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: Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin, who lost last month to Democrat Jared Golden by 3,509 votes following an instant runoff, has requested a recount, which officials estimate could take a month. Poliquin will have to pay for the entire recount if he's unsuccessful in reversing the result, and there's no reason to think he'll be able to—though don't try telling him that.
Campaign Action
Poliquin's furor over the instant runoff has prompted his campaign to uncork an increasingly bizarre series of statements. The latest statements, accompanying his recount request, include an evidence-free claim that "countless" voters were "frightened" that their votes weren't counted due to "computer-engineered rank voting." The actual term is "ranked-choice voting," and the rankings were carried out by human voters, not computers, but why stop there?
Poliquin's campaign went on to kvetch that the software used by the secretary of state's office to count votes is a "black-box" "artificial intelligence." As David Jarman observed, "My best guess here is that Bruce Poliquin's son will someday stop the rise of the machines, so Skynet had to try to reach out from the future and smack him down." We still expect that we're gonna be saying "Hasta la vista, baby" to Poliquin quite soon.
House
● MI-13: In August, Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones lost the regular Democratic primary to succeed former Rep. John Conyers to Rashida Tlaib, but at the very same time, she won a special primary for the final two months of Conyers' term. Jones, however, doesn't want to step down from her powerful job on the council for such a short-term gig, and she insists she can serve in both positions at once since the council is currently on recess until January. House Speaker Paul Ryan's office has said that there's no precedent for such a situation, saying last month that they were "evaluating" the matter.
The issue is finally about to come to a head, though, because officials in Michigan certified the state's election results on Monday, meaning that Jones can now be sworn in. Of course, we're now down to just one month remaining in Conyers' unfinished term, but Ryan will still have to make a decision as to whether Jones can serve it out.
● NJ-07, NJ-11: The New Jersey Globe reports that state Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr., who's served in the legislature since 2001, is not ruling out a challenge to either Tom Malinowski or Mikie Sherrill, two of the Democrats who picked up Republican-held House seats in New Jersey earlier this month. The Globe suggests the former option is likelier, since Kean actually lives in the 7th District, calling a run in the 11th "significantly more convoluted."
Kean is best-known as a member of one of the Garden State's most prominent political families: His father served as governor in the 1980s, and his ancestors have held political office throughout the northeast dating back centuries. However, Kean himself has never made it further than the state Senate, where he's headed the GOP caucus since 2008: In 2000, he lost a primary in the 7th Congressional District, and in 2006, Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez beat him 53-44 in that year's Senate race.
And thanks to his famous name, Kean has regularly been mentioned for other possible bids, none of which he's followed through on. Last year, he was regarded as a potential candidate for a rematch with Menendez; the year prior to that, he contemplated a bid for governor; and back in 2014, he declined to challenge Democratic Sen. Cory Booker. What we're saying is, you could grow pretty hungry sitting around waiting for Tom Kean to decide to run for higher office.
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