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: We have a last batch of polls ahead of Tuesday's special election, and there's no agreement whatsoever about how things look:
Trafalgar Group (R): Roy Moore (R): 51, Doug Jones (D): 46
Change Research: Moore 51, Jones 45 (Dec: 51-44 Moore)
Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) for Fox News: Jones 50, Moore 40 (Nov: 50-42 Jones)
Monmouth: 46-46 tie
So… the only poll that matters… something something… Election Day?
Campaign Action
In all seriousness, as multiple political observers have noted, this race is an extremely tough one to poll. In addition to the many factors that make accurate polling a challenge even under the best of circumstances, few firms have much experience polling a general election in Alabama, and no one really knows what turnout will look like for a rare December special election. No one's also sure how voters in this conservative state are reacting to the numerous reports about Moore's predatory behavior, or how many voters will show up but write-in another name.
And as cliché as it is to say this all comes down to turnout, Monmouth highlights how different assumptions about who will and won't show up can change who is ahead. Their "model with higher overall turnout, where voter demographics look more like the 2016 election" gives Jones a 48-45 lead, while their "standard midterm turnout model" has Moore up 48-44. But every pollster needs to use their judgment to make a final decision on what the electorate will look like, and Monmouth's "2017-based model," which is "based on patterns seen in last month's Virginia gubernatorial race - i.e. relatively higher turnout in Democratic strongholds," results in a tie.
But no matter what happens, Daily Kos Elections will be here liveblogging Tuesday's race, starting at 8 PM ET when the polls close, and tweeting as well. Be sure to get comfy: In the August primary we didn't have so much as 14 percent of precincts reporting until 9:11 ET.
Senate
● MN-Sen-B: As the political world waits to see whom Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton will appoint to this seat, a few more Republicans have shown interest in running in the November special election. State Sens. Michelle Benson and Karen Housley both say they're considering, while Minnesota Public Radio writes that ex-state Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch is thinking about it as well.
However, while state Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka wasn't a no, he came close, saying, "I guess it's fair to say I'm not ruling it out but I really believe what I'm doing of the leader of the Senate is really important for Minnesota. It's not 100 percent ruling it out." But state Sen. Julie Rosen was a clear no, though she said she's still considering running for governor. The biggest potential GOP name out is ex-Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who very much did not say no last week.
● VA-Sen: Ultra-conservative minister E.W. Jackson jumped into the race for Senate on Monday, setting up a contested GOP primary for the nomination to take on Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine next year. Jackson was a fringe candidate who took just 5 percent in the 2012 Senate primary, but thanks to a fire and brimstone speech before Republican convention-goers in 2013, the ultra-conservatives who dominated the convention chose him as their nominee for lieutenant governor that year.
Jackson has had a long history of making statements that range from offensive to just downright bizarre. Although he is black himself, Jackson once recorded a video message to "black Christians" where he claimed Planned Parenthood "has been far, far more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was," and that the "Democrat Party [sic] and Planned Parenthood are partners in this genocide." Jackson has also compared homosexuality to pedophilia, called LGBT people "sick," and accused Democrats of being "anti-God." Weirdly, he even once suggested that yoga leads to Satan.
Predictably, such a nutty candidate went on to lose the 2013 election in a 55-45 rout to Democrat Ralph Northam even though Republicans fared much better elsewhere on the ticket that year. Jackson would almost certainly prove to be a catastrophic for Republicans if he wins the nomination. While Kaine is heavily favored to win re-election in this light-blue state, Republicans fear someone like Jackson could hurt the party in more competitive races for the House in the Old Dominion.
Of course, Jackson's biggest primary rival is hardly any saner. Prince William County Supervisor Corey Stewart has been running for months, and he nearly won the GOP nomination for governor earlier this year in a shocking upset after running hard on a platform of neo-Confederate apologia. That thinly veiled racism may play well with the GOP base in the era of Trump, but Virginia voters punished down-ballot Republicans in elections last month that saw gubernatorial standard-bearer Ed Gillespie lose badly after leaning hard into Stewart-style racism.
Establishment Republicans haven't yet given up hope on avoiding a disastrous nominee after state Del. Nick Freitas also recently joined the GOP primary. Freitas is an Iraq War veteran who has served in the legislature since the 2015 elections. However, it's unclear how he plans to prevail against Stewart and Jackson, particularly since he claims he doesn't plan on attacking his fellow primary contenders. While Republican leaders smartly chose to hold a primary over a convention after the 2013 debacle, Stewart's near upset in this year's gubernatorial contest shows that alone is no guarantee of the establishment getting its preferred nominee in place.
Gubernatorial
● CO-Gov: The consulting firm RBI Strategies and Research, Inc., which works for Democratic Rep. Jared Polis' gubernatorial campaign, commissioned a PPP poll that tests four Democratic candidates against ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo, an anti-immigration zealot who is one of several Republicans running in the primary, and finds him trailing all comers:
38-46 vs. Rep. Jared Polis
38-45 vs. ex-Treasurer Cary Kennedy
39-43 vs. ex-state Sen. Mike Johnston
38-43 vs. Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne
The only notable Democrat who was not tested was businessman Noel Ginsburg.
● CT-Gov: New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart has spent the year refusing to rule out a bid for the GOP nomination, but saying she wouldn't consider until she was re-elected in November. Well, Stewart was re-elected 56-44 in November, and on Friday, she confirmed she was thinking about running to succeed retiring Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy. Stewart said she would decide over the next month, and could instead run for another statewide office.
Stewart, the daughter of former Mayor Timothy Stewart, attracted attention in 2013 when she won her first term at the age of 26 in what is normally a heavily Democratic city (Obama carried it 76-23, and Clinton won it 69-27). Stewart, who describes herself as fiscally conservative and moderate-to-liberal when it comes to social issues, has a good relationship with local labor groups, and she's won union endorsements during her re-election bids.
However, social conservatives aren't so enamored with her. The Connecticut Family Institute still blasts her for supporting distributing condoms in schools years ago, saying she "crossed a line we won't soon forget." Some state Republicans were not happy when she took a selfie with Barack Obama when he visited New Britain in 2014, and she also drew their criticism when she held a fundraiser with a GOP state senator who had endorsed a gun-safety measure. A number of other Republicans are raising money to run for governor, but there's no clear frontrunner.
● NM-Gov: Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales expressed interest in seeking the Democratic nomination early in the cycle, but he's said little for months. Over the weekend, Gonzales announced he would run for lieutenant governor instead.
● MI-Gov: Wealthy businessman Shri Thanedar is taking to the airwaves well ahead of the August Democratic primary. Thanedar's TV spot begins with shots of Donald Trump and outgoing GOP Gov. Rick Snyder as the narrator says, "With a climate change denier president and an accountant governor who brought us the Flint drinking water crisis, our next governor should get… science!" Thanedar is shown in a lab coat holding a beaker as the narrator praises him for working on "cures and medicines that big drug companies ignored," pledging not to take corporate money, and supporting single-payer health care. There is no word on the size of the buy.
● NY-Gov: New York Republicans have a tough task ahead of them if they want to oust Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo in this very blue state, but party leaders seem to have decided who they want carrying their banner next year. WGRZ's Joseph Spector reported in early December that GOP leaders appear to be focused on wealthy businessman Harry Wilson. Conservative Party chairman Mike Long, whose party is often allied to the GOP, also called Wilson "the strongest potential candidate." Wilson, who says he'll decide around Christmas, ran for state comptroller in 2010 and lost 51-46, the GOP's best showing in a statewide race since 2002.
Meanwhile, another Republican is making noises about running if Wilson doesn't. The Buffalo News' Robert McCarthy reports that ex-Erie County Executive Joel Giambra is considering, though Giambra has not said anything publicly. Capital Tonight also reports that Giambra would defer to Wilson, but would be 90 percent likely to run if Wilson stays out. Giambra himself may also not exactly be the most compelling candidate. While Giambra has a reputation as a moderate that could play well in a general election, he didn't leave office on especially good terms. In 2005, the state appointed a financial control board in 2005 to monitor Erie's finances; two years later, Giambra decided not to seek a third term.
● WY-Gov: Last month, attorney Harriet Hageman set up an exploratory committee but said she hadn't decided if she'd seek the GOP nod for this open seat race, and she now says she'll make up her mind next month. We didn't have much information on Hageman before, but the Casper Star-Tribune's Arno Rosenfeld takes a look at her past, and she seems to have some useful connections in GOP circles.
Hageman was Wyoming's outside counsel early in the last decade in a lawsuit against a U.S. Forest Service rule that "barred road construction or reconstruction on millions of acres of Forest Service land." Hageman was removed in 2003 after Democrat Dave Freudenthal became governor, a move she insisted was politically motivated. Hageman did manage to piss off environmentalists, who labeled her "Wicked Witch of the West," a title she took pride in. Later on, Hageman served as an advisor to Liz Cheney during her disastrous 2013 Senate campaign and her successful 2016 bid for the state's only U.S. House seat.
Two statewide Republicans have dominated most of the talk of the race to succeed termed-out GOP Gov. Matt Mead. Secretary of State Ed Murray says he hopes to decide by January. State Treasurer Mark Gordon said a few months ago that he was unlikely to make up his mind before Match, but now says he may decide sooner than that.
House
● AR-02: This central Arkansas seat, which includes Little Rock and several surrounding areas, backed Romney 55-43 and Trump 52-42, not great but not an unrealistic Democratic target in a good political climate. Both parties spent heavily here in 2014 when this seat was last open, but the GOP wave helped propel Republican banker French Hill to a 52-44 win, and he had no trouble last cycle. National Democrats don't want to let Hill off this time, and the Arkansas Times reports that a poll that the DCCC "was likely behind" recently was in the field testing Hill against Democratic state Rep. Clarke Tucker.
Tucker has not said anything publicly about his interest, though his team notably refused to talk to Talk Business & Politics about the poll. Talk Business' Roby Brock writes that another source told him the poll was "simply a step in the process to even consider a possible run—nothing definitive."
● AZ-08: Ex-state Corporate Commissioner Bob Stump had announced he was running in the GOP primary on Thursday, and a few additional Republicans have kicked off campaigns to succeed Franks, who resigned in disgrace after asking his staffers to bear his children. But state Sen. Steve Montenegro, a former Franks staffer, doesn't seem to think that last part makes the former congressman politically toxic in the least bit.
Montenegro not only announced he was running, he said he was running with Franks' endorsement, declaring, "I called Trent back and told him we're in." Montenegro also tweeted that Franks asked him to run for his old seat. Montenegro only represents a little less than 10 percent of this seat in the legislature. Healthcare executive Chad Allen and Bill Harbeck, who runs a group focused on raising awareness of childhood sexual abuse, are both in, but it's not clear if either of them is a serious candidate.
Ex-state Rep. Phil Lovas resigned his post at the national Small Business Association on Monday ahead of a likely bid, and he does have some useful connections. Local NBC reporter Brahm Resnik says that Lovas' wife is one of the top GOP fundraisers in the state. Lovas also headed Trump's Arizona campaign last year and resigned from the legislature in April to go to the SBA. His old state House seat includes about 30 percent of the 8th District, so he should have some name recognition in the area. State Rep. Darrin Mitchell is also reportedly interested in running.
On Monday, GOP Gov. Doug Ducey scheduled the dates for the special election to succeed ex-Rep. Trent Franks. The parties will hold their primaries Feb. 27, and the general election for this 58-37 Trump seat will be April 24.
● CA-48: It seems there's always a Democrat in the banana stand waiting to emerge to join the race against GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in this coastal Orange County seat. The newest candidate is Rachel Payne, a former Google executive who now leads two Southern California technology firms. Payne sounds fairly new to politics, having volunteered for Hillary Clinton last year and co-founding a local Democratic club after the election. However, her ties to the tech world could help her raise money for what's shaping up to be an expensive race. Several other Democrats are running, including stem cell scientist Hans Keirstead, real estate company owner Harley Rouda, former Nestlé executive Michael Kotick, and attorney Omar Siddiqui.
This ancestrally red seat, which includes Huntington Beach and Newport Beach, swung from 55-43 Romney to 48-46 Clinton, and Putin's favorite congressman doesn't seem to be taking his campaign seriously. However, we've noted before that Republican Stelian Onufrei is also running and he self-funded $200,000 before the end of September. The Democratic nightmare scenario is that both Rohrabacher and Onufrei advance through the top-two primary and leave them without a candidate in the general election.
● FL-20: Late on Friday, Roll Call reported that a former staffer for a congressional commission had received $220,000 in taxpayer funds in 2014 to settle a lawsuit she'd brought alleging that Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings had sexually harassed her. The aide, Winsome Packer, worked for the Helsinki Commission, whose members are considered congressional employees, and said Hastings had "touched her, made unwanted sexual advances, and threatened her job."
Hastings denied all the charges, claiming that he was even unaware of the settlement agreement until Roll Call had contacted him. A House Ethics Committee investigation concluded that "the most serious allegations" against Hastings were "not supported by evidence" but said the congressman "did admit to certain conduct that was less than professional." Hastings, 81, has served in this safely blue South Florida seat since 1993. Prior to coming to Congress, Hastings had been a federal judge, but he was impeached by the House in 1988 for bribery and perjury and convicted by the Senate the following year, making him just the sixth judge in U.S. history to be removed from the bench by the Senate.
● PA-01: The vise around Democratic Rep. Bob Brady's political career (and perhaps even his freedom) just grew one notch tighter on Friday when a former adviser, Donald "D.A." Jones, pleaded guilty to charges that he'd lied to federal investigators about a scheme to conceal a $90,000 payment to Brady's 2012 primary challenger, former Judge Jimmie Moore, in order to get Moore to drop his bid. Jones had been indicted back in October along with another Brady aide, Ken Smukler, who hasn't yet announced any sort of plea deal.
He might want to soon, though: Philly.com's Jeremy Roebuck writes that, as part of his plea bargain, Jones agreed to testify against Smukler or Brady. And since prosecutors are more interested in Brady, as the proverbial biggest fish, than anyone else in this case, Smukler has even more incentive to deal. So far, though, he's insisted that he'll take the matter to trial, and both he and Brady have denied all wrongdoing.
● WI-01: Democrat Randy Bryce, an ironworker who has raised well over $1 million for his challenge to Speaker Paul Ryan, is out with a poll from Global Strategy Group giving Ryan a 46-40 edge. A previous GSG poll for Bryce gave Ryan a larger 46-37 edge in August, while a recent poll from PPP for the Democratic group Patriot Majority USA had Ryan up 46-39. This southern Wisconsin seat went from 52-47 Romney to 53-42 Trump.
Legislative
● Special Elections: Johnny Longtorso checks in on Tuesday's other special election:
Iowa SD-03: This is an open Republican seat outside of Sioux City. The Democratic nominee is Todd Wendt, a retired school superintendent. The Republican nominee is state Rep. Jim Carlin. This seat went 68-27 for Donald Trump in 2016 and 60-39 for Mitt Romney in 2012.
Other Races
● Detroit, MI City Clerk: The race for Detroit's clerk, who is in charge of administering elections in Michigan's most populous city, went down to the wire after incumbent Janice Winfrey led her challenger and fellow Democrat Garlin Gilchrist by just 51-49 in last month's election. Gilchrist had run a relatively high-profile campaign that excoriated Winfrey for her office's embarrassing handling of the 2016 election, which a post-election audit concluded had "an abundance of human errors."
Winfrey's slim victory margin wasn't quite narrow enough where a recount would have plausibly changed the outcome, but Garlin was smart to request one anyway. Just like in 2016, when an unsuccessful push for a statewide recount revealed problems with Detroit's election management, a partial recount of last month's election for clerk demonstrated that the same issues remained. Roughly one-fifth of the precincts couldn't even be recounted because the number of ballots in the boxes didn't match the reported total. While Winfrey survived against her well-funded challenger, the race will hopefully serve as more evidence for why things need to change in the next election. Unfortunately, it's also a reminder that key problems remain with election administration in a major swing state.
Grab Bag
● Demographics: Daily Kos Elections' David Jarman takes a look at which members of the House represent congressional districts where the dominant racial or ethnic group differs from their own. While most members represent districts where their own group is the largest, there are 29 districts with a white majority or plurality and a representative who is a person of color. Meanwhile, there are 21 Latino-majority districts with a non-Latino representative, one majority-black district with a white member, and two plurality-Asian districts with white members.
● MD Redistricting: On Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from Republicans who are challenging Maryland's Democratic-drawn congressional map as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. This case, known as Benisek v. Lamone, marks the second time this term that the court will hear such a challenge following a widely publicized case against GOP gerrymandering in Wisconsin called Gill v. Whitford. While plaintiffs in both cases have carefully calibrated their arguments to appeal to the court's perennial swing Justice Anthony Kennedy, they're each taking distinct approaches to produce a standard for when the courts should strike down a map. As Daily Kos Elections' Stephen Wolf explains, these differing legal theories could be pivotal to each case's chance of success and could lead to dramatically different outcomes if they wind up getting applied to maps nationwide.
Plaintiffs in Whitford have used statistical tests to argue that gerrymandering violates the rights of voters under the First and 14th amendments. Their proposed standard would require multiple elections take place to demonstrate the durability of a gerrymander in question before the courts could intervene. By contrast, the plaintiffs in Benisek are relying strictly on the First Amendment. Their case is tailored toward Kennedy's own past rulings, where he has suggested that, if a suitable standard could be found for evaluating when gerrymanders violate the constitution, it would likely stem from the First Amendment rather than the guarantee of equal protection of the laws of the 14th Amendment.
So instead of relying on a statistical test to decide when gerrymandering has gone too far, the Benisek plaintiffs argue that any discriminatory partisan intent should render a district invalid. Indeed, former Gov. Martin O'Malley has explicitly admitted that Maryland Democrats drew their congressional map to achieve partisan ends. Critically, the Benisek standard wouldn't require waiting for multiple elections to take place before the courts could intervene, unlike with the Whitford proposal, which could allow mapmakers to get away with illegal gerrymanders for two or more elections at the start of each decade.
Unlike in Whitford, where an entire map is under challenge, the Benisek plaintiffs are only targeting an individual district. They argue that Democratic lawmakers retaliated against Republican voters in the 6th Congressional District and violated their First Amendment right to freedom of association when they turned what had long been a Republican seat into one that heavily favored Democrats. (Indeed, longtime GOP Rep. Roscoe Bartlett immediately lost to Democrat John Delaney in 2012, the first election held under the new lines.)
Not having to wait for flawed elections to take place could make it much easier to challenge gerrymanders under Benisek, but this approach isn't without drawbacks. The Whitford plaintiffs' reasoning targets Wisconsin's entire Assembly map, and by using a statistical test to measure gerrymandering, legislators could be forced to redraw a large swath of the map to remedy a violation of that test. By contrast, the Benisek challengers might struggle to successfully convince a court that every flawed district in a single state is illegally gerrymandered, since the evidence may be stronger with some districts than others even though they're all part of the same partisan map.
It's unclear just exactly what the significance of the Supreme Court taking on this case is now, and there are multiple reasons it may have done so. However, it's likely an encouraging sign that the court may end up finally putting limits on the wave of partisan gerrymandering that has swept the nation.
