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
● NC-09: On Thursday, after four days of hearings into charges that Republican Mark Harris benefitted from an illegal absentee ballot scheme in last year’s race for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, the bipartisan state Board of Elections unanimously voted to hold a new election. This will be the first time a re-vote has occurred in a House race since 1974, when a malfunctioning voting machine was enough to cast doubt on Republican Henson Moore’s 44-vote win in a contest in Louisiana; Moore decisively won the do-over the following year.
Campaign Action
Democrat Dan McCready, a businessman and retired Marine, has long been preparing to compete here again, and there’s no question his fellow Democrats will give him the chance to try once more. There’s far more uncertainty, however, on the GOP side. Last year, the Republican-led state legislature passed a law mandating new primaries whenever a new election is ordered in a congressional contest. That’s a change from prior practice, which would have required only a new general election be held between the existing nominees—something that would have left the GOP stuck with Harris. On Thursday, McCready’s attorney, Marc Elias, declined to say if he’d challenge this new law in court.
If there’s a new Republican primary, Harris is likely to face plenty of opposition if he runs again. That’s a big if, though: Harris, who said at Thursday’s hearing that he’d suffered two strokes in January and was “struggling” to make it through his testimony as a witness, has not yet said what he’ll do, though after the board’s vote, his wife said "we will think about" another bid.
It will be up to the board, rather than Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, to schedule this new race. However, it’s possible that the new election for the 9th District will be held the same day as the pending special election for the 3rd District, which became open after GOP Rep. Walter Jones died last week. Since Cooper is tasked with scheduling the 3rd District vote, he may end up having a say in when voters in the 9th District will go to the polls if the board chooses to follow his lead.
The board’s vote to hold a new election capped off a dramatic week of proceedings that were nothing but a disaster for Harris. On Wednesday, his own son, federal prosecutor John Harris, testified that he'd warned his father about McCrae Dowless, the operative accused of masterminding the illegal absentee ballot harvesting operation on behalf of Harris’ campaign.
Then on Thursday, board members were furious to find out that Harris’ team had failed to produce relevant documents pursuant to their subpoena, including one message in which Harris specifically asked a friend to connect him to Dowless because he was “the guy whose absentee ballot project ... could have put me in the U.S. House this term.”
In his own testimony before the board on Thursday, Harris sought to throw his son under the bus, saying, “I’m his dad, and I know he’s a little judgmental, and has a little taste of arrogance.” He also professed a shocking ignorance of basic campaign finance laws: Harris initially paid Dowless through an “independent expenditure PAC” (often known as a “super PAC”) but said he was not aware that congressional campaigns are not permitted to coordinate their activities with such PACs.
Harris evidently saw which way things were going after investigators spent days carefully laying out their evidence, and in a shocking twist on Thursday afternoon, he himself called for a new election. However, that move only came after Harris had spent months demanding he be seated. Indeed, earlier this month, Harris told a meeting of the state GOP executive committee, “The Democrats and liberal media have spared no expense disparaging my good name,” and even called allegations of ballot fraud “unsubstantiated slandering.”
Harris was far from the only Republican to assert, despite evidence to the contrary, that he was the duly elected winner. Dallas Woodhouse, the executive director of the state GOP, also loudly insisted that Harris deserved to go to Congress, a stance he maintained as recently as Wednesday. Woodhouse attended the hearings with a whiteboard and said he was using it to keep track of the number of ballots witnesses said were manipulated or were under suspicion, wrongly claiming there weren’t enough votes to call into question Harris’ 905-vote lead. Every member of the state Board of Elections—and, ultimately, Harris himself—very much disagreed.
Senate
● AL-Sen: On Wednesday, Rep. Bradley Byrne became the first Republican to kick off a bid against Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, but he's unlikely to be the last. Fellow Rep. Gary Palmer hasn't said anything publicly about his 2020 plans, but both Politico and Roll Call write that a source close to his campaign says that the congressman is giving a Senate bid serious consideration. The radical anti-tax Club for Growth, which has not been quiet about their dislike for Byrne, released a poll just before he announced that showed him tied with Palmer 27-27 in a hypothetical primary.
While Byrne first won elected office all the way back in 1994 (and as a Democrat, no less) and has been close to the GOP establishment, Palmer is more of the Club's type of politician. Palmer spent years leading a conservative think tank called the Alabama Policy Institute, and during his tenure, he was a vocal opponent of Amendment One, an unsuccessful 2003 ballot measure pushed by GOP Gov. Bob Riley that would have raised taxes on wealthier state residents while giving tax cuts to lower income brackets.
Palmer ran for elected office for the first time in 2014 when longtime GOP Rep. Spencer Bachus retired from Alabama's 6th District, a safely red seat in the Birmingham area. Palmer reached the GOP runoff with state Rep. Paul DeMarco, and he picked up the Club's endorsement after their original choice failed to advance to round two of the contest. The Club ran plenty of ads on behalf of Palmer, who also picked up a number of endorsements from prominent figures in the religious right. Palmer ended up beating DeMarco in a 63-37 rout, and he's had no trouble winning since then.
Palmer, a member of the nihilistic House Freedom Caucus, began his tenure as an opponent of the GOP leadership, with him keeping his pledge not to vote for Speaker John Boehner in 2015. However, Palmer joined the leadership team in November when he was elected chair of the House Republican Policy Committee, which is the fifth-ranking post in the GOP minority.
Other Republicans are also eyeing this Senate contest. State Senate Pro Tem Del Marsh said Wednesday that he was still very interested even with Byrne in the race, though the only timeline he gave for when he would decide is that it would be "sooner rather than later." State Auditor Jim Zeigler also said he was still considering and his "decision must be made by November." Zeigler announced around Thanksgiving that he would form an exploratory committee to raise money for a potential Senate bid, but he still doesn't seem to have submitted any paperwork to the FEC as of Thursday.
A few other Republicans have also been mentioned. However, GOP sources tell both Roll Call and Politico that they doubt Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth will run. Ainsworth has been name-dropped as a possible candidate for months, but he's shown no public interest in running. A spokesperson for Rep. Martha Roby also says she won't be seeking this seat.
● KS-Sen: On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who's been the target of Republican recruitment efforts for a month, declared that he'd "ruled out" a bid for Kansas' open Senate seat next year. On its face, that answer seems pretty clear, but it only came after Pompeo repeatedly tried to dodge questions about his 2020 plans, so it doesn't feel like he's quite ready to close the door on a Senate bid.
For weeks, Pompeo has declined to address the possibility of a Senate campaign directly, only saying time and again how much he loves his current job. Even his interview with NBC's Craig Melvin on Thursday seemed to follow the usual pattern. When Melvin asked Pompeo about the race, he again responded he was "going to be the secretary of state as long as President Trump gives me the opportunity." When Melvin pressed him as to whether he had "no interest in being a senator from Kansas," Pompeo again would only talk about how great his current gig is.
Melvin cannily did not let Pompeo off the hook, though, inquiring further, "Sounds like you're not ruling it out." It was only after this, which was Melvin's third time asking about about the race, that Pompeo finally responded, "It's ruled out. I'm here. I'm loving it."
So, is this the end of the Mike Pompeo for Senate talk? We'll see. As we say, it's noteworthy that Melvin had to ask Pompeo about this race repeatedly before he'd say he'd "ruled out" a run, so it doesn't seem like he wants to definitively take his name out of the conversation. It also remains to be seen if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his allies will take this answer as a final no and move on, or if they'll keep trying to woo Pompeo.
Perhaps more important is how Pompeo's would-be rivals view his latest pronouncement. A number of Kansas Republicans have also been eyeing this contest, and many of them have said that they'd defer to Pompeo if he ran. If, however, they start moving forward with campaigns of their own, it's a sign they believe Pompeo is actually going sit this one out.
However, Kansas' filing deadline isn't until June 2020, so Pompeo still has plenty of time to change his mind. And given his high profile and broad connections, he can afford to wait, even if some potential opponents enter the primary before he does.
Gubernatorial
● NH-Gov: WMUR's John DiStaso writes that, while state Senate Majority Leader Dan Feltes "has downplayed any suggestion that he's considering running for governor," he met with the Democratic Governors Association last week in D.C. It's unclear how seriously Feltes is considering taking on GOP Gov. Chris Sununu, but it's very unlikely he'd have stopped by the DGA if he weren't thinking about jumping in. DiStaso also writes that Feltes used the same trip to attend a networking reception at the Democratic National Committee, and he also met with other progressive groups.
House
● AL-01: GOP Rep. Bradley Byrne's decision to run for the Senate opens up his House seat on the Gulf Coast. This district, which includes Mobile and its suburbs, backed Trump 63-34, and the GOP should have little trouble holding it.
On Thursday, former state Sen. Bill Hightower confirmed he was considering entering the Republican primary, saying that he'll be talking to family and friends "[o]ver the next few weeks." Hightower ran for governor last year and raised a credible amount of money, but he took a distant fourth place with just 5 percent of the vote. About the only thing we remember about his campaign is an otherwise-unremarkable ad where, for some reason, Hightower reminded us of Dr. Leon Spaceman from 30 Rock.
● CA-48: Democrat Harley Rouda unseated longtime GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher last year by a 53.5-46.5 margin in a contest that Rohrabacher never seemed to take seriously, and he's likely to be one of the top GOP targets in the state. The Orange County Register writes that most local political observers expect that former Orange County Republican Party chair Scott Baugh, who also ran here last year, will try again. While Baugh has not yet said anything publicly about another run, he did quietly form a fundraising committee back in December (Hat tip: Rob Pyers). This ancestrally red coastal Orange County seat swung from 55-43 Romney to 48-46 Clinton. Last year, Republican gubernatorial nominee John Cox carried the seat 52-48 against Democrat Gavin Newsom.
Last year, Baugh came very close to locking the Democrats out of the general election. Rohrabacher took first place with 30 percent of the vote in the June top-two primary, and it was an incredibly close race for the second general election spot. Rouda led fellow Democrat Hans Keirstead 17.3-17.2, while Baugh was just behind with 15.8. National Democrats spent months fretting that Baugh's campaign would cost them a key pickup opportunity and the DCCC and House Majority PAC spent about $1.8 million mostly to attack Baugh.
While Baugh's campaign came very close to guaranteeing that the GOP would keep this seat in November automatically, his campaign did stir up some bad blood. Baugh and Rohrabacher used to be friends, and when Baugh began raising money for a congressional bid in early 2016, the congressman initially said that Baugh wasn't campaigning against him, and was instead "just laying the foundation for a race for Congress when I am no longer a member... but I don't know when that's going to be." Baugh himself initially seemed to confirm this, but things got tense after he later said he wasn't "going to engage in speculation" when they asked if he might run against Rohrabacher if he doesn't retire."
Rohrabacher was pissed, and he publicly claimed that his longtime pal had "represented to me and many of my supporters/donors that he would never run against me and was only raising money for when I retire. Baugh now seems to be evolving out of that commitment," and told him to return the donations. However, while Baugh stopped raising money, he kept the cash he'd brought in and ended up using it for his bid against Rohrabacher two years later. If Baugh runs again, it's possible his fight with Rohrabacher could cause him problems in a 2020 primary.
● GA-07: GOP state Sen. Renee Unterman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this week that she was interested in running for this competitive open seat in the Atlanta suburbs.
Unterman said she's "kind of got a little discovery committee going on out there, and we're talking about it and the results we're getting are very good and favorable." "Discovery committees" aren't actually, you know, a thing that exists in politics (unless someone started a super PAC to elect Star Trek: Discovery actors and production staff to public office). We assume Unterman meant "exploratory committee," but she doesn't seem to have submitted any paperwork to the FEC as of Thursday. However, she sounds like she very much wants to run, adding that she was "trying to convince my husband."
As we've written before, Unterman has such a bad relationship with the GOP leadership that just last month, she openly mused about becoming a Democrat. Unterman said at the time she agreed with Team Blue "on a lot of social issues," which AJC 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." Unterman remains a Republican, and this week, she didn't show any interest in running for Congress as anything but a Republican.
Unterman did address her conflicts with the party leadership by saying if she ran, she'd use her "outsider" status to her advantage. However, just a year ago, Unterman was about as far from a political outsider as you could get. Unterman served in local office in Gwinnett County before winning a seat in the state legislature in 1998, and she became an ally of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who made her chair of the powerful Senate Health and Human Services Committee. Unterman backed Cagle in his race for governor, and had he won, she almost certainly would still be a dreaded insider today.
That's not how things turned out, though. The conflict between Unterman and Brian Kemp, who ended up defeating Cagle in the primary and becoming governor, got incredibly nasty, with a Kemp spokesperson dubbing her "mentally unstable." Last month, Unterman lost her chairmanship as well as a prominent leadership post on the Appropriations Committee. The AJC 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.
● IA-01: Former GOP Rep. Rod Blum lost re-election last year to Democrat Abby Finkenauer 51-46, but Iowa Starting Line writes that he's very much acting like he's still running and holding office. Blum has been making small ad buys on Facebook for his old official congressional page, including for a post that spreads a conspiracy theory claiming that Democrats oppose Trump's border wall so they can win votes from non-citizens. Blum has also been tweeting up a storm, taking plenty of media interviews, and traveling across this eastern Iowa seat, and Starting Line wonders if he's planning to run again in 2020.
National Republicans always had an uneasy relationship at best with Blum, whom they left for dead until the final weeks of the 2018 election, and he's unlikely to be high on their candidate wish list. NRCC chief Tom Emmer has touted state Rep. Ashley Hinson, and a month ago, he said she'd approached them the day Finkenauer was sworn in "and said she's running." Hinson said at the time she was "considering [her] options and hope to make a decision in the next few weeks," but Starting Line writes that she's been quiet since then.
This seat swung from 56-43 Obama to 49-45 Trump, and it remains competitive turf. Last year, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Fred Hubbell carried it by a narrow 49-48 margin against GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds.
● TX-32: The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported earlier this week that unnamed state Republicans were recruiting Dallas County Republican chairwoman Missy Shorey to challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Collin Allred, but she didn't say anything publicly about her plans. The Dallas Morning News wrote in a subsequent article that Shorey was "coy this week about her plans, but she said her main focus is making sure Republicans are competitive up and down the ballot," so she's not saying no.
Legislative
● Special elections: Louisiana will hold seven special elections on Saturday, but four feature members of just one party running (two Republican-only and two Democratic-only). Of the remaining three, the race for the 27th House District is on extremely red turf, but two others are in more competitive territory. We preview that pair below:
LA-HD-18: This is a Democratic seat covering areas west of Baton Rouge. This vacancy was created by former state Rep. Major Thibaut's election as Pointe Coupee Parish president. This race has a large field of candidates, with four Democrats and two Republicans. The Democrats in the race are attorney Natashia Carter Benoit, attorney Jeremy LaCombe, West Baton Rouge Parish Council chairman Gary Spillman, and nurse Bill Spencer. New Roads native Jason Fowler Jr. and real estate broker Tammi Fabre are the Republicans.
At the presidential level, this district has been reliably red: Donald Trump won it 58-40, and Mitt Romney carried it 55-44. Despite this, Democratic governor John Bel Edwards took 67 percent here according to The Hayride in 2015, and Thibaut did not face a challenger in his 2011 and 2015 runs.
LA-HD-62: This is a Republican seat covering areas north of Baton Rouge. This vacancy was created by former state Rep. Kenny Harvard's election as West Feliciana Parish president. The race will feature an expansive field of candidates with three Democrats, a Republican, and one independent candidate. The Democrats are Jerel Giarrusso, Johnathan Loveall, and Tarries Greenup. Greenup's wife, Gwen Collins-Greenup, was a candidate for Louisiana secretary of state in 2018. Former East Feliciana police jury president Dennis Aucoin is the Republican and grocery store owner Roy Daryl Adams is the independent.
This is solidly Republican turf as Trump was victorious here 57-40, and Romney won it 56-43.
Mayoral
● Dallas, TX Mayor: There was some confusion earlier this week about whether or not businessman and environmentalist Steve Smith made the ballot for the May 4 nonpartisan primary, and according to D Magazine, Smith and two minor would-be candidates did not turn in enough signatures to qualify.
● Jacksonville, FL Mayor: A new poll from the University of North Florida gives Mayor Lenny Curry a massive 52-15 lead over City Council member Anna Brosche, a fellow Republican, in the March 19 contest. A recent survey from St. Pete Polls had Curry ahead by a similar 58-20 margin.