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
● MS-Sen: GOP Sen. Thad Cochran has been in poor health for a while, and there have been rumors that he might resign in the near future. However, it was still a surprise when The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell not only spoke to Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant about whom he might appoint to the seat if Cochran doesn't complete his term, but asked him to consider appointing himself. The Post also wrote that Donald Trump would support that plan. However, sources close to Bryant soon told The Clarion Ledger that Bryant was not interested in going to D.C., and they said that Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves would be the leading candidate for an appointment.
Campaign Action
Cochran’s term ends after the 2020 elections, but if his seat opened up this year, there would be a special election in November. Mississippi is a very red state, so Team Red would be favored to keep the seat under almost any set of circumstances. However, state Sen. Chris McDaniel could end up making life very miserable for McConnell and the rest of the GOP if he ran in a special election. Four years ago, McDaniel harnessed anti-establishment energy on the right and challenged Cochran in the primary, a race he only narrowly lost. If McDaniel did end up in the Senate, he'd be a massive pain for the leadership. McDaniel may also be flawed enough to give Democrats an opening in a race against him.
McDaniel has been talking about challenging Sen. Roger Wicker in this year's regularly scheduled primary, but he hasn't jumped in yet. McDaniel may be waiting as long as possible before the March 1 filing deadline to see if there will be a special election for Cochran's seat, a race that would probably be much easier for him to win than a campaign against Wicker. McDaniel himself acknowledged to the Post that he had delayed his decision "because of the multiple options."
McDaniel would be the clear underdog in a race against Wicker, but a special election would be another story. In Mississippi special elections, all the candidates run on one officially nonpartisan ballot, and if no one takes a majority, the two candidates with the most votes advance to the general. If McDaniel could harness enough anti-establishment Republicans, he'd have a good chance to blow past McConnell's chosen candidate and take on a Democrat. After what happened in December's Senate race in neighboring Alabama, that's a scenario that gives D.C. Republicans some very nasty déjà vu, so it makes sense that McConnell would want to ensure that Bryant appoints someone strong enough to fend off McDaniel.
And McDaniel may indeed be extreme enough to give Democrats a shot in a state where there haven't had much luck in a long time. McDaniel has long ties to neo-Confederate groups, and the former radio host has a long history of misogynistic language. (One gem: "It's so interesting to see this woman basically using her boobies to—I shouldn't have said that—using her breasts to run for office.") McDaniel also was recently a fellow guest on a conservative radio show with conspiracy theorist Ian Trottier, who speculated during that program that the September 11 attacks were carried out by the "World Zionist Organization."
McDaniel also made plenty of enemies within the GOP during his 2014 race against Cochran, and he didn't help things when he demanded a new election, claiming that Democratic voters had illegally voted in the GOP primary. All this may still not be enough to cost McDaniel victory against a Democrat, but it could make this race a whole lot more competitive than the GOP wants in a year where they're trying to go on the offensive.
Not surprisingly, The Clarion Ledger writes that Bryant has spent months considering whom he might appoint, and that one huge consideration is finding someone who could beat McDaniel. However, if Bryant does end up picking Mississippi's new senator, that person may want to keep McConnell at arm's length. Last year, Roy Moore was able to beat appointed Alabama Sen. Luther Strange in the primary in part by tying him to the majority leader, who was horrifically unpopular with the GOP rank and file. The rest is history.
P.S.: It may have been a very smart of Bryant to decline to appoint himself. Back in 2009, Ken Rudin took a look at the history of governors who sent themselves to the Senate (though all of them officially first resigned and had their elevated lieutenant governor appoint them to the Senate), and it's not a pretty picture. Nine men have reached the Senate this way since 1933, and voters fired eight of them at the first chance they got. The last time this happened was in 1976, when Minnesota Democrat Wendell Anderson resigned as governor, and his elevated lieutenant governor, Rudy Perpich, appoint him to the Senate. The backlash was so strong that both Anderson and Perpich lost in 1978 to Republicans.
Senate
● MI-Sen: Wealthy venture capitalist Sandy Pensler will spend $500,000 to air an ad for his GOP Senate primary campaign over the next three weeks, including during the Super Bowl on Sunday. No copy of the spot is publicly available yet, but The Detroit News says the ad will emphasize Pensler's Detroit upbringing and tout his business career, which includes his investment firm saving a local manufacturing plant from closure.
Gubernatorial
● IA-Gov: Former Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett will need a lot to go right if he wants to beat Gov. Kim Reynolds in the June GOP primary, so he's hoping to get his name out early. Corbett is taking to the airwaves what his campaign describes as a six-figure buy that will last through the month. The spot emphasizes what is probably his strongest selling point, and features various people praising Corbett's performance during the devastating flood of 2016. The commercial's stars say that Corbett personally helped strangers put up sandbags and went door-to-door to check on people.
● IL-Gov: Wealthy businessman J.B. Pritzker is out with his second ad that attacks state Sen. Daniel Biss in the Democratic primary for governor. Pritzker's 15-second spot hammers Biss for favoring funding for charter schools at the expense of public schools and lambasts him for taking campaign donations from those who are trying to privatize education. Pritzker has already self-funded an astonishing $49 million ahead of the March 20 primary, and the billionaire candidate can easily afford to devote much more of his personal wealth to his campaign if he wants.
Meanwhile in the Republican primary, state Rep. Jeanne Ives debuted her first ad. The spot highlights her background and family, while also playing up her Army service and portraying her as someone with integrity. Ives goes on to attack GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner for having "deserted the conservative families—like mine—who elected him." She closes by arguing voters can "get the revolution [they] were promised" by electing her instead. Politico also reports that Ives has reserved $1 million for a TV buy that will last from Feb. 8-25.
● MN-Gov: Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty is conferring with GOP power players in mid-February to discuss a possible campaign for his old seat, but it may be a while before he publicly decides what to do. The local political tip sheet Morning Take writes that if Pawlenty runs, he'd want to jump in at the last minute. Republicans are unhappy with their current crop of candidates, and that may speed up Pawlenty's timeline, but Morning Take's Blois Olson says he "still likely won't get in until March or April." (The filing deadline is June 5.) Olson writes that one big reason Pawlenty isn't in a hurry to jump in is that he knows he'd be attacked by the well-funded Democratic super PAC Alliance for a Better Minnesota immediately.
House
● AZ-08: Local GOP firm OH Predictive Insights is out with a second poll of the Feb. 27 GOP primary for this open 58-39 Trump seat, and they see quite a lot of movement since December. OH, which did not have a client for this poll, finds former state Sens. Debbie Lesko and Steve Montenegro tied 21-21. Former state Rep. Phil Lovas takes 12, while former state Corporation Commissioner Bob Stump is at 10. In a mid-December poll for the local ABC affiliate, OH found Stump leading Lesko 18-16, while Lovas and Montenegro each took less than 2 percent; that poll also included some potential candidates who didn't end up running. Early voting recently began here.
● CA-48: Businessman Stelian Onufrei, who is challenging Rep. and fellow Republican Dana Rohrabacher in the June top-two primary, has announced that he will begin a $92,000 ad campaign at the end of April. Normally, we wouldn't give too much attention to an ad buy announced that far in advance, but the top-two primary complicates things.
Several Democrats are running to take on Rohrabacher in this 48-46 Clinton seat along the Orange County coast, and there's no frontrunner. However, if Onufrei can get enough support against Putin's favorite congressman, he and Rohrabacher could advance to the general and secure this seat for Team Red. Onufrei has contributed $235,000 of his own money to his campaign so far, and he had $134,000 on-hand at the end of December; Onufrei said over the summer that he'd self-fund a total of $500,000.
● HI-01: State Attorney General Doug Chin recently announced that he would resign in March to focus on his Democratic primary bid in this open seat, but he'll instead be getting a different state title. Chin announced Friday that, while he'd remain in the August congressional primary, he's agreed to become lieutenant governor for the rest of the year.
The post became open a few days ago when Lt. Gov. Shan Tsutsui announced he was resigning from office to become a senior vice president at Strategies 360, a communications and public affairs firm that also does polling for local news organizations and for Democratic candidates and groups. State Senate President Ron Kouchi was in line to take over as lieutenant governor, but he said no. House Speaker Scott Saiki also quickly passed, and Chin was next in line.
● IL-03: Starting on Friday, businesswoman Marie Newman rolled out a trio of major endorsements in her effort to unseat Blue Dog Rep. Dan Lipinski in next month's Democratic primary for Illinois' 3rd Congressional District. The first came from EMILY's List, which is devoted to electing pro-choice Democratic women at all levels of the ballot but very seldom backs challengers to incumbents.
Here, they made an exception, and with good reason: Lipinski has the most aggressively anti-abortion voting record among Democrats in the House, almost shockingly so. He's repeatedly voted to defund Planned Parenthood, was one of just three Democrats to support a Republican bill that would have prevent insurance plans on the Obamacare exchanges from covering abortion services, and is even co-chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus.
When it comes to reproductive rights, Lipinski's record is, in fact, indistinguishable from that of a hardcore Republican; Newman, by contrast, is 100 percent pro-choice. In 2018, that makes this is a no-brainer for a group like EMILY's List, and its decision to get on board could pay huge dividends for Newman.
Over its 33-year existence, EMILY's List has become one of the most influential players in Democratic politics, and while it operates in many areas (such as candidate recruitment), there are two main ways it could help Newman down the stretch run: "bundling" contributions from its extensive network of donors and making independent expenditures on Newman's behalf, like paying for mailers or field operatives. There's no word yet whether EMILY plans to take either step, but even the organization's seal of approval is a boost for Newman.
So, too, are the other two big endorsements that followed on the heels of EMILY's List's, the first from the SEIU Illinois State Council and the second from the Illinois Federation of Teachers, which between them have 15,000 members in the 3rd District. The bedrock of Lipinski's staying-power during his 14-year career in Congress has been his support from organized labor, so the fact that some unions are now willing to go over to his challenger is momentous.
Lipinski still has a great deal of labor backing, with much of it coming from building trades unions, which have always leaned more conservative. But Lipinski's hurt himself with more liberal unions like SEIU, which represents often lower-paid workers like home health care aides, janitors, and bus drivers and is a leader in the fight for a $15 per hour minimum wage. SEIU specifically cited Lipinski's refusal to support a $15 wage as a key reason for siding with Newman, to which Lipinski responded by whining that the union's decision was "a shame."
Humiliatingly, Lipinski also claimed that he's a cosponsor of federal legislation to increase the minimum wage to $15, but as the Chicago Sun-Times's Lynn Sweet points out, he only signed on to that bill on Jan. 29. Crucially, that was five days after Lipinski declined to back a $15 minimum wage in a joint appearance with Newman before the Sun-Times editorial board. Evidently, that inexplicable blunder drew real blood.
Lipinski does still maintain a large financial edge, though. He just reported raising $228,000 in the fourth quarter of last year, and he still has a hefty $1.6 million in the bank. Newman pulled in $161,000 during the same timeframe—much better than her prior quarter (in which she raised $76,000), but with $236,000 left over, she trails in cash-on-hand by a wide margin. However, even prior to these latest endorsements, Newman's campaign seemed to have developed some momentum over the last month, with Illinois Reps. Jan Schakowsky and Luis Gutierrez publicly supporting her and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand hosting a fundraiser for her last Friday.
● IL-06: Clean energy businessman Sean Casten is out with his first ad in the Democratic primary in Illinois' 6th District. Casten's cheap-looking spot starts off with footage of Trump's State of the Union address and uses a distracting "rewind" effect to buttress Casten's voiceover where he says, "It would be great if we could rewind history, but we can't." Casten then bemoans Trump and tries to tie him to GOP Rep. Peter Roskam. He then speaks straight to the camera to blast Trump for hurting the environment, health care, reproductive choice, "and so much more."
● IL-13: The March 20 Democratic primary to face GOP Rep. Rodney Davis isn't too far away, and two Democrats are going up with their first ads. Attorney and former congressional staffer Erik Jones describes how his wife's high-risk pregnancy put her in emergency surgery, and he tells the audience that his work "led to the Obamacare provision making insurance companies spend more on patient care, and less on CEO pay." Fundraising consultant Betsy Dirksen Londrigan talks about how her son almost died from a rare infection, and "Donald Trump's healthcare plan would have bankrupted us."
This downstate seat moved from a slim Romney win to 50-44 Trump, but Democrats hope that Davis will be vulnerable this year. Both Jones and Londrigan, who has the support of Sen. Dick Durbin, had near-identical $238,000 war chests at the end of December, while retired Navy intelligence officer Jonathan Ebel had $134,000 to spend.
However, national Democrats are nervous that perennial candidate David Gill could win the primary thanks to name recognition from his past campaigns, and those fears may be justified. We recently saw a mid-December poll from GBA Strategies for Londrigan that found her tied with Gill 19-19; Jones was at 13, while Ebel had 4 percent. Gill had just $3,400 in the bank at the end of December, so he may have a very tough time winning over new voters, but Team Blue doesn't want to take any chances. For his part, Davis ended 2017 with $1.1 million in the bank.
● NE-02: Nonprofit president Kara Eastman is the clear underdog in the May Democratic party against former Rep. Brad Ashford, whom the DCCC is supporting. However, Eastman does have some prominent local support at home, and a few weeks ago, she unveiled endorsements from Omaha City Council President Ben Gray and Nebraska Public Service Commissioner Crystal Rhoades, who also serves as the Douglas County Democratic Party chair; Douglas County makes up the vast majority of this seat.
However, Eastman will have a tough time beating the well-known Ashford without some more financial support. At the end of December, Ashford had a $210,000 to $72,000 cash-on-hand edge. Whoever emerges from the primary will take on GOP Rep. Don Bacon, who unseated Ashford 49-48 as Trump was carrying this seat by a similar margin. Bacon had $616,000 in the bank at the end of 2017.
● NJ-03: National-security expert Andy Kim is the only notable Democrat in the race against GOP Rep. Tom MacArthur, and he'll probably remain that way after getting the primary ballot endorsement from the Burlington County party; Burlington County makes up roughly 57 percent of this South Jersey seat. Kim's fundraising also markedly improved in the fourth quarter after he brought in $339,000, leaving him with $431,000 on hand at the beginning of January. However, he'll need a whole lot more to take on the personally very wealthy MacArthur in this 51-45 Trump seat, which includes the costly New York City and Philadelphia media markets.
● NJ-11: A few more Republicans are making noises about running for this open and competitive North Jersey seat. Assemblyman Anthony Bucco recently formed an exploratory committee, though he has not yet announced he's in. Bucco's father, who is also named Anthony Bucco, is a longtime member of the state Senate, and the younger Bucco has served in the lower chamber since the 2009 elections. Bucco's exploratory committee notably includes some powerful Republicans from Morris County, where most of the seat's GOP voters live.
Meanwhile, David Wildstein (yes, of Bridgegate infamy) says that two other Republicans are considering, though neither of them has said anything publicly. Trucking company executive Jerry Langer is close to former Gov. Chris Christie, and he reportedly can self-fund. However, Wildstein describes Langer as a "major donor" to Democrat Cory Booker's two Senate bids, as well as to former Democratic Gov. Jim Florio and the DSCC, which probably wouldn't go over well with GOP primary voters. Wildstein also writes that Hardin Township Committee member Nicolas Platt, who hails from a wealthy family, is thinking about it. Hardin notably donated to Democrat Jon Corzine's successful 2005 campaign for governor, and to independent Christopher Daggett's 2009 bid for that office.
● NY-18: On Wednesday, Orange County Legislator James O'Donnell announced he would seek the GOP nomination to challenge Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney. O'Donnell is the first noteworthy Republican to enter the race for this Hudson Valley seat, which swung from 51-47 Obama to 49-47 Trump. O'Donnell used to be chief of police for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (which governs, among other things, the New York City subway), a post he held during the September 11 attacks, and he was elected to the county legislator last year. He'll need a whole lot to go right if he wants a shot at Maloney, who has close to $3 million in the bank and survived a difficult re-election campaign during the 2014 GOP wave.
● PA-01: Rich Lazer, a Philadelphia deputy mayor of labor and close ally of Mayor Jim Kenney, recently formed an exploratory committee for this safely blue open seat. City & State reports that Lazer, who is close to local unions, has the support of retiring Rep. Bob Brady, though there's no quote from Brady. Meanwhile, Chester Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland also expressed interest in running. Only a small slice of the current version of this seat is in Chester's Delaware County (though most of that city is in the 1st), but court-ordered redistricting could make Delaware a much larger presence here.
● PA-18: The DCCC recently launched its first ad on behalf of Democrat Conor Lamb in the special election to fill Pennsylvania's 18th District. No copy of the ad is available yet, but the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says the spot attacks Republican Rick Saccone for favoring "big business and special interests, voting to help corporations who send our jobs overseas, and voting to allow foreign-made steel on taxpayer-funded construction projects."
● TX-07: Attorney Lizzie Pannill Fletcher is out with her first ad in the Democratic primary for the 7th District, located in western Houston. The spot highlights how Fletcher has stood up for Planned Parenthood and "people who need a voice."
● TX-21: With just over a month to go before the March 6 GOP primary, a new group called Mountain City PAC has begun advertising for former CIA officer William Negley. Their spot, which has about $81,000 behind it so far (though that includes production costs) argues that government shutdowns are what happen "when lawyers outnumber veterans in Congress two-to-one," and they extol Negley's service in Afghanistan.
Negley is one of several Republicans running to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Lamar Smith in this 52-42 Trump seat, and it's likely that no one will take the majority of the vote they'd need to win without a May runoff. All the candidates' fundraising reports are now in, which gives us our first good indication about who will have the resources to run a serious race and who won't. Negley, who has been doing some self-funding, had the largest war chest at the end of Dec. 31 with $218,000 in the bank. Chip Roy, a former chief of staff to Sen. Ted Cruz, was close behind with $195,000.
Former Rep. Quico Canseco, who represented a neighboring seat from 2011 to 2013, had $132,000 on-hand, but almost all of that was money left over from his previous campaigns. Canseco, who badly lost a 2014 comeback bid for the 23rd District, took in just over $7,000 for his new race. Matt McCall, a perennial candidate who has badly lost primaries against Smith, had $105,000 on-hand, but it was almost entirely self-funded.
State Rep. Jason Isaac, who did no self-funding, had $104,000 in the bank, while communications firm chief Jenifer Sarver had $84,000. But Sarver may have torched her only chance to be the nominee on Thursday when she acknowledged she had voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Sarver awkwardly tried to fix it by telling the audience at a debate, "As a woman, I couldn't support candidate Trump but—as I said here tonight—I am proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with him when he is governing with conservative principles." Meanwhile, former Bexar County GOP Chair Robert Stovall had $44,000 to spend. Stovall began airing ads tying himself to Trump in January, so either he beefed up his war chest quickly, or not many people saw his spots.
This seat, which stretches from Austin to San Antonio and takes up part of the Texas Hill County, has been in GOP hands for a longtime, but it could be a Democratic target in a good year. Army veteran and businessman Joseph Kopser began raising money months before Smith called it quits, and he had $338,000 on-hand at the end of December. Former Travis County party executive director Elliott McFadden and former congressional staff Derrick Crowe had just $31,000 and $20,000 in the bank, respectively.
● WA-08: On Thursday, the dystopian anti-tax group the Club for Growth endorsed former state Sen. Dino Rossi in the race for this competitive open seat. The Club often finds itself opposing the GOP establishment in primaries, but Rossi seems to have the backing of all factions in the party. And GOP donors especially love Rossi, who was the GOP nominee for governor and Senate in the last decade. Rossi only entered the race to succeed retiring Rep. Dave Reichert at the end of September, and he had $1.06 million in the bank at the end of 2017, a number comparable with incumbents in tough races; Rossi did not self-fund anything.
This seat, which includes part of Seattle's suburbs, backed Clinton 48-45, but the GOP has done better here down the ballot. A few Democrats are running in the August top-two primary, and while none of them have anything close to Rossi's war-chest, a few have the resources to run a competitive campaign. Pediatrician Kim Schrier had $446,000 on-hand at the end of December, while attorney Jason Rittereiser had $228,000 in the bank. But businessmen Brayden Olson, who entered the race in the last quarter, ended 2017 with an unimpressive $13,000 on-hand. Former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official Shannon Hader kicked off her campaign after the reporting deadline.
