Category: NJ-Sen

Morning Digest: A Republican worse than Boebert? Colorado Democrats think they’ve found one

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● CO-03: A Democratic group is now meddling in next month's GOP primary in the hopes of helping underfunded election denier Ron Hanks secure the nomination for Colorado's 3rd District―a maneuver that comes two years after Democrats spent more than $4 million on an unsuccessful attempt to get the very same Republican candidate through a primary for the U.S. Senate.

The Colorado Sun, which first reported the news, says that a super PAC called Rocky Mountain Values has spent at least $84,000 "and counting" to ostensibly attack Hanks, a former state representative.

"Ron Hanks and Donald Trump say they're going to secure the border," the ad's narrator begins before switching to clips of the candidate speaking. "We need to start rounding up people," says Hanks. "We have to stop the immigration." The narrator jumps back in to label Hanks "too conservative for Colorado," which is the very line that Democrats used in their ads in 2022. (The commercials even appear to share the same voice-over artist.)

This new spot doesn't mention any of Hanks' five intra-party rivals, who are all running in the June 25 primary to replace far-right Rep. Lauren Boebert, who is running for the more conservative 4th District rather than defending her western Colorado constituency.

However, the PAC has dipped into other mediums to undermine the best-financed contender, attorney Jeff Hurd, who had been waging a challenge against Boebert before she switched districts. One newspaper advertisement highlighted by the Sun questions whether Hurd voted for Trump in the last two presidential elections and featured a quote from the candidate, who told the Denver Post just last month, "I don't talk about who I vote for."

While both parties often form new super PACs to make it tougher to tell who's behind attempts to influence the other side's primary, Rocky Mountain Values has been active in state Democratic politics for years. Hanks, though, pleaded ignorance when the Sun asked him about the new Democratic effort to select him as their opponent.

"I don't know who they are," he said. "I don't know what their motives are."

The winner will take on 2022 Democratic nominee Adam Frisch, who lost to Boebert by a shockingly small 546-vote margin two years after Trump carried the 3rd District 53-45. While Boebert's singular flaws were a major contributor to that close outcome, Hanks might be an even weaker opponent.

Hanks, who badly lost a 2010 congressional bid—in California—to Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson, quickly established himself as a vocal Big Lie proponent and fierce opponent of reproductive rights after he was elected to the Colorado legislature a decade later. He also attended the Jan. 6 "Stop the Steal" rally in Washington, D.C., and marched on the Capitol following Trump's speech, though he claims he did not enter the building. He's further made it clear he opposes abortion under any circumstances.

But what Hanks has not established himself as, though, is an adequate fundraiser: The former lawmaker ended March with a paltry $6,000 in the bank, a far cry from Hurd's $528,000 total and Frisch's eye-popping $5.8 million war chest.

Senate

● MN-Sen: Banker Joe Fraser announced Thursday that he'd compete in the Aug. 13 Republican primary against Royce White, a former NBA player and far-right conspiracy theorist who unexpectedly won the state party convention almost two weeks ago. The eventual nominee will be in for an uphill battle against Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has won by at least a 20-point margin in all three of her statewide campaigns.

Minnesota candidates often pledge to, in local parlance, "abide" by the convention endorsement and end their campaigns if someone else wins, and Fraser himself made this promise before Royce's upset win. Fraser, though, said Thursday he was switching course because of Royce's "history of questionable conduct and serious charges leveled against him."

This includes a litany of ugly headlines that have followed Royce since he beat Fraser, such as a recent MSNBC piece titled, "Royce White's resurfaced remark about women being 'too mouthy' shows how MAGA recruits with misogyny.

● NJ-Sen: Indicted Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez reportedly has collected the necessary 800 voter signatures ahead of Tuesday's deadline to appear on November's ballot as an independent, according to NBC. New Jersey holds its party primaries that same day, and Rep. Andy Kim is heavily favored to win the Democratic nomination for Menendez's Senate seat.

The incumbent's corruption trial is ongoing, and NBC writes that it's expected to continue into July or longer. Ostensibly continuing to run would enable the senator to keep raising donor money for his legal defense, and it's unclear if he would wage an actual campaign to try to beat Kim and the Republican nominee this fall. Any independent who makes the ballot has until Aug. 16 to withdraw their name.

● PA-Sen: The New York Times' Michael Bender reports that a conservative super PAC called Keystone Renewal has reserved $30 million for TV ads to support Republican Dave McCormick against Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, greatly expanding upon the $3.6 million it has already spent. Financial industry billionaires have heavily funded Keystone Renewal to back McCormick, who stepped down as CEO of a major hedge fund before his unsuccessful 2022 Senate campaign.

Bender furthermore reports that Democratic groups have already spent amply, including $8.5 million from Casey and $9 million from his supporters at the DSCC. Both parties have also made large reservations here for the fall.

Governors

● ND-Gov, ND-AL: Donald Trump on Thursday endorsed Rep. Kelly Armstrong in the June 11 Republican primary for governor and Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak in the contest to replace Armstrong in North Dakota's lone House seat.

The few polls that have been released of the former contest have shown Armstrong decisively beating Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller, who is retiring Gov. Doug Burgum's preferred choice. Trump's decision to reject Miller comes at a time when Burgum is reportedly a top contender to become the GOP's vice presidential nominee. However, Trump did describe the governor as "my friend" in a separate endorsement message noting their mutual support for Fedorchak.

The House race, by contrast, lacked a clear frontrunner before Thursday. A pair of polls conducted earlier this month found a competitive race between the public service commissioner and former state Rep. Rick Becker, with former State Department official Alex Balazs and former Miss America Cara Mund further behind. However, many Republicans were undecided in those surveys, and Trump's endorsement could tip them toward Fedorchak.

● WV-Gov: Retiring Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin told the Charleston Gazette-Mail's Ty McClung on Wednesday that he would not make a late entry into the race for governor and that he's continuing to support Huntington Mayor Steve Williams, the Democratic nominee who faces a very uphill race against Republican state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in what has become a very red state.

Manchin's announcement follows a May 20 report from MetroNews' Brad McElhinny that Republicans seeking a moderate alternative to the far-right Morrisey were encouraging Manchin to join the race, something he didn't fully rule out later that same day. Manchin likely would be the strongest candidate for Democrats thanks to his record of winning several statewide races, but Williams would have to withdraw from the race by Aug. 13 for the senator to replace him as the Democratic nominee.

While Manchin's latest announcement appears definitive, he's spent the last year and a half keeping everyone in suspense about what he might run for in 2024. As recently as March, he didn't rule out seeking reelection as an independent despite announcing his retirement last fall, and that option remains open to him until Aug. 1. Consequently, we may not know for sure what he'll do until the deadlines pass.

House

● LA-05: The Republican pollster Victory Insights, which tells Daily Kos Elections it has no client, shows Rep. Garret Graves leading fellow Republican incumbent Julia Letlow 38-35 in a hypothetical Nov. 5 all-party primary matchup for the safely red 5th District, with Green Party candidate Rivule Sykes at 6%. This is the first survey we've seen of a possible battle between Graves, whose 6th District became dark blue under the new map, and Letlow.

This potential contest is difficult to poll, though, and that's not only because Graves is keeping everyone guessing if he'll challenge Letlow, defend the 6th District, or do something else. No Democratic candidates appear to have announced bids yet for the 5th, but that may well change ahead of the July 19 filing deadline.

The presence of a Democratic rival could be a problem for Graves' hopes of making a December runoff, as this survey shows him outpacing Letlow 31-21 among Democrats even as she carries Republicans 55-35. (Unaffiliated voters go for Graves 40-22.) However, it's also possible that multiple Democrats will file and split the vote too much for any of them to deny either GOP representative a spot in a second round of voting.

● MI-13: Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan on Thursday backed Detroit City Councilwoman Mary Waters' uphill campaign to deny renomination to freshman Rep. Shri Thanedar in the Aug. 6 Democratic primary. The Motor City is home to just over half of the residents of the safety blue 13th District, which also contains several nearby communities.

Duggan's move came about a week after Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett determined that former state Sen. Adam Hollier, who was Thanedar's leading intra-party rival, had failed to collect enough valid signatures to appear on the ballot. (Hollier’s appeal of that decision was rejected by state officials on Thursday.)

Waters used her Thursday event with Duggan to argue that majority-Black Detroit needs an African American member of Congress. (Hollier is also Black, while Thanedar is Indian American.) The last Black person to represent Detroit in the House was Brenda Lawrence, who left office at the start of last year.

Duggan, who is white, also echoed Waters' argument that Thanedar has done a poor job serving the city. "We need somebody in Congress who fights for us, and right now, I don't feel like we got any help from our congressperson," declared the mayor.

Waters ended March with just $5,000 in the bank, but she predicted Thursday that Duggan's endorsement will "supercharge" her bid. There's little question, however, that Thanedar, who had more than $5 million at his disposal thanks largely to self-funding, will continue to hold a huge financial edge.

Waters, who previously served in the state House from 2001 to 2006, also argued that her long history in Detroit politics will help her overcome Thanedar, who only moved to the city from Ann Arbor ahead of his successful 2020 bid for a local state House district.

That history, though, contains some incidents she won't be eager to see revisited. Waters pled guilty in 2010 to conspiring to bribe an elected official in nearby Southfield and to falsifying a tax return. However, she eventually returned to elected office when she won a citywide seat on the council in 2021.

● VA-10: Former state Education Secretary Atif Qarni has publicized a poll from SurveyMonkey showing him in a close third ahead of the June 18 primary to succeed his fellow Democrat, retiring Rep. Jennifer Wexton.

Del. Dan Helmer edges out state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam 17-16, with Qarni and former state House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn at 12% and 9%, respectively. A 26% plurality is undecided, while the balance is split between eight other candidates.

This is the first poll we've seen of this contest in over two months. Qarni's campaign tells Daily Kos Elections that this survey sampled 792 likely primary voters from May 17 through May 23.

Other Races

● Miami-Dade, FL Elections Supervisor: Attorney Megan Pearl ended her campaign to become the top elections administrator for Florida's most populous county a month after Donald Trump endorsed her opponent, state Rep. Alina Garcia, in the Aug. 20 GOP primary.

Four Democrats are running including attorney J.C. Planas, who served in the state House as a Republican from 2002 to 2010, and political consultant Willis Howard.

Poll Pile

The Cook Political Report has released more polls jointly conducted by the GOP firm Benenson Strategy Group and the Democratic pollster GS Strategy Group that also include Senate matchups:

  • AZ-Sen: Ruben Gallego (D): 46, Kari Lake (R): 41 (45-44 Trump in two-way, 41-37 Trump with third-party candidates)
  • PA-Sen: Bob Casey (D-inc): 49, Dave McCormick (R): 41 (48-45 Trump in two-way, 43-40 Trump with third-party candidates)
  • WI-Sen: Tammy Baldwin (D-inc): 49, Eric Hovde (R): 37 (45-45 presidential tie in two-way, 41-41 presidential tie with third-party candidates)

Cook also released polls of Michigan and Nevada, but these tested an "unnamed Republican challenger" against named Democratic foes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Election Recaps

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Senate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Governors

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

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

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

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

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

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

House

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Poll Pile

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

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

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Morning Digest: Why the field to replace Mitt Romney may soon get a lot smaller

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Leading Off

● UT-Sen: The Utah GOP's April 27 convention is coming up quickly, and a newly formed super PAC is trying to make sure Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs' campaign to succeed retiring Sen. Mitt Romney comes to an end at the event well before the June 25 primary.

The Deseret News' Brigham Tomco reports that Hometown Freedom Action Network has spent $17,000 on mailers and text messages to delegates portraying Staggs, who has emphasized his hard-right stances, as disloyal to conservatives. One message faults the mayor for initially supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president, declaring, "Betraying Trump is not MAGA." Another blasts Staggs as "woke" for instituting anti-bias training for police officers. It's not clear who is funding the group.

One delegate told Tomco he considers these kinds of attacks from outside groups "frustrating, annoying, and inappropriate." Staggs is hoping others agree because he needs to perform well with delegates if he's to keep his campaign going.

Utah allows candidates to reach the primary ballot by competing at their convention or by collecting signatures, and while candidates can pursue both routes, Staggs is only going with the first option. This means that, should he fail to win the support of at least 40% of the delegates on April 27, his campaign is over. Another hard-right candidate, conservative activist Carolyn Phippen, is also pursuing a convention-only strategy.

It's not clear yet, however, if a third candidate, attorney Brent Orrin Hatch, needs to rely on delegates to get onto the ballot. Hatch, who is the son and namesake of the late Sen. Orrin Hatch, submitted signatures ahead of the April 13 deadline, but election authorities have not yet verified if he turned in the requisite 28,000 valid petitions.

Hatch himself also sounded uncertain if he'd hit this goal at the start of the month. He previously told Tomco the task was "daunting," and that his status was "up in the air."

The convention is far less important for two other Republicans, Rep. John Curtis and former state House Speaker Brad Wilson. Election authorities have verified that each of them turned in enough signatures to make the ballot, though they're each still taking part in the convention.

Hometown Freedom Action Network sent out texts blasting Curtis, who appears to be the least doctrinaire of the candidates, as someone who was "never with President Trump, and never will be." However, it only spent $2,500 on this messaging against the congressman, who will be on the June ballot no matter how well he does at the April 27 gathering.

The Downballot

● It's an old story, but it never gets old: Democrats just whooped Republicans in fundraising—again. This week on "The Downballot" podcast, we're running through some of the most eye-popping numbers Democrats hauled in during the first quarter of the year (Sherrod Brown! Jon Tester! Colin Allred!) and the comparatively weak performances we're seeing from Republicans almost across the board. The GOP hopes to make up the gap by relying on self-funders, but a campaign without a strong fundraising network can be dangerously hollow.

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also recap the week's electoral action, starting with victories in a pair of special elections in Michigan that allowed Democrats to reclaim their majority in the state House, plus a noteworthy House runoff in Alabama that could lead to a Black Democrat representing Mobile for the first time since Reconstruction.

The Davids also explain why a surprise retirement from the Wisconsin Supreme Court means progressives need to be on guard against a top-two lockout in yet another critical battle for control of the court. And finally, there's the astonishing three-way House race in California that could soon turn into a humdrum two-way affair thanks to an unexpected recount.

1Q Fundraising

● Fundraising: Daily Kos Elections is pleased to present brand-new charts rounding up first-quarter fundraising numbers for every incumbent and notable challenger running for the House and the Senate this year. The overarching story is a familiar one: Democrats in key races are outraising their Republican rivals almost across the board, sometimes by astonishing margins.

The lopsided Senate battlefield is particularly noteworthy. Compared to the same quarter six years ago, the two most endangered Democratic senators, Montana's Jon Tester and Ohio's Sherod Brown, raised four times as much as they did for their last campaigns. Meanwhile, in Texas, Rep. Colin Allred managed to exceed the already eye-popping records set by Beto O'Rourle in 2018. Check out our charts for the complete picture in both chambers of Congress.

Senate

● MT-Sen: In a follow-up to her absolutely bonkers report about former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy last week, the Washington Post's Liz Goodwin pokes further holes in the Republican's claims about an alleged bullet wound he suffered.

Sheehy claims he lied about getting shot at a national park in 2015 in order to deter a military investigation into what he says was the true source of his injury—a possible incident of friendly fire in Afghanistan three years earlier—but new documents obtained by the Post include a report from an unnamed person visiting the park who reported "an accidental gun discharge" to the National Park Service.

An attorney for Sheehy disputed whether there had in fact been any such report by a park visitor. Sheehy's campaign previously said it was seeking to obtain copies of his hospital records from the 2015 incident, but the same attorney did not directly respond when asked whether those records had been received.

● NJ-Sen: A three-judge federal appeals panel has upheld a ruling by a lower court last month that barred the use of New Jersey's "county line" system on the grounds that it violates the Constitution. However, that ruling remains in effect solely for the Democratic primary. Barring further legal action, Republicans will still be able to print ballots that give favorable placement to party-endorsed candidates. That state of affairs is likely temporary, though, as a similar ruling applying to Republican primaries is likely at some point.

Governors

● MO-Gov: The Missouri Scout has rounded up campaign fundraising reports covering the first quarter of the year, and the overall story of the Aug. 6 Republican primary for governor remains the same as it's been throughout the entire cycle. Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe continues to dominate financially even though almost every released survey shows him trailing Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft by double digits. State Sen. Bill Eigel also brought in more money during the quarter than Ashcroft even those polls show him with little support.

Kehoe and his joint fundraising committee this time raised a combined $2.5 million and ended March with a total of $6.3 million. Eigel and his committee outraised Ashcroft and his allies $587,000 to $513,000, though it was Ashcroft's side that finished the quarter with a $2.6 million to $1.7 million cash on hand advantage.

On the Democratic side, state House Minority Leader Crystal Quade and her committee together raised $285,000 and had $391,000 available. Businessman Mike Hamra and his allies together brought in $690,000, which includes $250,000 from the candidate, and ended March with $1.1 million banked.  

House

● CA-16: NBC Bay Area's Jocelyn Moran reports that a newly formed super PAC called Count the Vote is providing the money to finance the ongoing recount into the March 5 top-two primary. It's not clear who is funding the group, but Moran says that the address on its checks matches that of a law firm that used to work for former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo.

Liccardo, who is assured a place in the Nov. 5 general election, has continued to deny he has anything to do with the recount even though the person who requested it, Jonathan Padilla, worked for his 2014 campaign and served in his administration. Two of Liccardo's fellow Democrats, Assemblyman Evan Low and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, tied for second place last month, and they'd both advance to the general election unless the recount changes the results.

The recount process began Monday, and it's not clear how long it will take to conclude. While election officials in Santa Clara County, which makes up over 80% of the 16th District, initially told KQED they believed this would be a five-day undertaking, Moran writes that they now think it could last between one and two weeks. Personnel in San Mateo County, which forms the balance of the seat, separately tell ABC 7 they believe their retabulations will be done around April 24.

Officials in Santa Clara and San Mateo tell The Daily Journal that the daily cost in their respective counties is $16,000 and $5,000, though they add it would change depending on exactly what Padilla requests. The process would come to an end if Padilla missed a day's payment, and an incomplete recount would leave the certified results unchanged.

● MD-02: AIPAC, the hawkish pro-Israel group, has endorsed Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski ahead of the May 14 Democratic primary, where his main rival for this open seat is Del. Harry Bhandari. Olszewski has been the frontrunner ever since he launched his bid in January, and he previously earned endorsements from retiring Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, longtime Rep. Steny Hoyer, and organized labor.

Olszewski also enjoys a large financial advantage over Bhandari. The executive raised $726,000 in the first quarter and finished March with $499,000 on hand, while Bhandari took in $134,000 during this time and ended the period with only $68,000 left to spend.

● MD-03: Retired Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn has publicized an internal poll from Upswing Research and Strategy that shows him leading state Sen. Sarah Elfreth by 22-18, while a 44% plurality of voters undecided ahead of the May 14 Democratic primary for this safely blue open seat. State Sen. Clarence Lam was further back with 8%, while no other candidate in the crowded race exceeded 3%.

Dunn gained national visibility after he helped protect Congress during the Jan. 6 insurrection, and that fame helped him dominate the rest of the field in fundraising. Dunn raised a massive $3.7 million in the first quarter and finished March with $1.7 million on hand. That haul was the third-largest of any House candidate nationwide, and it also was more than the rest of his primary rivals combined.

By contrast, Elfreth raised $502,000 and had $569,000 left to spend. However, Elfreth has also received $1.4 million in outside support from the hawkish pro-Israel group AIPAC, while none of the other candidates have benefited from major outside spending.

Lam, for his part, raised $284,000 and had $505,000 remaining in the bank. Further back, Del. Mike Rogers raised $140,000 and had $171,000 left over, while labor lawyer John Morse raised $116,000 and finished March with $94,000. None of the other candidates took in six-figure sums.

● ME-02: State Rep. Austin Theriault has unveiled an internal poll from Public Opinion Strategies that finds him leading fellow state Rep. Mike Soboleski by 30-7 ahead of the June 11 Republican primary, though a large majority of respondents are undecided. The poll's sample size was just 300 respondents, which is the bare minimum that Daily Kos Elections requires for inclusion in the Digest.

Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson are supporting Theriault for the nomination to take on Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, and their preferred candidate raised $655,000 in the first quarter to Soboleski's $43,000. Theriault also had $831,000 on hand compared to $48,000 for his rival. However, Golden's haul was even larger at $1 million raised, and he had $2.2 million on hand at the start of April.

● NJ-10: The New Jersey Globe reports that Democratic Rep. Donald Payne has been unconscious and on a ventilator ever since he suffered a heart attack on April 6. The congressman's office on April 9 put out a statement that did not indicate Payne was not conscious, saying instead that his "prognosis is good and he is expected to make a full recovery."

● NY-16: Politico's Jeff Coltin has obtained an internal for Rep. Jamaal Bowman that shows him edging out Westchester County Executive George Latimer 44-43 in the June 25 Democratic primary. The pollster, Upswing Research and Strategy, tells us the survey was conducted March 5 through March 10.

The only other numbers we've seen for this contest came from a late March poll for Latimer's allies at Democratic Majority for Israel, and it showed the executive with a wide 52-35 lead. Both DMFI and its pollster, the Mellman Group, are led by Mark Mellman.

● SC-01, VA-05, AZ-02, OH-09: American Prosperity Alliance, a dark money group that is close to Kevin McCarthy, has begun running TV ads against three Republican incumbents who voted to oust McCarthy from the speakership last year. The ads, which, are focused on immigration, are also running against Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in Ohio's 9th District.

According to AdImpact, the group has spent at least $330,000 against Rep. Nancy Mace, who is trying to fend off former state cabinet official Catherine Templeton in the June 11 primary for South Carolina's 1st District. AdImpact has also tracked another $160,000 that APA is deploying in Virginia's 5th District against Rep. Bob Good, who faces state Sen. John McGuire in the following week's primary.

Meanwhile in Arizona's 2nd District, the group has spent $218,000 so far to weaken incumbent Eli Crane ahead of his July 30 nomination battle against former Yavapai County Supervisor Jack Smith. APA additionally has dropped $150,000 on ads against Kaptur, who she faces a competitive general election against Republican state Rep. Derek Merrin.

Mayors & County Leaders

● Raleigh, NC Mayor: Democratic Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin announced Tuesday that she would not seek reelection this year and would instead lead a nonprofit. Baldwin, who was successfully treated for breast cancer last year, added that her husband also had multiple surgeries, and that all this convinced her it was "time to devote my energies to myself and my family and to find other ways to serve."

The nonpartisan general election to succeed Baldwin will take place on Nov. 5, and since there's no runoff, it only takes a plurality to become mayor of North Carolina's capital city. Three notable candidates were already running, and they each identify as Democrats.

City Councilman Corey Branch, who describes himself as a "moderate Democrat," launched his campaign in October. He was joined in January by former state Treasurer Janet Cowell, who was once a rising star in North Carolina Democratic politics.

Terrance Ruth, a North Carolina State University professor who lost to Baldwin 47-41 in 2022, also kicked off a second bid a month before the incumbent announced her departure. Ruth argued last cycle that the mayor's administration hadn't done enough to make housing affordable or to listen to residents.

The field also includes mortgage broker Paul Fitts, who is the only Republican in the contest, and two other candidates. The candidate filing deadline is July 19.

Obituaries

● Bob Graham: Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat who rose to prominence during his 26 years as governor and senator, died Tuesday at the age of 87. In our obituary, Jeff Singer recounts the many elections of Graham's long career, including how his famed "Workweeks" helped transform him from relative obscurity into a statewide powerhouse.

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Morning Digest: Michigan Democrats retake House majority, clearing way for progressive priorities

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● MI State House: Michigan Democrats successfully defended a pair of vacant state House seats in the Detroit suburbs on Tuesday, restoring the outright majority the party won in 2022. With Democrats, who also hold the governorship and state Senate, back in full control of state government, the party once again has the opportunity to advance its agenda.

In one of Tuesday's specials, Westland City Councilman Peter Herzberg defeated Republican Josh Powell 60-38 in the 25th District, which, according to data from Dave's Redistricting App, backed Joe Biden 59-40 in 2020.

Meanwhile, Macomb County Commissioner Mai Xiong likewise beat Republican Ronald Singer 66-34 in the 13th District, which went for the president 64-35. Xiong's win makes her the first Hmong American elected to the state House.

Both seats became vacant following last November's local elections when a pair of Democrats, Kevin Coleman of Westland and Lori Stone of Warren, resigned after being elected mayor of their respective communities. While there was little question that Democrats would win the special elections, Coleman and Stone's absences meant that the 110-chamber would be tied 54-54 for several months.

Democrat Joe Tate remained speaker during the ensuing time, but his party was unable to pass legislation without Republican support. This state of affairs, however, has changed now that Herzberg and Xiong have prevailed and restored Democrats to a 56-54 edge (they also have a 20-18 advantage in the Senate).

Despite their narrow majorities, Democrats passed an ambitious agenda last year, which included repealing anti-union "right to work" laws, reversing a 1931 abortion ban, and protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ people. Their hopes for the coming year are similarly far-reaching.

One major goal will be the passage of the $80.7 billion state budget that Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is touting as a way to provide both free preschool and community college. The House will also have the opportunity to approve a voting rights package to improve access to the ballot box for people of color, voters with disabilities, and people who rely on a language other than English.

While the governorship and state Senate aren't up until 2026, Democrats must once again defend their narrow majority in the lower chamber this November. That task got a bit more complicated this year when a panel of federal judges approved a new map for the state House drawn by Michigan's independent redistricting commission to replace one the court determined improperly factored in race.

The partisan impact of this shift was limited, as Donald Trump would have won the same 56-54 majority of districts under both sets of maps. Xiong, though, will likely be in for a considerably tougher contest this fall than she was on Tuesday: While Biden easily carried the version of the 13th District she won this week, the revamped version favored him just 50-48.

Election Recaps

● AL-02: Former Justice Department official Shomari Figures defeated state House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels 61-39 in Tuesday's Democratic primary runoff for Alabama's revamped 2nd District. 

Figures' nomination in this seat, which now takes in Mobile, Montgomery, and the eastern Black Belt, came after the crypto-aligned super PAC Protect Progress spent another $900,000 to support him in the second round of voting. The group previously deployed over $1.7 million to promote Figures ahead of the March 5 primary, which saw him lead Daniels 43-22.

Figures will be favored in the general election against attorney Caroleene Dobson, who won the GOP runoff by beating former state Sen. Dick Brewbaker by a 58-42 margin. The new version of the 2nd, which was put in place by a federal court, is now a plurality Black district that would have backed Joe Biden 56-43.

Republican Rep. Barry Moore last year all but acknowledged his redrawn seat was unwinnable for his party when he decided that, rather than seek reelection to the new 2nd, he'd challenge fellow incumbent Jerry Carl in the dark red 1st. (Moore won 52-48 last month.)

With Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell poised to easily hold the reliably blue 7th District around Birmingham, a win for Figures in November would give Alabama two Black members of Congress for the first time. It would also be the first time that Democrats have held two House seats in Alabama since Republicans secured their current 6-1 advantage following the 2010 red wave.

Figures, who hails from a prominent political family in Mobile, would also be the first African American to represent this Gulf Coast city in Congress since the 1870s. Two of the three Black representatives who held office during Reconstruction, Republicans Benjamin Turner and Jeremiah Haralson, won Mobile-based seats; the third, James Rapier, represented an area around Montgomery and Dothan.

In addition, Figures would be the first Democrat to represent Mobile in the House since the early 1960s, a time when segregationist Democrats still held a monopoly on power in the state. The last Mobile-based Democratic congressman was Frank Boykin, a conservative Dixiecrat who won what was then numbered the 1st District in a 1935 special election.

Boykin's status was threatened, though, after the state lost one of its nine House seats following the 1960 census and the legislature failed to approve a new map in time for the 1962 elections.

All nine members of the House delegation, which had been all-Democratic since the turn of the century, ended up competing in a statewide primary for eight at-large seats, and Boykin was the unlucky incumbent who took last place. (He was convicted on corruption charges the next year, but President Lyndon Johnson later pardoned the former congressman.)

New districts were approved for the 1964 elections, but Republicans had begun making inroads in the state by emphasizing their opposition to civil rights for African Americans. Republican Jack Edwards decisively won the open 1st District around Mobile as the GOP, aided by Barry Goldwater's landslide win over LBJ in Alabama, secured four other House seats. While the GOP lost two of its new members in 1966, it continued to hold the 1st District throughout the ensuing decades.

Alabama's current court-drawn map, however, means that, for the first time since Boykin's era, most voters in Mobile will soon likely have a Democratic congressman. About 90% of the city is located in the new 2nd District, according to data from Dave's Redistricting App, while the balance is contained in the 1st.

And while the GOP's hold on the 1st District, which would have favored Donald Trump 74-24 in 2020, isn't at risk, the new boundaries were bad news for one Mobile-area Republican. Carl, a former member of the Mobile County Commission, lost his March 5 primary to Moore, a colleague whose base is in the more rural Wiregrass region to the east. 

Senate

● MD-Sen: A new survey for OpinionWorks shows former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan leading his two prospective Democratic foes, Rep. David Trone and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, 53-40 and 54-36, respectively. The poll, which was conducted for The Baltimore Sun, FOX45, and the University of Baltimore, did not include presidential numbers in Tuesday's release.

A pair of March polls from Braun Research conducted for two different sets of clients also showed Hogan ahead in general election matchups, though they disagreed just how well he was doing in this dark blue state.

The early March numbers for the Washington Post and the University of Maryland placed the Republican ahead of Trone and Alsobrooks by margins of 49-37 and 50-36, which is similar to what OpinionWorks now finds. But a survey conducted later in the month for Goucher College and the Baltimore Banner showed Hogan edging out Trone just 43-42 and leading Alsobrooks by an only slightly larger 44-40 spread.

OpinionWorks also looks at both parties' May 14 primaries. On the Democratic side, Trone enjoys a 48-29 edge over Alsobrooks, which is larger than what other recent polls have shown. The firm also gives us a rare glance at the GOP side, where Hogan is crushing wealthy perennial candidate Robin Ficker 69-9.

● NJ-Sen: A state court judge ruled on Monday that election officials in New Jersey could continue to print ballots for the Republican primary that award special placement to party-endorsed candidates, saying it was "too late" to change course. Previously, a federal judge forbade Democrats from using ballots organized in this way and instead said candidates had to be grouped by the office they're seeking.

However, even though that federal court ruling applied only to Democratic primaries, Superior Court Judge John Harrington suggested that Republicans should have followed suit in eliminating the so-called "county line." The federal case is currently being appealed, and it's possible that the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could extend the lower court's ruling to include the GOP.

● NV-Sen: Former diplomat Jeff Gunter is airing his first TV ad against Army veteran Sam Brown ahead of the June 11 Republican primary, though it's anyone's guess how much he's actually spending to get it on the air. Gunter said two weeks ago he'd be deploying a total of $3.3 million on ads for the rest of the contest, but as of Friday, AdImpact reported he'd booked only $654,000.

The new spot accuses Brown of being aided by "dirty cash from Mitch McConnell, the swamp king himself." Brown is the NRSC's endorsed candidate to take on Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen.

● DSCC: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee announced Tuesday that it had reserved a total of $79 million for TV, radio, and digital ads in races across the nation. The news came after its allies at Senate Majority PAC booked what Politico's Burgess Everett says is now $239 million in several battlegrounds.

Everett writes that a large portion of the DSCC's reservation is budgeted toward TV ads in three Democratic-held seats in swing states: $11 million is going to defend Michigan's open seat, while Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin will receive $10 million in support and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey will benefit from $8 million.

Another $2 million is being devoted to radio buys to help Montana Sen. Jon Tester, but we don't know yet how the remaining $48 million is being assigned. Everett says "seven-figure digital advertisements" will be used in the above states as well as in Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, and Texas. (Florida and Texas are held by GOP incumbents Rick Scott and Ted Cruz.) An unnamed DSCC aide says some money will also be directed toward coordinated buys with candidates.

Governors

● IN-Gov: Campaign finance reports are in for the first quarter of the year, and the Indianapolis Star's Kayla Dwyer has collected the numbers from all the notable Republicans competing in the May 7 primary for governor:

  • Businessman Eric Doden: $4.4 million raised, $251,000 cash on hand
  • Sen. Mike Braun: $2.9 million raised, $946,000 cash on hand
  • Former state Commerce Secretary Brad Chambers: $1.5 million raised, additional $3 million self-funded, $761,000 cash on hand
  • Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch: $1.4 million raised, $3.1 million cash on hand
  • Former Attorney General Curtis Hill: $201,000 raised, $34,000 cash on hand

Dwyer notes that Doden received $3 million in donations and loans from his parents, which represents most of the money he brought in. Braun, for his part, took in $1 million from Richard Uihlein, who is one of the most prolific conservative megadonors in the country.

● VA-Gov: Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger publicized an endorsement on Tuesday from Clean Virginia, a prominent environmental group that the Richmond Times-Dispatch says spent almost $12 million in last year's legislative races.

That effort included several 2023 Democratic primaries where Clean Virginia's candidates opposed contenders supported by Dominion Energy. Clean Virginia helped Lashrecse Aird deny renomination to Dominion's ally, conservative state Sen. Joe Morrissey, while it was on the winning side against two other upper chamber candidates backed by the mammoth energy producer. Dominion, though, successfully defended two Democratic state senators against Clean Virginia-supported challengers.  

Spanberger faces Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney in next year's Democratic nomination contest to replace GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is barred from seeking a second consecutive term. Spanberger ended 2023 with a wide $3.6 million to $758,000 cash on hand advantage, but since fundraising reports covering the first six months of the year won't be available until July 15, we'll need to wait a while for updated numbers.

House

● CO-05: State Sen. Bob Gardner said over the weekend that election officials informed him that he'd failed to submit enough signatures to make the June 25 Republican primary ballot. Gardner, who is termed out of his current job, acknowledged his congressional campaign was over to Colorado Politics. "I've always believed there's more to life than the next political office," he said, "so there's many opportunities to serve."

Gardner's involuntary departure makes the primary to replace retiring GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn a two-way duel between state party chair Dave Williams, who has Donald Trump's backing, and conservative radio host Jeff Crank, who has Speaker Mike Johnson in his corner. Crank decisively outraised Williams $302,000 to $68,000 among donors during the first quarter of the year, though Williams self-funded an additional $103,000. Crank finished March with a $228,000 to $166,000 cash advantage.

Both candidates have an unhappy electoral history with Lamborn, who has not taken sides. Crank narrowly lost to Lamborn the last time this seat was open in 2006 and unsuccessfully sought to boot him two years later, while Williams waged a failed challenge to Lamborn last cycle. The GOP nominee will be favored in the general election for the 5th District, a Colorado Springs-based seat that favored Trump 53-43 in 2020.

● PA-01: A new group called True Patriots PA, which Politico says has ties to Democrats, has spent at least $50,000 on mailers attacking GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in the hopes that his far-right primary opponent somehow unseats him. One flyer accuses the incumbent of becoming "best friends with Kamala Harris and the Democrats," while another calls him "the biggest RINO in Congress."

Politico reports the treasurer of True Patriots also works for Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, a prominent progressive. Democrats would be thrilled if anti-abortion activist Mark Houck denied renomination to Fitzpatrick in this competitive suburban Philadelphia seat, but there's not much sign that the congressman is in danger against the underfunded challenger.

Fitzpatrick did air commercials on streaming TV last month branding Houck as a "porn addict," but Inside Elections reported at the time that the congressman was spending just $23,000 on those ads. The winner will take on retired Army pilot Ashley Ehasz, a Democrat who is hoping to avenge her 55-45 loss against Fitzpatrick from last cycle.

● SC-01: The conservative super PAC Winning for Women has launched what Inside Elections' Jacob Rubashkin says is at least a $161,000 TV buy to promote former state cabinet official Catherine Templeton in the June 11 GOP primary. The spot, which does not mention Trump-backed incumbent Nancy Mace, declares that Templeton "will stand with President Trump's border policies."

The Washington Post's Patrick Svitek notes that Winning for Women supported Mace in 2022 when she successfully fended off a primary opponent who was endorsed by Trump, and it initially backed her again in May of last year. But while Mace responded by tweeting out her "[e]normous gratitude," the two sides appear to have had a falling out sometime after the congresswoman joined with seven other House Republicans to end Kevin McCarthy's speakership.

"They’re doing this all because the former Speaker is a mean girl on a revenge tour against the only woman who voted against him for Speaker," a Mace spokesperson said in a statement about the congresswoman's erstwhile allies. "And this time he’s hiding behind the skirts of W4W."

Prosecutors & Sheriffs

● Alameda County, CA District Attorney: County election officials announced Monday evening that the campaign to recall Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price had turned in enough signatures to force a vote.

It will be up to the Board of Supervisors, which is set to meet on April 30, to decide when the election will take place. Recall expert Joshua Spivak identifies both the timing of the race, as well as the question of whether or not a replacement would be elected on the same ballot, as some of the "areas for potential lawsuits."

Price was elected in 2022 as district attorney for this dark blue East Bay county, which is home to Oakland and Berkeley, by campaigning as a criminal justice reformer. Her critics, though, quickly began arguing that she'd done a poor job combating violent crime. Price’s team, meanwhile, said last month that her ouster would "undermine the results of a free and fair election" and "jeopardize the historic progress achieved in recent years."

● Hillsborough County, FL State Attorney: Democrat Andrew Warren announced Tuesday that he would run this fall to reclaim the prosecutor's office in Hillsborough County that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis permanently suspended him from in 2022.

Warren is seeking to oust Republican Suzy Lopez, whom DeSantis appointed to replace him, in a county that includes Tampa and many of its suburbs. First, though, he needs to get past attorney Elizabeth Martinez Strauss, who hails from a prominent local legal family, in the Aug. 20 Democratic primary.

Warren won his second term 53-47 in 2020 as Joe Biden was carrying Hillsborough by a similar spread. However, his tenure came to a sudden end two years later when DeSantis removed him from office for, among other things, refusing to prosecute people who obtain or provide abortions.

Warren initially had little success in court challenging his dismissal and announced in January that he'd decided not to run again because there was a "high risk" that the governor would respond to his victory by removing him again.

However, he unexpectedly got some welcome news just two days later when a federal appeals court determined that a lower court judge had incorrectly concluded that several of the factors that had "motivated DeSantis to suspend Warren"—such as Warren's opposition to prosecuting individuals who obtain or provide abortions—were not protected by the First Amendment. The move did not guarantee Warren's reinstatement, but the Democrat quickly acknowledged he was reconsidering his plans not to run.

There have been no major developments since then, and the Tampa Bay Times says the case hasn't even been formally returned to the lower court yet. Still, Warren told the Times on Tuesday that the appeals court's decision "makes clear that the governor is not above the law and that the will of the people matters."

Strauss, for her part, told the paper that, while she believes Warren was unfairly ousted, his legal situation makes him "a risky candidate." She added that she'd remain in the race unless the courts act on his case before the April 26 candidate filing deadline.

Poll Pile

  • TX-Sen: Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation: Ted Cruz (R-inc): 46, Colin Allred (D): 41, Ted Brown (L): 4 (48-36 Trump in two-way, 46-34 Trump with third-party candidates)

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Morning Digest: Trump targets one of last two pro-impeachment House Republicans

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● WA-04: Donald Trump on Friday endorsed former NASCAR driver Jerrod Sessler's intra-party bid against Washington Rep. Dan Newhouse, who is one of the two remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump following the Jan. 6 riot.

Trump's backing makes Sessler, who waged an unheralded campaign two years ago, Newhouse's only notable foe in what had been a quiet Aug. 6 top-two primary for Washington's conservative 4th District. However, it remains to be seen whether Democrats will once again consolidate behind a single candidate as they did in 2022, a development that could make it tougher for one of the two Republicans to reach the November general election.

Newhouse's own plans are also uncertain. Two months ago, the Seattle Times' Jim Brunner relayed that there had been "rampant speculation in state Republican circles that Newhouse may be the next to announce his retirement." The incumbent doesn't appear to have confirmed his 2024 plans yet, though he tweeted out an endorsement from the National Federation of Independent Business on Monday. The candidate filing deadline isn't until May 10, so it may still be a few weeks before the roster is set here.

Newhouse, who was elected to represent central Washington in 2014, attracted little attention during his first three terms in Congress, but all of that changed early in 2021 when he responded to the Jan. 6 attack riot by voting to impeach Trump.

"A vote against this impeachment is a vote to validate the unacceptable violence we witnessed in our nation's capital," he said in a statement. "It is also a vote to condone President Trump's inaction."

Sessler, who had raced in local NASCAR competitions that could be considered the equivalent of baseball's minor leagues (his name does not come up when searching the auto sports database Racing-Reference.info), was one of several hard-right politicians who reacted by launching campaigns against the congressman. Trump, however, was far more impressed by 2020 gubernatorial nominee Loren Culp, a former cop who refused to recognize his decisive loss to Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee.

Trump's endorsement, though, didn't do much to help Culp augment his weak fundraising numbers hauls. Newhouse's allies at Defending Main Street, which is aligned with the GOP leadership, also spent over $1 million to boost the incumbent while the challenger received no major outside help. Sessler, who self-funded about $400,000 but raised little from donors, attracted comparatively little attention.

The 4th District had favored Trump 57-40 in 2020, but businessman Doug White benefited from being the only Democrat on the ballot in a top-two primary that featured seven Republicans. Newhouse and White took 25% apiece, while Culp and Sessler respectively grabbed 22% and 12%. That victory made Newhouse and California Rep. David Valadao the only two pro-impeachment Republicans to win renomination in a cycle that saw their eight fellow travelers either opt to retire or lose their own primaries.

Newhouse went on to easily beat White 66-31 in the general election (Valadao narrowly won in a more competitive seat), and he resumed his former role as a quiet conservative vote. The congressman even made it clear earlier this month that, despite saying three years ago that Trump "failed to fulfill his oath of office," he'd support his return to the White House. Trump repaid him Friday with a Truth Social missive branding Newhouse "a weak and pathetic RINO named Newhouse, who voted to, for no reason, Impeach me."

Trump, as he almost always does, also extolled his newest endorsee as someone who will "stand for the Rule of Law," though Sessler had a recent run-in with authorities. In September of 2022, a month after Sessler's first congressional campaign came to an end, a code enforcement officer in Benton County named Dale Wilson said that he'd investigated a complaint that someone was living on Sessler's property without the proper permits. Wilson said that Sessler confronted him and threatened to retrieve a gun and "deal with him" if Wilson returned.

County commissioners sent the once and future candidate a letter a few months later telling him that the actions described by Wilson constituted a felony, adding, "If you continue to threaten Benton County employees, the county will involve law enforcement to conduct a full investigation." There do not appear to have been any public developments since then.

Another Washington Republican who voted to impeach Trump, former Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, will also be on the Aug. 6 top-two primary ballot as she campaigns for the open post of state lands commissioner. Herrera Beutler's career representing the 3rd District came to an end two years ago when her Trump-backed foe, Joe Kent, edged her out in the first round, though Kent went on to suffer an upset general election loss to Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.

Herrera Beutler faces one fellow Republican, Sue Kuehl Pederson, who badly lost the 2020 general election for lands commissioner, along with several Democrats. Kent, meanwhile, needs to get past Camas City Councilmember Leslie Lewallen to set up a rematch with Gluesenkamp Perez. Trump has not yet endorsed in either contest.

Election Night

● AL-02: The downballot primary season picks back up on Tuesday in Alabama's revamped 2nd District, which is the only place in America that's hosting a congressional nominating contest this week. Whoever wins the Democratic primary runoff will be favored in November to claim a constituency that, under the new map drawn by a federal court, is now a plurality Black district that would have backed Joe Biden 56-43.

Former Justice Department official Shomari Figures led state House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels 43-22 in the first round of voting on March 5. While Figures' share of the vote was below the majority needed to win the Democratic nod outright, his performance established him as the frontrunner for the runoff.

Subsequent developments have only underscored the perception that Figures is the one to beat. State Rep. Napoleon Bracy, who took third place with 16%, went on to endorse him, and a late March Impact Research poll for an unknown client showed Figures beating Daniels 59-24.

Figures has once again gotten a major assist from Protect Progress, a super PAC with ties to the cryptocurrency industry that spent heavily on him ahead of the primary and has poured in another $900,000 for the runoff. The only pro-Daniels outside spending, by contrast, is about $50,000 from Progress for Alabama, a super PAC that Politico reports is run by Republican operative David Driscoll. Driscoll did not comment when Politico asked him about his interest in the race.

Each Democrat is arguing that the other has weak ties to this district, which now takes in Mobile, Montgomery, and the eastern Black Belt. Figures, who hails from a prominent political family in Mobile, has highlighted the fact that Daniels represents a legislative seat in Huntsville, far off in the northern part of the state.

Daniels, however, has emphasized his roots in the Montgomery area and pointed out that Figures only recently returned to Alabama after spending his career in and around the nation's capital.

The GOP runoff pits former state Sen. Dick Brewbaker and attorney Caroleene Dobson. Brewbaker led Dobson 40-26 on March 5.

● MI State House: Two special elections taking place in the Detroit suburbs on Tuesday would allow Democrats to regain the majority they earned in the state House in 2022 if they prevail in both. The contests are being held to succeed a pair of Democrats who resigned to become mayor of their respective communities, Kevin Coleman of Westland and Lori Stone of Warren.

The election to replace Coleman in the 25th District pits his cousin and fellow Democrat, Westland City Councilman Peter Herzberg, against Republican businessman Josh Powell. Joe Biden, according to data from Dave's Redistricting App, carried this seat 59-40 in 2020.

The race to succeed Stone, meanwhile, is between Democrat Mai Xiong, a member of the Macomb County Commission, and Republican Ronald Singer, a perennial candidate. Xiong, who would be the first Hmong American elected to the state House, should have little trouble Tuesday in a seat that favored the president 64-35

However, November's contest for a full term would likely be more difficult. That's because, under the replacement map that Michigan's independent redistricting commission recently passed pursuant to a court order, the redrawn 13th would have backed Biden just 50-48.

Senate

● KY-Sen & Louisville, KY Mayor: Kentucky's Republican-dominated legislature overrode vetoes by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear of two election-related bills, one that will have an impact statewide and one more local.

The first bill prohibits the governor from appointing anyone to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat. This legislation replaces a 2021 law that required the governor to pick from a three-person list submitted by the party of the person who last held the Senate seat.

The new bill's sponsor, state House Majority Floor Leader Steven Rudy, denied that these new changes have anything to do with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's health. McConnell himself expressed support for the legislation even as he once again reiterated that he'd serve out the remainder of his term, which ends in early 2027.

The legislature, which only requires a simple majority in each chamber to override vetoes, also defied Beshear by approving a new law that, among other things, makes elections for Louisville's local government officially nonpartisan starting next year. All the candidates would face off on one ballot, and the top two vote-getters would advance to the general election.

Kentucky's largest city, which was consolidated with the rest of Jefferson County in 2003, favored Joe Biden 59-39 in 2020, so this switch could make it easier for Republicans to win races now that party affiliation won't be included on the ballot.

State Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer, however, told Louisville Public Media last month he was supporting the legislation "out of respect for" Mayor Craig Greenberg, a Democrat whom he says was involved in discussions about the law. Greenberg, who is up for reelection in 2026, didn't answer when LPM asked him about the bill when it was first introduced earlier this year.

● MD-Sen: Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks has publicized an internal from Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group that shows her trailing Rep. David Trone by a small 43-40 spread ahead of the May 14 Democratic primary. It's the first data that Alsobrooks has shared since launching her campaign, and it's also the first internal poll of the race we've seen since Trone shared a Hickman Analytics internal two months ago that had him up 49-32.

In between, two March polls conducted by Braun Research for separate clients found Trone ahead by larger margins: An early March poll for the Washington Post and the University of Maryland gave the congressman a 34-27 edge, while its subsequent numbers for Goucher College and the Baltimore Banner showed him leading 42-33.

● NJ-Sen: Fairleigh Dickinson University shows Democratic Rep. Andy Kim posting 9-point leads over his two most notable Republican rivals, developer Curtis Bashaw and Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner. Were Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez to run as an independent, Kim would still defeat both Republicans by a 6-point margin:

  • Kim (D): 48, Bashaw (R): 39
  • Kim (D): 47, Glassner (R): 38
  • Kim (D): 44, Bashaw (R): 38, Menendez (I-inc), 6
  • Kim (D): 45, Glassner (R): 39, Menendez (I-inc): 7

Presidential numbers were not included in this release.

Governors

● WV-Gov: The Club for Growth, which supports Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in the May 14 Republican primary, has launched what appears to be the first TV ad from anyone attacking former Del. Moore Capito. Morrisey and his allies until now had focused on tearing down businessman Chris Miller, but this shift in strategy suggests they think Capito has now emerged as a threat as well.

The Club's ad declares that Capito, who is the son and namesake of Sen. Shelly Moore Capito, was "born with a silver spoon in his mouth," though the commercial doesn't reference the senator by name. Instead, it features several animations of Capito accompanied by spoons (maybe the ad maker is a fan of "The Room") as the narrator accuses him of repeatedly voting to raise taxes.

Capito, meanwhile, has launched a spot in which his narrator declares, "Moore Capito wrote the bill blocking puberty blockers for children while Morrisey got rich lobbying for the puberty blocker companies." Miller recently used a similar line of attack against Morrisey, who has run his own transphobic ad campaign.

Capito ends his ad by portraying Morrisey as an outsider, though strangely, he doesn't actually bring up the state the attorney general is originally from. "California's that way," Capito tells the New Jersey-reared attorney general, who ran for Congress in the Garden State back in 2000 only to finish last in a four-way primary.

House

● CA-16: Election officials in California's 16th Congressional District began the process for a machine recount of the March 5 top-two primary on Monday, but there are still big questions over just what will happen next in this wild race.

The Mercury News reports that Jonathan Padilla, who was a 2020 Biden delegate, paid the county a $12,000 deposit to start the recount. However, election administrators in Santa Clara County, which makes up over 80% of this Silicon Valley-based seat, tell KQED's Guy Marzorati that it will cost $16,800 per day for what they estimate will be a five-day undertaking.

Their counterparts in San Mateo, which forms the balance of the 16th District, say it will take another $4,550 per day to recount its ballots, though they told Marzorati they hadn't received a deposit as of Monday morning.

Marzorati writes that if Padilla misses a day's payment, the recount would end and the results certified by the state earlier this month would stand. A second voter, Dan Stegink, had sought a recount as well, but he withdrew his request and did not put down the requisite deposit.

Padilla's own plans have also changed somewhat, as he said he originally intended to seek a manual recount before opting for a machine recount. A manual recount is more likely to catch errors, but it's also far more expensive.

Former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, whom Padilla worked for in 2014, is guaranteed a spot in the November general election, while two other Democrats, Assemblyman Evan Low and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, would both advance if they remain tied for second. Should a recount shift the results even a single vote for either runner-up, however, then Liccardo would face the second-place finisher in a one-on-one matchup.

● FL-15: Far-right social media troll Rogan O'Handley told the conservative site The Floridian over the weekend that he's decided not to challenge freshman Rep. Laurel Lee in the Aug. 20 Republican primary. The candidate filing deadline is April 26.

● IN-03: Winning for Women, a conservative super PAC largely funded by megadonor Ken Griffin, has launched a commercial accusing former Rep. Marlin Stutzman of being weak on border security. The spot does not mention former Judge Wendy Davis, whom Politico says the group supports in the May 7 Republican primary for this safely red seat in northeastern Indiana. According to reports filed with the FEC, WFW has spent $414,000 so far.

The offensive comes at a time when another super PAC, America Leads Action, is spending a similar amount to derail Stutzman's comeback campaign. The former congressman's allies at the far-right House Freedom Caucus have deployed $110,000 to return him to Congress after an eight-year absence, but most of that spending came last year.

● IN-05: State Rep. Chuck Goodrich's new commercial for next month's GOP primary utilizes material from a 2022 Politico article to argue that Rep. Victoria Spartz is an abusive boss. "Manic behavior," says the narrator, continuing, "She yells and curses, calling them morons and idiots." The spot goes on, "Victoria Spartz's behavior is embarrassing. We don't need politicians who lie and disrespect employees and lack the temperament for public service."

● IN-08: Former Rep. John Hostettler is getting some welcome outside support from Protect Freedom PAC, which is airing commercials starring Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. There is no word yet as to how much the PAC is spending to promote Hostettler, who has been on the receiving end of at least $1.75 million in attacks from a trio of super PACs. Hostettler's campaign, according to AdImpact data from Howey Politics, had not run any TV ads for the May 7 GOP primary as of April 5.

Paul uses the ad to tout Hostettler as someone who will resist "the politicians that are destroying America," a crowd that, according to footage shown on-screen, includes Paul's home state colleague, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Paul was elected to the upper chamber four years after Hostettler lost reelection in the 2006 blue wave, but his father, then-Texas Rep. Ron Paul, and Hostettler were part of a small group of House Republicans who opposed the Iraq War. The elder Paul went on to endorse Hostettler's failed 2010 Senate primary campaign.

● NH-02: State Sen. Becky Whitley announced Sunday that she would run to succeed retiring Rep. Annie Kuster, a fellow Democrat. Whitley says she's raised $100,000 for her bid in her first week since forming an exploratory committee earlier this month.

Whitley, who has worked as a disability rights lawyer, joined the legislature in 2020 after winning a safely blue Senate seat, but she first had to get past a familiar name in the primary. To earn the nomination, she scored a 41-33 victory over former Rep. Paul Hodes, who was seeking a comeback a decade after his failed bid for the U.S. Senate.

WMUR wrote earlier this month that Whitley, who is a member of the Judiciary Committee, has since "been on the legislative front lines" in battles to safeguard abortion rights. She joins a September primary that includes former Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern, who has Kuster's endorsement.

But two would-be Democratic candidates, state Reps. Angela Brennan and Rebecca McWilliams, each said this week they'd seek to replace Whitley in the state Senate rather than run for Congress.

Mayors & County Leaders

● Baltimore, MD Mayor: OpinionWorks shows incumbent Brandon Scott edging out former Mayor Sheila Dixon 38-35 in the May 14 Democratic primary, with former federal prosecutor Thiru Vignarajah far back at 10%. The survey was conducted for FOX45 News, the Baltimore Sun, and the University of Baltimore.

The only other independent poll we've seen of Baltimore's mayoral race this year was a Braun Research survey released last week on behalf of Goucher College and The Baltimore Banner, which gave Scott a larger 40-32 edge over Dixon. (Vignarajah was similarly situated at 11%.) It only takes a plurality to secure the Democratic nomination, which is tantamount to election in this dark blue city.

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Leading Off

● AL State House: Democrat Marilyn Lands defeated Republican Teddy Powell on Tuesday in a 62-37 landslide, easily prevailing in a nationally watched special election for a GOP-held seat in the Alabama House of Representatives.

Lands outperformed the 10th District's normal lean by wide margins: Donald Trump carried the district by a 49-48 spread in 2020, according to Dave's Redistricting App, while voters favored Republican David Cole over Lands 52-45 two years later.

While Republicans will still retain their supermajority in the chamber, both parties were paying close attention to see whether a recent ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court that threatened access to in vitro fertilization could be a winning issue in competitive areas like this suburban Huntsville constituency.

Lands focused intently on reproductive rights in her campaign to replace Cole, who resigned last summer after getting convicted on voter fraud charges. "It's shameful that today women have fewer freedoms than I did two decades ago," she said in one spot excoriating the state's near-total abortion ban. Lands, a mental health counselor, also argued the legislature didn't do enough to protect IVF when it passed a law earlier this month that shields clinics from liability.

Powell, a member of the City Council in Madison, adopted a very different strategy. He instead focused on issues like infrastructure and downplayed the importance of reproductive rights. "It's certainly an issue that needs to be dealt with," he told Politico, "but not our top issue. I don't think that this is the issue that wins or loses the race."

That calculus turned out to be wrong, and Lands just gave Democrats good reason to believe that Powell will be only the first of many Republicans to pay the price at the ballot box this year.

Senate

● NJ-Sen: Candidate filing closed Monday for New Jersey's June 4 primaries, and the New Jersey Globe has a list of contenders. Not everyone who turned in paperwork will necessarily make the ballot, though, since anyone can challenge the validity of a candidate's petitions.

The GOP's Senate lineup shrunk just before the deadline when former TV reporter Alex Zdan announced he was dropping out. His departure leaves developer Curtis Bashaw, who picked up Zdan's endorsement the next day, and Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner as the main Republican candidates campaigning in this solidly blue state.

Rep. Andy Kim, meanwhile, is the heavy favorite for the Democratic nomination after his top rival, former financial analyst Tammy Murphy, unexpectedly dropped out just ahead of the filing deadline.

● TX-Sen: Marist College finds Republican Sen. Ted Cruz leading Democratic Rep. Colin Allred 51-45, with respondents favoring Donald Trump by a larger 55-44 spread. This is Marist's first look at this race, as well as the first poll we've seen here since Allred won the March 5 primary.

Governors

● IN-Gov: Republican Sen. Mike Braun made news on Friday when he missed the vote to avert a government shutdown hours after he attended a fundraiser back in Indiana, prompting one of his intra-party rivals for governor to quickly release an ad taking him to task.

Wealthy businessman Eric Doden's spot focuses on a claim by Braun's chief of staff that the senator mistakenly believed the matter would be settled the next day and therefore "decided to spend the night at home and fly out Saturday morning."

"Senator Braun: Sleeping on the job?" reads the on-screen text at the conclusion of the almost wordless commercial. Politico's Adam Wren reminds us that Braun labeled Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly "Sleepin' Joe" during his successful 2018 campaign.

House

● FL-27: EMILYs List has endorsed Miami-Dade County School Board member Lucia Baez-Geller's campaign to take on GOP Rep. María Elvira Salazar. Baez-Geller faces former Key Biscayne Mayor Mike Davey in the Aug. 20 Democratic primary for this Miami-area seat.

● TX-22: The House Ethics Committee announced Tuesday that it's investigating Republican Rep. Troy Nehls, but it did not provide any details about why. Nehls subsequently described the probe as an "inquiry into my campaign's finances," though he didn't offer further information about the allegations. The Ethics Committee has pledged to "announce its course of action in this matter" by May 10.

Nehls won renomination without opposition this month in Texas' 22nd District, a suburban Houston constituency that backed Donald Trump 57-41 in 2020.

Attorneys General

● TX-AG: Federal prosecutors announced a deal with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday under which they agreed to drop his nearly nine-year-old indictment for securities fraud as long as he pays $271,000 in restitution over the next 18 months. The agreement also requires the far-right Republican to perform 100 hours of community service, but he'll face no jail time.

The Texas Tribune, however, notes that Paxton's legal woes are not all resolved. Federal authorities reportedly are continuing to investigate whether the attorney general used his post to benefit a wealthy ally. The state House impeached Paxton last May over these allegations, only for the Senate to subsequently acquit him.

Four of Paxton's former top aides are also still suing him for allegedly retaliating against them for helping in the federal investigation. The Texas State Bar additionally brought a lawsuit for professional misconduct lawsuit against him in 2022 over his efforts to overturn the results of the last presidential election, though the case remains unresolved.

Paxton has spent the last several months working to punish the Republicans who crossed him last year. The attorney general backed a slate of legislative candidates in the March 5 primaries, several of whom ousted his enemies.

Other GOP incumbents, including state House Speaker Dade Phelan, were forced into runoffs, which will take place on May 28. Donald Trump in January joined Paxton in supporting David Covey's bid to unseat Phelan, with Trump citing the speaker's support for what he characteristically dismissed as "the Fraudulent Impeachment."

Paxton, however, has hinted that he could personally challenge an even more prominent intra-party critic next cycle rather than seek a fourth term. In September, he celebrated his acquittal by the state Senate by telling Fox he wasn't ruling out a primary bid against Sen. John Cornyn in 2026.

Paxton intensified Senate chatter last month when he responded to the news that Cornyn would seek to replace Mitch McConnell as the chamber's top Republican by tweeting, "It will be difficult for @JohnCornyn to be an effective leader since he is anti-Trump, anti-gun, and will be focused on his highly competitive primary campaign in 2026." Cornyn fired back by snarking, "Hard to run from prison, Ken," a response that lost much of its bite on Tuesday.

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Leading Off

● MD-Sen: Out of nowhere, former Gov. Larry Hogan announced a bid for Maryland's open Senate seat right before Friday's candidate filing deadline. But despite his personal popularity, he faces enormous obstacles in winning a state that last elected a Republican senator in 1980.

Hogan's entry was unexpected because he rejected entreaties from GOP leaders to run for Senate in 2022 and trashed the idea of running just last year, after Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin announced his retirement.

"The thing that surprised me the most was that my wife said, 'Why don't you run for the Senate?'" Hogan told NewsNation. "I told her she was crazy. I mean, I didn't have any interest in being a senator."

Hogan even derided the very idea of serving in Congress in that same interview. "The Senate is an entirely different job," he said. "You're one of 100 people arguing all day. Not a lot gets done in the Senate, and most former governors that I know that go into the Senate aren't thrilled with the job."

It's likely Hogan won't get the chance to experience that same disenchantment. Former governors who managed to defy their home state's political leanings have rarely met with success when seeking the Senate. The last decade or so is replete with examples: Montana's Steve Bullock, Tennessee's Phil Bredesen, and Hawaii's Linda Lingle all won multiple terms in states that normally back the opposite party but all failed when they sought to become United States senators.

It's not hard to understand why. It's much easier to gain separation from national party politics in state office, something Hogan achieved by presenting himself as a relative moderate and frequent critic of Donald Trump. But that's considerably harder to pull off in the context of a Senate race, when your opponents can readily link you to unpopular D.C. figures whose caucus you're looking to join.

Hogan was also last on the ballot in 2018, long before the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision upended American politics. Today, he'll face a difficult time answering for his views and actions on abortion: The ex-governor calls himself "pro-life," and in 2022, with the Dobbs ruling looming, he vetoed a bill to expand abortion access in the state. (Lawmakers overrode him.)

That will pose a special problem for him in Maryland, where an amendment to enshrine the right to an abortion will appear on the ballot in November. One poll showed 78% of voters backing the proposal.

A hypothetical poll of a Hogan Senate bid conducted last year also points to the challenge he'll face. The survey, taken by Democratic pollster Victoria Research on behalf of a pair of political firms, found Hogan trailing Democratic Rep. David Trone by a 49-34 margin, showing just how close Democrats are to locking down this seat.

The same survey had Hogan leading a second Democrat, Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, 42-36, but even then, he was far from a majority. (The self-funding Trone likely performed so much better due to his heavy spending on TV ads, while Alsobrooks has advertised minimally.)

Hogan's decision to run will, however, likely force Democrats to sweat a race they'd much rather not have to worry about at all. But yet another hurdle looms: the May 14 GOP primary. While Hogan is by far the best-known candidate in the Republican primary, which had until now largely attracted no-names, he's loathed by the MAGA brigades and could be vulnerable if a Trumpist alternative catches fire.

Indeed, in 2022, Hogan's hand-picked candidate in the race to replace him, Kelly Schultz, lost the primary to hard-right extremist Dan Cox 52-43. Cox had some help from Democrats, who much preferred to face him in the general election, which Democrat Wes Moore won in a 65-32 blowout. Hogan is far better known than Schultz ever was, but there are still no guarantees for him.

Senate

● CA-Sen: A super PAC backing Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff is taking a page from the candidate's playbook and running ads ostensibly "attacking" Republican Steve Garvey as "too conservative for California." Standing Strong PAC's goal, just like Schiff's, is to elevate Garvey to the second slot in the March 5 primary, since it'd be easier for Schiff to beat him in the general election compared to another Democrat. Politico says this new effort is backed "by an initial six-figure buy."

● MT-Sen: Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale finally launched his long-awaited second bid for Senate on Friday, though he was immediately greeted with an endorsement for businessman Tim Sheehy by Donald Trump. The two will face off in the June 4 GOP primary for the right to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, who defeated Rosendale 50-47 in 2018. Democrats would prefer to take on the far-right Rosendale and have been spending heavily to boost his fortunes in the primary.

● NJ-Sen: Democratic Rep. Andy Kim won the endorsement of the Democratic Party in New Jersey's populous Monmouth County on Saturday, defeating former financier Tammy Murphy by a wide 57-39 margin among delegates. While Murphy has secured the backing of several other county Democratic organizations, Monmouth was the first to put the matter to a vote rather than allowing party leaders to hand-pick a candidate.

The victory ensures that Kim will receive preferential placement on primary ballots in Monmouth, which typically casts about 6% of the vote in statewide Democratic primaries. Kim has called for eliminating these special spots on the ballot, known as the "county line," but told the New Jersey Globe's Joey Fox in September, "I'll work within the system we have" to secure the Democratic nomination for Senate.

Fox called the developments in Monmouth "hugely consequential" and noted that two other smaller counties, Burlington and Hunterdon, will soon award their endorsements using similar procedures. Several other counties will also hold open conventions, according to a guide published by the Globe.

On the Republican side, former News 12 reporter Alex Zdan, who covered Democratic Sen. Bob Menedez's first corruption trial in 2017, kicked off a bid on Friday. However, even if Zdan wins the GOP primary, there's little chance he'd face the spectacularly wounded Menendez: Following his most recent federal indictment on corruption charges, the incumbent has yet to announce whether he'll seek reelection and has scored in the single digits in every poll of the Democratic contest. He also did not compete for the endorsement in Monmouth County.

House

● GA-13: Army veteran Marcus Flowers, who ran against Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in 2022, announced he'd challenge Rep. David Scott in the May 21 Democratic primary on Friday. While Flowers never stood a chance against Greene in northwestern Georgia's rural, heavily white 14th District—he got blown out 66-34—he was able to raise an enormous $16 million thanks to his opponent's notoriety.

If he can continue cultivating that same network despite lacking an easy villain to run against, Flowers could conceivably threaten the 78-year-old Scott, who has faced questions about his health. Scott must also contend with a redrawn 13th District that is mostly new to him. That seat, however, is based in the Atlanta suburbs and shares nothing in common with the district Flowers sought last cycle.

● NJ-03: Assemblyman Herb Conaway won the backing of the Monmouth County Democratic Party in a blowout on Saturday, ensuring he'll enjoy favorable placement on the ballot in the June 4 primary. Conaway defeated Assemblywoman Carol Murphy, who represented the same district in the legislature, by an 85-15 margin among delegates. However, Monmouth makes up just 22% of New Jersey's 3rd Congressional District; the balance is in Burlington and Mercer counties, which have yet to issue endorsements.

And Murphy picked up two key endorsements of her own in her bid to succeed Rep. Andy Kim. The Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters, which the New Jersey Globe's David Wildstein describes as one of the state's "most politically potent" unions, gave Murphy its support on Friday, while EMILY's List followed suit the next day.

● NY-01: CNN anchor and No Labels co-founder John Avlon has stepped down from the network and plans to run for New York's 1st Congressional District, reports Puck News' Dylan Byers. It's not clear, however, what party banner Avlon might run under, or whether he'd pursue a bid as an independent. The closely divided 1st District, based in eastern Long Island, is currently represented by first-term Republican Nick LaLota. Several Democrats are already running, though chemist Nancy Goroff, who unsuccessfully sought this seat in 2020, has far outraised the rest of the field.

● TN-02: Former state Rep. Jimmy Matlock, who had been considering a challenge to Rep. Tim Burchett in the Aug. 1 GOP primary, has opted against a bid. Burchett was one of eight Republicans who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as House speaker in October, and as Politico's Ally Mutnick reports, the deposed speaker's allies "were hoping to back a challenger" and considered Matlock a possibility. There's still time for an alternative to emerge, though, as Tennessee's filing deadline is not until April 4.

● WA-04: In a piece discussing Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers' Thursday retirement announcement, the Seattle Times' Jim Brunner suggests that Rep. Dan Newhouse might be the next House Republican from the state of Washington to call it quits. Brunner reports that there's "been rampant speculation in state Republican circles that Newhouse may be the next to announce his retirement" and says that the congressman did not answer when asked if he'd run for another term.

Newhouse was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and is one of only two still left in Congress (the other is California Rep. David Valadao). Newhouse survived the top-two primary last cycle thanks in part to a badly divided field of unhappy Republicans: The incumbent took just 25.5% to Democrat Doug White's 25.1%, while his nearest GOP detractor, Donald Trump-endorsed former police chief Loren Culp, finished just behind with 22%.

Newhouse has only drawn a single intra-party challenger this time, former NASCAR driver Jerrod Sessler, who ran last time but ended up in fourth place with just 12%. Sessler has raised very little for his second go-round, but Newhouse's own fundraising has been modest: He brought in just $154,000 in the fourth quarter of last year and reported $331,000 in the bank.

Washington's 4th District, which is based in the central part of the state, is also the state's most conservative, supporting Trump by a 57-40 margin. If Newhouse quits, it will almost certainly stay in Republican hands.

● WI-08: Without warning, Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher announced his retirement on Saturday, following a week in which fellow Republicans hammered him mercilessly for voting against impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Though Gallagher is just 39 years old and serving his fourth term, he claimed to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Lawrence Andrea that the toxic environment in the House had not prompted him to quit.

"I feel, honestly, like people get it, and they can accept the fact that they don't have to agree with you 100%," said Gallagher, despite the fact that members of his own party savaged him for his impeachment vote.

In an op-ed, Gallagher said he opposed the effort to oust Mayorkas because he feared it would "pry open the Pandora's box of perpetual impeachment," but his words carried little weight with his caucus. ("'They impeached Trump, but if we impeach them back they'll impeach us again!'" Georgia Rep. Mike Collins mocked.)

The ruckus had already caused one far-right Republican consultant, Alex Bruesewitz, to say he was considering a challenge to Gallagher in the Aug. 13 primary, but more established politicos are now certain to enter the fray. Whoever secures the GOP nomination will be the heavy favorite in the 8th District, a conservative seat based in northeastern Wisconsin that backed Donald Trump by a 57-41 margin in 2020.

That wasn't always the case, though. When Gallagher, a Marine Corps veteran, first ran for Congress following GOP Rep. Reid Ribble's retirement ahead of the 2016 elections, the 8th had gone for Mitt Romney by just a 51-48 margin in 2012. But as in so many other rural white areas, the bottom dropped out for Democrats when Trump was on the ballot: He carried the district 56-39 over Hillary Clinton, and Gallagher, who'd easily won the Republican nod, crushed Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson 63-37.

Gallagher cruised to reelection in each of his subsequent campaigns and did not even face a Democratic opponent in 2022. Whoever wins the GOP nomination in the race to succeed him should similarly have little trouble in November.

Legislatures

● LA Redistricting: A federal judge has struck down Louisiana's legislative maps for violating the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against Black voters and has ordered the state to produce remedial plans. The court said it would set a deadline for new maps after receiving further submissions from the parties but said it would give the Republican-run legislature "a reasonable period of time" to act.

Much like another federal court found in a different lawsuit, the judge presiding over this case determined that lawmakers had diluted Black voting strength by dividing up Black populations between districts instead of drawing seats where Black voters would have an opportunity to elect their preferred candidates. New maps would likely lead to the election of more Democrats, which could in turn break the effective supermajority control that the GOP often wields in both chambers.

Prosecutors & Sheriffs

● Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff: Maricopa County's Republican-run Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 along party lines to name Russ Skinner as sheriff, following Democrat Paul Penzone's resignation last month. But while state law required the board to pick an appointee from the same party, Republican supervisors in effect circumvented that rule.

Skinner had been registered as a Republican since 1987 and only switched his party registration to Democratic the day after Penzone announced his intention to step down a year before the end of his second term. While Arizona's process for filling vacancies in the state legislature gives the former official's political party a key role in screening candidates for the county board's consideration, the process for replacing Penzone as sheriff had no such restriction.

The appointment could have big implications for the 2024 elections in this county of 4.6 million people. Maricopa, which covers the Phoenix metropolitan area, is home to three-fifths of Arizona's population and is the fourth-largest county nationwide. Like the state itself, it's also a former longtime Republican bastion that has been moving to the left in the Donald Trump era, flipping to Joe Biden in 2020.

Following his appointment, Skinner said he had "no intention of switching back" to the GOP and was unsure about whether to run for a full term, but Democratic Supervisor Steve Gallardo had wanted to appoint a Democrat who could be an "effective candidate" for this fall's race. Several candidates had announced they were running before the appointment. The lone Democrat is former Phoenix police officer Tyler Kamp, while the four Republicans include 2020 nominee Jerry Sheridan and 2020 primary loser Mike Crawford. More candidates could join ahead of the April filing deadline.

Grab Bag

● Arizona: Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has signed a bill that moves Arizona's primary from Aug. 6 to July 30 in order to alleviate pressure on elected officials who now expect more frequent recounts due to a separate law passed in 2022. The state's candidate filing deadline would also move up a week. Both of these changes are now reflected on our bookmarkable 2024 elections calendar.

The legislation, which was crafted as a compromise between the parties, also includes several other provisions, including some designed to speed up the counting of ballots. One measure demanded by Republicans reduces the time voters have to correct problems with their mail-in ballots from five business days to five calendar days. Many parts of the new law are temporary, including the adjustments to the election calendar, which will revert back to its prior schedule after this year.

Morning Digest: North Dakota is the latest GOP-run state to treat the Voting Rights Act as optional

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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

● ND Redistricting: Federal judges keep finding that Republican-drawn election maps violate the Voting Rights Act—and Republican lawmakers keep defying court orders to remedy them. The latest to do so just this year is North Dakota, which recently saw two legislative districts struck down for undermining the rights of Native American voters.

  • "No way" to comply on time. A month ago, a judge directed the GOP-run legislature to come up with a new map by Friday. But a top Republican said lawmakers wouldn't meet that deadline, even though only a handful of districts need to be adjusted.
  • The third time is no charm. Earlier this year, Alabama Republicans outright refused to draw a second Black congressional district, and just this month, Georgia Republicans dismantled a diverse House seat that had elected a Black Democrat even though a judge expressly warned them not to.
  • A ticking time bomb. North Dakota Republicans are appealing, and they're putting forth an extremely dangerous argument that wouldn't just upend their case but could shred what remains of the VRA.

Read more on this pattern of GOP intransigence, including how a Republican president could end all enforcement of the Voting Rights Act if North Dakota's appeal succeeds.

Senate

● NJ-Sen: Rep. Andy Kim is out with a new poll from Breakthrough Campaigns that shows him beating former financier Tammy Murphy 45-22 in the June Democratic primary, with indicted Sen. Bob Menendez clocking in at just 6%. A mid-November Kim internal from another firm, Public Policy Polling, showed him leading New Jersey's first lady 40-21, with 5% going to the incumbent. Neither Murphy nor Menendez have released their own numbers.

Murphy, as we've written before, will still be hard to beat because she's poised to win the "county line" in several large counties, which ensures her an advantageous place on the ballot. (This is also sometimes called the "organizational line.") The New Jersey Globe's Joey Fox is out with a thorough county-by-county look at the battle for the organizational line, and he writes that the process can vary quite a bit.

In the state's most populous county, Bergen, Fox writes that chairman Paul Juliano almost always gets to decide who gets the line, and his support for Murphy means "that’s probably the end of the story for Kim." It's a similar state of affairs in the three next largest counties―Middlesex, Essex, and Hudson―where party leaders have made it clear that Murphy is their choice.

However, things aren't as clear in Ocean County, a longtime conservative bastion that nonetheless has a large number of Democratic primary voters. Kim represented about half of the county under the last map, and Fox says many local Democrats remain "hugely loyal" to him. He adds that, while Murphy could make a play for the line here, she'll likely face a tough task.

Over to the north in Hunterdon County, meanwhile, Fox says that the organization line will be decided by a "genuinely open convention with little intervention from party leaders." You can find out a lot more in the Globe about the state of play across the state.

● OH-Sen: Donald Trump endorsed rich guy Bernie Moreno on Tuesday for the March GOP primary to take on Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown even though a poll released the previous day put Moreno in third place.

SurveyUSA, working on behalf of the Center For Election Science, which promotes approval voting, showed Secretary of State Frank LaRose leading state Sen. Matt Dolan 33-18, with Moreno at 12%. Morero recently publicized a pair of internals giving him a small edge over LaRose, with Dolan a close third.

● Texas: Filing closed Dec. 11 for Texas' March 5 primary, though there's a quirk: Candidates file with their respective political parties, which had an additional five days to send final lists to the secretary of state. That means we can now take a comprehensive look at who is running in the major contests.

Texas may be the second-largest state in the union, but as far as House races are concerned, most of the action will be confined to the primaries (and, in contests where no candidate takes a majority, May 28 runoffs). That's because Republicans enacted a very precise defensive gerrymander following the most recent census, opting to make competitive GOP-held districts safely red rather than aim for further gains by targeting Democratic seats.

You'll also want to bookmark our calendar of every filing deadline, primary, and runoff for the 2024 elections. One person we're very sure does not use our calendar is Donald Trump, who on Monday night called for someone to challenge GOP Rep. Chip Roy for renomination in the 21st District. "If interested, let me know!!!" Trump wrote a week after it was too late for anyone to take him up on his offer. Roy, who appears to have pissed off his party's supreme leader by campaigning with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is unopposed in March.

● TX-Sen: Ten Democrats have filed to take on Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, though Rep. Colin Allred ended September with a huge financial advantage over the entire primary field. However, a new survey from YouGov on behalf of the University of Texas and Texas Politics Project finds that many primary voters have yet to make up their minds with about two-and-a-half months to go.

Allred leads state Sen. Roland Gutierrez 28-7, who is the only other Democrat who had at least a six-figure war chest at the end of the third quarter. Two other notable options, state Rep. Carl Sherman and former Nueces County District Attorney Mark Gonzalez, were at just 2% each. A 38% plurality volunteered they "haven't thought about it enough to have an opinion," while another 10% answered "don't know." Spending has yet to begin in earnest, however, so this state of affairs should soon change.

House

● AK-AL: Businessman Nick Begich has publicized an internal from Remington Research that shows him outpacing his fellow Republican, Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, in the August top-four primary, though he notably did not include numbers simulating how he'd do in an instant-runoff race against Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola. The congresswoman takes first with 42% as Begich leads Dahlstrom 28-9 for second, with another 7% going to Libertarian Chris Bye, who ran in 2022 along with Begich. All of these contenders would advance to the November general election if these results held.

● CA-20: GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday submitted his resignation letter to the House, and his departure will take effect Dec. 31. It remains to be seen if Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom will schedule a special election to succeed the former speaker; the top-two primary for a full two-year term will take place March 5.

● NY-26: Reporter Robert J. McCarthy writes in WKBW that Erie County Legislator Jeanne Vinal is considering competing in the unscheduled special election to replace outgoing Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins, while an unnamed source says that Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown will decide early next year.

These two Democrats' deliberations may not matter much, though, because the person who may single-handedly get to pick the party's nominee for the special seems happy with someone else. Erie County Democratic chair Jeremy Zellner tells McCarthy that the one major declared candidate, state Sen. Tim Kennedy, is "far ahead" of Brown and Vinal in organizing a campaign. "I am very impressed at this point in what he has put together in fundraising and forming a team," Zellner said, adding, "And whoever does this has to be ready."

● OH-02: State Sen. Shane Wilkin announced Tuesday that he was joining the March GOP primary to replace retiring Republican Rep. Brad Wenstrup, a declaration that came one day before the filing deadline. Wilkin already represents about a third of this safely red southern Ohio seat.

● OH-15: Cleveland.com reports that Democratic state Rep. Adam Miller last week filed FEC paperwork for a bid against Republican Rep. Mike Carey. Donald Trump took this seat in the southwestern Columbus area 53-46 in 2020.

● TX-03: Freshman Rep. Keith Self faces a GOP primary rematch against businesswoman Suzanne Harp, whom he outpaced in a truly strange 2022 contest. Harp, though, finished September with less than $5,000 in the bank, so she's unlikely to be much of a threat. Three other Republicans are also running for this Plano-based seat that Donald Trump took 56-42.

● TX-04: GOP Rep. Pat Fallon is running for reelection after waging a bizarre one-day campaign to return to the state Senate, but he seems to be in for a soft landing. Fallon faces just one little-known primary foe in a safely red seat based in the northeastern Dallas exurbs.

● TX-07: Democratic Rep. Lizzie Fletcher's only intraparty foe in this safely blue seat is Pervez Agwan, a renewable energy developer whose challenge from the left has been overshadowed in recent weeks by sexual harassment allegations.

The Houston Landing reported this month that one of Agwan's former staffers is suing him for allegedly trying to kiss her; the candidate responded by insinuating that the hawkish pro-Israel group AIPAC was involved in the lawsuit, but he did not produce any evidence to back it up his claim. The New Republic later reported that 11 staffers resigned in October from Agwan's campaign, which it described as an environment "where multiple women faced frequent sexual harassment from senior staff."

● TX-12: Longtime Rep. Kay Granger is retiring from this conservative seat in western Fort Worth and its western suburbs, and five fellow Republicans are competing to succeed her. The early frontrunner is state House Republican Caucus Chair Craig Goldman, who has the support of Gov. Greg Abbott.

Another name to watch is businessman John O'Shea, who began running well before Granger announced her departure in November. However, while O'Shea has the support of Attorney General Ken Paxton, whom Goldman voted to impeach earlier this year, he ended the third quarter with a mere $20,000 in the bank.

Also in the running is businesswoman Shellie Gardner, the self-proclaimed "Queen of Christmas Lights." (Gardner says her business has spent nearly two decades "supplying Christmas lights across the country, including the United States Capitol Christmas Tree.") Two other lesser-known Republicans round out the field.

● TX-15: Freshman GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz faces a rematch against businesswoman Michelle Vallejo, whom she beat 53-45 last year after major Democratic groups spent almost nothing on the race. Donald Trump won this gerrymandered seat in the Rio Grande Valley 51-48 in 2020. The incumbent ended September with a huge $1.4 million to $184,000 cash on hand lead.

Vallejo herself drew a familiar intra-party opponent on the final day of filing from attorney John Villarreal Rigney. Vallejo edged out Rigney 20-19 for second place in the 2022 primary, while Army veteran Ruben Ramirez took first with 28%, though Vallejo went on to narrowly beat Ramirez in the runoff.

● TX-18: Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee announced she would seek a 16th term just two days after she was blown out by state Sen. John Whitmire, a fellow Democrat, in Houston's mayoral race, but she faces a challenging renomination fight in this safely blue seat.

Former Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards, who once was a Jackson Lee intern, began campaigning after the congresswoman kicked off her bid for mayor and pledged to stay in the race even if the incumbent ultimately were to run for reelection—a promise she's kept. Edwards finished September with a hefty $829,000 banked, around four times as much as Jackson Lee reported. A third candidate named Rob Slater is also in, and his presence could prevent either Jackson Lee or Edwards from claiming a majority.

● TX-23: GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales faces four primary foes in a sprawling West Texas seat that went 53-46 for Trump, one of whom has attracted some attention. Two Democrats are also running, though neither has earned much notice.

Gunmaker Brandon Herrera, who has over 3 million subscribers on his "The AK Guy" YouTube channel, finished September with $240,000 in the bank, which was far more than any of Gonzales' other intra-party challengers. Those hopefuls include former Immigration and Customs Enforcement official Victor Avila, Medina County GOP Chair Julie Clark, and Frank Lopez, who claimed 5% as an independent in last year's general election.

Gonzales infuriated hardliners by confirming Joe Biden's victory in the hours after the Jan. 6 attack and later supporting gun safety legislation after the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, which took place in his district. The state GOP responded to his apostasies in March by censuring him, a move that bars him from receiving party help until after any runoffs take place. Gonzales may not care, though, since he ended the third quarter with $1.7 million to spend.

● TX-26: Rep. Michael Burgess announced his retirement shortly before Thanksgiving, and 11 fellow Republicans want to replace him in a safely red seat located in the northern Fort Worth suburbs and exurbs.

Donald Trump is supporting far-right media figure Brandon Gill, who is the son-in-law of MAGA toady Dinesh D'Souza. Gill also recently earned the backing of the like-minded House Freedom Caucus, which is capable of spending serious money in primaries.

Southlake Mayor John Huffman, meanwhile, picked up the support of 24th District Rep. Beth Van Duyne, who serves a neighboring seat. And in a blast from the past, former Denton County Judge Scott Armey is also in the running, more than two decades after losing a nasty 2002 runoff to Burgess. (Armey is the son of former Majority Leader Dick Armey, who was Burgess' immediate predecessor.)

Also in the running is Luisa Del Rosal, who previously served as chief of staff to 23rd District Rep. Tony Gonzales. The fourth quarter fundraising numbers, which are due at the end of January, will provide clues as to whether any of the other seven Republicans are capable of waging a serious effort.

● TX-28: Rep. Henry Cuellar, who is one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, does not face any intraparty opposition this year, following narrow back-to-back wins against progressive Jessica Cisneros. Joe Biden carried this seat, which includes Laredo and the eastern San Antonio suburbs, 53-46.

Cuellar turned back a well-funded general election rival by a comfortable 57-43 margin in 2022, so it remains to be seen if any of his four Republican foes are capable of giving him a scare this time. The candidate who has attracted the most attention so far is Jose Sanz, who is a former Cuellar staffer. Not all the attention has been welcome, though, as the Texas Tribune reported in October that the Republican was arrested for throwing a chair at his sister in 2021; the case was eventually dismissed after Sanz performed community service and attended batterer intervention classes.

● TX-32: Ten Democrats are competing to succeed Senate candidate Colin Allred in a diverse northern Dallas constituency that Republicans made safely blue in order to protect GOP incumbents elsewhere in the area.

The two early frontrunners appear to be state Rep. Julie Johnson, whose 2018 victory made her the first Texas legislator with a same-sex spouse, and Brian Williams, the trauma surgeon who attracted national attention in 2016 after he treated Dallas police officers wounded by a sniper. Williams finished September with a $525,000 to $404,000 cash lead over Johnson; the only other Democrat with a six-figure campaign account was Raja Chaudhry, who owns a charter bus company and self-funded his entire $266,000 war chest.

Also in the running are Alex Cornwallis, who was the party's 2022 nominee for a seat on the state Board of Education; former Dallas City Council member Kevin Felder; and civil rights attorney Justin Moore.

● TX-34: Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez is in for a rematch against former GOP Rep. Mayra Flores, whom he convincingly beat 53-44 in an unusual incumbent vs. incumbent contest last year. Gonzalez finished September with a $944,000 to $230,000 advantage in cash on hand.

Three other Republicans are also running, including wealthy perennial candidate Mauro Garza, but none of them appear to pose much of a threat to Flores. Joe Biden won this seat in the eastern Rio Grande Valley 57-42.

Judges

● OH Supreme Court: The state GOP announced Tuesday that appointed Justice Joe Deters will take on Democratic colleague Melody Stewart for a full six-year term. Deters previously said he would challenge either Stewart or Democratic Justice Michael Donnelly rather than run for the remaining two years of the term of the Republican he replaced, Sharon Kennedy. (Kennedy won a promotion from associate justice to chief justice last year as part of a sweep by Republican hardliners after Republicans enacted a law adding party labels to the ballot.)

● TX Supreme Court: Partisan control of Texas' all-Republican, nine-member Supreme Court isn't at stake, but progressives are hoping that the trio of justices up in 2024 will pay a price for their unanimous ruling rejecting Kate Cox's petition for an emergency abortion. Cox, who said her fetus suffered from fatal abnormalities and posed a risk to her own health, left the state to undergo the procedure in a case that continues to attract national attention.

Each of the three Republicans faces at least one Democratic foe in their respective statewide race. Justice John Devine is being challenged by Harris County District Judge Christine Weems, who narrowly won reelection last year in Texas' largest county. Two pairs of Democrats, meanwhile, are competing to take on each of the other incumbents.

Going up against Justice Jimmy Blacklock are Harris County District Judge DaSean Jones, who last year survived an extremely tight reelection contest, and attorney Randy Sarosdy. And in the race to unseat Justice Jane Bland are Court of Appeals Judge Bonnie Lee Goldstein, who prevailed in a close 2020 race in the Dallas area, and Judge Joe Pool, who has run for the Supreme Court in the past as a Republican but won a local judgeship last year in Hays County as a Democrat.

Grab Bag

● Where Are They Now?: The U.S. Senate confirmed former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley on Monday night as secretary of the Social Security Administration. The Democrat will take over from acting secretary Kilolo Kijakazi, who has served since July of 2021.

Campaign Action

Morning Digest: Freedom Caucus clone sparks bitter primary challenge in South Carolina

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast

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Leading Off

• SC-04: Republican Rep. William Timmons, who is in his third term representing South Carolina's conservative 4th District, has earned a primary challenge from state Rep. Adam Morgan, who chairs his own chamber's far-right Freedom Caucus.

Morgan avoided leveling criticisms of the incumbent in his launch, but his most prominent endorser didn't hesitate. Ultra-conservative Rep. Ralph Norman, who represents the neighboring 5th District and is one of the most implacable extremists in Congress, castigated Timmons for "protecting former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy," according to the Greenville News' Devyani Chhetri. (Timmons voted to keep McCarthy as speaker in the historic early October vote that ousted him from the job, but Norman did as well.)

Timmons himself fired back at his new opponent in unusually harsh terms. While incumbents often act as though challengers are beneath their notice, Timmons eschewed that approach. "Adam's greatest 'legislative accomplishments' are filing a lawsuit and abandoning the Republican Party to form a third-party caucus that shrank in size under his 'leadership,'" he said in a statement.

Last year, Morgan led several rebel lawmakers in creating the state House's Freedom Caucus, a breakaway group modeled after its congressional counterpart that has accused GOP leaders of failing to pursue a sufficiently conservative agenda. Their accomplishments on the legislative front have been minimal, however, with one establishment Republican dismissing the faction as little more than "a headache on social media."

Chhetri explains that this local version of the Freedom Caucus was the "brain-child" of Mark Meadows, Donald Trump's former chief of staff who was indicted by Georgia prosecutors for attempting to overturn the 2020 election. But before he served Trump, Meadows was a founder of the congressional Freedom Caucus (of which Norman is also a member). Chhetri adds that Morgan's bloc has been funded in part by a nonprofit run by former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, another hard-liner who was notorious for feuding with colleagues.

But while Morgan may not have much to show for his efforts to usher in a conservative utopia, Timmons could nonetheless be vulnerable. Last year, he won his primary with just 53% of the vote while three little-known candidates split the remainder. Shortly after that election, he appeared on several radio shows to address rumors that he'd used the powers of his office to conceal an extra-marital affair. While he denied that he'd abused his position, he didn't deny being unfaithful to his wife, who filed for divorce shortly after he won reelection that fall.

With a much higher-profile opponent this time, the outcome could be very different, especially in a one-on-one race. But even if other critics also jump in, Timmons cannot escape with only a plurality of the vote, since South Carolina requires runoffs if no one wins a majority in the primary.

Redistricting

• ND Redistricting: A federal court has struck down the legislative maps that North Dakota Republicans enacted after the 2020 census, ruling that GOP mapmakers violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of Native Americans.

In North Dakota, legislative districts have traditionally elected one state senator and two state representatives, but following the most recent census, lawmakers split the 4th and 9th districts into two state House "subdistricts" to ostensibly comply with the VRA. However, said the court, the timing of the state's elections rendered the 9th noncompliant.

While the district has a 54% Native majority and went 51-47 for Joe Biden in 2020, its legislative elections are only held in midterm years, when Native turnout is often particularly low compared to that of white voters. (Lawmakers in both chambers serve staggered four-year terms.)

As a result, Republican Kent Weston won the 9th by a 54-46 margin last year, defeating longtime Democratic state Sen. Richard Marcellais. That left the Senate without any Native American members for the first time since 1991.

The House subdistricts were also flawed in another way, the court held. Rather than divide the 9th District in such a way that Native voters would be able to elect their preferred candidates in both subdistricts, Republicans instead deliberately packed Native Americans into just one of them.

That left District 9A with an 80% Native population while 9B was just 32% Native. The former consequently supported Biden 73-26 and elected a Democrat to the legislature, while the latter went for Donald Trump 61-37 and sent a Republican to the statehouse.

The court set a Dec. 22 deadline for North Dakota's Republican-dominated state government to pass a new map to remedy the violation and ordered that new elections be held in November 2024, when Native turnout should be higher. However, it's possible that a GOP appeal could drag out a resolution until after 2024.

Senate

• MI-Sen: Actor Hill Harper, who recently filed financial reports saying he has no bank accounts and earned no income during the last two years, now tells the Detroit News' Melissa Nann Burke that he'll submit revised statements. But, adds Burke (who broke the original story), Harper says he may not do so until the end of February, because of "the upcoming holiday season." Harper, who has self-funded a large portion of his campaign for the Democratic nomination for Senate, still has offered no explanation for the apparent omissions.

• NJ-Sen: Local Democratic leaders in New Jersey's two largest counties, Bergen and Middlesex, have given their support to former financier Tammy Murphy in next year's Senate primary, joining two other counties, Camden and Hudson, that previously backed her. As a result, Murphy will enjoy favorable placement on the ballot in counties responsible for a third of Joe Biden's total vote in the 2020 general election. Murphy's chief rival for the nomination, Rep. Andy Kim, has yet to win any such "county lines."

Murphy also won an endorsement from Rep. Josh Gottheimer, which makes him the first person in the state's House delegation to weigh in on the race. Gottheimer, a prodigious fundraiser, is considering a bid to succeed Murphy's husband, Gov. Phil Murphy, in 2025.

Governors

• WA-Gov: A new survey from Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling, taken for the Northwest Progressive Institute, finds former Republican Rep. Dave Reichert and Democratic state Attorney General Bob Ferguson advancing to next year's general election, where Reichert would have a narrow edge. It's the first publicly released poll since Reichert joined the governor's race in Washington, which is an open-seat contest because Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee is retiring after three terms.

In the Aug. 6 top-two primary, PPP shows Reichert and Ferguson tied at 31 apiece; another Republican, far-right Army veteran Semi Bird, is far back at 10%, while state Sen. Mark Mullet, a centrist Democrat, brings up the rear with 5%. In a head-to-head matchup, Reichert leads Ferguson 46-44.

House

• IA-01: Local Christian activist David Pautsch has launched a primary challenge against Republican Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks, reports the Quad-City Times' Sarah Watson, complaining that the congresswoman "doesn't have a passion for the relevance of God in our community." Pautsch specifically criticized Miller-Meeks for her vote for the Respect for Marriage Act, which requires the federal government and the states to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages. He also attacked her for voting against Jim Jordan's speakership twice after supporting him on the initial ballot.

Far-right religious figures like Pausch often wage campaigns against GOP incumbents fueled by similar grievances, but it can often be hard to tell whether they have any juice. It's possible, though, that Pausch does have some: Watson says he's the founder of the Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast, an annual event that drew prominent Arizona election denier Kari Lake to its most recent gathering a few months ago.

Last year, Miller-Meeks defeated Democrat Christina Bohannon by a 53-47 margin in Iowa's 1st Congressional District, a swingy seat that Donald Trump carried 51-48. Bohannon kicked off a rematch in mid-August and raised a hefty $657,000 in the third quarter despite campaigning for just half that period. Miller-Meeks brought in $464,000 during that timeframe and ended September with $1.4 million in the bank versus $637,000 for Bohannon.

• MI-08: Former Trump immigration official Paul Junge, who lost to retiring Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee 53-43 last year, said he'd wage another campaign for Michigan's now-open 8th District on Friday. We'll have more on this announcement, as well as the developing field for both parties, in the next Digest.

• OH-02: Republican Charles Tassell, the chair of the Clermont County GOP, really meant it when he said he'd decide "as soon as possible": Just three days after he said as much to The Hotline's James Downs, he announced a bid for Ohio's open 2nd Congressional District. Clermont, in the Cincinnati suburbs, is by far the largest of the 16 counties that make up the district, with more than a quarter of its population, according to calculations by Daily Kos Elections.

• PA-03: The Philadelphia Inquirer's Chris Brennan flags that Democratic state Rep. Chris Rabb created a campaign committee with the FEC more than a month ago that would set up a potential primary with Rep. Dwight Evans, though Rabb "declined to comment" about his intentions. Brennan adds that "[r]umors have been swirling" that Evans might not seek reelection, but the congressman, who was first elected in 2016, says he will indeed run again for Pennsylvania's deep blue 3rd District.

There's also some history between the two pols. Last year, Brennan notes, Rabb was drawn into the same House district as fellow state Rep. Isabella Fitzgerald, a former aide to Evans who succeeded her old boss when he won his seat in Congress. While Fitzgerald had the support of Evans and many other local elected officials, Rabb, who portrayed himself as an outsider and railed against "machine" politics, won by a 63-37 margin.

• VA-07: Former National Security Council official Eugene Vindman says he's already raised over $800,000 in his first 24 hours after joining the Democratic primary for this open seat. Vindman, who is a retired Army colonel, also won an endorsement from VoteVets.

Vindman furthermore has the support of California Rep. Adam Schiff, an exceptional fundraiser himself, who is running for Senate this cycle and has been using his donor list to solicit donations for Vindman. Both Democrats gained national attention for their role in Trump's first impeachment: Vindman helped blow the whistle on Trump's attempt to extort the Ukrainian government into undermining Biden's presidential campaign, while Schiff led the House's effort to impeach Trump over it in 2019.

Timmons himself fired back at his new opponent in unusually harsh terms. While incumbents often act as though challengers are beneath their notice, Timmons eschewed that approach. "Adam's greatest 'legislative accomplishments' are filing a lawsuit and abandoning the Republican Party to form a third-party caucus that shrank in size under his 'leadership,'" he said in a statement.

Last year, Morgan led several rebel lawmakers in creating the state House's Freedom Caucus, a breakaway group modeled after its congressional counterpart that has accused GOP leaders of failing to pursue a sufficiently conservative agenda. Their accomplishments on the legislative front have been minimal, however, with one establishment Republican dismissing the faction as little more than "a headache on social media."

Chhetri explains that this local version of the Freedom Caucus was the "brain-child" of Mark Meadows, Donald Trump's former chief of staff who was indicted by Georgia prosecutors for attempting to overturn the 2020 election. But before he served Trump, Meadows was a founder of the congressional Freedom Caucus (of which Norman is also a member). Chhetri adds that Morgan's bloc has been funded in part by a nonprofit run by former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, another hard-liner who was notorious for feuding with colleagues.

But while Morgan may not have much to show for his efforts to usher in a conservative utopia, Timmons could nonetheless be vulnerable. Last year, he won his primary with just 53% of the vote while three little-known candidates split the remainder. Shortly after that election, he appeared on several radio shows to address rumors that he'd used the powers of his office to conceal an extra-marital affair. While he denied that he'd abused his position, he didn't deny being unfaithful to his wife, who filed for divorce shortly after he won reelection that fall.

With a much higher-profile opponent this time, the outcome could be very different, especially in a one-on-one race. But even if other critics also jump in, Timmons cannot escape with only a plurality of the vote, since South Carolina requires runoffs if no one wins a majority in the primary.

Redistricting

● ND Redistricting: A federal court has struck down the legislative maps that North Dakota Republicans enacted after the 2020 census, ruling that GOP mapmakers violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of Native Americans.

In North Dakota, legislative districts have traditionally elected one state senator and two state representatives, but following the most recent census, lawmakers split the 4th and 9th districts into two state House "subdistricts" to ostensibly comply with the VRA. However, said the court, the timing of the state's elections rendered the 9th noncompliant.

While the district has a 54% Native majority and went 51-47 for Joe Biden in 2020, its legislative elections are only held in midterm years, when Native turnout is often particularly low compared to that of white voters. (Lawmakers in both chambers serve staggered four-year terms.)

As a result, Republican Kent Weston won the 9th by a 54-46 margin last year, defeating longtime Democratic state Sen. Richard Marcellais. That left the Senate without any Native American members for the first time since 1991.

The House subdistricts were also flawed in another way, the court held. Rather than divide the 9th District in such a way that Native voters would be able to elect their preferred candidates in both subdistricts, Republicans instead deliberately packed Native Americans into just one of them.

That left District 9A with an 80% Native population while 9B was just 32% Native. The former consequently supported Biden 73-26 and elected a Democrat to the legislature, while the latter went for Donald Trump 61-37 and sent a Republican to the statehouse.

The court set a Dec. 22 deadline for North Dakota's Republican-dominated state government to pass a new map to remedy the violation and ordered that new elections be held in November 2024, when Native turnout should be higher. However, it's possible that a GOP appeal could drag out a resolution until after 2024.

Senate

● MI-Sen: Actor Hill Harper, who recently filed financial reports saying he has no bank accounts and earned no income during the last two years, now tells the Detroit News' Melissa Nann Burke that he'll submit revised statements. But, adds Burke (who broke the original story), Harper says he may not do so until the end of February, because of "the upcoming holiday season." Harper, who has self-funded a large portion of his campaign for the Democratic nomination for Senate, still has offered no explanation for the apparent omissions.

● NJ-Sen: Local Democratic leaders in New Jersey's two largest counties, Bergen and Middlesex, have given their support to former financier Tammy Murphy in next year's Senate primary, joining two other counties, Camden and Hudson, that previously backed her. As a result, Murphy will enjoy favorable placement on the ballot in counties responsible for a third of Joe Biden's total vote in the 2020 general election. Murphy's chief rival for the nomination, Rep. Andy Kim, has yet to win any such "county lines."

Murphy also won an endorsement from Rep. Josh Gottheimer, which makes him the first person in the state's House delegation to weigh in on the race. Gottheimer, a prodigious fundraiser, is considering a bid to succeed Murphy's husband, Gov. Phil Murphy, in 2025.

Governors

● WA-Gov: A new survey from Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling, taken for the Northwest Progressive Institute, finds former Republican Rep. Dave Reichert and Democratic state Attorney General Bob Ferguson advancing to next year's general election, where Reichert would have a narrow edge. It's the first publicly released poll since Reichert joined the governor's race in Washington, which is an open-seat contest because Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee is retiring after three terms.

In the Aug. 6 top-two primary, PPP shows Reichert and Ferguson tied at 31 apiece; another Republican, far-right Army veteran Semi Bird, is far back at 10%, while state Sen. Mark Mullet, a centrist Democrat, brings up the rear with 5%. In a head-to-head matchup, Reichert leads Ferguson 46-44.

House

● IA-01: Local Christian activist David Pautsch has launched a primary challenge against Republican Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks, reports the Quad-City Times' Sarah Watson, complaining that the congresswoman "doesn't have a passion for the relevance of God in our community." Pautsch specifically criticized Miller-Meeks for her vote for the Respect for Marriage Act, which requires the federal government and the states to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages. He also attacked her for voting against Jim Jordan's speakership twice after supporting him on the initial ballot.

Far-right religious figures like Pausch often wage campaigns against GOP incumbents fueled by similar grievances, but it can often be hard to tell whether they have any juice. It's possible, though, that Pausch does have some: Watson says he's the founder of the Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast, an annual event that drew prominent Arizona election denier Kari Lake to its most recent gathering a few months ago.

Last year, Miller-Meeks defeated Democrat Christina Bohannon by a 53-47 margin in Iowa's 1st Congressional District, a swingy seat that Donald Trump carried 51-48. Bohannon kicked off a rematch in mid-August and raised a hefty $657,000 in the third quarter despite campaigning for just half that period. Miller-Meeks brought in $464,000 during that timeframe and ended September with $1.4 million in the bank versus $637,000 for Bohannon.

● MI-08: Former Trump immigration official Paul Junge, who lost to retiring Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee 53-43 last year, said he'd wage another campaign for Michigan's now-open 8th District on Friday. We'll have more on this announcement, as well as the developing field for both parties, in the next Digest.

● OH-02: Republican Charles Tassell, the chair of the Clermont County GOP, really meant it when he said he'd decide "as soon as possible": Just three days after he said as much to The Hotline's James Downs, he announced a bid for Ohio's open 2nd Congressional District. Clermont, in the Cincinnati suburbs, is by far the largest of the 16 counties that make up the district, with more than a quarter of its population, according to calculations by Daily Kos Elections.

● PA-03: The Philadelphia Inquirer's Chris Brennan flags that Democratic state Rep. Chris Rabb created a campaign committee with the FEC more than a month ago that would set up a potential primary with Rep. Dwight Evans, though Rabb "declined to comment" about his intentions. Brennan adds that "[r]umors have been swirling" that Evans might not seek reelection, but the congressman, who was first elected in 2016, says he will indeed run again for Pennsylvania's deep blue 3rd District.

There's also some history between the two pols. Last year, Brennan notes, Rabb was drawn into the same House district as fellow state Rep. Isabella Fitzgerald, a former aide to Evans who succeeded her old boss when he won his seat in Congress. While Fitzgerald had the support of Evans and many other local elected officials, Rabb, who portrayed himself as an outsider and railed against "machine" politics, won by a 63-37 margin.

● VA-07: Former National Security Council official Eugene Vindman says he's already raised over $800,000 in his first 24 hours after joining the Democratic primary for this open seat. Vindman, who is a retired Army colonel, also won an endorsement from VoteVets.

Vindman furthermore has the support of California Rep. Adam Schiff, an exceptional fundraiser himself, who is running for Senate this cycle and has been using his donor list to solicit donations for Vindman. Both Democrats gained national attention for their role in Trump's first impeachment: Vindman helped blow the whistle on Trump's attempt to extort the Ukrainian government into undermining Biden's presidential campaign, while Schiff led the House's effort to impeach Trump over it in 2019.

Morning Digest: New Jersey’s first lady enters Senate race, setting up a major showdown

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

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Leading Off

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Downballot

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

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

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

Governors

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

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

House

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ballot Measures

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

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

Legislatures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prosecutors and Sheriffs

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

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

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