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
● VA-Gov: On Saturday, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam defied calls from every corner of the Democratic Party to resign after a racist photo from his 1984 medical school yearbook emerged showing a pair of men, one dressed in a KKK robe and hood and another wearing blackface.
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Northam initially apologized when the photo first appeared on Friday, admitting he'd appeared in it. However, in a bizarre press conference the following day, Northam backtracked, saying he wasn't portrayed in the photo and claiming it had appeared on his page in an unexplained error.
But at the same event, Northam confessed that he had worn blackface at a dance contest, also in 1984, where he sought to impersonate Michael Jackson. "I had the shoes, I had a glove, and I used just a little bit of shoe polish to put under my—or on my—cheeks," he said. "And the reason I used a very little bit is because, I don't know if anybody's ever tried that, but you cannot get shoe polish off." Northam also claimed he did not know why he'd been given the offensive nickname "Coonman" in his college yearbook, which surfaced not long after his medical school yearbook did.
Northam's press conference did nothing to sway his fellow Democrats, who've universally condemned both the photo and Northam’s behavior, and have demanded he step down. The lengthy list includes both of Virginia's senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine; all seven Democrats who represent the state in the House; the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus; almost every prominent contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020; the DNC; the Democratic Governors Association; and a host of progressive organizations, including the NAACP and Planned Parenthood.
If Northam resigns, he'd be replaced by Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a Democrat who'd be the state's second black governor. Though Virginia normally limits its governors to a single term, Fairfax would be eligible to run for a full term when the seat is next up in 2021.
It's less clear, though, who would succeed Fairfax in his current position. One possibility is that Fairfax would appoint a new lieutenant governor, who would serve until a special election this fall, when the entire legislature is up for election. However, Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, says he's gotten "10 different answers from 10 good people" as to how such a succession might play out, so the courts or the legislature may need to clarify.
If, on the other hand, Northam refuses to go, it's conceivable that lawmakers could move to impeach him, which would require a simple majority in the state House; it would then take a two-thirds vote in the state Senate to remove him from office. The Virginia constitution permits impeachment for "malfeasance in office, corruption, neglect of duty, or other high crime or misdemeanor," which legal expert John Dinan observes is "not … a clear standard of what constitutes an impeachable offense."
It may therefore be the case that, as former President Gerald Ford once put it, "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers to be at a given moment in history." (The wording of relevant provisions of the U.S. Constitution is slightly different from that of the Virginia constitution, but as Dinan notes, the two are "similar in providing little in the way of clear guidance for defining an impeachable offense.") However, whether to proceed with impeachment wouldn't be up to Democrats, since Republicans currently control the state House.
Senate
● CO-Sen: The Colorado Independent's Mike Littwin took a look at the emerging Democratic primary to take on GOP Sen. Cory Gardner, and he gave us some new information about a few potential candidates, including a few new names.
Littwin wrote that former U.S. Attorney John Walsh is telling people he's interested in running. Walsh (not to be confused with the "America's Most Wanted" host or the former Montana Democratic senator) served as the state's top federal prosecutor from 2010 until 2016, and he doesn't appear to have run for office before. Walsh has been mentioned by media publications in the past as a possible candidate, but he hasn't said anything publicly.
Littwin also wrote that state Sen. Kerry Donovan is reportedly thinking about running, though like Walsh, we haven't heard her express interest yet. Donovan, who is the chamber's majority whip, does have experience running on competitive turf. She first won a seat in the Aspen area during the 2014 GOP wave by a 49-47 margin that Barack Obama had carried 51-46 and that Hillary Clinton would win by a similar margin in 2016. Last year, Donovan won her second term by a strong 60-40 margin.
Littwin also relays that he's heard rumors that Reps. Joe Neguse and Ed Perlmutter are considering, though he adds that he's skeptical either will ultimately get in. Neguse was only elected to his first term in the House last year (though he'd hardly be the first House freshman to successfully run for the Senate), while Perlmutter dropped his campaign for governor in 2017 after a few months.
Finally, Littwin writes that he suspects that, if former Gov. John Hickenlooper's likely presidential bid fails to go anywhere, the national Democratic establishment would try to convince him to challenge Gardner. However, Littwin says he's heard that Hickenlooper has told people he's not interested in the Senate and would prefer to be in the cabinet if he can't reach the Oval Office. Still, back in December, Hickenlooper declined to rule out a Senate bid when asked, instead saying, "I don't have any anticipation for running for Senate, but I haven't ruled anything out."
● MT-Sen: Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock has repeatedly insisted he has no interest in challenging GOP Sen. Steve Daines next year, but some GOP state legislators tell Politico that they're wondering if Bullock's presidential flirtations aren't just a head-fake ahead of a Senate bid. The theory goes that Bullock is venturing to Iowa and New Hampshire to raise his national profile for a contest against Daines. However, we just have a tough time believing this.
Bullock is one of the only Montana Democrats who could probably put this Senate race into play, so if he did run, we very much doubt that he'd have a tough time getting plenty of national support. If anything, spending so much time away from Montana acting like a presidential candidate would probably only hurt a Bullock Senate campaign, especially if voters believed he was only running against Daines because the governor couldn't get the job he really wants. While it's always possible national Democrats could convince the governor to enter the Senate contest, we just don't think that he's focusing on running for anything but the presidency right now.
● NJ-Sen: Sen. Cory Booker announced on Friday that he would seek the Democratic presidential nomination, but don't expect an open-seat Senate contest back in New Jersey. Last year, the state legislature passed a law to allow a U.S. senator or House member to run for re-election and for the presidency or vice presidency at the same time. The law's sponsors said the pre-existing state law probably already allowed this, but they pushed this legislation so it would be completely unambiguous.
Plenty of Garden State Democrats would be interested in going to the Senate, but it's very unlikely that any notable candidates would actually challenge the popular incumbent in a primary. However, if Booker were re-elected but soon resigned from the Senate to become president or to join a new Democratic administration, it would be up to Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy to appoint his successor. There's sure to be plenty of private competition among Democrats looking to replace Booker in the Senate ahead of a possible vacancy, but their focus would be on winning over Murphy.
New Jersey backed Hillary Clinton 55-41, and it's very unlikely that Team Red will make a big play for this seat even if Booker is still busy running for national office in the fall of 2020.
Gubernatorial
● MS-Gov: Campaign finance reports are out for 2018, and let's just say that Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves isn't going to be starved for cash. Reeves, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination in this August's primary, ended the year with $6.7 million in the bank. State Rep. Robert Foster, who announced he was in during the final weeks of December, had just $12,300 on-hand. If anyone else wants to jump into the GOP primary, they'll need to decide by the March 1 filing deadline.
On the Democratic side, Attorney General Jim Hood ended last year with $1 million in the bank, while former Metro Jackson Community Prevention Coalition director Velesha Williams had less than $2,000 to spend. It looks unlikely that Hood will face a serious primary battle, but he'll want to raise a whole lot more cash if he's to win what will almost certainly be a tough general election in this very red state.
Hood's task is all the more difficult thanks to a Jim Crow-era election law that remains on the books. As we've written before, the state's 1890 constitution requires gubernatorial candidates to win both a majority of the statewide vote and a majority of the 122 districts that make up the state House. If no candidate wins both the popular vote and a majority of districts, the state House then picks the winner from the top two finishers.
The GOP gerrymandered the state House map, so even if Hood does win a majority, he very well may fail to take a majority of the House districts. The state GOP House majority would get to choose the governor under those circumstances, and there's no reason to think that they'd pick Hood even if he got the most votes.
House
● IA-04: Apparently, there aren't already enough Republicans challenging white supremacist Rep. Steve King in the primary. The National Journal's Ally Mutnick reports that some GOP operatives think that Siouxland Chamber of Commerce president Chris McGowan could be a strong candidate who could raise plenty of money thanks to his business connections.
McGowan hasn't said anything publicly about his interest, though he's reportedly spoken to the Club for Growth, a radical anti-tax group that has soured on King. The Club has also been talking to state Sen. Randy Feenstra, who was the first Republican to kick off a bid against King, but Mutnick says they probably won't endorse anyone this far from the primary.
In addition to Feenstra, King already faces primary challenges from Woodbury County Supervisor Jeremy Taylor and and Army veteran Bret Richards. Story County Supervisor Rick Sanders expressed interest in running last month, and he still says he's interested even with so many people already running. Sanders also adds that he "know[s] of people who I haven't heard mentioned anywhere yet that absolutely are considering it."
A large field of candidates could split the anti-King vote enough to allow him to win renomination with a plurality of the vote. Additionally, if no one took at least 35 percent of the vote in the primary, the nomination would be decided at a party convention.
Conventions can be very unpredictable since only a relatively small group of delegates is deciding the nomination rather than tens of thousands of primary voters, and the delegates can be swayed by things like a strong candidate speech or an in-person appeal. However, Mutnick writes that, if King were forced into a convention, he probably would still be the favorite. King first won the GOP nod at a convention in 2002, and he still has a following among the GOP loyalists who will be recruiting delegates.
Still, it's possible that Iowa law will change before the primary. Back in 2017, GOP state Sen. Brad Zaun pushed legislation that would require a primary runoff rather than a convention in races where no one took at least 35 percent of the vote. Zaun's bill unanimously passed the state Senate, but the state House never took it up. Zaun says he's bringing the bill back this year, and that if it passed, it would go into effect in time for the 2020 primaries.
● NY-24: Democrat Dana Balter lost last year's contest to GOP Rep. John Katko 53-47, and she's mulling seeking a rematch. Balter, who plans to open a nonprofit in Syracuse to encourage people to become active in politics, said she was "thinking about" another House bid, and that she "want[s] to make sure I make the right decision and do not only what's right for me, but the district."
Clinton carried this Syracuse-area seat 49-45, and Katko is one of just a trio of House Republicans who still holds a Clinton seat (the other two are Pennsylvania's Brian Fitzpatrick and Texas' Will Hurd). However, while national Democrats will likely make Katko a top target this cycle, it remains to be seen how recruiting will go this time.
The DCCC wasn't keen on having Balter, a party activist and a visiting assistant professor at Syracuse University, as their nominee in 2018, but they struggled mightily to find an alternative candidate. The D-Trip didn't stop looking even after Balter won the endorsements of the district's county parties, and they eventually landed former Syracuse corporation counsel Juanita Perez Williams, who got in a few months after she initially decided not to run. However, Balter ended up beating Perez Williams, who had the DCCC's support, in the primary by a wide 62-38 margin.
● PA-12: Don't call it a comeback … because former GOP Rep. Lou Barletta will not be making a comeback. Barletta, who left the House last year to unsuccessfully run for the Senate, announced Friday that he will not run in the special election to succeed former Rep. Tom Marino.
Mayoral
● Aurora, CO Mayor: Former Rep. Mike Coffman, a Colorado Republican who was ousted by Democrat Jason Crow last year by a 54-43 margin, announced on Thursday that he would run for mayor of Aurora. The entire city is located in Coffman's former seat, so he should start out with plenty of name recognition ahead of this November's open seat contest.
● Chicago, IL Mayor: On Thursday, former White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley picked up an endorsement from Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush in the contest to succeed Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Rush, who was first elected to Congress in 1992, is one of the city's most prominent African-American politicians (he's also the one person to ever defeat Barack Obama in an election), and he could be a very important ally for Daley ahead of the crowded Feb. 26.
At first glance it might seem surprising that Rush, who was a co-founder of the state Black Panther Party, would support Daley, who is white, over any of the six different black candidates who are running. Rush also challenged Daley's brother, then-Mayor Richard Daley, in 1999 and lost 72-28. However, the Chicago Tribune writes that Rush was often in meetings with Bill Daley when he was Barack Obama's chief of staff, and they seem to have stuck up a friendship. The two also both backed Chris Kennedy during his unsuccessful run for governor last year. Daley was Kennedy's head of finances, and both Rush and his son were on the campaign payroll.
Politico also notes that Rush does not have a good relationship with Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who appears to be the leading black mayoral candidate. Rush's son and daughter each tried to get appointments to open seats in the state legislature. (Illinois does not hold special elections for open seats in the legislature.) However, Preckwinkle had huge say in the process as a powerful local party official, and she blocked both of them.
There were more notable endorsements over the last few days. Cook County Clerk Dorothy Brown learned last month that she wouldn't be on the ballot because of a lack of signatures, and on Thursday, she threw her support behind community activist Amara Enyia. A recent poll for the Chicago Sun-Times taken just before Brown ended her bid gave her 5 percent of the vote while Enyia took 3. With so many candidates competing here, however, a small boost for anyone could make all the difference between making the April 2 runoff or missing out.
Politico also writes that Preckwinkle had also hoped that Brown's "army of volunteers" would flock to her, and that Brown could help move black voters to Enyia. (Like Preckwinkle, both Brown and Enyia are African-American women.) Brown focused much of her attention on Preckwinkle after making her endorsement, talking about the "lives Toni has ruined who I know personally" through county budget cuts.
State Comptroller Susana Mendoza, meanwhile, also picked up a notable endorsement on Thursday from Chicago Cubs co-owner Laura Ricketts, who is a rare Democrat in this famously conservative family. (One of her brothers is Nebraska GOP Gov. Pete Ricketts.) Ricketts, who was an important fundraiser for both Obama and Hillary Clinton, has also long been a prominent supporter of LGBT rights, and she's also the first openly gay owner of a major-league sports franchise.
