The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● HI-02: On Monday, Democratic state Sen. Kai Kahele, a combat pilot with the Air National Guard who's flown missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, announced he would run for Hawaii's 2nd Congressional District—but whether or not he'll actually face off against the seat's current occupant, Tulsi Gabbard, is an open question. Gabbard, of course, recently launched a bid for president, and when CNN's Jake Tapper asked her on Saturday whether she'd stay in the House if she doesn't win the Democratic nomination, she would only say, "We'll cross that bridge when we get there."
Campaign Action
There is, however, a long time between here and there. Hawaii's congressional primary is not until August of 2020, and under state law, Gabbard can in fact run for both offices simultaneously. She can therefore wait to see how share fares in the presidential race before deciding whether to come home to seek re-election.
But while Gabbard is busy greeting voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, Kahele will be able to campaign aggressively in the 2nd District. And though Gabbard's many apostasies have infuriated progressives, it's her absenteeism that's looks to be central to Kahele's campaign.
In his kickoff announcement, Kahele didn't mention Gabbard by name, but he not-so-subtly threw shade in her direction by saying the state needs "leaders who put the common interests of Hawaii's people ahead of their own." He also quoted famous lines from Barack Obama: "Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."
It's a message that could resonate in Hawaii, where members of the state's congressional delegation have to work particularly hard given the way the remote archipelago is too-often treated as an afterthought on the mainland. (Remember when Jeff Sessions sneered it was a mere "island in the Pacific"?) And by announcing so early, Kahele has given himself a lot of runway (sorry, sorry, but he's also a commercial pilot for Hawaiian Airlines, so we had to) for making this argument.
But even if a defeated Gabbard does tuck tail and return to run for a fifth term in the House, she'll still be difficult to beat. Limited polling has shown her very popular, and she's crushed unheralded primary opponents two cycles in a row, winning with more than 80 percent of the vote both times. Money also will likely not be a problem for her.
Presidential bids, however, always have the potential to tarnish the bidder. Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, for instance, helped alienate voters back home with his failed 2008 run, when he went so far as to enroll his young children in Iowa public schools. Dodd ended up taking literally zero percent in the Iowa caucuses, and his constituents in Connecticut weren't especially happy with him, either: Dodd wound up retiring in 2010 in the face of polls showing him losing re-election. If Gabbard winds up similarly damaged, Kahele could have an opening.
Kahele also brings an unusual personal background to the race. He'd be only the second native Hawaiian to win a seat in Congress (after the late Sen. Daniel Akaka) and the first elected from the Neighbor Islands—the more rural part of the state that encompasses all of the islands other than Oahu, which is home to Honolulu. Of course, it's very possible that Gabbard decides she's had enough of the House and turns this into an open-seat contest. In that case, what is for the moment a one-on-one contest would undoubtedly turn into a free-for-all, though since Kahele was just re-elected to a four-year term last year, he wouldn't have to give up his seat to stay in the race.
Senate
● ME-Sen: Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, announced on Friday that he was getting radiation treatments for what he described as a "small, localized, residual prostate cancer." King sounded very optimistic about his prognosis, saying, "What it means for my work in the Senate? Absolutely nothing," and adding, "I have been assured by my doctors, as recently as this morning, that I will remain healthy through my current Senate term and beyond."
● TN-Sen: Republican former Gov. Bill Haslam, who left office over the weekend, told reporters that he would decide on a Senate bid "probably sometime in March."
Gubernatorial
● KY-Gov: Over the weekend, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes announced that she would not seek the Democratic nomination for governor or for anything else in 2019. Grimes was the last Democrat who was still publicly considering whether or not to run this year, so unless there’s a big surprise ahead of the Jan. 29 filing deadline, Team Blue’s field is set. The announced candidates for the May primary are state House Minority Leader Rock Adkins, state Attorney General Andy Beshear, and former state Auditor Adam Edelen.
On the GOP side, a woman named Alicia Whitaker has publicly accused state Rep. Robert Goforth of sexually assaulting her a decade ago, allegations that Goforth denies. Whitaker told the Commonwealth Journal that she had been in a consensual relationship with Goforth, but that in late 2008 or early 2009, he forced her to engage in sexual acts with a Goforth business associate named Michael Ingram.
Whitaker recounted to the paper that she’d “begged (Goforth) to stop; I did not want to engage in sexual acts with Ingram,” but he’d “shoved my head down on Ingram ... He held me by the hair and laughed as he forced me into the act.” She also says that Goforth once took her to his upstairs apartment and “held the door shut, refusing to let me leave until I had sex with him.” The paper contacted one of the friends Whitaker said she confided to at the time. This friend, who asked not to be named, recounted that a decade ago, Whitaker had tearfully told him that she’d “said she was clear that she did not want to have sex with (Ingram). But they ignored her and forced her.”
Goforth put out a statement in response saying that, while he had been in a “brief, consensual relationship with Alicia Whitaker,” the allegations “are categorically false,” and that “sexual assault and violence against women sickens me, and I condemn any such acts in the strongest possible terms.” Ingram is currently in prison for distributing oxycodone and money laundering, and he has not commented. Goforth acknowledged in his statement that he and Ingram were once friends, but says “Ingram and I have not talked to each other for four years.” Goforth is challenging GOP Gov. Matt Bevin in the primary.
House
● CA-50: 2018 Democratic nominee Ammar Campa-Najjar recently unveiled endorsements from Reps. Scott Peters and Mike Levin, who represent neighboring districts. Earlier this month, Campa-Najjar announced he would seek a rematch with indicted GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter, who is scheduled to go on trial in September, and so far, no notable Democrats have made noises about running.
● GA-06: On Saturday, state Sen. Brandon Beach announced that he would seek the GOP nod to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath in this suburban Atlanta seat. Beach is the first noteworthy Republican to kick off a bid for this competitive seat, but he said he knew there would be a primary. We haven't heard any other Republicans express interest in running here yet, though the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes that former Rep. Karen Handel, who lost re-election to McBath 50.5-49.5, is considering seeking a rematch. There is no quote from Handel about her 2020 plans.
Beach is a former chief executive of the North Fulton Chamber of Commerce, so he may have some useful fundraising connections. However, only about a third of Beach's state Senate district is located in the 6th District (the rest is in the safely red 11th District), so he probably won't start out with much name recognition here.
While Beach has been a vocal supporter of legalizing casino gambling to fund the HOPE scholarship and expanding mass transit, the AJC also writes that, during his time in the legislature, Beach has been a staunch conservative on many high-profile issues. Notably, he has supported legislation to restrict abortion and allow students at state public schools with concealed carry permits to bring firearms into classrooms. By contrast, McBath became a gun safety activist after her teenage son was murdered.
Beach also co-sponsored the infamous Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which would have allowed faith-based organizations to refuse to serve someone if doing so would violate a "sincerely held religious belief." LGBT rights groups and major businesses spoke out against the bill in 2016, and Disney and Marvel said they would stop filming in Georgia if it passed. Then-Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, ended up vetoing the legislation. Beach said afterwards that he doubted the film industry would have actually left the state because studios "like to make money and save money, and it is a lot less expensive to film a movie here than it is in California."
Those far-right views aren't much of a liability in Beach's state Senate seat, which backed Trump 68-27, and they wouldn't have been much of an obstacle in the 6th District just a few years ago. However, this suburban congressional seat moved hard against Trump, backing him just 48-47 after favoring Romney 61-37 four years earlier, and both McBath's win and Democrat Stacey Abrams' 51-48 victory here during last year's gubernatorial race are a strong sign that 2016 wasn't just a blip. Beach himself also doesn't seem inclined to put his ultra-conservative votes front-and-center for now, with him declaring that he would try to appeal to moderates by focusing on tax cuts and job training initiatives.
● NC-09: On Tuesday, a judge denied Republican Mark Harris’ request to force the North Carolina Board of Elections to certify him as the winner in the disputed 2018 general election. The board was dissolved at the end of 2018, and a new one isn’t scheduled to be created until Jan. 31. However, the board’s staff is still working on the investigation in the interim.
● NY-11: Here's a not-so-subtle hint that GOP Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis is looking to challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Max Rose. On Friday, Malliotakis tweeted out a photo of her with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and she added that he'd helped facilitate a call with Donald Trump. This Staten Island seat, which includes a portion of Brooklyn, backed Trump 54-44.
● TX-10: Over the weekend, 2018 Democratic nominee Mike Siegel announced that he would seek a rematch against GOP Rep. Michael McCaul. Siegel, a city attorney for Austin, raised a total of just $467,000 during his last campaign and got little outside support, so it was a big surprise when he held McCaul to a 51-47 win. This seat, which stretches from Austin east into the Houston area, backed Trump 52-43.
Grab Bag
● Deaths: Former Sen. Harris Wofford, a Pennsylvania Democrat who served from 1991 until he was defeated by Rick Santorum in the 1994 GOP wave, died Monday at the age of 92. Wofford, whom The New Republic dubbed “The Man Who Was Everywhere” in a must-read 2014 profile by Jason Zengerle, had a very long career in public service despite only spending a few years in elected office. We recount Wofford and his Forrest Gump-like presence at major historical events in our obituary here.
Among many other things, Wofford was an early supporter of Martin Luther King Jr. and an aide on John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign. He even helped convince JFK to defy his campaign advisors and call Coretta Scott King after her husband was arrested, a politically risky move that probably tipped the election toward Kennedy. You can find out more about this critical event, as well as many other important highlights of Wofford’s life, in our obituary.
● International Digest: The United Kingdom keeps hurtling toward disaster of its own making after parliament resoundingly defeated Prime Minister Theresa May's proposed "Brexit" deal with the European Union, which would govern how the U.K. will leave the supranational organization this year following a 2016 referendum to do so. David Beard extensively explains how the U.K. got here and what these latest developments mean—astonishingly, May's conservative government survives in part because of just how disorganized the opposition and entire political class is. Check out this story and more in January's International Elections Digest.
● Redistricting: Earlier this month, Daily Kos Elections' Stephen Wolf moderated a discussion panel on redistricting reform at a conference hosted by former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's institute at the University of Southern California, and you can now watch the panel on Youtube. As a last-minute surprise, the governor himself participated on Wolf's panel alongside fellow activists who have succeeded with redistricting reform ballot measures to share their insights for future campaigns to stop gerrymandering.