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
● NV-Sen: On Thursday, freshman Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen formally announced that she would challenge Nevada GOP Sen. Dean Heller, Team Blue's top Senate target next year. Rosen says she was encouraged to run by former Sen. Harry Reid, the longtime power-broker in Silver State Democratic politics. The DSCC almost immediately endorsed Rosen, as did Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Democratic Rep. Ruben Kihuen, who are also both close Reid allies.
Campaign Action
Reid had previously recruited Rosen, a software programmer and synagogue president, to run for a competitive House seat in 2016. The party turned to Rosen, a first time candidate, after several other potential contenders turned them down, but she proved to be a good choice. Rosen raised a credible amount of money and beat wealthy perennial candidate Danny Tarkanian 47-46 even as Trump narrowly carried Nevada's 3rd District 48-47.
However, while Reid and national Democrats are behind Rosen, she may not get a clear path to the general election. Fellow Rep. Dina Titus, who represents a safely blue downtown Las Vegas seat, has been talking about running for a while. She reiterated on Tuesday that she was still interested, even though she’d need to get past the still-formidable Reid machine.
And indeed, Titus is one of the few prominent Nevada Democrats who can brag that she took on Harry Reid and won. In 2006, then state-Senate Minority Leader Titus decisively defeated a Reid-backed candidate in the gubernatorial primary, though Titus narrowly lost the general. In 2012, Titus ran for her House seat even though Reid was supporting Kihuen, then a state senator, in the primary. Kihuen ended up dropping out (he was elected to another House seat last year) and Titus won without any serious opposition.
Still, Titus would be sacrificing her safe House seat for a very risky primary and general election, something she has acknowledged. She also raised very little money in the first quarter of the year, so it doesn’t appear as though she’s gearing up to run, though she says she’s currently examining polling of the race.
2Q Fundraising
● UT-Sen: Orrin Hatch (R-inc): $1 million raised, $4.1 million cash-on-hand
● CA-Gov: John Cox (R): $204,000 raised (in 45 days), $3 million self-funded (cycle-to-date)
● CT-Gov: Dan Drew (D): $177,000 raised; Chris Mattei (D): $118,000 raised (in 10 weeks); Mark Boughton (R): $162,000 raised; Tim Herbst (R): $149,000 raised
● GA-Gov: Brian Kemp (R): $1.7 million raised
● TN-Gov: Karl Dean (D): $1.2 million raised (in four months)
● AZ-02: Matt Heinz (D): $200,000 (in two weeks)
● CA-45: Dave Min (D): $303,000 raised, $250,000 cash-on-hand
● FL-13: Charlie Crist (D-inc): $550,000 raised, $1.1 million cash-on-hand
● NM-01: Antoinette Sedillo Lopez (D): $200,000 raised
● NY-19: Pat Ryan (D): $210,000 raised (in three weeks), $200,000 cash-on-hand
● TX-32: Ed Meier (D): $345,000 raised (in two months), $300,000 cash-on-hand; Colin Allred (D): $200,000 raised
● VA-10: Alison Friedman (D): $400,000 raised (in less than four weeks)
Senate
● MI-Sen: Two more Republicans reportedly are considering taking on Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow, businessman John James and venture capitalist Sandy Pensler. Neither has said anything publicly, but the Detroit News' Dennis Lennox writes that they've each retained political consultants.
Gubernatorial
● AL-Gov: The GOP primary for Alabama’s potentially open governorship just keeps getting bigger. State Sen. Bill Hightower quietly set up a campaign account on Friday, and AL.com says that his formal announcement "is expected in the coming days." Hightower, who represents a Mobile-area seat, raised $125,000 during June, and he has $170,000 in the bank.
Another Republican, state Public Service Commission chair Twinkle Cavanaugh, opened a campaign account in March, shortly before Robert Bentley resigned the governorship in disgrace and fellow Republican Kay Ivey took the reins. Cavanaugh recently told AL.com that she'll announce her plans next week, but there isn't much doubt about what she'll say. Cavanaugh and her husband have loaned her campaign $500,000, and Cavanaugh also brought in $70,000 from donors in June, giving her a $565,000 war chest.
We also have fundraising numbers for a few other Republicans who’ve kicked off their campaigns over the last few months. Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle raked in $168,000 in June, and he has $356,000 on-hand. Jefferson County Commissioner David Carrington took in $126,000 for the month, and he has just over $201,000 in the bank. State Agriculture Commissioner John McMillan is also in, but he has yet to report his fundraising. On the Democratic side, ex-state Supreme Court Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb raised $42,000 in June, her first month in the race, and she has $36,000 on-hand. As for Ivey, she still has yet to announce whether she’ll seek a full term next year.
● CO-Gov: There may still be room for one more candidate in the crowded Democratic primary for Colorado’s open governorship. Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne has been mentioned as a possible contender in press accounts for a while, and the Denver Post says she is considering, though the paper provides no further information. So far, Lynne doesn't appear to have said anything about her interest publicly.
● GA-Gov: GOP state Sen. Josh McKoon expressed interest for an undefined higher office back in February, but he announced on Thursday that he would run for secretary of state rather than join Georgia’s crowded primary for governor—which is yet another open-seat race.
● NM-Gov: On Wednesday, state Sen. Joe Cervantes announced that he would in fact seek the Democratic nomination to replace termed-out GOP Gov. Susana Martinez. Cervantes had said all the way back in March that he would announce in April only to do nothing for months, but if he got cold feet, he's since warmed them up. Cervantes, who represents a seat around Las Cruces, comes from a prominent southern New Mexico family. He reportedly is wealthy, and he also has a reputation as a moderate.
And as the Santa Fe New Mexican's Steve Terrell notes, Cervantes does not have a great relationship with the Democratic establishment. In 2006, when Cervantes was in the state House, he supported an effort to oust then-Speaker Ben Luján (the father of now-Rep. Ben Ray Luján). The coup failed, and Luján punished Cervantes by taking away his chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee. In 2010, Cervantes tried to retaliate by forming a coalition with Republicans to challenge Luján and install himself as speaker. However, tea party groups chose purity over power and decried any alliance that included Democrats, so this second coup collapsed as well.
Cervantes joins Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, another member of the extended Lujan political family, and Albuquerque businessman Jeff Apodaca, whose father was governor in the 1970s. Lujan Grisham has the support of much of the state Democratic establishment; most recently, state Attorney General Hector Balderas, who mulled a bid of his own, threw his backing behind Lujan Grisham last week.
● WI-Gov: The Wisconsin gubernatorial race is one marquee event in 2018 where the Democratic field is only just now starting to take shape, and there's one new name popping up: former state Democratic Party chair Matt Flynn, who says he'll decide whether to run in the next four to six weeks. The 69-year-old Flynn thinks the field of Democrats who've floated their names so far is "weak," though he has his own record of futility over the decades, having lost Senate primaries in both 1986 and 1988 and House races in 1978 and 2004.
House
● CA-10: One district where there's quite the surplus of Democratic candidates is the Modesto-area 10th District in California, where Republican Rep. Jeff Denham is vulnerable in a seat that voted 49-46 Clinton and has a large Latino population. Engineer T.J. Cox is the latest entrant, bringing the total to seven Democrats so far.
Cox may have some access to local sources of money through his charitable work: He's a founder of the Central Valley NMTC Fund, which has invested in community clinics and alternative energy around the Central Valley. He also has some previous electoral experience here, though probably not a lot of people remember it: He ran against GOP Rep. George Radanovich in the old 19th District in 2006, getting just 39 percent of the vote. (Denham succeeded Radanovich in 2010, one cycle prior to redistricting.)
The old 19th was considerably different from the current 10th, though, both politically and geographically. In the presidential election just before the last time Cox ran, George W. Bush had romped 61-38 in the 19th, a far cry from Clinton’s narrow win in the 10th. In addition, only 38 percent of the population in 10th came from the 19th, and the new district’s center moved from Fresno to Modesto. Cox, who is based in Fresno, says he’ll do the same and relocate his home to Modesto.
● CO-03: Colorado’s western 3rd District seat swerved from 52-46 Romney to 52-40 Trump, and GOP Rep. Scott Tipton won a fourth term 55-40 against a well-funded Democratic opponent last year. However, state Rep. Diane Mitsch Bush announced on Thursday that she would seek the Democratic nod to challenge Tipton, and she says she'll resign her seat to focus on the campaign.
Mitsch Bush is the first notable Democrat to enter the race, but she may not be the last. The Daily Sentinel's Charles Ashby says that Grand Junction City Councilman Chris Kennedy and former CIA case officer Bob Baer, who is an author, CNN intelligence and security analyst, and the host of the former History Channel reality TV series Hunting Hitler (yes, that was a real show), have been mentioned as possible contenders. Neither seems to have said anything publicly yet, but they're both slated to appear at an event hosted by the progressive activist group Indivisible at an event later this month, along with Mitsch Bush.
● IA-03: The Democratic field to face GOP Rep. David Young in Iowa’s Des Moines-area 3rd District got a little smaller last month, when attorney Anna Ryon quietly suspended her campaign.
● IL-12: On Thursday, St. Clair County State's Attorney Brendan Kelly, a Democrat, kicked off his bid against Republican Rep. Mike Bost for Illinois' 12th Congressional District, which includes part of the St. Louis area. Kelly, a Navy veteran, hails from what is by far the largest and bluest county in the district. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently reported that the DCCC recruited Kelly to run, and so far, no other notable Democrats have jumped in. This seat swung from 50-48 Obama to 55-40 Trump, but Democrats are hoping that the GOP’s 2016 performance was an anomaly.
Democrat Jerry Costello represented previous versions of this downstate Illinois seat for decades, and Democrat Bill Enyart won a competitive 2012 race to succeed the retiring Costello even as Obama only narrowly carried the district. And when Bost, then a state representative, entered the race against Enyart the next year, he looked like a pretty meh candidate.
Not long before his kickoff, Bost had delivered an over-the-top rant on the state House floor over language inserted into a prison reform bill that had been vividly caught on tape. Bost repeatedly threw papers from his desk as he angrily proclaimed, "These damn bills that come out of here all the damn time come out here at the last second and I've got to try figure out how to vote for my people!" Bost's fundraising was also extremely weak for months after he launched his campaign.
However, the race did not go according to plan for Team Blue at all. Bost's fundraising dramatically picked up after he won an uncontested GOP primary, which is actually a good reminder that sometimes, candidates can solve their money woes before it's too late. And while Enyart and his allies aired ad after ad featuring Bost's rant, Bost turned it to his advantage, running his own spot arguing that he should be angry with the direction of the country. In a midterm when much of the electorate was deeply unhappy with Obama and Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, Bost's temper may have resonated with voters rather than turn them off.
Even when the news broke that, back in 1986, Bost had driven to a neighbor's house and shot their dog to death while it sat penned in an enclosure after he learned the pet had bitten Bost's 4-year-old daughter in the face, it didn't seem to damage him; Bost himself made a joke out of the incident during the campaign. Bost ended up beating Enyart 52-42 as Quinn badly lost in this area.
Last year, national Democrats didn’t make much of an effort here and only aired ads against Bost in the final week of the campaign. They once again used footage of his state House floor rant, to little effect. Unsurprisingly, Bost won 54-40, about the same margin as Trump. But if Democrats can compete in once-blue seats like this that shifted far to the right in 2016, it will go a long way towards flipping the House.
● IL-13: This week, Democrat Betsy Dirksen Londrigan announced that she would run against GOP Rep. Rodney Davis in this downstate seat. Londrigan runs a fundraising company that has worked with Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation, so she should have some experience with one of the toughest parts of campaigning. Londrigan says she was motivated to run over the GOP's attempts to dismantle Obamacare, noting that her son once spent 21 days in intensive care due to a tick bite.
Londrigan joins physician David Gill, a perennial candidate who came close to beating Davis in 2012, in the primary, but other Democrats are interested. Back in April, Jersey County State's Attorney Ben Goetten spoke to a gathering of county party chairs who were meeting with potential candidates. Goetten doesn't appear to have said anything since then, but The State Journal-Register recently wrote that he was still considering. Goetten is the brother of Matt Goetten, who was the state's attorney in neighboring Greene County in 2012 when he ran for this seat. (Matt Goetten had Durbin's support, but Gill portrayed him as a conservative and narrowly beat him in the primary.) Jersey County only makes up about 3 percent of the 13th District, so if Ben Goetten runs, he likely will start with little name recognition.
The State Journal-Register also writes that another Democrat, retired Navy intelligence officer Jonathan Ebel, is considering; Ebel serves as director of graduate studies in religion at the University of Illinois in Urbana. State Rep. Carol Ammons formed an exploratory committee a while ago, but she postponed her planned mid-June decision. This seat, which contains Champaign and Bloomington, went from a very narrow Romney win to 50-44 Trump.
● NJ-11: The DCCC has been trying to recruit Democratic Assemblyman John McKeon to take on long-time Republican Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen in New Jersey’s 11th District, a seat that’s emblematic of the well-educated suburban areas that have been historically Republican but swung toward Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election: Trump won the 11th just 49-48 after it had favored Romney 52-47 in 2012.
However, several other local elected Democratic officials have been sniffing out the race in the rapidly-shifting seat, and Insider NJ focuses on a new one: Woodland Park Mayor Keith Kazmark, who’s been fundraising and is now touting himself in a mailing to state party leaders. Kazmark has been mayor of Woodland Park (formerly called “West Paterson,” a town with a population of roughly 12,000) since 2011 and is favored for re-election this November.
● NM-01: This week, former U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez, who resigned his prior post in March, told state political writer Joe Monahan that he would join the crowded Democratic primary for this 52-36 Clinton Albuquerque seat. About two weeks ago, Martinez joined a new law firm, which we took as a sign that he wasn't running for Congress, but Martinez must enjoy multi-tasking.
● NV-03: Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen's decision to run for the Senate opens up her suburban Las Vegas seat, which narrowly voted for Obama and Trump. GOP state Sen. Scott Hammond said last month that he was exploring a bid, and while he hasn't made an announcement, he recently opened a campaign account with the FEC.
● NY-24: Plenty of Democrats hope that Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner will challenge GOP Rep. John Katko in this 49-45 Clinton seat, but there are a number of other options who could run. Attorney Steve Williams, who took third place with 20 percent of the vote in last year's three-way primary, recently told Syracuse.com that he is interested in another try. Onondaga County Legislator Chris Ryan, who is close to local labor groups, also isn’t ruling out a bid, saying he "would always like to be part of the conversation." However, local professor Eric Kingson, who finished second with 31 percent in the 2016 primary, sounds reluctant to try again. Kingson, who had Bernie Sanders' support last time, acknowledges that he has been approached to run, but while he hasn’t quite shut the door all the way, he says he wants Miner to get in.
Reporter Mark Weiner also says that three other Democrats "are considering a run, or have been encouraged by party officials and supporters," though there are no quotes from any of them. The list consists of Steve Michaels, a prominent attorney who currently serves as special counsel in the investigations unit at IBM's upstate headquarters; Anne Messenger, whom Weiner describes as "well-known in Central New York for her volunteer work with community organizations and as a small business entrepreneur"; and Dana Balter, a professor at Syracuse University who has been involved in local anti-Trump groups.
● TX-31: GOP Rep. John Carter is one of the more obscure members of Congress, and he hasn't faced a close race since his initial 2002 primary. However, Carter's suburban Austin seat swung sharply to the left last year: Though it’s still quite red, it moved from 60-38 Romney to 54-41 Trump, which suddenly makes it more interesting turf—and, indeed, Carter picked up a Democratic opponent this week with a very compelling story.
Air Force veteran M.J. Hegar flew search-and-rescue missions in Afghanistan, and in 2009, she saved her passengers after the Taliban shot down her medevac helicopter. Hegar went on to lead a lawsuit against the Department of Defense against their now-defunct policy that prevented women from serving in ground combat positions. Hegar's memoir was published this year, and Angelina Jolie reportedly is in talks to star in a movie version.
