top super PAC’s spending in House primary as ‘flat-out wrong’

Posted on April 13, 2022 by Daily Kos Elections

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

Subscribe to our podcast, The Downballot!

Leading Off

● OR-06: In an unprecedented move that was greeted with instant fury by local and national Democrats alike, the House Majority PAC began spending at least $1 million this week on TV ads promoting the campaign of Carrick Flynn, one of seven Democrats seeking to represent Oregon's brand-new 6th Congressional District.

The other six candidates released an unusual joint statement condemning the move on Monday, calling out the fact that four of the contenders are women, including three women of color. (Flynn is a white man.) "This effort by the political arm of the Democratic establishment to buy this race for one candidate is a slap in the face to every Democratic voter and volunteer in Oregon," read the press release, "and is especially concerning in a year when all resources must go to protecting the Democratic majority."

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, who hasn't backed anyone in the race, piled on as well, calling HMP's actions "flat-out wrong". Meanwhile, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus's BOLD PAC, which has endorsed state Rep. Andrea Salinas, also excoriated HMP, arguing that "Democrats should be doubling-down on their investments to empower Latino and Latina candidates" and pointing out that no Hispanic person has ever represented Oregon in Congress. (One unnamed operative wondered aloud to The Hill's Rafael Bernal whether HMP's decision might "affect[] the relationship where Bold PAC is no longer a large donor to HMP like they've been in the past." The CHC has given more than $6 million to HMP since 2012.)

Campaign Action

In response, a spokesperson for HMP offered a spectacularly unconvincing explanation for the group's new spending. "House Majority PAC is dedicated to doing whatever it takes to secure a Democratic House majority in 2022, and we believe supporting Carrick Flynn is a step towards accomplishing that goal," said communications director CJ Warnke in a statement. "Flynn is a strong, forward-looking son of Oregon who is dedicated to delivering for families in the 6th District."

There's nothing so special about Flynn that he's a must-have nominee—and if there were, he wouldn't need all this help. As Merkley says, Democrats "have multiple strong candidates" who could all win the 6th District, a newly created seat in the Portland suburbs that Joe Biden would have carried by a 55-42 margin.

But what really makes HMP's claim impossible to believe is that the PAC, in its decade-long existence, has never before involved itself in a primary like this. Virtually all of the organization's spending since inception has been devoted to winning general elections. Just twice has HMP reported spending anything to support Democratic candidates in primaries, and in both cases, they were seeking open seats in California where Democrats were worried about getting locked out of the November election due to the state's top-two primary rules: Julia Brownley in the old 26th District in 2012 and then Salud Carbajal in the old 24th in 2016—ironically, a joint effort with the CHC. The PAC has never simply taken sides in a traditional partisan primary.

So why now? Flynn has already been the beneficiary of a $5 million TV and radio ad campaign by another super PAC called Protect Our Future, which is funded by a free-spending 30-year-old billionaire named Sam Bankman-Fried, who made his fortune in cryptocurrency and has lately been seeking to influence policy-making on that front in D.C. (Forbes says he's worth $24 billion. Incidentally, the CEO of the crypto exchange Bankman-Fried founded, Ryan Salame, just this week announced the formation of a similar super PAC aimed at Republicans.)

Bankman-Fried's interest in Flynn is unclear—the candidate claims he has "never met or talked to" his benefactor, and any coordination between the two would be illegal—but Protect Our Future's involvement in the race has prompted a great deal of speculation. As the campaign manager for engineer Matt West, one of the other Democratic hopefuls, put it to OPB's Dirk VanderHart, "Do I know exactly what was exchanged by [Bankman-Fried's] people and [House Majority PAC's] people? No, but I can speculate, as can everyone, that promises have been made."

In other words, goes this line of thinking, HMP is breaking with 10 years of tradition to help Flynn in the expectation that Bankman-Fried will come through with a presumably larger donation to the PAC, which in 2020 eclipsed the DCCC as the largest outside spender on House races on the Democratic side. But if this theory is true, what makes things even more bizarre is that Bankman-Fried could easily dump as much money as he'd like to boost Flynn through his own super PAC. Why go through HMP, then, unless this is a play for winning influence within a major arm of the Democratic Party?

It'll likely be a while before we find out the full story, though. HMP files financial reports with the FEC every month, but the report detailing any transactions in the month of April won't be available until May 20—three days after the Oregon primary.

As for the ad itself, it's narrated by small businessman Quandray "Q" Robertson, who says, "As an owner of a boxing gym, I know a fighter when I see one." Though Robertson is shown prepping and later sparring with a boxer, he means it metaphorically, as the athlete on-screen is not actually Flynn. Instead, says Robertson, Flynn will "stand up to the Trump Republicans" while tackling climate change and prescription drug costs.

Meanwhile, Salinas has also released her first TV ad of the race, which she narrates herself. She says her father "started working the fields" but found a "path to citizenship, and a better life" thanks to his military service in Vietnam. With his experience as inspiration, she says she "passed the country's strongest reproductive rights law," fought for lower drug prices, and "took on polluters to combat climate change."

Redistricting

● NH Redistricting: The New Hampshire Supreme Court has appointed Stanford Law professor Nathan Persily as a special master to draw a new congressional map for the state in the event that a deadlock between the Republican-run legislature and GOP Gov. Chris Sununu remains unresolved. The court, however, cautioned that it was only taking "preliminary steps … in the event that the legislative process fails to produce a fully enacted congressional redistricting plan."

● NY Redistricting: A New York appellate judge has kept in place a stay of a recent lower court ruling that struck down the state's new congressional and legislative maps, allowing this year's elections to proceed under the new lines, for now. However, Appellate Division Judge Stephen Lindley did say that the trial court judge, Patrick McAllister, could proceed with hiring a special master to draw a new congressional map, which could be used in the event that the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, upholds McAllister's decision.

1Q Fundraising

AZ-Sen: Mark Brnovich (R): $765,000 raised
OH-Sen: Tim Ryan (D): $4.1 million raised, $6.4 million cash-on-hand
UT-Sen: Mike Lee (R-inc): $1.35 million raised, $2.42 million cash-on-hand
WI-Sen: Mandela Barnes (D): $1.7 million raised
NE-Gov: Jim Pillen (R): $2.3 million raised (through April 5), $2.9 million cash-on-hand
CA-27: Quaye Quartey (D): $320,000 raised
IA-02: Liz Mathis (D): $715,000 raised, $1.3 million cash-on-hand
NJ-07: Tom Malinowski (D-inc): $1.06 million raised, $3.5 million cash-on-hand; Tom Kean Jr. (R): $840,000 raised, $1.5 million cash-on-hand
NV-01: Carolina Serrano (R): $275,000 raised, $250,000 cash-on-hand
OR-06: Andrea Salinas (D): $340,000 raised
PA-12: Steve Irwin (D): $600,000 raised
PA-17: Jeremy Shaffer (R): $670,000 raised, $615,000 cash-on-hand
SC-01: Katie Arrington (R): $307,000 raised (in 52 days), additional $500,000 self-funded, $750,000 cash-on-hand

Senate

● AZ-Sen: Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly's new spot features footage of the former astronaut in zero-g as he tells the audience, "Compared to Congress, the way NASA operates might seem kind of upside down. Putting the mission first. Working as a team. And getting the job done —no matter what." The senator proclaims that he's "doing things differently" than the rest of the D.C. crowd and will "put aside the party politics so we can accomplish results, together."

● NC-Sen: SurveyUSA takes a look at the May 17 Republican primary on behalf of WRAL and finds Rep. Ted Budd beating former Gov. Pat McCrory 33-23, with just 7% going to former Rep. Mark Walker. Several other recent polls have also given Budd the lead.

● NV-Sen, NV-Gov: The Reno Gazette-Journal has released a poll from Suffolk University testing several different hypothetical general election scenarios for Senate and governor, and it finds things close overall. Former Attorney General Adam Laxalt posts a 43-40 advantage over Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, while Army veteran Sam Brown, who is the underdog in the June Republican primary, edges her out 40-39.

Turning to the governor's race, Suffolk pits Democratic incumbent Steve Sisolak against five different Republicans:

41-29 vs. venture capitalist Guy Nohra

39-35 vs. attorney Joey Gilbert

39-39 vs. former Sen. Dean Heller

37-39 vs. Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo

37-40 vs. North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee

● PA-Sen: Lt. Gov. John Fetterman has publicized an internal from GBAO that finds him leading Rep. Conor Lamb 44-19 in the May 17 Democratic primary, while state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta takes 17.

On the GOP side, TV personality Mehmet Oz is trumpeting his endorsement from Trump in his new ad, and he also gets in a swipe at former hedge fund manager David McCormick. "Trump knows who the real conservative is who's gonna shake up Washington," says the narrator. "It's not David McCormick, the liberal pro-Biden, pro-China, Wall Street insider."

Governors

● GA-Gov: Gov. Brian Kemp's allies at Hardworking Georgians are out with a Cygnal poll arguing that he's in a strong position both to claim the Republican nod and defeat Democrat Stacey Abrams in the fall. The survey shows Kemp taking 49% of the vote on May 24, which is tantalizingly close to the majority he needs to avoid a July runoff, while former Sen. David Perdue is well behind with 33%; Cygnal also finds the incumbent ahead 52-37 in a two-person contest. The general election portion gives Kemp a 50-44 lead in a rematch with Abrams even as she edges out Perdue 48-47.

Abrams, for her part, is continuing to run positive spots to reintroduce herself to voters. One ad is based around a testimonial from Lara Hodgson, an independent who describes how she partnered with Abrams to build a successful small business. The spot briefly alludes to the candidate's recent cameo on "Star Trek: Discovery" when Abrams explains that she and her co-star are a bit different: "Laura's more Star Wars," says Abrams, to which Hodgson responds, "Stacey's … Star Trek." Another commercial features a Macon restaurateur crediting Abrams for helping her and her community during the pandemic.

● MN-Gov: State Sen. Paul Gazelka has picked up an endorsement from the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, which is the largest police union in the state, in his quest for the Republican nomination for governor. The Minnesota Reformer described the development as a "blow to former Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek," who is one of the many other Republicans who is competing for the state party endorsement at the May 13-14 convention.

● OK-Gov: While Gov. Kevin Stitt had looked secure ahead of his June Republican primary, NBC reports that two dark money groups have together spent a hefty $3.3 million to derail him. The incumbent is now firing back with an ad declaring, "The insiders and casino bosses are spending millions to attack Kevin Stitt because he won't do their bidding, resorting to lies, smears, even actors." The story says that Stitt has spent a total of $468,000 on ads so far, while his allies at the RGA are deploying another $577,000 to support him.

Stitt only picked up a notable intra-party challenger last month when Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs Director Joel Kintsel launched his bid to unseat his boss, but the offensive against the governor began well before then. All the way back in December, an organization called Conservative Voice of America began running ads attacking Stitt for approving the 2020 release of an inmate named Lawrence Anderson, who was charged the next year with murdering three people, while another group called Sooner State Leadership has deployed similar messaging. (Public Radio Tulsa said Anderson's release was "apparently recommended by the state pardon and parole board by mistake.")

CVA, per NBC, has spent $1.7 million so far, while SSLF has dropped a similar $1.6 million. A third outfit, The Oklahoma Project, said in December that it would spend $500,000 total to thwart Stitt. The group's messaging has been different from that of the other two, though, as its ads have argued that the governor has failed to achieve results.

Last month, Fox 23 sought to learn more about Stitt's critics. It traced TOP's donations back to George Krumme, an oilman and longtime member of the Democratic National Committee. SSLF, meanwhile, was formed by former GOP state Rep. Trebor Worthen, but the organization is not required to divulge its donors. Worthen, in the words of KOCO, said his group "is made up of business and community leaders dedicated to encouraging strong leadership in Oklahoma," adding that it planned to spend a total of $10 million. There's even less information available about CVA except that it's run by longtime lobbyist and Republican staffer Mike Cys.

● PA-Gov: Tuesday was a truly chaotic day in Pennsylvania's Republican primary for governor that began with Donald Trump urging voters, "Do not vote for Bill McSwain, a coward, who let our Country down." Multiple media sources reported minutes later that state Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman was about to drop out of the race, but while Corman himself essentially confirmed those stories in the afternoon by asking that his name be removed from the May 17 ballot, there was one last twist left: Corman announced in the early evening that he'd decided to stay in the contest because of "President Trump's statement on the race and my conversation directly with the president."

We'll start with McSwain, who appeared to be in a good position until Trump declared he'd never endorse the man he'd once appointed as U.S. attorney for the eastern portion of the state. Trump reiterated the Big Lie to pummel the candidate, claiming that McSwain "did absolutely nothing on the massive Election Fraud that took place in Philadelphia and throughout the commonwealth."

That was dismaying news for McSwain, who had in fact tried to use the Big Lie to gain, rather than lose, Trump's support. His efforts included a letter to Trump last year claiming that his office had "received various allegations of voter fraud and election irregularities" and alleging that "Attorney General Barr, however, instructed me not to make any public statements or put out any press releases regarding possible election irregularities."

Trump was all too happy at the time to use McSwain's missive to backup his own lies and bludgeon Barr, who responded by saying his old subordinate "wanted to not do the business of the department, which is to investigate cases, but instead go out and flap his gums about what he didn't like about the election overall." On Tuesday, though, McSwain got to be the victim of his own words when Trump claimed he "knew what was happening and let it go. It was there for the taking and he failed so badly."

All of this drama inspired Corman to continue a once-promising campaign that he was about to end after several major setbacks. Corman was arguably the primary frontrunner when he entered the race to succeed termed-out Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf back in November, and he raised more money than any of his intra-party rivals in 2021. However, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that his team initially believed they would bring in considerably more during that time: The state Senate leader seemed to agree as he soon went through an intense staff shakeup, but he never managed to fix things.

Corman ended late March with just over $270,000 left in his campaign coffers, and McSwain ominously didn't even bother to mention him in a recent ad targeting three other opponents. Corman himself seemed to recognize he was doomed on Tuesday when he formally sought to have a state court remove his name from the ballot, but hours later he filed a new petition asking the body to ignore that first request. He explained that he'd spoken to Trump, who "encouraged me to keep fighting, and that's what I'm going to do – keep fighting for the people of Pennsylvania." This saga may not be quite over, though, as ABC27 writes, "It is not guaranteed Corman will be able to remain in the race after his first petition was filed."

● VT-Gov: Republican Gov. Phil Scott reiterated this week that he wouldn't announce whether he'll seek a fourth two-year term until Vermont's legislative session adjourns May 20, and he insisted to NBC 5 that he was truly undecided. "I think a lot depends on what happens in the next month with the Legislature in this legislative session—what we accomplish and what we don't," said the governor, who currently faces no serious opposition from either party. The filing deadline is May 26, so a Scott retirement would give other candidates very little time to make up their minds if he does indeed wait as long as he says he will to make up his mind.

House

● MN-01: Former Department of Agriculture official Brad Finstad has earned endorsements from Reps. Michelle Fischbach and Pete Stauber, who represent the 7th and 8th Districts in the northern part of the state, ahead of the May 24 special Republican primary.

● MT-01: In her opening ad for the June Democratic primary, public health expert Cora Neumann stands in front of her modest childhood home in Bozeman and tells the audience, "But now, houses like this are surrounded by mansions like this. And everyone is paying more." She continues, "In Congress, I'll go after rich outsiders driving up costs, take on price gougers, and fight for housing we can actually afford."

● NC-13: Former state Sen. Sam Searcy says in his inaugural spot for next month's Democratic primary that his family's job and housing struggles motivated him "to help folks." Searcy continues by saying that in the legislature he "fought like hell to expand Medicaid, and stood with Gov. Cooper to stop Republicans from restricting voting rights and a woman's right to choose."

● PA-12: EMILY's List, which is supporting state Rep. Summer Lee in next month's Democratic primary, is out with a poll from GQR that shows her outpacing attorney Steve Irwin 38-13. This is the first survey we've seen of the contest for this open seat.

● WV-02: Rep. Alex Mooney has released a new internal from Public Opinion Strategies that gives him a 42-31 lead over fellow incumbent David McKinley ahead of the May 10 GOP primary. The last survey we saw was a March poll for the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce that put McKinley ahead 38-33; the organization had not yet endorsed anyone when that poll was released, but it and the West Virginia Manufacturing Association both backed McKinley this week.

● CLF: The Congressional Leadership Fund, the well-funded super PAC aligned with the Republican House leadership, has endorsed seven more House candidates challenging Democratic incumbents:

AZ-04: Tanya Wheeless
NV-03: April Becker
NY-18: Colin Schmitt
NY-19: Marc Molinaro
PA-08: Jim Bognet
TX-28: Cassy Garcia
TX-34: Mayra Flores

Two of these candidates face notable intra-party opposition: Wheeless has to get past Chandler City Councilman Rene Lopez before she can take on Arizona Rep. Greg Stanton, while Garcia faces a May 24 runoff against 2020 nominee Sandra Whitten in Texas' 28th District. (Democrats have a far more high-profile contest that day between conservative Rep. Henry Cuellar and attorney Jessica Cisneros.) Flores, meanwhile, is already the GOP nominee, while the other four contenders should have little trouble in their own primaries.

Attorneys General

● SD-AG: South Dakota's Republican-run state House voted to impeach state Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg by a 36-31 margin on Tuesday, a move that temporarily suspends Ravnsborg from his job while he awaits trial in the state Senate.

Last year, Ravnsborg, a Republican, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges for striking and killing a man with his car in September of 2020 but avoided jail time. A special investigative committee recommended against impeaching Ravnsborg last month, saying he had not committed a "crime or other wrongful act involving moral turpitude by virtue or authority of his office" because he wasn't on duty as attorney general at the time of the accident.

However, a majority of lawmakers disagreed with that interpretation, noting among other things that Ravnsborg had identified himself as attorney general in a call to 911 the night of the crash. All eight Democrats were joined by 28 Republicans in favor of impeachment, while 31 Republicans voted against. Ravnsborg would be permanently removed from office if two-thirds of the Senate, which can commence a trial no sooner than May 2, votes to convict him.

Other Races

● NY-LG: Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin resigned Tuesday afternoon hours after he was indicted on federal bribery charges, but because it's notoriously difficult to get off the ballot in New York, he will likely still be listed as a nominal candidate in the June Democratic primary. All of this presents a major complication for Gov. Kathy Hochul, who appointed Benjamin to succeed her as lieutenant governor last year and now faces the prospect of winding up with a running mate she's at odds with.

That's because candidates for governor and lieutenant governor compete in separate nomination contests before running as a ticket in the general election, though Hochul and Benjamin had been running together and urging voters to select them both. The remaining candidates for lieutenant governor have likewise each linked themselves with one of the governor's primary foes: former New York City Councilwoman Diana Reyna is allied with Rep. Tom Suozzi, while activist Ana María Archila is running alongside New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.

The candidate filing deadline passed last week, so it's too late for Hochul to recruit a new number two. It's possible that Hochul could decide to support one of the two remaining candidates for lieutenant governor, though Archila responded to Benjamin's arrest by saying, "The governor announced that she would bring a new day, and I'm not sure that's the case." Hochul to date has been the frontrunner in her own race from day one, as every poll has found her far ahead of Williams and Suozzi, though both of her rivals are hoping that Benjamin's downfall will change the calculus.

Benjamin, for his part, has far more than electoral chemistry to worry about. Federal prosecutors allege that, in his previous position as a state senator, he steered taxpayer money to real estate investor Gerald Migdol in exchange for political contributions. The authorities say that Migdol faked the origins of dozens of donations to Benjamin's 2021 bid for New York City comptroller so that Benjamin could more easily qualify for public financing.

Benjamin badly lost that primary, but his career was temporarily revived months later when Hochul, who had ascended to the governorship after Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace, picked him as the new lieutenant governor. Hochul, a white Democrat from upstate New York, sought proverbial "balance" on her ticket by tapping a Black politico from New York City, though questions had been swirling about Benjamin's campaign finances well before he was selected.

P.S. Hochul will once again be able to fill the now-vacant lieutenant governorship, just as she did when she herself ascended to the top job after Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace. Notably, she can do so unilaterally, with no confirmation vote from the legislature required.

Morning Digest: Oregon’s new congressional district brings some old characters out of the woodwork

Posted on March 10, 2022 by Daily Kos Elections

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LEADING OFF

● OR-06: Two Oregon Republicans from yesteryear launched campaigns for the brand-new 6th Congressional District, a seat in the mid-Willamette Valley that Joe Biden would have carried 55-42, just ahead of Tuesday night's candidate filing deadline: former Rep. Jim Bunn, who was elected to his only term in a previous version of the 5th District during the 1994 red wave, and Mike Erickson, who was the 2006 and 2008 nominee for the next incarnation of the 5th. Bunn and Erickson join five fellow Republicans in the May 17 primary, while nine Democrats are also running here.

Bunn, who joined the state Senate in 1987, won a promotion to the U.S. House by winning a close open seat race as a "family values" candidate, but this victory proved to be the highlight of his political career. The new congressman married one of his aides just months after divorcing his wife of 17 years, and he soon promoted his new spouse to chief of staff and gave her a larger salary than any other Oregon congressional aide.

All of this made Bunn an appealing foil for Clackamas County Commissioner Darlene Hooley, a Democrat who also took the incumbent to task for his ardent opposition to abortion and gun safety. Hooley unseated the Republican 51-46; years later, he acknowledged that his brothers and even his soon-to-be-wife had cautioned him that the marriage could badly harm him politically, but that "I wasn't a bright enough person to listen and understand."

Bunn soon returned home and took a job as a prison guard at the Yamhill County Jail, which is one of the more unusual post-congressional career paths we've seen (though one dude served as a Capitol Hill elevator operator in the late 1930s), but he wasn't quite done trying to get back into office. In 2008 he ran for a state House seat, but he took third place in the primary with only 21%. Bunn last year applied to fill a vacant seat back in the state Senate, but party leaders chose someone else.

Erickson also has had a long career in Beaver State politics, though he's had even less success than Bunn. He lost general elections for the state House in 1988 and 1992, and his victorious opponent that second time was none other than now-Gov. Kate Brown. Erickson went on to challenge Hooley in 2006 but lost 54-43, and he tried again two years later when she retired from her swing seat.

First, though, he had to get through an ugly primary against 2002 gubernatorial nominee Kevin Mannix, who sent out mailers late in the race accusing Erickson of impregnating a girlfriend in 2000 and paying for her subsequent abortion. Erickson called these "unsubstantiated and untrue allegations," though he admitted he'd given the woman $300 and taken her to a doctor. Erickson narrowly won the primary but lost the general election 54-38 to Democrat Kurt Schrader. (And because this seems to be the year of Republican comeback campaigns in Oregon, Mannix is currently running for the state House.)

Given those histories it's likely that plenty of Republicans hope someone will beat Bunn and Erickson in the primary, but it remains to be seen if any of the other five primary candidates, all of whom began running last year, will emerge as the frontrunner. The contender who ended 2021 with the most money by far is Army veteran Nate Sandvig, though his $101,000 war chest wasn't very impressive. Well behind with $31,000 on-hand was state Rep. Ron Noble, who is a relative moderate. Also in the race are former Keizer city councilor Amy Ryan Courser, who challenged Schrader in 2020 in the 5th and lost 52-45; Dundee Mayor David Russ; and Air Force veteran Angela Plowhead.

Things are also far from defined on the Democratic side. The field includes state Reps. Teresa Alonso León and Andrea Salinas, who would each be the first Latina to represent the state in Congress; Alonso Leon would also be Oregon's first indigenous member. Salinas, for her part, has an endorsement from 1st District Rep. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, who currently represents just over 40% of this new seat.

Also in the running are Cody Reynolds, a self-funder who has unsuccessfully run for office several times as an independent or third-party candidate (he was also once convicted of smuggling weed); economic development adviser Carrick Flynn; Oregon Medical Board member Kathleen Harder; former Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith, who would Oregon's first Black representative; cryptocurrency developer Matt West; and two others who have attracted little attention so far.

Most of these contenders were also running last year. Reynolds finished 2021 with $1.96 million on-hand that came entirely from himself. West, who has also self-funded a large portion of his campaign, had $476,000 compared to $159,000 for Salinas, while Harder and Smith had $123,000 and $86,000, respectively. Alonso Leon and Flynn entered the race in the new year, and Flynn has already benefited from $1.4 million in outside spending from Protect Our Future, a super PAC backed by cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried.

There are several other races to watch in Oregon this year, and now that filing has closed, we'll be running down the state of those contests below starting with OR-Gov. You can find a list of 2022 candidates from the state here.

The Downballot

● On this week's episode of The Downballot, we talk with Amanda Litman, the co-founder of Run for Something, an organization she formed in the wake of the 2016 elections to help young, diverse progressives run for office across the country at all levels of the ballot. Litman tells us about the resources they offer to first-time candidates, some of Run for Something's biggest success stories, and her favorite obscure post that you might not even know is an elected position in many states.

We also spend time exploring a trio of different stories out of North Carolina—one concerning Madison Cawthorn, one about redistricting, and one, believe it or not, about Vladimir Putin—and bring you up to speed on the just-concluded presidential election in South Korea. You can listen to The Downballot on all major podcast platforms, and you can find a transcript right here.

Senate

● GA, OH, PA: Fox News has released new polls of Republican primaries in three states that are hosting races for both Senate and governor this year: Georgia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. All the data, which was collected by the Democratic firm Beacon Research and the Republican pollster Shaw & Company, is below:

GA-Sen: Herschel Walker: 66, Gary Black: 8
GA-Gov: Brian Kemp (inc.): 50, David Perdue: 39
OH-Sen: Mike Gibbons: 22, Josh Mandel: 20, J.D. Vance: 11, Jane Timken: 9, Matt Dolan: 7
OH-Gov: Mike DeWine (inc.): 50, Joe Blystone: 21, Jim Renacci: 18
PA-Sen: David McCormick: 24, Mehmet Oz: 15, Kathy Barnette: 9, Jeff Bartos: 9, Carla Sands: 6, George Bochetto: 1, Everett Stern: 1
PA-Gov: Lou Barletta: 19, Doug Mastriano: 18, Dave White: 14, Bill McSwain: 11, Jake Corman: 6, Scott Martin: 3, Nche Zama: 1

All of these numbers are in line with other polling of each of these races, though DeWine's showing is the best he's posted to date. This is also the first survey from a reputable source to include Blystone, a farmer and first-time candidate running a chaotic campaign animated by the usual far-right grievances who could actually help DeWine by splitting the anti-incumbent vote with Renacci, a former congressman. It’s also worth noting that this poll did not include former Rep. Ron Hood as an option, while the Pennsylvania governor survey did not list former Rep. Melissa Hart and a few other minor contenders.

● GA-Sen: A new survey from Democratic pollster Blueprint Polling finds Republican Herschel Walker leading Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock 49-45, which is the largest advantage for Walker anyone has found to date.

● NC-Sen: Ruh-roh! Once again, Donald Trump is reportedly unhappy with a high-profile Senate candidate he's endorsed—in this case, North Carolina Rep. Ted Budd, who continues to trail in polls of the GOP primary despite almost $4 million in outside spending on his behalf from the Club for Growth. Politico reports that those close to Trump speculate he's "grown to regret his early endorsement" and relays new audio of Trump asking state GOP chair Michael Whatley about the health of Budd's campaign—from the stage, in the midst of a delirious 84-minute speech at a recent RNC fundraiser in New Orleans.

"How's Ted Budd doing? OK?" Trump queried, before demanding, "All right, we gotta get Walker out of that race. Get him out of the race, Michael, right?" There's no word on whether Whatley shouted back from his spot in the audience, but Walker would be former Rep. Mark Walker, who's been floundering in third place, behind both Budd and the frontrunner, former Gov. Pat McCrory. Trump previously tried to lure Walker away from the Senate race with a reported offer to endorse him if he instead made a comeback bid for the House, but Walker didn't bite, and that ship has since sailed, as North Carolina's filing deadline closed last week.

Despite the former congressman's struggles, though, there's still (rather amazingly) a pro-Walker PAC called Awake Carolina that recently produced a poll of the race, which in turn fell into Politico's hands. The new numbers, from Ingress Research, show McCrory taking 29% of the vote to 18 for Budd and 11 for Walker, which is more or less where other surveys have shown the race.

Given the Club's massive spending—Politico says the group is increasing its pledge from $10 million to $14 million—it seems unlikely that Walker could catch Budd and become McCrory's main threat. That's doubly so given Walker's own poor fundraising and Trump's apparent antipathy for him. But if Trump grows as disillusioned with Budd as he has with Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks, he could always switch horses.

The one trotter we can be pretty certain he'll never back, though, is McCrory, who just dropped a new ad that bashes Budd for praising Vladimir Putin—a man Trump continues to worship. This is both McCrory's first television spot of the race and one of the first we've seen raising the issue of GOP slavishness toward the Russian dictator: In the spot, McCrory charges, "As Ukrainians bled and died, Congressman Budd excused their killer," as footage of Russian destruction rolls.

Interspersed are clips of Budd calling Putin "a very intelligent actor" in a recent TV interview and saying, "There are strategic reasons why he would want to protect his southern and western flank—we understand that." McCrory then attacks Budd for voting against sanctions on Russia and adds, "I don't compliment our enemies."

● OH-Sen: State Sen. Matt Dolan's latest commercial for the May GOP primary features Wood County Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn and a retired police sergeant praising him as a friend of law enforcement.

● OK-Sen-B: Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin's opening spot touts him as a conservative "fighter" and ends with an old clip of Donald Trump (from his infamous 2020 Tulsa rally no less) exclaiming that "you don't want to fight with him." Surprisingly, the ad doesn't actually touch on the congressman's time as a MMA fighter, though viewers will probably learn all about that before the June primary is over.

Governors

● MD-Gov: Maryland Matters says that former nonprofit head Wes Moore is spending six figures on the first TV buy from anyone running in the June Democratic primary. The 30-second ad features the candidate telling the audience about his tough upbringing, saying, "When I was three, I watched my father die. I got handcuffs to my wrists by the time I was 11." He continues by talking about how he later became a Rhodes Scholar, an "Army captain in Afghanistan," and head of an influential anti-poverty group.

The 60-second spot has Moore discussing how much education mattered to his life and declaring, "Maryland has some of the nation's best public schools, but also some of its most neglected. We can't settle for that."

● ME-Gov: The RGA has given $3.87 million to the Maine Republican Party, which has reserved that same amount for fall TV time.

● OR-Gov: Democratic Gov. Kate Brown is termed-out of an office her party has held since the 1986 elections, and both parties have competitive races to succeed her. The eventual nominees will face an expensive general election against former state Sen. Betsy Johnson, a conservative Democrat-turned-independent who has the most money of anyone the race.

There are 17 people competing for the Democratic nod, but only former state House Speaker Tina Kotek and state Treasurer Tobias Read appear to be running serious efforts. Kotek, who would be the first lesbian elected governor anywhere (Massachusetts Democrat Maura Healey would also have that distinction if she won this year) has the backing of EMILY's List and several unions, including the SEIU and Oregon Education Association. Reed, who is the only candidate in the entire race who has been elected statewide, meanwhile is running as more of a moderate.

The 19-person GOP field is similarly crowded, but considerably more contenders appear to have a shot at winning the plurality needed to secure the nod. Former state House Minority Leader Christine Drazan has raised considerably more money from donors than anyone else, while former state Rep. Bob Tiernan, who served two terms in the 1990s, entered the race last month by self-funding $500,000 and receiving another $500,000 in donations from a California-based real estate company.

The field also includes two former nominees, Bill Sizemore and Bud Pierce. Sizemore, who lost in a 1998 landslide and performed poorly in the 2010 primary, still has not reported any fundraising, though. Pierce, for his part, challenged Brown in a 2016 special election and lost 51-43. Also in the running are consultant Bridget Barton; businesswoman Jessica Gomez; Baker City Mayor Kerry McQuisten; and Sandy Mayor Stan Pulliam, who made news last month when he acknowledged that he and his wife "explored mutual relationships with other couples."

House

● CA-13: Agribusinessman John Duarte has announced that he'll compete as a Republican in the June top-two primary for this open seat in the mid-Central Valley, which Joe Biden would have carried 54-43.

● CA-41: Former federal prosecutor Will Rollins' campaign against Republican incumbent Ken Calvert has earned an endorsement from Democratic Rep. Mark Takano, who is seeking re-election in the neighboring new 39th District. (Only about 2% of Takano's existing 41st District is located in the new seat with that number.)

● FL-22: Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis says he hopes to decide by the end of the month if he'll seek this open seat. Another local Democrat, Broward County Commissioner Mark Bogen, has decided not to run, however.

● MD-01: Former Del. Heather Mizeur now has the support of all seven members of Maryland's Democratic House delegation in the June primary to take on Republican incumbent Andy Harris.

● MN-05: Former Minneapolis City Councilman Don Samuels has announced that he'll challenge incumbent Ilhan Omar in the August Democratic primary for this safely blue seat centered around the city. Samuels, who previously considered running as an independent, argued that he and Omar are "both Democrats, but very often you wouldn't know it. When you build an infrastructure of contrarian divisiveness, even when you have good ideas, you can't get it passed because you don't have friends."

Samuels, who is originally from Jamaica, ran for mayor in the crowded 2013 instant-runoff election; he initially took third place with 11%, and he didn't rise much beyond that before he was eliminated in the penultimate 32nd round of tabulations. He returned to elected office the next year when he won a seat on the school board, and he retired in 2018.

Samuels, though, was far from done with politics. In 2020 he supported Antone Melton-Meaux, who went on to lose an expensive primary to Omar 58-39. Samuels last year was also one of the most high-profile opponents of Question 2, a ballot measure that would have replaced the Minneapolis Police Department with a new department of public safety, while Omar was one of its most prominent backers. City voters rejected Question 2 by a 56-44 margin, and Samuels is now arguing that the congresswoman's stance demonstrates that "she's out of touch" with her constituents.

● NC-11: State Sen. Chuck Edwards' opening spot for the May Republican primary focuses on his business background, conservative record, and "mountain values," which is a not-so-subtle swipe at Rep. Madison Cawthorn's failed attempt to district hop. In case that was too subtle, Edwards concludes that "this is my home, and it's worth the fight."

● NY-24: Attorney Todd Aldinger has ended his Republican primary campaign against Rep. Chris Jacobs in this safely red seat in the Buffalo suburbs. A few other Republicans are still challenging the incumbent, but there's no indication that any of them are capable of putting up a serious fight.

● OH-13: Gov. Mike DeWine has appointed former state Rep. Christina Hagan to the Ohio Elections Commission, a move that almost certainly means that the two-time GOP congressional candidate won't run again this year in the event that the state Supreme Court again orders new U.S. House boundaries.

● OR-04: Veteran Rep. Peter DeFazio is retiring, and eight fellow Democrats are campaigning to succeed him in a seat where legislative Democrats extended Joe Biden's margin of victory from 51-47 to 55-42. The primary frontrunner in this constituency, which covers the southern Willamette Valley and Oregon's south coast, appears to be state Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle, who has endorsements from DeFazio, Sen. Jeff Merkley, and EMILY's List.

Another contender to watch is former Airbnb executive Andrew Kalloch; Hoyle ended 2021 with a $205,000 to $148,000 cash-on-hand advantage over Kalloch, though candidates had just weeks to raise money following the congressman's early December departure announcement. Corvallis school board Chair Sami Al-Abdrabbuh, who took 16% in a 2016 state House race as a third-party candidate, entered the Democratic primary in January, and he would be the state's first Muslim member of Congress.

The only Republican in the running is 2020 nominee Alek Skarlatos, a National Guard veteran whose 52-46 loss last cycle was the closest re-election contest of DeFazio's career. Skarlatos ended December with $348,000 to spend.

● OR-05: Rep. Kurt Schrader, who has long been one of the loudest moderates in the Democratic caucus (last January, he had to apologize after comparing the idea of impeaching Donald Trump to a "lynching") faces a primary challenge from the left in the form of attorney Jamie McLeod-Skinner. There are no other Democrats running for this seat in the Portland southern suburbs and central Oregon, so she won't need to worry about splitting the anti-incumbent vote with other challengers.

McLeod-Skinner, who was Team Blue's 2018 nominee for the old and safely red 2nd District, would be Oregon's first LGBTQ member of Congress, and she also sports an endorsement from the Oregon Education Association. Schrader, for his part, represents just under half of the new 5th District, but the well-funded incumbent ended December with a massive $3.6 million to $208,000 cash-on-hand edge.

Six Republicans are also running for this constituency, which would have backed Joe Biden 53-44. The two most prominent contenders appear to be former Happy Valley Mayor Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who lost two competitive races for the state House in 2016 and 2018, and businessman Jimmy Crumpacker, who took fourth place in the 2020 primary for the old 2nd District. Chavez-DeRemer finished last year with a $226,000 to $186,000 cash-on-hand lead.

● PA-17: Allegheny County Council member Sam DeMarco, who also chairs the county Republican Party, has joined the race for Pennsylvania's open 17th Congressional District. Under a local "resign to run" law, DeMarco will have to quit his current post by March 23.

● TN-07, TN-05: Community activist Odessa Kelly, who'd been challenging Rep. Jim Cooper in the Democratic primary in Tennessee's 5th District, has announced that she'll instead run in the redrawn 7th against Republican Rep. Mark Green, following an extensive GOP gerrymander that cracked Nashville to make the 5th much redder and prompted Cooper to retire. Both seats now tilt heavily to the right, though the 7th is actually the tougher district: It would have voted 56-41 for Donald Trump, compared to a 55-43 Trump margin in the revamped 5th.

Secretaries of State

● CO-SoS: Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who has been one of the far-right's most prominent election deniers, was indicted by a state grand jury on Tuesday on felony and misdemeanor charges for allegedly breaching the county's election systems during her attempt to demonstrate fraud in 2020. State GOP leaders responded by calling for Peters to suspend her campaign to take on Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold.

Morning Digest: Why did Maryland Democrats go soft on redistricting? Here’s who’s to blame

Posted on December 13, 2021 by Daily Kos Elections

Leading Off

● MD Redistricting: Want to know why Maryland Democrats pulled their punches when it came to targeting the state's lone Republican congressional seat? Slate's Jim Newell has an excellent new piece detailing which politicians were obstacles to an 8-0 Democratic map, and why.

At the top of the list are Rep. Jim Sarbanes and Kweisi Mfume. Sarbanes, as the lead sponsor of H.R. 1, the bill to ban congressional gerrymandering nationwide, was reportedly reluctant to support a maximalist map that would ensure Republican Rep. Andy Harris would lose re-election. Maryland's new map, however, is still very much a Democratic gerrymander—half-hearted though it may be—so it's not as though Sarbanes can pitch himself as above the partisan fray, especially since he declined to criticize the map after it passed.

Mfume, meanwhile, outright embraced unilateral disarmament. "I mean, if it were the other way around, and Democrats were one-third of the population, and they put forth maps or started moving toward an 8–0 representation, we'd be up jumping up and down in arms," he said, ignoring the fact that Republicans in many more states than Democrats are doing everything they can to maximize their advantage in redistricting. But, says Newell, Mfume also didn't want to take in conservative white voters from Harris' district, concerned that doing so "would distract from his representation of majority-minority communities in Baltimore," and therefore "was adamant against suggested changes, like stretching his district north to the Pennsylvania border."

Campaign Action

A couple of less well-known Democrats figure in this story, too. In our examination of the new map, we noted that the revamped 1st District now leaps across Chesapeake Bay to take in the areas around Annapolis but not the very blue state capital itself. Why not? Newell reports that state Sen. Sarah Elfreth, whose district includes the city, "didn't want a competitive congressional district like the 1st layered atop hers." Elfreth's staff claim the senator "had no role" in drawing the maps.

Finally, Newell points a finger at state Senate President Bill Ferguson, who reportedly "was never comfortable" with an 8-0 map due to his own high-minded sensibilities and feared unspecified "blowback" from Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. But Hogan vetoed the map that Democrats did pass anyway (a veto they instantly overrode), and a group closely connected to the governor has threatened to file suit, so what greater blowback could Ferguson possibly have feared?

Newell's entire article is worth a read, but the last word belongs to one Maryland Democrat who did favor an 8-0 plan. In light of extreme Republican gerrymandering across the country, said Rep. Jamie Raskin, "[W]e have not only a political right, but I would argue an ethical duty, to do whatever we can to fight fire with fire, and try to defend democratic values and democratic process in America."

Redistricting

● CT Redistricting: The Connecticut Supreme Court has granted a request from the state's bipartisan redistricting commission for additional time to complete work on a new congressional map, setting a deadline of Dec. 21. Under state law, the panel was required to produce a new map by Nov. 30 but was unable to. The court also ordered commissioners to provide the names of three potential special masters by Wednesday to assist the justices in drawing a new map in the event that the commission misses its new deadline.

Senate

● NC-Sen, NC-07: Former Rep. Mark Walker said Thursday that he would continue his uphill bid for the Republican Senate nomination through the rest of the year as he considers whether to switch to the open 7th Congressional District. Walker made this declaration one day after the state Supreme Court temporarily stayed candidate filing for all races and moved the primary from March to May due to a pair of lawsuits challenging the state's new congressional and legislative maps that are currently pending.

● PA-Sen: George Bochetto, a longtime Republican attorney in Philadelphia, said Thursday it was "very likely" he runs for the Senate next year. Bochetto has talked about running for mayor of his heavily Democratic city plenty of times and even waged a brief campaign in 1999, but he ended up dropping out before the primary. (The eventual nominee, Sam Katz, ended up losing the general election 51-49 to Democrat John Street, which is likely to remain Team Red's high-water mark for decades to come.)

More recently, Bochetto aided Donald Trump's defense team in his second impeachment trial. In August, he also persuaded a judge to stop Philadelphia's city government from removing a prominent Christopher Columbus statue.

Meanwhile on the Democratic side, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman has publicized a poll from Data for Progress that shows him outpacing TV doctor Mehmet Oz 44-42 in a hypothetical general election. The release did not include any other matchups.

Governors

● GA-Gov: In a thoroughly unsurprising development, former Speaker Newt Gingrich is backing his fellow Trump sycophant, ex-Sen. David Perdue, in next year's Republican primary.

● MA-Gov: While Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll was mentioned as a potential Democratic candidate for governor following Republican incumbent Charlie Baker's retirement, Politico reports that the post she's interested in campaigning for is lieutenant governor. In Massachusetts, candidates for governor and lieutenant governor are nominated in separate primaries before competing as a ticket in the general election.

● OR-Gov: EMILY's List has endorsed state House Speaker Tina Kotek in next year's Democratic primary.

House

● CA-22: Fresno City Council President Luis Chavez's spokesperson tells GV Wire's David Taub that the Democrat is thinking about running to succeed outgoing Republican Rep. Devin Nunes in this still-unfinalized Central Valley constituency.

Taub also relays that the DCCC has met with 2018 nominee Andrew Janz, who lost to Nunes 53-47, but that he has yet to comment on his own plans. Janz last year ran for mayor of Fresno but lost the officially nonpartisan race 52-40 to Republican Jerry Dyer; Janz back in January endorsed 2020 nominee Phil Arballo's second campaign against Nunes, though his calculations appear to have changed now that the incumbent is resigning. Arballo, for his part, has confirmed that he'll be competing in the upcoming special election to succeed Nunes in addition to the race for the regular two-year term.

Finally, Taub reports that Democratic Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula is also thinking about running. Arambula, a physician and the son of a former local assemblyman, himself considered running against Republican Rep. David Valadao back in 2015 in the neighboring 21st District but decided not to do it. Instead, Arambula won his current post in a low-turnout 2016 special election for a seat around Fresno, and he quickly established himself as one of the leaders of the chamber's moderate Democratic faction.

Arambula's career seemed to be in real danger after he was arrested in late 2018 after one of his daughters accused him of abuse, but a jury found him not guilty months later. (Arambula, who maintained his innocence, argued that conservative prosecutors were targeting him for political reasons.) The incumbent went on to win re-election 62-38 as Joe Biden was taking his 31st Assembly seat by a similar 62-36 spread.

● IL-13: The state AFL-CIO has endorsed former Biden administration official Nikki Budzinski in next year's Democratic primary for this newly drawn open seat.

● MD-06: Former Del. Aruna Miller closed the door on another run for Congress on Thursday when she announced that she would run for lieutenant governor on author Wes Moore's ticket. Miller had filed FEC paperwork back in January for the 6th District in case Rep. David Trone, who defeated her in the 2018 Democratic primary, left to run for governor. Trone ultimately announced that he'd stay put, and while Miller didn't confirm this meant she wasn't going to campaign here, she made no obvious moves to prepare for a second bid.

● NJ-05: John Flora, who serves as mayor of the small township of Fredon (pop. 3,200), has joined the Republican primary to take on Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer.

● TX-27: Jackson County Sheriff A.J. Louderback announced Friday that he would challenge Rep. Michael Cloud in the March Republican primary for the new and safely red 27th District, a gerrymandered constituency that stretches from Corpus Christi along the Gulf Coast north to the outskirts of the Austin area.

Louderback's tiny county, with a population of just 15,000 people, is home to just 2% of the district's residents, so the challenger starts with almost no geographic base of support. Cloud, by contrast, already represents over 85% of the new seat, and he's done everything he can to ingratiate himself to his party's ascendant far-right wing.

Back in March, Cloud was even one of just 12 House members to vote against awarding Congressional Gold Medals to members of the U.S. Capitol Police for their work combating the Jan. 6 insurrection. He defended himself with a statement saying he couldn't support a resolution because it included text that "refers to the Capitol as the temple of democracy – simply put, it's not a temple and Congress should not refer to it as one." Cloud added, "The federal government is not a god."

Louderback himself also doesn't appear to have laid out an argument for why primary voters should fire Cloud. He instead kicked off his bid by declaring, "This campaign will be based on national security issues, oil and gas issues, Medicare issues and a lot of things that are threats to Texas and the United States." He continued, "I look forward to a really good race where competitive styles in management can be examined by the public."

● WA-03: State Rep. Vicki Kraft has confirmed that she'll challenge her fellow Republican, incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler, in the August top-two primary. Kraft joins a GOP field that includes Army veteran Joe Kent, who is Donald Trump's endorsed candidate, as well as evangelical author Heidi St. John.

Kraft used her kickoff to take Herrera Beutler to task for her "extremely unfortunate" vote to impeach Trump, but she mostly emphasized her own opposition to Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee's pandemic safety measures. Kraft declared, "Whether it's fighting for parents' rights, and against controversial mandates in schools such as comprehensive sex education or COVID-19 masks; or fighting for individuals' rights, and against the COVID-19 vaccine mandates, I will continue fighting for the people and will make sure their voice is heard in Washington, D.C."

Attorneys General

● MN-AG: On Thursday, business attorney Jim Schultz became the fourth Republican to announce a bid against Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose 2018 victory made him the first Muslim elected statewide anywhere in America. Ellison was already facing a rematch against 2018 opponent Doug Wardlow, who lost 49-45 and now serves as general counsel for MyPillow, the company led by election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell. Also in the running are former state Rep. Dennis Smith and attorney Lynne Torgerson.

Minnesota is far from a safe state for Democrats, but Republicans haven't held the attorney general's post since Douglas Head left office in early 1971. The last time Team Red won any statewide races at all, meanwhile, was 2006, when Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty narrowly earned a second term, though they've come very close to breaking that streak a few times since then.

● TX-AG: EMILY's List is backing Rochelle Garza, who is a former ACLU attorney, in next year's Democratic primary.

Morning Digest: Trio of Trump-endorsed Senate candidates gets swamped in primary fundraising

Posted on July 20, 2021 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

● AK-Sen, AL-Sen, NC-Sen: While a trio of Republican Senate candidates have Donald Trump's coveted endorsement, Politico's James Arkin notes that each of them was still decisively outraised by an intra-party opponent during the second quarter of 2021.

We'll start in Alaska, where incumbent Lisa Murkowski outpaced former state cabinet official Kelly Tshibaka $1.1 million to $545,000. The senator, who has not yet confirmed if she'll run again, also ended June with a wide $2.3 million to $275,000 cash-on-hand edge. Murkowski famously lost the 2010 nomination only to win in the fall as a write-in candidate, but the Last Frontier voted last year to do away with partisan primaries and instead institute the new top-four system.

The GOP primary in Alabama, meanwhile, pits Trump-endorsed Rep. Mo Brooks against ex-Business Council of Alabama head Katie Boyd Britt, a former chief of staff to retiring Sen. Richard Shelby who has her old boss' backing; a few other candidates are running as well. Britt entered the race in June and quickly hauled in $2.2 million compared to $820,000 for Brooks. And while Brooks, who helped foment the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, enjoyed a big fundraising head start thanks to his April launch and his ability to transfer funds from his House account to his Senate campaign, it's Britt who enjoys a $2.2 million to $1.7 million cash-on-hand lead.

Campaign Action

Britt's strong opening quarter wasn't a huge surprise given her extensive connections in the state's business circles. CNN also reported in late May, just before she launched her campaign, that some unnamed Republicans feared that Brooks would be "an unreliable ally to the business community" and saw Britt as a good alternative.

Both contenders, though, have far less money than former Ambassador to Slovenia Lynda Blanchard, who has been self-funding most of her campaign. While Blanchard hauled in just $190,000 from donors from April to June, she's sitting on $5.2 million. Another Republican, businesswoman Jessica Taylor, entered the race in July after the new fundraising quarter began. A runoff would take place if no one takes a majority of the vote in the first round of the primary, and the GOP nominee will be the heavy favorite to prevail in the general election.

Trump, for his part, is doing what he can to make sure that Brooks’ underwhelming fundraising doesn't stop him from being that nominee. Earlier this month, he put out a not-Tweet slamming Britt and Shelby, who has been an ardent Trump ally, with the venom he usually only reserves for the likes of Murkowski and other politicians who have crossed him. "I see that the RINO Senator from Alabama, close friend of Old Crow Mitch McConnell, Richard Shelby, is pushing hard to have his 'assistant' fight the great Mo Brooks for his Senate seat," Trump declared, adding, "She is not in any way qualified and is certainly not what our Country needs or not what Alabama wants."

Britt responded, "I don't need anyone else to fight my battles, and as Alabama's next U.S. Senator, I won't be a rubber stamp for anyone." Trump has yet to publicly attack either Blanchard or Taylor.

Finally in North Carolina, another Trump-backed congressman, Ted Budd, got swamped in the money race by former Gov. Pat McCrory. McCrory outpaced Budd $1.2 million to $700,000, though Budd self-funded an additional $250,000. Unlike Brooks, though, Budd's pre-existing war chest left him with a $1.7 million to $955,000 cash-on-hand lead over the former governor. Another Republican candidate, former Rep. Mark Walker, wasn't in such good shape, however: Walker raised a mere $190,000 for the quarter, and he had $925,000 in the bank.

The top fundraiser in this quarter wasn't any of the Republicans, though. Former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley finished just ahead of McCrory by bringing in $1.3 million during her first months in the contest, and she ended it with $835,000 on-hand.

State Sen. Jeff Jackson, who launched his campaign in January, brought in a smaller $720,000 this time, though his $865,000 war chest was slightly larger than Beasley's. Former state Sen. Erica Smith, who lost the 2020 primary, was a distant third for Team Blue with $115,000 raised and $55,000 on-hand, while Beaufort Mayor Rett Newton was even further behind. Primary runoffs only take place in the Tar Heel State if no one takes at least 30% of the vote.

Senate

● OK-Sen: Republican Sen. James Lankford learned over the last few days both that he has a massive cash-on-hand edge over his intra-party rival, pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, and that he wouldn't be getting censured by the state party.

Lahmeyer's longshot campaign earned some attention a few weeks ago when party chair John Bennett announced that he was backing the challenger because of Lankford's refusal to object to certifying Joe Biden's electoral college majority in the hours after the Jan. 6 attack. That declaration came just before the conclusion of the second quarter, which saw the incumbent outraise Lahmeyer $780,000 to $210,000; Lankford also ended June with a $1.6 million to $135,000 cash-on-hand lead.

It remains to be seen if Oklahoma's conservative base will be open to firing Lankford, but so far, a majority of Bennett's colleagues at the state's Republican State Committee aren't. On Saturday, the body voted 122-93 against censuring both Lankford and fellow Sen. Jim Inhofe for recognizing Biden's win.

Governors

● CA-Gov: Candidate filing closed Friday for the Sept. 14 recall election against Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, and the secretary of state's office has a list of contenders available here. As we'll discuss, though, one notable Republican, conservative radio host Larry Elder, is disputing his omission from the document and has indicated he would sue to make the ballot.

Voters will be presented with two separate questions on the September ballot. The first will ask whether Newsom should be recalled, while the second will ask them to pick among the candidates vying to succeed him. The results of the second question will only matter if a majority vote "yes" on the first question; should this happen, the replacement candidate who wins a plurality of the vote will become California's new governor.

Newsom's party affiliation will not be listed on the ballot because his legal team didn't turn in required paperwork on time last year, though the replacement candidates will be identified by party. Polls have generally shown the recall question failing, though no numbers have been released since the election was scheduled early this month.

A total of 41 candidates have qualified for the ballot (there is no primary or general election here) which means that this field, while large, is nonetheless far smaller than the 135-person contest from 2003. And while Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger dominated the race 18 years ago when voters opted to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, there is no clear front runner on the GOP side this time. The notable contenders are:

2018 nominee John Cox
Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer
Board of Equalization Member Ted Gaines
Reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner
Assemblyman Kevin Kiley
Former Rep. Doug Ose

Jenner’s campaign announced Friday that she had flown to Australia to take part in the filming of the TV show Big Brother VIP, though the candidate insisted she was still running.

One Republican who was not listed, though, was the aforementioned Elder, who is a regular Fox News guest. Election officials told him over the weekend that he hadn't submitted legally-required information about his tax history, though it's not clear yet what he didn't include. Elder shared the secretary of state's letter on Twitter on Sunday and added, "See you in court."

Another key difference from the state's last recall campaign is that, while eight Democrats filed to replace Newsom, none of them appear to be capable of running serious campaigns. That's welcome news for the governor and his allies, who strongly discouraged big-name contenders from getting in so they could avoid a repeat of the 2003 debacle.

In that race, Democrats rallied around Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante as their backup choice in case the recall succeeded with the awkward slogan of "no on recall, yes on Bustamante." That position became even more precarious when Bustamante started to criticize Davis in the evident hope that the recall would succeed and he'd reap the rewards. (He didn't.)

● IL-Gov: Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Monday that he would seek a second term in 2022, and so far, none of his would-be Republican foes have raised the type of money they'll need to have a real chance to take him down in this very blue and very expensive state.

The GOP contender with the largest war chest is state Sen. Darren Bailey, a right-wing extremist who, among other things, was ejected from a House session last year for refusing to wear a face mask. Bailey raised only $165,000 but he still ended June with $490,000 in his campaign fund. Businessman Gary Rabine, who is self-funding much of his bid, hauled in a total of $345,000 and had $285,000 left over. A third candidate, former state Sen. Paul Schimpf, raised just $85,000 and had $115,000 on-hand.

Pritzker, meanwhile, raised only $200,000 but, thanks to a massive personal investment in March, had $32.9 million in the bank. The governor has an estimated net worth of well over $3 billion, and he's more than capable of throwing down far more money if he wants to.

● OR-Gov: New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof told Willamette Week's Rachel Monahan that he was considering seeking the Democratic nomination in next year's open seat race.

Kristof, who has spent much of his career writing about global human rights issues, is originally from the Beaver State, and the Times says he returned two years ago when he became more involved with his family farm. A spokesperson for the paper also said, "Although Nick has not made up his mind about whether to pursue a political candidacy, we agreed he'd go on leave from The Times, in accordance with Times standards, after he brought this possibility to our attention last month."

● VA-Gov: The conservative American Principles Project has released a survey from the Republican firm Spry Strategies that gives Democrat Terry McAuliffe a 46-41 lead over Republican Glenn Youngkin.

House

● IL-17: Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara said Monday that he would not run to succeed his fellow Democrat, retiring Rep. Cheri Bustos.

● SC-07: Republican Rep. Tom Rice faces a cavalcade of primary opponents thanks to his January vote to impeach Donald Trump, but surprisingly, the only one who brought in a large amount of money during the second quarter was a contender we hadn't previously mentioned. Graham Allen, an Army veteran and conservative media figure, hauled in $410,000 and self-funded another $92,000, and he ended June with $465,000 in the bank. Rice himself had a smaller $325,000 haul, though he had $1.6 million on-hand to defend himself.

The incumbent also had a considerably better quarter than two of his other noteworthy foes. Horry County School Board chair Ken Richardson raised a mere $25,000 but, thanks to some self-funding he did earlier in the year, had nearly $100,000 in the bank. Former Myrtle Beach Mayor Mark McBride, though, took in just over $3,000 during his first few weeks as a candidate.

● TX-06: Former Rep. Joe Barton, who left Congress in 2019 after 34 years in office following a sex scandal, threw his support behind state Rep. Jake Ellzey on Monday ahead of July 27's all GOP-runoff. Barton said that both Ellzey and party activist Susan Wright, who is the widow of the late Rep. Ron Wright, would make good members of Congress, but that Ellzey was the best option "on the merits."

Barton's decision is a bit surprising because of his long relationship with Ron Wright, who served as his chief of staff and district director during his long tenure. Local politicos speculated for years that Wright would be Barton's heir apparent whenever he decided to call it a career: That retirement announcement came during the 2018 cycle after Barton apologized when a "graphic nude photo" of him circulated online and the public learned even more unsavory aspects of his personal life.

Wright ended up competing in the GOP primary runoff against none other than Ellzey, a campaign he ultimately won. Barton, for his part, said that while he planned to support his former employee, he was "not sure if anybody would want my endorsement, so I might come out against somebody if that helps them." The incumbent, though, ended up backing his protege the old-fashioned way by holding events for Wright in both Washington and in the district.

Mayors

● St. Petersburg, FL Mayor: Outgoing Mayor Rick Kriseman announced Monday that he was backing former Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch, a fellow Democrat, in the Aug. 24 nonpartisan primary to succeed him.

● Seattle, WA Mayor: The Northwest Progressive Institute, which says it does not take sides in elections, has released a survey of the Aug. 3 top-two primary from the Democratic firm Change Research that shows former City Council President Bruce Harrell ahead with 20%, while City Council President Lorena Gonzalez holds a 12-10 lead over nonprofit head Colleen Echohawk for the second place spot; two other contenders, former state Rep. Jessyn Farrell and architect Andrew Grant Houston, were behind with 6% each.

● Toledo, OH Mayor: Democratic incumbent Wade Kapszukiewicz picked up a well-known opponent just before candidate filing closed on Friday when former Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, a former Democrat and Republican who now identifies as an "independent-Democrat," entered this year's race to face him. Kapszukiewicz, Finkbeiner, and Republican Jan Scotland will face off in the Sept. 14 nonpartisan primary, and the top-two vote-getters will advance to the November general.

Finkbeiner led Toledo from 1994 to 2002 and from 2006 to 2010, and he attracted national attention early in his tenure by suggesting that the city could deal with airport noise by moving deaf people into the affected areas. Finkbeiner would continue to generate plenty of press throughout his two stints as mayor, including in 2009 when he personally broke up a fight in a park between two teenagers and labeled one "fatso" and "tubby."

Finkbeiner launched another campaign to return to office in a 2015 special election, but he finished in third place: Interim Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson beat another former mayor, Mike Bell, 36-17, while Finkbeiner was just behind with 16%. (That election required candidates to win just a plurality of the vote, so Finkbeiner didn't come close to winning.) Two years later, Kapszukiewicz defeated Hicks-Hudson 55-45 in the race for a regular four-year term.

Finkbeiner, who is 82, announced Friday that he would try again by going up against Kapszukiewicz. The challenger argued that he had the experience to deal with crime and blight, while Kapszukiewicz's campaign said in response that Finkbeiner had "laid off nearly 100 police officers and eliminated the gang task force" during his last term.

Other Races

● Queens, NY Borough President: On Friday, former New York City Councilwoman Liz Crowley conceded defeat in the June 22 Democratic primary. Incumbent Donovan Richards fended off Crowley 50.3-49.7 after a nasty race, and he should have no trouble in the November general election in this very blue borough.

● Nassau County, NY Executive: Democratic incumbent Laura Curran begins the general election with a wide financial lead over her Republican foe, Hempstead Councilman Bruce Blakeman, in this populous Long Island community. Curran, who was elected in a close 2017 race, outraised Blakeman $950,000 to $575,000 from mid-January to mid-July, and she has a $2.1 million to $550,000 cash-on-hand edge going into the November general election.

Morning Digest: After surprise disappearance, lying liar Josh Mandel is back for a third Senate bid

Posted on February 11, 2021 by Daily Kos Elections

Leading Off

● OH-Sen: Former state Treasurer Josh Mandel, who is one of our very least-favorite Republican Senate candidates from yesteryear, on Wednesday became the first major candidate to announce a bid to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Rob Portman. This will be Mandel's third bid for the upper chamber following his unsuccessful 2012 run against Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and his aborted 2018 rematch attempt.

Mandel was elected state treasurer during the 2010 GOP wave after waging a campaign that included blatantly Islamophobic messaging. Mandel had little interest in the job he had just won, though, and he almost immediately began plotting a run against Brown.

The Republican ran one of the most revoltingly mendacious campaigns of the cycle: In March of 2012, PolitFact published an article highlighting how "whoppers are fast becoming a calling card of his candidacy," and Mandel utterly shed himself of any semblance of honesty over the following months. This time, though, it didn't work, as Brown turned back Mandel 51-45 while Barack Obama was carrying the Buckeye State by a smaller 51-48 spread.

Campaign Action

Mandel had the good fortune to seek and win re-election in 2014 during another Republican wave, when he performed the worst among the whole GOP ticket, but few politicos thought that he was interested in focusing on his nominal day job. Instead, he announced just a month after the 2016 election that he'd be running against Brown again two years hence, and he immediately emerged as the heavy favorite to win the nomination once more.

Mandel spent the next year running yet another despicable campaign. The treasurer, who wasted little time attacking Muslims again, also defended the men promoting "Pizzagate," the breathtakingly psychotic conspiracy theory that a Washington, D.C. pizzeria housed a child sex ring frequented by top Democrats.

In January of 2018, though, Mandel shocked the political world when he suddenly announced that he was dropping out of the race because of a health problem affecting his then-wife. (The two divorced last year.) Mandel's departure left national Republicans scrambling to find an alternative, and the man they ended up with, Rep. Jim Renacci, went on to lose to Brown that fall. Mandel was termed out as treasurer early in 2019, and Cleveland.com's Seth Richardson writes that he spent the next two years keeping "a relatively low profile, including quietly scrubbing all of his social media in 2019."

But Mandel is back now, and true to form, he's launched his latest Senate bid with a statement blaring, "It's sickening to see radical liberals and fake Republicans in Washington engage in this second assault on President Donald Trump and the millions of us who supported him." (It won't surprise you to learn that it doesn't mention the actual assault on the Capitol that led to this second impeachment.)

Mandel begins the campaign with $4.4 million on-hand from his 2018 effort that he can use for his newest campaign, but, as Richardson notes, also plenty of enemies within the party. Mandel will likely have several serious primary rivals: Jane Timken recently stepped down as state party chair ahead of a likely bid for the Senate, and a number of other Republicans are considering getting in as well.

Senate

● IL-Sen, IL-Gov: Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger did not quite rule out a statewide bid in 2022 on Tuesday, but he sounded very unlikely to go for it. "It's not my intention to run for anything statewide," the congressman said, adding, "I think there's probably less of that chatter."

Kinzinger also alluded to his vote to impeach Donald Trump last month when discussing his future. Kinzinger said that people who "speculate that I was taking the positions I was taking to set myself up to run statewide" don't know him and also "probably don't know something about politics if you think I can get through a primary pretty easily."

● NC-Sen: Former Rep. Mark Walker earned an endorsement on Wednesday from Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who is one of the most notorious Republican extremists in the freshman class. Walker is the only notable GOP politician who has announced a bid to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Richard Burr so far, but a number of others are considering getting in.

Governors

● MA-Gov: Former state Rep. Geoff Diehl, a Trump supporter who was Team Red's 2018 Senate nominee, said this week that he'd decide on a gubernatorial bid "in the next few months." Diehl had previously expressed interest in waging a primary campaign against Gov. Charlie Baker, who has not yet announced his 2022 plans.

On the Democratic side, political science professor Danielle Allen told WGBH that she expected to remain in exploratory mode at least through the spring. Allen, who would be the first Black woman elected governor of any state, formed an exploratory committee in December.

House

● CA-22: This week, Marine veteran Eric Garcia announced that he would run as a Democrat against Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, who is one of the most notorious Trump sycophants in a caucus full of them. Garcia campaigned as an independent two years ago but took last place with just 3% in the top-two primary. Democrat Phil Arballo, who went on to lose to Nunes 54-46 as Trump was carrying this seat by a slightly smaller 52-46 margin, is also seeking a rematch.

● MD-05: Activist McKayla Wilkes announced this week that she would seek a rematch against House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who defeated her 64-27 in last year's Democratic primary. Greenbelt Mayor Colin Byrd is already challenging Hoyer from the left, but he and Wilkes each affirmed that only one of them will be on the 2022 ballot. "I had a conversation with him, and we do plan on consolidating at one point," Wilkes told Maryland Matters. "The main focus is to have a progressive emissary, whether that's Colin or myself."

● NC-11: 2020 Democratic nominee Moe Davis said in a recent fundraising email that he was considering seeking a rematch against freshman Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn. Davis raised $2.3 million last year but lost 55-42 as Donald Trump was carrying this western North Carolina seat by a similar 55-43 margin.

● NM-01: Two Democratic state legislators have introduced a bill that would require parties to select their nominees for special elections to the House using a traditional primary rather than through a party central committee meeting, but it faces a number of hurdles.

The Albuquerque Journal writes that the legislation would need the support of two-thirds of each chamber in order to go into effect in time for the likely special election to succeed Democratic Rep. Deb Haaland, who is Joe Biden's nominee for secretary of the interior. One of the bill's sponsors, state Rep. Daymon Ely, is also worried that the committee hearing process is moving so slowly that his proposal could be "killed by delay."

● NY-22: In an interview that took place one day after he conceded defeat in the extremely tight November election, former Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi did not close the door on a 2022 campaign to return to the House. Brindisi told Syracuse.com, "I certainly have not ruled anything off the table yet. But right now, things are a little too raw and early for me to decide."

Brindisi and Republican Claudia Tenney, who will be sworn in on Thursday, have already faced off in two competitive elections. In 2018, Brindisi denied Tenney a second consecutive term in the House by beating her 51-49 during that year's Democratic wave. Tenney, however, came back last year and unseated Brindisi by 109 votes, though the defeated incumbent still ran well ahead of his party's ticket. According to new data from Daily Kos Elections, Donald Trump carried this seat, which includes the Binghamton and Utica areas upstate, 55-43.

● TX-24: The National Journal's Mini Racker reports that 2020 Democratic nominee Candace Valenzuela is considering seeking a rematch against freshman Republican Rep. Beth Van Duyne. This historically red seat in the Dallas Fort Worth suburbs was swung hard from 51-44 Trump to 52-46 Biden but Van Duyne, like almost all Texas Republicans running in competitive House races, ran well ahead of the ticket and prevailed 49-47.

Mayors

● New York City, NY Mayor: The lobbying group Fontas Advisors, which Politico says is not working with any candidate, has released what it says will be the first of a "recurring series" of polls of the June instant-runoff Democratic primary from Core Decision Analytics. 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang leads Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams 28-17, while the only other candidate to hit double digits was City Comptroller Scott Stringer with 13%. The survey did not ask about respondents' second-choice preferences.

The only other poll we've seen was a mid-January survey for Yang from Slingshot Strategies that gave him a similar 25-17 edge against Adams. That poll went on to simulate the instant runoff process and found Yang defeating Adams 61-39 on the 11th and final round of voting.

There's a long while to go before the primary, though, and this week, the New York Times reported that former White House Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan became the first contender to launch a "television ad campaign of any significance in the contest."

The spot begins with footage of Barack Obama declaring, "Shaun's just one of those people where he sees a problem, and he will work to solve it." Donovan then appears and tells the audience, "I represent real change. But a change candidate usually has the least experience. I actually have the most." The commercial also features more pictures of the candidate with Obama and Joe Biden.

● San Antonio, TX Mayor: Former conservative City Councilman Greg Brockhouse announced over the weekend that he would seek a rematch against Mayor Ron Nirenberg. Nirenberg, a progressive independent, won a second term in 2019 by beating Brockhouse by a narrow 51-49 margin. (San Antonio is the largest city in America to elect its mayors to terms lasting for two years rather than four.)

Back in December, Brockhouse previewed his strategy to once again rally Republican voters in this Democratic-leaning city. The former city councilman said that Donald Trump's defeat meant that "[c]onservatives and faith-based people lost their champion," but insisted that anger with the new national status quo would inspire them to turn out in 2021. Brockhouse also refused to acknowledge Joe Biden as president-elect and attacked Nirenberg as a "fearmonger" for his COVID-19 briefings.

Seven others have entered the race ahead of Friday's filing deadline, but there's little question that Brockhouse will once again be Nirenberg's main opponent. The officially nonpartisan primary will take place on May 1, and if no one captures a majority of the vote, a runoff would be held on a later date.

Grab Bag

● History: Plenty of governors go on to serve in the Senate but, as we recently noted, it's much more uncommon for members of the upper chamber to try the opposite career switch, and a new report from the University of Minnesota shows just how comparatively rare these senators-turned-governors are.

As Eric Ostermeier writes, "Since 1900, just 21 sitting or former U.S. Senators have been elected governor while 153 sitting or former governors were elected or appointed to the U.S. Senate." Ostermeier adds that six additional people during this time went from the governor's office to the Senate and later back to the governorship.

As we've written before, there's likely a good reason why relatively few senators are looking to trade their Capitol Hill digs even for what's usually a much shorter commute to their statehouse. While many states have term limits that will eventually force their chief executives out of the governor's office, senators can stay in office for decades as long as voters keep re-electing them.

And while some states do allow their governors to seek term after term in office, few have ever enjoyed anything like the longevity that many senators become accustomed to. The longest serving governor in American history is Iowa Republican Terry Branstad, who totaled a little more than 22 years in office during his two stints in charge―a milestone that's less than the length of four Senate terms.

Still, some senators do like the idea of leading their state rather than continuing on as just one member of a 100-person body, and a few do end up running for governor. Ostermeier reports that four sitting senators over the last two decades have competed in a gubernatorial general election, and three prevailed: Alaska Republican Frank Murkowski and New Jersey Democrat Jon Corzine won their sole terms in 2002 and 2005, respectively, while Kansas Republican Sam Brownback would be elected to lead Kansas in 2010 and 2014.

The fourth member of this group was Louisiana Republican David Vitter, who lost to Democrat John Bel Edwards in a 2015 upset. (At least one other sitting senator during this time period, Texas Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison, also ran for governor during this time, but her campaign ended in the primary.)

We may see a few current or former senators try to claim the governorship this year, though. The Omaha World-Herald recently reported that Republican Sen. Deb Fischer is considering a run to lead Nebraska, while former GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte has been mentioned as a possible successor for New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu should he run against Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan―who made the jump from governor to senator in 2016 by beating Ayotte.