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
● AL-Sen: On Tuesday, Alabama held its GOP Senate runoff for the special election to fill the remainder of Jeff Sessions' term, and it was a decisive win for Roy Moore, the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. With 95 percent of the vote reporting at press time, Moore led appointed Sen. Luther Strange, who had the support of Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, by a wide 55-45 margin. Moore will face Democrat Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney, in a Dec. 12 general election. Until then, Strange gets to sulk around the Senate in defeat.
If money were all that mattered, things shouldn't have wound up this way. Strange and his allies had a massive spending advantage over Moore, who enjoyed little outside help. According to the firm Advertising Analytics LLC, Strange and his allies—chief among them the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC close to McConnell—booked $4.7 million in TV time during the six week long runoff campaign, while Moore spent only $1 million.
However, Moore entered the race with a solid base of support among Alabama's many social conservative voters. The notorious Moore was permanently suspended from the state's high court last year for defying federal court orders regarding same-sex marriage, which only made him a martyr to his followers. Amazingly, it wasn't even the first time he'd gotten booted from the bench, though. Moore was also kicked off the court after he refused to comply with a federal judge's order to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the grounds of the state Supreme Court, an episode that made earned him national attention—and the adulation of a lot of ardent fans.
Turnout was low in the Senate runoff, but Moore could count on his devoted base to show up. Strange, by contrast, needed more casual GOP voters to cast ballots, and not nearly enough of them did. Strange also entered the race with some liabilities no amount of money could shake off, namely the shady circumstances by which he got to the Senate in the first place. Strange was appointed to replace Sessions in February by Republican Gov. Robert Bentley, who was under an ethical cloud at the time due to an unfolding sex scandal. A few months later, as Bentley was facing near-certain impeachment over allegations he'd abused his powers to conceal an affair with a top staffer, he finally resigned as part of a plea deal.
But while Bentley was still in office, Strange—who at the time was still the state's attorney general—asked the legislature to hold off its impeachment proceedings until he could complete his own investigation. However, after Trump nominated Sessions to be U.S. attorney general and it became clear that Bentley would get to hand-pick the next senator, Strange absurdly began to argue he that he'd never actually said he was investigating the disgraced governor.
It was all an attempt, of course, to try to pretend that there was no conflict of interest inherent in Bentley giving a plum appointment to the very man tasked with investigating his misdeeds, and few Alabama Republicans bought the charade. Even Strange ultimately admitted he was full of it: Once he was safely (or so he thought) in D.C., he belatedly acknowledged that his office had been investigating Bentley all along. The stench of corruption, however, never faded, and inspired a number of disgusted Republicans to jump into the primary, Moore among them.
Moore and his allies, including the white supremacist site Breitbart under the aegis of Steve Bannon, also hammered Strange's ties to McConnell, who has spent all year becoming ever more unpopular with the GOP base. Strange countered by playing up his support from Trump to the hilt, but Moore also argued he would advance Trump's agenda. Trump didn't exactly help Strange when he appeared at a rally for him on Friday and outright said he "might have made a mistake" backing Strange. Trump also told the crowd that both Republicans were "good men," and that he'd stump for Moore if he won the runoff. It was a bizarre speech that appeared to undermine Strange's "all Trump, all the time" campaign as much as it did to help him.
Moore still needs to get past Jones in December before he can make it to the Senate, but he has plenty of advantages. Trump carried Alabama 62-34, and Democrats have little power left in the state. But the unhinged Moore may be repugnant enough to scare off some more moderate Republicans: Among so many other things, he suggested this very year that the Sept. 11 attacks were divine punishment on America. And in 2012, when he won his ill-fated final term on the state Supreme Court, he only did so by a shockingly narrow 52-48 margin, even though Republicans otherwise cleaned up in Alabama that year.
Still, Moore has a lot of room for error here, and his base will likely show up for him once again in December, while enough of Strange's supporters will likely decide their hatred of Democrats outweighs their feelings about Moore. Moore may give Democrats their best chance at a win in Alabama in a long time, but Jones will need a few miracles to actually win here.
Senate
● PA-Sen: To the surprise of no one, Rep. Mike Kelly has endorsed fellow Rep. Lou Barletta's bid for the GOP nod. The two are close, and they reportedly spent a few months deciding which of them would enter the race against Democratic Sen. Bob Casey.
● TN-Sen: On Tuesday, Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican, announced that he would not seek re-election this year, becoming the first senator to call it quits this cycle. Corker had spent months saying he hadn't decided what to do, but this move still came as a surprise. Steve Bannon, the white supremacist chief of Breitbart News, and billionaire mega-donor Robert Mercer reportedly were planning to target Corker in the primary, which may have played a role in his departure.
Tennessee has become an incredibly difficult state for Democrats, especially in recent years, and Team Red will be heavily favored to hold this seat. Still, Democrats have an interesting candidate in attorney and Iraq War veteran James Mackler, who raised $451,000 from April to June. Mackler will need a lot to go right here to have a shot, but Democrats probably have a better opening with Corker leaving.
Corker was already facing a primary challenge from Andy Ogles, the former head of the state chapter of the Koch Brothers-affiliated group Americans for Prosperity. State Sen. Mark Green, whose nomination to lead the Department of the Army failed due to his long history of disparaging remarks about Muslims and LGBT people, also had been talking about challenging Corker.
But with the senator hitting the eject button, the floodgates are open for ambitious Tennessee Republicans. Last week, local Republicans suggested to Roll Call's Simone Pathé that if Corker left, all eyes would turn to Rep. Marsha Blackburn. Blackburn soon told The Hill's Scott Wong that she would consider running. Blackburn, who has represented a Middle Tennessee seat since 2003, had $3.1 million in her House account at the end of June, money she could immediately transfer to a Senate campaign.
Those GOP operatives also suggested to Roll Call that ex-Rep. Stephen Fincher, who retired last cycle after just three terms, could be interested. We're likely to see a lot more names over the next few days and weeks as this unexpected open seat race comes into focus.
Gubernatorial
● NJ-Gov: Democrat Phil Murphy is up with his first TV spot of the general election. Murphy spends the first half of the ad tying Republican Kim Gaudagno to unpopular departing Gov. Chris Christie, arguing that she wants to give Christie's disastrous policies another try. In the second half, Murphy calls for building a "Stronger and fairer economy," and promises that he doesn't owe political insiders anything.
Meanwhile, the RGA is up with their second 15-second TV commercial, where they argue that Murphy didn't pay the $15 minimum wage he says he favors. They don't go into any detail before they transition to the tagline that Murphy is "really loaded, really liberal, and really doesn't get New Jersey."
● NV-Gov: Republican Attorney General Adam Laxalt has spent the cycle as a candidate in all but name, while Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani recently said she was "99.9 percent" sure she'd seek the Democratic nomination. Laxalt has scheduled a series of 12 "special events" statewide beginning on Oct. 2, while Giunchigliani also has a "special announcement" scheduled for Monday. Unless this is another rendition of "Sweet Home, Cedar Rapids," they should both be officially in the race very soon. On the GOP side, state Treasurer Dan Schwartz is already in, while Clark County Commission Chair Steve Sisolak has had the Democratic side to himself since June.
● VA-Gov: We have three more polls, and they pretty much agree on where this race is:
● Roanoke College: Ralph Northam (D): 47, Ed Gillespie (R), 43 (August: 43-36 Northam)
● PPP (D) for Equality Virginia: Northam (D): 43, Gillespie (R) 40
● Monmouth: Northam (D): 49, Gillespie (R): 44 (July: 44-44 tie)
Polls released over the last week have shown anything from a tie to a 10-point Northam lead, but the majority agree with this trio that Northam has a small, but far from indestructible, edge.
House
● FL-07: Last month, Sen. Marco Rubio endorsed state Rep. Mike Miller's bid for the GOP nod to face freshman Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy. Rubio will hold a fundraiser for Miller soon, and he'll be accompanied by Florida Reps. John Rutherford and Vern Buchanan, as well as ex-Sens. Connie Mack III and Mel Martinez. Miller faces businessman Scott Sturgill in the GOP primary, while state Sen. David Simmons has been "98 percent" sure he'll run since early April.
● IN-04: While GOP state Sen. John Crane reportedly has been considering a bid for this safely red Lafayette seat, he announced this week that he'd pass. The GOP primary remains a duel between Diego Morales, a former senior adviser to Mike Pence, and former Workforce Development Director Steve Braun.
● NV-03: Just days after Nevada's entire Democratic establishment closed ranks behind education activist Susie Lee, EMILY's List has now also endorsed her campaign for the state's open 3rd Congressional District. No other Democrats have publicly expressed interest in running for this swingy open seat in the Las Vegas suburbs, and at this point, it's unlikely anyone else of stature would even bother. Republicans, by contrast, have a crowded primary that could yet grow further still.
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 Delaware and South Dakota, two states that are very different politically. You can find our master list of states here, which we'll be updating as we add new states; you can also find all our data from 2016 and past cycles here.
We'll start with Delaware. Democrats only took the state House in 2008, but Team Blue now holds a 26-15 majority. The state Senate has been in Democratic hands since the 1970s, but Republicans unexpectedly had a chance to flip the chamber earlier this year. Democrats entered the 2016 election with a 12 to nine majority, but the GOP managed to capture a seat. That same night, Democratic state Sen. Bethany Hall-Long, who was halfway through her four-year term in the Senate, was elected lieutenant governor.
After Hall-Long resigned to assume statewide office, the chamber was deadlocked 10 to 10, and a GOP win in the special election for her seat would have given the Republicans control of the Senate. SD-10, which is located in the Wilmington area, had swung from 59-40 Obama to 54-41 Clinton, so Democrats had good reason to take this race seriously. In the end, Democrats rallied behind Stephanie Hansen, who won 58-41.
Altogether, Clinton's 53-42 win in Delaware allowed her to take 14 of the 21 Senate seats. Even though Obama had won the state by a stronger 59-40 margin four years before, Clinton carried the exact same seats that Obama had carried. Three Republicans sit in Clinton/Obama seats. The bluest GOP-held seat is SD-05 in New Castle County. (Most of the state lives in New Castle, so almost all the seats we'll be talking about are there.) This district swung left, going from 57-41 Obama to 58-37 Clinton, but Republican Catherine Cloutier won her fifth term last year 59-41.
SD-07 was the one seat that the GOP picked up last year, and it swung hard the other way. This seat went from 64-35 Obama to 55-39 Clinton, and Republican Anthony Delcollo unseated Democratic incumbent Patricia Blevins 50.5-49.5. The final Clinton/GOP seat is SD-04. This district went from a thin 50-49 Obama to 54-41 Clinton; GOP state Sen. Gregory Lavelle was last up in 2014, when he won 62-38.
We'll turn to the House, where members serve two-year terms. Clinton carried 27 of the 41 seats, flipping one Romney seat and losing two Obama districts. One Democrat sits in a Trump seat, while three Republicans are on Clinton turf. The Republican in the bluest seat is Michael Ramone in HD-21. This district went from 59-40 Obama to 54-40 Clinton, and Ramone won for the fourth cycle in a row without any Democratic opposition.
The one Romney/Clinton seat is HD-12, which went from 50.0-48.5 Romney to 53-41 Clinton, but where longtime GOP state Rep. Deborah Hudson won without opposition. The one Democrat in a Trump seat is Trey Paradee, who represents part of Kent County in the middle of the state. HD-29 went from 53-46 Obama to 48-47 Trump, but Paradee won 62-36.
After the 2010 GOP wave, Democrats didn't control the redistricting process in many states, but Delaware was one of them. One way we measure how much a map favors, or does not favor, each party is to look at the median seat. In other words, if you sorted every district in a legislative chamber from Hillary Clinton's greatest margin of victory to Trump's biggest edge, the median seat would be the one in the middle (or in chambers with an even number of seats, an average of the middle two).
With the release of Delaware and South Dakota, we've rolled out the 2016 presidential results for each legislative chamber in 43 of the 50 states. We've published a spreadsheet to keep track of each chamber's median seat, and we'll be updating it as we roll out new states.
The Washington Post's Aaron Blake recently published an excellent piece using our median seat chart to demonstrate the obstacles Democrats face in flipping so many chambers under the current GOP drawn maps. For instance, which Trump carried Michigan just 47.6-47.4, he took the median state House seat 52-43. This means that, to win the majority in the Michigan House, Democrats will need to win at least some of the seats that backed Trump by a 9-point margin; not an easy task.
So what about Delaware? Clinton carried the median Senate seat 55-39, about 5 points to the left of her 53-42 statewide win. In the House, Clinton took the median seat 55-40, 3 points to the left of her statewide performance.
We'll move on to South Dakota, which is many ways is the opposite of Delaware. For one thing, the state is heavily Republican: Trump carried it 62-32, a swing to the right from Romney's already strong 58-40 win. The GOP also dominates the state government. While Delaware Democrats have controlled the governorship since the 1992 election, the last time their counterparts in South Dakota won their governor's office was in 1974. The GOP took the state Senate in 1994, and they've held the House for even longer. Team Red now enjoys a 29 to six Senate supermajority and a 60-10 House edge. All members of both chambers are up for re-election every two years.
South Dakotans each have two state representatives and one senator. In almost every case, the state House and Senate districts are identical to one another. However, in order to give local Native American communities more representation in the House, Senate Districts 26 and 28 are divided in half. HD-26A and HD-28A are both predominantly Native American, while HD-26B and HD-28B are heavily white.
The 2016 presidential results also show how differently the two groups voted. Clinton carried HD-26A 62-32, but Trump took HD-26B 66-27; HD-28A backed Clinton 49-46, while Trump carried HD-28B 80-14. The A seats are each represented by Democrats, while the GOP holds the B seats. Trump carried SD-26 54-40 (though Obama won it 52-47), while he won SD-28 67-27; SD-26 is represented by Democrat Troy Heinert, while Republican Ryan Maher holds SD-28.
Altogether, Trump carried 28 of the 30 Senate seats, flipping three Obama districts. Four Democratic senators and six Democratic representatives hold Trump districts, while two House Republicans represent Clinton turf.
The Democrat in the reddest seat in either chamber is Bille Sutton, who holds Trump's third-best seat in the state. SD-21, which is located in the southeastern part of the state, swung from 66-33 Romney to 74-22 Trump, but Sutton won without any opposition. Sutton announced a few months ago that he was giving up his seat to run for governor. Last year, Democratic state Rep. Julie Bartling and GOP state Rep. Lee Qualm were both decisively re-elected here as well.
Just one Trump legislative district has an all-Democratic delegation. LD-01, located in the northeast, went from 52-46 Obama to 57-37 Trump, but the GOP didn't field a candidate for either the Senate or the House. Republicans represent both seats in HD-27, located in the southwest. This district went from 60-39 Obama to 51-44 Clinton, and both Republicans narrowly won even as Democratic state Sen. Kevin Killer was winning re-election here without opposition.
The GOP drew the lines in South Dakota, though the maps don't give them an obvious edge. Trump took the median seat 62-31 (both chambers have the same median seat), almost identical to his 62-32 statewide win.
