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
● MS-Gov: Last month, Republican Tate Reeves defeated Democrat Jim Hood by a modest 52-47 margin to become the next governor of Mississippi, but thanks to a unique relic of Jim Crow that's still very much alive today, Reeves could have lost the popular vote by double digits yet still won the election.
Campaign Action
How could this be possible?
The state's 1890 constitution, which was officially enacted "to secure to the State of Mississippi 'white supremacy,'" is still in effect today, and among its provisions is an "electoral college" for statewide elections that deliberately penalizes black voters and the Democrats they support.
The provision in question requires candidates for offices such as governor or attorney general to win not only a majority of the vote but also a majority of the state House's 122 districts. If no candidate surpasses both thresholds, the members of the House choose the winner, and there's nothing to stop them from picking the person who lost the popular vote.
Republicans have controlled the state legislature since 2011, and as soon as they took charge, they redrew their own districts to guarantee they'd never lose their grip on power. They did so by making sure a majority of districts would be heavily white, and therefore heavily Republican. As a result, they not only gerrymandered the state House, they gerrymandered every statewide election, too.
Just how big of a penalty does this system impose on Mississippi Democrats, who overwhelmingly rely on the support of black voters? We compiled the results of every contested statewide election in 2019 broken down by state House district to find out. Even though Reeves won the popular vote by just 5 points, that victory translated into a crushing 74-48 win at the district level, meaning he won 61% of the state's "electoral votes." But even that doesn't tell the whole story.
We can also ask ourselves what it would have taken for Hood to have carried a majority of House districts. One way we can answer that question is by ranking every district from most Republican to most Democratic, ranging from Reeves' largest margin of victory to Hood's largest margin, and finding the district in the middle. Reeves won that median district 60-39, 15 points to the right of his 5-point statewide win.
Let's give that some context. Imagine instead that Hood had won the popular vote. If every district had swung in Hood's favor by the same amount, Reeves could have lost the popular vote by up to 15 points yet still have become governor. Put another way, Hood would have had to win statewide by at least 15 points just to have a chance to grabbing a majority of districts in the House. For a Democrat in Mississippi, a margin like that is an impossible dream.
Knowing this, a group of black voters challenged this law in federal court earlier this year, and the case remains ongoing. The judge hearing the case declined to temporarily block the law shortly before Election Day, but he wrote that the plaintiffs are "right" that requiring candidates to win a majority of state House districts violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of "one person, one vote."
While this suit wouldn't have affected the outcome of November's election, it could impact future races. A century and a half after the end of the Civil War, Jim Crow still lives on in Mississippi, but a just ruling could finally end one of its worst manifestations.
Senate
● MI-Sen: The conservative dark money group Better Future Michigan is spending $300,000 on a TV and digital ad against Democratic Sen. Gary Peters.
Gubernatorial
● IN-Gov: The Indiana Chapter of the American Federation of Teachers has endorsed state Sen. Eddie Melton in the May Democratic primary.
● KY-Gov, LA-Gov, MS-Gov: Daily Kos Elections' David Jarman takes a look back at our county-level benchmarks for 2019's elections for governor in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi and what we can learn by comparing the results with our pre-Election Day expectations. Compared to the 2016 presidential results, new Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear overcame Kentucky's red lean not only because he ran up his share of the vote in big cities and suburbs but also because those areas turned out at relatively higher rates than redder rural areas. However, Beshear also outran Clinton's performance by leaps and bounds in rural areas, too, even though he didn't win them, and that proved key in a tight race.
A similar story happened in Louisiana, where Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards' narrow victory came closer to looking like the 2016 presidential results than his initial 2015 win, which relied more on rural areas and less on affluent suburbs. However, Democrat Jim Hood had no similar luck in Mississippi, which is more rural and has lower education levels. Check out Jarman's post for a more detailed look at how the benchmarks performed.
House
● CA-08: While candidate filing closed last week in California for the March 3 top-two primary, the deadline was extended to Dec. 11 for contests where the incumbent chose not to file for re-election. The secretary of state will publish an official candidate list in the coming weeks, though several counties and media organizations have unofficial lists available.
GOP Rep. Paul Cook is retiring from this conservative seat, which includes northern San Bernardino County and the High Desert, in order to run for a seat on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors. The only sitting elected official running to succeed Cook is Assemblyman Jay Obernolte, who has endorsements from the congressman and a number of other prominent San Bernardino County Republicans. Obernolte had $103,000 in the bank at the end of September, though almost all of that was self-funded.
At least four other Republicans are running, though only two of them look very interesting. One familiar name is Tim Donnelly, a far-right former state Assemblyman who has waged several unsuccessful campaigns over the last decade. Donnelly challenged Cook last year and did manage to advance to the general election, but the incumbent prevailed 60-40. Another notable GOP candidate is Marine veteran and former NFL player Jeremy Staat, but he had a mere $17,000 available at the end of September.
This seat backed Trump 55-40, and Team Blue was locked out of the general election in both 2012 and 2018. That scenario might play out again since at least three Democrats are running, though only one of them looks like she'll have the resources to get her name out. Engineer Chris Bubser was challenging Cook before he decided to run for another office, and she ended September with $228,000 on-hand.
● CA-21: While former Tulare County Democratic Party chair Ruben Macareno announced in October that he'd run as an independent, he decided not to file in the end.
● CA-50: GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter pleaded guilty last week to a single charge of conspiracy to convert campaign funds to personal use and announced days later that he would resign from the House sometime "[s]hortly after the Holidays." It's not clear when, or even if, there will be a special election next year for the remaining months of Hunter's term, but the field is set for the regular two-year term in this conservative inland San Diego County seat.
Several Republicans were already running before Hunter pleaded guilty, including two who have held elected office outside of this district. Former Rep. Darrell Issa narrowly won re-election in the neighboring 49th District in 2016 and retired the following cycle just before Democrats decisively flipped it. Issa has the support of the convicted congressman's father, namesake, and predecessor, former Rep. Duncan Hunter.
Former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio lost a tight race for mayor in 2012 and narrowly failed to unseat Democratic Rep. Scott Peters two years later in the 52nd District. While neither of those contests took place in this seat, DeMaio may have some name recognition with GOP voters from his subsequent career as a local conservative radio host. The only local elected official in the race is state Sen. Brian Jones, who represents about 87% of the 50th District in the legislature.
DeMaio was the only Republican who started fundraising during the last quarter, and he ended September with a strong $1.2 million war chest. However, Issa spent years topping the list of the wealthiest members of Congress, so he can likely self-fund.
The most prominent candidate on the Democratic side is 2018 nominee Ammar Campa-Najjar, who held Hunter to a 52-48 win last year and had $853,000 to spend at the end of September. A few other Democrats are also in, including National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals executive director Marisa Calderon. San Diego County's candidate list doesn't list each contender's party yet, though, so we don't know how many candidates each side is fielding here.
● CA-53: Democratic Rep. Susan Davis is retiring from this 65-29 Clinton seat in eastern San Diego, and there's a crowded Democratic field to succeed her.
The only local elected official in the contest is San Diego City Council president Georgette Gómez, who has the support of the state Democratic Party. Another familiar name is Sara Jacobs, who ran a well-funded race for the nearby 49th District last year. Jacobs ended September with a $294,000 to $191,000 cash-on-hand lead over Gómez.
Other Democratic candidates include activist Jose Caballero, who was challenging Davis before she retired; Marine veteran Janessa Goldbeck; and UC San Diego professor Tom Wong. Goldbeck had $97,000 in the bank at the end of September to Caballero's $3,000, while Wong entered the race last month.
Two Republicans, nurse Famela Ramos and technology consultant Mike Oristian, are running here, so Democrats will want to keep an eye out to make sure that they both don't advance through the top-two primary. If anything, though, it's more likely that two Democrats will advance to the general election in this very blue seat, especially since the March presidential primary will likely see Democratic voters turn out in disproportionate numbers.
● FL-03: Ocala Mayor Kent Guinn said this week that he was considering seeking the GOP nod for this open 56-40 Trump seat and "should have a formal announcement shortly."
Guinn made national news in the spring when he proclaimed April 26 to be "Confederate Memorial Day." Guinn responded to his many critics by saying he wasn't a Civil War scholar, something he immediately proved when he insisted that the conflict "was about more than just slavery." An actual Civil War scholar tweeted in response, "This is pure cowardice," and, "Ocala, Florida Mayor Kent Guinn signs a proclamation for Confederate Memorial Day, but no effort is made to say what the war was about or what it resolved."
The declaration convinced former Marion County Commissioner Barbara Fitos to challenge Guinn in the September mayoral race, but he won his fifth term 59-41.
● GA-14: House Majority Whip Trey Kelley announced Thursday that he would not seek the GOP nod for this safely red open seat.
● NC-02: Andrew Terrell, who served in the Obama administration as a staffer for the National Economic Council, recently filed to seek the Democratic nod for this newly drawn 60-36 Clinton seat in the Raleigh area. Terrell, who went on to lead a United Kingdom trade office in Raleigh, would be the state's first gay member of Congress.
It's not clear if Terrell has announced he's in yet, though he told NC Insider his election would be an "opportunity to make a little bit of history that would de-stigmatize the state" after the transphobic House Bill 2 passed in 2016.
● NH-01: Two more Republicans tell WMUR that they're interested in challenging freshman Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas next year. State Rep. William Fowler, who was elected to his first term in the 400-member chamber last year, said he was likely to run in January if he felt he could raise enough money to wage a serious campaign. Newton Selectman Matt Burrill also said he planned to form an exploratory committee in the future, though he hasn't filed paperwork with the FEC yet.
● NY-27: Republicans are suing Gov. Andrew Cuomo in state court to compel him to call a special election for New York's 27th Congressional District, which has been vacant since former GOP Rep. Chris Collins resigned on Sept. 30 just before pleading guilty to insider trading charges.
New York law does not specify any deadline by which a governor must call a special election for Congress. However, when Cuomo delayed setting an election to fill a vacancy in the 11th District after GOP Rep. Mike Grimm resigned in disgrace in 2015, a federal judge in Brooklyn ordered Cuomo to announce a date and gave him just three days to do so.
But, as State of Politics' Ryan Whalen notes, even if Republicans obtain a similar judicial order, Cuomo would still be able to schedule the special election for April 28, a date he's previously floated. That coincides with New York's presidential primary, which should see a disproportionate spike in Democratic turnout since Donald Trump's renomination is not being seriously contested.
Republicans of course want an earlier election, but state party chair Nick Langworthy offered little to differentiate this case from the suit in the 11th District.
● OH-01: Federal prosecutors have been investigating Republican Rep. Steve Chabot's bewildering campaign finances "for a while," according to a new report from local news station Fox19, and have convened a grand jury in Cincinnati. Jennifer Edwards Baker also reports that Jamie Schwartz, the Chabot consultant at the center of the scandal who'd allegedly gone missing when the scandal first broke in September, turned himself in to the U.S. Attorney's office that same month.
While law enforcement authorities would not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation, Chabot's campaign buttressed Fox19's reporting by saying it "continues to fully and proactively cooperate with both the FEC and law enforcement." Chabot triggered an FEC inquiry in late August after he'd amended his first-quarter fundraising report in May to show an additional $124,000 in receipts that he hadn't disclosed in his original quarterly filing.
Adding to the mystery, Chabot's treasurer—one James Schwartz, who happens to be the father of Jamie Schwartz—publicly insisted after the story broke that he'd never served the Chabot campaign in that capacity even though his name appeared on the campaign's FEC reports for at least eight years. The elder Schwartz also claimed at the time that he was unaware of his son's whereabouts.
Chabot hasn't offered any explanations as to what he thinks happened except to say he was "the victim of financial malfeasance." His campaign has also said it's conducting "a thorough internal audit of its finances," but a new letter from the FEC dated Dec. 9 still identifies a number of problems with his finance reports.
● PA-08: Republican Earl Granville, an Army veteran who lost part of his left leg in Afghanistan, announced this week that he would challenge Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright. Granville joins fellow Army veteran Teddy Daniels and Luzerne County Councilman Harry Haas in the May primary, and The Citizens' Voice says that former Pennsylvania Farm Bureau head Keith Eckel is also considering.
This seat, which includes Scranton, swung from 55-43 Obama to 53-44 Trump, but Cartwright won re-election last year by a convincing 55-45 margin against a self-funding opponent. Cartwright ended September with $1 million in the bank while Daniels, the only Republican who raised money during the last quarter, had just $15,000 to spend.
Judicial
● State Supreme Courts: Daily Kos Elections is embarking on an ambitious new project to catalog the ideological leanings of all 344 state supreme court justices in the country, and you can help! We've set up a publicly editable Google doc where folks can add information on the ideology (and more) of individual justice. Daniel Donner has also developed a new map template for every state supreme court, which we will fill out once the data-gathering phase is complete.
Mayoral
● Fresno, CA Mayor: Republican Mayor Lee Brand decided not to seek re-election earlier this year, and Democrats are hoping to win control of city hall for the first time since Fresno moved to its current system for electing mayors more than 20 years ago. The officially nonpartisan primary will take place March 3, and if no one takes a majority of the vote, the top-two vote-getters will advance to the Nov. 3 general election.
Five candidates are running, but the only two who look credible at this point are Democrat Andrew Janz and former Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer, who identifies as a Republican. Janz, a former Fresno County prosecutor, challenged GOP Rep. Devin Nunes last year in the 22nd Congressional District and lost a very expensive race for this 52-43 Trump seat by a respectable 53-47 margin. (Fresno makes up about 30% of the 22nd District.)
Dyer, meanwhile, served as police chief from 2001 until he stepped down in October, and this is his first bid for office. However, an allegation that surfaced when Dyer was first appointed nearly two decades ago is again in the news.
The Fresno Bee reported back in 2001 that the police department had twice investigated allegations in the 1980s that Dyer, who was a 26-year-old police officer at the time, had sex with an underage girl who was 16. Dyer was never charged with any crimes.
Dyer told the paper then, "I'm not going to sit here before you and confirm those things or deny those things," continuing, "All I can tell you is that the relationships that I have had outside of my marriage, when I was a young man, have been dealt with. … God's forgiven me. My wife's forgiven me. This department's forgiven me and looked into a lot of things in my past."
When a reporter asked Dyer why he wouldn't outright deny the allegations if they weren't true, he responded, "Principle … Sometimes a response dignifies the question." The story didn't stop Dyer from becoming police chief, and he went on to serve for another 18 years.
Dyer was again asked about the allegations this month in a new interview. The candidate told the hosts of the "Two Guys Talkin' Fresno" podcast, "At the appropriate time, there will be an appropriate response," and added, "Over the years, my wife and I have had a lot of discussions about where I was in my 20s … I want to be careful, quite frankly, not to do or say anything that's going to cause any issues in other people's lives as well."
Dyer was more combative in a subsequent statement he made to the Bee last week and suggested that the "appropriate time" he had in mind to address the story would be never. "This decades-old and publicly-vetted issue is nothing short of a political smear to deflect from the real issues facing our community," he said. "I will not be discussing these smears now or in the future."
International
● Israel: Having failed to agree to a government that could command a majority of the Knesset (Israeli parliament), Israel will head to its third general election in just under a year on March 2. Election results from April and September of this year left both Likud Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and rival Blue and White leader Benny Gantz short of a majority.
Avigdor Lieberman's right-wing nationalist but secular Yisrael Beiteinu has refused to join either Netanyahu's religious-nationalist coalition or Gantz's secular center-left alliance. He has instead pushed for a unity government made up of his party, Likud, and Blue and White. However, negotiations between the latter two stalled over Netanyahu's insistence that he remain prime minister at the start of the new government despite his recent indictment on corruption charges.
Netanyahu's looming indictment on fraud, bribery, and breach of trust had hung over the past two elections and was made official in November. He has sought at all costs to remain in charge of government in the hopes that the Knesset would grant him immunity from prosecution. As a result, the focus of the past two election campaigns has centered on voters' sharply divided view of him. It's unclear if the indictment, now that it's a reality, will shift how voters feel about him, though polling so far has indicated the next election is on course for a similar result to the prior two.
