Morning Digest: First post-primary poll finds Roy Moore with big lead over Luther Strange in Alabama

Roy Moore

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

● AL-Sen: JMC Analytics takes a look at Alabama's Sept. 26 GOP primary runoff and gives Roy Moore, the former chief justice of the state Supreme Court, a huge 51-32 lead over appointed Sen. Luther Strange. This is the first poll we've seen of the second round since last week's primary, in which Moore led Strange 39-33. However, Cygnal dropped a mid-August poll of what was then a hypothetical Strange/Moore runoff that gave Moore a 45-34 advantage, while an in-house poll for the conservative blog RRH Elections found Moore with a small 34-32 edge around that same time. We'll need to wait for more data to see if Strange really does start in this deep of a hole with just a month to go.

If Strange really is badly losing, he may still be able to spend his way to victory. Moore brought in little cash during the primary, while Strange has the help of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his well-funded allies at the Senate Leadership Fund. Unless outside groups come to Moore's aid, Strange and his allies will once again dominate the airwaves.

However, Moore has long been long popular with social conservatives for his strident anti-gay views, and he became a martyr to his fans after he was permanently suspended from the court earlier this year for trying to defy the U.S. Supreme Court's order legalizing same-sex marriage. Primary turnout was anemic in August, which appears to have benefited Moore and his energetic base. If a similar thing happens in September, Strange may have a tough time holding on no matter how much his side spends.

Gubernatorial

● CT-Gov: Back in January, New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart didn't rule out a bid for the GOP nomination for governor, though she'd stayed quiet about her 2018 plans after that. But on Sunday, journalist Tom Dudchik asked Stewart if she would run, and Stewart once again made it clear she wasn't ruling out the idea. Stewart did note that she's up for re-election this November, and it sounds like she won't announce a campaign for governor before then. Several Republicans are already running or raising money to succeed Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy, who is retiring, but there is no clear frontrunner yet.

● KS-Gov: Over the weekend, state House Minority Leader Jim Ward announced that he would seek the Democratic nomination for governor of Kansas. Ward, who represents part of Wichita in the legislature, has been an outspoken critic of GOP Gov. Sam Brownback, who was recently nominated by Trump for a state Department post. Ward joins former state Secretary of Agriculture Josh Svaty and former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer in the primary. Kansas is a very conservative state, but with Brownback extremely unpopular and the state's economy still reeling from his radical experiment in tax cutting that Republicans themselves just finally rolled back, Democrats hope they'll have an opening next year.

Kansas Democrats have not had a competitive gubernatorial primary in a very long time, and there's no obvious frontrunner. Ward and Brewer both hail from Wichita, a large source of Democratic votes, so it's possible that they'll cost each other local support. By contrast, Svaty used to represent a deeply conservative part of rural central Kanas in the state House, to which he was first elected at the age of just 22 back in 2002.

There's also a similar divide on abortion. Both Ward and Brewer, whose hometown was the site of the chilling assassination of abortion doctor George Tiller in 2009, are supporters of reproductive rights. But during his time in the legislature, Svaty compiled an anti-abortion record, even voting for a bill that would allow a woman's husband to sue her doctor to prevent her from having a particular type of abortion, and the local chapter of Planned Parenthood has vow to oppose his candidacy. At a recent public event, Svaty pledged that he would not support more restrictions on abortion but did not say whether he would favor undoing any existing restrictions.

Republicans, meanwhile, have their own crowded primary ahead of them, and as with the Democrats, there isn't a clear leader.

● SC-Gov: South Carolina is a reliably Republican state, but Team Blue hopes that an unfolding corruption scandal involving allies of newly elevated Gov. Henry McMaster, as well as a nasty GOP primary, will give them a shot in a state where they've only held the governorship for a single term in the last three decades. State Rep. James Smith, a veteran of Afghanistan, has been considering running for the Democratic nod for a while, and he recently told the Post and Courier that he intends to announce his plans in a few weeks. The paper says that Smith is "expected to run as a centrist."

If Smith gets in, however, he may not have the primary to himself. Fellow state Rep. Justin Bamberg also expressed interest in running for the first time on Sunday. Bamberg was part of the team of attorneys that represented the families of Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, and Keith Lamont Scott, who were all African-American men killed by police officers.

Bamberg did say he was still planning to seek re-election to the state House, but South Carolina law allows politicians to run for multiple offices at once. However, while Smith represents a Columbia-area seat that backed Clinton 69-24, Bamberg's district is considerably more competitive. His 90th District flipped from 53-47 Obama to 51-47 Trump, and while Bamberg won his second term 55-45 last year, he pulled off a tight 50.7-49.3 during the 2014 GOP wave, so it may not be practical for him to simultaneously seek both jobs.

Neither state representative likely starts with much name recognition, but Bamberg could have the edge if race plays a role in the primary. Smith is white, while Bamberg is African-American, and in recent years black voters have made up a much larger proportion of the Democratic primary electorate. In the 2016 presidential primary, for instance, 61 percent of Democratic voters were black, while 35 percent were white.

● WI-Gov: State education superintendent Tony Evers filed paperwork ahead of a possible gubernatorial bid last month, and now he's reportedly set to announce a bid against GOP Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday. Meanwhile, businesswoman Kelda Helen Roys says that she, too, is considering the race. Roys is a former state representative and director of the state's chapter of NARAL who got crushed 72-22 by now-Rep. Mark Pocan in the 2012 Democratic primary for Wisconsin's 2nd Congressional District.

Two Democrats are already running: businessman Andy Gronik and state Rep. Dana Wachs. Walker, believe it or not, has not formally said whether he'll seek a third term, but he's given every indication that he's preparing to do just that.

House

● CO-07: Better Ed than dead! On Monday, Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter announced that he would seek a seventh term in his suburban Denver 7th District after all. A few months ago, Perlmutter kicked off a bid for governor, and when he dropped out of the race in July, he said wouldn't seek re-election. However, over the past few weeks, there had been reports that Perlmutter was reconsidering his decision to leave the House.

The 7th did backslide somewhat in 2016, going from 56-41 Obama to 51-39 Clinton, but while the GOP had shown some interest in targeting it, no strong Republicans have jumped in yet, and they may not now that Perlmutter is running again.

During his brief gubernatorial campaign, four notable Democrats had announced that they were running to succeed Perlmutter earlier this year. And when Perlmutter abandoned his bid for higher office, he said that he was content to leave his House seat behind, too, because there were already "a lot of good people in my race." But two of those "good people" immediately vamoosed upon Perlmutter's latest announcement, and at least one more sounds inclined to do the same.

State Sen. Dominick Moreno and state Rep. Brittany Petterson both quickly dropped out endorsed Perlmutter, while state Sen. Andy Kerr said he would decide "in the next day or two." However, Kerr also described Perlmutter as "a friend, a mentor and a great public servant for the people of CD7—including my own family," which isn't the type of thing most politicians say when they're planning to challenge an incumbent.

By contrast, former diplomat Dan Baer sounds a bit more likely to stay in. A Baer spokesperson said that "[g]iven the number of twists and turns in this race so far, we don't have any immediate response." The same aide also added that Baer "jumped into this race because he believes this is a pivotal moment, when we need energetic, fresh leadership and a positive vision," which is the type of thing politicians tend to say when they're planning to challenge an incumbent. However, Baer spoke highly of the congressman just last week, calling him a "great champion" for the 7th District.

● FL-27: Over the weekend, Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera announced that he would not seek the GOP nod to succeed retiring Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Florida's 27th District, nor would he run for any other office in 2018. National Republicans reportedly tried to encourage Lopez-Cantera to run for this Miami-area seat, which backed Clinton 59-39 but often favors Republicans down-ballot. However, Lopez-Cantera didn't raise much money during his abortive campaign for the Senate last year, and he might have had the same problem had he run for the House. Two notable Republicans, Miami-Dade County Commissioner Bruno Barreiro and Raquel Regalado, a former school board member and the daughter of Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado, are already in, and more have expressed interest.

● MN-01: While GOP state Rep. Joe Schomacker had shown some interest in running for southern Minnesota's open 1st District, he announced this week that he wouldn't go for it. So far, businessman Jim Hagedorn is the only Republican running to succeed Democratic Rep. Tim Walz in this 53-38 Trump seat, though state Sen. Carla Nelson and state Rep. Nels Pierson are also considering.

● NJ-05: On Monday, movement conservative Steve Lonegan, a former mayor of Bogota, announced that he would challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer in North Jersey's competitive 5th Congressional District. Lonegan has been active in New Jersey GOP politics for decades, and he's acquired a well-deserved reputation as a mega-crazy nutter.

Back in 2013, when Lonegan was busy running for Senate, Mother Jones' Andy Kroll detailed his greatest hits (at least up until that point). Among other things, Lonegan offered his alternative approach to Obamacare by declaring he'd "be as callous and uncaring as you can imagine. I have no interest in paying for your health care. I'd hate to see you get cancer, but that's your problem, not mine." He also asserted that Social Security "was the biggest single threat facing America today." As mayor of Bogota, Lonegan even called for a boycott of McDonald's to pressure the company into taking down a Spanish-language billboard for iced coffee.

But while Lonegan might sound like a prototypical Donald Trump guy, he actually backed Ted Cruz during last year's presidential primary, and he was even was part of the doomed effort to deny Trump the GOP nomination at the convention. In response, Trump declared that Lonegan was "a loser. ... Always been a nasty guy. He loses. He's a loser." And for once in his miserable life, Trump was not wrong.

While Lonegan did serve 11 years as mayor of Bogota (pop. 8,500), his other campaigns have all gone badly. In 2005, Lonegan took fourth place with just 8 percent of the vote in the GOP gubernatorial primary. Four years later, he lost another gubernatorial primary—this time to Chris Christie—by a 55-42 margin. In 2013, Lonegan was the only noteworthy Republican who entered the special election to succeed the late Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg, losing to Cory Booker 55-44. In that race, though, Lonegan did manage to carry the 5th Congressional District, which includes Bogota, by a 50-49 spread, similar to Trump's 49-48 win three years later.

Lonegan followed up his Senate defeat by running for the House in the 3rd District the following year, even though the 3rd is located at the other end of the state (and Jersey politics is known for its sharp rivalry between its south and north). Oddly, though, Lonegan faced a fellow carpetbagger: wealthy businessman Tom MacArthur, another former mayor of a small North Jersey town who had shamelessly moved south to pursue an open seat. MacArthur had the support of the local GOP party leaders, however—a big deal in a state where local party endorsements still carry weight with primary voters.

Democrats had hoped to target the 3rd District that year, and they ran ads to try and help Lonegan though the primary by depicting him as a solid conservative challenging MacArthur, who they charged with raising taxes. Lonegan also ran a nasty campaign in which he accused his opponent of cheating hurricane victims through "sleazy insurance practices." But it was all for naught, as MacArthur beat Lonegan 60-40 and won the general election a few months later.

With a history like this, if Lonegan can survive the GOP primary to face Gottheimer next year, it would certainly delight Democrats. In 2016, Gottheimer unseated longtime GOP Rep. Scott Garrett 51-47 even as Trump was narrowly winning this suburban seat by arguing that the incumbent was too socially conservative. Garrett had also made plenty of enemies in the GOP House leadership and the business community thanks to his unrepentant homophobic views, and outside Republican groups left the congressman to fend for himself in this expensive seat. If Lonegan is Team Red's nominee, national Republicans may once again decide its better to direct their resources elsewhere.

However, Lonegan's many past failures should keep Democrats from getting too excited about the prospect of facing him. Several local Republicans are eyeing this seat, and if the GOP establishment consolidates behind one of them, Lonegan may have the same problems he had in 2014. Still, a Steve Lonegan race is unlikely to be boring.

● TX-23: Over the weekend, immediately after leaving his job as a federal prosecutor in San Antonio, Democrat Jay Hulings entered the race against sophomore GOP Rep. Will Hurd in Texas' 23rd Congressional District. Most notably, Hulings, who's also a former House Intelligence Committee staffer, is tight with Rep. Joaquin Castro and his twin brother Julian, a former San Antonio mayor and housing secretary under Obama. The San Antonio Express-News reports that Joaquin Castro even suggested Hulings as a potential recruit to the DCCC, so having the well-connected Castro family in his corner could be a powerful asset. And while his surname might not indicate it, Hulings is Latino on his mother's side of the family. (The 23rd is 68 percent Hispanic.)

Hulings was evidently undeterred by a federal court ruling last week that invalidated two Texas congressional districts but, despite plaintiffs' arguments, upheld the 23rd. Democrats had hoped that a revised 23rd could wind up substantially bluer than its present configuration (which went 50-46 for Hillary Clinton), but while its lines might shift somewhat due to changes necessary to correct the two seats that were struck down, the 2018 race is likely to be fought on largely similar ground.

As a result, some Democrats considering the race might now be much less interested in doing so—and one of them could be one-term ex-Rep. Pete Gallego, who was narrowly unseated by Hurd in 2014 and lost a close rematch to him in 2016. Gallego has been a bit wobbly as to whether re-redistricting might play a role in his decision-making process: In April, he said, "If there's a new map, then there's a new race," but last month, he declared that his choice "wouldn't be dependent on an outcome that may or may not come."

Gallego's also been unclear on his timeline. In mid-July, he said he had no deadline for himself, but a week later, he said he'd make up his mind by Labor Day. In response to Hulings' entry, though, a Gallego spokesman appeared to push that timeframe back, saying the former congressman "is still exploring the race and will decide using his own timetable."

In addition to Hulings, one other Democrat is already in the race, former Air Force intelligence officer Gina Ortiz Jones, while a couple of other candidates are considering.

Grab Bag

● Pres-by-LD: Daily Kos Elections' project to calculate the 2016 presidential results for every state legislative seat in the nation comes to Oregon, one of just six states where Democrats have control over both the governorship and both houses of the legislature. You can find our master list of states here, which we'll be updating as we add new data sets; you can also find all of our calculations from 2016 and past cycles here.

Oregon Democrats have controlled the governorship since Republican Vic Atiyeh left office in 1987, but the GOP managed to hold onto the legislature for a bit longer. In 2004, Democrats took control of the state Senate, and they've held it ever since. Team Blue flipped the state House two years later, but after the 2010 GOP wave, the chamber fell into a 30-30 deadlock.

With no means to break the tie in either direction, Democrats and Republicans agreed to a power-sharing agreement where each party would have one co-speaker: One speaker would preside over the House one day, and the other would take over the next. The arrangement didn't last long, though, as Democrats grabbed an outright majority in the House in 2012 that hasn't budged. Following the 2016 elections, Democrats now have a 17-13 advantage in the Senate and a 35-25 majority in the House. The entire House is up every two years, while half the Senate is up in midterm years and the other half is up in presidential cycles.

We'll start with a look at the Senate. Oregon swung a little to the right last year, going from 55-42 Obama to 52-41 Clinton. Clinton won one more seat, though, carrying 20 of 30 Senate districts and trading two Obama seats for three won by Romney.

Both of the Obama/Trump seats are still held by Democrats. SD-05, which includes Oregon's central Pacific coast, lurched from 53-44 Obama to 49-44 Trump, but Democratic incumbent Arnie Roblan (who was the Democratic co-speaker of the House from 2011 to 2012), won re-election 48.2-47.7. Democratic state Sen. Betsy Johnson, who considered running for governor last year as an independent, was not up last year and didn't even face Republican opposition in 2014. Her SD-16, which includes Oregon's northwest corner, went from 52-44 Obama to 47-45 Trump.

The three Romney/Clinton seats all were close in both presidential elections, and all are held by Republicans. The only member of this trio who was up last year was Tim Knopp, who won 61-39 as his Bend-area SD-27 went from 50-48 Romney to 48-45 Clinton. SD-10, a Salem-area seat held by Jackie Winters, moved from 50-48 Romney to a slim 46.2-46.0 Clinton edge, while Kim Thatcher's SD-13 went from 51-47 Romney to 47-45 Clinton.

Two Republicans, meanwhile, represent Obama/Clinton seats. Alan DeBoer flipped an open Democratic-held seat 50.3-49.7 last year as his Medford-area SD-03 largely stayed the same (53-43 Obama, 51-42 Clinton). Chuck Thomsen, who was not up last year, holds SD-26 east of Portland, which went from 52-45 Obama to 49-44 Clinton. No Democrats hold Romney/Trump seats.

Over in the House, Clinton carried 36 of the 60 seats, losing three Obama seats while taking no Romney districts. Once again, all three Obama/Trump seats are held by Democrats. The Trumpiest of the bunch is HD-09, which makes up half of the territory in Arnie Roblan's aforementioned SD-05 (in Oregon, two House seats are nested within each Senate district). Democrat Caddy McKeown won re-election 50-46 as her seat went from 49-48 Obama to 53-40 Trump.

No Democrats represent Romney seats, while four Republicans hold Obama/Clinton districts. The bluest among them is HD-37, located south of Portland. Republican Julie Parrish won re-election 54-44 even as her seat swung sharply toward the Democrats, going from 53-45 Obama to 57-35 Clinton. Republican Knute Buehler, who is leaving the House to run for governor next year, won re-election by a smaller 52-48 even while his Bend-area HD-54 moved from 54-43 Obama to 56-36 Clinton.

If Democrats had managed to keep just one extra state House seat in 2010, they might have been able to draw their own legislative maps, but both parties ended up agreeing to a bipartisan plan as redistricting came up during the era of power-sharing in the lower chamber. The current maps favor the GOP a bit, though not by an overwhelming amount. One way to illustrate this is to sort each seat in the House by Clinton's margin of victory over Trump to see how the seat in the middle—known as the median seat—voted.

Because both chambers have an even number of seats, we average the two middle seats to come up with the median point in the chamber. Clinton won the median point in the Senate 50-42, about 3 points to the right of her statewide win, and won the median point in the House by a similar 51-42 margin.

P.S. Special thanks to James Allen for providing his calculations so that we could compare our numbers to his.

● Special Elections: Johnny Longtorso checks in on Tuesday's action:

Rhode Island SD-13: Earlier this year, Democrat Teresa Paiva Weed resigned as state Senate president (and from this seat) to take a new job as president of the Hospital Association of Rhode Island. The Democratic nominee here is Dawn Euer, an attorney. The Republican nominee is Mike Smith, a businessman who ran for this seat in 2014 and lost 55-45 to Paiva Weed. Also on the ballot are Green Party candidate Gregory Larson and independent Kimberly Ripoli. This district, which includes Jamestown and Newport, went 65-30 for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and 65-33 for Barack Obama in 2012.