Congress is already unpopular enough. It doesn't need one of these.
Leading Off:
• NY-19: The good news for Democrats is that they finally have a candidate for this open upstate New York seat. The bad news is that John Patrick Kehoe, who runs Yellowcake Music, said this to Roll Call:
"I would like to be the Drake or Justin Bieber of Congress," he told CQ Roll Call, before noting he plans to primarily campaign on "employment and economics in general, specifically taxes and regulations."
Drake we can excuse. But it's hard to feel good about someone who has so little self-respect or even just basic dignity that he wants to be the Justin Bieber of Congress. He should also probably shut up with that comparison on the campaign trail: A recent PPP survey gave Bieber a
10-67 favorable rating nationwide. And in case that wasn't disqualifying enough, Kehoe's
own campaign announcement notes that he lives in Rochester, which is about three hours away from even the closest part of the 19th.
A few other Democrats with presumably better tastes in both music and role models are eyeing this seat. Ex-state Sen. Terry Gipson says that he's met with the DCCC but he's trying to decide between a congressional bid and trying to reclaim his old post in the legislature. Ulster County Executive Mike Hein has been getting the Great Mentioner treatment since the beginning of the year, but all he's said is that he's focusing on running for re-election this fall.
The GOP is also looking for a candidate to succeed retiring Rep. and likely 2018 gubernatorial candidate Chris Gibson. Former Assembly Minority Leader and 2006 gubernatorial nominee John Faso filed with the FEC at the beginning of the month, but he claims that he's still deciding whether to run. Faso says that he's leaning towards it, and will announce in the fall. Assemblyman Peter Lopez has been publicly considering for a while and Roll Call reports that he's met with the NRCC, but he also hasn't committed to anything.
A few other Republicans could also run. Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin expressed interest back in February, but he's been quiet ever since. State Sen. James Seward last expressed interest in April, but he's also gone dark. Businessman Andrew Heaney may be considering, though he hasn't said anything publicly. Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro has also been mentioned, but GOP operatives tell Ivan Levingston that they don't expect him to do it.
Senate:
• AZ-Sen, NH-Sen: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce continues their nationwide ad campaign supporting Republicans in key Senate races. Their Arizona spot praises Sen. John McCain's leadership in the Senate, and they are not subtle with the military imagery (though the spot was presumably created before Donald Trump put McCain's war service back in the spotlight on Saturday). The New Hampshire ad argues that Sen. Kelly Ayotte is an "independent fighter" who takes on Obamacare and "tax-and-spend liberals." There's no word on the size of either buy, but the Chamber has never been known to spare any expense.
• FL-Sen, 02: Democratic Rep. Gwen Graham is likely to get screwed over in redistricting, as there's every reason to expect that Republicans will transmogrify the already-red 2nd District into one that's all but unloseable for the GOP. For that reason, speculation has resurfaced that she might run for the Senate instead (just like another expected redistricting victim, Republican Rep. David Jolly), and she isn't ruling it out. Graham says she's "not going to close any doors" but adds that she wants to "wait and see what happens" with the new lines.
If Graham does run this year, that would cause a serious headache for Democrats, who already are dealing with a rough primary between Reps. Alan Grayson and Patrick Murphy, the latter of whom was endorsed by the DSCC a while back. Graham could thread the needle here, though, as the only woman in the race, and the only candidate from the northern part of the state (Grayson is from the Orlando area and Murphy's district is in South Florida). She's also a prolific fundraiser and has a famous family name: Her father is Bob Graham, who served as both governor and senator and remains popular. He'd be an asset in any nomination fight.
But it certainly wouldn't be a sure thing for Graham, who'd be getting a late start if she waits until everything is finalized. The wiser play might be to wait until 2018, when the governorship will be open. She'd be a top contender for that post, or if Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson were to make a gubernatorial bid or straight up retire, she'd also be the number one recruit to fill his job. The state Supreme Court's deadline for the legislature to draw a new map is Sept. 25, but we could see further appeals, so it might be a while before we have clarity here.
• NH-Sen, Gov: Truly, we have spent far too much of our lives picking apart the glowing radioactive ectoplasm that is UNH, so we're just not going to dig into the details of their latest poll. Feel free to buckle in to your hazmat suits and dive in, though.
• PA-Sen: For completely unknown reasons, ex-Rep. Joe Sestak's campaign refused to share their second-quarter fundraising numbers, saying instead that they were "more focused on other benchmarks, such as volunteers passing out brochures at more than 100 Independence Day parades or fireworks displays." Fortunately, we were able to obtain a summary of Sestak's report from the FEC's press office (maddeningly, Senate campaigns still aren't required to file their data electronically), and it shows a better-than-expected but still so-so haul of $726,000, with $2.2 million in cash-on-hand.
It's certainly stronger than his weak $312,000 take in the first quarter. But by contrast, back in the same quarter in 2009, before Sestak was even a declared candidate for Senate, he raised over $1 million and had $4.3 million in the bank. And at the time, when Sestak was publicly weighing a bid, Sen. Arlen Specter had already switched to the Democratic Party, so he managed to raise an even larger sum even though he didn't have the field to himself as he does now—far from it, in fact, since Specter had the entire establishment behind him.
But Sestak may not be alone in the primary much longer. Both the DSCC and EMILY's List are trying to recruit Katie McGinty, Gov. Tom Wolf's chief of staff, and her former campaign manager from her failed gubernatorial bid last year says she'll decide "soon" (in the words of the Associated Press). And according to two unnamed sources "with direct knowledge," the National Journal says that McGinty is indeed going to run. But is McGinty, who finished fourth in the primary with just 8 percent, really a better option than Sestak for taking on well-financed GOP Sen. Pat Toomey?
Put another way, are Democratic power-brokers right that Sestak is running an amateurish operation and will let a winnable race slip through his fingers once again, just like he supposedly did in 2010? Or are they simply desperate for an alternative because they're still butthurt that Sestak beat their guy Specter last time, and are trying to spin his narrow 2-point loss to Toomey in the general as a botch job rather than an impressive achievement given the GOP wave?
It sort of feels like parts of both views are right: Sestak definitely did and continues to run his operations in an unorthodox-in-a-bad-way style, but to come so close to defeating Toomey in such a wretched Democratic year—Republicans won the open governor's race in 2010 by 9 points—has to count for something. And since Sestak definitely won't drop out of the race (there's a reason he's known as the Honey Badger of Pennsylvania politics), it's not just a question of whether McGinty is more electable, but whether it's worth risking a bruising primary, too. It's all out of our hands, though, so we'll just have to see.
Gubernatorial:
• KY-Gov: "Republican senator to host fundraiser for Republican nominee for governor" is the kind of dog-bites-dog story we don't bother with around here, but so bad has been the blood between Mitch McConnell and Matt Bevin that this time, it's worth noting. Seeing as Bevin was the guy who tried to drag McConnell deep into the mud-dungeon in last year's Senate primary, McConnell was all too happy to repay the favor by failing to show up at a "unity rally" right after Bevin squeaked out an 83-vote win in the GOP's gubernatorial nominating contest earlier this year.
But evidently McConnell's willing to swallow some of the bile that keeps rising in his gullet, because he's headlining a $1,000-a-head event for Bevin next month. I'm sure it won't be awkward at all.
• OR-Gov, Portland Mayor: State Treasurer Ted Wheeler, who has been considering a possible challenge to Gov. Kate Brown in the Democratic primary since April, now says he'll decide in "the next couple of weeks." The Oregonian's framing suggests that Wheeler is actually more likely to run against Charlie Hales, the mayor of Portland, at the encouragement of business interests. For that same reason, Wheeler looks less like to pick a fight with Brown since he probably can't get to her left, where she might have a spot of vulnerability. It's been a long time since anyone's won a Democratic primary by running to the right of an incumbent.
House:
• FL-02: Ex-Rep. Steve Southerland has gone from reportedly "praying about" a comeback bid to actually considering one. Southerland claims his party had tried to recruit him for a repeat engagement with Democratic Rep. Gwen Graham, but seeing as he pulled off the near-impossible feat of losing a red seat in the midst of a massive GOP wave election, we're going to file that one under "Yes, we definitely believe you. Uh-huh. You bet."
Of course, Southerland is only thinking about running now because the 2nd District is almost certain to get much redder thanks to a court-ordered round of mid-decade redistricting. And if he does get in, he'd have to face Mary Thomas, who is general counsel for the state's Department of Elder Affairs and seems to have some connections. She's also earned some goodwill for her willingness to take on the talented Graham before the state Supreme Court telegraphed that job was about to get a whole lot easier. (Indeed, Graham may not run for re-election at all; see our FL-Sen item above.) So Southerland's path back to Congress may not be quite as smooth as he'd like it to be.
• FL-06: Just about every Republican woman in the House participated in a fundraiser for their former colleague Sandy Adams on Wednesday, who is waging a comeback in Florida's open 6th District. Only one of these hosts, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, is also from the Sunshine State, but this sort of thing is strictly about raising money and demonstrating your establishment support, not trying to improve your local connections (and anyhow, IRL is from the wrong end of the state). It's an interesting turnabout for Adams, who got swept into Congress as a tea partier in 2010 and got flushed out by an establishment figure, Rep. John Mica, in a redistricting-induced incumbent-vs.-incumbent battle in 2010. She currently faces businessman Adam Barringer in the GOP primary, but several others are looking at the race in this very red district.
• FL-13: Years ago, we coined the term "Schrödinger's seat" to refer a district that may or may not come into being after redistricting but that candidates are nonetheless eyeing. Now, thanks to Florida's hotly anticipated mid-decade congressional redraw ordered by the state Supreme Court, we have what may be our first-ever poll of such a district, specifically, the revised version of the 13th that everyone expects will encompass all of St. Petersburg (right now, it's deliberately missing a heavily Democratic chunk).
As hypothetical districts go, it's actually a fairly straightforward exercise, and you can see what St. Pete Polls came up with here. Unfortunately, they only tested the Democratic primary, and the results are entirely unsurprising: Ex-Gov. Charlie Crist reels in a massive 73 percent, while former Defense Dept. official Eric Lynn takes just 10 percent and state Rep. Dwight Dudley (who isn't an announced candidate) is at 8. Lynn has sounded like he's not ready to defer to Crist, who's on the verge of entering, but if these numbers are anywhere near right, it hardly matters.
More interesting, though, would be a general election matchup between Crist and former St. Pete Mayor Rick Baker, who would be the top Republican recruit in this race. Crist would start off with an advantage, but it's worth knowing just how big it would be.
• GA-12, Sen: Not that anyone expected Democratic ex-Rep. John Barrow to make a comeback bid, either for the House seat he lost last year or for the Senate, but now it definitely looks like he won't. Barrow just took a teaching job as a "scholar in residence" at the University of Georgia, his alma mater, starting this fall, which probably means he's not interested in running for any office right now. That leaves Democrats without any candidates for next year's Senate race (the party was always unlikely to try recapturing Barrow's old district, given that it went for Romney by a 55-44 margin).
• NV-03: Former Secretary of State Ross Miller, who lost a painful race for attorney general last year, just announced that he will not run for Nevada's open 3rd Congressional District. Since state Senate Minority Leader Aaron Ford also said he wouldn't go for it earlier this month, that leaves Democrats without a prominent candidate for this seat, which went for Obama by a little less than 1 percentage point.
It would be stunning if the party couldn't make a play here, especially since the GOP is likely to face an ugly battle between Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson and perennial-but-famous candidate Danny Tarkanian, who is furious that Roberson led the charge for a tax increase the legislature passed earlier this year. Perhaps there's still a chance that someone running in the over-crowded primary in the 4th District will switch races.
Other Races:
• Montgomery Mayor: Voters go to the polls Aug. 21 for Montgomery's non-partisan mayoral primary, and one familiar name is hoping that Alabama's capital city will revive his once-promising political career. Artur Davis spent most of his eight years in the House as a rising star in Democratic politics, serving in a key position at the DCCC and as an Obama national co-chair. But things went haywire when Davis ran for governor in 2010.
Davis positioned himself as a conservative Democrat to prepare for a tough general election in this red state, but his votes against Obamacare turned off the people who were supposed to be his base. Davis had been counting on support from fellow African-Americans, but lost the primary 62-38 to a white Democrat, and soon left both Alabama and his party behind. Davis campaigned for Mitt Romney in 2012 and even considered running for Congress in Northern Virginia in 2014 as a Republican.
That never panned out, and he ultimately relocated to Montgomery, the city where he was born and raised (though never represented in the House), hoping that the mayoralty would be open. But even though incumbent Todd Strange failed to indulge Davis by retiring, he still decided to challenge him anyway. (Strange is a Republican; it's no longer clear what party, if any, Davis belongs to.) And now Davis is up with a new TV spot attacking Strange over the city's crime rate and accusing him of cutting the police budget. The ad, which doesn't mention Davis (aside from some text at the bottom of the screen), is running for $98,000.
But Davis and Strange aren't the only candidates competing next month. Filing closed Tuesday and three other names made the ballot: Montgomery County Commissioner Dan Harris, Alabama State Board of Education member Ella Bell (who have both won office while identifying as Democrats), and Faith Crusade/Montgomery Rescue Mission co-founder Buena Browder. Assuming no one takes a majority in August, the top two vote-getters will advance to a runoff. Davis and Strange are likely to have the most money at their disposal, but we'll need to see if Davis can actually carve out a bloc of support, or if he's just alienated too many people along the way.
• Navajo Nation: Last year, the Navajo Nation's election for president was abruptly postponed when one of the two candidates, Chris Deschene, refused to take a test to demonstrate that he was a proficient speaker of the Navajo language, a requirement for the presidency. Now, in a new referendum, member of the nation, which is within Arizona's borders, have decided to eliminate that criteria, starting in 2018. There's no word yet as to whether Deschene might try again.
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.