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
● MS-Gov: On Thursday, four black voters filed a lawsuit in federal court to challenge a provision in Mississippi's 1890 Jim Crow-era state constitution that, as long as it remains in force, makes it extremely difficult for Democrats to win the governorship even if they win the most votes this November. This law requires candidates for statewide office 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 clears both of these hurdles then the House, where Republicans hold a wide 74-45 majority, would pick a winner from the top two finishers. The plaintiffs are backed by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a group chaired by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
Campaign Action
As we have previously shown, Mississippi's current system discriminates against black voters and consequently Democrats, and not just because Republicans gerrymandered the legislature. If the GOP-led House gets to choose the new governor there's little question that they'd pick Team Red's nominee no matter which candidate actually won the most votes.
With longtime state Attorney General Jim Hood running in this year's election for governor, Democrats have their best chance to reclaim that office since they last won it 20 years ago. However, as the results of the 2015 statewide election results by district demonstrate, this Jim Crow requirement effectively would necessitate that Hood win by a double-digit landslide simply to carry a majority of districts. That is exceedingly unlikely to occur in this very conservative state, where Democrats face an uphill challenge simply to win more votes than the eventual Republican nominee.
The plaintiffs contend that this law violates the 14th and 15th Amendments and the Voting Rights Act because the system intentionally dilutes black voting power and runs counter to the Supreme Court's "one person, one vote" precedents. Any one of these charges could be enough to invalidate the law, and taken together the plaintiffs should have a strong argument on their side. Indeed, the Supreme Court in 1963 struck down Georgia's system of determining statewide primary contests by a so-called "county unit system" that gave rural voters excess weight. However, it remains to be seen how the current partisan Republican majority on the Supreme Court would rule if the case ultimately comes before them.
Senate
● AL-Sen: Despite Donald Trump's attempts to keep him out of the race, 2017 GOP nominee Roy Moore told Politico on Wednesday that he would likely decide whether to run again in a few weeks.
● AZ-Sen: Rep. Ruben Gallego endorsed retired astronaut Mark Kelly on Thursday in the Democratic primary to take on appointed GOP Sen. Martha McSally. Gallego had spent months considering running himself, but he announced in March that he'd stay out of the Senate race. The only noteworthy Democrat who has made any noises about running against Kelly, who also has the DSCC's backing, is former state Rep. Chris Deschene, but he doesn't appear to have said anything about his plans over the last two months.
● NH-Sen: While retired Army Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc recently said that he'd make up his mind in June whether to enter the GOP primary, he told WMUR on Wednesday that this decision would come in "a month or two."
● SC-Sen: On Thursday, the DSCC endorsed former state party chair Jaime Harrison's bid to take on GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham. Harrison, who announced that he'd raised $270,000 in the first 24 hours of his campaign, also picked up an endorsement from Jim Hodges, South Carolina's most recent Democratic governor. The only other Democrat currently in the race is Gloria Tinubu, a former Georgia state representative who has waged three unsuccessful campaigns in South Carolina starting in 2012.
● TX-Sen: Former Rep. Chris Bell emailed supporters Thursday and announced that he'd formed an exploratory committee for a possible bid for the Democratic nod. Bell lost his bid for a second term in the House in 2004, and he went on to conduct three unsuccessful campaigns to return to elected office.
Bell was last on the ballot in 2015 when he competed in the crowded open seat race for mayor of Houston, and he ended up taking 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. Bell addressed his past defeats in his email, but he argued that he's run and won several times in the past in races for the Houston City Council and for Congress.
House
● GA-07: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently obtained an email to supporters of GOP state Sen. Renee Unterman that declared that she'll announce her bid for this competitive open seat on the evening of June 6.
● TX-24: Two more Democrats have confirmed that they'll challenge veteran GOP Rep. Kenny Marchant: 2018 nominee Jan McDowell and 2018 state agriculture secretary nominee Kim Olson.
McDowell said during the winter that she was likely to run again, and while it's not clear when she officially announced her second bid, she told the Texas Tribune this week she was a candidate. Olson, meanwhile, said back in March she was considering, and she appears to have made it official in April. A third candidate, Carrollton-Farmers Branch School Board member Candace Valenzuela, also announced she was in back in April.
Until last year, Marchant never had any trouble winning re-election in Texas' 24th District, which includes a small portion of the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth as well as most of the suburb of Irving. However, after voting for Mitt Romney by a 60-38 margin in 2012, it went for Trump by a much narrower 51-45 spread in 2016. McDowell, an accountant who'd raised just $100,000 for the entire cycle, attracted little attention in 2018 until she surprised the political world by holding Marchant to a 51-48 win. That same night, Beto O'Rourke edged GOP Sen. Ted Cruz here 51-48.
Also in November, Olson lost her statewide campaign for state agriculture commissioner to GOP incumbent Sid Miller by a respectable 51-46 margin, and she only lost the 24th District by a narrow 49-48. Olson is a retired Air Force colonel who was one of the service's first women pilots, and she handed out packets of wildflower seeds as a campaign calling card to emphasize her roots as a third-generation farmer.
Olson's military career, however, came to an end with a black mark in the mid-2000s when the Pentagon charged her with steering government contracts to a private South African security firm of whose American branch she'd become the director. She ultimately pleaded guilty to two lesser offenses in military proceedings but did not suffer a reduction in rank, and was given an honorable discharge. Olson has been open in discussing her story (she devoted a chapter to it in her memoirs), and it did not feature prominently in her last campaign, though of course things could be different in this race.
McDowell said back in March that she wouldn't defer to Olson. McDowell further said that, while her now-foe was a "national treasure," Olson "lives in Mineral Wells … nowhere even close to our district!" Olson did move to Mineral Wells in rural Texas in 2010, which is well to the west of this suburban seat. However, Olson is a former human resources director for the Dallas Independent School District, so she does have some ties to the area.
Mayoral
● Tucson, AZ Mayor: Candidate filing closed Wednesday for this year's race to succeed Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, a Democrat who is not seeking a third term, and three Democrats and one independent are competing here. The trio of Democrats will face off in the Aug. 27 party primary, and the winner will be the heavy favorite in November against independent Ed Ackerley, a businessman who has raised very little money. Team Red last won this office 2007, when incumbent Bob Walkup earned his third and final term, but no Republicans turned in enough signatures to make the ballot.
The Democratic candidates are developer Randi Dorman, former state Sen. Steve Farley, and City Councilwoman Regina Romero. 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.
Farley, who was first elected to the legislature in 2006, gave up his seat last year to run for governor. He lost the primary 51-32, though Farley carried Tucson's Pima County 43-39. Farley, who was an early supporter of Tucson's streetcar project, has Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick in his corner.
Romero, by contrast, has been elected citywide three times even though she only represents one of the city's six wards. That's because Tucson has long used a bizarre method to elect its city council: Primary voters in each ward nominate candidates, and those nominees then run citywide in the general election. Romero has the backing of Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who like her has long been a vocal opponent of the state's notorious 2010 anti-immigrant law SB 1070 (Farley voted against the law in the legislature).
Farley outraised Dorman $130,000 to $93,000 through the end of March, while Romero took in $76,000. However, unlike her two rivals, Romero is enrolling in the city's Clean Elections program, which provides matching funds to candidates who agree to restrictions on their fundraising and spending. Romero's team said in April that she'd recently received another $76,000 from the city as a result, which would give her more money than either of her two rivals.
Grab Bag
● Deaths: Former Sen. Thad Cochran, whose 1978 win made him Mississippi's first GOP senator since Reconstruction, died Thursday at the age of 81. We take a look at Cochran's 50 years in politics, including his long rivalry with home state Senate colleague Trent Lott, in our obituary.
While Lott stymied his rise in the Senate, Cochran didn't face any serious opposition at home until 2014. That year, though, Cochran went through an incredibly nasty GOP primary against state Sen. Chris McDaniel, an ally of neo-Confederate groups.
Cochran ended up pulling off a miraculous victory in the runoff when he successfully appealed to African Americans to cast a vote in the GOP race, a very unusual tactic in any Republican race. You can find out much more about that unforgettable contest, as well as the ups and downs of Cochran's long political career, in our obituary.
● Where Are They Now?: Former Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, a Democrat who served from 2011 until early this year, was chosen on Thursday to become chancellor of the University of Maine system. The Bangor Daily News described the Board of Trustees' pick, which came after a year-long search for a new chancellor, as a surprise to many observers.
