Leading Off
Campaign Action
However, a number of other Democrats have expressed interest in running, especially now that Sen. Tom Udall has made it clear he'll stay out of the race. Lujan Grisham may have decided to make her plans clear early to try and scare her potential rivals out of the race, or convince some of them to run to replace her in the House instead of against her.
Lujan Grisham leaves behind New Mexico's 1st District, an Albuquerque seat that backed Hillary Clinton 52-35 last month. Most of the action is likely to be in the Democratic primary, and there are plenty of local politicians who can run here.
While Daily Kos Elections usually lets other people play the Great Mentioner, we're just going to name-drop one well-known Albuquerque Democrat right now. Steven Michael Quezada, who played DEA agent Steve Gomez on all five seasons of Breaking Bad, was recently elected to the five-member Bernalillo County Commission: We don't know if Quezada is actually interested in going to D.C., but we love Breaking Bad too much not to at least mention his name. Plus, Breaking Bad brings a new meaning to the term "blue seat."
Senate
● WV-Sen: After all that, it sounds like Joe Manchin is staying put. The conservative Democrat had met with Donald Trump about potentially heading up the Department of Energy (which a lot of dimbulbs seem to think is preoccupied with fossil fuel extraction, not realizing its chief job is to safeguard nuclear materials), but on Tuesday, Manchin issued a statement making it clear he wasn't going to get the job. Instead, Manchin said, "Right now, I believe that I can best serve my state of West Virginia in the United States Senate."
That will come as a relief to Senate Democrats, who had pressured him not to join the Trump administration; even if the deeply troublesome Manchin votes with Republicans half the time, his decision to stay avoids handing the GOP someone who will vote with them 100 percent of the time. With any luck, Manchin's choice will also convince North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp to remain in the Senate, too.
But that "right now" is pretty pregnant, though, because it suggests his mind could change at some unspecified point in the future. It also definitely doesn't speak one way or the other as to whether Manchin will seek re-election in 2018, a race that will be hard as hell almost no matter what.
Gubernatorial
● CO-Gov: Republicans are once again talking up former Denver Broncos star quarterback John Elway as a potential candidate for statewide office—this time for the open governorship in 2018—but they've tried to entice him in the past and have never succeeded. In 2006, Republicans wanted him to run for governor; he didn't. In 2008, they pointed him toward the Senate; no dice. In 2010, it was the Senate, again; it was no, again. Maybe there've been some other Elway sightings in there, too, but that's enough to tell you he's a GOP dream candidate who remains the stuff of dreams.
The one thing that gives Republicans some hope this time, though, is that Elway appeared in a few ads this summer taking the conservative side in fights over a couple of ballot measures. But of course he hasn't said a word publicly, and "friends and colleagues" who are reportedly "close to" Elway say they "doubt" he'd run. That's what his track record tells us, too.
● IL-Gov: Greg Hinz of Crain's Chicago Business runs through a broad cross-section of potential Democratic gubernatorial candidates and offers some updates on a few we'd taken stock of before. Previously, Rep. Cheri Bustos had declined to rule out a bid; now Hinz reports that she is "known to be considering a run." He also says the same of state Sen. Andy Manar, who'd only been mentioned before. Finally, Hinz adds that outgoing U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker could possibly run, though he calls such a development "unlikely." That's in large part because far more talk has centered around Pritzker's younger brother, billionaire venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker, who was previously reported to be looking at a bid.
● MN-Gov: On Tuesday, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, who had already said he would not seek re-election to his current post next year, announced that he would run for governor in 2018. Coleman is the second Democrat to enter the race, joining state Rep. Erin Murphy, who also hails from St. Paul. A ton of other candidates in both parties are considering bids, but so far, no Republicans have gotten in. Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton has repeatedly said he will not seek a third term, so this seat will be open.
● VA-Gov: Virginia will hold its 2017 primary in June, so it's getting a bit late for anyone new to jump in. But distillery owner Denver Riggleman is considering seeking the GOP nod, and says he expects to decide in a few weeks. The Richmond Times-Dispatch writes that Riggleman seems more motivated by anger at the utility giant Dominion Resources for trying to route their natural gas pipeline through his property more than anything else. We might have just dismissed Riggleman as Some Dude if he hadn't made one interesting hire already. Riggleman has brought on Zachary Werrell, who was Dave Brat's 2014 campaign manager when Brat pulled off a miraculous primary win against then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
● WI-Gov: Democratic state Sen. Jennifer Shilling, who just survived a difficult re-election by just 61 votes in a race that went to a recount, says she is "not running" for governor in 2018. Several other Democrats are still weighing bids, though, while Republicans are waiting to see if Gov. Scott Walker decides to seek a third term.
House
● CA-34: On Tuesday, Democrat Sara Hernandez, a former aide to Los Angeles City Councilman José Huizar, entered the special election for the seat that's soon to be left vacant once California's legislature confirms Rep. Xavier Becerra as the state's new attorney general. In a press releasing announcing her entry, Hernandez said she'd already raised $150,000 for the race. Meanwhile, Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez, the only elected Democrat currently running, just rolled out an endorsement from State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, who himself was a potential candidate but declined to run.
● FL-11: Of course we're not rid of Alan Grayson yet—why should we be so lucky? Grayson unsuccessfully ran for Senate this year and got destroyed in the Democratic primary, so consequently he won't be returning to House come January. However, he's already submitted paperwork to the FEC in order to run in Florida's 11th Congressional District in the coming election cycle, though he claims he won't decide on whether to actually seek a comeback until May of 2018—or even where he'd run if he did so.
But Grayson says he's been raising money since Election Day (which he claims is the reason he had to file a new statement of candidacy with the FEC), so if that's true, that certainly makes him sound like someone eager to get back into the game as quickly as possible. The problem for him (thank the maker) is that he doesn't really have anywhere to run. The 9th District, which he's vacating, is about to be represented by state Sen. Darren Soto, who handily beat Grayson's wife, Dena Grayson, for the Democratic nomination. It certainly wouldn't be out-of-character for Alan Grayson to take a run at a sitting congressman from his own party, but his odds would be long at best. (Then again, waging a near-hopeless campaign wouldn't be out-of-character either.)
The other options aren't any better. As Florida Politics' Scott Powers notes, the other two blue seats in the Orlando area, the 7th and 10th, each just elected a Democratic woman who will be serving her first term in Congress, Stephanie Murphy in the former and Val Demings in the latter, both of whom are favorites of the DCCC. As for the 11th, it's extremely red—Trump won it 65-33, according to Matthew Isbell—and Republican Rep. Dan Webster is, after all, the guy who booted Grayson out of Congress the first time, back in 2010. Actually, Grayson should totally seek revenge against Webster—that sounds perfect!
Mayoral
● San Antonio, TX Mayor: In the spring of 2015, appointed Mayor Ivy Taylor, a conservative Democrat, won a full two-year term by narrowly defeating ex-Democratic state Sen. Leticia Van De Putte. Taylor faces the voters again in the May 2017 non-partisan race. Van De Putte has become a Taylor supporter over the last year, even declaring that "[v]oters got it right" by picking Taylor instead of her. However, that doesn't mean that Taylor is going to get a free pass. City Councilor Ron Nirenberg, who has refused to identify as a Republican or a Democrat in the past, announced that he would challenge Taylor over the weekend.
Nirenberg may not be Taylor's only opponent. Bexar County Democratic Party Chair Manuel Medina has expressed interest in running, and City Councilor Rey Saldaña has also been mentioned as a possible contender. All the candidates will compete on one ballot in May, and if no one takes a majority, there will be a runoff. The mayor of San Antonio is a pretty weak post, with the city manager holding much of the power. However, as the head of Texas' second-largest city, the job can be a springboard to bigger things.
Grab Bag
● Pres-by-CD: We roll out three states today in our project to calculate the presidential election results by congressional district: Nebraska, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. We have a chart of all 435 congressional districts here, which also includes results from 2012. That's the page you'll want to bookmark, since we're updating it continuously. We'll be pushing out new data on a rolling basis as the final results are officially certified and the precinct-level election results we need for our calculations become available.
We'll start in Wisconsin, a state where very little went well for Team Blue this year. Donald Trump carried the state by a 47.8-47.0 margin, painfully ending the Democrats' 28-year winning streak; four years ago, Barack Obama won the Badger State 53-46. Despite his tiny victory, Trump took six of the eight congressional districts under the GOP-drawn map, one more than Mitt Romney.
The 3rd District, which includes Eau Claire and La Crosse in the southwest corner of the state, swung from 55-44 Obama to 49-45 Trump. Interestingly, Republican Gov. Scott Walker carried the 3rd by a smaller 50-49 margin during his 2014 re-election campaign, even though Walker's 52-47 statewide win was much larger than Trump's. The GOP didn't even field a challenger against Democratic Rep. Ron Kind, but Kind can't count on the GOP giving him a pass in the future. Kind has been mentioned as a 2018 gubernatorial candidate, which could be a double-edged sword for Wisconsin Democrats: Democrats would likely benefit from having a nominee who can perform well in rural areas, but the 3rd wouldn't be easy to defend.
None of the state's other seven congressional districts were close. Hillary Clinton easily won the Madison-based 2nd District and Milwaukee's 4th, while Trump took each of the other five seats by double digits. The closest GOP-held seat was Speaker Paul Ryan's 1st District, which includes Milwaukee's southern suburbs. Trump took the 1st 53-42, an improvement over the 2012 Romney-Ryan ticket's 52-47.
Democrats originally were optimistic that they could flip the open 8th District, a Green Bay seat that Romney had won just 51-48. However, Trump ran away with a 56-39 victory, and Republican Mike Gallagher won by an even stronger 63-37. The 7th District in northern Wisconsin also swerved far to the right, going from 51-48 Romney to 58-37 Trump: In fact, the 7th is now the most Republican seat in the state.
We turn next to Nebraska's three congressional districts. Along with Maine, Nebraska is the only state to give an electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district. Obama's 2012 campaign didn't target the Omaha-based 2nd District and lost it 53-46. Clinton's campaign made some effort to win the seat, and lost by a smaller 48-46. However, Clinton's improved performance wasn't enough to save freshman Democratic Rep. Brad Ashford, who lost to Republican Don Bacon 49-48. Nebraska's other two seats remain safely red.
Tennessee doesn't look like it will host any competitive general elections for the House anytime soon. Trump won the Volunteer State 61-35 and carried the same seven congressional districts that Romney took. The closest GOP-held seat is the 3rd, which backed Trump 65-30. Clinton carried the Nashville-based 5th 57-38 and the Memphis-based 9th 78-20. The 5th is represented by longtime Rep. Jim Cooper, a conservative Democrat who could certainly afford to vote more like his constituents if he felt like it.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, and James Lambert.
