The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● VA-Gov: On Friday, a second woman publicly accused Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault, prompting a broad array of Virginia Democrats to demand he resign, with one Democratic member of the state House threatening to file articles of impeachment on Monday if Fairfax doesn’t step down.
Campaign Action
The calls for Fairfax’s resignation ramped up after an attorney for a woman named Meredith Watson put out a statement saying that in 2000, when Watson and Fairfax were classmates at Duke University, Fairfax raped her in a "premeditated and aggressive" attack. Watson’s release also said that her legal team has collected statements "from former classmates corroborating that Ms. Watson immediately told friends that Mr. Fairfax had raped her."
One of those classmates, Kaneedreck Adams, already spoke with the Washington Post, saying that Watson came to her crying to say that Fairfax had raped her in the spring of 2000. "She said she couldn't speak, but she was trying to get up and he kept pushing her down," recounted Adams, who said Watson told her the attack took place at a fraternity house. Watson herself also called for Fairfax to resign. Fairfax responded by denying all the allegations, calling the story part of “a vicious and coordinated smear campaign,” and insisting he will not leave office.
Watson’s statement came just days after Vanessa Tyson, a political science professor in California, released her own account detailing her allegations of sexual misconduct against Fairfax. Tyson said that at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Fairfax "forced me to perform oral sex on him" even as she was crying and gagging; Fairfax claims that the encounter was consensual. On Friday, just before Watson released her statement, five people told the New York Times that Tyson had informed them over the last two years that she had been assaulted at the 2004 DNC, and three said that she had identified Fairfax as the perpetrator.
Virginia Democrats had generally refrained from calling on Fairfax to resign following Tyson's charges, but attitudes changed quickly after Watson’s statement came out.
Among those saying Fairfax should now quit are Sen. Tim Kaine; former Gov. Terry McAuliffe; six of the state’s seven Democratic members of the House; the state House and Senate Democratic caucuses; the Virginia Democratic Party, and, importantly, the Legislative Black Caucus. Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Bobby Scott, the longest-serving member of Virginia’s congressional delegation, also said Fairfax should resign if the allegations are, as Scott put it, “found to be true.”
If Fairfax doesn’t step aside by Monday—and he’s given every indication he has no intention of doing so—Del. Patrick Hope says he’ll introduce articles of impeachment. Fairfax has called for an FBI investigation, but it’s unlikely the bureau has the jurisdiction to commence one. Rather, as Hope has noted, because the alleged crimes were said to have taken place in Massachusetts and North Carolina, the only way for the commonwealth of Virginia to investigate is through the impeachment process itself. However, such proceedings require the approval of Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox, who hasn’t yet signaled whether he’ll allow them, though he, too, has called on Fairfax to resign.
Fairfax, of course, is first in line to become governor should Gov. Ralph Northam depart, but Northam is likewise digging in despite near-universal calls from fellow Democrats to resign in the week-and-a-half since a racist photograph from his 1984 medical school yearbook page surfaced. In an interview with CBS over the weekend, Northam declared he’s “not going anywhere,” while also telling the Washington Post that he wants to stay in office to devote the final three years of his term to racial equity.
But in his CBS appearance, Northam got off to a cringeworthy start by referring to the “first indentured servants from Africa,” at which point host Gayle King interjected, “Also known as slavery.” As activist Greg Greene put it, “I have no desire whatsoever to see the leadership of my party and state turned into one man’s two-year journey to wokeness,” and neither, it seems, do other black Democrats in Virginia: The Legislative Black Caucus has demanded Northam resign not once but twice. In addition, a new poll from Democratic polling firm Civiqs, commissioned by Daily Kos, shows that Virginia voters want him to leave office by a wide 60-24 margin, including 64-27 among black voters.
Senate
● AZ-Sen: On Friday, former state Attorney General Grant Woods announced that he would not seek the Democratic nomination in next year's special election for the Senate. Woods, a longtime Republican who joined the Democratic Party last year, had been mulling a bid for months, but he said that "[i]n this stage of my life, my ambition is not to be United States senator" and that he didn't want to spend the next year trying to prove he was "liberal enough for the far-left wing of the Democratic Party." (With an attitude like that, he probably wasn’t going to have much luck in a primary.) Rep. Ruben Gallego and former astronaut Mark Kelly are still eyeing bids against GOP Sen. Martha McSally.
Gubernatorial
● MS-Gov: Virginia politicians aren't the only ones finding racist incidents from their pasts suddenly coming back to haunt them this month: On Friday, HuffPost reported that Republican Tate Reeves, the lieutenant governor of Mississippi, "was a member of a college fraternity that was known for pro-Confederate displays and run-ins with black students." Reeves was in the Kappa Alpha fraternity at Millsaps College in the mid-1990s, during which time the fraternity's yearbook page featured pictures of members wearing blackface and dressing in Confederate regalia in front of the Confederacy’s infamous battle flag.
It's unclear if Reeves was actually in any of these pictures himself, but the fraternity and its members have long had a reputation for racism. This also isn't the first time Reeves has come under fire for racist associations: HuffPost notes that he spoke at a 2013 event for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, an organization that claims the Civil War wasn't about slavery (Mississippi's declaration of secession literally said it was over slavery).
Reeves is the frontrunner for the GOP nomination for governor, and that makes him a favorite to win this year's elections in such a red state. And given Mississippi’s strong conservative lean and fondness for the Confederate cause, these revelations may not hurt him. However, Democrats have their strongest possible candidate this year in state Attorney General Jim Hood, and what few polls exist show a potentially competitive general election.
And Reeves may yet get some more company in his primary. Indeed, state Sen Chris McDaniel has refused to clarify what office he will seek as the March 1 filing deadline approaches, saying "everything is on the table" in regard to a run for governor, another statewide office, or re-election to the state Senate.
McDaniel is an ultraconservative thorn in the side of the party establishment with his own ties to neo-Confederate groups, and he came very close to winning the 2014 Senate nomination over longtime GOP Sen. Thad Cochran. But he finished a distant third with 16 percent in the nonpartisan all-party primary in 2018's special election for the Senate, so Reeves may not view him as much of a threat.
House
● AZ-01: While Democratic Rep. Tom O'Halleran's spokesperson said last month that he couldn't say whether his boss would run again, O'Halleran announced on Thursday that he would in fact seek a third term in this competitive northern Arizona seat. O'Halleran, who previously served in the state legislature as a Republican, faces a primary challenge from former Flagstaff City Councilor Eva Putzova. The GOP will also want to target this district, which both Romney and Trump narrowly carried.
● GA-07: The 7th District Republican Party recently told the Gwinnett Daily Post reports that state Sen. Renee Unterman recently met with its chair about a possible run for this competitive open seat, and that Unterman said she'd look at creating an exploratory committee. However, just weeks ago, Unterman admitted to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she had actually considered joining the Democratic Party.
Unterman said she agreed with Team Blue "on a lot of social issues," which reporter Jim Galloway interpreted to mean health care and the environment. However, Unterman also declared, “I’m a gun-toter. I'm a hunter. I'm a fisherman. I'm pro-life. I've carried every single abortion bill that's gone through the Senate." For now, at least, Unterman remains a Republican, but one very much on the outs with her party's leadership.
Unterman was an ally of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who made her chair of the powerful Senate Health and Human Services Committee. Unterman backed Cagle to the hilt during his unsuccessful primary campaign for governor last year, and a spokesperson for Brian Kemp infamously dubbed her "mentally unstable" during the race.
Unterman says she's made up with now-Gov. Kemp, but that may not exactly be the case. Last month, Unterman lost her chairmanship as well as a prominent leadership post on the Appropriations Committee. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution pointed out that, of the three people who control the Senate assignments committee, one of them is Kemp's floor leader while the other is his brother-in-law.
Unterman, who is one of just two Republican women in the chamber, blasted how "a ranking female with 20 years' experience in there is taken off the team for obviously no reason that I know about that no one will express," though she said later she was probably demoted because of policy disputes. Unterman also startled her colleagues last month when she revealed she'd been sexually harassed over the previous weeks, something she announced after the Senate voted to shorten the window to file harassment complaints against its members.
On the Democratic side, 2018 nominee Carolyn Bourdeaux announced endorsements on Friday from Rep. Hank Johnson, who represents the neighboring 4th District, former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, and Jon Ossoff, who ran a high-profile race in the neighboring 6th District in 2017.
● NC-03: On Sunday, Republican Rep. Walter Jones, who’d recently been admitted to hospice care, died at the age of 76. We’ll have more on his life and career in the next Digest.
● UT-04: Freshman Democratic Rep. Ben McAdams will likely be a top GOP target in this conservative seat in the Salt Lake City area, but we haven't heard any notable Republicans publicly express interest in challenging him yet. However, Utah Policy writes that at least three local politicians are "said to be eyeing" a campaign: state Sen. Dan McCay; state Rep. Kim Coleman; and former West Jordan Mayor Dave Alvord.
As Daily Kos' Carolyn Fiddler recently wrote in our newest edition of This Week in Statehouse Action, McCay currently is pushing a bill that would effectively give the legislature the power to choose a U.S. senator in the event of a vacancy. McCay is no fan of the 17th Amendment, which gave voters the right to elect their senators. He pitched his bill as a way to bring Utah more into line with the system the Founding Fathers envisioned where all senators would be appointed by their state's legislature.
Mayoral
● Jacksonville, FL Mayor: On Friday, GOP Mayor Lenny Curry picked up an endorsement from Rep. Al Lawson, a Democrat who represents almost half of Jacksonville. Curry's main opponent in the March 19 nonpartisan primary is City Councilor Anna Brosche, a fellow Republican who has been trying to win over Democratic voters.
● Tucson, AZ Mayor: On Wednesday, developer Randi Dorman announced that she was joining the Aug. 27 Democratic primary to succeed retiring Mayor Jonathan Rothschild.
Dorman has been behind a number of notable projects, including an effort to remake an old ice factory into residential lofts, which became known as the Ice House Lofts. She's also served as head of the Downtown Tucson Partnership development district. Dorman joins City Councilor Regina Romero and former state Sen. Steve Farley, who lost last year's primary for governor, on the Democratic side. So far, no notable Republicans have stepped up.
Grab Bag
● Deaths: Former Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who holds the record for the longest service in Congress, died Thursday at the age of 92. Daily Kos Elections has put together an obituary on his long life, his influential career, and of course, his tweets.
Dingell was perhaps best known for his time as House Energy and Commerce Committee from 1981 until the GOP took the House in 1995. During this time, he was one of the most powerful chairs in history, and his committee ended up handling 40 percent of all House bills. Dingell informed agencies they were under investigation through what became known as “Dingell-grams.”
Dingell also faced two tough primaries after he was thrown into the same district as a fellow Democratic House member. In 1964 he went through a tough contest against John Lesinski, the only Northern congressman in the Democratic Party to oppose the Civil Rights Act. Lesinski represented most of the new district and didn't hesitate to try to use racist fear-mongering to beat Dingell, but it wasn't enough. Dingell was safe until 2002 when he took on Rep. Lynn Rivers, who was backed by Nancy Pelosi. Dingell won, but his frayed relationship with Pelosi would have serious consequences for his career.
You can find out more about Dingell's long and important career, as well as some of his best tweets (we're with him when it comes to Kardashians and super-long phone chargers) in our obituary.