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

Posted on March 10, 2022 by Daily Kos Elections

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

Check out our podcast, The Downballot!

Embedded Content

LEADING OFF

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Downballot

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

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

Senate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Governors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

House

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Secretaries of State

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

Morning Digest: Texas progressive kicks off primary rematch against conservative House Democrat

Posted on August 6, 2021 by Daily Kos Elections

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

Leading Off

● TX-28: Immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros announced Thursday that she would seek a rematch against Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, a conservative Democrat who defeated her 52-48 in a very expensive 2020 primary. The current version of the 28th District, which includes Laredo, has been reliably blue turf for some time, but like other heavily Latino seats in South Texas' Rio Grande Valley, it lurched hard toward Trump last year: Joe Biden won 52-47 in a seat that Hillary Clinton had carried 58-38, though Cuellar won his general election 58-39 against an unheralded Republican foe.

Cuellar is a longtime force in local politics who has spent his decades in public life frustrating fellow Democrats, and his nine terms in Congress have been no different. In 2014, for instance, the congressman joined with Republicans on legislation to make it easier to deport child migrants. During the first two years of the Trump administration, FiveThirtyEight found that Cuellar voted with the administration nearly 70% of the time, more than any other Democrat in either chamber.

Cuellar, who is the extremely rare Democrat to have ever been endorsed by the radical anti-tax Club for Growth, is also no stranger to crossing party lines. In 2000, he supported George W. Bush's presidential campaign, and in 2018 he came to the aid of a home state colleague, John Carter, during the Republican's competitive re-election fight in the 31st District.

Campaign Action

While Cuellar inflamed national Democrats, though, he went over a decade without attracting a serious primary foe until Cisneros decided to challenge him from the left last cycle, but she quickly proved she could raise a serious amount of money for what turned out to be a pricey and nasty race. Cisneros went after Cuellar for his conservative voting record, with one ad declaring, "Not only did Cuellar vote for Trump's wall twice, but he's taken over $100,000 from corporations that build facilities and cages to detain families." EMILY's List also spent $1 million to back her, while many labor groups were in Cisneros' corner as well.

The congressman, meanwhile, ran a race that could have easily passed for a GOP campaign against the woman his team derided as "the Socialist Cisneros." He argued that Cisneros' support for environmental protection policies would destroy local oil industry jobs, and he aired a commercial arguing that she "supports allowing minors to have an abortion without parents' knowledge."

Cuellar and his allies also tried to portray Cisneros, who was born and raised in South Texas and returned home after briefly practicing law in New York, as an outsider; one particularly ugly mailer from a pro-Cuellar group charged that the challenger was "bringing New York flavor to Texas," complete with pictures of "NYC Pizza" and "NYC Bagel."

Cuellar benefited from spending from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and, remarkably, the Koch network, the first Democrat ever to do so. Republican voters also likely pushed him across the finish line in what turned out to be a tight race: Texas does not have party registration, which left GOP voters who didn't participate in Donald Trump's uncompetitive primary free to vote in the Democratic race.

Cisneros kicked off her new campaign Thursday arguing that not only did Cuellar remain too conservative, he'd also done a poor job aiding his constituents during the pandemic: She specifically took him to task for helping obtain coronavirus testing kits for the district last year that turned out to be defective.

Cisneros' entry into the race attracted far more attention than her launch did two years ago, but that's not the only way that the 2022 primary will be different from last cycle's fight. Perhaps most importantly, no one knows what this constituency will look like after the GOP legislature finishes redistricting, much less whether map makers will try to make it more Republican. And even if the new 28th District doesn't change much, Trump's gains last year could leave some Democrats nervous about losing Cuellar as their nominee.

One other factor is that while the 2020 race was a duel between Cuellar and Cisneros, next year's race could be more crowded. One other contender, educator Tannya Benavides, kicked off her own campaign in mid-June: While Benavides brought in just over $10,000 over the next few weeks, her presence on the ballot could make it tougher for anyone to win the majority of the vote they'd need to avoid a primary runoff.

Cuellar, for his part, raised $240,000 during the second quarter of 2021 and ended June with $1.7 million in the bank. That's considerably less than the $3 million he had available at this point in the 2020 cycle, but it does give him a big head start ahead of his rematch with Cisneros.

Redistricting

● Redistricting: Mark your calendars: The U.S. Census Bureau will release the population data essential for redistricting at a press conference on the afternoon of Aug. 12. The deadline was originally set for April 1, but it was delayed because of disruptions from the pandemic.

Senate

● GA-Sen: CNN reports that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is one of the many prominent Republicans who is worried that former football star Herschel Walker will jeopardize Team Red's chances against Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock should he run, and that he's hoping one prominent name will reconsider his plans to stay out of the race. Former Sen. David Perdue took his name out of contention back in February, but CNN writes that McConnell "has suggested to allies" that he'd like for Perdue to switch course.

Perdue met with McConnell last month in D.C., and while we don't know exactly what was discussed, it's a good bet this contest came up. Perdue himself ignored questions at the time inquiring if he'd run again, and CNN says he also attended a party donor dinner on that trip and "indicated he had nothing to say about whether he would launch another Senate campaign."

The story also says that McConnell would like it if another former GOP senator, Kelly Loeffler, ran as well. Loeffler, unlike her ex-colleague, has shown some public interest, but it's not clear if she's willing to take on Walker if he gets in. An unnamed source did tell CNN that Loeffler would "likely" run should Walker, whom Donald Trump has been aggressively trying to recruit, ultimately stay out, though that would hardly solve McConnell's immediate dilemma.

A trio of notable Peach State Republicans are already in, and McConnell reportedly will be meeting with at least some of them. The top fundraiser so far is banking executive Latham Saddler, who raised $1.4 million and ended June with $1.1 million to spend. State Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, meanwhile, brought in just over $700,000 during his opening weeks and had $680,000 in the bank. Businessman Kelvin King, finally, took in $380,000 from donors, self-funded an additional $300,000, and had $570,000 on-hand.

So far, Black has been the only one to attack Walker, though he hasn't yet brought up the allegations that his would-be rival threatened to kill his ex-wife in 2005. Instead, the commissioner released a digital ad this week making fun of a video where Walker, a longtime Texas resident, got out of a car sporting what appeared to be his new Georgia license plate. (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says that plate is suspended.) "For fun, my ride's a tractor," said Black, "And I've had Georgia plates all my life."

Whoever emerges with the GOP nod will be in for an expensive race against Warnock, who remains a strong fundraiser months after his January special election win. The senator brought in $6.9 million during the second quarter, and he had $10.5 million on-hand.

Governors

● AL-Gov: Gov. Kay Ivey raised $525,000 during July ahead of a potential Republican primary challenge from state Auditor Jim Zeigler, and she had $1.7 million on-hand. Zeigler, who says he'll announce if he'll run on Aug. 21, did set up a fundraising committee this week, though he says state law required him to do that because his GoFundMe campaign fundraiser brought in more than $1,000.

● CA-Gov: SurveyUSA's first poll of the Sept. 14 recall election shows two very unexpected outcomes: a majority of voters are ready to oust Gov. Gavin Newsom, but a fellow Democrat leads in the race to replace him.

While almost every other poll has found at least a plurality of voters saying they'll vote against firing Newsom, SurveyUSA has a 51-40 majority in favor of the pro-recall yes side. Recent numbers from UC Berkeley and Core Decision Analytics showed the anti-recall side ahead 50-47 and 49-42, respectively―closer than Democrats might feel comfortable with, but nowhere near as bad as what these newest numbers show.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, SurveyUSA finds Democrat Kevin Paffrath, a financial analyst who is best known for his YouTube videos about personal finance, leading conservative radio host Larry Elder 27-23 in the race to replace Newsom. Both the aforementioned polls found Elder ahead of other Republicans, with Paffrath, who has no establishment support, taking a mere 3% of the vote.

We always caution that you should never let one poll determine your outlook of a race, and that's especially true when that poll has such startling results. We'll almost certainly get more numbers here before too long, though, which will give us a better idea of the state of next month's race.

● HI-Gov: Honolulu City Councilwoman Andria Tupola, a Republican, announced Wednesday that she would not run for governor next year. Tupola was Team Red’s 2018 nominee against Democratic Gov. David Ige, a contest she lost 63-34.

Tupola is the only Republican who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for this office so far, which Republicans have not won since 2006.

● IL-Gov: Kirk Dillard, who heads the board of directors for the Regional Transportation Agency, said on Wednesday that he was considering seeking the GOP nomination to take on Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker next year. Dillard was the runner-up in the 2010 and 2014 Republican primaries for this seat, losing both races by narrow margins.

● NH-Gov: John DiStaso of WMUR writes that some New Hampshire Democrats are urging Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington to run for governor next year. There’s no quote from Warmington about her 2022 plans, though DiStaso also relays that she’s focused on her current job, which is not a no.

Warmington is the lone Democrat on the five-member Executive Council, a body that is key for certain legislation along with approving executive and judicial appointments. Currently, Democrats do not yet have a notable candidate for this seat, though Rep. Chris Pappas and 2020 nominee Dan Feltes have not ruled out bids.

● NY-Gov: Following Tuesday’s bombshell release of the state attorney general's investigation report concluding that Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women, five New York district attorneys have confirmed that they’re investigating sexual harassment allegations against the governor, with two of them saying that they’ve already opened criminal investigations. Cuomo may have more immediate worries, though, as the Associated Press reports that 86 of the 150 members of the state Assembly say they support opening impeachment proceedings.

If a majority of the lower chamber votes to impeach him, Cuomo’s powers would be temporarily transferred to a fellow Democrat, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul; the governor would only regain his powers if he manages to avoid conviction in the Senate. It will likely be a little while, though, before impeachment can start. The Democratic-run Assembly has given Cuomo until Aug. 13 to submit evidence in his defense, and two members of the Judiciary Committee, Tom Abinanti and Phil Steck, tell the AP they expect the chamber’s investigation to end in “weeks or a month.”

The pair said that plenty of their colleagues want Cuomo impeached much faster following the release of Attorney General Tish James’s report. However, they argued that the Assembly needs time to build a strong argument for the Senate, which is also controlled by Democrats and would ultimately decide Cuomo’s fate.

Deputy Senate Majority Leader Mike Gianaris said that should the Assembly vote to impeach, his chamber could begin Cuomo’s trial weeks later. As we’ve written before, members of New York’s highest court, known as the Court of Appeals, would also sit as jurors. Democratic Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins would not participate, however, because she is second in the line of succession after the lieutenant governor. As a result, the jury would consist of seven judges—all of whom are Cuomo appointees—and 62 senators, with a two-thirds majority, or 46 votes, needed to convict the governor and remove him from office.

Cuomo could avoid all this by resigning, but he’s continued to proclaim his innocence and refuse to quit. The governor was similarly defiant in March as more and more allegations surfaced about his behavior and other alleged abuses in office, but while he had enough allies back then to hang on, his situation has very much deteriorated following James’ Tuesday press conference. Several longtime Cuomo backers, including state party chair Jay Jacobs and the state’s influential unions, have turned against him, and the New York Times notes that he has very few prominent defenders left.

Indeed, Cuomo’s most high-profile advocate at this point may be disgraced Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who characteristically compared Cuomo’s situation to the multitude of allegations leveled at his old client. Giuliani’s son, former White House staffer Andrew Giuliani, announced earlier this year that he’d run against Cuomo.

House

● FL-20: State Sen. Bobby Powell said Wednesday that he would support state Rep. Bobby DuBose rather than compete in November's special Democratic primary. The filing deadline is Aug. 10.

● MO-07: GOP Rep. Billy Long kicked off a Senate bid earlier this week, and several Republicans have already been mentioned or expressed interest in replacing the six-term congressman in this 70-28 Trump seat.

State Sen. Mike Moon, former state Sen. Jay Wasson, and physician Sam Alexander all indicated they were considering getting in. State Sen. Lincoln Hough, whom the Missouri Independent mentioned as a possible candidate on Wednesday, also did not rule out a bid. State Rep. Cody Smith and former state Sen. Gary Nodler likewise did not rule out bids, but both sound unlikely to run.

State Sen. Bill White, former state House Speaker Elijah Haahr, Greene County Presiding Commissioner Bob Dixon, and former state Sen. Ron Richard all said they would not enter the contest, while former U.S. Attorney Tim Garrison was mentioned as a possible candidate by St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum.

Mayors

● Cleveland, OH Mayor: EMILY’s List has endorsed Democratic state Sen. Sandra Williams for mayor of Cleveland.

Morning Digest: How Ossoff and Warnock ran up the score to turn Georgia blue and flip the Senate

Posted on January 21, 2021 by Daily Kos Elections

Leading Off

● Senate-by-CD: With Democrats officially regaining control of the Senate on Wednesday, Daily Kos Elections is pleased to release the results of Georgia's Jan. 5 regular and special Senate runoffs, as well as the contest that same day for state Public Service Commission, for each of the state's 14 congressional districts. To help you follow along, we've put together a sheet with the results of each of these contests, as well as the 2020 presidential race.

Raphael Warnock defeated appointed Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler 51.0-49.0 in a special election for the final two years of former Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson's term, while fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff beat Republican Sen. David Perdue by a slightly narrower 50.6-49.4 in the contest for a regular six-year term. At the same time, though, Republican incumbent Bubba McDonald won re-election to the Public Service Commission by fending off Democrat Daniel Blackman 50.4-49.6.

Warnock, Ossoff, and McDonald each won the same six Democratic-held House seats that now-President Joe Biden took two months before when he was winning 49.5-49.3, while the remaining eight Republican-controlled constituencies voted for all of the GOP's statewide candidates. However, there were some notable differences in how each of these four Democrats performed that we'll briefly discuss.

Campaign Action

Ossoff ran ahead of Biden's November margin in 10 of the 14 seats, while Warnock outran Biden in 11, though in the runoffs, of course, there were no third-party candidates. The one seat where Warnock did better than Biden by margin but Ossoff didn't is the Atlanta-based 5th District, which is held by freshman Democratic Rep. Nikema Williams, though the differences were extremely small.

Ossoff and Warnock's biggest overperformance compared to Biden was in Democratic Rep. David Scott's 13th District in the southwestern Atlanta suburbs, where the two ran about 4-5 points ahead of the top of the ticket. Interestingly, both Senate candidates also eclipsed Biden in the 7th District, a historically red seat in the northeast Atlanta area that Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux flipped last year.

A bit surprisingly, both Ossoff and Warnock did a little better in the 7th than in Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath's 6th District, another former conservative stronghold in the Atlanta suburbs that has swung hard to the left in recent years. This seat also represented the largest underperformance for both Senate candidates compared to Biden, just as it did in November, despite the fact that Ossoff ran in the famous 2017 special election here; on Jan. 5, Ossoff trailed Biden by 6 points and Warnock trailed him by five.

Warnock also ran ahead of Ossoff in all 14 congressional districts. The largest gap was in the 6th District, where, as noted just above, Warnock did two points better, while the smallest was in Republican Rep. Buddy Carter's 1st District in the Savannah area, which saw almost no difference.

One important reason the two Democrats prevailed is that, while turnout unsurprisingly dropped from November to January in every congressional district, Team Blue was better able to mobilize its voters for the second round. As our map shows, Perdue hemorrhaged votes in heavily Republican seats, while Ossoff's dropoff was smaller in the very blue districts that ring Atlanta.

In fact, the site of Perdue's second-worst falloff (by just a hair) was rural northwest Georgia's 14th District, the new home of notorious insurrectionist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene—and the site of an election eve rally by a certain resident of Mar-a-Lago. There, in what should have been the heart of GOP country, Perdue's turnout plummeted 12.5%.

Turning briefly to the race for Public Service Commission, Blackman ran behind Biden in 11 districts. The largest source of Democratic downballot underperformance was again in the 6th District, which may indicate that this area has plenty of voters who have turned against the GOP in presidential races but are still open to supporting Republicans in other races. Blackman's best seat compared to Biden was, like Warnock's and Ossoff's, also the 13th District.

Senate

● CA-Sen, GA-Sen-A, GA-Sen-B: In one of her first acts after being sworn in on Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris in turn administered the oath of office to the Senate's three newest Democratic members: Alex Padilla of California and Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia. With that act, the Senate returned to full strength, with 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, but because of Harris' tie-breaking vote, Democrats retook control of the chamber. As a result, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer was elevated to the post of majority leader, making him the first Jewish person to hold the job.

Both Padilla and Warnock will go before voters again in 2022, while Ossoff will not face re-election until 2026.

● FL-Sen, FL-01: Rep. Matt Gaetz, a leading insurrectionist and peddler of the lie that left-wing forces were responsible for the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, says he has "no interest" in running against Sen. Marco Rubio in next year's Republican primary after a GOP official at the other end of the state talked up the idea to a local reporter. However, Gaetz added that he "would consider running" for state Agriculture Commissioner, a post currently held by Democrat Nikki Fried. If Gaetz were to seek a promotion, that would prompt an open-seat race for his heavily red 1st District, located in the Florida panhandle.

● NC-Sen: The New York Times reported on Tuesday that, just hours before the new administration took office, the Justice Department told Republican Sen. Richard Burr that it would drop an investigation into allegations that he engaged in insider trading last year after receiving classified briefings as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The paper says, however, that a parallel SEC inquiry may still be ongoing. Burr long ago announced that he would retire next year, but last month he ever-so-slightly re-opened the door to a bid for a fourth term.

Governors

● AK-Gov: Activists seeking to recall Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who put their campaign on hold last year when the coronavirus made signature-gathering very difficult, say they plan to restart their effort with vaccination now underway. Organizers say they will seek to collect petitions both by mail and safely in person.

Before pausing, recall proponents said they'd obtained almost 50,000 signatures, meaning they'd need at least 22,000 more to hit the threshold required to commence a recall election. If successful, officials would have to schedule an election 60 to 90 days after all signatures are verified, a process that can take up to 30 days. A bipartisan coalition kicked off the process in 2019, furious with Dunleavy's draconian budget cuts, including a retaliatory reduction in funds for the Alaska Supreme Court after it ruled against him in an abortion rights case.

While Dunleavy is on the ballot in 2022, one organizer explained the renewed push by saying, "There's so many things, so many reasons why two more years is way too long." If Dunleavy is ultimately removed from office, Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer, a fellow Republican, would take his place.

● NE-Gov: State Sen. Brett Lindstrom recently told the Lincoln Journal Star that he was leaning towards running to succeed his fellow Republican, termed-out-Gov. Pete Ricketts, but that he wouldn't be making any announcements until the legislative session ends in late May.

Lindstrom, who played as a walk-on for the University of Nebraska's football team in the early 2000s, got his start in electoral politics in 2012 when he ran against then-Rep. Lee Terry in the GOP primary for the 2nd Congressional District, a contest where Terry prevailed 59-23. Lindstrom successfully won an Omaha area state Senate seat two years later, and as the online magazine Ozy wrote in a 2017 profile, he's occasionally defied his party's far-right orthodoxy.

Lindstrom was the crucial vote to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska during his first year in office, a stance that led to at least one death threat. (Ricketts and his allies successfully promoted a ballot measure to reinstate capital punishment.) Lindstrom also backed workplace protections for LGBTQ people and voted to override Ricketts' veto of a gas tax.

House

● OH-11: Former state Sen. Shirley Smith announced this week that she would enter the Democratic primary if there's a special election to succeed Rep. Marcia Fudge, who is President Joe Biden's nominee for secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Smith joins ex-state Sen. Nina Turner, Cuyahoga County Councilwoman Shontel Brown, and former Cleveland City Councilman Jeff Johnson in the contest for this safely blue seat which, according to new Daily Kos Elections data, backed Biden 80-19.

Smith has a long career in Cleveland politics going back to her 1998 election to the state House and her subsequent service in the upper chamber. Smith was termed-out in 2014 and ran for Cuyahoga County executive, but she lost the Democratic primary to the eventual winner, Armond Budish, by a 56-20 margin.

● WY-AL: Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-ranking Republican in the House, just earned a primary challenge from state Sen. Anthony Bouchard as a result of her vote to impeach Donald Trump last week. Bouchard slammed Cheney in his kickoff, saying her "long-time opposition to President Trump and her most recent vote for impeachment shows just how out of touch she is with Wyoming."

The Casper Star-Tribune describes Bouchard as a gun activist and says he's "built a reputation in the Wyoming Legislature as one of its most conservative members." Politics1 also reports that on social media, Bouchard has been "a vocal fan" of two of the most extreme Republican members of the House, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert.

Legislative

● Special Elections: Here's a recap of Tuesday's special election in Alabama:

AL-HD-33: Republican Ben Robbins defeated Democrat Fred Crum 68-32 to hold this Sylacauga-area seat for the GOP. This district became vacant when former Rep. Ron Johnson died last year. Robbins' victory was a very slight improvement for Team Red from Johnson's 67-33 win in his final race in 2018.

This makeup of this chamber is now 76-28 in favor of Republicans with one other seat vacant.

Prosecutors

● Criminal Justice: 2021 will feature contests for district attorney and sheriff in a number of major counties, and the Appeal's Daniel Nichanian is out with a detailed preview of what to watch this year as criminal justice reformers look to make more inroads and defend influential allies.

One early test will take place on May 18 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where one of the most prominent reformers in the country, District Attorney Larry Krasner, faces a challenge in the Democratic primary from former prosecutor Carlos Vega. Vega has been a loud critic of the incumbent, whom he argues has been running "an experiment that is costing the lives of our children." The winner of the Democratic nomination should have no trouble in the November general election in this heavily blue city.

Another very high-profile race is also underway in Manhattan, where the winner of the June 22 Democratic primary will also be the heavy favorite. Incumbent Cy Vance has yet to announce if he'll seek a fourth term, but New York City politicos almost universally expected him to retire even before they learned he'd raised just $2,000 during the second half of 2020.

Eight fellow Democrats are currently competing to replace Vance, and with the exception of attorney and former prosecutor Liz Crotty, all of them have pitched themselves as progressives who will bring much needed changes to the office. There's no obvious frontrunner at the moment in what's already an expensive race.

There's plenty more to watch across the country this year, and you'll want to check out Nichanian's preview of this year's major criminal justice contests.

Grab Bag

● Where Are They Now?: Defense One reported Tuesday that former Rep. Max Rose, a Democrat who lost his bid for a second term last year in New York's 11th District, would take a job in the Biden Defense Department as an advisor on COVID-19. Rose, who previously served in the Army in Afghanistan, does not require Senate confirmation.

● Where Are They Now?: On his way out the door, Donald Trump issued pardons to three former Republican congressmen who had been convicted in a trio of unrelated public corruption scandals: Arizona's Rick Renzi, California's Randy "Duke" Cunningham, and North Carolina's Robin Hayes. Trump also commuted the sentence of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, a Democrat who had served six years of a 28-year sentence for corruption.

Schumer, McConnell working out how to handle 50-50 Senate, but Democrats have most control

Posted on January 19, 2021 by Joan McCarter

The first duty for Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on Wednesday once she’s officially Vice President Harris will be to swear in Alex Padilla, the successor to her Senate seat in California. She could also be swearing in Georgia's new senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, though that's a bit uncertain, depending on when Georgia can finish up certification of the election. (The deadline is Friday, but they're moving faster.) With that, Sen. Chuck Schumer becomes majority leader and Mitch McConnell has more time to cook up plots to stymie the Biden administration and Schumer. Officially, the two have determined a power-sharing agreement based on the precedent set in the 2001 Senate, which also split 50-50.

That agreement is expected to give Schumer and committee chairs the power of setting the schedule. The committee assignments will be split evenly, but Democrats will chair and have the power to set the agenda on committees. Tied committee votes on legislation or on nominations will probably default to the Democrats and advance to the floor, where Harris would be able to break ties. This agreement is roughly what staff has worked out thus far; the leaders are set to meet Tuesday to ink the final organizing resolution that will determine all that. They also need to work out the logistics of the coming impeachment trial of Donald Trump and coordinating that with the urgent votes on President-elect Joe Biden's Cabinet nominees. One old Senate hand, Jim Manley, has heard—presumably from contacts in the leadership team—that the staff negotiations "did not go as smoothly as published reports suggested." So it could be a rather interesting meeting. On the whole, though, procedural experts are saying, "Don't panic."

Adam Jentleson, former deputy chief of staff to Harry Reid and procedure guru tweeted: "it's fine. If Dems control the floor and gavels, and ties in committees advance bills or nominations to the floor, those are the powers that come with majority control." It's inconceivable that Schumer gives that away, and it would go against the 2001 precedent. "The functional reality of the Senate will not be noticeably different under this than it'd be if Democrats had a bigger majority," Jentleson continued. The two leaders, Schumer and McConnell, will hash out the organizing resolution that determines all this. It will require 60 votes to pass and could be subject to filibuster if someone really wants to raise hell—presumably Rand Paul or Ted Cruz.

There are other outstanding questions about things like subpoena power, but those things will be determined by the committees and the power-sharing agreements worked out by them, which can also change as the committee moves along depending on how much the committee chair wants it. At Judiciary in the past couple of years, Sen. Lindsey Graham was happy to ignore committee rules or change them on the fly to shove through Trump nominees.

There will be complications because Republicans are awful, and Mitch McConnell. The even split gives the so-called moderates—Democrat Joe Manchin and Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins—outsized power. There is, however, always the threat that Democrats will get so frustrated with obstruction that even Manchin will get to the point of nuking the last vestiges of the filibuster. Both Schumer and McConnell are going to be counting on 100% loyalty among their members, and they're going to be counting on 100% attendance to succeed with their agendas, and neither can probably expect it. But as it stands now, the arrangement shaping up between the leaders is standard and not yet anything to get worked up over.

Morning Digest: Another suburban surge saw Biden flip key Michigan district that Romney won in 2012

Posted on December 8, 2020 by Daily Kos Elections

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

Leading Off

● Pres-by-CD: Our project to calculate the 2020 presidential results for all 435 congressional districts nationwide heads to Michigan, which returned to the Democratic column after another competitive race. You can find our complete data set here, which we're updating continuously as the precinct-level election returns we need for our calculations become available.

After supporting Donald Trump 47.6-47.4 four years ago, Michigan went for Joe Biden by a wider 51-48 margin, and he improved on Hillary Clinton's performance in 12 of 14 districts, with the only exceptions coming in the two bluest seats. Biden carried the same five districts that had supported Clinton plus Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens' 11th District in the northwestern Detroit suburbs. Trump, meanwhile, carried the other eight constituencies he'd taken in 2016. You can find a larger version of our map here.

Since it's the lone flip, we'll start with the 11th District, which shifted from 50-45 Trump to 52-47 Biden. This seat also went for Mitt Romney 52-47 back in 2012, which makes it the first Romney/Trump/Biden district we've found anywhere in the country. Major outside groups on both sides spent a serious amount of money late in the campaign in the race between Stevens and Republican Eric Esshaki, but Biden's victory helped Stevens prevail 50-48.

Campaign Action

While Democrats had no trouble holding the other five Biden seats, Rep. Dan Kildee's 5th District was once again competitive at the presidential level. This constituency, which is home to Flint, Saginaw, and Bay City, shrunk from 61-38 Obama to 49.8 to 45.5 Clinton, but while Democrats hoped that it would snap back in 2020, Biden won by an almost identical 4.3-point margin (51.4 to 47.1) this time. Congressional Republicans, though, were unable to take advantage of the area's drift to the right. Former state Rep. Tim Kelly raised very little, and Kildee handily beat him 54-42.

A different district that had trended the wrong way for Democrats between 2012 and 2016, however, did return to form this year. The 9th District in the northern Detroit suburbs had narrowed from 57-42 Obama to 51-44 Clinton, but Biden carried it by an Obama-esque 56-43 margin; Rep. Andy Levin, meanwhile, won his second term 58-38. Biden also won Rep. Debbie Dingell's 12th District in the Ann Arbor area 64-34, while he took close to 80% of the vote in both the 13th and 14th Districts in the Detroit area, which are respectively held by Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Brenda Lawrence.

We'll move on to the eight Trump seats, starting with the only one to elect a Democrat to the House this year. The 8th District in the Lansing region did support Trump again, but his tight 50-49 win was a considerable drop from his 51-44 showing in 2016. Democrat Elissa Slotkin flipped this seat two years ago 51-47 after a very expensive race, and she won by that very same margin this year, albeit in a contest that attracted far less outside money.

Biden narrowed the gap in a few other districts, but his improved performance wasn't enough to cost Team Red control of any of their seats. The 3rd District in the Grand Rapids area went for Trump 51-47 after backing him by a stronger 52-42 margin; Republican Peter Meijer, though, won the race to succeed retiring Republican-turned-Libertarian Rep. Justin Amash by beating Democrat Hillary Scholten 53-47 after a costly race.

The 6th District in southwestern Michigan, meanwhile, supported Trump 51-47, which was also a drop from his 51-43 victory in 2016. Veteran Republican Rep. Fred Upton, however, again ran well ahead of the ticket and won his 18th term 56-40.

Trump carried the remaining five GOP-held seats by double digits, though notably, his margin of victory was weaker in all of them than it was in 2016. Rep. Jack Bergman's 1st District in the northern part of the state went for Trump 58-41 four years after backing him 58-37. Meanwhile, Rep. Bill Huizenga's 2nd District along the western Michigan coast backed the top of the ticket 55-43 compared to Trump's 56-38 spread last time. Things were more stable in the 4th, 7th, and 10th Districts, but Biden's improved share of the vote across the board was key to his victory.

Republicans have enjoyed complete control over the redistricting process in Michigan the last three rounds, but this time will be different. In 2018, voters passed an amendment to the state constitution that creates an independent commission to craft new congressional and legislative boundaries.

Georgia Runoffs

● GA-Sen-A, GA-Sen-B: The New York Times' Shane Goldmacher has shared some new data that vividly illustrates just how big the gap can be in the prices paid for advertising by federal campaigns versus outside groups.

While the specifics are a bit technical, federal law guarantees something called the "lowest unit charge" to candidates, ensuring that they pay the lowest possible rates to air ads on TV and radio. These rules do not apply to third parties, however, so super PACs and the like have to pay full freight.

Goldmacher's data shows Jon Ossoff's campaign paying just $6,000 to run a spot on Jeopardy! on the Atlanta-based station WXIA. For the same program during the same time period, however, a Democratic super PAC called Georgia Honor (run by the Senate Majority PAC) has to shell out $25,000 per ad. As Goldmacher notes, a 4-to-1 gulf like this isn't necessarily the norm, but this example starkly shows how all ad dollars are not equal.

For this reason, advertising professionals instead prefer to look at a metric known as "gross ratings points," which again are technical but, in broad terms, describe how often an advertiser can expect a particular ad to be seen by its intended audience. Another useful concept is "share of voice," which refers to the proportion of total advertising run by one side or the other.

Of course, all of this is a prelude to … even more ads! Here are the latest:

An NRSC spot says that a victory for Ossoff and Raphael Warnock would empower "Nancy Pelosi, AOC, and Bernie Sanders." The focus on both candidates is a bit unusual, as most attack ads so far from both sides have devoted themselves to hitting just one target.
Warnock features a man who lost his wife to COVID. Heartbreakingly, he says, "It shoulda been me, instead of her. That's just how much I cared about her." He blasts Sen. Kelly Loeffler: "Kelly Loeffler sold her stock and told us not to worry."
A woman praises Loeffler for helping her make sure her unemployment benefits got extended. Loeffler has opposed legislation in Congress to extend unemployment benefits for all Americans during the pandemic.
A different woman, identified as a small business owner, thanks Loeffler for offering unspecified help to keep her business open.
A Spanish-language ad from Ossoff attacks Sen. David Perdue for supporting Trump's policies to separate migrant children from their parents.
A Spanish ad from Warnock emphasizes his religious faith, including the fact that he's now pastor at the same church MLK once presided over.

senate

● AZ-Sen: If you had an enormous high school filled with warring cliques that all hated each other, only instead of students it was filled with GOP politicians, and instead of lunchroom supremacy actual lives were at stake, that would go a long way toward explaining the embarrassing explosion of infighting among Arizona Republicans. Beyond that, we don't dare summarize the Arizona Republic's masterful explication of this absurd food fight, but there are a couple of tidbits about prospective 2022 candidates who could take on Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly that we can yank out of the mess.

Most notably, reporters Ronald Hansen and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez say that state GOP chair Kelli Ward, an extreme lunatic who has already lost two Senate bids, could potentially run once more. Ward, a former state senator who achieved infamy in 2014 for hosting a town hall to air conspiracy theories about so-called "chemtrails," ran against Sen. John McCain in the Republican primary in 2016 and held him to a surprisingly soft 51-40 margin.

Soon thereafter, she issued a challenge to Arizona's other senator at the time, Jeff Flake, ahead of the 2018 midterms. But Flake, under constant assault from Donald Trump, opted to retire after just a single term, and Republicans rallied around then-Rep. Martha McSally, who beat Ward 55-28 (Ward may have split the crazytown vote with the notorious Joe Arpaio, who took 18%).

It turns out, though, that losing two Senate races is not the end of the line for an Arizona Republican (McSally, take heart!). The following year, Ward was selected to run the state Republican Party and quickly brought the organization into disrepute. Fundraising nosedived while Ward made headlines for fomenting resistance to pandemic safety measures, even encouraging protesters to pretend to be frontline healthcare workers by donning medical scrubs. 2020 ended, of course, with Arizona going blue at the presidential level for the first time since 1996—and sending two Democrats to the Senate for the first time since 1953.

Hansen and Wingett Sanchez also mention another, more recent Senate loser as a potential GOP candidate, businessman Daniel McCarthy, who was treated to a 75-25 thumpin' by McSally in this year's primary. McCarthy, at the time 34 years old, compared himself to Jesus on the campaign trail ("I am qualified for the job. Jesus was 33 when he saved the world") and called Maricopa County's mask mandate "a communist insurrection." Like Ward, McCarthy's also been involved in the recent cafeteria antics of the Arizona GOP—but again, for that, you'll need to read the Republic.

● FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Former Rep. David Jolly, a Republican-turned-independent who's been a vocal Trump critic for years, says he's considering a bid for Senate or governor as an independent. Jolly seems at least somewhat realistic about his chances, saying, "I do think we could mount a viable campaign. But viable and winning look very different and require a lot of money."

At the same time, he seems to think that the one recent Florida election that featured a strong third-party candidate somehow bolsters his case. The Tampa Bay Times' Steve Contorno reports that as "evidence of his path, Jolly points to the 2010 U.S. Senate race," an open-seat contest in which Republican Marco Rubio defeated another Republican-cum-independent, then-Gov. Charlie Crist, 49-30, with Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek taking just 20%. With Democrats certain to run a credible challenger of their own in 2022, it's hard to understand why Jolly believes he could do any better against Rubio than Crist did.

● GA-Sen-A, GA-Sen-B: The Republican pollster Trafalgar Group has released a new survey of Georgia's runoffs, but after much deliberation, we've decided that we aren't going to write about it or include it in our database due to its founder's public embrace of conspiracy theories. Barring further developments, we will maintain this policy for all future Trafalgar polling.

Trafalgar has earned headlines over the past few years for its unorthodox methodology, which seeks to compensate for what the firm's principal, Robert Cahaly, has referred to as "social desirability bias"—the alleged propensity of so-called "shy Trump voters" to tell pollsters whom they really support. While Trafalgar's approach made it one of the few firms to forecast a Trump win in 2016, it performed poorly in 2018, and its final polls also predicted a Trump victory this year (by carrying Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona).

Other pollsters have sharply questioned Trafalgar's methods, with one political science professor telling the New York Times, "If somebody's not transparent you can generally assume they're crap." That same article reported that Trafalgar is "considered far too shadowy by other pollsters to be taken seriously" and noted that Cahaly's bare-bones methodology page "reads like a vague advertisement of its services and explains that its polls actively confront social desirability bias, without giving specifics as to how."

These issues have concerned us for some time, but ultimately, our decision is motivated by Cahaly's acceptance and amplification of election conspiracy theories. Cahaly baselessly claimed to Sean Hannity before the election that Trump would have to win Pennsylvania "by 4 or 5 to overtake the voter fraud that will happen there."

More recently, he tweeted that his new Georgia poll is "based on All votes we anticipate to be counted in GA Senate Runoff (both above and below the table)." That's a reference to a soundly debunked conspiracy theory that election workers in Fulton County somehow rigged the election by counting fake ballots taken out of "suitcases" they'd placed under a table—one that Republican officials with the secretary of state's office blasted as "ridiculous."

We take a heterodox approach to polling—there are many ways to get it right, and no one has a monopoly on the truth. But the truth is what we all must seek. Excluding polls is not something we do lightly, but when a pollster espouses beliefs about elections that are demonstrably false, we are unable to conclude that such a person does in fact believe in seeking the truth.

● IL-Sen, IL-Gov: Regarding possible bids against either of the two top Illinois Democrats up for election in 2022, Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger tells Politico, "I never rule anything out." Not only would Kinzinger be an underdog in either race, however, given the state's heavily Democratic lean, he'd also likely face a difficult primary, on account of his outspoken criticism of Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the election—criticism that already has fellow Republicans gunning for him.

Gubernatorial

● GA-Gov: At a Saturday rally for the Georgia runoffs in which he predictably focused almost entirely on his grievances about his own election, Donald Trump managed to cram in another unrelated race when he touted outgoing Rep. Doug Collins as a candidate for governor in 2022. "Doug, you want to run for governor in two years?" Trump asked after noting Collins was in attendance. "He'd be a good-looking governor."

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently floated Collins as a potential primary challenger to Gov. Brian Kemp, whom Trump has excoriated for not seeking to overturn the results of Georgia's presidential contest. That line of attack continued on Saturday, with Trump repeatedly attacking Kemp during a meandering 100-minute speech. "Your governor should be ashamed of himself," said Trump at one point, and at another claiming Kemp is "afraid of Stacey Abrams.”

● IL-Gov: Politico's Shia Kapos reports that ultra-wealthy Chicago Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts is not "ruling out a run" for governor, per a "source close to" Ricketts. It's not clear exactly how rich Ricketts himself is, but Forbes estimates the Ricketts family's net worth at $3 billion. That fortune was built by patriarch Joe Ricketts, Todd's father, who built the online trading powerhouse now known as TD Ameritrade.

Most of the family has been heavily involved in Republican politics. The elder Ricketts has long been a major GOP donor and conservative activist, in particular through his super PAC, the anti-earmarks Ending Spending Fund. Todd Ricketts became the RNC's finance chair in 2018 and his oldest brother, Pete, is governor of Nebraska. His sister, Laura, however, is an LGBTQ rights activist and a top giver to Democratic campaigns.

● KS-Gov: Soon-to-be former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is refusing to rule out a bid against Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly in 2022, telling the Wall Street Journal, "I haven't given half a second's thought to the political races in the state of Kansas." Last cycle, Pompeo played a long, drawn-out game of "will he or won't he?" when Mitch McConnell tried to recruit him to run for the Senate, a race Pompeo now claims he "was never seriously considering."

Pompeo's unparalleled stature in Kansas GOP politics would probably lead the field to clear for him should he choose to run: State party chair Mike Kuckelman said to the Journal, "From the perspective of what I'm hearing within the party, he can do whatever he wants." But that cuts both ways. As in in 2020, a lengthy but unconsummated dalliance could undermine other potential candidates. Ultimately, Pompeo's dithering didn't prevent Republicans from holding the state's open Senate seat last month, but they'd probably rather not go through the same rigmarole again.

● MA-Gov: Joe Battenfeld of the conservative Boston Herald reports that Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone is considering seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in 2022. Curtatone has roundly criticized Republican Gov. Charlie Baker for not taking enough action to combat the coronavirus pandemic in Massachusetts, and while the mayor has been tightlipped when talking about his own electoral plans, he very much hasn't ruled anything out. "That has not crossed my mind at all," Curtatone told Battenfeld about a potential gubernatorial run, adding, "This isn't the time to take political shots at anyone."

Curtatone was first elected mayor of Somerville, which is located just north of Boston and includes part of Tufts University, in 2003, and he's been mentioned as a prospective candidate for higher office for years. Curtatone himself notably spent months in 2013 thinking about a gubernatorial run but decided to stay put, while Baker ended up winning the office the following year. Curtatone is up for re-election next year, and while he could run for governor afterwards, Battenfeld writes that the mayor probably wouldn't seek a sixth term if he decides to take on Baker.

Baker himself has not yet announced if he'll run for a third term, though he began making preparations all the way back in 2019. A recent MassInc poll for the nonprofit The Barr Foundation found Baker with a strong 68-22 favorable rating in what is usually a very blue state, but there was one potential warning sign for the governor just below the surface: While Baker received an 81-13 score from Democrats, Republicans only gave Baker the thumbs up by a 54-40 margin.

● NM-Gov: New Mexico GOP chair Steve Pearce is reportedly considering a 2022 rematch against Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who crushed him by a 57-43 margin in their first face-off two years ago.

Pearce represented southern New Mexico's conservative 2nd Congressional District for many years, but his two stints were bookended by statewide failures: He lost a Senate primary in 2000 after serving four years in the legislature, won a seat in Congress in 2002, then got destroyed in a 2008 Senate bid before returning to the House in the 2010 GOP wave, only to give it all up for his hopeless gubernatorial run in 2018.

As for Grisham, she'd reportedly been under consideration for a post in Joe Biden's cabinet, but both she and the Biden transition team announced on Sunday that she would not be joining the next administration.

● PA-Gov: Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who has soared to prominence of late thanks to his bellicose support for Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of Pennsylvania's presidential election, gets mentioned as a possible candidate for governor in 2022 in a new profile from the Philadelphia Inquirer's Andrew Seidman.

While Mastriano wouldn't speak to Seidman, when asked recently by conservative radio host Charlie Kirk if he'd run, he said, "If we get the call from God, we're not gonna stand away from our Esther moment"—exploiting the biblical story of Queen Esther, who is credited with putting her life at risk to save the Jews of Persia from destruction, to describe his own interest in seeking a political promotion.

Mastriano's arrival as a latter-day Jewish heroine is a relatively recent thing: A veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, he first ran for Pennsylvania's 13th Congressional District in 2018, shortly after retiring from the Army as a colonel. He badly lost the primary to now-Rep. David Joyce, but he fared better the following year when he won a special election to the legislature.

He also made news in bizarre fashion late last month when he had to bolt from an Oval Office meeting with Trump after learning he'd tested positive for the coronavirus. (There are so many things weird with this story.)

While his loving embrace of Trump ought to be a boon in a primary, Mastriano could spell danger for the GOP in the general election. "We had a super Trumpy older white guy state senator from central Pennsylvania as our 2018 gubernatorial nominee," said one local GOP operative to Seidman, referring to former state Sen. Scott Wagner, who ran against term-limited Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf two years ago. "And he got 40% of the vote." In total fairness, Wagner won 40.7%, which rounds up to 41.

● RI-Gov: WPRI's Ted Nesi reports that outgoing Cranston Mayor Alan Fung, who was the GOP's nominee for governor in both 2014 and 2018, is considering a third try, though there's no quote from Fung or anyone connected to him. Fung lost a three-way open-seat race to Democrat Gina Raimondo 41-36 in 2014 (a third-party candidate took 21%), then got smoked 53-37 in a more traditional rematch four years later. Raimondo is term-limited in 2022 (as Fung himself was this year), and a whole host of top-shelf Democrats could try to succeed her.

● SC-Gov: Outgoing Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham, who unexpectedly lost a difficult re-election bid for South Carolina's 1st Congressional District last month, declined to rule out a bid for governor in 2022, telling the Post & Courier of his future plans, "It's good to take some time and assess things. That's not a decision I can make right now." Republican Gov. Henry McMaster has said he will seek a second full term.

● VA-Gov: Despite the pandemic, Virginia Republicans opted over the weekend to choose nominees for statewide office via a convention rather than a state-run primary, prompting one GOP candidate to make good on a threat to bolt the party and announce a bid for governor as an independent.

State Sen. Amanda Chase, known for her far-right views, had long opposed a convention and attacked the "Republican establishment elite" for favoring one, apparently in the belief that it would benefit the only other declared contender, former state House Speaker Kirk Cox. If that sounds surprising, to an extent, it is: As the Virginia Mercury's Ned Oliver put it, the decision "turned conventional wisdom about the benefits of primaries versus conventions on its head," since GOP conventions typically favor the most extreme candidates.

But as Oliver alludes, Chase is so deeply on the outs with fellow Republicans that her ability to muster the necessary support among convention delegates, with whom personal relationships are often crucial, is extremely weak. Chase was booted by her county GOP organization last year after she supported an independent candidate for sheriff who ran against the Republican incumbent, and a couple of months later, she actually quit the GOP caucus in the Senate.

It's not clear whether Republicans will try to host an in-person gathering despite the massive danger—it's possible they could instead choose an "unassembled" convention, which might more closely resemble a so-called "firehouse" (or party-run) primary. But whatever unfolds, the electorate will be far smaller than had they chosen a traditional primary, where Chase could have won with a plurality, as opposed to the majority required at a convention.

The decision to forego a primary prompted some heated words from one potential candidate, outgoing Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman, who himself lost renomination at a convention earlier this year. The Virginia GOP "is a raging dumpster fire," tweeted Riggleman, who late last month said that his interest in a bid had "diminished." Presumably, his desire to seek the Republican nod is even lower now, though he's also held out the possibility of running as an independent.

House

● CA-08: Republican Rep. Paul Cook resigned Monday to take his spot on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors. Cook's congressional seat will remain vacant until January, when fellow Republican Jay Obernolte is sworn in along with the rest of the new Congress.

And while it may seem strange that Cook decided to give up his seat in D.C. to run for local office, this isn't a step down for him. San Bernardino County supervisors earn a salary comparable to U.S. House members, and they also enjoy a much shorter commute. Supervisors are limited to four four-year terms, though that may not be a drawback for Cook, who is 77. And perhaps most importantly, while Obernolte will be in the minority, Cook and his fellow Republicans will hold a 4-1 edge on the Board of Supervisors even though San Bernardino County favored Joe Biden 54-44.

● CA-25: Outgoing Assemblywoman Christy Smith, who recently lost a very close rematch with Republican Rep. Mike Garcia, says she might run for California's 25th Congressional District a third time. In a new statement, Smith said, "This was such a close election, and having earned over 36,000 more votes than any prior Democrat in CA-25, I'm keeping all options open."

Last month, Smith filed paperwork with the FEC that would allow her to fundraise for another bid, though as we always caution, many candidates submit FEC paperwork but never run. And this cycle, the vagaries of redistricting add yet another element of uncertainty, so expect to see lots of folks float their names early on who wind up staying put once maps are finalized.

Mayoral

● Seattle, WA Mayor: Incumbent Jenny Durkan announced Monday that she would not seek a second term. Durkan, whose year was dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, widespread protests against police violence, and conflict with several members of the Seattle City Council, said she believed she needed to spend the rest of her term focusing on the city's challenges rather than running for re-election.

Durkan, whose 2017 win made her the first lesbian to be elected mayor, is the latest city leader to leave after one term. Greg Nickels' 2005 win marked the last time that a Seattle mayor was re-elected, though Nickels' quest for a third term four years later ended when he failed to advance past the top-two primary.

All the candidates in next year's contest will run on one nonpartisan ballot, and the top-two vote-getters will advance to the November general election. Durkan's successor in this very blue city will almost certainly be a fellow Democrat, though it's far too early to know who would be the frontrunner. We'll take a look at the potential field to succeed Durkan in a future Digest.

Other Races

● CA-AG: Joe Biden announced Monday that he was nominating California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Becerra, who is a former Democratic congressman from Los Angeles, would be the first Latino to hold this post.

If the Senate confirms Becerra, it would be up to Gov. Gavin Newsom, a fellow Democrat, to pick his replacement as the attorney general for the nation's largest state. Newsom is already tasked with filling Vice President-elect Kamala Harris' soon-to-be vacant Senate seat, and Becerra had been mentioned as a prospect. The new attorney general would need to be confirmed by both chambers of the state legislature, though it would be a surprise if the overwhelmingly Democratic body rejected Newsom's choice.

It was only four years ago that Becerra himself was appointed attorney general. In 2016, then-Gov. Jerry Brown shocked state and national politicos when he selected Becerra, who was the fourth-highest ranking Democrat in the House, to succeed Harris after she was elected to the Senate. One Democrat who wasn't chosen, state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, decided to challenge Becerra in 2018, but Jones ended up taking a distant third in the top-two primary; Becerra himself had no trouble turning back his Republican foe that November.

Called Races

● CO 18th District DA: Democrat Amy Padden conceded on Saturday after an automatic recount confirmed that Republican John Kellner had prevailed 50.1-49.9 in this open seat race. Kellner's win means that his party will hold this district attorney's office, which has jurisdiction over Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln Counties.

Election Results Recaps

● LA-05: Luke Letlow decisively beat state Rep. Lance Harris 62-38 in Saturday's all-GOP runoff to succeed his old boss, retiring Rep. Ralph Abraham, in this conservative northeast Louisiana seat. Letlow, who served as Abraham's chief of staff before entering the race, had the congressman's endorsement, as well as a big financial edge over Harris.

● East Baton Rouge Parish, LA Mayor-President: Democratic incumbent Sharon Weston Broome won a second term as leader of this populous parish, which is home to Baton Rouge and several of its suburbs, by beating former Republican state Rep. Steve Carter 57-43.

● Orleans Parish, LA District Attorney: Criminal justice reformers scored a big win in New Orleans on Saturday when City Councilman Jason Williams won a six-year term by defeating former judge Keva Landrum 57-43 in the all-Democratic runoff. (Orleans Parish is coterminous with the city of New Orleans). Williams will succeed retiring incumbent Leon Cannizzaro, who leaves office with a reputation as one of the most punitive prosecutors in the entire country.

Both Williams and Landrum, who served as interim district attorney in 2007 and 2008, promised never to seek the death penalty and pledged to bring other changes to the office, but Williams consistently adopted far more progressive stances than his opponent. Notably, Williams alone ruled out charging defendants as habitual offenders, a tactic that Louisiana prosecutors like Cannizzaro have frequently used to secure longer sentences. Williams notably also said he won't seek to try underage suspects—97% of whom are Black—in adult courts, and he's also pledged to drop all marijuana possession charges.

Williams, though, did look like at least the slight underdog going into Saturday's contest. Perhaps most seriously, he was indicted by federal prosecutors in June for tax fraud, charges he's argued resulted from "an old-school political tactic" to damage his chances. The councilman has pleaded not guilty, claiming his tax preparer had misrepresented his credentials and filed error-filled forms with the IRS without Williams' knowledge, and his trial is currently set for January.

Landrum, who led Williams 34-29 in the first round of voting last month, also had the support of Mayor Latoya Cantrell and Rep. Cedric Richmond, as well as five of Williams' six colleagues on the City Council. None of this was enough, though, to stop Williams from decisively winning this powerful post.

Grab Bag

● Deaths: Maryland Democrat Paul Sarbanes, who served in the House and the Senate, died Sunday at the age of 87. Sarbanes, who was the first Greek American elected to the upper chamber, was a generally low-key senator who is best known for co-sponsoring the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley act in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals, a law that the New York Times writes "strengthened corporate governance and created a federal oversight board for the accounting industry." Sarbanes is also the father of Rep. John Sarbanes, who has represented part of the Baltimore region since 2007, the same year that the elder Sarbanes retired from the Senate.

Sarbanes got his start in politics in 1966 when he was elected to the state House, and he launched a primary challenge against Rep. George Fallon four years later. Fallon, who was chair of the powerful House Committee on Public Works, initially looked secure in this Baltimore-area seat.

However, as Theo Lippman would write in the Baltimore Sun in 1991, "Some of Paul's best arguments against the chairman were that he was too old (he was 68) and too ailing and too remote to represent the district anymore. And too close to big, rich campaign contributors who depended on pork from the committee chairman's big barrel." Sarbanes won 51-46, and he easily prevailed in the general. Sarbanes seemed to be in for another tough primary in 1972 when redistricting put him in the same seat as fellow Rep. Edward Garmatz, but Garmatz decided to retire.

Sarbanes attracted national attention in 1974 when, as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, he introduced and defended the first article of impeachment against Richard Nixon. Sarbanes then set his sights on a promotion in 1976 when he sought the nomination to take on Republican Sen. Glenn Beall. Sarbanes' main opponent in the primary was former Sen. Joseph Tydings, who had lost the seat to Beall in 1970, thanks to an effort by the NRA and its allies. The well-funded Sarbanes, who benefited from support from Greek American donors and labor groups, won the nomination 55-35.

Sarbanes then went after Beall for his connections to the disgraced Nixon, including the $250,000 in campaign funds he'd received six years ago from a White House-controlled account known as the "Townhouse Operation." Beall insisted that, while he'd made a "mistake" by accepting the donations, he was being unfairly judged by post-Watergate standards of morality. That argument didn’t go over well with voters, and Sarbanes unseated Beall 57-39 as Jimmy Carter was carrying the state by a smaller 53-47.

Sarbanes never came close to losing in any of his subsequent campaigns, though he did attract some notable GOP opponents. Sarbanes's foe in 1982 was Prince George's County Executive Lawrence Hogan, a former House colleague and the father of current Gov. Larry Hogan, while his 1988 adversary was Alan Keyes, who would go on to lose the 2004 Senate race in Illinois to Barack Obama. Sarbanes' smallest win was in 1994 against former U.S. Secretary of Labor Bill Brock, who had been elected to the Senate from Tennessee in 1970 and lost re-election six years later; Sarbanes prevailed 59-41.

Morning Digest: Maine’s Jared Golden ran 13 points ahead of the top of the ticket

Posted on December 7, 2020 by Daily Kos Elections

Leading Off

● Pres-by-CD: Our project to calculate the 2020 presidential results for all 435 congressional districts nationwide goes to Maine, where Democratic Rep. Jared Golden won a second term even as Donald Trump once again carried his 2nd Congressional District. We'll also be taking a look at the seven states that are home to only one U.S. House seat. You can find our complete data set here, which we're updating continuously as the precinct-level election returns we need for our calculations become available.

Joe Biden carried Maine, which has backed every Democratic presidential nominee since 1992, by a 53-44 margin, which was a notable improvement on Hillary Clinton's 48-45 performance there in 2016. Maine, however, gives an electoral vote to the winner of each of its congressional districts (the only other state to do this is Nebraska), and for the second cycle in a row, the 2nd District went to Trump. This seat in the northern part of the state supported Trump 52-45, a somewhat smaller margin compared to his 51-41 performance there four years ago but still a clear win. You can find a larger version of our map here.

Campaign Action

Despite Trump's victory at the top of the ticket, though, Golden defeated Republican Dale Crafts 53-47. At the start of the cycle, Republicans had planned to target Golden, who had flipped this seat in a tight 2018 race, but major outside groups on both sides dramatically cut their ad buys in the final weeks of the race in what Politico characterized at the time as "a sign of no confidence" in Crafts.

Biden took the 1st District, meanwhile, by a 60-37 margin, which was also a big shift from Clinton's 54-39 win. This seat, which contains Portland, has been solidly blue turf for decades, and Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree won her seventh term 62-38.

While Democrats control the governorship and both houses of the legislature, redistricting isn't likely to alter Maine's congressional boundaries all that much. The state requires two-thirds of each chamber to pass a new map, and there are more than enough Republicans to block any districts they view as unfavorable. If the legislature deadlocks, the state Supreme Court would take charge of redistricting.

We'll now take a look at the nation's seven at-large congressional districts. Alaska supported Donald Trump 53-43, a smaller margin than his 53-38 showing in 2016. This was the closest a Democrat's come to winning the Last Frontier's three electoral votes since 1992, when George H.W. Bush edged out Bill Clinton 39-30 as Ross Perot was taking 28%. Biden's 43% was also the highest for Team Blue since 1964, when Lyndon Johnson became the only Democratic candidate to ever carry Alaska.

Rep. Don Young, a Republican whose nearly 48 years in office makes him the House's longest serving current member, faced a rematch this year against Alyse Galvin, an independent who won the Democratic nomination. While outside groups for both parties spent heavily, Young won 54-45, an improvement from his 53-47 showing in 2018.

Democrats also made a serious effort to flip Montana's open House seat but came up short. Trump's 57-41 margin of victory was smaller than his 56-36 showing four years ago, but the state still wasn't close. Republican Matt Rosendale beat Democrat Kathleen Williams 56-44, a win that came two years after Rosendale lost his challenge to Democratic Sen. Jon Tester by a 50-47 margin. It was also a much bigger defeat for Williams than in her previous attempt for this seat in 2018, when she fell to now-Gov.-elect Greg Gianforte 51-45.

Biden, meanwhile, improved on Clinton's performance in his home state of Delaware and in Vermont, where Democratic Reps. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Peter Welch, respectively, also had no trouble winning re-election. North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming remained safely red turf up and down the ballot. Wyoming, which backed Trump 70-27, also gave him his largest margin of victory in any state for the second cycle in a row.

Congressional redistricting hasn't been a factor in any of these seven states in some time, but there's a very good chance that Montana could regain the second House seat that it lost after the 1990 census. However, while Gianforte's win in this year's gubernatorial race gives Team Red the trifecta it lost in the 2004 elections, state law grants a bipartisan commission responsibility over redistricting matters. Rhode Island, meanwhile, could soon join the list of at-large states, as population growth patterns suggest its two seats will shrink to one following reapportionment.

Georgia Runoffs

● GA-Sen-A, GA-Sen-B: A new poll from RMG Research, the firm run by Scott Rasmussen, finds Democrat Jon Ossoff narrowly leading Republican Sen. David Perdue 48-47 while Democrat Raphael Warnock holds a similar 48-46 edge over Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler.

Ossoff excoriates Perdue in a new ad for "doing nothing" to alleviate the pandemic and "blocking relief for the rest of us." Warnock, meanwhile, holds aloft a photo of his father, an Army veteran born in 1917 who served in World War II, calling him his "hero." Warnock blasts Loeffler for "taking my words out of context to try and fool you into believing that I don't respect members of the military, like my own father."

Finally, AdImpact reports that total ad spending across both runoffs has reached $315 million, with $170 million of that devoted to the special election. In that contest, Warnock has outspent Loeffler $60 million to $45 million so far, but outside GOP groups have spent $53 million versus just $13 million for Democrats.

However, as AdImpact notes, the difference between the third-party spenders is "misleading." That's because at least one large Republican super PAC, American Crossroads, has spent $44 million on ads that will run straight through Jan. 5. Democratic groups, by contrast, have all booked airtime on a week-by-week basis.

Senate

● CO-Sen, CO-Gov: Outgoing Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, who just lost to Democrat John Hickenlooper 54-44 last month, has declined to rule out bids against either Sen. Michael Bennet or Gov. Jared Polis, two Democrats who are both up for re-election in 2022.

● PA-Sen, PA-Gov: Republican Rep. Glenn Thompson, who recently said he'd "like to be the first member of Congress from Pennsylvania in 202 years to chair the House Agriculture Committee" in describing his feelings about a bid for Senate or governor, was elevated to the post of "ranking member" on the committee by his GOP colleagues this week. That makes him the most senior Republican on the committee and puts him in line to chair it in two years' time should the GOP win back the House in 2022.

Gubernatorial

● IL-Gov: State Rep. Darren Bailey, who wouldn't rule out a run for governor in a radio interview over the summer, just decided to pick a Facebook fight with Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a fellow Republican whom Capitol Fax's Rich Miller says is "widely rumored" to also be considering a bid against Democratic Gov. J. B. Pritzker.

Kinzinger has been just about the only congressional Republican to explicitly call out Donald Trump's "baseless conspiracies" about the election, as he put it, earning the ire of true believers like Bailey, who termed Kinzinger's view that Trump should accept reality and stop undermining democracy "appalling."

● NV-Gov: Republican Rep. Mark Amodei says in a new interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Colton Lochhead that he's "gonna look at" a challenge to Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, who's up for re-election in 2022. For almost six years, Amodei's half-heartedly sought an escape from Washington, D.C., whose culture, he said at a 2015 town hall, "sucks." Not long after, he began mooting a bid for governor in 2018 but ultimately declined—and then said he might run for state attorney general that year … but ultimately declined.

In fact, Amodei even suggested he might retire that cycle, though he wound up seeking another term and winning comfortably in northern Nevada's rural 2nd District, which twice backed Donald Trump by double digits, according to new Daily Kos Elections calculations. Perhaps as a consequence, he was dogged by retirement rumors last year, though he pushed back against them firmly early on and easily won again.

However, he nearly courted electoral disaster when he expressed the slightest openness to impeaching Trump and inspired the Club for Growth to push for former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt to challenge Amodei in the GOP primary. Amodei had earlier accused Laxalt of coveting his seat and fomenting the chatter that he might quit, but in the end, Laxalt left the congressman alone.

Things might play out differently in a gubernatorial race, though. Lochhead says that Laxalt and former Sen. Dean Heller are both "rumored" to be considering bids against Sisolak, who defeated Laxalt 49-45 in 2018. Neither man, however, has publicly said anything about their interest.

House

● NJ-03: Republican Assemblyman Ryan Peters sounds as though he's considering a bid against Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who just won re-election to a second term by a surprisingly hale 53-45 margin. Insider NJ says that Peters is "not ready yet to say he's running for Congress," but he also disparaged the idea of running against Democratic state Sen. Dawn Marie Addiego next year (a race he's been rumored to be interested in) by saying, "Do I want to be in the minority again? I really don't have a burning desire to do that."

Called Races

● NY-01, NY-02: With New York finally certifying the results of last month's elections, the AP called the race for 1st Congressional District for Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin on Friday, a day after Democrat Nancy Goroff conceded; Zeldin defeated Goroff by a 55-45 margin. The AP also called the contest in the neighboring 2nd District, which Democrat Jackie Gordon conceded to Republican Andrew Garbarino a couple of weeks ago. Final tallies there show Garbarino winning 53-46.

That leaves just two unresolved House races, Iowa's 2nd and New York's 22nd, both of which are subject to ongoing legal challenges.

Morning Digest: The next stop on our tour of 2020’s presidential results by district: South Carolina

Posted on November 13, 2020 by Daily Kos Elections

Leading Off

● Pres-by-CD: Our project to calculate the 2020 presidential results for all 435 congressional districts nationwide makes its second stop in South Carolina, where Team Red enjoyed a stronger-than-expected year. You can find our complete data set here, which we're updating continuously as the precinct-level election returns we need for our calculations become available. You can also click here to learn more about why this data is so difficult to come by.

Campaign Action

While most Palmetto State polls showed Donald Trump running well behind his 55-41 2016 margin of victory, Trump ended up taking South Carolina by only a slightly smaller 55-43 last week. Trump once again carried six of the state's seven congressional districts, with Joe Biden winning House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn's heavily Democratic 6th District.

The closest constituency, not surprisingly, was the 1st District along the coast, where Trump moved downward from 53-40 to only 52-46. This shift to the left, though, wasn't quite enough for freshman Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham, who lost re-election 51-49 against Republican Nancy Mace.

Trump carried his other five seats by double digits. The closest was the 2nd District in the Augusta and Columbia suburbs, which supported him 56-39 in 2016 but by a smaller 55-44 in 2020. Democrats hoped before Election Day that veteran Rep. Joe Wilson, a Republican who infamously screamed "You lie!" at Barack Obama during a congressional address in 2009, could be vulnerable there against well-funded Democrat Adair Ford Boroughs, but Wilson won by a comparable 56-43. The 6th District, meanwhile, moved from 67-30 Clinton to 67-32 Biden.

Georgia Runoffs

● GA-Sen-A, GA-Sen-B: Though the Georgia runoffs are little more than a week old, Advertising Analytics reports that $45 million has already been spent on the airwaves in both races, with $31 million coming from the campaigns themselves.

Republicans so far make up most of that spending: David Perdue has shelled out $19 million and Kelly Loeffler $6 million, while Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff have spent $4 million and $2 million, respectively. Meanwhile, two super PACs aligned with Mitch McConnell, the Senate Leadership Fund and American Crossroads, are each reportedly putting in $4.5 million.

Loeffler, unsurprisingly, is using her airtime to launch attacks against Warnock, who largely avoided getting targeted with negative ads during the first round of voting since Loeffler was pre-occupied with staving off fellow Republican Doug Collins. Now she's amping the usual GOP playbook to 11.

The first of her two new spots starts with a shot of young school kids (all but one of whom are white) with hands on hearts, presumably reciting the pledge of allegiance. A scary-sounding narrator declares, "This is America—but will it still be if the radical left controls the Senate?"

It gets predictably worse from there. Among other things, the ad claims Warnock "hosted a rally for communist dictator Fidel Castro" while showing some grainy footage from 1995. Warnock doesn't appear in the clip, though: His campaign says he was only a junior member of the staff at the church where Castro spoke and wasn't involved in the decision to invite the late Cuban leader.

The second ad resurfaces Jeremiah Wright, the former Chicago pastor whose incendiary sermons attracted great scrutiny during Barack Obama's first presidential campaign in 2008. It features footage of Wright angrily orating from the pulpit, interspersed with clips of Warnock defending Wright. The spot concludes with the narrator spitting, "Raphael Warnock: a radical's radical."

Warnock was one of several Black clergyman who spoke out on Wright's behalf at the time, saying his most inflammatory remarks had been divorced from the full context of the sermons from which they were drawn. Earlier this year, he stood by his past statements, saying, "Any fair-thinking person would recognize that everything a government does, even the American government, is not consistent with God's dream for the world."

Uncalled Races

Quite a few contests remain uncalled, but we’re tracking all of them on our continually updated cheat-sheet, and of course we’ll cover each of them in the Digest once they’re resolved.

● IA-02: Democrat Rita Hart announced Thursday that she'd seek a recount in this open seat contest; Hart trailed Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks by 47 votes as of Thursday afternoon. Miller-Meeks, for her part, has declared victory while refusing to acknowledge Joe Biden's win.

● NJ-07: While the Associated Press called this contest for freshman Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski just after Election Day, the race has dramatically tightened over the following week and plenty more ballots remain to be counted.

Malinowski went from holding a 28,400 vote lead over Republican Tom Kean Jr. on Nov. 4 to an edge of 6,275 as of Thursday afternoon. The New Jersey Globe's David Wildstein projects that there are close to 38,800 ballots left to count at the very minimum, and "that number could be as high as around 60,000." The AP, though, has not retracted its call.

Called Races

● IL-14: On Thursday, the Associated Press called the race for this seat in Chicago's western exurbs for freshman Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood. The congresswoman's victory also means that Republican Jim Oberweis has yet another high-profile defeat in his ledger.

● NY-11: Republican Nicole Malliotakis reclaimed this Staten Island-based seat for her party, and freshman Democratic Rep. Max Rose conceded on Thursday.

● CA Ballot: The Associated Press has called a victory for Proposition 19, known as the Property Tax Transfers, Exemptions, and Revenue for Wildfire Agencies and Counties Amendment. CBS San Francisco describes Prop. 19, which passed 51-49, as a measure that "gives exemptions to older homeowners, the disabled and wildfire victims and strips breaks from people who inherit homes but don't live in them."

● Maricopa County, AZ Recorder: Republican Stephen Richer reclaimed this post for his party by unseating Democratic incumbent Adrian Fontes 50.1-49.9, and Fontes conceded on Thursday. The recorder is tasked with administering elections in Maricopa County, which is home to more than 60% of the state's population and whose 4.5 million residents make it the fourth-largest county nationally. However, Republican county Board of Supervisors members took control of key powers from Fontes' office following his 2016 victory.

● NC Auditor: The AP has called this race for Democratic incumbent Beth Wood, who turned back Republican Anthony Street 51-49.

Gubernatorial

● AR-Gov: Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson is termed-out in 2022, and the GOP primary to succeed him has been underway for well over a year now. Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin, who previously represented central Arkansas in the U.S. House from 2011 to 2015, announced that he was running all the way back in August of 2019. Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, whose 2014 victory made her the first woman and the first Republican to ever hold this post, also entered the contest in July of this year.

There may also be more takers for Team Red before too long. The potential candidate who has generated the most chatter for years is former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee: When Sanders was asked about her interest in this post in a September appearance on "Good Morning America," she only replied, "We'll see."

Senate Majority Leader Jim Hendren was more direct this month, and he acknowledged he was considering a gubernatorial bid on election night. Political columnist Steve Brawner recently wrote that Hendren could be a hard sell for GOP primary voters, though, saying he "made the career-killing mistake of trying to craft workable bipartisan solutions to challenging problems."

● AZ-Gov: Republican Gov. Doug Ducey is ineligible to run for a third term in 2022, and this swing state is very likely to be a major battleground. One Democrat who has gotten plenty of attention as a possible candidate is Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, and she expressed interest in running at the end of 2019. Hobbs also predicted at the time she'd decide "probably in early '21."

On the Republican side, the Arizona Republic's Laurie Roberts wrote last month that state Treasurer Kimberly Yee seemed to be positioning herself for a bid. Yee, Roberts noted, appeared in commercials this year opposing Proposition 208, a ballot measure to create a new tax on high earners to fund schools.

Prop. 208 ultimately passed 52-48, but Yee's campaign against it may have boosted her name recognition. Indeed, Roberts notes that then-state Treasurer Doug Ducey himself increased his profile in 2012 by chairing the successful campaign against a referendum to fund education, a campaign that took place two years before Ducey was elected governor. Republican politicos also speculated last month that Ducey was behind Yee's anti-Prop. 208 campaign, with one consultant saying, "It's Ducey's attempt to anoint somebody in the next cycle because we know he's not happy with other elected officials in this state."

Roberts added that the Republican that Ducey seems to want to block is state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, whom she says is "expected to make a run" for governor in 2022. Brnovich, who will be termed-out of his current post that year, has repeatedly clashed with Ducey; in September, Brnovich notably challenged Ducey's order closing bars in order to stop the spread of the pandemic.

● MN-Gov: Republicans have struggled statewide in recent years in Minnesota, which Joe Biden took 52-45 last week, but they're hoping that Democratic Gov. Tim Walz will be vulnerable in two years. Retiring state Sen. Scott Jensen recently told the Star Tribune's Patrick Condon that he was thinking about running, and Condon adds that state Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka is "seen as a likely candidate."

A few other Republicans aren't closing the door. Rep. Pete Stauber responded to speculation by saying he was flattered but focused on his current job, which is not a no. State Sen. Carla Nelson, who lost the 2018 GOP primary for Congress to now-Rep. Jim Hagedorn, also said when asked if she was interested in running for a statewide post, "I never closed any doors." Last week, Minnesota Morning Take also relayed, "Other names from solid sources on the 2022 Republican short list for Governor" include state Rep. Barb Haley and NBC sportscaster Michele Tafoya as possibilities, though there's no word if either are actually thinking about it.

Finally, it seems we're in for another cycle of trying to decipher My Pillow founder Mike Lindell's political intentions. A reporter tweeted last month that Lindell had told the crowd at a Trump event that he'd run, but KTTC quoted him at the time as saying, "Absolutely, if the president wins I'm gonna run." (Emphasis ours.)

Later on Nov. 4, Lindell told the Minnesota Reformer he had planned to run if Trump carried Minnesota, something that the far-right pillow salesman acknowledged at the time didn't end up happening. Lindell added, "But now I've gotta debate and I've gotta pray about it and see what happens with the presidential election. (They) might need me now more than ever." Days later, Lindell baselessly accused Joe Biden of only winning Minnesota through fraud.

● NE-Gov: There will be a wide-open race to succeed GOP Gov. Pete Ricketts in 2022, and there are plenty of Republicans who could campaign in this very red state. The only one we've heard publicly express interest so far is state Sen. Brett Lindstrom, who acknowledged he was considering in November of last year.

On the Democratic side, 2018 nominee Bob Krist announced in April of 2019 that he was running again, a move that came months after he lost to Ricketts 59-41. Krist went on to endorse Republican Rep. Don Bacon in his successful re-election campaign this year.

● PA-Gov: While there are plenty of Democrats who could run to succeed termed-out Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, Sen. Bob Casey said this week that he'd stay out of the 2022 contest.

● SC-Gov: Republican Gov. Henry McMaster's campaign chief said in May of 2019 that the incumbent would seek a second full term in 2022. McMaster was elevated from lieutenant governor to governor in 2017 when Nikki Haley resigned to become Donald Trump's first ambassador to the United Nations, and he was elected in his own right the following year.

Morning Digest: Darrell Issa thought he had an easy path to a comeback. A new poll says guess again

Posted on September 10, 2020 by Daily Kos Elections

Leading Off

● CA-50: While California Republican Darrell Issa looked like a sure bet to return to the House after he narrowly prevailed in the March top-two primary, a new SurveyUSA poll finds him locked in an unexpectedly close open seat contest with Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar. The poll, which was done for KGTV-TV San Diego and the San Diego Union-Tribune, shows Issa up just 46-45. Perhaps even more surprisingly, the sample finds Joe Biden ahead 48-45 in California's 50th Congressional District, an ancestrally Republican seat in inland San Diego County that backed Donald Trump 55-40 in 2016.

This is the first independent poll we've seen since the top-two six months ago. Last month, Campa-Najjar released numbers from Strategies 360 that found him down 47-43, but his campaign did not mention any presidential results. So far, though, no major outside groups on either side have booked air time here, though that could always change over the next two months.

Campaign Action

Issa infamously decided to run here the cycle after he retired as the congressman from the neighboring and more Democratic 49th District just ahead of the 2018 blue wave, and it's possible that his weak connections to this area are hurting him. SurveyUSA finds Issa with an even 32-32 favorable rating, while Campa-Najjar sports a 37-26 score.

If SurveyUSA is right, though, then there's also been a big shift to the left in this seat over just the last two years. Back in 2018, then-Rep. Duncan Hunter managed to fend off Campa-Najjar 52-48 even though the Republican incumbent was under indictment at the time for misusing campaign money. That was a much better performance than Democrats usually pull off in this area, but the fact that this district still decided to return Hunter to Congress even in a terrible year for Republicans didn't seem to bode well for Campa-Najjar's second campaign, especially after Hunter took a plea deal in late 2019 and resigned.

We'll need to see if more polls find a close race, and we'll also be keeping an eye out to see if major outside groups spend here. However, if this contest is tight, Campa-Najjar will have the resources to run a serious campaign. The Democrat ended June with a $890,000 to $516,000 cash-on-hand, though Issa is more than capable of self-funding if he needs to.

Senate

● AK-Sen: A newly formed PAC called Independent Alaska has launched an ad campaign supporting Al Gross, an independent who won the Democratic nomination last month. The commercial touts Gross' time as a fisherman and a doctor and informs the audience, "Dr. Al's father was Alaska's AG [attorney general], and his neighbor and fishing partner growing up was Republican Gov. Jay Hammond." The narrator concludes, "We're in a pandemic. It's time to send a doctor to D.C." There is no word on the size of the buy.

● GA-Sen-B: Republican Rep. Doug Collins is running his first ad on broadcast TV, and he begins by saying of the appointed GOP incumbent, "Kelly Loeffler spent $30 million on slick ads telling lies—now it's my turn to tell the truth."

Collins continues, "I'm not a billionaire. I'm a state trooper's kid, a husband, a father, an Air Force chaplain and Iraq War veteran." He adds, "I'm President Trump's top defender against the sham impeachment, and yes, his preferred pick for the Senate." Trump reportedly did very much want Collins to be appointed to this seat, but he hasn't taken sides in the Nov. 3 all-party primary between the congressman and Loeffler.

On the Democratic side, pastor Raphael Warnock, who would be the state's first Black senator, is using his newest commercial to talk about his experiences with systemic racism. The narrator begins, "1982. A 12-year-old is accused of stealing and dragged out a store, told he looks suspicious because his hands are in his pockets." The audience then sees it's the candidate speaking as he continues, "I'm Raphael Warnock and that boy was me."

Warnock goes on, "Back then I didn't understand how much the system works against those without power and money, that the rules were different for some of us. Too often that's still true today, especially in Washington." Warnock ends by saying that it's time for this to change.

● MI-Sen: The Glengariff Group's new poll for WDIV and the Detroit News finds Democratic Sen. Gary Peters leading Republican John James 44-41, while Joe Biden is ahead 47-42. Glengariff's last poll was all the way back in January, and it showed Peters up by a similar 44-40 spread.

● MN-Sen: Citizens United (yes, the Citizens United) has launched what the National Journal's Dylan Wells reports is a six-figure buy supporting Republican Jason Lewis. The commercial, like Lewis' own ads, promotes Lewis as a supporter of the police and an opponent of violent mobs; both Lewis and Citizens United's spots also ignore racism and police brutality.

● NC-Sen: Democrat Cal Cunningham has the first commercial we've seen anywhere focusing on allegations that the Russian government put out a bounty on American troops in Afghanistan. Cunningham says that his fellow veterans are the first ones to answer the call and continues, "So when [Republican Sen.] Thom Tillis fails to act while the Russians pay bounties for dead Americans, something is deeply wrong in Washington."

● TX-Sen: Democrat MJ Hegar is airing her first TV ad of the general election as part of what her campaign says is a $1.5 million buy in six media markets that are home to 80% of the state's voters. As faint sounds of explosions are heard, the candidate tells the audience, "It was my third tour in Afghanistan. I was flying a medevac mission when I was shot through the windshield and we went down."

The camera gradually pans out to reveal a smoking helicopter in the canyon behind Hegar as she continues, "So I strapped myself to the skids of the helicopter that rescued us and returned fire on the Taliban as we flew to safety. For that I was awarded the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor." The candidate goes on, "I'm MJ Hegar, and we fought like hell to get everyone home safe that day. And I approved this message because my mission isn't over while Texas families are still in danger."

Gubernatorial

● WV-Gov: Democrat Ben Salango is airing his first TV spot since he won the primary three months ago. As old photos from his childhood fill the screen, the candidate says, "I grew up in a two-bedroom trailer in Raleigh County. It was a big deal when we got our first washer and dryer."

Salango then goes after Republican Gov. Jim Justice, declaring, "My family worked hard to build a business and even harder to pay the bills. Jim Justice is a billionaire who's been sued over 600 times for not paying his bills. And who made a secret deal with the government he controls to give himself tax breaks." Salango concludes, "I mean c'mon. I'll never betray West Virginia like that. I was raised better."

House

● CA-25: Democrat Christy Smith is running her first commercial since her defeat in the May special election. Smith talks about how her mother survived domestic violence and "rebuilt our lives" with a nursing degree from the local community college. The candidate says she went on to work three jobs to pay for her education at that same institution and went on to found an education nonprofit.

● CA-48: In its opening TV spot for this race, the DCCC declares that Republican Michelle Steel's allies were at the center of a major corruption scandal, but she "voted to defund the anti-corruption unit in Orange County."

The ad is also running in Vietnamese, which makes this one of the very rare examples of an American political commercial that's aired on TV all or mostly in a language other than English or Spanish. Back in 2018, Democrat John Chiang ran a spot entirely in Mandarin in his unsuccessful bid for governor of California, while Republican Ed Gillespie added Korean subtitles to a commercial during his 2017 primary for governor of Virginia.

There have been a few instances of American political ads airing on the radio in a language other than English or Spanish (and obviously, without subtitles.) In 2016, Arizona Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick recorded some ads in Navajo, which she speaks, for her unsuccessful Senate bid. That same year, Ohio GOP Sen. Rob Portman's campaign did a Ukrainian radio ad for his re-election campaign.

● IA-01: Back in July, Republican Ashley Hinson blamed her campaign staff after the New York Times reported that several op-eds credited to her, as well as material on her campaign site, were full of passages plagiarized from other sources, and the DCCC is using its first TV spot to go after Hinson over this.

The narrator begins, "In tough times, we need leaders we can trust. But Ashley Hinson was caught plagiarizing—word for word—from the Des Moines Register, the New York Times, even her opponent's own policy positions." He then focuses on Hinson's record, declaring, "And Hinson took thousands from the nursing home industry. When the Coronavirus struck—Hinson voted to protect them with special legal immunity. Instead of protecting seniors and workers."

● OH-01: House Majority PAC has released a survey from the Democratic firm Normington Petts that shows Democrat Kate Schroder leading Republican Rep. Steve Chabot 50-46, while Joe Biden has a tiny 48-47 edge in this Cincinnati-based seat. We've seen a few other polls this year from Schroder and her allies that have found a tight race, while Republicans have yet to drop their own numbers.

HMP is also running a commercial that targets Chabot over the truly strange scandal that engulfed Chabot's campaign last year, a story that Schroder has also focused on in her ads. The spot begins by reminding viewers that Chabot became a member of Congress in 1995 when "[b]aseball was on strike" and "Toy Story debuted. The first one." The narrator continues, "But now, a confirmed FBI investigation into $123,000 missing from Chabot's campaign. And Chabot's campaign paid his son-in-law's company nearly $200,000." The narrator concludes, "Twenty-four years in Congress has taken its toll on Steve Chabot."

● PA-01: Democrat Christina Finello's first general election ad focuses on her own struggles with college loans and healthcare. She says that, while she "understands the struggles of the middle class," Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick "votes with Trump. Giving tax cuts to the rich and ending protections for people with pre-existing conditions."

Fitzpatrick, meanwhile, uses his own ad to tout his endorsements from groups that usually pull for Democrats like the AFL-CIO, the League of Conservation Voters, and Everytown for Gun Safety, as well as the local police and firefighter unions. The congressman's mom also makes it clear she's backing Fitzpatrick.

● SC-02: EMILY's List has endorsed Adair Ford Boroughs' campaign against Republican Rep. Joe Wilson.

● TX-21: While freshman Republican Rep. Chip Roy has shown absolutely no desire to actually vote or behave like anything other than the far-right Freedom Caucus member that he is, the former Ted Cruz chief of staff is using his opening ad to portray himself as a bipartisan figure. Roy declares he'll "hold my party accountable if they're wrong, and work across party lines when it's right for Texas."

● TX-23: Republican Tony Gonzales uses his first general election commercial to talk about how he went from growing up in an abusive home where he was abandoned by his father to the Navy.

Meanwhile, VoteVets has launched a $533,000 ad campaign against Gonzales. The ad stars an injured veteran who tells the audience that Gonzales "supports taking away health coverage from half a million veterans."

● UT-04: The Congressional Leadership Fund is running a very rare positive TV commercial promoting Republican Burgess Owens, whom House Majority PAC recently began attacking.

CLF promotes Owens as a "pro-football star, political outsider, conservative, successful businessman, and mentor to troubled kids." As the ad shows footage of a football game, the narrator declares Owens will "heal our nation, tackling a virus and protecting the vulnerable." Those feel good themes are not, shall we say, the type of things that CLF likes to fill its ads with.

● VA-02: This week, a third staffer from Republican Scott Taylor's 2018 campaign was indicted for allegedly submitting fraudulent signatures in order to get a former Democrat on the ballot as an independent that year. Special prosecutor John Beamer predicted that he would seek at least one additional indictment, and he said of Taylor, "He's part of the campaign and the whole campaign is under investigation."

Taylor is seeking a comeback against freshman Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria, who narrowly unseated him in 2018. Last month, Taylor sent a cease-and-desist letter to Luria demanding that she stop making statements claiming that he is under investigation for ballot access fraud only for Beamer to publicly contradict him. Luria soon began running commercials focused on the ongoing scandal.

● VA-05: Democrat Cameron Webb is up with two commercials that decry the "lies and dirty tricks" being waged by Republican Bob Good, who recently ran a truly racist spot against Webb.

In Webb's first ad, the narrator declares that the candidate "is not for defunding the police," and adds that "a senior Trump official is praising Webb." The commercial highlights the law enforcement officials backing Webb before the candidate himself appears and talks about his work in the Obama and Trump administrations and support for "free market solutions to bring healthcare costs down."

The second Webb spot stars several former sheriffs as well as Albemarle County Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Hingeley, who praise Webb and implore the audience not to let "Bob Good scare you from electing a good man."

Ballot Measures

● CA Ballot: Probolsky Research has released the first poll we've seen of Prop. 15, the so-called "split roll" initiative that would scale back a significant part of the law passed by anti-tax crusaders in 1978, and finds it down 49-41. Probolsky has worked for Republicans in the past, but it says this survey was not done for a client.

The poll was taken just before the pro-Prop. 15 group Schools & Communities First launched its opening TV commercials. One ad declares that wealthy corporate tycoons "think they're entitled to tax handouts. Prop. 15 closes the loopholes." The narrator continues, "The richest 10% of corporate properties provide 92% of the revenue, while homeowners, renters, and small businesses are protected." The second spot argues, "Prop. 15 would raise billions of dollars that our communities and schools need" and would make "wealthy large corporations pay their fair share, while small businesses get a tax break."

As David Jarman has written, Prop. 15 would dramatically alter California's property tax landscape and lead to a massive increase in tax revenue by repealing a portion of 1978's Prop. 13. That measure limits the annual property tax on a particular property to no more than 1% of its assessed value and, most importantly, limits the increase in a property's assessed value to no more than 2% per year—even if its actual market value has soared. This has resulted in municipalities and school districts taking in revenues far smaller than they ought to be.

However, voters finally have their chance this fall to modify the system Prop. 13 set up decades ago. This year's Prop. 15 would essentially split the "roll" of properties every municipality maintains by requiring commercial and industrial properties to be reassessed at actual market value while keeping residential and agricultural properties under Prop. 13's rules.

Mayoral

● Miami-Dade County, FL Mayor: On behalf of the Miami Herald, the Democratic pollster Bendixen & Amandi International is out with a survey that finds Democrat Daniella Levine Cava leading Republican Steve Bovo 39-32 in this November's officially nonpartisan contest. This sample also found Joe Biden ahead 55-38 in a county that supported Hillary Clinton 63-34.

Primary Result Recaps

● NH-Sen: Corky Messner, a wealthy attorney endorsed by Donald Trump, beat retired Army Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc 51-42 in the Republican primary. Bolduc responded to his defeat by declaring that he wouldn't back Messner in the general election against Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. "I will not support a man who is being investigated for fraud by the attorney general," Bolduc said, "No. I will not support him. I will not disgrace my name to support a man like that."

Last month, Mary Mullarkey, a former chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, asked that state's attorney general and secretary of state to investigate the charitable foundation run by Messner, who lived in Colorado until last year. Mullarkey's request came after the Washington Post reported that the Messner Foundation, whose stated purpose is to provide college scholarships to low-income students, had only awarded a grant to one student in its first 10 years of existence. However, despite what Bolduc said, there are no reports that a legal investigation is underway.

No matter what happens with this story, Messner will be in for a difficult race against Shaheen, a longtime figure in New Hampshire politics. A recent poll from the University of New Hampshire found Shaheen beating Messner 54-36, and no major groups have booked ad time here. Messner's ability to self-fund could still give him an opening if Donald Trump performs well in this swing state, though, so Daily Kos Elections is keeping it on the big board at Likely Democratic.

● NH-Gov: State Senate Majority Leader Dan Feltes won the Democratic nomination to take on Republican Gov. Chris Sununu by defeating Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky 52-48. On the GOP side, Nobody lost.

Sununu has polled well during his tenure, and a recent survey from the University of New Hampshire found him beating Feltes 57-33. However, Sununu's allies at the RGA don't seem to think the governor is a lock in this swing state, since they reserved $3.6 million in television time for the general election earlier this year. Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Likely Republican.

● NH-01: Former Trump aide Matt Mowers, who had his old boss' endorsement in the Republican primary, beat former state party vice chair Matt Mayberry 60-26. Mowers will face freshman Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in the fall.

The 1st District, which includes eastern New Hampshire, has been very competitive turf for a long time, and both Barack Obama and Donald Trump only narrowly won it. Pappas, however, prevailed 54-45 during the 2018 blue wave, and he holds a huge financial edge over Mowers with less than two months to go before voting concludes. A recent poll from the University of New Hampshire also showed Pappas up 52-34, though we haven't seen any other numbers here.

Still, Team Blue isn't leaving anything to chance in this swing seat, and House Majority PAC has reserved $2 million for this race; Republicans have not yet booked any air time. Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Lean Democratic.

● NH State Senate, Where Are They Now?: Former Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes lost Tuesday's Democratic primary for New Hampshire's 15th State Senate District to Becky Whitley, a disability rights attorney, 41-33. This seat backed Hillary Clinton 58-37, and Whitley will be the clear favorite to succeed state Senate Majority Leader Dan Feltes, who is the Democratic nominee for governor.

Ad Roundup

AZ-Sen: DSCC - anti-Martha McSally (R-inc)
CO-Sen: Senate Majority PAC - anti-Cory Gardner (R-inc)
IA-Sen: NRSC - anti-Theresa Greenfield (D)
MI-Sen: John James (R)
MT-Sen: Steve Bullock (D); NRSC - anti-Bullock (D)
AR-02: Joyce Elliott (D)
CA-22: Phil Arballo (D)
CA-25: DCCC - anti-Mike Garcia (R-inc) (in English and Spanish); Congressional Leadership Fund - anti-Christy Smith (D)
CA-48: Congressional Leadership Fund - anti-Harley Rouda (D-inc)
IA-02: NRCC - anti-Rita Hart (D)
IL-17: Esther Joy King (R)
ME-02: Jared Golden (D-inc)
MI-06: Jon Hoadley (D)
NE-02: Kara Eastman (D)
NM-02: Xochitl Torres Small (D-inc); Congressional Leadership Fund - anti-Torres Small (D-inc)
NY-02: Congressional Leadership Fund - anti-Jackie Gordon (D)
OK-05: Congressional Leadership Fund - anti-Kendra Horn (D-inc)
PA-08: Jim Bognet (R)
PA-10: Scott Perry (R-inc)
TX-07: Wesley Hunt (R)
NC-AG: Josh Stein (D-inc)

Morning Digest: Alaska’s bipartisan state House coalition is imperiled following GOP primary results

Posted on August 20, 2020 by Daily Kos Elections

Leading Off

● AK State House: A coalition of 15 Democrats, two independents, and five Republicans (known as the House Majority Caucus) currently run Alaska’s 40-person House of Representatives, but at least one of these renegade Republicans lost renomination on Tuesday while two others are in trouble. We won’t have complete results for a while, though, because the Alaska Division of Elections says it won’t “even start counting absentee ballots until Aug. 25.” Absentee ballots make up a large portion of the vote in Alaska, so several races could shift quite a bit when all is said and done.

Campaign Action

One Republican member of the coalition has definitely lost after being targeted by the Republican State Leadership Committee, which is the national GOP’s legislative campaign committee, and a second incumbent is badly trailing. The Associated Press has called the primary in House District 28 in Anchorage for James Kaufman, who unseated state Rep. Jennifer Johnston 73-27. This seat backed Trump 49-43, and Democrats are fielding Adam Lees.

A second GOP Majority Caucus member, state Rep. Chuck Kopp, is trailing challenger Thomas McKay 67-33 with 1,800 votes in, though the AP has not yet made a call here. HD-24, which is also in Anchorage, went for Trump by a 52-40 margin; the Democratic nominee is Sue Levi, who lost to Kopp 59-41 in 2016 and was defeated 60-39 two years later.

A third Republican member of the bipartisan alliance, state Rep. Steve Thompson, currently has a 51-49 edge over primary challenger Dave Selle with 700 votes tallied in another contest that the AP has not called. HD-02, which is located in Fairbanks, went for Trump 60-30, and the Democrats are running Jeremiah Youmans. The final two GOP coalition members, Bart Lebon and Louise Stutes, were renominated without any opposition.

National and state Republicans in the mainstream GOP caucus (the House Minority Caucus) also appear to have scored some other wins Tuesday that will make it easier for them to control the state House next year.

A sixth Republican, Gary Knopp, was part of the coalition, but he was killed last month in a mid-air collision. Knopp, who remained on the ballot, posthumously took third place with 14%; the winner with 61% of the vote is Ron Gillham, who earned the endorsement of the local GOP back in June. (If Knopp had won, Republicans would have been able to petition to choose a replacement nominee.) HD-30, which is located in Kenai is the south-central part of the state, backed Trump 71-21.

Republicans also appear to have denied renomination to state Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, who isn’t part of any alliance. The AP hasn’t called this contest yet, but with 500 votes in, challenger David Nelson leads 79-21.

LeDoux was originally a member of the coalition, but she was stripped of her committee assignments in March of 2019 after she voted against the chamber’s leaders on the budget; LeDoux didn’t rejoin the regular GOP caucus afterwards, though. In March, LeDoux was charged with voter misconduct. HD-15, which is in Anchorage, backed Trump 52-38, and the Democratic primary has not yet been called.

Finally, national Republicans may have fallen just short in toppling state Rep. David Eastman, who is part of the House Minority Caucus but has been a pain for its leaders, though the contest has not yet been called. With 2,200 votes in, Eastman leads primary foe Jesse Sumner 52-48. HD-10, which is based in Sarah Palin’s old Wasilla stomping grounds, favored Trump 71-21, so it’s likely out of reach for Democrat Monica Stein-Olson no matter how this primary ends.

While Eastman never joined the coalition, his intra-party critics remember how, after the 2018 election, he said he wouldn’t back a GOP speaker without some preconditions. Eastman was supposed to be one of the 21 Republicans who was to form the new majority, and his enemies blame him for causing the deadlock that eventually led to the bipartisan alliance. Since then, Eastman has spoken against a number of his party’s priorities, and House Minority Leader Lance Pruitt announced in March that he was on “probation.”

Senate

● GA-Sen-B: Pastor Raphael Warnock, who is supported by national Democrats, is launching his debut TV ad with a $400,000 buy ahead of the all-party first round in November. The minute-long spot starts off with Warnock speaking to the camera from the housing project where he grew up in Savannah. Warnock highlights his background coming from a large family that taught him the value of hard work, followed by a series of news clips touting his role as the lead pastor of the prominent Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, a position that Martin Luther King Jr. once held. Warnock emphasizes his efforts fighting for affordable health care and the right to vote.

Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Doug Collins is airing a new TV ad where he focuses on how he was supposedly "Trump's preferred pick" for the appointment to this seat, using a clip of Trump praising the congressman.

● Polls:

AZ-Sen: OnMessage (R) for Heritage Action: Mark Kelly (D): 48, Martha McSally (R-inc): 48 (51-48 Trump)
GA-Sen-A: Garin-Hart-Yang (D) for Jon Ossoff: Jon Ossoff (D): 48, David Perdue (R-inc): 46 (July: 45-44 Ossoff)

OnMessage's survey for the conservative Heritage Action group is one of the very few polls we've seen all year that hasn't shown McSally trailing.

House

● IA-01: Democratic Rep. Abby Finkenauer's newest commercial focuses on the derecho storm that hit Iowa earlier this month. Finkenauer, speaking from her backyard, talks about how neighbors have been helping each other in the aftermath, and she pledges not to "stop until Iowans get the resources we need."

Republican Ashley Hinson, meanwhile, is going in a more partisan direction in her newest spot. After talking about her previous career as a local TV newscaster, Hinson rattles off some of Donald Trump's favorite talking points about "socialists trying to abolish the police, radicals trying to tear down our country."

● IN-05: The far-right Club for Growth's first general election ad accuses Democrat Christina Hale of voting for higher taxes before the narrator declares, "And, like Nancy Pelosi, Hale backs the kind of public option plan that would radically expand the government's role in healthcare."

● MA-01: Democratic Majority for Israel has launched a $100,000 TV buy against Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse ahead of the Sept. 1 Democratic primary. We do not yet have a copy of the commercial.

● MA-04: Data for Progress has released an in-house survey of the crowded Sept. 1 Democratic primary, and it finds a tight contest with no obvious frontrunner.

Newton City Councilor Jake Auchincloss: 14

Newton City Councilor Becky Walker Grossman: 13

Former Alliance for Business Leadership head Jesse Mermell: 13

Former Wall Street regulator Ihssane Leckey: 9

Public health expert Natalia Linos: 9

City Year co-founder Alan Khazei: 7

Attorney Ben Sigel: 3

Businessman Chris Zannetos: 1

A 29% plurality are undecided, while 1% goes to former assistant state attorney general Dave Cavell, who dropped out last week and endorsed Mermell.

The only other recent numbers we've seen was an early August survey for Leckey from Frederick Polls. That poll showed Grossman leading Auchincloss 19-16, with Leckey and Mermell at 11% and 10%, respectively.

● NJ-07: Republican Tom Kean uses his first TV commercial to portray himself as a bipartisan legislator.

● OH-10: Longtime Rep. Mike Turner seems to be taking Democrat Desiree Tims seriously, since he just launched a commercial against her that highlights a massive scandal … involving Turner's fellow Ohio Republicans.

As the screen shows a newspaper headline about a $60 million bribery scheme, the narrator begins, "It's disgraceful. Lobbyists have bought seats in the Ohio State House." Last month, then-state House Speaker Larry Householder was arrested on federal corruption charges, and prosecutors accused the nuclear power company FirstEnergy of illegally funneling $61 million to a group controlled by Householder and his allies in order to pass and preserve a 2019 law that Leah Stokes described in Vox as "widely recognized as the worst energy policy in the country."

And what does this have to do with Tims? Nothing, but that’s not stopping Turner from attempting to connect her to the scandal anyway. After briefly talking about the scandal involving lobbyists and state Republicans, his narrator awkwardly transitions to attacking Timms by continuing, “Now Washington lobbyist Desiree Tims has moved back to Ohio and is trying to buy a seat in Congress" by accepting out-of-state contributions. Turner himself, though, does have a link to FirstEnergy: According to the Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay, the congressman has taken $20,000 in campaign contributions from the company during his career.

● OK-05: The Club for Growth is running a new commercial against state Sen. Stephanie Bice ahead of next week's Republican primary runoff that begins with someone dancing while wearing a unicorn mask. The narrator responds, "Ok, that's just weird! Like when Stephanie Bice voted for the biggest tax increase in state history, but claims to care about taxpayers."

Our grooving half-unicorn friend (a reverse centaur, but a unicorn?) pops up again, and the narrator responds, "Really, a bit odd. Like how Bice denounced Trump in 2016, but now claims she'll stand with him." This process repeats one more time, with the ad volunteering the dancer is "strange," just like "Bice voting to weaken criminal penalties on looting, but claims she's a conservative." Bice faces businesswoman Terry Neese in next week's contest for the right to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Kendra Horn.

● VA-02: After former Republican Rep. Scott Taylor sent a cease-and-desist letter to Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria demanding that she stop making statements claiming that he is under investigation for ballot access fraud, the Roanoke prosecutor John Beamer's office announced that an investigation is still ongoing, stating, "The entire campaign is under investigation." Taylor's staff was exposed during his unsuccessful 2018 re-election campaign for forging signatures on behalf of Democrat-turned-independent Shaun Brown (who was booted off the ballot by a judge), and Democrats ran ads slamming Taylor's campaign for its illegal scheming.

The story surfaced again in March when a former Taylor staffer pleaded guilty for her part in the scheme, and Beamer's office now says that more indictments are possible. Taylor himself has consistently denied any knowledge of the scheme, but his staff had previously claimed the congressman was indeed aware of their plans.

● WA-10: Democratic state Rep. Kristine Reeves, who finished in third place with 13% in this month's top-two primary, has endorsed former Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland over state Rep. Beth Doglio in the all-Democratic November general election.

Primary Result Recaps

● FL-03: Kat Cammack defeated 2018 candidate Judson Sapp 25-20 in the Republican primary to succeed her old boss, retiring Rep. Ted Yoho, in this 56-40 Trump seat in north-central Florida.

Cammack served as Yoho's campaign manager during his four bids for office, including his 2012 upset win against incumbent Cliff Stearns and his 2018 contest against Sapp, but Yoho was hardly in her corner. In a weird twist, Yoho, who did not endorse anyone, confirmed in June that he'd "demoted" Cammack seven years ago "from Chief of Staff in my Washington, DC office to Deputy Chief of staff and reassigned to the district in Florida for reasons not to be disclosed."

Yoho concluded, "She continued to work for our office in a satisfactory manner until she decided to run for Congress herself. No further comments are warranted." No more comments came, and Cammack is now poised to win the seat of the man who demoted her. Daily Kos Elections rates this as Safe Republican.

● FL-05: Democratic Rep. Al Lawson took just 56% of the vote in the primary against two unheralded opponents in this safely blue North Florida seat, which was not a strong performance for an incumbent. Chester Albert, whose old anti-LGBTQ writings surfaced weeks before the primary, was far behind with 28%. While Lawson didn't come close to losing, though, Tuesday's results indicate that he could be in trouble in the future against a stronger intra-party foe, especially with redistricting just around the corner.

● FL-08: Republican Rep. Bill Posey won renomination 62-38 against Scott Caine, a Navy veteran who ran some anti-Posey TV ads in the final weeks of the contest for this safely red seat along Florida's Space Coast.

● FL-13: Air Force veteran Anna Paulina Luna defeated attorney Amanda Makki, who had the backing of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, 36-28 in the GOP primary to take on Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist. While both candidates campaigned as ardent Trump allies, Luna worked especially hard to foster a far-right image. Luna, who compared Hillary Clinton to "herpes," also enjoyed the support of Rep. Matt Gaetz, a rabid Trump fan who represents the 1st District well to the northwest.

This St. Petersburg seat went from 55-44 Obama to 50-46 Clinton, but neither party has been acting like Crist is in much danger. Daily Kos Elections rates this contest as Likely Democratic.

● FL-18: Navy veteran Pam Keith, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nod last cycle, defeated former state deputy solicitor general Oz Vazquez 80-20 in the primary to face Republican Rep. Brian Mast.

This seat, which includes the Palm Beach area and the Treasure Coast to the north, moved from 51-48 Romney to 53-44 Trump, and Mast doesn't look vulnerable. The incumbent won re-election 54-46 against a well-funded opponent, and he had a hefty $1.8 million on-hand in late July. Daily Kos Elections rates this as Safe Republican, though things could get interesting if Trump truly wrecks his party down the ballot.

● FL-19: State Rep. Byron Donalds appears to have claimed the GOP nomination for this safely red seat in the Cape Coral and Fort Myers area after a very tight expensive battle. The Associated Press has not called the contest as of Wednesday afternoon, but second place candidate House Majority Leader Dan Eagle, who trails 23-22 with 104,000 ballots counted, has conceded to Donalds. Two self-funders, businessman Casey Askar and urologist William Figlesthaler, finished just behind with 20% and 18%, respectively.

Askar and Figlesthaler decisively outspent the rest of the field, while Eagle had the support of Sen. Marco Rubio. Donalds, though, benefited from millions in spending from the anti-tax Club for Growth and like-minded groups. Donalds would be the second Black Republican to represent Florida in Congress since Reconstruction; the first was Allen West, who is now the chair of the Texas Republican Party.

Donalds ran here back in 2012 and took fifth place with 14% in what turned out to be the first of four open seat contests during the decade. The winner was Trey Radel, who was elected in the fall but arrested the next year by an undercover officer in D.C. after he attempted to buy cocaine, and he resigned months later under pressure from party leaders. Radel was succeeded in a 2014 special by Curt Clawson, who retired in 2016 and was replaced by Francis Rooney, who announced last year that he would not seek a third term.

● FL State House: Two terrible Democratic state House members representing safely blue seats were ousted Tuesday by far more progressive opponents.

In Jacksonville’s HD-14, community organizer Angie Nixon defeated incumbent Kim Daniels by a 60-40 margin. Daniels, who has faced a number of serious questions about her ethics, defied her party this year by co-sponsoring a bill requiring parental consent for abortions, and an official with Equality Florida dubbed her “probably the most anti-LGBTQ Democrat in Tallahassee.”

Daniels also made a name for herself as a Trump loyalist, and in 2018, she delivered a prayer giving thanks to Donald Trump that also included attacks on witches. Daniels had the backing of charter school interests and the Florida Chamber of Commerce, while the local chamber and state AFL-CIO were for Nixon.

Meanwhile, in Palm Beach County’s HD-88, Lake Worth Beach Commissioner Omari Hardy beat state Rep. Al Jacquet 43-26. Jacquet has a long history of homophobia, and he used an anti-LGBTQ slur against Hardy during the campaign; Hardy responded, “While I am not gay, I was raised in a same-sex household by my two mothers, and I am offended for them and for the broader LGBTQ community here in Palm Beach County, where I serve.”

Jacquet said later, “I apologize for my words that have offended some of my colleagues.” That non-apology didn’t satisfy anyone, and Jacquet soon stepped down from his post as the top Democrat on the Rules Committee.

● Broward County, FL State Attorney: Former prosecutor Harold Pryor won the eight-way Democratic primary to succeed incumbent Mike Satz, who is retiring after an astounding 44 years in office. Pryor, who would be the first African American to hold this office, defeated defense attorney Joe Kimok 21-20.

Pryor is the heavy favorite in the fall in this 66-31 Clinton county. However, Republicans do have a notable candidate in Gregg Rossman, who has prosecuted a number of high-profile murders; another local prosecutor, Sheila Alu, is also competing as an independent.

● Miami-Dade County, FL Mayor: Two county commissioners, Republican Steve Bovo and Democrat Daniella Levine Cava, will face off in November's nonpartisan general election to succeed termed-out incumbent Carlos Gimenez, who is the GOP nominee for Congress against Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Bovo took first place with 29.3%, while Levine Cava beat former Democratic Mayor Alex Penelas 28.8-24.5 for the second general election spot.

The following day, Levine Cava released an internal poll from Change Research taken in early August that showed her leading Bovo 39-28. However, while Miami-Dade County is solidly blue in presidential contests, a Bovo win is far from out of the question. Republicans often do very well in this area downballot, and it's hardly a certainty that supporters of Penelas, whom Al Gore dubbed "the single most treacherous and dishonest person I dealt with" due to his actions during the 2000 campaign, will overwhelmingly break for Levine Cava.

● Miami-Dade County, FL State Attorney: Incumbent Katherine Fernández Rundle, who has been in office for 27 years, defeated progressive opponent Melba Pearson 61-39 in the Democratic primary. No other candidates filed for the general election, so Fernández Rundle's victory gives her another term by default.

● Orange/Osceola Counties, FL State Attorney : Former defense attorney Monique Worrell, who campaigned as the most progressive candidate in the four-person Democratic primary, decisively won the nomination to succeed retiring incumbent Aramis Ayala as state attorney for the Ninth Circuit, which covers both Orlando's Orange County and neighboring Osceola County. Worrell, who had Ayala's endorsement and benefited from heavy spending by a group close to billionaire philanthropist George Soros, beat former judge Belvin Perry 43-31.

No Republicans are running in the November election, and Worrell will be the heavy favorite to defeat independent Jose Torroella.

● WY-Sen: Former Rep. Cynthia Lummis, to no one's surprise, beat Converse County Commissioner Robert Short 60-13 in the Republican primary to succeed retiring Rep. Mike Enzi. Wyoming was Donald Trump's single best state in 2016, and Lummis should have no trouble in the fall in a contest Daily Kos Elections rates as Safe Republican.

Grab Bag

● Deaths: It may be hard for younger people to believe, but for much of the second half of the 20th century, the states of the Pacific Northwest routinely elected center-right Republicans to higher office. One of the last remaining big names from that tradition died on Wednesday at the age of 92: Washington's former Sen. Slade Gorton.

Gorton spent nearly 40 years in elective office, getting his start representing a north Seattle state House seat in the 1960s. Gorton then was elected in 1968 to his first of three terms as state attorney general, where he engaged in a long fight with the state's Native American tribes over fishing treaty rights.

Gorton went on have two separate tenures in the U.S. Senate. He was first elected in 1980 with some help from Ronald Reagan's coattails in a 54-46 upset victory against local institution Warren Magnuson, a Democrat who served in the chamber since 1944. Like a number of Senate Republicans elected in 1980, though, he found himself bounced out in the 1986 midterm, losing to former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Brock Adams, who had previously been a Democratic congressman, 51-49.

Gorton, however, quickly won the state's other Senate seat in 1988, prevailing 51-49 against Democratic Rep. Mike Lowry in the contest to succeed retiring Republican incumbent Dan Evans. (Lowry would win his single term as governor four years later.) Gorton was re-elected in 1994 fairly easily against the backdrop of a good Republican year over then-King County Councilor Ron Sims, who would later become the executive of Washington's largest county.

Gorton's political career, though, didn’t survive the state's gradual move toward the Democrats in 2000. Gorton ended up being unseated by former Rep. Maria Cantwell in an extremely close race, losing by only 2,200 votes after an automatic recount.

Gorton was a largely party-line vote in the Senate though with occasional deviations, of which one of the most notable was his decision to vote against the perjury charge in Bill Clinton's impeachment (though he did vote to convict on the obstruction of justice charge). One of Gorton's notable post-Senate achievements will survive him for a few more years: He was the chief Republican member of Washington's redistricting commission in 2011, which is generally regarded as having produced mildly Republican-favorable maps.

Incidentally, thanks to the longevity of Cantwell and fellow Democratic Sen. Patty Murray (and the even greater longevity of Magnuson and Henry Jackson before them), Gorton's passing means that Washington is in the unusual position of having only one living ex-senator: Dan Evans, still going at 94.

Election Changes

Please bookmark our litigation tracker for a complete summary of the latest developments in every lawsuit regarding changes to elections and voting procedures as a result of the coronavirus.

● Delaware: Republicans have filed a lawsuit in state court seeking to overturn a new law passed by Democratic lawmakers earlier this year that loosened Delaware's excuse requirement to enable everyone to vote by mail this November due to the pandemic. The law also directed officials to mail an application for an absentee mail ballot to all voters in the Sept. 15 downballot primary and November general election.

● Louisiana: Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards says he won't sign a new election plan proposed by Republican Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin that would keep in place the state's requirement that voters under age 65 present a specific excuse to request an absentee ballot and would only expand eligibility to those who have documentation that they have tested positive for COVID-19 (note that we previously said incorrectly that Edwards did not have the power to veto this plan). The latest GOP plan is more limited than the exceptions that Ardoin backed in the state's July primary, and the Republican legislature is set to take up the plan this week.

● New Jersey: The Trump campaign and national and state GOP organizations have filed a federal lawsuit aiming to overturn Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy's recent executive order adopting a full vote-by-mail system for November, where every voter will be mailed a ballot directly and in-person voting will still be available on a limited basis of at least one location in each of the state's 565 municipalities.

Ad Roundup

ME-Sen: Sara Gideon (D); NRSC - anti-Gideon (D); Senate Majority PAC - anti-Susan Collins (R-inc)
MI-Sen: One Nation - anti-Gary Peters (D-inc)
MT-Sen: Steve Bullock (D) (here and here)
NC-Sen: Cal Cunningham (D)
SC-Sen: Lindsey Graham (R-inc)
MO-Gov: Uniting Missouri PAC - pro-Mike Parson (R-inc), anti-Nicole Galloway (D)
MT-Gov: DGA - anti-Greg Gianforte (R), pro-Mike Cooney (D)

A Democratic wave pickup of 10 Senate seats is a real possibility

Posted on August 1, 2020 (Updated August 3, 2020) by kos

Early in the cycle, the big question was wether Democrats could pick up the net-four seats they needed to get control of the U.S. Senate (assuming they won the presidency, and the tie-breaking vote). It was a tall order, given that only one top pickup opportunity (Colorado) was in a 2016 blue state. But Donald Trump’s disastrous and deadly presidency hasn’t just crushed his own reelection chances, but is now threatening Republican Senate seats no one would’ve ever thought would be at risk, even in some solidly red states.

Welcome to my inaugural ranking of Senate races, by most likely to flip.

TIER ONE (expected to switch)

1. Alabama, Doug Jones (D)

Our two-year Democratic rental, thanks to a narrowly won special election against a child predator, should come to an end this November as Alabama’s strong Republican lean and a run-of-the-mill Republican challenger ends Jones’ term. No regrets. It was great while it lasted.

2. Colorado, Cory Gardner (R)

Joe Biden will win Colorado by double-digits. There’s no way Gardner overcomes that margin, and especially not against former Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, who remained popular throughout his two terms in office. In fact, Gardner has acted as someone vying for a spot on a second Trump term, reliably defending his president during the impeachment proceedings, rather than a blue-state senator trying to differentiate himself from the top of the ticket.

3. Arizona, Marth McSally (R)

McSally narrowly lost in the Democratic wave in 2018, and since appointed to fill Sen. John McCain’s seat after his death, she is headed toward another defeat at the hands of Democrat Mark Kelly, an astronaut and husband to former congresswoman and gun violence victim Gabby Giffords. Polling is showing both Biden and Kelly pulling away, in a state in which resurgent Latino voters and suburban white women are heavily engaging.

4. North Carolina, Thom Tillis (R)

Democratic Iraq and Afghanistan war vet Cal Cunningham has proven a surprisingly strong challenger to first-term Republican Thom Tillis, handily leading him in all recent polling. It’s not even looking close, in a state in which Biden has also led (albeit more narrowly). Tillis runs weakly against Republicans, who see him as a traitor to Trump’s cause. And the double-whammy of Trump losing the state, and Tillis losing Trump voters, looks too much to overcome.

5. Maine, Susan Collins (R)

Collins survived decades as a Republican in blue Maine by pretending to be a “moderate” independent-minded legislator. The Trump years have torn that facade away, as she’s sided with the wannabe despot in both his Supreme Court nominations, and in voting to acquit him during the impeachment proceedings. Democrat Sara Gideon, Speaker of the Maine House, is leading in all recent polling, and would be the first woman of color (Indian American) elected in Maine.

These five races would net Democrats the +3 seats they need for a 50-50 Senate, with Biden’s vice-president casting the tie-breaking vote. But what a nightmare that would be, right? We’d have the nominal majority, but well-short of the 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, and without the Democratic votes needs to eliminate that stupid filibuster. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin has already declared he’d vote against any such efforts. So it is imperative that Democrats pad their majority in order to have the votes to get rid of the filibuster and push through critical legislation like statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico (if its residents vote for it), voting right protections, economic stimulus, police reforms, measures to address climate change, and other Democratic priorities.

TIER TWO (toss-ups)

6. Montana, Steve Daines (R)

How can Democrats be competitive in a state which Trump won by over 20 points? First, convince popular Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock to run, then watch Trump’s numbers collapse to the point that Biden is actually competitive. Recent polling in this hard-to-poll state show Republicans with the narrow edge, but it’s narrow.

7. Iowa, Joni Ernst (R)

This wasn’t a state that was supposed to be competitive, with Trump winning by nine points in 2016. Yet Trump disastrous trade wars decimated Iowa farmers, and the coronavirus pandemic has only added to anti-GOP sentiment. So this state of rural non-college whites—the core base of the modern Republican Party—is suddenly flirting with voting Democratic. Most recent polling shows Trump leading by a hair, the same as Democratic challenger Theresa Greenfield.

8. Georgia, Kelly Loeffler (R)

Georgia has a racist Jim Crow-era election system, in which candidates require 50% in the first round, otherwise the race moves to a January runoff. This is a special election, thus features a “jungle primary” in which all candidates, of all parties, run on the same ballot. If none reaches 50% (and none will), this gets decided January next year. Democrats are running several candidates, and would be best served if they rallied around Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta (where Dr. Rev, Martin Luther King preached).

While Democrats have traditionally suffered turnout woes during the runoff elections, I doubt that’ll be an issue this cycle. January will be HOT in Georgia.

9. Georgia, David Perdue (R)

Same as above, except that there’s no jungle primary. Democrats nominated Jon Ossoff to take on the incumbent. Polling has been mixed in this race, with some showing a tied race, and others showing Perdue close to 50%. But at the same time, almost all polling is showing a competitive presidential contest. If Biden can extend his lead in this coronavirus-stricken state, he could very well pull Democrats across the line with him, at least into January runoffs where defeated and demoralized Republicans might just sit things out.

TIER THREE (lean Republican)

These solidly Republican states shouldn’t be competitive at the Senate level, yet amazingly, they are!

10. Kansas, Open (R)

The conventional wisdom is that if Republican nominate crazed right-winger Kris Kobach, that this seat in this +20 2016 Trump state becomes far more competitive in November. That would make sense, since Kobach cost Republicans the governorship in 2018. Our own Civiqs polling, actually, found Democrat Barbara Bollier competitive no matter who Republicans nominate. A tough state, for sure but Kansas is one of the few remaining Republican states with high educational attainment (the other being Utah). Given the nation’s partisan stratification based on college education, we can expect Biden to narrow the gap from 2016, improving Bollier’s chances down the ballot. And if Republicans nominate Kobach? That can’t hurt, either.

11. Alaska, Dan Sullivan (R)

Alaska is competitive at the presidential level (more here), despite the fact that Trump won it by 15 in 2016. No polling has shown the Senate race competitive, but that’s because 1) there is no Democratic nominee—an independent is filling that slot, and 2) that nominee, Al Gross, has a name ID of about zero percent. Gross is now up in the air, and that should boost that name ID in this cheap state. Also, Democrats will now learn that he is their guy, and will answer accordingly the next time they’re polled.

Without strength at the presidential level, this seat isn’t in play, but Alaska has been trending Democratic for several cycles now, and this year may be the year when that vast swath of land is painted in glorious blue.

12. South Carolina, Lindsey Graham (R)

Pinch me I must be dreaming. Infamous Trump bootlicker Lindsey is vulnerable? Yes. Yes he is. The polling has shown the state tightening at the presidential level, and the pandemic is hitting South Carolina hard, further weakening the state’s dominant Republican Party. Democrats have an awesome candidate in Jaime Harrison. His problem has been that while he’s running even with Graham, most undecideds in the race are conservative voters. It’s a tough hill to overcome. But this is happening:

Civiqs Results

Every point Trump falls is a point that could cost him in the presidential election, and every point that presidential race narrows is one point less Harrison needs to overcome to win the Senate seat. The play here isn’t for Biden to win, he doesn’t need South Carolina (as nice as it would be!). We need it close enough to give ourselves a chance down ballot.

This is a long-shot, by all means, but it’s a real shot. And Harrison has raised record amounts of cash and has the resources to wage a real campaign in this final three-month sprint to Election Day.

13. Texas, John Cornyn (R)

The big question in Texas is whether it is competitive at the presidential level or not. It’s clear where the state is trending, and no doubt in a cycle or two it will be legitimately purple. But polling is mixed on whether this is the year. And that will inform whether the Senate race is flippable. On its merits, Cornyn should be cruising to reelection. He has none of the baggage Sen. Ted Cruz had in 2018, where he held on to his seat by just 2% of the vote. But if Texas Democrats can get the state’s chronically underperforming Latino vote to activate, then all bets are off—at both the presidential and senate levels.

CONCLUSION

Of the 13 Senate seats currently in play, 12 of them are held by Republicans. The odds of Democrats picking up 10 or 11 seats are currently low, but the trends just keep getting worse and worse for the GOP. The toll of the pandemic isn’t just worsening nationwide, it’s currently disproportionately affecting some of the very states discussed above, like Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, South Carolina, and Texas.

Meanwhile, Trump is doing nothing to reverse his precipitous collapse in his national standing, while also refusing to allow Republicans to distance themselves from him.

So can we get to a double-digit pickup in the Senate? Not today, we wouldn’t, but Republicans still have three months to fall.