Category: PaulHudson

Morning Digest: A new Democratic recruit could put an unexpected GOP seat in play

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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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● WI-01: Peter Barca, a Democrat with a long history in Wisconsin politics, announced Thursday that he would challenge Republican Rep. Bryan Steil for the state's 1st District, a constituency that's descended from the one Barca briefly represented three decades ago. While Republicans have held it ever since, Barca's entry could put into play a seat that the GOP has rarely had to sweat.

Barca, who stepped down last month as state revenue secretary, is the first major contender to enter the Aug. 13 Democratic primary, and it's possible he could be the last. Right after his launch, former Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan informed the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Lawrence Andrea that he'd decided to back Barca rather than run himself.

The filing deadline isn't until June 3, but according to Barca, national Democrats would be pleased if no other notable candidates entered the race. Barca told Andrea in late March that the DCCC began recruiting him last fall, though he says he repeatedly told the committee, "No way." The former congressman, however, said that he began to reconsider after watching "month after month of total dysfunction" in the House.

Given Wisconsin's late primary, Democrats' odds of flipping the 1st could improve should Barca clear the field, especially since Steil begins the race with a big fundraising head start. The incumbent hauled in $618,000 during the first three months of 2024 and finished March with a hefty $4 million in the bank.

The 1st District, which includes the Milwaukee suburbs of Janesville, Kenosha, and Racine, favored Donald Trump by a small 50-48 margin in 2020 as Joe Biden was narrowly carrying Wisconsin, and it's continued to vote a few points to the right of the state since then.

Republican Tim Michels, according to data from Dave's Redistricting App, edged out Gov. Tony Evers by a skinny 49.5-49.3 margin in 2022 in 2022 as Evers was winning statewide 51-48, while Republican Sen. Ron Johnson took the 1st 52-48 that same evening amid his 50-49 reelection win. Steil, for his part, won his third term 54-45 against an underfunded Democrat.

However, the district hasn't been unwinnable for progressives. Analyst Drew Savicki says that Janet Protasiewicz carried it 53-47 in last year's officially nonpartisan state Supreme Court race as she was winning her race 55-45.

But while this seat is far from safely red, no House Democrat has won the 1st District in the decades since Barca prevailed in a tight 1993 special election to succeed 12-term Rep. Les Aspin, a fellow Democrat who resigned to become Bill Clinton's first secretary of defense.

Barca, as we detailed recently, earned a promotion out of the state Assembly that year by beating Republican Mark Neumann 50-49. Neumann, though, won a rematch by an even tighter 49.2-48.8 spread the following year as Newt Gingrich was leading the GOP to its first House majority in 40 years.

Democrats hoped to reclaim the 1st District in 1996, but Neumann fended off Democrat Lydia Spottswood 51-49. Neumann left the House in 1998 to wage an unsuccessful bid against Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, but a 28-year-old former Republican congressional staffer named Paul Ryan held the seat by defeating Spottswood 57-43.

(Neumann went on to badly lose the 2010 nomination for governor to Scott Walker and take a distant third place in the 2012 Senate primary; Spottswood lost a bid earlier this month to serve as mayor of Kenosha.)

Ryan quickly became entrenched and won each of his reelection campaigns by double digits, but Democrats hoped they'd have an opening when the speaker unexpectedly retired ahead of the 2018 blue wave.

However, Steil, who was a member of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, kept the seat in GOP hands by turning back a well-funded effort from Democrat Randy Bryce 55-43. Following that win, Steil was not seriously targeted in either 2020 or 2022.

But despite that loss during the Gingrich revolution, Barca remained on the political scene. He returned to the Assembly in 2008 and became minority leader after the following cycle's red wave flipped control of the chamber.

Barca attracted widespread attention in 2011 when he led a 60-hour floor debate in the hopes of derailing a notorious anti-labor law pushed by Walker, but he stepped down from his leadership post in 2017 after he was one of just three Democrats to vote for Walker's infamous $3 billion tax incentive package to the electronics company Foxconn.

Barca still sought and won another term in the legislature, but he left in early 2019 after Tony Evers, who had just unseated Walker, named him to his cabinet as head of the state's Department of Revenue.

Governors

● WV-Gov: Republican Gov. Jim Justice on Thursday endorsed former Del. Moore Capito, who is the son and namesake of Sen. Shelly Moore Capito, with just under a month to go before the May 14 Republican primary to replace him.

Justice, who is the GOP's frontrunner for West Virginia's other Senate seat, made his choice at a time when Capito and his two main rivals are engaged in a bitter air war that's turned into a battle over which candidate is the most transphobic.

The Cook Political Report's Matthew Klein recently collected many of the lowlights of this grim competition, which has been playing out for some time. Capito has been an active participant, debuting a new spot that claimed that the frontrunner, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, "got rich lobbying for the puberty blocker companies." He's also airing another commercial that shows a male actor winning a women's track competition.

That ad, which does not mention any of Capito's intra-party rivals, concludes, "Thanks to Del. Moore Capito, girls' sports in West Virginia are protected." The spot was almost certainly produced before a federal appeals court blocked a 2021 state law this week that bans trans student-athletes from participating in the sport that corresponds to their gender identity.

A third GOP candidate, businessman Chris Miller, is airing his own commercial in which a woman declares, "The trans shouldn't get more rights than what our kids have." The spot, similar to Capito's, goes on to argue that Morrisey "was the go-to lobbyist for drug makers peddling puberty blockers and a gender transition clinic for kids." (Miller has also been running another anti-trans ad.)

Miller's allies at West Virginia Forward make similar arguments in another spot that also unsubtly attacks Morrisey's physical appearance. The ad features an animated version of the attorney general, calling him "small in stature." It shows the cartoon Morrisey barely rising above a podium before depicting him in front of plates of food as the narrator concludes he has "a big appetite for getting rich at our expense."

Morrisey's backers at Black Bear PAC, meanwhile, are arguing that when Miller was a university board member, he "looked the other way as pro-transgender events happened on his watch." The narrator goes on to quote from the far-right Daily Caller, saying one such event involved "a trans closet that provided items to support sex changes for students."

All of these commercials come during the final month of an expensive campaign during which, according to AdImpact, close to $19 million has been spent on or reserved for advertising. The firm reports that $7.5 million has gone into pro-Morrisey ads compared to $5.3 million to boost Miller, while Capito has deployed $2 million. AdImpact has also tracked another $2.1 million in anti-Miller ads and $2 million in spots hitting Morrisey.

The data does not mention any commercials run against Capito, though it may not yet reflect a new offensive from Morrisey's allies at the Club for Growth that began this week. Secretary of State Mac Warner, who is the fourth notable Republican candidate, still does not appear to have run any TV ads or been attacked on the air.

House

● KS-02: Republican Rep. Jake LaTurner unexpectedly announced Thursday that he would not seek a third term in Kansas' 2nd District, a decision that makes the 36-year-old one of the youngest people to ever voluntarily retire from Congress.

This seat in the eastern part of the state favored Donald Trump 57-41 in 2020, so the winner of the Aug. 6 GOP primary will be favored in the general election. While major-party candidate filing has already closed in 34 states, LaTurner's would-be successors still have until June 1 to place their names on the ballot.

Two Republicans, Leavenworth County Attorney Todd Thompson and state House Majority Leader Chris Croft, were each quick to tell the Kansas City Star that they're interested in running to fill the newly open seat.

The paper also mentioned several other Republicans as possibilities, including 2022 gubernatorial nominee Derek Schmidt; LaTurner staffer Jeff Kahrs; and a pair of state senators who unsuccessfully sought the 2nd District when it last came open in 2018, Dennis Pyle and Caryn Tyson. Pyle, though, later ran for governor as an independent in 2022, and he has yet to rejoin the GOP.

Another candidate who also lost in that same 2018 race, former state Sen. Steve Fitzgerald, laughed when the Star asked him about another campaign, so he's presumably a no.

LaTurner, whom Inside Elections notes is the youngest Republican in Congress, is ending an electoral career that began at 20 when he lost a 2008 primary for state Senate 55-45 to Bob Marshall, who went on to win the seat. LaTurner soon began running a district office for Rep. Lynn Jenkins, who had been elected to represent the 2nd Congressional District that same year, before seeking a rematch against Marshall in 2012.

Kansas GOP primaries had long pitted relative moderates like Marshall against hardline conservatives, and right-wing groups were especially determined to purge centrists after they joined with the Democratic minority in an unsuccessful attempt to stop Gov. Sam Brownback's income tax cuts. LaTurner won the support of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and the Koch family's Americans for Prosperity and defeated Marshall 57-43 on what proved to be a strong night for conservatives.

LaTurner won the general election 61-39 and easily secured reelection in 2016, but Trump would soon set off a chain of events that would elevate LaTurner to higher office.

Trump unexpectedly picked Mike Pompeo, who represented Kansas' 4th District around Wichita, to lead the CIA, prompting a special election that state Treasurer Ron Estes went on to win (albeit in remarkably weak fashion). Brownback then appointed LaTurner to replace Estes, a move that made the new treasurer the youngest statewide elected official in the country.

LaTurner easily kept his new job in 2018 even as Democrat Laura Kelly was pulling off an upset for governor. That same night also saw Republican Steve Watkins narrowly win the race to succeed the retiring Jenkins in the conservative 2nd District, despite the fact that multiple media reports had exposed Watkins as a serial liar and a woman accused him of sexual misconduct.

LaTurner almost immediately kicked off a campaign to replace retiring Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, but he struggled to gain traction. However, he got far more support when he announced in September of 2019 that he would instead launch a primary challenge against Watkins, who just weeks before had denied widespread rumors that he'd resign because of an undisclosed scandal.

Watkins attracted still more ugly headlines, including a Topeka Capital-Journal story reporting that he might have committed voter fraud by listing a UPS store in Topeka as his home address on his voter registration form and then proceeding to cast a ballot the previous month as though he lived there.

Things got worse the month before the primary when local authorities charged Watkins with three felonies over his 2019 vote—a development that awkwardly came just half an hour before he was set to debate his challenger.

LaTurner beat Watkins 49-34, news that came as a relief for Republicans who feared the congressman was too weak to hold what should have been a safe seat. LaTurner went on to defeat Topeka Mayor Michelle De La Isla, who hoped Watkins would be her opponent, by a comfortable 55-41 margin as Trump was carrying the 2nd District by a similar spread. (Watkins later reached a diversion agreement with local prosecutors that ultimately led to the voter fraud charges against him getting dropped.)

LaTurner, who joined the majority of his caucus in voting against recognizing Joe Biden's victory, won his second term without trouble, and he was on track to easily claim reelection again before his surprise Thursday retirement announcement. But LaTurner didn't just put an end to his congressional career: He also said on Thursday that he wouldn't seek state-level office in 2026, when Kelly will be termed out as governor.

The congressman insisted that he was cutting short his once-promising political future to spend time with his family and not because of GOP infighting, though he acknowledged Congress' deep flaws.

"Undoubtedly, the current dysfunction on Capitol Hill is distressing, but it almost always has been; we just didn't see most of it," LaTurner said in a statement.

But even LaTurner seemed surprised by the chaos last fall when he responded to the GOP's three-week speakership deadlock by exclaiming, "I thought we had reached rock bottom, but we hadn't."  

● MI-03: The Detroit News' Grant Schwab reports that the brother of attorney Paul Hudson is the sole donor to a super PAC that announced last week it had taken in $1 million to promote Hudson, a Republican running for Michigan's 3rd congressional District. Schwab writes that Ryan Hudson is a co-founder of the browser extension Honey, a tool for finding coupons that he sold to PayPal for a reported $4 billion in 2020.

Paul Hudson is the GOP frontrunner to take on Democratic Rep. Hillary Scholten in a Grand Rapids constituency that Joe Biden carried 53-45 in 2020. Hudson only raised $59,000 from donors during the first quarter of 2024 but self-funded another $150,000, ending March with $342,000 in the bank. Scholten raised $643,000 during that time and finished last month with $1.8 million in her coffers.

● OR-03: Primary School flags that the super PAC 314 Action so far has spent $816,000 to support state Rep. Maxine Dexter ahead of the May 21 primary to succeed her fellow Democrat, retiring Rep. Earl Blumenauer, in the dark blue 3rd District around Portland. The PAC, which promotes Democratic candidates with backgrounds in science (Dexter is a pulmonologist), is the only outside group that has spent anything on the contest so far.

Dexter, former Multnomah County Commissioner Susheela Jayapal, and Gresham City Councilor Eddy Morales are the main candidates competing in next month's primary. Jayapal, who is the sister of Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, outraised her rivals during the first quarter by taking in $333,000, and her $408,000 war chest was also the largest.

Morales outpaced Dexter $245,000 to $185,000, and he ended March with $251,000 in the bank, versus a similar $227,000 for Dexter.

Judges

● WI Supreme Court: Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judge Chris Taylor, who was one of three liberal jurists considering a bid for the state Supreme Court next year, said on Thursday that she would not run for the new open seat created by Justice Ann Walsh Bradley's recent retirement announcement.

Two other progressives, Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford and Court of Appeals Judge Pedro Colón, are still weighing the race. Crawford said Thursday she'd have "more to say in the coming weeks."

On the conservative side, former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel has been running since the fall, while Court of Appeals Judge Maria Lazar has also expressed interest.

All candidates will run together on a single primary ballot on Feb. 18, with the top two vote-getters advancing to an April 1 general election. Control of the court will once again be up for grabs as liberals seek to defend the 4-3 majority they earned last year when Janet Protaseiwicz, then a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge, flipped an open seat that had been held by a conservative justice.

Ballot Measures

● CO Ballot: Reproductive rights supporters in Colorado turned in petitions on Thursday to place an amendment on the November ballot to safeguard abortion access and overturn a 1984 amendment that bans public funding for the procedure. That same day anti-abortion groups acknowledged that they'd failed to collect enough signatures to put a rival amendment before voters that would all but ban the procedure.

Constitutional amendments need to win at least 55% of the vote to pass in Colorado, but first campaigns must get them on the ballot. Amendment campaigns need to collect about 124,000 valid signatures, a figure that represents 5% of the total vote cast in the most recent election for secretary of state, and also hit certain targets in each of the state's 35 Senate districts.

Abortion rights advocates announced Thursday they'd submitted nearly 240,000 signatures with eight days left before their April 26 deadline, and Westworld says election officials have a month to verify them. That review will not be necessary for the opposite side, though: Anti-abortion groups only had until Thursday because they began their task earlier, but they fell short of legal requirements to make the ballot.

● NV Ballot: The Nevada Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a constitutional amendment to protect broadly reproductive rights, including the right to an abortion, does not violate state rules prohibiting ballot initiatives from addressing more than one subject, but organizers said they nonetheless plan to keep focusing on a separate proposal that only addresses abortion.

Advocates changed gears last fall after a lower court judge blocked the more expansive amendment, saying it "embraces a multitude of subjects." The Supreme Court, however, rejected that reasoning, concluding that "all the medical procedures considered in the initiative petition concern reproduction."

The group backing both measures, Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom, welcomed Thursday's decision but said in a statement it intends to put the second, abortion-only amendment before voters. The organization also said it had already collected 160,000 signatures for the narrower amendment, which is well over the 103,000 required by law. However, supporters have said their goal is to submit twice as many signatures as necessary as a cushion.

The original amendment could still appear before voters two years from now, though. The Democratic-led state legislature advanced an amendment last year that the Nevada Independent says includes "essentially identical language" as the version the state Supreme Court blessed on Thursday.

State law, however, requires lawmakers to approve the amendment again following the 2024 general election before it could go before voters in 2026, when it would need to win a majority to go into effect.

Because the newer amendment put forth by Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom is a citizen-sponsored initiative, it would need to earn majority backing at the ballot box twice, both this fall and again two years from now. Measures placed on the ballot by the legislature, however, only need to win voter support once.

Poll Pile

  • FL-Sen: Mainstreet Research for Florida Atlantic University: Rick Scott (R-inc): 53, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D): 36 (51-43 Trump in two-way, 49-40 Trump with third-party candidates)

Ad Roundup

Campaign Action

Morning Digest: Why two conservative Arizona justices could lose this fall

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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● AZ Supreme Court: Arizona voters will likely have the chance to overturn their state Supreme Court's new ruling banning nearly all abortions when they head to the polls this fall, but they'll also have the opportunity to reshape the court itself.

As Bolt's Daniel Nichanian points out, two of the justices who voted with the majority will be up for election to new six-year terms in November, Clint Bolick and Kathryn Hackett King. They won't have actual opponents, though, but rather will face what are known as "retention" elections. Under this system, which is used for members of the judiciary in many states, voters are presented with a simple "yes/no" question asking whether a particular judge should "be retained in office."

It's rare for judges to lose retention elections, but it's also rare for a state supreme court to thrust itself into the national limelight the way that Arizona's just did. And abortion will be a top—if not the top—issue this year in Arizona, particularly because reproductive rights supporters say they've already collected enough signatures to place a measure on the November ballot that would enshrine the right to an abortion into the state constitution.

Should Bolick or Hackett King lose, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs would be able to appoint replacements, drawn from a list created by the state's Commission on Appellate Court Appointments. But while that commission is, under the state constitution, supposed to be politically diverse, Hobbs' Republican predecessor, Doug Ducey, stacked the board with nominal independents who have ties to the GOP.

Hobbs could reshape the commission with her own appointments, which implicates yet another set of important Arizona elections. Commission members must be approved by the state Senate, which Republicans control by a narrow 16-14 majority. Every member of the Senate, though, will be up for election this year. With abortion so salient—GOP leaders have refused to consider legislation—reversing the court's ban—Democrats have a strong chance of flipping the chamber.

It would, however, be some time before the court could see a majority of Democratic appointees, though such a shift is by no means impossible. The two dissenters in the abortion case, Chief Justice Robert Brutinel and Vice Chief Justice Ann Timmer, will hit the mandatory retirement age of 70 in 2028 and 2030, respectively. Should Hobbs win reelection in 2026, she'd get to fill those vacancies as well. (Bolick, should he survive retention, would face mandatory retirement in 2027, while Hackett King would not do so until 2050.)

The Downballot

It's only April, but the Washington Post's new report on GOP golden boy Tim Sheehy is a strong contender for the craziest political story of the year. On this week's episode of "The Downballot," co-hosts David Nir and David Beard dissect the countless contradictions in Sheehy's tales about a bullet wound that he either received in Afghanistan or in a national park three years later. The Davids also explain why the Arizona Supreme Court's appalling new ruling banning nearly all abortions could lead to two conservative justices losing their seats this fall.

Our guest this week is Sondra Goldschein, who runs the Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, an organization dedicated to improving America's badly lagging "care infrastructure." Goldschein explains how issues like paid medical leave laws and greater access to childcare affect an enormous swath of the electorate—and why they're closely tied to voters' perceptions of their economic fortunes. She also highlights candidates her group is working to elect to make these policies a reality.

Subscribe to "The Downballot" wherever you listen to podcasts to make sure you never miss a show. You'll find a transcript of this week's episode right here by Thursday afternoon. New episodes every Thursday morning!

1Q Fundraising

  • DE-Sen: Lisa Blunt Rochester (D): $1 million raised

  • MA-Sen: Elizabeth Warren (D-inc): $1.1 million raised, $4.4 million in cash on hand 

  • MD-Sen: Larry Hogan (R): $3.1 million raised (in 51 days)

  • AZ-06: Kirsten Engel (D): $1.2 million raised, $1.8 million cash on hand

  • CA-40: Young Kim (R-inc): $1.3 million raised, $3 million cash on hand 

  • CO-05: Jeff Crank (R): $300,000 raised, $225,000 cash on hand 

  • IL-17: Eric Sorensen (D-inc): $745,000 raised, $2.1 million cash on hand 

  • MD-06: Joe Vogel (D): $231,000 raised, $235,000 cash on hand 

  • NE-02: Tony Vargas (D): $777,000 raised, $1.6 million cash on hand

  • PA-17: Chris Deluzio (D-inc): $750,000 raised, $1.45 million cash on hand 

  • VA-10: Eileen Filler-Corn (D): $370,000 raised, $430,000 cash on hand 

  • WA-05: Michael Baumgartner (R): $400,000 raised (in one month) 

Senate

● MD-Sen: Attorney General Anthony Brown announced Wednesday that he was supporting Rep. David Trone in the May 14 Democratic primary, a declaration that Trone made public in a campaign ad. Brown is arguably the most prominent Black politician who has opted to support Trone, who is white, over Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who would be Maryland's first Black senator.

But while most of the state's political establishment is backing Alsobrooks, Brown and Trone are longtime allies. As a member of the House in 2018, Brown endorsed Trone in the primary for a nearby seat, and as Time's Eric Cortellessa reminds us, the wealthy Trone financed ads to help his colleague's successful 2022 bid for attorney general.

● MT-Sen: VoteVets has already launched what Politico reports is a $200,000 ad buy focused on a truly bizarre Washington Post story about former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy and a gunshot injury.

The Republican is shown saying, "I have a bullet stuck in this arm still from Afghanistan," before a narrator says Sheehy may have actually been wounded in a parking lot at Glacier National Park. "Sheehy told investigators the bullet in his arm is from a gun falling and firing on a family hiking trip," the voiceover continues. "Come on, Tim, it's one more shady story that doesn't add up."

Governors

● NC-Gov: Quinnipiac University's first look at the race for governor shows Democrat Josh Stein leading Republican Mark Robinson 48-41, with Libertarian Mike Ross and Green Wayne Turner at 4% and 2%, respectively. The omission of those two third-party candidates doesn't make much of a difference, though, as the school shows Stein ahead by a similar 52-44 margin in a head-to-head contest. Respondents favor Donald Trump over Joe Biden 41-38 in a five-person field and 48-46 when only major candidates are included.

This is the largest lead for Stein that we've seen in any poll, and it's also considerably different from what other surveys have shown over the last month. An early March poll from the conservative firm Cygnal showed Robinson up 44-39, while SurveyUSA and Marist College found Stein ahead only 44-42 and 49-47, respectively.

● WV-Gov: Campaign finance reports for the first quarter of the year are now in, and MetroNews has rounded up the numbers for all the major Republicans competing in the May 14 primary for West Virginia's open governorship:

  • Attorney General Patrick Morrisey: $876,000 raised, $1.7 million cash on hand

  • Former Del. Moore Capito: $337,000 raised, $1.1 million cash on hand

  • Businessman Chris Miller: $216,000 raised, additional $50,000 self-funded, $1.2 million cash on hand

  • Secretary of State Mac Warner: $73,000 raised, $193,000 cash on hand

Huntington Mayor Steve Williams, who has the Democratic side to himself, raised $18,000 and ended March with $21,000 in the bank.

House

● CA-16: A pair of voters unexpectedly requested a recount on Tuesday, just days after election authorities certified that both Assemblymember Evan Low and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian would advance to an all-Democratic general election with former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo. However, it remains to be seen if any recount will actually take place.

Politico explains that California requires anyone who asks for a recount to pay for it before the April 15 deadline. If payment isn't submitted by then, the current results of the March 5 top-two primary that have Low and Simitian tied for second place would stand. (California, unlike many states, does not have automatic recounts no matter how close a race is.)

Election officials in Santa Clara County, which forms 84% of the 16th District by population, say that a 10-day manual recount would cost a total of $320,000. A five-day machine recount would have a considerably smaller $84,200 price tag, but the Mercury News' Grace Hase writes that such a process is less likely to catch any tabulation errors.

San Jose Spotlight's Jana Kadah adds that a manual recount would cost another $85,000 in San Mateo County, which forms the balance of the district. (It's not clear how much a machine recount in San Mateo would be.)

One of the two requesters, former San Mateo County Board of Supervisors candidate Dan Stegink, told Hase he was willing to pay for a recount. Santa Clara County officials also say they don't know if Stegink could split the cost with the other requester, 2020 Biden Delegate Jonathan Padilla.

Low's campaign was quick to highlight that Padilla worked on Liccardo's 2014 bid to lead San Jose to argue that the former mayor was behind the recount request. Low's team also invoked a very different politician in slamming the request. "This is a page right out of Trump’s political playbook using dirty tricks to attack democracy and subvert the will of the voters," the campaign said in a statement.

Liccardo's campaign denied it had asked Padilla to do anything, but a spokesperson didn't sound upset about the development. "We understand why, under these extraordinary circumstances, there would be an effort to make sure these votes are fully considered," said a Liccardo consultant.

Simitian, by contrast, didn't express a preference either for or against a recount. "Eventually, this process will work itself out," he said in a statement.

Hase also obtained an early April Liccardo internal poll from Lake Research Partners that shows him leading Low 26-21, with Simitian at 20%. The story did not include results testing Liccardo in one-on-one matchups.

Kadah previously reported on Monday that another firm, McGuire Research, has been testing Liccardo in various scenarios. There's no word on the results or the client, but the existence of the poll led to speculation that the former mayor or his allies were trying to determine whether he'd benefit if only one of his opponents were to advance―speculation that only intensified when Stegink and Padilla filed their recount requests a day later.

● MD-06: Del. Joe Vogel is airing what appears to be the first negative TV ad of the May 14 Democratic primary for Maryland's open 6th District, and the Washington Post's Katie Shepherd reports he's spending $35,000 to link former Commerce Department official April McClain Delaney to hardline Republicans.

The ad, which Maryland Matters says is Vogel's first television commercial, opens with the candidate declaring that "every Democrat for Congress" has a similar agenda, which is an unusual line for any campaign ad. However, he continues, "The difference is our approach. McClain Delaney donates to extreme Republicans and is friends with Tucker Carlson and Paul Ryan."

The 27-year-old lawmaker goes on, "I come from the school shooting generation, where we know you can’t hope politicians do the right thing. You have to make them." Vogel does not mention any of the other 12 Democratic candidates seeking to replace David Trone, who is running for Senate.

Vogel, writes Shepherd, previously deployed some of these arguments against McClain Delaney at debates. McClain Delaney has countered that her bipartisan friendship with the Ryan family began when her husband, former Rep. John Delaney, and the Wisconsin Republican served together in the House.

Vogel has also faulted McClain Delaney for making a contribution to Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican who was once one of the most prominent ultra-conservatives in the Senate, in 2005. (DeMint resigned in 2013 to lead the Heritage Foundation.) Shepherd says that Delaney responded by shaking her head and "at one point throwing her hands into the air" during the debate, though she did not dispute the donation.

As for Carlson, Vogel's ad cites a 2018 piece from MOCO 360 about John Delaney's longshot White House bid that identified the far-right media personality as a friend of the then-congressman. The story did not touch on McClain Delaney's connection to the former Fox News commentator.

Vogel launched this spot around the same time that he released a mid-March GBAO internal that showed Delaney leading him 17-10, with a 48% plurality undecided. We haven't seen any other polls here all year.

Delaney, for her part, began airing ads a month ago, and she uses her most recent spot to tout herself as someone who will protect children from "Big Tech." Shepard says the only other Democratic candidate who has taken to the airwaves is Ashwani Jain, a former Obama administration official who won just 2% in the 2022 primary for governor.

● MI-03: A super PAC called West Michigan For Change announced Wednesday that it had taken in $1 million to promote attorney Paul Hudson, who is the leading Republican running to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Hillary Scholten. The group, which did not bring in any money last year, did not say where the influx of cash came from.

Joe Biden carried this constituency 53-45 in 2020, and Scholten's 55-42 victory two years later made her the first Democrat to represent a Grand Rapids-based seat in the House since the mid-1970s. Scholten's allies at House Majority PAC don't seem convinced that those decisive wins mean this seat is out of reach for the GOP, however, as the group recently booked $1.3 million in ad time for the Grand Rapids media market.

● NH-02: Businessman Vikram Mansharamani became the first notable Republican to launch a bid to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster on Wednesday, though his last campaign for office was anything but impressive. Mansharamani self-funded about $300,000 last cycle in his bid to take on Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, but he ended up taking a distant fourth place in the primary with less than 8% of the vote.

Mansharamani is also unlikely to be the last Republican to join the September primary. The Union Leader reports that state Rep. Joe Sweeney and 2014 nominee Marilinda Garcia are considering, though there are no quotes from either would-be candidate.

On the Democratic side, Concord Mayor Byron Champlin and businessman Gary Hirshberg this week joined Kuster in endorsing former Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern rather than running themselves.

● NJ-10: Democratic Rep. Donald Payne's office said Tuesday evening that he'd "suffered a cardiac episode based on complications from his diabetes during the weekend," but that his "prognosis is good and he is expected to make a full recovery." Payne is seeking reelection this year in New Jersey's safely Democratic 10th District.

● Filing: Candidate filing closed in five more states over the last week: April 4 was the deadline in New York, Tennessee, and Virginia, while the respective deadlines for Oklahoma and North Dakota were April 5 and April 8. We'll have more on each state below.

● New York: While the state publishes a list of candidates who filed to run for Congress in the June 25 primary, it doesn't include all House seats. That's because candidates running for a district contained entirely within either a single county or New York City file with their local election authorities, while everyone else files with the state.

Under the new congressional map, 11 districts (the 5th through the 15th) are located wholly within the city, while the only two single-county seats anywhere else in the state are the 1st District in Suffolk County and the 4th District in Nassau County. Election authorities in those jurisdictions have not released candidate lists yet, though Politics1 has compiled an unofficial roster for each seat.

There are no reports of any big names launching last-second campaigns, which isn't a surprise in a state where getting on the ballot can be a challenge. Most major party congressional candidates were required to hand in 1,250 valid signatures to compete in the primary, though Republicans running in the dark blue 13th and 15th Districts had a smaller target to hit because their party has so few registered voters in those constituencies.

Not everyone who submitted petitions by Thursday will necessarily make the primary ballot, however, because campaigns have long been aggressive about going to court to challenge the validity of their opponent's signatures. One former leader of the Brooklyn Democratic Party expressed a common view of this age-old practice in a 2022 interview with City & State. 

"Fuck them!" Frank Seddio said of anyone who might get knocked off the ballot for a lack of signatures. "Breathing shouldn't be the only qualification for running for office."

● North Dakota: Former Miss America Cara Mund filed to run for North Dakota's only House seat as a Republican about half an hour before the deadline, telling the North Dakota Monitor that there weren't any moderates competing in the June 11 primary. 

Mund, a supporter of abortion rights, ran against GOP Rep. Kelly Armstrong in the 2022 general election as an independent candidate and wound up as his only opponent after the Democratic nominee dropped out. Mund's effort attracted national attention, but Armstrong went on to fend her off by a 62-38 margin in this dark red state. That performance was significantly better than Joe Biden's landslide 65-32 loss two years earlier, but it still fell far short of victory.

The GOP field to succeed Armstrong, who is running for governor, consists of former State Department official Alex Balazs, former state Rep. Rick Becker, Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak, and one minor candidate. Democrats are running Marine Corps veteran Trygve Hammer and perennial candidate Roland Clifford Riemers.

The GOP primary to replace retiring Gov. Doug Burgum, meanwhile, remains a duel between Armstrong and Burgum's choice, Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller, while state Sen. Merrill Piepkorn has the Democratic side to himself.

● Oklahoma: Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin and each of the five members of Oklahoma's all-Republican House delegation are seeking reelection, and there's no indication any of them have anything to worry about in either the June 18 primary or the November general election. An Aug. 27 runoff would take place in any primary where no one earns a majority of the vote.

● Tennessee: The biggest news in the Volunteer State was Davidson County Metro Councilmember Courtney Johnston's decision to challenge freshman Rep. Andy Ogles in the Aug. 1 Republican primary for the 5th District, a development we covered in a recent Digest. She's not Ogles' only intra-party challenger, though, as cybersecurity executive Tom Guarente is also in. 

Guarente has attracted relatively little attention, but his presence on the ballot could cost Johnston enough support to allow the incumbent to win with a plurality. (Unlike many Southern states, Tennessee does not use primary runoffs.) The eventual winner will be favored in the general election for a seat that Donald Trump carried 55-43 in 2020.

Over in the dark red 8th District in West Tennessee, GOP Rep. David Kustoff learned last week that he'd once again face a primary battle against radiologist George Flinn, a self-funding perennial candidate who owns a network of radio and TV stations. Flinn, who served on the Shelby County Commission in the 2000s, had already waged several well-funded but doomed campaigns when he entered the 2016 primary to replace retiring Rep. Stephen Fincher in the prior version of the seat.

Flinn's resources were almost enough to propel him to victory in what was a packed race, but Kustoff edged him out 27-23. Flinn tried again two years later, but Trump's support helped Kustoff win an expensive rematch 56-40. Flinn went on to take just 3% in the 2020 Senate primary, secure 2.5% as an independent in the 9th District against Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, and wage an abortive 2023 bid for mayor of Memphis.

Republican Rep. Tim Burchett, by contrast, found out he'd have no primary opposition in the 2nd District, an East Tennessee constituency that hasn't elected a Democratic representative since 1852. There was talk earlier this year that Kevin McCarthy and his allies would target Burchett, who was one of the eight Republicans who voted to end McCarthy's speakership in October. However, they never found a backup candidate after former state Rep. Jimmy Matlock announced in February that he wouldn't run.

● Virginia: The Virginia Department of Elections says that it will post its list of candidates "on, or shortly after April 15." Primaries will take place on June 18. For the first time in many years, Republicans will rely on state-run primaries to pick all of their candidates, eschewing conventions or party-run "firehouse" primaries. (Democrats, who have almost always preferred traditional primaries, will also use them exclusively.)

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Morning Digest: After a Democrat won in Alaska, Republicans want to kill ranked-choice voting

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Leading Off

● AK Ballot: Alaska voters made history in 2020 when they made their state the first in the nation to adopt a top-four primary with a ranked-choice general election, but conservatives tell the Alaska Beacon's James Brooks that they're close to qualifying a measure to repeal the system that would go before voters next year.

The campaign has until the start of the January legislative session to turn in about 27,000 valid signatures, a figure that represents 10% of the total number of votes that were cast in the most recent general election, and it must also hit certain targets in three-quarters of Alaska's 40 state House districts. One leader says that organizers have already gathered 30,000 petitions so far but will analyze them later to see if more are needed.

Under the current top-four system, all the candidates run on one primary ballot, and the four contenders with the most votes—regardless of party—advance to an instant-runoff general election. This method was first used last year in the special election to succeed the late GOP Rep. Don Young as Alaska's lone House member, a contest that ultimately saw Democrat Mary Peltola defeat former Republican Gov. Sarah Palin 51-49.

Conservatives both in Alaska and across the country were furious because Palin and another Republican, Nick Begich, outpaced Peltola by a combined 59-40 in the first round of tabulations. They blamed their surprise loss on instant-runoff voting rather than Palin's many failings or the Democrat's strengths.

"60% of Alaska voters voted for a Republican," griped Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, "but thanks to a convoluted process and ballot exhaustion—which disenfranchises voters—a Democrat 'won.'" But even without ranked-choice voting, Peltola still would have come in first, as she beat Palin 40-31. And since Begich took third with 28%, he may well still have lost a traditional primary to Palin had one been used.

Furthermore, a poll conducted right after the special by supporters of ranked-choice voting showed that Alaskans saw their new voting system as anything but "convoluted." Instead, 85% of respondents found it to be "simple," while 62% said they supported the new method.

Hard-right groups, though, soon had even more reasons to hate the new status quo. Thanks to the top-four system, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a rare Republican who's crossed party lines on high-profile votes, would no longer face what would almost certainly have been a tough GOP primary against Donald Trump's preferred candidate, former state cabinet official Kelly Tshibaka. (Murkowski famously lost her 2010 primary to a far-right foe but won the general through a write-in effort.)

Instead, Murkowski and Tshibaka easily advanced to the general election with Democrat Pat Chesbro and a little-known third Republican. Murkowski led Tshibaka 43.4-42.6 in the first round of general election tabulations, but the 10% of voters who supported Chesbro overwhelmingly broke for the incumbent and helped lift her to a 54-46 victory. Peltola also won her rematch with Palin 55-45 after initially leading her 49-26; unsurprisingly, both Palin and Tshibaka ardently back the effort to end the top-four system.

Redistricting

● OH Redistricting: Ohio's congressional districts will remain unchanged in 2024 after the state Supreme Court granted a request by plaintiffs to dismiss two legal challenges to the map, which the court ruled violated the state constitution as an impermissible partisan gerrymander last year.

Despite that ruling, however, challengers faced steep odds of a favorable outcome after hard-right Republicans won a majority on the court in November. But by abandoning their cases, voting rights advocates will ensure that Republicans cannot draw an even more aggressive gerrymander for 2024, since Ohio's constitution requires that the current map remain in place through next year's elections.

Republicans would still get a chance to draw a new map after 2024 under the current law, though, which is why reformers are instead focusing their efforts on qualifying an amendment for next year's ballot that would establish an independent redistricting commission to draw new maps.

This week, organizers submitted new ballot summary language after Republican Attorney General Dave Yost rejected their first attempt, mostly making technical changes in response to his complaints. Once they get the green light, activists will be able to start collecting the 413,000 signatures they need to put their measure before voters in 2024.

Senate

● CA-Sen: UC Berkeley has released two versions of its survey of the March top-two primary: One that includes a scenario where former Major League Baseball player Steve Garvey campaigns as a Republican, and one where he doesn't run. First is the Garvey version:

  • Rep. Adam Schiff (D): 20
  • Rep. Katie Porter (D): 17
  • Rep. Barbara Lee (D): 7
  • former Major League Baseball player Steve Garvey (R): 7
  • perennial candidate James Bradley (R): 7
  • 2022 attorney general candidate Eric Early (R): 5
  • tech executive Lexi Reese (D): 1
  • Others: 4
  • Undecided: 32

Next up is the one without Garvey, though the two leading candidates don't see their numbers budge at all:

  • Schiff (D): 20
  • Porter (D): 17
  • Bradley (R): 10
  • Lee (D): 7
  • Early (R): 7
  • Reese (D): 1
  • Others: 4
  • Undecided: 34

This is the first poll we've seen that includes Reese, who announced in late June, though UC Berkeley's release misspells her first name as "Lexie." A strategist for Garvey, meanwhile, told Politico in early June that "[w]e should have a decision made here in the next few weeks," but we're still waiting on him three months later.

● FL-Sen: EMILY's List has endorsed former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who is the Democratic frontrunner in the primary to face GOP incumbent Rick Scott.

Governors

● IN-Gov: Former state Commerce Secretary Brad Chambers has made it clear he'll be doing a substantial amount of self-funding in his quest for the GOP nod by throwing down $5 million of his own money. Chambers also began airing TV ads this week far ahead of the May primary: His opening spot, which Politico says has seven figures behind it, goes biographical by touting the candidate's local roots and his supposed status as a political "outsider." Eric Doden, another wealthy former state cabinet official, began running his own spots a month ago.

Former state education superintendent Jennifer McCormick, meanwhile, has publicized a mid-August internal Public Policy Polling that tests the Democrat against the other three notable Republican contenders:

  • 36-36 vs. former Attorney General Curtis Hill
  • 35-39 vs. Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch
  • 35-46 vs. Sen. Mike Braun

The release argues that, while McCormick trails two of her would-be GOP foes, opposition to Indiana's near-total abortion ban and unhappiness with the direction of the state could give her an opening.

● WA-Gov: The Seattle Times' Jim Brunner says that Attorney General Bob Ferguson will announce Saturday that he's running for governor, a move that comes four months after he said he was forming an exploratory committee to succeed his fellow Democrat, retiring incumbent Jay Inslee. As Brunner has noted before, Evergreen State law doesn't actually distinguish between exploratory committees and full-fledged campaigns.

House

● CA-49: Margarita Wilkinson, who works as an executive at the TV broadcaster Entravision, on Thursday became the latest Republican to join the top-two primary to go up against Democratic Rep. Mike Levin. The GOP field already consisted of businesswoman Sheryl Adams, 2022 state Senate candidate Matt Gunderson, and Marine veteran Kate Monroe. Joe Biden carried this seat, which includes coastal communities north of San Diego, 55-43.

● IN-03: Construction project manager Grant Bucher, who the Indiana Capitol Chronicle says is running the $26 million project to build a new Steuben County judicial center, said this week that he was joining the GOP primary for this safely red seat. Reporter Casey Smith adds that the new candidate grew up in this northeast Indiana seat, which Republican Jim Banks is giving up to run for the Senate, but that Bucher only recently returned from Michigan.

● MI-03: Republican Paul Hudson, an attorney who took fourth place last year for the state Supreme Court (where the top-two finishers were elected), declared Thursday that he'd challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Hillary Scholten. Joe Biden carried this constituency 53-45 two years before Scholten beat far-right Republican John Gibbs 55-42, a win that made her the first Democrat to represent a Grand Rapids-based seat in the House since the mid-1970s.

Hudson, however, did not have such a great 2022 even though the state GOP picked him and incumbent Brian Zahra to be its candidates in the officially nonpartisan statewide contest for two seats on Michigan's highest court. Democratic Justice Richard Bernstein and Zahra won those two seats respectively with 34% and 24%, while Democrat Kyra Harris Bolden was just behind with 22%. (Gov. Gretchen Whitmer weeks later appointed Bolden to the body after fellow Democrat Bridget Mary McCormack stepped down.) Hudson, for his part, languished in fourth place with just 13%.

● MI-10: Former Macomb County Judge Carl Marlinga announced Thursday that he would seek the Democratic nomination for a rematch against freshman Republican Rep. John James, who beat him by a surprisingly narrow 49-48 last year. Marlinga launched his campaign by publicizing a primary internal from Public Policy Polling that showed him leading Tiffany Tilley, a state Board of Education member whom we hadn't previously heard mentioned as a possible candidate, 31-5.

Two people who are running, gun safety activist Emily Busch and financial advisor Diane Young, take 3% each, as does physician Anil Kumar. The Detroit News says that Kumar, who unsuccessfully ran for the House twice before winning his 2018 statewide race for the Wayne State University Board of Governors, has formed an exploratory committee, and his team says he'll decide by early next month. The paper also identifies former Macomb County Health Department head Rhonda Powell, who lost last year's primary to Marlinga 48-17 and secures 2% in his poll, as a possible contender.

Marlinga has had a long career in Macomb County politics going back to 1984, when he was elected to the first of what would be five terms as county prosecutor, but he's experienced some major setbacks over the decades. Marlinga competed in the 1994 primary for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat and took last place in the six-way primary with just 8% of the vote, though he convincingly won re-election two years later. He was still serving as prosecutor in 2002 when he challenged Republican Rep. Candice Miller in an earlier and more conservative version of the 10th District, a campaign the Democrat lost 63-36.

Marlinga was indicted two years later for allegedly helping a convicted rapist earn a new trial in exchange for contributions for that congressional campaign, and he stepped down as county prosecutor afterward. A jury, though, acquitted him in 2006, and Marlinga sought to return to public office soon after. After narrowly losing a 2010 primary for the state Senate, Marlinga was decisively elected to a local judgeship in 2012; it was during that campaign that he filled out a questionnaire saying the two U.S. Supreme Court justices he most identified with were anti-abortion hardliners Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, a response that surfaced again a decade later.

Marlinga decided to run for the House again last year after Michigan's independent redistricting commission last cycle created a suburban Detroit seat that would have favored Donald Trump just 50-49, and Democratic Rep. Andy Levin's ill-fated decision to run against colleague Haley Stevens in the 11th District meant that there would be no incumbent here. Marlinga, who argued he'd selected the two conservative justices because he's "always been a strict constitutionalist" but backed abortion rights, decisively won the primary but was in for a difficult general election.

James, who had waged competitive Senate races during the previous two cycles, massively outspent Marlinga $6.1 million to $1 million, and conservative outside groups deployed another $2.4 million as the other side directed their resources elsewhere. Michigan Democrats, though, enjoyed a strong year, and Marlinga came close to pulling off what would have been a truly shocking upset. The former judge, who went on to lead Attorney General Dana Nessel's Elder Abuse Task Force, emphasized James' opposition to abortion rights in his kickoff and argued that this time he'd have the resources to win.

● NJ-07: Greg Vartan, who serves as city council president for the community of Summit (pop. 22,000), tells the New Jersey Globe he's considering joining the Democratic primary to take on GOP Rep. Tom Kean Jr. It may be a few months before he decides, though, as Vartan said he was currently focused on "electing great leaders" in the Nov. 7 local elections.

● TX-18: Isaiah Martin, who is a consultant in the aerospace industry, announced Wednesday that he was seeking the safely blue seat currently held by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a fellow Democrat who is competing in this year's race for mayor of Houston. The incumbent has not said if she'd seek reelection should she lose her current race.

Martin, a 25-year-old who says he wants to be Congress' "next Gen-Z member," is a former Jackson Lee intern, and the Houston Chronicle says he's been aiding her current campaign. The field to succeed the incumbent already includes former Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards, who has said she'll run no matter what Jackson Lee does; Martin, for his part, does not appear to have directly addressed what he'd do should the congresswoman seek reelection.

Mayors and County Leaders

● Baltimore, MD Mayor: Former Mayor Sheila Dixon announced Thursday that she would seek a Democratic primary rematch next May against incumbent Brandon Scott, who beat her 30-27 in the 2020 nomination contest to lead this dark blue city. Dixon, as we recently wrote, resigned in 2010 after she was convicted of stealing gift cards that were supposed to help needy families, but she's still enjoyed a loyal base of support from voters who remember her tenure as a time when the city's high murder rate dropped.

Dixon, who also came close to winning in 2016, kicked off her third comeback effort with an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun touting her accomplishments more than a decade ago and addressing the scandal that ended her career. "I let matters of the heart lead me astray once before," she wrote, "and for that, and the pain that it caused to my beloved Baltimore, I am truly sorry. I hope the people realize that my love for the future of Baltimore outweighs the mistakes of my past."

● Miami-Dade County, FL Mayor: Democratic incumbent Daniella Levine Cava has publicized an internal from MDW arguing that she's favored in next year's nonpartisan race even if her Republican predecessor, Rep. Carlos Giménez, tries to retake his old job. The firm finds Levine Cava leading Giménez 55-19 in the nonpartisan primary, with another 8% going to conservative YouTuber Alex Otaola. (Candidates can avoid a second round by winning a majority in the summer primary.) The sample favored Joe Biden 51-39 over Donald Trump; Biden carried the county 53-46 in 2020.