The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● AL-Sen: As Roy Moore grows ever-more berserk in his denials that he preyed on teenage girls and his fellow Republicans sink to stunning new depths to defend his indefensible behavior, we can be quite sure that he's not going anywhere—though just wait until next month. Following the Washington Post's shocking story about Moore, the elections website Decision Desk HQ commissioned pollster Opinion Savvy to immediately go into the field with a new survey of the Dec. 12 special election, and the results are eyebrow-raising.
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The poll found Moore tied with Democrat Doug Jones at 46 apiece, but even more meaningful than the toplines are the trendlines: Last month, Moore held a 50-45 lead. Now, polls conducted over just a single night are very liable to miss certain voters and need to be treated with caution, though it appears the Moore news was quick to sink in: Opinion Savvy asked respondents whether they'd heard about the allegations and 82 percent said they had. (Another caveat, though, is that the sort of people more likely to respond to a poll tend to be more politically plugged-in.) Still, Moore's slippage is notable.
Opinion Savvy also tested a hypothetical matchup in which Sen. Luther Strange, whom Moore defeated in September's GOP primary, runs as a write-in. In that scenario, Jones would edge Moore 44-41 while Strange garners 12 percent of the vote. In this three-way test, a much smaller proportion of voters say they're undecided or would vote for someone else (3 percent) than in the two-way head-to-head (8 percent), which indicates that undecideds are indeed conservative-leaning, just as you'd expect in Alabama. But by the same token, a portion of Republican voters may belong to the #NeverMoore camp (would they be called ravens? sorry, sorry) and would rather sit this one out if Strange isn't an option—or might even migrate to Jones if the Moore story disgusts them enough. We'll really just have to see how this all develops.
Meanwhile, Moore is finally about to run his first TV ad of the general election. (Remarkably, Jones has had the airwaves to himself this entire time.) The spot features some fairly frenetic martial music and an equally frenetic narrator who talks about Moore's commitment to our armed forces. For someone like Moore, the ad's partisan message is both odd—you'd think he'd go for something in his Christian conservative wheelhouse—and oddly weak. While there's an obligatory jab at Barack Obama (he "gutted our military and put our security at risk"), Jones could just as easily say he's "proud of Alabama's role supplying our troops" and that he, too, believes in "a safer America and more jobs for Alabama." It's almost as though Moore is trying to shore up a weakness with security-minded voters … and that may not be his only soft spot.
Gubernatorial
● CA-Gov, CA-Sen: A new poll from USC Dornsife and the Los Angeles Times finds Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom leading former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa 31-21 in a next year's top-two primary for governor, with Assemblyman Travis Allen at 15, state Treasurer John Chiang (misspelled as "Chaing" in the questionnaire) at 12, and businessman John Cox at 11. Cox and Allen are the only two Republicans included here, meaning that as things stand, the GOP would get locked out of the November general election. That would be a terrible result for democracy but potentially a great result for Democrats: If the Senate race also winds up as an all-Democratic affair, we can reasonably expect Republican turnout in the midterms to crater.
Unfortunately, USC didn't give us a good read of the Senate picture. They only tested Sen. Dianne Feinstein against fellow Democrat Kevin de León, whom she leads 58-41, without asking about any Republicans … and they also said the race was for "California State Senate," so just oof. Theoretically, this matchup might reflect a possible general election scenario, but the question was sandwiched between the one above about the gubernatorial primary and one just below that posed a three-way test that also included billionaire Tom Steyer—which would necessarily reflect a possible primary ballot, so the whole thing is bit of a mess. (For what it's worth, that combo goes Feinstein 50, de León 24, and Steyer 17, and Steyer also just reiterated that he's still thinking about the race.)
A better-constructed survey conducted last month by Sextant Strategies offered considerably more hope for de León, but the real problem is that the GOP field is so far non-existent, making it hard to game out what might actually happen. We'll therefore need to wait a while before we can get an accurate take on this race.
● PA-Gov: Republican businessman Paul Mango is launching two TV ads, both of which are biographical in nature. One is a minute long and is narrated by a Marine veteran who, in a display of inter-branch comity, describes Mango's graduation from West Point (with a cameo by Ronald Reagan, who handed Mango his diploma), his service as an Army Ranger, and his work advising businesses. The other is narrated by Mango himself and hits similar notes, though he also goes on to criticize "liberals like Tom Wolf," the current governor. PoliticsPA says that the ads are backed by a "six-figure" statewide buy, which is very little for a state as large as Pennsylvania.
House
● KY-06: Back at the end of May, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray said he was contemplating a bid against GOP Rep. Andy Barr and would decide in the next two or three months. That deadline flew by without Gray making up his mind, and in new remarks on Thursday, he seems to have forgotten his timetable altogether, saying only, "When I am prepared to make an announcement, I will let you know." For what it's worth, Rep. John Yarmuth, the only Democrat in Kentucky's congressional delegation, says that Gray is still "definitely considering it."
But while Gray's been considering, another Democrat, Marine veteran Amy McGrath, has been waging a campaign for months and has met with tremendous fundraising success thanks to a hugely viral kickoff video about her service as a combat fighter pilot. On that strength of that introduction, McGrath raised over three quarters of a million dollars in the third quarter and has $552,000 in the bank, extremely impressive sums for a first-time candidate. Gray is personally wealthy, but he should be asking himself whether an expensive primary battle is what he wants, especially since beating Barr will be a tough task in this 55-39 Trump district.
● NH-02: Former state House Majority Leader Jack Flanagan, whose second congressional bid had looked like it was going as feebly as his first, announced on Friday that he was abandoning his campaign against Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster. Flanagan lost last year's GOP primary to former state Rep. Jim Lawrence 37-28 and raised very little money in doing so; this time around, his fundraising was no better, but he claims that's not why he's dropping out. (Our take: shah, right.) Two other Republicans are still running, state Rep. Steve Negron and physician Stewart Levenson, but while Kuster survived a much closer-than-expected race against Lawrence in 2016, it's unlikely that national Republicans will be able to spare a thought for her come the midterms.
● TX-21: On Thursday, state Rep. Jason Isaac became the first notable Republican to enter the race to succeed retiring Rep. Lamar Smith. A day earlier, retired CIA officer Eric Burkhart also joined the GOP primary. Isaac does not live in the district but a large portion of his state House district, the 45th, is contained within the 21st Congressional District. Meanwhile, Bexar County Commissioner Kevin Wolff, another Republican, has opted against a run.
Incidentally, Isaac's state House seat shifted from a 55-42 win for Mitt Romney to a much narrower 49-45 edge for Donald Trump, and Texas political observer Joseph Vogas describes it as a "BIG pickup opportunity" for Democrats.
● VA-06: With Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte announcing his departure after a very long career in Congress, Andy Parker, whose daughter Alison was murdered during a live news broadcast in 2015, says he's considering running for Virginia's now-open 6th District as a Democrat. Parker says that his daughter's boyfriend, Chris Hurst, texted him to tell him about Goodlatte's retirement; Hurst himself, of course, just won a seat in the state House on Tuesday by defeating GOP Del. Joseph Yost. Donald Trump carried this congressional district by a punishing 60-35 margin, though, so any Democratic hopes here would be very narrow, but Hurst received broad national attention (and lots of campaign cash) for his bid, and Parker could do the same.
Legislative
● NV State Senate: According to the Nevada Independent, Republicans appear to have filed a sufficient number signatures to trigger a recall election of Democratic state Sen. Joyce Woodhouse, but a second effort fell far short, as organizers failed to turn in enough signatures in time to recall independent state Sen. Patricia Farley, a former Republican who caucuses with the Democrats.
Some key Nevada Republicans have been pushing to recall Woodhouse, Farley, and another Democrat, state Sen. Nicole Cannizzaro, as part of a ploy to nullify last year's elections and regain a majority in the Senate. Republicans have alleged absolutely no wrongdoing or any other extraordinary circumstances that would warrant these recalls, making it plain that their only motivation is pure partisanship—and a (probably justified) fear that they likely can't retake the Senate in next year's regularly scheduled elections.
And they might not even be able to win any recalls either: After Tuesday's resounding Democratic victories, Republicans have to wonder whether the expense of recall elections would even be worth it in an environment that's so toxic for them. Signatures to recall Cannizzaro are due on Nov. 14, so we'll soon see whether the GOP even follows through.
● VA State House: Local election officials in Virginia are busy with the task known as canvassing, in which they double-check their election night tallies and also determine which provisional ballots to count. It's especially critical this year, because right now, Republicans have a razor-thin 51-49 lead in the state House, and multiple races could potentially head to a recount. A very helpful explainer from Brakkton Booker at WAMU details the canvassing process, which has to be completed by Tuesday. At that point, officials must send their results to the state's board of elections, which will certify the final results by Nov. 20. Only then can recounts be requested: The trailing side can seek one if the margin is less than one percent, and the state will pay for it if it's under half a percent. (The Richmond Times-Dispatch has more.)
Right now, there are three contests in recount territory, all of which involve Republican-held seats and narrow Republican leads. The closest is in the 94th District, where GOP Del. David Yancey has just a 13-vote edge on Democrat Shelly Simonds. The other two are in the 28th and 40th Districts, where Republicans are up 84 and 115 votes, respectively. Democrats are all but certain to seek a recount in the 94th, and if they're successful in changing the outcome, that would put the legislature into a 50-50 tie and force the GOP into a power-sharing arrangement, something that last happened two decades ago.
Grab Bag
● LGBTQ Victories: Tuesday night saw win across the country from a variety of candidates, including numerous victorious candidates from the LGBTQ community. Most notable was the breakthrough of at least seven transgender candidates winning elected office, many becoming the first in their respective states to do so. We covered these victories and their possible implications here.
● Media: On Friday morning, Daily Kos Political Editor Carolyn Fiddler appeared on The Bill Press Show to talk about Virginia elections and voters rejecting Ed Gillespie's racist campaign, the Alabama Senate race, and the wave of women coming forward to talk about their sexual assaults. Check out her segment here!