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
● WI-Sen: Businessman and veteran Kevin Nicholson, who is seeking the GOP nod to take on Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, has been portraying himself as a former college liberal who saw the light and became a true conservative. While Nicholson spoke at the 2000 Democratic National Convention in support of Al Gore while serving as the president of the College Democrats of America, he said a year ago that he left that convention "absolutely sure" he wasn't a Democrat. However, it seems that lesson took a lot longer to seep in than he let on.
Campaign Action
On Tuesday, Nicholson acknowledged that in 2002, he'd been paid $7,300 by the Democratic Party in Minnesota for salary and mileage reimbursements. Nicholson defended himself, saying he'd "always talk[ed] about that my whole life is an evolution," and, "I got more conservative with everything I've done from my service in the Marine Corps to my time in business." However, as we wrote in July, this isn't even the first sign that Nicholson remained a Democrat long past his supposed come-to-Reagan moment in 2000. In 2005, Nicholson definitely registered to vote as a Democrat in North Carolina, and he definitely voted in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.
Nicholson says that in 2007, he had completed his move to the GOP and supported John McCain. Nicholson also maintains that he wanted to support McCain in the 2008 primary, but since he couldn't switch his party registration at the polls, he voted "no preference" in the Democratic contest. But in May, Milwaukee TV news station Fox6 did some good sleuthing and found out that only one voter in Nicholson's precinct had voted "no preference," but that person had cast an early ballot while Nicholson is recorded as voting on Election Day. Nicholson responded at the time by claiming—without proof—that the state's voting records were wrong. He also insists he voted for John McCain that November and released a photo—undated—of himself at a McCain rally.
For their part, Nicholson's allies have been doing their best to make his party switch (whenever it was) work to his advantage. Restoration PAC, a group primarily funded by billionaire Richard Uihlein, recently ran an ad that declared that Nicholson was, "Like Reagan, a passionate convert to conservatism."
But state Sen. Leah Vukmir, who is Nicholson's opponent in the August primary, isn't making it any secret that she instead plans to portray Nicholson as a Ronny-come-lately to the party. Vukmir's spokesperson said on Tuesday that she's a "lifelong Republican, and proud of it." Vukmir was also first elected to the state House in 2002 at the same time that Nicholson was being paid to help Minnesota Democrats. However, that hasn't stopped Nicholson's allies at the anti-tax Club for Growth from blasting Vukmir as a "Republican in Name Only."
Senate
● AZ-Sen: What a surprise: Disgraced former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio just gave an interview to the "American Free Press," a publication that called the Holocaust a "hoax" and 9/11 a "Jewish plot"—the very same outlet that Pennsylvania Rep. Lou Barletta also once talked to. Funny how racist GOP Senate candidates keep doing this sort of thing.
● MI-Sen: The Senate Conservatives Fund, a group that often backs candidates opposed by the GOP establishment, has thrown its support behind businessman and veteran John James. James faces venture capitalist Sandy Pensler in the August primary to take on Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow.
● ND-Sen: The conservative blog Say Anything recently reported that businessman and former state GOP chair Gary Emineth planned to announce a Senate bid in the first week of February. Emineth himself recently told the Associated Press that, while he hasn't decided yet, he's "90 percent sure" he'll run, and he'll decide next month.
Gubernatorial
● CA-Gov: At the beginning of the month, there were strong indications that Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier was considering launching a late bid for governor. Speier ended up taking days to respond to the rumors (during which time, her chief of staff said he didn't even know what she was planning), and she never outright said she wouldn't run. However, Speier has shown no obvious interest in this race since then, and she told Politico this week that she still has "my work on the Intelligence Committee—you know, this is a Watergate moment. So I need to be here."
Speier still doesn't appear to have outright said she won't run for governor, but that's very close. California's candidate filing deadline is March 14 and the primary is three months after that, so it seems unlikely Speier is seriously considering giving up her safe seat and entering a very expensive race this late in the process.
● CO-Gov: In a big surprise, former Rep. Tom Tancredo announced on Tuesday that he was dropping out of the GOP primary for governor of Colorado. Tancredo declared that, while he thought he could win the nomination in June, his fundraising was far below what he'd need to be prepared for the general election. Tancredo predicted that Rep. Jared Polis, whom he called the Democratic frontrunner, would immediately overwhelm him with ads, and he'd be too broke to respond. Tancredo concluded that he'd be jeopardizing the GOP's chance to succeed termed-out Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper if he was the nominee.
A number of other Republicans are competing here, and Tancredo's departure will shake up the field. While Tancredo acknowledges he had a tough time raising money, he had an ardent base of support from his time as an anti-immigration zealot in the House during the previous decade. Tancredo also seemed to be the perfect fit for the Trump-era GOP. Last year, as Tancredo began talking about a third bid for governor, he blasted state Republicans for refusing to speak out "in defense of free speech" after a Colorado Springs resort cancelled the booking for a conference by the a notorious white-supremacist hate group VDARE.
Tancredo was arguably the frontrunner for the GOP nod, and it's not clear where his voters will go. State Treasurer Walker Stapleton, who may now be the primary frontrunner, is a second cousin of George and Jeb Bush, and he may just be too establishment for Tancredo's people, but the other choices may not be any better in their eyes. State Attorney General Cynthia Coffman and former investment banker Doug Robinson, a nephew of Mitt Romney, may have similar issues as Stapleton, while wealthy businessman Victor Mitchell volunteers that he didn't back Trump. Tancredo said he didn't plan to endorse anyone.
● IL-Gov: There's no question that state Rep. Jeanne Ives will be badly outspent by wealthy Gov. Bruce Rauner in the March 20 GOP primary, but another billionaire is giving her a helping hand. Conservative mega donor Richard Uihlein gave $500,000 to Ives on Jan. 24: Ives had only $404,000 in the bank at the end of December, so this oh-so-generous contribution is no small thing for her.
Uihlein contributed $2.6 million to Rauner through 2014, but he's given him nothing since then. Uihlein also recently contributed $3 million to a PAC run by Dan Proft, another Republican who has also soured on Rauner. However, there may just not be enough Illinois GOP voters who want to oust Rauner for Ives to have a shot. We Ask America recently released a poll giving Rauner a 65-21 edge, and no one has dropped contradictory numbers.
● KS-Gov: Are you a Kansan who accepted Sam Brownback's invitation to fast with him on Tuesday to commemorate his last full day as governor? Let us know!
● ME-Gov: GOP Gov. Paul LePage announced Tuesday that he wouldn't endorse in the June primary to succeed him. However, the governor said he would oppose state Senate President Mike Thibodeau along with all the Democrats. While the two used to be allies, the two came into conflict in a budget fight last year, and LePage hasn't hidden how much he hates Thibodeau.
● MI-Gov: This isn't good: Bridge Magazine's Joel Kurth reports that Abdul El-Sayed, a former Detroit Health Commissioner who is seeking Michigan's Democratic nomination for governor, may not be eligible to run in the first place. Kurth notes that Michigan's constitution "requires gubernatorial candidates be a 'registered elector in this state' for four years before the general election," a criteria that El-Sayed doesn't appear to meet. ("Elector" is just a fancy word for "voter.")
That's because El-Sayed was registered to vote in New York City as recently as March 2015, and he did not re-register in Michigan—the state where he was born, raised, and educated—until March of the following year. El-Sayed's campaign insists that he is indeed eligible, claiming he's maintained a "continuous residence" in the state, though that doesn't appear to have anything to do with his voter registration status. El-Sayed was "continuously registered to vote in Michigan since 2003," according to a state elections official, but it doesn't seem like that will help him.
That's because El-Sayed's registration had been placed on what's known as a "cancellation countdown," since he'd surrendered his Michigan driver's license to obtain one in New York. Had two election cycles passed, El-Sayed's registration would have been scrubbed from the rolls, and had he tried to vote while on "countdown," he would have been required to verify his address and affirm his eligibility to vote.
Making matters worse, when El-Sayed, a vocal supporter of Bernie Sanders, was asked last year why he didn't vote in Michigan's presidential primary, he claimed that he tried to "several times" but was deterred by long voting lines in Detroit. However, records show he simply hadn't registered to vote in the city until two weeks after the primary, and still maintained his registration in Ann Arbor (the one that was on "countdown"). El-Sayed insisted on Tuesday that had he made it to the polls, he'd either have been given a provisional ballot or been sent to Ann Arbor (a city about an hour to the west), but if he knew he was registered in Ann Arbor, why did he try to vote in Detroit in the first place?
Five of six election lawyers consulted by Kurth say that El-Sayed's candidacy is in serious jeopardy, and one even described the case against him as a "slam dunk." (Only one dissented, citing El-Sayed's uncancelled registration and the apartment he maintained in Ann Arbor.) El-Sayed's campaign claims that their own attorneys have given their candidate a clean bill of health, but as Kurth dryly notes, "The campaign would not name the lawyers."
And El-Sayed's own reaction is revealing as well. He immediately compared the questions about his eligibility to the conspiracy theories surrounding Barack Obama's birth certificate, and his campaign issued a statement accusing "insider Democrats" of "using Trump's birther tactics." The fact that he feels his best response is to kick up sand and hurl insults doesn't speak well of his position. (And for what it's worth, Bridge is published by an outfit called the Center for Michigan, which bills itself as a nonpartisan think-tank.)
If El-Sayed is booted from the ballot (something that might take a lawsuit), that would leave just former state Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer and businessman Shri Thanedar in the Democratic primary. Democratic pollster Ed Sarpolous noted, though, that Whitmer might be reluctant to challenge El-Sayed's eligibility lest she alienate his supporters, while Republicans would only want to do so if El-Sayed won the primary.
And if he is forced out, it's hard to say how an El-Sayed departure might affect the race. Whitmer has posted wide leads in the last few polls (none of which were recent), while Thanedar has barely registered (he has since started advertising on TV, however). El-Sayed, who is hoping to become the country's first Muslim governor, was far behind Whitmer, too, though, so he doesn't have a whole lot of support to divvy up. In any event, it's likely going to be a while before we get more clarity here, since a challenge may not even be possible until El-Sayed files for the primary ballot, which he has until April 24 to do.
● MN-Gov: As we recently wrote, all six noteworthy Democratic candidates will compete in early June to try and win the state party endorsement ahead of the August primary. While winning the endorsement is not the same thing as winning the nomination, many voters take it very seriously. It's also common for candidates in both parties to, in local parlance, "abide" by the party endorsement process and drop out instead of proceeding to the primary if they aren't chosen.
However, only some of the Democratic candidates are saying they'll definitely end their campaigns at the convention. Minnesota Public Radio's Brian Bakst writes that state Rep. and former Majority Leader Erin Murphy, state Auditor Rebecca Otto, and state Rep. and former Democratic leader Paul Thissen will abide by the endorsement. By contrast, former St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, state Rep. Tina Liebling, and Rep. Tim Walz did not rule out taking their campaign to the primary voters in August if the convention doesn't endorse them.
● NY-Gov: State Sen. John DeFrancisco, who represents a district in the Syracuse area and had been considering a bid for governor, just became the third notable Republican to announce a challenge to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo this year. DeFrancisco's decision also opens up a state Senate seat that both Clinton and Obama carried (though hijinks that could restore DeFrancisco to the Senate ballot if he loses the governor's race are always possible in New York).
Meanwhile, wealthy businessman Carl Paladino, who's best known as the "Donald Trump of upstate New York," has said no to a bid. Paladino ran against Cuomo in 2010 but got demolished by a 62-33 margin despite the GOP wave.
● TN-Gov: On behalf of the Tennessee Star, Triton Polling & Research is out with the gubernatorial portion of their poll. They test former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean against the entire GOP field (House Democratic leader Craig Fitzhugh was not tested), and find Dean not doing too well:
35-46 vs. Rep. Diane Black
32-42 vs. House Speaker Beth Harwell
34-43 vs. former state cabinet member Randy Boyd
34-38 vs. former Higher Education Commission member Bill Lee
36-36 vs. former state Sen. Mae Beavers
It's worth noting that even conservative analyst Steve Gill thinks that there aren't enough black voters in the sample and says he "think[s] it is safe to add about five percentage points to the results for Dean in each head to head matchup." We also haven't seen any other polls here besides an entry from the very unreliable Gravis Marketing.
House
● AL-03: GOP Rep. Mike Rogers hasn't seriously been targeted since the last round of redistricting made his seat considerably redder, and Trump's 65-32 win also wasn't exactly an encouraging sign for Team Blue. However, Alabama Democrats have some spring in their step after Doug Jones' miraculous win against Roy Moore in December's Senate race, and this time, Rogers may face a Democrat with some name-recognition. Mallory Hagan, who works as a local NBC co-anchor in Columbus, Georgia, said this week she was exploring a bid, and she soon threw up a website declaring she was in.
While Hagan works across the state line, she's from the district and lives there, and she is a student at the local Auburn University. About a third of the seat is in the Columbus media market, so Hagan should have some name-recognition from local TV. However, Hagan may be better known for winning the Miss America pageant in 2013 as Miss New York, and she was back in the news at the end of last year. In December, emails from 2014 were released where Miss America Organization officials trashed some of the former winners, including Hagan.
CEO Sam Haskell called Hagan "huge," "a piece of trash," and "gross," among other vulgar things. Haskell ended up resigning after the emails became public, and Hagan appeared on national TV to call for change in the organization. Hagan says that this experience encouraged her to consider running for Congress.
● AZ-08: On Tuesday, former Gov. Jan Brewer endorsed former state Sen. Debbie Lesko in the special election for this 58-37 Trump seat. Brewer's move came the day before early voting was to start in the Feb. 27 GOP primary.
● FL-05: On Tuesday, former Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown announced he would challenge freshman Rep. Al Lawson in the late August primary for this safely blue seat. Brown initially didn't give an explicit reason for why Lawson should be fired, with the former mayor instead just framing himself as the "pragmatic, visionary leader" that North Florida needs. But Lawson previewed the argument he'll make for why voters should reject Brown, telling Florida Politics that his opponent "failed as mayor" and was only running because "he needs a job."
After Lawson made his comments at Brown, however, the challenger's team directly attacked him for the first time. Brown's spokesperson insisted that Lawson was a "privileged congressman" who had "gone Washington" and "refuses to fight for the people of his district," though it's not clear exactly what Lawson has or hasn't done in their eyes.
As we wrote in October, both candidates have a bit in common. Both are African-American men in a seat where black voters make up most of the Democratic primary electorate. This battle likely won't come down to ideology, either, since both contenders have moderate reputations. Instead, geography will likely be the biggest fault line here.
Lawson, a former state Senate minority leader, is a longtime Tallahassee politician, while Brown is from Jacksonville in the eastern part of the district. Indeed, the 2016 primary largely broke down along geographic lines. Back then, Jacksonville's Duval County made up 48 percent of the vote, and incumbent Corrine Brown carried it 62-20; however, Lawson took the rest of the seat 73-18, and he won the race 48-39.
Alvin Brown will at least be free of one big disadvantage that hurt Corrine Brown back then (the two Browns don't seem to be related, though Alvin Brown unsuccessfully challenged Corrine Brown in a 1994 primary). Corrine Brown was under indictment during her match with Lawson, and she was later found guilty and sentenced to prison for corruption. However, Alvin Brown does have different liabilities that could hold him back: Brown angered Jacksonville Democrats in 2012 when he refused to endorse Obama's 2012 re-election campaign (though he later said he'd vote for him), and he also didn't back Democrat Charlie Crist two years later in his bid to unseat GOP Gov. Rick Scott.
And as Tyler Yeargain wrote in a great 2015 piece on the eve of Brown's narrow re-election loss, the mayor also alienated supporters by refusing to push for an ordinance aimed at protecting LGBT residents, and there was a general perception that he hadn't done enough to help the African-American community. Brown ended up losing 51-49 to Republican Lenny Curry in what's normally a conservative city. For his part, Lawson has been trying to make inroads in the Jacksonville area in his year in office. Lawson bragged that he has a good relationship with neighboring GOP Rep. John Rutherford, a former Jacksonville sheriff who did not get along with Brown when they were both in city government, and Curry.
Brown may have one advantage over Lawson, though. During his 2015 bid, Brown raised a strong amount of cash, while Lawson has been a weak fundraiser. Even though Brown has been making noises about running for months, Lawson raised just $44,000 in the final quarter of 2017, and he had only $101,000 in the bank. It's always tough to oust a scandal-free incumbent in a primary, and Lawson likely starts out as the favorite, but Brown may have the name-recognition and connections to make things interesting.
● IL-03: Businesswoman Marie Newman, who is challenging Blue Dog Rep. Dan Lipinski in the March Democratic primary, is out with her first TV ad of the campaign, and she's going right on the attack. The spot hits Lipinski exactly where he's weakest: his conservative voting record.
Narrator: The more Democrats learn about conservative Dan Lipinski, the more they're done with Dan. Lipinski cosponsored 52 bills to restrict a woman's right to choose and repeatedly votes to defund Planned Parenthood. Lipinski voted against the DREAM Act, still opposes marriage equality, and was the only Democrat in Illinois to vote against Obamacare. There's a better Democrat for working families: Marie Newman. Marie is 100 percent pro-choice and supports our immigrant and LGBTQ communities.
All of those are very good reasons to throw Lipinski out! The question is how many voters will see the spot. Politico reports that Newman is (so far, at least) spending just $10,000 to air the ad, which is a pittance in the expensive Chicago media market.
However, this may be part of a strategy to gain so-called "earned media" attention, and it's also possible Newman plans to put more money behind the buy later. Fortunately, she's about to get a financial boost from New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who is coming to Chicago on Friday to headline a fundraiser for her.
Lipinski, for his part, responded to Newman's ad in rote fashion, saying in a statement, "I'm proud of my record of success solving problems for my constituents and helping provide better jobs, wages, healthcare, and education for the middle class." But in a joint appearance with Newman before the Chicago Sun-Timeseditorial board over the weekend, Lipinski repeatedly refused to back a $15 per hour minimum wage—something that organized labor, Lipinski's most important pillar of support, is in favor of (as is Newman).
The rest of that interview didn't make Lipinski look any better. Reporter Mark Brown says that Lipinski, who "spent most of the hour on the defensive," reiterated that he's "pro-life" because "science shows that life begins at conception," affirmed that "[p]ersonally, I don't support" same-sex marriage, and would only say that a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple presented a "very difficult question" about free speech. (Newman called it discrimination.)
As Newman said, "I don't think he understands the district has changed beyond dramatically since his tenure." She just has to get that message out.
● IL-04: This week, Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno dropped out of the March 20 primary for this safely blue seat. Cook County Commissioner Chuy Garcia is the clear frontrunner here, and he released two polls showing him far ahead of the rest of the field. Nonprofit director Sol Flores, who has the support of EMILY's List, and Chicago police sergeant Richard Gonzalez are still running.
● KY-03: Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth hasn't faced a serious general election challenge in his Louisville-based seat in a decade, and it seems unlikely this 55-40 Clinton district will flip this year. However, he did attract a surprise opponent in the hours before candidate filing when Vickie Yates Brown Glisson resigned as secretary of health and family services to run here. Glisson infamously helped spearhead Kentucky's successful drive to be the first state to require Medicaid recipients to work or volunteer in order to stay on the program. Glisson said in her announcement that she "think[s] I can work well with the Trump administration to help Louisville become a vibrant city," which also probably won't go over well in this seat.
● MA-07: On Tuesday, Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley announced she would challenge longtime Rep. Mike Capuano in the September primary for this safely blue seat. Pressley did not address why voters should replace Capuano with her directly, but said that "[t]his district and these times demand more than just an ally, they demand an advocate and a champion," and that "[m]aking progress on longstanding challenges requires a different lens and a new approach."
Capuano, a former mayor of the Boston suburb of Somerville, first won his seat in 1998, and though he badly lost the 2009 special election primary for the Senate, he never faced a serious challenge to renomination until now. Capuano has a very liberal voting record in a seat that gave Clinton 84 percent of the vote, and he doesn't appear to have made enemies at home, so it won't be easy to beat him. Capuano ended 2017 with $760,000 in the bank, which isn't massive for a longtime incumbent, but it gives him a head start over Pressley. It also probably doesn't hurt the congressman that his nephew is actor Chris Evans, who plays Captain America.
Pressley does have an interesting profile, however: She made history in 2009 when she became the first woman of color elected to the Boston City Council. Pressley has won re-election to a citywide seat every two years since then, and she's been mentioned as a candidate for higher office for a while. The city of Boston makes up about two-thirds of this congressional district, so Pressley will likely start out with some good name recognition.
Demographics may also help Pressley. The 7th District is by far the most racially diverse seat in the Commonwealth, which could also help a candidate like Pressley who has done very well with both black voters and upper-middle class white voters. About 41 percent of residents are non-Hispanic whites, while black residents make up 23 percent of the seat and Hispanics make up a similar proportion; Asian voters make up another 11 percent of the population. Pressley likely begins as the underdog, but she may be able to make things interesting.
● TX-07, TX-23, TX-32: The March 6 primary is coming up soon, and more candidates are taking to the airwaves for the first time. We have new spots from a number of Democratic candidates, all of whom are hoping to face Republican incumbents in November: nonprofit director Alex Triantaphyllis in the 7th District; retired Air Force officer Gina Ortiz Jones and former federal prosecutor Jay Hulings in the 23rd; and former Clinton campaign aide Ed Meier in the 32nd.
