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
● AL-Sen: Friday brought us our first filing deadline of the 2020 election cycle, as candidates in Alabama were required to submit their names to appear on the March 3 primary ballot; runoffs will be held on March 31 for contests where no one takes a majority of the vote. We've put together a calendar of every state's filing deadlines, primaries, and (where applicable) runoffs, which you'll want to bookmark and keep handy. You can also find a list of candidates who have filed in Alabama for each race here.
Campaign Action
At Daily Kos Elections, we spend a good deal of time writing about who might or might not run for office, so filing deadlines give us a chance to take stock of where each important race stands now that their fields are set. As the deadline passes in each state, we'll review every notable Senate, gubernatorial, and House contest and give our take on the lay of the land.
However, there are a few caveats to take into account. Most importantly, a race isn't necessarily set in stone after the deadline. Some states require candidates to collect a certain number of signatures from voters to qualify for the ballot, and they can and do get thrown off if they don't file enough valid petitions (often, these petitions are challenged by opponents). We regularly see this sort of thing happen in Colorado, Illinois, New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, among other states. But most others states, including Alabama, don't require signatures to get on the ballot, though, so these kinds of issues don't arise in most places.
Sometimes we face a very different problem: Candidates will file properly and on time, but their names won't appear on official candidate lists provided by election officials for days or even weeks after the deadline. It's therefore important to recognize that bureaucratic slowness might explain the absence of a particular candidate's name on a particular state's list, rather than a shock last-minute retirement. Two of the most problematic states in this regard are New Jersey and West Virginia, but this issue can crop up anywhere.
And even after a deadline passes, the field can often change. Candidates can drop out, or be removed from the ballot for other reasons, such as a failure to meet residency requirements. Sometimes, a new candidate can even get swapped in after a deadline, if a nominee quits and state law provides a mechanism for substituting a replacement. We'll continue to provide updates on all such fluctuations.
There's one other thing we want to highlight before we start. At this point in the cycle, we usually have a good sense for which candidates are serious and which aren't. However, there are always a few people who seemingly come out of nowhere to win their party's nomination, or emerge from a primary unheralded but go on to wage an unexpectedly competitive general election campaign.
One example for the ages came in last year's Democratic primary for New York's 14th Congressional District, where longtime Rep. Joe Crowley faced a challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Crowley appeared to have little to fear from AOC, who raised very little cash for months, and—to our later chagrin—we didn't even mention this race after filing closed in April. Ocasio-Cortez picked up donations as the contest drew closer, though, and we took notice when the seemingly safe Crowley dropped $1 million ahead of his primary. AOC pulled off a shocking 57-43 victory that June.
As we like to point out, of course, while everyone wants to be the next AOC, few will be. Still, we'll always be on the lookout for competitive candidates and races after filing closes.
With that, let's dive into the race for Alabama's Senate seat. In a famous special election two years ago, Democrat Doug Jones pulled off a miraculous 50-48 victory in this dark red state over disgraced Republican Roy Moore, but that shock win now makes him the chamber's most vulnerable Democrat. Jones faces no intra-party opposition, but several Republicans are competing to take him on.
The best-known contender is former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who announced the night before the filing deadline that he would run to reclaim the Senate seat he held for 20 years before joining Trump's cabinet in 2017. Trump sacked Sessions less than two years later, though, and it remains to be seen if the White House will actively oppose his candidacy.
One candidate the White House is actively resisting is Moore, whom multiple women have said preyed on them when they were teenagers. Senate Republicans have also made it clear that they'll take action to stop Moore from winning another GOP primary and putting this seat at risk once again.
Three current elected officials are also seeking the GOP nod: Rep. Bradley Byrne, Secretary of State John Merrill, and state Rep. Arnold Mooney. Former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville is also competing, and several polls taken before Sessions entered the race put him in first place.
P.S. In our "House" section below, you can find candidate rundowns for Alabama's open House seats in the 1st and 2nd Districts. Incumbents are all seeking re-election in the state's five other districts, and none have drawn serious opponents in either the primary or the general.
Election Result Recaps
● Aurora, CO Mayor: On Friday, Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold said that USPS failed to deliver 664 replacement ballots for last week's Aurora mayoral election until late on Election Day. Former GOP Rep. Mike Coffman currently holds a 281-vote lead over Democrat Omar Montgomery in the five-way race, but Griswold told reporters she didn't believe this problem changed the result.
Senate
● MS-Sen: Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy, who was also the state's first black congressman since Reconstruction, announced Tuesday that he'd seek the Democratic nomination for a rematch against GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. Espy lost last year's officially nonpartisan special election 54-46 to Hyde-Smith, who had been appointed to the Senate earlier that year. While this was still a clear win for Team Red, it was the worst performance for the Republicans in a Mississippi Senate race since 1988.
Hyde-Smith and another Republican, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, took a combined 58% of the vote in last November's nonpartisan primary, and the incumbent probably expected a dull general election contest three weeks later against Espy. However, the runoff quickly attracted the bad kind of national attention when progressive journalist Lamar White posted footage of Hyde-Smith saying of a supporter, "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row."
Hyde-Smith didn't apologize for showing eagerness to witness a lynching, and Espy ran a commercial going after her over her comments, as well as her "joke" that it should be harder for liberal college students to vote. Several major companies, including Walmart and Major League Baseball, also publicly asked Hyde-Smith to return donations they'd made to her campaign.
In a familiar scene, national Republicans reportedly became worried about Hyde-Smith's prospects, and the NRSC and Senate Leadership Fund ended up spending a combined $2.8 million here, while Espy's allies at Senate Majority PAC threw down a total of $874,000. Hyde-Smith still won, but her victory didn't impress anyone.
It will still be very difficult, though, for Espy to beat Hyde-Smith next year. Mississippi is usually a reliably red state, and while Attorney General Jim Hood came closer to winning the governorship last week than any other Democrat in the 21st Century, he still lost to Republican Tate Reeves 52-47. Hyde-Smith will also be sharing a ballot with Donald Trump, who has already endorsed her re-election bid.
Hyde-Smith may need to pay attention to next year's primary before she can focus on Espy, though. On Monday, former Miss America Organization president Josh Randle set up an exploratory committee for a possible intra-party bid against Hyde-Smith.
Gubernatorial
● LA-Gov: The GOP firm Cygnal is out with a poll giving Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards a narrow 50-48 lead over Republican Eddie Rispone in Saturday's runoff. This survey, which Cygnal tells us was not conducted for a client, is very similar to every poll we've seen since last month's all-party primary.
Edwards is also out with a TV spot that highlights how Rispone appeared to trivialize the governor's military experience a little less than two weeks ago. The ad features audio of a radio host asking Rispone about the governor's time in the armed forces and at West Point to which Rispone responds, "I'm disappointed that if I have to be candid, I think he's hurting the reputation of West Point."
The narrator then declares that Rispone's "best friend and political mentor is smearing two veterans with attacks that are so false, such outright lies, they had to stop airing them." That's a reference to how Edwards' campaign successfully got local TV stations to yank an ad from a group funded by GOP megadonor Lane Grigsby that falsely claimed that Edwards had given his former roommate at West Point a state contract for coastal restoration work.
House
● AL-01: Rep. Bradley Byrne is leaving this safely red Gulf Coast seat to run for the Senate, and five Republicans are competing to succeed him.
The contender with the most money at the end of September was Mobile County Commissioner Jerry Carl, who has self-funded much of his campaign. Carl ended September with a $741,000 to $448,000 cash-on-hand lead over former state Sen. Bill Hightower, who unsuccessfully ran in last year's gubernatorial primary. Hightower has the support of the anti-tax Club for Growth, though, so he may benefit from some outside support.
State Rep. Chris Pringle and self-funding businessman Wes Lambert are also running, though they had smaller war chests, at $215,000 and $110,000, respectively. Army veteran John Castorani entered the race in October, so we don't know yet if he'll have the resources to run a competitive campaign.
● AL-02: GOP Rep. Martha Roby is retiring from this safely red seat, which includes part of Montgomery and the nearby Wiregrass region, and seven Republicans filed to run here.
The best-funded contender by far is businessman Jeff Coleman, who ended September with a $965,000 to $128,000 cash-on-hand lead against former state Rep. Barry Moore, who challenged Roby in the 2018 primary and finished third.
Also in the running is Troy King, who lost renomination as state attorney general in 2010 and again lost last year's primary to regain that office. Businesswoman Jessica Taylor, the founder of a Montgomery-based grant consulting firm, joined the race in October after the fundraising quarter ended. Three other Republicans have filed, but none of them look notable.
● AR-02: State Sen. Joyce Elliott, who was the 2010 Democratic nominee for a previous version of this seat, announced just before candidate filing closed on Tuesday that she would challenge GOP Rep. French Hill. If Elliott won, she would be the state's first black member of Congress.
This central Arkansas district, which includes the Little Rock area, is the most competitive of the state's four congressional seats, but it's still challenging territory for Team Blue. Donald Trump carried the seat 52-42, and Hill turned back a credible challenger 52-46 last year.
Elliott was serving as state Senate majority leader in 2010 when she campaigned to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Vic Snyder in a seat that had backed John McCain 54-44. However, Elliott went through an ugly primary against conservative state House Speaker Robbie Wills, who insisted he'd be "more electable" than Elliott and argued she had "extreme views." Elliott won the nomination 54-46, but she immediately began the general election as the underdog against Republican Tim Griffin. 2010 was an awful year for Democrats all over the country, and Griffin beat Elliott 58-38.
Elliott didn't need to give up her seat in the legislature to run for Congress, though, and she still serves in the Senate. Griffin ended up retiring in 2014 after just two terms before successfully running for lieutenant governor, and he was succeeded by Hill.
● FL-19: Former Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott and former state Reps. Matt Caldwell and Gary Aubuchon each announced this week that they were endorsing state House Majority Leader Dane Eagle in the GOP primary rather than running themselves. Lee County Commissioner Brian Hamman also confirmed to Florida Politics that he would not seek the GOP nod.
● IL-03: This week, attorney Abe Matthew announced that he was dropping out of the March Democratic primary and endorsing 2018 candidate Marie Newman. Conservative Rep. Dan Lipinski also faces activist Rush Darwish for renomination.
● MA-04: While state Rep. Ruth Balser had been mentioned as a possible Democratic candidate for this open seat, she took herself out of the running this week by endorsing Newton City Councilor Becky Walker Grossman.
● MD-07: On Tuesday, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings resigned as state Democratic Party chair after one year on the job and announced she will run in the upcoming special election to fill the seat of her late husband, Rep. Elijah Cummings.
Rockeymoore Cummings previously mounted a campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2018 but dropped out before the primary due to her husband's poor health. The special election will thus be the first time she'll have been on the ballot, but she has over two decades of experience working in various political and public policy roles, such as serving as chief of staff to former New York Rep. Charlie Rangel and founding a policy consulting firm.
Previous reports indicated that many Democrats looking at running for this safely Democratic seat would defer to Rockeymoore Cummings, but there's already a primary that includes former Rep. Kweisi Mfume, Del. Talmadge Branch, and pulmonologist Mark Gosnell. Meanwhile, state Sen. Jill Carter has planned a "special announcement" for Monday, and she appears likely to run after having already formed an exploratory committee.
However, one prominent Democrat won't be running after Howard County Executive Calvin Ball said no to a bid in a disappointment for "Calvin and Hobbes" fans.
● NJ-02: Cumberland County Clerk Celeste Riley has ruled out a Democratic primary challenge to Rep. Jeff Van Drew after he was one of just two Democrats to vote against formalizing the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. However, some local Democrats are still looking for a more progressive challenger to Van Drew, who is one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress.
Primarying an incumbent in New Jersey is no easy feat thanks in part to the way the primary ballot is set up. On both sides of the aisle, endorsed candidates appear in a separate column on the ballot along with other party endorsees. Endorsements are therefore a big deal in a state where party machines are still powerful (this designation is known colloquially as the "organization line"), and Van Drew has strong connections to the local party organizations in the 2nd District.
● NJ-11: Trucking company executive Jerry Langer recently told the New Jersey Globe that he's considering seeking the GOP nod to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill. Langer added that he would self-fund if he ran, though he didn't say how much of his own money he'd invest.
Langer considered running last year to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, though he ultimately decided against it. The New Jersey Globe's David Wildstein wrote at the time that Langer was close to former Gov. Chris Christie, but Wildstein also described him as a "major donor" to Democrat Cory Booker's two Senate bids, as well as to former Democratic Gov. Jim Florio and the DSCC.
All of that probably won't go over well with GOP primary voters, but at the moment, they don't have any other viable options. Morris County Sheriff James Gannon took his name out of the running in February, and while party leaders recently touted him as a potential candidate, Gannon reaffirmed over the weekend he still wouldn't challenge Sherrill. Wildstein also writes that 2018 candidate Peter DeNeufville "has no plans to run again next year." DeNeufville invested $1.2 million of his own money last year but lost the primary to Assemblyman Jay Webber 40-30.
While this affluent suburban seat in North Jersey seat narrowly backed Donald Trump, Sherrill defeated Webber by a wide 57-42 margin. Sherrill was one of Team Blue's strongest House fundraisers last year, and she's continued to build up her war chest since she arrived in D.C.: The incumbent raised $710,000 during the third quarter, and she ended September with $1.7 million in the bank.
● NY-02: GOP Rep. Peter King announced Monday that he would not seek a 15th term in his competitive Long Island seat, and plenty of politicians from both parties are showing interest in running to succeed him. New York’s 2nd Congressional District swung to Donald Trump by a 53-44 margin after backing Barack Obama 52-47, but it snapped back in the 2018 midterms, giving Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo a 51-47 win.
We’ll start with the GOP side. First up, here are potential candidates who have publicly expressed interest in running:
- State Sen. Phil Boyle
- Suffolk County Legislature Minority Leader Tom Cilmi
- Suffolk County Board of Elections member Nick LaLota
- Former Rep. and 2000 Senate nominee Rick Lazio
- Assemblyman Michael LiPetri
Cilmi and LaLota both said they were close to getting in. Cilmi said that “my heart is 100% in it,” and that he plans "to officially declare candidacy at some point." LaLota declared, “I’m speaking with family, friends and supporters and everyone thinks it’s a good idea.”
Newsday also says that Islip Town Councilman John Cochrane, Assemblyman Andrew Garbarino, and Islip Councilwoman Trish Bergin Weichbrodt have each expressed interest as well, but there are no quotes from them.
Crain's New York Business and Roll Call also mentioned several other Republicans are possible contenders:
- Assemblyman Michael Fitzpatrick
- Former state Sen. Chuck Fuschillo
- Nassau County Legislator James Kennedy
- Islip Town Councilwoman Mary Kate Mullen
- Hempstead Town Clerk Kate Murray
- Oyster Bay Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino
Suffolk County GOP chair John Jay LaValle also name-dropped Oyster Bay Councilman Steve Labriola as a possibility as well.
On the Democratic side, Babylon Town Councilor Jackie Gordon was running for months before King retired, and she still has the primary to herself. However, 2018 nominee Liuba Grechen Shirley, who lost to King 53-47, said Monday that she was “'seriously considering'” another try.
Newsday writes that state Sen. Monica Martinez is “supposedly interested in running, according to some in her circle.” However, City & State notes that Martinez was already backing Gordon’s campaign. Former Assemblywoman Christine Pellegrino was also mentioned as a possibility in Craine’s, though she’s reportedly more interested in a state Senate bid.
A few other Democrats have also said no to running:
Whoever ends up winning this open seat will do so under very different circumstances than King in did in 1992. King’s first district, which was numbered the 3rd, was entirely located in Nassau County. However, Suffolk County makes up three-quarters of the seat King is retiring from, which is now called the 2nd District, while the balance is in Nassau County.
King himself is a product of the once almighty Nassau County GOP machine. As Steve Kornacki details in his must read 2011 article on the rise of King and the fall of the Nassau County GOP, party chair Joseph Margiotta was one of the most powerful Republicans anywhere in the country when King was starting his career. King was a Margiotta ally when he won a seat on the Hempstead town council in 1977, and he was elevated to Nassau County comptroller four years later.
Margiotta, though, was found guilty of fraud and extortion in the early 1980s, and he had to give up his powerful post to go to prison in 1982. That year, King was the one member of the 70-person party committee who opposed Margiotta's plan to essentially keep control of the Nassau GOP from jail by installing a Hempstead councilman named Joe Mondello as nominal leader.
However, King's defiance would actually help him. Mondello was anxious to prove that he, rather than Margiotta, was the real party chair, and he cultivated King as an ally. King also would spend years reminding voters that he had stood up to the once-powerful Margiotta.
King planned to run for county executive in 1989 when incumbent Francis Purcell planned to retire, but Purcell disrupted things when he decided to resign early. Mondello supported another candidate for the appointment to succeed Purcell, but he didn't forget about King. In 1992, after New York's congressional map was dramatically redrawn, Mondello made sure that King was nominated for the new and open 3rd District.
King faced a tough battle to win that seat, though, against wealthy Democrat Steve Orlins. Bill Clinton was making inroads in the once-solidly Republican Nassau County, and Orlins attacked King as the product of a political machine that was driving up massive deficits at home. Orlins also reminded voters about King's full-throated support for the the Irish Republican Army; just a few years before their campaign, King infamously said, "If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the IRA for it." Orlins also went after King's opposition to abortion, calling him a "zealot and an extremist."
King, though, scored points by reminding voters that Orlins had only started renting a home in Long Island once this seat became open. King also made sure to highlight how he stood up to the old party boss Margiotta when it mattered. While Clinton narrowly carried the seat, King ended up winning 50-46. This would be the only time that King failed to win by double digits until his final campaign last year.
King spent his time in Congress as a usually reliably Republican vote especially on social issues like abortion, but he made sure to break from the party mainstream on key issues to appease his suburban base. King defended unions after they became a conservative punching bag, and he supported gun safety measures after the 1993 Long Island Rail Road massacre. King also opposed impeaching Clinton, and the congressman decried how Speaker Newt Gingrich was turning the party into a group of "hillbillies at revival meetings."
King's seat swung to the right after the Sept. 11 attacks, and he positioned himself as a security-obsessed loudmouth. Most infamously, King held hearings in 2011 where he questioning the loyalty of Muslim Americans.
The Nassau County machine collapsed in the 1990s and early 2000s, but King continued to do well at home: New York Democrats would win every one of the state's 29 congressional districts at one time or another between 2002 and 2011 except for King's seat. King would continue to win with ease after the 2012 round of redistricting shifted his seat well into Suffolk County until 2018, when Liuba Grechen Shirley gave him what was by far the closest re-election campaign of his long career.
King himself continued to vote his party's way on most issues while also trashing his party's leadership well into the last years of his career. Hurricane Sandy devastated the Northeast, including King's seat, in 2012, and the congressman was furious after GOP leaders adjourned Congress in early January without passing a relief bill. King declared, "These Republicans have no problem finding New York when they're out raising millions of dollars," and he continued, "They're in New York all the time filling their pockets with money from New Yorkers."
King went on, "I'm saying right now, anyone from New York or New Jersey who contributes one penny to congressional Republicans is out of their minds. Because what they did last night was put a knife in the back of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans. It was an absolute disgrace." King would win another three terms as a member of the party he had encouraged donors to snub.
● OR-02: On Tuesday, former state Sen. Jason Atkinson announced that he would seek the GOP nod to succeed retiring Rep. Greg Walden in this safely red seat in eastern Oregon. Atkinson joins state Sen. Cliff Bentz in the May primary.
Atkinson is the son of Perry Atkinson, who lost the 1998 open seat primary to Walden. The younger Atkinson ran for governor in 2006 and took third in the primary with 22% of the vote, and he planned to run again four years later. However, he was badly injured in 2008 when he accidentally dropped a bag from a friend's bike that contained a gun, which fired and shot him in the leg.
Atkinson still entered the gubernatorial primary, and he initially looked like the frontrunner. Atkinson barely raised any money, though, and he announced in the fall of 2009 that he was suspending his campaign because both he and his wife had "some serious health concerns." Atkinson never returned to the race, and he decided not to seek re-election to the legislature in 2012. Atkinson later became a founding member of a high-profile group trying to bring a Major League Baseball team to Portland, though he left it last year.
● TX-13: Businessman Chris Ekstrom is going up with the first TV ad of the Republican primary, putting behind it what the Texas Tribune calls a "six-figure buy" over the next few weeks. The spot features Ekstrom talking to the camera as he touts himself as a conservative outsider and a Trump supporter.
● TX-22: End Citizens United has endorsed 2018 nominee Sri Preston Kulkarni in the March Democratic primary for this open seat.
● VA-02: On Monday, Navy veteran Ben Loyola kicked off his campaign, making him the first notable Republican running against first-term Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria. Loyola was born in Cuba and fled the Castro regime with his family as a young child, and after he served as a pilot in the Navy, he founded a company involved in assessing military technology.
Loyola ran for the predecessor version of this district in 2010 but lost the GOP primary by 40-27 to Scott Rigell, who went on to win the seat that November. Loyola ran for a state Senate seat the following year against now-Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam but lost that race 57-43.
● VA-05: In some potentially bad news for freshman GOP Rep. Denver Riggleman, the 5th Congressional District Republican Committee voted last week to select their 2020 nominee through a convention rather than through a primary. GOP conventions tend to be dominated by delegates who prize ideology above all else, and Riggleman has made some intra-party enemies during his brief time in office.
While Riggleman is best known for his intense obsession with Bigfoot, he pissed off plenty of social conservatives at home in July when he officiated a same-sex wedding between two of his former campaign volunteers. This quickly resulted in a homophobic backlash against the congressman, and local Republican Parties in three small 5th District counties each passed anti-Riggleman motions.
Campbell County Supervisor Bob Good said in late September that he was likely to run, and while it's not clear if he's announced he's in yet, he set up a fundraising committee in early October. Good, who also works as an athletics official at Liberty University, argued earlier this fall that Riggleman betrayed the party "with his votes against the border wall in favor of increased immigration." Good also declared that Riggleman has been "ignoring President Trump's policy on American jobs for American workers, and even restricting the ability of ICE to do their jobs."
However, one local conservative power player is on Riggleman's side, and he just happens to be Good's boss. Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. wrote in his endorsement letter that, while some local GOP leaders were going after Riggleman over the wedding, "I believe that excluding other conservatives over issues that have already been decided by the U.S. Supreme Court does nothing but help liberals gain more power."
This seat, which includes Charlottesville and south-central Virginia, backed Trump 52-41, and Riggleman defeated a well-funded Democrat 53-47 last year. A few Democrats are already campaigning here. While Team Blue also held a convention to pick its nominee last year, this time around, Democrats have opted to hold a traditional primary.
