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
● NY-02: Last year, Democrat Liuba Grechen Shirley held longtime GOP Rep. Pete King to a 53-47 win in a contest that attracted no major outside spending, and Newsday writes that she's "made it known she'd like to run again." There's no quote from Grechen Shirley, who recently founded a PAC that supports young mothers running for office; Grechen Shirley, the mother of two young children, made history last year when she persuaded the FEC to allow her to use campaign contributions to cover childcare expenses.
Campaign Action
Last year wasn't just King's closest contest in this competitive central Long Island seat since his 56-44 win during the 2006 blue wave, it was the first time that King had failed to pull off a double-digit victory since his first election all the way back in 1992. King, who is quite conservative by his own admission, has managed to carve out a reputation as a security-obsessed loudmouth who knows when to break with his party and support local interests, and he hasn't been seriously targeted in a long time. However, that may well change in 2020.
However, Newsday writes that there's long been speculation that King, who will be 76 on Election Day, will leave office to allow his daughter, Hempstead Town Council member Erin King Sweeney, to run to succeed him. This week, the paper asked King Sweeney if she would consider seeking this seat and she emailed back, "I don't live in his district—two blocks out!"
That's not a no, and Newsday kept pressing by reminding her that congressional candidates don't need to live in the seat they're running for. King Sweeney responded, "I just got new zebra and red curtains." There are easy ways for politicians to make it clear they're not interested in running for office, but talking about their window decor is not one of them.
New York's 2nd District, which is home to Babylon and most of Islip, swung from 52-47 Obama to 53-44 Trump, but it lurched back to the left last fall. While Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo's 60-36 statewide win was very similar to Hillary Clinton's 59-37 victory, Bloomberg's Greg Giroux reports that Cuomo carried the 2nd District by a 51-47 margin.
Senate
● CO-Sen: On Thursday, former Colorado state Sen. Mike Johnston became the first high-profile Democrat to announce that he would challenge GOP Sen. Cory Gardner next year.
Johnston, who represented part of Denver in the legislature, was best known for successfully championing a 2010 bill to tie teacher evaluations to students’ academic growth, which weakened tenure protections for educators who received two straight years of negative evaluations. He also pushed through legislation that gives in-state college tuition to undocumented immigrants living in Colorado.
Unsurprisingly, Johnston's teacher evaluation law angered teachers unions, which as a result backed former state Treasurer Cary Kennedy over Johnston when the two ran for governor last year. Ultimately, though, both lost the Democratic primary to then-Rep. Jared Polis, with Johnston taking just 24 percent to finish in third.
While Johnston’s last campaign didn’t live up to his hopes, he does still retain some influential allies. Johnston’s campaign and PAC brought in total of $10.2 million, with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg—who like Johnston is a major supporter of gun safety measures and expanding charter schools—contributing $2 million of that haul.
Though Johnston's the first prominent Democrat to join the race, he almost certainly won't be the last. Colorado Politics writes that two former state House speakers, Crisanta Duran and Andrew Romanoff, are also “expected to launch campaigns in coming months.”
Duran, whose term ended ended early this year, has previously expressed interest in running, but Romanoff, who unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in 2010 and for the House in 2014, has been more cagey. He raised eyebrows in December when he opened up a fundraising committee, but a campaign representative said that the filing was intended only to update information from Romanoff's prior Senate bid.
However, Colorado Politics reported at the time that Democratic operatives said that Romanoff and his team "have been contacting potential supporters and operatives ahead of an anticipated announcement of a campaign." Romanoff hasn’t said anything publicly over the last month-and-a-half, and he still serves as the head of the nonprofit Mental Health Colorado.
● MI-Sen: NRSC chair Todd Young recently made it very clear that he wants 2018 Senate nominee John James to challenge Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, but unnamed GOP strategists mention two other potential candidates to Roll Call. They name-drop wealthy businessman and 2018 Senate candidate Sandy Pensler, who loaned his campaign $5 million but lost the primary 55-45 after Trump endorsed James. They also mention former state House Speaker Tom Leonard, who lost last year's race for state attorney general to Democrat Dana Nessel by a 49-46 margin. There is no word if either Pensler or Leonard is interested.
Gubernatorial
● WA-Gov: Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has been preparing a presidential campaign for a while, but even if he ends up sitting the race out, there's reason to think he wouldn't just turn around and seek re-election as governor in 2020.
While the Evergreen State doesn't have term limits, no governor has attempted to seek a third term since Republican Dan Evans successfully did so in 1972. No notable Democrats have yet publicly expressed interest in running to succeed Inslee, who didn't rule out running for re-election back in November, but there's a good chance plenty would jump into an open seat race. We could have that open seat race very soon, since Inslee said at an event in New Hampshire last week that he would announce if he'd seek the White House "in weeks, not months."
Attorney General Bob Ferguson has been mentioned as a potential gubernatorial candidate for a while, and he notably didn't rule anything out when he was asked about it at an event this week. Instead, Ferguson said, "We have a governor right now," and added, "I'll let him make his decision first."
Ferguson, a former member of the King County Council, won a competitive race for attorney general in 2012, and he was re-elected four years later without any GOP opposition. Since then, he's made a name for himself by repeatedly suing the Trump administration. Ferguson notably attracted national attention in the first days of Trump's presidency by opposing the travel ban aimed at several predominantly Muslim nations.
Another potential Democratic candidate is King County Executive Dow Constantine. Constantine, whose constituency covers about 30 percent of the state's population, including Seattle, has been mentioned as a potential candidate for years, and the local political news site Washington State Wire wrote a few weeks ago that both Constantine and Ferguson were "expected" to run. Back in 2017, Constantine won his third term as county executive by a 77-23 margin.
The Washington State Wire also recently speculated that Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz or former University of Washington Spokane Chancellor Lisa Brown could run, but there's no indication yet if either Democrat is considering. Since that article was published, Inslee chose Brown, a former state Senate majority leader who lost an expensive race for Congress last year to Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, to be the state's commerce secretary.
We still haven't heard any Republicans so much as mentioned as potential candidates so far. The Evergreen State GOP went through a rough cycle in November, and they may have a very tough time winning a statewide race at the same time that Trump, who lost the state 53-37, is leading the ticket.
Team Red hasn't won the governorship since 1980, which is the GOP's worst losing streak in the nation, but they did come close to victory in 2004 and 2012 even as Democrats John Kerry and Barack Obama were carrying the state. It's always possible that, even with Trump dragging the GOP brand through the muck, Republicans could have an opening if enough voters are looking for change after 36 years of Democratic governors.
House
● CA-15: Last week, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell told the Washington Post that if he ran for president, he wouldn't try to seek re-election to his safely blue Bay Area seat at the same time, even though California law appears to allow this option. Swalwell added that he plans to make a 2020 decision over the next couple of months.
California's filing deadline is in December, so if Swalwell did jump into the presidential contest but developed second thoughts about leaving the House, he'd need to decide what to run for before any primaries or caucuses had taken place. Swalwell's seat, which includes Hayward, Livermore, and Pleasanton in the East Bay, backed Clinton 70-24.
● IA-03: Freshman Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne will be a big GOP target in this competitive central Iowa seat, but so far, we haven't heard any notable Republicans show much interest in challenging her. State Sen. Brad Zaun recently told the National Journal that, while he'd received calls from party recruiters, he wouldn't run. However, given Zaun's 51-46 loss against Democratic incumbent Leonard Boswell during the 2010 wave and his unfulfilled threat to run as an independent after he lost the 2014 nominating convention to Republican David Young, we kind of doubt Zaun was anywhere near the top of the national GOP's wish list.
Legislative
● Legislatures: Since the November midterms, five state legislators in three different states—California, Kansas, and New Jersey—have changed their affiliation from Republican to Democratic, and they all have some things in common. For one, they all represent suburban seats. For another, four of these five districts moved sharply to the left on the presidential level between 2012 and 2016, in a reaction to Donald Trump.
By contrast, only one lawmaker, Oklahoma state Rep. Johnny Tadlock, has gone the other way, but he sits in a district that voted overwhelmingly for Trump, so this seat would have gone Republican soon enough even had Tadlock not joined the GOP. You can find the presidential election results for all of these districts in our new party-switch tracker, compiled by James Lambert. With any luck, there will be many more additions to come—in the R → D column, of course!
