Leading Off:
● KY-Sen: After prospective Senate candidate Adam Edelen lost his bid for a second term as state auditor in November, it looked like Democrats were done trying to seriously challenge Republican Sen. Rand Paul. However, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray started considering the race several weeks ago, and he must have liked the response he got. On Tuesday, shortly before candidate filing closed, Gray announced that he would take on Paul.
Gray is in his second term as mayor of Kentucky's second largest city (population 310,000, and home of the University of Kentucky). Gray is also head of a family construction business, and he can do some self-funding. What may get a lot of attention, though, especially after the Kim Davis story in Rowan County, is that Gray is openly gay.
If nothing else, Gray's run is probably the last nail in Paul's presidential campaign, as he'll have to pivot to trying to keep his day job. Considering that Paul's polling has dwindled down into the low single-digits, though, it wasn't likely he was going to be running for president much longer. But there's now speculation that this development will take Paul out of the presidential race even before he gets to the Kentucky caucuses on March 5 (the same caucuses he was instrumental in creating).
Even with a prominent candidate like Gray in the race, it's still an uphill fight for the Democrats. Kentucky has become reliably red in presidential elections, and Team Blue suffered some huge losses in the 2015 statewide elections. However, along with Missouri and Arkansas, it's another lower-tier state where they have a strong candidate playing offense, in case the playing field expands after things really go haywire for the GOP in the presidential race.
4Q Fundraising:
● NC-Sen: Deborah Ross (D): $586,000 raised
Senate:
● AR-Sen: John Boozman's bid for re-election has one problem, first and foremost: Boozman's been a senator for five years now, and he remains one of that august body's most anonymous members. Facing a credible challenge from Democrat Connor Eldridge, his response is to run an ad to reintroduce himself to his constituents, talking about his father's World War II service and tying that in with some pro-military generalities about today.
● LA-Sen: On Tuesday, GOP state Treasurer John Kennedy announced that he would seek this open Senate seat.
This is the third time that Kennedy has run for the Senate. In 2004 when he was a Democrat, Kennedy placed a distant third in the jungle primary. In 2008, Kennedy was one of Team Red's top recruits, but he lost to incumbent Mary Landrieu 52-46. (Kennedy's famous Massachusetts namesake won a Senate seat on his first try: Even John Kennedy is no Jack Kennedy.) Kennedy has been positioning himself to run here for a while. Last year Kennedy had a very uncompetitive re-election campaign, but he spent millions on ads to boost his name recognition.
Kennedy faces GOP Reps. Charles Boustany and John Fleming in the November jungle primary, and a number of other politicians from both parties have expressed interest in running. While Boustany and Fleming were able to raise millions for their House campaigns and simply transfer it all into their Senate warchests, Kennedy needs to start his fundraising from scratch. However, Kennedy can "donate" the unused cash from his statewide campaign account into his allied super PAC, Louisiana Proud. While Louisiana Proud can't coordinate with Kennedy and they don't get the discounted rates on TV and radio that candidates get, it's a start.
The race is still taking shape and it's far too early to tell who has the edge. A SurveyUSA poll for Louisiana Proud showed Kennedy with better positive name recognition than his foes, but things will change once the spending starts. The jungle primary is also a huge wild card: In the very likely event that no one takes a majority in November, the top two candidates, regardless of party, will advance to a December runoff. It's impossible at this point to know whom those candidates will be, and which party they'll each come from.
Kennedy is very likely to be the only candidate on either side who has ever held statewide office, which could give him a leg up on his foes. Kennedy was raised in metropolitan Baton Rouge and he lives in St. Tammany Parish, a large red suburban area north of Louisiana. However, we'll need to see if he has a geographic base in either area, or if his five terms in statewide office has left him with support that's a mile wide but an inch deep.
A few Democrats are mulling bids, but no one has stepped up yet. Energy businessman Josh Pellerin is the latest to float his name, and he says he's "99.9 percent confident" he'll get in. Pellerin, who hails from the Lafayette area, isn't exactly a liberal's liberal. Pellerin characterizes himself "pro-life, pro-gun," though he said he believes in the Democratic Party on "health care, job creation and taking care of veterans." Pellerin didn't say if he is willing or able to self-fund, though if he gets in, he plans to emphasize his business background.
House:
● MD-08: The race for this dark-blue suburban Washington seat has, as of late, looked like a two-way fight between state Sen. Jamie Raskin and Kathleen Matthews, a former news anchor and hotel executive. A potential entry from very rich guy David Trone could shake things up, though.
Trone is the co-owner of Total Wine & More, a chain of big-box stores. Trone has never run for office before, but he has given large amounts of money to Democratic candidates and other causes like the ACLU. Trone himself hasn't said anything yet, but word is that he has been making his interest known privately and polling the district. Although Matthews has been in pole position in terms of fundraising so far, it sounds like there are concerns that that alone won't be enough for her to win. The Washington Post states that "private sector leaders are not confident that Matthews, also a political novice, can beat Raskin." Raskin, who has been in the state Senate since 2006, has staked out the more progressive side of the field; there are five other candidates jostling with Raskin and Matthews.
● MT-AL: Montana's at-large district is a bit redder, at the presidential level, than your usual competitive swing seat in the House. But Democrats think they've got a top-tier recruit for this race, in the form of state Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau. And now EMILY's List has gotten behind her, which should help with her fundraising against freshman GOP Rep. Ryan Zinke. EMILY's List emphasized in their endorsement that Juneau would be the first-ever Native American woman elected to Congress.
● NV-03: The open 3rd District in the suburbs of Las Vegas has long been a recruiting trouble spot for Team Blue. Obama narrowly carried the seat, but the adjacent and far-bluer 4th District has acted as flypaper for the area's ambitious Democrats. But Jon Ralston reported earlier this month that the DCCC and Sen. Harry Reid were trying to recruit prominent synagogue leader Jacky Rosen and on Tuesday, Rosen entered the race. She'll have to get by attorney Jesse Sbaih in the Democratic primary, and she'll then face an imposing challenge from Republican state Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson (unless one of the various GOP weirdos also running topples him in the primary).
● PA-08: State Rep. Steve Santarsiero is the only elected official running for the Democratic nod in the crucial open 8th District, an open swing district in suburban Bucks County. But Santarsiero's still in a big battle with businesswoman Shaughnessy Naughton, who is favored by national Democrats. Santarsiero announced some backup Tuesday, in the form of endorsements from current state Auditor Eugene DePasquale, ex-Rep. (and former Senate candidate) Joe Hoeffel, and Philadelphia's United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776.
Mayoral:
● San Diego, CA Mayor: Republican incumbent Kevin Faulconer is up for re-election this year, and Team Blue has struggled to recruit a viable opponent. Ex-Democratic Assemblywoman Lori Saldaña recently announced that she'll run, but she left the Democratic Party in 2014 in a conflict with local leaders and identifies as an independent now. San Diego's local elections are non-partisan, so Saldaña could still function as the de facto Democrat. However, Saldaña wasn't a particularly strong fundraiser during her 2012 bid for CA-52, and her poor relationship with San Diego Democrats isn't going to help things.
The city of San Diego backed Obama 61-36, but it's also very amenable to Republican mayors. A November Faulconer poll from Competitive Edge showed that the mayor was broadly popular, and the Democrats' recruiting woes indicate that they're not seeing much better numbers.
All the candidates will face off in June and if no one takes a majority, the top two vote-getters will advance to November. However, the primary electorate is always disproportionately conservative in California, and Faulconer has a very good chance at winning outright then and there. Faulconer is one of the few rising stars in the state GOP and while Democrats would love to bloody him up before he turns his attention to a potential gubernatorial run next cycle, they may not get that lucky.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, and Stephen Wolf.