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
● ME-02: Election officials in Maine tabulated the results of the country's first-ever instant runoff for Congress on Thursday, determining that Democrat Jared Golden defeated Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin by a narrow 50.5-49.5 margin after the second-choice preferences of voters who cast ballots for two third-party candidates were taken into account. Poliquin had led 46.4 to 45.5 on the initial balloting, but 65 percent of those who voted for independents Tiffany Bond and Will Hoar elected to mark a second choice. That group overwhelmingly transferred their votes to Golden, who won second-choice ballots by a 69-31 margin, allowing him to edge ahead of Poliquin.
Campaign Action
Golden, a Marine veteran who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, gives House Democrats their 37th flip this cycle, with four races still uncalled at press time. This race saw heavy spending, but Golden prevailed even though northern Maine's rural 2nd District veered sharply away from Democrats in 2016, voting for Donald Trump 51-41 after supporting Barack Obama 53-44 four years earlier. Remarkably, that makes Poliquin the first incumbent to lose this seat since 1916.
Of course, the soon-to-be-ex-congressman is extremely bitter about this turn of events, even though Mainers twice voted to require runoffs in such races, and all candidates participated in this election knowing the system they'd be operating under. Nevertheless, Poliquin waited until after Election Day to file a lawsuit challenging the system, but just ahead of the tabulation on Thursday, the judge hearing the case, Lance Walker, sharply rejected Poliquin's request for a restraining order to block the instant runoff and declare him the winner.
Walker specifically noted that Poliquin's position would deprive all of Bond's and Hoar's voters of what they understood to be their right to be counted—that is, their right to be able to cast a second-choice ballot and have that tallied if their first-choice candidates were knocked out. Walker concluded by saying that Poliquin's remedy does not lie with the courts but rather would be "to petition the political branch to change the law"—in other words, call your congressman.
Poliquin says he plans to forge ahead with his challenge regardless, but if legal norms hold, his odds of success look poor. Of course, that's a big "if" nowadays, given the makeup of the Supreme Court, but it's worth noting that Walker is a Trump appointee.
Thursday Calls
● CA-45: The Associated Press called California's 45th District for Democrat Katie Porter, who held a 51-49 edge over Republican Rep. Mimi Walters after the latest ballots were counted on Thursday.
Uncalled Races
● FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Following the conclusion of Florida’s machine recount on Thursday, Florida's elections for Senate and state agriculture commissioner remained within a margin of 0.25 points, meaning they will go to hand recounts, but the race for governor remained outside that margin. Here’s where things stood as of Thursday:
- FL-Sen: Rick Scott (R) leads Bill Nelson (D) by 12,603 votes, a margin of 0.15 points
- FL-Gov: Ron DeSantis (R) leads Andrew Gillum (D) by 33,683 votes, a margin of 0.4 points
- FL-Agri: Nikki Fried (D) leads Matt Caldwell (R) by 5,307 votes, a margin of 0.07 points.
Senate
● IA-Sen: Democrats are hoping to target Republican Sen. Joni Ernst. Iowa Starting Line's Pat Rynard recently played Great Mentioner and named several prospective candidates, but we don't know how interested any of them are right now.
The most familiar name on the list is Tom Vilsack, who was elected governor in 1998 and 2002 and went on to serve as Barack Obama's secretary of agriculture. Rynard wrote that there's been plenty of talk from the local chattering class about a Vilsack comeback, but it was unclear if it was actually coming from the former governor. However, Rynard tweeted after the article was published that he was "[h]earing from more and more sources that the Tom Vilsack Senate run against Joni Ernst consideration sounds real."
Rynard lists a number of other Democrats as possible Ernst opponents, but right now there's no sign if any of them are considering. Rynard's list consists of:
- Rep.-elect Cindy Axne
- Rep.-elect Abby Finkenauer
- Real estate executive and 2018 3rd District candidate Theresa Greenfield
- 2018 state Senate nominee Amber Gustafson
- State Sen. and 2018 lieutenant governor nominee Rita Hart
- State Sen. and 2016 Senate candidate Rob Hogg
- State Auditor-elect Rob Sand
- Former baseball player and 2018 4th District nominee J.D. Scholten
- Linn County Supervisor Stacey Walker
- Former state Sen. Steve Warnstadt
Whomever does wind up with the Democratic nomination will likely be in for a tough fight against Ernst, who posted a strong 47-31 approval rating in a September Selzer poll. We'll also need to see which way the political winds are blowing in 2020 in Iowa, a state that shifted strongly towards the GOP in 2014 and 2016. Both parties had some high-profile wins last week, so it's very possible this traditional swing state will be volatile territory once again in two years.
● MI-Sen, MI-11: Businessman and Army veteran John James impressed plenty of Republicans by holding Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow to a 52-46 win last week, and they've made it no secret that they'd like him to run for Congress in 2020.
Outgoing state party chair Ronald Weiser told the Detroit News that he hopes James will challenge Sen. Gary Peters. GOP pollster Steve Mitchell also speculated that James could challenge Democratic Rep.-elect Haley Stevens. James hasn't said anything about his plans, but his election night declaration that "we're not done" is a good sign that we haven't heard the last of him.
● MS-Sen-B: Medium Buying reports that the conservative Senate Leadership Fund is going up with TV ads ahead of the Nov. 27 special election, though we do not have a size of the buy. The NRSC is spending at least $1 million to support GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, while Senate Majority PAC is deploying $407,000 to aid Democrat Mike Espy.
We also now have a copy of SMP's opening ad. The narrator argues that Hyde-Smith "got paid to lobby in Washington for health insurance companies," and she's now "taking tens of thousands in campaign money from the insurance industry. And all the time your healthcare premiums keep going up."
Espy is also out with his first spot of the runoff, where he tells the audience that when he served in the House, "Ronald Reagan signed the first bill I wrote on infrastructure and jobs." Espy continues by saying he "rose above party and supported a Republican governor [Haley Barbour] because after Katrina it was the right thing to do." He concludes by asking the audience to give him two years in Washington (this seat will be up again for a full term in 2020) "and I'll work to find common ground and bring us together again."
● DSCC, NRSC: On Thursday, Democrats selected Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto to chair the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee next cycle, making her the first Latina to hold the post. She succeeds Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen. Republicans also picked a new chair for their counterpart, the National Republican Senatorial Committee: Indiana Sen. Todd Young, who succeeds Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner. Both Cortez Masto and Young were unopposed.
Gubernatorial
● KY-Gov: On Wednesday, state House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins announced that he was entering the May Democratic primary to take on GOP Gov. Matt Bevin next year. Adkins picked up an endorsement at his campaign kickoff from former Gov. Paul Patton, who left office at the start of 2004. Adkins joins state Attorney General Andy Beshear in the contest, and other Democrats may also end up running before the late January filing deadline. The Lexington Herald-Leader adds that one of those prospective candidates, former state Auditor Adam Edelen, is "expected" to announce he's in around Thanksgiving.
Adkins has served in the legislature since 1987, and he's managed to hold on to a rural Eastern Kentucky seat at a time when Republicans have been making gains in this ancestrally blue area. In 2016, Adkins faced his first Republican opponent since 1994 and won 66-34 even as Trump was carrying his seat 68-28; he was once again unopposed this cycle. Adkins also served as a captain and point guard for the 1983 Morehead State University basketball team that went to the NCAA tournament, which gives him a good profile in this basketball-obsessed commonwealth.
However, Adkins will start out with less name-recognition and money than Beshear, the son of former Gov. Steve Beshear. The younger Beshear entered the race in July and had $588,000 in the bank at the end of September.
● LA-Gov: On Wednesday, GOP Attorney General Jeff Landry announced that he would seek re-election rather than challenge Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards next year.
House
● CA-10: In honor of GOP Rep. Jeff Denham's defeat against Democrat Josh Harder, we're pleased to offer up this blast-from-the-past from the start of Denham's congressional career. During his first days in D.C. in 2011, Denham threw a lavish fundraiser with singer lavish fundraiser with singer LeAnn Rimes that netted … $650.
That's even worse than it sounds, because it was a joint fundraiser for 10 other Republican freshmen, so if the proceeds were divided up evenly, they'd each take in $59. Denham did recover from this embarrassing start and win re-election three times in a competitive seat, but 2018 was just too much for him.
● NE-02, NE-Sen, NE-01: News Channel Nebraska's Joe Jordan takes an early look at which Democrats could run in 2020 for the House and Senate.
The biggest Democratic target in the state next cycle will almost certainly be GOP Rep. Don Bacon in the Omaha-based 2nd District, which Trump carried 49-47. Bacon fended off a challenge from Democrat Kara Eastman 52-48, which turned out to be a surprisingly close showing since national Democrats never spent much on this race. Jordan name-drops attorney Ann Ferlic Ashford, who considered running here in 2016. Ashford's husband, former Rep. Brad Ashford, ran instead and narrowly lost the primary to the more progressive Eastman in an upset.
It's not clear how interested Ann Ferlic Ashford is, but Jordan writes that if she got in, she "would likely campaign from the center as a moderate Democrat hoping to pick up moderate Republican votes." That could be the wrong approach in a primary, though, as former Rep. Ashford found out the hard way.
GOP Sen. Ben Sasse is also up in 2020, and as we've written before, he says he'll decide on running for re-election in the summer. Nebraska backed Trump 59-34 and it's very unlikely this seat will be high on Team Blue's target list, but Jordan writes that there's plenty of speculation that Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler could run. Last week, city voters approved a ballot measure to restrict mayors to three consecutive terms, so Beutler, who opposed the referendum, can no longer run for a fourth term next year as he planned.
Finally, Jordan turns his attention to GOP Rep. Jeff Fortenberry in the 1st Congressional District. This seat, which includes Lincoln and several nearby rural areas, backed Trump 57-36, and Fortenberry won an uncompetitive re-election contest last week 61-39, so he's not an obvious Democratic target. However, if Fortenberry actually does have a credible opponent, there's good reason to think he won't perform well under pressure.
Just before Election Day, an unknown person messed with one of Fortenberry's campaign signs by changing his name to "Jeff Fartenberry" and adding googly eyes on his face. Fartenberry was not happy and tweeted, "Political violence, including the vandalism we see right here in Lincoln, is a threat to good citizenry and free expression in our republic. It is not funny. It is never acceptable."
Fortenberry's chief of staff, Reyn Archer, found it so unfunny that, after he saw that a local political science professor named Ari Kohen had merely liked a photo of the altered sign on Facebook, he reported Kohen to the university chancellor. Kohen recounted that Archer also threatened him and "told me they could put this out publicly that I liked vandalism, and essentially, that that would be bad for me." Kohen reported him to the House Ethics Committee and supplied a recording of their conversation.
The incident made national headlines, but it didn't prevent Fortenberry from easily winning. However, Jordan writes that state Sen. Adam Morfeld is a name that is "quickly popping up" for Democrats as a possible candidate.
● SC-01: Democrat Joe Cunningham's 51-49 win against Republican Katie Arrington was one of the biggest upsets of election night. However, if Republicans hoped that Arrington wouldn't try for this 53-40 Trump seat again after her surprise defeat, her concession speech crushed those dreams. Arrington declared, "I am not done. You knock me down, it teaches me how to get up harder." (Was she channeling Chumbawamba?) She added, "2020, it's just a few years away. ... We have people up there in Washington that'll hold the line until we can get back in 2020. I'm not going anywhere."
Meanwhile, Arrington and other Republicans are having a loud debate about who is most to blame for what happened last week. On Tuesday, Arrington used a radio interview to torch the NRCC for not giving her enough support, saying that the committee "looked at me as in a safe district, and we kept telling them over and over again that Charleston County was a deep blue purple. And it is." Arrington added that in 2020 "I know that I'll have the full support of the NRCC and the RNC going forward, without a doubt, got that."
However, Arrington may be even more pissed at outgoing Rep. Mark Sanford, whom she unseated in the June primary. Sanford returned the favor by loudly and repeatedly refusing to endorse her, including during the final days of the race, and to call her out for trying to take back her support for oil drilling off the South Carolina coast. Arrington used her concession speech to blame Sanford and his allies for her defeat. Days later, Sanford published a New York Times op-ed where he wrote about why she lost.
Other local Republicans are also angry at Sanford, who never had a good relationship with the party establishment going back to his days as governor during the last decade and hasn't made any more friends with his Trump bashing. State GOP Chairman Drew McKissick made sure to hit the departing congressman for his "poor taste and poor class" for refusing to back Arrington.
However, while Sanford doesn't appear to have publicly expressed interest in trying to regain his seat next cycle, local politicos are very much acting like it's a possibility. State Sen. Larry Grooms, who lost the 2013 special election primary to Sanford, is one of several Republicans who were mentioned by the Post and Courier as a possible candidate, and while he didn't appear to rule anything out, he said that "whatever happens depends on what Sanford decides to do." Another Sanford comeback seems very unlikely considering how much Trump hates him, but if there's anyone who might try anyway, its Mark Sanford.
Perhaps luckily for the GOP, there are also other Republicans in this district who could run. Charleston County Councilman Elliott Summey recently told the Post and Courier that he's talking to consultants about a possible bid. In addition to Grooms, local Republicans mentioned state Sens. Chip Campsen and Tom Davis; Charleston GOP Chair Larry Kobrovsky; state Rep. Nancy Mace; Charleston City Councilman Mike Seekings; and 2018 gubernatorial candidate Catherine Templeton.
Mayoral
● Philadelphia, PA Mayor: Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney is up for re-election next year, and in this very blue city, the May 21 Democratic primary is the contest to watch while the November general election is usually just an afterthought. On Thursday, former city Controller Alan Butkovitz announced that he would challenge Kenney for renomination.
Butkovitz argued in his campaign kickoff that the mayor had failed to deal with the city's crime rate, and he pledged to stop the police from using stop-and-frisk tactics. Butkovitz also took aim at the Kenney for successfully pushing a soda tax that was used to fund pre-K programs as well as investments in local parks, libraries, and recreation centers. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the soda industry is expected to spend in next year's city council elections, but it's not clear if they'll play in the mayoral race.
No mayor of Philadelphia has lost re-election since before the city adopted its current city charter in 1951, and it's not going to be easy for anyone to beat Kenney in next year's primary. To begin with, it's not at all clear if Kenney is actually in any danger right now. And even if he is, because it only takes a simple plurality to win the Democratic nomination, the mayor will likely benefit if more candidates enter the race. That may very well happen, since state Sen. Anthony Williams, who lost the 2015 primary to Kenney 56-26, recently said he was seriously considering another campaign. The filing deadline for the primary is March 12.
Butkovitz himself also may not be the ideal candidate to take on Kenney even in a one-on-one race. In 2017, Butkovitz lost renomination 58-41 in a shocker against first-time candidate Rebecca Rhynhart. Butkovitz's defeat may have had little to do with him and everything to do with his allies in the city's traditional Democratic machine. The Philadelphia Democratic Party, which is run by retiring Rep. Bob Brady, had been falling into disarray for years, and their candidates lost in several other primaries at the same time that Butkovitz was going down last year.
● Phoenix, AZ Mayor: Phoenix held the first round of its nonpartisan special election on Nov. 7, and Kate Gallego led fellow Democrat Daniel Valenzuela by a wide 45-26 margin. However, because no one took a majority, the two former city councilors will face off again in a runoff on March 12.
The special was called after Democrat Greg Stanton stepped down as mayor in late May to successfully run for Arizona's 9th Congressional District, something he was required to do under the state's resign-to-run law. Gallego and Valenzuela were also required to resign from the city council to run in the special, which they both did. The Arizona Republic writes that while Gallego, who is the former wife of local Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, and Valenzuela agree on most issues, they differ when it comes to public financing of sports facilities. Gallego is against it, while Valenzuela is more open to it.
Grab Bag
● Where Are They Now?: Former Texas Rep. Nick Lampson, a Democrat, narrowly lost his bid to lead coastal Jefferson County on Nov. 6. Republican Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick, a former Democrat who switched parties in 2015 while in office, won re-election against Lampson 51-49. Branick's victory makes him the first Republican to win a county judge's race here in decades. (In Texas, county judges function more like county executives than as judicial officials.)
