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
● Reapportionment: On Wednesday, the Census Bureau released its population estimates for 2017 for every state, detailing how many residents each state has gained or lost since the 2010 census. The firm Election Data Services has used these estimates to project how many congressional seats each state might gain or lose in the 2020 round of reapportionment, which assigns each state its share of the House's 435 districts based on its population.
Campaign Action
As shown in this map, approximately 14 to 17 states might see their number of districts change after the 2020 census. The precise numbers vary because EDS offers two different projections, one based on longer-term population trends from 2010 through 2017 and the other based on the much shorter-term trend from just 2016 to 2017.
The 2020 census and subsequent reapportionment will thus set the stage for congressional redistricting. However, it's difficult to predict with much accuracy what the partisan impact of these changes will be, because we don't yet know which party (if any) will control the redistricting process in many states.
The 2018 gubernatorial elections and legislative contests over the next three years will be critical for determining the partisan control over the process after 2020, and two major upcoming Supreme Court cases could place judicial limits on partisan gerrymandering. One thing we do know, however, is that much of the population growth in Sun Belt states like Texas comes from black, Latino, and Asian-American residents, which could benefit Democrats in those states.
Reapportionment will also determine how many Electoral College votes each state receives, since each state gets electoral votes equivalent to the number of House seats it has plus two for its Senate delegation. Adjusting the 2016 Electoral College outcome based on the above projections, Donald Trump would have gained two to three electoral votes, while Hillary Clinton would have lost two to three, not nearly enough to affect the outcome.
Interestingly, the largely Midwestern and Northeastern states that are projected to lose seats almost all trended Republican in 2016, while the mostly Sun Belt states forecast to gain seats almost all trended Democratic. These trends could benefit Democrats in the long term if they can start winning regularly in places like Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina, even if Republicans shift toward a greater reliance on the Rust Belt.
Senate
● MS-Sen: Republican Sen. Thad Cochran has been largely absent from the Capitol all year due to poor health, and in a new piece in Politico, an unnamed GOP senator who serves with Cochran on the Appropriations Committee says, "The understanding is that he will leave after Jan. 1." Other operatives "in contact with Cochran's office" say they think he'll stick around until a big spending bill is passed, possibly in January or February.
If Cochran were to resign next year, Republican Gov. Phil Bryant would appoint a replacement. However, a special election would then be held, possibly in November, meaning Mississippi would (like Minnesota) host two simultaneous Senate races in 2018. While Mississippi is a very red state, it's considerably less red than neighboring Alabama: Last year, Trump won it 58-40, 10 points closer than his 62-34 win in Alabama—and we all know what just happened there.
The two elections would function very differently, though. The race for GOP Sen. Roger Wicker's seat would involve a traditional June primary, followed by a November general election. There would be no primary at all for the Cochran seat, however. Instead, all candidates from all parties would run together on a single ballot, and in the event no one were to take more than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff would be held between the top two vote-getters. What's more, the race would be officially nonpartisan, meaning that candidates would run without party labels next to their names.
Such a scenario could introduce a lot of uncertainty. A ton of Republicans could pile into the race, including neo-Confederate dead-ender Chris McDaniel, who's publicly been considering a challenge to Wicker but could easily switch over to a hypothetical special election. Someone like McDaniel would definitely not be the national GOP's preferred choice, whereas Democrats would likely rally behind Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, a strong candidate who has also been eyeing the Wicker race (but likely would only bite if McDaniel also ran for that seat).
In short, it would create another big headache for the GOP in a cycle filled with them, and would, at the very least, force them to play defense in a state they truly shouldn't have to spend a minute thinking about. But as we've seen over and over again, the political environment has put a ton of races on the map that should otherwise have been snoozers.
● TN-Sen, TN-Gov: On behalf of the Tennessee Star, Triton Polling & Research is out with our first look at the August GOP primaries for both the open seat races for Senate and governor.
Triton gives Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a favorite of far-right groups, a massive 58-11 lead over former Rep. Stephen Fincher in the Senate primary. The poll indicates that, even though Fincher only left the House at the beginning of the year, he's far less known than Blackburn. The sample gives Fincher a 16-8 favorable rating, while Blackburn posts a 62-14 score. A third candidate, optometrist Rolando Toyos, barely registers with support from just 4 percent of voters.
Fincher does still have millions stockpiled from his House career, so he may be able to get his name out. However, Blackburn began the race with more money, and she has the support of the prominent anti-tax group the Club for Growth. It's not clear if Toyos has the wealth or connections to run a serious race. The winner will likely take on ex-Gov. Phil Bredesen, who faces no credible Democratic primary opposition.
Things are a lot more muddled in the gubernatorial primary. Rep. Diane Black leads former state cabinet official Randy Boyd 22-12, while state House Speaker Beth Harwell is at 6. Former Higher Education Commission member Bill Lee and ex-state Sen. Mae Beavers bring up the rear with 4 percent each. All the candidates, with the exception of Beavers, have access to plenty of money, so they may all have room to grow. Unlike in many Southern states, there's no primary runoff in Tennessee. On the Democratic side, former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean faces state House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh, but that matchup was not tested.
Gubernatorial
● CA-Gov, CA-Sen: A new poll from U.C. Berkeley finds Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom leading next year's top-two primary for governor, as he has in every known survey of the race. Newsom takes 26 percent, while former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, another Democrat, is at 17. Two Republicans, businessman John Cox and Assemblyman Travis Allen, each take 9 percent, and two more Democrats, state Treasurer John Chiang and former state schools Superintendent Delaine Eastin, are stuck at 5 apiece.
Meanwhile, in the Senate race, Berkeley only tested a pair of Democrats, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and state Senate leader Kevin de Leon, finding the former leading the latter 41-27. Without any Republican names in the matchup, it's hard to assess what de Leon's chances are of scooping up that second spot in the top-two primary. Interestingly, though, de Leon is beating Feinstein 37-15 among Republican voters while losing Democrats 58-22, despite the fact that de Leon is explicitly trying to run to Feinstein's left. We'd guess that at least some Republicans are interested in getting rid of the longtime incumbent no matter whom she might face. A 48 percent plurality of GOP voters, however, understandably says they're undecided between these two options.
● KS-Gov: Whether they each like it or not, Gov. Sam Brownback will be stuck ringing in the new year in the governor's mansion, while Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer will be left welcoming 2018 at an Overland Park Applebee's. Trump nominated Brownback to become his ambassador for religious freedom in late July, but he's been stuck in limbo for months as he awaits a vote before the full Senate. Democrats have opposed Brownback over his anti-gay views, and on Thursday, Foreign Relations Committee Bob Corker said he was trying to work with Senate Democrats to have a vote in early January.
Colyer is one of several Republicans running to succeed the termed-out Brownback, and he's hoping that he'll enter the August primary with at least a few months as an incumbent. Brownback has handed some powers to Colyer, who is putting together a proposal for the next state budget and is even making new appointments to the state cabinet. However, this has created an awkward and confusing situation at home, where GOP legislators have openly admitted they're not sure who is in charge. We'll see soon if the Senate finally votes to give Brownback his ticket out of dodge, or if this odd state of affairs continues.
(Note: We don't actually know if Jeff Colyer will be at an Overland Park Applebee's on New Years Eve.)
● MS-Gov: We have a long way to go before the 2019 GOP primary to succeed termed-out Gov. Phil Bryant, but Mason-Dixon takes a look at one hypothetical primary. They give Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves a 37-18 lead over state Treasurer Lynn Fitch. Mississippi News Now writes that political observers widely expect Reeves to run, but there's talk that Fitch could jump in as well.
Democrats have had no luck in statewide races in Mississippi over the last decade—with one exception. Attorney General Jim Hood won a fourth term 55-45 in 2015, and he recently said he'd decide if he'd run for governor in the next year. Mason-Dixon tests a possible Hood-Reeves general election match and gives the Democrat a 43-37 lead.
● OK-Gov: A super PAC called Oklahoma Values is readying the first TV spots of the crowded GOP primary. The Frontier writes that the group plans to spend more than $100,000 in support of Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett in the Tulsa media market over the next few weeks, including on ESPN during the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, where the University of Oklahoma will be playing.
The spot argues that Cornett is an "outsider to state government" who has been a successful mayor. The commercial seems to allude to unhappiness with the state economy under termed-out GOP Gov. Mary Fallin (against whom Cornett lost a 2006 primary for the House) when the narrator declares that Cornett "led Oklahoma City's resurgence" and will provide "conservative leadership, to cure the mess."
While the narrator repeatedly refers to Cornett as a conservative, the ad eschews hot-button issues like abortion and instead just focuses on broadly popular ideas like low unemployment rates and "billions in local private sector investment." Interestingly, the National Journal's Zach Cohen writes that Oklahoma Values' primary donor is Sue Ann Arnall, who fundraised for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Cornett is one of several Republicans competing to succeed Fallin in the June primary. Also in the running are Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb, wealthy mortgage banker Kevin Stitt, and wealthy attorney Gary Richardson, while state Auditor Gary Jones and former state Rep. Dan Fisher are running but not bringing in much money so far. In the likely event that no one takes a majority of the vote, there will be a runoff in August. Former state Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who narrowly lost the 2010 Democratic primary, has little opposition for Team Blue's nod this time.
● WI-Gov: Madison Mayor Paul Soglin has been contemplating a bid for governor for some time, and now he sounds ready to run. Soglin says he'll make an announcement the second week of January and adds, "The way things stand now, unless something very unusual takes place, the announcement will be yes." Assuming that indeed nothing very unusual takes place, Soglin would join a very crowded Democratic primary that includes at least seven other notable candidates who are all vying to take on GOP Gov. Scott Walker.
House
● AZ-08: On Thursday, state Sen. Debbie Lesko announced that she would run in February's special GOP primary to replace disgraced former Rep. Trent Franks in this conservative suburban Phoenix seat. Lesko currently serves as state Senate President pro tempore, and she was in line to lead the chamber in 2019 but is resigning from the legislature to focus on her bid.
We've seen two polls of the GOP primary so far, and they've both shown Lesko in a competitive position. A survey from the GOP firm OH Predictive Insights for the local ABC affiliate showed former Corporation Commissioner Bob Stump leading Lesko 18-16, while Republican firm Data Orbital gave her a 15-10 lead over Stump. Lesko represents about 30 percent of this seat, so she should start with a bit of name recognition in what's shaping up to be a crowded field.
Lesko joins Stump, former state Rep. Phil Lovas, former state Sen. Steve Montenegro, and a few lesser-known candidates in the primary, while others may jump in by the Jan. 10 filing deadline. However, while Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman expressed interest, he's announced he won't run. Trump carried this seat 58-37.
● CA-49, IL-04: With two new endorsements on Thursday, the prolific EMILY's List is now supporting fully two dozen pro-choice Democratic women running for the House next year, and it's still only 2017. EMILY's latest picks come in California's 49th District, where they're backing former Hillary Clinton staffer Sara Jacobs, and Illinois' 4th District, where they're supporting nonprofit director Sol Flores. In both races, Jacobs and Flores are the only notable women running, though the contours of each contest are very different.
Jacobs faces three fellow Democrats who are all vying to take on GOP Rep. Darrell Issa, who won a squeaker last time in a suburban San Diego district that flipped from a 52-46 Mitt Romney win to a 51-43 margin for Hillary Clinton. There's no clear frontrunner, though the 2016 nominee, Doug Applegate, is running again and probably starts with greater name recognition than his rivals. However, he's lagged in fundraising, so it's anyone's guess as to how this race will shake out come June's top-two primary. (Jacobs entered after the most recent quarterly reporting deadline, so it'll be a while before we have a sense of her finances.)
Flores, meanwhile, is contending against a large group of opponents in a dark blue open seat in Chicago where the only meaningful race is the Democratic primary. A recent poll for one candidate, Cook County Commissioner Chuy Garcia, showed him with a huge lead over the entire field and a 63-11 advantage on Flores in a one-on-one matchup. With Illinois' primary fast approaching on March 20, there isn't much time to turn this one around.
● KS-03: Alvin Sykes, an activist who helped push Congress to pass laws making it easier for law enforcement to investigate unsolved crimes from the civil rights era, says he might run for Kansas' 3rd Congressional District, either as an independent or a Democrat. Sykes' activism helped him earn a national profile, so if he were to pursue a third-party bid, he could undermine Democrats' chances of unseating GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder, whose district swung sharply to the left last year and is a top target in the 2018 midterms.
● MI-13: A few weeks ago, ex-state Rep. Rashida Tlaib didn't rule out seeking this safely blue Detroit area seat, but she said she was busy dealing with a family tragedy. But on Thursday, Tlaib said she was indeed "seriously considering" a bid to replace longtime Rep. John Conyers, who resigned at the beginning of the month. As we noted before, Tlaib made history in 2008 when she became one of the first Muslim women to win elected office anywhere in America. Tlaib was termed out in 2014, and she lost a primary bid against state Sen. Virgil Smith 50-42 that year. Several Democrats are mulling running in the August primary.
● NH-01: The Democratic primary for New Hampshire's open 1st Congressional District is quite crowded, but state Rep. Mark MacKenzie is standing out a bit thanks to his backing from local labor unions, seven of which have now endorsed his campaign. Given MacKenzie's past role as head of the state AFL-CIO, though, such support is unsurprising.
● OH-12: Former Franklin County Sheriff Zach Scott set up a campaign committee with the FEC a few weeks ago, and he announced he would seek the Democratic nod for this Columbus-area seat on Thursday. Scott is seeking to succeed longtime GOP Rep. Pat Tiberi, who says he'll resign by the end of January from this 53-42 Trump district.
As we noted before, Scott hasn't had much success at the ballot box in recent years. Scott ran for mayor of Columbus in 2015 against fellow Democrat Andrew Ginther, the favorite of the city establishment, and lost 59-41. Scott ran for re-election the next year, but lost the Democratic primary 52-48 against a candidate backed by Ginther and his allies. On his way out, Scott blasted party leaders, saying they "went out of their way to make sure, I guess, I was penalized for trying to give the public, voters, a choice."
So far, Scott's only noteworthy primary opponent is farmer John Russell. Russell ran for an open state House seat last year and lost the general election 68-32 as Trump was carrying the district 61-34. Democrats don't have a huge bench in this part of Ohio, and we haven't heard anyone else express interest in running. While we still don't know when the special election will be to complete Tiberi's term, the filing deadline to run for a full two-year term is Feb. 7, so potential candidates don't have much longer to decide.
● TX-21: Most endorsements by out-of-state members of Congress don't catch our interest, but Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, who is the second-ranking Democrat in the House and whose support almost always includes real financial help, is an exception, and he's now backing Army veteran and businessman Joseph Kopser. Kopser has already outraised the rest of the primary field, which includes businessman and former congressional aide Derrick Crowe and businessman Elliott McFadden.
Legislative
● VA State House: The most heavily anticipated lottery of the year isn't a Mega Millions jackpot: It's the drawing to determine whether Democrat Shelly Simonds or Republican David Yancey will win their suddenly tied race for Virginia's 94th State House District. That event has now been scheduled for Wednesday in Richmond, where officials from the State Board of Elections "will write down the name of each candidate on a piece of paper, put each name in a film canister, then draw one canister at random from a bowl or a hat."
If Simonds is the lucky winner, then Democrats will move into a 50-50 tie in the House, forcing the GOP into a power-sharing agreement and likely concluding any wrangling over this election. However, should Yancey's canister get drawn, there's a good chance Democrats will contest the results, since the ballot that threw the race into a tie was both ambiguous and challenged only belatedly.
Exactly what such a contest might look like is unclear, particularly because of an apparent conflict in Virginia law. One statute permits the loser of any drawing of lots to seek a second recount, while a different provision of law says that there may be "only one redetermination of the vote in each precinct." And if there is a second recount but the results don't change, Simonds would almost certainly want to challenge the decision to count the disputed ballot in court. Given all this, we may not know who the winner is by the time the legislature reconvenes on Jan. 10.
Mayoral
● Atlanta, GA Mayor: On Wednesday, two weeks after Atlanta held its general election, independent Mary Norwood conceded to Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms. Norwood had requested a recount, but she remained 821 votes behind Bottoms when all was said and done.
Norwood insisted there were irregularities with the vote, and her supporters looked for evidence to try and convince a judge to order a new election. Norwood focused on absentee ballots that were never mailed out because of problems with the local U.S. Postal Service. Norwood's attorney even argued that hundreds of people living in areas recently annexed by Atlanta should not have been allowed to vote because the annexation violated state law. However, she couldn't prove there were enough irregularities to cast doubt on the result. Eight years ago, Norwood lost the general election by 714 votes to Democrat Kasim Reed, who backed Bottoms to succeed him. This year, Norwood was recorded arguing that Reed and his allies stole the 2009 election from her.
Grab Bag
● Statehouse Action: This Week in Statehouse Action: Auld Lang Sine Die edition is full of holiday cheer ongoing election drama— from recounts and tied ballot totals in Virginia to sad Republican recall antics in Nevada, plus a look back at Democrats’ amazing down-ballot victories this year!
Are you worried that keeping up with state legislative happenings will be a New Year’s resolution you’ll break in January? Make it the easiest one to keep by signing up here to have This Week in Statehouse Action delivered hot and fresh to your inbox each Thursday!
● To all of our readers: This is the last Morning Digest of 2017. We'll be back in action on Jan. 3. We're incredibly grateful for all of your support and involvement all year long. Wishing you happy holidays and a peaceful new year!
