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
● MO-Gov: On Thursday afternoon, a grand jury indicted Republican Gov. Eric Greitens of Missouri on charges of first-degree felony invasion of privacy, stemming from an explosive story that Greitens had engaged in an extra-marital affair with a woman whom he then blackmailed into silence by taking a photo of her nude, bound, and blindfolded. Greitens had previously admitted to the affair but has denied any wrongdoing. In a statement released after his arrest, he once again said he had committed no crime and also accused St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner of being "a reckless liberal prosecutor who uses her office to score political points."
Campaign Action
A judge released Greitens on a "personal recognizance bond," which would in theory permit him to attend this weekend's meeting of the National Governors Association in DC, but does he really want to go? His next court appearance is set for March 16, and of course his lawyers have filed a motion seeking to dismiss the indictment, though such efforts are seldom successful.
And in any event, Greitens' woes are only growing. In response to the indictment, Republican state House Speaker Todd Richardson said legislators will start investigating the charges, a possible prelude to impeachment proceedings. Given Greitens' atrocious relationship with state lawmakers, that's a particularly ominous development. News outlets have also previously reported that the FBI is investigating Greitens, though apparently on a different matter entirely: campaign finance violations.
The least-unhappy ending for Greitens now requires his immediate resignation, which may yet come. Other besieged governors have insisted to the bitter end that they would never leave office early, only to finally yank the ripcord moments before smashing into the ground. (Alabama's Robert Bentley played this same game of chicken just last year.) If he doesn't see sense soon, though, Greitens could very well find himself forcibly removed from office, which would make him the first governor to face such a fate since Illinois' notorious Rod Blagojevich was expelled in 2009. How sure is Greitens that he wants to join that particular dishonor roll?
Senate
● MD-Sen, MD-Gov: Goucher College gives us our first look at Maryland's June Democratic primary for Senate, and they find that Sen. Ben Cardin has nothing to worry about. Cardin leads Chelsea Manning, the former Army soldier who was convicted of giving hundreds of thousands of classified military reports to the site Wikileaks, by a 61-17 margin. Primary voters give Manning a negative 19-37 favorable rating, while Cardin posts a 64-15 score.
The primary to face GOP Gov. Larry Hogan is a lot more unsettled, though, with Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker leading Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz 19-12, while former NAACP head Ben Jealous takes 10. Other Democrats running barely register, however, though a few of them, most notably tech entrepreneur Alec Ross and attorney Jim Shea, have the resources to get their names out. The only other poll we've seen this year was a January Gonzales Research survey, which gave Baker the lead with 24 percent of the vote and had Kamenetz and Jealous each at 14.
● MO-Sen: The chatter about Rep. Ann Wagner entering the GOP primary against Attorney General Josh Hawley seems to have died down over the last two weeks, though she still hasn't ruled out the idea. In any case, Donald Trump has announced he'll do a fundraiser next month for Hawley, which should help quiet talk that Hawley might not be the nominee against Sen. Claire McCaskill. Hawley's opening fundraising quarter was pretty disappointing for Team Red, and GOP elites will also be happy if the Trump fundraiser helps him finally fill his coffers.
● NV-Sen: Will Donald Trump-worshipping primary voters make the distinction between him and his daughter Ivanka, or will an attack on Ivanka Trump be seen as an attack on the whole family? Wealthy perennial candidate Danny Tarkanian is about to find out. Tarkanian, who is challenging Sen. Dean Heller in the June GOP primary, told a local radio station that, while the incumbent likes to brag about how "he talks to Trump on the phone all the time; talks to Ivanka Trump all the time," Trump's daughter is, he says, "a Democrat, and she's very, very moderate to liberal, compared to the Republican base."
Li'l Tark may have decided that he went too far for his own good, but he also found himself unable to back down. Tarkanian told CNN afterwards that he "did not say nor mean to infer a relationship with Ivanka is a bad thing. It is a good thing. She is the daughter of the president." But he then repeated himself, saying that she's "a registered Democrat and more moderate than the GOP base, which means her political views are probably similar to Heller's views, because he is a moderate to liberal." Um, sure? The White House hasn't officially endorsed Heller yet, but Mike Pence has said he'll stump for him.
Gubernatorial
● IL-Gov: With just under a month to go before the March 20 Democratic primary, state Sen. Daniel Biss is out with a poll from ALG Research arguing he's within striking distance of venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker. (No, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes doesn't have a side job as a pollster; Anzalone Liszt Grove Research is now mainly going by its initials these days.) The survey gives Pritzker the lead with 32 percent, while Biss and businessman Chris Kennedy are tied with 24 percent apiece. A previously unreleased July poll from the same firm found Pritzker leading Kennedy 30-23, while Biss barely registered at 5. The memo argues that Biss has surged after just two TV ads and could keep growing "if he has the resources to continue to get his message out and build his name ID."
The poll was released a day after Pritzker dropped his own survey from Global Strategy Group. Interestingly, the two polls pretty much agree about how much support Kennedy and Biss have, with the GSG survey finding Kennedy edging Biss 23-21 for second place. However, GSG found Pritzker taking a stronger 37 percent of the vote, though that was a drop from the 41 percent they gave him a few weeks before.
● OH-Gov: It looks like wealthy physician Jon Heavey's mystery campaign for the Democratic nomination may have ended before we ever got to find out what it was all about. On Wednesday, the secretary of state's office announced that Heavey had not submitted enough valid signatures to make it to the May primary ballot. While Heavey had turned in close to 2,200 signatures, the state ruled that only 854 were acceptable, about 150 below the minimum he needed. Heavey said the next day that he would challenge the ruling in court, declaring that GOP Secretary of State Jon Husted had "rigged" the process.
Heavey, who is a physician at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic, only appeared on the political scene a few weeks ago when he self-funded $1.5 million to his campaign. The chair of the state Democratic Party said he knew little else about him, and Heavey didn't say much to the media about why he was running. Former Attorney General Richard Cordray remains the heavy favorite in the May primary.
● RI-Gov: While Robert Walsh, who is the executive director of the state branch of the National Education Association, expressed interest in challenging Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo as a left-leaning independent in December, he said Thursday he had ruled that idea out and is considering a state Senate run instead.
House
● AZ-08: In what appears to be the week's [ * checks notes * ] ninth-worst scandal, former state Sen. Steve Montengro has finally admitted that the text messages he exchanged with a female staffer who'd sent him a topless photo were in fact genuine, after initially claiming the entire story was "a despicable example of … tabloid trash." Of course, Montenegro, who is married and a church minister, still maintains he "did not have any inappropriate relationships with this woman." Instead, he blamed one of his rivals, former state Sen. Debbie Lesko, for leaking the texts to the press, though how Lesko might have obtained them is left unsaid. (The staffer has blamed an ex-boyfriend for stealing the messages.)
Montenegro's lucky that the GOP primary for this special election is on Tuesday, and that most votes have already been cast, because some top Republicans, like former Gov. Jan Brewer, are now calling on him to drop out, and his own top backers have gone dark (including former Rep. Trent Franks, the guy whose own sex scandal created this vacancy in the first place). Brewer isn't exactly neutral in this race, though, since she's backing Lesko—and Lesko, believe it or not, has her own problems.
According to the Arizona Republic, former state Rep. Phil Lovas has accused Lesko of improperly funneling $50,000 from her state Senate campaign account to a supportive super PAC—which is supposed to operate independently of her congressional campaign. Lesko responded by threatening to sue Lovas. Someone has to win this primary, right?
● CA-25: Attorney and 2016 Democratic nominee Bryan Caforio is out with a poll of the June top-two primary from ALG Research. The survey gives GOP Rep. Steve Knight the lead with 43 percent, while Caforio leads nonprofit director Katie Hill 19-10 for the second general election spot; volcanologist Jess Phoenix takes 7, while others are at 5.
It makes sense that Caforio, who lost an expensive race last cycle, would have more support than his fellow Democrats at this point, especially since no one has started airing ads yet. But Hill, who has never run for office before, may have room to grow. Hill outraised Caforio $248,000 to $203,000 in the final quarter of 2017, and she had a small $383,000 to $377,000 cash-on-hand lead. Phoenix took in $157,000 during this time, but she had only $110,000 at the end of the year, while other Democrats barely had anything to spend.
Knight beat Caforio 53-47 as this north Los Angeles County seat swung from 50-48 Romney to 50-44 Clinton, and he'll be a top Democratic target this year. Knight ended 2017 with a $795,000 war chest, which is considerably larger than that of any of his Democratic foes. However, Knight has long been a meh fundraiser, and he doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry to fix that. Knight raised $238,000 in the last quarter, an improvement from his $144,000 haul three months earlier, but an underwhelming sum for an incumbent in a tough seat.
● CA-39: Navy veteran Gil Cisneros, one the many Democrats running for this competitive open seat, is out with his second TV spot. Cisneros talks about how his nonprofit works with kids across the community "to help them go to college, to graduate and be successful," and he pledges to protect the Dreamers in Congress.
● CA-49: Gah, please don't do stuff like this. At a recent campaign event, Sara Jacobs, a wealthy, self-funding 28-year-old who worked on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, was asked how she'd connect with the large military population in California's 49th Congressional District. Jacobs responded, "It's true. I'm not a crusty old Marine." Aside from being just a dumb thing to say, it also sounded like a shot at 64-year-old retired Marine Col. Doug Applegate, one of Jacobs' Democratic opponents. A lot of other candidates in the race are also veterans, including attorney Christina Prejean (Air Force) and real estate investor Paul Kerr (Navy).
It seems like the only branch Jacobs managed not to insult was the Army (though retiring GOP Rep. Darrell Issa served there!). Jacobs claimed she was merely repeating the words of an audience member, though Cosmopolitan, which first reported the story, mentioned no such exchange and told the San Diego Union-Tribune that it "stands by its account." Jacobs offered a classic no-pology, saying, "If any Marines are offended, I truly am sorry." In a district where some 15 percent of the population are either veterans or employed by the military, though, she's going to have to do better.
● CA-50: Apparently, things can always get worse for GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter. The congressman is under FBI investigation for allegedly using campaign money for his personal benefit, and Republicans fear he could cost them this seat in inland San Diego County, even though Trump won it 55-40. Hunter recently suggested to Politico that Margaret Hunter, who is his wife and former campaign manager, was to blame for misusing the campaign credit card, saying, "You can see where I was during the transactions ... and you can draw your conclusion."
Well, the San Diego Union-Tribune took him up on that challenge and reviewed the congressman's social media postings, finding he was regularly present with his family when those allegedly improper transitions occurred. They include a family rafting trip in Idaho; a trip to Disneyland; a trip to Italy; and an Irish dance competition in Arizona, all excursions that were paid for in part by Hunter's campaign. The article doesn't mention, though, if he was there when his campaign paid $600 to fly a pet rabbit across the country.
Hunter has insisted he's running for re-election, but the pressure on him to change his mind before the March 9 deadline isn't going to let up. El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells is already challenging his fellow Republican, and prominent conservative radio host Carl DeMaio has said he'll decide in the next week. Democrats would very much like to face Hunter, and former U.S. Labor Department official Ammar Campa-Najjar and Josh Butner, a veteran and local school board member, are both running. On Thursday, Rep. Scott Peters, who narrowly beat DeMaio in 2014, endorsed Butner.
● KS-03: The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is out with a poll from PPP testing labor attorney Brent Welder, whom they're supporting in the Democratic primary, against GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder. The survey gives Welder a 49-42 lead, which is a pretty surprising showing in a seat that Clinton only narrowly carried. No results were released testing any of the other Democrats against Yoder, and we've seen no other polling here. But interestingly, Yoder himself told the Kansas City Star's Steve Rose last month that his own polling gave Trump a 40 percent approval rating here, and this PPP survey finds Trump underwater at 41-56.
● MI-11: Former Sen. Carl Levin was waded into the crowded Democratic primary for this open 50-45 Trump seat and endorsed state Rep. Tim Greimel.
● NY-21: Back in his days as an MSNBC host, Dylan Ratigan appeared plenty often in prime time, but is he ready for, uh, prime time? Ratigan, who now runs a business selling solar-powered farm equipment and just joined the race for New York's 21st Congressional District this week, told those assembled at his campaign kickoff that he had never voted before in his entire life, saying he was "disgusted by the choices available." Ratigan went on to explain his apathy by bashing both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for "becom[ing] so detached from the American people," which is probably not a winning message in a Democratic primary.
But while a number of Democrats running in this crowded race have reacted negatively to Ratigan's entry, one just cleared out of the way. Labor activist Tanya Boone announced on Thursday that she was dropping out of the race, even though her $127,000 haul last quarter was actually second-best in the field. Boone did not specifically cite Ratigan in explaining her decision, but she did note that with "so many people in the race," it was "difficult to build momentum."
● NY-22: Though she's been in office for just a year, GOP Rep. Claudia Tenney has already done a lot of secure her place as the next Michele Bachmann. Just this week, in the wake of the horrific school shooting in Parkland, Florida, Tenney offered an utterly sick take on the tragedy that's drawn from the worst dregs of the Republican playbook:
It's interesting that so many of these people that commit the mass murders end up being Democrats … but the media doesn't talk about that either.
This particular lunacy burbles up from the same poisoned well that holds that any news conservatives don't like is "fake": Any crimes that can, in fact, be laid at the feet of lax gun regulations, likewise, must have been perpetrated by liberals. (It's also, of course, an extreme act of projection.)
So when called on this nonsense, what did Tenney do? She once again attacked the press, saying she's "fed up with the media and liberals attempting to politicize tragedies and demonize law-abiding gun owners"—no apology included.
These sorts of disturbing remarks are part of a long pattern with Tenney. Just last week, she said that former White House official Rob Porter didn't commit a "crime of character" for beating his wife, and prior to that, she declared that members of Congress who didn't applaud Trump during his State of the Union address were "un-American." Last year, she even hurled hoary anti-Italian slurs at her likely Democratic opponent, Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi, by saying his father had represented "some of the worst criminals in our community" who were members of "organized crime"—in other words, mafia figures.
The good news here is that Brindisi is a very strong recruit who not only raised more money than Tenney in the last quarter of 2017 but even has more cash in his campaign account—and Tenney has certainly given him a ton of fodder to work with.
● NY-27: This week, former Erie County prosecutor Sean Bunny dropped out of the Democratic primary to face GOP Rep. Chris Collins. Local party leaders have largely consolidated behind Grand Island Town Supervisor Nate McMurray, whose town lies just outside the seat. Trump won 60-35 here, but Democrats hope Collins' involvement in a failed investment scheme will cause him problems at the polls.
● PA-02, PA-04: On Thursday, Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle announced that he would run for the new 2nd District rather than for the new 4th District. Boyle's old 13th District was almost split cleanly in two by the new map, with the Philadelphia portion winding up in the 2nd and the Montgomery County part going to the 4th. Boyle is from Philly and he won his 2014 primary for the old 13th with support from city leaders, so it's no surprise that he's sticking with his geographic base. The new 2nd backed Clinton 73-25, according to estimates from political scientist Brian Amos.
● PA-04: On Thursday, Democratic state Rep. Madeleine Dean announced that she was dropping her campaign for lieutenant governor and running for this new, incumbent-less seat in the Philadelphia suburbs. This district, which includes most of Montgomery County, backed Clinton 59-39, and the Democratic nominee should have little trouble in the general. However, some Democrats are nervous that state Sen. Daylin Leach, whom multiple women have accused of sexual harassment, could win the nomination, and some leaders reportedly wanted Dean to run in part to stop him. (Leach says he'll decide over the weekend if he'll jump in.) Dean entered the race touting endorsements from former Gov. Ed Rendell and former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.
Fellow state Rep. Mary Jo Daley and prominent local gun safety activist Shira Goodman are also in, and other Democrats are eyeing the seat. However, while there was some speculation that former Rep. Allyson Schwartz might seek a comeback four years after she left Congress to unsuccessfully run for governor, she told the National Journal she would pass on this race. And as we noted in our PA-02 item above, Rep. Brendan Boyle, whose old 13th District makes up about 45 percent of this seat, has announced he will run for the new 2nd.
● PA-05: Over the last few days, most of the Democratic candidates who were running for the old 7th District have confirmed that they'll seek the new 5th District, a Delaware County seat that backed Clinton 63-34 and features no incumbent. The one exception seems to be state Rep. Greg Vitali, who posted an image to social media that said he hated fundraising and didn't want this to be his life for the foreseeable future. But former federal prosecutor Ashley Lunkenheimer; attorney Dan Muroff; bioengineer Molly Sheehan; and former CIA officer Shelly Chauncey all say they're running in the May primary for the 5th. Two new candidates, attorney Mary Gay Scanlon, who is a former president of the Wallingford Swarthmore School Board, and chemist Julie Eble are also in, but we don't know how serious they are. Rich Lazer, a former Philadelphia deputy mayor who is close to local labor groups, is also likely to run here.
● PA-10: Republican businessman Andrew Lewis was running for the old 11th District until redistricting threw him into the new 10th District. Lewis announced this week that he had no interest in challenging GOP Rep. Scott Perry, and would instead run for the state House. Perry, who like other Pennsylvania Republicans has bitterly whined about the new map, represents the old 4th, but most of his district wound up in the new 10th, so even though it's considerably bluer, it's the only reasonable place for him to seek re-election.
● PA-13: The new 13th District remains as red as ever at 71-26 Trump, but a bit has changed in the GOP primary to succeed retiring Rep. Bill Shuster. The reconfigures seat includes just over half of Shuster's old 9th District, and state House Majority Dave Reed was one of the unlucky candidates who found himself thrown overboard into a different district. But businessman Art Halvorson, whose underfunded 2016 campaign almost beat Shuster in the 2016 primary (though he badly lost months later as the Democratic nominee under a strange set of circumstances), is still here, and he says he's still running. So is businessman Travis Schooley, though he's had even less electoral success than Halvorson.
We haven't heard from state Sen. John Eichelberger, but since most of his legislative seat is in the new 13th, we see no reason why he'd halt his campaign. The new 13th includes Altoona in the north, Johnstown in the west, and to the benefit of bored writers looking to drop in a quick Civil War metaphor, Gettysburg in the east.
● PA-14: GOP state Rep. Rick Saccone, who is competing in next month's special election for the old 18th District, said this week that he'd run for the new and safely red 14th District if he prevails. However, Saccone doesn't appear to have addressed what he'd do if he loses the special.
The candidate filing deadline is one week after the special election, and it takes time to get enough signatures to make the ballot, which puts everyone in an awkward situation here. Other Republicans interested in this rural Western Pennsylvania seat may want to run if Saccone loses, but they'll either need to decide what to do before they know if he'll be the incumbent or not, or they'll need to collect a lot of signatures really quickly after the special.
● UT-04: Dan Jones & Associates for Utah Policy: Mia Love (R-inc): 49, Ben McAdams (D): 43 (Jan.: 47-42 Love.)
● VA-02: Navy veteran Elaine Luria kicked off a bid against GOP Rep. Scott Taylor last month with the blessing of the DCCC (which just gave her a spot on its coveted Red to Blue program), but last cycle, it turns out, she in fact voted for Taylor—twice. Luria's campaign explains that she supported Taylor in the Republican primary (which is open to all voters) because he had a better record on reproductive rights and LGBT equality than his opponent, then-Rep. Randy Forbes, who carpetbagged over to the 2nd after court-ordered redistricting made his old 4th District unwinnable.
As for the general election, Taylor faced off against Democrat Shaun Brown, a notorious perennial candidate whose unserious campaign essentially amounted to a forfeit: Brown raised just $28,000 and lost 61-38, very far behind Trump's narrow 49-45 margin. What's more, Brown was indicted last year on charges that she stole more than $400,000 from a federal program that offers meals to kids from low-income families when schools are on summer break.
Given the context, then, Luria's votes are perhaps somewhat more understandable, though she'll still have to explain herself to primary voters. Luckily for her, the only other Democrats running have raised very little money and may not be able to get much traction on this score, though since Luria only recently entered the race, we have yet to see what her fundraising chops look like. But if Luria does make it to the general election, her campaign's claim that she "doesn't make decisions just based on political party" might actually help her win over swing voters.
● House: 314 Action, a new political committee devoted to electing Democrats with scientific backgrounds, has announced their first TV reservations, and their ads will start running two weeks before each state's primary. The group has reserved a total of $1 million in the Los Angeles media market for the June top-two primary, where they've made endorsements in three swingy House races: pediatrician Mai Khanh Tran (CA-39); former Obama administration technology adviser Brian Forde (CA-45); and biologist Hans Keirstead (CA-48).
314 Action (the name is a reference to the first three digits of pi) is also investing another $500,000 in Detroit. The group is backing tech engineer Suneel Gupta in the Democratic primary for Michigan's 11th District, where GOP Rep. Dave Trott is retiring, but he may not be the only candidate who benefits from this buy. The group's executive director also tells Roll Call that they're impressed with former state Rep. Ellen Lipton, a stem cell research advocate who is running in the open 9th District, though they haven't backed her yet. (Both seats are located entirely in the Detroit market.)
314 Action has also committed $350,000 to the Seattle market, though they have yet to take sides in the August top-two primary for the competitive 8th District. Pediatrician Kim Schrier and former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official Shannon Hader are among the Democrats running there.
