Leading Off:
● NC-02: To beat a Republican incumbent in a primary, you almost always need help from the deep-pocketed organizations that form what Washington Post reporter Paul Kane once dubbed the "tea party establishment": chiefly the Club for Growth, but also FreedomWorks and the Senate Conservatives Fund (though rarely the smaller groups, since those are mainly grift operations). With their help, you can tower like a god above men, just like Richard Mourdock. Without it, you're just another dude who managed to get 38 percent in the primary, condemned to live on only in the dusty archives of ourcampaigns.com.
And thanks to the beneficent dystopians at the Club, Chatham County GOP chair Jim Duncan now has a chance to join the ranks of glory, since they've just endorsed him over Rep. Renee Ellmers. Ellmers has earned a lot of anger from social conservatives who are furious with her for suggesting to congressional leadership that an ultra-extreme measure to restrict abortion access just might be bad for the party, but the Club for Growth doesn't care about any of that. Rather, they're pissed at her for things like her votes to raise the debt ceiling and reauthorize the dreaded Export-Import Bank.
Duncan's going to need a lot of assistance to pull this one off, though. He raised a feeble $45,000 in the last quarter, and what's more, two other Republicans are also running. That increases the chance of a split in the anti-incumbent vote, which could allow Ellmers to win with just a plurality of the vote—a phenomenon we've long dubbed "getting saved by the clown car." Ellmers, however, is not a strong fundraiser herself, and it doesn't appear as though any outside groups will be rushing to her defense, so she could definitely find herself an ironic victim of the radical right-wing anger she's spent her career stoking.
Senate:
● LA-Sen: Ever since he took 14 percent of the vote in the jungle primary for the state's other Senate seat last year, tea partier Rob Maness, a retired colonel, has been making noises about running for Congress again. And sure enough, Maness has filed to run for the state's open Senate seat next year, though he hasn't made an announcement yet.
Maness has gotten closer to the GOP establishment since his defeat, but he'll need a lot for him to go right if he's going to take one of the top-two spots in the November jungle primary and advance to the December runoff. But Maness appeals to many of the same anti-establishment voters that Rep. John Fleming is targeting, and he could cost the congressman some support and help likely contender Charles Boustany, a congressman who is close to the GOP House leadership. Maness also hails from St. Tammany Parish in the New Orleans area and he could take some votes away from any prospective candidates from the area.
And sure enough, two more metro New Orleans Republicans have also expressed interest in running. Outgoing Jefferson Parish President John Young, who took a close third place in October's jungle primary for lieutenant governor, tells the Louisiana Weekly that he's waiting until he leaves office in January before deciding anything.
Young has plenty of name recognition as the head of the state's second-largest parish. As the Weekly's Christopher Tidmore points out, Young ran into problems in October because another major candidate, eventual winner Billy Nungesser, also hailed from the area. Maness probably won't attract as much local support as Nungesser did and if Young runs for the Senate, the parish president might be able to consolidate more metro New Orleans support this time.
However, state Rep. Paul Hollis also says he's considering a bid. Hollis briefly ran for the state's other Senate seat last cycle, but ended up dropping out and backing eventual winner Bill Cassidy. Hollis' last effort wasn't very impressive, but like Maness, he hails from St. Tammany and could take some New Orleans area votes.
● PA-Sen: Several top elected officials in Philadelphia gave their backing to Democrat Katie McGinty on Tuesday, chief among them outgoing Mayor Michael Nutter, who will soon leave office. McGinty faces ex-Rep. Joe Sestak and Braddock Mayor John Fetterman for the right to take on GOP Sen. Pat Toomey.
House:
● CA-20: Bill Clinton is nothing if not loyal: Politico reports that the former POTUS will headline a fundraiser (at some unspecified time and location) for prosecutor Jimmy Panetta, who is running for retiring Rep. Sam Farr's House seat in northern California. Panetta's father, Leon, represented this area in Congress from 1977 to 1993, when the Big Dog tapped him to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget, and then later, as his second chief of staff. Being able to call on powerful allies like this helps explain why so far, every other Democrat to consider a bid here has deferred to the younger Panetta.
● FL-11: Rancher Kelly Rice, who serves on the boards of the Southwest Florida Water Management District and the Florida Farm Bureau, has not announced that he will run for this safely red seat, but two notable Republicans have already endorsed him. Ginny Brown-Waite, who represented much of this territory in the House until she retired in 2010, joined state Sen. Wilton Simpson in throwing her support behind Rice.
Justin Grabelle, the former chief of staff to retiring Rep. Richard Nugent, is the only notable Republican currently running here and while he has Nugent's endorsement, another old boss has some very choice words for him. Brown-Waite said she appointed Grabelle to serve as her interim chief of staff, but "demoted" him after the old chief of staff returned. Brown-Waite went on to say she was hoping that Grabelle would "grow into the job and it just wasn't there … I know six years have elapsed, but I'm not sure six years is enough." Rep. Daniel Webster, who represents about half the new version of the 11th, may also run here.
● IL-01: Petition challenges are a way of life in Illinois: Political junkies well know that no less a figure than Barack Obama won his first bid for public office by knocking all of his opponents—including a sitting state senator—off the ballot for a lack of sufficient signatures. But there are also plenty of challenges that go nowhere, so for the moment, we're not going to get too amped up about Chicago Alderman Howard Brookins' effort to disqualify Rep. Bobby Rush—ironically, the one guy who ever beat Obama in an election.
But Brookins, who is opposing Rush in the Democratic primary, does sound unusually confident, and he's even posted examples of what he says are Rush's flawed petition sheets online. (Rush needs 1,314 valid signatures; Brookins says he's submitted fewer than 750.) And certainly we've seen veteran congressmen get lazy when it comes to the basic mechanics of earning a spot on the ballot: Just think back to the recent cases of Michigan Reps. Thad McCotter and John Conyers.
But even if Brookins does prevail, it might not mean the end of the congressman's career, since Rush would be able to seek renomination as a write-in. Still, though, it would be quite the humiliation, and who knows whether Rush, who is 69 and has served in Congress for over two decades, would bother to stick things out if he does indeed get bumped.
● MD-04: EMILY's List has thrown its support behind Del. Joseline Peña-Melnyk, who is one of several Democrats seeking this safely blue suburban DC seat. This is one race where EMILY could have a huge impact if they spend big here. This district is located in the very pricy DC media market but none of the contenders have very large warchests. If EMILY airs some ads for Peña-Melnyk and her opponents and their allies can't effectively respond, she'll have one big advantage ahead of the April 26 primary. One other woman, former Prince Georges' County Councilor Ingrid Turner, is running here, but so far, she's struggled with fundraising.
● MN-02: Businesswoman Darlene Miller says she's considering a bid for retiring Rep. John Kline's House seat, which would make her the sixth Republican in the race should she decide to enter. Miller runs a small company that makes precision parts, and she also serves on President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which is probably the mark of Cain for anyone running in a GOP primary. The more notable Republican candidates to date include conservative radio host Jason Lewis, former state Rep. Pam Myrha, and former state Sen. John Howe. Two Democrats are also vying for this swingy seat in the Twin Cities suburbs, physician Mary Lawrence and former health care executive Angie Craig.
● NH-01: Businessman Rich Ashooh had reportedly been considering a second run in New Hampshire's 1st District for quite some time, but it's only now that's confirmed his interest on the record. Ashooh ran in the GOP primary in 2010 and took 28 percent, finishing 4 points behind Frank Guinta (who at the time was mayor of Manchester) and just a hair behind the runner-up, businessman Sean Mahoney. This time, Guinta is already facing a challenge from former business school dean Dan Innis, whom he beat in the 2014 primary, and state Rep. Pam Tucker could also get in.
If Ashooh also decides to get involved, this multi-way setup will make it hard for any one candidate to consolidate the anti-Guinta vote. And even Ashooh seems to acknowledge that the hefty fine the FEC levied against Guinta for filing false campaign finance reports might not be enough to unseat the incumbent. Sometimes, you can survive a scandal simply by brazening it out, and so far, Frank Guinta's doing his best to prove that.
● NV-03: Wingnut queen Michele Fiore, who quietly filed paperwork for a congressional bid last month, has now apparently "confirmed" to the AP that she's "entering the race" for Nevada's 3rd Congressional District and will not seek re-election to the state Assembly. But there's no actual quote to this effect from Fiore herself in the AP's writeup, and Jon Ralston is still convinced she won't follow through. Why, though, was the Associated Press even talking to Fiore in the first place? Oh, because she happened to spew this bit of loony venom on her radio show over the weekend:
I'm about to fly to Paris and shoot 'em in the head myself! I am not OK with Syrian refugees. I am not OK with terrorists. You know, I'm OK with putting them down. Blacken them out. Just put a piece of brass in their nocular [sic] cavity and end their miserable life. I'm good with that.
A real nice lady, don't you think? And a fine nocular cavity she's got, too.
● PA-08: On Monday, attorney and Iraq War veteran Dean Malik announced that he would seek the GOP nod for this open swing seat. Dean Malik (who should not be confused with Darth Malak, the final boss in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic) briefly ran for this seat during the 2010 cycle and appeared to be the GOP frontrunner in what was a pretty undistinguished field. However, Malik dropped out of the contest once Mike Fitzpatrick announced he would run for his old seat. This time, Malik faces state Rep. Scott Petri and Andy Warren, who left the Bucks County Commission in the 1990s and has run for office as a Democrat and Republican a few times since then.
● PA-16: Businessman Chet Beiler has announced that he'll seek this open Lancaster County seat, where he'll join state Sen. Lloyd Smucker in the GOP primary. Beiler has run for office twice before: He got crushed in the general for state auditor 59-38, but he lost the primary for lieutenant governor only 26-21 in 2010.
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.
