Leading Off:
● KY State House: The Democrats' hold on Kentucky's state House—the last legislative body held by Democrats anywhere in the South—is looking increasingly tenuous. For the second time since winning election last month, Republican Gov. Matt Bevin has succeeded in getting a sitting Democratic representative to accept a gubernatorial appointment, thus opening up seats the GOP can now contest in special elections. The latest to depart is state Rep. Tanya Pullin, who will become an administrative law judge and vacates a district that Mitt Romney carried by a 59-40 margin. The only "good" news is that Mitch McConnell won Pullin's seat by a much smaller 51-45 spread, so Democrats at least have a shot at retaining it.
But overall, Democrats will now hold just 51 seats in the chamber, compared with 45 for Republicans. There are four vacancies, two held by Democrats (including Pullin and John Tilley, who also took a Bevin job) and two by Republicans (both of whom won other elections in November). Whether Democrats can hold the House depends heavily on how many incumbents seek re-election next year, and whether anyone else quits or just outright switches parties. It's something of a miracle that Democrats have managed to hold on this long, and it would take a great deal of good fortune for that streak to continue.
Senate:
● LA-Sen: Republican Sen. David Vitter's decision to retire has Republicans, and a few Democrats, across Louisiana eyeing his seat. Two Republican congressmen have already jumped in the race and plenty of other notable politicians from both parties are mulling a bid. We take a look at both developing fields in our new Daily Kos Great Mentioner piece.
● OH-Sen: Filing closed Wednesday in Ohio for the March 15 primary. While Ohio has few competitive House races, the Senate contest is likely to be hotly contested until November. Republican Sen. Rob Portman faces no serious primary opposition while the Democrats have a fight between ex-Gov. Ted Strickland, the favorite of national Democrats, and Cincinnati Councilor P.G. Sittenfeld. Strickland is the heavy favorite to take the Democratic nod, but Sittenfeld is trying to run to his left.
House:
● KS-01: Now or Never PAC, a conservative super PAC that spent about a quarter of a million bucks trying to unseat Rep. Tim Huelskamp in last year's GOP primary, has taken the unusual step of informing the congressman by letter that it doesn't plan to attack him this cycle. Unlike what you typically see in most intra-party Republican fights, Huelskamp wasn't targeted by angry tea partiers (he's actually one of them) but rather by big agricultural interests, which resented his efforts to curtail biofuel subsidies.
Huelskamp never seemed to change his tune, though, so on the face of it, it's not at all clear why Now or Never has; instead, its letter (actually written by, Jeff Roe, the head of Axiom Strategies, a consulting firm the group has worked with) says only that Huelskamp should be thanked for his "principled, conservative leadership in Washington."
But in fact, there appears to be a simple explanation for the about-face: Roe is also Ted Cruz's campaign manager, and according the National Review, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar confronted Cruz about why Roe's shop had Huelskamp in its crosshairs—especially since Cruz was apparently courting Huelskamp's support for his presidential bid. Roe immediately promised he'd lay off Huelskamp, but the NRO quotes one nameless Axiom staffer saying the company acquired a "taste for blood" after 2014 and still has an "appetite" to dethrone Huelskamp, so we'll see if Axiom follows through on its boss's edict.
The thing is, while Huelskamp of course should stand to benefit from one of his main enemies standing down, NONPAC is just a vehicle. If Big Ag is still unhappy with him, then it's trivial for it to find another way to go after the congressman. The bigger obstacle that Huelskamp's opponents face is there are now two upstarts in next year's primary: Alan LaPolice, the Some Dude who held Huelskamp to just a 10-point win in 2014, and physician Roger Marshall. While the ideological contours of this race might be unusual, the prospect of a split in the anti-incumbent vote is a very familiar one-what we call "getting saved by the clown car."
If anyone has a shot, though, it's probably Marshall, since he's raised far more money than LaPolice ($262,000 to just $12,000). But according to the Topeka Capital-Journal, he has been "hesitant to attack" Huelskamp so far. That will have to change if Marshall's to pull off an upset, plus he'll probably need LaPolice to go away, plus he'll also need some outside help to replace Now or Never. That's a lot to ask, and that means Huelskamp should have a much easier time securing renomination this cycle.
● OH-02: It's very hard to see sophomore Republican Brad Wenstrup losing renomination in this safely red southern Ohio seat, but he actually drew a nominally non-Some Dude primary opponent in the form of West Clermont school board member Jim Lewis. Wenstrup won his 2012 primary in a surprise by unseating then-Rep. Jean Schmidt, but the low-key Wenstrup is a much tougher target than his controversial predecessor.
● OH-08: All of Ohio's sitting House members are seeking re-election next year, and with the possible exception of Republican Rep. David Joyce (see our OH-14 item below), none of them face any serious opposition in the primary or general election. However, we have a competitive GOP primary in Ohio's 8th District, a safely red seat located north of Cincinnati.
Over a dozen Republicans have filed to replace ex-Speaker John Boehner, who resigned from the House in October, but only three of them are credible. Butler County Auditor Roger Reynolds has hired several of Boehner's old staffers, and he reportedly has Boehner's behind-the-scenes support. State Rep. Tim Derickson is also in, and like Reynolds—and half the district's population—he hails from Butler County.
State Sen. Bill Beagle is the third notable contender. Beagle comes from the northern part of the district closer to Dayton, and he'll benefit if Derickson and Reynolds split the Butler vote. Because Boehner resigned, a special election will be held in June to fill the last few months of his term. The GOP primary for the special will be held the same day as the regular March primary.
● OH-14: Republican Rep. David Joyce turned back a primary challenge from tea partying state Rep. Matt Lynch by an underwhelming 55-45 margin, and Lynch is seeking a rematch. However, while Lynch said that he was jumping in early to get a head start on fundraising, he only brought in $36,000, and he trails Joyce $688,000 to $43,000 in cash on hand. Joyce will also have one advantage he didn't have last time: He was nominated by the county party leaders in 2012 after Rep. Steve LaTourette dropped out after the primary, so he'd never gone before primary voters until last year.
Romney carried this seat only 51-48, but this seat probably won't get much attention in the general election unless Lynch upsets Joyce in the primary. Two Democrats are running here: retired Ashtabula County Judge Alfred Mackey and 2014 nominee Michael Wager, who got crushed 63-33 last year.
● PA-02: If you thought that a congressman getting indicted on 29 counts of corruption would see his allies desert him, you'd have thought wrong (and so, it turns out, would we). Rep. Chaka Fattah faces a trial on those charges, centered around the alleged misuse of campaign funds, in May—just a week after his upcoming primary in which four fellow Democrats are hoping to unseat him. But nonetheless, powerful Rep. Bob Brady, who also chairs the Philadelphia Democratic Party, says he's still backing Fattah for re-election. And he's not the only one: Outgoing Philly Mayor Michael Nutter hasn't withdrawn his support for Fattah, and just last week, the influential Black Ward Leaders gave the congressman their endorsement.
That last move was a particular blow to state Rep. Dwight Evans, who is the only African-American (other than Fattah himself) in the race in this majority-black district. The other three contenders—state Rep. Brian Sims, Ninth Ward Leader Dan Muroff, and Lower Merion Township Commissioner Brian Gordon—are all white. A lineup like this offers every indication that the vote will be very fractured, which suits Fattah just fine, since he only needs a plurality to survive. And that may just be what guys like Brady are banking on, too.
● PA-08: The NRCC often takes sides in GOP primaries and in fact did so quite explicitly in a number of races when they launched the first round of their "Young Guns" program last month. So it's no surprise that the committee is once again signaling its preferences, this time for state Rep. Scott Petri in Pennsylvania's open 8th District, located in the Philly 'burbs. Petri faces Dean Malik, an attorney and Iraq vet, and Andy Warren, a long-ago Bucks County Commissioner who ran for this seat as a Democrat a decade ago. Democrats are choosing between businesswoman Shaughnessy Naughton and state Rep. Steve Santarsiero.
Other Races:
● NM-SoS: Gov. Susana Martinez has appointed Albuquerque City Councilor Brad Winter, a fellow Republican, to serve as secretary of state, a post that was left vacant after the previous office-holder, Dianna Duran, resigned as part of a plea deal with prosecutors on charges that she used campaign funds to gamble at casinos around the state. A special election will be held next year for the final two years of Duran's term, but Winter immediately said he would not run. (Oddly, he also said he wouldn't quit the city council.)
It's not clear whom the GOP will put forth, but Democrats are likely to go with Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver, who narrowly lost to Duran last year. And here's an interesting bit of trivia: Winter is the first man to hold the job of secretary of state in New Mexico since 1922. That's not usually the kind of streak you see in American politics, though it does appear that women have had better success in making inroads as secretaries of state across the country than they have for many other statewide elected positions.
Also notable: Duran was New Mexico's first Republican secretary of state since 1930. Since the special election will coincide with the presidential race, Democrats should have a very good chance of taking this post back.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, and Stephen Wolf.