Welcome to the Daily Kos Elections Live Digest, your liveblog of all of today's campaign news.
• Houston, TX Mayor: On Wednesday, Democrat Sylvester Turner received an endorsement from Republican City Councilor Stephen Costello, who took 7 percent in the non-partisan primary. Costello has been a moderate on the council, and he hasn’t had a good relationship with local Republicans. However, his support could help Turner make inroads with moderate voters who might otherwise support conservative Bill King in the Dec. 12 runoff.
• Baltimore, MD Mayor: We’re going to have a crowded Democratic primary here next year. Ex-Mayor Sheila Dixon, state Sen. Catherine Pugh, and Councilor Carl Stokes were already running before Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced that she would not run for re-election back in September, and the field has only grown since then.
Councilman Nick Mosby, who is the husband of Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, and wealthy businessman David Warnock didn’t waste much time kicking off their campaigns. Last week, Elizabeth Embry, who serves as director of the criminal division at the state attorney general’s office and is the daughter of a former city councilor, joined the race. There’s no runoff here and the Democratic nominee won’t have any trouble winning in November. The filing deadline isn’t until early February, so there’s still time for more candidates to get in.
• Manchester, NH Mayor: The recount has concluded, and Republican Mayor Ted Gatsas’ lead dropped from 85 to 64 votes. Democrat Joyce Craig has conceded, but it will be a surprise if we don’t see another competitive race here two years from now. Until recently, Gatsas was consistently mentioned as a possible gubernatorial or Senate candidate, but he never took the bait. After this extremely thin victory, it’s very unlikely anyone will be talking Gatsas up for bigger and better things for a while.
• MD-Sen: GOP Del. Kathy Szeliga got into the race on Tuesday, and she may need to face a primary with another elected official. Harford County Executive Barry Glassman has released an October poll from Gonzales Research and Marketing Strategies that gives him a 19-11 lead in a hypothetical GOP primary. The GOP is going to have a very tough time flipping this seat in the general, and Harford County isn’t a great launching pad for statewide Republicans. Harford is pretty small (population 245,000) and it’s very red, backing Romney 58-39 while the whole state supported Obama 62-36. Glassman only won his post last year after his predecessor ran for governor and lost the primary.
• Special Elections: Johnny Longtorso fills us in:
NH State House, Strafford-1: Republican Bob Graham had no trouble holding on to this seat for his party; he defeated Democrat Larry Brown by a 259-74 vote landslide.
You've got a friend in Bob Graham, that's what everybody's sayin'. All across the good ol' USA… oh sorry, wrong guy.
• TX-19: Michael Bob Starr said back in September that he would resign from the Air Force to run for this safely red seat, and he’s made good on his pledge and entered the race. The former colonel faces several other notable Republicans: former George W. Bush aide Jodey Arrington, bank president Greg Garrett, Lubbock Mayor Glen Robertson, and BrightStar administrator DeRenda Warren. The filing deadline is Dec. 14, so there’s still time for other candidates to get in. At this point, Robertson is probably the frontrunner, but the January campaign finance reports will help give us a better idea of who will have the resources to compete here.
• CO-Sen: The GOP still doesn’t have a viable candidate against Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, but that’s not stopping Americans for Prosperity from airing a TV spot against him. Their ad demonizes Obamacare, and urges viewers to “call Sen. Bennet and tell him his vote for Obamacare is hurting Colorado, before your coverage is next to go.”
• WV-Gov: The primary isn’t until May 10, but Democratic billionaire Jim Justice is out with his third TV ad. This one stars the players and assistants on both the girls and boys basketball teams at Greenbrier East High School praising him as a coach and a mentor. And Justice is actually a good coach: In 2012, he led the girls team to a Class AAA title.
• SD Redistricting: Activists in South Dakota have submitted signatures for a 2016 ballot initiative to create an independent redistricting commission to take control of the process by 2021. Their total of more than 40,000 signatures should likely clear the required number of 27,740. While Daily Kos Elections’ Stephen Wolf has frequently advocated for this very strategy, South Dakota isn’t normally a state one would associate with rampant gerrymandering: It only has a single congressional district, which is unlikely to change any time soon.
This measure would only affect the legislature, where Republicans maintain massive super-majorities. Even though the GOP drew the current districts, South Dakota’s legislative map isn’t a Republican gerrymander. The median state House and state Senate districts each backed Romney 58-40, making them slightly more Democratic than the entire state.
Still, any efforts to establish independent redistricting in Republican-drawn red states can only be good for democracy and it’s fitting that the first state in the nation to grant voters the power to initiate laws directly around the turn of the 20th Century might go down this path. In the long term, this move would be good for Democrats. After the 2006 wave elections, the party achieved just a 20 to 15 minority in the state Senate, so maybe the next time there’s a huge wave year, they could come close again.
• LA-Gov: Democrat John Bel Edwards and Republican David Vitter met for the first gubernatorial debate of their runoff campaign on Tuesday night, and let’s just say a few punches were thrown. Vitter’s history with prostitutes, an issue that has been dominating the campaign in recent weeks, did not bubble up to the surface until the last minutes of the debate. Then, Edwards attacked Vitter for what he called "extracurricular activities," as well as over the allegations that he hired a private detective to investigate political opponents.
The candidates' acrimonious exchanges culminated with Edwards admonishing Vitter, "You are a liar, … you are a cheater, you are a stealer, and I don’t tolerate that." Vitter at one point referenced a recent Edwards ad accusing the senator of choosing “prostitutes over patriots,” saying that Edwards was adopting a “holier than thou” act while going negative. Edwards hit back, telling Vitter, “If it’s a low blow it’s only because that’s where you live, senator.”
Debates in downballot races usually don’t attract much attention from voters, and they rarely make much of a difference on the election’s outcome unless one of the candidates commits a horrible gaffe. Still, Edwards memorable performance just a week and a half before the Nov. 21 runoff at least will ensure that the focus remains on Vitter’s problems at a time when the GOP is working hard to link Edwards to Obama.
But Vitter and his allies have a lot of money left to spend, and they’re using it. The pro-Vitter PAC Fund for Louisiana's Future is out with two new ads (here and here) and surprise! they portray Edwards as a liberal. (What’s actually surprising is the second ad doesn’t mention Obama.) If Vitter is going to win, he’ll need enough conservative voters to decide that, whatever his personal problems are, electing a Democrat is far, far, worse. The GOP’s strategy helped flawed candidates win in gubernatorial contests in Kansas and Kentucky, and we’ll find out soon if it works against Edwards.
But the DGA-backed Gumbo PAC is out with an ad of their own, and it stars Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand, a Republican. Normand, the chief lawman in the state’s second-largest parish, tells viewers that this race isn’t about the party, it’s about the individual, and Vitter should not be leading the state. Normand doesn’t go into any detail, but it’s no secret why Normand is crossing party lines. Vitter had a nasty rivalry with Normand’s predecessor and mentor Harry Lee, a rivalry that took them both to court several times in the 1990s. Lee memorably declared that while his “job is to catch crooks,” his “hobby is to expose hypocrites.”
Normand and Vitter never mended fences, and things only got worse in late October. A private investigator named Robert Frenzel was arrested after he allegedly tried to record a gathering hosted by Normand at a cafe outside New Orleans, then fled and tried to hide in an abandoned house when confronted. Vitter's camp said that Frenzel was doing research on a "John Bel Edwards' business associate and major donor," which of course wouldn't make his behavior look any less dodgy.
At a Tuesday press conference, Normand said that investigators for the company had taped the residences of John Cummings, an Edwards donor who was present at Normand’s gathering. According to Normand, they also recorded the home of Jason Berry, a New Orleans blogger who published an interview with a former prostitute named Wendy Cortez where she claimed that Vitter got her pregnant over a decade ago. (The story has not been proven).
Normand also said that Frenzel had a video showing Vitter aides convincing a woman, whom Normand identified as “friends with or is an acquaintance of Wendy and some of Wendy’s children,” to sign an affidavit to discredit Cortez’s story. Normand called that video “one of the most obnoxious interviews I’ve seen in my 38 years of law enforcement,” and said he would meet with the FBI about it on Thursday.
Vitter himself says that there was evidence of “an illegal scheme between a business associate and major donor of John Bel Edwards and a private investigator to pay for false testimony from witnesses against me.” There’s still a lot we don’t know about this incident, but this is another story that will be getting more attention at the exact worst time for Vitter.
• MS State Senate: The Democratic brand has taken a savage beating in the Magnolia State in recent years, with Republicans taking full control of the state legislature in the 2011 elections. One casualty in that election was 30-year incumbent state Sen. Bob Dearing, who lost his seat representing SD-37 to upstart Republican Melanie Sojourner. In a rare piece of good news for Team Blue, Dearing, who mounted a comeback bid this year at the ripe age of 80 (!), is claiming a narrow victory after a final batch of provisional ballots has put him ahead of Sojourner by 59 votes.
While Sojourner has not yet conceded defeat, she did release a statement affirming that she "currently lack[s] the number of votes" to hold the seat. Dearing's victory is a remarkable win, especially when considering the underlying numbers of the district: Our own Stephen Wolf's numbers show that Barack Obama only won 39 percent of the vote in SD-37 back in 2008.
While Dearing is undoubtedly a conservative, Mississippi-style Democrat, make no mistake: his triumph over Sojourner is still well worth celebrating. Sojourner is a retrograde, weapons-grade wingnut who used her position to manage Chris McDaniel's campaign in the Republican primary against Sen. Thad Cochran in 2014. Her campaign tactics included accusing Cochran of "race-baiting", and she was most recently seen hyperventilating in response to Mitt Romney, saying that his position in favor of South Carolina removing the Confederate flag from its state capitol grounds was "an example of what is wrong with society today". Mississippi—and, indeed, the entire country—is better off with Sojourner out of office.
• IL-Sen: Last week, The Illinois Observer released an Oct. 24 poll from Ogden & Fry giving Tammy Duckworth a massive 59-7 lead over Andrea Zopp in the Democratic primary. That margin seems way too big to be believed right now: While Duckworth is the favorite of the party establishment, she still only represents one-eighteenth of the state and hasn’t run many ads yet. Once we get closer to the March 15 primary and more voters start tuning in, it’s quite possible Duckworth will run away with the lead, but it seems far too early for her to be racking up those kinds of numbers yet. The poll did not test state Sen. Napoleon Harris, who recently released his own survey showing him trailing Duckworth 25-13, with Zopp at 5.