Artur Davis (right) loses again
Leading Off:
• Montgomery Mayor: On Tuesday, Artur Davis' comeback attempt fizzled out. Davis, a former Democratic congressman who joined the GOP soon after Team Blue overwhelmingly rejected him in the 2010 gubernatorial primary, placed a distant second in the non-partisan contest to become mayor of Alabama's capital city. Republican incumbent Todd Strange outpaced Davis 57-27, with three other candidates taking the rest; because Strange took more than 50 percent of the vote, he does not need to face a runoff.
Davis was once a Democratic rising star, and he served as both an Obama co-chair and a major DCCC official during the 2008 cycle. But while Davis was already more conservative than his safely blue Birmingham-area House seat, he lurched far to the right in preparation for his 2010 gubernatorial campaign. Davis calculated that he could win the general election as a conservative Democrat, but he especially angered Alabama's Democratic base when he voted against Obamacare. Davis lost the primary 62-38 and joined the GOP not long after leaving Congress. Davis became a prominent Mitt Romney supporter, and he flirted with various runs in his new home in Northern Virginia.
But only months after ruling out a bid for Virginia's 10th Congressional District in 2014, Davis moved back to Montgomery, a city he had grown up in but never represented in the House. Davis made it clear he wanted to run for mayor and he hoped that Strange would retire (Davis may also have thought that his early campaign would entice Strange to call it quits). But Strange announced in January that he would seek another term, and Davis decided to push on.
But despite his huge loss, we may not have seen the last of Artur Davis. In his concession speech, Davis declared that he "still intend[s] to be the next mayor of Montgomery, Alabama," and that "[i]t may be four years later than I wanted it to be." Of course, who knows where Davis will be living in 2019, or what party he'll belong to?
Senate:
• AR-Sen: Former U.S. Attorney Conner Eldridge, whose recent resignation sparked speculation that he might be interested in running against GOP Sen. John Boozman next year as a Democrat, just confirmed that he's looking at a bid. Eldridge says he'll decide "in the weeks ahead," which could mean anything.
• MD-Sen: Former state Del. Heather Mizeur, who came in third in last year's Democratic primary for governor but exceeded expectations given the wide fundraising gap she faced, has endorsed Rep. Chris Van Hollen for Senate. Mizeur campaigned as an outspoken progressive, so it's notable that she's giving her support to Van Hollen rather than Rep. Donna Edwards, who's generally been more identified with left-leaning activists.
• NH-Sen, Gov: Despite the millions that Republicans have already dropped on Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan's head in an effort to keep her out of next year's Senate race, GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte still has just a 44-43 lead according to PPP's latest poll. That's essentially unchanged from the 46-45 edge PPP had for Hassan back in April, though in between, we saw four polls in a row (three from Republican outfits, including Gravis) that put Ayotte over 50. Hassan's job approval rating has taken a beating (down to 48-42, from 53-34), but it's not reflected in the head-to-heads.
Also interesting is that, should Hassan not run, Ayotte is still only at 45 percent against Executive Councilor Chris Pappas, who takes 31. Yes, the virtually unknown Pappas starts out well behind Hassan, but if PPP is right, Ayotte could still face a competitive race against him.
Meanwhile, as Democrats wait on Hassan to decide (really, it's on GOP lawmakers, who have deliberately prolonged the current budget fight), another name has surfaced as a possible gubernatorial successor. State Sen. Andrew Hosmer, who is in his second term, says he's considering a bid in the event that Hassan challenges Ayotte. Other Democratic potentials include Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern, former state Sen. Jackie Cilley, and former state securities regulator Mark Connolly.
Gubernatorial:
• LA-Gov: Republican pollster Triumph Campaigns takes another look at the October jungle primary, but finds that Republican Sen. David Vitter and Democratic state Rep. John Bel Edwards are still well-positioned to secure the two runoff spots. Vitter and Edwards take 31 and 30 respectively, with GOP Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle at 14; GOP Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne is just behind at 13.
These results closely match with a recent MarblePort poll, but are quite different from a truly what-the-fuck late July survey from Market Research Insight that found Angelle threatening to deny Vitter a place in the November runoff. It's looking like MRI was just an outlier, but it's also worth noting that these three pollsters are the only groups to regularly release numbers here: It's always possible that MRI is catching something that Triumph and MarblePort are missing. However, Vitter has only recently begun to dip into his massive warchest, so it's likely that if he moves in any direction, it'll be up.
• ND-Gov: Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer, who represents North Dakota's lone House district, sounds like he's a "no" for the state's suddenly open gubernatorial race. He was a little less than definite, though, saying, "I think both I and North Dakotans are best served by my continuing in Congress." Maybe that could change?
One Democrat is also saying nix—pretty much. Former state Sen. Ryan Taylor, who got crushed when he ran against retiring Gov. Jack Dalrymple in 2012, just declared, "The standard line is 'never say never,' but this is pretty close." There must be some kind of echo in here, though, because Republican state House Majority Leader Al Carlson also just said of his own interest level, "Never say never. You always look at things."
Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is promising a decision "sooner rather than later," for whatever that's worth.
• OR-Gov: GOP state Rep. Knute Buehler, who had been considering a bid for governor, decided against the idea this week. Buehler would likely have faced a difficult race against Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, who defeated him by 8 points in the 2012 race for secretary of state. The only Republican currently running is physician Bud Pierce, who has self-funded about $300,000 so far.
• WV-Gov: At some point, state Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler went from non-candidate who filed pre-candidacy papers to full-fledged contender. Kessler faces billionaire Jim Justice in the Democratic primary, and he's unveiled a new survey from Prism Surveys that gives Justice a small 28-26 lead. It's hard to say this poll is particularly valuable given that no one's run any ads yet and voters are barely paying attention.
House:
• NV-03: Ordinarily, this is the kind news that Democrats would celebrate: Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, one of the craziest Republicans in a state chock full of 'em, is reportedly considering a bid for Nevada's open 3rd Congressional District, per John Ralston. (A bit of Fiore-iana: She wants to castrate pimps and thinks that cancer victims can "flush" tumors away with baking soda.) The problem is that there are already a couple of wingnuts duking it out here, Danny Tarkanian (sort of a Kardashian candidate—famous only for running for office) and Andy Matthews, the former head of a conservative think-tank.
So if a third conservative true believer gets in, that only makes it more likely that state Senate President Michael Roberson, the establishment pick, will seize the nomination. Roberson would present the biggest difficulty for Democrats in the general election, but there's a bigger problem yet still: Democrats don't even have a real candidate here. For such a competitive district, that's a huge recruitment failure.
• TN-01: Republican Rep. Phil Roe hasn't faced a serious primary since his initial 2008 win, but a familiar foe is making noises about challenging him. Ex-Rep. David Davis beat Roe in the very crowded 2006 open seat primary, but narrowly lost to him two years later in a shocker. Davis was quite pissed and he flirted with a 2010 rematch, and it seems that time has not healed all wounds. Davis recently told the Greenville Sun that he's not ruling out another campaign for this seat.
Roe has been a boring but dependably conservative vote, and it's not clear how Davis thinks he'll beat him. Indeed, Davis himself admits that "Rep. Roe and I would have voted similarly in most cases." Davis did take issue with Roe's 2009 vote for the Obama Administration's "Cash For Clunkers" program, but even the angriest tea partiers have probably forgotten about it by now. Whoever emerges with the GOP nod will have no trouble in the general: Democrats haven't represented this part of East Tennessee since the 19th Century, and this Romney 73-26 seat is in no hurry to break the streak.
Other Races:
• NE Ballot: Supporters of an effort to repeal a new state law banning capital punishment say they've collected enough signatures to put the matter before voters next year. They need 57,000 petitions to get on the ballot and double that number to temporarily halt the repeal from going into effect.
Grab Bag:
• President-by-LD: We've made some minor changes to how we're allocating votes for split precincts for our President-by-LD project. The changes only affect Virginia for 2013 and 2014 and Iowa for 2014, and we expect that very little has changed.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, and Daniel Donner.