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
● Queens County, NY District Attorney: Voters in Queens, New York City's second-largest borough, went to the polls Tuesday, and they appear to have delivered a stunning upset for public defender Tiffany Cabán in the Democratic primary for district attorney.
Campaign Action
As of Wednesday evening, Cabán leads Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, the establishment favorite, by a 39.6-38.3 margin, a difference of 1,090 votes. The winner of the Democratic nomination should have very little to worry about in the November general election in this very blue borough, which backed Hillary Clinton by a 75-22 margin in 2016.
City officials say there are still 3,400 absentee ballots to be counted, and they may not finish tabulating until July 3. However, the math is all but impossible for Katz. Even if the absentee ballots were to break for her by a 60-30 margin, with the remaining 10% going to the other five candidates, she would still trail by 70 votes. Knowing this, Cabán declared victory Tuesday evening. Katz, however, has not conceded and even promised to seek a recount, despite the hopeless odds.
Cabán and Katz were competing to succeed longtime District Attorney Richard Brown, who announced he would retire in January and died in office last month. The New York Times wrote in January that Brown's office still relied on "a number of hard-nosed policies aimed at compelling people to plead guilty," and almost all of the seven Democratic candidates pledged to adopt a considerably more progressive approach.
Katz had the most money and a number of prominent endorsements, including from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the city's four major unions, and the once-powerful Queens Democratic Party.
However, it was Cabán, describing herself as "a proud queer Latina" running because she was "frustrated and infuriated by the system within which we operate," who attracted the most national attention. Cabán, an attorney for the New York County Defender Services, ran on a platform that highlighted her intent to prosecute Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents "who exceed their authority" to detain undocumented immigrants residing in Queens.
Cabán, who at 31 is over a decade younger than any of her rivals, was an unlikely candidate. Her campaign began less than a year ago when, reported The New Yorker, a friend sent her a series of five text messages:
Dude
Run for DA in Queens
Let’s make it happen
You’ve got the vacation days
Let’s go
After initially spurning the idea, Cabán soon entered the race and began to stand out with her call to decriminalize sex work. She further pledged not to prosecute marijuana cases and turnstile-jumpers and declared, “As D.A., my position would be to end cash bail.”
Cabán earned the support of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents part of Queens, as well as that of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who has made a name for himself nationally for pursuing criminal justice reform. In the final week of the race, she also picked up endorsements from The New York Times and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Cabán's likely win will not only mean major changes for criminal justice in Queens—it's also another body blow to the borough's once-dominant Democratic Party organization. The local Democratic machine took a serious hit last year when Rep. Joe Crowley, the borough's party chairman, lost renomination to Ocasio-Cortez in a shocker. Crowley was succeeded as chair by another local congressman, Gregory Meeks, but the Queens party once again got humiliated on Tuesday, including in another race that it's entirely unaccustomed to having to even think about.
In addition to the district attorney's race, the local Democratic Party's chosen candidate also failed to win the first contested primary for a seat on the Queens Civil Court in decades. For a generation, the party would name its candidate whenever a spot opened up on the 11-member court, and that person would win the all-important primary without any opposition whatsoever.
That changed this year, though, when Lumarie Maldonado-Cruz decided to run against Wyatt Gibbons, a fellow attorney who had the local machine's backing. Despite that endorsement (or perhaps, we might now wonder, because of it), Maldonado-Cruz ended up winning with 62% of the vote. In an interview earlier this month, she said it had been almost 40 years since someone had challenged the party's favored candidate.
Alongside the enthusiasm generated by Cabán's candidacy, a major factor in her apparent victory was Tuesday's extremely low turnout: The district attorney's race attracted only about 90,000 votes in a borough with a population of 2.3 million and 766,000 registered Democrats, meaning less than 12% of eligible voters showed up.
Cuomo, who was Katz's most prominent supporter, cited this fact in an attempt to dismiss Cabán's likely success the next day by sneering, "If there is low turnout, you can always be victim to a motivated minority." (Who's the supposed "victim" here, exactly?)
However, what Cuomo didn't note is that in past cycles, low participation has almost always been good for the party machine, which thrived in races where it alone had the power to turn out its voters. Indeed, Cuomo himself has long understood this. From 2012 until this year, when Democrats finally were able to change the law, New York held one primary for federal offices and a second, separate primary months later for state offices.
During his eight-year tenure, Cuomo did nothing to push for a unified primary, and as a result, turnout was almost always low in both affairs, to the benefit of the entrenched political establishment. That is, until last year, when Ocasio-Cortez motivated a battalion of untapped progressive voters for her challenge to Crowley, who found himself with few voters of his own inclined to show up and save his career.
As City & State's Ben Adler put it, Cabán likewise showed that low turnout "can be weaponized in insurgents' favor." And since most primaries in New York City generate weak levels of participation similar to Tuesday night's, this kind of outcome is something we can expect to see more of in the future.
Senate
● AL-Sen: The GOP firm Cygnal is out with a poll of next year’s Republican primary, which they say was not conducted for any client:
- Former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville: 29
- Rep. Bradley Byrne: 21
- 2017 nominee Roy Moore: 13
- Secretary of State John Merrill: 12
- State Rep. Arnold Mooney: 2
If no one takes a majority in the early March primary, a runoff would take place four weeks later. A recent survey for Tuberville from Moore Information gave him the lead with 23%, while Moore led Byrne 18-16 for the second spot in a runoff. Merrill and Mooney were further behind with 7% and 2%, respectively.
● AZ-Sen: Appointed Arizona Sen. Martha McSally picked up an endorsement from Donald Trump on Tuesday, a tweet that came after what Politico's Alex Isenstadt describes as "a flurry of efforts" by GOP leaders to protect her from a primary challenge from skincare company executive Daniel McCarthy. McCarthy, who was a key Trump financial backer in 2016, had not previously said anything about running publicly, but he said the day after the Trump endorsement that he was "doing due diligence on a run," and added, "Arizona is craving authenticity."
While we hadn't heard McCarthy mentioned as a possible candidate before Wednesday, McSally and her allies got an early warning about his interest. The last thing national Republicans want is for McSally, who narrowly lost last year's general election for Arizona's other Senate seat and faces another serious fight in 2020, to spend over a year locked in an expensive primary, and they sprang into action. Isenstadt writes that both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and NRSC chair Todd Young spoke to Trump about this race last week, and that McConnell urged Trump to back the incumbent.
GOP leaders also sought to deter McCarthy from running. Isenstadt reports that RNC chair Ronna McDaniel contacted him, and the NRSC already has compiled some opposition research against the skincare businessman. However, they don't seem to have scared him off yet.
● IA-Sen: On Tuesday, retiring Rep. Dave Loebsack endorsed businesswoman Theresa Greenfield in the Democratic primary.
● KY-Sen, KY-05: This week, state House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins told the Lexington Herald-Leader that he had been approached to run against either Sen. Mitch McConnell or Rep. Hal Rogers, and that he wasn't ruling anything out. Adkins finished a close second in last month's Democratic primary for governor, and he said he was resting up from that contest. Adkins added, "I've had several different people contact me to look at different options ... I'm not looking in any direction, I'm keeping my options open."
Adkins would be in for an extremely uphill fight for either the Senate or House seat. Donald Trump carried Kentucky by a wide 63-33 margin, and while McConnell hasn't been popular at home in a long time, he will have all the money he could possibly need to defend himself.
Rogers, who will turn 83 just before the next Congress convenes, has been on the retirement watchlist for years, but Team Blue is very unlikely to have an opening in his 5th District no matter what he does. The rural Eastern Kentucky seat backed Trump 80-17, his third-best performance in any of the 435 congressional districts.
● NC-Sen: On Tuesday, Donald Trump tweeted out an endorsement for Sen. Thom Tillis. Tillis faces a GOP primary challenge from wealthy businessman Garland Tucker, whom Politico says has already spent $500,000 on TV ads arguing that the senator hasn't done enough to support the White House.
Gubernatorial
● MS-Gov: On behalf of the conservative Mississippi blog Y'All Politics, Impact Management Group, a Republican outfit, is out with a poll of this year's open seat race for governor, and they give Team Red the lead in two prospective general election matchups. Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves bests Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood by a wide 48-36 margin, while former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. leads Hood 43-36. Independent David Singletary takes 4% of the vote in both contests.
We've only seen a few polls over the last year testing Reeves against Hood, and we still don't have a good sense for how competitive the general election is. A late January poll for Reeves found him beating Hood 51-36, but an independent survey from Mason-Dixon taken around that same time had the Democrat up 44-42. An early May poll for Hood's campaign also gave him a 45-40 lead over Reeves. This is the first poll we've seen testing Waller against Hood.
Impact Management Group also gives us our first look at the August GOP primary, and they give Reeves a huge 50-19 lead over Waller; state Rep. Robert Foster takes third with 9%.
House
● CA-22: GOP Rep. Devin Nunes is spending $40,000 on TV ads that will last through the start of August. We have no idea why Nunes is bothering to air commercials well over a year before Election Day, but he probably won't miss the money since he had almost $5 million in his war chest at the end of March.
● MO-02: GOP Rep. Ann Wagner only won re-election 51-47 last year in a race that didn't attract much outside attention, and Morning Consult's Eli Yokley reports that a credible Democrat is about to launch a campaign against her. Multiple state Democrats say that gun safety activist Becky Morgan, who heads the state branch of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, will enter the race as soon as next month. One unnamed state party strategist adds that the DCCC has been working to recruit Morgan for this suburban seat. Morgan has not yet said anything about her plans.
2018 nominee Cort VanOstran showed some interest earlier this year in another try, but he sounds ready to defer to Morgan. VanOstran told Yokley on Tuesday, "Becky Morgan is a smart, committed, effective leader with deep roots in the district. She'd be a great candidate for Congress."
This suburban St. Louis seat has been reliably red turf for decades, but it's become considerably more competitive in the Trump era. This district moved from 57-41 Romney to Trump 53-42 even as the state was lurching to the right, and according to analyst Miles Coleman, Democrat Claire McCaskill carried it 50.3-47.6 during her unsuccessful Senate re-election bid last year. Beating Wagner will be an expensive venture, though, and the incumbent ended April with $1.4 million in the bank.
● MT-AL: Rancher Joe Dooling, who chairs the Lewis and Clark County GOP, announced his campaign for this open seat on Wednesday. Dooling, who is the husband of state Rep. Julie Dooling, is also a former member of Montana's Farm Service Agency. Dooling will face state Auditor and 2018 Senate nominee Matt Rosendale and Secretary of State Corey Stapleton in the GOP primary for this statewide House seat.
● NY-24: EMILY's List has endorsed 2018 nominee Dana Balter in the Democratic primary to take on GOP Rep. John Katko.
● OH-01: The Cincinnati Business Courier's Chris Wetterich reports that healthcare executive Kate Schroder sent a letter to supporters over the weekend where she said, "I'm planning to step down from my job to announce a run for Congress against Steve Chabot." Schroder, who would be the first Democrat to kick off a bid for this 51-45 Trump seat in the Cincinnati area, has not said anything publicly, though she has a fundraiser set for July 9.
Wetterich writes that Schroder spent the last 12 years working for Clinton Health Access Initiatives Inc. where she was part of a program that "works with countries with high rates of pediatric sickness due to pneumonia and diarrhea to boost treatment." Schroder worked in politics before that, including as chief of staff to then-Cincinnati City Councilor John Cranley in 2001 and 2002; Cranley has served as mayor since 2013.
● SC-01: On Tuesday, GOP state Rep. Nancy Mace announced that she would challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham in this 53-40 Trump seat. (Regrettably for fans of "The Simpsons," she did not use the line "I'll mace you good!" in her kickoff.) This coastal South Carolina district will be a top GOP target, and The State writes that Mace was "heavily courted by national GOP groups." A few other Republicans are already running including Mount Pleasant Town Councilwoman Kathy Landing, who says she'll self-fund at least $250,000.
Mace made history in 1999 as the first woman to ever graduate from The Citadel military academy, which is located just outside of this Charleston-area seat. Mace first ran for office in 2014 when she entered the very crowded GOP primary to take on Sen. Lindsey Graham, but she ended up taking fifth place with just 6% of the vote (Graham won 53%). After a stint with the state Trump campaign, Mace won her state House seat in a 2018 special.
In April, Mace also made national headlines during a debate on a bill that would ban abortion in South Carolina after six weeks. Mace successfully introduced an amendment that would include exceptions for cases of rape or incest, and she used her speech to reveal to her colleagues that she'd been sexually assaulted as a teenager. Mace declared that while she was against abortion in most instances, "Rape and incest are not partisan issues."
Mace's comments infuriated fellow GOP state Rep. Josiah Magnuson, and two weeks after her speech, he left a card on her desk reading, "It is a twisted logic that would kill the unborn child for the misdeed of the parent." Legislative leaders from both parties condemned Magnuson, who eventually apologized to Mace.
The State also wrote last month that Mace also has loudly opposed offshore drilling off the coast of South Carolina, which is a smart position to take in this district. Last year, Cunningham made his opposition to drilling a key issue while Republican foe Katie Arrington infamously supported it during the primary only to unconvincing change her stance in the general: Cunningham ended up pulling off a 51-49 upset.
