The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● MN-07: Democrats got some very welcome news on Friday when Rep. Collin Peterson announced that he'd seek a 16th term in his conservative northwest Minnesota seat. The 7th District backed Donald Trump by a punishing 62-31 margin, which makes it by far the reddest Democratic-held seat in the nation, and the GOP would almost certainly have won it had Peterson decided to retire.
However, Team Red still has a good chance to flip the seat even with the incumbent in the race. Back in 2016, Peterson only defeated a barely funded Republican named Dave Hughes by an unexpectedly close 52.5-47.5 margin in a race that attracted no outside attention. Hughes ran again in 2018 and raised more money than before, but he still brought in relatively little cash and attracted no major outside help. Peterson won by a slightly smaller 52.1-47.8 margin, though, in what turned out to be his closest contest since he won re-election for the first time back in 1992.
Hughes is running once again, but this time, national Republicans are making sure they have someone considerably stronger on the ballot. Donald Trump has endorsed former Lt. Gov. Michelle Fischbach, and she ended December with a credible $204,000 warchest. Peterson had a considerably larger $1 million available, though, and the chairman of the powerful House Agriculture Committee should be able to bring in more now that he's decided to run again.
Senate
● AL-Sen: Former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville's first TV spot ahead of the March 31 GOP runoff begins with a clip of Donald Trump saying that if he could do one thing over, "I would not have appointed Jeff Sessions to be attorney general." A narrator goes on to quote Trump calling Sessions a "total disaster" and "an embarrassment to Alabama," before Tuberville appears and calls himself a political outsider.
Sessions is also out with a commercial that features old footage of Tuberville saying, "After 40 years of coaching football, I hung up my whistle, and moved to Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, with the white sands and the blue water. What a great place to live." The narrator goes on to blast Tuberville as a "phony" who "lives and votes in Florida."
● MT-Sen: GOP Sen. Steve Daines uses his first TV spot to say that his biggest priority in office is "protecting your pocketbook."
Gubernatorial
● NC-Gov: Billionaire Greg Lindberg, who is a major GOP donor, and one of his associates were found guilty on Thursday both for attempting to bribe Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey and for wire fraud. Lindberg faces up to 30 years in prison, though WRAL reports that he's likely to receive a much lighter sentence. The verdict comes months after former state GOP chair Robin Hayes pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during their investigation into the scheme to influence Causey.
Lindberg has contributed large amounts to candidates from parties in North Carolina, but he's focused most of his largesse on Republicans. One of Lindberg's most important beneficiaries was GOP Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, who has not been accused of wrongdoing: Lindberg contributed $2.4 million in 2017 to groups supporting Forest, which was more than anyone else pitched in, ahead of the lieutenant governor's planned 2020 run against Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
A spokesperson for Forest, who won the GOP gubernatorial nod on Tuesday, responded to the news of Lindberg's conviction by saying, "We don't feel the need to comment on a trial that doesn't have anything to do with us."
House
● AL-01: The anti-tax Club for Growth, which is supporting former state Sen. Bill Hightower, is going up with a negative TV spot against Mobile County Commissioner Jerry Carl ahead of the March 31 GOP runoff for this safely red seat. The Club's 15-second spot declares that Carl broke his promise and "backed $20 million in handouts to big corporations."
● CO-03: Businessman James Iacino recently picked up an endorsement from former Democratic Rep. John Salazar, who was elected to a previous version of this seat in 2004 and lost to Republican Scott Tipton in 2010. Former Sen. Ken Salazar, who is John Salazar's brother, also backed Iacino on Friday.
● IL-03: 2018 candidate Marie Newman is out with a new spot ahead of the March 17 Democratic primary that goes after Rep. Dan Lipinski for his vote against Obamacare. The narrator declares, "Dan Lipinski voted against Obamacare, which means Lipinski would deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions." The commercial then says of his main challenger, "Marie believes that health care is a right because she knows what it's like to have gone without health insurance. Unlike Dan Lipinski, Marie is the only Democrat who will fight to expand health care to everyone."
● KS-02: The hits keep coming for freshman GOP Rep. Steve Watkins: On Friday, Politico reported that the FEC was investigating his father, Steve Watkins Sr., for allegedly making so-called "straw" donations to his son's 2018 campaign.
The elder Watkins donated hundreds of thousands of his own money to finance a super PAC that ran ads in last cycle's GOP primary, something distressingly common in American elections but nevertheless legal. What federal law does still prohibit, though, is donors from contributing more than the federal maximum to individual campaigns, which last cycle was $2,700 each for the primary and general election. The elder Watkins confirmed to Politico that he was being probed for trying to get around this limit by giving tens of thousands of dollars to several people, including his daughters, who then contributed the cash to his son's congressional campaign.
This type of arrangement is illegal, but Watkins insisted to Politico, "I thought you could just give money to them and they could do with it what they wanted." He also said that he'd reported his violations to the FEC himself once he learned that his supposed interpretation was not the case, and he claimed that his son's campaign had refunded the money. A spokesperson for the younger Watkins said that neither the congressman "nor his campaign committee are under FEC investigation."
Rep. Watkins is, however, currently being investigated by local authorities in a different matter. Watkins gave as his address on his voter registration form the location of a UPS store in Topeka and then proceeded to cast a ballot in November of last year as though he lived there—a move that could expose him to felony voter fraud charges. Watkins' team insisted in December that it was all just an "inadvertent" error, and the congressman soon filled out paperwork listing his address as a Topeka apartment complex. Further muddying the waters, though, Watkins didn't actually include an apartment number in his paperwork, which is a problem since the complex is split between two different state Senate districts.
The Shawnee County Sheriff's Office is still looking into the matter of Watkins and the UPS store. A spokesperson for District Attorney Mike Kagay said Friday that the sheriff's department has finished the first part of its probe but has some follow-up questions for Watkins, at which point Kagay says he'll decide whether to pursue charges.
Watkins had, in fact, lived most of his adult life in Alaska and Massachusetts, only moving to Kansas shortly before he kicked off his congressional campaign. But Watkins didn't move straight into the UPS store: Politico instead reported Friday that Watkins lived with five of his staffers in Kansas during his 2018 congressional campaign, an environment that one source described as "frat-like."
Politico describes one reality show-style housing conflict where Watkins believed that one of his staffers/roommates had stolen some of his pills—supposedly "Viagra" imported from Asia. The future congressman then compelled another staffer to confront the alleged pill thief about the supposed larceny. We don't know what was said, but two unnamed sources say that the whole thing was "a big misunderstanding." Apparently, the great Viagra caper is the only thing Watkins isn't under investigation for. Yet.
Watkins has been facing a serious challenge in the August primary from state Treasurer Jake LaTurner, while Topeka Mayor Michelle De La Isla is running for this seat as a Democrat.
● LA-05: Former GOP state Sen. Mike Walsworth recently said that he'd decide by the end of March whether to run for this safely red seat, and he offered an unusual rationale for his would-be campaign. Walsworth, who was termed-out of the legislature in January after 24 years of service, argued that he'd have the clout with his old colleagues necessary to protect the 5th District from redistricting.
Louisiana is projected to keep all six of its House seats after the 2020 Census, but there has been talk about dramatically redrawing the 5th District in the subsequent round of redistricting. This rural seat is anchored by Alexandria and Monroe in the northeastern part of the state, but it also reaches to the south into Acadiana and east into the outskirts of the New Orleans area.
However, there is plenty of speculation that the next map could create a new northern Louisiana district that includes Shreveport, which is now in the 4th District, and that this new configuration would weaken the influence of rural voters and agriculture interests. Walsworth isn't keen on this idea, and he's vowed to use his connections in the legislature to preserve a northeast Louisiana seat.
Luke Letlow, who serves as chief of staff to retiring Rep. Ralph Abraham, has also been mulling a bid, and the Monroe News-Star writes that he's expected to enter the race on Monday. Letlow also vowed to make redistricting a priority should he win.
Mayoral
● Baltimore, MD Mayor: On behalf of several local media organizations, OpinionWorks is out with a poll of the April 28 Democratic primary that gives former Mayor Sheila Dixon the lead with 16%.
The survey shows two other candidates, City Council President Brandon Scott and former state prosecutor Thiru Vignarajah, tied for second place with 10%, while former police spokesperson T.J. Smith and former U.S. Treasury official Mary Miller are at 9% and 7%, respectively. Incumbent Jack Young, who took office in May after his predecessor resigned in disgrace, is in sixth place with just 6% of the vote. There is no runoff here.
The only other poll we've seen this year was a February internal poll from Scott that showed him trailing Dixon 20-16, while Smith was in third with 13%. That survey also showed Young tied with Vignarajah for fourth with 11% of the vote.
Election Result Recaps
● NC-LG, Where Are They Now?: Former GOP Rep. Renee Ellmers tried to resurrect her political career this cycle by running for lieutenant governor of North Carolina, but she crashed and burned in Tuesday's primary. Mark Robinson, a first time candidate who became a conservative celebrity for his 2018 speech protesting the cancellation of a gun show in Greensboro, won outright with 33% of the vote. Ellmers, who served in the House from 2011 until 2017, took a distant fifth place with just 7%.
On the Democratic side, state Rep. Yvonne Lewis Holley earned 27% of the vote, while state Sen. Terry Van Duyn was in second with 20%. Candidates need to win at least 30% of the vote in North Carolina to win the nomination outright, but a runoff only happens if the runner-up requests it. Van Duyn is still deciding whether to ask for a May 12 runoff, and she said she'd make her choice on Tuesday.