Daily Kos Elections will be going on a modified schedule for the final two weeks of the year. We'll be back to publishing the Digest regularly in 2014. In the meantime, we'll be posting a daily open thread, and we may post news updates occasionally. Happy holidays!
9:52 AM PT: Census: Unsurprisingly, Florida is about to overtake New York to become the third most-populous state in the nation, perhaps when the Census Bureau releases new population estimates on Monday. New York, however, still has a huge edge in GDP, and ranks seventh among all states in GDP per capita. Florida is 39th.
10:02 AM PT: MT-Sen: Montana's largest union, the 18,000-strong MEA-MFT, has endorsed Lt. Gov. John Walsh for Senate. MEA-MFT represents teachers and other state employees. Walsh faces ex-Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger in the Democratic primary.
10:05 AM PT: NC-07: State Sen. David Rouzer was a natural to seek a rematch against Rep. Mike McIntyre after he lost the closest House race in the country in 2012, but he may have company in the GOP primary. New Hanover County Commissioner Woody White says he's considering a bid and expects to decide by the end of January.
10:15 AM PT: SD-Sen: As expected, former Republican Sen. Larry Pressler has launched his comeback bid as an independent.
10:24 AM PT: VA-10: Gawd. Reality TV dweebus Tareq Salahi says he's seeking the GOP nomination in Virginia's open 10th District.
10:37 AM PT: SCF: One lesser-known way PACs can support candidates is by acting as pass-through entities, which means they can solicit contributions from donors who earmark them for specific campaigns. As Kent Cooper explains, the gifts count only against the contribution limits of the original donors, who get credit for making the donation; the PAC, meanwhile, gets credit for collecting the money and passing it along. (I believe this is how ActBlue operates, legally speaking.)
Cooper discusses all this in the context of the Senate Conservatives Fund, which has forwarded nearly $500,000 to four different outsider Senate candidates this year. The largest recipient has been Kentucky businessman Matt Bevin, with $304,000. Also receiving funds are Rob Maness (Louisiana), Chris McDaniel (Mississippi), and Ben Sasse (Nebraska).
10:45 AM PT: NE-02: It's very thin, but Joe Jordan at the Nebraska Watchdog says that unnamed sources have told him that attorney David Domina, who had been looking at Nebraska's open Senate seat, is considering a run against GOP Rep. Lee Terry in the state's 2nd Congressional District instead. This would actually be a winnable race for Domina, and he'd also really help Democrats, who lost their only candidate when Omaha City Councilman Pete Festersen dropped out earlier this month. Domina, however, missed a self-imposed mid-November deadline to decide on a Senate bid.
11:01 AM PT: Maps: New York Times graphics editor Joshua Katz has taken his data collection on dialects to the next level, with a new quiz that tries to pinpoint where you're from, linguistically speaking, depending on your answers to a battery of questions about vocabulary and pronunciation. It had me utterly nailed as a New Yorker, but come on, people. Are you really playing tennis in those shoes? You are obviously using them for sneaking, duh!
11:10 AM PT: HI-Gov: Barack Obama has endorsed Gov. Neil Abercrombie, who is seeking re-election but faces a challenge in the Democratic primary from state Sen. David Ige.
11:39 AM PT: HI-Sen, HI-01: The Hawaii State Teachers Association has endorsed Democratic Rep. Colleen Hanabusa in her bid for Senate. The HSTA, as well as the National Education Association, is also giving its support to state Rep. Mark Takai in the wide-open Democratic primary to replace Hanabusa in the 1st District.
11:57 AM PT: MN-08, NH-02: Americans for Prosperity is spending $600,000 to air ads attacking two Democrats over Obamacare, Rep. Rick Nolan of Minnesota and Rep. Annie Kuster of New Hampshire.