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-B, MS-Sen-A: On Wednesday, Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel announced that he would drop his GOP primary bid against Sen. Roger Wicker and run in the November special election for the final two years of Thad Cochran's term.
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McDaniel's move isn't a surprise, but it's unwelcome news to Mississippi and national Republicans who don't happen to be named Roger Wicker. McDaniel's tea party-fueled 2014 primary campaign against Cochran came up just short (though McDaniel continues to insist that Cochran and his allies stole the race), and the GOP establishment remains hostile to him. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in particular very much doesn't want McDaniel in the Senate making trouble.
Republicans are also concerned that McDaniel could also force them to spend money to defend what should be a safely red Senate seat in the likely December special election runoff (more on that soon) if he makes it there, or even potentially cost them the race. 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.") It would take a lot to cost the GOP a seat in a state Trump carried 58-40, but after what happened in Alabama and Pennsylvania's 18th District, Team Red has every reason to be paranoid.
The next move here is up to GOP Gov. Phil Bryant. Cochran, who has been in bad health for a while, will resign on April 1, and Bryant will appoint his successor. The governor reportedly wants someone who will run in the November special election, and one of his major considerations is whether his choice can beat McDaniel. (McDaniel's supporters recently held a rally urging the governor to appoint McDaniel, which is just as likely to happen as Bryant appointing Rick Saccone.)
However, Mississippi's unusual special election law certainly complicates things. All the candidates will run on one officially nonpartisan ballot in November, and in the very likely event that no one takes a majority of the vote, the two candidates with the most votes will compete in a nonpartisan runoff three weeks later.
The one member of the party establishment who has some reason to be happy is Wicker, who just lost his only prominent opponent in the June primary. A few Democrats are running against Wicker, but some of them may also decide to take their chances in an unpredictable special election rather than go up against the well-funded incumbent. However, if too many Democrats end up running, they could allow McDaniel and whomever Bryant appoints to advance to December and cost Team Blue any chance at flipping this seat.
Senate
● IN-Sen, MO-Sen: The Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity is laying down an additional $1.8 million to oppose Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly in Indiana and $2.1 million to attack Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri. That brings their total ad spending to about $4 million in each race, although it's unclear just how much of each sum is devoted to digital ads and how much is going to TV. AFP's latest TV ads (here for Indiana and here for Missouri) each blast the Democratic incumbents for opposing the GOP's tax cut law.
● WV-Sen: According to an FEC filing, 35th PAC has spent $72,000 on media placement to support state Attorney General Patrick Morissey's Republican primary campaign, which could presage a larger TV ad buy soon. Both of Morissey's GOP rivals, Rep. Evan Jenkins and disgraced coal baron Don Blankenship, are already on the air ahead of the May 8 primary.
Gubernatorial
● AL-Gov: Republican Gov. Kay Ivey is out with her first TV ad ahead of the GOP primary, becoming the first candidate to go on the air. The spot features Ivey talking about how she "cleaned up that mess .... steadied the ship" following the resignation of former Gov. Robert Bentley after he misused state resources to conceal an affair. Ivey boasts of Alabama under her tenure having the lowest unemployment rate in state history.
● IA-Gov: With the filing deadline swiftly approaching, former Des Moines School Board President Jonathan Neiderbach has dropped out of the Democratic primary for governor. Neiderbach was Team Blue's 2014 nominee for state auditor and lost 57-43 to appointed GOP incumbent Mary Mosiman, but he had struggled to gain any traction this cycle in the crowded gubernatorial primary.
● ID-Gov: Candidate filing closed last week for Idaho's May 15 primary, and the state has a list of candidates here.
GOP Gov. Butch Otter is not seeking a fourth term, and there's a three-way race to succeed him (though a few little-known candidates are also in). Otter is backing Lt. Gov. Brad Little, while the best-known candidate nationally is tea party bomb thrower Rep. Raul Labrador. Businessman and physician Tommy Ahlquist, who has an endorsement from Mitt Romney, began airing ads all the way back in May, and he's not letting up. There has been minimal polling here, and this has been a tough contest to handicap.
Idaho is a very conservative state, but Team Blue is hoping for a shot here. Otter beat wealthy businessman and Boise school board president A.J. Balukoff 54-39 in 2014, a respectable showing in such a tough year, and Balukoff is running again. Former state Rep. Paulette Jordan, who was the only Native American in the legislature until she resigned to focus on the campaign, is also in.
● IL-Gov: Republican Jeanne Ives has released her final two ads of the primary (here and here). Both spots look cheaply produced, and they each feature Ives speaking to the camera where she tries to cram in as many of Gov. Bruce Rauner's supposed apostasies from conservative orthodoxy as possible before closing with, "If you want a conservative governor, vote for her." Ives claims to be running the ads at saturation-levels statewide, but that seems very unlikely given that her campaign has been running out of money. Indeed, the Chicago Tribune reports that Ives bought just $279,000 in TV time in the pricey Chicago media market for the final week compared to $330,000 for Rauner, who could afford to spend a whole lot more if he really felt threatened.
Meanwhile in the Democratic primary, J.B. Pritzker has launched an attack ad against Chris Kennedy for inexplicably saying to a reporter back in January that Rauner "should be applauded" for his "willingness to speak truth to power." The ad simply features the interview footage of Kennedy bizarrely praising his would-be general election rival's supposedly misguided good intentions, then it asks rhetorically, "Don't we need a Democrat who can stand up to Bruce Rauner?"
● MD-Gov: Republican pollster Burton Research and Strategies tested GOP Gov. Larry Hogan against two of the leading Democratic primary contenders, and they found the incumbent's re-election prospects looking significantly rosier than nonpartisan pollsters have found. Their survey has Hogan beating Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker by 54-29 and Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz by 57-26.
Those margins are far wider than the edges Hogan has seen from other firms, but the pollster didn't release any sample composition to give us an idea whether it included far too many GOP-leaning voters. Regardless, with relatively few publicly available polls, it's hard to say whether such large leads are even implausible to begin with for a governor who routinely posts very high approval ratings despite Maryland's heavy Democratic lean.
House
● AZ-08: Democratic nominee Hiral Tipirneni has released a survey from Democratic pollster Lake Research that shows her trailing GOP nominee Debbie Lesko by 48-34 ahead of the April 24 special election. That would mark a sizable overperformance from this historically Republican suburban Phoenix-area district's 58-37 Trump result, but it still indicates that Lesko has a decisive advantage.
Meanwhile, Tipirneni also went up with her first TV ad, which attacks "Politician Debbie Lesko" as "everything you hate about politics." The spot blasts Lesko for promising to oppose all tax increases only to end up supporting a large sales tax increase. It also hammers her over being accused of illegally funneling $50,000 to her congressional campaign, although it wisely doesn't waste time and bore viewers by explaining the intricacies of why it would be illegal to transfer money from a state Senate campaign account to an allied super PAC in violation of anti-coordination rules.
● CA-35: Former Democratic Rep. Joe Baca, who ran for Congress last cycle as a Republican, is challenging Democratic Rep. Norma Torres in this 68-27 Clinton Pomona-area seat. Baca, who is now a Democrat again, explained away his (first) party switch by saying, "I've served the district very well as a Democrat. In my heart, I've always been a Democrat with a 100 percent voting record for labor." Back in 2015, when Baca became a Republican, he explained that he's "always been very conservative. I was a Blue Dog moderate (in Congress) and it falls along my Christian beliefs." Baca's electoral history has been very bad in recent years, so we doubt his newest campaign is keeping Torres up at night. One Republican is also running, so there's no guarantee Baca will even advance past the June top-two primary.
● CA-44: Last week, Compton Mayor Aja Brown announced a surprise bid against freshman Rep. Nanette Barragan, a fellow Democrat. This seat, which includes a portion of Long Beach, backed Clinton 83-12, so it's very likely that Barragan and Brown will both advance to the general election. (No, we don't think Republican Stacey Dash's campaign will survive past the June top-two primary.) Barragan did end 2017 with $607,000 in the bank, so she does have a big financial head start over her new opponent.
Brown didn't give much of a reason for why Barragan should be fired, telling the Los Angeles Times that the campaign isn't "about Congresswoman Barragan at all — its about raising the standard for what congressional representation can be in my district." However, at least one of Brown's major supporters has a clear motivation for wanting Barragan out. Former state Sen. Isadore Hall, whom Barragan beat in an upset last cycle, reportedly has been helping the mayor behind-the-scenes.
Back then, Barragan was challenging a candidate who had the support of much of the state Democratic establishment, but this time, they're largely on her side. Barragan has the endorsement of the state Democratic Party, as well as Sen. Kamala Harris and several local House members and Los Angeles County supervisors, including former Rep. Janice Hahn. (Hahn was a major Hall supporter last time.) It also didn't escape notice that Barragan rolled out endorsements from several nationally-known black politicians, including Georgia Rep. and Civil Rights legend John Lewis. African Americans and Latinos make up most of the electorate here; Barragan is Latina, while Brown is black.
With a population of just about 100,000, Compton makes up only about 15 percent of this seat. However, Brown has attracted plenty of outside attention for her work revitalizing the city, and she has several celebrity ties as well; notably, she hosted director Ava DuVernay for the screening of the film "A Wrinkle In Time." Barragan likely is the favorite, but Brown may be able to make things interesting.
● CO-02: Joe Neguse, the former head of the state Department of Regulatory Agencies, has looked like the clear frontrunner for this open 56-35 Clinton seat almost from the moment that Rep. Jared Polis announced he was leaving to run for governor. And this week, Nederland Mayor Kristopher Larsen announced that he was dropping out of the Democratic primary. Neguse's only remaining primary opponent is Mark Williams, the former chair of the Boulder County Democratic Party, who had just $10,000 on-hand at the end of December. If Neguse wins this seat, he would be the first Eritrean-American member of Congress, as well as Colorado's first black member of Congress.
● FL-13: On Tuesday night, former GOP Rep. David Jolly announced over Twitter that he would not seek a rematch with freshman Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist in this St. Petersburg seat, and said he'd instead focus on being part of a 2020 primary effort against Donald Trump.
This seat moved from 55-44 Obama to 50-46 Clinton, but no other noteworthy Republicans have made any noises about challenging Crist. Maybe that will change now that Jolly has made his plans clear, but it's unlikely he was the main reason no one has stepped up. National Republicans utterly despise Jolly, and he's become a loud Trump critic on MSNBC, while he also endorsed Democrat Gwen Graham in the race for governor. The filing deadline is May 4, so Team Red has a little time left to find someone.
● FL-17: On Monday, GOP state Rep. Julio Gonzalez kicked off his bid to succeed retiring Rep. Tom Rooney in this 62-35 Trump seat. Gonzalez, who is an orthopedic surgeon, won his Venice-area seat in an expensive 2014 primary, and he's been an ardent social conservative during his two terms in office. Gonzalez pushed for a "religious freedom" bill in 2015 that could have allowed adoption agencies to turn away same-sex couples and let some businesses deny them services, a proposal that infuriated LGBT groups.
Last year, Gonzalez also introduced a bill to allow the legislature to override decisions by state courts, including the Florida Supreme Court, if they overturned their legislation. Gonzalez also found himself in the middle of a nasty intra-party mess in 2017 when he supported House Speaker Richard Corcoran's bill to overturn some state economic incentive programs favored by Gov. Rick Scott. Scott responded by going after several legislators, including Gonzalez, with robocalls.
Gonzalez will face state Sen. Greg Steube, who has made his name by trying to loosen any restrictions on firearms, in the late August primary for this Sarasota-area seat, and more candidates could still get in before the May filing deadline. However, state Rep. Joe Gruters recently announced that he would run for Steube's seat instead of for Congress.
● IA-01: State Rep. Abby Finkenauer, whose bid against GOP Rep. Rod Blum has the support of the DCCC and EMILY's List, is out with a poll showing her well ahead in the June primary. The GBA Strategies survey gives Finkenauer the lead with 29 percent, while Army veteran George Ramsey takes 10; former Labor Department official Thomas Heckroth and engineer Courtney Rowe are at 8 and 7, respectively.
This is the first primary poll we've seen, but it's worth noting that only one of Finkenauer's opponents looks like he'll have the resources to run a serious campaign. Finkenauer ended 2017 with $379,000 in the bank, considerably more than the $190,000 Heckroth had. Ramsey had only $28,000 to spend, while Rowe had just $5,000.
● ID-01: Rep. Raul Labrador is leaving this western Idaho seat to run for governor, and there's a crowded GOP primary to succeed him in this 64-25 Trump district. Labrador is backing former state Sen. Russ Fulcher, who also has the support of the hardline anti-tax Club for Growth. Fulcher challenged Gov. Butch Otter for renomination in 2014 and lost by a surprisingly close 51-44 margin.
A few other current or former elected officials are also in. The best known might be former Lt. Gov. David Leroy, who is a prominent attorney in the state. However, it's been a very long time since he's won a race. Leroy lost a very tight 1986 race for governor to Democrat Cecil Andrus in 1986, and he lost a 1994 congressional primary 48-29 to eventual-winner Helen Chenoweth, who was also … quite a character. State Reps. Luke Malek and Christy Perry are also in, as are author Michael Snyder, retired Army Lt. Col. Alex Gallegos, and one minor candidate.
This has not exactly turned into an expensive contest. Fulcher, who has done some self-funding, had $161,000 in the bank at the end of December, which is considerably more than the $92,000 that Malek had at his disposal, and much more than what everyone else had to spend.
● NJ-02: Who are local GOP leaders consolidating behind in the June primary to succeed retiring Rep. Frank LoBiondo? Right now, the answer is no one. Four different Republicans have won county organization line, which are often worth quite a few votes in New Jersey primaries. The largest county where the local GOP has taken sides is Cape May, where former state Assemblyman Sam Fiocchi has the organization line. In 2014, when LoBiondo easily beat a minor intra-party foe, Cape May made up 22 percent of the GOP primary vote.
Ocean County, which was 11 percent of the vote four years ago, is for engineer Hirsh Singh, who reportedly plans to self-fund $2 million; so is Burlington, but very little of that county is in the district. Over in Gloucester, which made up 8 percent, the line went to 28-year-old engineer Brian Fitzherbert, who memorably kicked off his campaign saying, "You've probably never heard of me. Not many have in the district aside from my friends and family." Finally, Somers Point Councilman James Toto has Salem, which was also 8 percent. There are two large counties that have yet to weigh in: Atlantic, which was a whopping 39 percent of the vote, and Cumberland, which was 12.
● NJ-07: On Wednesday, bank executive Linda Weber announced she was dropping out of the June Democratic primary to face GOP Rep. Leonard Lance. Weber's decision came days after former State Department official Tom Malinowski beat her in a seven-to-six vote to win the endorsement of the Union County Democratic Party. Both sides had been competing very hard to win the organization line in Union, and Weber reportedly said beforehand that she would exit the race if she lost in her home county.
Malinowski looks very much like the front-runner to take on Lance. Malinowski only entered the race in the fall, but he quickly amassed the largest war chest without doing any self-funding, and two of his opponents soon dropped out and endorsed him. Attorney Goutam Jois and 2016 nominee Peter Jacob are still running, but they'll need a lot to go right to have a shot against Malinowski, who has the important organization lines in several counties. Jois ended 2017 with $259,000 on-hand to Malinowski's $446,000, while Jacob had just $27,000 to spend.
● NV-04: This week, North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, a conservative Democrat, announced that he would not run. Lee has been involved in a nasty fight at home over the departure of his city manager, though he says that had nothing to do with his decision to stay out. Candidate filing closes on Friday, and the biggest remaining question is whether scandal-tarred Rep. Ruben Kihuen reverses course and runs again.
Legislative
● Special Elections: Johnny Longtorso brings us the results of that other special on Tuesday:
Tennessee SD-14: Republican Shane Reeves defeated Democrat Gayle Jordan by a 72-28 margin, leaving the seat in Republican hands.
While Reeves matched Trump's 70-26 margin here, he and his allies ended up spending quite a bit of money and time keeping this seat red. Reeves raised $341,000 to Jordan's $43,000, and he self-funded an additional $255,000. Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and state party chair Scott Golden campaigned for Reeves, and Team Red was not remotely subtle with their attacks on Jordan, an atheist who runs a nonprofit called Recovering From Religion that supports people doubting their religious beliefs. Golden declared that the Democrat tries to "lead people away from their faith," McNally said he had "seen few candidates as dangerous" as her, and Reeves said he spoke to voters who found it "unbelievable" that his opponent was an atheist.
