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
● AZ-06: If Arizona GOP Rep. David Schweikert hoped that he was about to put his ethics issues behind him, he got some unpleasant news on Thursday when the House Ethics Committee voted unanimously to expand the scope of their inquiry into his activities.
Campaign Action
Roll Call writes that the committee is looking into allegations that Schweikert used official congressional office resources to benefit his campaigns. They're also investigating whether the congressman pressured his congressional staff to do political activities for him and whether he "authorized compensation to an employee who did not perform duties commensurate with his House employment," which Roll Call says is code for "off-the-books settlements" paid out to a staffer. Oh, and the committee is also looking into whether a congressional employee gave Schweikert or his campaign loans or gifts.
Back in June, the committee announced that both Schweikert and now-former chief of staff Oliver Schwab were under investigation. The complaint at the time said that they were looking into allegations that Schweikert's campaign had paid Schwab considerably more than congressional staffers are allowed to earn in outside income. Schweikert still managed to win re-election 55-45 against Democrat Anita Malik, but that margin was far smaller than all his previous victories in his current district, which he'd never carried by less than 24 points.
Now, these fresh allegations are both much more serious and come much earlier in the cycle, so Team Blue will have a lot more time to organize a competitive campaign against Schweikert. And there's good reason to target him: Arizona's 6th Congressional District, which includes part of the Phoenix suburbs, shifted sharply to the left thanks to Donald Trump: After voting 60-39 for Mitt Romney, Trump carried it just 52-42.Even more alarming for Schweikert, Democratic Sen.-elect Kyrsten Sinema lost the 6th to Republican Sen.-designate Martha McSally by a narrow 51-47 margin this year, according to analyst Drew Savicki. If his ethical woes worsen, his congressional career might not last much longer.
Senate
● CO-Sen: The Denver Post recently asked outgoing Gov. John Hickenlooper if he has any interest in challenging GOP Sen. Cory Gardner, and he explicitly did not rule it out. While Hickenlooper once again made it clear that he's looking to run for president in 2020, he added that, "I don't have any anticipation for running for Senate, but I haven't ruled anything out."
However, state and national Democrats may not feel much of a need to try to take up what may be a herculean task of convincing Hickenlooper to back down from his White House dreams and run against Gardner. A number of other Centennial State Democrats are talking about entering the Senate race, and some of them may not be willing to defer to the governor if he decides several months from now that a Senate run is a much better bet than a presidential campaign.
Gubernatorial
● GA-Gov: Outgoing state Sen. Michael Williams, who attracted national infamy for driving a "deportation bus" around Georgia during his unsuccessful 2018 GOP primary bid, was indicted this week for fraud and false reporting over a cryptocurrency-related insurance scam. Even in the Trump era, that's one of the stranger sentences we've ever written.
● UT-Gov: Outgoing state House Speaker Greg Hughes recently told Utah Policy's Bob Bernick that he was indeed considering a 2020 GOP primary campaign to succeed retiring Gov. Gary Herbert. Hughes, who announced in January that he would retire from the legislature, said he was "likely to run again. I'm open to the governor's seat in 2020."
It doesn't sound like Hughes, who was an early Trump supporter, is in a hurry to announce anything, though. Bernick writes that "no one can run a gubernatorial race for two years," and that Hughes "will be taking a non-public role for at least a bit."
An October University of Utah survey gave Hughes just 3 percent of the vote in a hypothetical primary, but he said he believes he'd have a shot especially if the state legislature adopts new primary rules in 2019. A potential change Bernick wrote about is a possible primary runoff process, which could mean either a "quick by-mail runoff or the top two going back into a delegate convention." This is the first we've heard about Utah possibly adopting either idea, any we don't know how likely it is that the state will alter their primary rules. In any case, the decision will be out of Hughes' hands.
House
● ME-02: As expected, a federal appeals court has rejected Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin's request for an emergency injunction seeking to overturn his loss to Democrat Jared Golden in last month's election.
● TX-23: On Thursday, 2018 Democratic nominee Gina Ortiz Jones put out an email to supporters saying she was "very likely" to challenge Texas Rep. Will Hurd again in 2020. Ortiz Jones lost 49.2-48.7, a margin of just 926 votes.
That turned out to be a surprisingly close showing since several polls found Hurd well ahead. National Democratic groups were initially reluctant to spend much money on what looked like a very uphill race, and the NRCC even canceled its final 3 1/2 weeks' worth of ad reservations in early October in a big sign of confidence in Hurd. However, the DCCC and House Majority PAC ended up spending a total of around $840,000, and the NRCC went back on the air in the final week of the race with a $554,000 buy, both of which indicated that this race was getting closer late in the game.
While Hurd did win in the end, neither party is likely to treat him like he's the strong favorite in 2020 after his narrow escape. If anything, Hurd will likely be one of Team Blue's top targets in the country. Texas' 23rd District, which stretches from San Antonio west to the outskirts of El Paso, backed Clinton 50-46, and come January, Hurd will be just one of three House Republicans who holds a Clinton seat. The other two are New York's John Katko and Pennsylvania's Brian Fitzpatrick, who should also be prepared for tough fights.
Mayoral
● Jacksonville, FL Mayor: Jacksonville is the second-largest city in America to be led by a GOP mayor (only San Diego, California is larger), but incumbent Lenny Curry's main threat in 2019 likely will come from a fellow Republican. At-Large City Councilwoman Anna Lopez Brosche has been flirting with a bid for a while, and she'll hold an event on Jan. 1 that local politicos speculate could be a campaign kickoff. The filing deadline is Jan. 11, so in any case, we'll know the state of affairs soon. All the candidates will run on one nonpartisan ballot on March 19, and if no one takes a majority of the vote, there would be a May 14 general election.
Curry and Brosche have been adversaries for a while, and they clashed plenty of times during her year as city council president. Brosche is now arguing that crime has spiked under Curry, and that "[r]ather than focusing on fighting crime, Mayor Curry has prioritized an agenda aimed at helping his friends." Curry's team wasted no time firing back and declaring that Brosche is a "failed politician who is all talk and no action."
If Curry does face a serious challenge next year, money won't at all be problem for him. The former state GOP chair is a very strong fundraiser, and he had $3 million in the bank in mid-December.
● Kansas City, MO Mayor: Mayor Sly James is termed-out in 2019, and there's a very crowded contest to succeed him. The race briefly attracted national attention when former Missouri Secretary of State and 2016 Senate candidate Jason Kander, who served in Afghanistan as an Army Intelligence officer, announced he was running in July, then dropped out in October to focus on his treatment for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
City Councilor Jolie Justus, a former state Senate Democratic leader, had pulled the plug on her campaign after Kander got in, and she re-entered the race with his support soon after he dropped out. The Kansas City Star wrote just before she got back in October that "consultants and former office holders" privately believed that she'd be a top-tier candidate. Justus was the first gay member of the Missouri legislature, and the LGBTQ Victory Fund says she'd be the first LGBT mayor of a major midwestern city as well.
Many other candidates have already filed ahead of the Jan. 8 deadline. They include: City Councilors Alissia Canaday, Quinton Lucas, Jermaine Reed, Scott Taylor, and Scott Wagner; businessman Phill Glynn; and attorneys Vincent Lee and Steve Miller. At this point, it's incredibly difficult to handicap this huge field. However, the Star wrote back in October that Lucas was the African-American candidate who might have the most appeal with white voters, though they didn't go into any details on why. They also noted at the time that Taylor had an overwhelming cash-on-hand edge with $351,000 in the bank.
All the candidates will face off on one nonpartisan ballot on April 2, and the top-two candidates with the most votes will proceed to the general election on June 18. (Candidates cannot avoid the general election by taking a majority.) The local ABC affiliate KMBC wrote this month that the big issues in this race will likely be the city's high crime rate, affordable housing, and local growth, especially in downtown Kansas City.
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