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.
AZ-08: Arizona held a special election for the 8th Congressional District on Tuesday, and you can find the results here. We'll have a more comprehensive rundown in our next Digest.
Leading Off
● CA-25: Democrat Katie Hill has launched a new ad as part of a $38,000 cable buy the campaign expects to expand later, and the ad is quite simply unlike anything we've seen before. The segment consists entirely of a variety of shots of Hill using rock-climbing gear to scale a very tall and steep mountain face, while simultaneously delivering her message by occasionally pausing to turn toward the camera and talking as she climbs.
Campaign Action
Hill calls mountain-climbing hard, but not as difficult as running for Congress against someone with big corporate backing. She says she isn't afraid of hard work, and her nonprofit helped tackle some of the toughest problems in her community. Hill concludes by arguing Congress needs to change when many Americans work hard yet still struggle to get by.
This ad is unusual because of how much older and male-heavy Congress is compared to the electorate, and there are undoubtedly only a limited number of incumbents who could take on a similar physical feat to provide such a literal backdrop for their metaphor. However, we’ve seen a surge of interest in running for office this cycle from women candidates and young people, and some of their ads have already broached issues that get overlooked in our gerontocracy, such as women candidates breastfeeding their infants in ads. As Hill’s commercial shows, we should expect more departures from traditional ads for candidates who are not older men.
1Q Fundraising
Be sure to keep our Senate fundraising roundup handy, since we update that as new numbers come in. You can also find our complete House roundup here.
● ME-Sen: Angus King (I-inc): $673,000 raised, $2.3 million cash-on-hand; Zak Ringelstein (D): $21,000 raised, additional $20,000 self-funded, $41,000 cash-on-hand; ME-Sen: Eric Brakey (R): $88,000 raised, $78,000 cash-on-hand
● MI-Sen: John James (R): $1.2 million raised, $1.2 million cash-on-hand; MI-Sen: Sandy Pensler (R): $60,000 raised, $4 million cash-on-hand
Senate
● CA-Sen: Republican pollster Probolsky Research has surveyed the likely all-Democratic top-two general election in California's Senate race between Sen. Dianne Feinstein and state Sen. Kevin de Leon, and they have relatively good news for de Leon. The poll has Feinstein leading by a modest 38-27, with de Leon narrowly ahead among Republicans despite challenging her from the left. If Republican voters don't end up simply voting for the more moderate of the two Democrats, de Leon's chances would likely rise considerably, since he wouldn't need to win Democratic voters by a lopsided margin.
However, this poll is much closer than the few other recent polls we've seen in this race. By comparison, the Public Policy Institute of California had Feinstein ahead by 42-16 in March, while a SurveyUSA poll that same month had Feinstein in front with 31 percent while Some Dude Republican Stephen Schrader edged out de Leon for the second general election spot by 6-5. Of course, with the top-two primary coming up on June 5, we'll likely get a decent preview of de Leon's chances, assuming he boxes out Republicans to make it to November.
● FL-Sen: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which in recent years has become strongly associated with the national Republican Party establishment, has unsurprisingly endorsed GOP Gov. Rick Scott and is spending at least $281,000 to air a TV ad on his behalf against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. Their spot uses several actors to attack Nelson's record, painting him as supposedly in favor of bigger government and higher taxes, while they praise Scott's accomplishments as governor; notably, the ad has one of those actors delivering his lines in Spanish.
● IN-Sen: Rep. Todd Rokita's latest ad ahead of the May 8 Republican primary attacks both of his rivals, businessman Mike Braun and Rep. Luke Messer. The commercial has Rokita on screen wearing boxing gloves while he claims he's "the tax cutter" in the race. He then proceeds to show inflatable punching bags with his opponents' faces on them and lightly punches each one after blasting each rival over raising taxes.
Conspicuously, Rokita is shamelessly continuing to tout an endorsement from "Leaders of Trump's Indiana campaign" at the end of the ad with a giant picture of Trump's face, which implies he has the backing of Trump himself. In reality, Trump has done no such thing, and those who endorsed Rokita were volunteers who led his state campaign in 2016; Rokita had previously drawn the ire of Trump's re-election campaign by using this misleading endorsement in yard signs, and they asked him to take them down. But instead, Rokita isn't just refusing to do so, he's actively escalating things by putting it on TV.
● MT-Sen: Senate Majority PAC has shelled out $400,000 to support Democratic Sen. Jon Tester with its first ad buy in the race. Responding to a recent ad buy from the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, SMP's ad calls out the "New York Billionaire Koch Brothers" for running false attacks against Tester. The narrator argues the out-of-state Kochs favored a healthcare bill that would dramatically raise insurance premiums, something Tester opposed.
● WV-Sen: Polling on behalf of GOPAC, National Research Inc. conducted a survey of West Virginia's May 8 primary that should leave national Republicans feeling somewhat relieved if it's accurate. The poll has state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in first with 24 percent, while Rep. Evan Jenkins is at 20 percent, and disgraced coal baron Don Blankenship takes just 12 percent. This result is much more bearish for Blankenship than two contradicting internal polls from Morrisey and Jenkins last month, which showed each of their respective campaigns in first place with just a two-point lead over Blankenship in second.
Neither GOPAC nor National Research has taken sides in the primary, but establishment Republicans have becoming increasingly worried that Blankenship could snag the nomination. Mountain Families PAC, which has ties to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has been spending heavily on ads attacking Blankenship, and it's possible they are having an effect.
Gubernatorial
● CA-Gov: Families & Teachers for Antonio Villaraigosa, a group that is pro-charter schools, has added another $1 million to their digital and TV ad buy supporting former Mayor Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat. The group had previously spent $1 million on a TV ad that praised his record.
● FL-Gov: This would be ridiculous if true: Politico reports that former Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy and former Republican Rep. David Jolly could run for governor on a ticket with Murphy at the top, and Murphy isn't ruling it out. Murphy responded to the news by telling the Palm Beach Post, "Some supporters wanted to do a poll and I didn't say no. I certainly didn't say yes to actually running!" While the filing deadline isn't until June 22 for state-level races, Florida is a very expensive place to campaign, and it would likely be unrealistic for a candidate who couldn't significantly self-fund to jump in after the Democratic primary has been going on for months.
Murphy appears unlikely to go through with this nutty proposal, and he has another good reason to stay out of the race: Jolly is likely ineligible to run for lieutenant governor as a Democrat. Florida law requires candidates to have not been registered with another party for a year prior to the election, and Jolly is currently registered as a Republican even though he has deeply alienated his party.
The only way the two could run together would be on an independent ticket, which would almost certainly give Republicans a major boost in the general election by splitting the Democratic vote. (When asked by HuffPost's Kevin Robillard whether Murphy and Jolly would run as Democrats or independents, one unnamed Democratic strategist retorted, "They'd be running as morons.")
Meanwhile, one potential Democratic candidate wouldn't have to worry about campaign funding or an ineligible running mate. Billionaire real estate investor Jeff Greene says he's still considering getting into the primary over his dissatisfaction with the four candidates who are actually running.
However, Greene badly lost the primary when he ran for Senate in 2010 and has several problems of his own. During that campaign, media reports painted an unfavorable picture of his business practice and excessive displays of opulence that Talking Points Memo best encapsulated with the headline: "Jeff Greene And His Reef-Destroying, Vomit-Caked, No Good, Very Bad Yacht." Making matters worse, he's a neighbor of Trump and was a member of his Mar-a-Lago club as of last year. While Greene's potential to self-fund could give him a shot in the fractured primary field, money can only go so far for a flawed candidate.
● HI-Gov: Democratic Gov. David Ige is out with his first ad ahead of the contested Aug. 11 primary. The minute-long commercial features Ige highlighting how he worked his way through college at the University of Hawaii and touting his education policies as governor. He closes by calling for a $15 minimum wage and paid family leave.
● MD-Gov: Goucher College has returned to poll Maryland's gubernatorial election, and they still find Republican Gov. Larry Hogan with a stellar 69 percent approval rating and just 21 percent disapproval. However, voters are once again much less willing to say they support him when tested in a hypothetical general election matchup against several Democrats, many of whom are still relatively unknown. Hogan's narrowest lead is 44-31 over both of Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker and former NAACP president Ben Jealous, but even his best result is no more than 47 percent.
● MS-Gov: Mason-Dixon has released the gubernatorial portion of their recent Mississippi poll, and it has encouraging news for Democrats hoping to win in 2019 for the first time in 20 years. The survey gives Democratic state Attorney General Jim Hood a 44-39 edge over Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, both of whom haven't jumped into the race yet but are widely seen as plausible candidates.
● NE-Gov: Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts faces no noteworthy opponent in the May 15 primary, but he's spending $300,000 to air a TV ad that takes credit for how Nebraska's economy is doing.
● NH-Gov: The University of New Hampshire's latest poll once again finds Republican Gov. Chris Sununu in good shape to win a second two-year term this fall, giving him a gaudy 59 percent approval rating and just 16 percent disapproval. In hypothetical general election matchups against the Democratic field, Sununu beats former Portsmouth Mayor Steve Marchand by 49-27 and former state Sen. Molly Kelly by 51-24.
Both Democrats have little name recognition so far and presumably have room to grow once they become better-known. However, Sununu may be tough to beat with such bipartisan popularity.
● NM-Gov: Democratic Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham has debuted her first TV ad in advance of the June 5 gubernatorial primary, which the National Journal reports is a "six-figure" buy. The commercial begins with Lujan Grisham talking to the camera to detail the struggles she's had to overcome in her life and how she'll "never stop fighting" for everyday New Mexicans.
● OH-Gov: Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor's latest GOP primary TV ad attacks state Attorney General Mike DeWine for voting with Hillary Clinton when he was senator for bills that supposedly included "amnesty for illegals," "gun bans," and "more debt." Taylor closes by explicitly promising to "end John Kasich's Obamacare expansion" of Medicaid, which is a rather remarkable sign of how bad Kasich's reputation has become with stalwart conservatives, given that he picked Taylor to be his running mate two times and has endorsed her campaign.
Meanwhile, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has endorsed fellow Democrat Richard Cordray in Team Blue's primary.
House
● AL-02: Rep. Martha Roby has aired her first TV ad for the upcoming June 5 Republican primary. The segment focuses entirely on immigration, with Roby using Nancy Pelosi as a foil and calling for building a border wall.
Roby will be able to air plenty more ads after she raised $290,000 in the first quarter and started April with $821,000 in cash-on-hand. However, former Rep. Bobby Bright will at least have some substantial funds after he raised $35,000, self-funded $309,000, and ended the quarter with $330,000 in the bank. Lastly, state Rep. Barry Moore hasn't been gaining any traction and had just $5,000 on-hand.
● CA-48: Republican Scott Baugh is out with a new cable ad slamming GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who himself has been busy attacking Baugh. Rohrabacher's offensive has so far apparently been confined to mailers and web videos in which he's tarred Baugh as a a pro-amnesty lobbyist "bankrolled by never-Trumpers" who supports (heaven forfend) "sober living homes." Baugh, by contrast, blasts Rohrabacher for only passing three pieces of legislation during his 30 years in Congress and for taking "172 foreign trips on our taxpayer tab, to support marijuana—and Russia." Check out the awesome graphic of Dana offering Vlad some bud at about 17 seconds in.
● CA-49: Real estate investor Paul Kerr, a Democrat, has begun airing a new ad that National Journal reports will be on broadcast TV, cable, and digital. Kerr talks about his Navy service during the Vietnam War, and he hammers Trump for endangering our national security and weakening our alliances. Meanwhile, EMILY's List has expanded its ongoing ad buy to $750,000 on behalf of Democrat Sara Jacobs, who served as a policy advisor to Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Both Kerr and Jacobs are part of a field with several well-funded Democrats. Kerr, who is personally wealthy, gave his campaign $900,000 in the first quarter, finishing the period with $345,000 on-hand. Meanwhile, Jacobs had a large $1.1 million in cash-on-hand thanks to self-funding a similar amount toward the end of 2017, but she also hasn't had trouble raising money from donors; she brought in $268,000 in contributions.
Meanwhile, attorney Mike Levin led the field in contributions, having raised $321,000 during the first three months of 2017, and he had a sizable $515,000 in the bank as of April 1. However, retired Marine Col. Doug Applegate has struggled to keep up despite nearly winning in 2016: He raised just $129,000 and had a more modest $236,000 on-hand.
On the Republican side, Board of Equalization member Diane Harkey raised $283,000 from donors, self-funded $30,000, and ended March with $179,000 on-hand. Close behind her was San Diego County Supervisor Kristin Gaspar, who took in $261,000 in contributions and had $185,000 in the bank at the end of the quarter.
Meanwhile, Assemblyman Rocky Chavez and San Juan Capistrano City Councilman have been more reliant on their personal wealth. Chavez raised $103,000 and loaned himself another $100,000 to arrive at $185,000 on-hand, while Maryott raised just a mere $21,000 from donors but loaned himself a hefty $400,000. After spending heavily, Maryott had just $59,000 left over after the first quarter, but he may be wealthy enough to just write himself another big check.
● CT-05: Rabbi Shaul Praver, who led Newtown's only synagogue for 13 years and became known for consoling grieving families in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting, has entered the Democratic primary for Connecticut's open 5th Congressional District. In announcing his candidacy, Praver described himself as a "bold progressive" and, among other things, called for "sane comprehensive gun laws."
Praver will soon likely be joined by another member of his community. Both Nicole Hockley's son Dylan and Mark Barden's son Daniel were murdered in the massacre, and both parents went on to become leaders of Sandy Hook Promise, a charitable organization that strives to protect children from gun violence.
The two say they've been in contact with both the DCCC and local Democratic leaders and have also agreed that they won't run against one another. (Nancy Pelosi has also reportedly encouraged Barden to run.) Hockley and Barden also say they'll make an announcement this week, though it's possible neither will run.
● GA-06: While gun safety advocate Lucy McBath trails her two main rivals in the money race thanks to her late entry into the Democratic primary, she's getting a big boost from the organization she used to work for. Everytown for Gun Safety, whom McBath represented as a spokesperson for years following the 2012 shooting death of her son, says it will spend $200,000 on mailers and digital ads telling her story.
Meanwhile, one of McBath's opponents, former TV news anchor Bobby Kaple, just picked up an endorsement from former Gov. Roy Barnes, the last Democrat to hold the post. Kaple previously won the support of former Sen. Max Cleland.
● IN-02: Businessman Yatish Joshi has released a new TV ad ahead of the May 8 Democratic primary, which features footage of former Gov. Joe Kernan and some local elected officials praising him.
● KY-06: If Amy McGrath's new poll of the Democratic primary in Kentucky's 6th Congressional District is accurate, it represents an astounding turnabout. McGrath's survey, conducted by Garin-Hart-Yang in mid-April, finds her leading Lexington Mayor Jim Gray by a 42-35 margin—an enormous jump from her own previously unreleased December numbers that had Gray ahead 63-18. Indeed, Gray's own polling from early March likewise had him ahead 52-19, but since then, both candidates have gone on the airwaves with positive ads.
However, their messages have been very different. Gray has run ads that have been more geared toward a general election: In one spot, he even declared that "we better put party aside." McGrath, by contrast, has struck a much more partisan chord, calling health care "a fundamental right" and saying she'll defend the Affordable Care Act against its opponents, "even President Trump." She's also emphasized her personal story about becoming a Marine combat pilot even though such roles had been forbidden to women, and in a newer ad, recounts a harrowing mission in Iraq in which she only had enough fuel to drop a single bomb on an enemy outpost, thus saving her fellow troops.
Both candidates also continue to raise tons of money, with Gray pulling in $783,000 and McGrath $660,000 in the last quarter, putting them both at the top of the heap among challengers nationwide. But thanks to her earlier start, McGrath's raised and spent considerably more overall, though Gray has somewhat more cash left in the bank, with $826,000 to McGrath's $624,000. Both, however, will have plenty of resources for the stretch run.
We've yet to see any sort of response to McGrath's polling from Gray's team, however, so in the absence of contradictory data, it certainly looks like McGrath is on a sharp upward trajectory with just a month to go before the May 22 primary.
● NM-01: Retired University of New Mexico law professor Antoinette Sedillo Lopez has unveiled her first TV ad for the June 5 Democratic primary. The spot opens with her talking about how a high school guidance counselor once told her that women couldn't be lawyers, but she proved him wrong and used her legal experience "to fight for social justice." Sedillo Lopez argues for providing health care for all, protecting Dreamers from deportation, and taking on the NRA.
Meanwhile, former U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez is betting big that taking on Donald Trump is a winning strategy in the primary. Indeed, Martinez's first TV ad will run not only on local broadcast, but also on "Fox & Friends" in Washington, D.C. on April 24 to get Trump's attention; Trump frequently angry-tweets after watching Fox News segments. It would of course play right into Martinez's hands if Trump got angry in response and attacked him publicly, boosting his profile among Democratic voters who hate Trump.
Martinez's actual ad introduces himself as New Mexico's federal prosecutor who was "hired by President Obama and fired by President Trump." The commercial then shows him entering a boardroom where he faces a The Apprentice-style version of Trump, who greets him with, "I've just been given some very disturbing news." Martinez responds by asking if it's the "news" that he prosecuted polluting corporations, took on domestic violence, and got "assault weapons off the street." After Trump predictably says his catchphrase, "You're fired," Martinez says when he's in Congress, Trump will be next to get fired.
● NY Congress: Candidate filing closed earlier this month for New York's June 26 federal primary, but there are a few important things we need to discuss before we dive into who actually filed to run for Congress.
To begin with, New York is the only state that conducts two entirely separate primaries: one for Congress and another for state-level offices like governor, attorney general, and the state legislature, which doesn't take place until Sept. 13. What's more, the filing deadline for that second primary isn't until July 12, so congressional candidate who lose in June can just turn around and run for state office.
Indeed, a number of sitting state legislators who lost primaries for Congress did in order to keep their seats. For instance, then-state Sen. Adriano Espaillat lost June primaries to Rep. Charlie Rangel in both 2012 and 2014, but he won renomination to his legislative seat afterwards both times. (When Rangel retired in 2016 and Espaillat finally won the primary for his House seat, there was an open-seat race to succeed Espaillat in the state Senate a few months later.) Republican Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney did the same thing in 2014, and she likewise won an open House seat the following cycle.
This unique and expensive state of affairs has been in place since 2012, when a federal judge ordered the state to move its federal primaries from September to the fourth Tuesday in June in order to comply with a federal law requiring ballots be sent to servicemembers overseas at least 45 days before Election Day. Because this federal law doesn't affect state elections, the judge left the September state-level primaries untouched, though he encouraged lawmakers to consolidate the two dates.
That never happened. The Democratic-controlled state Assembly has long wanted all primaries to take place in June, while the Republican-led state Senate has pushed for August. In fact, the Assembly has passed legislation to establish a single June primary, and Senate Democrats support the idea. So why the GOP refusal to simply go with the judge's June date?
Republicans legislators have never satisfactorily explained their reasoning, though it's not hard to guess why. Few Democrats in the legislature are vulnerable in general elections while plenty of Republicans are, so the GOP cynically prefers a late primary since it gives their opponents as little time as possible to organize after winning nomination. As a result, New York spends a fortune to hold two primaries instead of one: The state Senate estimates that a consolidated date could save $25 million—and turnout suffers as well.
There's also one administrative oddity to note. The state does publish a list of candidates who've filed for Congress, but it doesn't include all House seats. Candidates running for a district that is contained entirely within a single county or within New York City file with their local election authorities, while everyone else files with the state.
As a result, we have several additional lists of candidates covering these particular jurisdictions:
The 4th District is located entirely within Nassau County, but Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice faces minimal opposition for a third term.
Finally, we need to note that New York is a state where petition challenges are common, so it's very possible that some of the people who've filed won't be on the June ballot. State election commissioners will issue their final rulings on challenges on May 3, and the primary ballot is scheduled to be certified that same day.
● NY-01: GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin decisively won a second term as his eastern Long Island seat was swinging from 50-49 Obama to 55-42 Trump, and he's been a loyal and vocal Trump ally. Team Blue is hoping that the district will move in the other direction this year, and five Democrats have filed for the June primary.
The Democrat with by far the most money in the bank at the end of March was businessman Perry Gershon, who has done some self-funding. Gershon had $1 million to spend, while former Suffolk County Legislator Kate Browning was a distant second with $257,000. But Gershon only changed his voter registration from Manhattan to his summer home in the Hamptons around the same time that he was preparing to enter the race, so his opponents may try to cast him as a wealthy interloper from New York City.
Browning, who represented Zeldin's Shirley base until she was termed-out this year, has a very different background. She immigrated to the United States from Northern Ireland during The Troubles, and she has emphasized her working-class background (she drove a school bus before she entered politics) and labor ties. While she consistently won the Democratic nomination for her seat in the county legislature, Browning only switched her voter registration from the Working Families Party to the Democratic Party in May.
The three other candidates have considerably less money or name recognition as Gershon and Browning. David Pechefsky, who works for an education nonprofit, ran for a seat on the New York City Council in 2009 as a Green Party candidate. Pechefsky has done some self-funding, and he had $142,000 on-hand. Former Suffolk County Legislator Vivian Viloria-Fisher only had $62,000 to spend, and she hasn't had a good relationship with county power players. Elaine DiMasi, who recently left her job at the local Brookhaven National Laboratory to run, had just $15,000 to spend.
Whoever emerges from the primary will face an expensive race with Zeldin, who had $1.5 million in the bank.
● NY-02: GOP Rep. Pete King holds a central Long Island seat that swung from 52-47 Obama to 53-44 Trump, and he's never had a close race since his initial 1992 win. It's going to take a lot to give him a tough challenge even during a Democratic wave year, but consultant and activist Liuba Grechen Shirley noticeably raised a credible $200,000 during her first quarter in the race. Suffolk County Legislator DuWayne Gregory, who lost to King 62-38 last cycle, also is running again, and he has the support of county Democratic Chair Richard Schaffer (about three-quarters of this seat is in Suffolk, while the balance is in Nassau). Grechen Shirley ended March with a $200,000 to $59,000 cash-on-hand edge over Gregory.
King had close to $3 million to spend, but it's not just his war chest that makes him a formidable opponent. As we've written before, while King is quite conservative by his own admission, he's managed to carve out a reputation as a security-obsessed loudmouth who knows when to break with his party and support local interests. King notably threatened to switch parties in 2013 when the GOP House held up a $60 billion aid bill after Hurricane Sandy, which hit his district. While King may very well have been bluffing, he was canny enough to stand up for his angry constituents at the right time.
● NY-09: Rep. Yvette Clarke has never been seriously challenged in the Democratic primary for this safely blue Brooklyn district since her initial 2006 win, but that may change this year. Adem Bunkeddeko, a community organizer and Harvard Business School graduate, got our attention when he raised a notable amount of money in the final months of 2017. Bunkeddeko also has the support of prominent political figures like former Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch and civil rights activist Vernon Jordan. Bunkeddeko is emphasizing the need for affordable housing, a very potent issue in this area.
However, Clarke begins the race as the clear favorite. She doesn't appear to have made many enemies at home, and even Bunkeddeko says that he has "great respect" for her. And while the incumbent only outraised Bunkeddeko $164,000 to $120,000 at the end of last year, she led him by a considerably-wider $187,000 to $80,000 during the first three months of the year. Clarke ended March with a $244,000 to $80,000 cash-on-hand edge.
● NY-11: The DCCC is enjoying the ugly GOP primary battle between Rep. Dan Donovan and former Rep. Mike Grimm so much that they recently released an in-house poll giving Grimm a 49-39 lead; they did not release any general election numbers testing either Republican against Army veteran Max Rose, the likely Democratic nominee.
Both Republicans released their own polls last month, and they each painted a very different picture than what the DCCC found. Donovan's survey found him leading Grimm 60-21, while even Grimm's survey gave him just a 35-34 lead over the incumbent. There's simply no way to reconcile these three surveys.
No matter what, the GOP primary for this district, which includes all of Staten Island and a portion of Brooklyn, won't be boring. Donovan, who was Staten Island's longtime district attorney until he was elected to the House in the 2015 special election to replace Grimm, has been a pretty low-key member. The same cannot be said for Grimm, who among other things once threatened a reporter on camera, about a year before he resigned on tax evasion charges; for the latter Grimm ended up serving seven months in jail.
Grimm is arguing that Donovan is a liberal who has voted against Trump too many times. The incumbent is trying to flip the script and portray Grimm as the one who is out of touch, and he's taken aim at his past ethics problems. Donovan held a $739,000 to $332,000 cash-on-hand lead over Grimm at the end of March, but neither Republican is suffering from a lack of name recognition.
Democrats are excited about Rose, who had $892,000 in the bank and no notable primary opponents. This seat backed Obama 52-47 after Hurricane Sandy hit the area hard before Trump won it 54-44 four years later, but Team Blue hopes a strong political climate and a bloody GOP primary will give them an opening.
But while it's tempting to argue that Democrats should root for Grimm to win in June because he'd be easier for Rose to beat than Donovan, that's far from clear. Grimm has spent years building up a cult of personality by portraying the Obama Justice Department as out to get him, an argument that has struck a chord in a community where plenty of voters believe they've been neglected by their city, local, and national governments.
When Grimm was indicted in 2014, many prognosticators thought he was done for, and national Republicans left him on his own. But Grimm won a third term 55-42 against a well-funded but flawed Democratic foe, and it would be unwise to assume he'd be easy to beat in a general election.
● NY-12: Longtime Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney has always decisively won re-nomination in this safely blue seat, which is centered around Manhattan's affluent Upper East Side. But attorney Suraj Patel has proven to be a surprisingly strong fundraiser, and he outraised the incumbent over the last two quarters.
Maloney still has a $913,000 to $601,000 cash-on-hand edge, but Patel has the resources to get his message out. The challenger is calling for legalizing marijuana and making it easier to vote, and emphasizing his support for Black Lives Matter. Patel has also gone after Maloney for voting for the Iraq War and her initial opposition to the Obama administration's nuclear agreement with Iran.
It will be very tough to beat Maloney, who has the support of the local party establishment and has largely avoided alienating primary voters back home. However, she did earn some bad headlines when she argued that Patel's fundraising reports show "mainly a huge amount of the name Patel, which is his name." Patel shot back sharply, saying, "I guess I didn't realize Rep. Maloney hired Steve Bannon as her campaign strategist" and noting that Donald Trump had once donated to the congresswoman.
● NY-16: Fifteen-term Rep. Eliot Engel faces a Democratic primary challenge from businessman Jonathan Lewis, who has put over $500,000 of his own money into his campaign. Lewis, who was an elected member trustee of the Scarsdale Board of Education, has emphasized getting corporate money out of politics.
However, it's going to be very tough for him to beat Engel, who hasn't faced a close primary since 2000 and doesn't appear to have made many local enemies. At the end of March, the incumbent held a modest $570,000 to $380,000 cash-on-hand edge. This seat, which includes about half of Westchester County and a portion of the Bronx, gave Hillary Clinton 75 percent of the vote.
● NY-18: Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney's Hudson Valley seat swung from 51-47 Obama to 49-47 Trump, but national Republicans don't seem likely to seriously target him this cycle. Still, Maloney does have one noteworthy GOP foe.
Orange County Legislator James O'Donnell, who was chief of police for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (which governs, among other things, the New York City subway) during the September 11 attacks, entered the race in January. O'Donnell raised $151,000 from donors during his first months in the race and self-funded another $50,000, leaving him with a $201,000 war chest. However, Maloney is a very strong fundraiser, and he had $3.15 million in the bank at the end of March.
● NY-19: GOP Rep. John Faso won an expensive open seat race as this Upper Hudson Valley seat swung from 52-46 Obama to 51-44 Trump, and there's a very crowded and expensive Democratic contest in June to take him on. Seven Democrats ended up filing, and there's no clear front-runner.
The only thing we really know at this point is that this primary will be expensive. Attorney Antonio Delgado, a Harvard Law graduate who once worked as music company executive in Los Angeles before returning to New York, led the money race at the end of March with $1.2 million in the bank. Delgado, who is black, is the only person of color in the contest. Former Army intelligence officer Pat Ryan, an Iraq War veteran who has VoteVets' support, had $959,000 to spend; impressively neither candidate has done any significant self-funding.
Businessman Bryan Flynn, who became active in politics after his brother was killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, has loaned his campaign $650,000, and he had just shy of $900,000 in the bank. Gareth Rhodes, a former press aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has the support of many other Cuomo administration alums, though the governor has not taken sides publicly. Rhodes has played up his ties to the governor, even though Cuomo performed badly in this area during the 2014 primary; Rhodes had $478,000 to spend. Not far behind with $452,000 on-hand was attorney and deacon David Clegg, who is a member of several local social-justice organizations (Clegg has done some self-funding).
Also in the hunt is Jeff Beals, a former CIA intelligence officer and diplomat who worked for the Clinton presidential campaign's foreign policy team, though he had only $86,000 to spend. Erin Collier, a U.S. Agency for International Development official, only entered the race in March, and she had just $61,000 in the bank after her first few weeks in the race. However, Collier may stand out as the only woman in this seven-way primary. She also notably announced her campaign with an interview in PEOPLE Magazine, which is a pretty unusual venue for a House candidate, especially one running for the first time.
Faso had $990,000 in the bank, less than Delgado and comparable to some of the other Democrats, though he has no primary foe. The incumbent may be helped in the general election by actress Diane Neal, an independent candidate who describes herself as "a little Libertarian," "a lot liberal," and "mostly progressive." Neal didn't report raising any money before the end of March, but the former "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" recurring guest star probably won't have a hard time getting media attention on the campaign trail.
● NY-21: GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik had little trouble winning a second term last cycle as her seat, which includes the rural North Country along the Vermont border, swung from 52-46 Obama to 54-40 Trump. This is another seat that Democrats are hoping will swing back, and seven Democrats have filed to take on Stefanik.
The candidate with the most national name-recognition is Dylan Ratigan, a former MSNBC host who founded a local company that installs solar-powered hydroponic farm equipment. Ratigan hails from a prominent local family; he notably announced his bid at the Ratigan Bridge, which is named for his grandfather.
But Ratigan used that same kick-off to say he'd never voted before. Ratigan went on to say that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had become "so detached from the American people," which is probably not a winning message in a Democratic primary. Ratigan had $126,000 on-hand after his first few months in the race, a bit less than what other candidates who had been running for much longer had.
The candidate with the most cash-on-hand is environmental attorney Don Boyajian, who had just shy of $300,000. Businesswoman Tedra Cobb, who finished an eight-year stint on in the St. Lawrence County Legislature in 2010, had almost $200,000 in the bank.
Local professor Emily Martz and small businesswoman Katie Wilson each had around $75,000 on-hand; Wilson also has the support of the Working Families Party, a left-leaning third-party that usually endorses the Democratic nominee. Two other candidates, physician David Mastrianni and activist Patrick Nelson, each had only about $5,000 on-hand.
This district is located well outside the New York City media market, so it's significantly less expensive to run for office here than it is in much of the race of the state. But Stefanik, who worked in the George W. Bush White House, is well-connected, and she had a strong $1.3 million war chest.
● NY-22: Freshman Rep. Claudia Tenney is another New York Republican that national Democrats are making a serious play against. While this seat, which is home to Utica, Rome, and Binghamton, swung from 49.2-48.8 Romney to 55-39 Trump, Team Blue has a strong candidate in Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi.
But perhaps most importantly, Tenney's own behavior could cause her problems. In February, just days after the Parkland school shooting, Tenney declared that it was "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." Tenney not only didn't apologize, 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."
Tenney also has 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 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. More recently, Tenney declared that the "deep state" is responsible for the scandal over Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson's $31,000 dining room set.
Neither candidate faces primary opposition, and both parties have gotten involved here early. The DCCC released a poll showing Brindisi leading 50-44, and the GOP did not release contradictory numbers. What the GOP did do is invest money here: The Congressional Leadership Fund has reserved $900,000 in ad reservations, something that haven't done for any other New York House seat yet. The Democratic group House Majority PAC likewise recently began airing ads against Tenney.
Brindisi held a $947,000 to $739,000 cash-on-hand lead over Tenney at the end of March, and she could be on the wrong side of even more spending before too long. Tenney has had a horrible relationship with the Oneida Indian Nation going back to her days in the state Assembly, when she opposed them over a revenue-sharing deal involving their Turning Stone Resort Casino. They've spent heavily against her in past races, and she drew their ire all over again this month when she called Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter a "tax cheat." (Back in 2015, she labeled him "Spray Tan Ray," and it won't surprise you to learn she didn't apologize.)
The Oneidas fired back by saying that her "her erratic outbursts and conspiracy theories threaten to create an environment that is hostile to job creation and economic growth in this region." This could foreshadow another effort to beat her, but Tenney doesn't exactly seem to care.
● NY-23: GOP Rep. Tom Reed pulled off a surprisingly close 52-48 win in 2012 as Romney was carrying his upstate seat 50-48. However, he did considerably better against touted Democratic foes during the 2014 Republican wave and in 2016, when Trump won the seat 55-40. Five Democrats are running to take on Reed in this district, which includes liberal Ithaca and conservative neighboring areas, but none of them have attracted much national attention yet.
The candidate with the most money in the bank at the end of March was retired cardiologist Linda Andrei, who has self-funded a large portion of her campaign and had $211,000 on-hand. Max Della Pia, a retired Air Force officer, was far behind with $76,000 to spend. Tracy Mitrano, a retired cyber security expert, had only $70,000, but she has the support of the Working Families Party. Two other candidates each had less than $25,000 on-hand, while Reed is sitting on $1.1 million. It looks likely that both parties will focus their efforts on other seats, though after what happened in 2012, national Democrats may take another look at whoever wins the primary.
● NY-24: Former Syracuse corporation counsel Juanita Perez Williams kicked off a bid against GOP Rep. John Katko months after she said she wouldn't run, and the DCCC quickly added her to their Red to Blue list for top candidates. But the leaders of the local Democratic counties are not only sticking with their support for Syracuse University professor Dana Balter, they're challenging Perez Williams' signatures.
One local party chair submitted an objection to the state Board of Elections arguing that most of the signatures Perez Williams turned in don't list the correct town or city, and that some of the paid canvassers weren't registered Democrats as the law requires. A ruling will be made by the Board of Elections on May 3.
No matter what, Katko will put up a big fight in November. Katko beat a touted Democratic candidate 60-39 even as Clinton was carrying the district 49-45, though that was quite a drop from Obama's 57-41 victory here. Balter, who has been active with local progressive groups, has been running for months, but she only had $75,000 in the bank to Katko's $1.25 million. Perez Williams may have the connections to raise more, though her detractors cite her 54-38 defeat in last year's race for mayor of Syracuse as evidence to argue that she'd be a weak candidate.
● NY-25: Four Democrats ended up filing to succeed longtime Rep. Louise Slaughter, who died in March. State Assembly Majority Leader Joe Morelle has the support of much of the local political establishment, including Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren, as well as Slaughter's daughter and son-in-law.
Morelle appears to be the front-runner, but a surprise is certainly possible. Also in the running are Rochester City Councilor Adam McFadden, the executive director of a nonprofit that provides after school programs for local urban youth; Bright Town Board Member Robin Wilt; and former TV reporter Rachel Barnhart, who took a distant third place with just 16 percent of the vote in the 2017 primary for mayor of Rochester.
While Rochester City School Board president Van White announced he was running in March, he does not appear to have filed before the deadline. EMILY's List tried to recruit Sarah Clark, an aide to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, but she didn't end up running.
This Rochester-based seat went for Clinton 56-39, and it's likely to stay blue, but Team Red may be able to put up a fight. Jim Maxwell, the chief of neurosurgery at Rochester General Hospital, was running before Slaughter died, and he faces no primary opposition. Maxwell raised $136,000 from donors during the first quarter of 2018 and he self-funded an additional $470,000, leaving him with $527,000 in the bank.
● NY-27: GOP Rep. Chris Collins represents the most conservative House seat in New York, but Democrats are hoping that an insider trading scandal could give them an opening. But while Grand Island Town Supervisor Nate McMurray was the only Democrat who filed to challenge Collins, allies of Gov. Andrew Cuomo reportedly tried to convince him to drop out days after the April 12 deadline and allow Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul to run in his place. McMurray quickly and publicly said he wouldn't be going anywhere, but that doesn't seem to have ended the discussion.
Last week, Cuomo strangely talked up Hochul, who represented a previous version of the seat, as "a great congressional candidate for that race and that she would be the strongest Democrat," adding, "Many many people say she will be a stronger candidate than Nate McMurray." Cuomo did say that the whole thing was "moot because Kathy Hochul doesn't want to run and it's her decision," but McMurray was quite pissed that the governor was undermining his campaign for no apparent reason.
This seat, which includes part of the Buffalo suburbs, went from 55-43 Romney to 60-35 Trump. But in October, the Office of Congressional Ethics released a report saying there was "substantial reason to believe" that Collins "shared material nonpublic information" about an Australian biotech company he'd invested heavily in—in other words, engaged in insider trading—and Collins' $17 million investment was wiped out last year when the company's lone drug failed in clinical trials.
However, McMurray likely will need the investigation against Collins to go a lot further if he wants a shot at a seat this red. Collins held a huge $1.3 million to $37,000 cash-on-hand edge at the end of March, and it doesn't help that all of McMurray's constituents in Grand Island are in the nearby 26th District.
● TX-27: Gov. Greg Abbott has scheduled a June 30 special election for the final months of former GOP Rep. Blake Farenthold's term. If no one takes a majority of the vote, the top two candidates, regardless of party, will compete in a runoff that will be held in September "at the latest."
Awkwardly, the filing deadline for the special is Friday, even though the GOP primary runoff to replace Farenthold in the next Congress won’t be held until May 22. Former Texas Water Development Board Chairman Bech Bruun is competing with former Victoria County party chair Michael Cloud for the nod in this 60-37 Trump seat, so the two could end up facing off again this summer when the stakes will be considerably lower.
Legislative, Mayoral
● VA State House, Virginia Beach, VA Mayor: Ah, well, so much for that tantalizing possibility. Republican Del. Glenn Davis, who previously said he was considering a bid in a special election this fall for mayor of Virginia Beach, now says he won't run. Had Davis sought and won the mayoralty, that would have triggered a second special election for his extremely competitive seat in the state House, which Republicans hold by just a 51-49 margin—a reality Davis acknowledged in explaining his decision.
