Leading Off:
● IN-Sen: Rep. Todd Young is the GOP establishment's pick against tea partying Rep. Marlin Stutzman in the May primary and for the most part, his campaign has gone off without a hitch. Young holds a huge cash advantage, Stutzman's campaign has been plagued with staff turnover, and Stutzman's allies sound reluctant to spend on his behalf. There's just one tiny problem for Young: He may not have enough signatures to get on the primary ballot.
In Indiana, Senate candidates need to turn in 500 valid signatures from each of the state's nine congressional districts. However, the Indiana Democratic Party says that Young turned in just 498 from the 1st District, and they're challenging another 88. Young's team says this is all nothing, and that clerks in each county have verified that they have enough signatures. Clerks in the three counties that make up the 1st also say they've certified 501 signatures, which would be just enough for Young. However, Indiana Public Broadcasting did an independent count, and they found that Young only had 497 valid petitions in the 1st.
The state Democratic Party has formally challenged Young's signatures. The state Election Division will hold a Feb. 19 hearing, and they'll consider the challenge then. There are two Democrats and two Republicans on the panel, and at least three of the members need to rule against Young to get him off the ballot: If there's a tie, he'll make it on. It appears that Indiana law only permits write-in candidacies for general elections and not for primaries.
There are a lot of questions we'll need to wait for Feb. 19 to answer. At the very least though, this whole incident makes Young's seemingly well-oiled machine look downright rusty. Stutzman has his own problems, but even if Young makes it to the ballot, it could encourage anti-establishment groups to spend more here than they may have otherwise.
If Democrats get their wish and Stutzman winds up as the GOP nominee, it could also give ex-Rep. Baron Hill a better chance to win in November. Hill hasn't been raising much money, but that could change if he gets to face Stutzman, who may be extreme enough to jeopardize Team Red in this red state. In any case, we'll be watching what unfolds with great interest.
Senate:
● MO-Sen: Can Vietnam War student deferments be a resonant issue in 2016? We're about to find out. Republican Sen. Roy Blunt's office told the Kansas City Star last year that in 1969, he received an 1-A clarification, meaning he was eligible to serve, but his draft number was simply never called up. However, the Star reported this week that Blunt actually received three student deferments, which is a very different thing.
Blunt's office says that the whole discrepancy was just a mix-up, and Blunt himself claims that "[a]nytime anybody ever asked me about that, I would have said I had student deferments, and was then included in the first year of the lottery. And that was always my sense of that." However, Blunt's likely general election foe sees a good chance to paint him as dishonest. Secretary of State Jason Kander, who served in Afghanistan, argues that "hiding three deferments and saying you couldn't remember them is completely inexcusable." Blunt responded by telling reporters "[t]he one thing to learn here is don't become an expert on something that you don't know everything about." That's a pretty tone-deaf response given that Kander is the candidate with first-hand knowledge about military service.
On its own, this issue probably won't make much of a difference. The war ended over 40 years ago and as Roll Call points out, plenty of campaigns have unsuccessfully used Vietnam deferments against their opponents. Missouri has also become a red state in recent cycles, so Blunt has plenty of room for error. But if more discrepancies about Blunt's past come to light, this could become a bigger problem for the senator.
● OH-Sen: Richard Celeste, who is the only former Democratic governor of Ohio still living other from Ted Strickland, will endorse Strickland's foe in the Democratic primary for Senate, Cincinnati City Councilor P.G. Sittenfeld. Celeste, who served from 1983 to 1991, isn't a major player in Buckeye politics anymore—he's lived in Colorado for over a decade—but he'll be Sittenfeld's biggest-name backer by far. Will it make much of a difference, though? Sittenfeld still trails Strickland by wide margins in name recognition and fundraising, and the primary is just over a month away on March 15. Sittenfeld has run an energetic and aggressive campaign, but his odds remain long.
● PA-Sen: On Tuesday, Braddock Mayor John Fetterman went up with a cable TV ad during the New Hampshire primary coverage. The minute-long spot talks about how Fetterman officiated a same-sex marriage before it was legal in Pennsylvania, even in the face of a legal threat from the governor's office.
House:
● CA-07: Democratic Rep. Ami Bera has won two tight races in this Obama 51-47 seat, and Republicans have signaled that they'll target this suburban Sacramento district again. Bera has attracted plenty of scorn from local labor groups over his support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and they've threatened to sit out this race. However, Bera's intra-party woes haven't noticeably harmed his fundraising. During the final three months of 2015, Bera raised $395,000, and he has $1.22 million in the bank.
Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones entered the race in mid-November, and local Republicans quickly consolidated behind him. Jones' initial fundraising has not been impressive: Jones hauled in only $146,000 during his first six weeks in the race. It's always tough to make firm conclusions off half a quarter, but that's still not a very strong opening figure.
● CA-17: Rep. Mike Honda faces a rematch with fellow Democrat Ro Khanna and once again, he's starting with a big cash deficit. At the end of December, Khanna held a $1.71 million to $572,000 cash-on-hand lead; at this point in the 2014 cycle, Khanna's financial edge was $1.98 to $623,000.
Honda narrowly won the November general election despite his initial deficit, but he has one added obstacle this time. Last year, the House Ethics Committee released a report saying they had "substantial reason to believe" that Honda had improperly used government staff and resources for campaign purposes. The matter has consumed a good chunk of Honda's campaign cash: The congressman raised $295,000 during the last quarter, and spent $101,000 of it on legal services and crisis communications.
● IL-08: Politico has gotten its hands on a month-old PPP poll of the Democratic primary in Illinois' open 8th District that finds state Sen. Mike Noland leading businessman Raja Krishnamoorthi 22-17, with Villa Park Mayor Deb Bullwinkel in third place at 11 and fully 50 percent of voters undecided. The poll's sponsor has not been disclosed, though it appears to have come from an outside group and not one of the campaigns.
This is the second survey we've seen of the race. Back in October, Bullwinkel released her own internal poll, and it showed the candidates in the same order, albeit with different scores: Noland 29, Krishnamoorthi 22, and Bullwinkel 8. But then as now, the paid media portion of the campaign had yet to begin, and Krishnamoorthi is sure to dominate when it does. He's been an absolute fundraising machine all cycle and continued to rake in big bucks in the fourth quarter, when he raised $450,000 and finished with a massive $1.3 million in cash-on-hand.
Noland, by contrast, brought in only $68,000 and has just $64,000 in the bank, while Bullwinkel managed a mere $26,000 and has only $14,000 left over. In the expensive Chicago media market, Noland and Bullwinkel will have a hard time getting their names out there; Krishnamoorthi, by contrast, would be able to advertise on TV if he so chooses. Once he does start spending big (he hasn't aired any ads yet), his standing in the polls should rise, and he'll be in a strong position to win the nomination.
Meanwhile, DuPage County Board member Pete DiCianni, the lone Republican running, hasn't raised a ton, either: just $109,000 in the fourth quarter, leaving him with $82,000. National Republicans are very unlikely to make a play for this seat, which Barack Obama carried by a 57-41 margin in 2012.
● LA-04: On Wednesday, GOP state Rep. Mike Johnson kicked off his bid for this open northern Louisiana seat. Despite his generic name, Johnson has made some waves during his one year in the legislature. Last year, Johnson proposed the Marriage and Conscience Act, modeled off Indiana's infamous Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Johnson said his bill was designed to protect people opposed to same-sex marriage, while critics charged that it would allow companies to discriminate against married gay people.
Then-Gov. Bobby Jindal wanted to shore up his social conservative credentials ahead of his presidential run, and he made passing the Marriage and Conscience Act a major priority. But after Indiana's RFRA led to nationwide boycotts, the GOP-dominated Louisiana legislature decided it was better not to ignite a similar firestorm, and the bill died in committee. While the whole experience may have alienated fellow Republican legislators and business groups, it helped Johnson become a hero with social conservatives, something that could give him a boost in this contest.
Johnson doesn't have the GOP field to himself in this Romney 59-40 seat. Cardiologist Trey Baucum, who comes from a prominent local family, entered the race last week. A number of other Republicans are considering, and we can add Shreveport attorney Rick John to the potential candidate list. All the contenders from both parties will compete in the November general election: If no one takes a majority, the top two vote-getters will advance to the December runoff.
● NJ-03: Last week, Politico reported that the DCCC was courting Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt to challenge freshman Republican Tom MacArthur, and Lampitt has confirmed that she's "really strongly considering." Lampitt added that she hopes the DCCC will do a poll to tell her "whether or not the numbers swing in any favor to see what kind of mountains I would have to climb to be successful."
Obama carried this South Jersey seat 52-47, but Republicans still do well downballot. Lampitt doesn't represent any of the 3rd in the legislature, which isn't necessarily a deal breaker: MacArthur moved from the other side of the state to run here in 2014. However, it means that Lampitt won't start with much name recognition if she gets in. This district is split between the very expensive New York and Philadelphia media markets, and any serious candidate will need a boatload of cash to win here.
● OR-05: Team Red has a second candidate against entrenched Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader, and he cuts a different profile than most Republican contenders. Ben West was the plaintiff in the lawsuit that struck down Oregon's ban on same-sex marriage. West starred in an ad for Senate nominee Monica Wehby in 2014, so this isn't his first foray into partisan politics.
One other Republican, former Oregon Right to Life lobbyist Colm Willis, is challenging Schrader. Obama won this Salem-area seat only 51-47, but Schrader has survived two GOP waves. At the end of last year, Willis trailed Schrader $1.5 million to $44,000; we'll see if West can raise the type of money to put this seat on the map.
● VA-02: Republican Rep. Randy Forbes announced earlier this week that he would run in the 2nd District after redistricting turned his old seat safely blue. State Del. Scott Taylor is portraying Forbes as an interloper, but Forbes has released a Public Opinion Strategies poll arguing that he's already the favorite of 2nd District Republicans.
The survey, which was conducted days before Forbes kicked off his campaign, gives him a 43-24 edge against Taylor in a primary. That's not incredible for an incumbent but then again, Forbes currently doesn't represent any of the 2nd. It's unclear at this point if the GOP will hold a June primary here or nominate its candidate at a firehouse primary or through a party convention.
Legislative:
● KY State House: Democrats hold a 50-46 edge in the Kentucky state House, and the March 8 special elections for the four remaining seats will help tell us if their odds of keeping the chamber in November are long or utterly awful. Democrats are defending HD-08 and HD-98, which backed Romney 54-45 and 59-40 respectively. The GOP is trying to hold HD-62, which Romney carried 61-37, and HD-54, which supported him 68-30.
Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, which spent $6.4 million to help Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell in 2014, is out with TV spots supporting each of the four GOP contenders. Each of the four commercials is unique, but they all stress the Republicans' conservative values and ignore the Democratic candidates. The group refused to say how much they're spending on any of these ads.
● MN State House: Republicans have once again picked up a state legislative seat in a district Barack Obama carried, with Republican Chad Anderson defeating Democrat Andrew Carlson 51-49 in a special election for the Minnesota state House on Tuesday night. It's the second time in a row this has happened: Last month, Republicans won a similarly blue seat in the Texas House.
What makes the Minnesota race much worse, though, is that Democrats are fiercely trying to win back the state House, which Republicans now hold by a 73-61 margin. (Democrats control the Senate and are likely to keep it.) And the playing field isn't particularly friendly, either: Even though Obama won 52.7 percent of the statewide vote in Minnesota, he only won 50.7 percent of the seats in the state House, whose lines were drawn by a court.
That may sound like just a small difference, but it means that in order to recapture the majority, Democrats either need a clean sweep of every single Obama district, or they need to win some Republican turf. That's no easy task, so losing a seat where Obama took 57 percent of the vote is particularly painful.
At the same time, though, it bears repeating that special elections like these are almost never harbingers of things to come. Just a month ago, Democrats won a dark-red GOP-held seat in Oklahoma in a massive upset, but then came the Texas and now Minnesota losses. Oklahoma obviously didn't usher in an era of Republican doom, and likewise Minnesota doesn't herald Armageddon for Democrats.
But one thing is definitely true: Democrats now have to work extra-hard to retake the Minnesota House, and they'll almost certainly need to defeat Anderson to make it happen.
Mayoral:
● Honolulu, HI Mayor: Mayor Kirk Caldwell, a Democrat, is up for re-election this year, and a Merriman River Group poll for Civil Beat gives him lukewarm ratings. The survey gives Caldwell a 40-38 positive opinion with Oahu registered voters (the mayor administers the entire island), which is actually worse than his 39-31 statewide score. Caldwell currently doesn't have any opponents in the non-partisan race, though City Council Chair Ernie Martin and ex-Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona, a two-time GOP gubernatorial nominee, have made noises about getting in.
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.