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
● Legislatures: All cycle long, we've been tracking open seats for the U.S. House, and now Daily Kos Elections has added a new tool to our arsenal: a tracker for open seats in state legislatures around the country. This new spreadsheet offers two tabs: (1) a state-by-state summary of both open seats and, for good measure, uncontested seats; and (2) a district-by-district list of all open seats, including presidential performance in those seats.
Campaign Action
Note that we're only adding states after their filing deadlines pass, otherwise it's just too much of a moving target; so far, that's just Illinois and Texas. But some patterns are already emerging. Thirty Republicans in these two states aren't seeking re-election compared with just 12 Democrats. That proportion is similar to what we're seeing for the House, where 31 Republicans and 15 Democrats are retiring.
The uncontested seats (that is, where one major party isn't fielding a candidate) tell the same story. Republicans aren't running in fully 90 Democratic-held districts, while Democrats are leaving just 41 GOP seats unchallenged. Those big disparities between the two sides both in uncontested and open seats speaks to a serious enthusiasm gap that’s favoring Democrats. We'll be adding more data in the next couple of weeks, as filing deadlines are coming up in a bunch of states (bookmark our complete calendar), so we'll soon see just how widespread these phenomena are.
We strongly suspect, though, that we’ll be seeing lots of Republicans heading for the exits. And given the crucial role that state lawmakers play in redistricting, winning back legislatures this year is hugely important for determining who will control the House in the next decade, as well as what kinds of progressive legislation Democrats can enact at the state level. The more open GOP seats there are this November, the better Democrats will fare at both.
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.
● MT-Sen: Russ Fagg (R): $615,000 raised
● SD-Gov: Billie Sutton (D): $870,000 raised (for 2017)
● CO-06: Jason Crow (D): $277,000 raised, $590,000 cash-on-hand
● KY-06: Jim Gray (D): $340,000 raised (in one month, no self-funding), $320,000 cash-on-hand
● MA-03: Steve Kerrigan (D): $165,000 raised
● MN-01: Dan Feehan (D): $154,000 raised, $286,000 cash-on-hand
● NV-03: Michelle Mortensen (R): $81,000 raised (in two months), $78,000 cash-on-hand
● NY-21: Don Boyajian (D): $150,000 raised, $290,000 cash-on-hand
Senate
● NJ-Sen: On Friday, the Justice Department announced it would seek a new trial against Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez for corruption. Menendez is planning to seek re-election this year, and the powerful state Democratic establishment has continued to support him through thick and thin. They've given no indication that this will change. Politico's Matt Friedman takes a look at why New Jersey Democrats seem so unconcerned with having Menendez as their standard bearer, and one big reason is that they don't think he'll be convicted. In November, a judge declared a mistrial after jurors couldn't reach a verdict, but they did vote 10-to-two to acquit the senator.
Even if Menendez's fortunes change, the state Democrats have one trick up their sleeve. In October of 2002, Democratic Sen. Bob Torricelli dropped his re-election campaign in the midst of a scandal, and the state Supreme Court allowed the party to put former Sen. Frank Lautenberg on the ballot in his place. While Republicans cried foul, Lautenberg won the race 54-44. While Menendez's allies certainly hope the same thing won't need to happen, they're confident they could substitute Menendez with another nominee if it comes down to it.
Gubernatorial
● MD-Gov: Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett, who leads a suburban D.C county that is Maryland's most populous, endorsed Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker on Tuesday in the crowded June Democratic primary. The two men, who lead neighboring counties, are close, and Baker was once Leggett's student at the Howard University School of Law.
● WY-Gov: On Tuesday, a second woman accused Republican Secretary of State Ed Murray of sexual misconduct. Murray quickly responded with a statement announcing he would not run for governor or any other office this year.
Murray was one of a few Republicans mulling a bid to succeed termed-out GOP Gov. Matt Meade, and until last month, he looked like he'd be a frontrunner if he got in. But a few weeks ago, a woman named Tatiana Maxwell accused Murray of sexually assaulting her in 1982 while she was an intern at the law firm they both worked for, throwing Murray's political future into question.
On Tuesday, another woman, Theresa Sullivan Twiford, the daughter of former Democratic Gov. Mike Sullivan, told the Casper Star-Tribune that on New Year's Eve 1988, Murray forcibly kissed her after she had babysat his children. Twiford, who was 18 and whose father was in office at the time, said that Murray and his wife were family friends. She recounted that Murray "abruptly put both of his hands on either side of my face, pulled me to him and forcibly kissed me," saying the incident left her "shocked and appalled." Twiford said that as she backed away from Murray, he responded, "Everyone should have a kiss on New Year's Eve." Twiford also added that, while she does not know Maxwell, she decided to come forth because Maxwell had.
While Murray previously blasted Maxwell's account as "unequivocally false," he said of Twiford's, " I have absolutely no recollection of this incident whatsoever and, as such, will not engage in any conjecture about it in the media." Murray says that he'll finish out the remainder of his term, which ends in January.
House
● CA-04: Democrat Charlie Brown, who lost two tight races in 2006 and 2008 for previous versions of this conservative seat, said back in June that he didn't plan to run against GOP Rep. Tom McClintock again. Brown did leave the door open to changing his mind if other candidates didn't run a strong race, but he endorsed former national security strategist Jessica Morse this week. This seat, which includes some of the Sacramento suburbs, backed Trump 54-39, and it hasn't been a Democratic target since Brown's last campaign. However, both Morse and former State Department officer Regina Bateson have raised a surprisingly strong amount of money, and this contest could be once again one to watch.
● CA-39: The GOP pollster Remington Research took a look at two hypothetical general election matchups in this competitive open seat. The survey, which was reported by Anaheim Blog's Matthew Cunningham, gives former GOP Assemblymember Young Kim, who has the support of retiring Rep. Ed Royce, a 41-38 lead over Navy veteran Gil Cisneros, and a considerably larger 42-33 edge over pediatrician Mai Khanh Tran. The poll was in the field Jan. 10 and 11, days after Royce shocked the political world with his retirement announcing on Jan. 8.
It's a bit odd that Cisneros would be doing notably better than Tran, who has also never held elected office, this early in the race when neither of them has begun advertising. The generic congressional ballot also shows a 47-47 tie between a GOP candidate and a Democrat, which seems reasonable. While this seat, which is centered around Orange County, went from 51-47 Romney to 51-43 Clinton, the GOP still does well down-ballot here.
A number of other Democrats and Republicans are competing in the June top-two primary. At this point, there's no obvious frontrunner on either side. It is worth noting that Cisneros, who once won $266 million in a lottery, has been picking up some endorsements from Southern California House members, and he added Los Angeles Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard this week.
● CT-04: While Team Red is hoping that outgoing Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy's unpopularity will give them a shot at some of Connecticut's five Democratic House members, national Republicans haven't shown much obvious interest in targeting any of the Nutmeg State's seats. However, at least Democratic Rep. Jim Himes may end up facing a well-funded GOP foe. Hedge Fund partner Harry Arora reports raising $107,000 in five days from donors and self-funding an additional $500,000, giving him a $607,000 war-chest at the end of December.
Himes certainly won't be an easy target, though. While Connecticut shifted right from 58-41 Obama to 55-41 Clinton, this affluent and well-educated seat moved in the opposite direction. The 4th District, which contains the state's New York City suburbs, went from 55-44 Obama to 60-37 Clinton. Himes is also very wealthy and well-connected, so he won't need to worry about being outspent. And while Republicans made big gains in 2016's legislative races, Himes still won re-election 60-40.
● FL-06: Businessman Michael Waltz, who served as a Green Beret commander and as a foreign policy adviser for former Vice President Dick Cheney, announced on Tuesday that he would seek the GOP nomination for this open Daytona-area seat. Waltz, who has also been a Fox contributor, has ardently supported Donald Trump on the air and on Twitter, but this very much wasn't always the case.
Waltz appeared in an anti-Trump video for the Koch brother's American Future Fund during the 2016 primary and told viewers, "All Donald Trump has served is himself," and implored them, "Don't let Donald Trump fool you. Look into his record, and stop Trump now." Waltz insisted to Florida Politics that his statements were only made "during the primaries," and that as someone who was "targeted for capture by the Taliban," he felt that he had to stand up for the prisoners of war whom Trump was mocking. However, Waltz declared that he's been pro-Trump since the primaries ended.
Maybe Waltz can sell himself to voters as a born-again Trumper, but his primary foes will certainly have material to attack him with. After all, it was only a few months ago that Rep. Mo Brooks, who was running for Alabama's Senate seat, saw his standing with primary voters crash after his enemies dug up old clips of him attacking Trump. Brooks was supporting Ted Cruz at the time, but that didn't stop his opponents from arguing that Brooks had sided with Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren over Trump. Waltz will face wealthy businessman John Ward and former state Rep. Fred Costello in the late August primary for this 57-40 Trump seat.
● FL-27: There are already a ton of well-funded Democrats running to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen in this 59-39 Clinton seat, but a local heavyweight may be about to dive in. There's been intense buzz in recent weeks that former University of Miami president Donna Shalala, who served as Bill Clinton's secretary of Health and Human Services and went on to lead the Clinton Foundation, is interested. Notably, Shalala refused to comment after a poll asked about her as a potential candidate.
Shalala will turn 77 next month, which is a bit old to begin a career in Congress. But Shalala is incredibly well-connected, and if she does get in, she shouldn't need to worry about having the resources to compete in the late August primary. Still, while she was widely praised for her leadership of the University of Miami when she stepped down in 2015, she did have some controversies. Perhaps most notably, a prominent donor named Nevin Shapiro provided expensive gifts to football players before he went to jail for a $930 million Ponzi scheme. Environmentalists were also unhappy with Shalala for selling land to a developer for a Walmart rather than setting it aside for preservation.
● IN-06: There isn't much of a question that businessman Greg Pence, the older brother of Vice President Mike Pence, is the clear frontrunner in the May primary for this safely red open seat. Pence has scared off most of his potential rivals, but businessman Jonathan Lamb has remained in the race, and he's up with his first spot where he acknowledges the tough competition he's up against.
Lamb is shown running across an empty road, as he says he's been "running past his competition" since his days setting records in high school and as a hurdler at Ball State (old footage of Lamb competing is interspaced through the ad). Lamb then talks about his family and time running his businesses, before saying he's "running against the vice president's brother." Lamb tells the audience, "Some people say that's crazy, but I'm Jonathan Lamb, and I gotta run." There is no word on the size of the buy.
● OH-12: Two more Republicans have joined the race for this open 53-42 Trump seat in suburban Columbus. Tim Kane, an Air Force veteran and economist at the conservative Hoover Institution in California and a frequent cable TV presence, threw up a website announcing his bid this week. (So far, there's no sign that Marc Warner is interested.) Melanie Leneghan, a trustee in Liberty Township (pop. 26,000) also announced she was in. The primary is in May.
● PA-07: Oh, just vomit. GOP Rep. Pat Meehan, whom we learned over the weekend spent thousands in taxpayer dollars to settle a sexual harassment complaint leveled against him by a former staffer, is now trying to somehow excuse his behavior by saying he'd grown to believe the aide was his "soul mate"! Even more amazingly, he insists he's running for re-election, and he even has a fundraiser scheduled for next week.
But the House Ethics Committee—which, ironically, Meehan was a member of until Paul Ryan removed him after the harassment report surfaced—has now launched an investigation into the matter. Between this unfolding horror story, plus the fact that Meehan's ultra-gerrymandered seat in the Philadelphia suburbs is about to vanish in a puff of redistricting, his odds of serving in Congress next year are swiftly approaching zero.
And about that horror story … It's honestly a little bit hard to summarize what Meehan said in a new interview he conducted with the Philadelphia Inquirer on Tuesday, his first substantive comments since the New York Times broke the settlement story on Saturday, so we'll just reproduce a few choice bits here:
Meehan denied any harassment, and said any anger in the office was driven by stress around high-pressure votes last year over the Affordable Care Act. […]
He also said he felt "invited" to express his feelings to the younger aide, whom he had invited out for ice cream after a tele-town hall, according to texts shared by his camp. He said he hoped that by expressing his feelings the two could be aware of it and prevent it from becoming inappropriate. She had texted that she wanted to be a "touchstone" for him and that she can "bear the stress and tension."
"I started to talk to her about my reaction to (her new relationship) and you know, selfishly I was thinking about what this was going to mean to me," Meehan said, "that she was leaving and that this was going to change the dynamic which was very special in my office and also somebody that I was emotionally close to by virtue of the time that we spent together in seven years."[...]
Meehan said he told the aide "that I was a happily married man and I was not interested in a relationship, particularly not any sexual relationship, but we were soul mates. I think that the idea of a soul mate is that sort of person that out go through remarkable experiences together."
Oh yes, Obamacare made me treat my own subordinate like crap! Also, we went out for some ice cream, so that made it okay for me to dump all my inappropriate feelings on her! And I was happily married but we were soul mates! This might be the most beyond-clueless statement from a politician in the entire #MeToo era, but what’s even more stunning is that Meehan is a former district attorney and U.S. attorney, so if anyone ought to know better, it’s him. Ugh, it's just all so revolting. For the rest of the grossness, though, you're going to have to visit the Inky.
● PA-09: This week, state House Majority Leader Dave Reed announced he would seek the GOP nomination to succeed retiring Rep. Bill Shuster. This rural seat, which includes Altoona, backed Trump 70-27, and the GOP nominee should have no trouble holding it in November.
This seat may look a bit different in November than it does now, however, though there's little question it will still be safely red. On Monday, the state Supreme Court ordered the GOP-led legislature to redraw the congressional map by Feb. 15. Reed argued that it was perfectly fine for him to participate in drawing up the seat he's running for even with his powerful role in the legislature, saying there was "no added interest from the majority leader's perspective," and that "quite frankly, I think we're probably going to end up with maps drawn by the Supreme Court." Reed may be right about that last part. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf has vowed to veto any map he sees as a gerrymander, and if that were to happen, the state Supreme Court itself would draw new districts.
Reed joins state Sen. John Eichelberger and businessman Art Halvorson, who almost beat Shuster in 2016, in the GOP primary. While state Sen. Pat Stefano reportedly considered getting in, he recently endorsed Eichelberger.
● PA-18: Democrat Conor Lamb is out with his second TV ad ahead of the March 13 special election in Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District, and much like his first spot, it also emphasizes bipartisanship. This ad features an Army veteran who declares that the "constant division between Democrats and Republicans is ridiculous" and asks Lamb how he plans to "bring both sides together to get the work of the people done." Lamb, a Marine veteran himself, answers, "In the military, as you know, when you don't get the job done, you get relieved." He goes on to say, "A lot of people running for office these days are young, and a lot of them are veterans. I have no doubt that we can make some progress on these issues no matter what party they're in, because it happened all the time in the Marines."
● TX-02: On Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott endorsed GOP fundraiser Kathaleen Wall in the crowded March primary for this open Houston-area seat. This is the first time this cycle that Abbott has gotten involved in a competitive congressional primary, though he has taken sides in plenty of legislative races. However, Wall and her husband are longtime Abbott donors, and they've contributed $745,000 to his political action committee since 2010.
Abbott isn't the only high-profile figure who has taken sides here. Retired Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw, who lost an eye in Afghanistan, recently rolled out an endorsement from none other than Buzz Aldrin. State Rep. Kevin Roberts also has the support of Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, whom a source tells us hasn't ever left the Earth (and whose post would be called county executive in many other states). If no one takes a majority in March, there will be a May runoff. This seat, which includes part of Houston and some of its northern suburbs, went from 63-36 Romney to a smaller 52-43 Trump.
Ballot Measures
● FL Ballot: On Tuesday, Florida election officials certified that a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would restore the right to vote to those who have served out their sentences will appear on the ballot this November, giving Floridians a chance to reform a Jim Crow-era policy that disenfranchises 1.5 million fellow citizens. To pass and become law, the amendment must win 60 percent of the vote.
As many states did in the wake of the Civil War, Florida banned those with felony convictions from casting votes as an explicitly racist measure to prevent black citizens from voting, with one prominent supporter boasting in 1868 that the policy had "kept Florida from becoming 'niggerized.'" According to the Sentencing Project, this lifetime ban has disenfranchised one in 10 Floridians, the highest proportion of any state in the country. Because of the measure's discriminatory impact, Florida bars one in five black adults from voting, which is five times the rate of the rest of the population.
Republicans have vigorously fought efforts to loosen this restriction, and GOP Gov. Rick Scott even made felony disenfranchisement more draconian when he took office in 2011 by almost entirely ending the practice of granting clemency to restore voting rights to specific individuals. This ballot measure would sidestep the opposition of GOP elected officials, but many Republicans will undoubtedly oppose it at the ballot box for a nakedly partisan reason: Florida's currently disenfranchised population would lean disproportionately Democratic thanks to its racial and economic demographics.
Regardless of any partisan considerations, ending this voting restriction is long overdue, and no democracy should deny the right to vote to a tenth of its citizens. There are certain categories of citizens whose voting rights would not be restored by the amendment, including those in prison or on parole or probation, and those who have committed murder or sexual offenses. But it will strike a major blow against a Jim Crow policy that has prevented 1.5 million Americans from exercising one of their most sacred constitutional rights.