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
● TX-06: On Tuesday, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott scheduled the special election to succeed the late Rep. Ron Wright, a Republican who died earlier this month after contracting COVID-19, for May 1. The filing deadline is March 3, so potential candidates have only a short amount of time to decide if they'll run. This seat, which includes Arlington and rural areas south of Dallas, supported Trump 51-48 last year after backing him by a larger 54-42 margin in 2016, but Wright won his second term 53-44.
Under Texas law, all the candidates will run on the same ballot in an all-party primary rather than in separate partisan primaries. If no one takes a majority, a runoff would take place between the top two vote-getters, regardless of party; the date of a runoff cannot be set, though, until the results of the first round of the special election are certified.
No major Republicans have officially entered the race yet, though the Texas Tribune recently reported that the congressman's widow, party activist Susan Wright, would likely declare her candidacy this week. However, other Republicans are also expressing interest including Brian Harrison, a former official at the Trump-era Department of Health and Human Services, who acknowledged Monday that he was thinking about running.
Campaign Action
Meanwhile, the Texas Tribune's Patrick Svitek reports that another Republican, state Rep. Jake Ellzey, is "expected" to get in, though Ellzey doesn't appear to have said anything publicly yet. Ellzey sought this seat when it was last open in 2018. He looked very much like the underdog after he trailed Wright by a wide 45-22 in the first round of the primary, but Ellzey dramatically narrowed the gap in the runoff and lost just 52-48
That close showing seems to have largely been the result of developments outside of either candidate's control: The Star-Telegram's Bud Kennedy explained afterward that there were several competitive local races in rural Ellis and Navarro Counties that helped boost turnout in Ellzey's strongest areas, while turnout in Wright's Tarrant County base was bad. Two years later, Ellzey decisively won the primary for a safely red state House seat.
On the Democratic side, sociologist Lydia Bean announced Wednesday that she would run. Bean was the party's nominee in an expensive state House race last year, and she ultimately lost 54-46 against Republican incumbent Matt Krause. Bean joins 2018 nominee Jana Lynne Sanchez, who lost that campaign to Wright 53-45, and education advocate Shawn Lassiter.
Senate
● GA-Sen: Former Sen. David Perdue announced Thursday that he would not try to return to the Senate by challenging Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock next year. Perdue's move came just a week after he began raising money for a potential 2022 campaign, but as we always advise readers, opening a campaign account with the FEC is not the same thing as officially entering a race.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported weeks ago that Team Red's Senate field was "essentially frozen" as potential candidates waited to see whether Perdue, who lost re-election last month to Democrat Jon Ossoff, would run, but his decision to sit the race out will likely entice others to get in. One possible contender is Perdue's old colleague and the person Warnock beat in January to get to the Senate, former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who recently confirmed that she was interested in seeking a rematch with the Democrat who succeeded her.
Former Rep. Doug Collins, who lost the November all-party primary to Loeffler, has also publicly been mulling another Senate campaign or a primary run against Gov. Brian Kemp, though Collins implied last week that he would have been willing to take on Perdue if necessary. No other big names have expressed interest in running for the Senate yet, but that will likely change now that Perdue is no longer a factor.
● NC-Sen: The Washington Post reports that state GOP chair Michael Whatley is considering a run to succeed retiring incumbent Richard Burr, a development that comes about a week after the Whatley-led Republican State Central Committee censured Burr for voting to convict Donald Trump. The News & Observer recently asked Whatley's team if he were interested in a bid for this open seat, and his team avoided answering the question.
● OH-Sen: Former Republican state party chair Jane Timken received an endorsement this week from Rep. Bob Gibbs, who is the first member of Congress to take sides in the primary for this open seat.
● PA-Sen: Democratic state Sen. Sharif Street said Tuesday that he'd be forming an exploratory committee in April for a possible bid for this open seat, though he added that he wouldn't be making a decision until later this year. Street, who would be the state's first Black U.S. senator, is the son of former Philadelphia Mayor John Street, who served from 2000 to 2008.
Governors
● FL-Gov: Democratic state Sen. Jason Pizzo announced Monday that he would run for re-election next year rather than challenge Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
● IL-Gov: State Sen. Darren Bailey, a Republican who has loudly opposed Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker's measures to combat the pandemic, announced Monday that he would challenge the incumbent. Bailey, who won a promotion from the state House to the upper chamber last year, previously attracted national headlines in May after he was ejected from a House session for refusing to wear a face mask.
Bailey's other claim to infamy is pushing for a hopeless bill to kick Chicago out of Illinois. Bailey himself acknowledged last year that his legislation was "not gonna happen," though he seems to already be pretending that the state he'd like to lead is far more Trump-friendly than it actually is. Bailey's most prominent supporter so far is freshman Rep. Mary Miller, who attracted the wrong type of attention during her first week in office when she declared, "Hitler was right on one thing. He said, 'Whoever has the youth has the future."
House
● LA-02: Democratic state Sen. Troy Carter received a cross-party endorsement this week from a prominent Republican in the New Orleans suburbs, Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng, ahead of the March 20 all-party primary. New data from Daily Kos Elections shows that this seat backed Joe Biden by a hefty 75-23, but Sheng's support could help Carter win over Republican voters who don't have a strong candidate to choose from; Sheng's backing could be especially important in the event that Carter advances to an April runoff with another Democrat.
Carter also earned the backing of fellow Democratic state Sen. Cleo Fields, a longtime political force in Baton Rouge at the other side of the district. Fields represented Louisiana's capital city in Congress from 1993 to 1997 and ran for governor in 1995.
● NV-03: Attorney April Becker announced this week that she would seek the Republican nomination against Democratic Rep. Susie Lee in this competitive seat in the Las Vegas suburbs.
Becker ran for the state Senate last year and lost a close fight against the Democratic incumbent, Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, by a 50.5-49.5 margin. Becker then tried to challenge her 631-vote loss in court and demanded a "revote," but she failed to get what she wanted. Only about 4% of the Senate seat she sought in 2020 overlaps with Lee's district, so there may not be many people who supported her last year who could vote for her in 2022.
Lee's seat, which includes the southern Las Vegas suburbs, has been very swingy turf for years: According to new data from Daily Kos Elections, the 3rd District went from 48-47 Trump to 49.1-48.9 Biden as Lee was winning her second term 49-46. Unlike their colleagues in many other states, though, Nevada Democrats are considerably better positioned for redistricting than they were 10 years ago, and Team Blue could try to give Lee a more favorable seat.
● OH-11: Former state sen. Nina Turner picked up a Democratic primary endorsement on Tuesday from the Amalgamated Transit Union's Local 268, which the HuffPost says has about 1,800 members in this Cleveland-based seat.
● OH-16: Former Trump aide Max Miller confirmed to The Repository on Monday that he was considering a primary bid against Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, who is one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump last month. Politico recently reported that fellow Republicans expect Miller, who is capable of self-funding, to run, but Miller said he was still deciding and expected "to make a decision in the next few weeks."
Mayors
● Boston, MA Mayor: Democratic state Rep. Jon Santiago announced Tuesday that he was joining what's already a crowded September nonpartisan primary to lead New England's largest city.
Santiago, who was elected to a legislative seat based in the South End in 2018 by beating a longtime incumbent in the primary, used his kickoff to highlight his career as an emergency room doctor at Boston Medical Center. The Boston Globe also notes that Santiago has been a frequent guest on local TV over the last year to discuss the pandemic.
Santiago, who is originally from Puerto Rico, would be the first person of color to be elected mayor in a city that has up until now only been led by white men. Santiago's three opponents, City Councilors Michelle Wu, Andrea Campbell, and Annissa Essaibi George, would also be the first women of color elected to this post. First, though, City Council President Kim Janey would become the first woman of color to serve as mayor in the very likely event that incumbent Marty Walsh is confirmed as U.S. secretary of labor; Janey has not yet announced if she would seek a full term this year.
● Cincinnati, OH Mayor: The crowded May 4 nonpartisan primary for this open seat got a little smaller on Monday when local election officials announced that Democratic City Councilman Wendell Young had failed to turn in enough valid signatures to make the ballot.
● New York City, NY Mayor: Former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said this week that she would not run to succeed termed-out incumbent Bill de Blasio, who defeated her in the 2013 Democratic primary.
● Omaha, NE Mayor: Developer RJ Neary unveiled endorsements this week from the city's last three Democratic mayors ahead of the April 6 nonpartisan primary to face Republican incumbent Jean Stothert.
Data
● Senate: Daily Kos Elections' Stephen Wolf has compiled a spreadsheet on the Senate "popular vote" going back to the early 1990s, along with the proportion of the population that each party has represented in the Senate over the last three decades. The results demonstrate just how badly the chamber is skewed by over-representing Republicans: Senate Republicans have neither won more votes nor represented more Americans than Democrats since the late 1990s. Despite that fact, the GOP has controlled the Senate just over half the time since then. However, feasible proposals exist that would modestly mitigate this problem by admitting new states such as Washington, D.C.