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
● IL-AG: On Friday, Democrat Lisa Madigan surprised the Illinois political world when she announced that she would not seek a fifth term as state attorney general. Madigan did say she would not run for anything in 2018, though she left open the possibility that she would seek major office again.
Campaign Action
For years, Madigan has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the U.S. Senate or for governor. In 2009, national Democrats, including President Obama, tried to recruit Madigan to run for his old Senate seat, but she turned them down, and she also did not run for governor that year. In 2014, it looked likely that Madigan would challenge Gov. Pat Quinn in the primary, but she once again passed. (Democrats ended up losing both the 2010 Senate race and 2014 gubernatorial contests.) Madigan's father, Mike Madigan, is the speaker of the state House and longtime state party chair, and Lisa Madigan said in 2013 that she felt it would be bad for the governor and speaker to come from the same family.
Madigan showed little interest in running for the Senate in 2016 or for governor against vulnerable GOP incumbent Bruce Rauner this cycle, and she seems to be waiting for her father to leave the stage before going further. But Mike Madigan, who has been speaker since 1983 (aside from two years following the 1994 Republican wave when Democrats were in the minority) shows no sign of going anywhere.
Several Democrats have already expressed interest in running to succeed Madigan in the attorney general's office. State Sen. Kwame Raoul, another rising star who has been stalled for years, acknowledged his interest. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who passed on a 2011 bid for mayor of Chicago, did not rule anything out, either.
Senate
● AL-Sen: Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore's latest ad in the swiftly approaching GOP primary runoff features his wife praising his religious background, touting how he stood up to "liberals" to fight for Christian values. Moore wears as a badge of honor his removal (twice) from the bench over violating federal court orders where he imposed his religious values over the rule of law. The second half of the ad attacks "Washington Insiders" who don't share "our values" and are angry that Moore "won't bend his knee," flashing a picture of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
● CA-Sen: Some major progressive Democrats in California are itching to oust longtime Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, but she can count on the support of one of them: fellow Sen. Kamala Harris. Harris announced on Thursday that she'd support Feinstein's re-election bid "100 percent," although the 84-year-old incumbent still has not unequivocally said that she'll run for another term next year.
● MI-Sen: Republican Rep. Fred Upton recently acknowledged that he was seriously considering challenging Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow next year, and he has increasingly sounded likelier to take the plunge. Now, an aide has revealed that his boss will decide on a possible Senate bid by sometime this fall.
● ND-Sen: Wealthy Republican state Sen. Tom Campbell joined the contest against Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp just last month, but he's already running his third TV ad, likely in an effort to dissuade any potential rivals from joining the Republican primary. His latest spot features Campbell in a field emphasizing his background as a "conservative farmer" while promising to "take back Washington from the career politicians" and support Trump's agenda. Campbell once again conspicuously omits his several years of legislative experience to focus on his business career instead.
● OH-Sen, OH-Gov: J.D. Vance, who wrote the best-selling 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, had seen his name had come up a few months ago as a potential statewide candidate for Republicans next year, and some Republicans had reportedly been encouraging him to run for either Senate or governor. However, Vance recently declared that, after seriously considering a Senate campaign against Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown, he won't be a candidate next year. State Treasurer Josh Mandel is already seeking a rematch with Brown, while he first faces wealthy investment banker Mike Gibbons in the GOP primary.
● TN-Sen: National Democrats are eager to put a third Republican-held Senate seat into play next year in their bid to retake the Senate with a 51-seat majority. However, the options are extremely limited thanks to Republicans defending only eight of the 33 states that hold an election in 2018, only two of which—Arizona and Nevada—could reasonably be called swing states. Politico's latest report on Democratic hopes of expanding the playing field brings up talk of Tennessee, where some Democrats have mentioned former Gov. Phil Bredesen as a possible candidate.
Bredesen faced term limits in 2010, but the Democrat won a 69-30 landslide in his 2006 re-election bid. While he may be about the best candidate Tennessee Democrats could possibly hope for, Politico reports that the 73-year-old "has shown no intention of jumping in." Even if he did, he'd face a very tough challenge against Republican Sen. Bob Corker (or nearly any other Republican) in a state that Donald Trump won by 61-35. Attorney and Iraq War veteran James Mackler has already been running for the Democratic nomination since April, and he raised a credible $451,000 from mid-April through the end of June.
Gubernatorial
● CA-Gov: On behalf of UC Berkeley, YouGov returned to survey the field in infrequently polled California. Like every other poll this year, Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom easily snags one of the top-two runoff spots for the November general election with 26 percent, but there's more suspense about who he'll face. Wealthy self-funding businessman John Cox, a Republican, takes the second general election spot with 11 percent, but former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat, finishes a close third with 10 percent. Republican Assemblyman Travis Allen takes fourth with 9 percent, while Democratic state Treasurer John Chiang earns 7 percent, and Democratic former education Superintendent Delaine Eastin earns a measly 4 percent.
YouGov hasn't released a polled here since March, when they included San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer as a potential Republican candidate, but Faulconer has since declined to join the race, leaving Republicans with two lesser-known options. However, that survey also had Newsom well out in first with 24 percent. Given California's dark-blue lean, Newsom heading into a general election with a Republican as this latest poll suggests would make him a favorite, but there's still just so much uncertainty about whether the general election will be an all-Democratic affair, which could make the outcome much more in doubt, especially when Newsom, Villaraigosa, and Chiang haven't begun blanketing the airwaves with millions in ads.
● GA-Gov: Clay Tippins, who is a tech executive and retired Navy SEAL, recently filed his paperwork to run for governor, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says that a formal kickoff "is expected within weeks." Tippins hasn't run for office before, but he may be able to self-fund a decent amount. His uncle is also GOP state Sen. Lindsey Tippins, meaning he may have some existing connections in state politics. Republicans already have a crowded field in the gubernatorial primary, which includes Secretary of State Brian Kemp, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, state Sen. Michael Williams, and former state Sen. Hunter Hill.
● SC-Gov: State Rep. James Smith recently became the first notable Democrat to take formal steps toward entering next year's gubernatorial contest after he filed his paperwork to allow him to begin raising money. He has yet to formally declare that he's running, but Smith has been considering it for a while. Smith is an attorney and also a military veteran who served in Afghanistan. He has previously been reported to be "expected to run as a centrist" despite representing a deep-blue Columbia-area seat that backed Hillary Clinton 69-24.
No other Democrats have joined the race yet, but state Sen. John Scott has previously said he'll decide by the end of the month and won't defer to Smith. State Rep. Justin Bamberg's decision is also expected by October, but he has previously said he wouldn't run against Smith in a primary.
House
● CA-48: Sweet merciful everything. GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher has always been a nutcase, but now he's taken his loony toons act to grand new heights:
Rohrabacher isn't buying that conspiracy theory, but he's deep into another—that Democrats were behind last month's white nationalist riots in Charlottesville, Va. Oh, and calling them white nationalist riots is a liberal media deceit, he said.
"It's all baloney," Rohrabacher said.
Under Rohrabacher's scenario, a former "Hillary and Bernie supporter" got Civil War re-enactors to gather under the guise of protecting a Robert E. Lee statue there.
"It was a setup for these dumb Civil War re-enactors," Rohrabacher said. "It was left-wingers who were manipulating them in order to have this confrontation" and to "put our president on the spot."
Coming from Putin's favorite congressman, maybe we shouldn't be surprised that Rohrabacher's dunked his head straight into Alex Jones' toilet bowl. (Also, Civil War? That's Bluto Blutarsky level.) But this is something, even for Rohrabacher. May this term—his 15th—be his last.
● KS-02: On Thursday, ex-Kansas Secretary of Commerce Antonio Soave announced that he would join the GOP primary for this open Topeka-area seat. Soave, who lives in the neighboring 3rd District, also played semi-professional soccer in Italy in the 1980s and later wrote a romance novel titled, "The Consequence: A Soccer Romance." Soave also once starred a commercial that also featured Danny DeVito, Jason Alexander, Ann Cusack, and Elliott Gould that called for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Soave will face state Sens. Steve Fitzgerald and Caryn Tyson; state Rep. Kevin Jones; and Basehor City Councilman Vernon Fields in the GOP primary for this 56-37 Trump seat.
