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
● UT-Sen: On Friday, one-time Netflix documentary star Mitt Romney announced he would seek the GOP nomination to succeed retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch in Utah. Romney, an unsuccessful 1994 Senate candidate in Massachusetts who is also known as the uncle of Colorado gubernatorial candidate Doug Robinson, begins as the heavy favorite to win the June primary in this very red state.
Campaign Action
However, the former charity boxer may still face a challenge from state Auditor John Dougall, who recently said he was strongly considering launching what he knew would be an uphill battle. Dougall cited Romney's on-again, but currently off rivalry with Donald Trump, arguing Utah needed an outspoken Trump ally in the Senate. However, Utah may be the one state where being a sometimes-Trump critic isn't fatal in a GOP primary, and there's no indication Trump plans to go after Romney.
P.S. If Romney wins, he'll be the second person in U.S. history to serve as governor of one state and senator from another. According to the University of Minnesota, the only person who currently has this distinction is Sam Houston. Houston served as Tennessee's chief executive in the late 1820s and became Texas' senator after it gained statehood in the 1840s. But in between that, Houston served as president of the Republic of Texas, a post Romney has yet to run for.
Senate
● IN-Sen, MO-Sen: It's only mid-February, but it looks like the battle for the Senate has just gotten seriously underway. The Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity just launched $4 million in new TV and digital ads (split roughly evenly) attacking Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill for refusing to support the GOP's tax cuts. Their main spots are basically clones of one another: They feature the same scripts, just with names and states swapped, and even feature some of the same stock footage—despite each ad starting with a narrator saying, "Tax reform is sweeping across [Missouri/Indiana]." So which state are that car dealership and ice cream shop in? Very possibly neither!
AFP already spent millions hectoring Donnelly and McCaskill about the tax bill last fall, but this time, Democrats are firing back. The Senate Majority PAC and Priorities USA are putting $1.8 million into TV and another $600,000 into digital platforms, and both spots are likewise similar: They attack the Republican tax law for giving 83 percent of benefits to the richest 1 percent and adding $1.5 trillion to the national debt while also saying that "to pay for it, there's a plan to cut Medicare for seniors." The Missouri spot also takes a dig at Attorney General Josh Hawley, the likely Republican nominee, for favoring all of this. (There's still a tossup GOP primary in Indiana.)
● WV-Sen: Disgraced coal baron Don Blankenship's new spot trains his fire on Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, one of his rivals in the May GOP primary. The commercial, which is actually conventional compared to Blankenship's other offerings, argues that Morrisey "accepted thousands of dollars from drug companies that have flooded West Virginia with drugs," and hits his wife for working for a firm that lobbies for Planned Parenthood. The narrator then pledges that Blankenship "won't accept a single dollar from drug companies or abortionists." As of Dec. 31, Blankenship hadn't accepted a single dollar from anyone not named Don Blankenship, so that's a pretty easy pledge to make.
Gubernatorial
● AZ-Gov: The Republican Governors Association has made its first television ad reservations of the cycle, booking $20 million in four states. (The DGA has yet to make any.) Three of them are in exactly the sort of states you'd expect: Florida ($9.4 million), Nevada ($3.3 million), and Ohio ($4.3 million), each home to hotly contested open-seat races. The fourth is definitely a surprise, though: Arizona, where Republican Gov. Doug Ducey is seeking re-election. Ducey hasn't looked especially vulnerable, and Arizona still leans red, but the RGA is nevertheless booking $3.4 million in TV time in the Grand Canyon State.
There are any number of explanations. For one, reservations are just that—they can always be cancelled—so the RGA might just be hedging its bets by locking in early rates. Alternately, they might be seeking some measure of insurance: Shore this race up sooner and they won't have to worry about it later. There's also the possibility, as with any major campaign committee, that particular donors have made it clear they want their money spent in particular ways, even if it might not represent the smartest investment.
Or, of course, the RGA could be genuinely concerned. It is 2018, after all, and Arizona will host an expensive and competitive Senate race—and perhaps more than one. What's more, one of the two Democrats running for governor, former state education official David Garcia, released a poll from PPP last month that had him leading Ducey 43-42. (State Sen. Steve Farley was also close, trailing Ducey 42-39.) Garcia's internals are the only polls we've ever seen of this race, but Republicans haven't seen fit to counter them with superior numbers of their own, so it's certainly possible there's a real race to be had here.
● CA-Gov: On Friday. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom received an endorsement from Sen. Kamala Harris ahead of the June top-two primary. The move is hardly a surprise: The two Democrats have known each other since their days in San Francisco politics (Newsom is a former mayor and Harris a former district attorney), and they share the same consulting firm. Back in 2015, right after Sen. Barbara Boxer retired, there was an understanding that one of them would run for her seat while the other would run for governor this year. The two kept the political world, and each other, guessing about their plans for days afterwards. Newsom ended up making the first move when he announced he would sit out the Senate race, and Harris kicked off her campaign just hours later.
● IL-Gov: State Sen. Daniel Biss is out with a positive ad ahead of the March 20 Democratic primary where he pledges to be "the middle class governor."
● KS-Gov: The GOP pollster Remington Research, which did not identify a client, is out with our first look at the August GOP primary for governor of Kansas, and there's a surprise. Jeff Colyer, who ascended to the governor's office weeks ago, has a narrow 23-21 lead over presumptive frontrunner Kris Kobach, Kansas' notorious secretary of state. Former state Sen. Jim Barnett, who badly lost the 2006 race to Democrat Kathleen Sebelius, is a distant third with 8 percent, while wealthy businessman Wink Hartman, former state Rep. Mark Hutton, and state Insurance Commissioner Ken Selzer each barely register. However, all three of them have plenty of money in the bank, so they may have room to grow.
Colyer posts a 36-14 rating, but half of respondents haven't made up their minds about their new chief executive. But more interestingly, GOP primary voters give Kobach just a 42-35 favorable rating, a very weak score from his party, especially for this early in the race. Kobach is a close Trump ally, but that association may not be helping him. Kobach has devoted much of his time towards spearheading Trump's bogus voter-fraud commission, a group that's now thankfully defunct. It's possible that even a significant number of Kansas Republicans were unhappy with Kobach's prominent role in this witch-hunt, or they just feel he's not spending enough time in the state doing his nominal day job. It's also worth noting that Kobach raised a surprisingly weak amount of money in the last year, so if his image is already in trouble, he may not have the resources he needs to repair it.
Of course, as we always caution, no one should make conclusions about the state of a race based on just one poll. The only other recent survey we've seen was a Moore Information poll that took a look at both parties' primaries. However, that survey sampled a total of 400 respondents, which almost certainly means that there were fewer than 300 voters per primary, which is exactly the minimum Daily Kos Elections requires to include a poll in the Digest. (We explain why here.)
● WY-Gov: Two new Republicans, neither of whom have held elected office before, are making noises about entering the August primary. Businessman Sam Galeotos, who currently is the executive chairman of Green House Data, a company the Wyoming News Exchange calls a "rapidly growing data services firm he helped raise money to expand," recently filed to run, though he hasn't announced he's in yet. Galeotos has the support of former state party chair Matt Micheli, who has occasionally been name-dropped as a potential candidate himself, so he may have some useful connections.
Meanwhile, state Department of Health Director Tom Forslund also expressed interest in seeking the GOP nod in recent days. Forslund served for 23 years as Casper city manager until Gov. Matt Mead appointed him in 2011 to lead the Department of Health, and the Casper Star-Tribune writes that his tenure is still favorably remembered. Last year, Mead also picked him to lead the Department of Family Services, but Forslund's push to merge his two agencies was rejected by the legislature a few days ago.
Right now, the most prominent Republican candidate is attorney Harriet Hageman, but the Star-Tribune writes that state Treasurer Mark Gordon is "widely expected to enter the race," and state House Speaker Steve Harshman has also expressed interest. The filing deadline is June 1, so we have a while left for this slowly developing race to fully take shape. Democrats have largely consolidated behind former state House Minority Leader Mary Throne.
House
● MI-13: Hedge fund manager John Conyers III, the 27-year-old son of former longtime Rep. John Conyers, announced on Thursday evening that he would seek the Democratic nomination for this safely blue Detroit-area seat. Back in December, as the elder Conyers was announcing he was resigning from the House after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment, he said he wanted his son to succeed him. Conyers III, who had never sought elected office, said afterwards that he was still considering what to do, though he filed to run last month.
Until late last year, it was assumed that state Sen. Ian Conyers, the congressman's grandnephew, would be the family's choice for this seat whenever Rep. Conyers retired. However, Ian Conyers reportedly angered Monica Conyers, the congressman's wife and John III's mother, when he said days before his granduncle resigned that he'd run whenever the seat opened up. Politico's Zack Stanton wrote that Monica Conyers persuaded Rep. Conyers to make a very last-minute change to the succession plan. However, Ian Conyers is still running in the early August primary.
This race is still developing, and it's far from clear how local voters will take to Conyers III, especially given how his father left office and the split in the Conyers' family. The younger Conyers also drew some unfavorable headlines in 2010 when his father had to reimburse the Treasury for $5,700 for his son's misuse of a taxpayer funded car. In February of last year, Conyers III was also arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of domestic violence, but prosecutors did not charge him, citing a lack of evidence.
In addition to the two Conyers, a number of other local Democrats are in. They include Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones, who has the support of Mayor Mike Duggan; state Sen. Coleman Young II, who badly lost last year's mayoral race to Duggan; former state Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who would be the first Muslim woman to serve in Congress; and former state Rep. Shanelle Jackson. Several others are considering ahead of the late April filing deadline.
● MN-08: Democrat Michelle Lee, who retired as a news anchor in Duluth in 2016 after 33 years on local TV, said Thursday she's "99.9 percent" sure she'll run for this open seat, and she's hired a campaign manager. A little less than half of this seat is in the Duluth media market (the balance watches Minneapolis TV), so if Lee gets in, she'll start with some good, though not universal, name recognition. A few other Democrats are competing for this ancestrally blue district, which flipped from 52-46 Obama to 53-39 Trump last cycle.
● NRCC: On Friday, the NRCC added five more names to its "Patriot Program," which is aimed at protecting vulnerable House incumbents: Mike Bost (IL-12), Andy Barr (KY-06), Mike Bishop (MI-08), John Culberson (TX-07), and Scott Taylor (VA-02). All of these Republican congressmen have drawn serious Democratic challengers, some more than one, but perhaps the most interesting inclusion is Culberson. That's because his district was one of those very red suburban seats that voted heavily for Mitt Romney (60-39) but rebelled sharply against Donald Trump, swinging all the way to a 48.5-47 Hillary Clinton win. Democrats have a multi-way primary next month between several well-funded candidates, so they likely won't have a nominee until a runoff can be held in May.
● NY-21: Businessman and former MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan, who used to work as a media executive at Bloomberg, says he's considering seeking the Democratic nomination to take on GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik, and expects to decide over the weekend.
Ratigan, who is a native of this rural upstate seat, hosted The Dylan Ratigan Show until 2012. Ratigan, who says he moved back to this district about five years ago, went on to found an agriculture company called Helical Holdings, which The Post Star says "employs veterans to run and install farms with solar-powered hydroponic equipment." Last year, Ratigan also joined the news show "The Young Turks." Ratigan says he's meeting with local Democratic leaders to talk about a possible campaign and wants to make sure he can make sure his company won't be affected by his campaign before he decides whether to run.
This seat, which includes the North Country in the northern corner of the state, flipped from 52-46 Obama to 54-40 Trump, and Stefanik won't be easy to dislodge. However, a few notable Democrats have been running in the June primary for months. Attorney Don Boyajian ended December with $286,000 on-hand, by far the largest war chest of any of his competitors. Businesswoman Tedra Cobb had $163,000 to spend, while former SEIU organizer Tanya Boone, whom we had not previously mentioned, had $105,000 on-hand after her first quarter in the race. Stefanik ended the year with $1.12 million.
● SC-04: On Friday, televangelist Mark Burns announced he was joining the GOP primary to succeed retiring Rep. Trey Gowdy. Burns was a prominent Trump surrogate during the 2016 campaign, and he had his share of Trumpesque stories. Burns, who is black, apologized after retweeting a fake picture of Hillary Clinton in blackface, saying he didn't "have the correct information" to know it wasn't genuine. Burns showed his contrition for the incident by soon posting a cartoon arguing the media was using the controversy to distract people from Clinton scandals.
Burns, who is currently a member of Trump's Faith Advisory Council and a frequent pro-Trump TV presence, reportedly has been meeting with donors and conservative groups as Trump's Mar-a-Lago lair ahead of his bid. A few other Republicans are running in the June primary for this safely red seat, which includes Greenville and Spartanburg.
● TX-32: Former Hillary Clinton staffer Ed Meier, who is one of several Democrats competing in the March 6 primary to take on GOP Rep. Pete Sessions, is out with another TV spot. Meier tells the audience that his daughter asked him the morning after Trump was elected, "Daddy, is Donald Trump really going to do all those mean things he said he was going to do? I thought bullies never win." Meier says he told her that, no matter whether it's on the playground or in D.C, "you have to keep standing up for what's right." Meier then pledges to fight Trump's agenda in Congress.
● WI-07: Kyle Frenette, the longtime manager of the indie folk band Bon Iver, has announced that he'll seek the Democratic nomination to take on GOP Rep. Sean Duffy. This seat went from 51-48 Romney to 58-37 Trump, and while national Democrats have shown some interest in this race, beating Duffy will be a challenge. Margaret Engebretson, an attorney and Navy veteran, is also running in the August primary.
Grab Bag
● VA House (of Burgesses): And now a late-breaking addition to our coverage of the Virginia state House elections of 1757. In time for Presidents Day, learn about how the career of our first distiller-in-chief, George Washington, was shaped by rum at every turn. Stalwart friend of Daily Kos Elections Ben Schaffer brings us his take on how rum was, in fact, the true cause of the American Revolution! (An original cocktail recipe is along for the ride.)
