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
● CA-45: On Friday, a little more than a week after she launched the briefest of campaigns to head the NRCC, California GOP Rep. Mimi Walters conceded defeat to Democrat Katie Porter. Walters' abortive bid to lead the GOP's House campaign arm was the last, but far from the only, example of how little she understood how much electoral danger she was in—a danger that crescendoed after Election Day.
Campaign Action
Walters may have been lured into a false sense of security because, until this year, she was accustomed to easily beating Democrats in Orange County, which since time immemorial had been the citadel of California conservatism. Walters was elected to the state legislature four times from 2004 to 2012 and never took less than 57 percent of the vote. Even in 2010, when she lost a statewide race for treasurer by a wide 56-36 margin, she carried Orange County 52-41. In 2014, Walters entered the race to succeed retiring GOP Rep. John Campbell in California's 45th District, which had backed Mitt Romney 55-43 two years earlier at the same time that Campbell was defeating Irvine Mayor Sukhee Kang 58-42. Democrats didn't seriously contest the seat when Walters sought it, and predictably, she had no trouble winning.
It was a similar story in 2016 when Walters beat another little-known Democrat 59-41. However, that victory came as Walters' seat, like Orange County as a whole, was rejecting Donald Trump. But even though Hillary Clinton became the first Democratic candidate for president to win diverse and highly educated Orange County since FDR—and in so doing carried the 45th District 50-44—Walters continued to act like she was still representing a solidly Republican seat. She most notably supported Trumpcare and voted for the GOP's tax bill, even though suburban seats like hers stood to suffer from it.
With 2016's impact on Orange County in mind, Democrats were determined that 2018 would be different. A number of Democrats, including Porter, jumped in to challenge Walters and raised credible sums of money. However, Walters just didn't seem to understand that she was in for a tough fight. In March, when Politico's Gabriel Debenedetti asked Walters if her race was competitive, she replied with a simple "no," insisting that Democrats "think just because Hillary Clinton won these districts that they can win." Insisted Walters, "I don't subscribe to that same idea. If you look at my race, I got 37,000 more votes than Donald Trump did."
Walters continued to underestimate the depth of her predicament even after Porter emerged from the June top-two primary.
In August, Walters and an allied PAC donated $339,000 to the campaign pushing Proposition 6, a ballot measure to repeal a state gas tax that was passed to fund road improvements; Republicans hoped the repeal effort would help them in competitive contests. This decision to divert her own precious resources to another election would come back to haunt Walters at the end of her race.
The next month, Walters rather incredibly asked the NRCC not to spend money on her behalf. Her campaign blithely declared at the time that Walters "believes she will raise sufficient funds on her own to take care of her campaign's needs." NRCC chair Steve Stivers was happy to oblige, saying Walters was "another candidate who has asked me to not spend in her race. She says she's got it. I feel confident she's got it. She knows what she's doing."
The NRCC ended up spending just $362,000 during the final three weeks of the race, a very small amount for a competitive seat in the very expensive Los Angeles media market. Luckily for Walters, though, another GOP outside group didn't listen to her. The Congressional Leadership Fund spent $1.27 million during the stretch run, compared to a total of $989,000 from Porter's allies at the DCCC and House Majority PAC.
As Election Day approached, some Republican operatives, more in tune with the CLF than the NRCC, became less than convinced that Walters had in fact "got it" and knew what she was doing. In mid-October, unnamed GOP strategists told the New York Times that there were "several" Republican House members in bad shape who "must recover quickly or risk losing funding," and they specifically named Walters and Illinois Rep. Peter Roskam (who also ended up losing). Waters was never outright triaged, but it's very possible that the NRCC decided to spend less on her than in other races because they, too, concluded she was in poor shape. Either that or Stivers still, inexplicably, felt "confident" about her chances.
Whatever the case, Walters could have very much used the help. After the election, the DCCC's Drew Godinich said that in the final weeks of the campaign, Walters didn't have enough money to pay for TV ads. And there's where the gas tax repeal comes back in, because of course Walters would have been in better financial shape had she not thrown so much money at Prop 6. What's more, the ballot measure didn't turn out to be much of a help for Golden State Republicans, either. The repeal went down in flames, with the "no" (anti-repeal) side currently ahead 56-44 statewide, and while it's up 55-45 in Orange County, it certainly didn't save Walters.
And while the NRCC was only too happy to overestimate Walters, many Republicans badly underestimated Porter, who outraised Walters $3.76 million to $1.52 million from July 1 to Oct. 17. Walters and her allies seemed convinced that Porter, a former law student of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, could be easily portrayed as too liberal for Orange County. Indeed, in July, Walters launched an ad that declared, "Porter has called radical Elizabeth Warren a mentor and promises to raise taxes if elected."
However, while Warren is utterly despised by the GOP chattering classes, it was never clear that voters in California's 45th saw her as a liberal boogeyman, or even really had a firm impression of her at all. After the election, McClatchy's Alex Roarty even relayed that, per an unnamed source in Porter's campaign, polling showed Warren's favorability in the seat was even higher than either Porter or Walter's.
The GOP also believed that they could use Porter's support for Medicare-for-all against her. Team Red ran the same kind bogus campaign ads against Porter that they ran against Democrats everywhere, regardless of their actual positions on health care. Their spots claimed that Porter supported a "government takeover of health care" and wanted "to eliminate employer-provided health insurance."
Porter wisely pushed back with an ad that used her own recent health scare to argue that everyone deserves quality care, telling the audience that that when her appendix burst on the campaign trail, "quality health care literally saved my life," emphasizing that every family in Orange County deserved access to the same sort of care. At the same time, Porter went on the offensive and hit Walters for voting to "gut protections for pre-existing conditions and allow insurance companies to gouge seniors." Ultimately, the GOP had no more success caricaturing Porter as a destructive radical than they did in pushing this line of attack in many other House races.
Still, Walters woke up the morning after the election thinking she'd won, with a 51.7-48.3 lead at that point. But as anyone who has watched California elections over the last decade could have told her, ballots counted after Election Day usually favor Democrats—and so they did again. This looming disaster, however, didn't stop Walters from immediately calling colleagues to campaign for the position of NRCC chair.
That probably have been a bad idea even if Walters had narrowly won re-election, since she likely would have been in for another tough and expensive fight to defend her seat at the same time she was supposed to be focused on helping the GOP regain the House. It's an even worse idea for someone who isn't actually in the House.
And sure enough, the late ballots soon broke against Walters, who ended her NRCC bid on Sunday. Two days later, Porter took the lead, never to relinquish it. As her political career began to vanish before her eyes, Walters began to emulate the very man who helped instigate Orange County's dramatic shift—Donald Trump himself—and alleged, without the slightest bit of evidence, that Democrats were trying to steal her election. Eventually, though, Walters gave up the charade. On Thursday evening, the Associated Press called the race for Porter, and Walters conceded the following morning. There is no word yet as to whether a staff position at the NRCC might open up for her.
Weekend Calls
● FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Florida’s recounts concluded over the weekend without any lead changes, leading Andrew Gillum to concede the race for governor on Saturday and Sen. Bill Nelson to do the same in his campaign for re-election the following day. A machine recount left Gillum behind Republican DeSantis by a 49.6-49.2 margin, outside the 0.25 percent difference that would have triggered a further manual recount. Nelson's race was closer and did undergo a manual recount, but at the conclusion of process, he still trailed Republican Rick Scott 50.05-49.93, a difference of just 10,000 votes out of almost 8.2 million cast.
Democrats did enjoy one bright spot in the Sunshine State, though: After machine and manual recounts, Democrat Nikki Fried emerged the victor with a 6,753-vote win over Republican Matt Caldwell in the race for agriculture commissioner. In doing so, Fried became the first Democrat to win a cabinet position in Florida since 2006, and she’ll also be the first woman to ever serve in this post. Fried credited her victory to her focus on gun safety and expanding access to medical marijuana, which she said allowed her to reach urban and suburban voters who don't typically interact with the office of the agriculture commissioner.
● GA-Gov: On Friday, Democrat Stacey Abrams ended her campaign for governor of Georgia—and her quest to become the first black woman governor in U.S. history—saying the law "allows no further viable remedy" for her to contest the results. Current returns show Republican Brian Kemp ahead 50.2-48.8; he needed to take a majority of the vote to avoid a runoff, and he was roughly 17,500 votes above this threshold.
Abrams refused to label her announcement a concession, declaring that as secretary of state, Kemp "was deliberate and intentional in his actions" to suppress the vote. Abrams went on to say that she'd be forming a new voting rights group that intends to pursue "major" litigation in federal court against the state of Georgia over electoral issues.
As disappointing as this outcome was, Abrams put up the best showing for Georgia Democrats in a gubernatorial race since their last victory in 1998. And while this race will not go to a Dec. 4 runoff, the contest to replace Kemp as secretary of state between Republican Brad Raffensperger and Democrat John Barrow will. Raffensperger led Barrow 49.1-48.6, but if Barrow can overcome that gap, a win here next month would give Democrats their first statewide victory since 2006 and a safeguard in 2020 against the type extreme voter suppression Kemp used in his quest to win at any cost.
● CA-39: On Saturday night, the AP called the race in California’s open 39th Congressional District for Democrat Gil Cisneros, who currently leads Republican Young Kim 50.8-49.2. Young had led by around 4,000 votes on election night, leading some over-eager election watchers to call the race for the GOP, but as has been the case in almost every corner of the Golden State this year, late-counted ballots consistently shifted the race in the Democrat’s direction.
Cisneros’ victory completes a stunning Democratic sweep of GOP seats in Orange County, a populous suburban region just south of Los Angeles that for decades was the seat of California conservatism. Democrats flipped three other districts located partly or entirely within Orange County—the 45th, 48th, and 49th—giving the county an all-Democratic congressional delegation for the first time since the 1930s.
● PA-15 (old): On Friday, Republican Marty Nothstein conceded to Democrat Susan Wild for the second time this month, and he's therefore also given up on the Shelley Sekula-Gibbs Prize. Nothstein had already lost the open seat race for the redrawn 7th Congressional District by a wide 53-44 margin, but initial results had shown him narrowly leading Wild in the old gerrymandered 15th District in the special election for the final weeks of former GOP Rep. Charlie Dent's term. However, updated results from the special give Wild a 48.6-48.3 edge.
Wild's second win will allow her to take her seat in Congress a few weeks early and get a seniority edge over most of the incoming House freshmen. Two other Democrats, Pennsylvania's Mary Gay Scanlon and New York's Joe Morelle, also won special elections on Nov. 6 while also earning a regular two-year term, and they've both already been sworn in.
Uncalled Races
● GA-07: After additional ballots were counted following a judge's order, Gwinnett County certified its election results on Thursday, resulting in a 419-vote win for GOP Rep. Rob Woodall. That's a margin of just 50.1-49.9 over Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux, who says she will seek a recount once the secretary of state certifies the results.
Senate
● CO-Sen: The Denver Post names a few more potential Democratic challengers for GOP Sen. Cory Gardner. They write that state House Speaker Crisanta Duran's "interest in challenging Gardner is well known in Democratic circles." Duran, who is the first Latina to hold the speakership and will leave office early next year because of term limits, is being a bit coyer in public, though she's not ruling it out at all. She put out a statement saying she was focused with finishing up her term and, "As for my next steps, I am interested in being in a role where I can be most effective and build upon the work I've done but haven't made a final decision about what that is."
The only other major Democrats who have expressed interest are former state Sen. Mike Johnston and former Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett. Scientist Trish Zornio has already formed an exploratory committee, but we'll have to see if she has the connections to run a serious campaign. Democratic operatives also name-dropped outgoing Gov. John Hickenlooper and Rep. Ed Perlmutter, but there's no word if either of them is interested (neither responded to the Post when asked about this race).
Hickenlooper has made it no secret that he wants to run for president, but some party operatives hope that if that campaign doesn't take off, he'll come home and challenge Gardner. However, no one seems sure if the governor would even be interested in serving in the Senate.
Perlmutter kicked off a bid for governor in 2017 but dropped out shortly after fellow Rep. and eventual winner Jared Polis jumped in. Perlmutter exited the race saying he didn't have the "fire in belly" to run statewide and that he was ready to retire from Congress, though he changed his mind a few months later and successfully sought re-election.
Local observers also name-dropped a few other Democrats, but there's also no word if any are considering. Their list consists of former state Treasurer Cary Kennedy, who lost the 2018 primary for governor to Polis 44-25; outgoing state Rep. Joe Salazar, who lost this year's primary for attorney general to eventual winner Phil Weiser 50.4-49.6; and former U.S. Attorney John Walsh.
● MS-Sen-B: Politico reports that the Senate Leadership Fund, which we noted in the previous Digest was set to begin airing ads in Mississippi's Senate runoff, is spending $1 million on television and radio and another $130,000 on digital ads. Predictably, their TV spot ties Democrat Mike Espy to Bill and Hillary Clinton, calling him a "shady Clinton crony." It also references Espy's 1997 indictment on charges that he'd improperly accepted gifts when he'd served as Bill Clinton's secretary of agriculture. Needless to say, the ad doesn't mention that Espy was acquitted on all counts.
The NRSC, which is also spending $1 million here, also features Espy's scandal in its own ad, portraying Espy as a creature of the "swamp" who got rich off his time in D.C. and wants to go back. Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, by contrast, goes positive, narrating her own ad directly to camera in which she touts her "conservative values," like "right to life" and "protecting our Second Amendment."
It's still something of a surprise to see major Republican groups stepping in to help Hyde-Smith ahead of the Nov. 27 runoff, but it's somewhat less of a surprise to learn that Hyde-Smith really isn't such a great candidate. The day after a recent event at which she expressed a yearning to witness a lynching, Hyde-Smith spoke openly of her desire to suppress the vote:
"And then they remind me that there's a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who maybe we don't want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. And I think that's a great idea."
Hyde-Smith's campaign of course claimed it was all just a "joke" and that the "senator absolutely is not a racist and does not support voter suppression," but that's pretty much also how she tried to brush off her comments about watching a public hanging, so she has a pretty warped sense of humor—at best.
And not only is her taste poor, so are her finances. In a new FEC filing, Hyde-Smith reported having just $204,000 in cash-on-hand, and as the National Journal's Zach Cohen notes, she'd be in the red were it not for a $350,000 bank loan she took out shortly before Election Day. Espy, meanwhile, has $248,000 left—not a big advantage, but still notable given his long odds.
Gubernatorial
● IN-Gov: Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb is up for re-election in 2020, and at this early stage in the cycle he looks like he's in strong shape. Morning Consult gave Holcomb a strong 50-24 approval rating during the third quarter of 2018, and he has the luxury of running in a conservative state where Democrats have suffered some big setbacks in recent years.
We haven't heard many prospective Democrats mentioned as potential candidates. The Indianapolis Star writes that former state Rep. Christina Hale, who was Team Blue's 2016 lieutenant governor nominee, has had her name "thrown around as a potential 2020 gubernatorial candidate." Hale spoke to the paper about what she thinks Hoosier State Democrats should do to be competitive, declaring, "I think there is an opportunity to build a collaborative administration that is about getting things done, being a good steward of tax dollars and doing the right things for the right reasons." It's not clear if Hale thinks she should be the person to take up that cause in two years or not.
House
● MN-07: Republican Dave Hughes held Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson to a 52-48 win on Nov. 7, and he recently told WZFG that he was "leaning towards running again and announcing soon but have not made a decision at all."
Hughes first challenged Peterson for this conservative northwestern seat back in 2016. Hughes raised almost no money and major outside groups from both sides spent nothing, but he held Peterson to an unexpectedly close 52.5-47.5 win as this seat was swinging from 54-44 Romney to 62-31 Trump, the reddest of House seat Democrats won. Two years later it was almost the exact same story all over again. While Trump endorsed Hughes over Twitter, the Republican once again brought in little money and no major national groups on either side got involved here, yet Hughes again came surprisingly close to winning.
Peterson, who turned 74 this year, always flirts with retirement, and this seat would almost certainly go red if he left. However, it's unclear if Republicans will try to mount a stronger campaign against the veteran Democrat in 2020 if he decides to stick around, or if they'll just hope that a weak candidate like Hughes will get lucky this time.
● NC-11, NV-04: On Thursday, the House Ethics Committee formally sanctioned North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, the leader of the nihilistic Freedom Caucus, and retiring Nevada Democratic Rep. Ruben Kihuen.
The committee found that Meadows, who represents a heavily gerrymandered western North Carolina seat, had violated House rules over his handling of sexual harassment allegations against his now-former chief of staff, Kenny West. They criticized Meadows for keeping West on his payroll even after the congressman heard credible harassment allegations him, writing that Meadows had failed "to take appropriate steps to ensure that his House office was free from discrimination and any perception of discrimination." Meadows will need to reimburse the U.S. Treasury more than $40,000 to cover the cost of his former chief of staff's salary.
Kihuen announced he was retiring last year after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment, though he vehemently denied doing anything wrong at the time. However, the Ethics Committee's new report featured testimony from three women who had told the media last year that Kihuen had made unwanted physical and verbal advances towards them, and it noted that their accounts were backed up with contemporary evidence.
Despite all the bad headlines, Kihuen never seemed to accept his political career was over. In March, he didn't deny reports that he was considering running for re-election after all, though he ended up not filing in the end. Kihuen has since shown interest in running for the Las Vegas City Council next year. He may still harbor those ambitions even after Thursday: The Nevada Independent's Jon Ralston tweeted after the report was released that he would still say the odds of a Kihuen council bid are "at worst 50-50."
Even after this damning document was released, Kihuen still didn't acknowledge the extent of his transgressions. Kihuen told the Nevada Independent that while he disagrees with some parts of the report, it "saddens me greatly to think I made any woman feel that way due to my own immaturity and overconfidence. I extend my sincere apologies to each of these women."
According to the women who testified against him, what Kihuen calls "immaturity and overconfidence" includes (but is not limited to) suggesting to a firm's employee that he would help advance her career if they were in a relationship, touching a campaign staffer's thigh and suggesting they get a hotel room, and telling a lobbyist that they should make a sex tape.
Mayoral
● Chicago, IL Mayor: Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has picked up an endorsement from Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky in the very crowded 2019 open seat race.
