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
● MO-Gov: In a stunning broadcast Wednesday night, local Missouri TV news station KMOV reported that Republican Gov. Eric Greitens had engaged in an extra-marital affair in March of 2015 with a woman whom he'd met because she cut his hair, then blackmailed her into silence by taking a photo of her nude, bound, and blindfolded. The explosive allegations came to light because the woman's now-ex-husband said that law enforcement and media outlets had recently approached him about the matter and explained that he wanted to "get in front" of the story. The ex-husband had recorded his wife confessing the affair to him and provided a copy of the recording to KMOV.
Campaign Action
In response, Greitens admitted to the affair but denied that he had blackmailed or even photographed the woman, who has declined to be interviewed and whose name has been withheld by KMOV as a result. Greitens was elected governor in 2016 after winning a four-way GOP primary and defeating Democrat Chris Koster by a 51-46 margin. He first publicly expressed interest in running in February of 2015, about a month before his alleged affair.
Until this scandal, Greitens, a 43-year-old former Navy SEAL, had appeared to be a GOP rising star and seemed to have presidential ambitions, even traveling to Iowa to meet with activists last year. Now his political future looks grave. Greitens has spent his first year in office at war with his fellow Republicans in the legislature, leaving him with few friends and many enemies during this crisis. As one anonymous Missouri lawmaker put it to reporter Dave Catanese, "Eric Greitens spent a year calling every Republican in the state corrupt. I'll be shocked if any of them stand up for him as an alleged blackmailing psychopath."
It's reminiscent of the problems that beset two other, very different former governors: Oregon's John Kitzhaber and New York's Eliot Spitzer. Both had failed to cultivate and even antagonized fellow Democrats, and when scandals came home to roost, there was no one willing to stand up for them. But the Greitens matter is far worse: Spitzer had engaged the services of prostitutes, while Kitzhaber was accused of being complicit in allowing his fiancée to use her access to the governor for financial gain; both quickly resigned.
But while the political backdrop might be similar, the charges against Greitens are much more serious. One Republican state legislator, Rep. Kevin Engler, issued a barely veiled call for Greitens to resign, saying he should do the “right thing,” while another, Sen. Rob Schaff, even tweeted, "Stick a fork in him." Republican leaders in both chambers of the legislature, meanwhile, released similar statements calling the allegations "shocking" and "concerning" and demanded candor from the governor.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers went further, calling on state Attorney General Josh Hawley, a Republican who is running for Senate, to investigate, but Hawley’s office said it lacks jurisdiction. However, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner, the prosecutor for the city of St. Louis, said she’d begin looking into the matter after initially saying she wasn’t investigating because no complaint had been filed. Greitens insisted on a Thursday call with donors that he’s not going anywhere, but if he’s forced to leave office, Lt. Gov. Mike Parson, a fellow Republican, would take his place and would serve out the remainder of his term, which ends in 2020.
4Q Fundraising
Click here for our chart rounding up all Senate fundraising numbers. As per usual, we'll have a chart of House numbers after the reporting deadline, which is Jan. 31.
● AZ-Sen: Kyrsten Sinema (D): $1.6 million raised, $5.1 million on hand
● VA-Sen: Tim Kaine (D-inc): $1.4 million raised, $9.2 million cash-on-hand
● MD-Gov: Alec Ross (D): $1 million raised (for 2017)
● NV-Gov: Adam Laxalt (R): $1.3 million raised (in two months), $3 million cash-on-hand; Dan Schwartz (R): $76,000 raised (in 2017, plus $355,000 in self-funding)
● TX-Gov: Greg Abbott (R-inc): $9 million raised (second half of 2017), $43.3 million cash-on-hand
● AZ-02: Ann Kirkpatrick (D): $400,000 raised, $465,000 cash-on-hand
● CA-45: Brian Forde (D): $300,000 raised, $550,000 cash-on-hand
● IL-06: Sean Casten (D): $85,000 raised (plus $250,000 in self-funding)
● KS-02: Paul Davis (D): $330,000 raised
● MA-03: Rufus Gifford (D): $500,000 (in six weeks)
● MI-11: Tim Greimel (D): $325,000 raised, $285,000 cash-on-hand
● MN-01: Carla Nelson (R): $218,000 raised
● NH-01: Maura Sullivan (D): $430,000 raised (in nine weeks)
● OH-16: Anthony Gonzalez (R): $260,000 raised, $750,000 cash-on-hand
● TX-07: Alex Triantaphyllis (D): $255,000 raised, $630,000 cash-on-hand
● TX-23: Gina Ortiz Jones (D): $208,000 raised
● VA-10: Alison Friedman (D): $350,000 raised, $685,000 cash-on-hand
● WA-08: Kim Schrier (D): $328,000 raised
Senate
● ND-Sen: After keeping his party in suspense for over a year, GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer announced on Thursday that he would run for re-election to the House rather than challenge Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. Cramer, who was first elected to North Dakota's only House seat in 2012, said just last week that he was "trending" towards a bid after Donald Trump encouraged him to get in, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also tried to recruit him. Cramer had also bragged he had "lead in every poll I've seen," though he declined to release any numbers. But for all his bravado, Cramer only said on Thursday he decided staying in the House was the best thing for his family and the state.
Heitkamp will still be a top target, though, in a state that backed Trump 63-27. State Sen. Tom Campbell, a wealthy potato farmer, has been running for months, and he's already spent $500,000 on ads. It's also possible that ex-Rep. Rick Berg, whom Heitkamp narrowly beat in 2012, could seek a rematch. But while North Dakota is a rough state for Team Blue, Heitkamp is a very strong candidate who defied the odds and narrowly defeated Berg in a contest that had once seemed hopeless.
The emerging consensus after Cramer made his announcement was that this development was bad news for the GOP's chances in this race. It's certainly not a good sign for Republicans that the guy they tried recruiting said no, especially if he really did have polls showing him winning. But interestingly, Politico reports that the GOP had spent much of 2017 trying to recruit someone other than Cramer or Campbell.
While Cramer began last year as the top GOP choice against Heitkamp, his star dimmed after he made a series of offensive remarks. Most infamously, Cramer declared during the winter that female Democratic members of Congress who wore white to Trump's address lawmakers were donning "bad-looking white pantsuits in solidarity with Hillary Clinton to celebrate her loss." When Cramer was told they were wearing white in recognition of women's suffrage, he dug in and said not only did he not "buy their argument," but they "should be celebrating the fact that there were women members of Congress sitting in a joint session." Berg had lost to Heitkamp in part because of how clumsily his campaign tried to win over women, so Cramer's foot-in-mouth routine certainly gave Team Red a bad case of déjà vu.
However, while Campbell announced he would run in August and began spending on ads to introduce himself to voters, GOP leaders apparently weren't happy with him, either. Politico writes that it was only after several potential recruits said no, including state Treasurer Kelly Schmidt and businesswoman Tammy Miller, that they turned back to Cramer rather than just settle on Campbell. However, there's no word on why they preferred Cramer to Campbell, who on paper seems like a viable candidate.
And indeed, there are plenty of other reasons why it would have made sense for Republicans to prefer any other North Dakota Republican (with the possible exception of Berg) to Cramer. In 2014, Cramer actually faced a credible Democratic challenge from then-state Sen. George B. Sinner, the son of former Gov. George A. Sinner. The GOP wave and North Dakota's conservative lean helped propel Cramer to an easy 56-38 win, but the congressman didn't exactly demonstrate he was ready for a tough race. Cramer ran the entire campaign without any paid staff, which helps explain how his "campaign" managed to air an ad that was illegally shot in a state veterans' cemetery. And yet, national Republicans evidently thought he'd still be a better get than Campbell. But with Cramer staying home, Campbell might now just be their best bet.
● OH-Sen, OH-Gov: On Thursday, GOP Rep. Jim Renacci announced he was leaving the open seat race for governor of Ohio and would challenge Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown instead. Renacci began making noises about switching races almost immediately after presumptive Senate nominee Josh Mandel dropped out of the contest last week, and the congressman reportedly made his choice after talking to Donald Trump's political advisors. While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly has been trying to encourage Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance to challenge Brown, the National Journal's Josh Kraushaar says McConnell is fine with Renacci.
Renacci is a wealthy businessman who won what was a competitive seat in the Canton area during the 2010 GOP wave. Renacci, whom Roll Call estimates has a net worth of $32 million, had primarily been self-funding his bid for governor. The congressman is close to Trump allies, and in his gubernatorial campaign, he had pitched himself as a Trumpesque outsider who was taking on the establishment. However, Renacci had barely registered in the few polls we'd seen, though he might have been able to spend his way into contention against frontrunner Mike DeWine. (We discuss the post-Renacci state of the GOP primary for governor in our OH-Gov item below.)
Early this week, Renacci declared he would likely switch races if Trump asked him to, so we should expect him to continue with his mini-Trump approach. That may not be a bad strategy in a state that swung hard toward Trump in 2016, though if Trump's toxic even in Ohio in November, it won't be hard for Brown to tie Renacci to the White House.
Renacci will have some company in the May primary from another wealthy businessman, though. Mike Gibbons, who has been running with little fanfare for months, said recently he was willing to spend $5 million of his own money to win. However, it doesn't sound like power players in Ohio or D.C. are impressed with him, given their efforts to recruit Renacci.
Gubernatorial
● ID-Gov: This week, wealthy businessman and Boise school board president A.J. Balukoff kicked off his second bid for Idaho's governorship. Back in 2014, Balukoff, as the Democratic nominee, lost 54-39 to Republican Gov. Butch Otter, who is now retiring. However, that wasn't a bad showing in such a conservative state in such a terrible year. Balukoff notably did manage to get the national GOP's attention in October of that year when the Republican Governor's Association unexpectedly dropped six figures worth of ads on him, ads that continued into the final days of the race. Balukoff faces a primary with state Rep. Paulette Jordan, while a host of Republicans are seeking this open seat.
● IL-Gov: One immediate bit of fallout from the Eric Greitens story came not in Missouri but in next-door Illinois, where GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner has for months been airing an obnoxious ad in which fellow Republican governors from neighboring states sarcastically "thank" Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan (Rauner's top Democratic enemy) for creating new jobs in their states by raising taxes in his.
Rauner liked the spot so much that he spent $1.3 million to air it more than 3,100 times, but unfortunately for him, one of its stars is … Eric Greitens. As a result, Rauner has yanked the ad, but obviously, a lot of voters have now seen it—and with the two states sharing several overlapping media markets, those same folks are now hearing plenty about Greitens.
Rauner has a new ad, though, which he released just before the Greitens story exploded, and which he has to hope will allow him to step out of the pile of manure he unwittingly sank his foot into. The spot takes aim at the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, billionaire investor J.B. Pritzker, even though the primary still isn't for another couple of months.
The minute-long ad consists entirely of a recording of a phone call between Pritzker and disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich in November of 2008, taped as part of a wiretap by the FBI, which was investigating Blagojevich at the time. During the call, Blagojevich can be heard suggesting he could appoint Pritzker to the position of state attorney general, to which Pritzker responds, "Ooh, that's interesting."
Obviously, no such appointment was ever made (the attorney general's office never became vacant), and in any event, Pritzker made it clear in that same set of phone calls that he was interested in the job of state treasurer instead (which he also never got because that, too, didn't open up, and isn't mentioned in the ad). Blago soon thereafter was removed from office and sentenced to 14 years in prison, cementing him as the ultimate exemplar of political corruption in a state already notorious for it.
As we noted when audio of these calls became public last year, Pritzker never suggested anything untoward. Blagojevich at one point asked for a campaign donation, but Pritzker demurred (though he'd donated to Blago in the past). And had the FBI had any suspicions about Pritzker, they would have looked into them long ago. Ultimately, we could only conclude that this exchange represented "unappealing transactional politics rather than actual wrongdoing."
However, we also acknowledged that Rauner would "undoubtedly jump on this new opportunity to tie" Pritzker to Blago, and now he has. Obviously there's no way for Pritzker to directly push back against this ad, so he's doing the only thing that makes sense: going on the attack himself. Pritzker's put out two new spots of his own, the first of which hammers Rauner for concealing outbreaks of Legionnaire's Disease at a veterans home in the city of Quincy, which led to the deaths of 13 residents.
In the second, narrated by Pritzker himself, Pritzker snipes at Rauner for attacking him, then touts his own progressive priorities, including a plan to make Illinois "the first state in the nation to have a public option." That's an interesting message, and we'll be curious to see if Democrats elsewhere adopt it. But needless to say, with Rauner also being a billionaire, both men are going to spend a ton more to turn this into a very negative race.
● KS-Gov: Campaign finance reports covering all of 2017 are now in for candidates in Kansas, giving us our first real look at the financial strength of all the many contenders for the state's open governorship. We'll start with the GOP, but we won't bury the most interesting point: Presumed frontrunner Kris Kobach's fundraising is weak.
Former state Sen. and 2006 nominee Jim Barnett: $59,000 raised, additional $505,000 self-funded, $514,000 cash-on-hand
Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer: $632,000 raised, $549,000 cash-on-hand
Businessman Wink Hartman: $11,000 raised, additional $1.69 million self-funded, $1.5 million cash-on-hand
Former state Rep. Mark Hutton: $382,000 raised, additional $200,000 self-funded, $393,000 cash-on-hand
Secretary of State Kris Kobach: $355,000 raised, $261,000 cash-on-hand
Former state Rep. Ed O'Malley: $218,000 raised, additional $3,000 self-funded, $158,000 cash-on-hand
State Insurance Commissioner Ken Selzer: $428,000 raised, additional $286,000 self-funded, $669,000 cash-on-hand
Remarkably, Kobach had less cash-on-hand than any of his noteworthy GOP rivals aside from O'Malley. Kobach has devoted much of his time towards spearheading Trump's bogus (and now defunct) voter-fraud commission, but somewhat to our surprise, Kobach's national notoriety and Trump ties hasn't helped him fill his coffers. Kobach does have plenty of name recognition, and that may be enough to help him win the August primary. Still, it seems that his national witch-hunt is distracting him from the necessary campaign legwork back home.
We'll turn next to the Democrats, who hope that outgoing GOP Gov. Sam Brownback's horrific unpopularity will give them an opening in this red state.
Former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer: $45,000 raised, $15,000 cash-on-hand
State Sen. Laura Kelly: $156,000 raised, $155,000 cash-on-hand
Former state Secretary of Agriculture Josh Svaty: $193,000 raised, $67,000 cash-on-hand
State House Minority Leader Jim Ward: $91,000 raised, $59,000 cash-on-hand
Not exactly massive hauls from anyone. Kelly, who is close to former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, only entered the race two weeks before the deadline, so it's noteworthy that she already has a larger war-chest than everyone else.
Wealthy businessman Greg Orman has also been raising money to run as an independent since the beginning of December, and it's more than a bit distressing that he lapped the entire Democratic field, even without doing much self-funding. Orman raised $436,000 from donors and threw in another $17,000 of his own money, leaving him $441,000 in the bank.
Back in 2014, Orman was the de facto Democratic nominee for Senate against GOP incumbent Pat Roberts after the actual Democratic nominee dropped out. If Orman's candidacy catches fire, he'll likely sop up many more votes from the Democratic nominee than the Republican candidate in a state where Team Blue doesn't have many votes to spare.
Orman's hoping that he'll be able to take enough support from both parties to win a three-way general election (or perhaps is even thinking that the eventual Democratic nominee will drop out for him, as happened in his Senate bid), and it does look like he'll have the resources to get his message out. Still, unless Orman can make serious inroads with Republican voters, he's much more likely to help the GOP keep the governor's mansion.
● MD-Gov: Gonzales Research is out with the general election portion of their recent poll, where they tested GOP Gov. Larry Hogan against three prospective Democratic foes. Hogan leads Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker 47-37; Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz 48-34; and former NAACP president Ben Jealous 49-36. The sample gives Hogan an intimidating 71-21 approval rating in what's normally a solidly blue state.
● OH-Gov: The May Democratic primary looks like it'll get a little bit smaller on Friday. Multiple media outlets report that Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley will announce she's dropping out of the race and backing frontrunner Richard Cordray, the state's former attorney general. Whaley's campaign says she'll be making an announcement with Cordray that day, and there isn't much doubt about what she'll be saying. Another Democratic candidate, former Rep. Betty Sutton, also exited the primary this week and joined Cordray's ticket as his candidate for lieutenant governor.
Meanwhile, former Rep. Dennis Kucinich confirmed on Thursday he was running, though for some reason, he's picked the colors of the University of Michigan—the hated arch-rival of the Ohio State University, beloved by Buckeyes—for his logo. Kucinich last was on the ballot in 2012, after the GOP threw him and fellow Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur into the same congressional district, and he lost the primary 56-40. Kucinich became a Fox News paid contributor after leaving the House, and over the last year, he's frequently praised Trump and agreed with Sean Hannity that the White House is under attack by "the deep state."
Kucinich may still have a base of support in the Cleveland area, but it's tough to see him winning a Democratic primary anytime soon, especially with the field shrinking. There are still a few other candidates in the primary, though: Ex-state Rep. Connie Pillich and state Sen. Joe Schiavoni are also running, while outgoing state Supreme Court Justice Bill O'Neill is hanging around for some reason.
The GOP field has also slimmed down over the last few weeks. At the end of November, Secretary of State Jon Husted dropped his bid and became Attorney General Mike DeWine's running mate, and Rep. Jim Renacci switched to the Senate race on Thursday (as discussed in our OH-Sen item above). Right now the only notable candidates are DeWine, who is also a former U.S. senator, and Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor.
It's tough, though, to see Taylor winning a one-on-one race with DeWine. Primary polls taken months ago showed DeWine far ahead of rivals, and even an August poll conducted for Taylor showed him beating her 36-17. DeWine also had over $4 million in the bank at the end of June, while Taylor had just $437,000 to spend.
A wealthy Trump confederate like Renacci might have been able to win a primary with DeWine by convincingly attacking DeWine as a longtime establishment politician, but Taylor, a former state auditor and an ally of termed-out Gov. John Kasich, won't have an easy time making that argument. If Kasich is still popular with GOP voters, he could conceivably pull Taylor to victory. However, Kasich's frequent feuds with Trump are unlikely to help his lieutenant governor much in the May primary.
● SC-Gov: Campaign finance reports are in for all of South Carolina's candidates for governor. For most of 2017, Gov. Henry McMaster and former state cabinet official Catherine Templeton, his main GOP primary rival, had raised a similar amount of cash each quarter. However, McMaster broke through during the final three months of 2017 and outraised Templeton $1 million to $721,000. Despite that surge, though, McMaster only has a small $2.6 million to $2.3 million cash-on-hand edge.
Polling has been scarce here, but the numbers we've seen show that Templeton starts with little name recognition. (Unsurprisingly, not a lot of South Carolinians remember a former Department of Health and Environmental Control director.) However, unlike the other two GOP challengers, Templeton has enough cash to get her name out ahead of the June primary. Lt. Gov. Kevin Bryant raised just $46,000 for the quarter and has $256,000 on-hand, while Yancey McGill, a party-switching former Democratic legislator, has only $2,100 to spend. If no one takes a majority in the primary, there will be a runoff two weeks later.
South Carolina is a very red state, but Democrats hope a favorable national climate and a long-running investigation into some of the state's major GOP power players will help them pull off an upset. The state party leadership has consolidated behind state Rep. James Smith, an Army veteran who earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart in Afghanistan. Smith brought in $548,000 in his first quarter in the race, and he had $371,000 on-hand.
However, Smith doesn't have the primary to himself. Businessman Phil Noble, whom we hadn't mentioned before, raised $101,000 during this time, and he had $64,000 on-hand. That's far less than Smith, but it's not trivial. Noble also picked up an endorsement this week from Doug Jones, Alabama's new Democratic senator. The two have known each other for over a decade, and they both have some connections to the civil rights movement in the Yellowhammer State. Noble's father was a minister who worked to combat racism when he lived in Alabama, and as U.S. attorney, Jones successfully prosecuted the KKK members who murdered four young black girls when they bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in 1963.
House
● AZ-08: Filing closed Wednesday for the special election to succeed former GOP Rep. Trent Franks, who resigned last year after asking his staffers to bear his children. Both parties will hold their primaries on Feb. 27, and the general election will take place on April 24. This seat contains a portion of the city of Phoenix as well as the nearby suburbs of Glendale, Peoria, and Surprise, and it shifted slightly from 62-37 Romney to 58-37 Trump in 2016. The next representative will therefore likely be chosen in the GOP primary, though we've certainly see a lot of competitive special elections develop in unlikely places this cycle.
A grand total of 13 Republicans filed to run, but only four of them look like they'll have the name-recognition and connections to mount a serious primary bid with so little time: former state Sens. Steve Montenegro and Debbie Lesko, former state Rep. Phil Lovas, and former Corporation Commissioner Bob Stump. Two polls taken in December showed Stump and Lesko competing for first place, while Montenegro and Lovas barely registered. However, those polls had plenty of undecideds and tested several other local politicians who didn't end up running.
And while most politicians who leave office in disgrace don't go around saying who they want to replace them, Trent Franks ain't most politicians. Just days after he resigned, Franks endorsed Montenegro, a former aide. Montenegro nevertheless trumpeted that endorsement, and he also has the support of notorious former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is now running for the Senate.
However, Lovas may be able to out-Trump the rest of the field. Lovas headed Trump's Arizona campaign in 2016 and resigned from the legislature to take a post at the national Small Business Association last year. Lovas' wife is one of the top GOP fundraisers in the state, so he may be able to raise money fast.
Stump is a longtime Arizona politician who served in the legislature until he was elected statewide to the Arizona Corporation Commission in 2008. In 2016, Stump was in the headlines after the state attorney general's office seized his phone during an investigation of former Commissioner Gary Pierce in search of evidence that Pierce had engaged in inappropriate political activity.
A watchdog group called the Checks and Balances Project also requested thousands of deleted text messages from Stump's phone, arguing the texts could show if he had illegally helped two Republicans running for the commission coordinate with independent groups. The attorney general's office didn't find those messages, and a judge ruled that, while it was possible a more thorough search could uncover them, the search had been sufficient. Pierce was later indicted, while Stump left the commission in 2017 due to term limits.
Finally, Lesko had been serving as state Senate President pro tempore, and she was in line to lead the chamber in 2019. However, Lesko resigned from the legislature to focus on her campaign.
As for Democrats, three candidates wound up filing. Physician Hiral Tipirneni ran here for months against Franks, and between July and September, she raised $92,000 from donors and self-funded another $73,000, leaving her with $123,000 on-hand.
● CA-49: Board of Equalization member Diane Harkey kicked off her bid for this competitive open San Diego-area seat with departing GOP Rep. Darrell Issa's endorsement, but Assemblyman Rocky Chavez, the only other noteworthy Republican who has entered the race so far, has former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his corner. That may not exactly be an asset for Chavez, though.
Schwarzenegger always had an uneasy relations with the rest of the California GOP, even during the best of times, and the Governator left office in 2011 widely despised by Californians across the political spectrum. In a bizarre twist, Schwarzenegger inherited The Apprentice from Donald Trump last year, and he's wound up feuding with Trump, too. Chavez probably doesn't have much to gain in the June top-two primary by being linked with such a heretical member of the GOP, but he never seemed like a strong candidate to begin with.
Issa himself may enjoy seeing a Schwarzenegger-backed candidate lose to his ally. In 2003, Issa bankrolled the recall campaign against Democratic Gov. Grey Davis, and he very much planned to challenge Davis himself. But Schwarzenegger belatedly jumped in and very quickly emerged as the frontrunner, leading Issa to tearfully announce he'd stay out of the race. He may yet get a semblance of revenge 15 years later.
● CA-50, CA-49: Whether we like it or not, we may have Darrell Issa to kick around some more. The notorious GOP congressman announced Wednesday that he wouldn't seek re-election in the 49th Congressional District, but multiple sources have told The Hill that he's been talking to colleagues about running in the 50th District just to the east. Issa only won re-election in 2016 50.3-49.7 as his seat swung from 52-46 Romney to 51-43 Clinton, but the 50th stayed red, shrinking from 60-37 Romney to 55-40 Trump. If Issa could make the switcheroo work, he could prolong his time in the House for quite a while.
At least one Republican doesn't like the sound of this plan, and he kinda matters: the guy who already represents the 50th. Rep. Duncan Hunter told The Hill, "If I was to blow up in the air, then he would be running for it. If I was to blow up, then he would run for the seat," adding, "If I blow up, yes. Why wouldn't he run for my seat if I was to blow up in the air?" That's a very … vivid image, but Hunter's career could indeed be on the verge of blowing up in the air soon. Hunter is under FBI investigation for allegedly misusing campaign money, including a $600 flight for his family's pet rabbit. Hunter maintains that he's running for re-election, but his problems don't show any signs of going away: On Wednesday, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that a federal grand jury will hear evidence this month about Hunter's case.
For their part, Issa's team is sending some mixed signals about how interested their boss is in running for the 50th in inland San Diego County. When the Union-Tribune asked Issa's spokesperson Calvin Moore about this, he replied, "Good lord you guys are persistent! Can't even take a day off from speculating what might be next for Darrell?" That's not any kind of denial, though, and Moore didn't respond to follow up inquiries. Dave Gilliard, Issa's campaign consultant, did say he didn't believe Issa was "making those calls, no … I don't think he's given any thought to any other district at this point," which isn't quite a no either. Thankfully, the filing deadline is in mid-March, so we won't have to put up with these games forever.
● FL-27: The GOP has had a very tough time finding a strong contender for this open 58-40 Clinton seat, but they may have found someone from outside the political world willing to make the jump. The Miami New Times' Jerry Iannelli reports that songwriter Angie Chirino, who has won a Latin Grammy and worked with popular singers like Jennifer Lopez, Gloria Estefan, Celia Cruz, and Marc Anthony, has filed with the FEC to run here.
Chirino's father, Cuban pop star Willy Chirino, recently said that one of his family members would kick off a bid soon, and he's teased an important announcement for Jan. 18. Interestingly, the elder Chirino and retiring GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen took a picture together days after Angie Chirino filed, which may be more than a coincidence.
● NH-02: Lynne Blankenbeker, a former state representative who recently finished a deployment with the Navy, announced on Wednesday that she was joining the GOP primary to face Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster. Blankenbeker served as a combat nurse in Iraq and Afghanistan, and her supporters have been waiting for her to run here for a while.
However, as we've written before, Blankenbeker may not be the dream candidate the GOP wants her to be. To begin with, she speculated in 2011 that Osama Bin Laden may not have actually been killed. Later that year, she sent an email to her colleagues while deployed describing how she "got to be the gunner which was fun. The .50cal is quite a gun! I was never ascared [sic] of the unions but they better not F#%k with me again!!! Just saying." In 2012, she also argued, "People with or without insurance have two affordable choices, one being abstinence and the other being condoms, both of which you can get over the counter." When she was told that condoms were not a foolproof contraception method, Blankenbeker replied that "[a]bstinence works 100 percent of the time."
Two other Republicans are challenging Kuster in this seat, which narrowed from 55-44 Obama to 49-46 Clinton: state Rep. Steve Negron and physician Stewart Levenson, who recently earned news coverage as a whistleblower regarding inadequate conditions at the Manchester Veterans Administration Medical Center. However, while this seat moved sharply towards the GOP last cycle, it may be about to move back. New Hampshire has an unusually high proportion of swing voters, and if 2018 continues to shape up as a good year for the Democrats, it's unlikely they'll want to send a Republican to D.C. Kuster is also a very strong fundraiser who has experience with tough campaigns.
● OH-01: Local Rabbi Robert Barr raised a credible $230,000 in his opening quarter against GOP Rep. Steve Chabot, but the DCCC reportedly is talking to another potential candidate about jumping in before the Feb. 7 filing deadline. The Cincinnati Enquirer's Jason Williams reports that Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval was in D.C. last week meeting with the committee, and he is considering running.
Pureval's campaign spokesperson acknowledged he was being recruited, but didn't say anything else. But Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley, who himself narrowly lost to Chabot in 2006, called Pureval "our strongest candidate" and "the right kind of moderate that I think fits the district and can help move the political center of gravity back to the middle from its right-wing trajectory in Washington."
Pureval, a former Procter & Gamble attorney, won his first campaign in 2016 by unseating Republican incumbent Tracy Winkler, whom Williams describes as "one of the biggest names in Greater Cincinnati politics," in a 52-48 upset. Williams also says that Pureval has a reputation as a "tireless campaigner and deft fundraiser," and he's been mentioned as a future candidate for county prosecutor and state attorney general. This seat, which includes most of Cincinnati and conservative Warren County to the northeast, backed Trump 51-45, and while flipping it will be a challenge, it could be doable in a wave year.
However, Pureval's residency could be an issue. Pureval was raised in the Dayton area and lives outside the district on the East Side of Cincinnati. Williams writes that voters in the West Side "generally are known to be parochial," adding that Chabot successfully attacked an opponent in 1996 for moving into the district from the East Side during the campaign.
Meanwhile, another Democrat the DCCC had been talking to may be out of the picture. In December, the New York Times reported that the committee was trying to recruit Cincinnati City Councilor P.G. Sittenfeld, and he didn't deny he was interested. However, Williams says Sittenfeld has said no since then, though there's no quote from Sittenfeld himself.
● OH-10: Longtime GOP Rep. Mike Turner has never taken less than 57 percent of the vote in this Dayton-area seat, and his district moved from a narrow 50-48 Romney to a more comfortable 51-44 Trump. However, it's always good to field credible candidates in winnable districts in case lightning strikes, even against seemingly strong incumbents. Businesswoman Theresa Gasper, a first-time candidate who says she has met with the DCCC, kicked off a bid this week. Gasper runs an outfit that has focused on restoring Dayton's South Park neighborhood, as well as an executive suite company that works with defense contractors.
● PA-09: While several GOP legislators have turned down bids for this safely red open seat, state Sen. John Eichelberger has an announcement planned Saturday, and there isn't much of a question that he'll declare he's in. State House Majority Leader Dave Reed also publicly expressed interest in this Altoona-area district for the first time, saying he'd decide "very, very quickly." Reed considered a run for governor or for Senate last year, but decided to sit them both out.
