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
● San Francisco & Los Angeles County, CA District Attorney: In a development that could impact two different elections for district attorney at opposite ends of California, George Gascón resigned late last week as San Francisco's top prosecutor and announced that he would move back to Los Angeles to "explore a run for district attorney" there.
Campaign Action
Gascón had already planned to retire from his current post, and voters will go to the polls this November to elect his replacement; in L.A., meanwhile, they might soon have the chance to install Gascón in place of incumbent Jackie Lacey, who is up for re-election next year.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed was already supporting former city prosecutor Suzy Loftus, and she announced on Friday that she'd appoint Loftus to fill the district attorney's post once Gascón's resignation takes effect on Oct. 18. This move will give Loftus, who is also a former president of the San Francisco Police Commission, just a few weeks of incumbency before the Nov. 5 election.
Loftus faces three opponents next month, but her most prominent foe is public defender Chesa Boudin. Both of Boudin's parents were members of the militant Weather Underground and went to prison when he was just 14 months old for their role as getaway drivers in the notorious Brink's armored car robbery that ended in the deaths of two police officers and a security guard north of New York City in 1981. Boudin has said that his time visiting his parents in jail played the biggest part in forming his political views, including his support for ending cash bail.
Both Loftus and Boudin have called for overhauling the local justice system, but they have two very different bases of support. In addition to Breed, Loftus has the backing of Gov. Gavin Newsom and Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, who are all former San Francisco elected officials (Harris in fact served as DA in the 2000s). Boudin, by contrast, has the support of a number of prominent national criminal justice reformers, including Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.
Deputy state attorney general Leif Dautch and former San Francisco prosecutor Nancy Tung, who would be the city's first Chinese American district attorney, are also on the ballot, but neither has attracted the type of money or attention that Loftus and Boudin have. All the candidates will compete in a ranked-choice election next month, though, so the second-choice preferences of the lesser-known contenders could still have an impact.
The state of play is quite different 350 miles to the south in Los Angeles County. The incumbent there, Jackie Lacey, made history in 2012 when she was elected the first black district attorney for America's largest county, and she's also the first woman to hold this post. Lacey, though, has antagonized many criminal justice reformers, including Black Lives Matter activists, by opposing measures to reduce California's prison population and by continuing to pursue death penalty cases despite Newson's moratorium on executions. Lacey has also been criticized for her reluctance to prosecute police shootings, and in June, the American Civil Liberties Union issued a report that revealed that all 22 people sentenced to death during Lacey's tenure were people of color.
Lacey has responded to her detractors by pointing to her own tough upbringing where she witnessed "gang violence, poverty, and difficult relations between the police and community." She's also argued that she's working to create an environment "where children in disadvantaged communities have the opportunity to thrive and not live in fear." Lacey's re-election bid has the support of much of the local establishment, including Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and four of the county's five members of its powerful Board of Supervisors.
Gascón, who would be Lacey's most prominent potential opponent, is an immigrant from Cuba who grew up in L.A. and went on to become an assistant chief of police in the city. Gascón made his way to San Francisco a decade ago, where he first served as chief of police for two years before Newsom (then the city's mayor) appointed him to succeed Harris in 2011 after she was elected state attorney general.
Gascón has made a name for himself in San Francisco by refusing to prosecute death penalty cases and for supporting measures to imprison fewer people. Among other reforms, he's implemented a system to automatically expunge previous marijuana convictions, as well as an experimental program called "blind charging" that prevents prosecutors from learning a suspect's demographics, such as race, before deciding whether to issue charges. There had been talk for months of Gascón returning to run against Lacey, and he didn't rule out the idea back in June.
Two other candidates, prosecutors Joseph Iniguez and Richard Ceballos, are already running, and either would be the county's first gay district attorney. Iniguez, Ceballos, and Gascón would also be the first Latino to serve as L.A.'s top prosecutor.
While the ideological battle lines might be similar, races in Los Angeles operate under a different set of rules than in San Francisco. Here, all the candidates will run in a nonpartisan primary in March, on the same day as California's presidential primary. If no one takes a majority of the vote, the top-two vote-getters would compete in a November general election.
3Q Fundraising
● TX-Sen: John Cornyn (R-inc): $3.2 million raised, $10.8 million cash-on-hand
● AZ-06: Hiral Tipirneni (D): $330,000 raised, $600,000 cash-on-hand
● CO-06: Jason Crow (D-inc): $430,000 raised, $1.1 million cash-on-hand
● FL-13: Charlie Crist (D-inc): $400,000 raised, $2.56 million cash-on-hand
● NJ-02: David Richter (R): $113,000 raised (in seven weeks), additional $300,000 self-funded, $390,000 cash-on-hand
● NY-21: Tedra Cobb (D): $250,000 raised, $500,000 cash-on-hand
● NY-27: Beth Parlato (R): $270,000 raised
● SC-01: Nancy Mace (R): $358,000 raised, $452,000 cash-on-hand
Senate
● AZ-Sen: Retired astronaut Mark Kelly has been an incredibly strong fundraiser all year, and the Democrat continued to dominate the money race during the third quarter. Kelly outpaced appointed GOP Sen. Martha McSally $5.5 million to $3 million, and he ended September with a $9.5 million to $5.6 million cash-on-hand lead. McSally faces a primary challenge from skincare company executive Daniel McCarthy, who has not yet unveiled his own fundraising totals, while Kelly has no serious intra-party foes on the horizon.
Gubernatorial
● KY-Gov: Democrat Andy Beshear is out with another TV ad focused on GOP Gov. Matt Bevin and his many attacks on teachers. It begins with clips of a reporter describing how Bevin called teachers "selfish" and "ignorant." The ad then goes to audio of the governor himself declaring they had a "thug mentality," are "remarkably selfish," are "throwing a temper tantrum," and that someone needs to "knock 'em out and drag 'em to shore."
The commercial continues by going to a teacher named Laura Hartke, who tells the audience it's been a tough few years having the governor insult her and others in her profession. After a clip of Bevin plays where he says "I regret nothing that I have ever said about an educator," Hartke tells the audience that the incumbent doesn't respect working class people. Hartke goes on to praise Beshear for fighting for teachers.
● LA-Gov: Louisiana holds its all-party primary on Saturday, and two new polls find Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards a few points short of the majority he needs to avoid a November runoff. Both surveys also give wealthy businessman Eddie Rispone a small lead over Rep. Ralph Abraham, a fellow Republican, for the second place spot.
The GOP firm JMC Analytics, polling on behalf of the Louisiana Association of Health Plans, finds Edwards ahead with 47% of the vote, while Rispone leads Abraham 22-19. JMC's last poll for LAHP had Edwards at 48% two weeks ago, while Rispone and Abraham were in almost the exact same place with 22% and 20%, respectively.
Mason-Dixon is also out with a survey for Gray Television that has Edwards at 45%, while Rispone has a 22-17 edge over Abraham. The firm tests Edwards against each Republican in hypothetical Nov. 16 runoff scenarios and gives the incumbent a 51-42 edge against Rispone and a larger 53-38 lead over Abraham. We haven't seen any other runoff polls since mid-September when a Remington Research survey for Abraham showed him trailing Edwards 48-44 as Rispone lost to the Democrat by a similar 49-44 spread.
While Mason-Dixon's survey finds Edwards in good shape for a second round, there are plenty of reasons for Democrats to be wary about a runoff. Right how, both Abraham and Rispone are running attack ads against one another, but a runoff would give the GOP the chance to present a united front against the governor in this conservative state.
Edwards would also be on the receiving end of another month of attacks from national Republicans including Donald Trump, who will hold a rally on election eve in Lake Charles. The White House has not picked sides between Rispone and Abraham, and Trump and his allies are focused on encouraging Republican voters to show up for one of them to keep Edwards from winning a majority.
Republicans also went up with two TV spots last week focused on a sexual harassment scandal involving a former member of the Edwards administration named Johnny Anderson. Both of these new polls were completed just as these commercials were starting to air, so it's too early to determine how much this ad campaign is impacting the governor's numbers. However, Edwards’ team is taking them seriously: While the campaign said on Friday it was airing its "closing ad" touting his accomplishments in office, they went up with a new commercial two days later focused on women's rights.
This spot features several women praising Edwards for "expanding access to prenatal care, strongly supporting equal pay, and fighting human trafficking," as well as appointing more women to his cabinet than any previous Louisiana governor. The cast then addresses the Anderson scandal by saying, "When an employee committed sexual harassment, Gov. Edwards demanded his resignation within hours, then revised the state's policies to provide a safer working environment for women."
House
● AL-02: Former state Attorney General Troy King announced back in mid-September that he'd run for this reliably red open seat, and he's out with a poll showing him leading in the crowded GOP primary. The Tarrance Group poll finds King taking first place in March with 34% of the vote, while 2018 candidate Barry Moore edges state Rep. Will Dismukes 18-17 for the second spot in a potential runoff. Businessman Jeff Coleman sits at 5%, while two other contenders grab 2% each.
● AZ-01: Far-right troll Curt Schilling told a Maine audience on Saturday that he’d decide whether to run for Congress in Arizona sometime in the following 10 days, and added that he was “leaning very heavily toward doing it.” Schilling said back in August that he was interested in taking on Democratic Rep. Tom O'Halleran, but he doesn’t appear to have relocated to the Grand Canyon State yet: As of Monday evening, the former Boston Red Sox pitcher’s Twitter profile still identifies him as a denizen of Medfield, Massachusetts.
● CA-53: Democrat Marisa Calderon, who serves as executive director of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, filed with the FEC on Monday for a possible bid for this open seat.
● IN-05: On Monday, former state cabinet official Steve Braun announced he was suspending his campaign for the GOP nod "for the next few months" because of an unspecified health issue. Braun, who is the brother of freshman Sen. Mike Braun, lost the primary for the neighboring 4th District last year.
● MI-08: Republican Mike Detmer, who works as general sales manager at a car dealership, announced last week that he would challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin. Detmer, who had been running for a state House seat since January, joins state Board of Education member Nikki Snyder in the primary.
● NV-03: The Associated Press' Michelle Price reported Friday that Republican Dan Rodimer, a former professional wrestler who is challenging freshman Democratic Rep. Susie Lee, has been accused of assault three different times from 2010 to 2013. Until this month, Rodimer had only publicly acknowledged one of those incidents.
Last year, during his unsuccessful state Senate bid, the Nevada Independent obtained a police report from 2010 that described how Rodimer threatened another man at a Florida Waffle House, grabbed him by the neck, and threw him "into a chair and onto the floor." Rodimer pleaded guilty to battery and completed an anger management course, and the charges were subsequently dropped.
This was the only one of the three alleged incidents, all of which took place in Florida, that resulted in any charges for Rodimer or anyone else. A man, whose name was withheld in the court documents, accused Rodimer in 2011 of punching him in the face in an unprovoked attack and then fleeing. Rodimer later told the police that this man had actually attacked him by putting his fingers in Rodimer's eyes. However, Price says that, while both parties said they wanted to press charges, the sheriff's records don't say why the state's attorney didn't end up indicting anyone.
A little while later in 2013, a bartender accused Rodimer of having "sucker punched" him in the face after the two had an argument. Price says that the records also don't reveal why there were no charges after this alleged encounter. Rodimer's campaign responded to the AP report with a statement that declared the candidate is "a threat to the establishment, which is why his political opponents are digging through every little thing in his past."
● NY-14: New York City Councilman Fernando Cabrera set up a fundraising committee on Friday for a potential Democratic primary bid against freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, though he has yet to say anything publicly. Cabrera has a long record of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, including his vigorous defense of Uganda's homophobic laws.
Cabrera, who also works as a pastor, also made news in 2017 when he said in a sermon that "it's harder being rich than being poor." Cabrera responded to the social media backlash by saying of his critics, "I feel honored because they're treating me like Jesus," and, "They did to Jesus the same thing."
● PA-17: The Beaver County Times' J.D. Prose reported over the weekend that Republican Brian Thomsen, a Green Beret veteran who is challenging Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb, is currently on probation in North Carolina after pleading no contest on larceny charges. Thomsen took money from farmers in order to start a cooperative, and the paper writes he admitted "to commingling cooperative funds and his personal finances while he tried to keep both the business and his family afloat." Prose adds that Thomsen only moved to western Pennsylvania in June but is still registered to vote in the Tar Heel State.
Legislative
● Special Elections: There's a special election in New Hampshire on tap for Tuesday:
NH-HD-Rockingham-09: This is a competitive multi-member district located in Epping that has two representatives. The vacancy was created when Republican state Rep. Sean Morrison resigned in June. Morrison gave a brutally honest reason for his resignation, stating "I simply do not wish to serve as a state representative in Epping, or anywhere else any longer."
Over the course of the last few elections, control of this district has shifted between a 2-0 advantage for Republicans and a 1-1 split, where it stood before Morrison's resignation. (The other representative is Democrat Mark Vallone.) This constituency is also swingy at the presidential level: Donald Trump carried it 53-41, but Barack Obama prevailed 51-48 four years earlier.
The two candidates in this race were chosen through primary elections. The Democrat is Naomi Andrews, who served as chief of staff and campaign manager to former Rep. Carol Shea-Porter. Andrews ran for her former boss' seat last year, finishing fourth with 7% in a crowded Democratic field. The Republican is former Rep. Michael Vose, who held a seat in this district for two terms until losing last year to Vallone. During his second term, he represented this area alongside Morrison.
An intriguing feature of special elections this year that have occurred in early presidential primary states has been the involvement of Democratic presidential candidates in some races, particularly the more competitive ones. While Andrews has not enjoyed the direct support of any White House hopefuls, Amy O'Rourke, the wife of Beto O'Rourke, held a canvassing event with her as part of a larger solo tour through the state.
Democrats control the state House 233-165 (with one Libertarian member) with just this seat vacant.