Leading Off
● PA-18: It's been a familiar story this cycle: Republicans, facing a special election for Congress, choose a nominee who's either underwhelming (Ron Estes), deeply flawed (Greg Gianforte), or downright unelectable (Roy Moore), jeopardizing if not dooming their chances. Now the latest source of worry for the GOP is state Rep. Rick Saccone, the party's choice in the March 13 special election in Pennsylvania's 18th District, even though Donald Trump handily carried it by a 58-39 margin.
Campaign Action
According to Politico's Elena Schneider, unnamed Republican operatives are fretting about Saccone's fundraising, but his inability to bring in the bucks was well-known long before local officials tapped him at a convention in November. As we noted at the time, Saccone had been running for Senate all year but had only amassed a pitiful $52,000 war-chest, yet Republicans selected him anyway. Either they were totally incompetent, didn't have better options, or were simply hoping Saccone's finances would pick up once he became the party's nominee, none of which exactly project strength.
Speaking to Schneider, one nameless GOP strategist went even further, saying, "There's enough out there with Saccone to make him so wacky that Republicans—particularly moderate Republicans in the suburban areas—say this isn't my cup of tea." That was a key part of the brew that sent Moore down to defeat. Is that same Darjeeling percolating now? It may just be, especially since Democrats have rallied around a strong candidate of their own, former federal prosecutor and Marine veteran Conor Lamb.
Indeed, fears about Saccone are apparently so grave that two unnamed GOP sources tell Schneider that local Republicans are trying to get state Sen. Guy Reschenthaler to run in the regularly scheduled election this fall instead. That could, however, prove extremely awkward. Reschenthaler lost the nomination to Saccone on the second ballot at November's gathering, but if he wants to try again, he'd have to file to get on the ballot by March 6—a week ahead of the special election. What's more, Reschenthaler would have to start circulating petitions well in advance of that date, so the specter of a replacement candidate would hover over the race for weeks.
Reschenthaler himself isn't commenting, and perhaps this is part of an effort to lower expectations for Saccone. If so, though, Republicans are doing an A-plus job poormouthing their D-plus candidate.
Senate
● MN-Sen-B: We're long past the point of rooting for bonkers GOP candidates to run for office, but Michele Bachmann, well … we can't imagine Republican recruiters are exactly rooting for her to run, either. Last week, though, Bachmann told huckster televangelist Jim Bakker that she's talking to God about whether she should run in the special election for the final two years of Al Franken's term this fall. Bachmann last ran for office in 2012 when she made a failed bid for the presidency, which she describes as "wildly successful" because she "moved the debate." She then scraped by with a 1-point re-election win that fall, then chose to retire rather than face another difficult race in 2014. Ever since, she's largely confined herself to saying crazy things on TV and radio, so odds are she's just trying to snag a few headlines, but who knows? We certainly aren't privy to her conversations.
● ND-Sen: GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer has waited and waited and waited to decide whether he'll run against Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, and now he plans to wait some more. In his latest pronouncement, Cramer says he'll make up his mind either this month or next, but he really seems keen on talking himself out of it. In a new interview, Cramer noted, "I have a lot to lose on behalf of North Dakota, because I hold the only house seat" and added that he'd move up in seniority on the House Energy Committee because of various retirements.
However, the same piece also says that "[i]nternal Republican polls have shown Heitkamp down in a Cramer matchup"—something we're only hearing now for the first time, though Cramer still isn't releasing any data despite bragging about it. Meanwhile, a separate report from the local blog Say Anything says that Cramer was to meet with Donald Trump on Tuesday and is "likely to run," according to unnamed sources. If Cramer does go for it, he'd still have to face off against wealthy state Sen. Tom Campbell, who's reportedly spent $500,000 on TV ads already and has said he won't defer to the congressman.
● TX-Sen: GOP Sen. Ted Cruz has released a mid-December poll from WPA Intelligence showing him with a large 52-34 lead on his likely Democratic opponent, Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke. Cruz's advantage is unsurprising: He's the incumbent, Texas remains a red state, and O'Rourke is still little-known, with just a 14-7 favorability score (Cruz is at 50-42). It's not clear why Cruz would feel the need to put out such a poll, though, since there haven't been many signs yet that he'd have reason to want to calm anxious supporters.
● UT-Sen: After a year of jerking us all around, Utah Republican Orrin Hatch, the writer of the 2009 hit song Eight Days of Hanukkah and the Senate's longest-serving Republican member, finally announced on Tuesday that he would retire after all. Hatch was first elected in 1976 when he unseated Democratic incumbent Frank Moss 56-43; during that campaign, Hatch ran an ad attacking the three-term Moss in which he looked at the camera and declared, "Senator Moss, 18 years is enough." Hatch decided in 1994 that 18 years wasn't remotely enough, though he did try to leave the Senate in 2000 by running for president in a forgettable campaign. Hatch took last place in the Iowa caucus and endorsed George W. Bush the next day, and he proceeded to get re-elected three more times.
Utah is a very red state, and the GOP should be able to keep this seat without much trouble, but we might yet witness some primary hijinks. For the last year, it's been an open secret that Mitt Romney was very interested in running to succeed Hatch, though he still hasn't said anything publicly yet. The former Massachusetts governor relocated to Utah, where he is extremely popular with the heavily Mormon electorate, years ago, and he'd reportedly been quite frustrated with Hatch's indecision throughout 2017.
Politico recently reported that Donald Trump himself is not a fan of swapping out Hatch for Romney and had even encouraged the senator to stay. While Romney has been a vocal Trump critic (except for that time he took a break to audition to be Trump's secretary of state), Hatch has turned into a boot-licking ally of the White House. If Romney does run, it will be hard to stop him from winning the GOP nomination, though Trump and his allies may try to find someone to take him on anyway.
Utah hasn't elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1996, when Jan Graham was re-elected attorney general 52-46, and that streak is unlikely to break this year. Still, Team Blue does have an interesting candidate in Jenny Wilson, a member of the Salt Lake County Council. Wilson will need everything to go right to have a shot, though as we just saw in Alabama, it's always good to field a viable candidate in case the unbelievable happens. And if Romney runs and Trump tries to exact his vengeance, we could see some fireworks.
Gubernatorial
● AK-Gov: Back in September, state Sen. Mike Dunleavy suspended his bid for the GOP nod after disclosing health issues with his heart, but he announced before Christmas that he was getting back in the race now that he has been successfully treated. Dunleavy, who represents Sarah Palin's old stomping grounds in Wasilla, has been an ardent conservative throughout his time in the legislature, and last year, he bolted from the GOP caucus because he felt that their proposed budget cuts didn't go far enough.
A few other Republicans are eyeing bids against Gov. Bill Walker, a former Republican who was elected as an independent in 2014 with Democratic support. Former state Senate President Charlie Huggins announced he was running around the same time that Dunleavy temporarily suspended his campaign. The two are close, but Dunleavy said in December that he expected Huggins would stay in the race. Wealthy businessman Scott Hawkins, who has financed primary bids against moderate Republicans, is also in. State Rep. Mike Chenault, a former speaker, filed to run in September, but his wife said at the time he was still deciding what office to seek. Months later, that question has not been answered.
A number of other Republicans have also made noises about jumping in, and they have plenty of time to decide before the June 1 filing deadline. It remains to be seen if Democrats will consolidate behind Walker again or if he'll have Democratic opposition in the general election, though several labor leaders are backing the governor.
● AR-Gov: Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson appears to be in a solid position to win a second term this year in what has become a very red state, but he'll first have to fend off a primary challenge from Fox News contributor Jan Morgan, who jumped into the race on Sunday. Morgan attained national notoriety in 2014 when she declared that a shooting rage she owns would be a "Muslim Free Zone," so there should be little doubt that she'll be trying to run against the staunchly conservative Hutchinson from the right.
Hutchinson hasn't done anything obvious to anger the GOP primary base, but Morgan's apparent line of attack is that the incumbent isn't extreme enough when it comes to the Second Amendment. However, it's unclear if the first-time candidate will be able to galvanize gun zealots behind her campaign, let alone convince a majority of primary voters they should ditch the incumbent after just a single term.
● CO-Gov: Colorado candidates from both parties have two risky options to get on the June primary ballot: Contenders either need to take at least 30 percent of the vote at their April party assembly (also known as a party convention) to advance, or they need to collect 1,500 valid signatures from each of the state's seven congressional districts. On the Democratic side, Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne said last month that she would go with the petition route, and businessman Noel Ginsburg recently told Colorado Politics he would do the same thing. However, ex-state Treasurer Cary Kennedy says she'll take her chances at the assembly. Rep. Jared Polis and ex-state Sen. Mike Johnston have not yet said what they'll do. For Republicans, ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo says he'll go through the convention, while the rest of the field has yet to declare their intentions.
As we've written before, both options have pitfalls. Candidates who go through the convention can lose it all if one of their rivals wows the delegates with a great speech. However, it's very tough and expensive to collect 1,500 signatures per congressional district. Democrats often have a hard time finding voters in heavily Republican rural districts where dense urban clusters of Democratic voters are few in number, while Republican campaigns may end up fighting over Denver's small GOP base. And to make things even more complicated, a voter can only sign one petition for each race: If a voter signs petitions for multiple contenders, it only counts in favor of the first candidate to turn in their signatures. And here's the kicker: Petitions are due weeks before the party assemblies, so candidates need to decide well in advance of the convention which course they'll take.
● CT-Gov: Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim finally made things official in his campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor. Ganim had been fundraising since last spring, but had long kept his campaign in the exploratory mode as many Connecticut candidates do thanks to the quirks of state campaign finance law. However, a federal judge upheld a law in November that bans Ganim from participating in public campaign financing due to his past felony convictions for corruption. Despite that, the mayor actually raised the most of any Democrat during the third quarter of 2017, but his $88,000 in the bank as of Oct. 1 won't go very far once his opponents qualify for public funding.
Connecticut Democrats have to hope that Ganim will subsequently struggle to raise funds, since nominating someone who served time in prison from 2003 to 2010 for corruption would be a major gift to Republican chances in November. Middletown Mayor Dan Drew is the only other Democrat who has already become an official candidate, but several others are still in the exploratory phase: Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, former state Consumer Protection commissioner Jonathan Harris, former state party vice chair Dita Bhargava, and former Commissioner of the Department of Veterans Affairs Sean Connolly. With such a crowded primary field and no obvious front-runner, Ganim's chance of prevailing with a modest plurality can't be ignored.
● FL-Gov: Days before Christmas, Rep. Ron DeSantis' undeclared campaign for the GOP nomination picked up an endorsement from Donald Trump himself. Trump tweeted, "Congressman Ron DeSantis is a brilliant young leader, Yale and then Harvard Law, who would make a GREAT Governor of Florida. He loves our Country and is a true FIGHTER," and this time, he didn't botch the name of the guy he was supporting. DeSantis has not yet announced if he will run to succeed termed-out GOP Gov. Rick Scott, but his allied PAC has been raising a serious amount of cash for months ahead of his likely bid.
If DeSantis makes it through the primary, it's very possible that Trump's support will be a liability with general election voters. However, at least in the short term, he seems to be benefiting from it quite a bit. Notably, a number of influential billionaires, including Sheldon Adelson, Foster Friess, and Rebekah Mercer, were listed as members of the congressman's "finance leadership team" days after the Trump tweet went out.
There's still a serious primary for DeSantis to worry about, though. State Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam has been raising money for his own bid for years, and he maintains a huge cash-on-hand edge over all his rivals in both parties. However, DeSantis may have the connections to change that. While DeSantis may already be benefiting from Trump's support, an unnamed Florida-based Republican fundraiser tells Politico that DeSantis has been able to earn major donors' trust as sort of a "billionaire whisperer." DeSantis, a former Navy JAG officer and conservative author, was a minor celebrity in right-wing media before he was first elected to the House in 2012, and he's maintained his knack for getting on Fox News since then.
The same source explains that DeSantis' frequent TV appearances have helped him reach out to major donors because, "They see him consistently boosting Trump on Fox. So here they have a prominent national congressman who speaks their language, pushes their issue and defends their president." Unsurprisingly, Trump endorsed DeSantis just after he saw a clip of the congressman on Fox defending him, though Trump reportedly promised to back DeSantis earlier in December while the two were aboard Air Force One. (An amusing side note: The two were on their way to Pensacola, where Trump hoped that his campaign-style rally would help Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore win just across the border. Someone certainly benefited from that Pensacola rally, but it wasn't Roy Moore.)
We haven't seen many polls of the GOP primary, but a new survey from Remington Research Group taken a week after Trump made his endorsement gives DeSantis a lead. The survey, which Politico says was not conducted for any candidate or committee "directly aligned with the governor's race," gives DeSantis a 28-25 lead over Putnam. State House Speaker Richard Corcoran, who has also been raising money for a likely bid for governor, barely registers at just 3 percent of the vote.
Corcoran said that he'll decide whether to run for governor after the legislative session ends in March, and he said back in May that he'd either run for governor or for nothing at all in 2018. However, Politico writes that Trump's support for DeSantis has "increased speculation" that Corcoran could run for attorney general instead.
Meanwhile, there's one other Republican whom Remington did not test, yet who is still nominally running for governor. Jack Latvala resigned from the state Senate last month in the face of multiple sexual harassment allegations and a possible corruption investigation, but he didn't say if he was ending his bid for governor. Latvala said on Thursday that, "If I drop out of the governor's race, the donors who gave to the campaign will get a prorated portion of the money back" (emphasis ours). Plenty of donors are understandably asking for their money to be returned or sent to charity.
● MA-Gov: While Barnstable County Commissioner Ron Beaty had considered a primary bid against GOP Gov. Charlie Baker over the fall, he's instead decided to launch a primary campaign against his longtime nemesis, state Rep. Randy Hunt.
● NM-Gov: Former Univision executive Jeff Apodaca is out with his latest ad in the Democratic primary for governor. The minute-long spot introduces Apodaca to voters as someone who has learned you can never give up if you want to effect change, while it also notes that he's the son of former Gov. Jerry Apodaca, who served in the 1970s. The spot details how the younger Apodaca beat cancer as a teenager and now raises charitable contributions for cancer patients. The ad highlights his success in the business world and argues he knows what it takes to improve the state's economy. Apodaca proposes taking money from the state's rainy-day fund and investing it in health care, education, and generating new jobs.
● NY-Gov: Republicans weren't ever really going to have a shot at beating Andrew Cuomo this fall, but they at least want to be able to pin him down, force him to spend money, and perhaps above all, give their voters a reason to come to the polls lest their candidates further downballot take an utter beating. But the GOP's best hope for avoiding such a fate just went up in smoke, as wealthy former hedge fund manager Harry Wilson, who at one point reportedly suggested he might be willing to self-fund as much as $10 million, says he won't challenge Cuomo after all.
The other options for Republicans are … a lot less good. State Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb is the lone candidate in the race so far, but he has little money and has already complained that his own party might try to "rig" the race. But former Erie County Executive Joel Giambra, who's still considering a campaign, is going Kolb one better: He now says that if he's not the GOP choice, he might wage an independent bid instead. (In the same interview, he also managed to compare himself to both Nelson Rockefeller—been a long time since we've seen any Republican do that—and Donald Trump at the same time. That's impressive.)
Republican leaders are trying hard to avoid a primary (which wouldn't take place until September), and they're meeting with potential candidates in Albany on Monday to discuss the race. Whether that will help matters or simply agitate the likes of Giambra or Kolb (who says he won't rule out a primary run no matter what the party decides) remains to be seen. One potential candidate is acting like a team player, though: Dutchess County Executive Marcus Molinaro, who has filed paperwork for a run but hasn't formally kicked off a bid, says he'll make up his mind before Monday's gathering and says, "[I]f I'm not the right person, then I accept that."
Two other Republican names are also in the mix as possible contenders, little-known state Sen. John DeFrancisco and rich guy Carl Paladino, the "Donald Trump of Upstate New York" who got smashed by Cuomo 62-33 in 2010. It sounds like the state GOP would like to expand their search, though, with one official saying, "[I]t's also incumbent on party leaders and others to look outside the declared candidates to see who gives us the best chance to win." The problem is, that might be no one at all.
● OR-Gov: Campaign finance reports for 2017 are now available in Oregon's election for governor. Democratic incumbent Kate Brown raised $2.8 million last year and started January with $2.6 million in cash-on-hand. Republican state Rep. Knute Buehler also raised a solid $2.2 million in 2017, but finished the year with just $1.6 million on-hand. However, a whopping $500,000 of Buehler's haul came from a single donor, Nike co-founder Phil Knight. With no contribution limits in state-level contests, this race could quickly become more expensive than either of the 2010 and 2014 elections.
● RI-Gov: What do you do to celebrate the one-year anniversary of a major story detailing your many financial problems, problems that very much have not gone away? If you happen to be businessman Giovanni Feroce, you announce you're running for governor of Rhode Island.
Feroce, the CEO of the military-style watchmaking company BENRUS, has been talking about joining the GOP primary to take on Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo since December of 2016, and a few years ago, he may have been quite an interesting candidate. As the Providence Journal's Amanda Milkovits wrote a year ago, Feroce bought BENRUS in 2014 pledging to turn it into a global billion-dollar company; he also "launched a semipro basketball team, took over a local advertorial magazine, started an investment firm, bankrolled local musicians, invested in a Florida nightclub, sponsored a golf tournament and was featured in a pitch for a business-reality TV show, calling himself 'The Fixer.'"
However, things aren't looking too good for Feroce these days. Milkovits' article, coincidently published exactly one year before Feroce announced he was running for governor, detailed how badly Feroce's former empire was doing at the start of 2017, and things haven't gotten much better for "The Fixer" since then. Last month, a judge issued an injunction preventing Feroce from running the debt-ridden company formerly known as BENRUS, while other Feroce ventures have folded, and a bank foreclosed on his mansion.
But Feroce sounded completely delusional throughout Milkovits' entire piece last year. Notably, when she asked him about his trouble with his mansion and companies, he replied, "Who cares? I'm a risk taker." Feroce comes across as either the world's worst Monopoly player or as a would-be Donald Trump, so maybe it's not a surprise that he thinks he can win the GOP nomination. Feroce will face state House Minority Leader Patricia Morgan and Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, who lost to Raimondo 41-36 in 2014, in the primary.
House
● AR-02: National Democrats reportedly are trying to recruit state Rep. Clarke Tucker to challenge GOP Rep. French Hill in this central Arkansas seat. Arkansas Online columnist John Brummett writes that Tucker recently saw the results from a poll (reportedly commissioned by the DCCC) and went from "pondering a race for Congress" to "telling people he was strongly considering that run" and will decide early this year. The filing deadline is March 1.
A few other Democrats have been running for this 52-42 Trump seat, but we had little information about any of them until now. However, Paul Spencer, whom Brummett describes as a high school teacher "who has distinguished himself in recent years pushing for ethics reform initiatives," says he'll report raising $150,000 for the fourth quarter of 2017 and ending December with $125,000. He'll need a whole lot more to run a tough race against Hill, a wealthy former banker, but it's a solid total for a candidate who has attracted little national attention before now.
● AZ-08: While GOP state Sen. Kimberly Yee expressed interest in running in the upcoming special election to succeed disgraced ex-Rep. Trent Franks, she announced at the end of December she'd continue her bid for state treasurer. The filing deadline is Jan. 10, so we'll know where things stand soon ahead of the Feb. 27 primary for this 58-37 Trump seat.
● FL-06: While GOP Rep. Ron DeSantis has yet to announce he's running for governor (see our FL-Gov item above), other local Republicans are already gearing up to run for this conservative coastal seat. This week, ex-state Rep. Fred Costello announced he was in.
Costello ran for what was an open seat in 2012 and lost the primary to DeSantis 39-23. In 2015, DeSantis announced he was leaving the House to run to succeed presidential candidate Marco Rubio in the Senate, and Costello was one of several Republicans who entered the primary for what was once again an open seat. But in June of 2016, Rubio announced he would seek re-election after all, leading DeSantis to drop out of the Senate race and seek re-election instead. Costello was the only major Republican who decided to stay in the race for the 6th District after DeSantis parachuted back in, but he lost their primary rematch 61-25.
However, Costello's stinging loss last cycle doesn't seem to have made him a pariah in local GOP circles. Florida Politics reports that Costello's third campaign will have the support of several local office holders including Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood and state Rep. David Santiago, who ran against Costello in 2016 when it was an open seat but deferred to DeSantis.
Costello won't have the primary to himself, though. Back in October, businessman and Navy veteran John Ward announced he would seek the GOP nomination, and he pledged at the time that he'd have $1 million in the bank by the start of January. Campaign finance reports are due Jan. 31, so we'll know soon enough if he was telling the truth. The filing deadline is in early May, so other prospective Republicans have a while to decide what to do. This seat, which is dominated by Volusia County, went hard to the right in 2016, moving from 52-47 Romney to 57-40 Trump. However, Clinton-era Deputy National Security Advisor Nancy Soderberg has raised a credible amount of money so far.
● FL-12: This seat, which includes Tampa and St. Petersburg's northern suburbs, went from an already tough 53.0-45.5 Romney to a nasty 57-39 Trump, and it would take a lot to give GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis a serious challenge. However, Democrats got a noteworthy candidate on Tuesday when Chris Hunter, a former FBI agent and federal prosecutor, announced he was in. Hunter worked in counterterrorism and counterintelligence while at the FBI, and he focused on health care fraud at the Department of Justice. If Hunter has the resources to get his name out, he could be an interesting contender in a tough district.
● FL-27: Republicans have not had an easy time trying to find a strong candidate to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and the Miami Herald's Alex Daugherty writes that they're becoming very pessimistic they ever will. This Miami-area seat went from 53-46 Obama all the way to 59-39 Clinton, and while the GOP has a large bench in the area, they best candidate they've managed to find so far is Miami-Dade County Commissioner Bruno Barreiro. However, Barreiro's fundraising hasn't been strong at all, while the Democrats have been hauling in the big bucks. Privately, Republican members of Congress, staffers, and fundraisers all told Daugherty the seat isn't winnable.
Still, at least one Republican hasn't given up the dream of keeping it red. Ros-Lehtinen reportedly has tried to recruit Spanish-language TV journalist Maria Elvira Salazar. Salazar told the Herald, "It's an honor that over the years both parties have approached me to consider running for office. My plans are to continue being a TV journalist—until God and the audience give me that opportunity," which isn't a no at all.
● IN-08: This southern Indiana seat was once so infamous for ousting incumbents from both parties that for decades, it was known as "The Bloody 8th." (Nicknames for congressional districts are kind of uncreative.) However, while the last round or redistricting largely left the seat intact, this area has become considerably more Republican up and down the ballot in recent years, and Republican Rep. Larry Bucshon won his last two terms without serious opposition. However, local Democrats are still hoping they can finally land one well-known candidate for a seat that shifted from 58-40 Romney to 65-31 Trump.
For years, Democrats have pined for former Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel to run, and the Courier & Press's Thomas Langhorne writes that the "question on everyone's lips" is whether this will be his year. Weinzapfel, who currently serves as the chancellor of the local Ivy Tech Community College campus, declined to respond to the story, so at least he doesn't seem to be rejecting the idea out of hand. Langhorne also writes that Democrats who know him relay "he is well aware opinion polls show the potential for a strong Democratic showing in next year's congressional elections," and adds that Weinzapfel was active at local events throughout the last year. The filing deadline is Feb. 9.
● MA-03: Over the holidays, retired Navy pilot Scott Gunderson dropped his bid for the GOP nomination for this open Merrimack Valley seat and endorsed wealthy businessman Rick Green. Clinton won this seat 58-35, and it's very much a reach target for Team Red.
● MI-13: Local ABC affiliate WXYZ mentions retired local judge Greg Mathis as the latest Democrat who could end up running to replace former Rep. John Conyers in this dark-blue Detroit-based district. Mathis has hosted the syndicated "Judge Mathis" reality-TV show for 19 seasons after stepping down from the bench, meaning he should start off with some significant name recognition in a crowded field if he runs. However, Mathis has yet to say anything publicly about whether or not he is even interested in a campaign.
● MT-AL: After three months on the campaign trail, state Rep. Tom Woods dropped his bid for the Democratic nomination to take on freshman GOP Rep. Greg Gianforte. Woods said before he got in that he wasn't happy that he'd been advised that he'd need to raise $3 million to run, and he said on his way out the door that the high costs of running were so bad that "if I were to continue any longer, I would have to go into debt." (Weirdly, Woods also said he would probably run for the state House again "despite the fact it's a terrible job.") Several other Democrats are running against Gianforte, who physically assaulted Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs on the eve of the May special election and then lied to police about it.
● NH-01: Carroll County Commissioner Mark Hounsell, who is also a former state senator, said on Friday that he's launching an "exploratory initiative" (which for some reason he insists is not an "exploratory committee") for New Hampshire's open 1st Congressional District, saying the race "needs a voice from the northern wilderness." Two other Republicans are already running for this swingy seat, former state Liquor Commission official Eddie Edwards and state Sen. Andy Sanborn, while Democrats are fielding half a dozen candidates, the most prominent of whom is Executive Councilor Chris Pappas.
● NJ-02: Former Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian, who lost re-election in November by a 58-39 margin, has accepted a new job in the government of the township of Toms River and will not run for New Jersey's open 2nd Congressional District as a result. Guardian says he'd met with the NRCC, but it's not clear whether recruiters had taken a shine to him—or any other potential names. In fact, the GOP has yet to land a single candidate since Rep. Frank LoBiondo announced his retirement on the same day Guardian lost. Democrats, meanwhile, appear to have coalesced around state Sen. Jeff Van Drew.
● NJ-07: Just before the new year rang in, longtime environmental activist David Pringle kicked off his bid for New Jersey's 7th Congressional District, joining a crowded field of Democrats hoping to take on GOP Rep. Leonard Lance. Pringle is an official at an organization called Clean Water Action, which is known locally as the New Jersey Environmental Federation and controversially endorsed Republican Chris Christie for governor in 2009. At the time, Pringle declared, "There is no contest: The strongest environmental agenda laid out in this campaign by far is by Chris Christie," but his group unsurprisingly came to regret the move. So far, no candidates have yet to stand out here, but fourth quarter fundraising reports (which aren't due until Jan. 31) should hopefully shed some light.
● NV-04: Freshman Democratic Rep. Ruben Kihuen announced he would retire in mid-December after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment, but it's not clear who will run to succeed him in this light blue seat. Democratic Rep. Dina Titus, who represents a neighboring seat in the Las Vegas area, said just before Christmas that University of Nevada Regent Allison Stephens was interested, though Stephens has yet to say anything herself.
Titus herself also seems to have a very strong preference for who should run here. Titus spoke very well of North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, who lost a 2012 primary as an incumbent state senator over his conservative voting record. That record doesn't bother Titus, though, who said she works well with Lee and "[h]e fits the demographics of that district. The Democrats are a big party. You don't all have to be liberal." Lee has expressed interest in running and so has state Sen. Pat Spearman, the woman who ousted him six years ago.
Ex-Rep. Steven Horsford, who narrowly lost this seat after one term in the 2014 GOP wave, has also talked about a comeback, and the Nevada Independent's Jon Ralston believes that potential Democratic candidates will defer to Horsford if he decides to get in. However, Titus seems to be doing her part to make sure her former colleague stays retired. Horsford "should not have lost that district," said Titus. "And then he stayed back here in Washington and went to work as a lobbyist. You can kind of see the ads writing themselves." This seat, which includes Las Vegas' northern suburbs, went from 54-44 Obama to 50-45 Clinton.
● NY-02: Just before Christmas, wealthy businessman Tim Gomes abandoned his bid against GOP Rep. Peter King, despite having loaned his own campaign $1 million just a few months earlier. That cash was just about the only thing Gomes had going for him: Over the years, Gomes had switched his party affiliation between Democrat and Republican on at least three separate occasions, with the most recent flip only coming after Trump's election, so local Democrats had plenty of reason to be wary of him.
The party does have one other candidate currently running here, though, in business consultant and activist Liuba Grechen Shirley, who founded a new progressive group called New York's 2nd District Democrats last year. Grechen Shirley joined the race in October and says she'll report raising over $100,000 from 1,500 donors in the quarter that just ended on Dec. 31. This is a very expensive district, however, that's located entirely within the New York City media market, and King is very well-funded (he has $2.7 million in the bank), so any challenger here will need plenty of scratch.
And one more may yet join the race. Suffolk County Legislator DuWayne Gregory, who lost to King 62-38 last year, says he's thinking about a rematch but remains "torn." Gregory says he'll decide this month, and if he does get in, he'd have the support of Suffolk County Democratic Party chair Rich Schaffer.
● NY-21: Greenwich Town Supervisor Sara Idleman recently announced she would run against Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, becoming the latest Democrat to join the race for New York's northernmost congressional district. Idleman's town is home to just shy of 5,000 residents, so she'd start off with very little name recognition. However, the Democratic field here lacks a clear front-runner, and Idleman will face off against businesswoman Tedra Cobb and attorney Dan Boyajian for the nomination, among others. This district lurched from 52-46 Obama to 54-40 Trump, and Stefanik will be a tough incumbent for Democrats to dislodge.
● NY-24: Local Democrats are once again waiting to see if Stephanie Miner, whose term as mayor of Syracuse ended this week, will challenge GOP Rep. John Katko, and they're hoping to move the process along. Onondaga County Democratic Committee Chairman Mark English, whose county makes up two-thirds of this seat (and even more of its Democratic voters), announced late last month that his local party organization had set a Feb. 1 deadline for candidates to declare, and they would endorse a candidate at the end of the month. English says he's hoping that, by picking a candidate, Democrats can avoid an expensive primary in June and concentrate on ousting Katko.
The actual filing deadline isn't until the end of April, so no one is bound by English's Feb. 1 date, but we may see serious candidates decide to jump in in order to apply for the Onondaga Democrats' endorsement. However, it's not clear who will run if Miner stays out. This seat went from 57-41 Obama to 49-45 Clinton, and Katko won a second term 60-39 last cycle against a touted Democratic opponent.
● OH-01: Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune, who back in May refused to rule out a bid for Congress, now says he won't challenge GOP Rep. Steve Chabot this fall. However, in the same Cincinnati Enquirer piece, Tim Burke, the chair of the Hamilton County Democratic Party, drops the name of a new potential candidate, Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval. In 2016, Pureval unseated a Republican incumbent in an upset, and a recent article in the Cincinnati Business Courier described him as a "rising star" who is "eyeing higher office." However, Pureval has yet to publicly say anything about the race. Already running is rabbi Robert Barr, while two other notable Democrats, state Rep. Alicia Reece and Cincinnati City Councilor P.G. Sittenfeld, are also potential candidates.
● PA-01: Longtime Rep. Bob Brady is in for a tough May primary in this safely blue Philadelphia district, especially now that the FBI is investigating his role in a scheme to get a 2012 opponent to drop out under suspicious circumstances. So far, the only notable Democrat who has entered the race is former Philadelphia Deputy Mayor Nina Ahmad, who told the local station WHYY last month that she'd put $600,000 of her own money into a bid. However, the congressman's chances would very likely improve if multiple well-funded candidates got in and split the anti-Brady vote, and that's just what may happen.
Former investment manager Lindy Li has been talking about running for a seat in the Philadelphia area this year, and she said last month that she was "extremely likely" to get in here. Last cycle, Li initially ran in the suburban 7th District against GOP Rep. Pat Meehan, but she later switched to the neighboring 6th District. Li, however, failed to make the ballot after her primary foe successfully challenged her petition signatures. Still, she raised $600,000 for her bids and had $181,000 in leftover cash she could use against Brady, and she seems well-connected enough to raise more.
● OR-04: Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio has never won re-election by less than double digits during his three-decade congressional career, but Oregon's 4th District has almost always been very swingy on the presidential level, and by all rights the GOP should be able to throw a scare into him. Indeed, last cycle, DeFazio's victory was one of his tightest ever, though at 56-40, it still wasn't all that tight. However, that came against the comically underfunded (and just downright comical) Art Robinson, a perennial candidate running his fourth race against the incumbent.
With someone better, DeFazio could find himself on defense, especially since the 4th, which covers Oregon's southwestern coast and is home to a large population of working-class white voters, shrank from a 52-45 win for Barack Obama in 2012 to just a 46.1-to-46.0 squeaker for Hillary Clinton in 2016. (In fact, that 554-vote margin made this the most closely divided congressional district in the country.) And this year, the GOP might get someone who's at least won office before: Curry County Commissioner Court Boice, who says he's considering a bid and will decide "in the next few weeks."
Boice, though, acknowledges his odds are still long, even going so far as to say that a victory would be a "miracle." DeFazio is a capable fundraiser, and the overall political environment makes a challenge particularly unlikely to succeed this time out. Still, there's no reason to get cocky, and at the very least, Democrats need to be on the watch for the day that DeFazio, who is now 70, decides to retire.
● PA-09: While longtime GOP Rep. Bill Shuster said back in November that he would seek re-election, he announced Tuesday that he'd retire this year after all. Pennsylvania's filing deadline for the May primary is March 6, so prospective candidates don't have a ton of time decide what to do. The 9th District, which includes Altoona and nearby rural areas in the southern part of the state, backed Trump 70-27, and it should be safe for the GOP.
Shuster was first elected in a 2001 special election to succeed his father Bud Shuster, who had resigned under an ethical cloud earlier that year after representing this rural district since 1973. The younger Shuster pulled off a modest 52-44 win in that race, but he never faced serious Democratic opposition afterwards. However, GOP primaries have long been another matter. In 2004, Shuster only beat back businessman Michael DelGrosso 51-49; during that campaign, a Shuster aide said he was hired to spy on DelGrosso.
Shuster had little to worry about for the next decade, and in 2013, he got his father's old gig as chair of the House Transportation Committee. However, that post may have done Shuster's career much more harm than good. Both Shusters were good at securing highway money for a rural seat where warehousing and long-haul trucking are a major part of the local economy, but in the tea party era, GOP primary voters no longer saw that as something to be proud of. Shuster turned back an underfunded primary challenge from businessman Art Halvorson by a soft 53-35 margin in 2014, with another candidate taking the remaining vote.
Things got worse for Shuster the next year after it was reported that he had helped pass a bill favorable to the airline industry while dating an airline lobbyist. Despite the charge, GOP leadership didn't much care, and they spent heavily for him in his 2016 primary rematch with Halvorson. But while Halvorson once again was badly outspent, he only lost to Shuster 50.6-49.4, a margin of 1,227 votes. Halvorson did win the Democratic nomination that same day through an unsolicited write-in campaign, and he decided to run as Team Blue's candidate while saying he'd caucus with the GOP if he won. Shuster defeated him once again 63-37, running well behind Trump's 70-27 margin.
Halvorson had been talking about launching a third campaign against Shuster, who responded by releasing a poll just before Christmas showing him crushing Halvorson 58-17, so it looks like he very much planned to run again until recently. However, term limits would have forced Shuster out as chair of the Transportation Committee after this year, and he may have decided that another primary campaign wasn't worth the trouble.
And indeed, Halvorson quickly announced on Tuesday he would in fact run again. Despite his very close primary loss last cycle, Halvorson has never seemed like a strong candidate, and he won a place in the Daily Kos Elections Hall of Fame when he justified his weak 2014 fundraising totals by declaring, "We are out door-to-door and we are touching people and voters, and we are buying love with touches and Mr. Shuster's big money doesn't buy love."
If Halvorson had ended the 2016 cycle after the primary, he could have redeemed his reputation. However, Halvorson was charged with a misdemeanor during his general election bid for allegedly grabbing a Shuster campaign worker's wrist, an incident that Halvorson denies ever happened. After the election, Halvorson was found guilty of harassment and fined $25 (no, we didn't leave out a zero). Halvorson may benefit from name recognition after his last three tries, though he might have more to lose now that he doesn't get to just be the anti-Shuster candidate.
Meanwhile, state Sen. John Eichelberger also told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette he was interested in seeking the GOP nod and said he'd decide "in the next couple weeks." GOP operatives also mentioned state House Majority Leader Dave Reed as a possible candidate to Roll Call.
● TX-06: Former Tarrant County Tax Assessor-Collector Ron Wright looks like he has the inside track to win the GOP primary for this open 55-42 Trump seat in the Arlington area, but being the establishment favorite isn't exactly a great asset in GOP primaries these days; the fact that Wright used to work for retiring Rep. Joe Barton, who is leaving after a sexting scandal, may also not help things. Wright's main foe in the March contest is Jake Ellzey, a veteran who serves on the Texas Veterans Commission, and Ellzey received an endorsement on Tuesday from Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. That may not mean much, though: During his last year as governor, Perry endorsed Ellzey's bid for a state House seat, but Ellzey took third place in that primary with just 16 percent of the vote.
● VA-02: On New Year's Day, Navy veteran Elaine Luria, who was touted as a potential recruit in late November by Virginia Rep. Donald McEachin, filed paperwork to create a campaign committee with the FEC. If Luria does run, she'd be vying to take on freshman GOP Rep. Scott Taylor in a seat in the Virginia Beach area that Trump carried 49-45. Also seeking the Democratic nod is retired construction company owner Garry Hubbard, who is also a Navy veteran, as is Taylor (there are multiple military bases in and around Virginia Beach).
Legislative
● VA State House: The election in Virginia House District 94 still isn't over. The outcome of this contest will determine (notwithstanding a federal lawsuit in House District 28, where at least 147 voters received incorrect ballots in a race the Republican won by just 73 votes) whether Republicans have a slim but real 51-49 majority in the House of Delegates when it convenes on Jan. 10, or if they'll be forced to share power with Democrats in a chamber tied at 50 seats apiece.
The short update is that, unless the three-judge panel overseeing the recount takes action before then, the Virginia State Board of Elections has rescheduled the drawing of lots (from a 19th-century pitcher) that will determine the winner of HD-94 for 11 AM ET on Thursday. But quite a lot has happened since our last writing on this subject, so click here for Carolyn Fiddler's complete run-down of all the goings-on in this must-follow race.
