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
● Congress: Following the preliminary resolution (see our NC-09 item below) of the 2018 congressional elections, Daily Kos Elections is pleased to unveil the most comprehensive guide to the new 116th Congress' members and their districts that you'll find anywhere. This spreadsheet includes a wealth of demographic and electoral data on the members and the districts they represent, providing key insight on the makeup of Congress and statistics that play a critical role in understanding Senate and House elections.
Campaign Action
The guide includes our own calculations of the 2008-2016 presidential elections by congressional district, the 2012-2018 House election results, and recent Senate elections by state. Additionally, it includes vital census demographic statistics such as the racial breakdown of the population, including race by citizenship status to provide the most accurate estimation of the eligible voter population. It also contains college educational-attainment statistics, median household income, and an estimate of the share of potentially eligible voters who are white without a college degree, a demographic marker that has become increasingly salient in the Trump era.
For each voting member of the House and Senate, we have stats on gender, race or ethnicity, age, LGBTQ status, religious affiliation, and even a name pronunciation guide. The 116th Congress will have both the most racial diversity and the highest share of women on record, but those stats diverge wildly by party. For instance, only 36 percent of House Democrats are heterosexual white men, but an enormous 89 percent of House Republicans are. Check out our new Congress guide for further analysis of the demographics of the new House and Senate members, and we'll further explore and visualize this topic in an upcoming series.
Senate
● MA-Sen: There's been plenty of speculation that Sen. Ed Markey could face serious opposition in the 2020 Democratic primary, and a couple of recent polls show that most primary voters aren't committed to him at this very early point in the cycle. In September, a Suffolk University poll gave Markey a 24-18 lead in a hypothetical contest with Rep. Seth Moulton. A YouGov poll for UMass Amherst taken in the days after Election Day found Markey leading Moulton by a similar 29-25 margin, while Attorney General Maura Healey edged Markey 27-26.
It's far from clear if any prominent Massachusetts Democrats will challenge Markey, but so far, a lot of them aren't exactly ruling it out. Back in October, McClatchy asked Moulton about his 2020 plans, and while the congressman insisted a primary campaign was "not something I'm interested in, I'm planning on," he didn't say no when he was asked. Since then, Moulton has been trying to block Nancy Pelosi from becoming speaker (without providing an actual alternative candidate), and it's always possible that he'll decide he's burned enough bridges in the House that it makes sense to undertake a risky Senate bid.
Healey hasn't shown any obvious interest, and Bay State politicos have long expected her to run for governor in 2022. However, in a recent column at the Lowell Sun, Peter Lucas relayed that "some say" she'll take on Markey. That's not much to go off of, but interestingly, Healey's team declined to comment on a Boston Globe story that mentioned her as a possible Senate candidate, so they're at least not shooting down the idea publicly.
Rep. Joe Kennedy, a Kennedy family scion, has long been talked about as a future Senate candidate, though he hasn't shown much interest in getting a promotion by challenging Markey. However, Kennedy also didn't quite rule out the idea when he had the chance. In a recent interview with WBZ the congressman was asked about this race and he replied that he was a "strong supporter" of Markey "and I expect that not only will he run for re-election, but I expect that he will win it." That seems pretty definitive, but when he was pushed if he'd ever challenge a fellow Democrat in a primary, Kennedy declined to completely close the door on it.
Instead, Kennedy declared, "in this business, I guess you never say never," adding, "I have a hard time understanding what those circumstances would be that would lead me to do that," and, "That's not on my radar screen. That's not on my to-do list." Kennedy could have saved a lot of time and just said something like "I will not challenge Ed Markey" if he'd wanted to.
Local Democratic insiders also mused to the Globe that Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu or outgoing state Rep. Juana Matias, who lost a crowded 2018 primary for the 3rd Congressional District, could be intriguing candidates, but there's no word if either are interested.
● MS-Sen: On Friday, just days after his defeat in Tuesday's special election, Democrat Mike Espy formed a 2020 Senate campaign committee with the FEC. Espy, who held Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith to a 54-46 win in this very red state, has yet to say anything publicly about his interest in another run.
Gubernatorial
● IN-Gov: Hoosier State Democrats would love to target GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb, but after two disappointing cycles, it's far from clear who will step up. The local political tip-sheet Howey Politics writes that many hope that Sen. Joe Donnelly, who lost re-election this year 51-45, will run. However, there's no sign Donnelly's interested at the moment.
Howey also name-drops 2012 and 2016 nominee John Gregg, former state Rep. and 2016 lieutenant governor nominee Christina Hale, and Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott, but only says that they're "keeping their cards close to vest at this point." Only McDermott seems to have spoken to Howey recently, and he urged Donnelly to run.
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg was also mentioned in the Howey article, but it noted he was preparing for a possible presidential bid. Indeed, while Buttigieg said on Thursday that he'd decide by the end of this year if he'd run for president, he didn't show any sign that he was considering a bid for governor at all.
● LA-Gov: Sen. John Kennedy says he'll announce on Monday if he'll challenge Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards next year, but another Republican is also letting it be known that he's still interested. Rep. Ralph Abraham, who has been openly flirting with a bid for almost a year, told USA Today on Thursday that, "If we had to make a decision today, then I would say we are certainly leaning that way," and he insisted that Kennedy's "decision won't have any impact on mine."
Abraham said that he'd decide by Jan. 1 what he'd do. However, he said last December that he'd make up his mind "sometime in the next quarter or second quarter [of 2018] at the latest." In other words, if we haven't heard from Abraham at 11:59 PM on Dec. 31, maybe don't join your friends and family in shouting "Happy Ralph Abraham Decision Day!" when the ball drops a minute later. Right now, the only declared Republican candidate is wealthy businessman Eddie Rispone, who has pledged to stay in the race no matter what Kennedy or Abraham do.
House
● NC-09: With the election in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District marred by allegations of election fraud, the state's Board of Elections once again voted not to certify results from the race on Friday, instead deciding to hold another hearing by Dec. 21. The vote in favor of a further delay was 7-2, with two Republicans joining the board's four Democrats and one independent member.
Currently, Republican Mark Harris leads Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes, a margin of just 0.3 percent. The board has been extremely vague about the issues that are preventing certification, but the state Democratic Party has submitted affidavits to the board from voters in Bladen County alleging that "serious irregularities and improprieties may have occurred" with regard to absentee ballots.
In addition to specific charges of wrongdoing, such as a voter who said that a woman collected her ballot even though she hadn't signed or sealed its envelope, analysts like political scientist Michael Bitzer have observed that Bladen County and neighboring Robeson County had unusually high levels of unreturned absentee ballots. Elizabeth Sbrocco also notes that the number of simple requests for absentee ballots was extremely high in Bladen, prompting her to theorize that the people behind this operation were not "just picking up ballots from people who genuinely requested [them]. They're fraudulently doing the requests and then following up."
Bitzer further points out that Harris won 61 percent of absentee ballots in Bladen, the only county of the eight that make up the 9th District where he outpaced McCready, who overall won 62 percent of absentees district-wide. What makes the Bladen results particularly bizarre is that only 19 percent of absentee ballots received by the county came from registered Republicans, while 39 percent were from independents and 42 percent from Democrats. Therefore, for Harris to win 62 percent of absentees there, he'd need every single Republican and every last independent plus a few Democrats to vote for him—a pattern not seen anywhere else in the district.
What happens next is hard to say. The board could ultimately order a new election, though that would be sure to prompt legal action as the state Republican Party had already threatened to sue if the board failed to certify the results on Friday. In particular, the GOP argues that there aren't enough absentees to affect the outcome, but their math is wrong.
Between Bladen County and neighboring Robeson County, which may be just as tainted, Harris won 679 votes, which is indeed fewer than his 905-vote margin overall. However, if, as appears likely, some of those votes for Harris were improperly cast and instead intended for McCready, then there are more than enough votes to impact the outcome, since the figure that matters is in fact 679 times two, or 1,358.
There's a further crazy wrinkle here as well, which is that North Carolina's Board of Elections had been slated to wink out of existence at 11:59 PM ET on Monday until a court delayed that event until noon on Dec. 12. That's because that same state court ruled in October that the current board, which came into being because of laws Republicans have repeatedly passed to try to strip power from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, violates the state constitution.
Democrats argue that, once the court's deadline passes, the board should revert to the form it took in 2016, before the GOP started mucking with it, a prospect Republicans steadfastly oppose because it would give Democrats a majority. As noted above, the board has given itself until Dec. 21 to conduct a further hearing, but barring another stay of execution, if it doesn't do so by Dec. 12, it could be some time before we get further clarity as legal wrangling over the next version of the board is sure to ensue.
● NJ-02: This year, Republicans failed to field a strong candidate to defend this open seat from Democrat Jeff Van Drew, but they have plenty of time to find someone for this new cycle. However, Assemblywoman DiAnne Gove took her name out of contention early, telling the New Jersey Globe, "Have I ruled it out? Absolutely."
Mayoral
● Dallas, TX Mayor: Democratic Mayor Mike Rawlings is termed-out of office next year, and a crowded race to succeed him as mayor of America's ninth-largest city is already underway. The filing deadline is Feb. 15, and all the candidates will face off on one nonpartisan ballot on May 4. If no one wins a majority of the vote, there would be a runoff June 8.
Former Dallas Housing Authority chair Albert Black announced he was in back in July. The Dallas Morning News wrote at the time Black, who was the first African American to head the Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce, has strong ties to the city's local business elite. It's not clear which party Black identifies with, though he's emphasized his work with former Mayor Ron Kirk, who was the 2002 Democratic Senate nominee and later U.S. trade representative under Barack Obama.
Black had the field to himself until late November, when several others jumped in. Former Dallas City Attorney Larry Casto, who stepped down from his post in August, announced Tuesday that he was in. Before becoming city attorney in 2016, Casto spent 23 years working in Austin and D.C. as Dallas' chief lobbyist and director of legislative affairs. As city attorney, Casto was credited with negotiating an agreement with the city police and fire associations and the legislature to protect their pensions for decades to come. It's also not clear what party Casto identifies with.
On Wednesday, attorney Regina Montoya also kicked off a campaign, and she has plenty of connections in Democratic politics. Montoya worked as director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs during the Clinton administration, and she was the Democratic nominee against GOP Rep. Pete Sessions in 2000. She went on to serve as an executive and general counsel of the local Children's Medical Center as well as on several prominent civic and nonprofit boards, and she was one of Hillary Clinton's top Texas fundraisers in 2016.
Prominent real estate developer Mike Ablon also recently set up a campaign committee, but he has yet to announce he's in. Last year, 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 has largely stayed away from politics, saying in 2017 that the most political thing he had ever done until then was putting up signs for a 1998 bond proposition that he hoped would lead to the creation of this park, so it won't surprise you to learn that there's no information about his party.
A number of other Dallas politicians also made noises about running over the summer, and we should be hearing more from potential candidates now that the race is taking shape.