Republican Sen. Richard Burr
Leading Off:
• NC-Sen: On Tuesday night, Roll Call reported that former Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan will not be challenging Republican incumbent Richard Burr next year, and she soon confirmed the story. National Democrats made it no secret that they wanted Hagan back. She proved to be a tough campaigner in 2014, and she only narrowly lost re-election to Thom Tillis in her light red state despite a GOP wave. However, polls show that Hagan is still unpopular following the nasty contest, and it's quite possible that Democrats will be better off with a fresh face.
Well, like it or not, they're going to need to search for that fresh face if they want to unseat Burr. However, while many Hagan alternatives have been mentioned, there's no one who sounds ready to step up to the plate. State Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue, who ran for the Senate back in 2002, didn't rule anything out after Hagan's decision became public, but he didn't sound particularly likely to go for it.
Tar Heel State Democrats have mentioning quite a few other names, but so far they all appear to be pretty uninterested. State Senate Minority Whip Josh Stein has recently been name-dropped, but he would need to pull the plug on his plans to run for attorney general. U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, a former Charlotte mayor, has also been talked about, but he's already told Burr he won't go for it. One name we can cross off completely is state Treasurer Janet Cowell, who quickly announced that she is "committed to running for re-election as Treasurer in North Carolina."
A few other Democrats have been mentioned, but have said nothing about their intentions. Conservative ex-Reps. Mike McIntyre and Heath Shuler are two notable possibilities. We also haven't heard from outgoing University of North Carolina President Tom Ross, state Rep. Grier Martin, or ex-state Sen. and 2010 candidate Cal Cunningham.
Whoever eventually jumps in won't have an easy time against Burr. Polls show the incumbent posting wide leads against his potential Democratic foes, though he's still below the 50 percent mark. The low-key Burr hasn't made much of an impression during his decade in the Senate, but he'll have incumbency and money on his side. And while North Carolina has become more competitive in recent cycles, it still remains friendly to national Republicans.
Team Blue was going to have a tough race here regardless of what Hagan did. Burr is beatable if the political climate is right, but Hagan's move means that the DSCC is going to need to keep searching for a formidable recruit.
Senate:
• CT-Sen, NY-Sen: So, two things. First off, you should not try recruiting the same dude for two different Senate races in two different states at the same time. As Gene Hackman's character says in the movie Heist, it's insincere. Oh and secondly, the guy you are trying to recruit should not be Larry Kudlow, under any set of circumstances, ever. Believe it or not, the wrong-about-everything conservative pundit considered bids in both Connecticut and New York two cycles ago, the same states the NRSC would reportedly like him to run in now. Hey, maybe he could do both!
• NH-Sen: With Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan reportedly still mulling whether or not to challenge GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte, Ending Spending is the latest conservative organization that's working to deter her. The group says that they'll spend millions to help Ayotte regardless of what Hassan does, and they'll launch their first spot after the July 4 weekend. Impact America Action is already spending $1 million hitting Hassan, a top Democratic recruit, in order to dissuade her from taking on Ayotte.
Gubernatorial:
• KY-Gov: Sure, Matt Bevin pissed off a lot of Republicans when he tried to unseat Mitch McConnell last year, and yeah, his 83-vote win in last month's gubernatorial primary has been a source of some very hard feelings (none of his rivals came to his post-election "unity" rally). But in the weeks since he secured the GOP nomination, he's managed to pull in zero donations—not a pfennig. In fact, his campaign bank account shows a balance of minus $111,000, while his Democratic rival, Attorney General Jack Conway, took in $47,000 in the post-primary period and has a hefty $1.4 million socked away.
Bevin obviously doesn't care, since he's already spent $2.6 million of his own money on the race. But the history of rich guys winning elections solely on the strength of their wealth is a mediocre one at best. Indeed, Bevin spurned outside donors in his Senate bid, and look where that got him. A few weeks ago, an article in the National Journal suggested that Bevin's poor fundraising was something of an Achilles' heel. Yet instead of spending time repairing the problem by reaching out to fellow Republicans, he's apparently chosen to ignore it. Bevin can certainly still win this way, but he's giving Conway an opening.
• LA-Gov: On behalf of the conservative website The Hayride, MarblePort Polling gives us another look at the October jungle primary. Their numbers are below, with their May results in parentheses:
• Sen. David Vitter (R): 34 (38)
• State Rep. John Bel Edwards (D): 29 (27)
• Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle (R): 11 (6)
• Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne (R): 10 (15)
Vitter and Edwards continue to look likely to grab the first and second place spots that they'll need to advance to the November runoff. The good news for Angelle is that he is moving up, seemingly at Dardenne's expense. The bad news is that right now, he's still nowhere close to making the runoff.
Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, a left-leaning independent, says he's likely to decide by July 1 whether he'll run, and MarblePort once again throws him into the jungle primary mix. However, so far he doesn't seem to change much:
• Vitter (R): 33 (34)
• Edwards (D): 27 (26)
• Angelle (R): 10 (6)
• Dardenne (R): 10 (13)
• Honoré (I): 8 (7)
To shake things up, MarblePort gives us our first look at the runoff
since 2014. They test Vitter in one-on-one matchups against each of his foes:
• 50-38 vs. Edwards (D)
• 52-32 vs. Dardenne (R)
• 49-31 vs. Angelle (R)
• 54-29 vs. Honoré (I)
Edwards actually comes the closest, though his 12-point deficit isn't anything to write home about. Dardenne or Angelle may still be able to make things more competitive if they actually got to the runoff with Vitter, since voters would likely be less polarized in a Republican vs. Republican race than a Republican vs. Democratic one. Still, Vitter still looks like the clear favorite to succeed outgoing Gov. and intra-party rival Bobby Jindal.
House:
• FL-02: So far, local Republicans have been reluctant to take on freshman Democrat Gwen Graham. While Romney carried this North Florida seat 52-47, Graham is a very tough campaigner and most of her would-be foes seem to think she'll just give this district up in 2018 to run for statewide office. However, Mary Thomas, who serves as general counsel at the Department of Elder Affairs, is reportedly interested. Thomas has never run for office before, but she may be connected enough to run a real campaign. The NRCC spoke to attorney Pete Williams about this race a few months ago, but he has been silent about his 2016 plans.
• IA-01: In a somewhat surprising move, wealthy businessman Ravi Patel has dropped out of the Democratic primary in Iowa's 1st Congressional District. Patel is just 29 and has no prior electoral experience, but he comes from a well-connected family of hotel owners and raised a very impressive $528,000 in the first quarter of the year, without self-funding.
But without a natural political base, Patel would still have faced a difficult race against Cedar Rapids City Councilwoman Monica Vernon, who had previously earned the endorsement of EMILY's List. And right after Patel quit, she also picked up support from Rep. Dave Loebsack, who used to represent a quarter of the 1st District prior to redistricting. Vernon still faces former Saturday Night Live actor Gary Kroeger, but right now, she's the odds-on favorite to take on GOP Rep. Rod Blum next year.
• NE-02: Republican state Sen. John Murante has announced that he will not challenge freshman Democrat Brad Ashford next year. His move leaves retired Brig. Gen. Don Bacon as the only notable GOP candidate for this 53-46 Romney seat, which is pretty surprising given how shaky Ashford's re-election campaign has been so far. Ex-state Sen. Chip Maxwell is also a potential candidate but after threatening to run as an independent here last cycle, the GOP may be reluctant to embrace him.
• NJ-08: While Democratic Rep. Albio Sires hasn't announced that he's seeking another term in this safely blue seat, sources are telling PolitickerNJ that he's sticking around. However, Sires decision seems to be motivated more by county and state politics than anything else.
State Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto is likely to seek this North Jersey seat when Sires departs, but the Hudson County Democratic Organization wants to keep him in the speaker's chair at least until 2017. The group is afraid that they could lose power if Prieto departs for Washington, and Max Pizarro writes that they need him to stay put at least until the 2017 gubernatorial election is over, "both as a stabilizing presence and as a bartering chip." In any case, it sounds like we can expect Sires to hang around a bit longer.
• PA-08: Former Bucks County Commissioner Andy Warren has announced that he'll seek the GOP nomination for this swing district, but the NRCC probably won't be taking this dude's calls. Warren served on the commission in the 1980s and 1990s as a Republican, but ran for PA-08 in 2006 as a Democrat. Warren lost the primary to Patrick Murphy 65-35, and he took fourth place in the 2007 primary for his old job.
Warren was a Republican again by 2011, but he took a distant third place in their primary for county commission. Warren also says that he won't do anything to campaign for Congress until this fall's elections are over: What could possibly go wrong? Fellow Republicans state Rep. Scott Petri and 2008 nominee Tom Manion have both formed exploratory committees, though neither is officially in yet.
Other Races:
• Houston Mayor: We finally have a poll of this November's open-seat mayoral contest, courtesy of the University of Houston and Rice University. It includes two separate 500-person samples, one of registered voters and one of likely voters. We have the results of the likely voter sample below:
• State Rep. Sylvester Turner: 16
• Ex-Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia: 12
• Ex-Rep. Chris Bell: 8
• Former Kemah Mayor Bill King: 3
• Ex-City Attorney and 2013 candidate Ben Hall: 3
• Councilor Stephen Costello: 2
• Businessman Marty McVey: 0
The poll of registered voters is a little different. Garcia edges Turner 15-13, with Bell down to 4 percent. If no one takes a majority of the vote, the top two contenders will advance to a December runoff. While the contest is non-partisan, Turner, Garcia, and Bell all identify as Democrats.
One major caveat is that this survey was conducted over the space of a month, which is an incredibly long time for a poll to stay in the field. However, it does seem to confirm the conventional wisdom that Turner and Garcia are the frontrunners this fall.
• LA-LG, AG: MarblePort Polling also gives us a look at the jungle primary for two other high-profile Louisiana contests. Up first is the four-way contest for lieutenant governor:
• Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden (D): 29
• Ex-Plaquemines Parish President and 2011 candidate Billy Nungesser (R): 19
• Jefferson Parish President John Young (R): 18
• State Sen. Elbert Guillory (R): 5
As the only Democrat in the contest and the leader of the state's largest parish, Holden is well-positioned to at least make it to the runoff. However, Holden's
fundraising has been terrible so far, and he's not going have an easy time winning in November in this red state.
Things are a lot closer for the second-place runoff spot. Young has twice as much cash available as Nungesser, which could help him once voters start paying attention. However, Nungesser is still remembered for his high-profile role during the 2010 oil spill, and he can't be counted out. Guillory so far isn't registering and he has little money in the bank.
We also have a poll of the jungle primary for attorney general:
• Attorney General Buddy Caldwell (R): 27
• Alexandria Mayor Jacques Roy (D): 24
• Ex-Rep. Jeff Landry (R): 21
While Roy has been mentioned as a potential Democratic contender, he has yet to make his plans clear. This poll does confirm that Caldwell isn't going to have an easy time winning a third term though. Landry has proven to be a
much better fundraiser, and he just
earned an endorsement from House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, and Daniel Donner.