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

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

Leading Off

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

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

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

Campaign Action

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Senate

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

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

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

Governors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

House

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mayors

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other Races

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

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

Morning Digest: Is Charlie Baker vulnerable if he runs again? Don’t bank on this one poll to tell us

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

Leading Off

MA-Gov: YouGov's new poll for UMass Amherst finds Republican Gov. Charlie Baker leading five different Democrats in hypothetical 2022 general election matchups, but not by the massive spreads he's accustomed to. What's more, a huge portion of respondents are undecided in each trial heat, which makes it especially difficult to tell how much danger Baker might actually be in if he were to run for a third term.

First, the numbers, with Baker's share first in each case:

31-28 vs. Attorney General Maura Healey

37-27 vs. former Rep. Joe Kennedy

31-12 vs. former state Sen. Ben Downing

31-17 vs. state Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz

31-14 vs. professor Danielle Allen

The only one of these candidates who has announced a bid is Downing, though Allen has formed an exploratory committee. Healey, meanwhile, has been talked about quite a bit as a potential candidate but hasn't said if she's interested, while Kennedy sounds very unlikely to go for it. This is also the first time we've heard Chang-Díaz mentioned as a possible contender. Baker, for his part, has been keeping everyone guessing about his re-election plans.

Campaign Action

However, while YouGov finds Baker leading Healey by just three points and well under 50% against the other four Democrats, there's a big reason to be cautious. In that matchup a plurality of 34% of respondents are undecided (the remaining 7% say they would not vote), a proportion that's even higher in three of the other trial heats, and even in the Baker-Kennedy scenario, 28% still mark themselves as not sure.

All of that makes this poll hard to interpret and therefore not particularly helpful to understanding what the future might hold. Assuming the sample accurately reflects next year's electorate—no easy feat—it's still possible that, this far from Election Day, a huge number of voters really are on the fence and could go either way. However, it's just as possible that YouGov, for whatever reason, isn't doing enough to push respondents to express their preferences.

A considerably larger portion of YouGov's panel, though, did give its opinion of Baker's performance in office, with a 52-39 majority saying they approve. That's a positive number, especially for a Republican in a very blue state, but it's a massive drop from the 68-29 score Baker chalked up in October, the last time YouGov polled him for the school. It's also far lower than what almost every other poll has found since Baker took office in 2015: Last month, for instance, MassInc showed Baker with a 74-20 score.

Events since those two polls were conducted, including Massachusetts' widely panned coronavirus vaccine rollout, may have hurt the governor, but the two pollsters' methodologies may simply be leading them to measure public opinion differently. No matter what, though, we should never let one survey determine our view of a contest. Hopefully, more firms will survey the Bay State in the near future to give us a better idea as to whether Baker remains strong at home or if he really could be in for a tough race if he runs again.

Senate

GA-Sen: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Greg Bluestein reports that Republican Rep. Drew Ferguson is considering a bid against Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock.

Ferguson, who was elected in 2016 to represent a safely red seat in the southwestern Atlanta exurbs, has not said anything publicly, though unnamed allies tell Bluestein he’s “being pressured by some state and national GOP figures” to run. Bluestein also notes that Ferguson is an ally of former Rep. Doug Collins, who is openly mulling another bid here, though it remains to be seen how that might impact either man’s calculations.

Several other Republicans are thinking about getting in. Bluestein relays that one of those “said to be considering” is businessman Kelvin King, though there’s no other word on King’s interest.

IA-Sen: Retired Vice Adm. Mike Franken, a Democrat who lost last year's primary for Iowa's other Senate seat, told The Gazette on Monday that he's not ruling out a campaign against Republican incumbent Chuck Grassley. Franken said of Grassley, who has not yet said if he'll seek an eighth term, "A lot can happen in six months, but I think the prudent person would expect that he would run again. Betting otherwise would be a fool's pursuit."

Last year, Franken went up against businesswoman Theresa Greenfield, who had the backing of the national Democratic establishment, in a very difficult primary. Greenfield, who decisively outspent Franken and benefited from close to $7 million in outside spending, beat him 48-25 before losing to Republican Sen. Joni Ernst months later.

Governors

AZ-Gov: Former homeland security official Marco López, a Democrat who previously served as mayor of Nogales, on Tuesday became the first notable candidate from either party to announce a bid to succeed termed-out Republican Gov. Doug Ducey. López, whose parents emigrated to the United States from Mexico, would be the state's second-ever Latino governor following fellow Democrat Raul Castro, who was elected in 1974 and resigned in 1977 to become Jimmy Carter's ambassador to Argentina.

López himself won elected office in 2000 when he was elected mayor of Nogales, which shares a name with its far larger neighbor on the other side of the international border, at the age of 22. After serving in several state posts under Arizona's last Democratic governor, Janet Napolitano, López also worked under her at the Department of Homeland Security as chief of staff for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

López, who has spent the last decade as an international business consultant, has also acted as an advisor to billionaire Carlos Slim, who is the richest man in Mexico and one of the wealthiest people in the world. The Arizona Republic, though, writes that López is pushing back on "rumors" that he'd fund his bid with his own money. López instead said he'd be asking for donations, though he doesn't appear to have addressed if he's open to self-funding some of his campaign.

López will likely have company in next year's primary as Team Blue looks to score another win in a state that Joe Biden narrowly carried in 2020. Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said about a year ago that she was considering and would likely decide in early 2021, though she doesn't appear to have given any other details about her deliberations since then. A few other Democrats have also been mentioned, though no one else seems to have said anything publicly about their interest.

House

AZ-02: State Rep. Randy Friese confirmed Tuesday that he was considering running to succeed his fellow Democrat, retiring Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, in this Tucson-area seat.

TX-06: This week, 22nd District Rep. Troy Nehls became the state’s fifth Republican House member to back party activist Susan Wright in the May 1 all-party primary to succeed her late husband, Rep. Ron Wright. Another GOP candidate, former Trump HHS official Brian Harrison, also used his second TV ad to talk about what a “big government” hater he is.

Mayors

Los Angeles, CA Mayor: On Monday, City Councilman Joe Buscaino announced that he would compete in next year's race to succeed termed-out incumbent Eric Garcetti as mayor of America's second-most populous city. Buscaino joins City Attorney Mike Feuer, a fellow Democrat who kicked off his campaign a year ago, in the June 2022 nonpartisan primary, and there are plenty of other politicians in this very blue city who could get in.

Before we take a look at the current and potential fields, though, we'll address why this contest is taking place in an even-numbered year for the first time in living memory. Mayoral races in The City of Angels have been low-turnout affairs for a long time, with only just over 20% voters turning out for the very competitive 2013 contest that Garcetti ultimately won.

But in 2015, voters, albeit on another ultra-low turnout citywide Election Day, overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to require city elections to coincide with federal and statewide races starting with the mayoral race in 2022. In order to align future races to the new calendar, Garcetti successfully competed for a special five-and-a-half-year term in 2017 rather than the standard four-year term his successor will be elected to.

The contest to succeed Garcetti has been underway for some time, as demonstrated by Feuer's announcement in March of 2020. Feuer, a longtime officeholder who was elected city attorney in 2013, used his head start to raise $418,000 through December.

Feuer earned headlines for suing the Trump administration several times during his tenure, but he's also attracted unfavorable attention at home. In October of last year, a state judge ordered the city to pay a $2.5 million fine after ruling in favor of what the Los Angeles Times's Dakota Smith described as a "consulting firm that accused City Atty. Mike Feuer's office of concealing evidence" in a long running scandal involving over-billing by the Department of Power and Water.

Buscaino, by contrast, is a Los Angeles Police Department veteran whom the paper says is "well known to many in San Pedro but is probably less familiar to residents in other parts of the city." Buscaino, who last year was one of just two members on the 15-member City Council to vote against cutting $150 million from the police budget, defended the LAPD this week as the "largest reformed police department in the country." Buscaino also said that he spent his time as a cop "focused on problem solving, on creating partnerships to improve the quality of life here," and that he was in favor of directing more money to social services.

There are plenty of others who may run as well. Smith reports that two influential business figures, Central City Association head Jessica Lall and mall developer Rick Caruso, are both thinking about getting in. City Councilman Kevin de León, who waged an unsuccessful 2018 intra-party bid against Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and fellow City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas also have not ruled out running.

Seattle, WA Mayor: Former City Councilman Bruce Harrell announced Tuesday that he would run in this year's race to succeed retiring Mayor Jenny Durkan. Harrell is a relative moderate by the standards of this very blue city, and The Stranger's Nathalie Graham characterizes him as the type of "pro-business candidate the Seattle business community could get behind."

Harrell previously ran for this post in 2013 and took fourth in the top-two primary. In 2015, after the city began electing its councilmembers in district-level races instead of entirely citywide, Harrell competed for a South Seattle seat and won by a tight 51-49 margin. He then went on to serve as interim mayor for a week after incumbent Ed Murray resigned in disgrace in 2017, which made Harrell Seattle's first Asian American mayor and second Black leader.

In 2018, Harrell served as president of the City Council when it unanimously passed a new tax on large employers. Harrell, though, voted along with most of his colleagues to repeal the law just a month later in the face of business pressure, and analysts attributed the entire matter to the City Council's poor ratings in polls. Harrell, who retired in 2019, kicked off his new campaign by arguing that local leadership was failing and it was time to "change the way we do things, radically."

Harrell joins a field that includes Council President Lorena González and Chief Seattle Club Executive Director Colleen Echohawk, either of whom would be the first woman of color to serve as mayor. The filing deadline is in late May for the August nonpartisan top-two primary.

Other Races

Nassau County, NY Executive: On Monday, Hempstead Councilman Bruce Blakeman launched his bid against Democratic incumbent Laura Curran with the support of the Nassau County Republican Party. No other notable Republicans have shown any obvious interest in competing here ahead of the April 1 filing deadline, so it would be a big surprise if Blakeman faces any serious opposition in the June party primary. The general election to lead this suburban Long Island county of 1.4 million people will take place in November.

Nassau County backed Joe Biden 54-45 last year, but Republicans are hoping that Blakeman will help them return to power down the ballot. As Steve Kornacki described in an excellent 2011 piece in Politico that remains one of our favorite articles about local politics anywhere, the local GOP spent decades in complete control over the county until it was brought down by corruption, infighting, and the electorate’s gradual shift to the left. Democrat Tom Suozzi finally broke the GOP's long stranglehold on the county executive's office in 2001, and he won re-election four years later.

But in 2009, with the Great Recession hurting Democrats nationwide, the GOP unexpectedly regained control over Nassau County when Ed Mangano unseated Suozzi by 386 votes. Suozzi sought a comeback in 2013, but Mangano defeated him 59-41 in another contest that foreshadowed the national Democratic Party's problems for the following year. (Suozzi would resurrect his political career in 2016 when he won a seat in Congress.)

However, scandal would again plague the Nassau County GOP. Mangano was indicted on federal corruption charges in 2016, and local Republicans successfully pressured him not to seek a third term in 2017. (Mangano was found guilty after leaving office, but his team is trying to overturn the verdict.) Curran went on to retake the executive office for Team Blue by beating the Republican nominee, former state Sen. Jack Martins, in a close 51-48 contest, but the GOP still controls the gerrymandered county legislature 11-8.

That brings us to 2021, where Team Red is turning to Blakeman to beat Curran. Blakeman is a longtime figure in New York politics, where he’s had some decidedly mixed success at the ballot box. Blakeman most notably was the 2014 GOP nominee for the open 4th Congressional District, a Nassau County-based seat that Barack Obama had carried 56-43 two years before. Major outside groups on both sides largely bypassed the contest, but the GOP wave helped Blakeman hold Democrat Kathleen Rice to a 53-47 win. In 2015, Blakeman bounced back by winning a seat on the governing body of Hempstead, a massive town with a population of about 765,000.

Data

Presidential Elections: Daily Kos Elections' Stephen Wolf has compiled a spreadsheet with the results of every presidential election by state from 1828 through 2020. The spreadsheet additionally includes calculations of the results for each of the country's four major geographic regions, and it also includes a "partisanship score" metric for comparing the result in a state with the national result for a given year. For instance, Georgia had an R+4 partisanship score in 2020 because Joe Biden's 0.2-point margin of victory there was roughly four points more Republican than his national victory margin, and it had a W+5 score in 1840 because Whig President William Henry Harrison carried the state by five points more than his national victory margin.

Grab Bag

Podcasts: Daily Kos political director David Nir just appeared on pollster Zac McCrary's brand-new podcast, Pro Politics, to discuss his own journey into politics and the rise of the progressive netroots, which (as Zac puts it) morphed over the course of two decades from "a ramshackle group of political junkies" running small-time blogs into "one of the pillars of the Democratic political universe."

Among the many topics they covered: How being the child of a Holocaust survivor has informed who David is … why seeing a Geraldine Ferraro rally in 1984 was an ill omen for the ticket’s chances … the candidate who taught David to avoid getting too attached to any individual politician … how David made the decision to forego a legal career to plunge full-time into politics… and the story of Daily Kos and the rise of Jon Ossoff—and the death of the IDC.

You can find the recording here for all formats, and if you enjoy this kind of shop-talk with political professionals, you can also follow Pro Politics on Twitter.

Morning Digest: Expected delay in census data release could wreak havoc with redistricting timelines

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

Leading Off

2020 Census, Redistricting: On Wednesday, the Census Bureau revealed that the state-level population data from the 2020 census that is needed to determine how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state receives is not expected to be released until April 30, four months after the original deadline. This delay is the result of pandemic-related disruption to census operations last year and Donald Trump's so far unsuccessful attempt to manipulate census data for his own partisan ends.

Additionally, the census also announced that the more granular population data needed for states to actually draw new districts won't be released until at least after July 30, which is also a delay of at least four months from the original March 31 deadline. Consequently, these delays will create major disruptions for the upcoming 2020 round of congressional and legislative redistricting.

New York University Law School's Brennan Center for Justice released an in-depth report in 2020 looking at which states have deadlines that are in conflict with a potentially delayed data release schedule and what the impact of a delay may be. The most directly affected states are New Jersey and Virginia, which are the only two states that are set to hold legislative elections statewide in 2021 and would normally redraw all of their legislative districts this year.

Campaign Action

However, New Jersey Democrats passed a constitutional amendment in 2020 that will require legislative redistricting be delayed until the 2023 state elections if the census doesn't provide the necessary data by Feb. 15, 2021, which is now virtually guaranteed. In Virginia, primary elections are currently planned for June 8, but if redistricting data isn't released until August, it would be practically impossible to conduct redistricting, hold delayed candidate filing, and hold a delayed primary with enough time before November, meaning that the current legislative districts drawn in 2011 would likely remain in place for November's elections.

The situation isn't much better for several other states that have constitutionally mandated redistricting deadlines set to kick in this summer before they could feasibly draw new districts if data isn't released until late summer. Every state constitution requires a lengthy process for amendments that includes a required voter referendum, passage in multiple years, or both, and it's thus too late to amend these constitutions to alter those deadlines this year, increasing the likelihood of litigation over failure to meet key deadlines.

One major state in particular that could be thrown into turmoil due to a delayed release of census data is Illinois, whose constitution sets a deadline of June 30 for passing new legislative districts following a census year. If legislators fail to adopt new districts by the June 30 deadline, legislators would cede control over legislative redistricting to a bipartisan backup commission where the tiebreaking member is chosen in a 50-50 game of chance between the two parties. Democrats currently hold the legislature and have been expected to have total control over redistricting, but if the process reverts to the backup commission, Republicans would have even odds of controlling legislative redistricting in this blue state.

However in the case of Illinois, the situation pivotally would depend on which year would be categorized as the census year. Normally, that would be a year ending in zero—i.e. 2020—but the Brennan Center details how Illinois leaves open the possibility for 2021 to instead be considered the census year, which would give lawmakers until June 30, 2022 to draw new legislative districts (congressional redistricting does not use the same timeline or process as legislative redistricting). It's unclear how such a determination of the census year is made, and litigation over it is a strong possibility.

Meanwhile, nearly every state has different procedures and timelines for congressional redistricting than they do for legislative redistricting, and the delayed release of census data will be less disruptive nationally at the congressional level than it may be for state legislatures.

Senate

FL-Sen: Oh, vom. Politico reports that former Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson is making calls about a possible challenge to Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, and when asked about it, Grayson's only response was, "Repeal Rubio. That's all I have to say." Anyone but Grayson—that's all we have to say.

KS-Sen: Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who last month did not rule out a bid for governor next year, just accepted a position at a conservative think tank in D.C., which is not the kind of gig you usually take if you're planning to run for office in your home state. It's certainly not impossible, though—we've seen politicians do brief stints as Washington lobbyists before staging comebacks—so don't count Pompeo out just yet.

OH-Sen: Team Blue is hoping that Republican Sen. Rob Portman's surprise retirement will give them a better shot at prevailing in a state that has been trending the wrong way, and more Democrats are publicly and privately discussing running. One familiar name who told CNN he was considering the contest is Franklin County Recorder Danny O'Connor, who lost two close 2018 races in the conservative 12th Congressional District against Republican Troy Balderson.

State House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes, who would be the state's first Black senator, also said she was thinking about entering the Senate race. Sykes previously expressed interest last month in campaigning to succeed cabinet nominee Rep. Marcia Fudge, if there's a special election for the safely blue 11th District, and it's not clear if she's also considering running there.

Cleveland.com's Seth Richardson also relays that former state health director Amy Acton is considering running as a Democrat, though she hasn't said anything publicly. Acton attracted state and national attention during the opening months of the coronavirus crisis through her prominent place at Republican Gov. Mike DeWine's afternoon briefings, and Richardson writes that she impressed many through her "her frank discussion of the dangers of coronavirus and the need for mitigation." Acton, who was also the target of conservative attempts to undermine her, as well as antisemitic attacks, stepped down in June.

On the GOP side, 2018 nominee Jim Renacci said Tuesday he was interested in another Senate bid and would "be exploring my options to reenter public office over the next 60 days." Renacci, who previously served four terms in Congress, has spent the last several months talking about challenging DeWine for renomination in part over the governor's efforts to limit the spread of the pandemic. Republicans who remember his 53-47 loss to Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, though, probably won't want him as their standard bearer for either race.

State GOP chair Jane Timken also confirmed Wednesday that she was "seriously considering" a Senate run. Timken, who won her post in early 2017 by unseating an incumbent with the Trump campaign's support, is also part of a prominent donor family in state party politics.

Two other Republicans who had shown some interest in getting in, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted and former Rep. Pat Tiberi, each said Wednesday that they wouldn't enter the race. Several unnamed Republicans also suggested to Cleveland.com's Andrew Tobias that others could stay out should Rep. Jim Jordan, a key Trump sycophant, get in, including 2012 nominee Josh Mandel. However, some unnamed observers pointed out that Jordan has talked about running statewide but never done it, and they predict that 2022 will be no different.

VT-Sen: Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, who was hospitalized for a few hours on Tuesday after suffering what he described as muscle spasms, said on Wednesday that "of course" he'll continue to serve out the rest of his term but said he wouldn't make a decision about whether to seek a ninth term until the end of the year.

"You all know this, I never make up my mind until November or December the year before and I'm not going to now," said the 80-year-old Leahy. "Usually when we start skiing and snowshoeing then we talk about it." Leahy, who is currently the longest-serving member of the Senate, sounded ready to run again, saying "the latest polls show me winning easily."

Retirement Watch: With Ohio Sen. Rob Portman's surprise announcement on Monday making him the third GOP senator to retire so far in this young election cycle, Republicans are nervously waiting to see how many more of their brethren might also call it quits. Among those on the watch list:

AL-Sen: Richard Shelby is 86 and has been in office since 1987. After last year's elections, Shelby promised a decision by January, but now he tells Roll Call's Bridget Bowman that he won't say anything more until after Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, which will not begin until Feb. 8. When asked about his plans this week by CNN, Shelby would only say, "I'll let you know." Bowman says the senator "is not expected to run for reelection."

AR-Sen: John Boozman, 70, said a year ago that he’s planning to run for a third term, and he repeated that intention this week to CNN. However, the senator has experienced some health problems that required heart surgery in 2014 and again in 2017, and he hasn’t yet announced a re-election bid.

IA-Sen: 87-year-old Chuck Grassley, who was first elected in 1980, said in February of last year that he'd come to a decision eight to 12 months before Election Day 2022, though now he seems to have moved his timetable up. In new remarks, he says he'll make an announcement in "several months." If Grassley were to run and win again, he'd be 95 years old at the end of what would be his eighth term.

ID-Sen: Mike Crapo, 69, also told CNN he plans to run for a fifth term but likewise hasn’t actually kicked off a campaign. He was treated for prostate cancer in 2000 and 2005.

MO-Sen: A spokesperson for Roy Blunt, 71, said in November that the senator would seek a third term, but now he's sounding less definitive. Blunt told Roll Call's Bowman that he's "planning on reelection, but I haven't made a final statement on that yet." In separate remarks about his plans to Politico, Blunt said, "I really have not been thinking much about it to tell you the truth. ... I keep thinking there will be a little breathing space, so far it’s not happening."

SD-Sen: John Thune, whose 60 years of age put him just below the senatorial average of 63, would only tell CNN that he'll make an announcement about a fourth term "at some point in the future." Trump exhorted Republicans to primary Thune late last year after the senator said that efforts to overturn the Electoral College "would go down like a shot dog."

WI-Sen: Ron Johnson, 65, pledged prior to his last election in 2016 that he would only serve one more term if he won, but now he's contemplating going back on his word. However, he still hasn't made up his mind about whether to break his promise and run for a third term, saying, "I don't think I have to for a while."

CNN also notes that Kansas’ Jerry Moran and South Dakota’s John Hoeven have not launched re-election bids yet, but both are in their mid-60s—relatively young by Senate standards—and joined the Senate in 2011.

Governors

CA-Gov: Tech billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya has announced that he'll run to replace Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in the event a recall election moves forward, though he didn't specify which party banner, if any, he'd fly. Palihapitiya has given $1.3 million to Democratic candidates and causes over the last decade, along with one $5,000 donation to Ted Cruz in 2011.

MD-Gov: Unnamed advisers to Baltimore County Executive John Olszewski, who previously did not rule out a run for governor, say Olszewski is now considering a bid for the Democratic nomination. Another Democrat, Howard County Executive Calvin Ball, is also not ruling out the race, according to Maryland Matters. Meanwhile, 2018 Democratic nominee Ben Jealous, who last year said he had not "closed the door on running for governor again," is staying involved in Maryland politics by taking the helm of a new marijuana reform initiative.

SC-Gov: 2018 candidate John Warren recently refused to rule out a second GOP primary bid against incumbent Henry McMaster, and The State’s Maayan Schechter reports that he might not be the only Republican looking at this race.

Schechter writes that there’s “buzz” that state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey could challenge the governor, and that he would not comment for her story. Massey has been a loud critic of McMaster’s response to the pandemic: Last month, Massey was one of several Republicans to prepare bills that would give legislators the final say over emergency orders.

Catherine Templeton, who also ran in 2018, said back in August that she was likely to run, though we haven’t heard anything from her since then. A runoff would take place if no one wins a majority in the first round of the primary, so McMaster couldn’t slip by with a plurality.

South Carolina has been a very tough state for Democrats especially in recent years, but a few local politicians have shown some interest in running. Former Rep. Joe Cunningham told Schechter he would consider his future "[o]ver the next few months.” Cunningham also expressed interest last year in seeking a rematch with Republican Nancy Mace, who narrowly unseated him in November, though redistricting could make that contest less attractive.

Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, who would be the state’s first Black governor, has also been mentioned as a prospective candidate for years, and he once again did not rule it out when asked. Benjamin and McMaster faced off in the open 2002 race for attorney general, a race McMaster won 55-44. Benjamin is up for re-election this year, and he hasn’t said if he’ll seek a fourth term.

State Sens. Marlon Kimpson and Mia McLeod also said they were thinking about a gubernatorial bid as did 2018 contender Marguerite Willis, an attorney who lost that year’s primary to James Smith 62-28. Schechter also lists former state Rep. Mandy Powers Norrell, who was Smith’s candidate for lieutenant governor, as considering, though there’s no quote from her.

VA-Gov: A second rich dude, former private equity executive Glenn Youngkin, has entered Virginia's Republican primary for governor, just days after another finance guy, Pete Snyder, did the same. Snyder, by the way, has already released a TV ad, which the National Journal says is backed by a $250,000 buy, complaining about the slow pace of reopening schools and calling himself a "disruptor." It's not clear who he's trying to reach with this sort of advertisement, though, given that the GOP nomination will be decided by, at most, just a few thousand delegates at the party's May 1 convention.

House

CA-21: Former Fresno City Councilman Chris Mathys, who was last seen taking a distant third in the GOP primary for New Mexico's 2nd Congressional District last year, has announced a challenge to Rep. David Valadao, one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump earlier this month. Fresno isn't located in California's 21st Congressional District either, though it is closer than New Mexico.

CA-39: Democrat Jay Chen, a Navy Reserve officer and local community college trustee, has announced a bid against freshman Republican Rep. Young Kim. Chen previously ran for California's 39th Congressional District in 2012, losing 58-42 to Republican Rep. Ed Royce, though the area was considerably redder back then: That same year, Mitt Romney carried the district 51-47, while in 2020, Joe Biden won it 54-44.

Chen also briefly ran here in 2018 after Royce retired, but to help avoid a disaster in the top-two primary, he took one for the team and dropped out in order to reduce the number of Democratic candidates and, thereby, the chance that a fractured voted would allow two Republicans to advance to the general election.

PA-07: Republican Lisa Scheller, who lost to Democratic Rep. Susan Wild 52-48 last year in Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District, has filed paperwork with the FEC in anticipation of another congressional bid, though it's not clear exactly where she might run. Redistricting is set to scramble Pennsylvania's map, and mindful of that, Scheller changed the name of her campaign committee from "Scheller for PA-07" to "Scheller for Congress, Inc." (no, we don't know why she thinks she's running a corporation). She's promised "a more formal announcement" about her plans over the summer.

PA-10: Politico reports that, according to an unnamed source, the DCCC is trying to recruit 2020 nominee Eugene DePasquale for another go at Republican Rep. Scott Perry in Pennsylvania's 10th District. DePasquale, whose press list has understandably been largely dormant since November, recently put out a statement calling on his former opponent to resign after the New York Times reported that he played a central role in trying to overturn last year's presidential election.

Perry, the Times said, introduced Donald Trump to a Justice Department attorney who proposed ousting acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and directing the DOJ to pressure Georgia officials into altering their state's results. The congressman later confirmed the report. DePasquale wound up losing to Perry by a 53-47 margin last year but he insisted to Politico that the surge in Republican enthusiasm generated by Trump's presence on the ballot "will not be in play in 2022."

Legislatures

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

IA-SD-41: Republican Adrian Dickey defeated Democrat Mary Stewart 55-45 to hold this seat for the GOP. An unusual complicating factor arose on Election Day when a major snowstorm hit southeastern Iowa, and Democrats were reportedly leading in mail ballots heading into Tuesday. This was enough to make Dickey himself nervous about the final outcome, but the red tilt of this district was enough for him to prevail.

While Stewart did worse than in her first bid for this seat, a 52-48 loss to Mariannette Miller-Meeks in 2018, she was able to once again improve upon Hillary Clinton's 57-38 loss here in 2016.  

This chamber moves to a 32-18 advantage for Republicans with no other vacancies.

Mayors

Detroit, MI Mayor: Incumbent Mike Duggan got his first notable opponent for the August nonpartisan primary on Tuesday when Anthony Adams, who served as deputy mayor in former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's administration, launched his campaign.

Adams, who is also a former school board president, argued that “there is a dramatic need for mayoral change in the city of Detroit." Adams also played down his ties to Kilpatrick, who resigned in disgrace in 2008, saying, "I am my own man and I'm running on my own record." Kilpatrick, who was later sentenced to 28 years in prison for corruption, was in the news last week after Donald Trump commuted his punishment, a decision that Duggan praised.    

Meanwhile, school board member Sherry Gay-Dagnogo said this week that she planned to sit the contest out. The former state representative didn't quite rule out a bid, though, saying instead that she wouldn't run "[u]nless there is a massive cry for me to reconsider." The candidate filing deadline is April 20.

New York City, NY Mayor: Businessman and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang has released a survey of the June Democratic primary from Slingshot Strategies that gives him a 25-17 lead over Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, with City Comptroller Scott Stringer in third with 12%, though a hefty 32% of respondents are initially undecided. The survey then simulates the instant runoff process and shows Yang defeating Adams 61-39 on the 11th and final round of voting. This poll, which was in the field Jan. 15-19 and sampled 800 people, is the first survey we've seen since Yang joined the race earlier this month.

Meanwhile, Marine veteran Zach Iscol announced this week that he was dropping out of the race and would instead run to succeed Stringer as controller. Around that same time, though, businesswoman Barbara Kavovit, who was a regular on the "Real Housewives of New York City," kicked off her own campaign for the Democratic mayoral nomination.

Seattle, WA Mayor: Colleen Echohawk, who leads the nonprofit Chief Seattle Club, announced Monday that she would run to succeed retiring Mayor Jenny Durkin this year. Echohawk, who is a member of both the Kithehaki Band of the Pawnee Nation and the Upper Athabascan people of Mentasta Lake, would be the first woman of color to lead Washington's largest city.

Echohawk has not run for office before, but she has been prominent in local government. In addition to serving on the Community Police Commission, she also founded the Coalition to End Urban Indigenous Homelessness and previously served on the Downtown Seattle Association's board.

Echohawk joins Lance Randall, the director of economic development of the nonprofit SEED, and architect Andrew Grant Houston in the August nonpartisan primary, though it remains to be seen if either of them have the connections to run a serious bid. The candidate filing deadline is in May.

Other Races

New York City, NY Comptroller: The City's Rachel Holliday Smith takes a look at the June Democratic primary to succeed Scott Stringer, who is running for mayor, as New York City comptroller, a post that has plenty of influence over the nation's largest city. Democrats have controlled this office since 1946, and Team Blue's nominee should have no trouble holding it.

First, though, Smith discusses what the comptroller actually does. Among other things, the office is responsible for reviewing contracts, auditing and overseeing city agencies, and "[e]nsuring transparency and accountability in setting prevailing wage and vigorously enforcing prevailing wage and living wage laws." The comptroller is also one of only a trio of citywide elected offices: The other is public advocate, where Democratic incumbent Jumaane Williams doesn't face any serious opposition for re-election this year.

What the comptroller's post hasn't been, though, is a good springboard to the mayor's office. The last person to successfully make the jump was Democrat Abe Beame, who was elected mayor in 1973 on his second try and lost renomination four years later. Since then four other comptrollers have unsuccessfully campaigned for the city's top job, a streak Stringer will try to break this year.

Six notable Democrats are competing in the June primary, which will be decided through instant runoff voting. The two with the most cash by far are City Councilman Brad Lander and state Sen. Brian Benjamin, who have both brought in enough to qualify for matching funds (a system we explain here).

Benjamin, though, earned some unwelcome headlines earlier this month when The City reported that multiple donors said that they had not actually contributed any money to his campaign, and some even volunteered that they had never even heard of Benjamin. One of his unwilling donors said that he didn't blame Benjamin for what happened and instead said the problem rested with his former employer. Benjamin's team soon announced that they would give the New York City Election Campaign Finance Fund $5,750, which represented 23 donations of $250 each.

Assemblyman David Weprin, who unsuccessfully ran to succeed the disgraced Anthony Weiner in the 2011 special election for what was numbered the 9th Congressional District at the time, and state Sen. Kevin Parker have also been campaigning for a while. Neither of them have the resources that Lander or Benjamin do at the moment, though they could receive a big boost if they qualify for matching funds: The New York Times reports that Weprin has likely brought in enough, though the campaign finance board needs to confirm this before it dispenses any public money.

Two other Democrats also joined the race this week. Marine veteran Zach Iscol, a moderate who is close to Hillary Clinton, abandoned his mayoral bid to run here. Iscol will be able to transfer the cash he raised for his previous campaign to his new race, which could matter quite a bit: While he fell about $20,000 short of the minimum needed to qualify for public money for mayor, the Times reports that he's likely already hit the lower threshold needed for the comptroller contest.

The other new contender is Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, a former CNBC anchor who challenged Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in last year's Democratic primary. Caruso-Cabrera, who ran well to the congresswoman's right, raised millions from AOC haters nationwide and self-funded over $1 million, but she lost by a lopsided 74-18 margin.

Data

Pres-by-CD: Our project to calculate the 2020 presidential results for all 435 congressional districts nationwide hits Kentucky. You can find our detailed calculations here, a large-size map of the results here, and our permanent, bookmarkable link for all 435 districts here.

Donald Trump won the Bluegrass State 62-36, which was pretty similar to his 63-33 performance in 2016, and he once again carried five of Kentucky's six congressional districts. The one exception was, as before, Rep. John Yarmuth's 3rd District in Louisville, which is also the only Democratic-held seat in the commonwealth: Joe Biden took the seat 60-38, compared to 55-40 for Hillary Clinton four years earlier, a shift due in part to the decline in third-party voting.

The closest constituency was again the 6th District in the Lexington area, where Trump's margin shrunk a bit from 55-39 in 2016 to 54-44 in 2020. Republican Rep. Andy Barr won re-election in 2018 by beating Democrat Amy McGrath just 51-48 in a very expensive race, but Barr had a much easier time last year and prevailed 57-41.

Trump took at least 65% of the vote in the remaining four GOP-held seats. His strongest performance in the state was his 80-19 romp in veteran Rep. Hal Rogers' 5th District in rural eastern Kentucky, which makes this the Trumpiest of the 345 seats we've released numbers for so far. (The seat that got displaced for that title, though only just, was Texas' 13th District, which backed the top of the ticket 79-19.) Believe it or not, though, Trump's 2016 margin in this coal country constituency was slightly larger at 80-17.

The 83-year-old Rogers has decisively won re-election 20 times, but this area was extremely divided when he was first elected in 1980. The current version of the 5th District contains several ancestrally Democratic areas that favored Team Blue even in tough years, including Elliott County, which famously never supported a Republican presidential nominee from the time of its formation in 1869 through 2012—the longest streak of Democratic support in any county in the country. Those days are long gone, however, as Trump carried Elliott County with 70% in 2016 and 75% last year.

The 5th is also home to areas that were deep red even when Democrats were the dominant party statewide, as they were at the time Rogers was first elected. This includes Jackson and Leslie Counties, which have not once backed a Democrat for president since they were created in the 19th century. They're not likely to start anytime soon, either, as Trump won close to 90% in both.

Kentucky Democrats, thanks in large part to their downballot dominance in parts of the eastern part of the state, ran the state House nonstop from the early 1920s through the 2016 elections, which always gave them at least a seat at the table for redistricting. The GOP took firm control of the legislature for the first time ever when Trump first won the state, though, and they have more than enough votes to override any possible veto by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and pass their own maps for the first time.

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

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

Leading Off

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

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

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

Campaign Action

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Georgia Runoffs

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

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

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

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

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

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

senate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gubernatorial

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

House

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

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

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

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

Mayoral

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

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

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

Other Races

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

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

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

Called Races

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

Election Results Recaps

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grab Bag

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

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

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

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

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

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