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
● TX-28: Immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros announced Friday that she'd raised $310,000 during the third quarter for her Democratic primary bid against longtime Rep. Henry Cuellar, who is one of the most conservative members of the caucus. Cisneros, who also raised an additional $149,000 in June, ended September with "nearly" $300,000 in the bank.
Campaign Action
Cuellar has not yet revealed his third quarter totals, but he had a huge $3 million war chest at the end of June. Still, while Cisneros will almost certainly be decisively outspent in the March primary, her early fundraising totals are a sign that she'll have what it takes to run a credible campaign against an incumbent who has not faced a serious intra-party threat since 2006.
This seat, which is located in the Laredo area, backed Hillary Clinton by a strong 58-38 margin, but you wouldn't guess that by looking at Cuellar's record. In 2014, for instance, Cuellar joined with Republicans on legislation to make it easier to deport child migrants, and he's the extremely rare Democrat who has been endorsed by the radical anti-tax Club for Growth.
Cuellar hasn't changed in the Trump era, either. During the last Congress, FiveThirtyEight also found that Cuellar voted with Donald Trump nearly 70% of the time, more than any other Democrat in either chamber. Last year, he was the one Democrat who held off on signing a discharge petition to force a vote on a bill to protect Dreamers until the very last day to do so. Cuellar also took the time last year to attend and invite his supporters to a fundraiser for Republican Rep. John Carter, who was facing a vigorous, and ultimately unsuccessful, challenge from Democrat MJ Hegar in another Texas seat.
Cuellar has responded to Cisneros' challenge by arguing that she doesn't understand the district, which is home to part of the Eagle Ford Shale and several oil and gas operations. Cuellar tweeted in August that the Green New Deal, which Cisneros supports, would "kill jobs for hard-working Texans … Policies crafted by New York PACs won't work for Texas." Cuellar has also taken another page from the GOP playbook and denounced Cisneros' allies in the Justice Democrats as "socialists."
Cuellar also isn't running away from his longtime NRA allies. In September, he told the New York Times, "This is not New York, this is Texas," even though he's the one and only member of the Texas Democratic delegation with an A-rating from the NRA, and added, "So you talk about guns, you talk about God, you talk about trucks."
Cuellar also said he had no plans to return donations from the NRA, even after a white supremacist targeting Latinos in El Paso murdered 22 people. (Cuellar's seat is about 75% Latino.) The congressman also invoked yet another right-wing talking point when he compared himself to "justice socialists" like Cisneros and said, "I am for reasonable gun reform. But I'm not going to take guns away from people like they want to do."
3Q Fundraising
● NJ-05: Mike Ghassali (R): $301,000 raised
● TX-11: August Pfluger (R): $700,000 raised (in 19 days)
Gubernatorial
● KY-Gov: On Thursday, the RGA pulled a commercial they'd been running for about a week after the Herald-Leader asked about two past sexual harassment lawsuits against its star. The spot had featured a prominent Pike County businessman named Greg May hitting Democrat Andy Beshear over sanctuary cities, which do not exist in Kentucky.
● LA-Gov: Truth in Politics, a conservative nonprofit run by major Republican donor Lane Grigsby, is spending $750,000 on a TV and digital spot focused on a sexual harassment scandal involving a former member of Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards' administration. The ad stars Juanita Washington, who accused Johnny Anderson of harassing her for a year while he was her boss at the governor's office. The RGA also recently ran a commercial on this topic ahead of the Oct. 12 all-party primary, though it did not feature Washington.
In the Grigsby ad, Washington begins by holding up a picture of Edwards with Anderson and tells the audience, "Six women reported Johnny Anderson for sexual harassment and assault. The governor hired him anyway. I was his next victim." She goes on to say she was "harassed, groped, assaulted" and then "reported him, too. Then I was unemployed."
Washington then holds up a second photo, this one showing her with the governor. She declares, "John Bel Edwards knows me. But when I was hurt, he didn't care." She concludes, "John Bel says, 'People over politics.' Not when you're a woman like me."
An Edwards campaign spokesperson, Eric Holl, responded to the ad by saying, "Within hours of Ms. Washington's allegations being brought to Gov. Edwards' attention, Johnny Anderson's employment was ended." Holl added that the governor believes Washington and put into place Louisiana's "first uniform sexual harassment policy, championed legislation to support and empower victims of sexual harassment and assault, and has led the fights against human trafficking and domestic violence." He also said Washington resigned weeks before she filed her allegations and was not let go because of them.
Edward isn't addressing the accusations in his own advertising, though. Instead, what his campaign calls his closing ad touts the governor's accomplishments during his four years in office, saying he's "led our state through a budget crisis and natural disasters." The narrator continues, "Through it all, he's served with honesty and integrity, never losing sight of what's important, or compromising who he is. He's still John Bel, still one of us."
● UT-Gov: Jon Huntsman's resignation as ambassador to Russia took effect Thursday, but it may be a while before he announces whether he'll seek the GOP nod for his old post. An unnamed source close to Huntsman told the Salt Lake Tribune that the former governor was "going to take some time to talk to Utahns and find out how he can best continue to serve."
● WV-Gov: MetroNews reports that Kanawha County Commissioner Ben Salango is expected to announce that he'll seek the Democratic nod sometime during the week of Oct. 7. The National Journal recently wrote that Salango, who describes himself as a moderate, is "a familiar face in Democratic fundraising circles." Two other notable Democrats are currently challenging GOP Gov. Jim Justice: state Sen. Ron Stollings, who also is running as a moderate, and community organizer Stephen Smith, who is appealing to progressive voters.
House
● IN-05: Physician Chuck Dietzen announced Thursday that he'd seek the GOP nod for this open seat in the Indianapolis suburbs. Dietzen is a former chief of pediatric rehabilitation medicine at the Indianapolis-based Riley Hospital for Children, and he's also the co-founder of an electronic medical records system company. Dietzen also created a nonprofit focused on improving healthcare access in developing nations.
Dietzen joins state Treasurer Kelly Mitchell in the primary for a 53-41 Trump seat that Democrats are hoping to target this cycle. Former state cabinet official Steve Braun, the brother of freshman Sen. Mike Braun, also set up a fundraising committee in August, but he has not yet announced that he's in.
● ME-02: On Thursday, former state Rep. Dale Crafts confirmed that he'd seek the GOP nod to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Jared Golden. Crafts served in the legislature from 2009 to 2017 representing the 56th State House District which, like the seat he's now weighing, swung sharply from Obama to Trump. The Bangor Daily News wrote last month that Crafts has "deep ties to Maine's evangelical right" and is a cousin of former state Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason, who finished second in the GOP primary for governor last year.
Crafts joins former state Sen. Eric Brakey, who was the GOP's 2018 Senate nominee, in the primary, and another candidate could be on her way soon. Real estate agent Adrienne Bennett, who served as press secretary to then-Gov. Paul LePage, has not yet announced she's in, but the Sun Journal writes that she recently "set up an Instagram account that mentioned a campaign website and plans to take Golden's seat." The paper adds that Bennett, who had been living near Portland in the 1st District, recently registered to vote in this seat in the Bangor area.
● MN-01: 2018 Democratic nominee Dan Feehan has picked up an endorsement from Gov. Tim Walz, who represented this seat until early this year. Feehan, who narrowly lost an open seat race last year to Republican Jim Hagedorn, currently faces no serious intra-party opposition.
● NE-01: State Sen. Kate Bolz announced Thursday that she'd seek the Democratic nomination to take on longtime GOP Rep. Jeff Fortenberry in the 1st District, which includes Lincoln and rural eastern Nebraska. This seat backed Donald Trump 57-36 and, according to the Lincoln Journal Star, the last time it elected a Democratic representative was 1964. Still, it's always worthwhile to field a credible candidate even for longshot races, and Fortenberry has already given us reason to suspect that he wouldn't be prepared if things did heat up here.
Last year, just before Election Day, an unknown person messed with one of Fortenberry's campaign signs by changing his name to "Jeff Fartenberry" and adding googly eyes on his face. Fartenberry was not happy and tweeted, "Political violence, including the vandalism we see right here in Lincoln, is a threat to good citizenry and free expression in our republic. It is not funny. It is never acceptable."
Fortenberry's chief of staff, Reyn Archer, found it so unfunny that, after he saw that a local political science professor named Ari Kohen had merely liked a photo of the altered sign on Facebook, he reported Kohen to the university chancellor. Kohen recounted that Archer also threatened him and "told me they could put this out publicly that I liked vandalism, and essentially, that that would be bad for me." Kohen reported him to the House Ethics Committee and supplied a recording of their conversation. The incident made national headlines, but it didn't prevent Fortenberry from easily winning his uncompetitive race.
● NY-19: On Friday, Rep. Antonio Delgado became the first Democratic House incumbent in a swing district to run a TV spot this cycle. Delgado's commercial came after the RNC launched a TV ad criticizing him over impeachment. Delgado's spot, which Advertising Analytics says is running for $29,000, talks about his record in the House and doesn't mention impeachment.
● VA-10: Marine veteran Aliscia Andrews announced Thursday that she would seek the GOP nod to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton. Andrews joins fellow Marine veteran Rob Jones, who lost both his legs in an explosion in Afghanistan, in the contest for a Northern Virginia seat that has been swinging hard against the GOP in recent years.
Mayoral
● Memphis, TN Mayor: Memphis held its nonpartisan mayoral race on Thursday, and Democratic Mayor Jim Strickland decisively won his second four-year term with 62% of the vote.
Former Mayor Willie Herenton, who made history in 1991 when he became the city's first black mayor and went on to serve for almost 18 years, was a distant second place with 29% of the vote. Herenton, who is 79 years old and whose last campaign was his unsuccessful 2010 primary bid against Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, told supporters, "This was the last political contest that you'll see Willie Herenton involved in." Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer took third with just 7%.
Both Herenton and Sawyer declared that the local status quo, including Memphis' high homicide rate, were unacceptable and that change was badly needed. Strickland, though, argued that, while the city still faced serious problems, things were improving under his leadership and that "Memphis has momentum." Unlike his opponents, the incumbent also had plenty of money to broadcast his message. Strickland, whose 2015 victory made him this predominantly black city's first white mayor in 24 years, said on election night that this would be his last campaign.
