Leading Off:
● FL Redistricting: Florida's recent round of court-ordered redistricting has scrambled the state's congressional map, and almost every seat has been altered in some way. To help keep things straight, Stephen Wolf has created an interactive Google Map of the new districts, and we've put together a table showing what portions of Florida's 2012-2014 congressional districts make up each new seat. (This spreadsheet can be a little tricky to interpret, so we've put together a step-by-step guide to help you read it.)
There are many interesting observations to be made. For starters, Republican Rep. Dan Webster is truly a man without a district. His old seat has been scattered to the winds, with pieces of it ending up in five separate districts. Small chunks now form parts of the new FL-06, FL-07, FL-09, and FL-11, while the largest segment (but still just a plurality of Webster's old seat) has become part of what is now the solidly blue 10th District—a seat he could never hope to win.
As a result, Webster has floated the idea of seeking re-election in either FL-06 or FL-11, both of which are open, but he currently represents just 8 percent of the former and 18 percent of the latter. That's not much of a leg up when it comes to name recognition or political power.
Democrat Corrine Brown's seat also has been dramatically transformed. Brown is considering running in the new 5th, which is home to her Jacksonville base. However, Brown only represents 38 percent of the new seat, while 32 percent comes from Democratic Rep. Gwen Graham's 2nd District, and 24 comes from Republican Rep. Ander Crenshaw's 4th. Brown is also mulling a run in the 10th, which is based around Orlando. Brown represents a plurality of that new seat, but only 40 percent of the district's residents are currently her constituents.
This is just a sampling, though. In total, 24 of Florida's 27 districts have seen edits, ranging from small to severe. Check out our full chart for the complete picture. We also have presidential election results broken down according to the new congressional districts
4Q Fundraising:
● OH-Sen: P.G. Sittenfeld (D): $235,000 raised, $785,000 on hand
Senate:
● KY-Sen: Lexington Mayor Jim Gray has been mentioned as a possible Democratic opponent for Republican incumbent Rand Paul, and Gray confirmed his interest on Thursday. Gray, who became the state's first openly-gay mayor in 2010, leads Kentucky's second-largest city, so he'd start with more name recognition than almost anyone else Team Blue could field at this point: However, Lexington is far more Democratic than the rest of the state. The filing deadline is Jan. 26, so Gray doesn't have much time to make up his mind.
● NH-Sen: PPP takes another look at this hotly contested Senate race, but they find that very little has changed in months. Republican incumbent Kelly Ayotte leads Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan 44-42, not much different than the 42-42 tie they found a month ago. Hassan's approval rating has ticked up a bit to 48-39 from 43-40, while Ayotte's 41-43 approval rating is about the same as it's been for months.
● PA-Sen: Katie McGinty has done very well with labor endorsements in the three-way Democratic primary, and the state chapter of the American Federation of Teachers backed her on Friday. McGinty, who served as chief of staff to Gov. Tom Wolf, is facing 2010 nominee Joe Sestak and Braddock Mayor John Fetterman for the right to take on Republican Sen. Pat Toomey.
Gubernatorial:
● ND-Gov: Rich guy Doug Burgum has been flirting with a gubernatorial bid for a while, and he says he'll announce his plans on Jan. 14. While Burgum previously left the door open to running as an independent, his spokeswoman said a little while ago that if he campaigns for this open seat, it will be as a Republican. Right now, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem and state Rep. Rick Becker have the GOP field to themselves.
If Burgum gets in, one of the big questions is whether he will compete for the GOP party endorsement at the early April party convention. While North Dakota will hold a June 14 primary, the party endorsement is taken very seriously and it's rare for a credible contender to continue on to the primary after losing it. However, it's not unheard of for contenders to just avoid the convention altogether: In 2012, now-Rep. Kevin Cramer decided to head straight to the primary, where he beat his convention-backed foe.
Stenehjem's camp says they expect Burgum to duck the convention, but Burgum hasn't publicly indicated what he'll do yet. The first district conventions to select delegates for the state convention are Jan. 19, so it's tough to see Burgum mounting a concerted campaign for the party endorsement with so little time left.
● NH-Gov: PPP checks in on the race to succeed Senate candidate Maggie Hassan, and they find that neither party has any discernible edge. Republican Executive Councilor Chris Sununu is the only candidate whom a majority of the state recognizes, but his favorable rating is split 32-33. They also test two Democrats, Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern and ex-state Securities Regulation Director Mark Connolly, as well as wealthy GOP state Rep. Frank Edelblut (who has only formed an exploratory committee at this point). However, almost no one knows who any of those men are yet.
There are a ton of undecideds in each gubernatorial match as well. Sununu leads Connolly 38-36 and Van Ostern 39-35; Edelblut trails Connolly 31-24 and loses to Van Ostern 30-25. It's far from clear at this point which party will benefit once all the candidates become better known: Voters are tied 42-42 on whether they plan to vote for the Democrat or Republican in the fall. Team Blue does have a slight 43-40 lead when voters are asked which party they plan to vote for in the legislative elections.
House:
● FL-10: On Friday, EMILY's List threw their support behind ex-Orlando Police Chief Val Demings for the Aug. 30 Democratic primary. EMILY has the resources to go on the air for their candidates, so this is a good get for Demings. Demings faces another female politician, state Sen. Geraldine Thompson, in this safely blue seat, and Rep. Corrine Brown is also considering running here; wealthy former state party chair Bob Poe is also in.
● GA-03: Lynn Westmoreland's Thursday retirement announcement appears to have caught everyone off guard, but it didn't take the Great Mentioner long to come up with a list of potential Republican successors. Roll Call's Simone Pathé and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Daniel Malloy tell us that the following people could run for this safely red seat, which includes several of Atlanta's southern exurbs:
● Westmoreland Chief of Staff Matt Brass
● Ex-Senate Majority Leader Ronnie Chance
● Georgia Chamber of Commerce head Chris Clark
● State Sen. Mike Crane
● State Sen. Mike Dugan
● State Sen. Marty Harbin
● State Sen. Rick Jeffares
● State Rep. David Knight
● Judge and ex-Aflac General Counsel Joey Loudermilk
● State Sen. Joshua McKoon
● State Rep. Matt Ramsey
That's… that's a lot of names. The filing deadline is March 11 so Westmoreland's would-be successors don't have a long time to make their decision. The primary is May 24; in the very likely event that no one takes a majority, there will be a July runoff.
● NY-03: Republican state Sen. Jack Martins has made it no secret that he's interested in running for this swingy Long Island seat, and while Martins hasn't announced that he's in, he has opened a campaign committee with the FEC. Martins has held down his Senate seat, which Obama carried by 9 points, for several terms, but he only scraped by against a penniless Some Dude in 2012, so it remains to be seen whether he has what it takes to flip a swingy congressional district like this one in a presidential year. Republican Assemblyman Chad Lupinacci has also filed but has not announced he's in; a number of other Democrats and Republicans are also eyeing this race.
● VA-07: Tea partying freshman Rep. Dave Brat faces a tough GOP primary challenge from Henrico County Sheriff Mike Wade, and Virginia's new court-drawn congressional map doesn't exactly help him. As Greg Giroux observes, the new 7th is missing Hanover County, where Brat did incredibly well against then-Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014. Brat beat Cantor by about 7,200 votes across the district, and he carried Hanover by about 4,600 votes. The 7th's new denizens are mostly people currently represented by Republican Randy Forbes.
However, things could work out in Brat's favor if Forbes runs in the 7th. Forbes' 4th District will become safely blue under the new map, but about 19 percent of the new 7th will be Forbes' current constituency. That's not a lot, but unless the U.S. Supreme Court keeps the current map in place, Forbes doesn't have any real options other than to run in the 7th or retire. Forbes' team hasn't done anything to tamp down on speculation that he'll run in this safely red suburban Richmond seat, though he's made no obvious moves to prepare for a campaign here.
If Forbes runs, he could complicate things for Wade. While Forbes is very socially conservative (he notably once tried to stop the NRCC from supporting gay candidates in key House contests), he's unlikely to cut into Brat's tea party base. Forbes has been in the House since 2001 and he's been generally low-key, so he'd likely take more votes from the establishment-friendly Wade than Brat. If Forbes decides to make his stand here, he'll give Brat a better chance to hang on.
● WA-07: State Rep. Brady Walkinshaw continues to dominate the chase for endorsements in the wake of Rep. Jim McDermott's retirement announcement, even as other prospective candidates start checking out the race. On Thursday, Walkinshaw announced another round of supporters, most prominently, Seattle City Councilors Tim Burgess and Lorena Gonzalez. (This is also relevant because it rules out Burgess as a potential candidate, though his bailout from the 2013 mayoral race suggests he doesn't have the fire in the belly needed to seek a promotion.)
Walkinshaw also rolled out an endorsement from fellow state Rep. Jessyn Farrell. Walkinshaw's other legislative endorsers are from outside Seattle city limits, though a key one is state Sen. Marko Liias, who's from the small Snohomish County portion of WA-07, and whom we'd previously mentioned as an outside possibility for his own run in the 7th.
Legislative:
● NY State Senate: Following his conviction on corruption charges, former Republican State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos was automatically removed from his seat in the legislature, and Democrats are hoping they can pick it up. To that end, local leaders just selected Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky as their candidate in the expected special election, and he brings almost the perfect profile to this race: a former prosecutor, he helped put former GOP Rep. Mike Grimm behind bars for tax evasion last year. And since Barack Obama carried this district by 8 points, Democrats should in theory have a decent shot here.
Republicans, meanwhile, haven't picked a nominee yet (there are no primaries in special elections in New York state), though they've excelled at preserving their stranglehold on Long Island politics: No Democrat has won a Senate seat there since 2008. It's also not clear when the special will take place. Democrats don't want Gov. Andrew Cuomo to schedule it for April 19, which is the date of the state's presidential primary, because they worry that if the Republican contest is still active while the Democratic nomination is already decided, it'll juice GOP turnout.
Of course, Cuomo's probably only too happy to help Republicans, but he also has to schedule a special election for the legislature's other felonious ex-leader, former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Silver's seat is in New York City, and the incompetent hacks who run the city's Board of Elections say they can't possibly conduct a state-level election on the same day as a presidential primary. Cuomo apparently wants both specials to happen simultaneously, so if the Silver race has to get punted due to official ineptitude, the Skelos race likely will, too.
● PA State Senate: There's only one GOP-held Obama Pennsylvania Senate seat up in 2016, and Democrats will have a shot to pick it up this spring. Former state Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi recently resigned after he was elected to a judgeship, and the special election is scheduled for April 26. If Team Blue flips this seat, the GOP will still hold a 30-20 edge in the chamber, and Democrats are unlikely to take the Senate under the current map. However, Democrats will want to win this seat now so they can have an entrenched incumbent by the time the 2022 round of redistricting rolls around.
Obama won the Delaware County-based SD-09 54-45, but Democrats have struggled with turnout in special elections. The special is also set to coincide with the state presidential primary so if there's still a competitive Republican race, Team Red will have an easier time getting their voters out. The GOP has already nominated state Rep. Tom Killion. Former Judge Dan Maisano has kicked off his bid for the Democratic nod, but the county leaders who will choose the nominee indicate they're not sold on him. The winner will need to run for the full four-year term in November.
● State Legislatures: Stephen Wolf has created new interactive maps to visualize the results of legislative elections in three states last year, Virginia, Louisiana, and New Jersey. (Sorry, Magnolia State fans, but Mississippi's data is in unusably poor shape.) Among other things, these maps highlight just how devastatingly effective the GOP gerrymanders are in Virginia: Even though Barack Obama carried the state in 2012, a majority of seats in the state House were won by Mitt Romney. A pretty neat trick, if you can swing it. And when you're done checking out this trio, you can visit our complete collection of interactive legislative maps for (almost) the entire country.
Grab Bag:
● Time Machine: Travel back in time with Daily Kos Elections, as we imagine our writeups of key races throughout history as though we were right there—and without the benefit of hindsight! With Donald Trump continuing to dominate most GOP primary polls, we decided to take a look at a celebrity candidate from 1938.
W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel, the creator of the Hillbilly Boys band and host of the most popular radio show in Texas history, is seeking the governorship. Pappy and the Hillbilly Boys are campaigning across the state attracting massive crowds, but there's no way this joke candidate can win… is there?
● VA Redistricting: Stephen Wolf has created an interactive map of Virginia's new congressional districts; for comparison, check out JeffMD's map of the 2012-2015 boundaries. You’ll need to click through for the interactive version, but we’ve included a static version below:
The biggest thing you'll notice is how much more compact VA-03 and VA-04 have become. Under the old map VA-03, held by Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott, stretched from Richmond to Norfolk; the new 3rd is centered around Norfolk and other parts of Hampton Roads, though it remains safely blue. Scott grew up in the Hampton Roads area and got his start representing Newport News in the legislature, so the changes aren't any problem for him.
Republican Rep. Randy Forbes' old 4th included parts of the Richmond and Norfolk areas, though it didn't include either city. The new 4th now takes up heavily Democratic Richmond, and Obama won over 60 percent of the vote in the district. A number of Richmond politicians are considering running here, though no one has jumped in yet.
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.