Category: RI-01

Morning Digest: Check out our preview of special elections in Utah and Rhode Island

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The Daily Kos Elections team will be taking Friday off for the Labor Day weekend. The Live Digest will be back on Tuesday, and the Morning Digest will return on Wednesday. Have a great holiday!

Leading Off

● Primary Night: Tuesday is primary night for two vacant House seats on opposite ends of the country: Rhode Island's 1st District, which Democrat David Cicilline departed at the end of May, and Utah's 2nd District, where Republican Chris Stewart remains in office but triggered a special election by notifying Gov. Spencer Cox in June that he would "irrevocably resign" effective the evening of Sept. 15.

Given the respective lean of each district—Joe Biden took Rhode Island's 1st 64-35, while Donald Trump carried Utah's 2nd 57-40—the primaries will likely be dispositive in both cases. It'll still be a little while, though, before either state sends a new member to Congress: The general election in Rhode Island will take place on Nov. 7, while Utah's is set for Nov. 21. Below, we preview both contests.

● RI-01: A total of 12 Democrats are on the ballot to replace Cicilline, though one of them, businessman Don Carlson, dropped out over the weekend amid a scandal.

The main contenders for this dark blue constituency are former Biden administration official Gabe Amo, state Sen. Sandra Cano, Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos, and former state Rep. Aaron Regunberg. Also running are Navy veteran Walter Berbrick, state Rep. Stephen Casey, Providence City Councilman John Goncalves, and state Sen. Ana Quezada.

Amo, Cano, Goncalves, Matos, and Quezada would each have the chance to make history as the first person of color to represent the Ocean State in Congress.

The only poll we've seen in the last month was a mid-August internal for Amo that showed Regunberg leading him 28-19 as Matos and Cano took 11% each. The survey, which found Carlson taking 8%, did not ask about the rest of the field by name and instead found 8% opting for "another candidate not mentioned here." However, there are further indications that Regunberg, who touts endorsements from prominent national progressives like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is the frontrunner going into Tuesday.

Regunberg, who is the nephew of Illinois Rep. Brad Schneider, was on the receiving end of more attacks than any of his opponents at Tuesday's debate. A group called Committee for a Better Rhode Island followed up days later by making Regunberg its target in the first negative TV ad of the entire race, though WPRI says it's only putting $81,000 behind its offensive. The spot attacks the candidate over his May declaration that he would have voted against Biden's debt ceiling deal with Speaker Kevin McCarthy; Regunberg said at Tuesday's debate that he'd have supported the agreement if he'd been the decisive vote.

Amo, for his part, picked up an endorsement Thursday from former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, who represented prior versions of this seat from 1995 to 2011 but has since moved out of the state. Kennedy, who is the son of the late Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, also appeared in a commercial for Amo and touted his work in the Biden administration.

Matos, meanwhile, looked like the frontrunner until July, when multiple local election boards asked the police to probe allegations that her campaign had turned in forged signatures in order to get on the ballot. State election authorities have reaffirmed that the lieutenant governor submitted a sufficient number of valid petitions, but the state attorney general's office is continuing to investigate the matter. Matos' allies at EMILY's List and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus remain in her corner, however, as she's benefited from more outside spending than any of her rivals.

Cano has trailed her opponents in fundraising and hasn't received any third-party help, but she has several influential labor groups on her side. The rest of the field has raised little money and hasn't picked up many notable endorsements.

● UT-02: The GOP contest to succeed Stewart is a three-way battle between Celeste Maloy, the congressman's former legal counsel; former state Rep. Becky Edwards; and former RNC member Bruce Hough. The winner will face Democratic state Sen. Kathleen Riebe, who has no intra-party opposition, for a seat located in central and western Salt Lake City and southwestern Utah.

Maloy, who has Stewart's support, earned her spot on the primary ballot by winning the support of delegates at the GOP's convention in June. Just days later, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that she'd last voted in Utah in 2018 before taking a job in D.C. to work for Stewart, which led election officials to move her voter registration to inactive status. Maloy's detractors unsuccessfully argued in court that she'd violated state law because she only became an active voter again after she filed to run for Congress, but they've continued working to portray her as an interloper.

Edwards, meanwhile, infuriated conservatives in 2020 when she endorsed Joe Biden (she has since expressed "regret"), a move she followed by waging a failed primary challenge to far-right Sen. Mike Lee in which she portrayed herself as a more pragmatic option. However, the one poll anyone has released finds voters may not be holding it against her: A mid-August survey from Dan Jones & Associates showed Edwards beating Hough 32-11, with Maloy at 9%. However, half of respondents were undecided, so if this survey is accurate, the race remains up for grabs.

Unlike in Rhode Island, there has been little outside activity in this contest. Hough and Edwards had each spent about $450,000 as of mid-August, while Maloy had spent about half that.

Senate

● AZ-Sen: Multiple media outlets reported Wednesday that Blake Masters, who was one of the GOP's very worst Senate nominees last cycle, has decided to try again this year, and Politico says his declaration could come as soon as next week. Masters would join Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb in the primary for the seat held by Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat-turned-independent who still hasn't revealed her 2024 plans.

The Republican that everyone's waiting on, though, is election denier Kari Lake, who Axios previously reported plans to launch in October. She and Masters campaigned together last year by urging voters to back "Lake and Blake," but their relationship is anything but friendly these days. Lake on Sunday responded to the news that Masters would be talking to a local conservative activist by tweeting, "I hope you bring up election fraud, and Election crime. You've been quite silent."

● MI-Sen: Following a new report on Thursday from the Detroit News that former Republican Rep. Peter Meijer had formed an exploratory committee ahead of a possible bid for Michigan's open Senate seat next year, the ex-congressman released a statement once again confirming that he's "considering running." The development comes as another former member of Congress, Mike Rogers, is also reportedly preparing to join the GOP primary. Democrats have a multi-way primary of their own, but Rep. Elissa Slotkin has raised far more money and earned more high-profile endorsements than the rest of the field.

● MT-Sen: Republican pollster J.L. Partners has shared a recent poll with Semafor that tests next year's primary and general election, though there's no indication about who, if anyone, was their client. The GOP primary portion finds far-right Rep. Matt Rosendale with a wide 52-21 edge over wealthy businessman Tim Sheehy, who is the favorite of establishment Republicans and the NRSC. That result is only modestly better for Sheehy than a June survey from Democratic firm Public Policy Polling that had found Rosendale up 64-10 right before Sheehy kicked off his campaign.

While Rosendale has yet to formally announce his own campaign, he's recently been acting like he's going to run, and Democrats likely would prefer to face him given that he already lost to Democratic Sen. Jon Tester when this seat was last up in 2018. However, J.L. Partners' poll finds little difference between the two Republicans in a hypothetical 2024 general election: Rosendale leads Tester 46-43 while Sheehy beats the incumbent 46-42. Polling has been very limited here so far, but those numbers are very similar to Rosendale’s 46-41 edge over Tester that GOP pollster OnMessage Inc. found in February.

Governors

● KY-Gov: Pluribus News reports that Democratic incumbent Andy Beshear and his allies have reserved $17.3 million in TV time for the remainder of the campaign, compared to $5 million from Republican Daniel Cameron and his backers.

● LA-Gov: Conservative independent Hunter Lundy has self-funded more than $1 million to air his first TV ad, which is a minute-long spot that highlights his working-class upbringing and emphasizes his Christian faith. Lundy also calls for raising the minimum wage, investing in education, and holding responsible the "people who wreck our air and water."

Ballot Measures

● MO Ballot: Missouri voters could see dueling ballot measures on abortion rights next year after a new group submitted six petitions that would create several exceptions to the state's near-total ban on the procedure, including in cases of rape or fatal fetal abnormalities. One version of the petition would also allow abortion through 12 weeks of pregnancy, while two others would permit it until fetal viability, which is generally viewed as beginning at around 23 to 24 weeks.

However, the proposals, which were put forward by a former Republican political operative and artist named Jamie Corley, have earned the ire of the state's Planned Parenthood affiliate, particularly for their focus on exceptions to Missouri's ban. Yamelsie Rodríguez, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, said in a statement that Corley's approach "will continue to harm Missourians" and warned that "exceptions have never provided meaningful access."

Reproductive rights activists have been working to qualify their own measure for the 2024 ballot after filing 11 different petitions earlier this year, all of which are more expansive than Corley's proposals. (Proponents will ultimately settle on a single plan.) However, the local Planned Parenthood has taken exception to this push, too: Politico reported in April that the organization had pulled out of the coalition behind the effort, called Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, because most of its petitions also impose a fetal viability limit.

Corley is arguing that her more restrictive petitions have a better chance of becoming law. "I have respect for other organizations that are working in this realm," she told KCUR. But, she added, "I would say I think we have a much different view and assessment about what is ultimately passable in Missouri."

Missourians for Constitutional Freedom is also in the midst of a lawsuit against Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft over the summary language he drafted for six of the group's petitions.

Ashcroft, who is running for governor, wrote that the measures would "allow for dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions, from conception to live birth, without requiring a medical license or potentially being subject to medical malpractice." The ACLU of Missouri, which is leading the challenge, charged that the descriptions are "misleading" and prejudicial." A state court will hold a trial on the dispute on Sept. 11, with the judge promising to deliver a ruling "pretty quick."

Grab Bag

● Where Are They Now?: Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was one of the most powerful Republicans in Arizona just seven years ago, announced Wednesday that he'll run again in 2024 for mayor of the Phoenix suburb of Fountain Hills, the 24,000-person community where incumbent Ginny Dickey beat him 51-49 last year. Arpaio, who is 91, previously lost his 2016 reelection campaign for sheriff, his 2018 primary for U.S. Senate, and the 2020 primary to regain the sheriff's office.

Morning Digest: Democrats’ new Florida recruit has a plan to exploit Rick Scott’s bungling

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

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Leading Off

● FL-Sen: Former Florida Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell kicked off her campaign to unseat Republican Sen. Rick Scott on Tuesday, a development that gives national Democrats the recruit they want for what will be a challenging contest. Mucarsel-Powell, though, is hoping that Scott's own vulnerabilities, as well as a backlash to Gov. Ron DeSantis' far-right agenda, will give her the chance to score an upset in a longtime swing state that veered sharply to the right in 2022.

Mucarsel-Powell, who flipped a competitive Miami-area House seat in 2018 but lost it two years later, first needs to win the primary. However, she begins as the strong favorite to become the first Latina Democrat ever nominated for statewide office.

The only other notable candidate who has launched a bid is Navy veteran Phil Ehr, who raised $2 million for his 2020 campaign against the nationally infamous Rep. Matt Gaetz in the safely red 1st District, but he's so far attracted no major allies. Former Rep. Alan Grayson also is talking about running and even filed FEC paperwork in late June, but his deliberations have attracted little attention now that he's well into the perennial candidate stage of his career.

Scott, who became wealthy running what was the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain, HCA, used his vast personal resources to win two tight races for governor in 2010 and 2014 before narrowly unseating Sen. Bill Nelson in 2018.

His political fortunes, though, took a sharp downturn last cycle after a chaotic tenure as head of the NRSC that was defined by a feud with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and saw the GOP manage to defy history by actually losing a seat. One of Scott's many mistakes came early in 2022 when he unveiled a plan to "sunset" all federal legislation, including Social Security, after five years, an agenda that Democrats were only too happy to make Republican Senate candidates answer for.

Scott's proposal received new attention earlier this year when President Joe Biden attacked it in his State of the Union address—a pile-on that McConnell was only too happy to join. "I think it will be a challenge for him to deal with this in his own reelection in Florida, a state with more elderly people than any state in America," said McConnell of the senator who months before had tried to oust him as the GOP's Senate leader. (The bad blood between the two camps continues to linger, with one unnamed McConnell ally using just two words to describe Scott to Time magazine in April: "Ass clown.")

Scott soon edited his "sunset" plan to include "specific exceptions of Social Security, Medicare, national security, veterans benefits, and other essential services," but Mucarsel-Powell made it clear this week that his belated about-face wouldn't deter her from making Scott's blunder an issue. "He wrote the plan that could take away the Social Security and Medicare you worked and paid for," she said in a kickoff video that also insinuated Scott had shirked his duties to the public while becoming even richer during his time in office.

The former congresswoman went on to highlight the most notorious chapter of Scott's business career: his company's 2003 guilty plea in what the Department of Justice at the time proclaimed was "the most comprehensive health care fraud investigation" it had ever undertaken. (HCA wound up paying a record $1.7 billion in fines.)  The scandal was never quite enough to deny Scott victory in any of his previous elections, but Mucarsel-Powell is hoping it will help her frame this race as a battle between an immigrant from Ecuador who once "worked for minimum wage in a donut shop" and a wealthy incumbent "who cuts taxes for himself, but he'd raise them for you."

Mucarsel-Powell is also hoping to get some help at the top of the ticket if she's to give Florida Democrats their first win in a federal statewide race since 2012. Donald Trump carried the Sunshine State 51-48 in 2020 even as he was losing most other swing states, but it was landslides by DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio in 2022 that truly left Democrats in a funk. However, there are signs that Joe Biden is serious about keeping Florida in play next year, as his campaign included the state as part of a new $25 million TV and digital buy covering several battlegrounds.

And Democrats have some reason to be optimistic that, if serious resources are allocated here, their message could gain traction. Abortion rights advocates are collecting signatures to place a constitutional amendment on next year's ballot that would both undo the six-week abortion ban that DeSantis signed into law in April and allow the procedure to take place up to 24 weeks into pregnancy. That could create problems for Republican candidates like Scott, who backed DeSantis' ban and has indicated support for a federal ban as well.

The former congresswoman is also betting that voters are tired of other parts of DeSantis' agenda. "These out-of-touch extremists cannot continue to wield the levers of power in our state," she declared last month. Democrats are hoping that Donna Deegan's upset win in the May race for mayor of Jacksonville was an early sign that Floridians are indeed growing weary of what the DeSantis-era GOP has to offer. They'll also have an early chance to prove that victory was no fluke in a Jan. 16 special election where they'll try to flip a competitive state House seat in the Orlando area.

Democrats also hope that Mucarsel-Powell, who was the first immigrant from South America ever elected to Congress, will be able to appeal to the many Latino voters who switched sides and backed Trump in 2020 after voting for Hillary Clinton four years earlier. Mucarsel-Powell herself experienced that swing the hard way in 2020 as the old version of her 26th Congressional District, where the electorate had a large number of Cuban Americans and voters with ties to elsewhere in Latin America, veered from a 57-41 win for Clinton all the way to a 53-47 Trump victory, a transformation that helped Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Giménez unseat her 52-48.

"Yes, the fear of socialism is real and engrained for those of us who fled dangerous places in search of the American dream," Mucarsel-Powell wrote in a Twitter thread two weeks after her defeat. "My own father was murdered by a criminal with a gun in Ecuador. But it's not why I lost and it's not the only reason South Florida went red."

"There were many factors," she continued, including "a targeted disinformation campaign to Latinos; an electorate desperate to re-open, wracked with fear over the economic consequences; a national party that thinks racial identity is how we vote." Mucarsel-Powell went on to argue that state and national Democrats need to "step back and deeply analyze how we're talking to Latinos and every voter." Now she'll have the chance to test out her own prescription statewide.

Senate

● NV-Sen: Duty First, a super PAC that backs Army veteran Sam Brown, has publicized an internal from Public Opinion Strategies that shows him beating election conspiracy theorist Jim Marchant 33-15 in the GOP primary, with no one else taking more than 2%. This is the first survey we've seen of the contest to face Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen.

House

● CA-22: Democratic state Sen. Melissa Hurtado announced Tuesday that she would challenge Republican Rep. David Valadao in California's 22nd District, a Central Valley constituency that favored Joe Biden by a 55-42 margin in 2020. Hurtado joins former Assemblyman Rudy Salas, a Democrat who is running to avenge his 52-48 loss last year against Valadao, in the top-two primary.

Hurtado joined the state Senate in 2018 when she unseated Republican incumbent Andy Vidak 56-44, a victory that made the 30-year-old the youngest woman ever elected to the chamber. She faced a tough battle four years later to remain there, though, especially after the state's independent redistricting commission left her with a seat that was about one-third new to her.

Democrats were also only too aware that the party's long struggle to turn out their Central Valley base in non-presidential cycles meant that the electorate would be considerably more conservative than the one that favored Biden 53-45 two years before in Hurtado's revamped 16th Senate District. Republican Brian Dahle ended up scoring a 55-45 victory here over Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, but Hurtado narrowly held on and beat Republican David Shepard by 13 votes.

Hurtado's tight win came the same night that Valadao defeated Salas in one of the year's most expensive House races as Dahle was carrying his seat 52-48. Salas soon began laying the groundwork for a rematch, but Hurtado's name only surfaced a week after the former assemblyman launched his campaign in July. She begins the contest with a big geographic base of support, though: Hurtado already represents 96% of the 22nd District, according to calculations by Daily Kos Elections, while Salas served just over half of the seat when he lost to Valadao.

Both Salas, who earned an endorsement last week from Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, and Hurtado would be the first Latino to represent the Central Valley in the House. Valadao, for his part, is one of several people of Portuguese descent who has represented this heavily Latino area.

● CO-03: Democrat Adam Frisch has publicized an internal from Keating Research that shows him edging out far-right Rep. Lauren Boebert 50-48 less than a year after she only fended him off by 546 votes; the memo notes that Keating's October 2022 survey showed Boebert ahead 47-45 at a time when almost everyone expected her to win easily. The sample favors Donald Trump 49-44, which would mark a small drop from his 53-45 margin in 2020. The memo does not mention Grand Junction Mayor Anna Stout, who joined the Democratic primary last month.

● RI-01: We still haven't seen any negative TV ads two weeks ahead of the packed Sept. 5 Democratic primary, and both Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos and former Biden administration official Gabe Amo are remaining positive in their newest spots. Matos is emphasizing her support for abortion rights in what WPRI's Ted Nesi says is her campaign's first TV commercial in two weeks. (EMILY's List and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus BOLD PAC have been airing pro-Matos ads while she's been off the air.) Amo, meanwhile, touts his White House experience.

Legislatures

● MI State House: The Michigan Board of Canvassers on Monday approved recall petitions against state Rep. Sharon MacDonell while once again rejecting those filed against five other Democrats; recall proponents also withdrew their paperwork against a seventh Democrat, state Rep. Reggie Miller. Biden carried MacDonell's 56th District 57-41, which makes it the bluest of the targeted seats. Democrats currently hold a 56-54 majority in the chamber.

Conservatives looking to oust MacDonell will have 180 days to collect roughly 11,000 signatures, a figure that represents 25% of the votes cast in the district during the most recent general election, but all of them must be gathered within a 60-day timeframe. However, the attorney representing the six Democrats, former state party chair Mark Brewer, declared that he'll appeal the decision, which he says will automatically prevent signature collection efforts from going forward for 40 days.

The bipartisan Board of Canvassers voted 3-0 to approve the recall campaign against MacDonell (one Democrat was absent) after determining that her detractors, by citing her vote for gun safety legislation, provided enough information about why they want her ousted. (Brewer argues the paperwork is still too vague.) The body, though, voted 2-1 to reject petitions filed against the other five Democrats, with the majority saying the language didn't do an acceptable job summarizing the legislation they supported.

Mayors and County Leaders

● Houston, TX Mayor: Candidate filing closed Monday for Houston's Nov. 7 nonpartisan primaries, and the wealthy attorney Tony Buzbee waited until the final hours of qualifying to announce that he'd campaign for a spot on the city council rather than wage a second bid for mayor. Buzbee, an independent who serves as GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton's lead attorney for his upcoming impeachment trial, was the only notable politician who was still publicly undecided about running to succeed termed-out Democratic Mayor Sylvester Turner, and there were no other last-minute developments in the mayoral contest.

A pair of prominent Democrats, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and state Sen. John Whitmire, remain the frontrunners in the 17-way race to succeed Turner. Also in the running are City Council member Robert Gallegos; former METRO board chair Gilbert Garcia; attorney Lee Kaplan; and former City Councilmember Jack Christie, who is the only notable Republican in the contest. A runoff would take place either on Dec. 9 or Dec. 16 unless one candidate wins a majority, though that likely second round has not yet been scheduled.

The only poll we've seen in months was a July survey from the University of Houston that showed Whitmire and Jackson Lee taking 34% and 32%, respectively, with Garcia at just 3% (Christie, who was not yet running, was not included.) Responds, though, decisively favored Whitmire 51-33 in a runoff.

Morning Digest: It’s groundhog day for Republicans in Punxsutawney Phil’s home state

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Leading Off

● PA-Sen: The Associated Press' Brian Slodysko reported Monday that the Senate GOP's top choice to run in Pennsylvania, former hedge fund manager David McCormick, lives in a $16 million Connecticut mansion that "features a 1,500-bottle wine cellar, an elevator and a 'private waterfront resort' overlooking Long Island Sound."

McCormick listed the rented property in Westport, which is in the heart of the Nutmeg State's affluent "Gold Coast" region, as his address on both a January document selling his $13.4 million Manhattan condo and a March campaign contribution. Slodysko notes that McCormick's children also attend private school in Connecticut. The story further observes that McCormick carried out virtual interviews earlier this year from his New England mansion, a fact the reporter was able to ascertain because "[d]istinguishing features in the background match pictures that were posted publicly before the McCormicks moved in."

That last detail may give the GOP some unwelcome déjà vu after the disastrous candidacy of Mehmet Oz, who lost last year's race for Pennsylvania's other Senate seat from his own mansion in New Jersey. Oz, after narrowly defeating none other than McCormick by 950 votes in the GOP primary, even filmed some of ads from his palatial home overlooking the Manhattan skyline—a blunder that Democrat John Fetterman's campaign discovered and blasted out far and wide.

Fetterman was able to identify the location of his opponent's shoot because People magazine had helpfully profiled the house a few years earlier, complete with a six-minute video revealing distinctive decorative elements—including a candlestick—similarly found peeking out from behind Oz.

McCormick, unlike Oz, actually grew up in Pennsylvania, but he lived in Connecticut from 2009 until he sold a different mansion there in late 2021 ahead of his first campaign. The candidate, who purchased a home in Pittsburgh, argued at the time he'd never really left behind his native state and pointed to his continued ownership of his family's Christmas tree farm in Bloomsburg as evidence.

McCormick, whose 2022 primary vote for himself marked the first time in 16 years that he'd cast a ballot in the Keystone State, sought to play up his Pennsylvania roots even after his tight loss to Oz. "We're not going anywhere," he insisted. "This is my home." Political observers immediately began to speculate that he could challenge Sen. Bob Casey in 2024, an idea that delighted the GOP establishment. But McCormick has played coy all year: NRSC chair Steve Daines, according to The Dispatch, joked to a room full of donors this spring that they should "beg" him to run.

The once and perhaps future candidate, for his part, declared in March, "People want to know that the person that they're voting for 'gets it.' And part of 'getting it' is understanding that you just didn't come in yesterday." A spokesperson told Slodysko that McCormick "maintains a residence in Connecticut as his daughters finish high school" but his "home is in Pittsburgh."

McCormick's team, however, declined to answer questions about how much of his time he spends in Connecticut. It's also not clear how long he's occupied the Westport mansion, though Slodysko writes that it went off the market in January of last year, at about the same time that McCormick was selling his other property in the state.

Both parties have long expected McCormick to take on Casey, though multiple Republicans recently indicated to the Philadelphia Inquirer that they didn't think he'd made up his mind. "I was told he stuck his toe in the Atlantic Ocean and the temperature's not where he needs it to be right now," said one party official, adding, "I think at some point, we will just go ahead and plunge in, but I dunno when that day will be." (You can't actually tip your toe into the Atlantic from anywhere in Pennsylvania―but you sure can off the Gold Coast.) If McCormick does surprise everyone and sits out the race, it's not clear who, if anyone, the NRSC has in mind as a backup option.

P.S. McCormick may have one other argument he can use to defend his Keystone State bona fides that Oz couldn't use. "There are parts of Northern PA that were claimed by Connecticut at the time of the nation's founding," snarked Willamette University history professor Seth Cotlar, "so maybe McCormick is claiming PA residence on originalist grounds?"

Senate

● NJ-Sen: Politico's Matt Friedman writes that, despite the ongoing federal investigation into Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, no serious intra-party foes are anywhere in sight. Indeed, Friedman says that the one and only Democrat "who was willing to say anything that Menendez could possibly construe as disloyal" was former Sen. Bob Torricelli, and Torricelli (who himself left office in disgrace two decades ago) has made it clear he's done running for office.

● UT-Sen: Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz tells the National Journal's Sydney Kashiwagi that he remains interested in running for the Senate seat held by fellow Republican Mitt Romney, and he adds that he's likely to make up his mind in the fall. Romney himself said last month that he'd also "wait 'til the fall" before deciding whether to seek a second term.

Governors

● WA-Gov: The state GOP chose state Rep. Jim Walsh as its new chairman on Saturday, a move that likely means he won't run for governor next year. Walsh, who had to apologize in 2021 for comparing COVID mitigation policies to the Holocaust, initially expressed interest in seeking the governorship right after Democratic incumbent Jay Inslee announced his retirement in May, but he doesn't appear to have said anything publicly about running since then. Walsh told the Seattle Times over the weekend that he wasn't even sure if he'd seek reelection to the state House, though he said he was "inclined to."

House

● AZ-03: Duane Wooten, a pediatrician who has been quoted by the local news concerning medical issues, tells the Arizona Republic he's filed FEC paperwork for this safely blue open seat and anticipates joining the Democratic primary later in the month.

● CA-41: The prominent labor group SEIU California has endorsed former federal prosecutor Will Rollins, a Democrat who faces only a few underfunded intra-party foes as he seeks a rematch against Republican Rep. Ken Calvert.

● FL Redistricting, FL-05: Plaintiffs challenging Florida's GOP-drawn congressional map before a state court reached an agreement with defendants on Friday to narrow their claims to just a single seat in the northern part of the state, dropping arguments concerning several other districts.

As a result of that deal, the case will now focus solely on whether Republicans violated the state constitution's prohibition on diminishing the ability of racial or language minorities to elect their preferred candidates when they dismantled the 5th District in redrawing Florida's map last year. That district, which was created in 2016 in response to a previous round of litigation, was home to a 46% Black plurality and elected Al Lawson, a Black Democrat, three times in a row.

But after Republicans sliced the 5th down the middle to wring out a new, solidly red seat in north Florida, Lawson was left with the choice of either retiring or running in the revamped 2nd District, which contained his Tallahassee base. That district, though, was home to a 63% white majority and would have voted for Donald Trump by a 55-44 margin. It also was home to GOP Rep. Neal Dunn, though Lawson forged ahead nonetheless, losing in a 60-40 landslide.

That reality, however, seems to have informed the new agreement between the parties. In exchange for plaintiffs consenting to limit the scope of the case, defendants stipulated that "none of the enacted districts in North Florida are districts in which Black voters have the ability to elect their preferred candidates." That admission should boost plaintiffs' chances of success when the case proceeds to trial, which both sides have asked take place on Aug. 24.

In response to the development, Lawson told Politico that he said he'd consider a comeback if a version of his old district were restored. "It's almost like they have no representation there," Lawson said, relaying the concerns of former constituents who've said their pleas for assistance from Republican members of Congress have gone unheeded.

Disappointed Democrats in the rest of the state, however, may not get a shot at redemption. The plaintiffs, who are backed by national Democrats, had also alleged that a large number of districts ran afoul of the state constitution's ban on partisan gerrymandering, including not just the 5th but also the 4th, 7th, 10th, 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 26th, and 27th.

Those claims have now been abandoned, though it's conceivable different plaintiffs could raise them in a new suit. Given the sharp right turn Florida's Supreme Court has taken in recent years—five of its seven members were appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis—it's likely that the plaintiffs in the present suit believed their best hope lies in focusing on the 5th District and dispensing with their partisan gerrymandering arguments.

● GA-13: The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reports that "rumors persist" that Atlanta City Councilmember Keisha Waites will seek a rematch with veteran Rep. David Scott after falling short in the 2020 Democratic primary in 2020, and Waites herself did nothing to dispel the chatter.

While saying that she had nothing to announce at the moment, Waites highlighted concerns from fellow Democrats about the 78-year-old Scott's ability to effectively do his job. "The point of sending our representatives to Washington is to be our voice," Waites argued, "and if their capacity is limited due to illness or whatever the case may be, I think it puts us at a disservice." Scott recently reaffirmed that, despite rumors to the contrary, he'll seek reelection. "Age happens," he declared. "As long I'm doing the job, I'm going to do it."

Waites previously served in the state House from 2012 until she resigned to wage a failed 2017 bid for chair of the Fulton County Commission, and she was out of office when she joined the 2020 primary to take on Scott. She raised virtually nothing in her bid to beat one of the more conservative Democrats in the chamber and lost 53-25, though she came unexpectedly close to forcing Scott into a runoff. She had better luck the following year when she won an at-large seat on the Atlanta City Council, but only about 700 of Scott's constituents live within the city limits.

● IN-06, IN-LG: GOP Rep. Greg Pence tells The Republic that he plans to file for reelection in his reliably conservative seat, though he doesn't appear to have addressed the possibility that he could instead serve as Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch's running mate should she win the Republican primary for governor. Nominees for lieutenant governor are chosen by convention delegates rather than primary voters a month or more after the primary, so it's possible Pence could hedge his bets and simultaneously run for Congress and statewide office.

● MD-03, MD-Sen: While Democratic Rep. John Sarbanes raised all of $15,000 during the first six months of the year, Maryland Matters writes that the nine-term congressman "says he isn't going anywhere."

There's no direct quote from Sarbanes announcing that he'll seek reelection in his safely blue seat, though the incumbent said, "I always come off each cycle looking forward to the next campaign." He added of his meager fundraising, "I typically give my individual supporters a break to catch their breath. I think the constant barrage of fundraising appeals do wear them out." Sarbanes, who is the son of the late Sen. Paul Sarbanes, also revealed he won't join the race for Maryland's open Senate seat or run for the upper chamber at any point in the future. "I decided a few years back that was something that I wasn't drawn to," said the congressman.

● MT-02, MT-Sen: Two Republicans, Auditor Troy Downing and Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen, announced Monday that they were forming exploratory committees in case Rep. Matt Rosendale decides to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, though both said they have no wish to challenge the incumbent in this dark red seat should he instead seek reelection.

Downing, who took third place against Rosendale in the 2018 Senate primary, praised his former rival to KURL and added, "If Congressman Rosendale decides to pursue the US Senate seat, I will discuss with my family and prayerful consideration running for the second congressional district." Arntzen, meanwhile, would be the first woman to represent Montana in Congress since the trailblazing  Jeannette Rankin, who was herself the first woman ever elected to Congress in 1916 and voted against involving America in both world wars during her two nonconsecutive terms. She went further than Downing and made it clear she'd endorse a Rosendale reelection bid.

Pluribus News also takes a look at the many other Republicans who are waiting to see whether Rosendale will give up his eastern Montana constituency, though per our usual practice, we'll wait to see whether he seeks a promotion before running down the potential field to succeed him. But we may be waiting a while longer to see if the congressman will defy Senate GOP leaders, who have consolidated behind wealthy businessman Tim Sheehy. "Montana voters will make their decision over the next few months over who will replace" Tester, a Rosendale spokesperson told KURL, "not Mitch McConnell and the DC cartel."

● NH-01: 2022 GOP nominee Karoline Leavitt dispelled whatever talk there was about a rematch against Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas Monday, saying, "I have decided not to put my name on the ballot in the next election." Leavitt, a Big Lie spreader who now works for a pro-Trump super PAC, lost that campaign 54-46.

● RI-01: EMILY's List and its allies at Elect Democratic Women are spending $400,000 on a TV buy to support Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos, whom WPRI says doesn't have the resources to air her own spots ahead of the Sept. 5 special Democratic primary. The spot, which comes a week after the Congressional Hispanic Caucus BOLD PAC deployed $300,000 on its own pro-Matos ad campaign, touts her record on reproductive rights.

Businessman Don Carlson, meanwhile, is airing his own commercial that begins with footage of gunshots and the sounds of people panicking during a shooting, both of which the on-screen text says are dramatizations. Carlson, whose daughter spent the night in lockdown after a man fired gunshots into a hallway at Colby College (only the shooter was injured), tells the audience, "That was the scene at my daughter's college a few months ago. We were lucky that night, but no parent should ever have to wait by the phone to find out if their child was a victim of gun violence."

● VA-07: Two Republicans who served in different branches of the armed forces, retired Marine Jon Myers and Navy SEAL veteran Cameron Hamilton, have each filed FEC paperwork for the seat that Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger reportedly plans to retire from. Myers' site says he's raising money for an "exploratory committee," while we're still waiting to hear directly from Hamilton.

● WA-03: The Washington Republican Party on Saturday endorsed election conspiracy theorist Joe Kent in his bid for a rematch against freshman Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, despite the mess Kent unleashed less than a year ago. Kent's extremism, which included his belief that the Jan. 6 rioters were "political prisoners," helped Gluesenkamp Perez pull off a 50.1-49.9 upset in a southwestern Washington seat that Trump took 51-47 in 2020. That win helped ensure that House Democrats now represent every district that touches the Pacific Ocean, a feat they hadn't accomplished since before Washington became a state in 1889.

GOP donors so far don't seem happy with the idea of a second Kent campaign, but they're also not rallying behind his only notable intra-party foe. Kent outraised Camas City Councilmember Leslie Lewallen $185,000 to $135,000 during the second quarter of 2023, and he finished June with a $371,000 to $124,000 cash-on-hand advantage. There was briefly some chatter last year that Tiffany Smiley, who was the party's Senate nominee last year, could run, but the Northwest Progressive Institute says she's backing Lewallen. Gluesenkamp Perez, for her part, hauled in $665,000 during the last quarter and had $1.2 million banked to defend herself.

Judges

● WI Supreme Court: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos warned in a new interview with WSAU on Friday that Wisconsin's Republican-run legislature might impeach Justice Janet Protasiewicz, the newest member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, if she does not recuse herself from cases where "she has prejudged" the dispute.

Vos specifically objected to Protasiewicz's condemnation of the state's GOP-drawn legislative district as "rigged" on the campaign trail earlier this year. Those districts are now the subject of a new lawsuit filed by voting rights advocates. But lawmakers, Vos said, might seek to remove Protasiewicz from office because "she bought into the argument" that Republicans have been successful at the ballot box due to gerrymandering, "not the quality of our candidates," according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Molly Beck.

Republicans can easily make good on these threats, at least in terms of raw numbers. It only takes a simple majority in the Assembly to impeach, and thanks to those gerrymandered maps, Republicans have the necessary two-thirds supermajority to secure Protasiewicz's removal in the state Senate. The greater worry, though, is that Republicans simply stall.

If Protasiewicz were to actually be removed from her post, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would be able to appoint a replacement. However, the act of impeaching a state official strips them of their powers until a trial can be held. Republicans could therefore try to indefinitely delay a trial, to keep the court divided between three conservatives and the remaining three liberals.

But as state law expert Quinn Yeargain explains in a detailed post at Guaranteed Republics, the state legislature might not actually have the power to impeach a Supreme Court justice. He also points out that any attempt to slow-walk an impeachment trial could run afoul of the state constitution, saying that in such a scenario, Protasiewicz could sue to demand that the Senate take action.

Ballot Measures

● OH Ballot: Activists in Ohio have begun collecting signatures to place an amendment on next year's ballot that would establish an independent commission to draw election maps in place of the state's current GOP-dominated redistricting board, WOSU's George Shillcock reports. Organizers must first gather 1,000 voter signatures and submit their petition to state officials for their approval before they can amass the 413,487 total signatures they need to put their measure before voters in 2024.

The proposal would create a 15-member panel made up of five Democrats, five Republicans, and five independents, with a ban on politicians or lobbyists serving. The commission would be prohibited from taking incumbents' residency into account and would be required to draw congressional and legislative maps that closely reflect the statewide partisan preferences of Ohio voters. (In light of a similar provision in Ohio's current constitution, the parties in redistricting litigation last year agreed that Republican candidates had, on average, won 54% of the two-party vote in statewide elections over the previous decade while Democrats had won 46%.)

State Legislatures

● NJ State Senate: A long chapter in New Jersey politics is coming to a close following Monday's retirement announcement from Democratic state Sen. Richard Codey, whose record 50 years in the legislature includes the 14 months he spent as acting governor from 2004 to 2006.

  • Popular, but not where it counted. Codey became acting governor in 2004 after incumbent Jim McGreevey announced he would resign over an affair with an aide. But while Codey's high approval numbers would have made him the favorite to win a full term the next year in almost any other state, powerful party leaders mobilized behind wealthy Sen. Jon Corzine.
  • From governor to backbencher. Codey had the honor of being designated the state's full governor at the end of his tenure, but entrenched powerbrokers like George Norcross spent 2009 preparing a successful coup to give the state Senate's top job to Steve Sweeney.
  • Not one to "back off from a fight." Codey nonetheless remained in the state Senate for 14 years, and he got to witness almost all of his major intra-party foes, including Corzine and Norcross, lose elections and influence. Codey himself won his final contest months ago by beating a colleague for renomination.

Find out much more about Codey's long career―as well as about a surprising potential comeback from one crucial player in his story―in our writeup.

Morning Digest: New North Dakota initiative would bar octogenarians from Congress

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

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● ND Ballot: North Dakota officials on Friday gave the green light to advocates for term limits to start collecting signatures for a proposed amendment to the state constitution to bar anyone older than 80 from representing the state in Congress. The measure could, however, have a tough time surviving a court challenge, though it joins a long history of conservatives testing the limits of a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held that states cannot add further qualifications to candidates for Congress beyond those outlined in the U.S. Constitution.

That 1995 ruling, known as U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, struck down an Arkansas ballot initiative that tried to impose term limits on members of the state's congressional delegation. The court's 5-4 decision, which saw swing Justice Anthony Kennedy join the four liberal justices, explained that the only restrictions states could impose on congressional candidates were the ones spelled out in the nation's governing document: namely, a minimum (but not maximum) age, a minimum period of U.S. citizenship, and residency in the state they're seeking to represent at the time of election. Clarence Thomas, however, wrote a dissent that three fellow conservatives joined, saying he would have allowed Arkansas' law to stand.

Last year, Republicans in Tennessee decided to test whether Thomas' views might now hold sway on the Supreme Court, whose membership is now considerably further to the right than it was three decades ago. The GOP-dominated state legislature imposed a requirement that U.S. House candidates must have voted in the previous three statewide general elections to be eligible to run, a move that seemed to be aimed at blocking Morgan Ortagus, a former State Department spokesperson, from seeking the open 5th Congressional District. (Ortagus had only relocated from D.C. in 2021.)

The bill didn't apply last cycle because Gov. Bill Lee only allowed it to become law after the candidate filing deadline had passed. However, the state GOP's executive committee later used a different state law to eject Ortagus and two others from the ballot for not meeting the party's definition of a "bona fide" Republican. At least two of the plan's proponents, though, had much more than 2022 in mind, as they explicitly said they hoped the Supreme Court would overturn U.S. Term Limits. First, though, a candidate impacted by the law would have to file suit, which has not yet happened.

In North Dakota, meanwhile, organizers are seeking to collect signatures to impose a different requirement that, like Tennessee's, also isn't found in the Constitution. The proposed amendment would forbid anyone who would turn 81 before the end of their term from being elected or appointed to Congress. The measure also includes a section saying that, in the event that the courts block this maximum age limit, a "ballot advisory" would appear next to the names of congressional candidates on the ballot informing voters how old they'd be when their term would end.

The effort is being spearheaded by Jared Hendrix, a GOP party official who played a key role in electing and defending members of the legislature's far-right "Bastiat Caucus" (named after the 19th century French economist who championed free markets) and last year helped pass a term-limits measure applying to the governor and state legislators. Hendrix tells the Associated Press' Jack Dura that his group is aiming to get the measure on the June primary ballot rather than wait for next year's general election, saying, "Our plan is to aggressively and quickly gather signatures before cold weather hits."

Hendrix and his allies have until Feb. 12 to turn in about 31,200 signatures, a figure that represents 4% of the state's population (North Dakota is the only state that doesn't require voter registration) in order to meet his timeline; if they submit in their petitions later, the amendment wouldn't go before voters until November 2024. No matter what, though, it would only take a simple majority to pass the proposal at the ballot box.

Congressional elections could experience some major changes coast to coast if the Supreme Court were to chart a new course, but it wouldn't immediately impact any of the three members of the Peace Garden State's all-GOP delegation. Sens. John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer are 66 and 62, respectively, while Rep. Kelly Armstrong is 46. Of course, many members of Congress have served (or currently serve) into their 80s and even beyond: Texas Rep. Ralph Hall was 91 when his career came to an end, while South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond remained in office until he was 100.

Senate

● MI-Sen: GOP Rep. Lisa McClain told The Detroit News Wednesday that she's decided not to seek Michigan's open Senate seat.

● NV-Sen: An unnamed source tells NBC that Jeffrey Ross Gunter, who had a turbulent tenure as Trump's ambassador to Iceland from 2019 to 2021, plans to launch a bid against Democratic Sen. Jackie Rosen sometime early next month. Gunter would join a GOP primary that includes Army veteran Sam Brown, whose kickoff this month came as welcome news to the NRSC, and Jim Marchant, the Big Lie spreader who narrowly lost last year's race for Nevada secretary of state.

Governors

● IN-Gov: Howey Politics wrote Thursday that it anticipates outgoing state Commerce Secretary Brad Chambers will join the GOP primary "[s]ometime between now and Labor Day."

● NC-Gov: Though term-limited Gov. Roy Cooper had previously declined to endorse Josh Stein to succeed him next year, he told a recent gathering of the Democratic Governors Association that one of his priorities is "getting North Carolina's Attorney General Josh Stein elected," in the words of Punchbowl News. Stein remains the only notable Democrat in the race for governor, but last month, Supreme Court Justice Mike Morgan, who is retiring from his current post, said that he's considering a bid. Cooper's comments might therefore be a subtle message that he'd prefer to see Stein avoid any competition in the primary, or that he'd be willing to help him secure the nomination if he does get company.

House

● CA-22: Democratic state Sen. Melissa Hurtado on Wednesday filed FEC paperwork for a potential campaign against GOP Rep. David Valadao. Hurtado would join a top-two primary that includes 2022 nominee Rudy Salas, who lost a tight and expensive race last time: Politico notes that Salas enjoys the support of the number-three Democrat in the House, 33rd District Rep. Pete Aguilar, for his second try.

● CO-03: Grand Junction Mayor Anna Stout announced Wednesday that she'll seek the Democratic nod to take on far-right Lauren Boebert, a move that comes months after 2022 nominee Adam Frisch launched his second bid after coming shockingly close to victory. Stout was elected in 2019 to the city council for this 68,000-person community where Trump won roughly 56-41 in 2020, and her colleagues chose her to serve a second one-year term as mayor in April. Colorado Public Radio also adds that she has "developed a reputation as a moderate lawmaker."

Stout will be in for an expensive fight against Frisch, who hauled in a massive $2.6 million during the second quarter of the year and finished June with $2.5 million in the bank. Boebert, who fended Frisch off by all of 546 votes last year, took in $810,000 during this time and had $1.4 million on-hand. Donald Trump carried this western Colorado district 53-45, but Democrats are hoping Boebert's tough race last year means she'll be in for another serious fight in 2024.

● NH-01: Former Executive Councilor Russell Prescott on Thursday became the first notable Republican to launch a campaign against Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas, an announcement that came less than a year after Prescott badly lost the 2022 primary for this eastern New Hampshire constituency. He's likely to once again face intra-party opposition, though, in a longtime swing seat that favored Joe Biden 52-46.

Prescott is a longtime Granite State politician who won reelection to the state Senate in the 2002 general election by fending off none other than now-Sen. Maggie Hassan; Hassan unseated him in their 2004 rematch, but Prescott reclaimed his seat by riding the 2010 red wave to victory in their third and final bout. (Hassan herself bounced back in 2012 by winning the governorship.) Prescott made the jump to the powerful Executive Council in 2016 and narrowly won re-election two years later before retiring in 2020.

Prescott tried to return to elected office last cycle when he kicked off his campaign to take on Pappas, who had served with him on the Executive Council during his first term, just three-and-a-half months before the primary, but things did not go well. The candidate, whose $350,000 loan accounted for most of his budget, struggled to gain traction in a 10-way contest dominated by 2020 nominee Matt Mowers and election denier Karoline Leavitt: Leavitt beat out Mowers 34-25, with former TV reporter Gail Huff Brown taking 17% and Prescott lagging in fourth place with just 10%. Republicans hoped that another red wave would wash up, but Pappas instead beat Leavitt by a convincing 54-46.

● NY-22: GOP Rep. Brandon Williams' office said Wednesday that the congressman was back in the hospital due to a "complication" following the heart bypass surgery he received two weeks ago. Williams' team added that he would be absent from the House "for the remainder of the week."

● RI-01: The State Board of Elections put out a statement Wednesday saying it would not review any signatures from Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos' campaign, declaring, "Local boards did their job, verifying signatures, rejecting signatures, identifying a subset of rejected signatures as potentially fraudulent, and referring these to state and local law enforcement for criminal investigation." The state attorney general's office is investigating allegations that Matos' team submitted fraudulent petitions, but the Board of Elections argues she still turned in more than enough valid signatures to appear on the crowded Sept. 6 special Democratic primary ballot.

Meanwhile, former state Rep. Aaron Regunberg has begun what his team tells WPRI's Ted Nesi is a $300,000 TV buy through Election Day, which is the most that anyone has committed to spending on the airwaves. Regunberg's two inaugural spots (here and here) tout him as an effective progressive who "took on the old guard" and touts his support for Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. The latter ad also informs viewers that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is backing Regunberg, an endorsement that became public the same day the spots debuted.

Nesi relays that Matos and former Biden administration official Gabe Amo, who each began their own opening buys, have spent or booked $280,000 and $215,000, respectively. Nesi adds that a fourth candidate, clean energy investor Don Carlson has increased his broadcast TV budget to $240,000 and will start advertising on Tuesday rather than in mid-August as he originally planned. Navy veteran Walter Berbrick has yet to launch any spots, though he did secure an endorsement from VoteVets this week.

Secretaries of State

● OR-SoS: State Treasurer Tobias Read, who lost last year's Democratic primary for governor to Tina Kotek 56-32, this week became the first notable candidate to launch a bid for secretary of state. The post is held by LaVonne Griffin-Valade, whom Kotek appointed in late June after Democratic incumbent Shemia Fagan resigned in May following her admission that she'd been doing paid consulting work for a cannabis company at a time when her office was finishing an audit into how the state regulates such businesses. The Oregon Capitol Chronicle writes that Griffin-Valade "has said she doesn't plan to run for a full term," though there's no quote from her.

Because Oregon is one of a few states that lack a lieutenant governor’s office, the secretary of state is normally first in line to succeed the governor if the latter office becomes vacant. However, because that provision only applies to elected secretaries, Read took over the top spot in the line of succession once Fagan resigned, and if he’s elected secretary of state next year, he would remain first in line despite switching offices.

Ballot Measures

● ME Ballot: Democratic Gov. Janet Mills unexpectedly announced Wednesday that a referendum to replace Maine's current state flag with one that was in use from 1901 to 1909 will take place in November 2024 rather than this fall. Mills was able to delay the referendum by not signing or vetoing the bill authorizing the vote, a move that ensured it would only take effect when the legislature reconvenes in January. "Rather than sign the bill and rush the question to ballot in little more than three months, she will … allow time for robust public debate and discussion on all sides of the issue," her team explained.

Maine's existing flag features, in the words of the Associated Press, "the state's coat of arms, which includes a pine tree, a moose, a seafarer and a lumberjack, against a blue background." The 1901 design, by contrast, shows just a green pine tree and blue star across a yellow backdrop, which proponents argue makes for a more distinctive image. Critics of the existing flag also argue that the design is far too cluttered.

However, as the Boston Globe recently explained, the fight over what flag to fly goes far beyond aesthetic preferences. "They want to take the farmer and the fisherman off the flag, to disappear them," a supporter of the status quo told the paper, continuing, "and to me that’s like what’s been done to the lobstermen and the fishermen in real life, over-regulating them and making it harder if not impossible to make a living."

Mayors and County Leaders

● Houston, TX Mayor: The University of Houston is out with the first poll anyone has released since Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee launched her campaign four months ago, and it finds that, while she's well-positioned to advance to a runoff with state Sen. John Whitmire, she'd be the underdog against her fellow Democrat in a second round.

The school first looks at the Nov. 7 nonpartisan primary to succeed termed-out Democratic Mayor Sylvester Turner and has Whitmire and Jackson Lee taking 34% and 32%, respectively, with former METRO board chair Gilbert Garcia a very distant third with just 3%. U of H, though, shows Whitmire defeating the congresswoman 51-33 in a runoff. (The date has not yet been scheduled.)

While both the frontrunners are longtime Democratic officeholders in this blue city, the school shows Whitmer, who has sided with the GOP on multiple votes against bail reform, winning over Republican voters by an astounding 88-2 as independents back him 60-18. Jackson Lee, who reliably votes with her party in D.C., carries Democrats 55-28, but U of H says that's far from enough.

● Nashville, TN Mayor: Former city economic development chief Matt Wiltshire and state Sen. Jeff Yarbro each earned a big-name endorsement Wednesday with about a week to go before the Aug. 4 nonpartisan primary to succeed retiring Mayor John Cooper. In Wiltshire's corner is Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall, of whom the Nashville Banner writes, "If there is any vestige of a political machine left in the county, it belongs to Hall."

Yarbro, meanwhile, has the support of former Rep. Jim Cooper, who represented the entire city in Congress from 2003 until he left office early this year after Republican mapmakers passed an aggressive new gerrymander. Cooper is the brother of the current mayor, who has not yet taken sides. A GBAO Strategies survey taken July 17-19 for the Tennessee Laborers PAC, which doesn't appear to have taken sides in the crowded contest, also finds both Wiltshire and Yarbro locked in a tight race along with GOP strategist Alice Rolli for the second spot in the all-but-certain Sept. 14 runoff.

Council member Freddie O'Connell, who has emphasized his opposition to John Cooper's successful drive this year to fund a new stadium for the Tennessee Titans, is a clear first with 21%. Rolli, who is the only notable Republican in the running, holds a tiny 13-12 edge over Yarbro for second, with Wiltshire at 10%. State Sen. Heidi Campbell and Council member Sharon Hurt respectively take 8% and 6%, with 4% going to Davidson County Property Assessor Vivian Wilhoite.

We've seen just one other survey this month, a Music City Research survey taken July 5-6 that put O'Connell at 22% as Wiltshire led Rolli 17-13 for second. As we've noted before, that pollster is affiliated with a firm run by one of O'Connell's supporters, fellow Metro Council member Dave Rosenberg: Rosenberg told us earlier this month that this survey was paid for by a "private entity" that, as far as he was aware, was not backing or opposing anyone.

● Wichita, KS Mayor: Campaign finance reports are in ahead of Tuesday's nonpartisan primary for mayor, and former TV reporter Lily Wu outpaced Democratic incumbent Brandon Whipple and the other contenders in the period spanning Jan. 1 through July 20. The two candidates who earn the most votes next week will compete in the Nov. 7 general election.

Wu, who switched her party affiliation from Republican to Libertarian last year, hauled in $207,000 thanks in large part to what KMUW's Kylie Cameron says are big donations from "prominent Wichita business leaders," and she finished with $88,000 available for the home stretch. Wu also has the support of Americans for Prosperity, which is part of the Wichita-reared Koch family's conservative political network (Koch Industries remains headquartered here); however, since these reports don't cover outside spending, it's not clear what it's doing to aid her.

GOP City Council member Bryan Frye, meanwhile, outraised Celeste Racette, a Democrat turned independent who leads a group advocating for the historic performance venue Century II, $93,000 to $39,000, and he went into the final weeks with a $26,000 to $4,000 cash-on-hand advantage. Whipple, by contrast, brought in $35,000, while he had $28,000 in the bank.

Prosecutors and Sheriffs

● Cook County, IL State's Attorney: Eileen O'Neill Burke, who retired this month as a local appellate court justice, announced this week that she was joining next year's party primary to succeed her fellow Democrat, retiring incumbent Kim Foxx, as the top prosecutor for America's second-most populous county. Burke, who pitched herself as "a steady hand at the wheel," is the second candidate to launch after attorney Clayton Harris, who has the backing of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.

Morning Digest: Three new GOP hopefuls for New Hampshire governor are bound by one unfortunate thing

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

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Leading Off

● NH-Gov: Republican Gov. Chris Sununu confirmed Wednesday that he would not seek a fifth two-year term as New Hampshire's chief executive next year, a long-expected announcement that nonetheless instantly turns this race into one of the cycle's top battlegrounds.

Sununu, whose first victory in a tight 2016 race ended 12 years of Democratic control, went on to decisively win his next three campaigns. His departure gives Granite State Democrats their best chance in years to take back this post in a light blue state that hasn't backed a Republican for president since 2000.

Multiple Republican replacements, all of whom showed interest during Sununu's months-long deliberations, immediately started surfacing, but they all share one regrettable thing in common: each of them lost their last race for public office.

Former state Senate President Chuck Morse, who served as acting governor for two days in 2017, immediately confirmed he was in, but party leaders may not be excited to have him as their standard-bearer following his 2022 campaign for the U.S. Senate."Morse, who even a supporter characterized as someone who "is not flashy, and does not have charisma," struggled in the primary against retired Army Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, a Big Lie conspiracy theorist who'd called Sununu a "Chinese communist sympathizer" with a family business that "supports terrorism."

Sununu, unsurprisingly, sided with Morse in the race to take on Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's allies also spent a hefty $4.6 million on an ad campaign to promote Morse and attack Bolduc as a surefire loser with "crazy ideas." Democrats, though, retaliated with an expensive ad campaign of their own tying Morse to lobbyists, a move aimed at weakening him for the general election if they couldn't keep him from the GOP nomination. But Democrats got exactly what they wanted in the primary: Bolduc edged out Morse 37-36 two months before losing to Hassan in a 54-44 rout.

Morse is once again likely to be in for a tough primary. Former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who Hassan unseated in a 2016 squeaker even as Sununu was flipping the governor's office, put out a statement saying she "look[s] forward to announcing some big news in the coming days." State education commissioner Frank Edelblut, a self-funder who lost a close primary to Sununu seven years ago, also said Wednesday he'd reveal in the next few days if he'd run to succeed his boss.

A pair of prominent Democrats, meanwhile, had already announced campaigns even before Sununu confirmed he wouldn't be on the ballot. Cinde Warmington, who is the only Democrat on the state's unique five-member Executive Council, launched her bid in June while Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig joined her last week. No other notable Democrats have shown any obvious interest in running, though Rep. Chris Pappas didn't quite rule out his own campaign back in April.

The Downballot

● Latinos have played an increasingly crucial role in our elections, but Democrats' understanding of these voters has often lagged. This week's guest on "The Downballot" is Carlos Odio, the co-founder of EquisLabs, an organization devoted to rectifying this problem. Odio helps us move away from viewing Latino voters as a monolith and offers a helpful framework for getting to know different subsets of this diverse group. He discusses key findings of Equis' 2022 post-mortem, including why Florida went so wrong and how Democrats can make a course correction. He also explains how Latino voter identity can wind up getting dialed up or down depending on the broader election environment.

Host David Nir and guest host Joe Sudbay, meanwhile, dive into Chris Sununu's retirement announcement and why it instantly makes New Hampshire's race for governor a top Democratic target; the Republican shenanigans in Alabama, where lawmakers seem dead-set on ignoring a court order to draw two majority-Black congressional districts or something close to it; why Democrats will take a new effort to recall several Michigan state representative seriously even if the state GOP is a clown-show; and yet another special election in Wisconsin where Republicans badly underperformed the top of the ticket.

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

Redistricting

● AL Redistricting: Each chamber in Alabama's Republican-run legislature passed a new congressional map on Wednesday, but neither complies with a court directive to include "two districts in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it." Both plans retain a Black majority in the state's 7th District, but the new 2nd District falls well below that mark in each case: In the House version, just 42% of voters are Black, while in the Senate's, only 38% are. Lawmakers face a Friday deadline to enact a new map. If they fail to do so, or if their final product does not comply with the Voting Rights Act, a federal court will likely impose its own map.

Senate

● OH-Sen: Leadership for Ohio Fund, a super PAC that supports Secretary of State Frank LaRose, has released a late June GOP primary survey from Causeway Solutions that shows him leading state Sen. Matt Dolan 28-10, with businessman Bernie Moreno at 5%. This poll, which was taken weeks before LaRose announced his bid against Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown, isn't too different from the 24-11 advantage that Causeway showed in May.

Dolan, for his part, is continuing to air TV ads far ahead of the primary, and the self-funder's latest message features two sheriffs praising him as "tough on illegal immigration."

Governors

● IN-Gov: Campaign finance reports are in for the first six months of 2023, though as the Indiana Capitol Chronicle notes, candidates were forbidden from raising money during most of these first four months because the legislature was in session.

  • Sen. Mike Braun (R): $2.2 million raised, $4.6 million cash on hand
  • former state cabinet official Eric Doden (R): $1.8 million raised, $3.8 million cash on hand
  • Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch (R): $1.1 million raised, $3.9 million cash on hand
  • former state education superintendent Jennifer McCormick (D): $200,000 raised, $200,000 cash on hand

The Chronicle notes that about a third of Doden's haul came from his father.

Another Republican, former Attorney General Curtis Hill, launched his bid this month after the fundraising period ended. Hill, who lost renomination in 2020 after multiple women accused him of sexual assault, began with $20,000 left over from his prior campaigns.

House

● DE-AL, DE-Sen, DE-Gov: State Treasurer Colleen Davis announced Wednesday that she'd campaign for the statewide House seat that her fellow Democrat, Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, is giving up to run for the Senate. Davis, who had also previously expressed interest in running for the Senate or governor, will face an expensive primary against state Sen. Sarah McBride, who would be the first openly trans person to ever serve in Congress: McBride launched her campaign June 26 and quickly raised $410,000 during the final five days of the quarter.  

Davis, writes the Delaware Online' Meredith Newman, was "largely unknown in Delaware" before she entered the 2018 race to unseat Treasurer Ken Simpler, who was the last Republican in statewide office. But Davis, who had no intra-party opposition, rode the blue wave to a 52-46 victory, a win Newman says made her the rare statewide Democrat to hail from conservative Sussex County. The treasurer went on to win her second term 54-46 last year.

● MD-06: Former Frederick County Executive Jan Gardner tells the Frederick Post she's considering seeking the Democratic nod for this open seat, and the paper characterizes her timeframe as "fairly soon." Inside Elections' Jacob Rubashkin noted in mid-May that Gardner is a proven vote-getter in a community that's home to about 35% of the 6th District's denizens, which could make her a formidable contender in a race where most of the other candidates are likely to hail from Montgomery County.

● MI-04: Attorney Jessica Swartz on Wednesday became the first notable Democrat to announce a campaign to unseat Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga in Michigan's 4th District, a historically red constituency around Kalamazoo that Donald Trump would have taken by a small 51-47 margin in 2020. Swartz, though, said that Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer carried it last year, and new numbers from Daily Kos Elections find the governor did indeed prevail by a tight 50-49 as she was pulling off a 54-44 statewide landslide.

The Democrat is a first-time candidate, though she's not quite a political novice. Swartz previously volunteered for Voters Not Politicians, a nonpartisan organization that successfully promoted a 2018 referendum to create Michigan's independent redistricting commission. That body ended up drawing a map for the 2022 elections that led Huizenga, who'd previously represented the reliably red 2nd District along the western Michigan coast, to run for the more competitive 4th even though he only represented about a quarter of the new seat.

For months it looked like there would be an incumbent vs. incumbent primary clash between the Trump-backed Huizenga and longtime Rep. Fred Upton, who'd voted to impeach the GOP's leader after the Jan. 6 attack, but Upton ended up retiring ahead of what would have been a challenging race. Swartz, in an interview with the Holland Sentinel, argued the district needed someone more like Upton, whom she praised for working across party lines and providing for his constituents, than the hard-right Huizenga.

Huizenga, who won his last race 54-42 against an underfunded Democrat, finished June with $630,000 in the bank, though it's possible he won't use it on this contest. The congressman has expressed interest a few times this year in running for Michigan's open Senate seat, with his most recent public comments coming from a May interview with the conservative site The Dispatch. Huizenga acknowledged the state presents a "tough environment" for his party, but while he said he was "hoping to have a decision probably this quarter," June 30 came and went without any word about his plans.

● NY-17: Former Rep. Mondaire Jones has released an internal from Public Policy Polling giving him a wide 43-8 edge over local school board trustee Liz Gereghty in the Democratic primary to face freshman GOP incumbent Mike Lawler. This survey, which was conducted about a week after Jones launched his comeback campaign, is the first we've seen of this nomination contest. The poll did not test former Bedford Town Supervisor MaryAnn Carr, who did not report raising any money through June 30.

● RI-01: State Sen. Sandra Cano has earned the backing of the state affiliate of the National Education Association ahead of the crowded Sept. 5 special Democratic primary.

Legislatures

● PA State House: Democratic state Rep. Sara Innamorato, who won the May primary for Allegheny County executive, announced Wednesday that she'd resigned to focus on the November general election, and the chamber will be tied 101-101 until the already-scheduled Sept. 19 special election takes place. Innamorato's absence may not matter much, though, because state representatives aren't scheduled to return until Sept. 26. Her seat in the Pittsburgh area supported Joe Biden 61-38 in 2020.

If the lower house does reconvene early, however, Democrats, who won 102 of the 203 seats in November and defended their edge in a series of special elections this year, will still remain the majority party in the deadlocked body thanks to a rule they adopted in March. The majority is now defined as the party that "won the greater number of elections for the 203 seats in the House of Representatives" in the most recent general election, and should a vacancy open up, "the political party that won that seat at the last election shall remain the party that won that seat until any subsequent special election is held to fill that seat." Control would still shift, though, if the other side flipped enough seats before the next general election.

It's unlikely that will happen in the race to replace Innamorato, but Democrats will have a more competitive seat to defend later. State Rep. John Galloway won both the Democratic and Republican nominations for a judgeship in Bucks County, and once he resigns to take his new job, there will be a special for his 55-44 Biden constituency in the Philadelphia suburbs. Galloway told Spotlight PA Wednesday that he wouldn't be leaving his current office until he's officially elected in November.

● WI State Assembly: Republicans won a special election for a dark-red seat in the Wisconsin legislature Tuesday night, but once again, their candidate badly underperformed compared to other recent elections in the same district.

Republican Paul Melotik beat Democrat Bob Tatterson 54-46 in the 24th Assembly District, which became vacant after Republican Dan Knodl won a closely contested special for the state Senate earlier this year. The 24th is traditionally conservative turf in the northern Milwaukee suburbs: It voted for Donald Trump by a 57-41 margin in 2020 and backed Knodl for reelection 61-39 last year. But judged against Trump's share of the vote, Melotik ran 9 points behind, accounting for rounding. Knodl (whose new Senate district includes all of his old Assembly district) had likewise trailed the top of the ticket in his own special election by 3 points, prevailing by a narrow 51-49 spread.

Overall, Democratic candidates in special elections this year have outperformed the 2020 presidential numbers in their districts by an average of 7 points. Research by Daily Kos Elections contributing editor Daniel Donner has shown that these elections often correlate closely with the results of the ensuing general elections for the U.S. House.

Morning Digest: He ranted about ‘European cheese weenies.’ Now he’s running for Congress

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

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Leading Off

● CO-08: Weld County Commissioner Scott James announced Wednesday that he'd seek the Republican nomination to challenge freshman Rep. Yadira Caraveo in Colorado's 8th District, prompting Democrats to immediately blast him for an anti-abortion, Islamophobic rant he delivered as a talk radio host in 2007.

James, as Media Matters documented at the time, declared "the civilization that you know ... will be overtaken by those who would like you to practice Sharia law ... just by mass numbers" because "the European cheese weenies simply aren't breeding." James continued, "You can do the math and see the rapid decline of ... civilization," before saying of the United Kingdom, "Their birth rate declining, the abortion rate increasing. You do the math. You don't have the sanctity for the life like that, your society will simply extinguish."

Democrats also went after James, who remained on the radio after winning his seat on the county commission in 2018, for his vote the next year to designate Weld County as a "Second Amendment sanctuary." That action, which authorized the county sheriff to "exercise of his sound discretion to not enforce against any citizen an unconstitutional firearms law," came in response to a new red flag law that allows family and household members, as well as law enforcement officials, to petition a judge to confiscate firearms from an individual they fear is dangerous. "Taking constitutional rights away from citizens under the guise that it is for the 'greater good' is a very dangerous path to walk down," James said at the time, "and one we do not support."

James launched his campaign to unseat Caraveo hours after fellow Republican Barbara Kirkmeyer, the GOP's nominee last year, announced that she would seek reelection to the state Senate rather than try to avenge her narrow 48.4-47.7 general election loss. The commissioner is the first notable Republican to join the contest for this constituency in the northern Denver suburbs and Greeley area, turf Joe Biden carried 51-46 in 2020, but he's not the only one who is thinking about running here.

State Rep. Gabe Evans reiterated his interest Tuesday to the Colorado Sun, while Weld County Commissioner Steve Moreno and former state Rep. Dan Woog both said they were mulling over the idea last month. Multiple publications also reported in June that Joe O'Dea, who unsuccessfully challenged Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet last year, is considering as well, though he's shown no obvious sign that he's preparing for another run.

Redistricting

● NY Redistricting: A divided state appeals court ordered New York's redistricting commission to draw a new congressional map ahead of the 2024 elections on Thursday, overturning a lower court that had previously ruled in favor of retaining the state's current court-drawn boundaries. Republicans opposing the Democratic-backed lawsuit, however, immediately vowed to appeal in an effort to prevent the adoption of districts that would be less favorable to them.

The dispute wound up in court after the evenly divided bipartisan commission failed to reach an agreement on a single set of redistricting plans for Congress and the state legislature last year.  Instead, it forwarded dueling proposals—one batch supported by Democrats, the other by Republicans—to lawmakers, who rejected them both. After that failure, the commission refused to try again, which led the Democratic-run legislature to pass its own maps.

However, the state's highest court struck down that attempt last year in a 4-3 decision, saying that because the commission had never sent a second set of maps to the legislature as contemplated by the state constitution, lawmakers could not act on their own. As a remedy, an upstate trial court instead imposed maps drawn by an outside expert that saw Republicans make considerable gains in the November midterms.

A group of voters, though, filed a suit demanding that the commission be ordered back to work. While a lower court initially rejected that argument, the Appellate Division agreed with the plaintiffs. The commission still "had an indisputable duty under the NY Constitution to submit a second set of maps upon the rejection of its first set," wrote the majority in a 3-2 opinion, concluding that the court-ordered maps used in 2022 were interim in nature.

If New York's highest court, known as the Court of Appeals, upholds this decision, then the commission will again have to try to compromise on a new congressional map. If it again fails to produce an acceptable map, though, Democrats in the legislature—who enjoy two-thirds supermajorities in both chambers—would, this time, very likely be entitled to create new maps of their own design. That possibility could spur Republican commissioners to accept lines that tilt somewhat more in Democrats' favor than the current districts rather than face the alternative of an unfettered partisan gerrymander.

2Q Fundraising

The deadline to file fundraising numbers for federal campaigns is July 15. We'll have our House and Senate fundraising charts available soon afterwards.

  • AZ-Sen: Ruben Gallego (D): $3.1 million raised
  • CA-Sen: Katie Porter (D): $3.2 million raised, $10.4 million cash on hand
  • WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D-inc): $1.3 million raised, $10.7 million cash on hand
  • LA-Gov: Jeff Landry (R): $4.5 million raised, $9 million cash on hand
  • NC-Gov: Mark Robinson (R): $2.2 million raised (in six months), $3.2 million cash on hand
  • AZ-06: Juan Ciscomani (R-inc): $815,000 raised, $1.6 million cash on hand
  • CA-45: Michelle Steel (R-inc): $1.1 million raised, $1.7 million cash on hand
  • IA-02: Ashley Hinson (R-inc): $690,000 raised, $1 million cash on hand
  • IA-03: Zach Nunn (R-inc): $729,000 raised, $1 million cash on hand
  • IL-17: Eric Sorensen (D-inc): $515,000 raised, $770,000 cash on hand
  • MI-10: John James (R-inc): $1.1 million raised, $1.7 million cash on hand
  • MT-01: Ryan Zinke (R-inc): $786,000 raised, $876,000 cash on hand
  • NC-14: Jeff Jackson (D-inc): $507,000 raised, $663,000 cash on hand
  • NJ-05: Josh Gottheimer (D-inc): $1.2 million raised, $15.1 million cash on hand
  • NJ-07: Tom Kean Jr. (R-inc): $860,000 raised, $1.47 million cash on hand
  • NY-02: Rob Lubin (D): $343,000 raised (in five weeks), additional $7,000 self-funded
  • NY-03: Anna Kaplan (D): $455,000 raised
  • OR-05: Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-inc): $717,000 raised, $1 million cash on hand
  • TX-15: Monica De La Cruz (R-inc): $833,000 raised, $1 million cash on hand
  • WA-03: Joe Kent (R): $245,000 raised, $392,000 cash on hand

Senate

● FL-Sen: Politico reports that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the DSCC are trying to recruit former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell to take on GOP incumbent Rick Scott, but another Democrat appears ready to launch his campaign before she makes up her mind.

Navy veteran Phil Ehr, who raised $2 million for his 2020 bid against the nationally infamous Rep. Matt Gaetz in the safely red 1st District, confirms he's interested and will decide in the coming weeks. An unnamed source, though, says that Ehr, who lost to Gaetz 65-34 as Trump was taking the old 1st by a similar 66-32 margin, is planning to get in "soon."

● MI-Sen: The Daily Beast's Ursula Perano reports that, while actor Hill Harper says he's lived in Michigan for the last seven years, the new Democratic candidate's residency "may be more complicated." Perano uncovered a 2020 Seattle Times article saying that Harper moved to that city during the first season of production for his show, The Good Doctor, so his son could attend school there. (That season aired in 2017 and 2018.) That same story said that "Harper commutes from Seattle to the show’s set in Vancouver, British Columbia."

Perano also found a pair of websites used to book the actor for speaking engagements, both of which appear to have been in use in recent years: One said that Harper would be traveling from California, where he also owns a condo, while the other said he'd be coming from Seattle. "Hill Harper began spending time in Michigan because of work, but quickly realized the greatest people in the world live in Michigan and decided to move there full time," his campaign told the Daily Beast for the story, "Ever since moving to Michigan in 2016, he’s voted as a Michigander, paid taxes to the state, and runs a small business in Detroit."

Governors

● IN-Gov: Howey Politics relays that there are still "rumors" that state Commerce Secretary Brad Chambers is considering seeking the GOP nod to succeed his boss, termed-out Gov. Eric Holcomb and would likely self-fund. There is no other information about Chambers' interest.

● MO-Gov: Businessman Mike Hamra, whose eponymous company operates almost 200 restaurants nationwide, tells the St. Louis Business Journal he's "seriously considering" seeking the Democratic nod and will "likely to have a final decision later in the fall." Hamra made his interest known days after state House Minority Leader Crystal Quade launched her own bid to lead what's become a tough state for Democrats.

● MS-Gov: Republican incumbent Tate Reeves is airing a transphobic new TV ad where the governor, after praising his daughter for working to earn a soccer scholarship, declares, "Now, political radicals are trying to ruin women's sports, letting biological men get the opportunities meant for women." Reeves, as Mississippi Today notes, signed a 2021 law banning trans athletes from women's sports even though the bill's sponsor acknowledged she didn't know of this happening in the state.

House

● AK-AL: Businessman Nick Begich on Thursday became the first notable Republican to announce a campaign against Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, who twice beat him last year for Alaska's only House seat. But Begich is unlikely to have the top-four primary to himself, especially since many Republicans made it clear last fall that they still harbor a grudge over how he acquitted himself during the final months of longtime Rep. Don Young's life.

Begich, who is the rare Republican member of Alaska's most prominent Democratic family (his grandfather and namesake was Young's immediate predecessor, while his uncle Mark Begich served one term in the U.S. Senate), was initially a Young supporter, and he even co-chaired the congressman's 2020 campaign. But, as the Anchorage Daily News' Iris Samuels reported in April of 2022, Begich spent about a month working in the congressman's office the next year—at Young's invitation—only to launch a bid against Young soon afterward. "It was just such an invasion of our goodwill and the Congressman's goodwill," one unnamed staffer later told Insider's Bryan Metzger, adding, "We were completely hoodwinked and betrayed."    

Young, who'd represented the state in the House since 1973, died before that faceoff could occur, and Begich was one of the 48 candidates who filed to run in a special election that featured America's first-ever top-four primary. But after Begich advanced to the general against former GOP Gov. Sarah Palin and Peltola (a fourth finisher, independent Al Gross, dropped out), it looked likely that one of the two Republicans would prevail in a state Donald Trump took 53-43 in 2020.

Begich and Palin, though, instead went negative on one another while ignoring Peltola (that is, when they weren't smiling in selfies with her), which helped give the Democrat the opening she needed. Begich was only too happy to portray Palin as a disastrous governor who only cared about being a celebrity, while Palin hit back by castigating Begich for supporting his Democratic relatives.

An unscathed Peltola went into ranked-choice tabulations with 40% of first-choice votes, with Palin edging out Begich 31-28 for second. But following the fratricidal GOP campaign, Begich's backers only went for Palin by a 50-29 margin as a crucial 21% didn’t express a preference for either finalist. As a result, Peltola pulled off 51-49 upset.

All three candidates, plus Libertarian Chris Bye, competed again in November for a full two-year term, but things went even worse for the GOP this time. Begich and his allies pointed to data from the Alaska Division of Elections saying that he'd have defeated Peltola 52-48 had he come in second place in the special election to make his case that conservatives should choose him over Palin. But several of Young's former staffers not only endorsed Peltola, who had enjoyed a close relationship with the late congressman for decades, they also vocally aired their grievances against Begich for what they saw as his duplicity.

One particular incensed Young aide was a former communications director, Zack Brown, who posted a picture of Begich's congressional intern badge in a since-deleted tweet. "Begich was planning on primarying Young all along," he wrote. "He used DY & staff to secure inside info." Brown followed up, "According to FEC docs, he claimed campaign expenses BEFORE he came on as an INTERN in Don Young's office. He KNEW he was going to primary Young before he joined our office, but used the Congressman and staff for his own ends anyway. Disgraceful."

Peltola this time almost took a majority of first-choice ballots, scoring 49% of them as Palin once again staggered into second place, beating out Begich 26-23. Peltola then crushed Palin in a 55-45 drubbing after the instant-runoff process was finished. To add insult to injury for Begich, election data showed he would have lost by a slightly larger margin than Palin this time―just under 11 points―had he taken second.

Republicans are likely to make a priority of beating Peltola, who represents the reddest Democratic-held seat in the chamber, but it remains to be seen who else will join Begich in the top-four. The Anchorage Daily News writes that Palin, who rather prematurely named her congressional chief of staff the day after the November election [i]In anticipation of an announcement of victory," hasn't shown any sign she's thinking of trying a third time, though that hardly means she won't surprise everyone like she did when she decided to run last year.

● MD-06: Hagerstown Mayor Tekesha Martinez on Wednesday joined the busy primary to succeed her fellow Democrat, Senate candidate David Trone, for a seat based in western Maryland and the northwestern D.C. exurbs. Martinez, who was elected to the city council in 2020, became this northwestern Maryland community's first Black mayor in February after her colleagues appointed her to fill the vacant post. She joins Dels. Lesley Lopez and Joe Vogel, as well as think tank founder Destiny Drake West, in seeking the Democratic nod for this 54-44 Biden constituency.

● NJ-07: Former state Sen. Ray Lesniak tells the New Jersey Globe he's "still waiting until this November" before deciding whether to seek the Democratic nod to take on GOP Rep. Tom Kean Jr.

● NY-22: New York State United Teachers, which is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association, has endorsed Democratic state Sen. John Mannion's bid to take on GOP Rep. Brandon Williams. Mannion is a former public school teacher, and City & State says the labor group has enthusiastically backed him in past races.

● RI-01: Lincoln Town Councilor Pamela Azar at some point quietly ended her campaign for the Democratic nod and endorsed one of her many former rivals, state Sen. Ana Quezada.

● TX-34: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has endorsed former GOP Rep. Mayra Flores in her rematch effort with Democratic incumbent Vicente Gonzalez.

● UT-02: State election officials confirmed this week that both former RNC member Bruce Hough and former state Rep. Becky Edwards have turned in enough valid signatures to make the Sept. 5 special Republican primary to succeed outgoing Rep. Chris Stewart. The pair will face Celeste Maloy, a former Stewart aide who qualified for the ballot by winning last month's party convention. The winner will be favored on Nov. 7 against Democratic state Sen. Kathleen Riebe in this gerrymandered 57-40 Trump seat.

● WI-03: Both state Rep. Katrina Shankland and former La Crosse County Board chair Tara Johnson tell the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that they're interested in joining the Democratic primary to take on GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden.

Mayors and County Leaders

● Houston, TX Mayor: Former Republican City Councilmember Jack Christie tells the Houston Chronicle he's considering entering the Nov. 7 nonpartisan primary to succeed termed-out Democratic Mayor Sylvester Turner, though he said he was still "far from signing up." Attorney Tony Buzbee, an independent who lost the 2019 runoff to Turner 56-44 after spending $12 million, likewise says he hasn't ruled out another campaign even though he's representing Attorney General Ken Paxton at the Republican's upcoming impeachment trial. The filing deadline is Aug. 21, weeks before Paxton's Sept. 5 trial starts.

● Indianapolis, IN Mayor: Democratic incumbent Joe Hogsett has gone on TV well ahead of the Nov. 7 general with a spot hitting his wealthy foe, Republican Jefferson Shreve, that utilizes footage from the ads Shreve ran during his failed 2016 state Senate bid. "Jefferson Shreve will fight for the right to life," says Shreve's old narrator, "and our Second Amendment rights." Indianapolis backed Joe Biden 63-34, but Republicans are hoping Shreve's resources will help him argue that change is needed after Hogsett's two terms.

● Nashville, TN Mayor: The Nashville Scene reports that a conservative group called Save Nashville PAC is spending $150,000 on TV ad campaign to help the one notable Republican in the race, party strategist Alice Rolli, advance past the Aug. 3 nonpartisan primary. The messaging, unsurprisingly, invokes the specter of crime in big cities … other big cities, that is. "How many once-great cities around the U.S. are now complete disasters?" asks the narrator, "Is Nashville next? Alice Rolli will protect Nashville and keep it a clean, safe city."

The offensive comes at a time when two wealthy Democrats, former AllianceBernstein executive Jim Gingrich and former economic development chief Matt Wiltshire, continue to dominate the airwaves in the contest to succeed retiring Democratic Mayor John Cooper. AdImpact relays that Gingrich and his allies have outspent Wiltshire's side $1.6 million to $1.2 million in advertising, while Democratic Metro Council member Freddie O'Connell is far back with just $190,000.

A firm called Music City Research, though, has released a survey showing that, despite being heavily outspent, O'Connell leads with 22% as Wiltshire outpaces Rolli 17-13 for the second spot in the likely Sept. 14 runoff. The pollster is affiliated with Harpeth Strategies, which is run by one of O'Connell's supporters, fellow Metro Council member Dave Rosenberg. Rosenberg tells us this poll was conducted for a "private entity and not a mayoral campaign or an organization associated with a mayoral campaign." He added that, as far as he is aware, the sponsor is not backing or opposing anyone.

The last poll we saw was over a month ago, and it showed a far more unsettled race. The Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, working for real estate development group NAIOP Nashville, had O'Connell at 10% as two Democratic members of the state Senate, Jeff Yarbro and Heidi Campbell, respectively took 9% and 8%.

Morning Digest: Why this Nebraska district will host an even bigger barn-burner in ’24

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

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

Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast

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Leading Off

● NE-02: Democratic state Sen. Tony Vargas announced Wednesday that he'd seek a rematch against Rep. Don Bacon, the Republican who beat him 51-49 in last year's expensive campaign for Nebraska's 2nd District. Vargas, who is the son of immigrants from Peru, would be the first Latino to represent the Cornhusker State in Congress. He currently faces no serious intra-party opposition as he seeks to avenge his 2022 defeat, and unnamed Democratic sources also the Nebraska Examiner they don't expect that to change.

This constituency, which includes Omaha and several of its suburbs, favored Joe Biden 52-46, but the four-term Republican has been tough to dislodge. Vargas and his allies ran ads last year emphasizing Bacon's supports for a bill banning abortion nationally after 15 weeks, something the congressman tried to pass off as a moderate option. The GOP, meanwhile, hit back with commercials accusing Vargas of voting "to release violent prisoners." Vargas, who favored bipartisan legislation that would have made prisoners eligible for parole after two years instead of halfway through their term, responded by stressing his support for law enforcement, but it wasn't enough.

Bacon's profile has risen nationally since that tight win, and he's emerged as one of Speaker Kevin McCarthy's most outspoken allies. The Nebraskan made news during the speakership vote when he suggested that members of both parties could unite behind one candidate as a "last resort," arguing that such an outcome would be the fault of "six or seven" far-right Republicans. Bacon has continued to denounce his colleagues in the Freedom Caucus, but while he continues to muse, "I'm of the position that at some point we gotta just do coalition government with the Democrats and cut these guys out," he's yet to take any obvious action to actually make that happen.

A few other things will be different for the 2024 cycle. Vargas' Republican colleagues in the officially nonpartisan legislature passed a bill in May banning abortion after 12 weeks. Vargas, who opposed the measure, used his kickoff to emphasize how he'd "work to protect abortion rights" in Congress. But rather than try to downplay the issue, as many other Republicans have, Bacon has responded by claiming that Vargas "wants zero restrictions" on the procedure. (Vargas argued last year that "elected officials like me should be playing absolutely no role" over women's health decisions.)

The presidential election could also complicate things, especially since Nebraska, along with Maine, is one of just two states that awards an electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district. Bacon ran well ahead of the top of the ticket in 2020 and prevailed 51-46 even as Donald Trump was losing the 2nd 52-46 (the presidential numbers were the same under both the old and new congressional maps thanks to GOP gerrymandering), but Democrats are hoping that he'll have a much tougher time winning over ticket-splitters next year.

2Q Fundraising

The second fundraising quarter of the year, covering the period of Apr. 1 through June 30, has come to an end, and federal candidates will have to file campaign finance reports with the FEC by July 15. But as per usual, campaigns with hauls they're eager to tout are leaking numbers early, which we've gathered below.

  • CA-Sen: Adam Schiff (D): $8.1 million raised
  • MD-Sen: Angela Alsobrooks (D): $1.6 million raised (in seven weeks), $1.25 million cash on hand
  • MO-Sen: Lucas Kunce (D): $1.2 million raised
  • PA-Sen: Bob Casey (D-inc): $4 million raised
  • TX-Sen: Colin Allred (D): $6.2 million raised (in two months)
  • WI-Sen: Tammy Baldwin (D-inc): $3.2 million raised
  • CA-47: Scott Baugh (R): $545,000 raised, $1 million cash on hand
  • NY-22: Sarah Klee Hood (D): $319,000 raised (in 10 weeks), $221,000 cash on hand
  • RI-01: Don Carlson (D): $312,000 raised, additional $600,000 self-funded, $750,000 cash on hand
  • TX-32: Julie Johnson (D): $410,000 raised (in 11 days), Brian Williams (D): $360,000 raised (in six weeks)

Ballot Measures

● OH Redistricting: The U.S. Supreme Court vacated last year's ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court that struck down the state's congressional map in a brief order issued just before the holiday weekend, directing the Ohio court to reconsider the case in light of the federal Supreme Court's recent decision in a related redistricting case out of North Carolina.

In the North Carolina case, known as Moore v. Harper, the Supreme Court rejected a radical argument by Republican legislators that would have allowed them to gerrymander without limits. Republicans claimed that the U.S. Constitution forbids state courts from placing any curbs on state lawmakers with regard to laws that concern federal elections, including the creation of new congressional maps. The supreme courts in both states had struck down GOP maps as illegal partisan gerrymanders, and in both cases, Republicans responded by asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn those rulings.

The Supreme Court declined to do so in Moore, but a majority of justices in the North Carolina matter did embrace a more limited version of the GOP's argument, saying that "state courts may not transgress the ordinary bounds of judicial review" when assessing state laws that affect federal elections. The U.S. Supreme Court now is asking the Ohio Supreme Court to determine whether it did in fact transgress these bounds in its prior ruling.

The written opinion in Moore, however, declined to provide any guidance whatsoever as to what those bounds might be, or what transgressing them might look like. The Ohio Supreme Court, therefore, faces the awkward task of deciding whether to tattle on itself without really knowing what it might have done wrong. Still, it's hard to see how the court might have run afoul of this standard, even if interpreted loosely. But whatever it decides, the outcome likely won't make any difference.

That's because partisan Republicans took firm control of the state Supreme Court in November after moderate Republican Maureen O'Connor, who had sided with the court's three Democrats to block GOP gerrymanders, retired due to age limits. The new hardline majority would likely have overturned the court's previous rulings rejecting Republican maps regardless of the U.S. Supreme Court's new order. As a consequence, Ohio will likely be able to use the same tilted map next year, or possibly even a more egregiously slanted one, since Republicans recently said they might pass a new map this fall.

Senate

● IN-Sen: Egg farmer John Rust, who is reportedly wealthy and could self-fund a bid for office, has filed paperwork to run in next year's GOP primary for Indiana's open Senate seat. Rust, however, has not yet commented publicly, so it's not clear what kind of opening he might see for himself, given that Republican leaders have almost universally rallied behind Rep. Jim Banks' campaign to succeed Sen. Mike Braun.

● MI-Sen: Former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously said "never say never" in regard to a possible bid for Michigan's open Senate seat, is now "seriously weighing" a campaign, according to two unnamed sources cited by Politico's Burgess Everett. A consultant for Rogers, who's been weighing a hopeless campaign for president, also declined to rule out the possibility in a statement.

Meanwhile, Time's Mini Racker reports that John Tuttle, an executive with the New York Stock Exchange, "is likely to enter" the GOP primary, per an anonymous source, and could do so by the middle of this month. In May, NRSC chair Steve Daines praised Tuttle as "a strong potential recruit." Racker's source also says that former Rep. Peter Meijer is "seriously looking" at a campaign but "may wait months" to decide; earlier this year, Meijer would only say "no comment" when the New York Times asked about his interest.

The only noteworthy Republican in the race so far is state Board of Education member Nikki Snyder, though her presence hasn't deterred anyone else. Democrats, by contrast, have largely coalesced around Rep. Elissa Slotkin, though she faces a few opponents, most notably state Board of Education President Pamela Pugh.

● MT-Sen: Rep. Ryan Zinke took himself out of the running for the right to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Tester by endorsing former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy for the GOP nomination instead. But while Sheehy is a favorite of D.C. Republicans, he's still likely to have company in the primary in the form of Montana's other congressman, the hard-right Matt Rosendale.

● NV-Sen: The Nevada Independent's Gabby Birenbaum flags that Army veteran Sam Brown, who's reportedly a favorite of national Republicans, has a "special announcement" planned for Monday. So far, the only prominent Republican seeking to challenge first-term Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen is notorious election conspiracy theorist Jim Marchant, who came very close to winning last year's race for secretary of state.

● OH-Sen: East Carolina University's new poll gives Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown small leads against a trio of Republican foes:

  • 45-44 vs. state Sen. Matt Dolan
  • 44-42 vs. Secretary of State Frank LaRose
  • 46-42 vs. businessman Bernie Moreno

LaRose hasn't announced yet, though he unsubtly tweeted a picture of an FEC statement of organization form dated July 15.

● VA-Sen: Navy veteran Hung Cao, who was last year's GOP nominee against Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton, has filed FEC paperwork for what would be a longshot campaign against Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine.

Governors

● WA-Gov: Former Rep. Dave Reichert on Friday filed paperwork for a potential campaign for governor, which is the furthest the Republican has ever come to running for statewide office despite flirting with the idea several times during his career. Reichert, a former swing district congressman who is arguably his party's most formidable candidate, has yet to publicly commit to entering the top-two primary.

● WV-Gov: 2020 Democratic nominee Ben Salango said Wednesday he's decided not to run to succeed termed-out Gov. Jim Justice, the Republican who beat him 63-30. No serious Democrats have entered the race to lead what has become an inhospitable state for their party especially over the last decade, though Huntington Mayor Steve Williams responded to the news by reaffirming his interest to MetroNews.

"I said at the Juneteenth that I intend to run, but that it won't be official until I intend to file and that wouldn't be until sometime in July or August" said Williams, who runs West Virginia's second-largest state. The mayor didn't commit to anything, adding, "It's never official until it's official."

House

● AZ-06: Businessman Jack O'Donnell has quietly ended his month-old campaign for the Democratic nomination, a move the Arizona Republic says he made "without comment." O'Donnell's departure leaves former state Sen. Kirsten Engel without any intra-party opposition as she seeks a rematch against freshman Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani, who beat her 51-49 last cycle.

● CO-08: Thornton Mayor Jan Kulmann, who took second in last year's GOP primary, says she won't try again this cycle.

● FL-11: While far-right troll Laura Loomer declared early this year that she'd be seeking a GOP primary rematch against veteran Rep. Daniel Webster, whom she held to a shockingly close 51-44 last cycle, she now tells Florida Politics she's still making up her mind about another try. "Right now, my entire focus is the re-nomination and reelection of President Donald J. Trump, and exposing Ron DeSantis for the con man that he is," she said, continuing, "I am preserving all of my options regarding a potential candidacy for U.S. Congress in Florida's 11th district."

Loomer also predicted that if she ran she'd "pulverize" both Webster and former state Rep. Anthony Sabatini, who is the congressman's only notable declared intra-party foe in this conservative seat in the western Orlando suburbs. Sabatini, a hard-right extremist who lost last year's primary for the neighboring 7th District to now-Rep. Cory Mills, says he's raised $205,000 during the first three months in his campaign to replace Webster as the congressman for the gargantuan retirement community of The Villages.

● IL-12: Darren Bailey, the far-right former state senator who was the GOP’s nominee for governor of Illinois last year, used a Fourth of July celebration at his family farm to announce that he’d challenge Rep. Mike Bost for renomination. Bost, who confirmed last month that he’d seek a sixth term in downstate Illinois' dark red 12th District, is himself an ardent Trumpist who voted to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the hours after the Jan. 6 attacks.

Bailey did not mention the incumbent in his kickoff or subsequent launch video, preferring instead to praise Trump and denounce “weak-kneed politicians who refuse to stand up and fight.” The also posted a picture on Facebook reading “Hands off my AR” on Tuesday—the first anniversary of the mass shooting in Highland Park. (The Chicago Tribune reminds us that last year, before the gunman was even caught, Bailey urged his followers to “move on and let’s celebrate — celebrate the independence of this nation.”)

The NRCC wasted no time making it clear that it was firmly in Bost's corner and previewed some of the material it might use. “Darren Bailey moved to a downtown Chicago penthouse to get blown out by JB Pritzker, now he’s back seeking another political promotion,” said in a statement. Bailey, who filed a 2019 bill to kick Chicago out of Illinois, sought to explain why he’d taken up residence in the Windy City last year. “You can’t deny there’s problems here," he argued. "And if we keep denying these problems, the problems are going to get worse.”

Just a day after 55-42 drubbing by Pritzker, the Tribune reported that Bost’s allies were worried the senator would turn around and take on the congressman—and they may have good reason to fret that he could put up a fight. According to an estimate from OurCampaigns, Bailey ran slightly ahead of Trump's 71-28 performance in the 12th District, carrying it 73-25 last year. Bost, though, also bested Trump's showing, winning his own race 75-25.

Trump has lent his support to both men in the past, so there's no telling whether he'll take sides this time. Just ahead of last year's primary, he endorsed Bailey—much to the delight of Democrats, who spent a fortune to help him win the nod in the ultimately correct belief he'd prove a weak opponent for Pritzker. Trump also headlined a rally for Bost in 2018, when the congressman was in the midst of a tough reelection battle. (Democrats later redrew the 12th District to make it much redder by packing in as many Republican voters as possible.)

● MD-06: State House Minority Leader Jason Buckel tells Maryland Matters' Josh Kurtz that, while he's still considering a bid for the GOP nod, he's postponing his decision from late July to late August.

Former Del. Dan Cox, the election denier who cost the GOP any chance it had to hold Maryland's governorship last year, also says he remains undecided, but he adds that he had nothing to do with a "Dan Cox for U.S. Congress" FEC committee that was set up Monday. "I'd like to know who did this," Cox said of the committee, which ceased to exist the following day.

● MI-07: Former state Sen. Curtis Hertel on Wednesday filed FEC paperwork for his long-anticipated campaign for this competitive open seat, a development that came days after the Democrat stepped down as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's director of legislative affairs.

● NJ-07, NJ-Sen: Roselle Park Mayor Joseph Signorello told the New Jersey Globe Monday that he's decided to end his longshot Democratic primary bid against Sen. Robert Menendez and instead challenge freshman GOP Rep. Tom Kean Jr. Signorello's entire 14,000-person community is located in Democratic Rep. Donald Payne's 10th District, but the mayor previously said he lives "five minutes away" from Kean's constituency.

The only other notable Democrat campaigning for the 7th is Working Families Party state director Sue Altman, who says she raised $200,000 during her first month in the primary. Former state Sen. Ray Lesniak has talked about getting in as well, while the Globe reported last week that former State Department official Jason Blazakis is also considering joining the race.

● NY-17: Former Rep. Mondaire Jones announced on Wednesday that he'd seek the Democratic nomination to take on freshman Republican Rep. Mike Lawler in New York's 17th District, a lower Hudson Valley constituency that Joe Biden carried 54-44 in 2020. Jones, who unsuccessfully ran in New York City last year because of a strange set of redistricting-induced circumstances, used his intro video to emphasize his local roots in Rockland County and record securing funds for the area during his one term in D.C.

Before Jones can focus on reclaiming this seat, though, he has to get through what could be an expensive primary against local school board member Liz Gereghty, the sister of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Gereghty, who launched her campaign in mid-May, announced this week that she'd raised $400,000 though the end of last month. The field also includes former Bedford Town Supervisor MaryAnn Carr, but it remains to be seen if she'll have the resources to run a strong campaign.

In the 2020 election cycle, Jones sought what was, at the time, a safely blue seat held by Democratic Rep. Nita Lowey. Lowey, however, retired soon after Jones launched his campaign, and he won a competitive, multi-way battle for the Democratic nomination. Jones made history with his comfortable victory that fall by becoming the first openly gay black member of Congress, a distinction he shared with fellow New York Democrat Ritchie Torres. (It was only after she died in 1996 that news accounts identified legendary Texas Rep. Barbara Jordan as a lesbian; she never discussed her sexuality during her lifetime.)

Two years later, Jones seemed to be on track for another easy win, but everything changed after New York's highest court rejected state's new Democratic-drawn congressional map and substituted in its own lines. Fellow Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who represented a neighboring district and also chaired the DCCC, infuriated Jones and many local Democrats when he decided to seek reelection in the 17th District rather than defend the 18th, a slightly more competitive seat that included the bulk of his current constituents.

Jones decided to avoid a primary by campaigning for the open 10th District, an open seat based in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan that was far from his home turf, though he offered an explanation for his change of venue. "This is the birthplace of the LGBTQ+ rights movement," he tweeted, "Since long before the Stonewall Uprising, queer people of color have sought refuge within its borders."

But while Jones enjoyed the support of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he had a tough time in a primary dominated by politicians with far stronger ties to New York City. Former federal prosecutor Dan Goldman, a self-funder who served as House Democrats' lead counsel during Donald Trump's first impeachment, massively outspent the rest of the field and secured the influential support of the New York Times. Goldman ultimately beat Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou in a 25-24 squeaker, while Jones finished third with 18%.

Maloney, for his part, acknowledged months before his own general election that "there are a lot of strong feelings" among Democrats who felt he'd sent Jones packing. "I think I could've handled it better," he admitted. He'd soon have more reasons for regret: One local progressive leader would recount to Slate that volunteers canvassing for Maloney would be asked, "Isn't he the guy that pushed Mondaire out of this district?" Maloney ended up losing to Lawler 50.3-49.7 at the same time that Republican Lee Zeldin was beating Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul 52-48 in the 17th, according to Bloomberg's Greg Giroux. (Ironically, Democrat Pat Ryan held the 18th District that Maloney left behind.)

Jones soon made it clear that he was interested in returning to his home base to challenge Lawler, saying in December, "I've also learned my lesson, and that is home for me is in the Hudson Valley." (The Daily Beast reported in February that Jones hadn't ruled out waging a primary against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, but there was little indication he'd ever seriously considered the idea.)

The once and perhaps future congressman continues to express strong feelings about how the midterm elections went down. "I never imagined that I would wake up one day and would have to decide against primarying a member of the Democratic Party at a time when we were seeing an assault on our democracy," he told News12 Westchester on Wednesday. "To that extent, yeah, I do regret not being the Democratic nominee last cycle."

Gereghty's team, though, made it clear they'd use his campaign in New York City against him. "Liz Whitmer Gereghty has lived in the Hudson Valley for 20 years," her campaign said in a statement, "and the reason you'll never see her moving to Brooklyn to chase a congressional seat is because the only place and only people she wants to represent are right here in the Hudson Valley."

● RI-01: Candidate filing closed Friday for the special election to succeed former Rep. David Cicilline, and 22 of his fellow Democrats are campaigning for this 64-35 Biden constituency. The notable candidates competing in the Sept. 5 Democratic primary appear to be (deep breath):

  • State Rep. Marvin Abney
  • former Biden administration official Gabe Amo
  • former state official Nick Autiello
  • Lincoln Town Councilor Pamela Azar
  • Navy veteran Walter Berbrick
  • State Sen. Sandra Cano
  • Businessman Don Carlson
  • State Rep. Stephen Casey
  • Providence City Councilman John Goncalves
  • Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos
  • Narragansett Aboriginal Nation tribal elder Bella Machado Noka
  • State Sen. Ana Quezada
  • former state Rep. Aaron Regunberg

The field isn't quite set, though, because candidates still need to turn in 500 valid signatures by July 14. The general election will be Nov. 7.

● VA-02: Navy veteran Missy Cotter Smasal, reports Inside Elections' Jacob Rubashkin, is "moving toward" challenging freshman Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans in a competitive seat where Democrats are awaiting their first serious contender. Cotter Smasal previously lost an expensive race for the state Senate 52-48 against GOP state Sen. Bill DeSteph. (Donald Trump had carried that constituency 51-43 in 2016, though Joe Biden would take it 50-48 the year after Cotter Smasal's defeat.)

The current version of the 2nd Congressional District, which includes all of Virginia Beach and other Hampton Roads communities, also supported Biden 50-48. Kiggans last year went on to unseat Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria 52-48, and while Luria went on to form a PAC to help her party in this fall's state legislature contests, Rubashkin says she's "unlikely" to seek a rematch.

Ballot Measures

● NY Ballot: New York could join the ranks of states whose constitutions protect the right to an abortion next year when voters decide whether to approve a far-reaching amendment placed on the ballot by lawmakers.

The amendment, which the legislature passed for the required second time in January, would outlaw discrimination based on a wide variety of factors, including race, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, religion, and sex. Under "sex," the measure further adds several more categories, including sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as "pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy."

It is that last grouping that proponents say will protect abortion rights, though the amendment doesn't actually reference the word "abortion" anywhere. State law expert Quinn Yeargain expressed concern about that omission in an essay earlier this year. While noting that the amendment "encompasses a number of really good ideas" that would put New York at the vanguard of prohibiting a number of types of discrimination, he opined that it "leaves a lot to be desired" if it's to be regarded as "an abortion-rights amendment."

Yeargain contrasted New York's approach with a much more explicit amendment that will appear on the Maryland ballot next year. That amendment guarantees "the fundamental right to reproductive freedom, including but not limited to the ability to make and effectuate decisions to prevent, continue, or end one's own pregnancy." Regarding the New York amendment, Yeargain concluded that if he lived in the state, "I'd enthusiastically vote for this measure next year—but I wouldn't do so with the assumption that it'll constitutionalize abortion rights."

● OH Ballot: Activists seeking to enshrine abortion rights into the Ohio constitution submitted 710,000 signatures on Wednesday to place an amendment on the November ballot, far more than the 413,000 required by law. That figure gives organizers a sizable cushion should any petitions get thrown out after state officials review them, but a much more serious hurdle looms: Next month, voters will decide on a separate amendment approved by Republican lawmakers that would raise the threshold for passage for any future amendments from a simple majority to 60%.

Republicans have been explicit in explaining why they're pushing their measure. "This is 100% about keeping a radical, pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution," Secretary of State Frank LaRose said at an event in May, according to video obtained by News 5 Cleveland. "The left wants to jam it in there this coming November." A broad array of organizations are opposing the GOP amendment, which will go before voters in an Aug. 8 special election.

Morning Digest: Tech executive eyes California Senate bid in state where self-funders have gone bust

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

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● CA-Sen: Former Google executive Lexi Reese on Thursday announced that she was forming an exploratory committee for a potential campaign to succeed her fellow California Democrat, retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Reese, whose team tells Politico's Christopher Cadelago she'd use a "significant" amount of her own money should she run, added, "I'm going to take the next couple of weeks to make a decision."

Reese's name hadn't previously surfaced in a top-two primary contest between Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter, and Adam Schiff, though she appears to have spent a significant amount of time quietly preparing a campaign. Puck News reports that she "has been actively exploring a Senate run over the last few months," while Cadelago relays that she's already put a team together.

Reese's entrance could make it easier for a Republican to advance to the general election in a dark blue state that's hosted several fall contests between two Democrats. The San Mateo County resident would also end Lee's status as the only serious Democratic candidate who hails from the Bay Area instead of from Southern California, though unlike the longtime East Bay congresswoman, Reese has never run for office before. That last bit may be a tough hurdle to overcome because, despite the massive cost of running for office in America's most populous state, California has rejected several wealthy first-time candidates who wanted the governorship or a Senate seat.

Back in 1998, when the Golden State still held partisan primaries, former Northwest Airlines co-chair Al Checchi broke state records by dropping $40 million of his own money (about $75 million in 2023 dollars) to try and win the Democratic primary for governor. His investment helped him build an early lead in the polls, but Checchi soon found himself trading negative ads against Rep. Jane Harman, who was also deploying some of her fortune.

It also didn't help Checchi that, as CNN wrote over a month before the primary, voters were comparing him to Michael Huffington, a one-term Republican congressman who narrowly lost the 1994 Senate race to Feinstein after doing his own extensive self-funding. Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, who had languished in third place for most of the primary, promised "experience money can't buy" and beat Checchi in a 57-20 landslide, a win that set Davis on the path to becoming California's first Democratic governor in 16 years.

Davis’ tenure ended in a 2003 recall where he was replaced by Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in a campaign where the superstar spent $10.6 million (nearly $20 million in 2023 dollars). That win made Schwarzenegger the last person to win either of the state’s top posts after doing a serious amount of self-funding, though unlike other wealthy contenders, the soon-to-be “Governator” began his race as a household name.

Checchi in 2010 would acknowledge the limits of his own strategy by griping to the San Francisco Chronicle, "What could you say in a 30-second commercial?" but Republican Meg Whitman that year would air many 30-second ads in her bid to lead the state. The former eBay CEO gave her campaign $144 million ($200 million today), which at the time made her the biggest self-funder in American electoral history. That same cycle saw former HP CEO Carly Fiorina challenge Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, though Fiorina deployed "just" $7 million as she relied more on donors.

But while Republicans were on the offensive that year nationally, the termed-out Schwarzenegger’s terrible approval ratings were too much of an anvil for California Republicans to overcome. Former Gov. Jerry Brown regained his old office by beating Whitman 54-41 the same night that Boxer scored a similar victory against Fiorina.

Senate

● IN-Sen: Termed-out Gov. Eric Holcomb revealed Thursday that he would stay out of the GOP primary for the Senate, a declaration that comes months after almost everyone stopped seriously wondering if he’d run. (Holcomb himself only made this announcement in the seventh paragraph of an op-ed for the Indianapolis Star bemoaning the state of the federal government.) Far-right Rep. Jim Banks remains the only serious contender for this seat, and there’s no indication that will change.

● WI-Sen: Wealthy businessman Scott Mayer tells The Messenger he’ll decide after Labor Day if he’ll enter the GOP primary to challenge Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin, though he acknowledges he’s not his own first choice to run. Mayer reveals he wanted “someone like” Rep. Mike Gallagher to get in, but he says that “there is really no… awesome people stepping forward” now that the congressman has decided not to go for it. Mayer also reiterated that, while he’d “have to put some of my own money in,” he doesn’t have enough to get by only on self-funding.

Governors

● ND-Gov: While Republican Gov. Doug Burgum doesn't appear to have said anything about running for a third term at home in the likely event that his White House hopes go nowhere, a pair of party strategists tell Inside Elections' Jacob Rubashkin they anticipate the incumbent will be seeking reelection.

There is no shortage of Republicans who could run if this becomes an open seat race, but one of Rubashkin's sources tells him that "nobody is going to do anything until they see if Burgum catches any fire in the presidential race." North Dakota's candidate filing deadline takes place in April, well after most states hold their presidential primaries.

House

● MI-07: While 2022 GOP nominee Tom Barrett has yet to announce his long-anticipated new campaign, party strategists tell Inside Elections' Erin Covey they believe he will this summer. No other serious Republicans have shown any obvious interest in running for the swing seat that Barrett's last Democratic foe, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, is giving up to run for the Senate; one person mentioned former state House Speaker Tom Leonard as a possible option in the event that Barrett shocks everyone and stays out.

No notable Democrats are running yet either, but Covey says the party has "largely consolidated behind" former state Sen. Curtis Hertel. The Detroit News previously reported that Hertel, who currently serves as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's legislative director, could launch as soon as next month after the state budget is finished.

● RI-01: Former state official Nick Autiello has launched the very first TV ad of the Sept. 5 special Democratic primary, and WPRI says he's spending less than $20,000 for a week-long buy. The spot features Autiello declaring, "It's time we ban assault weapons, make healthcare affordable, and deliver for Rhode Island."

● TX-32: State Rep. Julie Johnson has filed with the FEC for a potential campaign to succeed her fellow Democrat, Senate candidate Colin Allred.

● UT-02: Candidate filing closed Wednesday for the special election to succeed outgoing Republican Rep. Chris Stewart, who will "irrevocably resign" effective the evening of Sept. 15, in a gerrymandered seat that Donald Trump carried 57-40, and the state has a list of contenders here. The party primaries will take place Sept. 5―a full 10 days before Stewart is to leave office―and the general election for Nov. 21, dates the legislature also approved in a special session Wednesday.

Contenders have two routes to make the ballot for their respective party primary. The first option is to turn in 7,000 valid signatures by July 5, while the other alternative is to win their party's convention: The GOP's convention is set for June 24, while Democrats will gather four days later.

Thirteen Republicans filed overall, and since eight are only going with the convention option, the field will be significantly smaller soon. That's because, under the state's special election law, only one person can advance out of the event instead of the maximum of two that are normally allowed. The Republicans who are only going with the convention option are:

  • State party activist Kathleen Anderson
  • Businessman Quin Denning
  • Academic Henry Eyring
  • State party official Jordan Hess
  • Leeds Mayor Bill Hoster
  • former state House Speaker Greg Hughes
  • Perennial candidate Ty Jensen
  • Stewart legal counsel Celeste Maloy

The remaining five are trying both routes:

  • former state Rep. Becky Edwards
  • Navy veteran Scott Hatfield
  • RNC member Bruce Hough
  • Some Dude Remy Bubba Kush
  • former congressional staffer Scott Reber

While candidates have the option to bypass the convention entirely and just collect signatures, none will this time. (Edwards originally checked off the box on her filing form saying she'd do this, but she later crossed it out and went with convention and signatures.) The petition process can cause headaches even for well-funded candidates, though, so some of these people may struggle to continue their campaigns if they lose the convention.

Three Democrats are also in, and all three are just competing at their convention: state Sen. Kathleen Riebe, businessman Guy Warner, and perennial candidate Archie Williams. Another six nonaligned contenders are running but, despite some early chatter, 2022 Senate candidate Evan McMullin is not one of them.

Mayors and County Leaders

● Aurora, CO Mayor: Nonprofit head Rob Andrews this week became the second Democrat to launch a bid against Republican Mayor Mike Coffman in a Nov. 7 nonpartisan contest where it takes just a simple plurality to win. Coffman's only declared foe up until this point was City Councilmember Juan Marcano, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who started running in January. The filing deadline isn't until Aug. 29.

Andrews, who would be the first Black person elected to lead this suburb of 384,000 people just east of Denver, was briefly part of the Calgary Stampeders' 2007 roster, but that Canadian Football League team released him during the preseason. Andrews, who unsuccessfully ran for the City Council in Colorado Springs in 2009, now leads a nonprofit that describes its mission as "empower[ing] the unemployed and those with barriers to employment to become self-supporting through job preparation and placement."

● Houston, TX Mayor: Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee on Thursday publicized a high-profile endorsement from her fellow Democrat, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, ahead of the Nov. 7 nonpartisan primary for mayor. Hidalgo leads a county that includes about 98% of Houston (in Texas, county judges are the top executive offices rather than judicial posts), with the rest split between Ford Bend and Montgomery counties.

Jackson Lee's main foe in the race to succeed termed-out incumbent Sylvester Turner appears to be another Democrat, state Sen. John Whitmire. The field also includes City Councilman Robert Gallegos; bond investor Gilbert Garcia; attorney Lee Kaplan; and former City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards, who lost the 2020 Democratic primary for Senate. Attorney Tony Buzbee, a self-funding independent who lost the 2019 runoff to Turner 56-44, also showed interest in another campaign in April, but he's since signed on to represent Attorney General Ken Paxton at the Republican's upcoming impeachment trial. The candidate filing deadline isn't until Aug. 21, and it's not clear if Paxton's trial before the state Senate will have started by then.

Prosecutors and Sheriffs

● Palm Beach County, FL State Attorney: Alexcia Cox, who is the top deputy to retiring incumbent Dave Aronberg, announced Thursday that she'd compete in next year's Democratic primary to succeed him. Cox would be both the first Black person and first woman to serve as prosecutor for this populous South Florida county.

Morning Digest: GOP frets internal warfare will again cost it Louisiana governor’s race

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

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● LA-Gov: Republican infighting has suddenly escalated well ahead of Louisiana’s Oct. 14 all-party primary for governor, as a well-funded super PAC is already airing ads designed to deprive Attorney General Jeff Landry of his frontrunner status. This early offensive to help Stephen Waguespack, who is the former head of the state's Chamber of Commerce affiliate, comes unusually early, but his allies have the resources to ensure that voters see many more ads over the next four-and-a-half months.

Waguespack’s backers at Reboot Louisiana, which began a $1.75 million TV campaign in early May to boost the first-time candidate’s name recognition, launched a new spot on Wednesday hammering Landry on an issue he's sought to make his own. “Murder, rape, car jackings. Under Landry’s watch, Louisiana is the most dangerous state in America,” intones a narrator, who goes on to argue that Waguespack “has a plan to take Louisiana back from the criminals.” Landry himself has been emphasizing crime in his advertising, though he’s unsubtly blamed it on Black Democratic mayors and district attorneys.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who has not taken sides in the contest to succeed termed-out Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, responded to Reboot Louisiana’s commercial by calling for Waguespack to “denounce” the message. “We must learn from the mistakes of the 2015 and 2019 governor’s races, where Republican infighting ultimately squandered our opportunities to win the Governor’s mansion,” Scalise said in a statement referring to Edwards’ two wins in this red state.

Scalise might have also noted that Republicans only began hitting one another on the airwaves much later in those two contests. In 2015, the super PAC supporting frontrunner David Vitter only sprung into action around Labor Day by attacking his two main intra-party rivals, Jay Dardene and Scott Angelle, in a sign that Vitter wasn’t quite as strong as he looked. The scandal-tarred Vitter did indeed make it to the November general election against Edwards, but at great cost: Dardenne crossed party lines to endorse Edwards, who went on to score an upset win the next month, while Angelle remained neutral.

It took a bit longer four years later for the two leading Republicans, Rep. Ralph Abraham and wealthy businessman Eddie Rispone, to start attacking one another on the air, but once again, it hurt the party’s efforts against Edwards. Rispone began targeting his fellow Republican just three weeks before the first round of voting, and while the defeated Abraham did endorse Rispone for the second round, some of the damage was irreparable. Edwards worked hard to fan the flames of intraparty animosity by reminding Abraham’s constituents about the slams Rispone had leveled at their representative, a tactic that helped him perform significantly better in Abraham's district than Democrats usually do.

The Democrat who wants to benefit from this year’s early GOP clash is former state Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson, who would be the first African American elected statewide since Reconstruction. Three other Republicans running for governor―Treasurer John Schroder, state Sen. Sharon Hewitt, and state Rep. Richard Nelson―are meanwhile hoping that an ugly battle between Landry and Waguespack will give them the chance to establish themselves as an alternative conservative option.

The Downballot

● Countless progressive organizations seek to engage and mobilize voters, but coordinating those efforts is a mighty task. On this week's episode of "The Downballot," we're joined by Sara Schreiber, the executive director of America Votes, which works with hundreds of partners at the national and state level to deploy the most effective means of urging voters to the polls. Schreiber walks us through how coalitions of like-minded groups are formed and how the work of direct voter contact is divvied up between them. A special focus is on "blue surge" voters—those who, in the Trump era, joined the rolls for the first time—and why ensuring they continue to participate in the political process is the key to progressive victories.

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also take stock of recent developments in Pennsylvania and Ohio, two Rust Belt neighbors where Republicans—for once—are breathing a sigh of relief after a pair of disastrous 2022 candidates opted against repeat bids in 2024. They then dive into the extremely belated impeachment of Texas' corrupt attorney general by his fellow Republicans and remind listeners to mark their calendars for a major special election that just got scheduled in New Hampshire.

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

Governors

● WA-Gov: Former Gov. Christine Gregoire, who served from 2005 to 2013, has endorsed the “exploratory campaign for governor” of her fellow Democrat, Attorney General Bob Ferguson.

House

● AZ-03: Phoenix City Councilmember Laura Pastor on Wednesday joined the busy Democratic primary to succeed Senate candidate Ruben Gallego in this dark blue seat. Pastor is the daughter of the late Rep. Ed Pastor, who represented previous versions of this constituency from 1991 until he retired in 2015, and she’s been talked about as a likely House candidate for years.

Chatter about her plans intensified in December of 2021 when she urged the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission to revise its proposed congressional map to place a heavily Latino part of Phoenix in Gallego's seat, a change that would have made Republican Rep. David Schweikert's new 1st District reliably red. Pastor, who represented most of this area, said that she was acting to make sure the city's "historic core," heavily LGBTQ neighborhoods, and other locations weren't split; however, skeptics argued she was willing to protect Schweikert in order to boost her own prospects in a future contest to succeed Gallego. But the dramatic changes Pastor wanted didn't happen, and Schweikert went on to only narrowly win re-election.

● CO-08: Weld County Commissioner Scott James, reports Inside Elections, is considering seeking the GOP nod to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo. Joe Biden carried this constituency in the northern Denver suburbs and Greeley area 51-46, while Caraveo won her seat 48.4-47.7 last year.

● IN-05: While there was some talk during the winter that pastor Micah Beckwith could run to succeed retiring Rep. Victoria Spartz, who beat him in the 2020 GOP primary, Beckwith instead filed this week to campaign for lieutenant governor.

● NJ-07: Working Families Party state director Sue Altman on Wednesday became the first major candidate to announce a bid for the Democratic nod to take on freshman GOP Rep. Tom Kean Jr. Joe Biden took this North Jersey seat 51-47, while Kean flipped it last year by ousting Democratic incumbent Tom Malinowski by an unexpectedly small 51-49 margin.

Altman, as we recently wrote, is a first-time contender, but she became a prominent force in state politics over the last decade by challenging the power of longtime party boss George Norcross. (Her organization is the state affiliate of the national Working Families Party, which usually backs progressive Democrats rather than run its own general election candidates.) Altman, Politico detailed last year, has been a crucial backer of Gov. Phil Murphy, especially during his first term when he worked to pass his agenda over Norcross supporters in the legislature.

● OH-09: J.R. Majewski, who was last year’s disastrous GOP nominee, said Tuesday night that he was ending his rematch campaign against Democratic incumbent Marcy Kaptur following his mother’s recent surgery. Majewski’s departure is a relief to Republicans, who did not look forward to the prospect of having him again as their standard bearer following his 57-43 landslide loss.

● RI-01: Pawtucket Mayor Don Grebien said Wednesday he would not enter the upcoming special Democratic primary.

● UT-02: Republican Rep. Chris Stewart confirmed earlier reports on Wednesday that he would resign because of his wife's health, though he didn't specify a timeline, only saying he'd leave office "after an orderly transition can be ensured."

There's little question that whoever wins the GOP primary will prevail in the forthcoming special election: Republicans carefully gerrymandered Utah's congressional map, allowing Donald Trump to score a 57-40 victory in 2020 in the 2nd District, which includes the southwestern part of the state as well as a slice of Salt Lake City. Stewart's seat, though, could remain vacant until next year unless the legislature holds a special session specifically to appropriate funds to hold the special earlier.

That's because, under state law, special elections must coincide with regularly scheduled election dates. That means the earliest the primary could take place is Nov. 7, when several municipalities go to the polls. A general election, meanwhile, would not be possible until March of 2024, when Utah holds its presidential primaries. Without action by lawmakers, then, Stewart's constituents could go unrepresented for close to a year.

Stewart's eventual successor will succeed a hardliner who effectively won his seat in 2012 at a bitter party convention. Prior to seeking office, the future congressman made a name for himself in the Air Force by setting the record for the fastest uninterrupted flight across the world (36 hours and 13 minutes) and as the head of a consulting firm. He went on to co-write the memoir of kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart, though his main claim to fame in conservative circles came from his authorship of a six-part series of apocalyptic novels infused with Mormon theology. One prominent fan was Glenn Beck who, at the height of his influence, both touted Stewart's work on Fox and reissued revised versions of his books to make them palatable to what he called a "mainstream" Christian audience.

Stewart got his chance to run for Congress two years after the 2010 census awarded the Beehive State a new House seat. At the time, candidates could only make the primary ballot by taking at least 40% at their party convention (a 2014 law eventually allowed them to gather signatures), and Stewart's main foe in the 11-person field was former state House Speaker David Clark.

An anonymous mailer, as Mother Jones would recount later that year, made several attacks on Stewart, but it attracted little notice until the day of the convention when a little-known contender named Milt Hanks held it up as evidence that there was an "Anybody-But-Chris" group determined to make sure the author was defeated. Several other hopefuls did indeed endorse Clark, which led Stewart's backers to shout, "The prophecy has been fulfilled! The prophecy has been fulfilled!"

Fueled by this supposed conspiracy, more than 60% of convention delegates gave their backing to Stewart, allowing him to avoid a primary altogether since no other candidate could hit the necessary 40% threshold. But the gathering sparked plenty of angry feelings. Several defeated foes claimed that Stewart's team had produced the offending mailer precisely to cultivate a backlash, an allegation Stewart denied. But the ill will did nothing to stop him from easily prevailing in the general election, and he never struggled to hold his seat in ensuing years.

Soon enough, the congressman, whom one former GOP politician labeled "​​a certified nutcase" before he was even elected, made a name for himself as an ardent conservative. He became a Trump ally despite deriding him as "our Mussolini" during the 2016 primaries, prompting the new administration to consider him for secretary of the Air Force after the elections.

Stewart, however, remained in the House, and later joined the majority of his caucus in voting to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 win. He did break from party orthodoxy last year when he backed the Respect for Marriage Act to protect same-sex and interracial marriages, though he otherwise remained a supporter of far-right causes. He even appeared ready to consider a promotion earlier this year: In April, Stewart declined to rule out a primary challenge to Sen. Mitt Romney. His resignation, though, almost certainly ensures that won't happen.

Anyone hoping to succeed Stewart can try to follow in his footsteps by competing at their party convention for a spot on the primary, though they now also have the option of instead collecting 7,000 valid signatures. Under the state's special election law, though, only one candidate can advance out of the convention instead of the maximum of two that are normally allowed.

Attorneys General

● TX-AG: Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday appointed former Secretary of State John Scott as interim attorney general to replace incumbent Ken Paxton, who was automatically suspended last week when the state House impeached him. Paxton, who like Abbott and Scott is a Republican, would resume his duties if he avoids being convicted by two-thirds of the state Senate, while we recently detailed what would happen to this office should he be removed.

Legislatures

● NH State House: New Hampshire officials just scheduled a pivotal special election in the Republican-run state House that could see each party wind up with exactly 200 seats in the chamber and potentially put control of the body up for grabs.

The state Executive Council on Wednesday ordered that a primary for Rockingham County's 1st District take place on Aug. 1, with a general election on Sept. 19. If, however, only one Republican and one Democrat file by the June 9 deadline, then the primary would be skipped and the general election would get bumped up to the day that nominating contests would have otherwise been held.

The district in question became vacant after Republican Rep. Benjamin Bartlett, who also works for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, resigned in April, citing health issues. However, a report in the Boston Globe (building off a post by blogger Doug Bates) suggested that the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity, may have played a role.

Whatever the reason for his departure, Bartlett's district is a competitive one: Donald Trump carried it by less than a point in 2020, 49.1 to 48.7, and the trends appear to be favorable for Democrats, since Trump's margin in 2016 was more than 8 points. Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, meanwhile, won the district 50-48 during her successful campaign for reelection last year as Democrats fell just 10 votes shy of securing one of the district's three seats. (Only one seat will be up in the special.)

At the moment, Republicans hold 200 seats in the House and Democrats 198, with a separate special election for a safely blue seat likely this fall. If Democrats prevail in both, that would lead to an exact 200-all tie, though it's not clear whether control of the chamber would immediately be impacted. That's because at least five Democrats voted for Republican Sherman Packard as speaker, and they may or may not be interested in returning to the fold. (We don't know who those wayward Democrats are, by the way, because the speaker is elected via secret ballot.)

However, more specials are likely, particularly after the current legislative session adjourns on June 29, which is when a new budget must pass. Party leaders will undoubtedly try to forestall more resignations, but turnover is always high in the New Hampshire House, where lawmakers are paid just $100 a year. And given Democratic success in special elections both in the Granite State and nationwide this year, there's good reason to think they'll be able to increase their numbers as the opportunity arises.

Mayors and County Leaders

● Denver, CO Mayor: Campaign finance reports show the super PAC supporting former state Sen. Mike Johnston is finishing with a huge financial lead over former Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce CEO Kelly Brough's allies ahead of next week's general election between the two Democrats. Advancing Denver, according to the Colorado Gazette, outpaced A Better Denver $1.6 million to $380,000 from April 5 through May 30.

The pro-Johnston PAC's major donors, notes Colorado Newsline, are some of the same people who supported his unsuccessful 2018 campaign for governor: LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman; former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; former Davita CEO Kent Thiry; and hedge fund managers John Arnold and Steve Mandel. The largest funder for Brough's side for the general election Pete Coors, who was the 2004 GOP nominee for Senate.

Prosecutors and Sheriffs

● San Francisco, CA District Attorney: Former District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who was recalled last year, said Wednesday he would not challenge incumbent Brooke Jenkins in the 2024 instant-runoff contest. Boudin will instead become the inaugural executive director for a new Criminal Law & Justice Center at the UC Berkeley School of Law, which he says “will serve as a national research and advocacy hub focused on critical law and policy changes to advance justice in the criminal legal system.”

Morning Digest: Here’s what comes next for Texas’ impeached attorney general

Posted on (Updated by Daily Kos Elections

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

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Leading Off

● TX-AG: The Texas State Senate on Monday passed a resolution declaring that its trial for Attorney General Ken Paxton, whom the state House impeached over corruption allegations two days before, must begin by Aug. 28. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who like Paxton and every other statewide official is a Republican, is tasked with choosing the starting date and presiding over the tribunal. It would take two-thirds of the 31-member chamber, where the GOP holds a 19-12 majority, to convict Paxton and thus bar him from ever holding state office again.

Paxton will remain suspended until a verdict is reached, and Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster, who joined his boss in trying to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 win, automatically assumed the office. Gov. Greg Abbott has not yet said if he'd select someone to take over from Webster, a key Paxton ally who used his first day on the job to praise the scandal-ridden attorney general in an email to staffers.

If the Senate removed Paxton, though, election law professor Quinn Yeargain writes in Guaranteed Republics that Abbott would be tasked with picking a replacement, and that this person would require the support of two-thirds of the Senate in order to be confirmed. Yeargain adds that a November 2024 special election would take place for the final two years of Paxton's term should he be convicted.

This could be a consequential pick should Abbott get to make it, as political observers point out that whoever holds the powerful post of attorney general could be the frontrunner in 2026 to succeed the governor in the event that he doesn't seek a fourth term. (Abbott himself used this office as a springboard to the governorship in 2014.)

Yeargain, however, notes that, because Republicans are two seats shy of the two-thirds supermajority needed to unilaterally confirm a new attorney general, Democrats could try to pressure Abbott to pick someone who wouldn't run next year. If the Senate failed to oust Paxton, though, he'd be free to run for reelection or higher office three years down the line.

It also remains to be seen if two GOP senators, Angela Paxton and Bryan Hughes, will act as jurors, though the Houston Chronicle says that two-thirds of the total body would need to vote for conviction whether or not there are any recusals. Angela Paxton is Ken Paxton's wife, and she's remained his close ally even though he allegedly convinced a wealthy ally named Nate Paul to hire the woman that the attorney general was having an affair with. The House's articles of impeachment, meanwhile, accuse Paxton of utilizing Hughes as a "straw requestor" for a legal opinion used to aid Paul.

Patrick indicated that neither senator would be required to step aside, saying, "I will be presiding over that case and the senators—all 31 senators—will have a vote." Kenneth Williams, who is a professor of criminal procedure, told the Associated Press that there wasn't any way to prevent Angela Paxton from taking part in the proceedings, saying, "It's up to her ethical standards and compass, basically."

Until a week ago, it didn't look like Ken Paxton was in any immediate danger of losing the office he was reelected to twice while under felony indictment. The attorney general was charged with securities fraud all the way back in 2015, but that trial still has yet to be scheduled. In November of 2020, the AP reported that the FBI was probing him in an unrelated matter for allegedly using his office to help Paul in exchange for favors. Four of Paxton's former top aides also filed a whistleblower lawsuit claiming that he'd retaliated against them for helping this investigation; their suit also alleges that Webster took part in this retaliation.

Paxton and his former personnel reached a tentative settlement in February that was contingent on the Texas legislature approving $3.3 million in state funds to the quartet, but it soon became apparent that House Speaker Dade Phelan and other fellow Republicans weren't keen to pay this. And while things seemed to stall, the House General Investigating Committee actually quietly began its own report into Paxton's alleged misbehavior.

Paxton made news Tuesday when he called for Phelan to resign for presiding over his chamber "in a state of apparent debilitating intoxication," but all that was overshadowed the next day when the committee unexpectedly released its report reiterating many of the allegations related to Paul. The committee, which recommended impeachment the next day, went on to say, "We cannot over-emphasize the fact that, but for Paxton's own request for a taxpayer-funded settlement . . . Paxton would not be facing impeachment."

On Saturday, the GOP-dominated House was presented with 20 counts of impeachment. Most of the charges accused Paxton of illegally using his powers to help Paul, though some said he'd tried to interfere in the securities fraud case. Donald Trump, who endorsed the attorney general in last year's primary, tried to pressure Republicans with a TruthSocial message threatening to "fight" anyone who voted for impeachment, while one Republican member of the General Investigating Committee claimed that Paxton himself had contacted representatives "threatening them with political consequences in their next election."

Ultimately, though, impeachment passed 121-23, with 60 Republicans joining 61 Democrats in the affirmative. All 23 noes came from Republicans, with one member from each party voting present: The lone Democrat to do this was Harold Dutton, who infuriated his party earlier this month by backing an anti-trans bill.

Paxton characteristically responded by writing, "Phelan's coalition of Democrats and liberal Republicans is now in lockstep with the Biden Administration, the abortion industry, anti-gun zealots, and woke corporations to sabotage my work as Attorney General." He also predicted he'd be acquitted by the Senate where, as Yeargain writes, Angela Paxton would likely become the first person in American history to have the chance to vote on an impeached spouse's conviction.

Senate

● MD-Sen: AdImpact tells Politico that Rep. David Trone has already reserved close to $2 million as he continues his TV ad campaign almost a year ahead of the Democratic primary. The congressman's newest commercial features him talking about his nephew's death after a long struggle with substance addiction.

● NV-Sen: Nevada Newsmakers has released a survey from Vote TXT, a firm whose work we hadn't seen before, showing Democratic incumbent Jacky Rosen posting a 39-34 lead in a hypothetical general election over Jim Marchant, the election conspiracy theorist who was the 2022 GOP nominee for secretary of state. The survey also finds 2022 Senate nominee Adam Laxalt edging out Rosen 42-41, though Laxalt said all the way back in December that he didn't "see a scenario where I'm on the ballot in 2024."

● OH-Sen: Republican Rep. Warren Davidson has announced he won't run for Senate against Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown next year, avoiding a potential headache for establishment Republicans in one of their top pickup opportunities this cycle. The far-right Davidson had been urged to run by the anti-tax hardliners at the Club for Growth, who had reportedly promised to spend on his behalf if he had joined the Republican primary.

Davidson's decision to stay put helps ease the path for wealthy businessman Bernie Moreno to consolidate Trump-supporting primary voters, though Secretary of State Frank LaRose could still join the race and recently said he would decide "by the middle part of summer." Moreno has won praise from Trump himself and a recent endorsement from GOP Sen. J.D. Vance, and he currently faces wealthy state Sen. Matt Dolan, an avowed Trump critic who unsuccessfully ran against Vance in the primary for Ohio's other Senate seat when it was open last year.

● PA-Sen: Politico relays that state Treasurer Stacy Garrity isn't ruling out running for the GOP nomination to face Democratic Sen. Bob Casey next year instead of seeking reelection, though Garrity acknowledged that taking on the three-term senator is "going to be tough no matter who runs against him." Garrity won her current office in 2020 when she unseated Democratic incumbent Joseph Torsella 49-48 in an upset even as Biden was pulling off his own close win, and she has gone on to endorse Trump's 2020 election conspiracy theories.

Politico also reports that Carla Sands, a wealthy donor who was Trump's ambassador to Denmark, isn't ruling out a run of her own, though she took a distant fourth place with only 5% when she ran in the primary for Pennsylvania's other Senate seat last year.

● WV-Sen: East Carolina University has polled next year's Senate contest in West Virginia and finds Republican Gov. Jim Justice in a dominant position to win. Justice holds a 53-12 lead over Rep. Alex Mooney in the primary and would go on to trounce Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin 54-32 if he's the nominee next year. The poll also tested Mooney against Manchin and finds the congressman leading by a much smaller 41-40 spread.

Governors

● IN-Gov: Disgraced former Attorney General Curtis Hill tells the Hamilton County Reporter that he is indeed considering running in next year's Republican primary for governor. Hill narrowly lost renomination at the 2020 convention to former Rep. Todd Rokita two years after multiple women accused the attorney general of groping them.

● KY-Gov: The RGA's State Solutions affiliate has launched what the GOP firm Medium Buying says is a $325,000 opening general election ad campaign against Democratic incumbent Andy Beshear, though its first commercial is the same one it used against him in mid-April. The spot targets Beshear for vetoing a bill that bans gender-affirming care for young trans people, something the GOP-dominated legislature quickly overrode.

● LA-Gov: Far-right state Attorney General Jeff Landry is running new ads with a tough-on-crime message that are anything but subtle in their racist appeals. Landry's ads tout his law enforcement background, and he claims he'll "hold everyone, and I mean everyone, accountable for violent crime." Yet somehow that means just focusing on local officials who are Black Democrats, not their white Democratic counterparts and certainly not any Republicans such as the one who has been the state's top law enforcement officer for the past eight years.

Indeed, Landry's campaign is running similar versions in the New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport areas, which are Louisiana's three biggest cities and each have large Black populations. As Gambit's Clancy DuBos notes, each version singles out local Black Democrats serving as mayor or district attorney to blame them for crime problems while ignoring white Democrats (let alone Republicans) in similar positions of power there or elsewhere in the state.

Medium Buying relays that Landry has thus far spent or reserved just $376,000 on ads, and it's notable that he's resorting to racist messaging right out of the gate in a race for governor where the lone major Democrat, former state Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson, is Black.

● ND-Gov, NH-Gov: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, whom multiple media outlets report has decided to wage a longshot GOP presidential bid, has “a special announcement” set for June 7, while New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said Sunday he’d decide on his own White House plans “in the next week or two.” Both Republicans could seek reelection in 2024 should their presidential hopes fail, though Sununu sounds unlikely to run again for his current post.

● WA-Gov: A bipartisan pair of political consultants mention 2022 GOP Senate nominee Tiffany Smiley as a possible candidate for governor to Crosscut, but there's no word if she's interested.

House

● AZ-03: Phoenix City Councilmember Laura Pastor has filed FEC paperwork for a campaign to succeed her fellow Democrat, Senate contender Ruben Gallego, and ABC 15 says her announcement will take place Wednesday. Pastor is the daughter of Gallego’s immediate predecessor, the late Rep. Ed Pastor.

● CA-12: Jennifer Tran, a professor at California State University East Bay who also serves as president of the Oakland Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce, is the latest Democrat to announce a campaign to succeed Senate candidate Barbara Lee in this dark-blue Oakland constituency.

Tran joins a race that includes BART board member Lateefah Simon and businessman Tim Sanchez. Simon has endorsements from EMILY's List and some prominent state and local Democrats, and the San Francisco Chronicle recently noted that the locally influential Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County is also behind her.

● CA-47, CA-45: Board of Equalization member Mike Schaefer, a Democrat who has survived many scandals, tells the Orange County Register that he’ll run for the open 47th District to replace Democratic Senate candidate Katie Porter. Schaefer previously filed FEC paperwork to campaign for GOP Rep. Michelle Steel’s 45th District, but he tells the paper that he only did this because he didn’t know that Porter’s constituency no longer has this number under the new congressional map. “I’m trying to figure out how to unregister myself,” for the 45th, he says, adding, “I’m trying to get past that hurdle first.”

Schaefer, whose San Diego home isn’t in either of these Orange County constituencies, is 86, which would make him by far the oldest House freshman in American history; that record is currently held by Kentucky Republican William Lewis, who won his seat at age 79 in a 1948 special election and didn’t run for a full term later that year. Schaefer says he also doesn’t intend to seek reelection, though plenty of Democrats would prefer it if he doesn’t even get to serve that long. As the San Francisco Chronicle put it in a jaw-dropping paragraph during his reelection campaign last year:

He was accused — and eventually acquitted — in a 1970 Yellow Cab bribery scandal in San Diego, when he served on the City Council. He was convicted of misdemeanor spousal abuse and jailed in 1993, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, and was ordered by a jury in 1986 to pay $1.83 million to former tenants in Los Angeles who sued because they said their apartments, rented from Schaefer, were overrun with rats, cockroaches, sewage and street gangs, according to the Los Angeles Times. And in 2013, a Nevada court ordered him to stay at least 100 feet away from actor and comedian Brad Garrett, who played a cop and brother in "Everybody Loves Raymond," after he allegedly stalked the actor following a dispute over a complimentary ticket to a Las Vegas show.

Schaefer's team responded by insisting people should focus on his performance in office instead of his "colorful past," and voters supported him 59-41 over a fellow Democrat.  

Schaefer joins a contest that includes two fellow Democrats, state Sen. Dave Min and party activist Joanna Weiss, as well as 2022 GOP nominee Scott Baugh. Min, who has Porter’s endorsement, looked like the party’s frontrunner until he was arrested for drunk driving early this month, and one prominent California Democrat has made it clear he wants an alternative. Pete Aguilar, who is the third-ranking member of the Democratic leadership, told the state party convention over the weekend, “The filing deadline is in December.”

● DE-AL, DE-Sen, DE-Gov: Bloomberg has the names of some more Democrats who could run for Delaware's top statewide offices if Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester decides to run for Senate following incumbent Tom Carper's retirement announcement. An adviser for Eugene Young, who is the director of the Delaware State Housing Authority, says his boss is considering running for House, and state Treasurer Colleen Davis gave an interview where she didn't rule out running for House, Senate, or to succeed term-limited Gov. John Carney.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that state Sen. Sarah McBride is "assembling plans" to run for House if Blunt Rochester goes for Senate. Lastly, unnamed insiders mentioned state Insurance Commissioner Trinidad Navarro as a potential House candidate, though she doesn't appear to have said anything publicly yet.

● IL-12: Darren Bailey, the far-right former state senator who was the GOP's nominee for governor of Illinois last year, did not rule out waging a primary bid against Rep. Mike Bost when KSDK asked him about it, a development that comes a month after Politico first reported that he was considering the idea. Bailey instead texted the station that he and his wife were praying about their next steps, adding, "As of right now there are no plans, but we will keep you up to date."  

● MD-06: Inside Elections' Jacob Rubashkin reports that U.S. Commerce Department official April McClain-Delaney not only is considering a bid for the Democratic nod, she's also been speaking to campaign vendors. McClain-Delaney is the wife of former Rep. John Delaney, who won a previous version of this seat in 2012 and gave it up six years later to run for president.

● MN-02: Attorney Tayler Rahm over the weekend announced he'd campaign as a Republican against Democratic incumbent Angie Craig. Biden carried this constituency, which is based in the southern Minneapolis-St. Paul suburbs, 53-45, while Craig won her third term 51-46 last year.  

● NY-17: Former Bedford Town Supervisor MaryAnn Carr has filed FEC paperwork for a potential bid for the Democratic nod to take on GOP Rep. Mike Lawler. Carr's colleagues on the Town Board in early 2021 chose her to fill the vacant post as leader this community of 17,000, but she lost the primary for a full term later that year to Councilwoman Ellen Calves 67-33.

● RI-01: Bella Machado Noka, who is a Narragansett Aboriginal Nation tribal elder, announced Thursday that she was joining the packed Democratic special election primary. Noka would be the first Native American to represent New England in Congress.

● TX-32: Justin Moore, a civil rights attorney who previously served as a local prosecutor, has joined the Democratic primary to succeed Senate candidate Colin Allred.

● UT-02, UT-Sen: Republican Rep. Chris Stewart, multiple unnamed sources tell the Salt Lake Tribune, plans to resign from the House as soon as this week due to unknown "ongoing health issues with his wife." The departure of Stewart, who has been an ardent conservative hardliner during his decade in Congress, would set off a special election to succeed him in a constituency that Donald Trump carried 57-40. His exit from Congress also almost certainly means that he won't be challenging Sen. Mitt Romney despite not ruling out the idea last month.

International

● Alberta, Canada: The governing United Conservative Party, led by the controversial Danielle Smith, secured a second consecutive term in the western Canadian province of Alberta on Monday by winning 49 seats in the provincial legislature, with the remaining 38 seats going to the left-leaning New Democratic Party under the leadership of Rachel Notley. While the NDP did manage to make major gains at the expense of the UCP by flipping 14 seats, the provincewide vote margin favored the ruling party 53-44. However, that margin understates how close the race really was: The UCP won their six most competitive seats in the cities of Calgary and Lethbridge by just over 2,600 votes collectively.