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
● MI Redistricting: On Thursday, a federal district court struck down 34 of Michigan's congressional and state legislative districts, ruling that Republican gerrymandering had violated the First and 14th Amendment rights of Democratic voters.
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The court ordered that the invalidated districts must be redrawn by Aug. 1, which should leave enough time for any appeals to be resolved quickly enough so that new maps could be implemented for the 2020 elections. Notably, the court also ordered special elections for the affected districts in the state Senate, since the chamber otherwise isn't up for election until 2022, after the next regular round of redistricting.
Michigan is a top contender for the most insidious Republican gerrymandering of any state in the country. Republicans have won legislative majorities despite losing the popular vote in six of the last nine elections since the 2000 census—a stretch of time during which they've had exclusive control of redistricting. While Democrats elected Gretchen Whitmer as governor, swept every statewide office, and broke through the GOP's congressional gerrymander by flipping two seats in 2018, Republicans nevertheless held on to narrow majorities in both legislative chambers.
Michigan voters also approved a ballot initiative to end gerrymandering last year by creating an independent redistricting commission, but that commission won't redraw the lines until 2022. Republican gerrymandering helped thwart Democrats from winning full control of state government in 2018 for the first time since the early 1980s, but if this ruling survives, Democrats would have a strong chance of winning power in 2020.
However, there's a strong chance that this ruling will be overturned thanks to the partisan Republican majority on the Supreme Court. The high court will soon rule in two key cases over gerrymandering in Maryland and North Carolina, and it has never before ruled in favor of plaintiffs seeking to overturn maps on the basis of unfair partisan advantage. Whether or not this Michigan ruling survives will hinge on the outcome of those two cases, which legal observers expect will see rulings issued by June.
Senate
● KS-Sen: Two notable Republicans who'd previously expressed interest in running for Kansas' open Senate seat have this week spoken publicly for the first time since January to say they're both still considering the race. Wealthy oil magnate Wink Hartman, who in his role as the GOP's nominee for lieutenant governor provided much of the financing for Kris Kobach's disastrous bid to lead the state, confirmed to the Kansas City Star that he visited D.C. this week to meet with Donald Trump's political staff. Hartman declared his meetings were "great," though there's no sign that Trump himself is interested in backing him.
Meanwhile, Kansas Chamber of Commerce president Alan Cobb, who has close ties to the Koch brothers, says that he also met with Trump's team and the NRSC in Washington earlier this month. So far, state Treasurer Jake LaTurner is the only GOP candidate in the race, as the field seems frozen waiting for Trump's secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to make a definitive decision about his plans.
● NH-Sen: Retired Army Brig. General Donald Bolduc says he's been recruited to run against Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen next year, though he doesn't sound especially eager to wade into the fight. In a recent interview with WMUR's John DiStaso, Bolduc explained, "My answer is that it's very flattering and thank you very much. But at this point I'm happy with pushing and pursuing veterans' issues and teaching at Southern New Hampshire University, where I teach homeland security." He also says he's busy touring the country as a motivational speaker, a platform he uses to discuss his struggles overcoming PTSD through therapy.
DiStaso also reports that attorney Bryant "Corky" Messner is considering a bid for the GOP nod. Messner, an Army veteran, has reportedly hired consultants, including a pollster, and met with the NRSC recently. However, Messner has apparently lived his entire adult life in Denver, Colorado, and even founded his law firm there in 1995. DiStaso says that Messner has owned a vacation home in New Hampshire for some time but only moved to the state "about a year" ago.
● NJ-Sen, NJ-02: Republican Hirsh Singh was one of the worst House candidates of 2018, and now he has the chance to join the same club on the Senate side. While Singh last month didn't rule out a second bid for New Jersey's 2nd Congressional District, a race in which he badly flamed out in the primary last year, he surprised us on Wednesday by announcing he'd run against Sen. Cory Booker instead.
Booker, of course, is busy running for president, but he hasn't yet clarified his plans for his Senate seat. State law does allow him to both seek the presidency and run for re-election at the same time, so he might be on the Senate ballot next year no matter how his White House bid goes. But regardless of whether he faces Booker or another Democrat, Singh is hopeless.
● NM-Sen: Democratic Rep. Ben Ray Luján is greeting his new rival, Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, with a new poll that shows him with a commanding lead in next year's Democratic primary for New Mexico's open Senate seat. The survey, from GBAO Strategies, finds Luján ahead of Toulouse Oliver, who just joined the race on Wednesday, by a dominant 64-25 margin. If those figures are accurate, Toulouse Oliver would have to win over voters already committed to Luján in order to prevail—a very difficult task.
And there's reason to believe Luján does indeed start out more popular than MTO (as she's often referred to). Though Toulouse Oliver has been elected statewide twice—first in a 2016 special election, then for a full term last year—secretaries of state are seldom well-known. Luján, by contrast, has been in office a decade and rose to prominence both as the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House (he's currently assistant speaker) and as the chair of the DCCC, where in 2018 he oversaw the party's return to power.
We do, of course, need to see whether other survey data confirms these results, and even then, New Mexico's primary is still 13 months away, so there's plenty of time for the contours of this race to change.
Gubernatorial
● IN-Gov: Former state Health Commissioner Woody Myers, who's been considering a bid against Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb next year, is reportedly likely to decide before the Indianapolis 500, which takes place on May 26. So far, no other Democrats have yet to announce.
● KY-Gov: The Boy Scouts' spiraling sex abuse scandal has been making national headlines, and now it's become an issue in Kentucky's Democratic primary in this year's race for governor.
Earlier this week, Jeff Anderson, an attorney who's represented victims in cases against the Scouts, held a press conference to publicize new findings by Janet Warren, a psychiatry professor at the University of Virginia, who'd been hired by the Boy Scouts to review the organization's files on accusations of sexual abuse against its members.
This data set, dubbed the "perversion files," included the names of 7,819 alleged perpetrators who'd been accused of assaulting 12,254 victims over seven decades, according to Warren's research—far more than had been previously known. (Warren's findings first surfaced in a deposition she gave earlier this year in a case in Minneapolis but hadn't received much attention until Anderson's press conference.) At the same time, USA Today reports that more than 200 new victims have come forward with allegations in recent weeks.
In Kentucky, following these latest revelations, former state Auditor Adam Edelen immediately criticized state Attorney General Andy Beshear over a 2012 sex abuse lawsuit in which Beshear, as a private attorney, defended the Boy Scouts and succeeded in getting the case dismissed on the grounds that the plaintiffs had waited too long to file their claims.
While we vehemently oppose attacks against lawyers for representing unpopular clients, Edelen may nevertheless score points. Beshear's campaign refused to comment on the matter to the Louisville Courier Journal, though it did provide a statement to HuffPost. "That case taught Andy so much and helped motivate his work as attorney general," the statement read, arguing that, among other things, Beshear has sought "to extend the statute of limitations for survivors." In a debate on Wednesday night, Beshear was likewise faced with questions on the topic and again sought to pivot to his work protecting children as attorney general.
After the debate, Edelen got even dirtier, saying of Beshear, "If the good thing that can come out of this is that he feels badly about representing pedophiles in his private practice, then I'm glad that he has come around. My regret is that he took the case to begin with." Beshear will need to address this issue more adroitly, but for Edelen to suggest that certain types of people don't deserve legal representation is beyond the pale.
House
● MA-06: A number of local Democrats have been expressing interest in running for Massachusetts' 6th Congressional District, which Rep. Seth Moulton has decided to neglect as he wages an extreme longshot bid for the presidency, but one new name comes as a surprise: former Rep. John Tierney, whom Moulton unseated in the Democratic primary in 2014.
According to various "friends and former aides" who spoke with the Boston Globe, Tierney is "open to doing this again" (in the words of one former campaign manager), though the ex-congressman himself has yet to comment. But the biggest obstacle to any comeback is the main issue that led to Tierney's ouster in the first place: his wife Patrice's guilty plea and jail sentence for tax evasion in connection with operating an illegal gambling ring.
Tierney, however, was never accused of any wrongdoing himself and always insisted he had know knowledge of his wife's activities—and no evidence ever emerged to suggest otherwise. Nonetheless, as the Globe puts it, Tierney wound up as "collateral damage," and Moulton defeated him 51-40. Perhaps, though, enough time has elapsed and enough voters either no longer care or just don't remember Patrice Tierney's scandal. What's more, in a crowded race, Tierney would only need to win a plurality, and he'd undoubtedly start with a solid base of support.
Meanwhile, another Democrat, Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, is also looking at the race, but it doesn't sound as though she'll get her shot. In an interview on Wednesday, Driscoll said, "If the seat were to become open, it's fair to say it's something I would take a hard look at," but as of now, Moulton insists he'll seek re-election if he doesn't win the presidential nomination. Since (to be polite) it's exceptionally hard to envision Moulton as the Democratic nominee, that means there won't be an open seat for Driscoll to consider.
Finally, the same Globe piece that discussed Tierney's potential return to politics also mentions two additional Democratic names, state Rep. Paul Tucker and Terrence Kennedy, who sits on the Governor's Council, an elective body that has authority over certain decisions made by the state's governor.
● NJ-07: Though Republicans have already landed their golden boy in the form of state Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr., attorney Rosemary Becchi announced on Wednesday that she's nevertheless forming an exploratory committee to consider a challenge to freshman Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski. In a statement describing her plans, Becchi didn't take direct aim at Kean, but she did jab at "[f]ailed career politicians in New Jersey and in Washington" (Kean has served in the legislature since 2001).
Becchi, though, doesn't exactly have the best profile for issuing this kind of attack: She's spent her career as a tax lobbyist in D.C. And as such, though she's largely given to Republicans in her career, she's made a few political contributions to Democrats over the years, including a $500 donation to the DCCC in 2010—which Kean immediately hit her on. Becchi responded by claiming "the donation was to support the late Tom Boggs, who had given me paid time off from work to care for my sick daughter." That's quite the insider's defense, since Boggs was the founder of the giant lobbying firm Patton Boggs, where Becchi worked from 2010 to 2014.
While Kean and Becchi trade potshots, the reality is that Kean starts with a major advantage. As the New Jersey Globe noted, five of the six GOP county chairs in the district appeared alongside Kean at his campaign launch last week, and in the Garden State, that's no small deal. It's not just because Jersey is one of the last bastions of old-school machine politics but because candidates endorsed by local parties receive favorable placement on primary ballots. That's no guarantee of victory for Kean, but it'll be a tough hurdle for Becchi to overcome.
Mayoral
• Baltimore, MD Mayor: On Thursday, federal agents raided the home of Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh and City Hall, as well as a number of other homes and offices of people connected to her. WBAL also reports that federal agents left the mayor's residence carrying boxes labeled "Healthy Holly books," Pugh's self-published children's book series that is at the heart of this scandal. The University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) also confirmed that they'd received a grand jury subpoena from the state's U.S. attorney for documents "in order to conduct their investigation of Mayor Pugh."
Pugh announced at the start of April that she was taking an "indefinite leave of absence" because of pneumonia, a move that came as more scrutiny emerged about "Healthy Holly," which UMMS purchased from her for a total of $500,000 while she served on its board. The Washington Post also writes that state investigators are "scrutinizing Pugh's deals with entities including the health-care company Kaiser Permanente," which paid her more than $100,000 for her books while they were negotiating a $48 million contract with a city board that she controlled.
Pugh has yet to return to work, but so far, she's rebuffed numerous calls for her resignation. Pugh's attorney, Steve Silverman, said on Thursday night that his client was still suffering from ill health and not yet "lucid" enough to make a decision about whether to stay in office, but that she could make that determination next week. Silverman also acknowledged that the mayor was "generally aware that there is a consensus that she should resign." City Council President Jack Young, a fellow Democrat, has been serving as acting mayor since Pugh went on leave, and he's pledged not to run in next year's mayoral race.