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
● KY-Gov: Filing closed Tuesday for Kentucky's May 21 primaries, and there were no last-minute surprises for either party. Despite plenty of speculation among state Republicans (or perhaps hopes) that Gov. Matt Bevin would call it quits, he is indeed seeking a second term. Bevin's main primary foe is state Rep. Robert Goforth, and two other minor candidates are in as well.
Campaign Action
While Kentucky is a very red state, and Bevin is the first Republican to ever serve with his party in control of both legislative chambers, the incumbent is not popular at all. A December poll from Mason-Dixon found him with a 38-53 approval rating, while a Morning Consult survey from the final quarter of 2018 gave him a similar 34-51 score. Much of the governor's tenure has been defined by his insensitive public statements and feuds with fellow Republicans, and we saw more of both of that this week.
On Tuesday, Bevin expressed disgust that Kentucky schools were closing due to extremely cold weather, telling radio host Terry Meiners, "There's no ice going with it or any snow," and musing, "What happens to America. We're getting soft, Terry, we're getting soft." On Wednesday morning, wind chills in Louisville dropped to as low as minus 17 degrees Fahrenheit, which apparently the governor thinks is something that children should just go through as a character-building exercise.
In his Tuesday interview, Bevin did concede that school districts should always err on the side of caution, but added, "I'm being only slightly facetious," before declaring, "but it does concern me a little bit that in America on this and any number of other fronts, we're sending messages to our young people that if life is hard you can curl up in the fetal position." Believe it or not, these aren't even Bevin's worst comments about children staying home from school.
NBC weatherman Al Roker had a choice response to Bevin’s dabbling in meteorology. While delivering the forecast on the air, Roker added, “By the way, I just have to say, this nitwit governor from Kentucky saying, 'Oh, we're weak,'" and declared, “These are kids who are going to be in subzero windchills. No! Cancel school. Stop it, you know?" Roker went on to tell viewers, “Adults, if they want to be out there, that's great,” but concluded, “These are our children, you know? I'm glad you're not a teacher.” Now that last bit is the understatement of the decade.
Bevin also made news this week when he announced he was dropping Lt. Gov. Jeanne Hampton as his running mate in favor of state Sen. Ralph Alvarado. But Hampton will be Bevin's No. 2 until the end of his term, and it seems those next several months will be as awkward as possible.
On Wednesday, Hampton hit the like button on a tweet reading, "I hope Matt Bevin's car won't start tomorrow morning and he's locked out of his house with nowhere to go. Yeah, I said it. #ThankUNext." The like immediately attracted attention and stayed up for an hour and a half. After removing it, Hampton herself tweeted, "For the record, I UNINTENTIONALLY hearted a tweet that was derogatory to @GovMattBevin. I don't pile onto mean-spirited tweets! #FatThumbs."
The good news for Bevin is that, despite his intraparty squabbles, he may have avoided a tough primary. Bevin's main intraparty foe is Robert Goforth, who has only served a year in the state House. About two weeks ago, a woman named Alicia Whitaker publicly accused Goforth of sexually assaulting her a decade ago and forcing her to engage in sexual acts with a Goforth business associate named Michael Ingram.
The Commonwealth Journal of Somerset, Kentucky, contacted one of the friends Whitaker said she confided in at the time. The 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. There have been no new developments over the last two weeks.
The Democratic primary is a three-way contest between Attorney General Andy Beshear, state House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins, and state Auditor Adam Edelen, with perennial candidate Geoff Young also running. Beshear is the son of former Gov. Steve Beshear, who decisively won terms in 2007 and 2011. In 2015, the younger Beshear was elected attorney general 50.1-49.9 on the same night that Bevin was winning 53-44.
Beshear and Bevin have had a horrible relationship during their three years together in state government, with Beshear suing Bevin over his executive orders several times, and Bevin calling his adversary "one of the most incompetent attorneys" in the state. The attorney general notably scored a high-profile win in December when the Kentucky Supreme Court, in response to a lawsuit brought on by Beshear, unanimously struck down the law cutting pensions that led to last year's teachers strike. Thanks to his famous last name and prominent statewide post, Beshear likely begins the primary as the frontrunner.
Adkins has served in the legislature since 1987, and he's managed to hold on to a rural Eastern Kentucky seat at a time when Republicans have been making gains in this ancestrally blue area. In 2016, Adkins faced his first Republican opponent since 1994 and won 66-34 even as Trump was carrying his seat 68-28; he was once again unopposed this cycle.
Adkins also served as a captain and point guard for the 1983 Morehead State University basketball team that went to the NCAA tournament, which gives him a good profile in this basketball-obsessed commonwealth. Beshear, who entered the race several months before Adkins, held an $852,000 to $581,000 cash-on-hand edge over the minority leader at the end of 2018.
Edelen jumped in the race in January, so we don't know how much money he's taken in yet. Edelen previously eyed higher office a few years ago when he flirted with challenging GOP Sen. Rand Paul in the 2016 cycle. However, those plans were shelved when he lost re-election in 2015 by a 52-48 margin. That result shocked even Edelen, who later said that he saw a poll the Friday before Election Day that showed him ahead by 11.
Senate
● IA-Sen: Team Blue is looking to target GOP Sen. Joni Ernst next year, and local Democrats tell the National Journal that a few local politicians are considering. Polk County Democratic Party Chairman Sean Bagniewski names real estate executive Theresa Greenfield as the leading potential candidate at this point, while an unnamed source says Greenfield is strongly considering and hopes to decide by the end of the quarter.
Greenfield challenged GOP Rep. David Young last year in the Des Moines-area 3rd District, and she was arguably the primary frontrunner until just before the March filing deadline. Greenfield had handed in her petitions a few days before they were due, but the following evening, her campaign manager confessed that he'd forged signatures to help her get on the ballot.
Rather than submit tainted petitions—even though it's likely they would have gone undiscovered—Greenfield chose to throw out all the signatures she'd already turned in and engaged in a mad one-day dash to gather the 1,790 she'd need to qualify as a candidate in the hours she still had before the deadline. Most of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates pitched in to help her, and so did one of her own primary rivals, but she still fell 198 signatures short.
For a time, it looked like Greenfield's campaign might still live on when the 3rd District Central Committee voted to add her to the primary ballot, and Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate said afterwards that he'd certify Greenfield as a candidate. However, Democratic state Attorney General Tom Miller eventually issued a legal opinion saying he didn't believe that Iowa law allowed this, and Pate reversed his earlier plan.
Greenfield ended up deciding to abandon any further efforts to remain in the race, and one of her former primary foes, Cindy Axne, went on to win the nomination and unseat Young. The whole experience was certainly an unpleasant one for Greenfield, but she still appears to be well-regarded in Iowa Democratic circles, and the National Journal writes that she's a potential candidate whom operatives are excited to watch.
Bagniewski, the chair of the Polk County Democrats, also says that another 2018 3rd District candidate, insurance company owner Eddie Mauro, has put out feelers about a Senate bid. Mauro, who hails from a prominent South Side Des Moines political family and self-funded most of his campaign, ended up losing to Axne 58-26.
A few other Hawkeye State Democrats haven't ruled out running, but haven't made any obvious steps toward preparing a bid. Former Gov. Tom Vilsack said in December that when it came to a Senate run, "The door's not open, closed, shut," adding, "I don't even know where the door is."
J.D. Scholten, who lost last year's race against white supremacist Rep. Steve King by a surprisingly close 50-47 margin, hasn't ruled out either taking on King again or challenging Ernst. Last week, Scholten held a press conference that politicos initially speculated could be a campaign launch. Instead, Scholten said he was founding a nonprofit to help low-income workers across Iowa. While Scholten declined to say anything more about his 2019 plans, the National Journal notes that he plans to hold events across Iowa as part of this initiative, which could help him build up a statewide network ahead of a campaign.
Several other Democrats don't seem very interested in running for the Senate. Bagniewski said that neither Axne nor fellow freshman Rep. Abby Finkenauer is likely to run this cycle, nor are 2018 secretary of state nominee Deidre DeJear, state Auditor Rob Sand, or state Sen. and 2016 candidate Rob Hogg. There are no quotes from any of them, though DeJear has her hands full now that she's signed on to be state campaign manager for California Sen. Kamala Harris' presidential bid.
● NC-Sen: Mecklenburg County Commissioner Trevor Fuller and state Sen. Erica Smith each announced this month that they would challenge GOP Sen. Thom Tillis, but the Charlotte Observer reports that national Democrats have their eyes on other potential candidates.
Unnamed "key Democrats" tell the paper that Attorney General Josh Stein and former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx, who previously served as mayor of Charlotte, are at the top of the wish list. Neither of them has said anything about his interest in the contest, though local Democratic consultant Morgan Jackson says that Stein is focusing on his re-election bid for next year.
However, two other Democrats have expressed interest in taking on Tillis. 2016 Senate nominee Deborah Ross, a former state representative who lost an expensive contest against GOP incumbent Richard Burr by a 51-45 margin, said she was "looking at the landscape for 2020 and weighing [her] options." Ross didn't provide a timeline for when she would decide other than saying, "I think making a decision in January or February is too early."
Charlotte-area state Sen. Jeff Jackson, an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, has been talked about as a potential statewide candidate for a while, and he acknowledged, "I’ve been asked to talk to some folks in D.C. about the race and I'm going to do that." Jackson added that he has "been clear with them that we have a 14-week-old baby girl at home and that weighs very heavily on me."
The Observer adds that Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles has also been mentioned as a possible Senate candidate. Lyles, who is up for re-election this fall but currently doesn't have any serious opponents in sight, didn't quite rule it out, merely saying she was "very happy" with her current job.
Gubernatorial
● UT-Gov: On Tuesday, GOP Gov. Gary Herbert told the Deseret News that he didn't see a scenario where he ran for re-election in 2020, before he once again refused to rule out that very scenario with a "[n]ever say never." Herbert added he was "getting a lot of, I wouldn't call it pressure, but strong encouragement to do it again," though he didn't say who was providing this strong encouragement.
Last week, Herbert hosted a fundraiser for Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, who is considering running to succeed Herbert but says he won't make a final decision until the summer. Herbert also said at that event that, while he wasn't closing the door on another bid, he wanted Cox to run.
House
● HI-02: While Tulsi Gabbard has yet to say whether she'll seek re-election to the House, that other campaign of hers ain't going too hot. On Tuesday, Politico reported that, less than three weeks after saying she'd run for president, Gabbard's campaign manager and consulting firm are both quitting in the face of ongoing chaos.
Gabbard, according to the piece, repeatedly ramped up her campaign for a kickoff announcement, only to pull back multiple times, even making her staff work through Thanksgiving and then Christmas. But when she finally did declare in a CNN appearance earlier this month, she did so without readying her team, leaving her without the most basic of modern requirements in place for a proper launch: a campaign website.
And if Gabbard does ultimately abandon her farkakte presidential bid in favor of running for a fifth term in Congress, who's to say her campaign will operate any more smoothly? In addition, Gabbard would return to face state Sen. Kai Kahele, who's already gotten busy focusing on next year's Democratic primary—and had no difficulty kicking off his campaign with a functioning website.
● IL-03: Business consultant Marie Newman is considering a second Democratic primary bid against conservative Rep. Dan Lipinski, and she filed a fundraising committee with the FEC on Friday. Newman, who said she did this to explore another campaign, said last week that she'd make a decision in "two to three months," but that "[p]ersonally, my family and I are ready to go."
Legislative
● Special Elections: Here are the results from the two special elections that took place in the Lone Star State on Tuesday.
TX-HD-79: Democrat Art Fierro avoided a runoff by taking 53 percent of the vote in this El Paso-based district. Fierro ran with the backing of multiple local elected officials and finished well ahead of the other two candidates in the race. The other Democrat on the ballot, Michiel Noe, won 27 percent, while Hans Sassenfeld, the lone Republican, took 20 percent.
TX-HD-145: The race to replace newly minted state Sen. Carol Alvarado in this Houston-area district is heading to a runoff. Democrats Christina Morales and Melissa Noriega, who took 36 percent and 31 percent of the vote respectively, will participate in the second round, on a date that has yet to be determined. The only Republican on the ballot, Martha Fierro, finished third with 25 percent, while the five remaining candidates in this crowded field combined to take 8.5 percent of the vote.
