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
● MT-Sen: On Monday, Helena Mayor Wilmot Collins became the first notable Democrat to announce a bid against Montana Sen. Steve Daines.
Campaign Action
Collins and his wife escaped the civil war in his native Liberia in the 1990s, a journey he recounted decades later as being so difficult that they once had nothing to eat but toothpaste. The future mayor became a school janitor upon arriving in Helena, and he went on to join the Navy. Collins, who continues to work for the state health department as a child protection specialist, ran for office for the first time in 2017 as part of a progressive slate of candidates when he challenged four-term Helena Mayor Jim Smith. Collins won the race 51-48, a margin of just under 350 votes, and his victory, which made him the first black mayor in Montana history, attracted national attention.
Whoever makes it out of the Democratic primary will face a tough contest against Daines in a state Trump carried 56-35. Morning Consult gave the first-term senator a 44-31 approval rating for the first quarter of 2019, which, while not incredible, indicates that voters aren't in a hurry to oust him. Daines also ended March with a hefty $2.5 million in the bank.
Still, Montana Democrats have done better in downballot races than their counterparts in many other red states, so there may be a path to victory for Team Blue if the stars align. Back in 2016, Gov. Steve Bullock was re-elected 50-46 even as Trump was easily carrying the state. Last year, Trump made ousting Democratic Sen. Jon Tester a top priority by going after him numerous times at rallies and through Twitter, but the incumbent still pulled off a 50-47 victory.
Senate
● AZ-Sen: OH Predictive Insights (R): Martha McSally (R-inc): 45, Mark Kelly (D): 44 (Feb.: 46-44 McSally)
● NC-Sen: Businessman Garland Tucker is hoping to portray Sen. Thom Tillis as an anti-Trump heretic in next year's GOP primary, but Mike Pence's support for the incumbent could make that task a lot more difficult. Pence will hold a fundraiser for Tillis later this month, an event that another prominent Trump ally, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, is also reportedly planning to attend. So far, though, Trump himself hasn't gifted Tillis with an all-important endorsement tweet.
● TX-Sen: Former Rep. Chris Bell, who was Team Blue's 2006 gubernatorial nominee, told the Texas Tribune on Monday that he was considering challenging GOP Sen. John Cornyn. Bell added that he believed he'd need to decide whether or not to get in by the summer in order to wage a credible campaign. Bell would face Air Force veteran and 2018 House nominee MJ Hegar in the primary, though a few other Texas Democrats are also considering.
Bell, a former member of the Houston City Council, was elected to his first and only term in the U.S. House in 2002. The following year, GOP state government passed a mid-decade redistricting plan, the infamous DeLaymander engineered by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, which gave Bell a seat that was about 50% new to him.
The new Houston-area district also included a large number of black and Hispanic voters, many of whom were unfamiliar with the incumbent. Bell, who is white, quickly found himself in a tough 2004 primary battle against a prominent local black politician, former Houston Justice of the Peace Al Green. Green ended up beating Bell by a lopsided 66-31 margin, and he still serves in Congress.
Bell has tried running for office several times since that defeat. In 2006, he was the Democratic nominee in the chaotic four-way race for governor, a contest he lost to GOP Gov. Rick Perry 39-30. The former congressman then ran for a GOP-held state Senate seat in a December 2008 special election, but he lost 56-44. Several years later, Bell competed in the crowded 2015 open seat race for mayor of Houston and took fifth place with 7% of the vote. Bell proceeded to endorse conservative independent Bill King over Democrat Sylvester Turner in the nonpartisan general election, a contest Turner went on to narrowly win.
● WY-Sen, WY-AL: The biggest question looming over the GOP primary to succeed retiring Sen. Mike Enzi is whether or not Rep. Liz Cheney will run, and no one seems to know when we'll get our answer. The Washington Examiner wrote last week that Cheney's fellow House Republicans were pressing her to decide quickly, but in a story published over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that Republicans anticipate she'll announce her plans "well before the end of the year." That's a very vague timeline, but the well-known and well-connected Cheney can probably afford to take her time.
The only prominent Cowboy State Republican who seems interested in taking on Cheney is former Rep. Cynthia Lummis. However, there are plenty of other GOP politicians who might want to run either for the Senate or perhaps to replace Cheney as the state's only House member.
Cheyenne Mayor Marian Orr had ruled out running for the Senate back in January, months before Enzi announced his retirement, but she didn't say no when she was questioned about this contest on Friday. After KGAB host Glenn Woods asked Orr if a Senate bid was possible, she talked about how much she enjoyed her current job as mayor of Wyoming's capitol and largest city. After Woods continued to query Orr about the Senate race, she responded, "I like my job now."
Still, Orr, who is up for re-election next year, doesn't seem to be especially eager to seek federal office instead. Earlier this month, right after Enzi made his decision, she took to Twitter and thanked people for encouraging her to run to succeed him but added, "For me - I'm about our city. Great cities make great states. Great states a great nation. #MayorOrr2020."
GOP fundraiser Rob Jennings also recently name-dropped some other Republicans who might be interested in running for either Senate or House. He listed state Sens. Affie Ellis and Tara Nethercott and state Rep. Tyler Lindholm as possibilities, though none of them appear to have said anything yet.
Unsurprisingly, we haven't heard much about possible Democratic candidates in this very red state. The Casper Star-Tribune names former Gov. Dave Freudenthal as a potentially strong candidate for Senate, but we haven't seen any indication that he's interested in running.
Gubernatorial
● KY-Gov: With one week to go before the Democratic primary, state House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins is out with a new spot in which he calls for "a governor who will end the attacks on working families." Just like all of his past ads, this commercial doesn't mention Adkins' two serious primary rivals, Attorney General Andy Beshear and former state Auditor Adam Edelen, nor does it mention the issue he most diverges from them on: abortion rights. While Beshear and Edelen spent a late April debate promoting their support for access to abortion, Adkins proclaimed that he was "pro-life."
And the gulf between Adkins and his opponents is indeed considerable. The Washington Post's Dave Weigle notes that Adkins, unlike most members of his caucus, recently voted for a GOP bill that would ban abortion if the Supreme Court were to strike down Roe v. Wade. Adkins also supported a law to ban abortion after just six weeks, which is before many women even know they're pregnant. In April, Adkins was asked if he'd sign all anti-abortion bills as governor and he replied, "I can't say that I would do that because I don't know what 'all' would be."
● MS-Gov: Fundraising reports are in for the first months of 2019. On the GOP side, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves outraised former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller $1 million to $583,000, and he held a massive $6.7 million to $513,000 cash-on-hand lead on April 30. The third candidate in the August GOP primary, state Rep. Robert Foster, raised just $73,000 and had $19,000 in the bank.
In the Democratic primary, state Attorney General Jim Hood took in $755,000 and had $1.2 million to spend. By contrast, Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith raised only $11,000 and had $300 in the bank (not a typo). Six other Democrats are also running, but they either had a negligible amount of money in their campaign accounts or didn't file with the state by the Friday deadline. Mississippi's party primaries are on Aug. 6, and there will be a runoff Aug. 27 in any contests where no one takes a majority.
House
● IA-01: GOP state Rep. Ashley Hinson filed with the FEC on Monday, though she hasn't publicly announced a bid against freshman Democratic Rep. Abby Finkenauer yet. All the way back in January, NRCC chair Tom Emmer said that Hinson had approached the committee the day Finkenauer was sworn in "and said she's running."
● IL-07: On Monday, violence-prevention advocate Kina Collins announced that she would challenge 12-term Rep. Danny Davis in the primary for Illinois' safely blue 7th District, which is located in Chicago and includes the city's West Side and downtown neighborhoods. Collins argued that the seat has been neglected, telling Politico, "We have entire rows of neighborhoods full of abandoned buildings and now abandoned schools. There's a huge equity issue in the district that we need to address."
Davis has never had to worry much about primary challengers, but it's always anyone's guess whether he'll actually run for re-election. In large part that's because Davis, who will be 79 on Election Day, has tried to escape the House no fewer than five times during his long career.
In 2006, the congressman was passed over for a vacancy on the Cook County Board of Commissioners when Democratic leaders chose Todd Stroger to replace his father, John Stroger, who had suffered a stroke while seeking re-election as board president. Two years later, after Barack Obama was elected president, then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich reportedly offered to appoint Davis to Obama's Senate seat, but Davis claims he turned down the opportunity to avoid getting tainted by Blago's growing aura of corruption. (Blagojevich was, of course, removed from office and is serving a 14-year prison sentence.)
Davis then considered a Senate bid himself in the 2010 cycle but ultimately chose not to run. Instead, he filed for the job he'd missed out on a few years earlier, Cook County president, but ultimately abandoned the idea and sought re-election. Then, in 2011, he ran for mayor of Chicago ... but dropped out in favor of former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, who got torched by Rahm Emanuel and came in fourth with just 9% of the vote.
There were again questions in 2015 whether Davis would run for re-election, and a few local Democrats showed interest in campaigning to succeed him. However, the congressman ended up seeking another term and winning without any trouble.
Davis didn't seem to show any indecision about running once more last cycle, though maybe he should have. Just ahead of primary day, Davis told the far-right Daily Caller that he had "no problems" with Louis Farrakhan and his extreme anti-Semitism, saying, "The world is so much bigger than Farrakhan and the Jewish question and his position on that and so forth."
Davis then released a statement that didn't mention Farrakhan and declared that the Daily Caller had "attempted to impugn my character, and more significantly divide and separate African Americans and Jewish Americans, by portraying me as sympathetic to anti-Semitic views." However, Davis didn't deny giving an interview to the Daily Caller or suggest that it had altered any quotes attributed to him.
A few days later, Davis released a second statement declaring, "Let me be clear: I reject, condemn and oppose Minister Farrakhan's views and remarks regarding the Jewish people and the Jewish religion." The congressman went on to say of his first statement, "There have been attempts to question my commitment to these principles because I did not specifically single out the views and remarks of Minister Louis Farrakhan in that statement." The story didn't stop Davis from winning renomination with 74% of the vote against a little-known and underfunded foe.
If Davis does run again, it remains to be seen whether Collins can give him a tougher challenge. Collins does appear to have some political connections: Last year, she helped write a successful bill to establish the Illinois Council on Women and Girls, a group whose stated mission is advising the governor on issues impacting Illinois women and girls. She also served as a campaign staffer to the man that council now advises, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
But that involvement did not last. Collins made news last February when she quit her job with Pritzker after a recording of a 2008 call between Blagojevich and Pritzker surfaced in which Pritzker called Secretary of State Jesse White the "least offensive" black candidate who could replace Obama in the Senate. The blowup, however, didn't stop Pritzker, who was backed by much of the state's powerful party establishment, from winning the primary and later the general election.
● KS-03: Sara Hart Weir, a former president of the National Down Syndrome Society, recently told the Associated Press she was considering seeking the GOP nod to challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids. The National Journal wrote in late March that national Republicans were trying to recruit Weir for this competitive suburban Kansas City seat, and the AP says that GOP leaders "expect" her to run.
● MT-AL: GOP Rep. Greg Gianforte is considering leaving this seat behind to run for governor again, and a familiar Montana Republican looks quite interested in succeeding him. State Auditor Matt Rosendale, who lost last year's Senate race to Democratic incumbent Jon Tester 50-47, was recently in D.C., and CNN says he was there "trying to gin up support for a House run assuming Gianforte runs for governor." Rosendale hasn't said anything publicly about his interest in a House bid, though MTN News wrote in March that he was "expected to consider running" for an open seat.
One group seems to already be on Rosendale's side. The radical anti-tax Club for Growth backed Rosendale in the Senate primary, and back in late February, they released a poll showing him winning in several hypothetical House primary scenarios.
● NY-11: This week, GOP Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis unveiled an endorsement from longtime Rep. Pete King.
● NY-15: New York City Councilman Ritchie Torres confirmed he will seek New York's 15th Congressional District, a safely blue open seat located in the Bronx, in an interview last week with Gay City News by telling them several times he was "running for Congress." Torres had been laying the groundwork in March for a primary bid against longtime Rep. José Serrano, and he'd opened up an FEC account and scheduled a fundraiser. That anticipated Democratic primary battle never happened, though. Serrano, citing Parkinson's disease, announced in late March that he would retire, and until now, Torres held off on announcing his own bid.
Torres, who identifies as Afro-Latino, grew up in a public housing unit in the east Bronx in a building located right across the street from the Trump Golf Links. He ended up dropping out of college to work for City Councilman James Vacca and became one of his key staffers. Torres ran to succeed his boss in 2013 at the age of 25, and he had the support of a number of unions and progressive organizations in his successful primary against a candidate backed by the local Democratic establishment.
That victory made Torres both the youngest elected official in New York City as well as the first gay candidate to be elected from the Bronx. He has received national attention during his time in elected office, and local politicos have speculated about his future plans for years.
A few other Democrats have already kicked off bids for New York's 15th Congressional District, including Assemblyman and DNC Vice Chair Michael Blake and Tomas Ramos, the director of the Bronx River Community Center, and others are considering getting in. However, Torres trained his fire on just one of his opponents, fellow City Councilman Ruben Diaz Sr. Torres told the Gay City News, "No one is more hostile to LGBT equality than Councilmember Ruben Diaz Sr.," and declared that Diaz should run in the GOP primary.
Diaz indeed has a very long and ugly history of homophobic commentary, and he recently made more news by interrupting a mandatory City Council sensitivity-training session that was discussing sexual harassment to declare, "I'm not gonna rat my people out! This place is full of rats!" Unfortunately, as we've noted before, Diaz has won Democratic primaries in the Bronx for decades, and he'll likely benefit from a crowded field where it will take just a plurality of the vote to win.
● PA-12: Donald Trump has scheduled a rally for Republican Fred Keller on Monday, one day before next week's special election for this reliably red rural seat. We've seen no polls here, but there's been no outside spending or any other indication that either party thinks that Keller is in any danger of losing this 66-30 Trump seat to Democrat Marc Friedenberg. Of course, we won't be surprised when Trump rushes to claim credit for a victory in a district that the GOP would need to try hard to forfeit.
● TX-07: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy reportedly recruited Army veteran Wesley Hunt to challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, and he seems to be doing everything he can to get him through the primary. The National Journal reports that McCarthy hasn't just endorsed Hunt, he invited him to a "big-dollar donor retreat" last Sunday that featured several major Trump administration officials, including Mike Pence.
However, all of this may not be enough to scare off Big Brothers Big Sisters Lone Star CEO Pierce Bush, the grandson of former President George HW Bush and nephew of ex-President George W. Bush. Pierce Bush expressed interest in seeking this seat last month, and Hunt says that he wasn't able to convince Bush not to run last week. Cindy Siegel, a former member of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County board of directors, is already in.
