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 State Senate, VA State House: Virginians went to the polls Tuesday to choose nominees for this November's state elections, when all 40 seats in the state Senate and all 100 in the House of Delegates will be up. Republicans hold just a 21-19 majority in the Senate and an equally thin 51-49 edge in the House, so Old Dominion Democrats have the chance to take control of both chambers of the legislature while also holding the governorship for the first time since early 1994. In a new post, where we take a look at the large playing field in both chambers.
Campaign Action
Daily Kos Elections previously crunched the numbers for the 2016 presidential results for every district in the Senate and House (using the new lines for the latter). Now, for the first time, we have results of the 2017 gubernatorial election, where Democrat Ralph Northam beat Republican Ed Gillespie 54-45, calculated by legislative district. Particularly worrisome for Republicans is the fact that Northam almost universally performed better than Hillary Clinton, exceeding her margins in 85 House districts and 35 Senate seats—and almost all of the seats where he did not either saw only minor shifts or are uncompetitive.
However, Team Blue still faces plenty of obstacles in both chambers especially given the cavalcade of misery surrounding Northam and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who've steadfastly refused to resign in the face of separate scandals that broke in February. To make matters worse, if the Senate ends up being deadlocked 20-20, Democrats would have to count on Fairfax to break a Senate tie in their favor. While the Senate won't be up again until 2023, the lieutenant governor's office is on the ballot again in 2021, so a GOP win there would flip a tied Senate back to them. And Democrats won't be comfortable staking their majority on Fairfax, whom two women have accused of sexually assaulting them.
Democrats also inherited a new problem on Tuesday when the notorious Joe Morrissey unseated Sen. Rosalyn Dance in the Democratic primary for a safely blue Richmond seat, despite having a litany of ugly scandals to his name. Morrissey has left the party to become an independent twice in the last five years, and while he's a Democrat again, he said after his primary victory that he'd been receiving calls from both parties to caucus with both of them. Given all that's transpired with him over the last few years, Team Blue can't afford to rely on him to secure a Senate majority.
Still, Democrats do have a real shot to take outright majorities in both chambers. Republicans need to defend four Clinton Senate seats and seven Clinton House districts, while there are no Democratic-held Trump seats. An additional two GOP-held districts in the Senate and four in the House went for Northam; no Democratic seats voted for Gillespie. Click through for our tour of the battlegrounds for more on what will be some of the biggest elections to watch in 2019.
Senate
● IA-Sen: 2018 House candidate Eddie Mauro is out with a late April poll by Lake Research Partners that finds him losing to GOP Sen. Joni Ernst by a wide 58-33 margin. Real estate executive Theresa Greenfield, who entered the race just after this poll was conducted and quickly earned the support of the DSCC, trails Ernst 56-34. Lake tells us the sample size was 500 likely voters and the survey was done April 24-29.
So, why would Mauro release such ugly numbers? Iowa Starting Line writes that, "After poll-takers were given an array of messaging points on both Ernst and Mauro," the incumbent posts a smaller 49-44 edge. The campaign did not release numbers testing Greenfield against Ernst under this type of scenario.
● KS-Sen: The radical anti-tax Club for Growth is now publicly encouraging Conservative Political Action Conference head Matt Schlapp to seek the GOP nod for this open seat, and they're out with a poll from WPA Intelligence that argues he could beat Rep. Roger Marshall in a primary. The pollster tells us the sample size here was 512 primary voters.
According to audio of the poll obtained by the Kansas City Star, respondents were first asked a head-to-head matchup between Schlapp and Marshall, who also has not yet joined the race. The results of that question were not released, though. Instead, the memo includes the text of biographical information about both potential candidates that was presented to respondents; afterwards, Schlapp posts a 49-41 lead.
However, even the Club doesn't seem very sanguine about Schlapp's prospects if U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo runs, as their memo outright says that Schlapp could be a strong contender "if Mike Pompeo does not run for U.S. Senate." While Donald Trump has insisted that his chief diplomat isn't going anywhere, Pompeo has declined to rule out running time and again. Kansas' filing deadline isn't until June of next year, so Republican Senate candidates could be anxiously waiting for a long time to see what Pompeo does.
● ME-Sen: Betsy Sweet, who took third place in the 2018 Democratic primary for governor, has a "special announcement" scheduled for Thursday evening, and the Bangor Daily News writes that she's expected to use it to kick off a bid against GOP Sen. Susan Collins.
Sweet, who has worked as a lobbyist for progressive causes in state government, would be the first noteworthy Democrat to enter the race, but she may not be the last. The paper also writes that state House Speaker Sara Gideon "is likely to announce for the race after the end of the 2019 legislative session." The session is scheduled to adjourn June 19.
Gubernatorial
● UT-Gov: GOP Rep. Rob Bishop has been considering a bid for governor for a while, and he said this week that he expected to make his decision in September. Bishop announced two years ago that he would retire from Congress in 2020.
House
● AL-01: Outgoing Selma Police Chief Spencer Collier said this week that he was considering seeking the GOP nod for this safely red open Mobile area seat and that his health would be a big factor in his decision. Selma is located in the neighboring 7th District, but Collier was elected to a state House seat in Mobile County in 2002. Collier left the legislature in 2013 to become GOP Gov. Robert Bentley's secretary of law enforcement, and the two had a high-profile falling out as Bentley became enmeshed in scandal.
In 2016, Bentley fired Collier because of what the governor called "possible misuse of state funds" and leadership problems at the agency. Collier responded by denying the allegations and holding a press conference where he said that it was instead Bentley who had misused state resources, in his case to cover up an affair with a top aide named Rebekah Mason. Bentley ended up resigning a year later as the GOP-led legislature prepared to remove him from office over that very scandal.
Collier made it through all this in far better shape than his former boss. A state grand jury investigated the allegations Bentley had leveled against Collier when terminating him, but they didn't file any charges. In an unusual move, the state attorney general's office even used the opportunity to declare, "No witness established a credible basis for the initiation of a criminal inquiry in the first place." Collier also filed a lawsuit against Bentley and Mason for wrongful termination and defamation. On Wednesday, the same day that Collier first expressed interest in running for Congress, he announced that they'd reached a settlement, though the terms were not revealed.
● CA-50: Margaret Hunter, who was indicted last year along with her husband, GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter, will change her plea on Thursday from not guilty to guilty. The San Diego Union-Tribune writes, “Experts say a change-of-plea hearing almost certainly means Margaret Hunter is now working with prosecutors.” Duncan Hunter is currently scheduled to stand trial in September.
Last year, the Hunters were indicted for allegedly misusing $250,000 in campaign money for their personal use. Prosecutors argue that some of these purchases include, but are not limited to, family vacations, video games, and transporting their pet rabbit on an airplane flight. The congressman's reaction to this was to go on TV and declare that his wife "was also the campaign manager, so whatever she did that'll be looked at too, I'm sure. But I didn't do it. I didn't spend any money illegally."
● GA-07: Former education executive Lerah Lee, a self-proclaimed "Christian conservative," recently announced that she was joining the GOP primary for this competitive open seat.
● IL-03: Will County Board GOP leader Mike Fricilone announced this week that he would run for this Chicago area seat. This seat backed Clinton 56-43 so it's likely to remain blue even if this year's Democratic primary between conservative Rep. Dan Lipinski and challenger Marie Newman gets nasty. Fricilone's Will County also only makes up 13% of this district, so he doesn't have much of a geographic base of support. Still, Fricilone should at least allow the local GOP to avoid last year's debacle, where the only candidate on the primary ballot was neo-Nazi Art Jones.
● NY-16: On Wednesday, educator Andom Ghebreghiorgis announced that he would challenge longtime Rep. Eliot Engel in the Democratic primary for this safely blue seat, which includes the northern Bronx and Yonkers in Westchester County. Ghebreghiorgis used his kickoff speech to argue that Engel, who chairs the House Foreign Relations Committee, has promoted a "militaristic" foreign policy and has taken "millions of dollars in contributions from real estate, the health care industry, the military/defense lobby, and Wall Street."
Last year Engel, who has held this seat since 1989, turned back a primary challenge from a self-funding businessman by a 74-16 margin, but Ghebreghiorgis presents him with a very different sort of opponent. Demographic changes here could also make Engel vulnerable against Ghebreghiorgis, who is of Eritrean descent. This district has a voting age population that's only 39 percent white, while African-Americans and Latinos make up another 32 and 23 percent of the district, respectively, and the New York Times noted earlier this year that there are only about a half-dozen white men who represent a seat more diverse than this one.
● NRCC, WY-Sen, NC-Sen, AL-Sen: After losing 40 seats in the House in the midterms, the NRCC desperately needed to get back on track this year. Instead, it appears to be suffering some sort of meltdown.
Last week, unnamed GOP operatives grumbled to Politico that "unease with the NRCC is bubbling among important Republicans in the Capitol" after the committee issued a whiny press release attacking Democrats for a bill that would raise congressional pay—even though top Republican leaders had come out in support of such an effort and were negotiating with Democrats over the measure. The NRCC's hapless communications director, Chris Pack, offered a bizarre defense of the maneuver, only to be forced to yank down the release by the weekend.
This week, the furor over the NRCC's dysfunction spilled into the open on a second front: the committee's fundraising. Politico first reported on Tuesday evening that Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-ranking Republican in the House, got into a heated confrontation with NRCC chair Tom Emmer at a Monday meeting after Emmer hectored fellow GOP lawmakers about paying their committee dues. Emmer questioned Cheney's commitment to making good on her dues, at which point Cheney shot back that Emmer might be "artificially inflating the fundraising numbers he brings in," according to those present.
Later Tuesday night, The Hill elaborated on both ends of this imbroglio. Speaking of the NRCC, one unnamed "senior Republican" admitted that "we do have serious money issues," which some members have accused Emmer of trying to paper over by "double counting." What that means is that when a top GOP official—like, say, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy—holds a fundraiser for the NRCC, Emmer is (supposedly) crediting both McCarthy and the NRCC for the funds raised. On the dues spreadsheets, everyone looks like they're pulling their weight, but as far as the bank—and reality—is concerned, that cash only came in once.
Part of Emmer's money woes, though, stem from the fact that three leaders in his caucus are considering Senate bids and have allegedly been neglecting their obligations to the House. That includes Cheney, along with North Carolina Rep. Mark Walker and Alabama Rep. Gary Palmer. Emmer reportedly called the trio out by name, which prompted Cheney's accusations.
Walker sought to deflect with a different excuse. According to one of The Hill's sources, Walker had said he won't pay his dues because the NRCC allegedly reneged on a pledge to pay his legal bills related to the April indictment of North Carolina GOP chair Robin Hayes and a GOP donor named Greg Lindberg on charges of bribery. Walker was not named or charged in the indictment, but Politico used public FEC records to identify him as the person described as "Public Official A," whose political committee received a $150,000 donation from Lindberg right as Lindberg claimed Walker had sought to use his influence to pressure North Carolina's insurance commissioner on a business matter.
It's strange that the NRCC would offer to cover the attorney's fees of a member in a safe district in the first place, but if such a deal ever did exist, it's understandable that Emmer would nix it after Walker publicly mooted a primary challenge to GOP Sen. Thom Tillis, a possibility he brought up again on Friday. (One tinfoil-hatted source for The Hill even accused Tillis of having a hand in ensuring Walker's oblique mention in the Hayes/Lindberg indictment.)
Finally, there's Palmer, who's been weighing a bid against Democratic Sen. Doug Jones. Ironically, when he discussed a possible Senate campaign in a radio interview in March, Palmer went on at length about the importance of Republicans trying to reclaim the House in 2020, saying that "any other issues personally should be secondary to that." According to Emmer, at least, that was nothing but a gust of hot air.
What’s also strange is that in that March interview, Palmer sounded quite reluctant to leave the House. We’d heard nothing new about his interest in a Senate run in the nearly three months since then, so it felt like he was comfortable staying put. However, Emmer very much seems to think otherwise, and Palmer isn’t using this blowup as an opportunity to close the door on a statewide bid.
All three of these alleged deadbeats could get themselves off the hook with the NRCC if they'd actually declare for the Senate: Members seeking higher office are no longer expected to help out their House campaign committees. However, because of new internal party rules adopted late last year, Cheney, Walker, and Palmer would all have to step down from their leadership roles if they go ahead with Senate bids.
As a result, they've chosen the worst possible option: delay their campaigns as long as possible so that they can hang on to their plum positions as long as possible in order to use those perches to raise money for themselves while simultaneously stiffing the NRCC. In other words, the GOP has set itself to make it likely that things will get worse before they get better—if they ever do.
Legislative
● Special Elections: Here's a recap of Tuesday's special election in Maine:
ME-HD-45: Democrat Stephen Moriarty defeated Republican Kevin C. Hughes 62-38. Moriarty will succeed the late Dale Denno and represent the Cumberland area once again after previously serving one term in the state House of Representatives. While Moriarty didn't quite reach the heights of his 67-33 triumph in 2012, he turned in a better performance than Hillary Clinton's 58-35 win here, itself a big improvement over Barack Obama's 53-45 victory. This Democratic hold extends their advantage in this chamber to 89-56 with six independents and no vacancies.
