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, and David Beard.
Leading Off
● FL-23, FL-Sen: On Thursday, law professor Tim Canova announced that he would launch a primary challenge to Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Last year, Canova ran against Wasserman Schultz, who stepped down as head of the Democratic National Committee last August amid controversy, in South Florida's safely blue 23rd Congressional District. Canova raised an insane sum from fellow Bernie Sanders backers who wanted to take their anger out on Wasserman Schultz over her perceived favoritism toward Hillary Clinton during the presidential primaries. However, the well-connected Wasserman Schultz defeated Canova 57-43. (In between his two House bids, Canova didn't rule out a primary bid against Sen. Bill Nelson, but that won't be happening now.)
Campaign Action
Canova did give Wasserman Schultz the closest race of her career, but he still fell far short. That primary took place just weeks after Wasserman Schultz left the DNC after WikiLeaks released unflattering emails stolen from the committee—at a time, in other words, when her image was at its most tarnished. But with the scandal long since faded, it's tough to see how Canova could finish the job two years later. Moreover, while Canova tried to frame his contest as a battle between the progressive grassroots and a corrupt establishment, he himself has since become a peddler of revolting conspiracy theories.
Prominent conservatives like Sean Hannity have worked themselves into a feverish froth of late insisting—without any actual evidence—that DNC staffer Seth Rich might have been murdered last year because he leaked DNC data to Wikileaks. The D.C. police and Rich's family say that Rich's death was the result of a botched robbery, but that hasn't stopped Hannity from arguing that there's something else at work—and Canova's followed suit.
Stunningly, back in January, Canova posted on Facebook that Rich "may have been the Wikileaks source of the leaked DNC emails. He was gunned down, assassinated under suspicious circumstances just days after publication of those leaked emails. Wikileaks has offered a substantial reward to help in the homicide investigation, which appears to be completely dormant." And Canova hasn't let it go. In March, he followed up with a since-deleted tweet declaring, "We need open nonpartisan investigation of @DWStweets lies & rigging against @SenSanders, total failure DNC 2010-16, murder of Seth Rich, etc."
Rich's parents have repeatedly begged people to stop dragging their son through the mud to advance their own agenda, and we can only hope that Canova will listen and stop spreading these lies.
GUBERNATORIAL
● CA-Gov: State Treasurer John Chiang, a Democrat, is out with a survey from Goodwin Simon Strategic Research that shows him in fourth place in next year's top two primary, but arguing that he has a path to get to the general election. The poll has Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has consistently led in the polls, taking first place with 26 percent. They show a very tight race for second, with Democratic ex-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at 12, Republican businessman John Cox at 11, and Chiang at 10. The gubernatorial field is far from settled and no one has begun advertising on TV yet.
● FL-Gov: Wealthy attorney John Morgan is a weird guy. Morgan, a prominent liberal donor who has been mulling a run for governor, is attending a Thursday fundraiser at the home of one of his firm's lawyers for state House Speaker Richard Corcoran's new PAC. Corcoran is also thinking of running for governor … as a Republican. In almost any other situation, we'd take this as a sign that Morgan had decided not to run. However, Morgan told the Tampa Bay Times over the weekend that he is still thinking about getting in, adding "I believe strategically it is better for me to wait and watch."
Morgan and Corcoran are friends, even though Adam Smith notes that Morgan, a major supporter of medical marijuana, "has threatened to sue the state—including Corcoran—over a ban on smoking marijuana, which lawmakers wrote into their legislation." As we said at the top, Morgan is a weird guy. Smith also notes that Morgan hasn't made it clear that he'd run for governor as a Democrat, though we haven't heard him express any interest in running as an independent.
● MN-Gov: The large Democratic race to succeed retiring Gov. Mark Dayton got even larger on Thursday when state Rep. Paul Thissen, a former speaker and minority leader, announced that he would run. Thissen ran for governor in 2010 and dropped out after he did not receive the state party endorsement before the primary, though he took a surprisingly strong third place. Thissen says that he plans to once again abide by the state party's endorsement. (It's common for Minnesota candidates in both parties to drop out of the race if someone else gets their party's endorsement, though some do decide to skip the convention entirely and just run in the primary.)
Thissen became the lower chamber's minority leader in 2011 and took the speaker's chair after Team Blue regained control in 2012. He helped Dayton pass several progressive policies, including legalizing same-sex marriage and the creation of the state insurance exchange. However, the GOP retook the state House in 2014 and held it in 2016, and some Democrats may blame Thissen at least in part for the party's recent problems.
A number of Democrats are already running for this seat. State Reps. Erin Murphy and Tina Liebling and state Auditor Rebecca Otto each say that they'll also abide by the party endorsement, while it's unclear what St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and Rep. Tim Walz will do. A few other Democrats, most prominently state Attorney General Lori Swanson, are also considering getting in.
● NY-Gov: Several Republicans have expressed interest in challenging Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but it's tough to see any of them having much of a shot in this blue state. And sure enough, Marist is out with a new survey that shows Cuomo crushing all comers:
62-27 vs. Donald Trump Jr.
58-26 vs. Westchester County Executive and 2014 nominee Rob Astorino
58-22 vs. 2010 comptroller nominee Harry Wilson
57-26 vs. 2010 nominee Carl Paladino
There's no sign that Donald Trump Jr. actually is considering running. Despite their past double-digit defeats, however, both Paladino and Astorino have left the door open to running again. Wilson, whose 51-46 defeat is the GOP's best statewide performance since George Pataki was re-elected governor in 2002, is also considering.
● VA-Gov, VA-Sen: Prince William County Supervisor Corey Stewart's nasty pro-Trump and pro-Confederate campaign almost was enough for him to upset ex-Republican National Committee head Ed Gillespie in the Tuesday GOP primary for governor of Virginia, but Stewart still fell short 44-43. Stewart initially refused to concede or endorse Gillespie on election night, but he changed his tune the next day. Stewart acknowledged his defeat to the Washington Post and said he would back the GOP ticket. But while he has backed off from his Tuesday night declaration that "[t]here is one word you will never hear from me, and that's 'unity'," he's still not ready to make life easy for Gillespie.
Stewart told the Post that he hasn't spoken to Gillespie yet, and while there was no question he'd vote for him, "The real question is, will he support my supporters. Unless he stands up and takes clear positions on defending our heritage and our history, supporting the president, cracking down on illegal immigration, those who supported me are not going to go with him." Stewart ever-so-helpfully added, "This isn't old-style politics anymore. I just can't tell 155,000 folks to go ahead and vote for Ed despite the fact that he's not a fighter." Well, at least Stewart didn't call Gillespie a "cuckservative" this time.
Gillespie spent the primary trying to avoid talking about either Donald Trump or the recent push in several Southern cities, including Charlottesville, to take down monuments to the Confederacy. That strategy almost cost him the primary, and he'd rather avoid lurching to the right in a state that voted against Trump 50-44. But Stewart may very well be right that a large chunk of his pro-Trump supporters won't come out for Gillespie in November if he doesn't do a lot more to appeal to them.
Gillespie himself is hoping to turn the page on the primary as quickly as possible, and he's out with a Public Opinion Strategies poll arguing that he has a good shot in November. The survey, which was conducted last week, has Gillespie leading Democrat Ralph Northam 46-45. There has been very little general election polling, but the most recent numbers have looked very bad for Team Red. In April, Quinnipiac gave Northam a 44-33 edge, while an Abt Associates poll in May had the Democrat up 49-38. Of course, as wary Democrats will remember, polls gave Team Blue clear leads in the 2013 gubernatorial race and the 2014 Senate race, but the Democrats only narrowly won each race.
As for Stewart, we may not have heard the last of him this cycle. Stewart told the Washington Post that he would take "a few weeks, a couple months maybe" to decide if he would challenge Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine next year. And just in case there was any doubt what kind of campaign Stewart would run, he said that, "If I announced I was running for another office right now, it would be a headline in The Washington Post: 'Stewart clobbered by Confederate wife.'" Lovely guy.
House
● CA-48: Democrat Hans Keirstead, a prominent stem cell scientist who sold his stem-cell research company for a reported $120 million a few years ago, announced on Thursday that he would challenge GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. The Los Angeles Times' Cathleen Decker reports that "Keirstead's candidacy has been sought by some national Democratic figures, who see his science and business background as a good fit for the district."
Keirstead says he won't self-fund his campaign, though he may have the connections to raise cash. He'll face real estate company owner Harley Rouda and little-known Democrat Boyd Roberts in next year's top-two primary to face the outspokenly pro-Putin Rohrabacher. This ancestrally red coastal Orange County seat, which includes Huntington Beach and Newport Beach, flipped from 55-43 Romney to 48-46 Clinton.
● GA-06: Uno mas! The Trafalgar Group, a new Republican pollster that emerged on the scene last year, has published a new survey showing Democrat Jon Ossoff edging Republican Karen Handel 50-47 in next week's special election runoff in Georgia's 6th Congressional District. That almost perfectly matches the Daily Kos Elections aggregate of all public polling in the race (calculated before this latest release), which puts Ossoff ahead 49-46. Last month, Trafalgar correctly forecast a very tight race in the Republican primary runoff for the special election in South Carolina's 5th District, putting Ralph Norman ahead of Tommy Pope 47-46. Norman went on to win by less than a point.
● ID-01, ID-Gov: On Thursday, ex-state Sen. Russ Fulcher dropped out of the GOP primary to succeed retiring Gov. Butch Otter and announced that he would instead run to succeed Rep. Raul Labrador in the House. Labrador, who announced last month that he was giving up his very red western Idaho seat to run for governor, quickly endorsed Fulcher's bid for his district.
Fulcher ran in the 2014 primary against Otter and did unexpectedly well, holding the incumbent to a 51-44 victory. Fulcher announced last August that he would run for governor again, but his fundraising never took off. Labrador appeals to the same sort of anti-establishment voters that Fulcher needed, but he has a much-bigger profile. The two are also political allies, so it's not a surprise that Fulcher decided to succeed Labrador rather than try to beat him. Fulcher will face attorney David Leroy, a former lieutenant governor who lost a very tight 1986 gubernatorial general election, in the primary for Congress, though other Republicans may be interested.
● NC-09: Last year, minister Mark Harris, who had ran an unmemorable GOP primary campaign for the Senate in 2014, came unexpectedly close to unseating GOP Rep. Robert Pittenger. Harris lost just 35.0-34.4—a margin of 133 votes, and he probably would have won if another candidate hadn't taken the remaining votes. This week, Harris told his church that he was stepping down as its pastor as he considers another primary bid against Pittenger.
Despite his close call, Pittenger should be in better shape next year. In 2016, court-ordered redistricting gave Pittenger a seat that was about 60 percent new to him, but perhaps more importantly, his former real estate company had been under investigation by the FBI and IRS for over a year in connection with loans he made to his first congressional campaign in 2012. Last month, the investigation was dropped without any charges, and Pittenger will have had two years to introduce himself to his new constituents. Trump won this suburban Charlotte and Fayetteville seat 54-43, though Democrats have a potentially strong candidate in Marine veteran and solar energy businessman Dan McCready.