The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
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Senate
● IA-Sen: Former Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack was asked Wednesday if he was interested in challenging GOP Sen. Joni Ernst, and he didn't rule anything out. Vilsack, who served as secretary of agriculture during all eight years of the Obama administration and now works as CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, said, "The door's not open, closed, shut." He then added, "I don't even know where the door is." While that statement doesn't make Vilsack sound super excited about searching every wardrobe he can find for a magical door to the Senate, he did show a bit more enthusiasm when it came to throwing shade at Ernst.
Vilsack told reporters that he thought successful 2020 candidates would be those who are excited and hopeful about the future, but added, "Make 'em squeal. I don't know." That's a reference to the 2014 "squeal" ad that helped propel Ernst through a crowded GOP primary, where Ernst told the audience how she "grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm, so when I get to Washington, I'll know how to cut pork" and concluded, "Washington's full of big spenders. Let's make 'em squeal." Vilsack mused, "Have we made even these folks squirm at all? I don't know. Have we? I haven't seen it, but a 'happy warrior'—I think we're ready for that." Whether Vilsack thinks he's this "happy warrior" or not remains to be seen.
● KS-Sen: GOP Sen. Pat Roberts, who is 82, told Politico this week that he'll spend the holidays considering whether or not to seek a fifth term. Roberts added that, while he wasn't certain if he'd make a decision before the new Congress starts on Jan. 3, he expects to have an announcement "early in the year," adding that he thinks it's "incumbent on people, if they're going to not run, to certainly indicate that [early] because it's a very competitive situation."
● TN-Sen: GOP Gov. Bill Haslam said this week that he'd decide on whether to run for the state's open Senate seat sometime after he leaves office Jan. 19. Haslam said he had no deadline for when he would decide, but insisted that it wouldn't take six months.
A number of other Republicans are also considering running to succeed retiring Sen. Lamar Alexander in 2020, though Haslam may freeze up much of the field while he contemplates what to do. The Tennessean recently wrote that former Rep. Stephen Fincher was considering running, but there's no other information. We also have yet to hear from Fincher himself.
Fincher was elected to a West Tennessee seat in the 2010 GOP wave and decided not to seek a fourth term in 2016. However, he soon tried to get back to D.C. and kicked off a Senate bid the next year after Bob Corker decided to retire. Polls showed Fincher far behind eventual winner Marsha Blackburn in a primary, but we never got to see the two fight it out. Corker began making noises about running after all, and in February, Fincher dropped out of the race and said that he wanted the senator to seek a third term.
Corker ended up deciding once and for all to stay retired, though, and Fincher never got back in the race. Still, Fincher still has $1.7 million in the bank from this aborted bid that he can use for another federal campaign.
Thankfully, we'll at least be spared another round of waiting to see what Corker will do. When the Washington Examiner asked if he had any interest in this race, Corker said no a total of 14 times. Now that's how you make it absolutely clear you're not interested in running for office!
House
● NE-02: On Thursday, 2018 Democratic nominee Kara Eastman announced that she would seek a rematch with GOP Rep. Don Bacon in an Omaha seat that backed Trump 49-47. Bacon fended off a challenge from Eastman 51-49, which turned out to be a surprisingly close showing, since national Democrats never ran any ads here (the DCCC said after the election that it had spent "almost $100,000" to help Eastman pay to air a commercial), while the conservative Congressional Leadership Fund deployed a hefty $1.4 million against Eastman.
Eastman surprised the political world in May when she won the primary by successfully running to the left of moderate former Rep. Brad Ashford, who had the backing of national Democrats. However, she may face another primary against the Ashford family. Attorney Ann Ferlic Ashford, who is the former congressman's wife, said last month that she was seriously considering getting in and planned to decide in the winter or early spring. On Thursday, after Eastman made her announcement, News Channel Nebraska's Joe Jordan wrote that Ashford was "expected to run," though there's also no quote from her.
Ashford, who identified as a Republican for most of her life, said back in November that she firmly believed that "Democrats must reach out to moderates," and that she thinks she could be someone "who can represent the entirety of the district." That could be the wrong approach in a primary, though, as her husband found out the hard way against Eastman.
Other local Democrats may also be interested. Last month, the Omaha World-Herald's Roseann Moring mentioned state Sens. Tony Vargas and Justin Wayne as possible candidates. Wayne didn't quite rule anything out, saying he hadn't thought about seeking higher office and had a "big legislative agenda this year," while Vargas didn't comment. We haven't heard anything since then from either legislator, each of whom backed Eastman in her primary campaign against Brad Ashford.
Mayoral
● Chicago, IL Mayor: On Wednesday, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle dropped her attempt to challenge enough of state Comptroller Susana Mendoza's petitions to knock her off the Feb. 26 primary ballot. Plenty of local politicos view Preckwinkle and Mendoza as the frontrunners in the crowded contest to succeed Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and two new polls also show the two leading in the primary. The race is nonpartisan, but all the serious candidates are Democrats.
The Chicago Federation of Labor, which just voted to remain neutral in the primary, released a poll from the Democratic firm Anzalone Liszt Grove giving Preckwinkle the lead with 21 percent. Mendoza leads former White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, who is the son and brother of the city's two longest-serving mayors, 16-9 for the second-place spot in an April 2 runoff.
Just behind with 8 percent is wealthy businessman Willie Wilson, who badly lost the 2015 contest, waged a 2016 Democratic presidential campaign that attracted almost no attention, and campaigned for Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's unsuccessful re-election campaign (actually, he did a bit more than just campaign). Each of the seven other candidates takes 7 percent of the vote or less.
ALG also tested several of the candidates in hypothetical general-election bouts. Mendoza leads Preckwinkle 45-39 and defeats Daley by a larger 56-29 margin. Mendoza also beats former Chicago Board of Education President and 2011 candidate Gery Chico, who only took 3 percent of the vote in the primary portion, 58-23. In a Preckwinkle vs. Daley contest, Preckwinkle leads 51-32.
Preckwinkle's campaign soon released its own poll from Tulchin Researchthat shows her in better shape in both the primary and in a general election against Mendoza. Its survey finds Preckwinkle in first with 22 percent and Mendoza in second at 10. Both Daley and former Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer Paul Vallas (who was Team Blue's 2014 nominee for lieutenant governor) are well within striking distance of the runoff with 10 percent of the vote each, while former Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy takes 8. Tuchin also finds Preckwinkle leading Mendoza 42-39 in a general election, and Preckwinkle defeats Daley 49-31.
While both polls show Daley in not-so-great shape, he does hold a big lead in the money race. On Tuesday, the Chicago Tribune reported that Daley had raised a total of $3.1 million for his campaign, considerably more than the $1.7 million Preckwinkle has brought in so far; of Preckwinkle's total haul, $1.2 million came from the SEIU. Chico was just behind with $1.4 million, while former federal prosecutor Lori Lightfoot and McCarthy (who were both challenging Emanuel months before he announced he would retire) each have raised $900,000.
Wilson has contributed $800,000 to his campaign―because he's self-funded more than $100,000, state law allows all the candidates to accept unlimited contributions from donors. Mendoza brought in $677,000 since announcing last month, but $500,000 of that was transferred from her statewide campaign account.
● Dallas, TX Mayor: On Wednesday, prominent developer Mike Ablon announced that he was joining the crowded 2019 open-seat race for mayor of Dallas. Ablon may be best known for his firm's work redeveloping the Design District neighborhood, a project that the Dallas Morning Newsdescribed as pushing "mixed-use development, bringing upscale apartments, restaurants, bars and coffee shops into what had largely been a warehouse-and-logistics hub."
Last year, Mayor Mike Rawlings appointed Ablon to serve as the head of the public-private partnership that manages the ongoing development of Harold Simmons Park, a long-stalled project that, if completed, will create one of the largest parks in the country. Ablon resigned from that post days before he announced his mayoral campaign.
Grab Bag
● Reapportionment: On Dec. 19, the Census Bureau released its 2018 population estimates for every state, detailing how many residents each state has gained or lost since the 2010 census. The firm Election Data Services has used these estimates to project how many congressional seats each state might gain or lose in the 2020 round of reapportionment, which assigns each state its share of the House's 435 districts based on its population.
As shown on the map here, 15 to 17 states could see their number of districts change after the 2020 census. The precise numbers vary because EDS offers two different projections: one based on longer-term population trends from 2010 through 2018, and a second based on the much shorter-term trend from just 2016 to 2018. A third projection, relying on trends from 2014 to 2018, yields the same results as the 2010 to 2018 time frame. (A fourth model that looks only at the 2018 numbers is more of a snapshot rather than a forecast, so we haven't included it in the map above.)
These projections also represent a shift, in some cases, from forecasts that EDS issued last year, when the Census Bureau released new population estimates for 2017. These five changes are summarized below:
STATE |
2017 |
2018 |
CALIFORNIA |
0 |
0 or -1 |
MINNESOTA |
-1 |
0 or -1 |
MONTANA |
0 or +1 |
+1 |
NEW YORK |
-1 |
-2 |
TEXAS |
+2 or +3 |
+3 |
If California does indeed lose a seat, it would be the first time in 160 years that the Golden State’s representation in the House had shrunk. This scenario would only take place under the short-term model (based on population shifts from 2016 to 2018), in which case Minnesota would hang on to a seat it’s otherwise set to lose.
The 2020 census and subsequent reapportionment will thus set the stage for congressional redistricting. However, it's difficult to predict with much accuracy what the partisan impact of these changes will be, because we don't yet know which party (if any) will control the redistricting process in many states. The 2018 gubernatorial elections were an important piece for determining the partisan control over the process after 2020, but legislative races yet to take place in 2019 and 2020 will also be crucial for setting the partisan landscape. One thing we do know, however, is that much of the population growth in Sun Belt states such as Texas comes from black, Latino, and Asian-American residents, which could benefit Democrats in those states. However, there could be a significant undercounting of those populations if the Trump administration's pernicious push to add an intimidating citizenship question to the census survives ongoing court challenges.
Reapportionment will also determine how many Electoral College votes each state receives, since each state gets electoral votes equivalent to the number of House seats it has plus two for its Senate delegation. Adjusting the 2016 Electoral College outcome based on the above projections, Donald Trump would have gained three electoral votes, while Hillary Clinton would have lost three—not nearly enough to alter Trump's 304-227 win.
Interestingly, the largely Midwestern and Northeastern states that are projected to lose seats almost all trended Republican in 2016, while the states forecast to gain seats—largely in the Sun Belt— almost all trended Democratic. These trends could benefit Democrats in the long term if they can start winning regularly in places like Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas, even if Republicans shift toward a greater reliance on the Rust Belt.
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