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
● PA-04: In a big surprise, former Democratic Rep. Joe Hoeffel announced on Saturday that he would try and return to the House 14 years after leaving to unsuccessfully run for the Senate. Hoeffel has been out of office since he retired from the Montgomery County Commission in early 2012, though the longtime local politician might still have enough name recognition and support to make a splash. A few other Democrats are competing for this open 59-39 seat including state Reps. Madeleine Dean and Mary Jo Daley, as well as prominent local gun safety activist Shira Goodman.
Campaign Action
Hoeffel won a previous version of this seat back in 1998 in his fourth campaign for Congress by defeating GOP Rep. Jon Fox 52-47 (Fox had beaten him by 84 votes the previous cycle), and he survived a tight 2002 re-election bid. Hoeffel decided to run for the Senate in 2004, where incumbent Arlen Specter was trying to fend off a GOP primary challenge from the right against then-Rep. Pat Toomey. Specter narrowly won renomination and beat Hoeffel 53-42 as John Kerry was winning the state 51-48.
In 2007, Hoeffel successfully ran for the Montgomery County Commission, where he had served until he won his House seat, and he decided to run for governor in the 2010 cycle. Hoeffel ran to the left of the field but had trouble gaining traction, and he took fourth and last place with just 13 percent of the vote. However, Hoeffel carried his Montgomery County base 50-24 against Dan Onorato, who won the primary but lost the general to Republican Tom Corbett.
Hoeffel has written two books since he left office in 2012, including a tome last year that called for more of a focus on economic issues and new leadership in the Democratic Party (he specifically called for House leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer to step down), as well as more compromise from both parties. However, the former congressman seems to have kept a fairly low-profile otherwise, and it's not clear how much support he'll have for a return to the House (though we can think of two prominent House Democrats who may not be so happy to see him back).
Senate
● PA-Sen: Candidate filing closed on Tuesday for the May 15 primary for most offices in Pennsylvania. However, the state extended the filing deadline for candidates for the U.S. House to March 20, though the primary date will be the same for them. The state has a list of candidates who have filed here.
Democratic Sen. Bob Casey is seeking a third term in a state that narrowly favored Trump, and Republicans are hoping to give him a tough challenge. Rep. Lou Barletta was already the clear favorite to win the GOP nomination, and he lost one of his few opponents when wealthy businessman Paul Addis decided not to file at the last minute. Addis, who had been mostly self-funding his campaign, is a loud Trump critic, and he finally seems to have realized that that's not a strategy to win a GOP primary. Barletta's only remaining primary foes are state Rep. Jim Christiana, who ended 2017 with just $18,000 in the bank after nine months of campaigning, and perennial candidate Joe Vodvarka. Barring some extremely unusual development, this is probably the last we'll write about the GOP primary.
Barletta himself is a bit of a proto-Trump. Barletta first came to national prominence during the last decade as a harsh foe of undocumented immigration while serving as mayor of the small city of Hazleton in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre region. Barletta has also been more than willing to talk to anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic publications throughout his political career, including during his time in Congress. National Republicans reportedly are wary of Barletta in large part because of his weak fundraising, but they're basically stuck with him now. It would be a huge upset if Republicans unseated Casey, though after Trump's surprise 2016 win in the state, Team Blue won't want to take anything for granted.
● WI-Sen: The Koch-backed Concerned Veterans for America recently launched another $1.6 million ad campaign against Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, and her allies at VoteVets are up with a second ad as part of their $1 million buy defending her. The spot accuses out of state billionaires of "playing politics with Wisconsin's veterans," and says they've been airing false attacks. (Wisely, as in their first spot, they don't repeat those attacks.) They then say that Baldwin helped pass bipartisan reforms to strengthen oversight at veterans' hospitals like Tomah. The GOP has already run several ads arguing that Baldwin ignored problems at Tomah, and while the actual facts say otherwise, expect to hear a whole lot more about it in the year ahead.
Gubernatorial
● KS-Gov: On Friday, former state Rep. Mark Hutton announced he was dropping out the August GOP primary. Hutton's campaign never seemed to gain much traction, so his departure is unlikely to shake up the race.
● MI-Gov: On Friday, former state Senate Democratic leader Gretchen Whitmer received an endorsement from Teamsters Joint Council 43, which includes 12 local unions in Michigan and represents 65,000 teamsters. Whitmer has won considerably more labor support than her two main August primary rivals, businessman Shri Thanedar and former Detroit health director Abdul El-Sayed.
● MS-Gov, MS-Sen-B: GOP Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann has been mentioned as a possible 2019 candidate for governor for a while, and after Sen. Thad Cochran announced his resignation on Monday, the local media also speculated that he could be appointed to the Senate. However, it seems that Hosemann has shot down both options in a very unusual way. On Thursday, the Clarion Ledger wrote that they "overheard Hosemann giving his consent" when a lawmaker asked it was fine to reveal to a group of school children that Hosemann would run for lieutenant governor in 2019.
First of all, if those kids care about who is running for lieutenant governor of Mississippi in 2019, we hope they're all also future Digest readers. It's also worth noting that in Mississippi, the lieutenant governor appoints all the members and chairs of the state Senate committees, so it's a very good job to have if you can get it. Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves is a likely candidate for governor next year and he'd probably be the GOP primary front-runner, though he's also been mentioned as a possible Senate appointee.
● OR-Gov: Candidate filing closed in Oregon on Tuesday for the May 15 primary, and the state has a list of candidates here.
The biggest race to watch this year, and perhaps the only major race to watch this year, will be the contest for governor. Democrat Kate Brown became Oregon's chief executive in 2015 after John Kitzhaber resigned due to a scandal. Brown won a 2016 special for the final two years of Kitzhaber's term 51-43, not a close showing, but enough to give the GOP hope that they can win their first gubernatorial election here since Vic Atiyeh was re-elected in 1982.
Brown's main GOP rival is state Rep. Knute Buehler, whom she beat 51-43 in her 2012 re-election campaign for secretary of state. As of last week, Brown held a $3.1 million to $1.8 million cash-on-hand lead over Buehler. However, Buehler has already received $500,000 from Nike co-founder Phil Knight, and with no contribution limits in state-level contests, this could get expensive. A February poll from pollster DHM Research gave Brown a 46-29 lead, though much of the gap is due to Buehler's low name recognition.
Several anti-abortion Republicans dislike the self-proclaimed "pro-choice" Buehler, and they spent months trying to find a primary foe for him. Nine other Republicans filed to run, but the only one who seems to have any connections is retired Navy pilot Greg Wooldridge, who drew some attention earlier this month when he beat Buehler at a straw poll at a prominent social conservative GOP conference. But Wooldridge has just $50,000 on-hand, and about half of that came from a lumber company owner and his group. But as we said earlier, there are no contribution limits, so if wealthy anti-abortion Republicans took a liking to Wooldridge, this could get interesting.
All five or Oregon's House members (four Democrats and Republican Greg Walden) are seeking re-election, and it looks like they'll have little to worry about in the primary or general. While Clinton carried the 4th District by only 554 votes (the closest presidential result in the nation) and took the 5th just 48-44, state and national Republicans haven't made a serious effort to unseat Reps. Peter DeFazio or Kurt Schrader in years, and they don't seem to be trying any harder this cycle.
● PA-Gov: State Sen. Scott Wagner looks like the clear front-runner in the May GOP primary to take on Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, and wealthy businessman Paul Mango will need a lot to go right to beat him. Both candidates have been airing commercials for a while, but Mango went negative with a recent spot focused on abortion, a move that may have backfired. Mango's spot begins with him declaring that 30,000 abortions are performed in the state each year, and then he claims that Wagner thinks that "Pennsylvania's liberal abortion law" (which is far from liberal) is "working just fine ... and sees no reason to change it."
It's nothing new for Republicans to argue that their primary foes are seekrit liburals no matter how conservative they actually are, but going after Wagner on abortion is a strange tactic. Wagner sponsored a draconian bill that would have jailed doctors who performed what Penn Live characterizes as a "commonly performed second trimester procedure." The ad drew the wrath of the chair of the state GOP, which is has endorsed Wagner, as well as an anti-abortion group called the Pa. Pro Life Federation. Attorney Laura Ellsworth is also seeking the GOP nod, but she doesn't have much money or outside support.
● SD-Gov: Rep. Kristi Noem is going on TV days after Attorney General Marty Jackley, her June primary rival, aired his first ads. As dramatic music plays in the background, Noem's minute-long commercial highlights her farming background, and the narrator declares that Trump credited her for passing the tax bill in Congress. Her campaign tells the National Journal that the spot will run on broadcast TV for about two weeks and on cable and digital for a total of 1,000 gross ratings points, which is a high figure. (We explain what gross ratings points are, and how they relate to campaign ads, here.)
House
● CO-05: Last cycle, GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn's congressional career almost came to an end before the primary. Delegates at the party convention (also known as the assembly) favored little-known former congressional staffer Calandra Vargas over Lamborn 58 percent to 35, and if Lamborn had taken less than 30 percent, his campaign would have been finished then and there. Lamborn beat Vargas 68-32 in the primary a few months later, but understandably, he's changed his strategy this year as he seeks a seventh term in this safely red Colorado Springs seat.
Lamborn faces two notable opponents for renomination this year: state Sen. Owen Hill and 2016 Senate nominee Darryl Glenn. Hill recently announced that he wouldn't collect signatures to get to the June primary ballot anymore, and would instead depend on getting at least 30 percent of the delegates vote at the March 31 district assembly. Glenn has turned in his petitions, and the state has verified that he has enough valid signatures to make it to the primary ballot. Lamborn has also turned in petitions, but the campaign says he's also considering going through the assembly as well. As long as Lamborn has enough valid signatures (the state hasn't verified them yet), he'd be able to make it to the primary just as long as he didn't take less than 10 percent of the delegates.
● IA-01: Former Labor Department official Thomas Heckroth is out with the first TV ads in the Democratic primary for this GOP-held northeastern Iowa swing district. The trio of 15-second spots (here, here, and here) have a similar upbeat feel and make puns out of "Give 'em Heckroth." The ads make sure to emphasize Heckroth's work for former longtime Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin and the Obama administration, while they also argue Heckroth has the experience to stand up to Trump on health care and other issues.
● IL-03: Several national progressive groups, including Daily Kos, are supporting Marie Newman in her primary against socially conservative Democratic Rep. Lipinski, and her fundraising took off during the first two months of 2018. Newman outraised the incumbent $534,000 to $227,000, though he outspent her $512,000 to $402,000 during this time. Lipinski had $1.36 million left in the bank on Feb. 28, while Newman had $369,000 for the home stretch.
Meanwhile, Newman is out with another commercial linking Lipinski to Trump ahead of the March 20 Democratic primary. The new spot begins with the narrator declaring, "When you support Donald Trump more than any other Democrat in Illinois, it's no surprise you get invited to the White House." The ad then shows a picture from December of Trump posing with West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and zooms in, where Lipinski is shown chatting with Speaker Paul Ryan at the White House. Lipinski's office says that this picture was taken when he was there for a screening of the Winston Churchill biopic Darkest Hour. In any case, if Lipinski loses, this may go down as the most electorally-harmful photobomb in American history.
The narrator then faults Lipinski for voting against the Dream Act and Obamacare, and of co-sponsoring 52 bills to restrict abortion. She concludes by calling Newman a better choice who "is 100 percent pro-choice, opposes discrimination, and supports health care for all."
● IL-07: On Thursday, days after Democratic Rep. Danny Davis told the conservative Daily Caller that he had "no problems" with Louis Farrakhan and his extreme anti-Semitism and said that "[t]he world is so much bigger than Farrakhan and the Jewish question and his position on that and so forth," Davis finally put out a statement declaring, "Let me be clear: I reject, condemn and oppose Minister Farrakhan's views and remarks regarding the Jewish people and the Jewish religion."
A few days before, Davis had released a statement that didn't mention Farrakhan and declared that the Daily Caller had "attempted to impugn my character, and more significantly divide and separate African Americans and Jewish Americans, by portraying me as sympathetic to anti-Semitic views," though he didn't deny giving an interview to them or suggest that they had altered any quotes attributed to him. The congressman said Thursday he released his second statement because, "There have been attempts to question my commitment to these principles because I did not specifically single out the views and remarks of Minister Louis Farrakhan in that statement." Davis faces a primary on March 20 in this safely blue Chicago seat from teacher Anthony Clark, who hasn't raised or spent much money.
● ND-AL: On Tuesday, former state Senate Democratic Leader Mac Schneider announced that he would run for this open seat. Schneider says he'll compete for the party endorsement at the state party convention, which lasts March 15-18, though he didn't say if he'd drop out if someone else won. State Sen. John Grabinger and former state Rep. Ben Hanson are also competing at the convention.
● OH-14: EMILY's list has endorsed attorney Betsy Rader, who is the presumptive Democratic nominee against Republican Rep. David Joyce in this red-leaning northeastern Ohio congressional district.
● PA-05: Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright, who holds a seat in northeastern Pennsylvania, has endorsed financial planner Lindy Li for the 5th District in the Philadelphia area. Li is running in the very crowded Democratic primary to succeed retiring Republican Rep. Pat Meehan in this Delaware County-based district, which was recently redistricted to become staunchly Democratic.
● PA-18 (special): The bipartisan pollster RABA Research is out with a new survey of Tuesday's 18th District special election, and they have Democrat Conor Lamb defeating Republican Rick Saccone by 48-44, which perfectly mirrors Trump's 44 percent approval and 48 percent disapproval ratings in the survey. If that result is accurate, a Lamb victory would mark a huge upset in a district Trump won by 58-39 in 2016. However, publicly available polling has been rare in this race, and special elections are generally more difficult to accurately poll than regularly scheduled ones, where turnout is more predictable.
One notable thing about RABA's recent poll is they have 60 percent of likely voters holding a college degree, which stands in stark contrast to the 37 percent of the adult population who hold a college degree according to census estimates. That may mean this poll's sample is too favorable to Lamb, since college-educated voters lean more Democratic than those without a degree. However, college-educated voters have long turned out at much higher rates in all sorts of elections than those who don't hold a degree. And special elections by their relatively lower-turnout nature can often see degree-holders dramatically overrepresented in the electorate. Regardless, we'll know soon enough what the outcome is in this race.
● TX-05: Republican Bunni Pounds, who is a GOP fundraiser and former campaign manager for outgoing Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling, has picked up endorsements from former Tyler City Councilman Jason Wright and three minor former rivals whom she recently defeated to make the primary runoff. Pounds faces state Rep. Lance Gooden in the May 22 runoff, and she previously earned the endorsement of the hardline anti-tax Club for Growth immediately after the March 6 primary.
