Donna Edwards
:
• MD-Sen: Rep. Donna Edwards just released the first snapshot of Maryland's Democratic primary for Senate, and the race is tight. In a survey from Global Strategy Group, Edwards has a 42-37 lead on fellow Rep. Chris Van Hollen, and the two have almost identical favorability scores: Edwards earns a 45 percent positive rating while just 9 percent view her negatively; Van Hollen stands at 45-11.
Of course, this is just one campaign's internal poll, but the reaction by Van Hollen's campaign suggests they aren't seeing anything different in their own research:
"Anyone watching this race knows that Chris is building a huge amount of momentum and doing everything right to secure a clear path to victory," Van Hollen campaign spokesman Erik Dorey said in a statement.
Notice the lack of any contradictory claims or data. Given Van Hollen's wide money lead, his prominent role as the House Democrats' top messenger on budgetary matters, and the extensive network of endorsers he's put together so far—
adding another one from Edwards' own back yard on Tuesday—it's surprising to see him acknowledge he's starting out behind.
But with his large (and growing) war chest, Van Hollen will be able to up his name recognition once the paid media portion of the campaign gets underway. Still, with the primary not until next April, Edwards can avoid getting left behind if she can improve her fundraising.
Senate:
• OH, NH, PA, WI-Sen: Planned Parenthood is running a new round of ads hitting four Republican swing-state senators over their votes to defund the organization. The focus, though, is not on Planned Parenthood itself but rather on the government shutdown that many Republicans are promising if PP doesn't get completely stripped from next year's budget. Given how poorly the GOP fared during the 2013 shutdown, this line of attack probably polls pretty well. There's no word on the size of the buy.
But we do know how much one conservative group is spending in Ohio to attack Democrat Ted Strickland: $1 million, from the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity. The group's new spot features a former DHL employee who, relying on the vaguest of insinuations, tries to blame Strickland for the closure of a DHL shipping hub in 2008. After recounting his experiences, the worker says, "We had such devastation and job loss in the state of Ohio when Ted Strickland was our governor." So the Great Recession was all Strickland's fault, then? Ah, politics.
By the way, here's an eye-popping figure: According to the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Democrats say that Portman and his allies have already spent $9 million on the race. Seeing as it's still August of an odd-numbered year, that's just amazing.
• PA-Sen: It's no surprise that Pennsylvania Reps. Bob Brady (Philadelphia) and Mike Doyle (Pittsburgh) are backing Katie McGinty in her bid for Senate—virtually the entire Democratic establishment is. But ex-Rep. Joe Sestak, the guy McGinty is hoping to beat in the primary, does have the support of one member of Congress: Rep. Matt Cartwright, whom Sestak endorsed when he challenged Blue Dog Rep. Tim Holden in 2012 after redistricting made Holden's seat much more liberal. Sestak's dissenting move pissed off old-school guys like Brady, but it's earned him a fundraiser next month from Cartwright.
Gubernatorial:
• MT-Gov: Wealthy Republican businessman Greg Gianforte has filed paperwork to create an exploratory committee, but he still hasn't committed to an actual challenge to Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock yet. The move does allow Gianforte to start raising money, but seeing as he can self-fund easily, that may not be so meaningful. One other Republican, Public Service Commission Chairman Brad Johnson, is also in the same "exploratory" mode.
• OR-Gov: In the very likely event that she seeks a full term in next year's special election, Democratic Gov. Kate Brown would seem to be in tip-top shape: Oregon Republicans don't really have a bench, fellow Democrats aren't eager to primary her, and she's earned high marks for bringing state government back from the brink of dysfunction after the chaotic final chapter of ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber's career ended with his resignation earlier this year.
But one unwelcome potential development might come from state Sen. Betsy Johnson, a conservative Democrat who represents rural turf and hasn't ruled out a gubernatorial bid as a member of Oregon's Independent Party. Indeed, the IP just earned "major party" status by virtue of registering over 108,000 members, though the only apparent benefit is that it gets to hold a primary next May at the same time that Democrats and Republicans do.
If Republicans do nominate someone halfway decent, and if Johnson peels away votes from Brown in the center, that could be a headache for the incumbent. But right now, this is all purely speculative.
House:
• IL-13: Barf. Physician David Gill, who has now achieved "perennial candidate" status thanks to running unsuccessfully for the same seat in Congress four times, is ready to embark on a fifth crusade—only this time, he intends to run as an independent. This move can only hurt Democrats, who would very much like to take this swingy seat back from Republican Rep. Rodney Davis, so David Gill just plain sucks.
• NY-18: We hadn't heard Nan Hayworth's name all cycle, and we aren't going to again. The former Republican congresswoman, who beat Democratic Rep. John Hall in 2010, lost to Democrat Sean Maloney in an upset in 2012, then failed in a comeback bid in 2014, says she won't be on the ballot in 2016. (She says she's busy helping Carly Fiorina. Fun!) Come to think of it, we haven't heard about a single potential GOP opponent for Maloney whatsoever, now have we?
Grab Bag:
• FL Redistricting: Things have gone a bit haywire in Florida's latest round of redistricting, which is why we've always cautioned folks never to take proposed maps as gospel. The state House has passed the map that lawmakers introduced earlier this month as-is, while the state Senate has made changes that would place most of Hillsborough County in a single district—the 17th—rather than divide it between four.
This seemingly picayune alteration came at the behest of GOP state Sen. Tom Lee, who claims he doesn't want to run for Congress but rather simply doesn't want to see his home county get sliced-n-diced. However, as reporter Gary Fineout notes, the home of Republican Rep. Dennis Ross, who represents the 17th District, was placed just outside the district's borders in Lee's map. If Lee and his allies in the Senate are in fact targeting Ross, they'll be in trouble if they've left a paper trail, since the Fair Districts amendment that nuked the current map in the first place expressly forbids plans that are drawn "with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent."
• VA Redistricting: After Democrats in Virginia's Senate pulled off a surprise adjournment of a special session on redistricting Monday, there was little chance the legislature would find a way to produce its own new map in response to a court ruling that had struck down the state's congressional lines. Now Republicans are admitting the obvious, too: State House Speak William Howell acknowledged on Tuesday that "there is no possible path forward on redistricting" as long as the Senate is absent.
But Howell also says he thinks the Senate has violated the state constitution by adjourning for more than three days. (The Senate adjourned sine die, which is Latin for "as long as we please, yo.") However, it's unclear how Republicans could force the Senate back into session. Would a court really intervene? And even if one did, Democrats could simply keep adjourning for three days at a time, as long as they can keep renegade GOP Sen. John Watkins in the fold. That might be tricky, but Watkins is retiring, so his fellow party members have fewer inducements to offer him.
So unless Republicans can somehow drag the Senate back to Richmond and flip Watkins, this whole redistricting shebang will get kicked back to the courts. Democrats won't complain about that, since any court-drawn map will only improve the party's chances of winning an additional seat in Virginia's delegation. There's simply no upside for the GOP at this point.
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.
