Morning Digest: Ohio Republicans once again grovel for Trump’s Senate endorsement

Posted on August 24, 2023 by Daily Kos Elections

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

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● OH-Sen: While Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has experienced what could charitably be described as a rough August, he insists to Jewish Insider that he's "likely" to earn Donald Trump's endorsement in the Republican primary to face Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Trump "wants to be with somebody who can win the race and also be a good ally of his in the Senate, which I would be," argued LaRose, despite the fact that he reportedly earned the wrong type of attention from the party's supreme leader two weeks ago after he appeared to defend Mike Pence's actions on Jan. 6.

That moment came when NBC's Chuck Todd asked the secretary if Pence had done the right thing by refusing to reject the results of the 2020 election. LaRose replied that Pence "made the best decision he could with the information in front of him." An unnamed source told the network, "The video was sent to Trump by multiple people, and he has watched it," though they didn't say how Trump had responded—though it isn't hard to guess.

LaRose's team, for its part, quickly tried to walk back the candidate's remarks. "His position is that a lot of people wish they'd done things differently on January 6th," said the campaign in a statement. "Mike Pence made decisions based on what he knew at the time. Not everyone agrees that he did, and that includes President Trump." LaRose, though, had more cleanup to perform just days later when he fired press secretary Rob Nichols after Trump allies uncovered anti-Trump tweets Nichols had penned. In one, he had told a MAGA fan, "[I]t's been an incredible indictments race to the bottom for your guys and hunter biden...the daytona 500 of felonies and misdemeanors."

All of this took place shortly after Ohio voters decisively refused to heed LaRose's calls to support Issue 1, the Republican-backed constitutional amendment that would have made it more difficult to change the state's governing document. "This is 100% about keeping a radical, pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution," LaRose told his fellow Republicans in comments that the "no" side plastered across the state in ads.

LaRose also tried to use his ardent support for Issue 1 to enhance his own standing in the Senate primary, declaring at one point that his two wealthy intra-party foes, state Sen. Matt Dolan and businessman Bernie Moreno, should each throw down $1 million to promote it. (Cleveland.com reports that Dolan owns assets worth at least $14.5 million, while Moreno's fortune is valued at a minimum of $25.5 million.) Moreno's team, though, responded to the measure's 57-43 loss by calling it "a preview of what would happen with Frank LaRose at the top of the ticket in 2024—a 14-point landslide loss that crushed conservatives."

Despite LaRose's protestations, Moreno has looked like the candidate with the best chance to secure Trump's endorsement; Trump himself told followers at a July gathering, "We love Ohio, and we love Bernie Moreno." (It also doesn't hurt that Moreno's son-in-law is Rep. Max Miller, a former White House aide who was so close to Trump that a source told Politico in 2021, "They had … kind of a unique 'bro' relationship.")

In his interview with Jewish Insider, LaRose seemed to bash Moreno in particular when he said it was possible to "be a great Trump supporter" without attempting "to be a cheap knockoff" of Trump. We can be pretty certain that he didn't have Dolan in mind: During his failed 2022 campaign for the state's other Senate seat, Dolan said that the GOP needed to move on from the Big Lie and Trump. Predictably, though, he hasn't actually ruled out backing Trump next year.

But Moreno, as the Daily Beast reported last week, has his own history of firing off tweets questioning Big Lie orthodoxy. In December of 2020, the now-candidate tried to argue that, while Democrats were wrong for accusing Trump of colluding with Russia, it was "just as bad for [Trump] to make claims of a fraudulent election without proof." He also condemned the Jan. 6 riots as they were happening and later liked a missive from Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw defending Liz Cheney's vote to impeach Trump. There's no sign yet, however, that Trump wants to punish Moreno, who now defends the Jan. 6 defendants as "political prisoners" and declared during his aborted 2022 Senate campaign, "President Trump says the election was stolen, and he's right."

Moreno still may need to be on guard, however, after what happened last cycle to former state party chair Jane Timken during the race to succeed retiring Sen. Rob Portman. Trump, reported Politico's Alex Isenstadt, had outright told Timken he'd endorse her only to abruptly change his mind when she initially defended another impeachment backer, Ohio Rep. Anthony Gonzalez. Trump eventually endorsed J.D. Vance, who himself had transformed from a one-time critic into a MAGA lackey, a decision that helped the now-senator win the primary.

Just a few months ago, LaRose seemed determined to avoid humbling himself to win Trump's backing as most of the 2022 field had. The secretary, in a springtime "secret recording" obtained by Politico, instead told fellow Republicans that while Trump's support "matters," only 20% of the primary electorate would "vote for whoever" he endorsed. He added that, while he thought he'd win Trump's favor, he didn't think "begging for it" would work. But his decision to fire Nichols, who had a long history in state GOP politics, has some observers thinking that LaRose is now willing to do whatever it takes to secure Trump's approval.

"Is the Trump endorsement worth burning bridges and setting fire to friendships?" an unidentified strategist asked the conservative Washington Examiner. "Is the Trump endorsement worth that much?" In LaRose's case, the operative argued, it very much isn't. "It just appears unnatural. It's like he's twisting himself in knots. When you're not true to yourself, it shows."

The Downballot

● Everyone always talks about redistricting, but what is it like to actually do it? Oregon political consultant Kari Chisholm joins us on this week's episode of The Downballot to discuss his experience as a member of Portland's new Independent District Commission, a panel of citizens tasked with creating the city's first-ever map for its city council. Kari explains why Portland wanted to switch from at-large elections to a district-based system; how new multi-member districts could boost diversity on the council; and the commission's surprisingly effective efforts to divide the city into four equal districts while heeding community input.

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also recap yet another New Hampshire special election that saw Democrats overperform district baselines—and why Republicans should be worried about an even bigger special in September. They then discuss why a new Democratic recruit could help put Florida's Senate race in play and highlight another effort to put abortion on the ballot in 2024 in a very red state: Nebraska.

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

Governors

● LA-Gov: Faucheux Strategies finds GOP Attorney General Jeff Landry in strong shape in a survey conducted for several groups, including the state Urban League, the Public Affairs Research Council of Baton Rouge, and five media outlets. Landry and the one serious Democrat in the race, former state Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson, respectively take 36% and 26% in the Oct. 14 nonpartisan primary, with wealthy independent Hunter Lundy a distant third with just 7%. Faucheux, which is run by veteran Louisiana pollster Ron Faucheux, also shows Landry beating Wilson 54-36 in a Nov. 18 runoff.

Almost every other firm has also shown Landry and Wilson advancing as all their opponents languished in the single digits. The only contrary numbers came in late June when a Remington Research poll for allies of former state Chamber of Commerce head Stephen Waguespack placed Wilson at 27% as Landry edged out its candidate 25-16. The only prior look at a runoff, by contrast, came from a July BDPC survey for the conservative group Citizens for a New Louisiana, and it had Landry edging Wilson just 45-40.

● MS-Gov: Democrat Brandon Presley has launched a response spot days after Republican incumbent Tate Reeves debuted a transphobic ad insinuating that his foe opposed a new state law that banned gender-affirming care for minors. "I'm on the record saying I don't support gender surgery for minors or boys playing girls sports―never have," Presley tells the audience. "Truth is, Tate Reeves will say anything to protect his good ol' boy network work and hide the fact that he's caught up in the largest corruption scandal in the history of Mississippi."

House

● MN-01: Democratic state Sen. Nick Frentz tells Axios that he's interested in challenging Republican Rep. Brad Finstad in what would be a difficult race for this 54-44 Trump seat in southern Minnesota, and he added that he has no timeline to decide. This area was swingy turf well into the 2010s, but it moved sharply to the right during the Trump era and has remained tough turf for Democrats.

Finstad himself last year won the August special election to succeed the late Jim Hagedorn just 51-47 against Democrat Jeff Ettinger, but he triumphed 54-42 in their rematch a few months later. (The special was conducted using the old congressional map, but the 1st didn't change much following redistricting.) Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who represented previous versions of this seat for 12 years, also lost the constituency 52-45 against Republican Scott Jensen even as the governor was winning statewide by that same margin.

● TX-23: Punchbowl News' Mica Soellner reports that several members of the hardline Freedom Caucus are "plotting behind the scenes" to deny renomination to GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales, but they've yet to consolidate behind any of his challengers. The state party censured the incumbent in March for defying the party line on multiple occasions, but he's remained defiant in a gerrymandered seat that spans from the San Antonio suburbs to El Paso and backed Donald Trump 53-46.

Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, who runs the Freedom Caucus, met with former ICE official Victor Avila in May, while 22nd District Rep. Troy Nehls later hosted an event that Avila addressed. But Avila, who finished a distant fifth place in last year's primary for land commissioner, has yet to earn endorsements from either representative, and he finished June with less than $20,000 available.

Soellner also writes that gun maker Brandon Herrera, who has 2.8 million subscribers on his "The AK Guy" YouTube channel, also had some favorable contact with Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as he wages his own bid to beat Gonzales. Gaetz last week used his guest-host slot on Newsmax to interview Herrera and call this contest "America's most exciting congressional Republican primary election." Herrera entered the race in July after the new fundraising quarter began.

The field also includes Medina County GOP chair Julie Clark, who kicked off her bid in March. Clark self-funded over $300,000 through June but raised little from donors, and she had only $3,000 left at the end of the last quarter. Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, says Soellner, has met with Clark as well as Avila. A runoff would take place if no one earned a majority of the vote in next March's primary, a scenario that Gonzales and his $1.6 million war chest would like to avert.

Gonzales defied his party's base by confirming Joe Biden's victory in the hours after the Jan. 6 attack and later supporting gun safety legislation after the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde happened in his district. He responded to the censure vote in March in Spanish with what the Houston Chronicle calls "some words for the group that are probably too coarse for a family newspaper."

Legislatures

● NH State House: Democrats racked up another big overperformance in New Hampshire on Tuesday night as David Fracht defeated Republican John Keane 72-28 in a special election for Grafton County's 16th District, 13 points better than Joe Biden's already sizable 64-34 margin. It's the third such result in as many tries this year: In May, Democrats ran 16 points ahead of Biden in another vacant seat in Hillsborough County, which followed a 7-point overperformance in February in a do-over election in Strafford County after November's contest ended in a tie.

Fracht's victory bumps up the Democratic caucus to 197 members, while Republicans have 199 (two more seats are held by independents). Next month, Democrats will try to flip a swingy Republican seat in Rockingham County. If they succeed and then hold another safely blue seat in Hillsborough County in November, then they'll strip away the GOP's majority by forcing the chamber into a 199-199 tie between the parties.

Morning Digest: First trans state senator kicks off House bid but could have company

Posted on June 27, 2023 by Daily Kos Elections

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

Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast

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● DE-AL: Democratic state Sen. Sarah McBride launched a bid for Delaware's lone U.S. House seat that would, if successful, make her the first openly trans person to ever serve in Congress.

McBride took note of "the uniqueness that my voice would bring to the halls of Congress" in an interview with Delaware Online's Meredith Newman that accompanied her kickoff. "But ultimately," she emphasized, "I'm not running to be a trans member of Congress. I'm running to be Delaware's member of Congress who's focused on making progress on all of the issues that matter to Delawareans of every background."

The state senator is the first serious candidate to enter the race to succeed Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, a fellow Democrat who is running for Senate and would also make history as both the first woman and first African American to ever represent the First State in the upper chamber.

McBride, however, may face a competitive primary in this loyally blue state. State Housing Authority director Eugene Young told supporters shortly before Blunt Rochester's launch that if the congresswoman were to seek a promotion that he does "plan to run for her congressional seat." Young, who narrowly lost the 2016 primary for mayor of Wilmington, would be the second Black person to represent Delaware in Congress, after Blunt Rochester.

State Treasurer Colleen Davis also told Bloomberg last month that she wasn't ruling out running for House, Senate, or governor, though she's yet to say which race if any she's leaning toward. However, while insiders previously speculated that two state senators, Majority Leader Bryan Townsend and Majority Whip Elizabeth Lockman, could run against McBride, each instead endorsed their colleague on Monday.

McBride won elected office for the first time in 2020 at the age of 30 when she became the first, and to date only, openly trans person to serve in the upper chamber of any state legislature, a distinction that Newman notes makes her "the country's highest-ranking transgender elected official." (Virginia Del. Danica Roem, whose own 2017 victory made history, is the Democratic nominee this year for a seat in her state's Senate.) Prior to her election, though, McBride had already forged deep connections with notable state and national Democrats, working for both then-Gov. Jack Markell and Attorney General Beau Biden; Markell would even credit her as one of the reasons he pulled off his upset primary win in 2008.

McBride later recounted that both elected officials were supportive after she told them she was trans in 2012, with the attorney general responding, "You are still a member of the Biden family." (His father, Joe Biden, would write the foreword to her 2018 memoir.) She attracted national attention that year when she used an op-ed in the student paper at American University, where she was student body president, to describe her "resolution of an internal struggle."

A subsequent stint as an Obama administration intern made McBride the first openly trans person to serve in the White House. She went on to become the Human Rights Campaign's national press secretary, and became the first openly trans person to address a major party convention when she gave a speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

During her bid for elected office in 2020, McBride emphasized the same point about her candidacy she made on Monday. "I don't intend on serving as a transgender state senator," she said. "I intend on serving as a senator who happens to be transgender." Her campaign culminated in easy victories in both the primary and general elections, but its historic nature attracted outsized attention, giving her an unusually high profile for a first-term state lawmaker.

In the legislature, McBride authored the state's paid family leave act, which Newman characterized as "one of the more significant and progressive bills Delaware legislators have passed in recent years." She also drew attention for denouncing a colleague's unsuccessful bill to keep trans student-athletes from playing in the sport that corresponds with their gender identity. McBride, who chaired the hearing on the legislation, tweeted, "For years, trans people have had to go before anti-trans lawmakers in the big chair. Today, anti-trans forces had to come before a trans person in the big chair – me."

Redistricting

● LA Redistricting: The Supreme Court lifted a hold on a lower court decision that would require Louisiana to draw a second congressional district where Black voters can elect their preferred candidate in a new ruling on Monday, paving the way for the state to join Alabama in reconfiguring its map to comply with the Voting Rights Act. At Daily Kos Elections, we take a detailed look at the implications of this ruling, including illustrations of what Louisiana's new district might look like. Potential pitfalls lie ahead for plaintiffs, though, as the ultraconservative 5th Circuit could slow-walk any further Republican appeals.

Senate

● FL-Sen: Alan Grayson on Friday confirmed to the Florida Phoenix he's thinking about seeking the Democratic nod to take on Republican Sen. Rick Scott in an interview that took place a day after the congressman-turned-perennial candidate filed FEC paperwork. Grayson, who indicated he wasn't in a hurry to make up his mind, said that if he ran, "The first $20 million I raise is going to be earmarked for voter registration and turnout." The Democrat raised less than half of that for his 2016 primary bid for Florida's other Senate seat, and he took in under $1 million last cycle when he unsuccessfully tried to return to the House.

Governors

● LA-Gov: Former state Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson over the weekend earned the endorsement of the state Democratic Party for the October all-party primary, a development that comes months after termed-out Gov. John Bel Edwards backed him. Wilson is the only serious Democrat in the race, though Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams unexpectedly expressed interest in launching his own campaign about four weeks ago. We've yet to hear anything new from Williams since then, though there's still a while to go before the Aug. 10 filing deadline.

● MT-Gov: Ryan Busse, a former executive at the firearms manufacturing company Kimber America who is now a prominent gun safety advocate, tells the Montana Free Press that he's considering seeking the Democratic nod to take on Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte. No other notable Democrats have publicly expressed interest in running to lead this conservative state.

House

● CA-22, CA-12: SEIU California, which Politico previously described as "one of the most powerful union groups in the state," has endorsed former Assemblyman Rudy Salas for the competitive 22nd District and BART board member Lateefah Simon for the safely blue 12th even though the former has yet to announce his campaign.

Salas filed FEC paperwork in December a month after losing to Republican incumbent David Valadao 52-48 in a Central Valley constituency, but we've yet to hear anything from the Democrat since then. SEIU California isn't alone in thinking that a rematch is on, though, as Inside Elections wrote early this month that Democratic operatives are convinced Salas will run again with little intra-party opposition for this 55-42 Biden district, which is one of the bluest the GOP holds nationally.

Ballot Measures

● OR Ballot: Oregon's Democratic-led legislature has placed a measure on the ballot next year that will ask voters whether to reform their electoral system by adopting ranked-choice voting for federal and statewide offices. Lawmakers also put a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would finally empower the legislature to impeach and remove statewide officials for misconduct.

Minimizing the spoiler problem. The ranked-choice voting reform proposed here primarily aims to avoid letting one candidate win with a plurality only because other candidates split a majority of the vote. Democrat Tina Kotek only beat her GOP opponent 47-44 in last year's race for governor, with a former Democrat taking 9% as an independent. That close call may have spurred Democrats to push for ranked-choice voting.
Ranked-choice voting has been growing in popularity. Voters last year in Oregon's largest city, Portland, passed variants of the system for mayoral and city council elections, as have some other jurisdictions around the state. This new ballot measure also marks the first time that any state's legislature has led the way to adopt ranked-choice voting for federal or state elections.
The last state without an impeachment process. Oregon is the only remaining state where legislators lack the power to impeach and remove officials such as the governor. This situation threatened to cause major problems twice in the last decade when a former governor and secretary of state became embroiled in scandals, and a crisis was avoided only because both voluntarily resigned.

Prosecutors and Sheriffs

● New York: Two of the five district attorneys serving New York City, the Bronx's Darcel Clark and Queens' Melinda Katz, face Democratic primary challengers on Tuesday in their dark blue boroughs. Staten Island's Michael McMahon is also up for reelection this year, but the former Democratic congressman has no major-party opposition at all even though Donald Trump twice scored double-digit wins in his jurisdiction.

Clark and Katz each have the support of the party establishment even though, as we wrote in March, the ideological contours of their respective races differ considerably. Clark's intra-party foe is civil rights attorney Tess Cohen, who is challenging the incumbent from the left. Cohen previously told the Gotham Gazette that Clark's "reforms are the reforms that people were starting to do 10-15 years ago, and it's not where reforms are now and where we know we need to go."

Clark, who remains the only Black woman to ever serve as district attorney anywhere in the state, offered a different take on her tenure to the site, saying, "I'm not going to apologize for standing up for victims of crime, but I'm not going to do it at the expense of violating the rights of the accused." The incumbent enjoys a huge financial advantage over Cohen, who has acknowledged she faces a challenging job beating "the Bronx machine."

Katz, meanwhile, is trying to fend off former Queens Supreme Court Administrative Judge George Grasso, who is campaigning against her from the right. While the challenger tells Gothamist he identifies as a progressive, he launched his campaign last year proclaiming, "In my opinion, this is an artificially created crime wave by what I call progressive activists in the state legislature and City Hall." The field also includes Devian Daniels, who lost a 2021 primary for a Civil Court judgeship 80-19 and hasn't reported raising any money.

Katz, who famously won the 2019 primary by 60 votes against progressive Tiffany Cabán, has touted herself as a "steady hand during very turbulent times," and she's largely amassed a moderate record in office. "Some of her policies are indeed reform-oriented," an official at a criminal justice organization told Mother Jones and Bolts before adding, "[But] Katz has in general been less reform-minded in her first term in office, than say, certainly Eric Gonzalez in Brooklyn, or Alvin Bragg in Manhattan." (Both of those district attorneys are next up in 2025.) Katz went into the final month of the campaign with far more cash available than Grasso, who says he plans to run as a third-party candidate in the November general election should he lose Tuesday.

Other Races

● MS-LG: The Magnolia Tribune's Russ Latino has obtained what he describes as a "leaked poll" sponsored by the National Association of Realtors that finds its endorsed candidate, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, trailing far-right state Sen. Chris McDaniel 45-40 ahead of the Aug. 8 Republican primary for this powerful office. These late-May numbers from American Strategies, a firm that we've only rarely seen numbers from before, are quite different from the 47-32 Hosemann advantage that Siena College showed a couple weeks later in its survey for Mississippi Today. Two minor candidates are also on the ballot, and their presence could prevent anyone from earning the majority needed to avert an Aug. 28 runoff.

Latino writes that word of NAR's poll only recently "began circulating among Mississippi lobbyists and politicos," though the story doesn't say who released the memo. He also notes that Hosemann has been making use of his huge financial edge to run TV ads since American Strategies finished this survey.